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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/76880-0.txt b/76880-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aded7f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/76880-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,30345 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76880 *** + + + + + + THE MONIST + + A + QUARTERLY MAGAZINE + + VOL. II + + CHICAGO: + THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO. + 1891-1892 + + COPYRIGHT BY + THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO. + 1891-1892. + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. + + + PAGE. + + ARTICLES. + + American Politics. By Thomas B. Preston 41 + + Anschauung, What Does —— Mean? Editor 527 + + Artificial Selection and the Marriage Problem. By Hiram M. Stanley 51 + + Clifford on the Soul in Nature, Professor. By F. C. Conybeare 209 + + Conservation of Spirit and the Origin of Consciousness, The. By + Francis C. Russell 357 + + Criminal Suggestion, On. By J. Delbœuf 363 + + Ethnological Jurisprudence. By Albert H. Post 31 + + Evolution, The Continuity of. The Science of Language versus The + Science of Life, as represented by Prof. F. Max Müller and Prof. + G. J. Romanes. Editor 70 + + Facts and Mental Symbols. By Ernst Mach 198 + + Littré, Émile. A Sonnet. By Louis Belrose Jr. 110 + + Logical Theory, The Present Position of. By John Dewey 1 + + Magic Square, The. By Hermann Schubert 487 + + Mechanical Invention, The New Civilisation Depends on. By W. T. + Harris 178 + + Mental Evolution. An Old Speculation in a New Light. By C. Lloyd + Morgan 161 + + Mind, The Law of. By Charles S. Peirce 533 + + Monism, Our. The Principles of a Consistent, Unitary World-View. + By Ernst Haeckel 481 + + Necessity, Mr. Charles S. Peirce’s Onslaught on the Doctrine of. + Editor 560 + + Necessity, The Doctrine of —— Examined. By Charles S. Peirce 321 + + Psychical Monism. By Edmund Montgomery 338 + + Religion and Progress. Interpreted by the Life and Last work of + Wathen Mark Wilks Call. By Moncure D. Conway 183 + + Spencer, Mr., on the Ethics of Kant. Editor 512 + + Things in themselves, Are There ——? Editor 225 + + Thought and Language. By George John Romanes 56 + + Will and Reason. By B. Bosanquet 18 + + LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE. + + France. By Lucien Arréat 266, 386, 583 + + France. The Intellectual Awakening of the Langue D’Oc. + By Theodore Stanton 95 + + Germany. Christian Ufer 103, 272, 396, 593 + + DIVERSE TOPICS. CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. + + Clergy’s Duty of Allegiance to Dogma and the Struggle between + World-Conceptions. Editor 278 + + Comte and Turgot. Prof. Schaarschmidt 611 + + Evolution and Language, Comment on the Discussion on. By F. + Max Müller 286 + + Haeckel’s Monism, Professor. Editor 598 + + James’s Psychology, Observations on Some Points in. By W. L. + Worcester 417 + + Littré, A Defense of. By Louis Belrose Jr. 403 + + Littré’s, Émile, Positivism. A Reply. Editor 410 + + Logical Theory, The Future Position of. Edward T. Dixon 606 + + Mind, The Nature of —— and the Meaning of Reality. Editor 434 + + Monism and Mechanicalism: Comments upon Prof. Ernst Haeckel’s + Position. Editor 438 + + Peirce, Mr. Charles S., on Necessity. Editor 442 + + Religion of Science, The. Editor 600 + + Thought and Language. A letter by G. J. Romanes 402 + + Thought-forms, The Origin of. Editor 111 + + BOOK REVIEWS. + + Avenarius, Richard. _Der menschliche Weltbegriff_ 451 + + Baldwin, James Mark. _Handbook of Psychology_ 467 + + Bernheim. _Hypnotisme, Suggestion, Psychotherapie_ 465 + + Cornill, C. H. _Einleitung in das alte Testament_ 443 + + Curtis, Mattoon Monroe. _An Outline of Locke’s Ethical Philosophy_ 300 + + Delabarre, Edmund Burke. _Ueber Bewegungsempfindungen_ 297 + + Delbœuf, J. _Les Fêtes de Montpellier_ 131 + + Dillmann, Edmund. _Eine neue Darstellung der Leibnizischen + Monadenlehre auf Grund der Quellen_ 460 + + Dixon, Edward T. _The Foundations of Geometry_ 126 + + Erhardt, Franz. _Der Satz vom Grunde als Prinzip des Schliessens_ 631 + + Gruber, Hermann. _Der Positivismus vom Tode August Comte’s bis + auf unsere Tage (1857-1891)_ 133 + + Holzmann, H. J. _Synoptiker. Apostelgeschichte_ 287 + + Hübbe-Schleiden. _Das Dasein als Lust, Leid und Liebe_ 468 + + Husserl, E. G. _Philosophie der Arithmetik_ 627 + + Koenig, Edmund. _Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems in der + Philosophie seit Kant_ 457 + + Lasswitz, Kurd. _Seifenblasen_ 471 + + Loeb, Jacques. _Untersuchungen zur physiologischen Morphologie + der Thiere_ 468 + + Lombroso, C. L. _Nouvelles Recherches de Psychiatrie et + D’Anthropologie Criminelle_ 618 + + Lyons, Daniel. _Christianity and Infallibility_ 629 + + Mach, E. _Grundriss der Naturlehre für die oberen Classen + der Mittelschulen_ 617 + + Münsterberg, Hugo. _Schriften der Gesellschaft für psychologische + Forschung_ 289 + + Paszkowski, Wilhelm. _Die Bedeutung der theologischen Vorstellungen + für die Ethik_ 453 + + Pearson, Karl. _The Grammar of Science_ 623 + + Pellegrini, Pietro. _Diritto Sociale Tentativo in Bozza_ 298 + + Roberty, E. de. _Agnosticisme_ 631 + + Roberty, E. de. _La Philosophie du Siècle_ 293 + + Romanes, George John. _Darwin and After Darwin_ 612 + + Schmidkunz, Hans. _Psychologie der Suggestion_ 464 + + Schröder, Ernst. _Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik_ 618 + + Schurmann, Jacob Gould. _Belief in God_ 121 + + Schwarz, Hermann. _Das Wahrnehmungsproblem vom Standpunkte des + Physikers, des Physiologen und des Philosophen_ 455 + + Scripture, E. W. _Ueber den associativen Verlauf der Vorstellungen_ 137 + + Seth, Andrew. _The Present Position of the Philosophical Sciences_ 450 + + Toy, Crawford Howell. _Judaism and Christianity_ 123 + + Van Bemmelen, P. _Le Nihilisme Scientifique_ 298 + + Whitney, William Dwight. _Max Müller and the Science of Language_ 469 + + Wise, Isaac M. _Pronaos to Holy Writ_ 124 + + Ziehen, Th. _Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie in 14 + Vorlesungen_ 461 + + PERIODICALS 140-160; 303-320; 472-480; 634-640 + + APPENDIX. + + Kant and Spencer. Reprinted articles relative to Mr. Spencer’s estimate + of Kant. (In No. 4 of this volume.) + + + + + VOL. II. OCTOBER, 1891. NO. 1. + + THE MONIST. + + + + +THE PRESENT POSITION OF LOGICAL THEORY. + + +The remarkable fact in the intellectual life of to-day is the +contradiction in which it is entangled. On one hand we have an enormous +development of science, both in specialisation of method and accumulation +of material; its extension and thorough-going application to all ranges +of experience. What we should expect from such a movement, would seem to +be confidence of intelligence in itself; and a corresponding organisation +of knowledge, giving some guide and support to life. The strange thing +is that instead of this we have, probably, the greatest apparent +disorganisation of authority as to intellectual matters that the world +has ever seen; while the prevalent attitude and creed of scientific men +is philosophic agnosticism, or disbelief in their own method when it +comes to fundamental matters. Such a typical representative of modern +science as Mr. Huxley virtually laughs to scorn the suggestion of Mr. +Frederic Harrison that science should or could become so organised as to +give any support, any authoritative stay, to life. + +Now I do not intend to discuss this apparent contradiction. It seems +to me obvious enough that the contradiction is due to the fact that +science has got far enough along so that its negative attitude towards +previous codes of life is evident, while its own positive principle of +reconstruction is not yet evident. But without urging this view upon the +reader, I wish to ask how and where in the prevailing confusion logical +theory, as a synopsis of the methods and typical forms of intelligence, +stands. Logical theory at once reflects and transforms the existing +status of matters intellectual at any period. It reflects it, for +logical theory is only the express, the overt consciousness on the part +of intelligence of its own attitude, prevailing spirit. It transforms +it, because this express consciousness makes intelligence know where +it stands, makes it aware of its strength and of its weakness, and by +defining it to itself forces it to take up a new and more adequate place. + +It is obvious, then, that as the prevailing influence in the intellectual +world to-day is science, so the prevailing influence in logical theory +must be the endeavor to account for, to justify, or at least to reckon +with this scientific spirit. And yet if there is such confusion as we +have indicated, then there is also manifested some chaos in logical +theory, as to the true nature and method of science. Were it otherwise, +were there at present a logical theory adequate to the specific and +detailed practical results of science, science and scientific men would +be conscious of themselves, and would be confident in their work and +attitude. + +The especial problem of logic, as the theory of scientific method, is the +relation of fact and thought to each other, of reality and thought. It +is, however, differentiated from the metaphysical theory of knowledge. +Logic does not inquire into the ultimate _meaning_ of fact and thought, +nor into their _ultimate_ relations to one another. It simply takes +them from the attitude of science itself, its business being, not the +justification nor refutation of this attitude, but its development into +explicit doctrine. Fact means to logic no more, but certainly no less, +than it means to the special sciences: it is the subject-matter under +investigation, under consideration; it is that which we are trying to +make out. Thought too means to logic what it means to science: method. +It is the attitude and form which intelligence takes in reference to +fact—to its subject-matter, whether in inquiry, experiment, calculation, +or statement. + +Logic, then, would have for its essential problem the consideration of +the various typical methods and guiding principles which thought assumes +in its effort to detect, master, and report fact. It is presupposed here +that there is some sort of fruitful and intrinsic connection of fact and +thought; that thinking, in short, is nothing but the fact in its process +of translation from brute impression to lucent meaning. + +But the moment such a presupposition is stated, ninety-nine persons out +of a hundred think that we have plunged, _ex abrupto_, from the certainty +of science into the cloudland of metaphysic. And yet just this conception +of the relation of thought (method) to fact (subject-matter) is taken +for granted in every scientific investigation and conclusion. Here, +then, we have in outline the present position of logic. It is that any +attempt to state, in general, or to work out, in detail, the principle of +the intrinsic and fruitful relation of fact and thought which science, +without conscious reflection, constantly employs in practice, seems +“metaphysical” or even absurd. Why is this? The answer to this question +will give the filling-up of the outline just presented. + +The chief cause is that superstition which still holds enthralled +so much of modern thought—I mean formal logic. And if this seems +like applying a hard name to what, at best and at worst, is only an +intellectual gymnastic, I can only say that formal logic seems to me +to be, at present, _fons et origo malorum_ in philosophy. It is true +enough that nobody now takes the technical subject of formal logic very +seriously—unless here and there some belated “professor.” It is true that +it is generally relegated to the position of a subject which, for some +unclear reason, is regarded as “disciplinary” in a young man’s education; +just as certain other branches are regarded as elegant accomplishments +in a young woman’s finishing. But while the subject itself as a doctrine +or science hardly ranks very high, the conception of thought which is at +the bottom of formal logic still dominates the _Zeitgeist_, and regulates +the doctrine and the method of all those who draw their inspiration +from the _Zeitgeist_. Any book of formal logic will tell us what this +conception of thought is: that thought is a faculty or an entity existing +in the mind, apart from facts, and that it has its own fixed forms, with +which facts have nothing to do—except in so far as they pass under the +yoke. Jevons puts it this way: “Just as we thus familiarly recognise +the difference of form and substance in common tangible things, so we +may observe in logic, that the form of an argument is one thing, quite +distinct from the various subjects or matter which may be treated in that +form.”[1] + +Professor Stock varies the good old tune in this way: “In every act of +thought we may distinguish two things—(1) the object thought about, (2) +the way in which the mind thinks of it. The first is called the Matter; +the second the Form of Thought. Now formal ... logic is concerned only +with the way in which the mind thinks, and has nothing to do with the +particular objects thought about.”[2] + +It is assumed, in fine, that thought has a nature of its own independent +of facts or subject-matter; that this thought, _per se_, has certain +forms, and that these forms are not forms which the facts themselves +take, varying with the facts, but are rigid frames, into which the facts +are to be set. + +Now all of this conception—the notion that the mind has a faculty of +thought apart from things, the notion that this faculty is constructed, +in and of itself, with a fixed framework, the notion that thinking is +the imposing of this fixed framework on some unyielding matter called +particular objects, or facts—all of this conception appears to me as +highly scholastic, as the last struggle of mediævalism to hold thought in +subjection to authority. Nothing is more surprising than the fact that +while it is fashionable to reject, with great scorn, all the results +and special methods of scholasticism, its foundation-stone should still +be accepted as the corner-stone of the edifice of modern doctrine. It +is still more surprising when we reflect that the foundation-stone is +coherent only with the mediæval superstructure. The scholastics when they +held that the method of thought was a faculty pursuing its own method +apart from the course of things, were at least consistent. They did not +conceive that thought was free, that intelligence had rights, nor that +there was possible science independent of data authoritatively laid down. +Really believing what they professed,—that thought was something _in +se_,—they held that it must be supplied with a fixed body of dogmatic +fact, from tradition, from revelation—from external authority. They +held that thought in its workings is confined to extracting from this +dogmatic body of fact what is already contained in it, and to rearranging +the material and its implications. To examine the _material_, to test +its truth; to suppose that intelligence could cut loose from this body +of authority and go straight to nature, to history itself, to find +the truth; to build up a free and independent science—to this point +of incoherency mediæval scholasticism never attained. To proclaim the +freedom of thought, the rejection of all external authority, the right +and the power of thought to get at truth for itself, and yet continue +to define thought as a faculty apart from fact, was reserved for modern +enlightenment! And were it not somewhat out of my present scope, I should +like to show that modern culture is thus a prepared victim for the +skilful dialectician of the reactionary army. If the modern _Zeitgeist_ +does not fall a prey to the cohorts of the army of external authority, it +is not because it has any recognised methods or any recognised criterion +by which it can justify its raising the “banner of the free spirit.” It +is simply the obstinate bulwark of outer fact, built up piecemeal by +science, that protects it. + +The two main forces, which have been at work against the formulæ of +formal logic, are “inductive” or empirical logic on one side, and the +so-called “transcendental” logic, on the other. Of these two, the +influence of inductive logic in sapping in practical fashion and popular +results the authority of syllogistic logic has undoubtedly been much +the greater. I propose, briefly, to give certain reasons for holding, +however, that the inductive logic does not furnish us with the needed +theory of the relation of thought and fact. To show this adequately would +demand the criticism of inductive logic in the detail of its methods, in +order to show where it comes short. As this is impossible, I shall now +confine myself to a couple of general considerations. + +To begin with, then, the empirical logic virtually continues the +conception of thought as in itself empty and formal which characterizes +scholastic logic. It thus has really no theory which differentiates it, +as regards the nature of thought itself, from formal logic. I cannot see, +for example, what quarrel the most stringent upholder of formal logic +can have with Mill as to the latter’s theory of the syllogism. Mill’s +theory is virtually simply a theory regarding the formation of the major +premiss—regarding the process by which we formulate the statement that +All _S_ is _P_. Now, if we once accept the syllogistic position, this +process lies outside the scope and problem of formal logic. It is not an +affair of what Jevons calls the form of argument at all, but simply of +the matter, the particular facts which make the filling of the argument. +I do not see that it is any part of the business of formal logic to tell +where the major premiss comes from, nor how it is got. And, on the other +hand, when it comes to the manipulation of the data contained in the +premiss, Mill must fall back upon the syllogistic logic. Mill’s theory, +so far as the thought-element is concerned, presupposes the syllogistic +theory. And if this theory, on its side, does not presuppose something +like Mill’s inductive theory, it is simply because the logician, as a +_philosopher_, may prefer “intuitionalism” to “empiricism.” He may hold, +that is, that the content of some major premisses is given by direct +“intuition” rather than gathered from experience. But in either case, +this consideration of the source of the content of the premiss belongs +not to formal logic, but to metaphysics. + +If, then, the theory of the syllogism is incorrect in its assumptions +as to the relation of fact and thought, the inductive logic must be +similarly in error. Its great advantage over the old scholastic logic +lies not in its logic as such, but in something back of the logic—in +its account of the derivation of the material of judgment. Whatever the +defects of Locke’s or Mill’s account of experience, any theory which +somehow presupposes a first-hand contact of mind and fact (though it be +only in isolated, atomic sensations) is surely preferable to a theory +which falls back on tradition, or on the delivery of dogma irresponsible +to any intellectual criticism. But in its account of the derivation +of the material of judgment, inductive logic is still hampered by the +scholastic conception of thought. Thought, being confined to the rigid +framework in which the material is manipulated after being obtained, is +excluded from all share in the gathering of material. The result is that +this material, having no intrinsic thought-side, shrinks into a more +or less accidental association of more or less shifting and transitory +mental states. + +I shall not stop to argue that, on this ground, the “inductive” logic +deprives science of its most distinctive scientific features—the +permanence and objectivity of its truths. I think no one can deny that +there is at least an _apparent_ gap between the actual results of +concrete science and these results as they stand after the touch of +the inductive logic—that the necessity and generality of science seem +rather to have been explained away, than explained. I think most of the +inductive logicians themselves (while endeavoring to account for this +apparent necessity as generated through association) would admit that +something of science _seems_, at least, to have been lost, and that the +great reason for putting-up with this loss is that the inductive logic +is the sole alternative to a dogmatic intuitionalism and to arbitrary +spinning-out of _a priori_ concepts. + +Certainly as long as thought is conceived after the fashion of +syllogistic logic, as a scheme furnished and fixed in itself, apart from +reality, so long scientific men must protest against allowing thought any +part or lot in scientific procedure. So long some such _modus operandi_ +as that given by Mill must be resorted to in order to explain scientific +methods and results. But, on the other hand, if the scholastic idea +of thought as this something having its character apart from fact is +once given up, the cause which at present cramps the logic of science +into the logic of sensationalism and empiricism is also given up. And +this brings us to the other point in general regarding the inductive or +empirical logic. It is not strictly a logic at all but a metaphysic. It +does not begin with the fact of science, the fact of the fruitful inquiry +into fact by intelligence, at all. It does not, starting from this fact +analyse the various methods and types which thought must take upon itself +in order to maintain this fruitful inquiry. On the contrary, it begins +with sensations, and endeavors by a theory of knowledge on the basis +of sensationalism to build up the structure of cognition, ordinary and +scientific. I am not concerned here with the truth of sensationalism as +a metaphysical theory of knowledge, nor with the adequacy of the notion +of sensation advanced by Mill. It is enough from the logical point of +view to point out that such a theory is not logic—that logic does not +deal with something _back_ of the fact of science, but with the analysis +of scientific method as such. And is it forcing matters to indicate that +this retreat from logic to metaphysic is also caused by the syllogistic +notion of thought? Formal thought, with its formulæ for simply unfolding +a given material, is of no use in science. There is, therefore, the +need of some machinery to take the place of thought. And this is found +in sensation and in “experience” according to the peculiar notion of +experience current in the inductive logic. + +In a word, then (without attempting to show the insufficiency of +inductive logic as the theory of science by reference to its treatment +of specific points) inductive logic does not meet our needs because it +is not a free, unprejudiced inquiry into the special forms and methods +of science, starting from the actual sciences themselves. It is founded +and built up with constant reference to the scholastic notion of thought. +Where it is not affected positively by it, it is still affected by its +reaction from it. Instead of denying once for all validity or even sense +to the notion of thinking as a special, apart process, and then beginning +a free, unhampered examination with an eye single to the fact of science +itself, it retains this conception of thought as valid in a certain +department, and then sets out to find something to supply the gap in +another department. And thus we have the usual division of inductive and +deductive logic, inductive being interpreted as empirical and particular, +deductive as syllogistic and formal. They are counterpart and correlative +theories, the two sides of the notion of the separateness of fact and +thought; they stand and fall together. + +“Transcendental” logic, while usually conceived as utterly opposed in +spirit and in results to inductive logic, has yet been one with it +in endeavoring to abolish formal logic as the sufficient method and +criterion of scientific truth. I say this although well aware that +inductive logic is usually conceived as specifically “scientific,” while +the transcendental movement is regarded as the especial foe of science—as +a belated attempt to restore an _a priori_ scholasticism, and to find +a scheme for evolving truth out of pure thought. This is because when +the “transcendental” school talks of thought, of the synthetic and +objective character of thought, of the possibility of attaining absolute +truth through thought, and of the ontological value of thought, it is +understood as meaning thought in the old, scholastic sense, a process +apart and fixed in itself, and yet somehow evolving truth out of its own +inner being, out of its own enclosed ruminations. But on the contrary, +the very meaning of “transcendentalism” is not only that it is impossible +to get valid truth from the evolution of thought in the scholastic sense, +but that there is no such thought at all. Processes of intelligence which +have their nature fixed in themselves, apart from fact and having to +be externally applied to fact, are pure myths to his school. Types of +thought are simply the various forms which reality progressively takes +as it is progressively mastered as to its meaning,—that is, understood. +Methods of thought are simply the various active attitudes into which +intelligence puts itself in order to detect and grasp the fact. Instead +of rigid moulds, they are flexible adaptations. Methods of thought fit +fact more closely and responsively than a worn glove fits the hand. They +are only the ideal evolution _of_ the fact,—and by “ideal” is here meant +simply the evolution of fact into meaning. + +If this is a fair description of what the “transcendental” school means +by thought, it is evident that it is a co-worker with the spirit and +intent of “inductive” logic. Its sole attempt is to get hold of and +report the presupposition and rationale of science; its practical aim +is to lay bare and exhibit the method of science so that the true seat +of authority—that is, the authority, the _backing_, of truth—shall be +forever manifest. It has simply gone a step further than “inductive” +logic, and thrown overboard once for all the scholastic idea of thought. +This has enabled it to start anew, and to form its theory of thought +simply by following the principles of the actual processes by which man +has, thus far in history, discovered and possessed fact. + +I shall not attempt here any defence of the “transcendental” logic; I +shall not even attempt to show that the interpretation of it which I +have given above is correct. It must go, for the present, simply as +my individual understanding of the matter. Simply taking this view of +“transcendental” logic for granted, I wish, in order to complete our +notion of the present position of logic, to consider the reasons which +have thus far prevented, say, the Hegelian logic from getting any popular +hold—from getting recognition from scientific men as, at least in +principle, a fair statement of their own basic presupposition and method. + +The first of these reasons is that the popular comprehension of the +“transcendental” movement is arrested at Kant and has never gone on to +Hegel. Hegel, it is true, overshadowed Kant entirely for a considerable +period. But the Hegelian régime was partly pyrotechnical rather than +scientific in character; and, partly, so far as it was scientific, it +exhausted itself in stimulating various detailed scientific movements—as +in the history of politics, religion, art, etc. In these lines, if +we trust even to those who have no faith in the Hegelian method or +principles, the movement found some practical excuse for being. But +the result of the case was—and its present status is—that because +the principle of Hegel was, for the time, lost either in display of +dialectical fireworks, or in application to specific subjects, the +principle itself has never met with any _general_ investigation. The +immense amount of labor spent on Kant during the past twenty years has +made method and principle familiar, if not acceptable, to the body of +men calling themselves educated. And thus, so far as its outcome is +concerned, the transcendental movement still halts with Kant. + +Now, at the expense of seeming to plunge myself deeper in absurdity than +I have already gone, I must say that the Kantian principle is by far +more “transcendental” in the usual interpretation of that term—more _a +priori_, more given to emphasising some special function of some special +thought-power—than the Hegelian. As against the usual opinion that while +some compromise between science and Kant is possible, the scientific +spirit and Hegel are at antipodes, it appears to me that it is Kant who +does violence to science, while Hegel (I speak of his essential method +and not of any particular result) is the quintessence of the scientific +spirit. Let me endeavor to give some reasons for this belief. Kant +starts from the accepted scholastic conception of thought. Kant never +dreams, for a moment, of questioning the existence of a special faculty +of thought with its own peculiar and fixed forms. He states and restates +that thought in itself exists apart from fact and occupies itself with +fact given to it from without. Kant, it is true, gives the death-blow +to scholasticism by pointing out that such a faculty of thought is +purely analytic—that it simply unfolds the material given, whether that +material be true or false, having no method of arriving at truth, and no +test for determining truth. This fact once clearly recognised, dogmatic +rationalism, or the attempt to get truth from the “logical” analysis of +concepts was forever destroyed. The way was opened for an independent +examination of the actual method of science. + +But while Kant revealed once for all the impossibility of getting truth, +of laying hold of reality, by the scholastic method, he still retained +that conception of thought. He denied, not its existence, but its worth +as relates to truth. What was the result? Just this: when he came to his +examination (criticism) of knowledge, it fell apart at once into two +separate factors, an _a priori_ and _a posteriori_. For if Kant finds, +as against the dogmatic rationalist, that formal thought cannot give +knowledge, he also finds, as against the sceptical empiricist, that +unrelated sensation cannot give knowledge. Here too, instead of denying, +_in toto_, the existence of unrelated sensation, he contented himself +with denying its functional value for knowledge. Unrelated sensation and +formal thought are simply the complementary halves of each other. Admit +the one, and the other is its necessary counterpart. + +Kant must now piece together his two separated factors. Sensation, +unrelated manifold of sensation, is _there_, thought, isolated, analytic +thought, is _here_. Neither is knowledge in itself. What more natural +than to put them together, and hold that knowledge is the union of a +matter or stuff, of sensations, atomic in themselves, on one hand, and a +form, or regulating principle of thought, empty in itself, on the other? +We have two elements, both existing in isolation, and yet both useless +for all purposes of knowledge. Combine them, and presto, there is science. + +Such a “transcendentalism” as this may well stick in the crop of +scientific men. For consider what is involved in it: an _a priori_ +factor, on one side, and an _a posteriori_, on the other. Kant, from +one point of view, seems thus to have simply combined the weaknesses of +empiricism and rationalism. He still continues to talk of experience +itself as particular and contingent, and denies that it gives a basis +for any universal laws. Aside from his effort in the “Kritik der +Urtheilskraft” to overcome his original separation, special scientific +laws are to him only more or less extensive generalisations from +experience—as much so to him as to Locke, or Mill. Scientific men indeed, +have accustomed themselves to this derogation of their own methods and +results, and, as “inductive” logicians, indulge in it quite freely +themselves. But an _a priori_ element, supplied by a thought fixed and +separate, scientific men cannot do away with. Nor do I know any reason +why they should. + +It is coming short, in my opinion, of the full stature of science to +treat it as a quantitative and varying generalisation of contingent +particulars, but this, at least, leaves what science there is free and +unhindered. But _a priori_ elements supplied from outside the fact +itself, _a priori_ elements somehow entering into the fact from without +and controlling it—this is to give up the very spirit of science. For +if science means anything, it is that our ideas, our judgments may in +some degree reflect and report the fact itself. Science means, on one +hand, that thought is free to attack and get hold of its subject-matter, +and, on the other, that fact is free to break through into thought; free +to impress itself—or rather to express itself—in intelligence without +vitiation or deflection. Scientific men are true to the instinct of +the scientific spirit in fighting shy of a distinct _a priori_ factor +supplied to fact from the mind. Apriorism of this sort must seem like an +effort to cramp the freedom of intelligence and of fact, to bring them +under the yoke of fixed, external forms. + +Now in Hegel there is no such conception of thought and of _a priori_, as +is found in Kant. Kant formulated the conception of thought as objective, +but he interpreted this as meaning that thought subjective in itself +_becomes_ objective when synthetic of a given sense-manifold. When Hegel +calls thought objective he means just what he says: that there is no +special, apart faculty of thought belonging to and operated by a mind +existing separate from the outer world. What Hegel means by objective +thought is the meaning, the significance of the fact itself; and by +methods of thought he understands simply the processes in which this +meaning of fact is evolved. + +There has been, of late, considerable discussion of the place and +function of “relations” in knowledge. This discussion in English +speculation, at least, tends to turn largely about Thomas Hill Green’s +reconstruction of Kantianism. I consider it unfortunate that this +discussion has taken the form of a debate between empiricism and +Kantianism. The question of knowledge has thus come to be whether or +not certain relations are supplied by thought to sensations in order to +make an orderly whole out of the latter, chaotic in themselves. Now when +Hegel talks of relations of thought (not that he makes much use of just +this term) he means no such separate forms. Relations of thought are, to +Hegel, the typical forms of meaning which the subject-matter takes in +its various progressive stages of being understood. And this is what _a +priori_ means from a Hegelian standpoint. It is not some element _in_ +knowledge; some addition of thought to experience. It is experience +itself in its skeleton, in the main features of its framework. + +“Refutations” of Hegel, then, which attempt to show that “thought” in +itself is empty, that it waits for content from experience, that it +cannot by any manipulation evolve truth out of itself are, if taken as +having relevance to Hegel, simply meaningless. Hegel begins where these +arguers leave off. Accepting all that they can say, he goes one step +further, and denies that there is any such “thought” at all anywhere in +existence. The question of the relations or “categories of thought” is +just the question of the broad and main aspects of fact as that fact +comes to be understood. + +For example, Kant would prove the _a priori_ character and validity +of the principle of causation by showing that without it science is +impossible, that it helps “make experience.” Now, in terms, Hegel’s +justification of this relation would be the same; he too would show +that the fabric of experience implies and demands the causal relation. +But in Kant’s case, the justification of the principle of causality +by reference to the possibility of experience means that thought must +continually inject this principle _into_ experience to keep it from +disappearing: that experience must be constantly braced and reinforced +by the synthetic action of thought or it will collapse. In short, the +need of experience for this principle of causation means its need for +a certain support outside itself. But Hegel’s demonstration of the +validity of the causal principle is simply pointing out that the whole +supports the part, while the part helps make the whole. That is to say, +Hegel’s reference is not to some outside action of thought in maintaining +fact as an object of knowledge; it is to the entire structure of fact +itself. His contention is simply that the structure of fact itself, +of the subject-matter of knowledge, is such that in one of its phases +it presents necessarily the aspect of causality. And if this word +“necessarily” gives pause, it must be remembered what the source of this +necessity is. It does _not_ lie in the principle of causation _per se_; +it lies in the whole fact, the whole subject-matter of knowledge. It is +the same sort of necessity as when we say that a complete man _must_ have +an eye; i. e., it is the nature of the human organism to develop and +sustain this organ, while the organ, in turn, contributes to and thus +helps constitute the organism. + +It is then evident that the question upon which the “refutation” of +Hegel turns is not in showing that formal “thought” cannot give birth to +truth except through the fructifying touch of experience. The question +is simply whether fact—the subject-matter of knowledge—is such as Hegel +presents it. Is it, in general, a connected system as he holds it to +be? And, if a system, does it, in particular, present such phases +(such relations, categories) as Hegel shows forth? These are objective +questions pure and simple; questions identical, in kind, with the +question whether the constitution of glucose is what some chemist claims +to have found it. + +This, then, is why I conceive Hegel—entirely apart from the value of any +special results—to represent the quintessence of the scientific spirit. +He denies not only the possibility of getting truth out of a formal, +apart thought, but he denies the existence of any faculty of thought +which is other than the expression of fact itself. His contention is +not that “thought,” in the scholastic sense, has ontological validity, +but that fact, reality is significant. Even, then, if it were shown +that Hegel is pretty much all wrong as to the special meanings which he +finds to make up the significance of reality, his main principle would +be unimpeached until it were shown that fact has not a systematic, or +interconnected, meaning, but is a mere hodgepodge of fragments. Whether +the scientific spirit would have any interest in such a hodgepodge may, +at least, be questioned. + +Having dealt at such length with the first reason why as yet the +“transcendental” movement has found no overt coalescence with the +scientific, we may deal briefly with the remaining reason.[3] In the +second place, then, the rationality of fact had not been sufficiently +realised in detail in the early decades of the century to admit of +the principle of the “transcendental” movement being otherwise than +misunderstood. That is to say, the development and, more particularly, +the application of science to the specific facts of the world was +then comparatively rudimentary. On account of this lack of scientific +discovery and application, the world presented itself to man’s +consciousness as a blank, or at least as only stuff _for_ meaning, and +not as itself significant. The result was that Hegel must be interpreted +subjectively. The difficulties in the way of conceiving a world, upon +which science had not yet expended its energies in detail, as an organism +of significant relations and bearings were so great, that Hegel’s attempt +to point out these significant types and functions as immanent in reality +was inevitably misconstrued as an attempt, on Hegel’s part, to prove that +a system of purely “subjective” thoughts could somehow be so manipulated +as to give objectively valid results. + +Hegel, in other words, anticipated somewhat the actual outcome of the +scientific movement. However significant fact may be, however true it +may be that an apart faculty of thought is an absurdity, however certain +it may be that there are no real types or methods of thought at all +excepting those of the object-matter itself as it comes to be understood, +yet to man this objective significance cannot be real till he has made +it _out_ in the details of scientific processes, and _made_ it applied +science in invention. Hegel’s standpoint was, therefore, of necessity +obscure. When the significant character of fact was not yet opened up +in detail, a method which worked upon the basis that the only possible +thought is the reflection of the significance of fact, had no chance of +fair interpretation.. And thus it was (and largely is) that when Hegel +speaks of objective thought and its relations, he is understood as having +the ordinary conception of thought (that is, of thought as a purely +separate and subjective faculty), and yet as trying to prove that this +apart faculty has some mysterious power of evolving truth. + +The question which now confronts us, therefore, as to the present place +of logic is just this: Has the application of scientific thought to the +world of fact gone far enough so that we can speak, without seeming +strained, of the rationality of fact? When we speak of the rationality, +of the intrinsic meaning of fact, can these terms be understood in their +direct and obvious sense, and not in any remote, or _merely_ metaphysical +sense? Has the theoretical consideration of nature in its detailed +study, has practical invention, as the manifestation of the rationality +of fact, gone far enough so that this significance has become, or could +become with some effort, as real and objective a material of study as are +molecules and vibrations? + +It seems to me that we are already at this stage, or are at the point of +getting to it. Without arguing this question, however, (which, indeed, +can be proved only by acting upon it, only _ambulando_,) I would point +out that the constant detailed work of science upon the world in theory +and in invention, must in time give that world an evident meaning in +human consciousness. What prevents scientific men from now realising this +fact, is that they are still afraid of certain “transcendent” entities +and forces; afraid that if they relax their hostility to metaphysic, +some one will spring upon them the old scholastic scheme of external, +supernatural unrealities. To those who take the prevailing agnosticism +not as a thing, but as a symptom, this agnosticism means just this: The +whole set of external, or non-immanent entities, is now on the point of +falling away, of dissolving. We got just so far, popularly, as holding +that they are unknowable. In other words, they are crowded to the extreme +verge. One push more, and off they go. The popular consciousness will +hold not only that they are unknowable, but that they are not. + +What then? Science freed from its fear of an external and dogmatic +metaphysic, will lose its fear of metaphysic. Having unquestioned and +free possession of its own domain, that of knowledge and of fact, it +will also be free to build up the intrinsic metaphysic of this domain. +It will be free to ask after the structure of meanings which makes +up the skeleton of this world of knowledge. The moment this point is +reached, the speculative critical logic worked out in the development of +Kantian ideas, and the positive, specific work of the scientific spirit +will be at one. It will be seen that this logic is no revived, redecked +scholasticism, but a complete abandonment of scholasticism; that it deals +simply with the inner anatomy of the realm of scientific reality, and has +simply endeavored, with however much of anticipation, to dissect and lay +bare, at large and in general, the features of the same subject-matter, +which the positive sciences have been occupying themselves with in +particular and in detail. + +That we are almost at the point of such conflux, a point where the +general, and therefore somewhat abstract lines of critical logic will run +in to the particular, and therefore somewhat isolated, lines of positive +science, is, in my opinion, the present position of logical theory. + + JOHN DEWEY. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Jevons, _Elementary Lessons in Logic_, p. 5. + +[2] Stock, _Deductive Logic_, p. 3. + +[3] It should be understood that in the previous discussion so far as it +relates to Kant, I have taken him at his lowest terms—those of logical +self-consistency. So far as Kant does not succeed in freeing himself +from his original position—the existence of a formal, or apart, faculty +of thought—so far his emphasis of the _a priori_ in the sense already +attributed to him is inevitable. But that the _tendency_ of Kant is to +make the thought-relations _a priori_ simply in the sense of being fact’s +own anatomy and physiognomy I should not deny. + + + + +WILL AND REASON. + + +It has always been, I think, the practice in civilised society to speak +of reason or good sense as in some way influencing action. And of course +it must do so, if, as we suppose, it forms the radical distinction +between man and the lower animals. “Be reasonable,” we say, in reference +to action no less than to speculation. “Wisdom and blood,” says +Shakespeare, “combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one +that blood hath the victory.” Blood here means passion. How does wisdom +or knowledge combat passion? I do not say that wisdom and knowledge mean +the same thing, but if they do not, we should like to know the difference +between them. + +In this prevalent notion of the conflict between reason and desire, it +may be observed that reason is, as a rule, supposed to be negative or +prohibitive. “Be reasonable” generally means “give up something you want +very much.” According to one account, the inward monitor of Socrates +was always negative, and throughout moral philosophy, and especially +throughout moralising philosophy, which is not quite the same thing, you +find the point of view that reason conflicts with desire, and has in fact +for its function very much to prevent you doing or caring about whatever +you very particularly want to do or incline to care about. This is what +gives rise to the state of things satirised in the old saying “Any +young man would rather face an imputation on his moral character than +an imputation on his horsemanship.” If moral character means a sort of +detachment from everything, this feeling is both natural and justifiable. +The popular interpretation of Aristotle leans in the direction of this +idea about reason, in so far as the conception of the reason seems to be +connected with commonplace notions about the evils of excess, strongly +represented in Greek proverbial philosophy. It was easy to add to these +ideas the conception of the evils of defect, which is little more than a +verbal refinement on the other. These quantitative expressions have not +much meaning in morality. Unquestionably, I think, the popular aspect of +the Aristotelian doctrine is an idea that you ought not to throw yourself +very deeply into anything. Reason is, in short, according to these +moralistic conceptions, though not according to Aristotle’s fundamental +view, a sort of check upon desire and little more. + +This negative character of reason will, I hope, explain itself away as we +proceed. The primary point on which I want to insist is not why reason is +thus treated as negative, but how it comes that reason can be supposed +to conflict with or control desire at all. I speak for the present of +Desire, not of Will, because the meaning of desire is clearer; whereas +it is a doubt, until we have explained the nature of active reason, what +Will is, and whether it is distinguishable from desire. + +Now, on the other hand, there is a sentence of Aristotle “Intelligence +as such moves nothing,” and this seems to come home to us quite as +naturally as the idea that reason controls action. All plain or +unambiguous instances of reason or reasoning or intelligence, seem to +deal with discovery of fact, couched in a form which is capable of truth +and falsehood. For our purpose we may treat it as elaborate perception, +whether direct or assisted through inference, such as calculation. +Calculation is the old meaning of reasoning, both in Greek and Latin. + +How do we get across from perception or calculation to anything that can +interfere with desire? + +Of course there is a meeting-point in the idea that attends desire. +Human desire, at least, is not blind. It is desire of something, which +is before the mind as an idea; and in the case of desire which issues +in action this something must be mentally specified in respect of the +particular means needed to bring it about. And also, the end or purpose +which is desired for its own sake, is, in the connection of cause and +effect, itself _de facto_ a means to other results _ad infinitum_, more +or less of which are foreseen by the person who acts. Thus the act, +as fully presented to the mind in idea, is a complication of external +circumstances, which are ideally distinguished, supposing the act to +be reflected on, as means, realisation of the purpose, and foreseen +consequences both of the means and of the realisation of the purpose. + +It is, I think, all-important to remember, that these distinctions are +distinctions of relation to the acting subject, drawn very lightly by the +acting subject on the shifting surface of a complicated set of results +presented in idea, and are not at all complete distinctions, and lend +themselves very readily to self-deception. We shall see the importance of +this remark directly. + +In the meantime, here we have one way in which reasonings about fact do +help to modify our actions. If we know distinctly what we desire, say, +a week’s holiday, then it is reasoning about matters of fact that will +tell us what we must do to get it, and, in part, what the results will be +both of our getting it and of what we do to get it. Now for philosophical +purposes we need not consider the foreseen consequences separately. They +must rank, morally, as means. That is to say, they are something which +you have to take into the bargain in order to get what you want. They +come in with all the other circumstances in determining whether you like +the action or not. + +Now is _this_ connection between action and reason what we have in mind +when we say that a person ought to act reasonably, or that reason combats +desire? Do we understand by acting reasonably, that assuming some one +part of the imagined circumstances to represent the purpose, the agent +has got all the means to it, and the foreseen consequences of it, and +the interdependence of the parts of the purpose itself, set out in a +connection which is truly perceived or scientifically inferred? + +We do sometimes appear to mean this. We say: it is unreasonable to ask me +to be at the station at nine when the train does not start till ten. It +is unreasonable, you may say, on the ground that the means demanded of +me are not, scientifically speaking, necessary to the end agreed upon. +Still more we should pronounce it unreasonable to adopt any means which +actually defeats your purpose; which could only happen, one would think, +either from moral self-deception, or in complicated matters where the +means are disputable. This second case does not matter to us; the first +carries us a little further, because it suggests that what you call the +means may really contain your purpose, or one of your purposes, perhaps +inconsistent with another. The hackneyed example of selfish charity is +as good a case of this unreasonableness as can be found. The gift, which +is professed to be merely a means to the good of another, is, under all +the conditions, a means contrary to that good, and is given because it +gratifies an impulse of the donor. It might seem, in this case again, a +fair explanation to pronounce such conduct unreasonable merely because +the means adopted are scientifically speaking inconsistent with the end +proposed. We might bear in mind, however, that we seem to have detected +here a probable conflict of ends, not merely of means to an end. + +Admitting, then, for the moment, that we hold conduct to be unreasonable +if the perception, implied in it, of the relation between means, +ends, and consequences is flagrantly false, do we admit conduct to be +reasonable _simply_ because the intellectual perception in question is +clear and true? Taking truth in its ordinary sense, as truth of simple +fact, we must deny this. I may know perfectly well that so much wine +will make me drunk, and may drink it with that object and with that +result, and yet no one will pronounce this a reasonable action, though my +judgment of facts and results was as true and reasonable as could be. It +may be, however, that in a larger sense true judgment involves reasonable +action. + +Thus it does not seem that truth of perception or correctness of +calculation as to the connection of the circumstances which are presented +in the idea of an act are sufficient to make the act reasonable, although +serious blunders in the perception or calculation seem to make the act +which implies them unreasonable. I even doubt whether the last clause +was rightly stated. I was obliged to say _flagrant_ errors, _serious_ +blunders. For it seems doubtful whether a purely intellectual error, or +blunder of perception, does make an act “unreasonable,” which owing to +such a blunder misses its mark. I incline to think that the reason why +we are forced, in such cases as I have instanced, to lay stress on the +_flagrancy_ of the blunder, is that it makes us suspect self-deception +or moral neglect on the part of the agent, makes us suspect, in other +words, that the inconsistency between means and ends was not owing to +mere intellectual misjudgment, but was adopted with open or partially +open eyes. I do not think that I _should_ call my friend unreasonable +for wanting to meet at the station an hour before the departure of the +train, if he could show me _bona fide_ grounds which made him imagine +that it was necessary to arrive so early. I might in that case think him +mistaken, but should not venture to call him unreasonable, unless his +mistake seemed so obvious that I thought it was committed on purpose, +that is, was not an intellectual mistake at all. When I call him +unreasonable, perhaps I really suspect he is making a claim on my time +to meet some private convenience of his own—to avoid a crowd or to make +sure of some particular carriage, which I do not care about—and therefore +perhaps it may after all be his _purpose_ that I think unreasonable. + +But there is one great doctrine of reasonableness which does reduce it to +a question of means and ends, and that is, the doctrine that everything +else is a means to pleasure, whether that of the agent or that of all +sentient beings. I do not want to discuss Hedonism psychologically +just now, I only want to use it as an illustration of one way in which +intelligence may be alleged to control action. The ultimate theory would +then be that this uniform purpose, pleasure, is a natural or obvious, or, +so to speak, a _given_ purpose, and that all definite action is or has +been prescribed by the intelligence dealing with matter of fact, as a +means to the realisation of this given purpose. + +Then reasonable action would mean what our reasoning and perceptive +powers, dealing with matters of fact, pronounce to make for pleasure, +and unreasonable action would be all that does not. Here, though I +wish to avoid hackneyed criticism, I must note that there is a certain +difficulty in getting across from the idea of one’s own pleasure to that +of other people’s pleasure as a natural purpose, and sometimes we find +the contention that any person’s pleasure is a _reasonable purpose_ to +any person, which, like several indications before, takes us out of the +connection between reason and the mere calculation of means to an end. + +Apart from this, I have, for our object, only to refer back to the +suspicion with which we regarded these distinctions between means, ends, +and consequences, in the presented idea of an action. The burden of +proof lies on those who limit the aspects in and for which activities or +results can be or ought to be desired. If we say that the whole complex +of our moral life is a means to a partial though necessary incident in +it, it seems to me that we are putting the cart before the horse. If you +could really say “moral life is the means, and pleasure is the end” then +it would follow that, should calculation tell you that moral life was not +the most effectual means, you would not prefer it. Now this old argument +may be pronounced unfair on the ground that it puts an impossible case; +just like the counter-question which is asked by the opposite side, “If +morality led only to increased pain, would you prefer it then?” Still, +if these two questions together bring out the fact that pleasure is an +incident of a whole complex of functions and activities which we cannot +suppose to be separated from it, we do get this much result, that there +is no firm ground for distinguishing part of the complex as the end from +the rest as the means. And it seems clear, also, that we differentiate +pleasures _in kind_ according to the activities which they accompany, +just as we have constantly found that the so-called means differentiates +and qualifies the so-called purpose. + +Thus I do not think that it is possible to represent the reasonableness +of action as consisting in its guidance by right calculation of the means +to an end, not even to the alleged simple and universal end of pleasure. +At the same time, this view has one essential element of truth, that is +the recognition that a positive impulse or claim can only be combated or +defeated by a positive impulse or claim. The view goes so far indeed as +to say that one form of a general impulse can only be combated by another +form of that same impulse through the discrepancy of the alternative +means to its attainment. However this may be, so much does seem clear, +viz. that reasonableness cannot be, as popular language tends to make +it, something purely negative and prohibitive. Its negative aspect must +be secondary, and according to the suggestions furnished by the notions +we have been examining, must arise out of a discrepancy between two +sets of means to the same acknowledged or accepted end. This I think is +solid ground, so far that we are bound to deduce the negative side of +reasonableness from a positive nature, whether a general relation to one +and the same purpose, or relations to different purposes. We have learnt, +on the other hand, to distrust the absolute distinction between means and +end. + +2. Now I turn for a moment to what I may describe as _maxims_ of +reasonableness. I will not call them “A priori principles,” because such +an expression raises a question about the nature of experience which does +not concern the point before us. But I do treat them as characteristic of +a view which explains reasonableness rather by rules than by purposes; +and it seems to follow from this that the rule must be alleged to be +self-evident, because if they were derivative, they would most naturally +be derivative from purposes. But in the history of speculation of course +the same principle may be recommended at one time as analogous to an +axiom of the reasoning power, and at another time as involved in the +purposes which are recognised as good. Even the same writer may combine +both views. + +Now if such principles are supported as constituting the reasonableness +of action, either because connected with the predominance of the +speculative intelligence, or because of an analogy between such +principles and any axioms acceptable to the speculative intelligence, I +believe that this support of them is due to a sheer confusion. + +I take two only, as illustrations, one of each type I have mentioned. + +Plato, it seems to me, constantly fails to distinguish between the +reasonableness of conduct, and the reasonableness of abstract reasoning, +that is, of the scientific intellect. To the moral philosopher, +scientific or theoretical interest and activity are one interest and +activity among others; and the reasonableness of activity is not +insured by pursuing an activity of reasonableness. It _may_ be quite +unreasonable, in the moral sense, to pursue abstract reasoning as a +vocation in life. When we say that in every man the reason should be +uppermost, we do not mean that every man should devote himself to +intellectual pursuits. Plato knows this, as, in a sense, he knows +everything; but he uses all arguments for his purpose, and among others +I think he allows it to be supposed that occupation with intellectual +matter is in a moral sense a predominance of the reason. I may instance +his attempt to prove that intellectual pleasures are the pleasantest, +more especially with reference to his aim in making the attempt, which +is, I suppose, to recommend intellectual occupation as pre-eminently +reasonable in the moral sense. To this I say No; if and in as far as the +inference is meant to rest upon an identification of scientific with +moral reasonableness, I think it a sheer confusion. It is like saying +that because a doctor has to do with the promotion of health, therefore +it is a healthy profession to be a doctor. But Plato’s argument shows +how strongly this idea appealed to him, because he even recommends +intellectual pleasures on the score of their sheer pleasantness, implying +not only that intellectual occupation is reasonableness in the moral +sense, but that intellectual occupation, even when chosen by way of +self-indulgence, is still reasonableness in the moral sense. Of course +the matter is complicated by a substantive connection, the degree of +which is matter of opinion, between the two things, like that between +being a physician and leading a healthy life. Intellectual exercise and +ambition have a definite influence on certain capacities concerned in the +reasonable will. But it cannot be made out, that a tendency to the more +intellectual occupations is in itself a tendency to moral reasonableness. +Moral reasonableness must be a general characteristic of moral action, +not guaranteed by the special content of any form of activity. + +Next I have to discuss a principle which is advocated as an expression +of the morally reasonable, on the ground of having a sort of analogy +to several maxims or axioms of the intellectual world. It used to be +said that justice is like a square; or that the rightness of an action +consists in its conformity to certain eternal proportions impressed upon +the world by God. I take one more modern form of these principles as a +type of them all. Bentham said, “One is only to count for one,” and it is +a mere amplification of this when Mr. Sidgwick maintains, if I understand +him, that it is objectively reasonable not to prefer my own interest or +pleasure simply because it is my own, to that of some one else. This +principle seems to me a commendable expression of moral judgment, and I +do not think that it is needless or empty. There is a famous passage in +Middlemarch where the heroine, in a matter which acutely touches her own +feelings, thinks to herself, “Now how should I act if I could compel my +own pain to be silent, and merely consider what is best for the lives of +all the persons concerned in the situation?” That I suppose is a concrete +rendering of what this principle means. + +But if we look closer, we see its weak side. It is negative, and +consequently abstract. You are not to heed your own feelings unless they +are such that you would heed them if they were some one’s else in the +same circumstances. This amounts to no more than saying, “We believe +there is always, under all circumstances, a right course.” It is strictly +parallel to the theoretical principles of Uniformity or Causation. “We +believe that there is an explanation for everything; that nothing changes +without some reason.” These are useful maxims if they make us look for +the explanation, and so the other is a useful maxim, if it makes us look +for the right course. But it really falls between two stools. It is +not capable, as intellectual theorems are, of accurate development and +application by measurement and analysis. Yet on the other hand it makes +no special appeal to any special content, or tendency of reasonableness +embodied in definite ends. It is neither theoretically fertile, nor is it +a description of a practical influence. + +It is a well-known phenomenon that those who suggest maxims or moral +axioms of this kind as defining moral reasonableness are apt to be +reduced to assuming a particular impulse, told off to assist or obey +the reason. Such are Plato’s “Spirited” element in the soul, Kant’s +reverence, Mr. Sidgwick’s general desire to do what is reasonable. This +seems to me to be creating a rule which has no positive content, and +therefore has not the character of a human purpose, and then imagining an +impulse to obey it the nature of which is not accounted for in reference +to any plan of life, but must simply be propounded as an isolated fact. + +It kept suggesting itself to us above that reasonableness could not be +thoroughly explained on the basis of a distinction between means and +end, because actual ends are not simple and uniform, but are obviously +qualified by the so-called means, or context of circumstance. We agreed, +however, that what is reasonable must be so in virtue of a positive +content, whether as means or perhaps as end, and that its negative or +prohibitive aspect must arise from the conflict of two such positive +contents. + +We have in this section looked at two interpretations of moral +reasonableness apparently suggested by analogies with intellectual +reasonings or principles, and we could not deny that each of them had a +certain appearance of truth, but one seemed to confuse the content with +the form, the other to consist of a form without any content. + +3. It suggests itself therefore that moral reasonableness must be a +characteristic which we ascribe to purposes of action. Then we get a +variety of positive content, without relying on the distinction between +means and end; while the abstract principles which we feel to be +reasonable fall into their right place as very general descriptions of a +purpose or scheme of life which can be called reasonable. + +But the idea of a reasonable purpose requires explanation. + +First, it is irreconcilable with abstract Hedonism. You cannot have any +relations within a single and uniform purpose, and reason always involves +relations. + +Secondly, it is not the most intellectual purpose, the purpose that has +most to do with reasoning. I have tried to explain this above. + +Thirdly, it _is_ such a life or purpose as possesses a self-consistent +relation of the parts to the whole. This is the general characteristic of +any reasonable totality _qua_ reasonable, and it is this which forms the +general characteristic of reasonable purpose _qua_ reasonable. + +Then what is the meaning of the self-consistent relation of parts to the +whole in the case of a human scheme of life? + +We cannot demand that our specific purposes should be related consciously +to the purpose of the universe; because the universe as a whole is the +object of theoretical knowledge only, and this does not furnish us with +the idea of a concrete purpose at all. It seems then that the whole, by +consistency with which human purpose is or is not reasonable, must be the +whole of existing human purpose, taken of course as moving in a certain +direction, owing to the modification continually introduced through the +progressive realisation of purposes. I do not see that more than this can +be said without entering upon the analysis of the actual structure of the +moral world, of society and of history. What is important seems to me +to be that we cannot construct the reasonable world of morality from a +theoretical view of men in general and of nature. We have to take it as +it is, and are then perhaps able to show that it is an organised movement +in the direction of self-consistency of purpose. + +Is there not more than one kind or type of self-consistency possible, as +when self-indulgence is restricted simply within the bounds of health and +decency? This is the question whether consistency demands completeness, +i. e. whether mere omission destroys consistency. It has often been +discussed, and I suppose the general answer is that _assuming the unity +of the total moral movement_, any elements omitted in any portion of the +movement must ultimately have their revenge by producing disturbance. + +Then if we ask what after all is the relation of the theoretical reason +to the reasonable will or moral reason, the only answer seems to be +that the moral reason, in the individual or in the race, is the body of +intellectual ideas which are in fact predominant as purposes in either, +having become predominant by the power they have shown of crushing out +or adjusting to themselves the active associations of all other ideas. +And the power is what might be described as logical power; that is to say +it depends on the range and depth which enables one idea to include in +itself as in a system a great variety of minor purposes. + +The intellect as such is for morality in the first instance simply the +medium in which the moral world or content of the moral world exists; +and which therefore conveys to that content its own peculiar character +of system and totality. Then, further, in theoretical reflection on the +moral world, I imagine that we notice this predominance of ideas which +have organising power, and we frame to express this predominance such +predicates as important, right, good. And the whole of these judgments +we must call wisdom as opposed to knowledge. But I cannot myself see how +these or any judgments can be judgments of the moral reason. They seem +to me to be, as judgments, necessarily judgments of the theoretic reason +dealing with the facts of the moral world. But then there is the further +complication that these judgments themselves, forming the content of +intellectual ideas, may, if they have organising power, become actively +predominant, and then again they will form a portion of the actual moral +world as general ideas or clues, inciting to the active search for +concrete ideas which are concordant with them. In this case they are not +acting _as_ judgments, which are true and false, but only as dominant +contents. It is one thing to judge that there is a right in the moral +world, and another thing to be mastered by the right in one’s own mind. + +If I am asked, what I mean by the predominance of dominant ideas, which +I allege to form the content of the reasonable will, I start from the +position that every idea would produce action if unchecked, simply by +suggestions which through associative reproductions call up the necessary +movement. Desire may, I believe, or may not intervene, as a state of +tension between a pain of want and a pleasure produced by an idea. All +that is essential, it appears to me, is this idea which can suggest an +action. + +In the formed life of a civilised man the organising ideas have long +asserted their predominant power, and in every moment crush out countless +intruders each of which has in itself suggestions quite capable of +leading to action. In childhood or insanity the yielding to every +suggestion is a mark of what is called absence or loss of will; that +is, not the loss of a _general_ power to check minor suggestions, but of +perfectly _definite_ habitual purposes which check them as a matter of +course. + +This view sounds no doubt like an iron Determinism, and I am not much +concerned to defend it from that imputation. After all, if we are +determined by the content of our own minds, why then I suppose we +determine ourselves. And trivial examples of indifferent alternatives +such as “I can blow out this candle or not as I please” seem to me very +poor representatives of the moral will, compared with the necessary +pressure of an over-mastering idea which drives the man up to the point +of saying, “This is what must be decisive with one like me, and I have no +alternative.” We feel, as we say, that “we shall have to do it.” Almost +all really serious action, it seems to me, is of this type. And if I have +read at all correctly this lesson of the new psychology which owes its +origin largely to Herbart, it is an instructive meeting of extremes, that +the most analytic of psychologies should more than ever represent the +individual as the incarnation of a progressive order in ideas. + + B. BOSANQUET. + + + + +ETHNOLOGICAL JURISPRUDENCE.[4] + + +There is in the history of jurisprudence no more significant event than +the foundation of the historical school by Gustav Hugo and Carl von +Savigny. Jurisprudence, up to that time, was not a science, at least +not a science in the modern acceptation of the term. It was an art, +which the practical lawyer learned and employed in strict conformity +with practical traditions, without reflecting on the reasons in virtue +of which a legal norm or a social institution existed. The only part +of jurisprudence of a scientific tendency was the philosophy of law. +This latter branch had, since Hugo Grotius, emancipated itself from the +church, but it had advanced no farther than to substitute for the will +of God, to which formerly right and wrong had been traced, the principle +of human nature, and to found upon the social instincts of man a system +of natural law,—an ideal jurisprudential state by reference to which +positive laws were tested in respect of their conformity with the ideally +right and the ideally wrong. This fundamental conception of the essential +character of law was only slightly modified by the substitution of the +human reason for human nature. The rational systems of jurisprudence also +derived the state and the law from the individuality of man, especially +from the social traits of this individuality, and definite notions and +principles were thus enunciated from which state and law were deductively +constructed. + +The historical school first introduced a change in all this. It afforded +the legal practitioner the possibility of seeing that the law which he +applied was the slowly ripened product of a course of development that +extended over many centuries, and it afforded the philosophical juristic +inquirer the possibility of understanding, that the law was not founded +on immutable ideas and principles, but that it was a product of the +creative mind of a nation, that this product was subjected to processes +of transformation and development, and did not admit of regulation by +the individual reason of a single philosophical inquirer. But while the +history of law has become a universally recognised discipline in the +science of jurisprudence, the application of its underlying principles +to the philosophy of law has as yet by no means been universally carried +out. On the contrary, the reason still plays an extensive rôle as +foundation and evolutionary principle; and to a great extent the history +of law and the philosophy of law still pursue their solitary ways as +independent branches of knowledge. + +In recent times, through the influence of ethnology, jurisprudence has +entered on a new epoch. A new branch of the science of law has arisen in +Europe, the so-called ethnological jurisprudence, and has already found +in Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Belgium, and Holland, enthusiastic +supporters. Ethnology, as it is known, is the science that has for the +subject of its investigations the totality of phenomena of social life of +all the peoples of the earth, and which makes use, in this investigation, +of the methods of inductive inquiry exclusively employed by physical +and natural science. After the science of ethnology had advanced to a +certain point, the extension of ethnological inquiry to the domain of +jurisprudence followed as of course. + +To a certain extent the investigations of the history of law had prepared +the way for ethnological jurisprudence. The inductive method was common +to both. The idea of a history of the development of law was no longer +strange to jurisprudence. Only the courage was wanting to allow the eye +to range over the legal systems of all the peoples of the globe, instead +of, as before, restricting it to very narrow limits. The historical +investigation of law began in Europe with the history of the Roman law. +Thereupon it was immediately extended to the Germanic laws of Europe, so +that now all West-European peoples possess a highly developed history of +law of their own. Recently, also, the history of Slavonic law has been +assiduously treated. + +Whereas in every case here it was a question of the sources of the +laws that stood in immediate historical connection with the prevailing +systems of Europe, jurisprudential investigation was slowly extended to +more remote ethnical fields. The first impulse in this direction came +from comparative philology. This science had succeeded in tracing the +languages of extended groups of peoples back to common primitive tongues. +Among these primitive tongues the Aryan, the common original language +of the Indo-Germanic group of nations, first occupied the attention of +inquirers, and the law of this group of nations thus became the first +object of investigation of a comparative jurisprudence extending beyond +the more restricted provinces of the history of law. The provinces of +Græco-Italic, Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, Iranic, and Indian law were +investigated with respect to a common origin, and various agreements and +various deviations were discovered. In very recent times the laws of the +Armenians and the Ossetes in the Caucasus have been added to the laws of +the Aryans, and the laws of the Afghans will probably soon follow these. + +A number of more remote provinces of law have also been entered upon, in +connection with theological, philological, and connate inquiries. Thus, +particularly, in connection with biblical investigation the Israelitic +law, in connection with the study of Arabic the Islamitic, in connection +with the decipherment of the hieroglyphic writings the Old-Egyptian, +in connection with the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions the +Soumerian and the Assyrian-Babylonian, and in connection with sinology +the law of China. In very recent times the Japanese law has also been +treated. + +In the laws of all these peoples, by the side of many peculiarities, were +also found many phenomena of frequent and universal recurrence. + +After the science of law had so far extended its activity in this +direction, it was a final step only that ethnological jurisprudence +took when it declared that the subject of juristic science was the +investigation of the laws of _all_ the peoples of the earth. And yet +this step was perhaps a more important one than all that had hitherto +been taken. For a considerable group of peoples had up to then been +entirely neglected by the science of law, namely the uncivilised +peoples, the so-called primitive peoples or _Naturvölker_. And just the +laws of these savages furnished the most remarkable disclosures. They +exhibited everywhere the most singular parallel phenomena, and made it +possible to open up a complete early history of the law, and to bring +to light periods of jural development of which the history of civilised +peoples has preserved but a few unintelligible remains. Ethnological +jurisprudence is thus able to supply complementary information at a point +where the threads of the history of law are lost in the obscurity of +early times. + +The condition of jural life in these primitive periods is very singular. +No juristic philosopher has ever lighted on the idea that primitive man +could exist with such jural conceptions as he actually does. That which +ethnological jurisprudence has brought to light in this connection is +something absolutely new and astonishing, something that no brooding +brain could have ever developed out of any idea or principle. Indeed, it +is so strange that it could not be conceived at all if we did not have it +before our eyes to-day among savage tribes. + +The collecting of the laws of uncivilised peoples constitutes an +independent task of ethnological jurisprudence. In this way the latter +science will fill up the gaps which historical jurisprudential inquiry +left open in our knowledge of the jural life of man. But more important +than all, perhaps, will ethnological jurisprudence become for the future +development of the philosophy of law. In this connection it goes hand in +hand with the sociological tendency which dominates our time and has its +surest foundation in ethnology. + +The prime significance of ethnological jurisprudence lies in the fact +that it is an ethnological science. + +At first ethnology was a purely empirical science. It gathered together +all the attainable phenomena of ethnic existence, and separately, at +first, among single peoples and tribes. After an extensive store of +material had accumulated in this manner, the discovery was made that +in many provinces of ethno-social life, especially in the provinces of +religion, law, and morals, especially also in all provinces of social +custom, phenomena of essentially similar character presented themselves +among a great number of peoples in the case of whom neither any original +tribal relationship nor any infusion from one nation into the other could +be assumed; and, curious to say, these were frequently the most singular +phenomena, of which one would have thought at first that they had sprung +from the individuality of a determinate people. This discovery of +universal ethnographic parallels was all the more surprising in view of +the fact that historical special inquiry, whose province up to then had +been essentially national life, had placed especial emphasis on outwardly +prominent events occurring in a different form in every nation, whereas +phenomena that appeared uniformly among the different nations were little +noticed. People had therefore grown accustomed to regard every nation as +something existing by itself and peculiar to itself, and, particularly, +had also declared it as inadmissible to employ phenomena of the life of +one nation to explain corresponding phenomena of the life of another +nation. + +The discovery of ethnographical parallels led to wholly different ideas. +It became clear that a great portion of human ethnical existence was +not founded in the peculiar character of particular peoples, but in the +character of the human race, in the universal nature of man. And it +became in addition clear that that which repeated itself everywhere on +the earth, which was therefore an expression of the universal human, was +something entirely different from that which previous philosophy had +declared to be the actual human. It also became clear, at the same time, +that the nations thought quite differently from what the individual man +did. With this, however, the foundation of the entire previous philosophy +was shaken. If the axiom of modern ethnology is correct, namely that it +is not _we_ that think, but _it_ that _thinks in us_,[5] we shall no +longer be able to explain our nature from our consciousness, from our +ego, from our reason, but we shall have to pursue this momentous “It” +that thinks in us, and since we cannot find it _in_ us we shall have to +search for it _outside of_ us in the expressions of the human soul in the +life of the race. + +This is the fundamental idea of modern ethnology. It seeks to collect all +the expressions of the human soul in the life of the species, and from +them to derive its inferences as to the nature of man. It regards ethnic +existence as the precipitate of human psychical existence, and not merely +of that part of it which is conscious, but also of that part of it which +is unconscious, that which is inaccessible to introspective observation, +that which is not thought, but is merely lived. It enlarges accordingly +the domain of psychology, which was restricted hitherto to the analysis +of the human consciousness, by the incorporation of an additional domain +unmeasured in extent. + +These general conceptions of ethnology are also determinative for +the science of ethnological jurisprudence, and from this results its +peculiarity as contrasted with the other branches of juristic knowledge. + +Ethnological jurisprudence places the centre of gravity of the science +of law not like the previous juristic philosophy in the individual jural +consciousness, but in the law viewed as a province of ethnic existence. +It regards the laws of the nations as the precipitates of that which +is now active and has been active as jural instinct in the entire +human race. It assumes that when all the phenomena of law in the life +of the nations have been fixed, an infinitely more valuable material +will be drawn therefrom adapted to the disclosure of the nature of law +than could have ever in the world been acquired by an analysis of the +individual jural consciousness. It does not regard the individual jural +consciousness as something innate in man and exempt from the altering +effects of time, but as a product of the social conditions in which the +individual has grown up. It assumes, therefore, that the individual jural +consciousness changes with a change of the social conditions, so that a +man who grows up under different social conditions possesses a different +jural perception. This assumption, if we compare the expressions of the +jural consciousness of races low in the scale of culture with those of +civilised peoples, is one that cannot be escaped. We have only to recall +to mind the irresistible force with which the jural sense of peoples +that live under clan-constitutions demand vengeance of blood, whereas +this species of retaliation no longer exists in our jural consciousness +of to-day. Thus there are hundreds and thousands of jural instincts and +conceptions which are present at certain stages of civilisation and +disappear entirely at others. + +Ethnological jurisprudence therefore assumes, that the juristic +philosopher who lays at the foundation of his system essentially his own +jural consciousness, simply enunciates therewith a system of law that +answers perhaps to the current conceptions of his time and his people, +but which can in no sense lay claim to a value beyond that. + +Quite different, on the other hand, are matters conditioned when the +inquirer has before him the laws of all the peoples of the earth from the +lowest to the highest. Here he has in his possession a picture of the +jural consciousness of the mind of humanity, which is no longer subject +to alteration, but which, to the extent that the development of human +jural life has advanced, is complete. + +For the execution of its task ethnological jurisprudence first requires +a collection of the laws of all the peoples of the earth. Each one of +these laws is of equal value to ethnological jurisprudence in so far +as the jural consciousness of humanity has found expression in it in +any form. Especially deserving of consideration are the laws of the +so-called savage peoples that have been so much neglected and contemned +hitherto; since they bring to light the jural consciousness of humanity +in its germinal stages, and since higher formations are invariably best +understood when we know their first beginnings. + +The solidest basis for ethnological jurisprudence would be furnished by +a monographic treatment of the law of every single tribe and people of +the earth. By such monographic treatments the entire social organisation +of a given tribe or people would be exhibited in all its complicated +reciprocal relations, and we should be able to follow the law in all the +thousands of minute ramifications that connect it with the remaining +provinces of national life. But such a monographic treatment of the law +of all the nations of the earth is accompanied with great difficulties, +and this part of the task of the science of law has as yet been +undertaken only to a limited extent. + +The condition of affairs is best in this respect where the nations +themselves have collected and compiled their legal customs in books of +laws. But such collections are found only among peoples that deserve +to some extent the appellation of civilised peoples. Among the great +majority of peoples the law is simply practised and handed down by oral +tradition, so that here the legal customs must be collected by members +of foreign civilised nations,—a very difficult labor and one that can be +accomplished only by persons who take up their abode permanently among +the races in question and become thoroughly familiar with their language +and habits of life. + +Collections of this character we possess unfortunately only to a very +limited extent, and our knowledge accordingly of the law of uncivilised +peoples is still very meagre. Even the books of law possessed by the +various peoples have not all been made available to juristic science. +In part they have not yet been printed, and in part they have not yet +been translated into a generally understood language. Considerable time +will yet be required before the existing material has been made wholly +accessible. + +Not before the legal customs of all the peoples of the earth have been +collected will ethnological jurisprudence be in a position to furnish a +successful solution of the task it has set itself,—the task namely of a +causal analysis of all the phenomena of the jural life of the human race. +Yet to a certain extent this task may be undertaken at present, even with +a relatively limited store of material. + +The starting-point for the ethno-juristic investigation of the phenomena +of jural life is furnished by the ethno-juristic parallels, legal customs +that are found uniformly appearing among the nations, without there being +any reason to assume that one nation has received them from another. +Legal customs of this character are in part so universally diffused +over the earth that they may be characterised as a common possession of +mankind; in part they appear sporadically among unrelated peoples; in +part they are restricted to more limited domains. The most important +legal customs are those that have universal dissemination; for here it +may be assumed that they are a necessary emanation of the social side +of human life. Legal customs that occur only sporadically, but appear +uniformly among unrelated peoples, must likewise be regarded as the +products of the universal nature of man, yet only as such that _can_ +arise under definite conditions of existence. Legal customs that occur +only in limited ethnological domains will have to be referred to the +peculiar character of definite peoples and tribes. Legal institutions of +universal character are, for example, the forms of marriage by capture +and purchase of the bride, blood-vengeance, the right of refuge, the +systems of composition, ordeals, oaths, and so forth. Almost universal +are the levirate, and the betrothal of children. Sporadically among +unrelated peoples appear: the seizure of the corpse of the debtor for +debt; execution by fasting, whereby the creditor brings pressure to bear +upon his debtor by having him fast a definite period of time before his +dwelling; the custom of the chief doing combat with his grown up son, +to whom the command of the tribe passes if he conquers his father; and +so forth.[6] Frequently it is the most curious customs that thus recur, +among peoples that are completely separated from each other by oceans +and inaccessible mountain ranges and have unquestionably never been in +communication with each other. + +The explanation of these ethno-juristic parallel phenomena is in part +not very difficult, inasmuch as many of them can be traced back to +fixed forms of social organisation. Thus, for example, a whole group +of universally recurring legal customs is associated with the peculiar +formation of the clan-constitutions and clan-law which regularly appears +among uncivilised peoples and characteristically differs from the form of +political organisation familiar to the present age. Many legal customs +are also based on religious conceptions and social customs, and their +explication in such cases is frequently very difficult. + +A complete explanation of all the legal customs of all the peoples of +the earth with respect to their social causes would exhaust the work of +ethnological jurisprudence as an ethnological discipline. But in the +same way that the acquisitions of ethnology are in their turn utilisable +towards the constitution of a universal philosophy, to which they will +impart perhaps an entirely different character, so will the results +of ethnological jurisprudence be in their turn utilisable towards the +constitution of a universal science of law and for the philosophy of +law, in which probably, through its means also, a powerful change will +be inaugurated. These are the ideas, traced in their most general +characters, that may be regarded as the fundamental ones in “ethnological +jurisprudence.” + + ALBERT HERMANN POST. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[4] Translated from the manuscript of Dr. Albert Hermann Post by Thomas +J. McCormack. + +[5] Bastian. + +[6] The reader will find a brief survey of the ethno-juristic parallels +appearing among the various peoples of the earth, in a treatise of mine +entitled _Ueber die Aufgaben einer allgemeinen Rechtswissenschaft_ +(1891), pp. 27 to 72. + + + + +AMERICAN POLITICS. + + +Nothing in this country appears to the stranger more intricate and +inexplicable than our politics. The different parties, two big ones and +several little ones, the various machines, county, state, and national, +the “bosses,” “heelers,” and “workers” present such a confusion of ideas +and a terminology so varied, that it is only after many years that +the foreigner begins to comprehend our system of government and the +principles underlying our political movements. Indeed, the majority of +Americans themselves are no better off and have no clear perception of +the part they are playing in the administration of affairs or the ethical +effects of the ballot which they cast. Ask the ordinary voter why he +supports the candidates of a certain party and you will find that his +reasons are reducible to a few concrete facts, and are rarely governed by +any general principles. + +In the Southern states the vast majority of the whites are democrats +through opposition to the republican party which fought the war and +deprived them of their slaves. The negroes on the other hand are +republicans because it is to that party they owe their freedom, and +from it they expect protection for themselves in the exercise of their +political rights and the blessings of opportunity for education. The +political question there becomes a race question, utterly regardless +of the principles which the two great parties represent. Let there be +a complete change of platforms and the result would be precisely the +same as it has been for the past generation—the South would still remain +democratic, and the votes of their presidential electors would still be +cast for the candidates of that party. + +There is a minor race question in the feeling against foreigners, more +especially Irish, Italians, and Germans, influenced to some extent by +the fact that a large number of these foreigners are Roman Catholics and +that there is an uneasy suspicion on the part of some Americans that the +Catholic church is hostile to the spirit of democracy, a suspicion not +entirely unfounded if one should judge solely by the sayings and doings +of some of the prelates of that church for the past forty years. This +“Know-nothing” sentiment at one time threatened to create a solid foreign +vote in opposition. Germans and Irish united under the protecting wings +of Tammany Hall and, aided by clergymen who hoped to obtain part of the +state educational fund for their private parochial schools, formed a +strong ally to the national democratic party. Happily prejudices of race +and religion are dying out and neither party can now claim a monopoly +of the foreign vote. Strange as it may seem, however, the Irish and +German elements, so recently the objects of proscription themselves, +have in late years become embittered against the Chinese. To the patient +industry of the Mongolian immigrants is due the building of the Pacific +railroads, when it would have been impossible to obtain white labor, and +the cultivation and development of the Pacific coast states. Congress was +terrorised into passing the law excluding all Chinese laborers. It was +more than race prejudice which contributed to this hatred of the Chinese. +The chief reason for Chinese exclusion was an economic one. Great masses +of laborers feared that the Chinese by immigrating in vast numbers would +deprive them of work by taking their places at lower wages, and, having +the ballot, they dictated to Congress the terms of the Anti-Chinese Act. + +The alien contract labor law is a measure conceived in the same +spirit and directed against the hiring of laborers abroad by American +contractors, who could thus displace their employés at lower wages by +Hungarians, or Poles, or Russians, ignorant of the language of this +country and whose compensation could be the more easily reduced to a +bare maintenance, and who in sickness or old age could be turned out on +the roads to die without costing the contractor any contraction of his +bank account. There was some excuse for this law, or at least for the +feeling which prompted it, when the miners of a whole section could be +evicted and they and their families made to suffer the pangs of slow +starvation because the owners of the coal lands found they could obtain +human machines at a less cost from abroad. It was natural that the +laborers should demand a law which offered some immediate relief even +at the risk of meeting wrong with wrong, rather than that they should +attempt to regulate affairs on abstract principles of justice while their +stomachs were empty and their wives and children were dying for want of +sufficient nourishment. That feeling, however, is also vanishing and +American workingmen are beginning to see that the increase in population, +native-born as well as that imported by contract, is steadily adding to +the number of competitors and lowering the rate of wages. Their attention +is becoming more and more directed to the opening of new opportunities +for work rather than to the restricting of the number of workers. + +Another class of men, if they vote at all, do so on no general principle +of public welfare, but solely for their own advantage at the expense of +their fellow men. These are to be found among the rich manufacturers, the +coal, and iron, and railway kings, and the manipulators of the crops of +the nation. Rarely casting a ballot in person, they give notice to their +thousands of employés that if the latter do not support the candidates +or the party which they happen to favor, the employés’ places will be +given to more pliant servants. These men are as non-partisan as the most +ardent reformer could wish. One of them, a few years ago when questioned +by an investigating committee of the New York state legislature, said: +“In a republican district I was a strong republican; in a democratic +district I was democratic; and in doubtful districts I was doubtful, but +in politics I was an Erie railroad man every time.” Another famous man +of the same type said he had no politics; that he found it cheaper to +buy up one set of legislators after they were elected than to purchase +two sets of candidates before election. These corrupt men, counting +their wealth by tens of millions, influencing state legislatures and the +national Congress, and throwing their weight into Presidential campaigns, +constitute the chief “dangerous class” in the United States to-day, +far more threatening to the permanency of free institutions than the +anarchists who were hanged at Chicago. + +Then there are the illy-paid employés of these men who do their bidding +at the polls, voting for the candidates of their masters. Promise of +office or patronage lures others into the support of one party or the +other. Lastly come the poorest of the poor who live in the most miserable +tenement houses, or when single hive in the big lodging-houses which +are found chiefly in New York and Chicago. A ton of coal or a barrel of +flour is the bribe to the former, frequently effected through the medium +of the poor wretch’s wife who does not care for politics but sees a very +material advantage in the food or fuel offered by the ward worker. The +lodging-house voters, paid by drinks of whiskey or dollar bills, until +recently in New York were marshalled in squads of twenty or thirty early +on the morning of election day, given their ballots and compelled to hold +them aloft between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand so that +the heeler or paid servant of some political faction might watch them +from the moment they took their place in the line of voters until their +ballots were handed to the election inspectors and dropped in the box. +Both parties wink at such frauds and their henchmen directly countenance +and assist in them but the party that happens to be in the majority in +any locality is usually the one most guilty. The result is that the +minority affects great virtue and loudly denounces the corruption of its +opponents. + +Among those who do vote on principle are the prohibitionists, the +greenbackers, the adherents of ephemeral labor parties and the +socialists. The anarchists generally refrain from voting because they +do not believe in any government by force and say that an enlightened +public opinion will lead the people to dispense with such things as the +army and navy and police and law courts. The socialists occasionally +vote for the men of other parties whom they think represent the worst +measures, in order the sooner, as they frankly avow, to produce +revolutionary conditions, which they expect would assist them greatly +in their propaganda. The prohibitionists, greenbackers, and labor men +each take a partial view of political economy. The first see the evils +and degradation arising from intemperance and think that everything +else must yield to the one consideration of the abolition of the liquor +traffic. The panacea of the greenbackers consists in the destruction of +the monopoly of the currency now enjoyed by the national banks. The labor +men have different shibboleths at different times such as the prevention +of child labor in factories, an eight-hour work-day and the like—measures +which might effect some relief but are minor matters compared with the +great social problem of the increase of poverty in the midst of the +greatest productive energies which the world has ever seen, a problem +which is rapidly coming to the front and overshadowing all others. + +But these minor movements hardly produce a ripple on the surface of our +political waters. There are only two parties worthy of the name in the +United States to-day, as there have been but two ever since the days of +Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. These parties go on forming +platforms chiefly on the theory of offending the least number of voters +and phrasing their declarations in vague terms which may be explained one +way in one part of the country and another way in another part. Such is a +cursory view of the field of American politics to-day. + +It may seem that I have made out a pretty bad indictment of corruption +against our politics and that the view of the cynic is correct that +American politics are desperately wicked and there is no health in them. +But the moral forces which are operating in the world are fortunately +not dependent upon the changeable methods or the selfish objects of +men. It is here in America, perhaps more than anywhere else, that the +natural laws of social development have fullest play. It is here that +the evolution of politics is working itself out freely, untrammelled by +tradition or custom. It is here that the ultimate ideal of politics will +first be reached. When the framers of the Declaration of Independence +formulated their proposition that governments derive their just powers +from the consent of the governed, a step in the right direction was +taken—a step that was in accordance with our old Saxon traditions, yet +for the first time in the world’s history made on an extended scale, to +base human government on the principles of natural law. And through all +the vicissitudes of our country, its struggle for independence, its +war for the liberation of its commerce, its civil conflict which would +have dismembered any other nation, or would have left one section the +subjugated serfs of the other, through a disputed presidential election +which strained the written constitution to its utmost, the great moral +force of natural law has been working, now through one party, now through +another, gathering impetus as it goes and giving promise always of better +times to come. + +It is in this broad view that all the petty thieveries and striving for +place and power sink into utter insignificance. The people do still rule. +They may sleep for a time but are sure, sooner or later, to assert their +rights in accordance with the instincts of the human mind, which are +good and not bad. As long as the suffrage shall exist it is reasonably +certain that this American government, “of the people, by the people, for +the people,” shall not perish from the earth. If the wealthy monopolists +could control the suffrage, the prospects might be different. The freedom +of the voter has been impaired to a certain extent but the American +people with quick instincts have awakened to the danger. The Australian +system of voting, which secures secrecy and freedom from intimidation and +almost extinguishes bribery is now becoming very popular. Fifteen of the +states have adopted it and the other twenty-nine will, no doubt, follow +their example in a few years. But the introduction of measures for its +establishment presented the curious anomaly of being opposed by democrats +in some localities and by republicans in others, both for partisan +reasons, constitutional and high moral pretexts being of course advanced. +When it becomes the general law, it will do more than anything else to +purify electoral methods. + +Entirely above the question of methods, however, there are certain +principles involved in American politics which it becomes of the highest +importance to comprehend and which furnish the key to the apparently +inexplicable confusion. These principles, it seems to me, are reducible +to two, which may be likened to the centripetal and centrifugal forces in +nature. As both are needed for the stability of the physical universe, +so both the centralising and decentralising tendencies in politics are +necessary for the co-ordination of the state. It is in the free play +of these forces, each in its proper sphere, that lies the assurance of +the perpetuity of American institutions. But as the ideal has not yet +been reached, the practical result is that one tendency begins to act, +at first legitimately, then from the aggrandisement of power and the +“cohesive force of public plunder” the administrators of government +attempt to stretch it unduly, the opposition comes to power and the +same story is repeated. In each case the liberal party succeeds the +conservative, acts at first wisely, then corrupted by the subtle +temptations of place and power, and wishing to retain both, it becomes +opposed to change and begets a new conservatism, while new liberals arise +on a higher plane of evolution to continue the never-ending struggle. And +it must be recollected that the conservative party of each generation is +far more liberal than the one which it displaced, thus giving assurance +of perpetual progress. + +This has been the epitome of all American history; each party +government, by whatever name it may have been known, has been liberal in +comparison with its predecessor and conservative as to its successor. +When Washington organised his administration it was no doubt regarded +in Europe as highly revolutionary and anarchistic. But such a class +government, with laws of entail and slavery, and cruel punishments for +petty offences, as existed then, would not be tolerated for a single year +at the present time. Thomas Jefferson who founded the democratic party, +then called the republican, was a consistent opponent of aristocracy +and personally was a man far in advance of his time, but most of his +followers would be horrified if they should now come back to earth and +see the powers possessed by the general government to-day, necessary, +legitimate powers, without which the affairs of the nation could not be +administered for a single week. The United States soon got rid of laws +of entail and the established churches. The democracy came to power and +held it nearly sixty years. Long continuance in office endeared its +possession to that party while the very growth of the nation, from five +millions to thirty-one millions, demanded changes in internal policy +which were not forthcoming. There were not lacking signs of popular +discontent. In 1840 the democrats met their first defeat, and for three +or four presidential terms the votes vibrated between the democrats and +the whigs. But the latter were not united on a consistent policy. They +needed a principle. The principle was shaping itself. Slavery, which had +been abolished in the Northern states, was gradually strengthening in +the South. The democrats forgot, or rather most of them never learned, +that true democracy knows no distinction of color. The abolitionists +were denounced by press and pulpit as socialists, as the disturbers of +public order, as blasphemers against the very law of God contained in +Holy Writ. The people, however, returned to power these same socialists +and the institution of chattel slavery was doomed. That would have been +the case in any event, but the civil war precipitated it, just as many +other unjust wars in history have resulted in disestablishing the very +institutions to perpetuate which the wars were made. + +The republican party grandly and patriotically fulfilled its mission. By +degrees, however, the enormous destruction of wealth during the war and +the heavy debt entailed by it, created a burdensome system of taxation +which substituted self-interest for patriotism. Duties were laid upon +imports from abroad heavier than those which formed one of the chief +causes for the revolt of the colonies against Great Britain. These duties +enabled American manufacturers to make on American soil the same class +of goods that were imported and charge the same price as the imported +goods enhanced by the duty, of course pocketing for themselves the extra +profit which the tariff aided them to obtain from consumers. The quickest +way to wealth was to start some manufacture, get the government to put a +tax on similar articles imported and pocket the difference, or to get an +internal revenue measure passed taxing a certain line of domestic goods, +pay the tax in the first instance and then charge it to the consumers +with of course a good commission added for patriotic services. As long as +the government had work for every man who could shoulder a musket, the +pernicious effect of the system was not clearly seen. But when the war +was over and one million men returned to productive avocations, wages +began to fall. Then the question of taxation inevitably came to the +front and has now become the living issue of the hour. The needle of the +suffrage is again vibrating, the republican party has been deprived of +power for four years and the democratic President emphasised the issue by +pushing the question of tariff reform to the foreground. His re-election +was defeated, but the question is debated with more vigor than ever, and +all signs point to absolute free trade as one of the certainties of the +future. Judging from the last Congressional elections, the people have at +last turned their faces in the right direction. + +It will be noticed that two elements, which I have called the centripetal +and the centrifugal, have been predominant in shaping American politics. +They may be termed the socialistic and the anarchistic forces. Socialism +claims the direction of everything by a strong centralised government. +Anarchists say with the democrats, “That government is best which governs +least,” and logically argue for the abolition of all government. Now, +the right or wrong of these principles depends upon their application. +Only the most rabid anarchist would object to the Post Office, for +instance, and few socialists would claim that the state has a right to +regulate a man’s clothing or his religion. It is on the question as to +what subjects these principles should be applied that all our American +parties arise. The early federalists were socialistic in that they +believed in a strong central government and in relegating as few things +as possible to the states. President Jefferson introduced the anarchistic +or centrifugal principle of decentralisation and individualism. But as +the nation grew, it was seen that this wrought injustice, especially in +the matter of slavery which was a violation of human rights, however the +different states might regard it. Then the socialistic or centripetal +principle began to act and slavery disappeared. Now it seems likely +that the individualistic principle will again become dominant in an +attempt to abolish all fiscal restrictions upon trade. After this may +follow the socialistic principle of state ownership of railways and +telegraphs. Perhaps this will be the work of the new political forces +evidently gathering, as foreshadowed by the Farmers’ Alliance, after the +breaking-up of parties and after the democrats, having given us free +trade, will have resumed their natural position of conservatives. Then, +in the remoter future, may come the anarchistic principle of the removal +of the restrictions against female suffrage. And so it will go on, first +one principle acting and fulfilling its mission, then the other, each +bringing the nation to a higher plane of progress and uniting it more and +more closely with the grand upward march of the human race. + +What is this, after all? It is not socialism. It is not anarchy. It is +neither democracy nor republicanism. It is EVOLUTION. It does not depend +on the temporary success of party governments for its action. It does not +even solely result from our unique position or our independence wrested +from Great Britain. Back of it lie the broad principles of British +liberty, of common law, of Magna Charta won from King John on the plains +of Runnymede. Back of it is the great wave of democracy arising out of +the darkness of the Middle Ages. Back of it are the injunctions of Him +of Galilee who taught the natural law as no man ever taught before. Back +of it is Roman jurisprudence and Greek art and culture and the early +efforts of the days when Cadmus brought the alphabet to Europe with his +Phœnician colony. Indeed, back of it lies the primeval impulse of the +first man, God-endowed, ape-descended, who stood upon his feet and began +to think. We may carry our thoughts still further to the times when the +red sunlight first filtered through the thick clouds upon an uninhabited +world, and still further may we go in thought into the ages of eternity, +and assert with fullest confidence that the principles of progress to-day +working themselves out in politics are but the reflection of the divine +ideals founded in the laws of nature. + +Can the course of such progress be turned back? Can we despair of the +future in the light of all the past? Is not the general movement onward +and upward? Will not the sneers at ephemeral phases of our American +politics pass away with the incidents which they justly condemn, while +the principles of progress remain forever? + + THOMAS B. PRESTON. + + + + +ARTIFICIAL SELECTION AND THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM.[7] + + +By artificial selection I mean all conscious and purposive arrangements +between men and women which have in view character of offspring. This is +opposed to natural selection which is merely instinctive unteleological +union with one of the opposite sex as impelled by animal passion or +romantic love. All sexual union among the lower animals is by natural +selection; they do not forecast consequences, and by conforming to +known laws determine consequences. Among the lower races of men natural +selection is the sole or at least dominant factor in marital matters, +but as civilisation advances artificial selection becomes a more and +more powerful element. A truly thoughtful and intelligent man in our +day in view of marriage will most carefully consider his own life +history and that of his parents and ancestors, and also that of his +intended partner and her ancestors, as to physical or mental disease, +which might be handed down to the issue of the proposed union. He +would not, for instance, marry into a family which has a tendency to +consumption or insanity, for this would be a crime against his possible +descendants. Further, this growth of artificial selection with the +progress of society is manifest not only as regards individual action but +by state regulation. Even in barbarous states it soon becomes evident +to the leaders that if strong healthy men are to be had to defend and +maintain the nation, strict attention must be paid to the character of +those who marry. In Sparta and other ancient states this principle was +recognised, and modern governments seek in many more or less indirect +ways to encourage marriage between the most fit, so that good citizens +and warriors may be raised up to serve the state. All this regulation +of marriage by either individual or state action which looks to the +character of offspring I term artificial selection. + +In the evolution of man as a rational animal artificial selection will +more and more prevail, and human breeding will become a well defined +art. Man is always artificial,[8] and it is his goal to become in all +his life unnatural and thoroughly artful. There can ultimately be no +_laissez-faire_ policy as to marriage or any other institution. The +history of marriage is the history of the gradual retirement of natural +selection; but art has come in here more slowly than in other relations +of life owing to tremendous conservatism and the power of human passion. +But the time has now come when man must more than ever before attend by +artificial selection—that is, purposed care—to the perpetuation of the +species in the line of its true advancement, spiritual achievement. I do +not now see how the necessity of artificial selection can be gainsaid by +any one who takes a broad view of the evolution of the race. + +The methods of artificial selection are either negative, which restrain +the unfit from propagating, or positive, which encourage the fit to +propagate. The most radical negative method is mutilation, and is +employed by man with the lower animals and with slaves, but this +plan could hardly be used by civilised society for human breeding. +Imprisonment temporarily restrains some classes of society from +perpetuating themselves. Prevention of conception is at present mostly +a voluntary means, but accomplishes the elimination of both fit and +unfit. Celibacy of monk and nun, of bachelor and maid, works also in both +directions. In many indirect ways society discourages from marriage those +whom it supposes to be unfit as tested by wealth, rank, or birth. + +It is not, however, so much by the extension of any negative methods, but +rather by positive means that artificial selection may be best employed. +I will mention three forms by which human breeding might be materially +advanced. + +By common law and custom the wife surrenders herself physically to submit +and morally to obey the husband. This is not for the most part harshly +and literally carried out in civilised countries; still there is a vast +deal of oppression which is hidden from all eyes, and which is often +passively received by women as her rightful lot. This again is a subject +upon which delicacy—perhaps unwise—forbids free discussion, but its +bearing is manifest. If women have the choice to bear or not to bear, and +she with educated conscience choose by fitness of offspring, a large and +powerful element of artificial selection may be introduced. Again all +governments have laws concerning marriage which act in general toward +encouraging the fit. Certain conditions as to age, etc., being fulfilled, +the state grants a marriage licence, and public opinion might easily be +led to make the requirements more stringent. As a physician has suggested +to me a certificate of health from an approved medical examiner might +be required of all applicants for legal marriage. This would certainly +be a strong measure of artificial selection, and would save much misery +springing from ignorance and vice. It surely seems scarcely fitting that +those who cannot pass an examination for life insurance freely contract +marriage with view to issue. + +But the plan of artificial selection which seems to me most feasible at +the present time would be voluntary associations of men and women who +bind themselves to learn and apply the laws of heredity in their marriage +relations, to seek for expert guidance, and in all their life to live not +merely purely, but according to reason and science. Heredity societies +of this stamp which should favor marriages only between members would +ultimately become a rational aristocracy, and true and good blood would +be perpetuated in the best manner. There is much, indeed, to be done in +the science of heredity, especially as regards laws of transmission of +mental and moral qualities,[9] but still we have even now a sufficient +basis of knowledge to make the experiment well worth trying. + +Many objections can be raised to such schemes. For instance, it will +be said that they might assure us of obtaining men of talent, but we +should forever lose men of genius. If such societies were in, vogue in +the Elizabethan period, we might never have had a Shakespeare. What +likelihood that a scientific expert would advise the marriage of John +Shakespeare and Mary Arden! I answer that we should have had a dozen +Shakespeares instead of one. The law of the production of geniuses is +not beyond human ken. Maud S. is truly a genius in horseflesh, but +she came into the world in no fortuitous or instinctive way, but by +scientific breeding. The applicability of similar foresight in breeding +men would produce geniuses in abundance. It may not be accomplished in an +exactly analogous manner, an expert leading around eminent men to “make +the season,” but the analogous practical results will nevertheless be +obtained. + +Another objection which might be urged is that any such scheme would +seriously diminish population. True; but what thoughtful man applies +the numerical test to the progress of the race! It is not quantity of +citizens but quality, which constitutes the true greatness of states. The +counting of heads instead of what is in heads, is a mistake into which +democracies are peculiarly apt to fall. Were all men exactly equal a +census would be a true test, but considering the tremendous inequalities +in humanity it is sheer folly for a country to glory in the number of its +adherents, or a sect in the number of its adherents, or a city in the +number of its citizens. Civilisations are weighed down and ultimately +crushed by the dead weight of the masses. The barbarian is not without +but within the civilisation. By recent inquiries in New York and Chicago +the slums appear to be five times as prolific as the most aristocratic +portions; and while good may come from the lowest born, and bad from the +highest born, still the chances are decidedly in favor of the high born. +A few rise above the level of their birth, a few sink below it, but the +great majority of men remain for their lives on the general level of +society in which they were born. The United States would be a greater +nation with 10,000,000 choice inhabitants than with ten times 10,000,000 +of the ill bred and low bred. Athens by the vulgar test of numbers was +but a small and mean city, but in true greatness as revealed in far +reaching spiritual power, she stands in the very forefront. + +Again it will be objected that scientific schemes for human breeding +would inevitably destroy that beautiful flower of Christian civilisation, +the poetry and romance of love. Sentiment and chivalry would wither, and +brutality and cold calculation would supplant all tender and refined +emotion. I should answer that the true refinement which refuses to +obtrude the things of sense, and true purity which refuses to dwell on +them salaciously, are perfectly compatible with the fullest knowledge +and the consequent action. Lubricity breeds best upon a half knowledge +acquired in dubious ways. A serious practical scientific treatment of +this subject will not glorify the flesh with the fierce gusto of Walt +Whitman, nor, with the Zola school, dwell upon animalism with the morbid +detail of a heated imagination; but it will bring into the clearest light +the laws of sex and the rules for the development of the human race into +the perfect man. These laws of nature, which science reveals, are laws of +duty and laws of God, and when once appropriated as such by Ethics and +Religion, they will become the basis for all that is high in emotion and +chivalrous in action. + +In that most vital of matters, human breeding, man is far behind his +progress in all other spheres of action; but here as elsewhere Science +must enter, not to destroy but to fulfil, to build up manhood and +womanhood into the perfected relations which can only come from rational +action, illuminated by complete knowledge, and sanctioned by noblest +sentiment. + + HIRAM M. STANLEY. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] In an article in _The Arena_ for June, 1890, I endeavored to plainly +set forth the renewal of society from its lowest elements as the +greatest disease in our social life, and to show that the remedy lies +in a thorough application of science to human breeding. Just how this +application was to be made I did not state, for I did not include this +in the scope of my discussion. Mr. Stead in his _Review of Reviews_ for +July, 1890, and Mr. Wallace in the September _Fortnightly Review_ and +October _Popular Science Monthly_, 1890, have drawn inferences on this +point which I am not prepared to allow. Mr. Stead speaks in headlines and +in text of “murder, mutilation, or imprisonment” as the methods which I +hint at, and Mr. Wallace remarks upon my views “that such interference +with personal freedom in matters so deeply affecting individual happiness +will never be adopted by the majority of any nation, or if adopted would +never be submitted to by the minority without a life-and-death struggle.” +It seems incumbent then on me to state more clearly what I understand +by artificial selection, and what forms of it are most expedient at the +present time. + +[8] By artificial I understand not what is unnatural or against nature +but that which is after conscious deliberation more in accord with the +laws of nature. It is a higher degree of the natural. + +[9] See my remarks on this point in _Nature_, Oct. 31, 1889. + + + + +THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. + + +I have read with interest Prof. Max Müller’s paper on the above subject +in the current issue of _The Monist_, not only because it is in large +part devoted to a consideration of my own work on “Mental Evolution,” +but still more because the explanations which it supplies touching +certain points of disagreement between us appear to show that I have +not misrepresented his statements, even if, as he alleges, I have +misapprehended his meanings. + +The work to which allusion has just been made was published in 1888, and, +as far as I am aware, it is only now that Prof. Max Müller has sought to +meet my views as there expressed. Hence we may take it that his answer +is, at all events, well matured. Furthermore, we may take it, from the +tone in which his answer is conveyed, that he credits me with having had +at least an honest desire to understand, and accurately to represent, +his meaning in all the places where I have ventured to criticise it. It +appears, however, that at all events in one important respect I have +betrayed “a complete misapprehension” of his meaning—viz. with reference +to his “theory of the origin of roots” (_The Monist_, p. 582); and it is +for the purpose of correcting this misapprehension that he has published +the latter half of his present paper. My reply, therefore, must take +the form of excusing myself for the complete misapprehensions which are +alleged. + +It is desirable at the outset to emphasise a distinction which I was +careful to draw in my work on “Mental Evolution in Man”—that, namely, +between philology and philosophy. A man may be an excellent authority on +the “Science of Language,” and yet but a very indifferent writer on the +“Science of Thought.” On the other hand, a man may know nothing at first +hand touching the special province of a philologist, and nevertheless +be fully capable of criticising what a philologist has published in the +way of theoretical deductions from his facts—especially where these +deductions quit the sphere of philology, and soar into that of Darwinian, +or anti-Darwinian, speculation. This distinction, indeed, between the +particular science of philology and the general scope of philosophy, +Prof. Max Müller himself recognises where he says: “While the student +of language seems to me to have a perfect right to treat the roots of +language as ultimate facts, it is difficult for the philosopher not to +look beyond.” (_The Monist_, p. 579.) Nevertheless he complains of me +because, while accepting all his philological facts upon his authority +as a philologist (save in so far as they are not accepted by other +philologists), I have been obliged to express dissent from not a few +of his theoretical deductions—especially, as I have already indicated, +where these have reference to the general doctrine of evolution as +applied to the mind of man. But how, I may ask, could a treatise be +written on “Mental Evolution in Man,” or “The Origin of Human Faculty,” +without considering the results which have been gained by the science +of comparative philology? Or how can it be maintained that, in order to +deal with these results in relation to the general theory of descent, a +writer must first of all himself become an authority in that particular +science? At any rate, I deemed it enough for the only purposes which I +had in view, to read attentively all the leading authorities in this +science, and, after extracting from them the information upon matters of +fact which their researches had established, to show what I regarded as +the bearing of these facts upon the theory of mental evolution. Nor can I +plead guilty to the charge of arrogant presumption, which the following +words appear to convey: + + “We see in his case how dangerous it is for a man who can claim + to speak with authority on his own special subject, to venture + to speak with authority on subjects not his own. Professor + Romanes has, no doubt, read several books on philology and + philosophy, but he is not sufficiently master of his subject to + have the slightest right to speak of men like Noiré, Huxley, + Herbert Spencer, to say nothing of Hobbes, with an air of + superiority. That is entirely out of place.” (_The Monist_, p. + 383.) + +Now that any such “air of superiority” occurs in my book, I must deny—and +this is a matter of fact. Noiré is alluded to only with reference to +his theory of the origin of language, which I go further in accepting +than does any “philosopher” or “philologist,” with the single exception +of Prof. Max Müller himself. Huxley is mentioned in several places as a +leading authority on anatomical matters, where my argument requires an +authoritative statement upon them. Herbert Spencer, curiously enough, +is never mentioned at all; while Hobbes is named only once, and then as +sustaining, by a “shrewd analysis,” an opinion which I am advocating by +quotations from recognised authorities in philosophy. Truly, therefore, +it would be well for my critic “to say nothing of Hobbes”; and better +still if he had looked at my index before condemning my supposed +treatment of Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and Noiré. As it is, his allusion +to these names “is entirely out of place.” + +But even apart from this particularly unfortunate allusion, his more +general charge as to my “venturing to speak authoritatively on subjects +not his [my] own,” is equally out of place. The following is my +introduction to the chapter on Comparative Philology, and I cannot see +that it betokens any “air of superiority”: + + “In now turning to this important branch of my subject, I may + remark, _in limine_, that, like all the sciences, philology can + be cultivated only by those who devote themselves specially + to the purpose. My function, therefore, will here be that + of merely putting together the main results of philological + research, so far as this has hitherto proceeded, and so far + as these results appear to me to have any bearing upon the + ‘origin of human faculty.’ Being thus myself obliged to rely + upon authority, where I find that authorities are in conflict, + I will either avoid the points of disagreement, or else state + what has to be said on both sides of the question. But where + I find that all competent authorities are in substantial + agreement, I will not burden my exposition by tautological + quotations.” + + * * * * * + +Having thus disposed of a merely personal matter, I may pass on to my +justification of the “complete misapprehension” into which I have fallen +with respect to Prof. Max Müller’s work on the “Science of Thought.” + +In the first place he tells us: + + “On page 267 Mr. Romanes says that I profess, as a result of + more recent researches, to have reduced the number of Sanskrit + roots to 121. I wish I had. But the number of roots in Sanskrit + stands as yet at about 800: the number 121 of which he speaks + is the number of concepts expressed by these roots, many of + them conveying the same, or nearly the same, idea.” (_The + Monist_, p. 583.) + +Now it is quite true that on page 267 I made the statement which is here +challenged; but as I immediately go on to speak repeatedly of the “number +121” as being “the number of concepts expressed by the roots,”—and +actually quote at length the whole 121 concepts with Prof. Max Müller’s +own heading,—I am not sure that the point is worth the stress which is +now laid upon it. Nevertheless, I may explain why in this one passage +I used the word “roots,” instead of the word “concepts.” Briefly, the +only reason was because, according to Prof. Max Müller’s theory of +the origin of roots, it seemed to me virtually the same thing, from +a psychological point of view, whether we speak of the reduction in +question as pertaining to roots or to concepts. For, according to the +theory, “every root embodies a concept,” or is the obverse side of a +concept. Consequently, if the Sanskrit language presents some 800 roots, +while it is expressive of only 121 concepts, the balance of the 800 roots +must be concerned in conveying the same, or nearly the same, ideas—as +Prof. Max Müller himself expressly asserts in the above quotation from +_The Monist_. Indeed, the whole object of his psychological analysis of +linguistic roots was to prove that such is the case; and, therefore, that +the 121 roots which serve to convey the 121 concepts are the only roots +required for the purposes of communication in Sanskrit speech. No doubt +it would have been better if I had stated all this in my book; but even +if its omission led to obscurity, I can scarcely see that on this account +there could have been a “misrepresentation” where there was certainly +no “misapprehension.” For, as already stated, I spoke of “121 roots” +only once, while I alluded to “121 concepts” many times—and usually, +moreover, in inverted commas. Lastly, it may be observed that, following +his theory concerning the “origin of roots,” Prof. Max Müller himself +so far identifies roots with concepts as to head one of his lists, in +large capitals—ROOTS OR CONCEPTS. Therefore in saying that he professed +to have reduced the psychologically efficient elements of Sanskrit speech +to 121 constituents, it did not appear to me that I was departing from +his own terminology when in one passage I spoke of these 121 constituents +as roots, while everywhere else I spoke of them as concepts. “Give us,” +he says, “about 800 roots, and we can explain the largest dictionary; +give us about 121 concepts, and we can account for the 800 roots.” +(“Science of Thought,” p. 551.) Well, if this is so, the 800 roots (i. e. +phonetically separable elements) have been reduced to the 121 “concepts +or roots” (i. e. psychologically separable elements). My critic cannot +both have his cake and eat it. Either he must abide by the philological +meaning of a root, as the ultimate result of philological analysis; or +else he must abide by his own philosophical meaning of a root, as the +embodiment of a concept. Under the former definition there will be about +800 roots of Sanskrit; under the latter definition, and according to his +analysis, there will be only 121. + + * * * * * + +The next point with regard to which “complete misapprehension” is alleged +may best be presented by my critic’s own words, thus: + + “Professor Romanes thinks it necessary to remark that ‘these + concepts do not represent the ideation of primitive man’! I + never said they did. I never pretended to be acquainted with + the ideation of primitive man. All I maintained was that, + making allowance for obscure words, every thought, that of the + lowest savage as well as of the most minute philosopher, can be + expressed with these 800 roots, and traced back to these 121 + concepts.” (_The Monist_, p. 584.) + +Now, it is perhaps needless to say, I am extremely glad to learn that +such was the meaning intended; but I trust that the following quotations +will furnish a sufficient excuse for my misunderstanding of it: + + “I hope that those who will carefully examine the results + at which I have arrived, will admit that they prove by + overwhelming evidence that the meanings of roots are really + what we expected them to be, and that they express the + primitive social acts of primitive social man, and the states + more or less closely associated with such acts.” (“Science of + Thought,” p. 403.) + +From this it appears that if Prof. Max Müller never professed to be +acquainted with the ideation of _primitive_ man, he did profess to have +proved, by overwhelming evidence, a very large acquaintance, not only +with the ideation, but also with primitive acts of primitive _social_ +man. Possibly his acquaintance with both these matters is very much +more intimate than mine; but as I have always taken it to be virtually +certain that “primitive man” was “social” in his habits, I should like +to learn the reasons which have induced my critic to believe in a still +more “primitive man,” who was addicted to a solitary mode of life. For, +otherwise, the only distinction on which his criticism appears to rest is +a distinction without a difference. + +Again he says: + + “The Science of Thought assures us that every thought that ever + crossed the mind of man can be traced back to about 121 simple + concepts.” (Ibid., p. 418.) + +And that the word “man” here is not intended tacitly to exclude +“primitive man” (whether “social” or solitary), I gathered from the fact +of the 121 concepts in question being tabulated under the heading, in +large capitals, THE 121 ORIGINAL CONCEPTS. For, if the word “original” +here was intended to mean original only with reference to the Sanskrit +language, why did the writer follow it up with his statement about the +Science of Thought, assuring us that _every_ thought which had _ever_ +crossed the mind of _man_ could be _traced back_ to these 121 original +concepts? + +Lastly, not only by such particular passages was I led to suppose that +the writer was referring to “primitive man” when he was writing about +“primitive social man,” etc.; but still more was I led to suppose this +by the whole drift and tenor of his work. For what would be the sense +of all his disquisitions upon the importance of linguistic science in +its relation to the theory of evolution, if he intended to restrict his +inferences to the _semi-civilised_ condition of man, which (as he allows) +must have been the condition of the speakers of Sanskrit? Clearly, if +this were his intention, there would have been _no_ sense in all these +disquisitions; and therefore, here again, my critic cannot both preserve +his cake and consume it. Either let him adopt the position which he +takes up in _The Monist_, as a philologist pure and simple, who “never +pretended to be acquainted with the ideation of primitive man,” who +refuses to go beyond the “facts” of the “Science of Language,” or to +speculate upon their theoretical relations to the “Science of Thought”: +or else let him do as he does in his published works—superimpose upon his +functions as a “Student of Language” the functions of a “Philosopher,” +freely speculate upon “the origin of roots,” elaborately argue the whole +psychology of “concepts,” and strenuously endeavor to show that “language +is the Rubicon of mind,” which not only now, but at all times, has +separated man from the lower animals, as a being mysterious in origin, if +not unique in kind. + + * * * * * + +Next we are told: + + “Professor Romanes dwells on what he calls the interesting + feature of all roots being verbs. This is simply a + contradiction in terms. In giving the meaning of roots scholars + generally employ the infinitive or the participle, “to go,” + or “going”; but they have stated again and again that a root + ceases to be a root as soon as it is used in a sentence.” (_The + Monist_, p. 584.) + +Now, by a “verb” I understand a word that signifies either an action or a +state; and by a “root” I understand—here agreeing with Prof. Max Müller +himself—“an element of human speech,” so far as this has been hitherto +reduced by philological analysis. Again, I hold—in this also agreeing +with him—that “as soon as a root is used for predication it becomes a +word, whether outwardly it is changed or not.” (“Science of Thought,” p. +440.) Well, if we are agreed upon these points, I do not see how there +can be any “contradiction in terms” when I stated the fact “of all roots +being verbs.” + +In the first place, if one were to agree with Prof. Max Müller himself +in holding that originally every root was “something real, something +that was actually used in conversation” (Ibid. p. 420), there can be no +contradiction in terms if we translate this into saying that originally +every root was a word—for the mere quibble that not until it was spoken +did the root become a word does not affect the matter, any more than if +we were to say the same of any word now in use, which has given birth to +a progeny of other words. But even if we disagree with Prof. Max Müller, +and suppose that roots are merely “phonetic elements,” or the residual +extract of a group of originally allied words, we should still be correct +in saying that the “concepts” which they “embody” are all concepts which +now admit of being expressed in equivalent words. + +So much for the “contradiction in terms,” which is alleged to arise if we +speak of roots as _words_. Touching the second point, or the accuracy of +saying that the words which roots express are always _verbs_, my defence +is sufficiently easy. For to say, as my critic says, that “in giving +the meaning of roots scholars generally employ the infinitive or the +participle,” appears to me a most unphilosophical observation, since it +appears to indicate that in the opinion of its writer the significance +of a verb is but conventionally given to a root by the verbal form into +which it is thrown by scholars. But the fact is that, even if they tried, +scholars could rarely deprive a root of its significance as a verb, no +matter into what verbal form they might choose to throw it. Take any root +at random, such as HA _to go_. However much we may ring the changes, as +“to go,” “going,” “goer,” it is impossible to get rid of the fundamental +significance of the root as a verb. And although it is, of course, +possible to select a root which presents a more equivocal interpretation, +the cases in which this can be done are, comparatively speaking, not +numerous, and apparently never such as to exclude the probability of its +having primarily conveyed the force of a verb. For instance, HUR _to +fall_, may be regarded either as a verb or a noun-substantive; but we +cannot say that there is anything to render more probable the view of +the root having been originally expressive of a fall than of the act of +falling; and inasmuch as there do not appear to be any roots which _can_ +only have originally had the force of nouns or adjectives, while there +are so many which _can_ only have originally had the force of verbs, +we may fairly conclude that in the accidentally more equivocal cases +the roots were likewise originally expressive of actions or of states. +For, if not, why are there not as many roots which convey such meanings +as _sky_, or _blue_ (which never can have had equivalents in the forms +of verbs), as there are roots like HA, where we cannot doubt that the +meaning from the first must have been the meaning of a verb? + +I am the more surprised at this head of Prof. Max Müller’s criticism, +because it belongs to the very essence of his own theory touching “the +origin of roots,” that they _must_ all originally have conveyed the +meaning of verbs. Therefore from end to end of his own book he constantly +alludes to roots as expressive of “actions”; never as expressive of +objects or qualities. For instance: + + “All, or nearly all, the roots of Sanskrit, or rather of the + Aryan family in general, express, as we shall see, acts, and + more particularly the commonest acts performed by members of a + primitive society.” (“Science of Thought,” p. 272.) + +And even in _The Monist_ article itself the same thing is stated thus: + + “Let us remember that a most careful psychological analysis + had led Noiré to the conclusion that the germs of all + conceptional thought were to be found in the consciousness of + our own repeated acts. And let us place by the side of this, + the well-ascertained fact that the germs of all conceptional + language, what we call roots, express with few exceptions the + repeated acts of men.” (_The Monist_, p. 580.) + +Again: + + “We begin with the fact that the great bulk of a language + consists of words, derived, according to the strictest rules, + not from cries, but from articulate roots. No one denies this. + We follow this up with a second fact, that nearly all the roots + express acts of men. No one denies that.” (p. 588.) + +Very well then, I submit that the only real distinction between Prof. Max +Müller’s rendering of this “fact,” and my own rendering of it, consists +in my having added “states” to “acts,” and observing that then the +comparatively few outstanding roots may be included with the “nearly all” +under the one category of “verbs.” + +For the distinction which he draws in _The Monist_ is not a real +distinction: it is merely a verbal distinction. + +Here it is: + + “If Professor Romanes approves of my saying that roots stood + for any part of speech, just as the monosyllabic expressions + of children do, I can only say that, if I ever said so, I + expressed myself incorrectly. A root never stands for any part + of speech, because as soon as it is a part of speech it is no + longer a root.” (_The Monist_, p. 585.) + +This, as I have previously observed, is merely a quibble. If originally +every root was “something real, something used in conversation,” +originally all roots were _words_, in just the same sense as “the +monosyllabic expressions of children” are words. And if “nearly all these +roots express the acts of man,” while most (if not all) the outstanding +residuum were apparently expressive of states, it follows that the +roots in question were not only words, but _verbs_. And in stating this +“fact” I supposed that I was but following Prof. Max Müller’s statement +of it, where he constitutes it the philological basis of his theory on +the “origin of roots”—viz. that all roots sprang from sounds made by +“primitive social man” when engaged in their “social _acts_.” But, while +accepting this fact, I objected to the theory raised upon it, because +the latter did not consider that roots which originally had the force of +verbs must have been more likely to have survived, and so to have come +down to us, than those which may originally have had the significance +of any other parts of speech. And it was only in order to supply this +further consideration that I alluded to the “fact” at all. + + * * * * * + +We come next to some disparaging remarks upon “babies,” “parrots,” +and the lower animals generally (_The Monist_, pp. 586-7). Prof. Max +Müller “refuses to argue” with me, “or any other philosopher, either in +the nursery or the menagerie.” So be it. As a philologist, of course, +he is assuredly right; no one would expect him so to argue. But as a +philosopher, who has written a large book on the “Science of Thought,” he +is no less assuredly wrong. And one may be pardoned for wondering at this +intentionally ostrich-like attitude on the part of a philosopher—who is +“going beyond the origin of roots”—with respect to the fundamental germs +of the sign-making faculty. + +Again, my critic appears to imagine that I am a supporter of the +onomatopoetic theory—to the extent of regarding _all_ human language as +having originated in imitations of natural sounds. (_The Monist_, pp. +586-7.) But over and over again I have stated that this is not my view. +I believe, indeed, that there is a very large amount of truth in this +theory; but I deem it on all grounds most improbable that the principle +of imitation has been the _only_ principle concerned in the origin of +speech. I have argued that probably many other principles must have been +concerned, including the “synergastic” principle suggested by Noiré, and +enthusiastically adopted by my critic as alone sufficient to explain the +whole problem of the origin of speech—and this although it is clearly but +a particular branch of the general onomatopoetic theory. Hence, so far +as I am concerned, it does not signify one iota whether any given root +owed its origin to the principle of imitation, or to some other of the +general principles which I believe to have been concerned in the birth +of articulate language. And, if possible, still less does it signify +whether or not in the development of any given word, such as “thunder,” +the original root-sound has been afterwards imitatively modified, “from a +feeling that it should be so.” These matters are no doubt of importance +within the four corners of philology; but in relation to the “biological +theory” of descent they present no importance at all. + +Yet I am told: + + “Those who cannot see the difference between a man, or for all + that, between a mocking-bird, saying _Cuckoo_, and a whole + community fixing on the sound of TAN, as differentiated by + various suffixes and prefixes, and expressing the concept + of stretching in such words as _tonos_, _tone_, _tonitru_, + _thunder_, _tanu_, _tenuis_, _thin_, should not meddle with the + Science of Language.” (_The Monist_, pp. 588-9.) + +Doubtless. But as no word of this applies to me, I may be permitted to +observe that if any one who has read my book can possibly suppose that it +does, he should not meddle with the Science of Thought. + + * * * * * + +In conclusion, if it be the case that I have completely misapprehended +Prof. Max Müller with regard to the points which he has mentioned,—and +all of which I have now considered,—have I not furnished sufficient +justification? Even now I cannot see in what respects it is possible +to amend any subsequent edition of my book, so as to correct the +misapprehensions which are alleged. But although my “mistakes” are thus +far from “clear,” I am glad to have had this opportunity of publicly +discussing them with Prof. Max Müller, if only for the sake of adding the +following remarks. + +Be it observed, in the first place, that whatever may be thought of the +foregoing “justification,”—whether it be held that the misapprehensions +are due to ambiguity on the one side or to obtuseness on the other,—at +least it is certain that the misapprehensions complained of all have +reference to points of no importance whatsoever as regards the general +theory of descent, even although some of them are not altogether +without importance as regards the particular science of philology. Thus +it is quite immaterial, so far as the doctrine of _Mental Evolution_ +is concerned, whether we say that the roots of Sanskrit are 800, +philologically speaking, or 121, psychologically speaking. Again, as +soon as it is explained by Prof. Max Müller that by his “121 original +concepts” he means the number of concepts “original” only as regards +the Sanskrit language; that by “primitive social man” he means only the +semi-civilised progenitors of the Indo-European race; that by “every +thought that ever crossed the mind of man” admitting of being “traced +back to about 121 simple concepts,” he means no more than that such is +the case as regards the recent and highly evolved Aryan branch of the +human species;—when once all this is explained, it becomes evident that +thus far there _can_ be no difference of opinion between us. For in that +case he is not dealing with “the Origin of Human Faculty,” either in +regard to language or to thought: he is considering merely the higher +inflorescence of both. Once more, whether all, or nearly all, the roots +of Sanskrit can properly be called _words_, and, if so, whether we must +not go still further and call them _verbs_,—these are questions of +mere terminology. If the roots were originally “used in conversation,” +and if, as thus used, they were, with but few doubtful exceptions, all +expressive of “acts” or “states,” it becomes mere verbal hair-splitting +to challenge the propriety of saying that the roots were originally +verbs. At all events, the matter has nothing to do with the general +question of man’s derivative origin. Lastly, the same has to be said of +the purely philological question as to how far the principle of imitation +has obtained in the first formation of these archaic “words,” or “roots.” +For, archaic though they be in a philological sense, in a phylological +sense they are things of yesterday, and so can scarcely be said to have +any direct relation at all to “the origin of speech,” or the rise of +articulate sign-making. This has to be inferred from observations in +the “menagerie,” as distinguished from research in the library; and the +fact that Prof. Max Müller expressly refuses to give me the pleasure of +his company where the best materials for studying the really “primitive” +condition of the sign-making faculty are to be met with, merely renders +more impossible than ever any real collision between his linguistic +studies on the one side, and my “biological theory” on the other. + +But although it thus appears sufficiently evident that my +“misapprehensions” of his linguistic conclusions are as unimportant +in relation to the theory of descent as they are few—and, I think, +also excusable—in themselves, it is impossible to doubt that far below +the level of Sanskrit roots, and far beyond the range of philological +science, there is a wide difference of opinion between us. For when he +passes from the “Science of Language” to the “Science of Thought,”—when +he quits his sphere as a philologist to enter that of the philosopher,—he +persistently and consistently affirms that what he calls “the old barrier +between man and beast” remains, and that he is as yet unable to perceive +how it can ever be removed. This barrier of course is predicative +language—the obverse side of conceptional thought; and the firm opinion +thus expressed by so eminent a philologist is not only of weight _per +se_, but is rendered more so on account of the manifest freedom from +prejudice with which it is associated. It is on this account that I +devoted so much space in my book on “Mental Evolution” to a consideration +of his views; and therefore I am sorry that his present reply has not +been directed to meeting my criticisms on this really important matter +of philosophical doctrine, rather than to indicating “misapprehensions” +with regard to such merely trivial matters of a purely philological kind +as those which I have here been dealing with. But perhaps at some future +time he may give me the benefit of his criticism upon my work as a whole, +or not merely on the fringes of such details as really have no bearing on +the objects of that work. + +And, if he should ever see his way to doing this, I am quite sure that +the discussion would be one of a friendly character. For the points +at issue would all have reference to that large and vague domain of +speculative theory touching “the origin of human faculty,” where it is +inevitable—and, in my judgment, even desirable—that wide differences of +opinion should obtain. We are but at the commencement of a great and +obscure problem, which only in our own generation has been presented by +the science of biology to the contemplation of philosophy. Therefore it +would be folly indeed if any man were to regard his own opinions upon it +as other than provisional—and even more foolish if he were to introduce +any “_meum_ and _tuum_ into these discussions.” + +Thus I invite Prof. Max Müller to state the grounds of his assertion in +_The Monist_, that “all the facts of real language are against” me as +an advocate of what he calls the biological theory of the developmental +origin of man. This theory, he says, “derives no support whatever from +the Science of Language.” I believe, on the other hand, that these are +wholly unwarranted statements; and that the Science of Language does +support the theory in question to as high a degree as is possible from +the nature of the case. On account of this great difference of opinion, I +felt, when writing my book, that I should be doing but scant justice to +the matured judgment of so eminent a philologist if I did not carefully +consider all that he had written upon the subject. And so, as I have +said, I devoted more of my book to a consideration of his views than to +those of any other philologist; and while accepting his scientific facts +on his authority as a philologist, I nevertheless felt it incumbent on me +to show why his philosophical deductions, where they had reference to the +theory of descent, appeared to me by no means of equivalent value. This +distinction, as I observed at the commencement of the present article, is +surely a legitimate distinction; and I should be sorry indeed if anything +that I have ever said can appear inconsistent with the genuine admiration +which is due to Prof. Max Müller as “a student of language,” or with the +no less genuine esteem which I have the best reason for knowing is due to +him as a friend. + + GEORGE J. ROMANES. + + + + +THE CONTINUITY OF EVOLUTION. + +THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE VERSUS THE SCIENCE OF LIFE, AS REPRESENTED BY +PROF. F. MAX MÜLLER AND PROF. GEORGE JOHN ROMANES. + + +All the sciences form, or at least ought to form, one great system, +culminating in the science of sciences. Therefore it is more than +doubtful how any science could exist without being somehow in contact +with other sciences; and all of them must stand in some relation to +philosophy. It is necessary that each science should develop in relative +independence of the other sciences. We cannot expect to decide, for +instance, chemical problems by physical or purely mechanical laws +before we have carefully searched the nature and conditions of chemical +processes. But as soon as this has been done we can expect that a +comparison between the results of two or more sciences will throw new +light upon the subject-matter on both sides. Solomon says: “To everything +there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Thus the +sciences have to grow, each one on its own grounds, and when they have +reached a certain state of maturity, they will coalesce with each other. +And two sciences will by their coalescence fertilise the one the other so +as to produce a new department which may by and by develop into a special +science. + +Now it appears to the uninitiated as if the spiritual world of science +were in every respect different from the world of objective realities +around us. While in the world of bodily realities the struggle for +existence is fought eternal peace is supposed to reign in the sacred +halls of intellectual aspirations. Says the German poet: + + “_Härt in dem Raume stossen sich die Körper,_ + _Leicht bei einander wohnen die Gedanken._” + +This is true only in a very limited sense. Ideas are the most intolerant +beings imaginable. The struggle for existence is raging as fiercely in +the intellectual realm as in the world of realities, and there also the +law that the fittest will survive holds good. + +Far be it from us to denounce this state of general warfare, for although +it is hard on those who succumb, it is the means by which evolution +becomes possible; and evolution in the domain of science means a nearer +approach to truth. If in the evolution of thought two neighboring +sciences have developed so far as to meet, a struggle will ensue. The +ideas on the two sides will have to fight before they coalesce. It +is natural that different scientists look at things from different +standpoints. They have developed a terminology which exactly suits their +purpose and thus the representatives of the different sciences are often +like people of a different nationality. They do not understand each +other because they speak different languages. Moreover they have not +unfrequently a different religion; that means, their ideas about truth +and the test of truth appear to be different and sometimes they regard +one another as no better than heathens. The battle is unavoidable, +and considering all in all, the battle is desirable, it should not be +avoided. The fittest to survive being the truest, the whole progress of +science through the struggle for existence among ideas consists in the +approach to truth. + +It may be objected that there are peacemakers who will reconcile the +contending parties. True. And it is further true that the aim of every +war is peace. But a peacemaker can be successful only if his mind is +broad enough to let the whole battle be fought out within himself. +The battle itself is and will remain unavoidable. Idea stands against +idea, and the mental process of reflection is nothing but a struggle of +conflicting ideas which takes place in one and the same mind. The aim of +all reflection is the settlement of the conflict, so that all ideas will +agree. The two parties disappear in one; errors are given up, and that +which is consistent only will remain. In other words Dualism makes room +for Monism. + +It is a good sign of the times that a battle has begun to rage between +the so-called natural sciences and the science of language. The old +Hegelian distinction between the _Geisteswissenschaften_ and the +_Naturwissenschaften_ has been surrendered; and Prof. F. Max Müller was +among the foremost to inculcate the truth that philology is a natural +science. If philology is a natural science it cannot be but that its +subject of investigation is a part of nature and as such it stands in +close relation to other parts of nature. One and the same thing may +be the subject of investigation of different sciences. One and the +same plant may be an object of observation to the physiologist, to the +botanist, to the druggist, to the physician, and to the chemist. Their +standpoints and their purposes being different, they will bring to light +very different results, and if these results are contradictory among each +other the conflict is at hand. It cannot be shirked but must be decided +by an honest and square fight. We have witnessed of late a conflict +between philology and anthropology concerning the origin of the Aryas +and it looks as if this conflict will contribute much to promote our +knowledge of the oldest history of mankind, although the last word has +not as yet been spoken: _adhuc sub judice lis est_. + +We are now confronted with a conflict between Philology and Biology. The +first skirmishes have been fought by two men who are entitled to speak, +each one in behalf of his science. Prof. F. Max Müller stands up for +philology and Prof. George John Romanes for biology. + +Professor Romanes takes it for granted that the rational mind of man has +developed gradually from the lower stage of the brute. He says in his +book “Mental Evolution in Man,” p. 276: + + “The whole object of these chapters has been to show, that on + psychological grounds it is abundantly intelligible how the + conceptual stage of ideation may have been gradually evolved + from the receptual—the power of forming general, or truly + conceptual ideas, from the power of forming particular and + generic ideas. But if it could be shown—or even rendered in any + degree presumable—that this distinctly human power of forming + truly general ideas arose _de novo_ with the first birth of + articulate speech, assuredly my whole analysis would be + destroyed: the human mind would be shown to present a quality + different in origin—and, therefore, in kind—from all the + lower orders of intelligence: the law of continuity would be + interrupted at the terminal phase: an impassable gulf would be + fixed between the brute and the man.” + +And Prof. Max Müller criticises the position of Professor Romanes in an +article on Thought and Language (_The Monist_, Vol. I. No. 4, p. 582); he +says: + + “My learned friend, Professor Romanes, labors to show that + there is an unbroken mental evolution from the lowest animal + to the highest man. But he sees very clearly and confesses + very honestly that the chief difficulty in this evolution is + language and all that language implies. He tries very hard to + remove that barrier between beast and man.... Professor Romanes + is, I believe, a most eminent biologist, and the mantle of + Darwin is said to have fallen on his shoulders. Far be it from + me to venture to criticise his biological facts. But we see in + his case how dangerous it is for a man who can claim to speak + with authority on his own special subject, to venture to speak + authoritatively on subjects not his own.” + +It is not at all my intention to appear on the battle-field as a +peacemaker between these two generals, or to settle the problems that +arise from the conflict between philology and biology. That will +be better done by the parties concerned, and I am rather inclined +to speak with Schiller when he thought of the struggle between the +transcendentalist philosopher and the empirical naturalist: + + “Enmity be between you! Your alliance would not be in time yet. + Though you may separate now, Truth will be found by your search.” + +I look forward with great interest to further discussions which will +bring out with more clearness the positions of both parties, and it is +not impossible that both parties as soon as they have better understood +each other, will agree much better than either of them expected. But +it may be permitted me to make a few comments upon a proposition that +is involved in this conflict, which, however, properly considered, is +neither of a philological nor a biological nature. This is the idea of +the continuity of evolution. Prof. Max Müller says somewhere that, if +a Darwinian means an evolutionist, he had been a Darwinian long before +Darwin. “How a student of the science of language,” he says, “can be +anything but an evolutionist is to me utterly unintelligible.” So there +is no doubt about his being an evolutionist as much as Professor Romanes. +But the question is, What means evolutionist? Is he an evolutionist who +believes in a piecemeal evolution interrupted here and there by acts of +special creation? In my conception of the term, an evolutionist believes +in evolution wherever there is life and this involves the wholesale +rejection of special-creation acts as well as of the idea that any being +or organism (the organism of language included) could ever have made its +appearance in full growth and maturity or that any phenomenon of life +could present a break in the continuity of evolution. + +The Greek myth tells us that the Goddess of Reason, the blue-eyed Pallas +Athene, was not born like other gods and mortals in the natural way of a +slow development. She jumped out of the head of Zeus full-armed in all +her beauty and gifted with the powers of her unusual accomplishments. +Is this myth true after all? Does the Logos of rational thought +present us with an instance in which the development process has been +interrupted? If so, we shall have to abandon the evolution theory as a +theory and return to the old-fashioned view of special-creation acts. +The difference between these two views is not of degree, but of kind. +He who accepts the principle of evolution as the law of life abandons +forever the idea of special and unconnected beginnings as much as that of +special-creation acts. He cannot with consistency believe in an evolution +with interruptions, for the theory of evolution is serviceable only if +evolution is conceived as continuous. Prof. Max Müller of course has a +right to define and use the word evolutionist as he sees fit, but if he +excludes continuity from the idea of evolution, we declare that he has +taken out the quintessence of its meaning and the core of its truth. + +Why this is so, we shall now briefly discuss. + +The evolution theory has been gradually developed by empirical +investigations and it owes its all but universal acceptance to the great +mass of _a posteriori_ evidence furnished by the natural sciences. It +rests nevertheless upon a better and safer foundation than isolated +instances of hap-hazard experience. Its foundation is quarried out of +another and more reliable material. The evolution theory rests upon the +ground of _a priori_ arguments. + +By _a priori_ we do not understand anything mysterious, but simply such +cognition as possesses universality and necessity. That cognition which +is in possession of universality and necessity is also called formal +cognition. The formal sciences (for instance arithmetic, mathematics, +pure logic, and pure mechanics) give us information about such truths as +are applicable, because they are purely formal, to the formal conditions +of anything and everything possible. Because we know _beforehand_ that +the purely formal laws will hold good under all conditions Kant called +their formulated theorems “a priori.” All the objections to the idea of +apriority made by John Stuart Mill and other empiricists are due to their +misinterpretation of the term.[10] + +Mr. Mill was mistaken when he thought Kant meant _a priori_ cognitions +were innate ideas which came to man from spheres unknown. The very first +sentence of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” proves that Kant knew of no +other knowledge than that which begins with experience. Kant says, “That +all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.” But our +knowledge consists of two elements, viz. the empirical and the formal. +The former bears always the character of the special and incidental, +the latter of the universal and necessary. The former is sensory, being +furnished by the senses, the latter is properly mental originating in and +with the action of the mind in dealing with sense-materials, in arranging +them and bringing them into certain relations. + +Formal knowledge is different in kind from empirical knowledge. The +rule “twice two is four” will hold good for all possible cases, but the +statement “A swan is white” does not hold good for all possible cases. +European swans as a rule are white, but Australian swans are black, and +for all we know, we might find swans that are blue, or red, or yellow. +Empirical knowledge is full of exceptions, formal knowledge is rigid, +there is no exception to any rule of formal knowledge. + +All formal knowledge has developed by degrees. The history of the +sciences, of mathematics, logic, arithmetic, and also of the natural +sciences furnishes sufficient evidence. The formal part of the natural +sciences, by Kant called _reine Naturwissenschaft_, consists of such +cognitions as the law of cause and effect and the law of the conservation +of matter and energy. The formulation of these laws has been accomplished +after much and careful empirical investigation. And it could not be +otherwise. The latter law was elaborated in its full clearness long after +Kant. The law of causality and the law of the conservation of matter +and energy are purely formal, they are not sense-impressions and do +not contain any sensory elements. They are general rules of universal +applicability which being rigidly universal and without exceptions are +necessary under all conditions. Before we make any experiment we can know +that they will hold good in the experiment. Indeed all our experimenting +is based upon the supposition that the law of causation holds good and +that there can be neither an increase nor a decrease of matter and energy. + +The mistake made by the so-called transcendentalists is this, that +they consider formal thought as having an independent existence, being +ready at hand before cognition is possible, while in fact it is a part +of cognition which at least in its germ is present in every actual +experience. + +The theory of evolution is not more and not less a formal principle +than the law of causation and the law of the conservation of matter and +energy. Indeed it is nothing but the same thing applied to a special +case. The theory of evolution is the principle of the conservation +of matter and energy applied to the province of life. The theory +of evolution denies the possibility of special acts of creation. +There cannot come something out of nothing. And the new creations +that actually originate daily before our eyes are not creations from +nothing, they are simply transformations. There was a time on earth in +which no living being existed, neither plant nor animal. How did life +originate? Our answer is, It did not originate out of nothing, but it +evolved. Non-organised matter organised. That non-organised matter must +contain the elementary conditions of organised life is a conclusion +which we cannot escape from our point of view; and which is fully and +satisfactorily corroborated by our daily experience that water, earth, +and air under the sun’s influence are changed into wheat; and wheat is +manufactured into the bread which nourishes man and sustains his life. +Non-organised particles of matter are constantly being organised in +living organisms and displace the worn-out materials in their tissues—not +one atom of the latter remaining for good in a healthy living body. + +The theory of evolution may be called an hypothesis, an assumption, a +presumption. But in that case we must say with Mill that the rule twice +two is four is also a mere assumption. The evidence for the latter is not +stronger than that for the former. Mill declares that after all twice two +might somewhere be five. Exactly so and not otherwise evolution might be +somewhere interrupted, so that something would originate out of nothing +instead of evolving from other things through transformation. + +Prof. Max Müller speaks very sarcastically about the speechless man, the +_homo alalus_ who is supposed to be the ancestor of the present man. He +says (l. c., p. 585): + + “Of the _Homo alalus_, the speechless progenitor of _Homo + sapiens_, with whom Professor Romanes seems so intimately + acquainted, students of human speech naturally know nothing.” + +Prof. Max Müller also condemns all efforts of approaching the problem +of the origin of language through observation of children and animals. +The former he calls “nursery philology” the latter “menagerie +psychology.” And it is certainly true that the problem of the origin +of language cannot be solved from observations of children or animals, +because the problem lies in another field. The problem is not how a +ready made language is transferred upon the growing mind of a baby +but how speechless beings developed into speaking beings. And all the +intelligence of clever animals is still very different from the rational +thought of man. This is true, but it is also true that good observations +of animal psychology and also of nursery philology will throw some light +upon the evolution of rational thought. + +Prof. Max Müller says: + + “How can we attempt to realise what passes within the mind of + an animal?... We can imagine anything we like about what passes + in the mind of an animal,—we can know absolutely nothing.” + +We are fully aware of the fact that the problem of the origin of language +is quite different from the problems of animal psychology. A solution of +the latter, which are extremely complex and difficult, would not help +us to solve the former. This being conceded we can nevertheless see +no reason why animal psychology should be condemned and given up as a +hopeless task. + +It is not true that “we can know absolutely nothing about what passes in +the mind of an animal.” It is true we cannot see the animals’ feelings +and thoughts, but we can see their actions which reveal their feelings +as much as and sometimes even plainer than the speech of our brother man +reveals his thoughts. Might we not say with the same reason, “We see only +the printed book of a scientist (which is an expression of his views as +much as the behavior of an animal is of its feelings) but we can know +absolutely nothing about what passes in the mind of that scientist. All +we can do is to judge from analogy”? And should we on that account give +up all reading and studying and also all arguing with others? + +Animal psychology is not only justified as a science, but we can even +hope that correct observations of animal intelligence will assist us +in correctly understanding the higher intelligence of human thought. +And “that some useful hints may be taken from watching children is not +denied” by Prof. Max Müller either, although this little concession +appears only in the shape of a short foot-note. The _homo alalus_ is by +no means a merely mythical figure, for according to the law of evolution +man must have developed out of a being lower than the present man. His +first ancestor must have been simple life-substance something like that +of the amœba. He must have passed through a long period in which he was +not capable of articulate speech. That we know nothing particular about +the _homo alalus_ is no proof against his existence. Moreover every +infant is an actual real _homo alalus_, a speechless man, or should we +according to Prof. Max Müller class our babies among the brutes? + +Prof. Max Müller says (_The Monist_, p. 585): + + “If, like Professor Romanes, we begin with the ‘immense + presumption that there has been no interruption in the + developmental process in the course of psychological history,’ + the protest of language counts for nothing; the very fact that + no animal has ever formed a language, is put aside simply as an + unfortunate accident.” + +The theory of evolution rightly understood is no presumption in the +usual sense of the word. It is no more a presumption than to say that +something cannot come from nothing. And what is “the protest of language” +which would disprove the continuity of evolution? That rational or human +thought is something _sui generis_, that it is different in kind and +not in degree from brute intelligence; that language is an impassable +barrier between man and brute, being the Rubicon which no other animal +has crossed. Very well. We agree entirely with all these propositions. +Human reason is different in kind from brute intelligence and human +reason has developed such as it is through language only. Nay reason is +language. Noiré is right when he says, Man thinks because he speaks. +But the Rubicon of language was not an absolutely impassable barrier. +The speechless ancestor of man, whether we call him _homo alalus_ or +anthropoid, or even man-ape, _has_ crossed it, and having crossed it he +became the Cæsar of the animal creation. + +Prof. Max Müller’s theory of the identity of language and thought[11] is +so valuable because it bridges the gap between the rational sphere of +man and the not-yet rational sphere of the brute creation. It explains +the origin of reason. The origin of reason in the world of living beings +is explained as soon as the origin of language is understood, for reason +develops with language and rational thought is nothing but rational +speech. If the origin of language were an unfathomable mystery, Prof. +Max Müller’s view of the identity of language and thought would lose all +practical importance. + +The proposition of the identity of language and thought is a very radical +idea; it is the fundamental idea of monism. In a more general form it +was first pronounced by Giordano Bruno, who says somewhere that, if we +could put the soul of a man into the organism of an animal, say of a +snake, it would cease to be a human soul and become the soul of a snake. +Speech would be changed into a hissing, in accordance with the snake’s +organs for uttering sounds. And in the same way all the feelings, all the +concepts, all the desires and inclinations—in short the whole psychical +life would be that of a snake. + +Thought is the soul of language. As there are no ghost-souls, so there +are no ghost-thoughts. And the soul is not something distinct from the +organism, it is the form of the organism. It happens in fairy-tales that +the Prince is transformed into a frog, but if a fairy could transform +a man into a frog, his soul would certainly also become a frog-soul. +Language is the visible organism of the invisible thought, and as is +language, exactly so is thought. + +The problem how language has developed was first answered by the +onomatopoetic theory, “the bow-wow theory” as Max Müller calls it. +Language was conceived as an echo of nature, as a reflex action that +takes place in a living and feeling being. Yet this theory had to be +abandoned, because an historical investigation of language proved that +words with very few exceptions were not imitations of external sounds. +Yet the spirit of investigation was not daunted by this defeat, and +the bow-wow theory reappeared in a modified form. Language was still +considered as a reflex action; however, it was conceived to be a reflex +which re-echoed the impressions of natural phenomena as they had affected +man. This was the exclamation theory which seeks the origin of language +in the “ohs and ahs,” the sighs and shouts of a feeling mind. Prof. Max +Müller calls this theory “the pooh-pooh theory.” This theory had also +to be discarded because it was in conflict with the actual facts of +the evolution of language. Next Noiré and Prof. Max Müller came with +their theory, called by Noiré “the synergastic theory,” which conceives +language as the expression of common work, also called by Noiré the Logos +theory, the sympathetic theory, and the causality theory. Prof. Max +Müller in order to forestall any deriders of this theory suggests calling +it “the yo-he-ho theory,” yo-he-ho being the sailors’ song when engaged +in some common work as hoisting or hauling. + +This yo-he-ho theory actually explains the origin of language, and it is, +so far as we can see, not in conflict with any historical or philological +facts. But in honor of the inventors of the onomatopoetic theory it must +be recognised that the main idea of the yo-he-ho theory is the same as +that of the bow-wow theory. The main idea is this: Language did not +originate in man’s mind out of itself in some mysterious way representing +a break in the continuity of evolution, but it is a certain reflex-action +of living and feeling beings taking place in consequence of external +stimuli. This reflex-action however is not direct, but indirect. It is +not that of a single being, it is the reflex-action of a whole society, +engaged in common work. It developed in consequence of their common +activity and through their want of intercommunication. + + * * * * * + +Prof. Max Müller charges against the evolutionist, that “the very fact +that no animal has ever formed a language is put aside simply as an +unfortunate accident.” Is this a fair reprehension? Is not the fact that +no animal, except man, crossed the Rubicon of language quite a distinct +problem? And accepting Professor Noiré’s theory of the origin of language +which considers speech as the product of a common activity accompanied +by what may be called _clamor concomitans_, I see very good reasons why +other animals did not develop language. First, there is no animal, with +the sole exception perhaps of ants and bees, that lives in societies. +Some of them live in herds, but there is a great difference between a +herd and a society. This difference is first a difference of degree, but +gradually it becomes a difference of kind. Secondly, animals have no +organs to work with, while man has his hands, and we may add, thirdly, +that no animal, not even the parrot, has the same power of articulation. + +Prof. Ludwig Noiré accepts without equivocation the idea that the +speechless ancestor of man became a rational being by developing language +and I was always under the impression that Prof. Max Müller agreed with +his late friend not only concerning the identity of language and reason, +but also concerning the origin of reason. But if Prof. Max Müller agrees +with Noiré, why does he object to the continuity of evolution which as +he states in a private letter to us is “only a beautiful postulate”? + +Now there are indeed facts which prove that the Rubicon of reason is not +so impassable to animals as Prof. Max Müller makes us believe. Let us +hear Noiré on the subject. He explains most logically that man performs +his many labors and has become a civilised being only with the help of +language, by naming things and handling them in his mind. Noiré says: + + “It can be graphically shown, how ideas may represent for + man the rôle of things real; how man has acquired the power + of combining in his representative faculty the most remote + objects, and thereby has been able to accomplish the great + miracles of human industry and commerce. But all this would + be utterly inconceivable without concepts, which impart to + percepts their unity and self-dependence, bring about and + multiply their rational connection. Hence also, no animal + can ever advance a single step beyond _present_ perceptive + representation, can never escape from the constraint with + which Nature circumscribes the narrow sphere of its wants. + Unfortunately, however, in apparent contravention of this rule, + ants to the present day carry on a regular and methodical + species of agriculture, keep livestock and domestics like + we! Nay, they have been caught in conversations and social + entertainments of a quarter of an hour’s duration—God save the + mark!”[12] + +This passage is full of humor, and the humor is slightly mingled with a +comical anger and self-irony. There is a fine theory excellent in every +respect worked out in all its details by the Professor and now he finds a +few trifles of facts which possess the impudence not to adapt themselves +to the theory. “_Gott besser’s_,” sighs Noiré, for it is not his fault +that the ants accomplish things which they ought not to, and the good +Lord is called upon to adapt nature with more rigidity to the Professor’s +theories. + +Is there not an obvious reason why ants stand so high in their +performances? Are not ants social beings, more so than any other animal? +We are ignorant still of all their means of communication. But that they +have some means of communication seems to be an established fact. When +ants from different hills but of the same kind give each other battle, +it happens not unfrequently that a warrior attacks another warrior of the +same people most fiercely, but both let go as soon as they touch each +other with their feelers.[13] I refrain from telling stories about the +life of these wonderful creatures partly because one well-authenticated +report is sufficient for our purpose and partly because I must suppose +that most of my readers are familiar with the facts as presented by +Darwin, Lubbock, Forel, Huber, and many others. I will add only one +observation which is so far as I know undisputed. If ants of a special +kind rob the larvæ of another kind and educate them as their slaves, the +slaves will in case of war or danger stand by their masters even against +their own folks. They evidently speak the language of the hill in which +they have been raised. + +Professor Forel successfully made the experiment, with the assistance of +ant-nurses, of raising together several kinds of ants from the larvæ of +hostile species. The ferocious Amazons and the Sanguineæ did not show +any enmity toward their comrades of the Pratensis and Rufa. When set +at liberty and transferred to a new residence they remained together +and behaved exactly as if they naturally belonged together. And this +experiment may be quoted to corroborate the proposition of Prof. Max. +Müller that “thought is thicker than blood.”[14] + +Now it would be a desperate case for Professor Noiré to maintain his +theory in the face of these facts, if by language we have to understand +vocal signs only. Yet the idea of his and also of Prof. Max Müller’s +theory consists in the truth that thoughts cannot walk about like ghosts +in bodiless nudity: they are a system of notation. As such they are +symbolised in signs and are inseparable from their signs. These signs are +sounds with men, and by words we understand usually sound-symbols. But +there are other systems of notation besides vocal signs and they are +for that reason not less language than speech. We have reason to believe +that ants are in possession of symbolical signs and that most of them are +communicated through their feelers. + +Professor Romanes describes the origin of ideas (in the second chapter of +“Mental Evolution in Man,” p. 23) in the following way: + + “Just as Mr. Galton’s method of superimposing on the same + sensitive plate a number of individual images gives rise + to a blended photograph, wherein each of the individual + constituents is partially and proportionally represented; so + in the sensitive tablet of memory, numerous images of previous + perceptions are fused together into a single conception, which + then stands as a composite picture, or class-representation, + of these its constituent images. Moreover, in the case of + a sensitive plate it is only those particular images which + present more or less numerous points of resemblance that admit + of being thus blended into a distinct photograph; and so in the + case of the mind, it is only those particular ideas which admit + of being run together in a class that can go to constitute a + clear concept.” + +Professor Romanes calls such a composite picture of sense-impressions +as must be supposed to exist in the animal brain “a recept” and he +distinguishes it from “the concept” of man. He says: “Reception means a +_taking again_.... The word ‘recept’ is seen to be appropriate to the +class of ideas in question, because in receiving such ideas the mind is +passive.” By “concept” however he understands “that kind of composite +idea which is rendered possible only by the aid of language or by the +process of naming abstractions as abstractions.”[15] + +We agree with Professor Romanes in the main point, viz. that the process +of evolution must be considered as uninterrupted, but we cannot agree +with him on several minor points.[16] + +We must express our doubt concerning the propriety of calling the mind +passive when receiving impressions. Every single sensation is an active +process, just as much as a reflex motion, and it may be considered as a +reaction that takes place in response to the stimulus of the impression. +Conception of course is also an active process, and concepts, the +products of conception, establish a new department in the mind. “Noiré, +quoted by Prof. Max Müller, says: ‘All trees hitherto seen by me leave +in my imagination a mixed image, a kind of ideal presentation of a tree. +Quite different from this is my concept, which is never an image.’”[17] + +And this is true. + +We have on another occasion explained that sensations are +sense-impressions which have acquired meaning.[18] Rays of light are +reflected from an object and fall upon the retina of an eye. Here they +produce a disturbance of nervous substance which is transmitted to the +brain where it is felt as the image say of a tree. Now the ether-waves +are not sight, but a certain form of ether-waves corresponds to a +certain form of sight, and the latter comes to stand for the former. The +mental picture of a tree becomes a symbol for a special object outside +of us and it is projected to the place where experience has taught +us to expect that object. In naming objects we repeat the process of +expressing by symbols. Sensations are symbols, and names are symbols of +symbols. The name and concept tree is not the composite picture of all +the trees I have seen, but it is the symbol of this composite picture +of sense-impressions. Sensations are like the chords of a piano and the +concepts are like the keys. The key is different in kind from the chord +which belongs to it. When I touch the key the chord will sound: when I +pronounce a name the composite sensation of all its analogous memories +will be awakened. + + * * * * * + +Can there be any question that difference in kind can originate by +degrees? Professor Romanes uses the phrase “different in kind” as +synonymous with “different in origin” and therefore declares that human +reason and animal intelligence are “different in degree” only. The +word “kind,” it is true, is at least as vague as the word species and a +naturalist may often be doubtful where to draw the line. Man and monkey +are different in kind, and they are also more different in origin than +Carl Vogt assumed, for man is not the descendant of any of the monkey +families now existent. But this does not disprove that they are of a +still remoter common origin or at least that they originated in the same +way in some amœboid form as simple life-substance. + +New formations which originate through combining are as much new +creations, i. e. things new in kind, as if they were produced through +special-creation acts of God which are said to be creations out of +nothing and not mere transformations. + +Man builds houses out of bricks and timbers. Is not the house something +different in kind from the trees and the clay from which the materials +have been taken? Is not the boiler of a steam-engine different in purpose +and accordingly also different in kind from a tea-kettle? Is not every +invention something different in kind? And is not the same true of the +products of thought? Is not a triangle something different in kind from +a line? And the origin of the former is not more miraculous than that of +the latter. A triangle is more complex than a line, but its existence +in the mind is not more of a mystery than the existence of the line. +Difference in kind need not include difference of origin. Harmony is +different in kind from melody. Notes in succession produce melody, while +simultaneous notes produce harmony. In either case it is simply a matter +of combination. + +Professor Romanes when speaking of the passivity of sense-impressions +seems to think of the unconsciousness of the process. We are not +conscious of the transformation of impressions into sensations while +we can become aware of our efforts to change the sense-material into +concepts. Yet the nature of mind is throughout activity. And no one has +perhaps insisted more strongly on the activity of mind than Prof. Max +Müller. But Prof. Max Müller distinguishes between the activity of the +mind and the ego which as he supposes performs that activity. He says +(“Science of Thought,” p. 63): + + “We think of a mind dwelling in a body, and we soon find + ourselves in the midst of psychological mythology. Let it be + clearly understood, therefore, that by Mind I mean nothing but + that working which is going on within, embracing sensation, + perception, conception, and naming, as well as the various + modes of combining and separating the results of these + processes for the purpose of new discovery. + + “But if Mind is to be the name of the work, what is to be the + name of the worker? It is not yet the Self, for the Self, in + the highest sense, is a spectator only, not a worker; but it is + what we may call the Ego, as personating the Self; it is what + other philosophers mean by the Monon, of which, as we shall + see, there are many. Let us call therefore the worker who does + the work of the mind in its various aspects, the Monon or the + Ego.” + +And in another passage (l. c., p. 552) he speaks of the simplicity of the +monon: + + “If then the process of thought is so simple as we saw, not + less simple, at least, than that of speech, it follows, that + the complicated apparatus which had been postulated by most + philosophers for the performance of thought in its various + spheres of manifestation, must make room for much plainer + machinery. Instead of intuition, intellect, understanding, + mind, reason, genius, judgment, and all the rest, we want + really nothing but a self-conscious Monon, capable of changing + all that is supplied by the senses into percepts, concepts, + and names. These changes may be represented as something + very marvellous, and we may imagine any number of powers and + faculties for the performance of them.” + + “Grant a Monon conscious of itself, and conscious therefore of + the impacts made upon it or the changes produced in it by other + Mona which it resists, and we require little more to explain + all that we are accustomed to call Thought.” + +The continuity of evolution naturally holds good according to Max Müller +for the natural man, but not for the Self. + +How is this? Is the monon perhaps conceived as not-natural or outside of +nature. Hardly. For Prof. Max Müller speaks of the object also as being a +monon.[19] If the objects are as much mona as the subjects the same laws +must hold good for both, and the subject-monon must be supposed to be an +object-monon if considered in its relation to other object-mona. + +If Prof. Max Müller’s protest against the continuity of evolution is not +based upon the dualism of natural and extra-natural mona, what can it +mean when he says that evolution does not hold good for the Self? + +If the Self is conceived as a monon, i. e. something “alone” like an +atomic unit, it can have no evolution. Evolution is change of form +through the production of new configurations. A monon or an isolated unit +considered by itself cannot evolve. It is as it ever has been and will +be—a monon. + +If this is Prof. Max Müller’s meaning, we must ask, How does he know +that the self is a monon and that objects are mona? Do they not, if so +conceived, become highly mysterious entities? New mona are constantly +born into this World. Whence do they come? Is every birth of a child +the new creation of another monon by the creator, who so distributes +the babes in the world that like babes are given to like parents thus +producing the wrong impression of heredity as well as of a continuity of +evolution? The idea of explaining all the activities of the mind by the +postulate of a conscious monon is very simple indeed, but the problems +which would arise from this postulate are extremely complex, and it seems +to us that after all the proposition of evolution is by far the simplest +solution of all the difficulties.[20] + +Mind as we conceive it is the product of evolution. Mind has been +evolved in a world which (judging from its product) must be conceived as +being freighted not only with energy but also with the potentiality of +feeling. Mind, as we know it in experience, is no monon, no indivisible +unit, but a unitary system of feelings and thoughts produced through +external impressions upon one part of the world by the rest of the world +which surrounds it. Mind is an abstract term; it does not denote a part +of the world, but a certain quality of a part of the world, viz. the +feelings and thoughts of special kinds of organisms. Mind is produced +through external impressions, but it does not consist merely of external +impressions. Mind, as we have stated before, is not passive; it is +active. It consists of the reactions which take place in response to +impressions and also of the accumulated products of these reactions. +Thus every mind is the concentrated effect of the whole cosmos upon one +special part of the cosmos, not as it takes place in one moment, but as +it has taken place in a definite and continuous period up to date. The +accumulation of these effects makes the mind grow and expand and the +system of the growth constitutes its specific character. We can as little +think of the mind as appearing suddenly by an act of special creation +as we can think that an oak tree can be created out of nothing or that +it can exist without previous growth. The law of continuity holds good +as much in the realm of the human mind as in the domain of animal and +plant-life. + + * * * * * + +So far we have borne in mind the philosophical and scientific aspect +only of the continuity of evolution. There is another aspect however +of no less importance, that is the religious view of the subject. We +do not believe that science and religion are two different spheres of +thought and that something may be true in science which is not true in +religion. Since the theory of evolution has revolutionised almost all our +sciences, we ask, what influence must this change of thought exercise +upon religion? Is not the religious idea of God destroyed and the whole +system of religion overturned? + +We think not. An old and very powerful system of theology which has been +considered as orthodox for centuries will become untenable as soon as +the idea of evolution and the continuity of evolution are recognised in +their sweeping importance; but religion itself will enter into a new +phase of evolution and the idea of God will not be cast aside as a +mere superstition of the Dark Ages, it will be purified and appear in a +greater and sublimer, in a nobler, higher, and in a truer conception than +ever before. + +The idea of God is an historical heirloom of past ages. The religious +man and the philosopher of all times have tried to put into it their +highest, their best, their grandest, and their purest emotions as well +as thoughts. And these thoughts were not meaningless, they were not mere +fancies. They contained the quintessence of their conception concerning +that feature of reality which has produced us as living, thinking, and +aspiring beings, and which still prompts us to aspire to higher aims. The +world which has produced other beings and ourselves, cannot be and is not +a meaningless congeries of material particles in motion. It is a living +cosmos. It is a grand harmonious universe pregnant with mind, and nothing +in it is suffered to exist for any length of time but that which conforms +to its laws; and that which conforms to its laws we call moral. + +The idea of God, however, as it is commonly taught in our schools is +full of pagan notions, and the very paganism of the present God-idea is +often supposed to be its deepest and holiest meaning. No wonder that +atheism increases with the progress of science! And why should not +atheism increase, if it is truer than a superstitious theism? Atheism +I believe will increase more and more until theism is cleansed of its +pagan notions. But atheism will not come to stay, for atheism is a mere +negative view and negations have no strength to live. They have power to +criticise and they will serve as a leaven in the dough. Their purpose is +the purification of the positive views. Negations will pass away as soon +as their purpose is fulfilled. + +The old pagan conception (now considered as orthodox) places God in the +dark nooks and crevices of our knowledge. Wherever science fails and +wherever our inquiring mind is entangled in problems which we cannot hope +to solve, wherever the continuity of nature and of the order of nature +is hidden from our intellectual sight, the so-called orthodox believer +comes forth and declares: “This is a holy place. Here is the finger of +God’s special interference!” Consider what a degrading view of God this +is! The place of darkness is conceived as an actual break in the order +of the world and this break is supposed to be a special revelation of +God! If we trust in truth, we need not shun the light of science and the +God of science—in contradistinction to the pagan notion of God—reveals +himself in the discoveries of science. God lives not in darkness but +in light, and his existence is proved not through the breaks in nature +(which we can be sure do not exist, and wherever they appear are due to +our ignorance) but through the order of nature, for God _is_ the order of +nature. God is that power through which we exist as living, thinking, and +aspiring beings, and to which we have to conform in order to live. + +When Darwin speaks of “life as having been originally breathed into a few +forms or into one _by the Creator_,” he either uses allegorical language +or he means that the beginning of life was an act of special creation. +He apparently means the latter and is in this respect not a consistent +evolutionist. Darwin was great as a reformer of natural science, but +in theology he still stood upon the old standpoint. He calls God to +rescue where science fails. The Creator did not originally breathe life +into the organism, but his breath is constantly ensouling all living +beings. Now suppose there were or there could be exceptions to the law of +causation, to the conservation of matter and energy, or to the continuity +of evolution, would that not rather be a drawback in nature? Are the +patches on a coat better proof that it was made by a tailor than the +whole coat? Any kind of theology which still recognises special-creation +acts, or miracles, or breaks in evolution, we do not hesitate to say, +is not yet free from paganism, for it still sticks to the religious +conception of the medicine-man that God is a great magician. The God of +the medicine-man lives in the realm of the unknown and he appears in +man’s imagination where the light of science fails. The God of science +however is the God of truth, and evidence of his existence is not found +in the darkness of ignorance but in the light of knowledge. God’s being +is not recognised in the seeming exceptions to natural laws, but in the +natural laws themselves. God’s existence is not proved by our inability +to trace here or there the order of cause and effect, as if a disorder +in the world made it divine; on the contrary the only rational ground +of a faith in God is the irrefragable cosmic order of the universe. It +is true that we have to give up the idea of a personal God, but is not a +superpersonal God greater than the idol which we have made unto our own +likeness? + +The God of science is perhaps more in agreement with the biblical God +than the God of dogmatic theology. The interpretations of biblical +passages which are at present generally considered as orthodox are +(merely from the standpoint of impartial exegetics) untenable. The first +chapter of Genesis has not one word about special-creation acts. Neither +the Elohim nor the Jahveh-Adonai account declares that in the beginning +there had been Nothing. Both accounts (Gen. Chap. I. 1 to II. 3, and +II. 3 et seqq.) agree that God “shaped” the world. The word _barah_ (to +shape, to form, to make) is nowhere used in the sense of creating out of +nothing. The Psalmist says, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens +made,” which was so interpreted in the New Testament that it meant “by +the logos,” and the gospel of St. John adds καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, i. +e. and the word was God. Logos means rational speech or reason, and +the world-reason through which the heavens were made can mean only the +cosmic order of the universe. This idea of St. John’s thought out to its +ultimate conclusions means monism. + +There is a common error that scientific progress is dangerous to +religion. Scientific progress is dangerous to superstition only. Religion +(i. e. true religion) is not based upon our ignorance, but upon our +knowledge; it is not a child of the darkness but of the light, and faith +far from being a mere belief, i. e. the imperfect knowledge of an opinion +for which no proof is forthcoming, is applied knowledge, it is knowledge +plus the confidence that this knowledge can be made the basis of ethics +and the supreme rule for regulating our conduct in life. The history of +religion has been and is still a constant purification of our religious +ideas, and the crucible in which the religious ideas are purified is +science. We are slowly but constantly progressing toward a high religious +ideal and this ideal is a cosmical religion free from the pagan notions +so severely criticised by Christ and yet so carefully preserved by +the Christian churches. This cosmical religion will be the religion +of science. It will not consist of religious indifference nor of a +toleration of any and every opinion as is so often erroneously proclaimed +as the ideal of liberalism. On the contrary it will be in a certain sense +the most orthodox religion, for its maxim will be to stand on the truth +and nothing but the truth. And the truth is not at all indifferent or +tolerant. The truth is extremely intolerant and suffers no error beside +it, although, as a matter of course, the truth is very tolerant in so +far as it sanctions no violence but employs only the spiritual sword of +conviction by argument and logical proof. + +We have given up the idea of special acts of creation as the calling +forth disconnectedly of something out of nothing. We conceive the whole +world as an orderly cosmos, well regulated by laws and evolving the +forms of life in agreement with its laws. Is there less divinity in a +cosmos than in a half chaotic world in which God makes exceptions and +counteracts his own ordinances? Is the idea of creation less religious +if it ceases to mean an origination of something out of nothing? Is not +man at least just as wonderful if evolved step by step out of the dust +of the earth through innumerable stages in the long process of evolution +as if he were made directly out of clay? And is there less divinity in +his soul, is he any less shaped unto the image of God because his growth +took place according to natural laws? Natural laws, in the conception +of purified religion, of the religion of science, are nothing but the +ideas of God, eternal and immutable, and formulated by scientists not on +the ground of special revelations but on the ground of the universal and +unchangeable, and throughout consistent revelation of God in his works. + + * * * * * + +The science of language and the science of life are two important +highroads to the cognition of truth. That both sciences will be +consistent with each other, that their results will finally be seen to +harmonise perfectly is beyond all doubt and also that their bearing upon +religious ideas will contribute much to their purification. Prof. F. +Max Müller and Prof. George John Romanes are two great scholars, each +one is a leader in his own branch of knowledge, and where they come in +conflict, it appears to us, that they rather complement than refute each +other. Both are strong Monists, although emphasising different sides of +Monistic truth and we feel convinced that their very differences will +help us to elaborate more fully and clearly and more comprehensively +the great truth of Monism—of that Monism which will more and more be +recognised as the corner-stone of science and also of the religion of +science. + + EDITOR. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] Compare the article _The Origin of Thought-Forms_ in the present +number, under the caption “Diverse Topics.” + +[11] I should prefer to speak of the oneness or inseparableness of +thought and language, but since Prof. Max Müller has sufficiently +explained himself, I use here his term “identity” in the sense of +inseparableness as it is used by Prof. Max Müller. + +[12] _The Logos Theory_, by Ludwig Noiré. Translated from the German. +_The Open Court_, iii. p. 2196. English translations of Noiré’s most +important articles concerning the origin of language, have appeared in +Nos. 33, 137, 139, 141, 142 of _The Open Court_. + +[13] That ants communicate with each other through their antennæ is an +undeniable fact. But Landois believes that they communicate also through +sounds. Some ants possess in their stridulation-organ a kind of a rattle +the sound of which, however, is perceptible to the human ear only in the +Ponera ants. + +[14] See _Three Lectures on the Science of Language_, p. 47. The Open +Court Publishing Co., Chicago. + +[15] Prof. Lloyd Morgan introduces several new terms, which seem well +coined. The mental product which is called the object of sense he calls +“construct”; the most prominent feature in a composite sense-image, he +calls the “predominant”; and if the predominant is named and isolated by +abstraction he calls it an “isolate.” + +[16] An impartial criticism of Professor Romanes’s position has been made +by Prof. Lloyd Morgan in his recent work _Animal Life and Intelligence_. + +[17] This quotation is requoted from Prof. Lloyd Morgan, _Animal Life and +Intelligence_, p. 325. + +[18] _The origin of Mind_, in _The Monist_, Vol. I. No. I. + +[19] L. c., p. 281. “So much about the subject or the monon. What now +about the objects or the mona?” + +[20] Prof. Max Müller is a great admirer of Kant and so am I. But it +appears to me that we differ greatly in what we accept as the essential +teachings of the master; and I grant willingly that Prof. Max Müller has +preserved the doctrines of Kant more faithfully than I. I have attempted +to modernise Kant. If I am called a Kantian (and I do not object to the +name, on the contrary I am proud of it) it is because I proceed from +Kant and I attempt to preserve the spirit of Kant’s philosophy rather +than his doctrines. For the sake of the spirit of Kantian philosophy I +have seen myself urged to surrender the idea of the thing-in-itself as +something unknowable. Prof. Max Müller has preserved in his philosophy +(for such is the _Science of Thought_) the Ding-an-sich theory. Believing +in things-in-themselves he must consistently believe in a self or monon, +for this monon is nothing but the thing-in-itself of the soul. + +I have limited myself in the present article to the principle of +continuity in evolution as a point of divergence between Prof. Max Müller +and the views defended by _The Monist_. If I attempted at present to +enter into the philosophical problem of things-in-themselves, I should be +obliged to tax too much the patience of my readers. But as I am convinced +that the reason of our difference with Prof. Max Müller concerning the +continuity of evolution lies deeper still, I intend to treat the subject +of things-in-themselves in a future number. + + + + +LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE + + + + +I. + +FRANCE.—THE INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING OF THE LANGUE D’OC. + + +I have never seen mentioned in your periodical publications the _Revue +des Pyrénées_; and perhaps I should never have heard of the periodical +myself if I had not been in this interesting old city, and if my eye +had not chanced on the title of one of the articles of a recent number +advertised in a local journal. “Un Ariégeois sénateur des Etats-Unis +d’Amérique: Pierre Soulé” was the title that attracted my attention and +caused me to procure a copy, which I have found interesting in more ways +than one. + +The publication is a well-printed quarterly of 150 pages, and has +completed some time since the second year of its existence. Its full +title is as follows: _Revue des Pyrénées et de la France meridionale, +Organe de l’Association Pyrénéenne et de l’union des Sociétés Savantes +du Midi_. The founders of the periodical are the late JULIEN SACAZE, a +savant much venerated in these parts, and DR. F. GARRIGOU, its present +editor. + +The Association Pyrénéenne, of which, as we have just seen, the _Revue_ +is the organ, is an active and significant organisation. Here are some +of its aims. While it recognises the greatness of the Capital, Paris, +it advocates decentralisation, by “showing that workers living in the +provinces are as capable as others, though enjoying less support and +funds, to aid in the building up of the great scientific edifice of +France.” The importance and boldness of this declaration can scarcely be +appreciated by those who have not breathed for some time the excessively +monopolistic atmosphere of the French capital, which has been so baneful +to so many national interests. The Association would also act as a +means of union between the various learned societies of the South, the +Midi, and thus render it possible to organise an annual Congress “for +the discussion and defense of the grand scientific, industrial, and +commercial questions which concern Southern France.” + +Here we see brought out still more precisely that rivalry between the +South and North, characteristic of most nations, and which presents such +curious aspects in the past and present history of France. + +I never weary of quietly noting, while in the South, the delightful +contempt which the _méridionaux_ show for their Parisian fellow +countrymen. The other day at dinner, for instance, I heard a learned +professor of one of the Southern Universities defending the Southern +accent and preferring it to “the Parisian accent,” as he put it. But I +would need pages of your space to develop this line of thought. Suffice +it to say here that the Association Pyrénéenne and its organ the _Revue +des Pyrénées_ intend to prove, and have succeeded in proving, if we may +judge by this number of the _Revue_ and by the account of the proceedings +of the first Congress of the Association, placed at the head of the +number, that there are creditable savants and sound learning outside of +the walls of Victor Hugo’s “Ville Lumière.” + +Another object of the Association would be dear to Castelar’s heart. +I give it in full: “To remove morally the grand Pyreneean curtain and +to offer the hand of friendship to a nation justly proud of its past, +whose interests touch our own, and which has the right, because of +the illustrious sons of Catalonia, Aragon, and Navarre, to take part +in an intellectual and Pyreneean association based on science.” This +is a paraphrase of Louis XIV’s famous remark concerning the Pyrenees, +when he placed his grandson on the throne of Spain. Nor can one be +surprised at the strong affection which binds Southern France to the +Iberian peninsula. The grand mountains, the “Pyreneean curtain,” which +separate the two countries, are always in sight, their snow-capped peaks +glittering in the sun; the various _patois_, especially the dialect +of Pau, resemble the Spanish more than they do the French tongue; +Spanish money is foisted on you at the shops, and picturesque Spanish +mountaineers lend a peculiar charm to the country fairs, while the nation +is ever on the eve of a pronunciamento, destined to give to Spain the +republican institutions of France. + +But to return to PIERRE SOULÉ who is the cause and starting point of this +letter. Commandant Trespaillé’s eulogistic biographical sketch is of +slight interest to American readers, who can find elsewhere a fuller and +more exact account of the brilliant but rather disappointing career of +the once famous Franco-Louisiana statesman. M. Trespaillé’s reference to +“Old Hickory” as “the immortal Jackson,” his statement that the American +people is full of prejudices against the French race, his metamorphosing +New Hampshire’s only President into Pierre Francklin, and some other +similar slips can be overlooked, for this essay offers a striking example +of the dominant idea of the _Revue_, the Association and patriotic +Southerners generally,—the glorification of the great men and great +actions of the sunny South, the “Midi ensoleillé.” + +And I must admit, foreigner though I am, that I share much of this +enthusiasm for persons and things meridional, and especially for the +latter. What a land this is for historical and archæological study! +Take this number of the _Revue des Pyrénées_, for instance; it is full +of it. Here, for example, are the titles of three of the papers read +at the first Congress of the Association Pyrénéenne, to which Congress +I referred above: “The Domitian Road from Narbonne to Perpignan,” “The +Third Century School of Sculpture in Southern Gaul,” and “The Roman Road +from Narbonne to Carcassonne.” There are several articles in the _Revue_ +about the University of Toulouse, which is stated to be the oldest in +France after that of Paris, having been founded in 1229, more than two +hundred and fifty years before the discovery of America. The law school +even antedates 1229 and its foundation is lost in the obscurity of +the early centuries of the Christian era. Another article begins the +publication of a list of the professors at the law school. The first +recorded name dates from 1251. When one finds such themes as these on +every hand, Rome, Gaul, the Middle Ages, and feudalism become almost +living realities. And how inexhaustibly rich Languedoc is in these +reminders of the distant past. + +And the patois or dialects of this part of France are not the least +ancient and interesting subjects for study. Wonder is often expressed +that the English of America differs so slightly from the English of +England, with three thousand miles of ocean separating the two countries. +The wonder increases when you find that here in Languedoc the same patois +differs in some particulars from town to town. Let me first mention some +big differences and then touch upon some minor ones. If you take the +train which leaves Toulouse at about half past eleven in the morning, +you will arrive at Pau at half past four. During these five hours on a +pretty slow train you have passed from one patois to another. The lower +classes of Toulouse cannot understand the lower classes of Pau. And +if you continue in the same train, at about half past eight you reach +Mauléon, in the French Basque Provinces, where the populace of neither +Toulouse nor Pau could carry on a conversation with the populace of +Mauléon. Thus a nine hours’ ride of about 175 miles on an accommodation +train carries you through a region where French is the vernacular of the +educated classes and is the official language, but where the great mass +of the population is divided into three groups, each speaking a different +dialect. + +The modifications which the same patois undergoes in neighboring +localities is not less curious though of course not so radical. Roughly +speaking it may be said that the same patois is spoken from Montpellier +to Bordeaux and from Toulouse well up into the centre of France, which +embraces the region where prevailed the Langue d’oc from which the +present patois is derived. But, while a peasant could make himself +understood throughout this wide territory, his ear would often be +perplexed by more than one strange word and phrase. I was once told on +the Riviera that the patois of Menton differed considerably from that of +Nice and that this was particularly the case before the construction of +the Corniche road and the railway, when a denizen of the former place +could reach the latter city only by doubling Cape Martin under sail. I +do not know how true this statement is, but I believe it to be correct, +after a superficial study on these same lines which I have just made in +the Department of the Tarn, one of the most isolated portions of Upper +Languedoc. I find that the patois of towns as near together, as are New +York, Newark, Patterson, Nyack and Tarrytown, for example, differs, not, +perhaps, in its construction but in its vocabulary. Let me give some +examples. Thus, potato, which is _truffet_ at Cordes, becomes _truffo_ +at Castres. _Patano_, the word employed in the South East end of the +Department is also heard at Castres, but never at Cordes, which is in the +North West end of the Department, Castres being about in the centre. Dog +is _cagnot_ and _cô_ at Cordes, and _gous_ at Castres. (At Montpellier, +in a contiguous Department it is _tschi_, while at Pau they say _can_, +which approaches very near the Latin.) Pig is _pourcel_ at Castres and +_tessou_ at Cordes. Broom _engranicro_ at Castres and _balatso_ at +Cordes. I have also noted the following difference between the Tarn +patois and that of Pau. The _f_ of the former always becomes an aspirated +_h_ in the latter. Thus, _femo_, woman (Castres) is _henno_ at Pau; +_fourco_, pitchfork (Castres) _hourco_ (Pau); _foun_ fountain (Castres) +_houn_ (Pau). + +A comparison of this patois with the French as regards the spelling of +geographical names reveals a fact that would somewhat dampen the ardor +of our friend Colonel Shephard, of New York, in his effort to force the +gazeteers to give geographical names as they are written in the countries +where they are found. One might have thought that such near neighbors as +the Langue d’oil and the Langue d’oc would have come to some rational +understanding on this point and that the Ile-de-France would have +accepted the spelling of Languedoc. But not so. The towns and rivers of +this part of France look as different in French and patois printed pages +and sound as differently when pronounced by educated and peasant mouths, +as do the towns and rivers of Italy when seen in Italian and English +books or when spoken by Americans and Italians. Thus Toulouso became +Toulouse; Castros, Castres; Dourgnos, Dourgne; Carcassouno, Carcassonne; +Narbouno, Narbonne; Billofranco, Villefranche; Labaou, Lavaur; Bibiers, +Viviers; Boou, Vour; Abrayrou, Aveyron; Cordos, Cordes, etc. + +These patois, these dialects of the old Langue d’oc, are awakening just +now increasing interest in the literary circles of the Midi, for it is +only within recent years that the French has appeared to threaten their +extinction. The spread of the railroad system and especially the wide +development of the primary school since the advent of the Third Republic, +are dealing deadly blows at these popular dialects. But they are still +far from moribund. I have frequently been told that even to-day one +stumbles now and then on old peasants living up in the isolated Black +Mountain, a spur of the Cévennes, and which divides Upper from Lower +Languedoc, who cling to _oc_, although _obe_ or _ope_, or the French +_oui_ and _si_, are the common affirmative particles of the patois. + +It has often happened to me when taking a constitutional to ask my way +and discover that I am addressing a person who neither understands +nor speaks French, though, as a rule, all peasants understand French +and the vast majority can speak the language too, but after a rather +sorry fashion. A foreigner finds at least one comfort in all this: in +Languedoc he uses the national tongue more correctly than thousands of +native born Frenchmen! Nor is the knowledge of patois confined to the +peasantry or the working classes of the towns. The _bourgeoisie_, with +exceedingly rare exceptions, are quite at home in it, and the children +of the nobility often prattle with their peasant nurse more easily in +patois than in the polished speech of their parents. During a political +campaign, it is a very common thing for a would-be deputy to address +country voters in their familiar dialect, thereby gaining the favor not +alone of the _félibres_; while, during this same period of electoral +excitement, the local papers publish almost daily editorials written in +patois. In hundreds of rural churches the short sermon after early mass +is preached in patois, and many a time I have found myself turning with +surprise when I heard French spoken in the streets of Languedocian towns +of considerable size. + +There was a time when the government and the ruling classes of Languedoc +itself strove to eradicate these dialects and to substitute French +for them. The aim was a patriotic one; greater national unity, it was +believed, would thus be secured. But that period has gone by, and at +present there is a strong tendency to preserve from destruction these +linguistic souvenirs of a rapidly fading past. What the enthusiastic +_félibres_ would do for Provençal, they and their disciples and imitators +in Languedoc would do for the dialects of South Western France. At the +Congrès d’Etudes Languedociennes, held recently at Montpellier, one of +the members proposed that the French language should be taught in the +primary schools through the medium of the langue d’oc. The suggestion +is not so chimerical as it appears to be at first blush, for one of the +greatest and never-ending difficulties of the country schoolmaster in +this part of France is to teach his scholars the three R’s by means of +the French, which is a foreign tongue to ninety-nine out of a hundred +of them. One is not surprised, therefore, to find that one of the +resolutions passed by this same Congress takes up the plan proposed in +the paper just referred to, and declares in favor of “the utilisation of +the langue d’oc for teaching French in the primary schools.” + +At a recent sitting of the General Council of the Bordeaux University a +resolution was passed calling for the creation of a chair of “Southern +languages.” In explanation of this term, the _Gironde_, the leading +Bordeaux newspaper, says: “Besides giving instruction in Spanish, one of +the labors of the professor would be to teach our South Western dialects +in which the most important historical documents of this part of the +country were drawn up during several centuries.” The editor then goes on +to say: “If the State does not feel able to found this chair, will not +some private individual come forward and imitate the example of James E. +Clark, who recently established at Worcester, Mass., a university endowed +with a capital of $12,500,000?” + +Speaking of primary schools reminds me of a curious fact which has +frequently attracted my attention in Languedoc this winter. In no other +part of France perhaps was it so common for a town to grow up around a +castle; for this region was terribly harried by the Wars of Religion, +and the poor peasants were forced to seek the protection of some lord. +In order to render them more impregnable, these castles were generally +built on some high hill. So now one sees on every hand decaying hamlets +surrounding ruined castles left almost deserted on the very crown of some +pyramidal mount, while the busy town of to-day has descended to the more +accessible base of the hill. But since the advent of the Third Republic +and the grand impetus given to primary instruction, these abandoned +castles have taken a new lease of life, and been converted into school +buildings. The other day during an hour’s drive in Upper Languedoc I saw +two of these old useless feudal piles consecrated to popular nineteenth +century education. What a train of reflections is thus suggested! Within +the very same walls where some proud ignorant seignior once lorded it +over his humble vassals, the descendants of these serfs, still speaking +the tongue of their oppressed ancestors, but enjoying all the liberties +then usurped by their masters, are now being instructed in branches of +knowledge of which the feudal knight had scarcely an inkling. What a +revolution was that of ’89! + + THEODORE STANTON. + + + + +II. + +GERMANY.—RECENT PUBLICATIONS IN THE DOMAIN OF PATHOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. + + +The science of anthropology claims, as we know, to have discovered, that +the various epochs of history are marked not only by characteristic +religious, political, social, and literary conditions, but not +unfrequently also by particular forms of disease; and it is the opinion +of eminent medical authorities that nervous and mental diseases +constitute the “pathological feature” of modern civilisation. This, +of course, is not to be understood as meaning that diseases of this +character have not appeared in previous epochs, but simply that they +occur with unusual frequency at the present day and in unusually grave +forms. + +A book treating of the affliction of the age ought to count on a large +circle of readers, and it will be all the more deserving of such if it +thoroughly and skilfully fulfils its purpose of holding up the mirror to +the time and of imparting the light and advice required in this matter. +This has been done in an excellent manner by the work of the Bremen +alienist Dr. SCHOLZ, entitled _Die Diätetik des Geistes—Ein Führer zu +praktischer Lebensweisheit_, which has just appeared in its second and +enlarged edition, Leipsic, E. H. Mayer. This book is distinguished from +the majority of similar recent publications intended for a greater public +by its relative thoroughness. It must be characterised as thorough and +comprehensive, also, in comparison with the older and more celebrated +work, which its title at once suggests, FEUCHTERLEBEN’S _Diätetik +der Seele_. The character of the book is not “purely psychological,” +overlooking the high importance of the influence of the body, as was +the case with Beneke; nor does it lean towards the moralising of a +Heinroth and Ideler; nor does the author treat his subject from an +exclusively medical point of view: the work, in fact, is anthropological +in character. Its contents possess chiefly in two respects great +interest: (1) from a universal human point of view, in that it affords +us a glance into the awful abysses of life, in the company of an expert +guide who tells us how these depths are to be avoided, or at least gives +consolation to those whose way leads necessarily through them; and (2) +from a pedagogical point of view, in that it directs attention to the +heredity of the morbid constitutions and abnormalities that oppose +obstacles to education or may become such if improperly treated. + +It is obvious that morbid mental dispositions must be taken into account +in all work of education and instruction, if we wish to avoid an +egregious violation of the universally recognised requirement to regard +individuality. And from this point of view the book of Dr. Scholz will +awaken in readers who have anything to do at all with education, the +desire to learn more about the nature of morbid mental life in the young +than is presented in this treatise destined for a large public. + +Such a wish would have had to remain unsatisfied six years ago, when the +_Diätetik des Geistes_ first appeared. It is true, English physicians +particularly, like West, Conolly, Maudsley, and others, had a long time +previously directed attention to the morbid phenomena of infant psychic +life, but their work, like that of their French and German professional +associates, lies buried in medical magazines and volumes not easily +accessible. The first to apply himself to the work needed in this +condition of affairs was Professor EMMINGHAUS, who digested and collected +all the material, thus supplied, in a compendious work bearing the title +_Die psychischen Störungen des Kindesalters_, Tübingen, Laupp, 1887. The +fact indeed is not to be left unrecognised that the book, in so far as it +may be used by those who have not had a medical training, possesses two +defects,—defects, however, for which the author cannot be censured. In +the first place, it is intended for physicians only, and is therefore, +on account of the many technical terms it uses, at times not uniformly +intelligible. To the serious student, however, who possesses the previous +psychological and physiological knowledge most indispensable, it presents +no difficulties of too great magnitude. The second defect likewise +springs from the purpose of the work. It consists in the fact that, +excepting a few occasional references and hints, the pedagogical aspect +of the question is not considered. Pedagogists, here, are confronted with +a problem which must be solved, and of which the solution will certainly +not be a thankless task. The writer of these lines has approached one +aspect of this question in a treatise of his entitled _Nervosität and +Mädchenerziehung_, Wiesbaden, 1890, in the course of which study he has +arrived at the conviction that an important factor is lacking in modern +pedagogics and the training of teachers. This conviction he has put into +words in another treatise, _Geistesstörungen in der Schule_, Wiesbaden, +1891, with what success it remains for the future to say. + +Two years after the appearance of Emminghaus’s work a translation was +published in Germany of a French book of a similar character. _Der Irrsin +im Kindesalter_, by Dr. PAUL MOREAU, authorised edition by Dr. Demetrio +Galatti, Stuttgart, 1889, Ferdinand Enke, publisher. Unfortunately, +Moreau, as his own preface reveals, did not know, when he wrote his +book, of the existence of the German work,—a circumstance that has not +been without regrettable consequences. Taken in conjunction with the +work of Emminghaus, however, Moreau’s book possesses, on account of the +numerous morbid cases it gives, a high value; although it cannot bear +comparison with the former work in richness of material and familiarity +with the literature of the subject, and much less so in the psychological +treatment of the subject, where Emminghaus is incomparably subtler and +more profound. + +A treatise that is closely related, in point of subject-matter, on +the one hand to the works of Emminghaus and Moreau, and on the other +to the books of Preyer (_Die Seele des Kindes_) and Pérez (_Les trois +premières années de l’enfant_ and _L’enfant de trois à sept ans_) on +the development of children, has just been published by a Leipsic +teacher under the title of _Die Periodicität in der Entwickelung +der Kindesnatur_, _Neue Gesichtspunkte für Kinderforschung und +Jugenderziehung_, by GUSTAV SIEGERT, Leipsic, 1891, R. Voigtländer. +The author endeavors, in a very interesting manner we must admit, to +show that, in the development of the child, lasting states in regular +alternate succession occur of mental and physical buoyancy on the one +hand and depression on the other, of moral exaltation, likewise, and +moral subsidence. The fundamental cause of this periodical alternation, +of the general existence of which numerous proofs are adduced, is +supposed to lie in the alternate strengthening and relaxation of the +individual’s forces of action, brought on by the expenditure and +reproduction of energy; additional determinative causes, accelerative as +well as retardatory, are found in intercourse with the world and with +other human beings. We may call the former the individual and the latter +the social cause of the phenomena of periodicity. In the application of +his results to juvenile education the author arrives at some far-reaching +propositions of reform, the consideration of which, however, we shall +have to leave to the pedagogical press. + +We shall have to preserve the same attitude with regard to a new work +of the well-known Leipsic professor Dr. STRUMPELL—_Die pädogogische +Pathologie oder die Lehre von den Fehlern der Kinder_, Leipsic, 1890, +Verlag von Georg Böhme Nachfolger. We must refer here to this otherwise +highly deserving book only in one respect, where we have occasion for +censure. The author does not in his expositions sufficiently take account +of the intimate connection between physical and mental phenomena, and the +consequence of this is among other things that he excludes pathological +mental conditions (the physical causes of which he is forced to admit) +as a matter of principle from the pedagogic system and consigns them +entirely into the charge of the physician. In our treatise mentioned we +have explained why this is not allowable, as well as, in addition, what +portion of duty devolves on the teacher in the consideration of these +pathological mental conditions. Strumpell’s mistake springs from the +fact that he conceives with Herbart the essential object of education +to be intellectual culture. Allowing that Herbart cannot be taken to +task for entertaining this conception, we may yet demand of Strumpell +the recognition of the results of recent physiological psychology to the +extent at least of perceiving that psychical and physical phenomena are +_one_ if not the _same_. Even the opponents of Monism dare not overlook +this truth,—a truth moreover that admits very well of reconciliation with +the Herbartian pluralism to which Strumpell is devoted. + +We might cite here numerous pathological conditions of mind that very +plainly spring from physical causes and to which the instructor has to +give attention just as much as the physician. Instead, however, of citing +particular cases, we will refer to three little treatises that are in +the highest degree instructive on this point, not only for teachers +exclusively but also for all who have to do with children. Dr. MAXIMILIAN +BRESGEN, specialist in diseases of the nose and throat at Frankfort on +the Main, has published at the house of Leopold Voss in Hamburg (1890) +a brochure entitled _Ueber die Bedeutung behinderter Nasenathmung nebst +besonderer Berücksichtigung der daraus hervorgehenden Gedächtniss- und +Geistesschwäche_. A treatise of like character is that of Dr. med. +LENZMANN of Duisburg, entitled _Ueber den schädlichen Einfluss der +behinderten Nasenathmung auf die körperliche und geistige Entwickelung +des Kindes_, Bielefeld, 1890, Anders Verlag. Both treatises contain, +among other things not to be considered here, instructive examples of +the rise and disappearance of that morbid mental condition to which Hack +first directed notice in Germany but which elsewhere became known through +the researches of the Dutch physician Guye by the name of _Aprosesia +nasalis_. The third treatise is by Dr. med. RALF WIECHMANN, specialist +for nervous diseases at Brunswick, and bears the title _Eine sogenannte +Veitstanzepidemie in Wildbad_, Leipsic, 1890, Verlag von Georg Thieme. +By St. Vitus’s dance (Ger. _Veitstanz_) we understand the disease of +which the well-known symptoms are involuntary muscular twitchings usually +accompanied by severe or light psychical disturbances, known in medicine +by the name of _chorea minor_ and _chorea rhythmica_, and sometimes +occurring in epidemics. At the school in Wildbad the number of the +afflicted children rose in the course of time to twenty-six. Wiechmann +expatiates at length in his book on the character of the contagion, and +arrives through an exhaustive use of the existing literature on the +subject at the result, that there was present in the individual children +attacked substantially a physical predisposition, an unstable nervous +system. As the first children attacked were not removed, the convulsive +motions were seen and perceptually taken up by the other children, who +were just approaching the period of puberty and labored under hereditary +predispositions. “Once these images had entered perceptually into the +unstable brain, they became competent to operate as stimuli and to be +translated into involuntary muscular motions.” + +The conclusion of my letter may be taken up with the discussion of a +treatise that deserves a somewhat more detailed consideration. The +director of the Royal Würtembergian State Insane Asylum at Zwiefalten, +Dr. F. L. A. Koch, who already possesses eminent repute in the domain +of psychiatry, has just published the first part of a new work called +_Die psychopathischen Minderwertigkeiten—Erste; Abteilung: Einleitung, +Die angeborenen andauernden psychopathischen Minderwertigkeiten_, +Ravensburg, 1891, Verlag von Otto Maier. In this work the author extends +the development of the ideas he some time previously outlined in his +_Rudiments of Psychiatry_, second edition, 1889. In the expression +“psychopathische Minderwertigkeiten” (psychopathical secondary factors) +Koch embraces all those psychical irregularities, be they natural or +acquired, affecting the life of the human personality, which though in +the severest cases even not amounting to actual mental disorders, yet in +the most favorable instances so affect the persons afflicted with them +that they appear as lacking the full possession of mental normality and +capacity. Primarily, of course, the treatise is intended for physicians, +and the author counts on the gratitude of this profession in so far as +he has undertaken to put in independent form the separate facts formerly +scattered over the whole domain of psychiatry, to free them from other +neuro- and psycho-pathological subjects, and to unite them into one +special group of pathological states. But the author also counts on his +book being used by the representatives of other professions, by pastors, +tutors, teachers, jurists, sociologists, historians, and the like, and +indeed with perfect justice. + +The savers of souls, if they had mastered to a slight degree even +the comprehension of the psychopathical secondary factors, would be +astonished to see how many people there are in the case of whom medicine +is more effective against “spiritual” vexations than pastoral advice, +and that often such advice, being one-sided and starting from false +assumptions, does harm only. They would see in the peculiarity of the +religious needs and tribulations of many a man a psycho-pathological +abnormality; they would come to understand how the otherwise +unintelligible badness of many another has its source in a pathological +basis: they would not regard and hail as absolutely good, moreover, many +“good impulses”;—all this they would find out if they had learned to +note and comprehend what the import is of such persons being descended +from neurotic ancestors, of their exhibiting palpable indications of +degeneration, and having also perhaps insane, idiotic, whimsical, and +epileptical brothers and sisters. They would furthermore perfectly +comprehend, that in the case of people who are descended from healthy +parents, but who from being in times past happy and joyful Christians +are now struggling with distractions of soul, it were often better +first to inquire after the state of their organs of digestion. And they +would be able to deal quite differently from formerly with many a soul +entrusted to their care, perhaps also more easily to conquer, or at least +to endure, some secret burden of their own lives. The import of the +book for the educator is easily inferrible from the remarks made. For +the jurist, who has to deal with the problems of accountability and the +administering of punishment, its importance is manifest. Sociology, too, +the deeper it enters into its problems, will not be able to dispense with +psychopathology, and in this field it is precisely the psychopathical +secondary factors that eminently demand attention. In that which concerns +its connection with history we need only mention the names of Lombroso, +Emminghaus (_Allgemeine Psychopathologie_) and Möbius (_Rousseaus +Krankheitsgeschichte_), to point out the importance of a work like that +before us. We recommend it without reserve to all whom it touches. + + CHR. UFER. + +Altenburg, July, 1891. + + + + +ÉMILE LITTRÉ. + + + Some debts there are that make the debtor proud; + So ours to him, who could philosophise + With common-sense, and sweep from starry skies + The brain-spun webs that darken like a cloud. + + We loved him, for his highest thoughts avowed + Our own akin and less than ours allies; + Born of the common soil but born to rise + And light the labor of the laurel-browed. + + Justice he traced to truth; morality, + Back to the brutish primal needs of man; + And stood himself for all the best might be. + + He wrought in words, a faithful artisan; + And lived to shame their loutish mockery + Whose virtue ended where his own began. + + LOUIS BELROSE, JR. + + + + +DIVERSE TOPICS. + + + + +THE ORIGIN OF THOUGHT-FORMS. + + +Dr. H. Potonié, the editor of the _Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift_, +Berlin, advances in one of its recent numbers (Vol. vi. 15) the following +proposition concerning the origin of the forms of thought: “All the +forms of thought have originated in the struggle for life not otherwise +than the forms of organisms.” This is further explained in the following +sentence: “Those conceptions which are called _a priori_, are inherited; +they have been necessarily used by the primitive thinking organisms and +are now in their disposition immediately present. Yet they have been +gained by experience. Without any knowledge, for instance, of space and +time, no action is possible; accordingly their conception is perhaps the +oldest and therefore it appears aprioristic.” + + +I. THOUGHT-FORMS AND THE FORMS OF EXISTENCE. + +We agree with Dr. Potonié that thought-forms grow naturally and that they +grow such as they are, of necessity. In our opinion formal thought, with +its so-called _a priori_ theorems, is derived from the thought-forms by +abstraction. (See “Fundamental Problems” pp. 26-60, the chapter Form and +Formal Thought.) If it had been possible for other thought-forms to have +originated together with those which we possess at present, and it may be +parenthetically remarked that we do not consider it as possible; but _if_ +it had been possible, we do not deny that all the other thought-forms +would have gone to the wall, they would have perished in the struggle for +existence and our present thought-forms alone would have survived. In +this we agree with Dr. Potonié, and a naturalist may be satisfied with +this statement, because it suffices for his purposes. The recognition +of the objective validity of the laws of formal thought is all that +the specialist wants for this or that branch of science. But this +recognition is not sufficient for the philosopher. He has to understand +the problem why the subjective laws of purely formal thought possess an +absolute and an objective validity for the world of real existences. He +must understand not only how thought-forms originated, but also why and +on what ground the laws of formal thought are considered as necessary +and universal truths. The question of their origin and growth is of +secondary importance compared with the question of their rigidity and +apriority. + +Mr. Herbert Spencer has made the same proposition as Dr. Potonié and +his view briefly expressed is this: “The laws of formal thought are _a +priori_ to the individual, but _a posteriori_ to the race.” In other +words apriority must be explained by heredity. A dog cannot count, +because none of his ancestors have ever counted, but a child has the +faculty to learn counting because innumerable ancestors of his have +counted and his brain possesses a predisposition to learn counting +easily. Concerning our apprehension of space-relations which expressed as +mathematical theorems appear to us necessary and are called _a priori_, +Mr. Spencer says: + + “We cannot think otherwise because during that adjustment + between the organism and the environment which evolution has + established, the inner relations have been so moulded upon + the outer relations that they cannot by any effort be made + not to fit them. Just in the same way that an infant’s hand, + constructed so as to grasp by bending the fingers inwards, + implies ancestral hands which have thus grasped, and implies + objects in the environment to be thus grasped by this infantine + hand when it is developed, so the various structures fitting + the infant for apprehension of space-relations, imply such + apprehensions in the past by its ancestors and in the future by + itself.” + +Man’s ability to learn counting is inherited, and there may be more or +less of it in different people. Mathematical talent is inherited just as +much as musical talent or other faculties. But the philosophical question +concerning the apriority of mathematical theorems has nothing whatever to +do with the origin of mathematical talent. When Mr. Spencer declares that +apriority is but an inherited aposteriority, this is equivalent and is +intended to be equivalent to an actual denial of all apriority. His very +explanation proves that he does not see the real problem, and in the same +way Dr. Potonié overlooks it entirely. The philosophical problem of the +apriority is not an historical problem, it cannot be solved by tracing +the evolution of thought-forms. The philosopher does not ask how did +thought-forms originate, but why do we attribute to the laws of formal +thought necessity and universality and on what ground can we justify our +assumption? + +Mr. Spencer compares our apprehension of space-relations to our inherited +habit to grasp with our hands and to walk with our feet. This comparison +is misleading and inappropriate. That we grasp with our hands and walk +with our feet is incidental. There are animals who have developed other +limbs for the same purposes. There are monkeys who grasp with their +tails and the elephant grasps with his nose. There is no necessity and +no universality in our predisposition of grasping with our hands. Yet +there resides necessity and universality in the laws of formal thought +so that wherever animals develop rational thought we are sure that to +them twice two will always equal four just as much as it does to us. +However they may be different in other respects: they may be winged +creatures or may be somewhat like our ants, they may have developed other +bodily structures than we can dream of, nevertheless their arithmetic, +their logic, and their mathematics will in all essentials be exactly the +same as ours. There are animals whose thought-forms are not as highly +developed as in man, but there are no animals in whom they are developed +differently. We must consider it as impossible even that on other stars +rational creatures can be found whose reason differs from ours. To them +also twice two will be four. + + +II. THE PROBLEM OF APRIORITY. + +Kant did not call the formal laws _a priori_ in order to characterise +them as innate ideas, but simply to denote that their validity is +necessary and universal. If I have to walk twice a distance of two miles, +I know “beforehand” (i. e. _a priori_) that I shall have to walk four +miles—even before I have made the actual experience. And this wonderful +quality of giving information beforehand is characteristic of all the +laws of formal thought. It is certain that our ability of applying the +laws of formal thought has been acquired by experience in the race as +well as in the individual. But their necessity has to do with experience +in so far only as its recognition is the indispensable condition of all +methodical experience—i. e. of science. The laws of formal thought and +our recognition of their necessity and universality (alias, “apriority”) +are the organ of any and all scientific cognition. The methods of the +sciences are exact measuring and counting based upon the faith that the +laws of measuring and counting are unalterable and unfailingly reliable. +We know beforehand that they will hold good for all possible cases. + +Our experience of millenniums suffices to prove that the laws of formal +thought agree with the laws of actual existence, and Kant’s view to +consider them as merely subjective and not objective appears to me +untenable. We may fairly consider Kant’s subjectivism as a thing of the +past. And the agreement of the forms of objectivity with the forms of +subjectivity is easily explained when we bear in mind that the thinking +subject is a part of the objective world. It is but natural that the +forms of existence are impressed upon the thinking subject as forms of +thought. + +Yet the question of the necessity and universality of the laws of form +remains. Can we comprehend why the form of objective reality as well as +of subjective thought must be such as they are, and might they not just +as well be different? Is this question legitimate and can it be answered? +We say Yes, the question is legitimate and can be answered. + +All the laws of formal thought are products of thought-operations which +are based on no other principle than that of identity (_A_ = _A_). As +soon as thinking beings have developed to that degree of thought-ability +in which they are able to deal with the abstract idea of pure form, they +can make constructions of pure forms. So long as these constructions +of pure forms are made consistently and correctly (i. e. in strict +agreement with the principle of identity), they will be found to hold +good in reality and we can _a priori_—before we have made the actual +experience—rely on their applicability. + +The laws of pure forms (forms of thought as well as forms of existence) +can satisfactorily be proved to anyone who acknowledges the principle +of identity. The principle of identity is not an assumption but it is +the generalised statement of the simplest thought-operation, which, if +employed with consistency, can serve as a rule for other and more complex +thought-operations. Consistency is the condition of thought. Consistency +produces order, and order is the most characteristic feature of thought. +We create some pure form in some definite way, for instance in counting +we posit a unit (we call it “one”). Now we create in the same definite +way again a pure form, we again posit a unit (we again call it “one”). +In so far as these two “ones” are the product of the same operation they +will be the same and we express this truth in the sentence 1 = 1 or _A_ = +_A_. + +When, for the sake of assistance in the process of abstract thought, we +use real objects to represent our pure forms, similarly as an abacus is +employed for assisting the young mind of a child in learning arithmetic, +the dissimilarity of the objects is of no account. The proposition of +their identity has no reference to the material objects, but to the +operation. Two operations being according to some special and definite +method exactly the same, their products are also exactly the same, +and the rest is not to be minded, because we have in our abstraction +purposely excluded everything else. + +Here is not the place to show the palpable advantages of the methods +of abstract thought and especially of the abstract thought-operations +with pure forms. It is sufficient to characterise its main principle of +procedure. We may also parenthetically remark that from our position +we are no longer in need of axioms either in mathematics or in any +other formal science. The data of formal sciences are certain mental +operations, viz. positing pure forms, and combining, separating, and +recombining them. The subject matter of formal sciences consists in the +products of these operations. To formulate some of the simplest products +in axioms is a mistake which has been pointed out by Hermann Grassmann in +his _Ausdehnungslehre_. + +We are struck and overawed with the cosmic order of all natural phenomena +which, as science teaches, is produced through the rigidity of the formal +laws of existence. The planetary system with its regularity of motion +which in spite of its many complications has been formulated by Kepler in +most simple laws is an object of wonder to us. This order of nature is +the same order as the grand harmony that prevails in mathematics and all +the other formal sciences. The most complicated laws of both, forms of +nature and forms of thought, are nothing but generalisations of special +applications of the principle of identity in some kind of action that +takes place. While the order of the objective world excites our wonder +we can understand the order of the subjective world of thought-forms +and know that, being the product of certain mental operations according +to the principle of identity, it must be a matter of course. Thus the +intrinsic necessity of the laws of our thought-forms gives us a clue to +the intrinsic necessity of the laws of nature. + + +III. CONSERVATION OF MATTER AND ENERGY, AND CAUSATION. + +The law of the conservation of matter and energy is nothing but an +application of the principle of identity to nature as a whole. And the +law of cause and effect is again a corollary only of the law of the +conservation of matter and energy. The law of causation is a formula +which maintains that there is identity in difference. Some motion +produces a change of form. There is accordingly a different state after +the motion than before. Yet the total amount of matter and energy +remains the same. This is the identity in the change. David Hume and +with him John Stuart Mill and the empiricists misunderstood the problem +of causation. Instead of considering cause and effect as one continuous +process that should be analysed, they considered cause and effect +separately and attempted a synthesis. In addition to this mistake, causes +as well as effects were defined to be objects. Hume says cause and +effect are objects following one another. Cause however is a process; +it is a motion, a change that takes place, an event that happens; it +is not a thing. And effect is the product of such a process. Effect is +a special form, a special state of things, a special configuration, +but not the material of which this configuration consists. A certain +poison introduced into the stomach of a living being produces certain +motions in the bowels, called cramps, which may finally prove fatal. +One change produces other changes and their product is a new state of +things which is accompanied with pain and ends in death. It is wrong to +call strychnine the cause and a dead mouse the effect. But if we call +strychnine the cause and a dead mouse the effect, we must forever despair +of solving the problem of causation by a reduction to the principle of +identity, for strychnine is not at all identical with a dead mouse. No +cause is the same thing as its effect, and we can by no means identify +cause and effect. And yet the principle of identity holds good. The +identity in causation is the conservation of matter and energy in a +change of form. + +It has been maintained that the law of cause and effect could never be +proved; it is either an innate idea prior to experience (Schopenhauer and +Schopenhauer’s interpretation of Kant) or it is an assumption derived +from experience of which (since experience is not as yet exhausted) +we cannot know whether it will hold good forever (J. S. Mill). In +contradistinction to these views we maintain, that the law of cause and +effect can satisfactorily be proved to anyone who accepts the principle +of identity. So far as the principle of identity is recognised, all +the formal laws are unequivocally determined, or popularly expressed +they are as they are, they will remain so and cannot be otherwise, they +are necessary. All the determining factors and also the procedure of +an operation are set forth, no unforeseen events are possible, for the +non-formal elements are excluded, and therefore the result will be in one +case just as it is in any other. Thus it can _a priori_ be stated that +formal laws will always hold good. + +The question has been raised: Whether or not our knowledge of the +apriority of formal laws is independent of experience. We answer: In +a certain sense it is dependent upon experience, in another it is +not. Historically and evolutionarily it is dependent upon experience. +A store of innumerable experiences has to be gained before a rational +creature will be able to make the abstraction of pure forms. As soon as +this stage is attained, man possesses a world in himself. He can now +experiment within himself with mental images, for instance with numbers: +he can calculate. His mental operations with pure form are called “pure +thought” and “pure thought” is now opposed to “experience through the +senses.” The word “experience” accordingly is used in two ways; it has a +broad and a narrow meaning. In its broad sense it means any acquisition +of knowledge generally, in its narrow sense it means knowledge acquired +through the sense-activity alone. Our knowledge of the apriority of +formal laws rests upon experience in its broad sense, but not upon +experience in its narrow sense. We can never derive the idea of necessity +from sense-impressions. John Stuart Mill in rejecting innate ideas saw +no other way than to derive the formal laws from experience (taking +here experience in the broad sense). Yet he did not make a distinction +between formal thought and sense-experience. He considered the nature of +sense-experience as typical for all experience. And thus, again, taking +experience in the narrow sense of the term, he was from his premises +perfectly justified in rejecting the idea of necessity. If the process +of cause and effect is really a synthesis of two things represented in +two different sense-impressions following each other, then indeed we have +no guarantee that the same sequences will always be observed; and there +may be worlds in which the law of causality does not operate. Mill saw +all the consequences of his mistake, he conceded freely that we are not +justified in assuming that twice two will always be four: many thousands +of experiences are in its favor, but we cannot be at all sure that no +case will ever happen in which twice two makes five. + +The ideas of causality and of the conservation of matter and energy are +not derived from experience in the narrow sense of the word, not from +sense-experience, but from experience in the wider sense of the word, i. +e. from sense-experience arranged with the assistance of formal laws. We +should not forget that mere sense-experience exists only in our abstract +thought. In reality all sense-experience is relational, it is inseparable +from its form. Form and the laws of form are not something purely mental +which is transferred to the world of reality, form is something real, it +is objective, it is a quality of the facts and the thought-forms of mind +are a part and a product of the formal structure of the universe. + +The ideas of causation and of the conservation of matter and energy are +not prior to experience, they are a part of experience, i. e. experience +in the wider sense. They are not part of the sense-experience, but the +results of our experiments with purely formal thought-operations, and +being the vital instrument or organ of cognition they are the condition +of all methodical experience. + + +IV. WHY IS MR. MILL’S PROPOSITION UNTENABLE? + +In practical life we all expect that 2 × 2 will under all circumstances +make 4, and not 5. We reject Mr. Mill’s idea that there may be even a +possibility of the latter. Is our expectancy really due to _a posteriori_ +experience which having been repeated so often in the lives of our +ancestors is now so firmly rooted in our minds that we imagine it to +be necessary and _a priori_? No! certainly not. The experiences of our +race in the struggle for life has produced our ability of thought, +but it has nothing to do with the apriority of the products of formal +thought-operations. A statement of formal thought such as “twice two +makes four,” cannot be compared to statements of sense-experience such +as that sugar has a sweet taste. There may be a moment in which the +taste of sugar will be bitter to our tongue. This is quite possible. +But to say that twice two might in the future or in any other world, as +Mr. Mill maintains, make five is nonsensical, and the possibility of +this assumption cannot be placed in one line with the possibilities of +extraordinary and exceptional sense-experiences. + +What does “twice two makes four” mean? Two means 1 + 1, and twice two +means 1 + 1 plus 1 + 1. This sum is called “four”; and what we call +five is 4 + 1. To maintain that the operation 2 × 2 might produce the +result 5, is to admit conditions which have been excluded. Pure forms +are not like animals which multiply; they are and remain such as they +have been posited. When we put two amœbas into a glass and then add two +other amœbas, it is quite possible that in the mean time one of the first +set has divided into two. In that case we would have five amœbas. But +the operation 2 × 2 cannot breed any additional units, so as to produce +a greater number than the sum of 1 + 1 + 1 + 1. Nor can we let any of +these units disappear into naught, so as to produce the result 3, without +committing some inconsistency in our thought-operations, for the products +of our thought-operations are rigid and must remain such as they have +been posited. They are not animals blessed with fertility but pure forms +and nothing but pure forms. + +How could Mr. John Stuart Mill overlook so palpable a contrast as +that between formal knowledge and sense-experience? He was apparently +prejudiced against the term “a priori,” which as we freely confess is a +very poor and inadequate expression. Mr. Mill himself states the cause of +his prejudice in his autobiography. He says: + + “There is not any idea, feeling, or power, in the human mind, + which, in order to account for it, requires that its origin + should be referred to any other source than experience.” + +Mr. Mill was justly exasperated against anything _a priori_, for in his +time, it had become customary among certain philosophers to classify all +pet superstitions which could not be proved by experience as _a priori_. +Mr. Mill continues: + + “Whatever may be the practical value of a true philosophy + of these matters, it is hardly possible to exaggerate the + mischiefs of a false one. The notion that truths external + to the mind may be known by intuition or consciousness, + independently of observation and experience, is, I am + persuaded, in these times the great intellectual support of + false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid of this theory + every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of which + the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the + obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is erected into + its own all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never + was such an instrument devised for consecrating all deep-seated + prejudices.” + +We appreciate the cause of Mr. Mill’s prejudice, but we cannot agree +with him. And Mr. Mill is mistaken when he imagines that a rejection +of apriority will abolish false doctrines and superstitions. On +the contrary. The recognition of absolute necessity based upon the +universality of formal thought will alone be a safe basis of science +through which we can reject _prima facie_ the wrong pretensions of +superstitions and pseudo-science. If we assume with Mr. Mill that all +formal knowledge partakes of the nature of sense-experience, that there +is no difference between the two, no general judgment would be allowable +and the idea of necessity would be inadmissible. These consequences +are accepted by Mill. In that case science would lose its value and +philosophy would be without foundation. The most absurd superstition +could not be rejected off-hand on the ground of being contrary to that +which through logic and other formal sciences has been found to be +necessary and a condemnation of any superstition on the part of science +would be mere arrogance. Pseudo-science would have the same right with +true science. + +It is obvious that without being obliged to consider the apriority of +formal laws as innate, we need not accept the consequence of Mr. Mill’s +philosophy. We can and we do retain the idea of necessity and we consider +it as the corner-stone of all science. + + +V. THE MEANING OF “NECESSARY.” + +We have to be on our guard lest we introduce some mystical element +into the idea of necessity. There is nothing mystical about necessity. +Necessary means that a certain operation, if it is exactly the same +operation as another one, will produce exactly the same result. When we +posit two units twice, we shall have the same result as when we posit +one unit four times; and we call this result four. We shall reach the +same product whenever we repeat the same operation. Knowing that we +shall always reach the same result, we can, _a priori_ (or beforehand) +and with certainty, determine the result of certain operations after we +have mentally gone through the same operations for all possible cases +and under any imaginable conditions. That a perfect apriority with an +unfailing certainty is possible only in the domain of formal thought +is natural. The reason is that we know our thought-forms exhaustively. +They contain nothing but that which has been predicated about them. Our +sense-experience however is always piecemeal and never exhaustive. + +Comprehension is actually a tracing of form relations and a formulating +them in concise statements. The scientist’s work is based upon the +methods of measuring and counting (i. e. the methods of formal sciences) +and he undertakes to show that certain phenomena, different in some +respects, are the same in other respects, that their sameness can be +stated in a comprehensive and exact formula. In this way he marks out +their determining factors in terms of formal thought (for instance in +numbers), so that we can compute them and predict them according to their +determining factors, so that we can know, according to their conditions, +that they will be always as they are. + +The importance of formal thought is paramount in science and the problem +about the necessity which attaches to the laws of formal thought is the +fundamental problem of philosophy. + +There are many philosophers, still, troubling themselves to solve the +problem in the fashion of Schopenhauer or of Mill or looking upon the +problem as insolvable. We do not doubt that the solution here presented +is the only possible solution which as soon as it is understood will find +a general acceptance. + +Must it be added that the solution of this fundamental problem does +not involve the ready solutions of all other minor problems? Oh no! We +all know that the solution of one problem is only a stepping-stone for +attacking other problems. The possibilities of progress are as unlimited +as the scope of cognition. Light on this general subject gives us hope +that we shall succeed in throwing light also upon other subjects which +are still shrouded to the philosophical inquirer in impenetrable darkness. + + +VI. MODERN LOGIC. + +The problem of modern logic is at bottom no other problem than that of +formal thought and of the origin of thought-forms. Professor Dewey in +the excellent essay which appears as the leading article of this number +says: “Any book of logic will tell us what this conception of thought +is: that thought is a faculty or an entity existing in the mind apart +from facts and that it has its own fixed forms with which facts have +nothing to do—except in so far as they pass under the yoke.” This is +the old conception of thought, rightly criticised by Professor Dewey, +for, closely considered, it turns out to be dualistic. However, as soon +as a proposition is recognised to contain or to rest upon dualism, it +becomes a problem. The problem of modern logic is, How can we arrive at a +monistic conception of logic, how can we rid ourselves of the dualism on +the one side of facts not yet rationalised by the method of thought-forms +and on the other side of mind with its empty thought-forms assimilating +facts to its own nature. + +Our solution of the difficulty has been proposed, in the sense outlined +by Professor Dewey, in “Fundamental Problems.” Professor Dewey, according +to our opinion, is right when he says there is no such a thing as +transcendental thought, or pure thought, thought by itself. And there is +no such a thing either as fact, crude irrational chaotic fact. The world +of fact, indeed, is a cosmos and no chaos; there never was a chaos and +never will be a chaos, for the laws of form are an essential and the most +characteristic feature of the world. + +Can there be any question how the order found in thought-forms originates +in a world in which the inorganic and unfeeling mineral crystallises in +a regular shape according to strict mathematical laws, i. e. the laws +of form? A world in which the plant grows not otherwise than according +to strict mathematical laws building up roots and stem and leaves and +petals and stamens and all other organs obedient to a certain plan which +will vary according to circumstances, but throughout consistent with +the principles of formal laws? Can there be any question that in this +world of cosmic harmony thought-forms will develop in feeling beings as +a microcosm exhibiting the same regularity and conformity to law as do +in this world all other things animate and inanimate? Our pure, i. e. +merely formal, thought is an abstraction which serves the purpose of +comprehension. And so is the concept “matter,” being that which produces +sense-impressions. There are no such ghosts as pure matter or pure +thoughts in reality. + +Modern logic, so far as we conceive it to be right, is by no means an +overthrow of the old formal Logic, generally called Aristotelian. It is +simply an amendment made in order to exclude an erroneous interpretation. +And so is modern mathematics not so much a revolution as an extension +of the old Euclidian system. It is a revolution only against a certain +unclear conception of mathematics according to which this science is said +to rest upon axioms, these axioms representing absolute truth—unprovable, +incomprehensible, and mysterious.[21] + +The main truth of monism is that reality forms one indivisible whole +and all our concepts are mere abstractions representing certain parts +or certain features of the whole. As soon as we try to think of any +of them as things in themselves we become involved in inextricable +contradictions. It appears as if the formal sciences contained some +truths which were absolute and independent of actual reality. But let any +one think of any number, of 2 or 3, and he will soon find that conceived +as absolute beings they are meaningless and unthinkable. + +This is not to say that numbers are phantoms, but that conceived as +absolute beings they are phantoms. Numbers and all formal concepts +represent something real, they represent pure forms. And form is as much +a part and feature of reality as is matter and energy. + + P. C. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] Hermann Grassmann, one of the founders of modern mathematics, has +called attention to the fact that Euclid had a clearer conception of the +fundamental concepts of mathematics than his ill-informed translators +and interpreters. Grassmann says in his _Ausdehnungslehre_: “From the +imputation of confounding axioms with assumed concepts Euclid himself, +however, is free, Euclid incorporated the former among his postulates +(αἰτήματα) while he separated the latter as common concepts (κοιναὶ +ἐννοιαι)—a proceeding which even on the part of his commentators was no +longer understood, and likewise with modern mathematicians, unfortunately +for science, has met with little imitation. As a matter of fact, the +abstract methods of mathematical science know no axioms at all.”—Quoted +from _The Open Court_, Vol. II. No. 77, _A Flaw in the Foundation of +Geometry_, by Hermann Grassmann, translated from his _Ausdehnungslehre_ +by μκρκ. + + + + +BOOK REVIEWS. + + +BELIEF IN GOD. Its Origin, Nature, and Basis. Being the Winkley Lectures +of the Andover Theological Seminary for the Year 1890. By _Jacob Gould +Schurmann_. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1890. + +The learned Sage Professor of Philosophy in Cornell University, after +tracing the historical origin and development of the belief in God, +expresses his conviction that the problem of the modern theist consists +in the union of the Aryan and Semitic modes of interpreting existence. We +shall then have “a synthesis of the Father of all spirits with the ground +of all nature.” This is the hypothesis developed in the course of the +lectures delivered by Professor Schurmann last year before the Andover +Theological Seminary on the Winkley foundation, that form the contents of +the present volume. The theism embodied in that hypothesis is called by +the author _anthropocosmic_, because, while it is based on the facts of +the universe and those of human nature, the universe must be interpreted +in the terms of man, and not man in the terms of the universe. The key +to the universe is the self-conscious spirituality which makes us selves +and persons. Hence anthropocosmic theism is the doctrine of a Supreme +Being “who is ground both of nature and of man, but whose essence is not +natural but spiritual.” + +Before considering the evidence for this hypothesis, let us see what +the author has to say with reference to the logical character of the +belief in God. He shows that _agnosticism_—of which he treats under +its three significations as referring to the method of knowledge, the +object of knowledge, and the subject of knowledge—is not consistent +with the insight into nature and the constitution of knowledge gained +by the Newtonian method of hypotheses and verifications. Science, as +opposed to pure phenomenalism, assumes that what has not originated +in the percipient subject is objectively real, and it postulates the +universality of law in nature, a postulate which is the expression of a +conviction of “the unity and universal inner connection of all reality.” +The objective world cannot be understood without reference to our own +conscious experience, and as the only reality we know from the inside +is a spiritual _ego_, self-conscious spirit must be ascribed to the one +ultimate reality whose existence science assumes, as that which will +alone satisfy the requirement of unity in the midst of change. + +It might be objected here, that the existence in man of a spiritual +_ego_ requires proof before that of a universal spirit or world-soul can +be inferred from it. The author takes the existence of the _ego_ for +granted, a course which is quite allowable from the theistic standpoint, +although, in the face of what is now known as to the dissolution of the +ego under abnormal conditions of the organism, not scientific. Having +made that assumption and inferred the existence of God from that of the +human spirit, the author explains the nature of the one by reference to +that of the other. He tells us, that the finite spirit is identical, +within the limits of its range, with the infinite spirit, because it is +an _ego_, and that in the _ego_ we have, not merely a mode of the divine +activity, but a part of the divine essence. Such being the case, the +author has no difficulty in inferring the attributes of God from the +phenomena exhibited by man. Thus God is a God of righteousness because +the moral capacity in the human spirit must have its ground in the +infinite Spirit. Again universal benevolence or love is the ideal of +which human morality is the realisation; hence we must conceive of the +Spirit of the universe as a God of love. + +We do not think the author’s final conclusion, that “the phenomena +both of the universe and of human life require the thinking mind to +postulate a Supreme Ground of things which we are entitled to describe as +self-conscious Spirit and loving Father,” is warranted by his premises. +But we can accept the statement that our knowledge of God must continue +to grow with our knowledge of man and nature. Through these alone can we +know Him, but the difficulty is to interpret the revelation. Let it be +admitted also that the end of nature is the production of man, and that +what is referred to by the author as the human spirit is “the organ of +that communication of God which is the end of the universe.” This does +not in reality throw any light on the nature of God. The utmost that can +be said is that, as man is an organism possessing certain functions, the +universe, viewed as God, must have an organic existence with functions +_corresponding_ to those exhibited by the human organism. + +The author’s reasoning in support of the belief in God as cause or ground +of the world, and as realising purpose in the world is very ingenious. +He affirms that the creational form of the argument from causality is +insufficient. It satisfies the devotional needs of a certain class +of worshipers, but what the religious, as well as the scientific, +consciousness demands is a God “here in the world, not there outside of +it or making it.” It has not yet been shown that the universe has had a +beginning in time, and the argument in favor of the eternity of matter +ends with an assurance of the eternity of spirit alone. Spirit is the +eternal reality, and nature its eternal manifestation, the latter being +no more separable from the former “than the spoken word from the thought +it symbolises.” The causal relation is, however, absolutely necessary +for our apprehension of the facts of the universe, and as it cannot +be interpreted without contradiction as an action between independent +beings, it must be explained as the eternal dependence of the world upon +God. This implies that God must be volitional as well as self-conscious; +“for without will there could be no activity, no efficient causation, +no material universe.” The universe is thus the eternal expression of +the divine will. But what is the purpose realised in creation? The +activity of the divine will precludes the notion of a blindly working +nature. As creation is the eternal self-revelation of God, the supreme +and preconceived end of all things must be the glory of God. But man is +indispensable for the attainment of God’s glory, and therefore the end +of nature as a realised scheme of divine ideas is the production of man. +The volitional and teleological arguments as thus stated by the author +are consistent with the theory of evolution developed by Darwin, but +they may be combatted on other grounds connected with the conditions of +the existence of God as one with Nature. With this observation, we must +leave Professor Schurmann’s very thoughtful book which, although for the +reasons we have stated, not conclusive, presents the theistic argument +with great clearness and in its strongest form. + + Ω. + + +JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. A Sketch of the Progress of Thought from Old +Testament to New Testament. By _Crawford Howell Toy_. Boston: Little, +Brown & Co. 1890. + +This work is another contribution to that genuine history which is alone +competent to impart any true instruction. In it the author undertakes to +give an account of the genesis of Christianity as a child of Judaism. + +It seems to be the thesis of the author that those conceptions and +beliefs that characterise any form of religion are rather determined by +the social evolution than that the social progress and its features are +determined by the evolution of ideas among which the religious ideas +are specially influential. In his introduction the author sketches out +his view of the general laws of social progress as the same are related +to religious thought. He notices in history the tendency of ethnic +religions to give way to or to develop into universal religions, and +argues that Christianity is destined to overcome all its rivals and +prevail universally. This kind of a conclusion is a natural one to follow +from the theory that the character of thought is determined by social +circumstances and progress. But if it be true that the special course +of the evolution of thought and its characteristic form at any epoch is +determined by causes that are uncontrolled by social conditions, that as +between thought and society thought is the masterful factor, then quite +another conclusion may ensue. But the dubitable nature of the main thesis +of the work does not much detract from the great excellence of the work +in general. As a history of the evolution of Jewish religious conceptions +and beliefs from the very first until the establishment of Christianity, +it is in the highest degree interesting and instructive. + +After a discussion of the literature of the Jews and the formation of the +canon, the author proceeds to describe in full detail the nature genesis +and mutations of the cardinal religious doctrines as they revealed +themselves to the Israelite, Jewish, and early Christian insight. The +entire body of the data are interpreted in consonance with the modern +scientific idea of the organic nature of society. Jesus is regarded as +the master spirit that created the Christian Church, and Paul whom many +would install as the real author of the same is accordingly given only a +second place. Altogether it may be said that Professor Toy has given us +a most valuable contribution to religious history and to the scientific +interpretation of the same. + + ρσλ. + + +PRONAOS TO HOLY WRIT. Establishing, on Documentary Evidence, the +Authorship, Date, Form, and Contents of each of its Books, and the +Authenticity of the Pentateuch. By _Isaac M. Wise_. Cincinnati: Robert +Clarke & Co. 1891. + +Rabbi Isaac Wise, the president of the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati +and the Nestor of Orthodox Judaism in America, presents in the “Pronaos +to Holy Writ” a review of the Biblical books with comments as to their +authenticity and the times in which they were written. Having read these +“books and every word thereof in the original for a term of sixty-six +years, i. e. from boyhood up to his seventy-second birthday,” and having +“acquainted himself with all the ancient versions and commentaries +and a large portion of the modern translations and commentaries of +the Bible,” the author is entitled to be heard. Rabbi Wise is a stern +monotheist and he declares: “God only did create light out of darkness; +man cannot produce truth out of fiction, unless in his self-delusion +problematic truth satisfies him. All so-called gems of truth buried under +the quicksand of fiction and deception are problematic at best, if not +supported by authoritative corroborants.” This is true. All truth depends +upon verification. We cannot make truth, but must find it, we must be +able to corroborate it, and the corroborants of truth are its authority. +Dr. Wise’s idea of a corroborant is different from ours, he says: “No +one can speak conscientiously of Bible truth before he knows that the +Bible is true, and especially in its historical data.” This seems to +indicate that we must have a belief in the truth of the Bible before +we investigate it and that moral truths, the ethics, the philosophy of +the Bible depend upon its historical data. We cannot go so far with the +author of the Pronaos. Dr. Wise says: “The science commonly called Modern +Biblical Criticism, actually Negative Criticism which maintains on the +strength of unscientific methods that the Pentateuch is not composed of +original Mosaic material, no Psalms are Davidian, no Proverbs Solomonic, +the historical books are unhistorical, the prophecies were written +post festum, there was no revelation, inspiration, or prophecy, must +also maintain that the Bible is a compendium of pious or even impious +frauds, wilful deceptions, unscrupulous misrepresentations.” Dr. Wise +thought it necessary to meet Negative Criticism with the documentary +evidence and for this purpose he wrote his Pronaos, which is to be an +entrance-hall to the Temple of Biblical Truth. We do not side with the +negativism of certain biblical critics, for we believe that historical +investigations have proved large portions of the Pentateuch to be Mosaic, +several psalms to be Davidian, and the historical books to contain as +much history as many old historical books contain. We believe that they +have to be judged and searched and commented just as much and in the +same spirit of scientific inquiry as our philologists treat Herodotus +or Livy. But the value of the Bible, in our opinion, does not depend +upon the acceptance or rejection of these or those historical data; nor +is it necessary to consider the Hebrew prophets as special revelations +of God, in contradistinction to the divine revelation in nature and the +history of mankind in general. It may be true enough that the orthodox +God-idea of Monotheism depends upon the belief in special revelation +and prophecies, and it is also true that most of the Biblical criticism +has been destructive and negative. But there is a way possible between +both standpoints which may be called positive criticism. This positive +criticism attempts to understand the very life and meaning of the old +religion, it attempts to comprehend the belief of the orthodox and +construe it in the terms of science—i. e. of rational and clear thought. +Religion is certainly not a mere fraud or a vain illusion, it is an +ideal which developed naturally out of certain needs of man and the +conditions of society. That religious ideas, especially the idea of God +as the cosmic power which represents the moral authority, are no mere +fictions, is proved by their survival, and those who believe in evolution +should not be blind to the fact that there is something good, something +true, something well adapted to surroundings in religion. To find these +elements of truth and goodness which constitute the life of religion +is not mere negative criticism, but positive criticism, and it is not +at all necessary for those who aspire in this direction, to believe in +any historical data, or in special revelations, or in prophecies, or in +the personality of God, but simply to trust in truth. Truth is the only +way of salvation even though it may shatter the most sacred idols of a +venerable orthodoxy. + +The contents of the book show that the standpoint of the author does not +blind him to the finer traits of the natural development of his religion. +So, for instance, Solomon’s rationalism is excellently contrasted with +the spirit which manifested itself in the Judges as well as the Prophets. +The author of the Judges was an outspoken theocratic democrat. “He +literally pours out his abhorrence of the monarchical anti-theocratic +institution in narrating the story of the first usurper Abimelech, the +son of Gideon.... Entirely different are the language and tendency of +the two appendices, evidently written by another author, who evinces his +animosity to the democratic form of government by saying four times: +‘In those days there was no king in Israel,’ to which he adds twice +‘every man did what seemed right in his sight’” (p. 46). “The Solomonic +ethics is a commentary on the Mosaic ethics, as by reason understood.... +Man’s knowledge of ethical doctrine is identical with his knowledge +of God’s moral attributes, and all moral obligation has its root in +the Mosaic God-idea....” According to Solomon “wisdom based upon and +rooted in the fear of Jehovah with the revealed material before them was +all-sufficient, without any further special oracles of any prophets. This +peculiar rationalism brought upon him the ire of prophets and rabbis” (p. +111). + +Some reviewers of Dr. Wise’s book will probably find fault with him that +he has taken little if any account of the results of modern biblical +investigations. And this is a grievous fault in our times where it seems +to be essential for a scholar and author to have read the very latest +things published on a subject while an acquaintance with the views of +the classical old authorities is considered unnecessary. It appears that +Dr. Wise did not intend to present his views or criticisms of and his +answers to the latest biblical investigations. It may even be that he is +not familiar with many of them. Granting this to be a fault of his book +it is, nevertheless, refreshing to us to find an author who has actually +read and is excellently familiar with all the old sources of the subject +he is writing upon. + + κρς. + + +THE FOUNDATIONS OF GEOMETRY. By _Edward T. Dixon_. Cambridge (Eng.): +Deighton, Bell & Co. 1891. + +This work is divided into three parts, the first containing such +doctrines of psychology and logic as the author deems sound and useful +for his purposes, the second exhibiting the author’s “subjective theory +of geometry deduced from the two fundamental concepts _position_ and +_direction_,” and the third “on the applicability of the foregoing +subjective geometry to the geometry of material space.” + +In his preface the author expresses his desire that those who criticise +his work shall “consider categorically” certain questions relating to his +theory of definition, to the definitions and axioms prescribed by him, +to his proofs of propositions and to the “objective applications” of his +three axioms. + +Geometry may be studied for two distinct purposes, neither of which +necessarily involves the other. Unless the aim is mainly the discipline +of the logical faculty, it is plainly a poor method of study to pore +over the definitions, axioms, postulates, theorems, problems, and +demonstrations of Euclid or any similar text-book. Practical resources +and geometrical information can be acquired much better and more rapidly +by a course of mechanical drawing with here and there a more or less +loose explanation of the grounds and reasons that warrant the geometrical +doctrines, than by means of the Euclidian course. Under such a method of +instruction the student would rarely feel any real doubt as to the truth +of his geometrical knowledge. + +But where the paramount aim is the training of the reason the Euclidian +rigor is all important. Hence the perfection of that method by the +discovery and certification of the ultimate grounds on which, and the +principles by which, it may be unfolded systematically and in necessary +and sufficient sequence without presumption or fallacy, is an object of +the most momentous concern to science, to philosophy, and to culture in +general. For it is well known that however good an account elementary +geometry may give of its superstructure the reports given of its +foundations are all very far from satisfactory. + +Repeated and strenuous efforts have been made, and by the most competent +of our race, to discover and certify the true state of the case in +respect to the geometrical foundations, in order that the whole edifice +of that science shall display throughout the same thorough-going +necessity and sufficiency that distinguishes it in general. + +The author of the work under review is persuaded that he is now able to +perform this so desirable service. He avers his belief that the system +of geometry he “has set forth in this book is _logically sound_ and that +consequently the more it is discussed and criticised, the more firmly +will it become established.” He takes his stand upon two fundamental +concepts, _position_ and _direction_, which he defines not explicitly but +“implicitly.” This leads us to consider his first question and his theory +of definition. + +The embarrassments that involve the foundations of elementary geometry +are mainly, if not wholly, those which involve the general problems of +definition. Now a definition is the certification of the purport of a +name by means of a statement or a conspiracy of statements necessary and +sufficient to that end. But names are constituents absolutely necessary +for the formation of any statement, so that the above definition of a +definition may be restated thus: A definition is the certification of the +purport of one name by means of other names, necessary and sufficient +to certify the purport of the one defined. Evidently then, definition +can only lead us from name to name in unending process, or to some +undefinable name, or to some name that we choose to leave undefined; and +the question arises, on what sort of names shall we take our stand as +ultimate grounds? + +Our author answers this question as follows: “The propounder of a +scientific theory is not of course expected to teach his readers to +speak, it is only necessary for him to define the terms peculiar to his +science, or those to which he wishes to attach peculiar meanings. He may +therefore assume that the meanings of all other words are known to his +readers.” + +He then propounds that “all that is logically required for a definition +is one or more assertions with regard to the word to be defined or, its +attributes,” provided “they are not demonstrably incompatible with each +other.” + +Although our author conceives that logical competence requires no more +than this for a good definition, he yet goes on to remark, that “if the +definition is to form the basis of a deductive science it is further +advisable that the assertions should be independent,” and that “where +it is required to define a term whose denotation is already known, it +is further necessary not only that the assertions should be commonly +accepted as true with respect to it, but that they should restrict the +meaning of the term exactly to its accepted denotation, neither more nor +less, and should do so in the simplest manner that can be devised.” + +It is upon this theory of definition that our author requests of his +critics a “categorical” answer to his first question, “Do you accept the +requirements I have laid down for a logical definition? (If not please +state which of them you object to, why you object to it, and what you +would propose to substitute for it.)” + +Since it is a “categorical” answer that is requested and since also it is +the matter of definition that is put in issue, we wish that our author +had been more definite and had made his propositions better issuable, for +we must protest that we regard ourselves obliged to answer to what we +can best conceive to be the author’s true meanings rather than to what he +has explicitly said. + +We do not conceive that he regards it as _necessary_ to a definition that +the defining assertions should be expressed “in the simplest manner that +can be devised.” We have also to take his use of the word “restrict” +as importing completion as well as limitation, and his use of the word +“requirements” as intending conditions that together are sufficient as +well as necessary. + +If we are right in our understanding of the meanings of our author he +contemplates four cases, first, the definition of a name that has no +denotation already known and that is not to form the basis of a deductive +science, second, the definition of a name that has no denotation already +known but which is to form the basis of a deductive science, third, the +definition of a name that has a denotation already known but which is not +to form the basis of a deductive science, and fourth the definition of a +name that has a denotation already known and is to form the basis of a +deductive science. + +In this fourth case our author deems it requisite for a logical +definition that there shall be made one or more assertions about the +subject of definition that are not demonstrably incompatible with one +another, that are independent of one another, that are commonly accepted +as true in respect to the subject defined and that “restrict” the meaning +of the name under definition exactly to its accepted denotation. + +It seems to us that this last requirement dispenses with the necessity +of all the rest. If we have provided an assertion or a set of assertions +that do in fact complete and limit the meaning of the subject of +definition exactly to its proper denotation that is a definition in full. +It implies that the defining assertions are all consistent with one +another, and in case any assertion is dependent upon one or more of the +rest that is a circumstance wholly immaterial. _Utile per inutile non +nocetur._ + +Again, what is it to be commonly accepted as true? Does logical +competence depend on the altering states of our knowledge or on the +fluctuations of opinion? Was a whale logically defined as a fish before +we learned that it was a mammal? + +The third case allows of the application of the same comment as that +made upon the fourth. But in the first and second cases the doctrines +of the author as well as his suppositions are very notable. He supposes +the anomaly of names without any known denotation, by which he may mean +those which have no application whatever. In respect to such he propounds +that they may be given a logical definition by making one or various +consistent assertions as applicable to them or to their attributes. + +“The proof of the pudding will be found in the eating,” as our author +says. So let us say that a troft may be perceived whenever our attention +is excited, and that trofts are of multitudinous variety. Do these +assertions constitute a logical definition? It is a prime requisite for +a definition that the defining assertion or assertions shall have a +meaning, which is the same as to say that names must be employed that +are already significant. These significant names must be so used that the +intellectual sensibility shall be excited to perceive in a determinate +way that which is intended to be defined. In other words, sense and not +nonsense must be produced in the mind that considers the definition. +Perhaps, however, our author intends such words as electricity, or +spirit, or energy. + +Because of the considerations above indicated and others we cannot accept +the author’s requirements for a logical definition as a whole. Some of +them are in some of his cases unnecessary, while taken together they +supply no new means whereby to solve the several problems of definition. + +The author’s subjective theory of geometry is plainly the outgrowth of +his confidence in the solvent power of the concept of direction as a +prime datum of geometry. + +Everything of consequence in his essay depends upon the worth of this +concept as a geometrical foundation. Considering the disparagement +that has been visited upon that concept by numerous writers of good +geometrical rank we naturally look for considerations tending to remove +the discredit that has befallen that notion. Instead however of this we +find the most palpable set of circular definitions. Direction is defined +by direction in the most distracting way, thus: + +“(_a_) A direction may be conceived to be indicated by naming two points +as the direction from one to the other.” + +The inaptitude of the term direction for use in geometry is rooted in +its ambiguous purport. As commonly used it means at least three distinct +but closely associated notions which become confused in thought and +expression unless the most solicitous care is taken to distinguish +them. When we speak of the direction of one point from another or of +the direction from one point to another we mean the straight off-ness +or from-ness or to-ness which one bears to the other; in other words +a relation of separation and straight mediation. When again we speak +of the direction of a motion we intend the indefinite straight sense +of its procession, which is not a relation but an attribute of the +motion. When still again we speak of the direction of a line we mean its +straight _lay_ as compared or as comparable with other actual or possible +correlates which is again a relation but not necessarily the same +relation as that that obtains between two points. + +In all these meanings the notion of straightness is involved, and could +we say in lieu of straightness first directness and then direction and +holding fast in thought this sense of the word, make a noun of it, so +that a direction would intend the same as a straightness and no more, it +might obtain a useful geometric term and notion. + +To define it we might first define a line thus: A line is a space +boundary that is indefinitely long but not otherwise of any extent. +Then, a direction is a line such that between the points that bound any +assigned parcel of it no copy of said parcel is possible. + +But direction purports to our author the second of the meanings above +set forth, namely, the indefinite straight sense of the procession of a +motion. Definite parcels of a direction thus understood are identical +with vectors. + +Now the notion of straightness is after the notions of point and line +the most fundamental one of geometry and the one which is altogether the +most prominent and useful. It is the necessary means for any definition +of a vector or of the notion which our author deems so important. As +straightness is attributable only to lines and long things which a line +may represent it makes no difference whether we define straightness +or a straight line, but a masterful performance of this definition is +absolutely necessary before the foundations of geometry can be abidingly +certified. + +Our author defines a straight line thus: “A straight line is a continuous +series of points extending from each of them in the same two directions.” +What kind of a thing a continuous series of points may be we are not told +but as a point is defined to be “a portion of matter so small that for +the purpose in hand variations of positions within it may be neglected” +we take it that a straight line is a continuous series of particles of +matter. The “purpose in hand” in this case must of course be the purpose +of geometry. + +In defining an angle our author first lays down that “The difference +between two directions is called their _inclination_ to one another” and +then “The measure of an inclination is called an _angle_.” + +Considering that it is the doctrine of the author that every straight +line has two contrary directions the measure of whose inclination is an +angle of one hundred and eighty degrees, we imagine a northeast southwest +line cutting an east west line and wonder if the right hand upper angle +is really two angles according to whether or not the directions both pass +to the left or both pass to the right or pass one to the left and the +other to the right. + +Were this an ordinary work we might regard it as due to the author to +notice the many excellencies which characterise it, in spite of the +defects which we notice. But as our author evidently realises, the +eminent dignity of the topic challenges and its singular importance +demands unsparing criticism. He who offers to instruct the world on the +foundations of geometry draws his sword and throws away the scabbard, and +like a doughty champion he will scorn to accept any favor, prizing only +such success as he shall take at the point of an efficacy of treatment +that conquers all competent and candid criticism. + +Stringent as are such terms of contest an author who is a worthy +competitor in the field of geometric research can be well content with +them in the perception that the very same conditions apply in full force +to the comments of his critics. + +The author is undoubtedly an able man and a close thinker. He has +concentrated his mind upon a work that is worth the energy of a lifetime. +But we must confess our judgment to be that in spite of his capacity and +evident devotion he has come short of the high result to which he has +aspired. + + ρσλ. + + +LES FÊTES DE MONTPELLIER. PROMENADE A TRAVERS LES CHOSES, LES HOMMES ET +LES IDEES. By _J. Delbœuf_. Paris: Félix Alcan. + +We have here a charming narrative by the well-known Professor at the +University of Liège of his visit to the fêtes of Montpellier, undertaken +in great measure to make the personal acquaintance of M. Dauriac, the +critic in the _Revue Philosophique_ of the author’s work “La matière +brute et la matière vivante.” The description given of the fêtes, +which marked the sixth centenary of the University of Montpellier, is +very entertaining, as is the account of the journey through the South +of France; but as M. Delbœuf says that he was more curious to become +acquainted with men than with places, what he tells us about the former +will be the more interesting. + +The author, with the companions of his tour, could not pass Nancy +without stopping to see “the masters in the science of hypnotism” there. +An account of what he saw and heard gives the author the opportunity +of repeating “That he does not regard forgetfulness on awaking as +characteristic of profound hypnosis, and that experience is against +the efficacity of criminal suggestion unless the subject is criminally +inclined.” The fêtes at Montpellier commenced with a religious service +in the Cathedral, during which the Bishop, M. de Cabrières, preached a +sermon so liberal in tone, that M. Delbœuf thinks the time is arriving +when the church will demonstrate that Moses was the precursor of Darwin. +At the University reception which followed, M. Delbœuf sought out among +the professors for his friend M. Dauriac, whom he had figured when first +he heard from him as small, thin and dark, but now found, in accordance +with the usual rule in such cases, that he was tall, robust and fair. +In the course of their subsequent conversations the two Professors +made mutual confidences, M. Dauriac confessing that his true vocation +was music, and that he was preparing a work on the psychology of the +musician; while M. Delbœuf informed his friend that he was about to reply +to his criticism of “La matière brute et la matière vivante,” and that he +would throw the greatest light on the origin, which was still obscure, of +life and death. If the genial Liège Professor can do this, he may be the +first to reap the benefit referred to in his own words: “The discovery of +the cause of death could not fail to assure the immortality of its author +and its inspirer, and sooner or later that of humanity at large.” For, +according to a medical adage, if the cause of a disease is known it is +already conquered. + +Montpellier was honored during the fêtes with the presence of Helmholtz, +to whom but for national jealousy would have been confided the part of +speaking in the name of the foreign universities. Nevertheless he was +the true hero of the occasion, and when at the official reception, on +the President of the Republic shaking his hand and saying a few gracious +words someone feebly hissed, Helmholtz received in response a perfect +ovation of applause. M. Delbœuf met with a congenial spirit in the +Professor of Zoology, M. Sabatier, who has a laboratory at Cette. Their +views on free-will were in sympathy. They agreed in allowing freedom not +only to the superior animals, and to inferior animals and plants, but +even to so called inorganic matter. M. Sabatier is a Christian and at +the same time a convinced transformist; having arrived at his views from +religious considerations. He cited M. Dauriac as saying, “The reign of +determinism is not in the objective world; its empire extends itself over +nature only after having been exercised over thought. There is no other +necessity than that of logic or mathematics.” M. Delbœuf is evidently +an “indeterminist” by nature. He heartily sympathised with the students +in all their demonstrations of freedom, although one of them assumed +a somewhat serious character. Dining in the open air with M. Milhaud +the author of an article in the _Revue Philosophique_ on non-Euclidian +geometry, he was prepared to talk mathematics. The surroundings were +too much for him, however, and in recalling the scene he cries, “To the +devil with philosophy and mathematics! I cannot recall what we said; in +my remembrances, I see only blooming faces, I hear only the indistinct +bursts of gaity.” M. Delbœuf’s sympathetic nature is shown in the fact, +which he records, that wild animals in confinement soon become familiar +with him. + +One of the principal objects of the author’s journey was to see M. +Gabriel Tarde, “one of the most prolific and original publicists in +France, if not in Europe,” who resides at Sarlat. After quoting passages +from an article of M. Tarde on Social Darwinism, which appeared in the +_Revue Philosophique_, M. Delbœuf remarks that nothing is more attractive +and at the same time more fatiguing than the reading of his works. M. +Tarde is “the locomotive that carries you to the end of your journey +across countries by turns wild, agricultural, industrial, picturesque; +but without giving you time to regard and admire.” Referring to M. +Tarde’s acute criticisms of Lombroso and his theories, the author says, +“It is not that he strikes the pseudo-thinker with formidable blows, but +he makes him drop gently to the ground.” The French publicist sees in +_imitation_ the source of social life, and he has been long engaged in +developing the idea, to the great importance of which M. Delbœuf bears +witness; although he objects to the use which M. Tarde makes of terms +taken from mathematics, physics, and biology, to express his sociological +views. On the question of free-will there was no agreement. Although the +latter is a determinist, he believes in penal responsibility, on the +ground of personal identity; the diseased person or the madman is no +longer himself, in which they differ from the criminal. + +We can say nothing of M. Delbœuf’s visit to the canons of the Tarn. Here +was captured a lizard which displayed, when compared with a Spanish +lizard in captivity with it, as much difference in character as could be +found between two men chosen at hazard. The author concludes an amusing +description of the habits of the two captives by recommending their +history to the politicians and the historians of France and Spain, as +likely to throw light on that of the peoples themselves. We leave M. +Delbœuf, whose book of seventy-five pages may be said to be as full of +interesting matter as an egg is of meat, with quoting his postscript: +“On the day that these lines appear (March 1891) the Spanish lizard has +finally cast off his savage character and follows in the footsteps of the +French. Effect of imitation.” + + Ω. + + +DER POSITIVISMUS VOM TODE AUGUST COMTE’S BIS AUF UNSERE TAGE (1857-1891). +By _Hermann Gruber_, S. J. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder’sche +Verlagshandlung. 1891. + +This pamphlet of 194 pages is the continuation of another pamphlet on +August Comte, the founder of Positivism, which was reviewed in _The Open +Court_, No. 134. The author is a Jesuit and it is a matter of course that +all the facts he relates, all the doctrines he explains are represented +from the standpoint of Roman Catholicism. The booklet is of great +importance in so far as we learn through it what an erudite Catholic mind +thinks of that recent movement of philosophy which has been called by +the collective name Positivism. The method pursued by Hermann Gruber is +most recommendable. He states facts and quotes abundantly so as to let +the various philosophers speak for themselves. He is economical with the +salt of his own opinion, yet he uses it with such a discretion that Roman +Catholics can become thoroughly acquainted with infidel views without +suffering in their faith. + +The book consists of two parts: (I) The Positivism of the schools in +connection with Comte and of the Positivistic movement outside of these +schools. The first part begins with a discussion of Littré. Littré, “the +voice, the spirit and the soul of Positivism,” as Bourdon calls him, +is characterised as a philological genius. Although he had chosen the +medical profession, which however he abandoned early, and although he +regarded the propaganda of the positive philosophy as his life-work, +all his talents lay in the direction of special investigation in the +literary, historical, and linguistic fields, and the editing of the +French dictionary remains his main achievement. + +Comte had not nominated a successor who should in his place be the +_Directeur du positivisme_. Littré had forfeited this honor on account +of his quarrels with Comte in which he strongly sided with Madame Comte +against her husband. After Comte’s death P. Lafitte was elected as a +temporary director and he has kept this office ever since, which he +conducts with remarkable devotion and unselfishness. Although without +property himself he proposed not to use the positivistic funds until he +had shown himself through his work worthy of using them. He ekes out a +scanty living for himself by giving lessons in mathematics, and devotes +all the rest of his time to the management of and the propaganda for +the Positive Church. His co-workers are Audiffrent, Antoine, Robinet, +and others—all of them as the reviewer thinks strange people, visionary +enthusiasts, and, to use an expressive Americanism, regular cranks. +Lack of space prevents us from recapitulating their ceremonies, their +sacraments, festivals, pilgrimages, memorials, and other forms of +service. Their whole behavior proves that they are and will remain +infidel Roman Catholics and it would have been wiser if they had not +left the church at all. The positivistic orthodoxy culminates in the +positivistic mystery of Comte’s idea of a “Virgin-Mother” (_Vierge-Mère_) +which according to Lafitte is destined to elevate the intercourse +between the sexes, while Audiffrent, Lagarrigue, and the Brasilian Lemos +stick closely to Comte’s view “to represent positivism as directly +conceived under the Utopia of a virgin-mother.”[22] General Lemos goes +so far as to say “We prefer to be looked upon with St. Paul for the +sake of our faithfulness toward Comte as fools than to be praised by +the contemporary frivolity as sages.” And Audiffrent defends against +Lafitte the diplomatic action of Comte’s with the General of the Jesuits +concerning an alliance between Positivism and Catholicism. Positivism, +he says, invites all who have ceased to believe in God to become +positivists, but it induces all those who still believe in God to turn +Catholics, thus making an alliance possible of the disciplined against +the non-disciplined. + +If the Jesuit General ever has seriously considered the offer, he would +perhaps have accepted it, for there is no doubt that he would have made +the better bargain as all the discipline we should say is on his side. + +The English group of Comtean Positivists consists mainly of Fr. Harrison, +Richard Congreve, George Eliot and James Cotter Morison. The second part +of the book which treats of the positivistic movement outside of the +positivistic schools in England, France, Germany and other countries will +be less interesting to English and American readers partly because the +subject is better known to them partly because our author is apparently +more familiar with his French than with his English sources. The second +part begins with John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. It mentions Bain, +Lewes, Clifford, Maudsley, Darwin, Sully, Romanes, Huxley, Tyndall. +Clifford’s view is sketched in sixteen lines but in such a way that +it appears grotesque. As French positivists outside the schools are +mentioned Taine, Ribot, Fouillée, Guyau, Charles Richet, J. Luys, Cl. +Bernard, and Roberty. It is correctly said of Ribot that his doctrine +of personality is most characteristic of his views. The unity of a +personality in the ego does not grow from above downwards but from below +upwards, but Gruber is mistaken in saying of Charles Richet, the editor +of the _Revue Scientifique_, that he represents about the same views as +Th. Ribot. Richet’s publication on telepathic experiments in which he +confidently believes, would never be countenanced by Ribot. + +As the first German positivist is mentioned Eugen Dühring. Riehl, Laas, +Lange, Vaihinger and Avenarius are disposed of together in the next +following chapter. Several pages are devoted to Wundt. + +The little chapter headed _Nord-America_ (p. 171) consisting of two and +a half pages begins with the words: “According to the testimony of G. +Stanley Hall philosophy in the new world is in its swaddling-clothes +still (_in den Kinderschuhen_). Philosophers over there are as rare +as snakes in Ireland (_Schlangen in Norwegen_).[23] For scientific +instruction in the United States are used as guiding stars Spencer, +Lewes, Darwin, Huxley, and Haeckel.” As a representative Atheist is +named Ludeking, a man unknown to fame, while Colonel Ingersoll is not +mentioned at all. It is maintained that J. D. Bell, a professor in +New York had proclaimed the same confession of faith as Comte in _The +Modern Thinker_—a journal which we have never seen nor ever heard of. +The societies for ethical culture are characterised as avowing “a purely +natural religion” while in fact natural religion, the religion of science +and philosophy, as a basis of ethics is as rigorously rejected by +Professor Adler as any dogmatic religion, and more than half of the two +and a half pages is filled with a masonic proclamation of the Sovereign +Grand Commander, Albert Pike, of Washington, which preaches the belief in +an unknowable God and denounces Atheism. + +The booklet closes with the following sentences: “The full and true +positivism is embodied in the Catholic Church. The divine revelation +which she represents is that which is truly real ... truly sure ... truly +precise ... truly organic ... truly useful. The deepest root, however, +and the most essential nature of all true positivism (this is vouched for +by reason as well as by revelation) is not the relative but the absolute.” + +Here we conclude our review of the book. We have however to add a few +words which concern _The Monist_ as well as all the publications of The +Open Court Publishing Co. Hermann Gruber mentions in his book _The Open +Court_ and its editor together with the societies for ethical culture. +We have, ourselves, characterised our views as positivism and as monism, +but we stated at the same time that our positivism had nothing to do +with Comte or with any one of Comte’s disciples.[24] They have (with the +sole exception of Ribot and I should hesitate to call him a Comtean) +contributed little if anything to the formation of our views. The name +Positivism is a good and expressive word and we have adopted it because +taken in its proper meaning it represents the true principle of modern +philosophy. However we cannot agree with any of the fundamental tenets +either of Comte or of his most positivistic and most scientific disciple +Littré.[25] Comte as well as Littré are radical agnostics they repeat +again and again that “We can know nothing about first and final causes. +Positive philosophy denies nothing and maintains nothing.” According +to our view of the subject this attitude is rather negativism than +positivism. But it is not even negativism; it is worse, it is mere +scepticism leading to indifferentism. It sounds very philosophical to +speak of the inscrutability of first and final causes but the very +terms “first causes” and “final causes” are most nonsensical and +self-contradictory concepts. (See “Fundamental Problems,” pp. 88-90, and +101.) Comte and Littré imagine to have conquered metaphysics, but in fact +they are the worst kind of metaphysicians. They believe in the ghosts of +metaphysics as strongly as some mediæval minds believe in devils but are +afraid to wrestle with them, because, as they maintain these metaphysical +ghosts cannot be conquered. + +Comtean Positivism, especially as it is represented by Littré, consists +mainly if not exclusively of the doctrine to “let metaphysics alone” +(which latter includes the object of religious worship) and limits +science to positive issues. Thus the oneness of the sciences, a unitary +world-conception is lost, for the hierarchy of the sciences which are +to serve as a substitute for philosophy is rather a summing up of the +stock of knowledge than a system of the sciences exhibiting their organic +growth. It is an inventory rather than a plan to guide science in its +further evolution. It is an anatomy rather than a physiology, for the +very life and spirit of the sciences is missing. And outside the pale of +the hierarchy of the sciences there is looming around an awful something +quite different in its nature, like an infinite ocean surrounding a +forlorn island, the unknowable first and final causes! That which is +called by former philosophers “metaphysics,” which is at the same time +the essence of religion, is by no means either unknowable or indifferent. +It is not something beyond, something extramundane, it is the very life +of the world and our religious and philosophical opinions are not only +of a theoretical interest. They are the main factors of our lives which +in the long run will determine the direction of our development. That +this is so, has not been sufficiently recognised, and we would suggest in +this connection that a history of the United States should be written to +point out that the political liberty of the country and its republicanism +are nothing but the application of its religious principles and of the +Puritan conviction of religious independence. The historic growth of the +colonies remained faithful to this maxim. The religion of a man and of +a nation is the most important thing. In the same way the structure of +a seed predetermines the whole plant, and the angle of crystallisation +together with the shape of the crystal-nucleus from which the process of +crystallisation starts, will determine the formation of the whole crystal. + +His sceptical attitude led Littré to what he and his friends call +“tolerance.” Littré’s wife was a devout Catholic and his daughter was +educated in her mother’s faith. He had intended to explain to her his +views of the subject when she had reached maturity, and leave the choice +to her. But when the moment came, he declared that “the experiment was +not worth the tears which it would cause.” Our view of “tolerance” is +radically different. Whatever the truth may be it should be struggled +for, cost it ever so many tears or pains. + +We cannot sympathise with Littré’s method of constructing ethics upon the +nutritive and sexual instincts, the former producing egotism, the latter +altruism. Emotions are, says Littré, as much as ideas, the result of +brain-processes in consequence of external impressions and “the struggle +between both kinds of emotion make up the moral life.” Littré rejects +the evolution theory and its attempts to explain ethics. (See Gruber’s +book p. 20.) Having explained our views of ethics on other occasions, +it is sufficient here to state that we consider Littré’s attempt as a +failure. We cannot even adopt the so-called “positive method,” of which +Littré says: “Whoever adopts this method is a positivist and whether +he acknowledges the fact or not, also a disciple of Comte. Whoever +employs another method is a metaphysician. It is the surest mark by +which a careful mind will discriminate what belongs to the positive +philosophy and what is foreign to it.” What is this method? Says Littré: +“It is an acknowledged principle of positive science that nothing real +can be stated through reasoning (_raisonnement_). The world cannot be +guessed.” Littré is opposed to so-called _a priori_ arguments. Hermann +Gruber says in the preface: “This positive method is embraced by all +the representatives of the lines of thought here discussed. All of them +intend to build up their systems with the exclusion of scholastic, +respectively of Kantian, Hegelian, or any _a priori_ speculations +after purely ‘scientific’ methods upon the foundation of the facts of +experience.” We certainly intend to build our world conception “upon the +facts of experience” but the most important facts among them are their +formal relations and these formal relations when represented in thought +are exactly that element which Kant called _a priori_. The sense-element +affords us the building stones, but the _a priori_ element represents +the mortar without which we could not build. So much do we oppose +this one-sided philosophy which takes its stand upon what is wrongly +called the purely scientific method, that our views have been called +the Philosophy of Form, and justly, for Form is that feature of the +world which makes of it a cosmos and formal thought is the organ of our +comprehension. + + κρς. + + +UEBER DEN ASSOCIATIVEN VERLAUF DER VORSTELLUNGEN. Inaugural-Dissertation. +By _E. W. Scripture_, M. A., Fellow of Clark University. Leipzig: Wilhelm +Engelmann. 1891. + +This essay of 102 pages characterises most excellently some of the +proceedings and methods of Professor Wundt’s psychological laboratory. +The author, a disciple of Wundt, is a native American who studied in +Berlin, Zürich, and Leipzig, and took his degree of Doctor on the ground +of this dissertation. The object of the treatise is not so much to solve +as to formulate the problem of the associative course of concepts, and +the author hopes that in a future treatise he will be able to propound +his theory based upon the facts here related. + +The experiments were made with the assistance of seven friends, among +them German students, a doctor of philosophy, a doctor of medicine, +and a teacher. They were of different nationality, three Germans, one +Belgian, one Japanese, one Englishman from the Cape, and two Americans, +the author included. The apparatus used was so arranged that the person +operated upon sat in the dark, before him was a plate of ground glass +intercepting from a camera an image which was exposed for four seconds. +Pictures of all kinds, colors, and plainly printed words were used. For +other sense-impressions the observer was also seated in the dark. Several +instruments for producing sounds were ready on a table. Tastes were +effected by liquids which the person operated upon had to drink, and the +sense of touch was investigated through handing him cards to which some +small objects had been attached. The author was partly operator, partly +observer, i. e. the person operated upon. The ideas evoked through the +sense-impressions produced in this way, are enumerated in tabular form in +the order in which they arose. + +Among the experiments made in this way we find one kind which is of +special interest. Sir William Hamilton made the remark in his Lectures +on Metaphysics that unconscious ideas may serve as connecting links +between two ideas otherwise unassociated. He represented his view in the +following way: Let _A_, _B_, _C_, be three ideas, _A_ does not suggest +_C_, but both are associated with _B_. It happens that _A_ is directly +followed by _C_ in consciousness. In such a case _A_ may recall _B_ +and _B_ may recall _C_, but _B_ being a _minimum visibile_ or _minimum +audibile_ does not enter consciousness. Thus the idea of the mount Ben +Lomond called into Hamilton’s mind the system of Prussian education. +Subsequent reflection taught him that he had met on Ben Lomond a German. +The recollection of the place was associated with the ideas—a German, +Germany, Prussia. These ideas were too weak to enter consciousness yet +they reawakened another idea which did enter consciousness, the system of +Prussian education. + +This is a mere suggestion of Hamilton’s but Dr. Scripture proved its +truth by actual experiment. He took cards containing some simple +words, such as MENSCH, GEHEN, KOMMEN, BLUME, etc., and also Japanese +words in Roman characters HANA, HITO, IUKU, KURU. To every word was +attached another Japanese word in Japanese characters so that the same +character appeared on HANA and BLUME; HITO and MENSCH; JUKU and GEHEN; +KURU and KOMMEN. The words were shown twice so as to give a stronger +impression. The Japanese gentleman was excluded from these experiments, +and indeed, the unknown Japanese characters which were only dimly or +not at all remembered, evoked the corresponding words: HITO—MENSCH; +KURU—KOMMEN; BLUME—HANA, etc. Dr. Scripture adds: “These associations +were involuntary, the observer imagined them to be wrong, and could find +no reason for the involuntary appearance of the words. He had not thought +at all of the connecting links.” + +It appears that the links in a chain of concepts need not be all +conscious and the result of his experiments in this line is formulated by +Dr. Scripture as follows: A concept apperceived can bring another concept +into the focus of consciousness although it was never associated with it, +if there are other psychic elements of lower degrees or even outside of +consciousness which are connected with both—provided that there are no +other elements stronger than these. The effect of the unconscious link +however is much weaker than that which was conscious. + +Pages 71-101 are devoted to the investigations of the after-effect of +concepts. The phenomena of ideation being extremely complex, we cannot +assume that the process of a so-called reproduced concept is analogous +to the original idea. A sensation changes during its presence with +reference to the degree of consciousness of its parts and even the +concepts as a whole may be altered. The process is different according +to circumstances. The renewed concepts differ from their originals, +(1) in the degree of the consciousness of the whole idea, (2) in the +degree of the consciousness of its parts among themselves, (3) in +form, color, relations, etc., (4) in duration. In order to avoid the +metaphysical influence of hypothetical theories we ought to avoid all +kinds of terms suggestive of a theory and stick closely to a simple +description of facts. Therefore Dr. Scripture proposes to discard such +words as “retention, reproduction, revival,” etc., and suggests the term +“after-effect.” Yet he adds, quoting from Wundt, “these after-effects +themselves are as little ideas as the effects produced upon nerves and +muscles by exercise can be called actions of will.” + +Dr. Scripture avoids explaining what he conceives these after-effects to +be. We see no reason for disagreement and should say that the result of +the after-effects is what generally goes by the name of “disposition.” +And a certain disposition is produced according to the law of the +conservation of form in living structures. (See “The Soul of Man,” pp. +418-424.) + +Dr. Scripture is led by a consideration of his observations to the +following statement: “Each concept is conditioned through the effects of +the elements of the present state of consciousness and the after-effects +of many (if not of all) previous elements of consciousness.” + +This result is not compatible with the theory of reproduction now almost +universally accepted by the association-psychology. Wundt says: “If only +certain single concepts were renewed, we might perhaps explain why in the +memory-picture certain elements of a former reproduction are missing: +but we could not explain why the elements of a concept change so often +qualitatively as is indeed the case. This, it appears, is possible only +because a memory-picture and others of a kindred nature affect each other +mutually.” + +This will find explanation in the following experiment. The observer +sees a dog, and thinks of a circus, which he saw a year ago. There is +no direct association between the picture of the dog and the special +reminiscence of that circus visited a year ago. The association was +formed at the moment. Former sensations of dogs had their after-effects +and this special reminiscence was localised. + +Dr. Scripture maintains that Höffding’s association theory contains too +many hypothetical elements; it presupposes faculties of the soul to join +like with like and to combine simultaneous or consecutive events. + + κρς. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[22] ... “A represénter le positivisme comme directement résummé par +l’utopie de la Vierge-Mère”—Comte to Audiffrent, the 8th of St. Paul 69 +(May 28, 1857.) + +[23] Good philosophers, it is true, are rare in America, perhaps rarer +than in Europe. Nevertheless the interest in philosophy is exceedingly +strong here. There are metaphysical and philosophical clubs all over the +country, and the crop of philosophical dilettanti is at least as great on +this side of the Atlantic as in Paris. + +[24] It is a matter of course that we are in strong sympathy with many +philosophers and scientists whom Hermann Gruber classes among the +positivists outside of the positivistic schools, not only Th. Ribot, but +also Guyau, Fouillée, Roberty, and others. How much they were influenced +by the Comte-Littré or the Comte-Lafitte Positivism is difficult to say. +It is certain that many of them would have accomplished the same work in +the same way with or without Comte. Roberty was first a fervid disciple +of Comte, but he soon combated not only Comte’s law of the three stages +(which latter by the bye was according to Schaarschmidt first pronounced +by Turgot) but also his agnosticism, declaring that Comte was still +entangled in metaphysicism, and that the last bulwark, the idea of the +unknowable, had to be conquered also. + +[25] We publish in this number a sonnet by Louis Belrose, Jr. to Émile +Littré. Mr. Belrose is a positivist who attended together with Mr. Fred. +Harrison positivistic lectures in France. We publish Mr. Belrose’s poem +as an expression of his gratitude and admiration toward a master mind but +not as an expression of our view of Littré. + + + + +PERIODICALS. + + +MIND. July, 1891. No. LXIII. + +CONTENTS: + + THE PROBLEM OF PSYCHOLOGY. By _E. W. Scripture_. + + THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. I. By _H. R. Marshall_. + + SCHOPENHAUER’S CRITICISM OF KANT. By _W. Caldwell_. + + DISCUSSION: On the Origin of Music. (1) By _R. Wallaschek_; + (2) By Prof. _J. McK. Cattell_; The Coefficient of External + Reality. By Prof. _J. Mark Baldwin_. + + CRITICAL NOTICES: James’s “The Principles of Psychology”; + Pfleiderer’s “Development of Theology in Germany”; Keynes’s + “Scope and Method of Political Economy”; Lehmann’s “Die Hypnose + und die damit verwandten normalen Zustände.” + +As all sciences treat, to a great extent, of the same objects, they +can be separated only according to _how_ they treat things. On this +principle, Mr. Scripture divides sciences into Special Sciences, +General or Philosophical Sciences, and Didactic Sciences. The Special +sciences are, I, the Mathematical Sciences, treating the _forms_ of all +experience; II, the Phenomenal Sciences, treating of the _contents_ +of all experience; the second class is divided into the Physical +Sciences, which treat experience from its objective side, and Mental +Sciences, which treat experience from its subjective side. The group +of Mental Sciences is best divided, according to Wundt’s scheme, into +the sciences of mental processes, Psychological Sciences; the sciences +of mental products, Philological Sciences; and the Sciences of mental +development, Historical Sciences. Psychology as a science of mental +phenomena has a two-fold relation to the physical sciences: it is +complementary to them, a necessary auxiliary; they are complementary +to it, accessories in psychological investigation. States of mind +always remain states of mind; they cannot be resolved into motions of +particles of matter, and it is a fundamental axiom that _mental phenomena +cannot influence or be influenced by material phenomena_. But we are +justified in talking about a nervous stimulation becoming a percept, a +muscular contraction following an act of will, as long as we remember +that these are only substitutes for unknown quantities. Physiology +investigates nervous changes; Psychology, mental changes; Physiological +Psychology, the relations between the two. Mental phenomena are of two +kinds, mental processes and mental products. Psychology is the science +of mental processes; it seeks the exact description and explanation +of the operations of our inner experience. The relation of Psychology +to Philosophy is a burning question. Metaphysics, or Philosophy in +the narrower sense, seeks from the agreement of the results of all +other sciences to establish a system of the principles that underlie +all existence, i. e. a theory of the universe, material and mental. +After the general principles have been determined by metaphysics, +philosophy has the duty of correcting the special sciences when they +set up one-sided hypotheses, and of helping where they are unable to +proceed alone. Psychology is considered a part of philosophy, but as +a special science, treating mental processes from its own standpoint, +it is distinct from psychology as a general science treating mind, +relations of mind and matter, etc., from the standpoint of philosophy. +The latter should be termed Philosophical Psychology. The relation of +Psychology to Logic depends on what the latter is. Logic is a science of +thought, but thought is also a subject of psychology. Psychology treats +thoughts as we think them; Logic, as we ought to think them. Each of the +sciences, Epistemology, the doctrine of knowledge, and Methodology, the +doctrine of methods, treats of thought for its own distinct purpose. +The former determines what the truth is; the latter determines how we +ought to think. The didactic sciences are of two kinds: the sciences of +the general principles or ends to be obtained, and the sciences of the +means to attain these ends. Among the former is General Pedagogy, which +determines the ends to be sought for in education. Psychology furnishes +the foundation of fact; the science of general pedagogy judges which of +these facts are desirable, in much the same way as epistemology judges +which are true. + +In a former article (_Mind_ No. 56) Mr. Marshall showed that Pleasure +and Pain are primitive qualities which, under proper conditions, _may_ +appear with any psychosis, whatever be its content. He now finds that +all the most notable pleasure-pain theories may in the first instance +be placed in four groups, determined by the emphasis of certain kinds +of pleasure or pain. An examination of pleasure-pain theories shows, +_first_ that there is a general agreement, with but few dissenting +voices, that all pleasure is at bottom the same thing, and that all pain +in its essence is a single psychological phenomenon, and further that +pleasures and pains are unifiable; _second_, that there are certain facts +so marked in experience as to have become the basis of the majority of +pleasure-pain theories. Mr. Marshall proceeds to consider the theory that +“the activity of the organ of any content if efficient is pleasurable, +if inefficient is painful.” He concludes that pleasures and pains are +involved with the nutritive conditions of the active organ, and lays +down the principle that “all pleasure-pain phenomena are determined by +the action in the organs concomitant of the conscious state, as related +to the nutritive conditions of the organs at the time of the action.” +The difference between the hypernormality of pain and of pleasure, +turns upon the fact that pleasure is obtained where the organ has been +_rested_. Rest in an organ which is sometimes active means storage of +energy derived from blood supply; and action after rest means the use +of stored energy. But as action of an organ after rest gives a psychic +content which is pleasurable, we have the working hypothesis: “Pleasure +is experienced wherever the physical action which determines the content +involves the use of stored force—the resolution of potential into actual +energy; or, in other words, whenever the energy involved in the reaction +to a stimulus is greater in amount than the energy of the stimulus.” +By a similar process of reasoning we obtain the hypothesis: “Pain is +experienced whenever the physical action which determines the content +is so related to the supply of nutriment that the energy involved in +the reaction to the stimulus is less in amount than the energy of the +stimulus.” We may also say in general, “Pleasure and pain are primitive +qualities of psychic states which are determined by the relation +between activity and capacity in the organs, the activities of which +are concomitants of the psychosis.” Mr. Marshall then supplies the +psychological interpretation of the physiological phenomena attendant on +the pleasures of Rest and of Relief, and of the pain of Obstruction or +hindered activity. He concludes the present article with the statement +that the physical concomitants of pleasure-pain phenomena are to be found +in general qualities common to all processes which are at the basis +of our conscious life; and that this is corroborated by introspective +analysis of pleasures and pains. Mr. Marshall’s idea does not appear to +us as a happy solution of the problem. + +The object of Mr. Caldwell’s paper is to explain Kantism through +Schopenhauer, who claimed to be Kant’s only true successor in philosophy. +Schopenhauer came to the conclusion that Kant’s only real discovery, +given in the “Æsthetic,” was that Space and Time were known by us _a +priori_. The principle of Causality is the only element of value he +finds in the “Analytic,” and a much simpler account could have been +given of it. The “Dialectic” represents the Negative side of the +Critical Philosophy, which although conclusive, might have been stated +more simply. In Ethics Kant rendered the immortal service of showing, +by his attribution of a noumenal freedom to man, compensating for his +phenomenal necessary determination, “that the kingdom of virtue is not +of this world”; although the _K. d. prakt. V._ is only an application +to ethics of the principles already reached in the sphere of the Pure +Reason. Schopenhauer finds the _K. d. Urtheilskraft_ to contain the +characteristic defect of Kant’s whole Philosophy—the starting from +indirect instead of direct knowledge. Lastly, the criticism of the +Teleological Judgment only shows what the _K. d. r. V._ already showed, +the subjectivity of what we may call the ontological categories. +According to Schopenhauer, the chief tendency of the Kantian philosophy +is to establish “the total diversity of the real and the ideal.” The +Ideal he explains as “the visible, spatial appearance with the qualities +that are perceived on it,” and the Real as the “thing-in-and-for-itself,” +which is the reality underlying and determining the world of experience, +and, as such, a real and not a hypothetical entity. Schopenhauer never +speaks of it in the plural, as Kant does, and so keeps consistently to +a monistic point of view. He says, “The way in which Kant introduced +such a thing-in-itself and sought to reconcile it with his philosophy +was faulty.” This concerns Kant’s method, against which Schopenhauer +directs the full force of his criticism. The fundamental principle +of Kant’s method Schopenhauer takes to be the starting from indirect +reflective knowledge: Philosophy is for Kant a science of conceptions, +while for himself it is a science _in_ conceptions; philosophy being a +conceptualised or _generalised_ statement of our knowledge. Schopenhauer +sees all Kant’s errors contained in the following sentence from the _K. +d. r. V._: “If I take away all thought” (through the categories), “from +empirical knowledge, there remains absolutely no knowledge of an object, +for through mere perceptions nothing at all is thought.” In endeavoring +to construct a philosophy out of pure conceptions Kant failed to solve +the problem, in having the thing-in-itself left on his hands. This proved +to Schopenhauer that the path of abstract reflection was closed as the +path of philosophy. Mr. Caldwell demurs to Schopenhauer’s statement +that the “Æsthetic” is Kant’s only discovery, yet as the “Æsthetic” +shows the tendency to conceptual abstraction, his view of Space and Time +is of extreme importance. It is of the “Logic” of the _K. d. r. V._ +that Schopenhauer’s criticism is materially and formally most radical. +He gives a different account of the functions of the Soul, rejecting +altogether the faculty-distinctions of Kant: he associates Kant’s faculty +of Understanding more with Sense and the category of Cause with the +spatio-temporal or perceptual construction of the world, and holds the +other eleven categories to be mere blind windows put into a scheme +through Kant’s love of symmetry; and, secondly, he holds Kant’s account +of Reason to be utterly false, and substitutes his own doctrine of the +thing-in-itself for Kant’s three Ideas of Reason. By Reason Schopenhauer +means the power the mind has of forming general conceptions and of +knowing by way of conception or idea, the matter for conceptions and +ideas being of course derived from Perception. Reasoned knowledge is an +abstraction from perceived knowledge, and all knowledge, as Schopenhauer +says, is originally and in itself perceptive. The confusion in Kant’s +account of the elements entering into knowledge, is Schopenhauer’s +reason for holding that Kant can only have had the fundamental principle +of his method imperfectly present to his mind. His whole difficulty +in relating the elements of knowledge to each other arose from the +fact that he in his thought likened the categories to conceptions +through want of an explicit and persistent recognition of the nature of +conception. Schopenhauer himself classifies the categories according to +the planes or stages of experience they characterise: the perceptual, +the mathematical, the logical, and the ethical in order. The categories +are all abstractions, but not conceptions or notions. Conceptions are a +particular kind of abstractions, and so are categories: to conceptions +_material_ entities correspond, but to categories only relations or +forms. Knowledge consists in the detection of relations existing between +the different planes or sections of the perceptual continuum, the +difference in perceived things being that some are immediately and others +only mediately perceived. The true reason of Schopenhauer’s revolt from +the method of conceptions is to be found in the difficulties in which he +felt himself involved by the theory of Subjective Idealism. Philosophy, +he says, is a search for the Thing-in-itself, but he tells Kant that from +the idea nothing but the idea follows, and that the path of Reflexion +or Knowledge is closed as the path of philosophy. Had Schopenhauer kept +more true to his ruling that knowledge is originally and in itself +perception, he would not have maintained that the world is my idea. The +Thing-in-itself is the shadow cast by the Reflective or Abstracting +Understanding. With both Kant and Schopenhauer it is primarily invented +to get rid of the difficulty bred of a belief in an abstraction or +unreality, and as it is a pure mental fiction, we may safely deny that +there is any such thing in reality. + +Mr. Wallaschek finds the origin of music in a rhythmical impulse in man. +The sense of rhythm arises from the general appetite for exercise, which +recurs in rhythmical form owing to sociological as well as psychological +conditions. On the one hand, there is the social character of primitive +music, compelling a number of performers to act in concert. On the +other hand, our perception of time-relations involves a process of +intellection, by means of which the mind is able to comprehend them as +a whole. Since music is produced not merely as an auditory impression +and expression, but also in order to evoke reflexion, it must contain +the qualities of time-order and rhythm. Mr. Herbert Spencer’s theory of +the origin of the general appetite for exercise is said to afford the +most valid explanation. It is the surplus vigor in more highly evolved +organisms, exceeding what is required for immediate needs, in which play +of all kinds takes its rise. We owe our musical faculty to the time-sense +rather than to our sense of hearing. The perception of particular +tones and tunes plays a very low part, if any, in primitive music. In +almost all the examples furnished by ethnology, we see that music is +the expression of emotion, which is also one of the sources of human +language. Mr. Spencer is said to be wrong, however, in thinking that +musical modulation originates in the modulations of speech Music and +speech have a reciprocal influence, and primitive human utterance, using +sound-metaphors and onomatopœia, may resemble primitive musical tones. +Nevertheless, an early separation of distinct tones and indistinct sounds +seems to have taken place, not as a transition from the one as prior to +the other as succeeding, but as a divergence from a primitive state which +is, strictly speaking, neither of the two. + +Professor Cattell objects that the theories of Darwin and Spencer on the +origin of music, describe what probably took place, rather than explain +why it was necessary that it should have taken place. As to Spencer’s +explanation of harmony, he affirms that it amounts to saying that harmony +gives pleasure because it is pleasant. After referring to the connection +of harmony with the existence of overtones, Prof. Cattell states that +music is not, as commonly supposed, a creation of the imagination, freer +than the other arts from a physical basis, but is rather a discovery and +a development. All the combinations of music are latent in the sounds Of +nature, and the history of music bears witness to the gradual adoption of +such as are more remote. The difference in voices rests on the overtones +present, and the immense emotional effects of music are due to the fact +that music expresses the emotion of the human voice, using and developing +those combinations of tones which the voice uses when moved by sorrow and +joy, despair and exultation. + +By the _Coefficient_ of External Reality, Professor Baldwin means the +something which attaches to some presentations in virtue of which we +attribute reality to them; while others, not having the coefficient, +are discredited. Diametrically opposed solutions of this question +are held. To one class of writers, the coefficient of the reality +of an image is its independence of the will; to another class, the +coefficient is subjection to the will. If we make a distinction between a +memory-coefficient of reality—that is, the something about a memory which +leads us to believe it represents a real experience—and a sensational +coefficient, that is, the criterion of present sensational reality, we +see that those two kinds of reality differ in their relation to the +will. A present sensible reality is not under the control of any will, +but a memory coefficient is subjected to will, in the sense that we +are able to get the image again as a sensation by repeating the series +of voluntary muscular sensations which were associated with it in its +first experience. This memory-coefficient of external reality must be +distinguished from the coefficient of memory itself; the latter being +the feeling that an image has been in consciousness before, i. e. +recognition, or sense of familiarity. A true memory is an image which I +can get at will by a train of memory-associates, and which, when got, is +further subject to my will. (London: Williams & Norgate.) + + +INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. July, 1891. Vol. I. NO. 4. + +CONTENTS: + + THE MODERN CONCEPTION OF THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. By Prof. + _Edward Caird_. + + THE FUNCTIONS OF ETHICAL THEORY. By Prof. _James H. Hyslop_. + + THE MORALITY OF NATIONS. By Prof. _W. R. Sorley_. + + J. S. MILL’S SCIENCE OF ETHOLOGY. By _James Ward_. + + VICE AND IMMORALITY. By _R. W. Black_. + + THE PROGRESS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY SINCE ADAM SMITH. By _Francis + W. Newman_. + + PROGRAMME OF SCHOOL OF APPLIED ETHICS. + + DISCUSSIONS: The Moral Aspect of “Tips” and “Gratuities.” By + _Christine Ladd Franklin_. + +Ideas and facts, says Professor Caird, are continually being woven +together as warp and woof, into the web of man’s intellectual life. +The idea of the unity of mankind has within the last century become +an almost instinctive presupposition of all civilised men. It has +special application to the history of religion. In a man’s religion we +have expressed his ultimate attitude to the universe. Even atheism or +agnosticism involves a definite attitude towards the ultimate problem +of human life. The modern ideas of the organic unity and the organic +evolution of man inevitably compel us to seek for the one principle of +life which is striving towards the full realisation of itself. + +Professor Hyslop remarks, that two questions may be asked: (1) Why is +it that any disturbance in ethical speculation at once brings men up +in arms about the consequences? (2) Why is there such a tendency even +in speculative ethics to bring its theories into harmony and sympathy +with “practical” problems? The preliminary answer is the distinction +between science and art. The aim of science is to find causes; the aim +of art to produce ends by means of these causes. But art may be divided +into productive and practical art. Every consideration of the scope and +aim of ethics shows it to be both a science and an art. As a science it +endeavors to explain something; as an art, to realise something. Its +complications are thus two-fold. Ethics may be a science in two distinct +relations. First, it aims to show the general conception which will +reduce the various motives actually governing human conduct to unity. +Secondly, it aims to show the end that ought ideally to govern conduct, +and this is the supreme object of ethics as a science. + +In relation to the Morality of Nations, Professor Sorley says that the +relations of the state, diplomatic or military, with other states may be +compared with the relations of one individual to another, but the two +sets of relations are not the same. A crime is an act punishable by law, +and it is absurd therefore to speak as if the state, acting legally, +could commit a crime. But if theft ceased to be a crime it would be as +much an offense against morality as before. Taxation to which the taxed +have not consented and unfair taxation cannot be regarded as theft, as +some suppose. Individual morality becomes mixed with national morality +when those through whom the state acts act for themselves and for their +own interests, instead of for the common good. Within a nation the state +is above all individuals, but there is no corresponding superior power +over nations. What remains is a general obligation upon states to observe +justice in their dealings with one another. National morality differs +from individual morality in that a nation’s first duty may be said to +be to itself. There is no selfishness, there is only patriotism, in its +recognising the fact and acting upon it. The intercourse of nations can +only reach a full measure of development under a common moral law, which +recognises the rights of one nation as of equal value with the rights of +any other. + +Mr. Ward points out, that Mill, in his exposition of what he called +Ethology, or the Exact Science of Human Nature, repeated in all the +issues of his “Logic,” remarks that Ethology must first proceed +deductively. The laws of the formation of character “are derivative +laws, resulting from the general laws of mind, and are to be obtained by +deducing them from those general laws.” There was a want of clearness +in Mill’s conception of an individual. The notion of a Self proved, +on his own admission, “the real stumbling block” to his psychological +theory. In discussing the influence of remarkable men, Mill allows that +“whatever depends on the peculiarities of individuals, combined with the +accidents of the positions they hold, is necessarily incapable of being +foreseen.” When we attempt to estimate the influence of circumstances +on individuals, we must often know how the circumstances appear to +_them_,—this personal equation so to say is frequently incalculable. + +In the main, says Mr. Black, sin exists intimately in, or as an +inseparable affection or potentiality of, the person as a whole, and to +discourage it is to discourage the person, and tantamount, therefore, +to discouraging his goodness as well. At this point the division of +sin into vice and immorality becomes essential to a rational solution. +Immorality is crime against living moral agents. Vice may be defined as +the spending of the forces of one’s own life to the detriment of its +moral capabilities. + +Mr. Francis W. Newman, who began the study of Political Economy seventy +years ago, when he was sixteen, gives in this article his views on the +evils of land tenure in England. + +Mrs. Franklin thinks “the subjective feeling of worth and dignity” which +distinguishes the people of this country will be injured by “giving +fees to our inferiors when they perform some service for which they are +(or ought to be) otherwise well paid.” That the matter is not “absolute +ethics” is apparent from the fact that in Japan a totally different +sentiment prevails. The editor, Prof. Josiah Royce (under the signature +of J. R.) in commenting on Mrs. Franklin’s communication after referring +to the evils of the German custom of Trinkgeld as detailed by v. Ihering, +says that if it harms the manhood of our writers to “tip” them the +mischief should be met by organised devices such as v. Ihering proposes, +and not by individual action. (Philadelphia: _International Journal of +Ethics_, 1602 Chestnut Street.) + + Ω. + + +REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. + +CONTENTS: June, 1891. No. 186. + + LES RESULTATS DES THEORIES CONTEMPORAINES SUR L’ASSOCIATION DES + IDEES. By _B. Bourdon_. + + COMMENT LA SENSATION DEVIENT IDEE. By _J. Payot_. + + NOTES ET DISCUSSIONS. QU’EST-CE QUE LA PHYSIOLOGIE GENERALE? By + _Durand_ (_de Gros_). + +CONTENTS: July, 1891. No. 187. + + LA NOTION DE LIMITE EN MATHEMATIQUES. By _G. Milhaud_. + + COUP D’OEIL SUR L’HISTOIRE DE LA PHILOSOPHIE EN RUSSIE (I). By + _F. Lannes_. + + LES SOURCES DE LA PHILOSOPHIE DE L’INDE. By _P. Regnaud_. + +M. Bourdon reviews the modes of association proposed by various +psychologists, and the factors which intervene to give force to +associations. Wundt alone; among psychologists has the great merit of not +placing ideas and sensations in actual opposition. The laws of ideology +are almost the same as those of physics; and the law of association ought +to be true not only for ideas, but for sensations and for objects. M. +Bourdon’s conclusion is that the theory of the association of ideas has +hitherto been treated from a too subjective and idealistic point of view. +He would substitute for the theory of _association_ of idea a theory of +a _society_ of phenomena, which conception he thinks better explains the +process. + +In a preceding contribution to the _Revue Philosophique_ (May, 1890) +M. Payot showed that sensation is the translation into terms of +consciousness of that which, considered from the objective point +of view, is a reaction of the organism, as a whole, to an external +impression. Sensations are the irreducible element of the psychic life. +They contribute the materials which the mind modifies, combines, and +classes according to their relations, variable or invariable. This +is chronologically posterior to sensation, which has an affective +origin. The reactions corresponding to the most frequent sensations +become more and more rapid until consciousness, “which translates only +physiological states of a sufficient duration,” has not time to appear. +Here we have a reflex-act. In an intermediate zone where reactions take +a time sufficient for them to be conscious, the intellectual states, +to which the abstract name of the intellectual faculty has been given, +have birth. Differentiation operates between sensible and intellectual +facts, until they seem to belong to two irreducible faculties; but the +intellectual states are grafted on the sensible states, and although +the graft develops so greatly that the sensibility appears like a +parasite, the latter is the primitive trunk and through it the graft +exists by a kind of continued creation. Sensations are convenient +abstractions but nothing more. A sensation never presents itself in +the adult consciousness without a crowd of instantaneously evoked +relations. There is never absolute exclusion between perception and +sensation: these are two states which dissolve into each other, which +have no difference in nature, and which are separable only in gross. +Properly speaking there are no sensations, only perceptions more or less +complex. In sensation the state of mind is considered in itself without +reference to its relations; in perception attention is paid chiefly to +the relations. But sensation exists only for consciousness, as it can +never enter directly into intellectual constructions, but only through +the state of remembrance. Every sensation so far as we are sensible of +it is purely felt, and we effectuate our mental constructions not with +sensations, but with our remembrances of sensations. But the rôle of +sensation is still more restricted. However rapid its flight across +consciousness it instantaneously provokes the remembrance of numerous +sensations of differences and resemblances with anterior sensations. It +is an occasion for this, and nothing more. To be perceived, a sensation +must be followed by sensations different from itself. The mind seizes +relations of resemblance between sensations and resemblances between +relations: it classes them, the chaos unravels and organises itself. +The organisation has been progressive, but at all stages the procedure +is alike; it consists in disengaging remembrances more or less masked +by dissimilarities: this is the universal procedure of the mind and the +condition _sine qua non_ of thought. + +In his article on _General Physiology_, M. Durand (de Gros) in criticism +of M. Ch. Richet’s article on this subject which appeared in the +April number of the _Revue Philosophique_, points out that Richet in +applying the term “general anatomy” to the anatomy of the tissues, and +“special anatomy” to the anatomy of the organs, overlooked the fact that +_generality_ and _speciality_ when used to express the two opposite sides +of a science express relations of abstract, nominal extension and not +real extension. Thus, by general chemistry is intended the consideration +of the higher laws governing the molecular actions of bodies, the +one on the other, whatever that may be, and the modes of composition +which result therefrom for each of them. General physiology should be, +therefore, the philosophy of the science of the functions of life, +that is to say, the higher laws embracing all these various particular +functions; special physiology having for its object these particular +functions in what is proper to each of them and distinguishes it from +the others. Physiology has reference, however, to the other animals as +well as man, and also to plants, and hence the term general physiology +has been applied to the physiology common to all living beings, and +special physiology to that which concerns the various animal and vegetal +species taken separately. But this is in reality comparative physiology, +and thus positive physiologists have made a false use of the term general +physiology, and have left the true general physiology unrecognised and +unnamed. In conclusion, M. Durand presents his conception of “organology.” + +In the form of a dialogue M. Milhaud meets the objections made to the +notion of limit in Mathematics. The question whether to have a limit, +for anything variable, is not synonymous with attaining a limit, is +considered in connection with Zeno’s problem of Achilles and the +tortoise, the strict solution of which is, not that Achilles will +never overtake the tortoise, but that he will not overtake it on this +side of a spot situated at a distance of 10/9 of a metre from the +starting-point, within a period equal to 10/9 of a second commencing +at the instant of starting. To the objection that by its very nature +the limit cannot be attained, as where the limit and the variable +element which indefinitely approaches it are essentially different, +it is replied that when a variable element has a limit, this element +is a _quantity_ and the limit is a quantity of the same kind, quality +being neglected. In the proposition: the length of the circumference is +the limit of the perimeters of the inscribed polygons, the limit is a +quantity of the same kind, that of length. It is not necessary to know +whether the definition accords with reality. M. Milhaud then shows by +reference to the properties of an unlimited series of inscribed polygons +and the corresponding circumscribed polygons, that two such series of +geometrical lengths satisfying the required conditions can always be +considered as defining a new length, superior to all the first and +inferior to all the others. As to its existence, it can be said only +that a length exists only as determined, as limited; and a state of +length, or a particular length has a right to exist, provided that the +properties of quantity which condition it are not contradictory. The +essence of mathematical space, breadth, length is only the content of +their definitions. Mathematics owes its existence to the condition of +creating for itself a world of fictions. There is a divergence of opinion +as to whether incommensurables should be represented by lengths or by +numerical symbols, but the divergence is a last echo of the endless +discussions which the notions of infinity and continuity have raised +among mathematicians. + +Philosophic thought, says M. Lannes, presents, in Russia, in its past +history, a very poor condition. Philosophy does not exist, unless that +name be given to such moral precepts, or domestic recommendations as we +find in “the instruction” of a Vladimir Monomaque or in the “Domostroï.” +The Russian mind was easily guarded against the liberties of thought, +regarding science and philosophy with contempt and holy dread. There, as +during the Middle Ages in the rest of Europe, the end to attain, to which +all others were subordinated, was the safety of the soul. It was only +with Peter the Great that thought took a freer flight, notwithstanding +the restrictions that it had still to support. The Little Russians were +the first to turn towards western instruction. In order to meet the +Jesuits, who appeared in Russia about the middle of the 16th century, +with the arms they used, scholastic philosophy was introduced into the +college of Pierre Mohila, at Kief. Aristotle was taken as guide and the +teaching was in Latin. Under Alexis Mikhaïlovitch, rational, natural, and +moral philosophy began to be taught in a formal manner at the Academy +of Moscow. Peter the Great ordered an important place to be given to +rhetoric and dialectics, and the mention of logic, psychology, and +metaphysics in the programme of the Academy. In 1755 logic, metaphysics, +and morality entered into the teaching of philosophy at the University. +In the 18th century two currents of ideas manifested themselves, of +which some are connected with mysticism, others with the influence of +French philosophy. The former became associated, through Novikof and +Schwartz, with free-masonry, which was regarded as a means of acquiring a +knowledge of God, of nature, and of man, of becoming a better Christian, +a better citizen, and a better family head. Novikof and Schwartz founded +the “Society of the Friends of Instruction,” and through their zeal +a mass of moral and religious books were published for distribution +in places of instruction. The influence of the French “philosophers” +of the 18th century was preponderant in Russia in the second half of +the 18th century. Voltaire enjoyed the greatest favor, and his renown +was universal. Freethought penetrated the middle classes, and even +conservative and religious men denied miracles in the course of history, +considered religion as a political instrument, and attacked the ignorance +and cupidity of the clergy. On the happening of the French revolution +Catherine was frightened and took rigorous measures against those who +wished to use freedom of thought. + +Questions of pedagogy held a great place in the thoughts of Catherine. +She confided the care of pedagogic reforms to Betski, who showed that +true education is that which unites the development of the body, of the +mind, and of the heart; but the moral element ought to have the first +place. Alexander I. re-established philosophic liberalism and sought +to excite interest in social, economic, and political questions. The +university of Moscow was reorganised, and one of the faculties included +dogmatic and moral theology, theoretical and practical philosophy, +natural, political and popular rights. Philosophy also established itself +in the new universities of Kharkof, Kazan, and Petersburg. But minds +were possessed with more living ideas and various tendencies, political, +moral, religious, sceptical, led to the establishment of numerous secret +societies whose starting point was the masonic alliance. About 1816, +Schröder had introduced into the foreign lodges a spirit of cosmopolitan +humanity. Fessler saw in the lodges a means of moral education, the basis +of civic education. In order to be received as a mason, it was necessary +to pass through certain “consecrations,” to obtain certain “degrees of +knowledge.” Among those “consecrated” by Fessler was Spéranski who, +notwithstanding his mysticism, was imbued with the principles of the +Revolution. On the reaction under Prince Galitzyn, the minister of +public instruction, science was given a mystical end, and religion was +declared to be the supreme science. The sciences which could do injury +to religion, as geology, were either discarded, or directed to be taught +according to the spirit of Holy Scripture. As to philosophy, the teaching +of moral philosophy, which does not separate morality from the faith, +was alone allowed. The treatises of the Kantian Jacob were forbidden, as +containing scandalous theories. In general, in the universities, during +the first year of the nineteenth century the objects of philosophic +study were somewhat vague. The utility of the sciences, of education, +of the individual characters of peoples, enthusiastic discourses on +free will, on the rights of reason, on the spirit and forces of nature. +Fessler and Vellanski introduced the German philosophy and principally +that of Schelling, which became in some sort the lever which put in +movement ideas on the independence and the nationality of civilisation. +The most ardent champion of Schelling’s doctrine was Odoievski, whose +external personality marks curiously the idea entertained of philosophy +and philosophers between 1820 and 1845. A philosopher was represented as +a sort of romantic Faust, leading a kind of life different from common +mortals. If he occupied himself with physical sciences, the philosopher +was regarded as the equal of a sorcerer with terrible powers. M. Lannes +concludes his present article with a sketch of the life and philosophy +of Galitch, who on his return to St. Petersburg from a three years +tour through Europe wrote a dissertation on philosophy, in which he +explained the development of beings by the double action of _activity_ +and _passivity_, the one being cause, the other product. In 1819 Galitch +taught in the University logic, psychology, and metaphysics, and later +he received authority to teach the history of philosophy, to which he +gave an _eclectic_ character, in accordance with the instructions of +his hierarchical superiors. In his _esoteric_ teaching he initiated his +friends into the philosophy of Schelling. In that year he published a +“History of Philosophic Systems,” the appearance of which was a rare +novelty in the Russian Scientific World. He subsequently published +several other works, but the manuscript of one on the “Philosophy of +the History of Humanity,” which cost him much labor was destroyed by +fire. The merit of Galitch is to have wished to establish in Russia +philosophy _as science_. He assigned to the study of philosophy the +whole encyclopedia of the sciences, but true philosophic knowledge +is the knowledge of the unity from which external phenomena flow. M. +Lannes gives an analysis of Galitch’s “Picture of Man,” where, before M. +Renouvier, he says of freedom, “it can itself begin an entire series of +phenomena, which are then linked together in the relations of dependence, +that is to say are the necessary acts of a voluntary principle.” Galitch +deserves to occupy a small place in the general history of the philosophy +of humanity. If there existed before him a science of the relations of +the soul and the body, he was at least one of the first to elaborate a +programme of what is called to-day _comparative psychology_. + +M. Regnaud finds the sources of the philosophy of India in India itself, +as they appear in all their simplicity and primitive character in +the Rig-Veda, the very ancient collection of liturgical hymns of the +Brahmans. The whole doctrine implied by both the Vedic cult and the +text of the hymns is resumed in a verse of the Rig Veda. “Each day the +same liquid rises and descends; the rains vivify the earth, the fires +of the sacrifice vivify the sky.” The libations destined to feed the +fire of sacrifice and which consisted of inflammable liquids, such as +the _ghrita_ or clarified butter, were poured out each time that the +sacrifice was celebrated into the atmosphere (or the sky) whose life +they maintained, in like manner as liquid and solid foods sustain the +life of man. The whole religious conception of the Vedic epoch consists +then in the idea of an endless _circulus_, of a perpetual exchange +of the elements of life, in an immense body which is the universe, +whose arterial centre is the sacrifice, and the fire the motor, the +distributer, and so to say the brain. (Paris: Félix Alcan.) + + Ω. + + +REVUE DE L’HYPNOTISME. April, 1891. No. 10. 5th YEAR. + +CONTENTS: + + (1) ACCOUCHEMENT DANS L’HYPNOTISME. By _Dr. Fraipont_ and _M. + J. Delbœuf_. (2) ACCOUCHEMENT PENDANT LE SOMMEIL HYPNOTIQUE. + By _Dr. M. G. Kingsbury_. (3) MEMOIRE RELATIF A CERTAINES + RADIATIONS PERQUES PAR LESSENSITIFS. By _Baron de Reichembach_. + (4) DISCUSSIONS ET POLEMIQUE: La Nutrition dans l’hypnotisme. + By _Gilles de la Tourette_ and _H. Cathelineau_. (5) RECUEIL + DE FAITS: Contribution à l’application de la thérapeutique + suggestive. By _Dr. P. Van Velsen_. Huit observations + d’accouchement sans douleur sous l’influence de l’hypnotisme. + By _Dr. Marie Dobrovosky_. REVUE BIBLIOGRAPHIQUE. + +Dr. Fraipont terminates his interesting memoir with the remark that +save under very exceptional circumstances, as when the subject is very +sensitive or has before suffered a sort of trance, hypnotism can +scarcely have any practical importance in accouchment. M. Delbœuf refers +in a postscript to the case of a patient described in his writings by the +initial J..., and states that her accouchment confirms him in his view of +the rôle of the brain, which he regards as a moderating and inhibiting +organ, and consequently in the opinion expressed by him in the _Revue +Philosophique_ as to the essence of freedom, which he regards as having +an arresting and not an inciting effect. + +MM. de la Fourette and Cathelineau confirm the conclusion drawn from +researches made by them for Professor Charcot, that nutrition is affected +during the hypnotic sleep, and therefore that hypnotism is a pathological +condition. (Paris: 170 Rue Saint-Antoine.) + + +PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVII. Nos. 9 and 10. + +CONTENTS: + + GOETHES VERHAELTNISS ZU SPINOZA UND SEINE PHILOSOPHISCHE + WELTANSCHAUUNG. By _G. Schneege_. I. + + WILHELM WUNDT’S “SYSTEM DER PHILOSOPHIE.” By _Johannes + Volkelt_. I. + + RECENSIONEN: (1) A. Fouillée, L’Avenir de la métaphysique + fondée sur l’expérience. By _C. Schaarschmidt_. (2) Th. von + Varnbüler, Widerlegung der Kritik der reinen Vernunft. By + _E. König_. (3) Bericht über neuere Erscheinungen aus dem + Gebiete der Geschichte der Æsthetik. By _E. Kühnemann_. (4) + C. Baeumker, Das Problem der Materie in der griechischen + Philosophie. By _P. Natorp_. + + LITTERATURBERICHT. + +Johannes Volkelt continues his review of Wilhelm Wundt’s “System of +Philosophy.” Prof. C. Schaarschmidt criticises Fouillée’s view of a +future metaphysics as based upon experience, from the Kantian standpoint. +Dr. E. König explains with sufficient strength the futility of Varnbüler +in his bold attempt of refuting Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” and Dr. +Paul Natorp, the editor, devotes an article to Prof. Clemens Baeumker’s +book “Das Problem der Materie in der Griechischen Philosophie,” in +which the author sets forth that the problem of matter is not a limited +problem, but the sum total of all those questions which have reference to +the existence of some cause of sensory phenomena which in its nature is +different from consciousness. The problems of psycho-physics and of the +theory of cognition are modern and were unknown to the ancients. Their +standpoint remained throughout that of realism. A résumé of the views of +Greek philosophers from Thales down to the New Platonists follows. + +The leading article is devoted to Goethe’s relation to Spinoza and his +philosophical world-conception. + +Goethe’s philosophical and religious opinions are naturally of the +greatest interest, because Goethe, the child of nature in the highest +sense of the word, represents a genius not such as our great contemporary +Cesare Lombroso conceives him to be, i. e. a species of the abnormal +man and a kind of insane person, but such as genius is conceived by the +layman, i. e. an abnormally normal man, a man whose excellencies lie in +a rare harmony of highly developed perfections—not in eccentricities. +Goethe’s eccentricities were not worse or more extended than those of +average people, but he had more sense, more humor, more depth, and more +spirit. Well, Goethe as a son of man and as a type of an unusually +perfect man was a poet, a philosopher, a scientist, an historian, an +artist, a man of the world, and a man of practical life, all in one, and +the opinions of this man in the religio-philosophical field show at least +that they accord with man as a child of nature. + +Goethe’s philosophical views were strongly influenced by Spinoza yet not +so as if Spinoza had impressed his view upon Goethe. Goethe happened to +read Spinoza’s “Ethics” while still immature in mind and felt himself +powerfully attracted by the spirit of the book. “What I may have read out +of or into that work,” he writes, “I could give no account. Yet I found +a pacification of my passions. A great and free vista upon the sensual +and moral world seemed to open before my eyes. That strange sentence ‘_He +who loves God must not demand of God to love him in return_,’ with all +its premises and conclusions filled all my thoughts. To be unselfish in +everything and most so in love and friendship was my highest delight, my +maxim, my practice, so that the bold expression of later years ‘If I love +thee, it is none of thy business’ came right from my heart. In addition +to this, it must be recognised that the most intimate combinations result +from contraries. The all-pervading calmness of Spinoza contrasted with +my excited aspirations, his mathematical method was a counterpart of +my poetical thoughts and habits.” In Spinoza’s doctrine of necessity +Goethe found comfort concerning man’s dependence upon the outer world +which caused him so much pain. It is probable that the famous sentence +of the liberation from passions through a clear comprehension of them +was very sympathetic to Goethe, for it is a characteristic feature of +his poetry that they were confessions as well as liberations of all that +moved and disturbed him. As soon as Goethe was able to give to himself +a clear account concerning that which had affected his soul and as soon +as he could give a poetical form to it so that it became something +independent and outside of him, he gained, in the sense of Spinoza’s +doctrine of liberation from passions, the peace and liberty of his soul. +Yet Spinoza’s doctrine of necessity was a metaphysical conception. +Goethe transferred it into the domains of practical ethics, thus giving +rise to his idea of resignation. Goethe writes in the beginning of the +sixteenth book of “Wahrheit und Dichtung”: “Our physical as well as our +social life, customs, habits, worldly wisdom, philosophy, religion, even +many incidental events, everything demands of us that we should resign +ourselves. So many things which most intrinsically belong to us we are +not allowed to develop. That of the outer world which we want as a +complement of our nature is taken away and many things which are foreign +to us and disagreeable are thrown upon us. We are deprived of everything +that we have with difficulty acquired, of everything that is friendly and +before we fully comprehend it we find ourselves obliged _to surrender +our very personality_, first piecemeal and finally in its entirety.” +Professor Schneege says that Goethe’s practice of resignation gave him +solace when he felt low-spirited concerning the limits of human willing +and wishing and hoping, and his resignation was as a matter of principle +a total resignation. A partial resignation leads to the pessimistic +outcry “All is vanity,” yet the total resignation affords an inner peace +and produces that “air of peace,” _die Friedensluft_ as Goethe calls it, +which surrounds us when reading Spinoza. + +One of Goethe’s maxims is quite Spinozistic. Goethe says (_Max. und Refl. +Abth._ v.): “He who declares himself to be free will feel himself at once +dependent but he who dares to declare himself dependent, feels himself +free.” + +Goethe rejected the idea of a personal and transcendent Deity which was +urged so strongly upon him by Lavater. Rejecting Lavater’s view, he says +(_Wahrh. und Dicht._ xiv.): “I assured him in accord with my Realism +which is inborn as well as acquired that since it had pleased God and +Nature to make me as I am, I must remain so.” The expression “God and +Nature” savors strongly of Spinoza’s “Deus sive natura.” + +According to Eckermann (_Gesp. m. G._ ii, p. 169) Holbach’s _Systéme de +la nature_ had also made a strong impression upon Goethe. Nevertheless +he was dissatisfied with the spirit of French materialism. He says: “How +empty and hollow is this sad atheistic twilight, in which the earth with +all its forms and the heaven with all its stars disappear. Matter only is +said to exist, being in motion from eternity to eternity, thus producing +to the right and to the left without further ado all the innumerable +phenomena of being.” Goethe’s view of “God and nature,” did not deny the +Deity as such, but identified both in the sense of Spinoza. In this sense +Goethe interpreted the sentence: _Qui deum amat conari not potest, ut +Deus ipsum contra amet—si homo id conaretur, cuperet ergo ut Deus quem +amat, non esset Deus_. The latter idea, “if a man wished that God should +love him in return, he would wish that God be not God” is a corollary +only to the impersonal conception of Spinoza’s non-anthropomorphised +Deity. We cannot and we must not think of God as a human being who like +a monarch makes favorites of those who are faithful not so much to the +divine laws of ethics but to God personally. + +Goethe agreed in his views of Spinoza with Herder, who in a letter +to Jacobi writes: “The πρὼτον ψεῦδος, my dear Jacobi, in all +anti-spinozistic systems is that God is supposed to be the great _ens +entium_, the cause of all phenomena, a cypher, an abstract idea which we +have formulated. However, that is not so according to Spinoza; God is to +him the most real and active unity which says to itself ‘I am that I am, +and shall be in all the changes of my phenomena that which I shall be.’ +What you mean, my dear fellows, by an existence outside of the world, +I do not understand. If God does not exist in the world, and indeed, +everywhere unlimited in his totality and entirety, he does not exist at +all. The limitation of personality does not belong to the infinite being, +since a person originates with us by limitation as a kind of _modus_ or +as an aggregate of beings whose activity is endowed with the illusion of +unity.” A modification of Spinoza’s view consists in the recognition of +the creative activity which Herder attributes to God. In another letter +to Jacobi, Herder writes: “You wish God in the shape of man like a friend +who thinks of you. Consider that in that case he must think humanly of +you. If he is partial to you he will be partial against others. Explain +to me why you need him to be human. He speaks to you, he affects you +through all noble men who are his organs and most so through his organ +of organs, the core of his spiritual creation, his only begotten. I must +confess that this philosophy makes me exceedingly happy. Goethe has read +Spinoza since your departure and it is a test case to me that he has +conceived him exactly as I do.” + +Herder was a clergyman and he held the highest position of his church, +being Superintendent General. Would the protestant state churches of +to-day either in England or in Germany have room for a man like Herder? + +Goethe concurred with Herder, that the idea of an extramundane Deity has +no sense, an outside God is powerless and an immanent God alone is a +reality. He puts in the mouth of Faust the following lines: + + “The God that in my breast is owned + Can deeply stir the inner sources. + The God above my powers enthroned + He cannot change external forces.” + + _Faust I, Scene 4, Tr. Bayard Taylor._ + +Spinoza makes a difference between _natura naturans_ and _natura +naturata_. A similar contrast is made by Goethe in the following lines +which are found among the _Zahme Xenien_, Part vii. + + “Life dwells in each celestial body + And on its self-selected roads + It likes to travel with the others. + There are in our earth’s deep abodes + The forces, shrouded now in night + And rising up again to light + If with eternal repetition + Some circles infinitely roam, + If thousand stones in strong construction + Together build life’s glorious dome, + Then through all things is pleasure thrilling, + The great, the little, both are blessed, + _Yet all this yearning, all this striving_ + _In God the Lord, is eternal rest_.”[26] + +According to Schneege, Goethe was an agnostic. Faust says: + + “Mysterious even in open day + Nature retains her veil, despite our clamors. + That which she doth not willingly display, + Cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws and hammers.” + + _I, 1. Tr. Bayard Taylor._ + +This quotation however expresses Faust’s despair and not Goethe’s +philosophical view. It is true that Goethe has made a few utterances +which savor of agnosticism, but most of them are expressive of the idea +that we can never be through with our wisdom; every new solution proposes +new problems. + + “_Will mich jedoch des Worts nicht schämen:_ + _Wir tasten ewig an Problemen._” + + _Zahme Xenien_, vii. + + [Will not be ashamed of the confession: + We are dealing with problems without intercession.] + +How little Goethe was in accord with the view of modern agnosticism +or phenomenalism, that we know the outside of nature only and not her +inside, can be learned from his opposition to Haller’s famous lines: + + “Nature’s Within from mortal mind + Must ever lie concealed. + Thrice blessed e’en he, to whom she has + Her outer shell revealed.” + +In answer to the agnostic sentiment of the famous naturalist, Goethe +answered with the following verses (quoted in the translation given in +“Fundamental Problems,” p. 142): + + “_Nature’s ‘within’ from mortal mind_” + Philistine, sayest thou, + “_Must ever lie concealed?_” + To me, my friend, and to my kind + Repeat this not. We trow + Where’er we are that we + Within must always be. + + “_Thrice blessed e’en he to whom she has_ + _Her outer shell revealed?_” + This saying sixty years I heard + Repeated o’er and o’er, + And in my soul I cursed the word, + Yet secretly I swore. + Some thousand thousand times or more + Unto myself I witness bore: + Gladly gives Nature all her store, + She knows not kernel, knows not shell, + For she is all in one. + But thou, + Examine thou thine own self well + whether thou art kernel or art shell. + +We ought to bear in mind that Goethe was no philosopher in the strict +sense of the word and did not attempt to have a system that should +be free from contradictions. So we read in one place: “Man is not +born to solve the problem of the world, but to seek for the limit +of the incomprehensible and then to remain within the limits of the +comprehensible,” and in another place “Man must hold fast to the belief +that what seems incomprehensible is comprehensible, for otherwise he +would cease to investigate.” + +The idea of evolution was the basis of Goethe’s idea of immortality. Here +also he remains in accord with Herder who had proposed in his “Ideas for +a Philosophy of the History of Mankind” his views of the development +of beings by degrees. Goethe wrote from Rome (See “Herder’s Nachlass,” +ed. Düntzer, Frankfort, 1756, i, p. 17.): “How much I enjoy Herder’s +‘Ideas,’ I can scarcely express. Since I expect no Messiah, this [viz. +the prospect of further evolution] is to me the dearest Gospel.” + +Goethe’s idea of the soul is not clearly worked out in its philosophical +aspect. He speaks of souls as of monads and believes in a migration +of the soul. “I am sure,” Goethe said to Falk, “I have been here some +thousand times and expect to come again some thousand times.” + +Goethe was very decided in practical and ethical respects. Goethe +deviated from Spinoza by introducing a strong trait of individualism into +Spinoza’s cosmism. + + “_Zweck sein selbst ist jegliches Thier._”[27] + + [Every creature has its purpose in itself.] + +And man is the last product of constantly higher evolving Nature—_das +letzte Product der sich immer steigernden Natur_. Nature’s intention +according to Goethe’s view is to produce constantly more perfect +creatures. He says: “Imagine Nature standing as a gamester before the +roulette table constantly shouting _au double_. With all she has won +through all the phases of her activity she continues to play on into +infinity. Stone, plant, animal, everything is risked in such hazarding +ventures again and again, and who can tell whether man himself is not but +a venture for a higher aim.” Death was to Goethe no destruction but a +dissolution. A destruction or annihilation appeared as an impossibility +to him. And his idea of immortality was not one of existence after +death but of a continued activity. In the year 1825 Goethe declared to +Chancellor von Müller (“Gespräche m.d. Kanzler von Müller,” p. 99), that +he should not know what to do with an immortality in which he would not +find new tasks to do and new difficulties to conquer. (Heidelberg: Georg +Weiss.) + + κρς. + + +ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II. +No. 4. + +CONTENTS: + + ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER KOMPLEXIONEN UND RELATIONEN. By _E. + Meinong_. + + WUNDT’S ANTIKRITIK. By _C. Stumpf_. + + UEBER DIE UNTERSCHIEDSEMPFINDLICHKEIT FUER KLEINE ZEITGROESSEN. + Eine vorläufige Mitteilung. By _F. Schumann_. + + LITTERATURBERICHT. + +Professor A. Meinong discusses Ch. v. Ehrenfels’s article “Ueber +Gestaltqualitäten”[28] adding the results of his own investigations +suggested to him by this essay. Ehrenfels starts from Professor Mach’s +consideration of figure and melody (see Mach’s _Beiträge zur Analyse der +Empfindungen_) and proposes the question, What are figure and melody +in themselves? Are they merely a combination of elements or are they +something in contradistinction to their elements, something entirely +new? Melodies and figures, says Ehrenfels, can be so transposed that +not any one of their original elements will remain. Thus the similarity +of figures in space as well as of tones is something different from the +similarity of their elements; they must be something different than +their mere sum. This is “the figure-quality” or _Gestaltsqualität_, and +Ehrenfels distinguishes between two kinds, (1) those of time (2) those +of space, which he calls (1) _Tongestalten_ and (2) _Raumgestalten_. In +addition to these are discussed the figure-qualities of sensations and +of inner apperception. Ehrenfels proposes the psychological question +whether these figure-qualities are immediately given together with +their foundations or whether they must be considered as the product of +a special activity, and he decides in favor of the former possibility. +Professor Meinong whose work has been in similar lines, refers to his +article “Phantasievorstellung und Phantasie”[29] and criticises the term +“figure-quality,” proposing in its stead the words _fundierend_ and +_fundiert_, using the German term _Fundament_ as a correlative expression +of “relation.” There is no relation without complexity and psychological +experience has actually to deal with complex facts only. Melody and +figure are names for the totality of the foundations including their +“founded” contents. + +It may be that we are unduly prejudiced in favor of our own terminology, +but it seems to us that the expression “form” will prove to be the most +appropriate word. Form is neither quality nor quantity, but form can +produce qualities. Let the same qualities, say of chemical elements, +combine in different forms, and we shall obtain substances with different +qualities. Figure and melody are special kinds of form. Forms consist +in and originate through combination, and the unity produced through a +special form-combination is actually something new, as much so as if +it were a special-creation act. This wonderful power of form makes the +study of form all-important in all branches of science. A neglect of the +study of form will lead either to materialism when matter and motion are +conceived as the only quality-producing factors, or to agnosticism as +soon as a deeper inquiry proves that matter and motion are not sufficient +to explain the most essential properties of the objects of investigation. +We cannot judge from the present article how much Ehrenfels and Meinong +are in sympathy with our standpoint, but we can see that their efforts +are in the same direction. + +The second article is a rejoinder by Prof. C. Stumpf of Munich to Prof. +W. Wundt’s reply to his critic. Professor Stumpf complains of Wundt that +he ignored the points raised in his criticism and that his “Antikritik” +consisted only of “a chain of distortions and insinuations.” + +F. Schumann publishes his results regarding sensibility for the +difference between smallest quantities of time. He employed a chronograph +modified in two respects from Wundt’s chronograph. First he replaced +the expensive chronometer by a treading-wheel and introduced Pfeil’s +time-marker, which, as he thinks, is handier as well as more precise +than Wundt’s time-marker. Schumann’s results agree with the results of +Professor Mach showing a maximum of 0.3-0.4 seconds, the relation of the +perceptible difference to the normal time being in different persons only +0.022. (Hamburg and Leipsic: L. Voss.) + + κρς. + + +PHILOSOPHISCHES JAHRBUCH. Vol. IV. No. 3. + +CONTENTS: + + ENTHAELT DIE CHEMISCH-PHYSIKALISCHE ATOMTHEORIE WIDERSPRUECHE? + By _S. J. Linsmeier_. + + NOCH EINMAL ZU PLATON’S TIMAEUS p. 51 E-p. 52 B. By _Clemens + Baeumker_. + + DAS GESETZ VON DER ERHALTUNG DES LEBENS. (Zusatz der + Redaction.) By _W. Frye_. + + DIE LOGISCHEN GAENGE DES DENKENS. By _Dr. G. Grupp_. + + W. WUNDT’S SYSTEM DER PHILOSOPHIE. By _C. Gutberlet_. + + RECENSIONEN UND REFERATE. + +The publishers and editors of _The Monist_ are not Roman Catholics and +we suppose that the majority of our readers are not either. But all the +more it appears to us necessary to state as a matter of justice that the +Roman Catholic publications (i. e. those which avowedly and confessedly +represent Roman Catholic thought) are far superior to their analogous +Protestant contemporaries. The latter are debating their particular +sectarianisms and do not seem to be interested in the progress of their +times. They do not heed the discoveries of science or the views of +philosophers, they live in a world of their own. It is different with +Roman Catholics. The present magazine proves that they have thinkers +among them who keep abreast of the time. It is true that there is more +discipline in the camp of Roman Catholics which shuts their champions +out from free enquiry in a certain direction concerning some fundamental +tenets, but with all this discipline goes along a broad-mindedness in +attacking the different problems of modern science and philosophy and +bringing them into harmony with the Roman Catholic faith. + +The _Philosophisches Jahrbuch_ is published by the _Görres-Gesellschaft_ +and edited by Dr. Const. Gutberlet. Jacob Joseph Görres is the well-known +champion of the Catholic Church (1776-1848)—a restless spirit who began +his public career as an enthusiastic defender of the French Revolution +for the propagation of which he published a fanatical journal _Das rothe +Blatt_. With the rise of Napoleon he despaired of the cause of liberty, +but he took courage again in the war of independence (1813-1815). In his +journal _Der Rheinische Merkur_ he denounced bitterly those Germans who +still held to the French; he recommended his countrymen to have more love +for their language, customs, and traditions and exhorted the princes to +stand united against the common foe and re-institute the empire. The +war over he was persecuted by the Prussian government on account of his +renewed interests in revolutionary affairs (he had published in 1820 a +pamphlet “Germany and the Revolution”) and showing a decided inclination +to mysticism (“Emanuel Schwedenborg, his Visions and his Relation to +the Church,” 1827) he joined the Ultramontane party in the conviction +that his ideals could be realised in the Roman Catholic Church. The rest +of his life he remained faithful to Rome and was the most active, the +most vigorous, and also the ablest defender of Roman Catholic views and +interests. The present magazine is a Quarterly conducted with scholarship +and tact, although as a matter of course not without that prejudice +which necessarily results from the principle of giving all thoughts into +captivity under a special and foredetermined faith. The last volume (vol. +iii) is rich in interesting articles. Prof. Dr. Hayd, strange enough, +defends the liberty of investigating the authority of faith, which the +editor, however, without rejecting the idea off-hand considers as bold +(_gewagt_). There are articles on the freedom of will, on the infinite +number of possibilities, mongolian cosmology, Pascal’s position toward +scepticism, analogies between cognition of God and cognition of nature +with special reference to Kant’s criticism of the evidences of the +existence of God. The present number of vol. iv contains an article on +the chemico-physical theory of atoms. The question is proposed whether or +not this theory contains contradictions. The author starts from Dalton’s +Definition, whom he regards together with Wallaston as the founder of +modern atomism. The four weightiest objections are considered, but +the author arrives at the conclusion that all of them are based upon +misconceptions. He sums up: “Chemists and Physicists do not repudiate +eyes and senses when proposing and defending the atomistic theory. On +the contrary they use for their view and build it upon an exceedingly +richer material of observation than is employed by their antagonists.... +This denial of the validity of the most important objections, however, +does not imply that the atomistic theory is without difficulties, gaps, +unexplained details, etc. It is not as yet so certain a fact as for +instance the heliocentric world-conception. It is an hypothesis still and +will have to remain such for quite a long time. Yet we can confidently +assert that the difficulties are by far less than those offered to +the acceptance of the Copernican hypothesis at the time of the first +condemnation of Galileo (1616) which were solved afterward by Galileo in +the year 1632. We have further to state that the atomistic theory has +been developed more and more since Dalton, the number and the importance +of the explanations offered in it have constantly increased.” + +Dr. Frye of Jena discusses Preyer’s latest view of “The Self-Gubernation +of Life—_Die Selbststeuerung des Lebens_” which appeared in a recent +number of the _Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift_ (Berlin). Preyer +considers his newly discovered law as a corollary to the conservation +of matter and energy and maintains that the total amount of life in the +world is as much constant as are matter and energy. Living mass (_Mz_) +plus inanimate mass (_Mn_) are constant (_C_); _Mz_ + _Mn_ = _C_. So +far scientists will agree, but Preyer adds that each separate item is +constant for itself. He declares that “the total amount of protoplasm +in the world remains unchanged in quantity.” It is hardly probable that +Preyer’s view will be adopted by science. + +Dr. Grupp discusses the logical paths of thought, and the editor, +Professor Dr. Gutberlet explains and criticises Wundt’s System of +Philosophy. + +One of the most valuable features for Catholic readers must be considered +the book reviews. Here the thoughts of the most advanced thinkers are as +it were digested for the Catholic world. The material is carefully sifted +but the exposition of heretic opinions is not evaded. The criticisms +from the pen of Dr. Gutberlet are often trenchant and should not be left +unheeded by the adversaries of the Church. (Fulda: Verlag der Fuldaer +Aktien-Druckerei.) + + κρς. + + +RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. July and August, 1891. + +CONTENTS: + + LA SCIENZA DELL’EDUCAZIONE NELLE SCUOLE E NELLE RIVISTE + ITALIANE. By _F. Cicchitti-Suriani_. + + LA FILOSOFIA DI EMPEDOCLE. By _S. Ferrari_. + + SCIENZE FILOSOFICHE E SOCIALI: RELAZIONE SUL CONCORSO AI PREMII + MINISTERIALI. By _A. Chiappelli_. + + ALCUNE CONSIDERAZIONI SULL’ECLETTISMO. By _L. Ferri_. + + BIBLIOGRAFIA, ETC. + +_The Science of Education in Italian Schools and in Italian Reviews._ +Every nation is said to possess a peculiar physiognomy of its own, +through which it is distinguished from every other nation; and +consequently any nation will adopt a system of education that is best +suited to its own national genius, to its racial, religious, and +historical traditions. This may be true in a purely practical sense; but +on the other hand, education, theoretically, as science or pedagogics, +passes the narrow limits of any state or form of government, and ought +to be ruled by principles and general laws common to the entire human +family. Historically, ever since the 16th century, the educational +movements in Italy have been directly called forth by the Catholic +revival and reaction during and immediately following the period of the +renaissance. Such was the origin of the _Filippini_, _Ignorantelli_, +_Barnabiti_, _Ignaziani_, _Calasanziadi_, _Somaschi_, and of many other +religious teaching-bodies that have made Italy until recently a bustling +arena of ecclesiastical educational systems. + +_The Philosophy of Empedocles._ This first instalment of Signor Ferrari’s +studies deals with the cosmological ideas of the great Agrigentine +poet-philosophers. From the formation of the first elements to the +highest functions of the human soul throughout, we perceive that +everything is governed by the same laws, and that which is best, all +happiness in fact, is only found in unity and harmony, evil and pain in +disagreement and in separation. The law of evolution, in the modern sense +of the word, prevails everywhere in the physical system of Empedocles. +Yet his philosophy did not exclusively consist in mechanical evolution. +To his cosmological doctrines were added moral and religious tenets, +which, however, are not evolved continuously with the former. (Rome. +Tipografia delle Terme Diocleziane di G. Balbi—160 Via Cavour, 162.) + + γνλν. + + +VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII. Vol. II. No. 4. May, 1891. + +CONTENTS: + + ETHICS OF LIFE AND OF THE FREE IDEAL. By _K. Ventzel_. (In + this article the writer explains and criticises the well-known + ethical theories of the late French thinker M. Guyau.) + + THE PESSIMIST THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE: CRITICISM, POSITIVISM. By + _E. de Roberti_. + + RELIGIOUS METAPHYSICS OF THE MOSLEM ORIENT. (Conclusion.) By + _S. Umanetz_. + + LETTERS ON COUNT TOLSTOÏ’S BOOK. “On Life.” (Conclusion.) By + _A. Kozloff_. + + (The writer concludes his letters to Mr. N. N. with remarks + to the effect that count Tolstoï’s philosophy in all its + aspects and phases is manifestly characterized by a principle + of _dualism_. In the development of this general principle + through the different phases of his system and in his theory of + knowledge this dualism might assume the name of rationalism, + in metaphysics, that of idealism, and in ethics the name of + ascetical, quietistic eudemonism. + + ON DETERMINISM IN CONNECTION WITH MATHEMATICAL PSYCHOLOGY. + By _N. Shishkin_. Lecture delivered before the Moscow + Psychological Society. February, 1891. + + THE DOMAIN AND LIMITS OF SUGGESTION. By _N. Bajenoff_. Lecture + delivered at the annual session of the Moscow Psychological + Society. January, 1891. + + ANENT THE FICTIONS OF PROFESSED CHRISTIANITY. By _Vladimir + Solovieff_. + + (This article has appeared in an English translation in _The + Open Court_, Nos. 206 and 208, under the title “Christianity: + Its Spirit and its Errors.” It is a remarkable contribution + to the literature of to-day. Professor Nicolas von Grote of + Moscow writes about its author: “Vladimir Solovieff is at + present, besides the Count Tolstoï, our most eminent thinker; + he is a distinguished philosopher as well as theologian.... + You Americans should be familiar with his works on religious + and ecclesiastical ‘questions’.” Vladimir Solovieff is the + author of the following works: “The Religious Foundations of + Life,” “The Dogmatic Development of the Church,” “Judaism and + the Christian Question.” (These titles are translated from the + Russian.) Other writings of his are “L’idée russe,” “La Russie + et l’église universelle,” “Geschichte der Theokratie.”) + + SPECIAL DEPARTMENT. (1) Hegel’s Ontology. A Posthumous + Dissertation. By _N. P. H. Platonoff_. (2) The Influence of + fatigue upon the intuition of special relations. By _Nik. + Marün_. (3) Fundamental moments in the evolution of the new + philosophy. Main tendencies of the new philosophy. Empiricism + and Naturalism. Bacon and Hobbes. By _N. Grote_. (Moscow.) + + γνλν. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[26] Specially translated for _The Monist_. + +[27] _Metamorphose der Thiere._ + +[28] _Vierteljahrsschr. f. wissensch. Phil._ 1890. 3, p. 249-292. + +[29] _Zeitschrift für Phil. n. philos. Kritik._ Vol. 95, p. 173. 1889. + + + + + VOL. II. JANUARY, 1892. NO. 2. + + THE MONIST. + + + + +MENTAL EVOLUTION. + +AN OLD SPECULATION IN A NEW LIGHT. + + +The theory of organic evolution, now generally accepted, needs to +be supplemented by a theory of mental evolution. On a superficial +examination of the matter the necessity for such a supplementary theory +does not perhaps strike one as obvious, the mental seeming naturally to +arise out of the organic and to be part of one continuous development. +But closer investigation and a more rigid and exact treatment bring to +light certain important and peculiar features, and disclose the necessity +of some such hypothesis as it is my purpose to set forth briefly in the +following pages. + +By organic evolution I mean the natural development, whether by +“selection” alone or by this in co-operation with other natural +processes, of the organisms which live upon the surface of this earth; +and by mental evolution I mean the natural development of the mental +faculties in at least the higher animals among these organisms. Now with +regard to organic evolution there is no common and general agreement +in respect of the first origin of primitive life on the earth. Some +evolutionists believe that the living was somewhen, somehow, and +somewhere evolved from the not-living. Others do not feel justified in +holding this view, and deem it wiser to restrict their speculations as +to natural genesis within the limits of the organic. So too at the other +end of the developmental curve; there is no common and general agreement +as to the evolution of the mental faculties or spiritual being of man. +Some evolutionists believe that both in body and in mind, man is the +product of natural development; others do not feel justified in holding +this view, and retain unshaken the conviction that man in his spiritual +essence is no part nor product of the common elements of nature. Seeing +then that on either side there is want of agreement, on the one hand as +to the origin of life, on the other as to the origin of man, I shall deal +for the most part with that large area concerning which there is a more +unanimous consensus of opinion, and in the main confine my speculations +within the field of mental evolution in animals, ranging, say, from the +amœba to the dog. + +Few will be found to deny or even to question the fact that our dumb +companions and four-footed friends have mental faculties which enable +them accurately to adjust their actions to the varied circumstances +in the midst of which their lives are passed. Even if we see cause +to hesitate, as I myself hesitate, before we ascribe to them +self-consciousness and reason, in the narrower sense in which this word +is used; still we must acknowledge that their instincts are powerful, +their intelligence wonderfully keen and active; and that they are capable +of strong emotional feeling both of affection and of antipathy. Should +we so welcome them as our companions and friends if we regarded them as +unconscious, insentient automata? But when we turn to the other end of +the scale of life, to the amœba and all the myriad minutiae that swarm +in ponds and stagnant pools, we are wont to speak with less confidence. +Their consciousness, if so we can call it, is of so simple an order, +their sentience of so low a grade, that we can hardly with any accuracy +use the phrase “mental faculties” with reference to organisms so lowly. +We feel uncertain whether in their case unconscious automatism does not +after all pretty accurately express the facts. At any rate it would +trouble us little or not at all if some one proved their automatism +to-morrow. And yet, on the theory of evolution, out of such lowly +beginnings have sprung the sagacity and affectionate devotion of the +dog. But if the amœba and his tribe are insentient automata, at what +stage of the development did consciousness creep in? And whence came +it? Or put what is fundamentally the same question in another way. In +the common course of generation the dog is developed from a minute +egg-cell, one hundredth of an inch or less in diameter, with which a yet +more minute sperm has entered into fertile union. Supplied with shelter, +warmth, and nutriment by that maternal self-sacrifice which is a deeply +significant fact of organic progress, this little speck of living stuff +passes, by a process strictly continuous, though profoundly modified by +the catastrophe of birth, into the dog with its wealth of intelligence +and affection. It is surely impossible without extravagance to speak of +the fertilised ovum as conscious. Where then in the continuous process +of development does consciousness come in? How, and whence? We are not +nowadays to be put off with the ambiguous assertion that consciousness +and intelligence are “potentially” present in the germ. We ask: What is +_actually_ present therein as the basis of this potentiality? Or are we +told that consciousness dawns at or shortly after the catastrophe of +birth? Then again we ask: Whence comes this dawning consciousness, and +by what means does it become associated with the puppy’s brain? In yet +another form does a question of like general implication suggest itself. +Granted that in the ovum there is present something which we may call the +germ of consciousness somehow associated with the protoplasmic material +of which that ovum is constituted. How comes it that, in the adult dog, +consciousness is associated with the brain? Why is the association of +consciousness concentrated, so to speak, in this one tissue of the +many which arise during the differentiation of development? That the +association is so concentrated or specialised is now generally admitted +to be the fact. We speak indeed of the skin, the palate, the nose, the +eye, the ear, as each in its kind sensitive. But none the less we believe +that the seat of consciousness is the brain or some part of it. Only +when the nerves running inwards from skin, palate, nose, eye, or ear, +have conveyed their appropriate stimuli to the brain, does that organ +tingle with the accompaniment of consciousness. There and there only +does consciousness “emerge”; not in peripheral sense-organ or ingoing +nerve. But why? How comes it that there is this peculiar association of +consciousness with the functioning of a particular organ? + +Perhaps we are told that consciousness is the special product of +brain-tissue. But let us note that the word “product” is here used in +an unwonted sense. We are not likely, it is to be hoped, to fall into +the crude and demonstrably false materialism expressed in the formula, +“as the liver secretes bile, so does the brain secrete consciousness.” +Consciousness being immaterial, the second and fourth terms are +incommensurable, and the formula is sheer nonsense. Nor are we likely +(though here there is greater danger) to fall into the more subtle error +of regarding consciousness as a mode of energy. “Granted,” says Professor +Tyndall, “that a definite thought and a definite molecular action of the +brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor +apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass by +a process of reasoning from the one to the other: the chasm between the +two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable.” +Consciousness is something _sui generis_. It is neither matter nor +energy. It may accompany the transformations of energy in the dog’s +brain; but to the category of these transformations of energy it does +not, and, for any clear thinker, can not belong. And if we are told that +the word “product” is used in the sense implied by Professor Huxley when +he speaks of phenomena of consciousness being “called into existence” by +physical processes; then we must again ask whence they are called into +existence. We do not now speak of matter or energy being called into +existence from a shadowy nowhere. When a cloud is called into existence +on a mountain peak we know that the material particles have only assumed +a new form. When the electrical current is called into existence or +generated as we phrase it, we know that we are dealing with one of the +many transformations of energy. And when phenomena of consciousness +are said to be called into existence, we have a right to ask: Do you +mean, by this phrase, creation _ex nihilo_? Or do you mean, origin by +transformation? And if the latter, transformation of what? + +Having thus opened up these several questions, all of like implication, +let us now endeavor to set forth the answer which seems most +philosophical and most closely in accordance with scientific analogies. +And to this end let us consider the living dog. His frame is pulsating +with life and restless activity, and somehow associated with the +transformations of energy in that brain of his there is consciousness—or +what in the dog is the analogue of that consciousness with which +alone I can claim any acquaintance at first hand, my own. Were his +skin and the walls of his skull as transparent as glass; did the +molecular vibrations of his brain lie open to the keenest scrutiny of +the physical investigator; could we trace in detail all the varied and +orderly transformations of energy of which that brain is the theatre; +the accompanying consciousness would still be beyond our reach. _We_ +might follow the changes of energy; he alone would feel the states of +consciousness. But suppose that the dog dies. His body lies before us +stiff with the _rigor mortis_. If we had weighed it previous to death, +and if we were to weigh it again after death, the scales would give +us no information of the departure of anything material. All signs of +consciousness, however, are gone. And could we see through skin and skull +into the brain, which during life was the theatre of so complex and +orderly a sequence of transformations of energy, we should find that it +was still and motionless. It is true that we cannot actually do this. But +we know that, whereas, during life, the functional action of the brain +gives rise to certain material products, at death the production of these +substances ceases. We are therefore justified in saying that, omitting +minor qualifications, the orderly transformations of energy in the brain +and the concomitant consciousness cease together at death. Closely +associated during life, varying together in health and sickness, ceasing +together at death, what is the nature of their connection? + +On the hypothesis of scientific monism it is believed that they are +different aspects of the same phenomena: that what objectively to the +physical investigator are transformations of energy in the brain, are +subjectively to the dog states of consciousness? Let us look into this +hypothesis. Let us see whither it will lead us; and if it will in any way +help us over some of our difficulties. But first let us pay a moment’s +attention to the impatient exclamation which some may feel inclined to +interpose, that this assumption of the ultimate identity of brain-energy +and consciousness, the two being respectively the objective and +subjective aspects of the same occurrences, does not in the least do away +with the mystery of the matter. That the same two occurrences should have +different aspects, objective and subjective, is, it will be said, just +as mysterious as that two separate existences energy and consciousness +should be associated together. Of course it is. I should be shallow and +pretentious indeed if my object were by any _hocus pocus_ to attempt to +hide the so-called mystery. _All_ ultimate facts are mysterious. The +fall of a stone to the ground is to-day as mysterious as it was in the +days before Newton; the phenomena of life, as mysterious as in the days +before Darwin. Our advances in science and in thought may do away with +minor mysteries, but they leave the great ultimate facts of nature as +mysterious as before. The end of our explanations is always to bring us +face to face with the inexplicable. Not, therefore, in any hope of doing +away with an ultimate mystery do I suggest that we look into and follow +out some implications of this so called identity hypothesis. + +Let us regard the matter from the objective aspect first, from the side +to which the occurrences present themselves as transformations of energy. +The state of consciousness being _ex hypothesi_ accompanied or “called +into existence” by certain complex and orderly molecular vibrations in +the brain or some part thereof, we have to note that from the physical +point of view these molecular vibrations constitute an exceeding complex +and orderly mode of energy. It is upon this energy that we must fix our +attention; the material structure of the brain being what we may call +the vehicle of its manifestation. I am anxious that the reader should +carefully follow me here. We are too apt to regard the _structure_ as +the essential thing on which to concentrate our mental gaze, partly no +doubt because, through the invaluable labors of microscopists, we know +so much that is definite about this structure. But a more penetrating +insight enables us to see that the structure is merely the necessary +basis of what is the really important thing—the manifestation of +energy. The material structure of a steam-engine is of importance. But +why? Because it is the vehicle for the performance of work. That is the +really essential part of the business. In like manner nerve-structure +is of importance. But why? Because it is the vehicle for what Professor +Huxley happily termed the neurosis, the complex and orderly manifestation +of energy. The essential importance of looking at the _going_ machine, +at the performance of work, at the energy of the matter in motion, not +merely the material structure that is moved—the essential importance, I +say, of fixing our attention on this, being fairly grasped, we may now +proceed to enquire from what the complex and orderly vibrations of the +dog’s brain have been evolved. In the fertilised ovum from which the dog +was developed, (and the same is true of the amœboid ancestor from which, +hypothetically, the race of dogs has been evolved,) there is certainly +nothing approaching the orderly complexity of these molecular vibrations. +But there are simpler organic modes of motion from which these complex +molecular vibrations have arisen by a continuous process of development. +It is from these simpler modes of energy in the simpler organic substance +of the ovum that the more complex modes of energy which characterise +the workings of the dog’s brain have been evolved. In the development +of the ovum into the embryo, and thence into the puppy and the dog, we +may trace step by step all the stages of the evolution of those material +structures which are the vehicles of these special manifestations of +organic energy. We may watch the further and further differentiation of +the nervous tissue, and the fashioning of the brain and its parts. It is +true that we cannot indicate the exact moment when, in the increasing +complexity of the tissues, the simpler forms of organic energy pass +into the higher form of brain energy accompanied by consciousness. But +that is just because it is a continuous development, an evolution. That +the passage from the one into the other does actually take place we are +bound, by all the canons of logical reasoning, to admit. It is only +during life, however, that neurosis occurs or is possible. A great number +of modes of organic energy proceed side by side in the pulsating tissues +of the living dog, their orderly continuance being what we term _life_. +And only in and through their orderly continuance is the maintenance of +the structure of the tissues rendered possible. The organic structure is +like a spinning top. Only so long as it spins and manifests its proper +energy is its stability maintained. All around it are forces which tend +to make it totter to its fall. But so long as it spins freely it can +resist all minor attempts to upset its stability. And when the dog dies; +what happens then? The molecular vibrations of the brain in common with +all other forms of organic energy cease. The top no longer spins; and the +structure totters to its fall. Decomposition sets in. The orderly organic +changes which characterise life, give place to the destructive changes +which characterise decay. But according to the law of the conservation +of energy, although there is decomposition of the tissues of which the +body was composed there is no destruction or annihilation of energy. The +particular modes of energy through which the body was instinct with life +pass away; but only to give rise to their equivalents in other modes +of energy. Just as the puddle in the road disappears, but only to give +origin to an equivalent mass of invisible water-vapor; just as the candle +disappears, but only to give rise to its equivalent mass in the products +of combustion; so throughout life and in death the energy which throbs +in the tissues neither appears nor disappears except at the expense of, +or to the gain of, other modes of energy. Life is like a vortex in a +rapid stream; on surrounding energy it is dependent for its continued +existence; into surrounding energy it melts away. And this is true not +only of individual life but of life in its entirety. Some believe that +the vortex had a natural origin, the organic being evolved from the +inorganic. Others hold that it was through the direct interposition +of the finger of God that the tiny vortex of primitive life was set +a twirling. Be this as it may, once initiated the vortex of life is +dependent on surrounding stores of energy. + +Turning now from the objective aspect to the subjective aspect we pass +from neural processes to states of consciousness. In the language of +the identity hypothesis, here provisionally adopted, the states of +consciousness in the dog’s mind, are the subjective aspect of what, from +the objective aspect, are the molecular vibrations of his brain-tissues. +And as in considering the matter objectively, so now in regarding the +mental aspect, we must ask from what the complex and orderly states of +consciousness of the dog’s mind have been evolved. In the fertilised +ovum from which the dog is developed, (and the same is true of the +amœboid ancestor from which, hypothetically, the race of dogs has been +evolved,) nothing so complex as a state of consciousness is to be found. +From what then have the states of consciousness been evolved? Do we not +seem forced by parity of reasoning to answer: From something more simple +than consciousness but of the same order of existence, which answers +subjectively to the simpler organic energy of the fertilised ovum? Such, +at any rate, is the hypothesis which appears to me the most philosophical +and the most logically consistent. It requires, however, no little effort +of thought to conceive the existence of those elementary states from +which consciousness may have had its origin. We may be aided in doing so, +perhaps, if we fix our attention on the close association of brain-energy +and states of consciousness, regarding them as _distinguishable_ but +not _separable_. Now the nervous energy of the brain is extraordinarily +complex; and yet we believe that it arises by a process of continuous +development from the much less complex energy of the fertilised ovum. In +the ovum there is no brain-energy; there is only the far simpler germinal +energy from which it is evolved. So too, the consciousness in the dog’s +mind is wonderfully complex; but if it has arisen by a process of +development, it must have been evolved from something of like nature only +indefinitely simpler. May we not fairly suppose, therefore, that in the +fertilised ovum, though there is no consciousness, there are the germinal +states from which consciousness may be evolved? Or to put the matter +tersely, may we not say: As the complex molecular vibrations of the brain +are to the simpler molecular vibrations of the ovum; so are the complex +states of consciousness associated with the former to the simpler states +of infra-consciousness, if we may so call them, associated with the +latter? It is the association of consciousness and infra-consciousness +with energy—its objective manifestation—that is the distinguishing +feature of the view which I am endeavoring to set forth. Concomitant +with the evolution of higher modes of organic energy from those lowly +modes which alone obtain in the ovum or the amœba, is the evolution of +consciousness from lowly modes of infra-consciousness. + +It is true that it is only through the exercise of the conceptual +faculty of reason, never through the senses or by direct perception, +that we can reach this suggested infra-consciousness. But this will +hardly be regarded as a valid objection by those who believe in the +existence of the ether, or by those who adopt the atomic theory, neither +of which could be reached by the senses or by perception alone. Still +less will it be regarded as an objection by those who have grasped +the distinction between energy as manifested in the objective world, +and consciousness as inevitably subjective. Of no consciousness other +than our own have we direct and first-hand experience. And yet certain +manifestations of energy as exhibited by other living beings force upon +us the conviction that we are not alone in possessing the subjective +attribute of consciousness. That not only the dog and the elephant, but +the bee also and the spider are endowed with this attribute and are +conscious, though not self-conscious, few of us doubt for a moment. But +their consciousness is presumably far simpler than ours. Carrying this +simplification yet farther down the scale of animal life, we reach in +the jelly-fish, the sea-anemone, and the sponge, forms of life which can +hardly be said to be conscious at all with a consciousness comparable to +our own. Yet they would seem to be endowed with the dim foreshadowings +of such consciousness. Finally in the amœba and the monad we have these +dim foreshadowings reduced to the lowest terms that are suggested by +the study of organic life. If, then, in the series of organic forms, +down even to the lowest, we admit consciousness or its foreshadowing, +though it lies and must ever lie beyond the reach of our senses, why +should we hesitate to generalise our belief in logical and scientific +form, and hold that all organic modes of energy are associated with +conscious or infra-conscious states?[30] It may perhaps, be objected +that such a view, carried to its logical conclusion involves the +supposition that all the tissues of the body are conscious or at +least infra-conscious, whereas it is a well-established scientific +conclusion that consciousness is specially associated with the nervous +tissue of the brain. I see no reason, however, why this conclusion +should not be accepted. If the organic transformations of energy in +the ovum are associated with what for lack of a better term I have +here called infra-consciousness, then there are two possibilities. +Either the accompanying consciousness is _entirely_ concentrated in +association with the molecular vibrations of the brain; or it merely +becomes _dominant_ in the functioning of that tissue and continues in +the dim infra-conscious condition in the other tissues of the body. +Now to judge from our own experience it is only the dominant molecular +vibrations in the brain that are accompanied by the clear light of +consciousness. The sub-dominant neural changes are indeed accompanied by +a dim sub-consciousness. But there are many molecular changes (even in +the cerebral hemispheres themselves where consciousness is “called into +existence”) which do not rise to the level of consciousness at all or +are quite lost in the glare of that consciousness. Why this should be +so I am not prepared to say. It seems to be a law of our mental being. +Certainly it is convenient that it is so; and it may have been fostered +or established by natural selection. We all know the sense of confusion +that arises when, in certain states of intense nervous excitement, a +host of ideas are crowding up into dominance and jostling each other +for supremacy. An organism so constituted that such a state of things +was normal, would, we may suppose, stand but a poor chance of survival. +Hence perhaps there has arisen that due subordination of conscious, +sub-conscious, and infra-conscious states which characterises the +normal life of conscious beings. Having regard, then, to the cerebral +hemispheres where consciousness emerges, not all the molecular changes +there transpiring rise to the level of full consciousness. There is not +a little of what Dr. Carpenter used to call unconscious cerebration. We +seem forced to admit the existence of submerged states of consciousness; +states which are infra-conscious, but which may become conscious at any +moment by rising into dominance. And if in the cerebral hemispheres +there are infra-conscious states, why should there not be associated +with every molecular thrill of the living body yet lower states of +infra-consciousness too deeply submerged ever in man to become dominant? + +It is, however, one thing to show that there is no insuperable objection +to accepting the existence of such infra-conscious states, if such +existence be otherwise probable, and another thing to establish this +probability. And this leads us back again to the grounds on which their +existence may fairly be regarded as probable. We are told that the mental +faculties of the dog in common with his physical or organic frame, have +arisen in the course of ages by a process of development. It is clear +that such a statement is intended to apply to the living dog with active +faculties; to a _going_ mechanism, or rather organism which is also +conscious. Well and good. The material structure has been evolved from +lower forms of matter: the organic modes of energy (in virtue of which he +lives), from lower forms of energy, the mental states (in virtue of which +he is conscious), from—what? I suggest in continuation and conclusion of +this sentence—from lower forms of infra-consciousness; that is to say, +of what is of the same order of existence as consciousness, but has not +yet risen to the level of consciousness. Many people will no doubt see +no necessity for such a conclusion. It is making an unnecessary bother, +they will say, about a very simple matter. At some undefined stage of +organic evolution—perhaps when nervous tissue had its genesis, perhaps +earlier—consciousness began to dawn and has since developed in clearness +and brightness during the evolution of higher and higher organisms. +According to this view, the ascending curve of evolution is divisible at +some undefined point into two portions: of which one represents organic +evolution previous to the dawn of consciousness; the other organic +evolution subsequent to the dawn of consciousness. But the question at +once suggests itself: From what did consciousness dawn at this undefined +point? In answer to which there are some who do not hesitate to reply +that the consciousness arose out of the physical conditions; that when +the rhythmic dance of organic molecules reached a certain intensity and +intricacy consciousness was developed. There is, indeed, a certain class +of nerve-physiologists, or of medical men who write on nerve-physiology, +who, if they do not hold that states of consciousness are generated +from the energy which accompanies the working of the brain-tissues, at +any rate write as if this was their belief. But such a view is quite +untenable. If there is one thing clearly established, both by those who +have approached the matter from the scientific side, and by those who +have approached the matter from the metaphysical side, it is that the +distinction between energy and consciousness is radical and absolute. +No conceivable increase in the orderly complexity of the molecular +vibrations of brain-tissue could give rise to that consciousness which +differs _toto cœlo_ from any manifestation of energy. + +And yet though stated in a form that is philosophically false, and +therefore misleading, the conclusions of these earnest students of +nerve-physiology are practically sound. Grant, for the moment, that the +states of consciousness in the dog’s mind are the subjective aspect of +the molecular energy of his brain. Then the following diagram (Fig. +1.) will represent the ascending curve of development which, from the +objective aspect, is a development of modes of energy, and from the +subjective aspect is a development of modes of consciousness. + +[Illustration: FIG. 1.] + +Now what the nerve-physiologists are sometimes apt to do is, at some +moment of development say _a_, to change their point of view, from +the subjective aspect which deals with consciousness to the objective +aspect which deals with energy. Their conclusions are practically sound +because they are still dealing with the same developmental curve. They +state these conclusions in language which is philosophically misleading +because they suddenly jump from the subjective aspect to the objective +aspect and ignore the great distinction between the two. When they say +that consciousness emerges from the physical conditions at _a_, they +presumably mean that at this point we are first justified in speaking of +consciousness or the subjective aspect in anything like a human sense. +But is it not more logical to hold that, just as from the objective +standpoint the complex energy of the dog’s brain has been developed +from the simpler energy of the ovum, so from the subjective standpoint, +the complex consciousness of the dog’s mind has been developed from +the simpler infra-consciousness of the ovum? And if we do not accept +this view, do we not seem committed to the unevolutionary doctrine +that the conscious aspect suddenly makes its appearance, without those +lowly germinal beginnings which it is of the essence of any theory of +development to postulate? + +It will perhaps be said that all this assumes an identity hypothesis, +with its supposed double aspect, which is not accepted by the majority +of men of science. Let us look at the matter, therefore, from what would +seem the only other point of view open to one who accepts the theory of +development as applicable alike to the dog’s mind and to the dog’s body. +If states of consciousness and the molecular transactions in the brain +are not different aspects of the same occurrences, they are parallel, +concomitant, or associated phenomena. Our diagram will thus become that +given below. + +[Illustration: FIG. 2.] + +Here the parallel or associated phenomena occur together at the higher +end of the developmental curve, and, at _a_, the consciousness is +supposed to emerge. On this view there is less justification for the +nerve-physiologists’ assertion that it arises out of physical processes; +for it is not simply another aspect of these processes, but something +wholly different arbitrarily associated with them. Even on this view +it would seem more logical to suppose that since the association of +mental states with the dominant neural energy is of normal occurrence +from _a_ onwards, the consciousness there emerging has been evolved from +infra-consciousness parallel and concomitant with the physical processes +in the ovum. If this be not so, we may once more ask: From what has +the parallel line to the right of the diagram been evolved? We cannot +say from the neural conditions without changing our point of view and +ignoring the great distinction between matter and energy on the one hand +and consciousness on the other. From what then has the consciousness been +evolved, if not from something of like nature only indefinitely simpler +which has here been spoken of as infra consciousness? + +We must now take a further step, one however in which all evolutionists +will not be prepared to follow us. Attention has already been drawn to +the fact that those who accept the theory of evolution are not agreed +in their faith—for it is on either side a matter rather of belief than +of demonstration—with respect to the origin of life. Some believe that +the primitive organic germs were not produced by natural development +nor through any process of evolution. For such, the hypothesis I am +advocating must be submitted in the following form—when first the +life-energy was started by the direct interposition of the finger of God +it was endowed with some dim form of infra-consciousness which in the +course of evolution developed into consciousness. And presumably those +who see in the amœba and the fertilised ovum some dim foreshadowings of +consciousness may follow me thus far. But for those who believe that +the organic has arisen on this earth by process of natural development +from the inorganic, the hypothesis must be more sweeping in its range. +We must say that all modes of energy of whatever kind whether organic or +inorganic have their conscious or infra-conscious aspect.[31] Startling +as this may sound there is, I believe, no other logical conclusion +possible for the evolutionist _pur sang_. For where are we to draw +the line? The states of consciousness of the higher animals have been +evolved from lower forms of infra-consciousness in the amœba-like or +yet more simple protoplasmic germs in the dawn of life. But if those +low forms of organic infra-consciousness were themselves evolved, from +what could they arise if they were not developed from yet more lowly +forms of infra-consciousness similar in kind but inferior in degree +associated with inorganic transformations of energy? In any case it is +here submitted that this doctrine that infra-consciousness is associated +with _all_ forms of energy is necessarily implied in the phrase mental +evolution for all thinkers who have grasped the distinction between +consciousness and energy. And if this be admitted there is disclosed, +by implication, an answer behind and beyond that ordinarily given to a +question which has again and again been asked—the question:—Is there a +conservation of consciousness analogous to the conservation of energy? +The negative answer generally given to this question results from the +fact that the question itself has always been put in a form which does +not admit of a satisfactory solution. There is not a conservation of +consciousness any more than there is a conservation of neural energy +or a conservation of electricity. There is no conservation of neural +energy because this is only one mode of energy which may be transformed +into other modes. Not until we have generalised energy so as to include +_all_ its modes can we speak of conservation in reference to it. So +too not until we have generalised that universal form of existence, of +which consciousness is only the highest and most developed mode, so as +to include all modes, can we speak of conservation in reference to it. +But so generalised I submit that there is a conservation of that form +of existence which includes both consciousness and infra-consciousness, +co-ordinate and coextensive with the conservation of energy.[32] Just as +the dominant neural transformations in the dog’s brain are like a special +vortex in the onward-flowing stream of the world’s energy, so are the +states of consciousness in his mind like a special vortex in the onward +flowing stream of that mode of existence which, whether it have risen to +the level of consciousness or not, is still of the conscious order. For +the believer in scientific monism there is but one vortex, objectively +presented as energy, subjectively felt in consciousness. For the dualist +there are two vortices, (1) an objective vortex and (2) a subjective +vortex associated with the other and “called into existence” by it. +In either case the vortex is dependent for its continual existence on +surrounding stores of that out of which it has arisen; and in either case +the modern tendencies of scientific thought suggest conservation which is +but the antithesis of creation _ex nihilo_.[33] + +In conclusion it should be noted that this hypothesis is but a new +presentation of an old speculation. It differs as it here stands from +any theory of “mind-stuff” in that it regards the question rather from +the dynamical than from the statical point of view. Not “mind-stuff” +answering to matter but a universal conscious order or aspect of +existence answering to universal energy is the leading idea I have sought +to develop. In its newer form, again, this hypothesis differs from the +view that “all force is will-power,” or the view that “all matter is +conscious,” or the theory of “intelligent monads,” in endeavoring, not to +carry anything like _our_ consciousness down into association with the +simpler manifestations of energy, but rather to seek in association with +these lower manifestations the germinal states indefinitely simpler than +consciousness, from which nevertheless consciousness has been developed. +Finally the keynote of this newer presentation is that which is the +keynote of all modern theories of life and of thought—the doctrine of +evolution. + + C. LLOYD MORGAN. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[30] I have elsewhere (_Animal Life and Intelligence_, p. 467) suggested +the term _kinesis_ for the manifestation of energy, and the term +_metakinesis_ for its conscious or infra-conscious aspect. + +[31] In the phraseology I have elsewhere suggested, there is no kinesis +unaccompanied by its metakinetic aspect. + +[32] That is to say, a conservation of metakinesis co-ordinate and +coextensive with the kinetic conservation of energy. + +[33] The bearing of this conservation of consciousness and +infra-consciousness (metakinesis) on Eastern conceptions of immortality +and on transmigration would be an interesting theme to follow out but is +beyond the scope of the present paper. + + + + +THE NEW CIVILISATION DEPENDS ON MECHANICAL INVENTION. + + +By reason of his physical nature man is hampered by three wants—he +needs food, clothing, and shelter. In his first and lowest stage of +civilisation man lives in a state of enthrallment to nature. He dreads +and worships the cruel forces of matter. But by the aid of science, and +invention which flows from science, man attains domination or control +over things and forces and directs them into the service of humanity for +use or for beauty. The soul conquers nature by science and machinery and +then it next desires to see this conquest over nature reflected in works +of art. Hence it creates architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and +poetry, all of these fine arts portraying man’s victory over wants and +necessities. + +If the spectacle of pauperism and crime, the savagery that still lingers +in the slums of our cities, sternly reminds us of the yet feeble hold +which our civilisation has obtained even in cities—if the census of +mankind proves that three-fourths are yet counted as below the line +that separates the half-civilised from the civilised—yet we are wont to +console ourselves by the promise and potency which we can all discern +in productive industry aided by the might of science and invention. +This view is always hopeful. We see that there is a sort of geometric +progress in the conquest over things and forces. The ability of man to +create wealth continually accelerates. The more he obtains the more +he can obtain. The more each one gets the more his neighbor also can +get. Even the weakling of society, the pauper or beggar, the insane, +and the criminal all fare better in the centres of wealth than they do +at a distance from them where there is no wealth to beg or steal and +no asylums created and sustained by wealth to shelter and heal their +diseased bodies. + +Wealth in the modern sense of the word, far more than in its ancient +sense, is self-productive. It is capital, and capital is wealth +that generates wealth. Capital represents conquered forces and +things—conquered for the supply of human wants. Capital consists of +natural forces yoked and set to work for food, clothing, shelter, and the +facilities of human culture. The three physical wants (food, clothing, +and shelter) are produced by nature—they are the chains and fetters +whereby nature asserts her right to enslave humanity—to keep man in a +state of thralldom. + +But the Promethean cunning of man, realised first in science and next +in useful machines, has succeeded in subduing the powers of nature and +imposing on them the task of supplying and gratifying the very needs +which nature creates in us. Nature had chained man to the task of daily +toil for food, clothing, and shelter. But man turns back upon nature and +compels her to take the place of human drudgery and produce an abundance +of these needed supplies and bring them wherever they are needed for +consumption. This is accomplished by mechanical combinations that secure +the service of steam, electricity, and various devices of earth, air, +fire, and water. + +This self-generating wealth that exists in the shape of capital is so +much on the increase that it fills all classes of our population with +hopes or if not with hopes at least with discontents—and discontent is +certainly the product of hope struggling up from the depths of the soul. +Without the vivid perception of a higher ideal and without the feeling +that it is attainable, there would not be any such thing as discontent. +The average production of man, woman, and child in the United States +increased in the thirty years between 1850 and 1880 from about 25 cents +per day to 40 cents per day—an increase of over 60 per cent. This means +the production of far more substantial improvements for human comfort. +Much more wealth is created that possesses an enduring character and may +be handed down to the next generation. Finer dwellings, better roads and +streets, fences for lands, drainings and levelings, and the processes +necessary to bring wild land under cultivation, artificial supplies +of water and gas, the warehouses and elevators, and the appliances of +commerce—and finally the buildings and furnishings of culture, including +churches, schools, libraries, museums, asylums, and all manner of +public buildings. Great Britain, the leading nation in commerce and +manufactures, according to the returns for 1888 (see Mulhall’s “Dict. +Statistics,” new edition) distributed comfortable incomes of $1000 and +upwards to each family of 30 per cent. of the entire population, and the +remaining 70 per cent. averaged $485 per annum (for each family). France +provided incomes of $1300 per annum for 24 per cent. of its families. +This shows what great capitalists are doing for the creation and +distribution of wealth. Italy showed by its income returns that less than +2 per cent. received incomes of $1000 and upwards, while 98 per cent. of +the families averaged less than $300 income. Italy makes little use of +steam power and labor saving machines. + +If science progresses and its concomitant, useful invention, progresses +as fast for the next hundred years as it has done for the past forty +years, the vision of Edward Bellamy of comfort for all will be realised +without the necessity of any form of socialism. There will be comfort and +even luxury for all who will labor a moderate amount of time. + +Science inventories nature and discovers properties and possible +combinations. Invention uses these combinations to meet mechanical +problems. Can any one doubt who looks into the state of science and its +continually improving methods that the conquest of nature will be more +rapid in the coming century than it has been in the past century? + +But we are challenged by the question: What is the good of annihilating +the necessity for bodily toil? Will not man degenerate spiritually as +he comes to possess luxury at cheaper and cheaper rates? These material +advantages gained by useful invention which create a steady and permanent +supply of food, clothing, and shelter, are they not mere sumptuary +provisions and do they imply progress in civilisation? To this challenge +we reply by pointing out the relation of invention to the communication +of intelligence and the diffusion of knowledge by newspaper and book. + +In the first place it is obvious that the three classes of employments +devoted chiefly to the supply of the physical wants—namely agriculture, +manufactures, and commerce—are undergoing change by aid of mechanic +invention in such a manner as to bring the laborer everywhere more and +more into relation with his fellow men. In other words commerce increases +more and more, and becomes a part of all employments. In exchanging goods +each gets something that he needed more than what he parted with. But the +best result of the exchange is the acquaintance formed between producer +and consumer. Each has learned something of the other’s ideas, modes of +looking at the world and habits of action. Each one’s life is enriched by +the addition of the knowledge of the life of the other. + +Man as a spiritual being has for his problem the exploration of the two +worlds—the worlds of nature and man. The problem is too great for the +individual and he must avail himself of the work of others. Each man may +inventory a small portion of nature different from all others. Each one +may live a life different from another’s. But the individual gets a very +small glimpse of nature by the aid of his own senses. He gets a very +small arc of the total of human life in his survey of his own biography. + +But by intercommunication each one may extend and supplement his own +observations of nature and of the experience of life,—he may avail +himself of the aid of the sense-perceptions of others and still more of +the aid of the thoughts and reflections of others. + +We see at once that man is man because he possesses and uses this means +of re-enforcing his individual observations and reflections by those of +the race. Man is an individual endowed with the power of absorbing the +results of the race. We have with this a definition of civilisation and a +standard of measurement by which we may determine the rate of progress. +Advancement means that there are improved means realised by which each +individual can give to the rest of mankind the results of his living and +doing and thinking and at the same time share in the lives, thoughts, and +deeds of others. + +Looked at in the light of this definition we shall be enabled to claim +progress in civilisation on substantial grounds. We shall be able to +see something more hopeful in the material progress promised us in +the coming century than the cheap supply of bodily comforts. We see +a progressive increase of intercommunication which will enable each +individual to command the results of the rational intelligence of all +mankind. + +Man is first a speaking animal and next a writing animal. Each +word that he uses expresses a general meaning. Each word therefore +stores up an indefinite amount of experience. All men may pour into +it their experience and by it recognise the experience of others. +The art of writing at once increases infinitely the possibility of +intercommunication because it preserves the experience recorded for +persons widely separated in space and far removed in time. It renders +every _where_ in some sense a _here_ and every _when_ a _now_. But +mechanic invention comes to the aid of speech and the elementary arts of +writing by printing with movable types. Printing and gunpowder are two +great elementary arts both attributed to the Germanic race—the two wheels +of modern civilisation so to speak. But the Anglo-Saxon has added the +steam engine and the telegraph. The one makes locomotion possible to an +increasing degree and the other makes instantaneous intercommunication +with all places possible. + +Armed with these instrumentalities our modern civilisation lives in a +sort of spiritual border land. It looks across the frontier and is in +a constant process of interaction with all other nations. The great +instrument of this process is the daily newspaper. Our people are +becoming from year to year a travelled people—in a short time the per +cent. of the population that has crossed the ocean has doubled. The +per cent. that has visited the western border land has quadrupled. But +the number of people who live in constant daily interrelation with all +mankind by aid of the daily newspaper has increased a hundred fold within +a single generation. + +The test of a civilisation is its efficiency in re-enforcing the +endeavors of each individual so as to give him access to the labors of +the world. We are approaching a spiritual civilisation as well as an era +of the general distribution of wealth. + + W. T. HARRIS. + + + + +RELIGION AND PROGRESS. + +INTERPRETED BY THE LIFE AND LAST WORK OF WATHEN MARK WILKS CALL. + + +On August 20, 1890, died Wathen Mark Wilks Call, M. A.,—a spirit finely +touched to fine issues. The posthumous work before me revives the sense +of personal bereavement, but soothes it with the satisfaction of holding +another interview with the beloved scholar on themes that through many +years engaged our conversation. Here is a casket of golden thoughts cast +up from the deep where went down the white-winged ship freighted with +such treasures. The general world is unconscious that it is poorer; +its ports and marts had little welcome for the dainty wares of this +unfamiliar bark. Many an American thinker will through this specimen of +the sunken treasures realise the world’s loss when it is irreparable; +and some who used to hover around the silver sail now vanished, and come +ashore laden with its gifts, have wondered that this writer, valued by +Mill, George Eliot, and the scholarly English circle, should have courted +obscurity rather than fame. He was not indolent, though his published +volumes were few: “Lyra Hellenica” (1842), “Reverberations” (1849, +second edition 1876), “Golden Histories” (1871). Besides his poems, his +contributions in the reviews,—some, like “The Nero Saga” (_Theological +Review_, July, 1871), equal to volumes,—would make a substantial and +important collection. There is enough thought and learning in his poems +and anonymous articles, to have earned fame for an ambitious and pushing +author. Why then did the world get so much less than it ought to have +got from this fine and active brain, and why is he so little known? + +Many years ago I heard from his own lips the story of his life, which +is partly told in the fifty pages that introduce this book, under the +title “A Chapter from my Autobiography.” It will there be seen that +even so late as thirty-six years ago the finest minds and hearts that +could not accept creed-dogmas might be almost mortally wounded. From +that time he lived and wrote as from a retreat. The actual case, as he +told it me, was that his sister, a widow, left him executor of her last +will and testament, and the guardian of her children. He was tenderly +attached to this sister and to her children. She knew his opinions and +his doubts. When he went into the court for confirmation of his trust he +was confronted by the postscript of a letter he had written to a supposed +friend intimating his “dissent from the creeds of the churches.” For this +mild and vague heresy he was prevented from acting as the guardian of his +sister’s children, and fulfilling a sacred trust. + +At this time he was a clergyman in the Church of England, which to-day +contains many ministers more unorthodox than Mr. Call was when he +received this crushing legal blow. This public disgrace of a sensitive +scholar, the loss of position, the alienation of friends, added to the +grief of seeing his sister’s children carried to strangers, parted him +from the world. He seemed to have no place in it. Stunned, lacerated, he +had no heart to enter on any new profession. But from his retreat came +the poems, pathetic but hopeful, entitled “Reverberations,” some of which +are sung in the liberal chapels of England. Deified egotism and vengeance +had brought home to him all their heartlessness: all nature was overcast +with this chilling cloud. + +Silently bearing his grief, he gave himself to the search for truth +in those matters which had been predetermined for him by a thousand +subtle influences and associations. Born in 1817, he had graduated +at Cambridge,—the chief poet of its Magazine,—had passed through his +Shelleyan phase of scepticism, and entered the church (1845) through one +of the many casuistical blind-ways provided in that old minster for those +who hesitate at the main portal. Eleven years were occupied in passing +from one to another theoretical cloister or tower of the venerated church +before he finally discovered that it had no place for him. Nor was there +any church which he could honestly enter. He must be the hermit of his +truth. But in that retreat, where the lonely scholar must eat his own +heart, the healing hand of a true divinity found him. + +Love found him. He married (1857) a lady whose beauty was the expression +of her genius. Her father was Dr. Brabant, the friend of Strauss, and +founder of the _Westminster Review_. In early life she married C. C. +Hennell, author of “An Inquiry into the Origin of Christianity,”—a +work which made a deep impression on Theodore Parker, who made it the +subject of an article in the old _Dial_. Miss Brabant, versed in ancient +and modern languages, did excellent work on the _Westminster Review_, +assisted by her friend Marian Evans, afterwards known as “George Eliot.” +These two ladies, as I have heard, undertook together the translation +of Strauss’s “Leben Jesu,” and were more than half through it when Miss +Brabant married. By a contrivance of Mrs. Hennell the name of Marian +Evans alone, and to her regret, appeared on the title-page. “George +Eliot” thereby gained a reputation helpful to her, though somewhat +embarrassing, implying as it did a knowledge of Hebrew and Greek which +she did not possess. + +Mr. Call’s marriage was most happy. The Calls were regarded by their +circle of kindred spirits as representing the true ideal union. They had +together shared the friendship of the finest intellects, and had moved +abreast in intellectual progress, for more than the life of a generation +when parted by death. + +About seven years ago trouble for the first time entered this almost +sacred household. A formidable consumption of one lung set in, +threatening Mr. Call’s life. I have always believed that this was the +long latent bequest of pious cruelties suffered in earlier life. Six +years ago the case became hopeless, in its normal course, and the +physicians said that the only possibility of recovery lay in a rare +and difficult operation, imperilling the few months of life that might +remain. The patient and his devoted wife resolved to incur this risk. +A tube was inserted through the back; through it the pus was drained +from the ulcerated lung; and little by little the tube was withdrawn, by +infinitesimal degrees, as the healing process went on behind it. It was +a painful anxious process of many weeks. At this time, when he was kept +motionless, I marvelled at his cheerful spirit; though the slightest +miscarriage in the wearisome operation might prove fatal, the patient was +always serene. One of his physicians, by no means sure of the result, +approached him on the subject of religion, and the condition of his soul. +Soon after Mr. Call gave me an account of the conversation. In religious +matters the doctor had dabbled where Call had dived; it ended in the +physician’s being compelled to consider the condition of his own soul, +and why he should be holding the religion of primitive man along with a +science almost able to raise the dead. + +The wonderful operation was perfectly successful. Love had healed the +young man’s broken heart; science had healed the mature man’s dying +frame. The real miracles that supplant fictitious ones, and fulfil +their fables, had been brought home to him. Five happy years were added +to his life, during which he wrote the important work to be hereafter +considered. On a summer evening last year he passed a pleasant evening +at home, ended with a game of cribbage with his wife. During the night +he died painlessly of heart disease; a _post mortem_ examination proved +the lungs quite sound. My friend’s body and mind and affections were so +combined in organic unity that his very ailments had for me symbolical +significance. The unsuspected failure of the heart, for instance, seems a +last sequel of the spiritual lesion given him by Dogma as a parting blow: +its counterpart is to me visible in the fact that after writing this work +he hardly had heart to publish it. The substance of it was completed in +1887; it was entirely finished in 1889; it lay in his library one year. +His wife wished him to publish it—so she told me—but he thought the world +would not be interested in his views. So deep had bigotry been able to +send this man into the vale of Humiliation; and what an intellect was +thus discouraged may be partly estimated by those who shall read this +book on “Final Causes” published by his widow. + +In the last generation many young men, awakened by the song of Byron +and Shelley, started out on a new spiritual pilgrimage. Their path was +at first fringed with poetic flowers, and in the distance shone the city +called Beautiful. But the path at length became flinty, the city became +more dim with progress towards it, and many a pilgrim turned back. Those +who pressed on were unique men, so that they came to parting ways, and +each had to advance on his individual and lonely path, albeit they were +travelling in the same direction. The records of these pilgrimages, +wherever found, are chapters in the scriptures of their generation. There +is one thing common to them all,—the tenacity with which they have clung +to their old faith, and after it to their old church, until beaten off by +bigotry or by conscience. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It +was no mere cry, but a question reaching far into the ages, and stirring +innumerable crucified hearts that have found no voice. Men do not forsake +their God; their God forsakes them. They have invested some ancient name +with all the pearls of their heart; they have idealised him as wisdom, +justice, love, compassion; but no sooner do they think an honest thought, +or maintain justice and love against unjust and heartless dogmas, than +their Good Shepherd beats such tender lambs with his crook and sets the +wolves on them. Yet even then, so long as they can, they keep in the +fold, and lift their lacerated hands in prayer. They will even practice +some self-deception that they may continue the old formulas after the +truth has forsaken these. + +Mr. Call’s youthful scepticism,—a spell wrought by Byron and +Shelley,—being chiefly the expression of others’ experiences, and with +but little root in his own, carried him no further than the study of +philosophy and theology. It was not deep enough to prevent his entering +on residence in the University of Cambridge with a view of becoming +a clergyman. The struggle being not yet in the arena of his own life +and heart, but a combat for his soul between the Humes and the Jeremy +Taylors, poetic sentiment easily carried the day. His nature clamored +for a realised ideal, and the Church captivated him. “The church, as the +embodiment of celestial truth, as the aggregate of noble and beautiful +spirits, dead or living, appeared a sublime conception.” When a youth +falls in love does he consider whether his beautiful lady’s bloom may +not be hectic, or hereditary cancer be hovering near the fair breast? +Our young scholar weds our Lady of the Litany amid the light of stained +windows, and the white-robed choristers. He presently finds that the +lovely creature insists on his preaching the doctrine that all who +do not yield to her charms are to be burnt at the stake eternally. +“Human philosophy had failed to explain to me the mystery of existence; +Christian philosophy explained it to be the perpetuation of sin and +misery, intensified by omnipotent intervention.” Recoiling from this the +young clergyman went through years of critical investigation; he mastered +the exegesis of the Germans and the French; and at length found himself +a simple believer in the religion of Humanity. He, a clergyman of the +Church of England! + +In the fifty preliminary pages of this posthumous book, comprising “A +Chapter from my Autobiography,” we have a succinct and useful summary of +the crucial criticisms under which biblical authority and supernaturalism +have been relegated to professional casuistry. This we will not study +here—profoundly interesting as it is—but dwell for a little on the +situation in which the scholar found himself. + +“While I had thus been working my way through darkness into light—the +sober light of sad reality—life had been bringing to all who belonged +to me, as well as to myself, varied experiences of pain and sorrow. For +their sake I had already done violence to my better nature. Was I now +to render the previous sacrifice nugatory? Was the black shadow of my +unbelief to enfold those who had already more than their share of the +burden of life to sustain? Sympathising friends had early encouraged me +to retain my position in the church. A beneficed clergyman, advanced +in years, whose studies had ended, like my own, in the abandonment of +dogmatic Christianity, had drawn up a statement of the motives which, +as he argued, justified him in the retention of his preferment. This +statement was forwarded to me. A celebrated and venerable German +professor had sent me a message deprecating the abandonment of a post +which, he thought, I might continue to occupy without dishonor to myself +and with profit to others. I had hitherto deferred to the judgment of +persons whom I regarded as superior to myself in knowledge of life and +in ability to determine questions of moral obligation; but the progress +of unbelief and enlarged experience decided me, at last, on the adoption +of an independent course of thought and action. Taking counsel of my own +heart, I resolved to terminate a conflict which had become intolerable. +Painful and singular complications preceded, accompanied, and followed my +retirement from the English Church.” + +Here is the “Robert Elsmere” of real life. Since Mr. Call left the Church +of England, thirty-five years ago, it has become a largely rationalistic +institution. Legal prosecutions of clergymen for heresy have resulted +in proving that the evangelical and orthodox have no more right to the +Church, in Law, than the liberals. They were usurpers of authority not +guaranteed by the constitution, in which there is nothing requiring +a clergyman to believe in hell, or the devil, or miracles, or the +infallibility of the Bible. Many clergymen are now honestly preaching a +simple theistic and humanitarian religion, and when told they ought to +leave the Church need only reply, “If you think so you have a right to +prosecute me.” + +The English charlatan who calls himself “Father Ignatius,” who could only +make himself ridiculous as a heresy-hunter abroad, seems to have found +the Episcopal Church in New York provincial enough to take him seriously. +He would never venture to suggest the prosecution of a Broad Churchman +at home. His ignorant tribe have too keen a recollection of their severe +falls in grappling with Bishop Colenso, and the authors of “Essays and +Reviews.” We have, however, to deal with America, where the sects, by +departure of some of their best brains, seem falling more and more under +control of their illiberal constituents, though the consecration of +Bishop Phillips Brooks show that reactionists will not have it all their +own way. The passage I have quoted above bears upon a moral problem +which has already become urgent among us, and in the progress of inquiry +must inevitably become of very serious importance to large numbers +of ministers and their families. I therefore introduce here a little +digression on this subject. + +What is the moral duty of a young minister who finds himself occupying +the pulpit of a denomination in whose generally accepted doctrines he has +ceased to believe? The New York _Evening Post_ recently declared this +to be a plain moral question. If—thus it argues—a man has voluntarily +entered the ministry of a church, and afterwards forms opinions which, +if known, would have prevented his admission, he is morally bound to +resign. But the question is much more complex than that. In a majority +of cases the minister has not entered “voluntarily,”—within the genuine +moral scope of that term. His orthodox parents, abetted by their +preacher, have kept light from him, repressed his reason, imprisoned +him in Sunday schools and prayer-meetings; he has been accorded no free +choice; he has been led as a captive, before his intellect was capable +of judgment, artificially terrified about his soul, and the world’s +danger of damnation, and at length found himself in the pulpit. When +the victim finds himself disabused of these fictions, what is his duty? +In my belief it would be immoral for him to resign without having first +secured a public decision of his church on the issue. His paramount +obligations are to the community in which he lives. He is morally bound +to preach the truth as he sees it, openly, honestly, plainly. He cannot +utter the discredited creeds, prayers, or dogmas. But he has a right,—nay +he is bound,—to throw upon the church which has entrapped him the +responsibility of repudiating his principles and doctrines. He should say +to his church: “You are responsible for the unhappy situation in which I +find myself. By your zealous propaganda you frightened or persuaded my +parents, my friends, myself, into acceptance of dogmas I now find false. +The logical result of taking you seriously was to turn from all worldly +occupations, and devote my life to the work of saving mankind from a +terrible doom. Now, awakened from the nightmare superinduced by you, I +find myself past the opportunities of youth, the time for preparations +in other professions irrecoverably lost, and a family dependent on me. +The situation concerns not only you and me, but others we have involved. +For years I have been laboring with you to try and persuade other youths +into the same situation as my own. Something is due to them. I have +deceived them and must undeceive them. You say I must be true, but you +must be true also. I have innocently reached a position which enables +me to compel you to publish to the world exactly where you stand. I will +clearly define my convictions: if you cannot tolerate them in your pulpit +the youth will know the precise limits to their freedom they agree to +in entering your ministry. If you can tolerate them they will know your +liberalism. Therefore I remain here proclaiming my truth, and will not +help you to cover the truth up by a resignation relieving you of the duty +of proclaiming your position with equal clearness. You have got me here, +and if I go now you must turn me out. So shall the cause of truth be +advanced.” + +While this may be affirmed, I think, as a general ethical principle, +it is equally true that each case must be judged by itself. The above +principle depends on the condition that the ministry has been honestly +entered from religious motives, there being no mental reservations +at that time. It will be observed that in the case of Mr. Call the +consideration entered that he had passed through a phase of Shelleyan +scepticism in early youth. This had to be weighed, and perhaps may +have had much to do with his determination to retire voluntarily from +the ministry. He never concealed his views, however, and it is well +known that great efforts are made by older preachers to beat down the +scepticism that often arises in the minds of young candidates for the +ministry. In such case these unwise advisers assume a large share of +responsibility for the event, whether enough to justify the subsequent +heretic in compelling a conflict must depend on the minister’s +conscience. Although, therefore, Mr. Call decided rightly, in accordance +with his moral consciousness, it were by no means fair to maintain, with +the author of “Robert Elsmere,” that ministers who find themselves more +liberal than the majority of preachers in their church should surrender +to such mere superiority of physical force without testing its legality +and laying on it responsibility for its exercise of power. Robert Elsmere +should, on moral principles, have remained in the church. By so remaining +Colenso, Dean Stanley, Charles Kingsley, Max Müller, Professor Jowett, +Matthew Arnold, and others, have revealed the fact that, in their church, +thought is not delivered up by law to the despotism of a majority. + +The case, however, is somewhat different again where the new opinions +adopted by a minister amount to an abandonment of the fundamental +doctrines of his church. That may not exonerate him from demanding a +formal and public declaration of the church, but this being secured, it +must affect his relation to the general world. Should it be proved that +he may be legally tolerated, he must then consider whether it is his +legitimate means of influence, or whether he would be substituting for +his own expression the mask of an extinct faith. The ethical principle +above affirmed relates to the first practical step of the minister whose +beliefs have changed. The progressive and inquiring mind that continues +in a church where it is barely tolerated does so at great peril. Where +the swift foot agrees to march with the halt the pace must be that of the +halt. Sceptical minds occupying pulpits even of liberal denominations +are likely to discover, should such engagements end, that they have been +unconsciously arresting their own development in finding a conciliatory +_modus vivendi_ with the reactionary brethren. There is, indeed, a class +of fine intellects, like the great English Broad Churchmen already +named, whose comparatively advanced views are the result of larger +learning; they have discovered that two and two are four, and gathered +courage to deny that the amount is five. These constitute the right +leaven by which great organisations are raised to higher standards of +knowledge and veracity. But there are original and philosophic inquirers +whose particular power were only buried in such organisations, without +elevating them. These are due to the corps of pioneers in the direction +whither the organisations are advancing. Their task is original research. +These cannot wisely wear the uniform of any religious or political party. + +Mr. Call was such an original mind, and after he had left the English +church his course was to the maturity represented in this ripe book on +“Final Causes.” But had he not passed eleven of his best years in the +church, out of his true habitat, we should have more fruit of this fine +flavor. It is therefore a voice from his experience that here reaches us, +as from his grave: + + “Scepticism has been vigorously advancing in the nation—I + might say, in Europe. And not only has it extended its sphere, + but it includes within that sphere some of the loftiest and + profoundest intellects of the age—men renowned for vast and + exact erudition, for scientific research or critical acumen. + Philosophers, poets, historians, novelists, openly or silently + disavow Christianity. In palaces, in lordly mansions, in + college halls, in secluded homesteads, and here and there in + rectory or vicarage, scepticism, if it has not a bold and + fearless utterance, at least expresses itself in a guarded + whisper. It becomes doubly a duty, then, when notwithstanding + the general diffusion of avowed or latent unbelief, we trace + everywhere the presence of a conservatism that conceals and + hesitates and trembles at the doubts which it cannot suppress, + that individual dissentients should candidly disclose their + theological divergences. Christianity, indeed, which has had + its triumphs in the past, will long conserve a portion of + its power, and continue to furnish guidance not only for the + unreasoning multitude, but for thousands of excellent men and + women who cannot abandon the old religious ideal. But there is + no final arrest for the intellectual progress of mankind.” + +We now turn to Mr. Call’s work on “Final Causes.” In an introductory +chapter of eight pages he compresses the history of the doctrine of +Design in nature from Anaxagoras, B. C. 500, to our own time, stating +its modifications, criticisms, denials. In the second chapter a brief +account is given of “Natural Theology,” whose modern form is found to +rest fundamentally on Newton’s generalisation, that a body at rest +continues at rest unless acted upon by some external force; and on the +geometrical order of planetary revolutions. Starting anew from this point +the human mind has discovered in the varied realms of nature apparent +evidences of a supersensuous Intelligence. Kant, however, is brought +to criticise Newton. “Kant notes with delight that the ‘harmonical +relations which excite the feelings in a more sublime manner than even +the contingent beauties of nature originate in the properties of space’; +and this inevitable congruity he refers ultimately, indeed, to Divine +Wisdom, but directly to a common dependence on a single sovereign +ground, to a unity of possibilities which it is no more difficult to +conceive as self-existent than it is to conceive an Intelligent Cause as +self-existent.” Matter is not, then, naturally inert, but an aggregate +of forms and forces, and nature a self-adjusting, self-evolving power. +In a chapter on “Order and General Adaptation” it is shown that nature +contains vast realms of Disorder; and alleged “special adaptations” +are shown too as often as otherwise for cruelty and agony. “With what +feelings,” asks G. H. Lewes, “can we contemplate the destruction of +such an organism as that of man for the sake of some microscopic animal +made to live upon it? With what feelings can we think of a human being +sacrificed to the growth of cancer-cells? What is the contrivance +and benevolence here?” Particular illustrations of design on which +teleologists have depended,—the eye, the bee’s cell, the bird’s wing—are +examined with critical and scientific care, and imperfections, gratuitous +and cruel if ascribed to omnipotent wisdom, found everywhere. “To assert +that the Creator of the world is infinitely powerful and infinitely wise +were to deny that he is infinitely good.” + +To escape the dilemma just stated, some theists postulate a “limited +or constitutional deity.” Dr. Martineau’s idea of a “material datum +objective to God” is an effort to relieve the deity of responsibility +for the evils of nature, but Mr. Call declares the selection of “power” +as the limited attribute is arbitrary. We have, he thinks, no more +logical right to limit the deity’s power than his intelligence, or his +benevolence. (This is doubtful, however, and requires more consideration +than is here given it.) “The Evolutionary God” is next considered, and +disproved by the uselessness and unfitness of some structures in various +organisations, the often injurious character of others, (e.g. the +intestinal canal called the vermiform process,) while the moral sense is +still offended by the general predatory method of natural selection. + +The validity of the Design argument disposed of, Mr. Call leaves to the +theist whatever evidences of a deity he may find in his ideals, emotions, +aspirations, intuitions. He points out that the Designer thus disproved +has never been able to satisfy the intellect or heart, the like being +true of the “Unknowable.” The sole sacred ideal left us is that of +humanity; not of the whole race but of the purer, nobler constituents of +it. + + “As Humanity will be the sole Ideal Object to which dutiful + obligation and exalted sentiment will be referred, so the + world of Humanity will be the world revealed, not by divine + inspiration or metaphysical intuition, but by Positive Science + The shadowy abstractions of the speculative rationalist, the + fanciful conceptions of the theologian, will gradually pass + away. To the Semitic explanation of the world and of man will + succeed that of Laplace and Darwin. The great and majestic + truths of the stellar universe, the mysteries of life, of + light, of heat, of sound; the wonders of natural history, + the magic of geologic lore, the epic of man’s progression in + time; the exaltation, the solace, the delight which flow from + poetry, music, painting, sculpture; the interest in the arts, + industrial no less than æsthetic; in the fellowship of work + which ameliorates the common lot; in friendships of man and + woman, short of passionate love, and in the happier profounder + affection of wife and husband; in all home charities and + patriotic activities, and in the identification of personal + ‘feelings with the entire life of the human race’;—all these + incidents of thought and varieties of emotion and action will + possess the intellect and fill the heart of future generations, + in a mode and degree which we can now only imperfectly realise, + and which, in the end, will leave men but little reason to + regret that the raptures of saint or prophet, or the splendours + of ancient theocracy, or the power and glory of the Mediæval + Church, or the imposing premise of Hellenic or of Teutonic + speculation, are as the dreams of a night that has passed + forever away.” + +Have we, in this prophetic conclusion, the afterglow of a faith sunk +beneath the horizon? Why should we suppose that such beautiful things +will come to pass in the future? Such prophecies have hitherto been +inspired by belief in an overruling and omnipotent Love. But we are now +brought by science and philosophy to the misgiving of Solomon, “We are +born at all adventure.” Things, the sceptic may say, will grow better if +man compels them so, otherwise they can as easily grow worse. + +It appears to me that in the old dogma of Jehovah’s curse on the world +and its redemption by Jesus there is buried, as in a sarcophagus, a +skeleton of human nature, and of moral history, resembling the man of +to-day, and the history we are making. There was an appeal of the human +heart from Jehovah to Jesus,—from the cursing to the saving deity. The +terrible arraignments of nature written by some of the greatest men since +Darwin’s discovery have not found any one to answer them. The severest +indictment of the world, perhaps, is that by the late Cardinal Newman, +who declares, “Either there is no Creator, or this living society of +men is in a true sense discarded from his presence.... _Since_ there +is a God, the human race is implicated in some terrible aboriginal +calamity.” From a deity who having created his own materials, built up +a creation liable to such calamity, mankind are once more appealing. +The ancient case was Jesus _vs._ Jehovah; the present case is Humanity +_vs._ the Creator of Nature. This rebellion of the moral sentiment and +of compassionateness is not intellectually conscious; it goes on, and +for a long time must go on, with ceremonial respect to the Final Cause +of all the evils humanity tries to heal; but it appears to me certain +that the heart and enthusiasm which once went out to a personal God +are again turning to a crucified humanity. The humanitarian movements +of our time have arisen simultaneously with the overwhelming evidences +of nature’s cruelty and imperfections revealed by Science. The earlier +deists appealed from biblical superstitions and ecclesiastical cruelties +to the God visible in the order and beauty of the universe. With the +existence of evil in external nature they never grappled. Bishop Butler’s +“Analogy” first stated the problem. He answered deistic objections to the +inhumanities of the Bible by pointing out the like in nature. Instead of +answering the deists he set them on a new departure which has ended in +results summed up in Mr. Call’s book. The omnipotent creator of nature +is following the biblical Jehovah into extinction. But the instincts and +aspirations of the human heart and mind remain the same; the religious +sentiment remains. The stream that is dammed up in one direction or +another does not lose any force thereby; it streams into other channels +if it can find such, or floods field and village if it finds none. It +will beat earthward as strongly as it once beat heavenward; it will, if +channels be not provided, carry away institutions as it has carried away +gods and goddesses. + +It has become therefore of great importance to recognise if possible +the lines of least resistance along the mighty stream of religious +enthusiasm, and provide that its energies shall not be destructive but +conservative of human welfare. At present the most conservative force +in the earth is ignorance: were the suffering masses of the world to +discover, suddenly and universally, that the old creeds are fictions, +their evils not providential, their heavenly hopes vain, every nation +would be filled with convulsions. Fortunately the sun is not shot up into +the heavens. But enlightenment progresses rapidly, and we have begun +none too soon turning the rising flood of light and fire into the human +channels long obstructed by sanctified inhumanities. + +Mr. Call’s little book, which I hope will find publication and wide +circulation in America, sums up succinctly and cogently the present +religious situation, and the steps by which it has been reached. It +remains for us all to sweep the new horizon with eye and telescope, +to compare our observations and to catch the first ray of the star +that shall point wise men to the new incarnation. To my own mind this +book is one of the many signs and promises that the divine will be +steadily merged into and identified with the human. Not with humanity +as an objective and historical entity, as Comte believed, but with the +distinctive characteristics of humanity, the supreme qualities of reason +and love: this will become the ideal of the reasoners and the lovers; it +will then become the creating Word, instructing all; it will finally be +made flesh and dwell among us, and all shall behold in it the glory of +the kingdom of Man. + + MONCURE D. CONWAY. + + + + +FACTS AND MENTAL SYMBOLS. + + +I perceive from Dr. Carus’s answer to my letter in No. 3 Vol. I of _The +Monist_, that amid all the agreement of our mutual endeavors a material +difference of opinion exists between us on an important question of +special character. As I was not successful in rendering my thought clear +on this point, I shall endeavor on the present occasion to explain _what_ +it was that forced me to abandon my old position (1863), which is very +near to that of Dr. Carus, and to assume a new one. The supposition +that our difference of opinion is merely apparent and can be adjusted +by a precise agreement as to the terms employed is a very natural one +in philosophical discussions. It is hardly tenable, though, when the +divergent views in question arise _subsequently_ to one another in the +_same_ person. + +I must state, in starting, that I pursued in my youth physical _and_ +philosophical studies, particularly psychology, with equal ardor. There +was hardly the question at that time of an experimental psychology, of +a relation of psychological to physiological research. No more so did +physics at that day think of a psychological analysis of the notions it +was constantly employing. How the notions of “body,” “matter,” “atom,” +etc., were come by, was not investigated. Objects were given of which +physicists never questioned the inviolability and with which they +unconcernedly pursued their labors. + +The fields of physical and psychological research thus stood +_unconciliated_ the one by the side of the other, each having its own +particular concepts, methods, and theories. No one questioned, indeed, +that the two departments were connected in some way. _The way_, however, +appeared an insoluble riddle; as it yet appears to Dubois-Reymond. + +Now although this condition of things was not such as to satisfy my mind, +it was nevertheless natural that as a student I should seek to acquire +tentatively the prevailing views of both provinces and put them into +consistent connection with one another. + +I thus formed provisorily the view that Nature has two _sides_—a physical +and a psychological side. If psychical life is to be harmonised at all +with the theories of physics we are obliged, I thought, to conceive of +the atoms as _feeling_ (ensouled). The various dynamic phenomena of the +atoms would then represent the physical processes, while the internal +states _connected therewith_ would be the phenomena of psychic life. If +we accept in faith and seriousness the atomistic speculations of the +physicists and of the early psychologists (on the unity of the soul), I +still see hardly any other course to arrive at a half-way supportable +monistic conception. + +It is unnecessary to set forth at length here what a prominent place the +artificial scaffolding we employ in the construction of our knowledge +assumes in these monadic theories as contradistinguished from the facts +that deserve knowledge, and how poorly such theories satisfy in the long +run a vigorous mind. As a fact, employment with this cumbrous artifice +was in my case the means that effected very soon the appearance of my +better conviction, already latently present.[34] + +In the further progress of my physical work I soon discovered that it was +very necessary _sharply to distinguish_ between what we _see_ and what +we mentally _supply_. When, for example, I imagine heat as a substance +(a fluid) that passes from one body into another, I follow with ease +the phenomena of conduction and compensation. This idea led Black, +who established it, to the discovery of specific heat, of the latent +heat of fusion and vaporisation, and so forth. _This same_ idea of a +constant quantity of heat-substance _prevented_ on the other hand Black’s +successors from using their eyes. They no longer mark the fact which +every savage knows, that heat is _produced_ by friction. By the help of +his undulatory theory Huygens follows with ease the phenomena of the +reflexion and refraction of light. The same theory _prevents_ him, for he +thinks solely of the longitudinal waves with which he was familiar, from +marking the fact of polarisation which he himself discovered, but which +Newton on the other hand, undisturbed by theories, perceives at once. +The conception of fluids acting at a distance on conductors charged with +electricity facilitates our view of the behavior of the objects charged, +but it _stood in the way of_ the discovery of the specific inductive +capacity, which was reserved for the eye of Faraday undimmed by any +traditional theories. + +Valuable therefore as the conceptions may be which we mentally +(theoretically) supply in our pursuit of facts, bringing to bear, as +they do, older, richer, more general, and more familiar experiences +on facts that stand alone, thus affording us a broader field of view, +nevertheless, the same conceptions may, as classical examples and our +own experience demonstrate, lead us astray. For a theory, indeed, always +puts in the place of a fact something _different_, something more +simple, which is qualified to represent it in some _certain_ aspect, +but for the very reason that it is different does _not_ represent it +in other aspects. When in the place of _light_ Huygens mentally put +the familiar phenomenon of _sound_, light itself appeared to him as a +thing that he knew, but with respect to polarisation, which sound-waves +lack, as a thing with which he was doubly unacquainted. Our theories are +abstractions, which, while they place in relief that which is important +for _certain fixed_ cases, neglect almost necessarily, or even disguise, +what is important for other cases. The law of refraction looks upon +rays of light as homogeneous straight lines, and that is sufficient +for the comprehension of the geometrical aspect of the matter. But the +propositions that relate to refraction will never lead us to the fact +that the rays of light are periodical, that they interfere. Just the +contrary, the favorite and familiar conception of a ray as a smooth +straight line will rather render this discovery difficult. + +Only in rare cases will the resemblance between a fact and its +theoretical conception extend _further_ than we ourselves postulate. Then +the theoretical conception may lead to the discovery of _new_ facts, of +which conical refraction, circular polarisation, and Hertz’s electric +waves furnish examples that stand in opposition to those given above. But +as a general rule we have every reason to distinguish sharply between +our theoretical conceptions of phenomena and that which we observe. The +former must be regarded merely as auxiliary instruments that have been +created for a _definite_ purpose and which possess permanent value only +with respect to that purpose. No one will seriously imagine for a moment +that a real circle with angles and sines actually performs functions in +the refraction of light. Every one, on the contrary, regards the formula +sinα/sinβ = _n_ as a kind of geometrical model that _imitates in form_ +the refraction of light and _takes its place_ in our mind. In this +sense, I take it, all the theoretical conceptions of physics—caloric, +electricity, light-waves, molecules, atoms, and energy—must be regarded +as mere helps or expedients to facilitate our viewing things. Even +within the domain of physics itself the greatest care must be exercised +in transferring theories from one department to another, and above all +more instruction is not to be expected from a theory than from the facts +themselves. + +But instances were not lacking that demonstrated to me, how much greater +the confusion was which was produced by the direct transference of +theories, methods, and inquiries that were legitimate in physics, into +the field of psychology. + +Allow me to illustrate this by a few examples. + +A physicist observes an image on the retina of an excised eye, notices +that it is turned upside down with respect to the objects imaged, and +puts to himself very naturally the question, How does a luminous point +situated _at the top_ come to be reflected on the retina _at the bottom_? +He answers this question by the aid of dioptrical studies. If, now, this +question, which is perfectly legitimate in the province of physics, be +transferred to the domain of psychology, only obscurity will be produced. +The question why we see the _inverted_ retina-image _upright_, has no +meaning as a psychological problem. The light-sensations of the separate +spots of the retina are connected with sensations of locality from the +very beginning, and we _name_ the places that correspond to the parts +down, _up_. Such a question cannot present itself to the perceiving +subject. + +It is the same with the well-known theory of projection. The problem of +the _physicist_ is, to seek the luminous object-point of a point imaged +on the retina of the eye in the backward prolonged ray passing through +the point of intersection of the eye. For the perceiving subject this +_problem_ does not exist, as the light-sensations of the retinal spots +are connected from the beginning with determinate space-sensations. The +entire theory of the psychological origin of the “external” world by the +projection of sensations outwards is founded in my opinion on a mistaken +transference of a _physically_ formulated inquiry into the province +of _psychology_. Our sensations of sight and touch are bound up with, +are connected with, various _different_ sensations of space, that is to +say these sensations have an existence _by the side of_ one another or +_outside of_ one another, exist in other words in a _spatial_ field, +in which our body fills but a part. That table is thus self-evidently +_outside of_ my body. A projection-problem does not present itself, is +neither consciously nor unconsciously solved. + +A physicist (Mariotte) makes the discovery that a certain spot on the +retina is blind. He is accustomed to associating with every spatial +point an imaged point, and with every imaged point a sensation. Hence +the question arises, what do we see at the points that correspond to the +blind spots, and how is the gap in the image filled out? If the unfounded +influence of the physicist’s method of procedure on the discussion of +psychological questions be excluded, it will be found that no problem +exists at all here. We see _nothing_ at the blind spots, the gap in the +image is _not_ filled out. The gap, moreover, is not felt, for the reason +that a defect of light-sensation at a spot blind from the beginning can +no more be perceived as a gap in the image than the blindness say of the +skin of the back can be so perceived. + +I have chosen intentionally simple and obvious examples, such as +render it clear what unnecessary confusion is caused by the careless +transference of a conception or mode of thought which is valid and +serviceable in one domain, into another. + +In the work of a celebrated German ethnographer I read recently the +following sentence: “This tribe of people deeply degraded itself by the +practise of cannibalism.” By its side lay the book of an English inquirer +who deals with the same subject. The latter simply puts the _question +why_ certain South-Sea islanders eat human beings, finds out in the +course of his inquiries that our own ancestors also were once cannibals, +and comes to understand the position the Hindus take in the matter—a +point of view that occurred once to my five-year-old boy who while +eating a piece of meat stopped suddenly shocked and cried out, “_We_ are +cannibals to the animals!” “Thou shalt not eat human beings” is a very +beautiful maxim; but in the mouth of the ethnographer it sullies the +calm and noble lustre of unprepossession by which we so gladly discover +the true inquirer. But a step further and we will say, “Man _must_ not +be descended from monkeys,” “The earth _shall_ not rotate,” “Matter +_ought_ not everywhere to fill space,” “Energy _must_ be constant,” and +so on. I believe that our procedure differs from that just characterised +only in degree and not in kind, when we transfer views reached in the +province of physics with the dictum of sovereign validity into the domain +of psychology, where they should be tested anew with respect to their +serviceability. In such cases we are subject to dogma, if not to that +which is forced upon us by a power from without like our scholastic +forefathers, yet to that which we have made ourselves. And what result +of research is there that could not become a dogma by long habit of use, +since the very skill which we have acquired in familiar intellectual +situations, deprives us of the freshness and unprepossession which are so +requisite in a new situation. + +Now that I have set forth in general outlines the position I take, I may +be able perhaps to establish my opposition to the _dualism of feeling +and motion_. This dualism is to my mind an artificial and an unnecessary +one. The way it has arisen is analogous to that in which the imaginary +solutions of certain mathematical problems have arisen—by the improper +formulation of the questions involved. + +In the investigation of purely physical processes we generally employ +notions so abstract that as a rule we only think cursorily or not at +all of the sensations that lie at and constitute their foundation. +For example, when I establish the fact that an electric current of 1 +Ampère develops 10½ cubic centimetres oxyhydrogen gas at 0° C. and 760 +mm mercury pressure in a minute, I am easily disposed to attribute to +the objects defined a reality wholly independent of my sensations. But +I am obliged in order to arrive at what I have determined to conduct +the current through a circular wire having a definite measured radius, +so that the current, the intensity of terrestrial magnetism being +given, shall turn the magnetic needle at its centre a certain angular +distance out of the meridian. The intensity of terrestrial magnetism +must have been disclosed by a definite observed period of vibration +of a magnetic needle of measured dimensions, known weight, and so +forth. The determination of the oxyhydrogen gas is no less intricate. +The whole statement, so simple in its appearance, is based upon an +almost unending series of simple sensory observations (sensations), +particularly so when the observations are added that guarantee the +adjustment of the apparatus, which may have been performed in part long +before the actual experiment. Now it may easily happen to the physicist +who does not study the psychology of his operations, that he does not +(to reverse a well-known saying) see the trees for the woods, and that +he slurs over the sensory elements at the foundation of his work. Now +I maintain, that every physical notion is nothing more than a definite +connection of the sensory _elements_ which I denote by _A_ _B_ _C_ ..., +and that every physical fact rests therefore on such a connection. These +_elements_—elements in the sense that no further resolution has for the +present been effected of them—are the most ultimate building stones of +the physical world that we have as yet been able to seize. + +Physiological research also may have a purely physical character. I can +follow the course of a physical process as it propagates itself through a +sensitive nerve to the spinal column and brain of an animal and returns +by various paths to the muscles of the animal, whose contraction produces +further events in the environment of the animal. I need not think, in so +doing, of any feeling on the part of the animal; what I investigate is a +purely physical object. Very much is lacking, it is true, to our complete +comprehension of the details of this process, and the assurance that it +is all motion can neither console me nor deceive me with respect to my +ignorance. + +Long before there was any scientific physiology people perceived that the +behavior of an animal confronted by physical influences is much better +viewed, that is understood, by attributing to the animal _sensations_ +like our own. To that which I see, to _my_ sensations, I have to _supply +mentally_ the sensations of the _animal_, which are not to be found in +the province of my own sensation. This contrariety appears still more +abrupt to the scientific inquirer who is investigating a nervous process +by the aid of colorless abstract notions, and is required for example +to add mentally to that process the sensation green. This last can +actually appear as something entirely novel, and we can ask ourselves how +it is that this miraculous thing is produced from chemical processes, +electrical currents, and the like.[35] + +Psychological analysis has taught us that this surprise is unjustified, +since the physicist deals with sensations in everything on which he +employs himself. This analysis is also able to render it clear to us that +the mental addition by analogy of sensations and complexes of sensations +which at the time being are not present in the field of sense or cannot +even come into it, is also daily practised by the physicist, as when +for example he imagines the moon an inert heavy mass although he cannot +touch the moon but only see it. The totally strange character of the +intellectual situation above described is therefore an illusion. + +The illusion disappears when I make observations (psychologically) on my +own person which are limited to the sensory sphere. Before me lies the +leaf of a plant. The green (_A_) of the leaf is united with a certain +optical sensation of space (_B_) and sensation of touch (_C_), with the +visibility of the sun or the lamp (_D_). If the yellow (_E_) of a sodium +flame takes the place of the sun, the green (_A_) will pass into brown +(_F_). If the chlorophyl granules be removed,—an operation representable +like the preceding one by elements,—the green (_A_) will pass into white +(_G_). All these observations are _physical_ observations. But the +green (_A_) is also united with a certain process on my retina. There +is nothing to prevent me in principle from physically investigating +this process on my own eye in exactly the same manner as in the cases +previously set forth, and from reducing it to its elements _X_ _Y_ +_Z_.... If this were not possible in the case of my own eye, it might +be accomplished with that of another, and the gap filled out by analogy +exactly as in physical investigations. Now in its dependence upon _B_ _C_ +_D_ ..., _A_ is a _physical element_, in its dependence on _X_ _Y_ _Z_ +... it is a _sensation_. The green (_A_) however is not altered at all +_in itself_, whether we direct our attention to the one or to the other +form of dependence. _I see, therefore, no oppositions of physical and +psychical, no duality, but simply identity._ In the sensory sphere of my +consciousness everything is at once physical and psychical. + +The obscurity of this intellectual situation has arisen according to +my conviction solely from the transference of a physical prepossession +into the domain of psychology. The physicist says: I find everywhere +bodies and the motions of bodies only, no sensations; sensation therefore +must be something _entirely different_ from the physical objects I deal +with. The psychologist accepts the second portion of this declaration: +To him, it is true, sensation is _given_, but there corresponds to it a +mysterious physical something which conformably to physical prepossession +must be _different_ from sensation. But what is it that is the really +mysterious thing? Is it the Physis or the Psyche? or is it perhaps +_both_? It would almost appear so, as it is now the one and now the +other that is intangible. Or does the whole reasoning involved rest on a +fallacious circle? + +I believe that the latter is the case. For me the elements designated by +_A_ _B_ _C_ ... are immediately and indubitably given, and for me they +can never afterwards be volatilised away by any considerations which are +after all based in every case on their existence.[36] + +To the department of special research having for its subject the sensory, +physical, and psychical province which is not made superfluous by this +general orientation and Which cannot be forestalled, the relations of +_A_ _B_ _C_ ... only remain to be ascertained. This may be expressed +symbolically by saying that it is the purpose and end of special research +to find equations of the form _f(A, B, C_, ...) = 0. + +I hope with this to have designated the point in which I am in opposition +to Dr. Carus, with whom I agree so much in other respects. I am obliged, +notwithstanding the latter fact, to regard this point as essential, +inasmuch as my whole mode of thinking and direction of inquiry have +been changed by the view it involves, and because, moreover, I do not +believe that the difference in question can be dissipated by any verbal +explanations however exact. + +This whole train of reasoning has for me simply the significance +of negative orientation for the avoidance of pseudo-problems. I +restrict myself, moreover intentionally here, to the question of +sense-perceptions, for the reason that at the start exact special +research will find here alone a safe basis of operations. + + ERNST MACH. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[34] A Greek philosopher to whom change of spatial configuration, +pressure, and percussion were probably the only natural processes of +which he had any intimate knowledge, thought out the atomistic theory. +This theory we retain to-day, though it be in a modified form. And in +fact natural phenomena really do exist that act _as if_ the pressure +and impact of very small particles were involved in their production +(the dynamical theory of gases), phenomena that admit therefore by this +conception of being more clearly viewed. However, this conception, like +that of caloric, possesses value only in certain fields. We know to-day +that pressure and impact are by no means simpler phenomena than are for +example the phenomena of gravitation. The contention that in physics +everything can be reduced to the motion of smallest particles is, taken +at its best, a more than improper draft on the future. Utterances of this +kind afford no assistance to the solution of burning special questions, +but only confound, and have about the same explanatory value as the +utterances of the late physical philosophy of Oken which prescribe for +example with the greatest ease the course of the creation of the world by +a division of zero-quantities into _+a_ and _-a_ (0 = _+a_ _-a_). + +The motion of a _single_ body as a totality does indeed appear simpler +at first glance than any other process, and this is the justification +of attempts at a _physical_ monadic theory. The thoughts of a _single_ +man are connected together; the thoughts of two different men are not. +How can the processes of the different parts of the brain of one man be +connected? In order to make the connection very intimate, we collect +everything which requires to be psychically connected in _a single_ +point, although the connection is not explained by this procedure. Thus +the psychological monadic theory is created on the basis of a motive and +of an illusion similar to that on which the physical rests. + +Let us assume for a moment the proposition in the text; viz., that the +atoms are endowed with feeling. By the space coördinates _x_, _y_, _z_, +_x′_, _y′_, _z′_ ... of the atoms are determined _in the atoms_ internal +conditions α, β, γ, α′, β′, γ′ ... and _vice versa_. For we feel by +our senses our physical environment, and our physical invasions of our +environment are conditioned by our sensations. The idea is then at hand, +α, β, γ ... alone being directly given, to set up by the elimination of +_x_, _y_, _z_ ... equations directly between α, β, γ, α′, β′, γ′.... This +latter point of view would be very near to my present one, aside from the +fact that the latter wholly rejects metaphysical considerations. + +[35] The following is a legitimate question: To what kind of nervous +processes is the sensation green to be mentally added. Such questions +can be solved only by special inquiry, and not by a reference in a +general way to motion and electric currents. How disadvantageous our +remaining satisfied with such general conceptions is, can be seen from +the fact that inquirers have been repeatedly on the brink of abandoning +the _specific energies_, one of the greatest acquisitions we have made, +simply because they were unable to discover any difference in the +currents of different sensory nerves. I was impelled as early as 1863 +in my lectures on psycho-physics to call attention to the fact that the +_most diverse kinds_ of nervous processes can conceal themselves in a +current. Current is an abstraction and places in relief but one feature +of the process—the passage of energy though a transverse section. A +current in diluted sulphuric acid is something entirely different from a +current in copper. We must therefore also expect that a current in the +acoustic nerve is something entirely different from a current in the +optic nerve. + +[36] It is the transitoriness of sense-perceptions that so easily leads +us to regard them as mere appearances as contrasted with permanent +bodies. I have repeatedly pointed out that unconditioned permanent states +do not exist in nature, that permanences of connection only exist. A +body is for me the same complex of sight-and-touch-sensations every time +that it is placed in the same circumstances of illumination, position in +space, temperature, and so forth. The supposed constancy of the body is +the constancy of the union of _A_, _B_, _C_ ... or the constancy of the +_equation f_(_A_, _B_, _C_ ...) = 0. + + + + +PROFESSOR CLIFFORD ON THE SOUL IN NATURE. + + +No one can read Clifford’s Lectures and Essays, without feeling that, +if their author is less known and valued as an original thinker than as +a master of mathematical analysis, it is only because having turned the +force of his genius onto mathematics first he had time to complete some +work in that direction, whereas his premature death in 1879 only allowed +him to give us an earnest of the philosophical work which he had it in +him to perform. + +The short biography which Prof. F. Pollock contributed to the first +edition of his lectures and essays gives an interesting sketch of +the phases of opinion through which Clifford passed. It appears that +before he took his degree in 1867 and for a little time after he was +a high churchman; but, says Pollock, “there was an intellectual and +speculative activity about his belief which made it impossible that he +should remain permanently at that stage.” “He never slackened in the +pursuit of scientific knowledge and ideas,” and conscious of a hiatus +between orthodox views and some of the results of science he yet held +that religious beliefs are outside the region of scientific proof and +that there is a special theological faculty or insight, analogous to the +scientific, poetic, and artistic faculties, the persons in whom this +genius is exceptionally developed being the founders of new religions and +religious orders. This is not unlike the solution of religious doubts +which Hume playfully suggested and which John Henry Newman has seriously +adopted, namely that “divinity, or theology, has a foundation in _reason_ +so far as it is supported by experience. But its best and most solid +foundation is _faith_ and divine revelation.” “When or how,” continues +his biographer, “Clifford first came to a clear perception that this +position of quasi-scientific Catholicism was untenable I do not exactly +know; but I know that the discovery cost him an intellectual and moral +struggle, of which traces may be found here and there in his essays. Most +readers of these essays would consider that Clifford is very unfair to +the Christian beliefs which he had abandoned and beyond doubt he felt +a certain grudge against them for having so long duped him.”[37] The +theories of Mr. Darwin and Herbert Spencer took the place in Clifford’s +mind of the old fashioned creed; Natural selection was to unriddle the +universe, to yield a new system of ethics and education. We read that +Clifford had an extraordinary power of taking up a theory provisionally, +of throwing himself into it, accepting it, applying it, and of rejecting +it in case it was not satisfactory; and this may account perhaps for his +somewhat dogmatic assertion in many cases of crude views. There is one +characteristic of Clifford however which all may emulate, and that is the +candor and fearlessness of his thinking and speaking. Let me quote a few +words from one of the best and most stirring of these essays: + + “If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, + there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be + true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in + outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards + man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is + not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is + great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose + the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then + it must sink back into savagery.... If a man, holding a belief + which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, + keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in + his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company + of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as + impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without + disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against + mankind.” + +The essay on the nature of things in themselves marks the furthest +limit at which Clifford’s speculation arrived. In it Clifford begins by +discarding the ordinary distinction between reality and ideas, eternal +object and eternal subject, of feeling and thing. The distinction +is really between two orders of feeling; there is the subjective or +inner order, in which sorrow succeeds the hearing of bad news, and the +objective or outward in which the feeling of letting go is followed +by sight of falling object. It is with the latter order that physical +science concerns itself, and all the inferences of natural science are +inferences of my real or possible feeling. Since an object is a set +of changes _in_ my consciousness and not anything out of it, is just +my feeling real or possible and therefore part of me, it might seem +as if we were shut up in ourselves and excluded from participation in +any other reality. So we should be, says Clifford, if we made no other +inferences beside those of physical science; but when I come to the +conclusion that _you_ are conscious and that you have objects in your +consciousness similar to those in mine, I am not inferring any actual or +possible feelings of my own, but _your_ feelings, which are not and can +never be objects in my consciousness. To feelings and consciousness thus +inferred to exist in another, Clifford gives the name of _eject_, because +in the very act of inference they are _thrown out_ of my consciousness, +recognised as outside of it, as _not_ being a part of me. “The existence +of my conception of you in my consciousness carries with it a belief in +the existence of you outside of my consciousness.... How this inference +is justified, how consciousness can testify to the existence of anything +outside of itself I do not pretend to say; I need not untie a knot which +the world has cut for me long ago.” (Vol. II, p. 73.) + +Thus, _objects_ in the sense of things presented in _my_ consciousness, +my phenomena, are not the sole or chief reality; ejects are equally real +and my conviction of your existence as a conscious being like myself is +coeval and of equal weight with my belief in my own conscious existence. +You and your feelings are strictly speaking the only things which are +real outside of myself and my consciousness. For though my objects or +phenomena are external to my body they are not outside my consciousness, +but part and parcel thereof. Nay, more than this an individual object, +i. e. an object which is mine and mine only, never exists at all, +according to Clifford, in the mind of man; for with each object as it +exists in my mind is bound up the thought of similar objects existing in +other men’s minds. All the objects in fact of which we are ever conscious +are objects of consciousness in general, are in Clifford’s phrase social +objects. “A fixed habit causes an object as it is found in my mind to +be formed as a social object and insensibly embodies in it a reference +to the minds of other men.” This belief in ejects is moreover the root +of all language and all morals:—of language, because any sound which, +becoming a sign to my neighbor, becomes thereby a mark to myself, must +by the nature of the case be a mark of the social object and not of the +individual object: of morals, because the “first great commandment, +evolved in the light of day by healthy processes wherever men have lived +together, is, ‘Put yourself in his place.’” + +So far there is nothing to distinguish Clifford’s theory from ordinary +Idealism, which denies that the universe is real except as a phenomenon +or appearance before a Self conscious thereof. The future course of +Clifford’s argument turns upon two assumptions. One of these, borrowed +from the current physiology of the brain, is this: that the changes in my +consciousness—ejective facts he calls them—run parallel with the changes +in my brain, which are objective facts. The parallelism between them is +one of complexity, an analogy of structure. The complex ejective facts +are the same sort of complication of simple ejects as the complex motions +of the brain are of simple molecular movements. Clifford illustrates the +points from the relation of speech to writing, the sentence spoken is the +same function of the elementary sounds as the same sentence written is of +the corresponding letters. In like manner the complex human mind is the +same function of simple feelings as the brain is of primary atoms. + +The other assumption is based upon the current doctrine of evolution. Our +bodies have been evolved step by step out of inorganic matter, and we +have before our eyes a line of organisms connecting man with the simplest +atom of matter. In this series there is no hiatus between one form and +another, no breach of morphological continuity, but one species arises +by insensible gradation out of its predecessors. Now in the case of +organisms of a certain complexity we cannot help inferring consciousness, +and as we go back along the line we not only see the complexity of the +organism and of its nervous system insensibly diminishing, but for the +first part of our course we have reason to think that the complexity +of consciousness insensibly diminishes also.[38] The conclusion is +forced upon us that nature is animate from top to bottom and that the +humblest atom has an elementary feeling or eject of its own as simple in +comparison with the complex intelligence of man as the atom is itself +simple in comparison with his very complex brain. Unless we admit this we +are in a dilemma. The ejective facts which we cannot help inferring in +the case of all animals must extend further down through vegetables to +inorganic phenomena, or else there must be a point at which we could say: +here the object begins to have an inner or ejective fact corresponding +to it as my mind corresponds to my body. But the series of objective +forms presents no sudden break anywhere, not even between animals and +vegetables, such as to warrant our supposing that ejective facts extend +thus far down in the series and no further. + +Clifford is not quite as explicit about the nature of the elementary +ejects, which answer to moving molecules, as we should like him to be. +Of one thing however he is quite certain; they are elementary feelings +which yet are neither modifications of a consciousness nor yet imply +a consciousness in which alone they can exist. Every feeling may be +part of a consciousness, but it need not be so. Consciousness is only a +derivative and secondary result, following on the arrangement of feeling +in a particular way and it is evolved at a very late period in the +history of the world. In itself a feeling is an absolute _Ding-an-sich_, +whose existence is not relative to anything else. _Sentitur_ is all that +can be said of it. + +Thus strictly speaking it is not _consciousness_ which extends throughout +the series of objective forms from man down to the molecule. It is +only feeling. Consciousness proper only belongs to the later and higher +members of the series. “If we make a jump from man say to the tunicate +mollusks, we see no reason there to infer the existence of consciousness +at all.” Therefore the doctrine of evolution itself forbids us to regard +all ejects as being of the _same_ substant as mind. They are only of like +substance ὁμοιούσιον not ὁμοούσιον, only quasi-mental[39] and not in +themselves either rational, intelligent, or conscious.[40] + +Besides the evolutionist’s reason that it is absurd to attribute +consciousness and personality to tunicate mollusks there is another +reason drawn from human introspection for asserting elementary feelings +to be absolute and unrelated existence. “A feeling, at the instance when +it _exists_, exists _an und für sich_ and not as _my_ feeling.”[41] The +self-perception of the ego, the sense that in all my various feelings it +is _I_ who am conscious, this “unity of apperception” does not exist in +the instantaneous consciousness which it unites, but only in subsequent +reflection upon it. It consists further in the power of establishing a +certain connexion between the memories of any two feelings which we had +at the same instant. + +There is one other point of extreme importance to be noticed in +Clifford’s account of the elementary feelings or ejects. They are +connected together in their sequence and coexistence by counterparts +of the physical laws of matter. Were it not so their correspondence +with motions of matter could not be kept up. That they should be +thus connected with one another militates at first sight with the +characteristic of absoluteness above ascribed to them by Clifford. We +must suppose therefore that when Clifford says that their existence is +not relative to anything else, he means no more than that they are not +ultimately related to a personal consciousness. We must suppose that it +is these laws of the sequence and coexistence of elementary feelings +which, “when molecules are so combined together as to form the film on +the under side of a jelly-fish, so combine the elements of mind-stuff +which go along with them as to form the faint beginnings of sentience. +The same laws combine feelings so as to form some kind of consciousness, +when the molecules are so combined as to form the brain and nervous +system of a vertebrate” (p. 85). + +We are now after these preliminary explanations in a position to +appreciate what is the gist and core of Clifford’s speculations. It is +this, that the reality external to our minds which is represented in +our minds as matter is in itself mind-stuff or elementary feelings. The +universe consists entirely of mind-stuff. Some of this is woven into the +complex form of human minds containing imperfect representations of the +mind-stuff outside them and of themselves also, as a mirror reflects +its own image in another mirror, _ad infinitum_. Such an imperfect +representation is called a material universe. The two chief points +therefore of the doctrine as summed up by Clifford himself are: + +1) Matter is a mental picture in which mind-stuff is the thing +represented. + +2) Reason, intelligence, and volition are properties of a complex which +is made up of elements themselves not rational, not intelligent, not +conscious. + +We shall do Clifford an injustice if we interpret the foregoing theory as +a dualistic and not as a monistic view, i. e. as a view which postulates +two ultimate principles of reality rather than one. Clifford however +often speaks as if feeling and matter were two coördinate aspects of +reality, irreducible to one another. For example he allows himself to +speak of mind-stuff as going along with the material object, of laws +connecting the elements of mind-stuff which are only _counterparts_ of +the physical laws of matter and not those laws themselves. Again he +writes (p. 78) as follows: “The distinction between eject and object, +forbids us to regard the eject, another man’s mind, as coming into the +world of objects in any way, or as standing in the relation of cause +or effect to any changes in that world.” Such language reminds us of +Spinoza’s doctrine that body alone can determine body to move and only +thought determine thought to think, but we must not therefore suppose +that for Clifford as for Spinoza the two rival kingdoms of thought +and extended matter are irreconcilably severed or nominally united by +the figment of a single substance of which they are attributes: What +Clifford means is that the thing _is_ a feeling so far as it is anything +at all and that, if things coexist or succeed each other according to +laws, they only coexist and follow _as_ feelings and conformably to +laws of feeling. Not only is the elementary feeling a thing itself, but +things-in-themselves are elementary feelings. + +It is incumbent therefore on us to ask if an elementary feeling is +equal to the double burden put upon it by this theory of being the real +universe of things and of creating the human intelligence. In answering +this question we must be careful to divest feelings beforehand of any +characteristics which they only possess as gathered up into the unity +of a self, for at the stage in which we are considering reality selves +have not yet arisen. It is hard to conceive what is left of feeling after +these characteristics have been removed, nor does introspection help us +here, for, as Clifford very truly says, the fundamental deliverance of +consciousness affirms its own complexity and it seems impossible, as I +am at present constituted, to have only one absolutely simple feeling at +a time. Elementary feelings however could hardly constitute the cosmos +without they follow one another, coexist, and connect themselves together +in their groupings according to certain laws, i. e. by some inherent +necessity always take up the same attitudes toward each other, and this +much Clifford assumes that they do. Yet these assumptions will not bear +examination. Let us examine first the postulate that feelings follow in +a fixed order; call them _a_ _b_ _c_ _d_, _b_ succeeds _a_ and precedes +_c_ and it makes a difference, which comes after or before the other. Now +being absolute feelings, not only is _a_ past and non-existent before _b_ +begins to be, so _b_ before _c_, but each is in turn the entire reality +and there is no consciousness before which they pass in procession. The +real would thus fall into disconnected and mutually indifferent moments +_a_ _b_ _c_ _d_; and as each of these in turn exhausts reality and is +also unconscious of what goes before and after, there would be no real +succession at all. In a real succession it makes a difference whether _b_ +comes before _or_ after _a_, but in the case we suppose it could make no +difference. In truth there can be no relation of before and after between +two terms except for a self, which takes note of the one disappearing and +of the other appearing; and whenever we speak of things following one +another we tacitly presuppose a self before whom the procession passes. + +It is even more difficult to understand how elementary feelings can be +grouped and complicated in a fixed order of coexistence. Mind has not +yet emerged, so we must suppose that the grouping takes place in space. +In that case one feeling must be right or left, above or below another. +The futility of such speculation will come home to anyone who will try to +realise how a feeling of smell can be above or below one of taste. + +We have next to consider Clifford’s account of the genesis out of +elementary feelings of personal consciousness. The hypothesis of +mind-stuff, we must remember, was framed in order to preserve the same +continuity of ejective facts as we see to exist in the case of objective +facts, to provide, that is, a gradual development of the human mind out +of the simpler feelings of amœbæ and even of atoms. It must be denied +however that the hypothesis is a success if we retain the usual meanings +of the words continuity and development. Properly speaking a thing can +only be said to grow or develop when it remains the same with itself all +through the process and unfolds therein capacities which were anyhow +latent in it to start with. Thus a tadpole develops into a frog, a grub +into a butterfly, and the child grows into the man. But in the series +of ejects which begins from atoms and after running through amœba and +ape finally culminates in the human intelligence there is no point of +identity, no community between the first and last terms. The eject which +is the molecule is denied by Clifford to be either conscious or rational, +nor has it even will, like the philosophical factotum of Schopenhauer or +Von Hartmann. It is a purely negative conception, the abstract opposite +of that mind into which it is to ultimately develop. The hiatus between +our intelligence and a thing in itself, which call it feeling, or +mind-stuff, or what we will, is merely all that our intelligence is not, +is none the less of a hiatus, because it is, with the help of apes and +amœbæ, spread out thin, so to speak. It would be better frankly to avow +the chasm that exists than to gloss over it with words like evolution and +development. + +“When a material organism,” writes Clifford, “has reached a certain +complexity of nervous structure, the complex of ejective facts which goes +along with its action reaches that mode of complication which is called +consciousness. When a stream of feelings is so compacted together that +at each instant it consists of (1) new feelings, (2) fainter repetitions +of previous ones, and (3) links connecting these repetitions, the stream +is called a consciousness. Consciousness is thus a relative thing, a +mode of complication of certain elements, and a property of the complex +so produced.” If we look into this statement we see that it only amounts +to this: that feelings constitute a conscious self when they become the +feelings of a conscious self and not before, for except as gathered up in +the unity of a self which has memory and remains the same throughout its +differences feelings can be neither new nor repeated nor joined by links. + +1) That a feeling is new means that I attend to it, contrast it with +former ones, and decide that I have not felt it before. + +2) That a feeling is a previous feeling now repeated means that I +recognise it as having already occurred. + +3) If feelings are joined by links of what nature are these links? +Clifford does not say that they also are feelings, so presumably they are +not; in that case no link is left save a connecting self. But even if the +link is a feeling it cannot be less than a feeling of the togetherness +of two other feelings, but such a feeling would involve memory of those +feelings and memory involves self-hood. It is really, however, an abuse +of words to apply the term feeling in such a case. We might with Hume ask +of this feeling which links other feelings “Is it a taste, a smell, a +sound, an impression of sight or touch?” + +Clifford makes a reference to Haeckel’s treatise upon “Zellseelen und +Seelenzellen.”[42] Haeckel’s view is that every protoplasmic cell has +a soul of its own and that when a number of these are combined under +certain conditions, as in the human brain, they generate as their +resultant the human soul. He helps out his theory by pointing to such +phrases as national spirit, a nation’s conscience, a people’s will. +Nothing, he contends, could be more real than these entities, which +are yet only resultants of the wills, spirits, and consciences of the +separate individuals who compose the nation. + +This is an interesting speculation, which it would be a pity to dismiss +abruptly merely because it is groundless. No doubt our bodies and brains +may be regarded as colonies of protoplasmic units of which each has an +independent life of its own, of which each is born, nourishes itself, +reproduces itself, and at last breaks up and dies. The colorless cells +especially in our blood are such units and have as good a claim to be +called individuals as the amœba which we find swimming about by itself +in any pond. These units are certainly alike and must be allowed to +have inner states of their own. It may also be freely conceded that the +existence of certain inward states in these cells of which my brain and +nerves are composed is the condition of certain states of feeling and +emotion arising in me. But all these admissions fail to advance us a step +toward Haeckel’s conclusion. That any number of atoms of protoplasm have +souls and soul-states is not enough _per se_ to produce an extra soul +which is none of them, yet _like_ their souls and possessed of a life of +its own. Even if the molecules of my brain were each in possession of a +self-consciousness as ample as my own, their mere juxtaposition could not +give rise to my self-consciousness. From first to last their soul-states +remain theirs, mine remain mine. The reasoning employed by Haeckel +involves a fallacy of composition:—because each of a colony of cells _a_, +_b_, _c_, _d_, has a soul of its own, therefore the colony as a whole has +a soul of its own, which is not the soul of any one of them. Nor do the +analogies Haeckel invokes help him at all, for the life of a nation does +not exist at all except as the lives of the individuals composing that +nation, nor do we expect to find any traits in our so-called national +spirit which are not ultimately contributed by individuals; Haeckel +however would have us believe that the mere composition of the primitive +and simple souls of separate amœbæ results in a _human_ soul with its +wealth of intuitions and interests. The utmost we are entitled to say is +that given a certain collocation of cells in the brain there may by an +entirely new act of the infinite be generated a human soul. It is only by +playing fast and loose with words that we can deduce this new soul from +an aggregate of other souls either like or unlike itself. + +It is surprising that Clifford should have recognised that the reality +underlying so-called matter is akin to mind and yet have identified +it rather with the quasi-mental facts of an amœba or of an atom than +with the intelligence of man. The argument by which he arrives at +this conclusion is as follows: You as a face, a voice, a touch, as an +object to my senses in short, are a mere phantasm or appearance in my +consciousness, part and parcel of myself and not distinct from me in +any way. But I cannot help inferring an eject, to wit feelings and a +consciousness like my own, behind the sensible show of your person; and +this consciousness of yours which I address as _you_, is the truth of +the object or appearance, which I have. _You_ are the reality which I +really perceive, so far as I perceive anything more than my own feelings. +Similarly when I watch an amœba, what I perceive as a somewhat formless +mass of protoplasm is really in itself the struggling life within. Lastly +what I handle and perceive as a crystal or metal is really the eject. If +here we read force or unconscious will instead of eject or mind-stuff, +Clifford’s view would practically coincide with Schopenhauer’s; for force +is truly an eject in Clifford’s sense, not an object or appearance to me. + +Now the human intelligence arises late in the history of things and is +altogether a secondary and derivative thing. Consequently the world +is not really what it is for my consciousness. My _Weltanschauung_ is +false in proportion as my mind is complex and derivative. Conversely, +the _Weltanschauung_ of each being approximates to truth and becomes +less and less illusive in proportion as the eject which it in reality is +approaches the primitive simplicity of mind-stuff. I am _really_ very +little of what I am _consciously_. If you want a truer exponent of the +truth of things you must go to the amœba or lower still. It, as compared +with me, is _consciously_ most of what it is _really_. The absolutely +simple atom is probably the only being who is quite free from delusions. +The conclusion then to which Clifford conducts us is this: that the +universe is not really such as it appears to our intelligence, still +less, I presume, such as it would appear to a higher intelligence than +ours. It is really such and such only as it would appear to the being +whose eject is the lowest rung in the ladder of mind-stuff. Our universe +spread out in space and time, with all its splendours and harmonies, +is a delusion; nay, more, the human soul with its æsthetic and moral +sensibilities, its fears and aspirations, is the parent delusion which +breeds the delusion of a cosmos. “We are such stuff as dreams are made +of.” + +The loose way in which Clifford used the word feeling, as equivalent +to any form of consciousness, blinded him to the fact that a qualified +thing as such is not given in feeling at all and led him to suppose +that the universe as we know it would continue to stand in the absence +of all complex ejects whatever. Mr. Green has shown that all theories +of the object which ignore the workmanship of thought manifest therein +and identify the _esse_ of things with their _percipi_ lead straight to +nihilism. To such nihilism Clifford’s doctrine, like Hume’s which it +resembles, immediately bring us. But Hume did not take seriously the +demolition of reality involved in his theory that things are only real +as they are felt and that feelings are “entirely loose and separate” +(Treatise I, 559) while the solid framework of reality is an illusion +bred of a propensity of our minds to feign connections and relations +where there are none. Hume tells us that he regarded his own speculations +as “philosophical melancholy and delirium,” as “clouds to be dispelled” +(Treatise I, 501). He writes “I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I +converse and am merry with my friends; and when, after three or four +hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so +cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find it in my heart to +enter into them any further.” But Clifford, like Huxley, took Hume _au +grand serieux_, forgetting that feeling as such does not reveal an object +at all. There is a passage in a letter of Clifford’s written to Professor +Pollock in September, 1874, à propos of Green’s introduction to Hume, +which evinces pretty clearly that Clifford did not discern the true drift +of Hume’s speculations in the way Hume did himself. “I hope,” he writes, +“you have seen Sidgwick’s remarks on the introduction; he points out +that to prove Hume insufficient is not to do much at the present day.... +Green, for instance, points out that Hume has no complete theory of the +object;—to find fault with Hume for the omission is like blaming Newton +for not including Maxwell’s electricity in the Principia.” Here Clifford +hardly writes as if he saw that his own theory of the object as e. g. an +unrelated feeling is open to exactly the same criticisms as Hume’s, as +if he understood, what Hume had an inkling of, that, in proving the ego +to be a relative thing instead of the heart and centre of reality, you +dissipate the universe into nothing. There are several other features in +Clifford’s doctrine that call for criticism. It should for example be +pointed out that the entire view that ejects are the truth of objects +is in the first instance a deliverance of consciousness itself. I only +transcend my individual feelings, says Clifford, so far as I infer +a consciousness more or less like my own to underlie them; and this +underlying eject is the sole reality. “How this inference is justified, +how consciousness can testify to the existence of anything outside of +itself, I do not pretend to say; I need not untie a knot which the world +has cut for me long ago.” (Vol. II, p. 73.) But if consciousness is but +the property of a temporary conjunction of unconscious feelings, what +value shall we attach to its assurances? They are certainly not valid +except for itself; they do not hold good for the atomic feelings of which +the world ultimately consists. But my belief that the real is in the +last resort an atom of feeling is simply an extension of my conviction +that ejects are the truth of my feelings. Prove this conviction an +illusion—and Clifford does prove it to be such, when he declares +consciousness to be a relative thing—and you prove the entire theory an +illusion. Thus the tail of Clifford’s theory is bitten off by the head. + +The hypothesis that feelings can be felt, without being felt as my +feelings, is a very noteworthy one. “A feeling at the instant when it +_exists_, exists _an und für sich_, and not as my feeling.” This is +why a Greek said δέδορκα in the sense of I see, because the act of +perception is necessarily over, when we become conscious of it. “When,” +continues Clifford, “I remember the feeling as _my_ feeling, there +comes up not merely a faint repetition of the feeling, but inextricably +connected with it a whole set of connections with the general stream of +my consciousness.” This is very truly and acutely observed but it is an +admission that the unrelated feeling is no element in our experience, +that in our cosmos at least there is no ὕλη whatever, but that every +corner of it is illumined by the presence of a relating self. _My_ +consciousness never directly testifies at all to the existence of an +absolute feeling. To be _my_ feeling a feeling must already be brought by +connections of content into the web of my experience, but what do I know +of feelings which are not mine. Are not “absolute feelings” an inference +based on observation of low organisms like the amœba, which we are +convinced have no self and yet feel? It should be also noticed that this +supposition that we are not directly but only _ex post facto_ conscious +of our feelings ἔξεισιν εις ἄπειρον. Thus Clifford writes: “This memory +(of a feeling which existed _an und für sich_ as _my_ feeling) is, _qua_ +memory, relative to the past feeling, which it partially recalls; but +in so far as it is itself a feeling, _it_ is absolute, _Ding an sich_.” +That is to say, I am not directly but only _ex post facto_ conscious even +of what I remember. To be conscious of the content of a memory I must +_remember_ that I remember it. Surely this new memory in turn cannot be +known _ex post facto_ and so I must _remember_ that I remember that I +remember _et sic ad infinitum_, before I become really _conscious_ of +anything at all. + +One other point might be raised. What is the nature and origin of the +laws which govern the sequence and coexistence of feelings. We have +already seen that feelings as such neither follow nor coexist apart from +a self. + +“These laws are counterparts of the laws which govern physical +phenomena.” Clifford in writing thus conducts his speculation Without +prejudice to his common-sense belief in a world of necessarily and +rationally related things. He does not see that with the reduction of +the real to a feeling physical facts disappear and with these facts the +laws to which laws of feeling shall correspond. He is evidently confusing +the laws of feeling with the psychological laws of association which +depend upon the environment of the individual’s senses by a world already +real. He does not see that the problem he really imposes on himself is +this: starting from no world at all to arrive at one, or starting from +the world as it may be supposed to picture itself in the feelings of an +amœba to arrive at it as it exists for the human intelligence. We must +not concede to Clifford any more than to Hume this postulate of a real +cosmical order which shall give the cue to feelings when and how to +follow and coexist. Huxley only allows it to Hume, because not having +passed the threshold of Idealistic philosophy he cannot divest himself +of it. If, however, this postulate be denied, then the doctrine that the +_esse_ of things lies in their _percipi_ will recommend itself to no one. + + F. C. CONYBEARE. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[37] On the whole, however, it is probable that in dealing such hard +blows as he did at priests and dogmas he was actuated by sheer love of +truth, and those who knew him best assure us that he was entirely free +from bitterness and from the vanity which sets some people upon beating +their grandmother in public by way of showing that they are grown up in +their opinions. + +[38] _Clifford’s Essays_, Vol. ii, p. 83. + +[39] Vol. ii, p. 61. + +[40] Vol. ii, p. 87. + +[41] P. 80. + +[42] _Deutsche Rundschau_, July, 1878. + + + + +ARE THERE THINGS IN THEMSELVES? + + +The proposition that things in themselves cannot be known, has often, and +perhaps justly, been proclaimed as the central idea of Kant’s philosophy. +Kant concludes the first section of his “Transcendentale Elementarlehre” +with this “critical admonition”: + + “That in general nothing which is intuited in space is a thing + in itself, and that space is not a form which belongs as a + property to things; but that objects are quite unknown to us + in themselves, and what we call outward objects are nothing + else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form + is space, but whose real correlate, the thing in itself, is + not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be.” + (“Kritik d. r. V.” § 4.) + +The term “thing in itself” means originally the object as it is, +independent of the thinking subject’s cognition. For instance: A rainbow +appears in the clouds; the rainbow is not a thing in itself, but the +appearance of a thing in itself. The rainbow exists in man’s sensibility +only. The colors of the spectrum, indeed all colors, the colors of the +sky, of the clouds, of trees, of living beings, are sensations only; +they are subjective phenomena, they are certain kinds of feelings +representing objective realities, but they are not these objective +realities themselves. They are perceived in the brain and are projected +to a place outside the organism. The rainbow, as it is seen, is not a +thing, but it is something seen, it is an appearance only. And this is +true of all things seen and heard and perceived by any one of the senses. +The sense-pictures are localised in space, they are projected outside to +a spot where the combined experience of the senses has taught a sentient +being to expect them. But all the objects of the objective world as they +are perceived are and remain subjective sense-perceptions. The world of +our senses around us is woven of our sensations. It is mere appearance. +This is not a question concerning which there is any doubt, this is +simply a matter of fact. But the question arises, “Can we know things as +they are independent of sensation? Can we know things in themselves?” + +The physicist and every scientist is engaged with the problem, What are +natural phenomena independent of sensation? Light is a sensation of +vision, but what is the objective process that takes place when a human +eye perceives light? The physicist answers this problem by eliminating +in his mind the sense-element and by describing the facts of the process +in terms of matter and motion. His answer is that light, objectively +considered, is a certain vibration of the ether. If we can rely upon +physical science, the thing in itself of a rainbow would be a certain +refraction of ether-waves. These vibrations of the ether-waves are +transmitted from the sun, and being broken in the falling raindrops +actually take place independent of cognition, they are real whether we +look at them or not. + +The ultimate aim of science is a description of the natural phenomena +not in terms of sense-elements, but in terms of form. That feature of a +thing which we call its matter, constitutes its reality, but the form +of a thing, of a motion, or of a process makes the thing that which it +is; every act of causation is a change of form, and the forms of things +are determined with the assistance of the operations of purely formal +thought, i. e. through measuring or counting. Such is science, not only +as it ought to be, but also as it actually is. All our scientists, each +one in his field, are consciously or unconsciously working out a solution +of this problem. And a solution of this problem means, in our conception, +the objective cognition of the world—i. e., a description of the natural +processes as they are independent of sensibility. + +Kant knew very well that a description of things and of natural processes +in terms of form was possible. He clung, nevertheless, to the proposition +that things in themselves are unknowable. And why? A description of +things and of natural processes in terms of form was in his opinion +not as yet a description of things in themselves, for—and here we are +confronted with the original idea and the fundamental error of Kantian +thought—Kant did not consider the forms of things as an objective quality +of theirs, he maintained that the formal element is purely mental and +merely subjective. The thinking mind, he declared, attributes them to the +object. Space and time, the pure forms of existence, together with all +other forms, such as causation, are, according to Kant, not qualities +of the objective world, but of the thinking subject. The thinking +subject cannot help viewing the world in the form of its own cognition, +it transfers these forms to the objects. Therefore the thing in itself +according to Kant would not be represented in a description of the thing +purely in terms of form, the thing in itself would mean the thing as it +would be, independent of time and space. + +Let us here point out a distinction between the thing in itself and +noumenon. Noumenon means “a thing of thought.” The noumenal world is the +world of thoughts in a thinking being’s mind. The noumenon must not be +identified with the thing in itself. The two terms are often confounded, +but they have to be distinguished. The idea of reflected ether-vibrations +is a “noumenon,” but the reflected ether-vibrations themselves, the +objective process are a thing, i. e. an objective reality, and in so far +as they are a reality, considered as being independent of sensation, we +may call them “a thing in itself.” Now when Kant denies the objectivity +of time and space, he must, implicitly, also deny the objective +validity of a description made in terms of measuring and counting. The +pictorial world of our sense-perception is subjective, it is built up of +sensations, it is not objective; and the world of thought is the attempt +to reduce the subjective world of sense-imagery to terms of objective +validity, i. e. to terms of form. But this world of thought is according +to Kant purely mental, it is purely noumenal, or, in other words, noumena +do not represent things independent of cognition, they represent things +as our mind thinks them. The sensory world is mere appearance, it is a +subjective phenomenon, but the world of thought, says Kant, is no less +subjective, it is a world of thought which describes things in terms of +purely mental properties and not in properties of the things themselves. +This is tantamount to the proposition, that things in themselves cannot +be known. + +The term “thing in itself,” in the sense of a thing as it is independent +of sensibility, would better be called “the objective thing,” and we +shall so call it when we wish to distinguish it from Kant’s thing in +itself. The objective thing is the thing, not expressed in terms of +subjective elements, such as feelings or sensibility, but in terms of +objective elements, i. e. in terms of form. That a description of things +in terms of forms is possible has never been denied either by Kant or by +any Kantian; but they deny that these descriptions are anything more than +mere noumena; Kant and the orthodox Kantians deny that they represent the +things as they are in themselves. Thus the term thing in itself in the +Kantian sense comes to mean the thing as it is independent of space and +time. + +That every noumenon is a mental sign is a matter of course; the noumenal +world is ideal. But we maintain that these mental signs represent real +qualities of the objective world; they have a meaning; the things +represented by them are actual features of reality. Kant denies this. +To him the noumenal world is purely noumenal. To Kant there is no space +outside the space-conception, and so he declares that space is ideal; +it is not an objective quality of things. However, we maintain, that +our space-conception describes, i. e. depicts, or represents space, our +space-conception is ideal, yet space is not ideal but real; it is an +objective quality of the world. + +Kant’s view is dualistic, or at least necessarily leads to dualism, and +it appears to rest on an unpronounced dualistic assumption. Kant treats +“the subject” as something quite distinct and separate from “the object.” +If he had borne in mind that the subject is always at the same time an +object, he would have treated both subject as well as object as mere +abstractions of one and the same reality. Resting upon this erroneous +presupposition, Kant’s most consequential mistake, in our opinion, was +his conception of what he called “the ideality of time and space.” If +time and space were purely ideal, purely mental, purely subjective, then +indeed, the things as they are would forever remain unknown to us, then +indeed the thinking mind would be as if shut up within a hollow globe out +of which it could never escape, then indeed the world would be divided +into two parts, the objective world, and the subjective world; and the +gap between both could never be bridged over. The thinking mind would +have within itself a noumenal world built upon the subjective elements +of sense-impressions. This subjective world would possess no objective +value, it would not describe realities, and the objective world would +thus be unknowable, inscrutable, and mystical. + +The idea of a thing in itself found another support in a mistaken +conception of the unity of certain things, especially of organisms. The +unity of a combination of parts is not merely the sum of the parts, +it consists in their peculiar combination which makes an harmonious +co-operation possible. This unity is an additional element; it is an +entirely new creation which exhibits features not contained in any +of its parts. There is no latent watch contained in a heap of little +wheels and cogs, the watch is created through the combination of these +wheels and cogs. The unity of a thing is its form, consisting in a +special arrangement of its parts; and this form although not material is +nevertheless real. + +The materialistic conception overlooks the importance of form; but the +spiritualist and also the transcendentalist materialise it as some +spiritual substance, as entities or independent existences. They are in +this way as much materialistic as the materialist. + +The question has seriously been asked, What is a melody in itself. The +question has sense when we understand by it, What are those new qualities +which appear through a certain combination of sounds? Those qualities +are not nothing, they are something quite peculiar. We call one of them +rhythm, another one is the fixed succession of notes of a different +pitch. The qualities of a melody as a whole are not qualities of its +separate parts; yet therefore the melody is not a thing in itself. We +might just as well speak of a watch in itself, meaning thereby that +peculiar unity of the combination of its parts which makes of them a +watch. But if we thus speak of “the watch in itself,” we must be aware +that this idea has not somewhere in a transcendental fairy-land an +independent existence above space and time, and outside of its parts. +The unity of a certain interacting group of parts is, on the one hand, +no mere addition of the thinking subject, it is not purely noumenal, it +is real and objective; on the other hand it is not a thing in itself, +independent of its parts, it is the product of the relations in which its +parts affect one another. + +Is not perhaps the basis of these vagaries a mistaken conception of +language? We call a certain sensory picture a tree and we say, the tree +has roots, a stem, branches, leaves, and fruits. Autumn sets in and the +wind shakes the leaves off the branches. Now we speak of a leafless +tree. We cut the tree down and we speak of a rootless tree. We burn the +trunk and the branches, and the tree as a phenomenon is gone, all its +properties are taken away. What remains? The tree in itself is left, but +the tree in itself does not exist. If all the property of a person is +taken from him, the person himself is still left. The properties of a +tree, however, are not properties in the same sense; they are qualities. +If all the qualities and parts of a tree are gone, if only the tree in +itself is left—then there is left nothing but the empty word tree, the +idea of a tree. + + +II. KANT’S VIEW OF SPACE AND TIME. + +Let us briefly consider the ground upon which Kant bases his view of the +ideality of space and time. Kant asks: + + “What then are time and space? Are they real existences? Or are + they merely relations or determinations of things, such however + as would equally belong to these things in themselves, though + they should never become objects of intuition; or _are they + such as belong only to the form of intuition, and consequently + to the subjective constitution of the mind_, without which + these predicates of time and space could not be attached to any + object?”[43] (Kr. d. r. V. § 2; “Meiklejohn,” p. 23.) + +We should say, to state our opinion briefly, that space and time are not +“real existences,” i. e. they are not concrete objects, but they are real +nevertheless; they are not material things; not thingish realities, yet +they are objective properties of things. They are the forms of things +and processes, and belong to the things whether they become objects of +cognition or not. In this sense, they actually belong to the things in +themselves, viz. to the objective things. + +Kant argues that space and time are not conceptions derived from outward +experience; they have not been abstracted from sense-impressions. They +are necessary representations _a priori_, they are not discursive ideas +or generalisations, for there is but one space and one time, space being +represented as infinite and time as eternal. + +From these arguments Kant draws the conclusions that space and time do +not represent qualities of an object but that they are the form of all +sensory phenomena, space being the form of the external, time of the +internal sense. In other words, space and time belong to the subjective +condition of the sensibility and not to the objective world. + +We answer that our conceptions of space and time are after all derived +from experience. Space and time are abstractions. There is no time in +itself. There is no space in itself. Space and time are not directly +derived from outward experience, nor are they derived from the +sense-elements of experience. Inner experience, i. e. reflection to the +exclusion of sense-impression, the experimenting with pure forms, will +lead to the construction of the concepts of space as well as of time. +Space and time, magnitudes and numbers having been constructed in the +mind of a thinking subject are applied to practical experience. When +counting three trees we do not abstract the number “three” from the three +trees, but we apply to them the system of numbers in our possession. + +Says Kant: + + “We never can imagine or make a representation to ourselves + of the non-existence of space, though we may easily enough + think that no objects are found in it. It must therefore be + considered as the condition of the possibility of phenomena and + by no means as a determination dependent upon them and is a + representation _a priori_, which necessarily supplies the basis + for external phenomena.” + +Space being the generalised concept of extended form, and time that of +motion without reference to any contents, it is naturally impossible to +think the non-existence of space and time. Thinking is an act, it is a +process; and any act, any process, any event, is a reality which implies +or presupposes the existence of the forms of reality. We can think of +matter without reference to form, i. e. we can have the abstract idea +of matter; but we cannot think that there is any matter void of form. +This does by no means prove that form has nothing to do with matter. On +the contrary, it proves that form and matter are inseparable. The form +of existence need not therefore be called “the basis” of existence, it +is simply one universal feature of existence. And the form of existence +being bound up with existence itself, it is necessary that any thinking +existence in so far as it is real, in so far as it is at the same time +an object and part of the objective world should also be in possession +of the conditions to evolve the idea of form out of itself through inner +experience. + +This inner experience of experimenting with pure forms is also a kind of +experience. It is not a purely subjective process; it is a subjective +process to the thinking subject, which to other subjects, however, would +appear as an objective process. The laws of pure form as stated in the +sciences of purely formal thought, are not merely subjective; they +possess objective validity. It is true and from our standpoint a matter +of course that the laws of form are _a priori_, which means, they hold +good for any pure form. + +Modern positivism, such as we defend it, is monistic. We consider the +entire world as one great whole and do not forget that all noumenal +representations of certain features of the world, of matter, mind, form, +even of things and our own souls included, are mere abstractions. Reality +itself remains undivided and indivisible. Abstract concepts are mental +symbols invented to represent certain features of reality. But although +we can in our mind separate these features and distinguish them from +other features, in the world of reality they cannot be cut out or thought +of as things in themselves. Granting the oneness of reality which dawns +upon us instinctively before consciousness is fully matured, we are +inevitably led to the conception that there is but one form of reality, +which implies that there is but one space and one time. + + +III. FORM NOT IMPORTED BY THE MIND INTO REALITY. + +Kant says, and in this we agree with Kant, that “all thought must +directly by means of certain signs relate ultimately to _Anschauungen_.” +The word _Anschauung_ (the “onlooking,” generally translated by +“intuition”) means the immediate presence of sense-perception. Says Kant: +“The effect of an object upon our faculty of representation is called +sensation, and that intuition which refers to an object by means of +sensation is called empirical intuition.” For instance, I see a rose: The +image of the rose which I see is the appearance or the phenomenon. Kant +continues: + + “That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation I + term its _matter_, but that which effects that the contents of + the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call + its _form_.” + +In other words matter is that which affects the senses and form is to +be expressed in relations. The difference between the formal and the +material is obvious. The formal is of great importance, nay, it is of +paramount importance, but the formal is neither anything apart from the +material nor is it a substance. Both concepts are disparate, but they +have been derived by mental abstraction from the same reality. + +We fully agree with Kant when he continues: + + “That in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which + they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be + itself sensation.” + +But we do not agree with Kant when from this proposition he derives the +following conclusion: + + “It is, then, the _matter_ of all phenomena that is given to us + _a posteriori_; the _form_ must lie ready _a priori_ for them + in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from + all sensation.” + +Here lies the great fallacy of Kant, which rests upon an erroneous +statement and an actual distortion of fact. The phenomenon of a rose +which I see before me is not merely sensory, but also formal. The +phenomenon, i. e. the image of the rose (_die Anschauung_) is a sensation +of a special form. The term sensation as it is generally used implies +its having a special form. Accordingly the form does not, at least not +from the beginning, lie ready _a priori_ in the mind; the form is given +together with the sensation. + +Kant speaks of “that which is annexed to perception by the conceptions +of understanding,” as if our understanding added the formal out of the +mind to the sensory elements given by experience. What is the mind? The +mind is a product of the world; it is a system of symbols representing +the things of the world and their relations including such possible +relations as are worthy of aspiring for. In short, the mind consists of +ideas and ideals.[44] + +It has often been said that the mind is the creator of the sensory and +noumenal world. This is incorrectly expressed, for mind _is_ the sensory +and noumenal world itself. The sense-pictures, the thought-symbols, and +the ideals of a man are actual parts of his mind. They are not products +but constituents of his mind. Their organised totality is his mind +itself. The activity which takes place in a mind, i. e. the combining, +the separating, and recombining of memories, thoughts, and ideals are the +actual realities, and if we speak of a man’s understanding, or reason, +or any other so-called faculty, we have to deal with abstractions. The +activity of mentally separating form and matter might be called by the +general term understanding. However the faculty of understanding is not a +distinct mental organ, it consists in the single acts of understanding, +and the word understanding is a mental symbol representing them all +together as if they were one thing. + +And certainly these acts of understanding as little import the formal +into the world of sensation as the miner carries the metals into the +mines. The formal, the relational, or the _a priori_, is first extracted +out of the data of experience not otherwise than iron is gained out of +the ores. The ore is not iron but it contains iron, the phenomenon of +a rose is not purely a sense-impression, it is a sense-impression of +a certain form. We are aware of the fact that mind is an entirely new +creation different from the non-mental world, yet at the same time we +maintain that the elements from which mind develops are the same as +the elements of the non-mental world. Nature furnishes the entire raw +material and whatever new creation the product of a new development is, +nothing can be added to the raw material, of which the formal is the most +indispensable part. + +The raw material of sensory phenomena as soon as it is worked out, and +also the activity of working it out are called mind. Mind accordingly +originates with the appearance of sentient substance as the organisation +of feelings and the memories of feelings—these memories being conditioned +through the preservation of the form of sentient substance. Mind is not +something different from the world but must be considered as its product +and highest efflorescence. Mind is made of the same substance as the +universe and the mind-forms are the forms of objective existence. + +As soon as a system of forms has developed in a sentient being, thus +constituting its mind, this system can again be referred to the +objective forms of things. In this sense we can say with Kant, that the +understanding imports form into phenomena; and this re-importation, this +referring the objectively formal to the subjective system of formal +thought, is an essential element in cognition. + + +IV. PROFESSOR JODL’S VIEW OF THE THING IN ITSELF. + +The idea of a thing in itself independent of space and time and the +unknowableness of the thing in itself are the basis of all agnosticism. +And an agnostic tendency is at present predominant even among positive +workers and thinkers. Agnosticism is still the philosophy of the day +even among those who have surrendered its basis (which is Kant’s +transcendental idealism) and accept the monistic world-conception. +Friedrich Jodl, professor at the University of Prague and author of the +well-known “History of Ethics,” in answer to a letter of mine formulates +in concise terms this modernised view of a thing in itself. He writes: + + “You are right. The thing in itself is a dangerous idea,—one + that easily leads astray. But so long as we have no better + expression to represent the relation for which it stands we + shall have to use it. You also accept the following three + momenta: (1) Objective existence or reality. (2) Effectiveness + of Reality upon consciousness, i. e. sensation. (3) + Effectiveness of sensation upon consciousness and reproduction + of sensation in consciousness, i. e. representation. Nobody, + however, can maintain that in sensation, and still less + in representation, the whole of reality will appear in + consciousness. First we learn from history what progress has + been made in the cognition of reality and secondly it is + obvious that we are infinitely far from an actual comprehension + of reality. We have strong reasons to suspect that there + are many processes in reality which in no way affect our + sensibility and cannot enter into consciousness, and we know + for sure that we do not comprehend—i. e. reconstruct from + them assumed causes—many things, indeed most things, which we + observe in their effects. Our cognition of nature, if we begin + to construct, always leads us to some _x_. It may be doubted + whether this _x_ is an unknown or an unknowable. In my opinion + it is both—anyhow we cannot eliminate it. + + “I am convinced that many things which are unknown to-day and + appear as unknowable will be known and knowable in a thousand + years. But I doubt whether the total mass of the Unknowable has + been noticeably diminished. For the Unknowable is infinite and + the infinite if divided by any finite number can never produce + a finite number. Every solved problem contains new and greater + problems. What shall we call this? I believe that the term + “thing in itself” is after all the best expression. Whoever + wants to turn a mystic on account of it cannot be prevented. + This state of things can be brought out of existence by an act + of violence only.” + +It is most certainly true, as Professor Jodl says, that sensations do not +depict the whole of reality. But why should they? Cognition is possible +only by limiting the attention to a special point. Every sense organ is +an organ of abstraction. Every sense depicts the effects of reality in +its own way and in this way alone. It may freely be granted that there +are many processes in reality which do not affect our sensibility. Yet +there is nothing in reality which does not affect something in some +way. If it did not, it could not be said to exist. The chemical rays +of light do not affect our eye, they are invisible and were for that +reason not noticed. But these rays are not without any effects. If we +cannot observe them directly, we can invent sensitive plates or other +instruments for observing their effects indirectly. Indirect observation +makes it possible that the limitation of our senses does not result in a +limitation of knowledge. + +Says Professor Jodl: + + “Our cognition of nature if we begin to construct always leads + us to some _x_.” + +This sentence indicates that Professor Jodl’s and our conception of +cognition are different. Cognition is not a reconstruction of assumed +causes; it is a unification of our representative sensations or ideas. +Something is again noticed, it is re-cognised, to be the same thing. +Cognition is adaptation of new facts to our present stock of knowledge; +it is the proper arrangement of new data in our system of mental +representations. Cognition, accordingly, is the reduction of the unknown +to terms of the known. How can it ever lead to an _x_? The positive +conception of cognition is, as Kirchoff defines, it “an exhaustive and +most simple description of facts.” It is a reconstruction of facts or, +as Mach says, _Ein Nachbilden der Thatsachen_. Cognition is based upon +_Anschauungen_; it will lead to an ultimate _x_, only in case we expect +that cognition instead of being a description of facts will have to give +us information about how it happens that facts exist, how they originated +out of nothing. + +Professor Jodl’s thing in itself is not outside of Space and Time (as is +Kant’s thing in itself) but it is the overwhelming infinitude of problems +to be solved with which we cannot hope to get through even though our +life lasted billions of light-years. Let me repeat here what I said in +the second edition of “Fundamental Problems,” + + “A philosophy which starts from the positive data of + experience, and arranges them in the system of a monistic + conception of the world, will meet with many great problems + and in solving them will again and again be confronted with + new problems. It will always grapple with something that is + not yet known. The unknown seems to expand before us like an + infinite ocean upon which the ship of knowledge advances. But + the unknown constantly changes into the known. We shall find no + real unknowable wherever we proceed. The idea of the unknowable + is like the horizon—an optic illusion. The more we advance, + the farther it recedes. The unknowable is no reality; the + unknowable can nowhere prevent knowledge nor can the horizon + debar a ship in her voyage, from further progress.” (p. 271.) + +Man’s knowledge has value as positive information concerning the facts +he has to deal with, and the infinitude of the not known, the infinitude +of other problems and things which he will never face, is of no +consequence whatever. Positivism commences and has to commence with the +positive facts of the given experience and not with the infinitude of +possibilities which lie beyond our horizon. Compare knowledge to property +and suppose a man is to buy a farm. Shall we discourage him with the idea +that the whole amount of soil on the surface of the earth and of other +planets is infinite, and this infinitude of all existences if divided by +his finite little possession can never result in a finite number. Even +if it were doubled, if it were multiplied a thousand times, it remains +as good as nothing in comparison with the rest of the world which he +cannot acquire. However, his possession is something to him, whatever the +relation of infinite possibilities may be in proportion to it. + +The concept of infinitude serves a good purpose in its place, but we +cannot use it for analogies in other fields or bring it in relation to +concrete realities. We produce confusion and drop into mysticism as soon +as we handle the idea of infinitude as if it were a positive thing. The +infinite is a function which is mathematically expressed by 1/0 = ∞, and +whenever we bring anything in relation to the infinite, we at once dwarf +the greatest number no less than the smallest number into zero. + +Clearness of thought is the indispensable method of sound philosophy +for constructing a positive world-conception, which in great outlines +is a description of the facts of reality. By suffering mysticism as a +legitimate conception either in science or in philosophy, we enhance the +interests of those who prefer the chiaroscuro of vague notions to clear +thought. + + +V. CLIFFORD’S AND SCHOPENHAUER’S CONCEPTIONS OF THE THING IN ITSELF. + +When Clifford speaks of things in themselves he does not mean Kant’s +thing in itself, he means neither the object independent of the thinking +subject nor the thing independent of space and time. He means the thing +as it would be if viewed from the thing itself. + +A man appears to other thinking beings as an active body, as an organism +that is in motion; but to himself he appears as a feeling being. The +subjectivity of things as they appear to the things themselves consists +in our own case of states of awareness, and this subjectivity is called +by Clifford the thing in itself. + +A certain brain motion is in its subjective aspect a feeling. This +feeling is according to Clifford the thing in itself of the visible, +observable, and measurable motion. The thing in itself of so-called +inanimate beings is not feeling, but elements of feeling. In other words, +the world-substance is everywhere in itself potentiality of feeling and +Clifford therefore calls it “mind-stuff.” + +Schopenhauer arrives at his conception of the thing in itself practically +in the same way. There is the world as it appears to us, the objective +world of motion in space and time. What the kernel of this world may be, +we can know from self-observation. The kernel of ourselves, Schopenhauer +says, is Will; and the will is also the kernel of things; the will is the +thing in itself. + +We understand by will the passage into action, i. e. an incipient +motion of the organism if accompanied with the psychical element of +consciousness, and this consciousness is a state of awareness of the will +including its direction and aim. Will, as the term is generally used, is +always conscious. Schopenhauer however speaks of the will as being blind, +i. e. without knowledge, without awareness of itself and its aim. This +indicates that he uses the word not in its original but in a figurative +meaning. + +The fall of a stone may be characterised as a blind motion without +awareness and without the stone’s having a consciousness as to its +direction or aim; and in a similar (although not in the same) way +Clifford speaks of the elements of feeling as being not rational. We +agree with Schopenhauer that that factor in a stone which makes it fall +when placed in a certain position is as much a natural process as the act +of a man, only of a lower grade and a simpler kind. Schopenhauer calls +that which both have in common “will.” Yet in common language we call the +objective aspect of that which both processes have in common, “motion.” +What then is the subjective aspect of a falling stone? It is not a state +of awareness, it is no feeling, but it is the potentiality of a state of +awareness, it is potential feeling. There _is_ a subjective aspect, but +this subjective aspect is so far as we can judge of no account to the +stone. + +That something in the stone which corresponds to man’s consciousness, +viz. the stone’s subjectivity, is not mind, but it is potential mind. +And potential mind is not as Mr. Conybeare expresses it “mind diluted,” +potential mind is no mind at all. + +The world-substance as it exists in inorganic matter is not mind. But +the universe taken as a whole, the All, is for that reason not less than +mind. On the contrary, it is infinitely more than mind. The All is not +brute force and inert matter only, the universe is a cosmos, and its +subjectivity necessarily develops, according to the laws of form which +characterise the cosmos throughout, into mind. We disagree with Professor +Clifford most emphatically when he describes the mind-stuff of which +according to his terminology the world consists, as not rational. + +The world it is true is not rational in its elements, but the world as +a whole, the entire cosmos with its laws and especially in its formal +order, is the prototype of all rationality. Human reason is rational +only in so far as it conforms with, as it reflects, as it describes the +order of the cosmos. The human mind is a microcosm. We do not call the +macrocosm, in whose image the microcosm has been created, a mind, because +we understand by the term mind not reality itself but reality pictured in +symbols of feeling. We understand by mind the individual conception of +the world as it is mapped out in the brain of a sentient being, and not +the universe itself, not the all-being. We understand by mind a creature +and not the creator, a soul and not God. + +The cosmos, the All, God, that which creates the mind, is not dead, not +irrational, and not inferior to mentality. It is the source of all life, +it is the condition of all order, it is the standard of all morality. All +the minds that exist are but parts of it. In it, with it, and through it +we live and shall live forever. For although we shall die, our being can +never be blotted out. Existence knows no annihilation and life knows no +death. What we call death is a dissolution of life in a special part, +but the contents of a life, the thoughts, the ideas, and the ideals are +preserved and transmitted, they are implanted into other minds; the soul +continues to live. And this continuance of the life of the soul is not +a mere dissolution in the All, it is not the immortality of force and +matter; it is the preservation of its special existence, of its most +characteristic and individual features for an immeasurably long period +hence, which will last as long as the conditions of life remain favorable +upon earth. Yet even if a whole solar system were broken to pieces, life +will reappear; mind will be born again to struggle for truth and to +aspire to live in conformity with truth. + + +VI. THINGS AND RELATIONS. + +The proposition that things in themselves are unknowable finds a strong +argument in the statement that we can know relations only, that all +knowledge is relative. It is undoubtedly true that all knowledge is +relative and knowledge is a knowledge of relations. But what is a +relation? When I once proposed this question, I was answered: + + “A relation is the connection between two things; it is that + something in which the one stands to the other, in short, it is + the betwixtness of things.” + +This is exactly what a relation is not. From such a definition of +relation agnosticism will necessarily follow. It is a misstatement of +the case, and when we come to follow out the idea, we shall be led into +inextricable contradictions, and unless we revise the whole argument, we +shall have to confess that we are at our wit’s end. + +The question, what is a relation? was one of the issues between the +two great mediæval schools of philosophy, the Nominalists and the +Realists.[45] The Nominalists answered: “A relation is a mere product of +the mind,” while the Realists declared that “a relation without which the +thing cannot be, is in the thing.” + +Both schools relied upon Aristotle’s authority. Aristotle had declared +that matter is mere possibility of existence (it is δυνάμει ὄν) and form +is that which makes it real, the formal is the real, form is existence +or being (οὐσία). The metal of a statue, Aristotle says, is its matter, +the idea of the statue is its form, both together make the real statue. +The metal having had another form before, did not exist with the inherent +purpose of being this metal of the statue. The metal is the mere +potentiality of becoming a statue.[46] Hence, says Aristotle, not the +matter but the form constitutes the reality of the statue, the form is +that which is real, or that which makes actual, ἐνεργείᾳ ὄν, it is the +being in completeness or actuality, ἐνετλεχείᾳ ὄν, i. e. that which makes +a thing exist in its purpose (ἐν τέλει ἔχειν). If the formal alone is and +makes real, relations must be real. This is in favor of the Realists. + +Yet Aristotle’s philosophy is not in every respect clearly worked out. +In fact there are two Aristotles, the one being a Platonist, the other +a naturalist, the one believing in universals, the other investigating +concrete things and taking individuals as real beings. But both +Aristotles and with them both parties of the schoolmen had no clear +conception of the nature of ideas, what they are, and what they purport, +and how we can discriminate between their subjective and objective +elements. Ideas have a meaning. Is their meaning purely mental or has it +an objective value? We say that it has. + +The same Aristotle who considered the formal as that which makes real, +denied the objective existence of relations. He said that such qualities +as greater, or smaller, double or half, indeed all relations (the πρός τι +of things) did not belong to the things, but were added to them by the +thinking subject. Ergo relations are mere products of the mind, they have +no objective value. This was in favor of the Nominalists. + +Now it is true that some relations are purely mental in so far as the +comparison upon which they rest is purely imaginary. An answer to the +question, Who was the greater, Alexander or Cæsar? depends upon the +standard of measurement which we create for the special purpose. Some +such relations have no objective value, they are not facts but a play of +imagination dependent on the recognition of the standard of measurement. +But how is it, if we express the relation between the gravity of a stone +and the whole mass of the earth as it manifests itself in the stone’s +fall? Is that also a mere product of the mind? Certainly Newton’s laws +describing gravitation in exact and mathematical formulas are a product +of the mind, but this product of the mind has an objective value, it has +a meaning, it describes facts, and these facts are certain relations +between certain things. + + * * * * * + +The fault of the modern misconception of relativity lies in the +assumption that the two or more things are considered as things in +themselves. We are apt to consider the gravity of two masses, of a stone +and of the earth, as a relation between two independent things. Here is +the stone and there is the earth and the relation is considered as some +third item, being the connection in which the one stands to the other. + +In reality there are not two things and, in addition to them a +betweenness of the two things. The world is not a sum of things, not even +a system of things, but a whole indivisible entirety and what we call +things are abstractions which serve special purposes in the household of +cognition. All things consist as it were of innumerable relations to all +other things. When we abstract one special process which takes place in +the province of what we are wont to call _two_ things, we have to deal +with a relation. + +There are no relations of themselves and there are no things of +themselves. Relations describe certain features of reality obtaining +between what we call two or more things, and in this description all +other features of which the real things consist are purposely omitted. + +There is no quality of things but it is at the same time a quality of +relation. Every quality of a thing characterises it under a certain +condition; it appears as an effect upon something and thus it is actual +as a relation. Cognition analyses things into bundles of relations and +all these relations together make up the things. + +The modern idea that we can know relations only and that there are +things in themselves which are unknowable is an old error inherited +from mediæval scholasticism, and its roots can be traced back to the +philosophy of Aristotle. The difficulty disappears as soon as we +consider the whole world (ourselves included) as an interacting whole, +and that the conceptions “things” and “relations” have been invented +for describing certain of its parts and certain of its interactions or +interconnections. + +If we push the idea of things in themselves to the ultimate extreme +we arrive at the atomistic conception of the universe. _Atoms are the +things in themselves reduced to the point system._ If we consider the +world as a heap of innumerable atoms, we are at a loss how to explain +the interaction among these atoms. The atomist universalises the +substance-abstraction and will be disappointed afterwards not to be able +to deduce from his universalisation other qualities which are found in +reality, such as the relations of things, their interconnections, their +spontaneity of motion, the life of organised beings, and the mind of +thinking creatures. + +Ideas are symbols and symbols have a meaning. The whole realm of +mental representations may be viewed in their symbolism or in their +significance. Considering their symbolism, ideas of things as well as of +relations, are products of the mind, considering their meaning, ideas +represent realities; in other words: their contents or that which they +signify is real. + +It appears that neither Nominalism nor Realism is right; yet if we +stretch them only a little, if we are allowed to interpret them in the +light of a monistic world-conception, both are right. They cease to +be contradictory and become complementary. Universals are real, say +the Realists, i. e. the forms and relations of things are actualities. +Universals are names, say the Nominalists, i. e. the relations and forms +in which we describe the world are mental symbols. + +The Realists had the misfortune to defeat the Nominalists entirely, +and thus had a chance to insist upon being right in every respect. All +opposition having ceased, the errors of Realism grew in extraordinary +exuberance. Nominalism in the mean time raised its head in opposition to +the recognised authority of the church as well as the schools, slowly +yet powerfully and irresistibly. The errors and the tyranny of Realism +gave strength to the Nominalistic movement which reached its height in +Kant’s philosophy. The Realists had gone to the extreme of declaring +that universals were things, real substances, independent of single and +concrete objects, and the Nominalists on the other hand, represented +by Kant, went so far as to declare that all relations, time and space +included were _mere_ products of the mind. + +If the relations are mere products of the mind, all knowledge being +a knowledge of relations, knowledge becomes impossible. That last +consequence was drawn by Kant and is emphatically insisted upon by +agnosticism. + +There is but one world-conception that can dispense with these +conclusions: it is that View which conceives of the All as a whole; and +of knowledge as a description of its parts, qualities, and relations, +ever mindful on the one hand that the parts are parts, that qualities +and relations are certain features only, not entire realities, or +isolated entities, and that the symbols thereof frequently overlap each +other; on the other hand that there is nothing absolute,[47] and that +there are no things in themselves. + +The relativity of knowledge, whether we conceive of it as the relativity +of the object to the subject in general or as an appreciation of the fact +that all knowledge gives and can give information of relations only, does +not lead to the conclusion that knowledge is impossible. Relativity is a +fundamental feature of knowledge, and we shall understand that it must be +so if we consider that reality itself is a great system of relations. + + * * * * * + +The interconnection of all things with all things appears to be so +complete, that if we intended to explain or understand one single fact +fully and exhaustively in all its relations, past, present, and future, +we should be obliged to give a complete description of the universe. Says +Tennyson: + + “Flower in the crannied wall, + I pluck you out of the crannies;— + Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, + Little flower—but if I could understand + What you are, root and all, and all in all, + I should know what God and man is.” + +We might address in the same way anything else, an atom of hydrogen, a +grain of sand as well as the sun, the action of a tiny speck of irritable +protoplasm as well as the soul of man. + + +VII. IS THE EGO A THING IN ITSELF? + +Prof. Lloyd Morgan in his excellent work “Animal Life and Intelligence” +uses repeatedly the word “mind” as if it were a thing in itself. +Professor Morgan is a monist and he does not intend the word to mean a +thing in itself; yet such is the influence of language that we, all of +us, unless we are constantly on our guard, will inadvertently slip into +dualistic expressions. Professor Morgan says, with reference to certain +sensations of animals (p. 309): + + ‘From these stippled sensations the mind in all cases + elaborates a continuum.’ + +The unity which arises out of stippled sensations and which through +their interaction becomes a continuum is called mind. To speak of +mind as working out the continuum is mythological language, it is the +transformation of the abstract idea “mind” into a real and independent +thing whose existence is conceived to be independent of the reality from +which it has been abstracted. + +Again, Professor Morgan says: “Our constructs are literally our +handiwork.” Our constructs, i. e. our mental signs constructed to +represent realities, constitute our soul; they are we ourselves. + +Professor Morgan, as I understand him, does not believe in a mind +behind the psychical facts of mental activity, he does not assume the +pre-existence of mind to the continuum elaborated. His view of mind +appears to be the same as ours. The more noteworthy, then, is his usage +of the term “mind.” It is a remarkable instance of how language naturally +inveigles us into a belief in things in themselves. Words seem to denote +concrete existences and as soon as we use words in this way we are +entangled in dualism. + +Prof. F. Max Müller as well as the late Prof. Thomas Hill Green, +the founder of the Oxford transcendentalist school, start from this +assumption, that man’s mental activity is performed by a something which +is quite distinct from it. This something is the thing in itself of the +human soul. Prof. F. Max Müller says: + + “If mind is the name of the work, what is the name of the + worker?... It is what we may call the ego as personating the + self; it is what other philosophers call the monon. Let us + call therefore the worker who does the work of the mind in its + various aspects, the Monon or the Ego.” + +This conception which asks for the worker of the work is based upon a +materialistic view of the human organism. An organism is not a dead +machine which must be set a-going by somebody who attends to it. +Organisms are active and not passive, they are living and not dead. Every +part of an organism is a worker and so is the whole. And if we speak of +its “life” we must bear in mind that “life” is an abstract which denotes +a certain inseparable quality of the organism. The work and the worker +are two abstracts of one and the same thing. The reality from which these +terms have been abstracted is “something working.” This something working +does not consist of a worker and his work, but the worker is in every +part of his work. The worker of our mental activity is the work itself. +Both are identical. + +The objection is made: “Whence does the activity come which appears in +the realm of organised life.” The answer is: Activity is a universal +quality of all existence. There is no such a thing as absolutely +inert matter. Every chemical element combines with other elements +spontaneously, according to its inherent nature and not through the +influence of a worker manipulating its atoms. Spontaneity is a universal +feature of reality. Nature is throughout self-working activity. And this +its most remarkable character is preserved in its highest efflorescence +in the soul of man. + +The present number of _The Monist_ contains a lucid presentation of the +transcendentalist position by Mr. F. C. Conybeare, an Oxford scholar and +a personal disciple of Professor Green, with special reference to the +views of Prof. William Kingdon Clifford. Mr. Conybeare, like Prof. F. Max +Müller, assumes a Self independent of the reality from which the idea of +self has been abstracted, and he attempts to prove the existence of this +self as follows: + + “In truth there can be no relation of before and after between + the two terms except for a self which takes note of the one + disappearing and of the other appearing; and whenever we speak + of things following one another we tacitly presuppose a self + before whom the procession passes.” + +The transcendentalist adopts, in the realm of psychology, the error +of atomism. If we accept the view that the world consists of isolated +atoms, we are at a loss how to bring the atoms into relations; the unity +of every group of atoms, every thing and every system of things will +become a mystery. And if we look upon feelings as unrelated things in +themselves, their connection becomes a deep problem. Mr. Conybeare solves +this problem of the connection that obtains among the feelings supposed +to be atomical, by postulating a relation-producing entity, called the +self. He says: + + “No link is left, save a connecting self.” + +And this assumed entity of a connecting self or ego is taken to be “the +heart and centre of reality.” Reality, that which we have to deal with +in real life and what is commonly called reality, appears as a second +class of reality in comparison with this assumed thing in itself of our +existence. The thing in itself is thus regarded as something realer than +real; it is conceived to be a reality of a higher degree. + +Mr. Conybeare is very explicit in the explanation of his transcendental +“self.” He says: + + “Feelings constitute a conscious self when they become the + feelings of a conscious self and not before, for except as + gathered up in the unity of a self which has [sic!] memory and + remains the same throughout its differences, feelings can be + neither new, nor repeated, nor joined by links.” + +What does “self” mean? What can it mean? What is the “unity of the self”? +These are questions which have not been answered to our satisfaction +by the transcendentalists. Whenever they speak of the self, they lose +themselves in mysticism. Their “self” is an assumed entity which they +have carefully divested of everything real and actual. Their self is +transcendental and not a being of the world; it is a myth. + +Let us describe the simplest possible instance of psychical activity. + +An irritation takes place in some sentient substance. This irritation +produces an extra-commotion. We must say “extra-commotion” because +all sentient substance is in a state of constant activity. This +extra-commotion causes the sentient substance to assume a certain form, +and while it lasts, a certain and special feeling takes place in some +part of the sentient substance. This certain and special feeling ceases, +as soon as the extra-commotion, caused through the irritation, abates. +There can be no doubt that certain effects of this extra-commotion +remain. Its trace is left in the sentient substance and this trace is +preserved in the constant whirl of the sentient being’s normal activity. +Now, we suppose that an irritation of the same kind takes place in the +same sentient substance. This second irritation finds the substance no +longer in the same condition. It finds the sentient substance prepared +to receive it. The feeling which now appears is no longer a simple +feeling. The second irritation causes a commotion as much as the first, +and this commotion acts as a stimulant upon the trace left by the first +irritation. This trace being again in a state of extra-commotion is +revived and the same kind of feeling appears. Thus the second irritation +is accompanied by a state of awareness in which two feelings are blended, +the revival of the former feeling and the feeling of the present +irritation. + +The preservation of traces left in sentient substance is the condition +of memory. We understand by memory the psychical aspect thereof, and the +act of reviving, so that their correspondent feelings will reappear, is +called recollection. + +“Memory” has been the greatest stumbling-block to our psychologists as +well as to our philosophers. Even modern works written from a positive +standpoint treat memory frequently as a mysterious faculty of the mind. +Mr. Conybeare speaks of the self as _having_ memory, while in fact, +memory is one of the features, indeed the most important feature, of +mind-activity. + +Says Mr. Conybeare: + + “Such a feeling [of the togetherness of two feelings] would + involve memory and memory involves self-hood.” + +Memory does not involve any transcendental self-hood. True self-hood, +viz. that which can reasonably be understood by self-hood, is not prior +to, not the cause of memory; self-hood, i. e. the personality of a man, +the organised unity of the psychical aspect of a human organism, is +consequent upon, it is the effect of, memory. Self-hood is the product of +memory.[48] + +The self is also called the ego. What is the ego? + +The ego is a Latin term used in philosophical language to denote the +pronoun “I,” and the pronoun “I” is quite a definite nerve-structure +situated in quite a definite place of the centre of language. As +all words, so also the term “I” is a symbol. Its general meaning is +unequivocal; it stands for the name of the speaker. It stands for Mr. +Brown, if Mr. Brown speaks of himself, for Mr. Smith, if Mr. Smith speaks +of himself, etc. + +What does Mr. Brown mean when he says, “_I_ speak, _I_ act, _I_ will, _I_ +feel pain, _I_ feel pleasure, _I_ intend,” etc.? + +When Mr. Brown speaks, a certain number of word-structures in the +centre of language are in a state of commotion, innervating the muscles +of speech. Correspondent to this physiological process, a state of +consciousness obtains, which is an awareness of the situation. When +he adds: “I say this,” it is again a special nerve-structure that is +irritated into action and he might just as well say: “Mr. Brown says +this.” The idea of Mr. Brown, viz. of his own personality, is just as +much an idea as his idea of Mr. Smith. The main difference consists +in the fact that the idea of one’s own personality is very much more +important than the ideas representing other personalities. + +The nervous structure representing the feeling of the idea “I” must be +the centre of innumerable nervous tracts connecting it with all those +activities which when performed are thought of as done by ourselves. +The “I do this” is almost constantly ready to fill the present state +of consciousness and to accompany any action performed through the +innervation of other brain structures. + +Sentient substance is not always actually feeling. It is feeling only +when in a state of extra-commotion. Systems of sentient substance +are called organisms; all its structures are interconnected and most +so those structures in which sentiency as well as motory impulses +are differentiated—viz. the nervous structures. The extra-commotions +which agitate the different nervous structures, the memories of +former sense-perceptions, of sounds, of words, of ideas depend upon +the conditions of the moment. Now this and now another structure will +represent the summit of commotion and the feeling of the strongest +commotion at a given time will under normal conditions appear as the +contents of consciousness. It is as it were the focus in which the +attention of the whole organism is centralised. That which appears in +the focus is clear and distinct, while the other weaker feelings rapidly +disappear into the undistinguishable general feeling of the organism as a +whole, commonly called cœnæsthesis or _Gemeingefühl_. + +The centre of attention is constantly changing; yet whenever a thinking +creature stops to ask himself, who is doing this? Who is willing this? +Who is thinking this? the answer is given: “I am doing this; I am willing +this; I am thinking this.” The structure of the little pronoun “I” seems +to be the most ticklish of all; it is always ready to force itself into +the foreground. + +The answer, “I am doing this,” proposes the _totum pro parte_. The +whole personality is supposed to do what a part of it is performing. +The hands are executing this work; these hands of course are innervated +from certain regions of the brain. Some parts of the personality are +in a relative rest and have nothing to do with the work presently on +hand. A commotion in a certain number of brain-structures represents the +physiological aspect of a deliberation, perhaps the planning of some +action. Psychologically considered certain ideas appear successively +and sometimes simultaneously in the focus of consciousness. The ideas +disagree and other ideas replace them until a combination is formed in +which the ideas do agree. This state of agreement brings a temporary +peace into the tumult of conflicting ideas; the plan is ready; it may +pass into action at once, or, perhaps, the ego-structure will appear in +consciousness and will quietly think: “I will do it.” + +When certain motory nerve-structures are innervated, they cause under +normal conditions their respective muscles to contract, they produce +motion. Under normal conditions the nervous process accompanying the idea +“I will raise my arm” serves as an irritation upon the cortical centre of +arm-raising, yet it is not the “I” that in some mystical way raises the +arm. The idea “I” has as little and as much to do with this discharge of +energy as any other idea. The idea “I” is not the power behind the veil +that produces the will. + +What is will? As soon as some plan of action is joined with the idea +that it should be executed, supposing it be not counteracted by any +stronger idea that it should not be done, this combination represents +a will. A will accordingly is the psychological aspect of an incipient +action, and it is usually, or if it is not it can always be accompanied +with the thought “I will it.” But this accompanying thought however is +not the energy displayed in the act of willing. + +The “I will it,” or “I do it,” or “I perceive it” being always ready to +appear together with the strongest idea in the field of consciousness, +the term “ego” has acquired a specialised meaning. It means that part of +a man’s personality which at the time is the contents of the “I will,” or +“I think,” i. e. it is his present state of consciousness. Every organism +is a coherent system and thus all the feelings of an organism naturally +blend into a unity. The strongest feeling however appears in the normal +state of waking in a distinct clearness thus representing a centre of +consciousness. + +However, whether we use the term “ego” in the sense of the idea “I” +meaning the whole personality of the speaker, or in the sense of the +present centre of consciousness, it designates in either case a definite +reality, the origin and action of which are natural facts and as plain as +any other psychological phenomena. + +Neither the ego-idea nor the centre of consciousness are transcendental. +The former is as little mystical as are the ideas dog, horse, man, etc.; +the latter no less miraculous than any other feeling or display of +sentiency. + + +VIII. THE EGO-CENTRIC VIEW ABANDONED. + +The contrast between the old and the new psychology appears strongest +in their conceptions of the ego. The former believes that the ego is +“the thing in itself” of man’s soul and takes it to be the centre of +all psychical phenomena, while the latter looks upon the ego-idea as +one idea among many other co-ordinated ideas and considers the centre +of consciousness as the strongest feeling at a given time, which as +such naturally predominates over and eclipses the other feelings of the +organism. + +The new psychology brings about a change of standpoint similar to +that effected by the Copernican system in astronomy. In astronomy +the geo-centric, and in psychology the ego-centric standpoint had to +be abandoned. And all things seem to be upset to those who are still +accustomed to the old conception. To them the physical and moral +world-conceptions appear to become impossible. If the new view were +correct, so they imagine, the entire universe would break to pieces. All +our modes of speech are formed in accord with the old view. We speak of +sunset and sunrise, and so in our daily conversation the little pronoun +“I” plays a part which makes it seem as if the ego-idea were the centre +of all soul-life and as if this “I” were the active agent in all acts of +willing and doing. + +The advantage of the Copernican system lies in this, that we can think +of the motions of the sun and the planets in a systematic and unitary +conception without being either involved in contradictions or obliged to +invent mysterious qualities in the stars for explaining the velocities, +directions, or other phenomena of the celestial bodies. The most +important advantage however is the practical applicability of the new +theory. + +The old theory of the soul necessarily leads to mysticism. Fictitious +facts of a transcendent character must be invented in addition to the +facts observed, in order to explain the latter. The new theory after +abandoning the ego-centric standpoint of the thing in itself of a soul +shows the facts of psychic life in an harmonious and unitary conception. +All facts agree among themselves and we are not in need of supplementing +them with mysterious inventions. It must be emphasised, at the same time, +that the new conception throws a new light upon ethics; it shows the +error and perversity of all egotism, for it would be a mistake to act as +if the ego were really the centre of soul-life. + +Here the new psychology comes in contact with religion. What is the +practical aim of all the great religions of the world but a surrender +of the ego, a renunciation of the self as the centre of our being, and +the acceptance of the moral law as the regulative power of our actions? +The new psychology gives a justification and a scientific explanation +of Christian ethics while the latter from the standpoint of the old +psychology necessarily appears as mystical and supernatural. + + +IX. PERSONALITY AND EVOLUTION. + +The ego, i. e. the centre of consciousness, is constantly shifting, while +the personality of a man is relatively constant, certain important ideas +being stable and thus lending character to the whole system of thoughts +and intentions. + +The term personality indicating the self-hood of a man is used in several +ways. First, we understand by a man’s personality his bodily appearance; +secondly the whole system of his mentality, viz. his knowledge, his +temperament, his character; thirdly the history of his life, past, +present, and future; fourthly his position in life, his possessions, +his connections, his influence, or at last we mean by it all these four +items together. In all these applications the man and his personality are +conceived as a unity. And they are a unity. Wherever the term unity is +applicable, it is most certainly applicable here. All the many facts of +the history of his life are one continuous process; all the parts of his +body are parts of a system, and the world of his ideas also will under +normal conditions bear a certain harmonious character. Wherever in any +soul the concord among the ideas has been disturbed, a state of unrest +will ensue until the peace of soul is restored in one or another way. But +with the same necessity as every water surface tends to present a smooth +level, so the ideas in one and the same soul tend to come to a state of +agreement. As every water surface has its ripples so even that mind which +has attained an undisturbed peace of soul is constantly confronted with +some problems—be they ever so trifling—producing some slight disturbances +in his life. + +The unity of a self, it is apparent, is the inevitable consequence +of given conditions. It is not something which exists outside the +personality and its constituent parts, it is in the personality and it +develops together with it. Mr. Conybeare supposes that “the unity of +a self remains the same throughout.” This is an error, and this error +vitiates Mr. Conybeare’s whole conception of growth and evolution. He +says: + + “Properly speaking a thing can only be said to grow or develop + when it remains the same with itself all through the process + and unfolds therein capacities which were anyhow latent in it + to start with.” + +The truth contained in this proposition may be expressed thus: When a +thing develops, some part of it remains the same during the change, +so that a continuity is preserved. Yet every change of a part of an +organism—such is the intimate interconnection of all its parts—produces +an alteration, be it ever so small, of the whole unity. And in the course +of evolution the character of the whole thing may be changed. Think of +the growth of a caterpillar into a butterfly, or of an egg-cell into a +man. However, the changes in the character of an adult man will become +slighter and slighter the stronger certain features of his existence +preserve their sameness, although the most stable personality will, +nevertheless, be subject to, at least, unimportant changes as long as +life lasts. + +Mr. Conybeare, like his master Professor Green and all the +transcendentalists, is still under the influence of a belief in the +thing in itself. The unity of an organism which is the product of the +co-operation of its parts, is not some independent thing whose business +it is to gather up their single activities and bring them into relation +with one another. The unity of a self is the combination of all those +relations which make of its parts a systematised whole, and this unity +is changing together with its constituents; as a matter of fact, we have +to state that it does _not_ remain constant or the same with itself. +Mark that I do not deny the unity of the soul, nor do I underrate the +enormous importance of this unity. But I do deny that this unity exists +independent of its parts. It is as much immanent in its parts as is a +melody in its notes. There is as little a transcendental self-hood as a +melody in itself independent of its sounds. + +The assumption of a transcendental unity which throughout the process +of evolution remains the same with itself naturally leads to a wrong +conception of what Mr. Conybeare calls “latent capacities.” The terms +potential existence and latent qualities are fertile and useful ideas but +we must beware not to employ them incorrectly. Any heap of iron ore can +be called a potential sword. This is a mode of speaking which expresses +the possibility that the ore can be changed somehow into a sword. But the +sword does not exist at all, not even as a latent quality of the ore. +The ore has no latent qualities of that kind. Those qualities of the ore +which represent the potential sword are very patent to everybody who +knows the art of using them properly and changing them into an actual +sword. + +We may say that the hen’s egg contains a potential chick; but this is a +mere mode of speech devised to say that the egg can be changed into a +chick under certain conditions. There is no chick at all contained in the +egg and nothing that is like a chick. + +Evolution is not, as the name suggests, a process of unfolding; evolution +is, as Christian Friedrich Wolff calls it, an “epigenesis,” i. e. +the process of the additional growth of new formations. The chick is +something different in kind from the egg. The unity of the egg-cell +organism in the yolk is radically different from the unity of the +full-fledged chick. The former shows traces of irritability but not +of consciousness, while the latter exhibits unmistakable symptoms of +psychical activity. The formation of the chicken-soul is a new formation +as much as the growth of feathers. The feathers of the chick are an +additional growth; there are no latent feathers in the egg. We might +express ourselves to the effect that the egg contains the potential +existence of feathers, but with the same logic we might say the egg +contains a potential chicken broth. + +It is however true that something remains constant in the process of +growth. There is a preservation of form in the constant change of +material particles and this is the physiological basis of memory, so that +a man of eighty may say “I remember when I was a child,” although not one +particle of the substance of which the child consisted is left in him. +The continuity produced through this preservation of form makes growth +and evolution possible. + +The preservation of memory-structures constitutes the possibility of +reviving the feelings of the past, it constitutes a preservation of +soul. The material parts of the body are thrown out but the form being +preserved, the soul remains. And this preservation of the soul is the +basis of its additional growth through new and enlarged experience. The +soul of the child is not lost in the man, it is preserved. It has lost +certain features and at the same time it has gained new features, it has +developed, and the unity of the soul has more or less changed with the +development. + +What is true of the individual is also true of mankind. Mankind as a +whole is different in the savage and in civilised society. Nevertheless +the latter has developed from the former. Certain traits have been +dropped, other radically new features have appeared. That which was +valuable in the soul of primitive man is not lost. The better part of his +soul still lives in the highest developed man of to-day; the continuity +is preserved. And to-day all our moral instruction aims at this, so to +live that our souls also will be preserved in the future evolution of +humanity. The gist of ethics is to make the soul immortal.[49] + + +X. PROFESSOR MACH’S POSITION. + +The problem, “Are there things in themselves?” is closely connected with +the subject of my discussion with Professor Mach. Professor Mach as +well as myself are aspiring to arrive at a consistent and harmonious or +unitary world-conception. Both of us recognise that things in themselves +have no room in a monistic philosophy, both of us recognise that concepts +are means only of orientation, they are the mental tools of living beings +developed as an assistance in dealing with the surrounding world. They +are symbols in which the processes of nature are copied and imitated and +which can serve for planning or modeling and thus predetermining the +course of nature. So far we agree, but then there appears a difference +which it is difficult for me to understand or formulate in precise terms. + +Professor Mach objects to the dualism of motion and feeling, which he +declares he conceives as a unity not as a duality. But so do I. It +appears to me that we must differ somehow in the method of constructing +the unity. I see indeed a contrast of physical and of psychical. This +contrast, however, in my conception does not belong to the object but to +the subject. It is a contrast of our conception of things, but it is not +a contrast existing objectively in the real things themselves. The world +is not composed of the psychical and the physical, but certain features +of the world are called physical, and others psychical. Both terms are +abstracts. + +Professor Mach said in his first article and repeats it again in the +present article that his former standpoint resembles very closely my +present standpoint. When reading Professor Mach’s lectures of 1863, +I took pains to look for the similarity, and finding many things in +which I could agree I dropped the differences taking the agreements +as the essential points. In reading, however, Professor Mach’s résumé +of his former position as stated in this present article, I find that +he attaches prominence to several points which I cannot endorse. +I do not accept the theory that atoms feel, that they are endowed +with consciousness. I have never spoken of atoms when dealing with +psychological problems. The term “atom” is a chemical term invented +as a help for thinking the equivalence of the weight of the elements +which always combine in definite proportions. The term “atom” has in +my opinion no sense if applied to other phenomena. The term “atom” has +not been abstracted from psychical phenomena nor has it been invented +for describing them. There is accordingly no probability that it can +find there any appropriate application. We might as well expect that +mathematical terms such as lines, points, circles, etc., are applicable +in psychology. The idea of conscious circles or points can not in my mind +be more absurd than that of conscious atoms. The rule must be observed +that we can use abstractions made for a special purpose for that purpose +only; they will not serve any other purpose as well. It is true that they +are often employed as analogies, but in such cases, we must bear in mind +that we are dealing with mere analogies. + +In addition to the impropriety of using the term atoms in psychology, it +appears to me erroneous to attribute feeling or anything like feeling +to physical processes of any description. Natural processes are so +constituted, that under certain conditions, such as take place in animal +organisms, they will develop feelings. Clifford speaks in this sense of +the elements of feeling. Lloyd Morgan calls it metakinesis, and I find +that feelings being simply states of awareness represent the subjectivity +of natural processes. We have reasons to suppose that in the processes +of unorganised nature this subjectivity is neither feeling nor anything +like feeling: but the subjectivity of the natural processes is as it were +the stuff out of which our own feelings are formed. + +I accept all the arguments of Professor Mach that our ideas are +artificial products; and I am also anxious to distinguish in our ideas +between that which describes facts and that which has been added to the +description of facts in shape of theories or conjectures. + +The sense-pictures of objects and ideas also are not things but images +and symbols of things created for the purpose of representing things; +they are as Prof. Lloyd Morgan says, “constructs.” But these constructs +are not mere fancy, they are not air-castles. They are constructed in +order to imitate certain realities. Now, in building these constructs +as an imitation or a copy of reality, we are often at a loss how to +build them. There is for instance in the objective reality observed, a +something somewhere high in the air, the basis of which is invisible, +and being limited in our means of acquiring information we are ignorant +of the real state of things. So in reconstructing or imitating the +facts, we build scaffolds to support it, and we are too apt to forget +that these scaffolds do not represent objective facts but are artifices +to make certain facts, which we know in parts only, thinkable, i. e. +representable without breaks in mental constructs. + + +XI. TRUTH IN MYTHOLOGY. + +There is one point which I have emphasised and which it appears to me +Professor Mach neglects, namely that our noumenal world of ideas has +an objective meaning. The ideal constructs represent realities. They +do not consist of scaffolds alone and there is no scaffold which has +not been erected to help in building up representations of facts. Let +us call the representation of facts positive science or simply truth +and the scaffolding the mythology of science, and we shall see that the +road to truth leads everywhere through mythology. Certain facts of the +surrounding world impress themselves upon a sentient being and these +impressions come to represent facts. These facts are not seen at once in +their causal connection, they appear unconnected among themselves, and in +the attempt to formulate them, to represent them, to construct them in +mental images, we fill out the gaps of our knowledge with such inventions +as are supplied by analogy. + +Mythology is, in religion as well as in science, the indispensable ladder +to truth. We cannot build without scaffolds. So we cannot construct truth +without mythology. We have to introduce allegorical expressions in order +to fill out gaps with analogies. + +Mythology becomes fatal to the building up of truth, as soon as we +consider it as truth itself. The scaffold is erected simply as an +assistance for building and if the building is finished the scaffold +should be torn down. The progress of science which is so much helped +by mythology has periods of purification in which the mythology is +discarded. This is sometimes a difficult task, because the very terms +of science are mostly both at the same time truth and mythology, +building-stones and scaffold. + +Take, for instance, the term atom. The chemist observes that the elements +always combine in certain proportions and formulates the law of the +equivalence of their atomic weights. In order to think this process, to +reconstruct it in mental images, he imagines that matter consists of +infinitely small particles of constant weight. This is a fiction useful +for its purpose but it may be just as erroneous as the method employed +in the infinitesimal calculus of thinking of a continuous curve as +consisting of a broken line of infinitely small parts, or of thinking +of a certain force as being composed of a parallelogram of forces. The +parallelogram of forces is a scaffold helpful for representing in mental +symbols the coexistence of different abstractions of the same kind (e. g. +motions of a different velocity and direction). But this scaffold is not +a mere scaffold, it is not erected without any purpose, its final aim is +the description of facts. + +The proposition to consider light as rays traveling in straight lines +is a scaffold, it is mythology; but this analogy contains a truth, it +contains a real building-stone which should not be torn down with the +scaffold. This truth is one-sided; it represents one feature of light +and disregards other features. It disregards entirely the transversal +oscillations of the ether, yet it describes another feature—viz., the +transmission and refraction of light for the comprehension of which we +need not take into consideration the undulation theory. The physicist +calculates with his formula sinα/sinβ = _n_ the angle of refraction. +There is certainly neither a sineα nor a sineβ in reality, but there are +certain relations of reality which are described in these expressions and +the action of the light has a definite quality which can be determined +with the assistance of the formula sinα/sinβ = _n_. + +If the scientist succeeds in determining such real qualities of things, +even though it be done with the assistance of mythology, he discovers +a truth. He has with the help of his scaffolds succeeded in placing a +building-stone where it belongs. + +Some scaffolds have to be torn down because they hinder further building; +other scaffolds must remain because they assist us in modeling, and +planning, and predetermining certain processes of nature. They are like +staircases which enable us to reach with ease otherwise inaccessible +places on towers or domes. + + * * * * * + +The idea that science is full of mythology appears strange to the +non-scientific, and it is often overlooked by scientists themselves. +But the idea that religious mythology in spite of its many irrational +superstitions and wrong analogies beams with truth is also little heeded +by the many. In fact, man’s method of reaching truth is the same in +religion as in science. + +The religious ideas such as God and soul are mental constructs which +copy certain realities; but these very terms, such as they are used, +are mythological expressions; they are still surrounded by their +scaffolds. Many people know by their own experience the usefulness and +indispensability of the scaffold. Without the scaffold they would never +have had an inkling of the truth, for the representation of which it was +built, and it is natural that they consider the scaffold as the building +itself. This is the reason why the narrow-minded orthodox denounce anyone +who would lay hand on or tear down any part of the scaffold, which has +become a hindrance to the further development of religious ideals. + +Positivism, i. e. the representation of facts without any admixture of +theory or mythology, is an ideal which in its purity perhaps will never +be realised. Nevertheless it is no _ignis fatuus_, no will-o’-the-wisp +that leads us astray. Our science is constantly more and more +approaching this ideal and the progress of humanity is intimately +connected with it. + +Science has not merely a theoretic value, its aim and purpose consist +in its application to practical life. Science is throughout ethical. +Thus ethics has also its mythological phase. In agreement with Professor +Mach (p. 204), we should find it ridiculous if one who presumes to be an +ethical teacher of mankind would say: + + “Man _must_ not be descended from monkeys,” “The earth _shall_ + not rotate,” “Matter _ought_ not everywhere to fill space,” + “Energy _must_ be constant,” and so on. + +Why is it ridiculous? Because we cannot prescribe a certain deportment to +facts. It is however not ridiculous to let a precise and carefully sifted +knowledge of facts determine our own deportment. + +Science has to teach ethics. But here also we should distinguish between +positive facts and mythology. Ethics based upon mere theories, upon +our interpretations of nature which we add to facts, is mythological; +positive ethics is simply that deportment which is suggested by a +comprehension of the facts themselves. + +Mythological ethics may be quite correct, just as much so as the +application of a mythological theory of science may be within certain +limits reliable as a working hypothesis. But it is desirable to +understand the nature of mythological ethics in order to distinguish +between truth and fiction. + +When Professor Mach speaks of sensations as being the elements of the +world and of things as being complexes of these elements he apparently +does not use the word sensation in its usual sense. It has ceased to be +an abstract term which represents one feature only of a process of nature +and has become a symbol for an entire reality. And is not such a usage of +terms as if they were not abstracts but the things themselves liable to +lead to misconceptions? + +Professor Mach’s “elements,” it seems to me, are only elements, i. +e. ultimate and unanalysable materials, if considered as terms of a +psychological view of the world; they are not elements in the domains of +other abstractions, such as are made by physiology or physics. Moreover, +although this method eliminates the duality of soul and body, mind and +matter, feeling and motion, it does not explain the problem. + +Professor Mach might answer that the problem as to the duality of mind +and matter is a sham problem, just as much as the problem why do we +see things upright when the retina picture of the eye shows the things +inverted? But a problem is to him who has solved the problem always a +sham problem. Every problem disappears as a problem as soon as it is +solved. It is true that we see as little with the blind spot of the eye +as with the skin of our back. The problem of the blind spot is not why +do we not see with the blind spot, (which is simply a matter of fact,) +but why do we not notice, when using only one eye, its lack of sight +in a spot surrounded with sight-seeing structures? We have to employ +artificial means to convince ourselves that we are really blind in that +spot! + +All problems are merely subjective; they are a conflict between two +conceptions and as Professor Mach himself says, the solution of problems +consists in the adaptation of thought to facts, i. e. to new facts or new +views of facts. By an adaptation of our thought to the enlarged field +of vision the problem vanishes; it has ceased to be a problem. In fact +it never existed as an objective phenomenon. There are no problems in +nature. There are problems only to the investigating mind. But even the +formulation of problems is a problem to be solved, and perhaps the most +difficult and subtle kind of problems is to discover the flaw in wrongly +formulated problems. + +The problem of the duality of body and soul, matter and mind, feeling +and motion, ceases to be a problem to him who has worked his way through +to a monistic conception, but to those who have not as yet succeeded in +establishing a unitary view of these ideas, because they take them to be +separate and distinct existences, it is a problem of great importance. + + +XII. THE ONENESS OF SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY. + +The world is not rigid being, but activity, not absolute existence but +a system of changing relations, not an abstract _Sein_ but a concrete +_Wirklichkeit_—a constant working of cause and effect. There is no +dualism in this, for the _Wirklichkeit_ is one and undivided. + +Yet every relation admits of two standpoints, just as the line _AB_, +which may serve to represent a certain and definite relation, is +determinable from both ends, _A_ as well as _B_. Let us call _A_ the +subject and _B_ the object. Neither _A_ nor _B_ is a reality, a whole +complete _Wirklichkeit_. A thing in order to be real must be active, it +must work, it must stand in relation to something else. _A_ is a mere +mathematical point, but _AB_ representing a process does something, it +performs work, it is real. A thing in itself, if it could exist at all, +would be tantamount to non-existence, it would represent a _Sein_ without +being _Wirklichkeit_. When bearing this in mind, it appears natural +that the oneness of existence, representable in such relations as is +that of _AB_ = -_BA_ will admit of two standpoints, _BA_ representing +subjectivity, and _AB_ representing objectivity. We can consider the +relation of the world at large to one special point (which latter may +in its turn stand for a whole system of relations) or vice versa the +relation of this point to the world at large. The former standpoint is +that of the microcosm, or the soul, the latter that of the macrocosm or +the universe; the former results in awareness, the latter appears as +matter in motion. The former is subjectivity, the latter objectivity. + +Reality must not be conceived of as being a compound of the elements of +feeling and of motion, of subjectivity and objectivity or of kinesis and +metakinesis. I do not think there are atoms one-half of which contains +the potentiality of sentience while the other half is freighted with +energy. I conceive of reality as being one throughout, but, being +throughout resolvable in relations, it will as a matter of course have +two sides. What these two sides are like can be known through experience +only, and experience teaches that under certain conditions the subjective +side develops into feeling and consciousness, while the objective side is +represented in the feeling of conscious beings as motions. + +This view explains the duality of our conception of psycho-physical +facts, but it is certainly not dualism. The duality belongs to the +scaffold not to the facts themselves. The facts can only be thought of +as being one and undivided, and no conception can stand except it be +monistic. + +Subjectivity and objectivity are terms that express relations and not +things in themselves. There are, however, philosophers who show a great +grief unless either the subjectivity of being, or the objectivity of +being, or the unities in which things or personalities are gathered +up, are considered as things in themselves. All those features of +reality which appear to their conception unexplainable, such as the +relations that obtain among things and especially the thoughts of +thinking beings are supposed to be the effects of some transcendental +entity, of a thing in itself. And if a philosophy denies the existence +of transcendentalistic thought-entities or of any such things in +themselves, which serve as cement to combine the _disjecta membra_ of +their world-conception, it is generally declared to lead straight on to +nihilism—not because the world itself but because their world-system +would thereby be annihilated. + +All things that exist, if considered as separate things, will pass +away; but if considered as parts of the all-existence of reality, they +are eternal. In fact things are not separate things, in the sense of +isolated, absolute, or abstract beings, although we may speak of them as +such for our ephemeral purposes. All things that exist, the human soul +included, are and will remain parts of the One and All. + +This destroys their individuality as little as a brick ceases to be a +brick because it serves its part in the building of a dome. The soul of a +man if his life be well spent, is not annihilated in death, his soul has +become a living stone in the temple of humanity. It continues to live and +marches on in the general progress of the race. + +We are parts of a great whole now, and we shall remain parts of the same +great whole forever. We have never been and shall never be transcendental +selfhoods or metaphysical egos, or any kind of things in themselves. Our +personality is real life, it is actual being. As such it is bound up in +the universal life of the One and All and no particle of it will be lost. +We need not fear death, for the air we breathe is immortality. + + EDITOR. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[43] Italics are ours. Kant affirms the italicised question. + +[44] The problem of “The Origin of the Mind” having been the subject of a +former paper need not be discussed here. See _The Monist_, Vol i, No. 1, +p. 69-86, and _The Soul of Man_, pp. 23-46. + +[45] It is scarcely necessary to mention that mediæval Realism is +different from modern Realism. + +[46] Aristotle’s idea of matter being potential existence is a fiction. +Fictions of that kind are useful for certain purposes, but we must not +forget that they are fictions. We might just as well introduce any +other system of fictions. For instance we might with certainly not less +propriety look upon the idea in the mind of an artist as potential +reality while its appearance in a material shape is conceived to produce +actual reality. + +[47] The term “absolute” is for that reason neither meaningless nor +redundant. It denotes a certain method of viewing things, but is not an +objective quality of things. + +[48] See the chapter “Soul Life and the Preservation of Form” in _The +Soul of Man_, p. 418. + +[49] The abandonment of the ego as a metaphysical being is not, as it +appears to many, a surrender of the soul or of its immortality. That +the immortality of the soul from the standpoint of modern psychology +is preserved, that it appears in a new light, grander and nobler than +before, and that this conception of immortality is of an enormous +practical importance, have been the main incentives of Mr. E. C. Hegeler +in founding _The Open Court_ and _The Monist_. + + + + +LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE + + + + +I. + +FRANCE. + + +The recent work of M. F. PAULHAN, _Le Nouveau Mysticisme_, places us in +the presence of a feature of modern life, if not extremely important, at +least very curious. + +We assist at the formation of a new spirit. But what is it? What is its +value? A reply to this question would exact a long and minute analysis +of all social facts. M. Paulhan does not flatter himself that he has +exhausted it, and he offers us only portions, although excellent and +instructive, of the required work. He shows us in rapid review, the +dissolution of the ancient world, the intellectual and moral anarchy +which has to-day reached its highest possible point; he seeks, in the +ruins amidst which we tread, the constructive elements of a new order of +things, and makes an effort to foresee what it will be. + +“The scientific mind,” writes he, “the religious spirit, pity for +suffering, the sentiment of justice, social mysticism, the attraction for +mysterious perhaps dangerous facts that we begin to have a glimpse of, +the kind of new power which the knowledge of them can give us, a general +need of universal harmony: such are the principal characters of the +spirit which is forming itself.” They are not, he himself says, all new. +It is not the presence of these elements which is significant, but rather +the singular combination in which they occur, and we could say, the +precipitate that they give in the particular chemical solution where they +find themselves thrown. In every case, the phenomenon does not affect +entirely, it seems to us, the same characters, according to whether we +observe it in the philosophic or scientific order, in the practical +order, or in that of sentiment, which literature represents. The name +of mysticism does not belong to every part of the new spirit equally; +or more exactly, the spirit which is produced could well not be truly +mysticism, but only a side phenomenon, and the very evident resurrection +of the spirit which is disappearing. + +M. Paulhan, if I do not deceive myself, sometimes allows himself to be +too much influenced by a certain literature, to which I do not allow a +very great value, and of which even the sincerity may be suspected. It +represents at first, to my mind, individual conditions, and it evidently +impeaches some authors of a morbid diathesis. Many of our prophets, as +is known in the _Quartier Latin_, have or affect vices which exclude by +themselves all generating power. Then, it is very difficult, in our age, +to appreciate exactly the relations of literature to the public mind, +seeing the diversity of romantic books, and the correlation of one to +the other is perhaps not so strict, so profound as it has been in other +junctures of history. In short, the modern romance is a document the +relative value of which needs to be established by a most severe critic. + +Some facts dominate the question, viewed as a whole. It is necessary to +show the work of the scientific mind, which has the result of creating +new mental habits. It is necessary to consider also that the disorder, +_the spirit of evil_, so finely analysed by M. Paulhan, corresponds +chiefly to the interpretations of ignorance, to the exaggerations of +sentiment, and to the dreams, more or less monstrous, of inventive +fantasy. It is necessary, finally, if they wish to augur of the future, +to endeavor to disengage the laws of construction, still badly defined, +of our political fabrics. The thought of M. Paulhan is good at bottom, +and the materials with which he constructs the _possible future_ are +taken from the positive conditions of our mental and social life: in the +practical order, “co-operation” is added to the social systems already +existing, although disturbed, such as the family and the nation; in the +ideal order, the conception, beyond that of humanity, of a “cosmical +whole,” and a “universe,” which, to repeat it after Comte, will be +favorable to man, in a certain sense, seeing that he causes it to exist. + +We recommend the reading of this book. One’s time is never lost with +a thinker of the stamp of M. Paulhan; he has the merit this time of +disclosing to us in a few pages a vast horizon, where some points are +delineated with clearness. Logicism has caused much evil in our country. +Let us now beware of mysticism! + + * * * * * + +One of the most curious episodes of this new mysticism is assuredly +the Buddhist preaching, begun in France by a small group of writers. +M. AUGUSTIN CHABOSEAU, one of the representatives of this religious +tendency, publishes a work, _Essai sur la philosophie boudhique_,[50] +which it is expedient to mention. M. Chaboseau has thought it would be of +interest to sum up in a volume the results of the studies on Buddhism, +and to present it “such as science has proved it, that is to say very +different from what Christian polemists, worldly amusers, theosophic +fanatics, endeavor to disseminate.” He has had the ambition to write this +volume, and for my part, I do not refuse him my curiosity. + +But that Buddhism truly contains a religious formula capable of +attracting to it the souls of our Occident, I have difficulty in +believing. This India is very far from us, and its confused philosophy +is behind us. I do not think that the nations of to-day will return to +a by-gone mode; and then, this doctrine of Sakya-Muni has something +against it, that I hesitate to say, as it might seem puerile: its god is +too fat. Its god or its sage, as you wish. Yes, that breadth of form, +that opulence of flesh, taken as a mark of goodness and power, shocks +our artistic taste. Do not forget that every religion which claims our +will ought to satisfy our æsthetic sentiment: it is one of the essential +factors of the religious sentiment, a compound sentiment where all +the emotions of a race ought to find their harmony. The opposition of +India to us, so striking in the ideal of the beautiful, still continues +in metaphysical speculation. We are too moderate, too sober, for the +debauches of imagination in which it delights. Buddhism will be to us +only a passing excrescence, and I ask myself if it lives well in the +souls where it has sincerely penetrated. + +I should have much to do to speak, in the briefest manner, of all the +books or treatises, which in a direct or indirect manner relate either +to the war of Aryanism against Semitism, and principally against the +Christianism in which certain authors see the most disastrous conquest of +Semitic genius; or to the reviving of mystic traditions, strange dreams, +and monstrous desires; or to a religious restoration, of which the most +ordinary prejudice is to assure the immortality of the soul and to reopen +the beyond to man. These works are in general of slight value; they are +the multiplication of decays, and we are compelled to consider them as +social wastes, of which the abundance betrays unquestionably the bad +health of the organism, or at least a difficult crisis of its evolution. + + * * * * * + +But let us return to the works of philosophy properly so-called. What +are we to think of that of M. F. RAUH? I deceive myself much if his +_Essai sur le fondement métaphysique der la morale_ is considered of +much service in his own circles. M. Rauh, who belongs to the philosophic +youth, the youth of the age, can be well assured that the partisans of +scientific morality will not upbraid him for “the admiration of high +metaphysical thoughts” with which he does himself honor, but he can fear +lest the metaphysicians accuse him of further compromising metaphysics by +the denser obscurities he casts on it. One is stupefied to find again in +a modern book a phraseology so made up of abstract words, of substantives +with capitals, and logical shadows which affect the posture of realities. +Much study, much work, without advancing one step, and still worse, in +order to throw us again into the _culs-de-sac_ from whence we have had +so much difficulty to disengage ourselves. All the profit one can derive +from this dialectic is to contemplate at the end the vague shadow of its +own body that is perceived on the wall. + +The metaphysicians of a certain school are not only reluctant to have +to accept that morality is a natural formation, a social product, an +historical fact; they wish further that the existence even of moral +society should depend on the intelligence that they have of it, or of +the explanation that they give of it. They affirm boldly, and these are +the words even of M. Rauh, that “the fate of morality is united to that +of metaphysics”—their metaphysics. This is a pretension as exorbitant as +would be that of a naturalist who should refer the reality of the animal +world to the idea he formed of zoölogical types, or that of a chemist +who should subject the value of the positive results of science to a +particular hypothesis as to the constitution of bodies. + + * * * * * + +There are certain difficulties of language to criticise in the work of +M. ISIDORE MAUS, barrister in the Court of Appeals at Brussels, _De la +justice pénale, étude philosophique sur le droit de punir_. A curious +spectator, he tells us, of the battle waged between the new school of +anthropology and the ancient penal jurisprudence, he seeks to divine the +issue of it. It will probably end, according to him, in the formation of +a medium penal jurisprudence, which will accept limited responsibilities, +and which, while protecting society, will do its best “to give to +punishment all the advantages it can.” + +It would be exaggerated no doubt, I willingly grant it, to take away from +repression every mark of moral reparation, all weight of “reformative +power”; but I am always shocked to hear partial responsibilities spoken +of. From the social point of view, the responsibility remains perfect; +it is united, indeed, to the very act of having caused injury, beyond +all appreciation. From the point of view of the individual, the word +responsibility has the grave inconvenience of implying that the quantity +of liberty or free-will attributable to the delinquent is measured. +It would be less compromising and more exact, to value simply the +quality, the worth of the delinquent, according to the totality of +his affective, intellectual, voluntary, and pathological character, +according to the nature and the conditions of the act of which he is +accused, etc. We should thus escape contradictions of words which easily +become contradictions of fact; we should no more stumble at this latent +difficulty of free-will, in medium cases—for _serious cases_ are never +difficult. Words exercise a tyranny which jurists would do well to +distrust. + +Is not this, moreover, just about what M. Maus means by his favorite +formula—that justice ought “to individualise as much as possible”? It is +a pity only that he does not present his conclusions with the requisite +clearness. His exposition is not distinct and frank. He has mental +habitudes, subtilities of reasoning, which are of value at the Palais, +but which it is suitable to rid oneself of when writing a book: his would +gain much by being entirely remodeled, made clear and disentangled. + + * * * * * + +M. E. DE LAVELEYE offers to the public a fourth edition, revised and +considerably augmented, of his great work, _De la propriété et de ses +formes primitives_. We have not to recall the numerous facts which this +work contains and the knowledge of which has become sufficiently general; +nor to commend M. de Laveleye, who no longer expects fresh praises for +it. I have only to express the regret that he should have retained the +theory of property expounded in the last chapter of his book, or rather +the metaphysical conception of right with which he connects it. It seems +as if he wished to excuse himself from reducing property to the simple +value of a fact, modifiable in its forms, by indicating as a fixed point +an “order” which shall be the best, which shall be _known_ and _wished_ +of God, _sought_ and _realised_ by man. + +M. de Laveleye knows it as well as any one. Right is only a rule, an +expression of the relations of men among themselves, in a determined +geographical and historical medium. Its changes depend, in part on +external conditions, in part on the characters of man himself, the +state and variable equilibrium of his passions and of his mentality. +If certain forms of right establish themselves proportionally, in the +course of the life of nations, the fact is explained by the constancy +and the universality of certain conditions, either physical or mental; +the repetition of social arrangements, which produces ultimately a +more stable structure and constitutes a sort of axis of development, +is somewhat analogous, if we may be permitted this comparison, to the +repetition of the essential elements in all architecture, or of the +primitive forms in all the products of the ceramic art. What is the +good of enveloping with mystery the ideal we create ourselves, and of +rendering obscure a notion that we can positively explain? But let +us leave here this little quarrel, for it does not touch the solid +groundwork of the book. + +Still to signalise are: _Premiers principes métaphysiques de la +science de la nature_, translated from Kant by M. M. CH. ANDLER and +ED. CHAVANNES, who have written an interesting introduction _On the +philosophy of nature in Kant_; and _L’Année philosophique, Iʳᵉ année_ +1890, published under the direction of F. PILLON, former manager of +_La Critique philosophique_. There will be found in this last volume +two profound studies, one by M. Renouvier on the phenomenist method, +the other by M. Pillon on the criticism of the infinite, an excellent +article by M. L. Dauriac on philosophy and particularly on the æsthetics +of Guyau, finally a bibliography of French works which appeared in 1890. +I wish good success to this publication; it will become valuable, and +it will be still more so, in my opinion, if M. Pillon, will not recoil +before the fatigue, no doubt sufficiently great, of adding to the +Bibliography a critical sketch of the review articles published in the +course of the year. + + LUCIEN ARRÉAT. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[50] Georges Carré, publisher. The other works mentioned in this article +belong to the _Librarie Alcan_. + + + + +II. + +RECENT GERMAN WORKS IN PSYCHOLOGY. + + +A well-known alienist, Professor Pelman of Bonn, in a recently published +work, advanced the assertion that the literary taste of the day pointed +to a considerable decline of the intellectual health of the present +generation. To him who assumes with Pelman some causal foundation of this +state of affairs, it is indeed an alarming sight to pass in review the +show windows of our great book centres Leipsic and Berlin and to discover +the great number of editions that the products of the literature of a +certain class are passing through. + +Among the books that are at present all the vogue, Tolstoï’s “Kreutzer +Sonata” stands in the front rank. Numberless articles in the newspapers +and the magazines have already made this wonderful work the subject of +discussion, both from the æsthetical and from the moral point of view. +Now comes a physician, who discusses the psychological aspect of the +story, and discusses it in a manner which must claim our interest and to +which in the main points it emphasises we cannot deny our assent. + +Dr. H. BECK has published at the house of Rauert and Rocco of Leipsic, +a brochure bearing the title _Des Grafen Leo Tolstoï Kreutzer Sonate +vom Standpunkte des Irrenarztes_, and arrives on the basis of a careful +analysis at the result that Tosdnischew is a decidedly neuropathical +character. Now as Tolstoï, on his own express declaration in his +concluding remarks, places his own views in Tosdnischew’s mouth, this +judgment respecting the principal character of the story also holds +good in great measure of its author. Generally, indeed, Beck is very +considerate towards Tolstoï’s person, in the expression of his opinions; +but he is nevertheless very plainly outspoken when he says at the +conclusion of his little book: “Let us characterise this monstrous +product, the ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ as that which it appears to every person +of sound sentiments—as the emanation, namely, of a diseased brain, of a +degenerated Psyche.” + +The Munich physician Dr. Puschmann, who in the year 1873 in a special +treatise represented Richard Wagner, then still alive, as psychically +diseased, has thus found, as we see, in a certain sense a successor +in Dr. Beck. But while Puschmann’s pamphlet, having been occasioned +by certain conditions of affairs in Munich, was written in a hostile +spirit, and while the little book of Beck’s makes no secret of its +author’s aversion to Tolstoï and his works, a notorious representative +of unhealthy “young Germany,” the novelist Wilhelm Walloth, meets at +other hands with an uncommonly tender treatment. There is indeed nothing +remarkable in this, for if anyone is in need of tender treatment it is +a man who is sick. But it is very remarkable that the diseased state of +a nervous system should be accredited to the writer Walloth as a great +poetic excellence. + +G. LUDWIGS, the author of the treatise _Wilhelm Walloth_, Leipsic, 1891, +Verlag von Wilhelm Friedrich, had in so far the advantage of Puschmann +and Beck, that he was not placed under the necessity of originally +demonstrating what the actual state of the nervous system of his hero +was, from his works. This condition had already been established by +expert physicians in a much talked of trial before the District Court of +Leipsic for circulating obscene publications. Ludwigs was able therefore +to proceed immediately with his problem of ascertaining the extent to +which a diseased state of the nervous system had effect in Walloth’s +novels and poems. His discussion of this last question possesses great +interest for the psychologist, although the reader will find considerable +difficulty in accommodating his thoughts to Ludwigs’s occasionally very +singular style. Setting aside the odd expressions of Ludwigs, we may +say that there is exhibited in a pre-eminent degree in the writings of +Walloth, first, what the physicians call hyperæsthesia, and by this +is meant not only an excessive sensitiveness of the senses but also—a +condition that is connected with the last—an extraordinary intensity of +the emotional activity. Secondly, are found numberless bold associations +of ideas which are much better known to the physician than to the +æsthetician. + +Unfortunately Walloth is not the only one of the representatives of +“young Germany,” in whose works the characters of disease appear in such +intensity, and the circumstance that books of this class are bought in +such numbers and read in still greater, places the tastes and sentiments +of a large portion of the educated German public in a questionable light. + +If we turn our glance away from the sensational phenomena of literature +to the phenomena of ordinary life, which are not uncommonly enacted in +the halls of justice, it is in first rank the incorrigible swindlers and +sharpers that excite our attention. We have received on this subject from +Dr. ANTON DELBRUECK, a physician of a Swiss insane asylum, an interesting +little work bearing the title _Die pathologische Lüge und die psychisch +abnormen Schwindler_, Stuttgart, 1891, Verlag von Ferdinand Enke. In +this book the author makes an investigation of the gradual transition of +a normal psychological process into processes exhibiting pathological +symptoms, and shows, in so doing, by ample material, that in every kind +of intentional deception the consciousness of intention can exhibit very +different degrees of intensity and can imperceptibly sink in a succession +of cases to zero. As a matter of course, Delbrück’s treatise is primarily +of interest to medical experts and lawyers, but it will also be of +interest in a secondary degree to all circles that devote their attention +to psychological studies generally, particularly so to educators who +have not infrequently to do with pathological lies, as G. Stanley Hall +quite recently pointed out in a very instructive article in _The America +Journal of Psychology_ on the lying of children, and as is developed in +the work of Dr. Sollier, before mentioned in _The Monist_, entitled _La +psychologie de l’idiot et l’imbécile_, which is also to be had in a very +good German edition, translated by Paul Brie, under the title _Der Idiot +und der Imbecille_, published by Leopold Voss of Hamburg. + +In the German edition of Sollier’s book Professor Pelman, whom we have +above mentioned, has written an introduction in which he speaks of the +work in words of praise similar to those expressed by Lucien Arréat in +_The Monist_. “Sollier,” says he, “has put us into the possession of a +psychology of mental imbecility, in a completeness in which hitherto +it was not at our disposal.” Then follows another passage which we +will also quote, as it forms an important supplement to the remarks +of Arréat. It is this: “Imbecility had remained the step-child of the +science of psychiatry and has not by any means met with the consideration +which in view of its social importance is due to it. If we go through +the works, as great in number as they are in voluminousness, which +have been published in the style of Lombroso on criminals and their +peculiar characteristics, we shall be unable to escape the impression +produced in our minds that the characteristics of imbeciles portrayed by +Sollier recur point for point in the typical criminal. Here as there, +the same insufficiency of all ethical development, the same frivolity, +and the same incapacity for being of use in society exist. That which +in Sollier’s explanation decides the whole anthropological position of +the imbecile—his anti-social, society-hostile attitude—is emphasised by +all writers as the characteristic trait common to all criminals, and +the description of imbeciles and criminals coincides as completely in +this respect as if the same individual had sat for both pictures. The +conclusions that follow from this can only enlist new adherents in the +ranks of the anthropological school, and this result also I should place +to the profit-account of the present book.” + +However profitable and necessary employment with the diseased states of +the human soul may be, personally at least it is an unpleasant subject +for us, and we are glad therefore that we may abandon this domain for the +present letter. + +The occasion of this is afforded by a valuable gift from Prof. W. PREYER, +formerly of Jena, now of Berlin. Professor Preyer has presented us with +a rather large volume bearing the title _Wissenschaftliche Briefe von +Gustav Theodor Fechner und W. Preyer. Nebst einem Briefweschsel zwischen +K. von Vierordt und Fechner sewie mehreren Beilagen. Mit dem Bildnisse +Fechner’s und vier Holzschnitten_. Hamburg und Leipsic, 1890. Verlag +von Leopold Voss. The work contains a correspondence extending from the +year 1873 to the year 1883, in which the two distinguished scientists +discuss (chiefly) myo-physical and psycho-physical questions, and will +be of great interest to many readers of _The Monist_, especially as it +makes its appearance simultaneously with the issuing of a new edition of +Fechner’s _Elemente der Psychophysik_ by Wilhelm Wundt. + +The much fought over and much disputed province of psycho-physics has +also been entered on by a younger psychologist, who has already acquired +a considerable name,—by Hugo Münsterberg, docent at the university of +Freiburg in Baden. In his _Beiträge zur experimentellen Psychologie_, +which are published in parts at indefinite periods by Mohr of Freiburg in +Baden—three parts have already been published—Münsterberg raises, in the +first place, a vigorous protest against Wundt; repudiating on the basis +of the results of independent experiment the apperception hypothesis +which has been propounded by the scientist mentioned, and producing proof +that all kinds of so-called apperception are reducible to associations +of the representative activity. Secondly, he offers us in the third part +a new foundation on which to base psycho-physics. It is, of course, +impossible, in so difficult a subject, to reproduce briefly yet clearly +the developments to which Münsterberg devotes one hundred and twenty-two +pages. But we will at least supply a few hints with regard to what this +new foundation of psycho-physics is. + +In the first place, Münsterberg rejects the notion that prevails with +Fechner and his school, that a powerful sensation is a multiple of a +weaker one, by which the first can be measured. The stronger sensation +is, says he, in comparison with the weaker one something wholly new; +for, accurately considered, the intensity of a sensation is also of a +qualitative nature. However, we are not by any means at liberty to infer +from this that the measurement of psychical quantities is impossible. +To appreciate this, it is first requisite that we should get clear +ideas with respect to the psychological foundation of our physical +measurements. The only foundation of these last is our muscular feeling, +to this extent, that all measurement is founded on the measurement of +quantities of space, time, and mass, and any estimate of the latter is +only possible on the basis of the muscular feeling that enters as a +factor in the conceptions involved. All physical measurement rests on the +establishment, and therefore reproduction, of _like_ muscular sensations; +on exactly the same foundation rests also all measurement of psychical +quantities, of intensities of sensation, and since this foundation is +the same, for this very reason the same justification is due to the +measurement of psychical intensity as is due to physical measurements. +This is the foundation on which the psycho-physics of Münsterberg is +raised, which for a fuller view must be studied in the third part of the +“Beiträge” itself. + + CHR. UFER. + +Altenburg, November, 1891. + + + + +DIVERSE TOPICS. + + + + +THE CLERGY’S DUTY OF ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN +WORLD-CONCEPTIONS. + + +A late number of the _Gegenwart_ of Berlin (Vol. xl, No. 30) contained +an article by Mr. Eugene Schiffer, a German justice, on the subject +“World-Conception and the Office of Judge,” in which attention was called +to the fact that the performance of duties, not only in the pulpit +but in all the professions, and preëminently in the dispensation of +justice through the courts, depends upon and stands in a more or less +close connection with some definite world-conception; thus showing that +religion of some kind forms and must form the background of the practical +life of society. He says: + + “The Church demands of its disciples as an indispensable + condition of serving her the confession of a certain + world-conception; she requires that every one who intends to + take upon himself her rights and duties, should in his inmost + heart agree with her concerning the contents of her faith, + especially concerning the dogmas on eschatology, on God and + world, body and soul, the origin and end of things; and this + is but a matter of course, for the essential part and also the + foundation of her activity lie in these very doctrines and in + their propagation. It is a hard and a severe demand. Although + on the one hand the morally free fulfilment of her requests + contains the germ of an harmonious development of life and + promises an extraordinary concentration and elevation of all + faculties, it leads on the other hand to serious conflicts, of + which the pages of history not less than the experiences of our + daily life exhibit innumerable and sad instances. We recollect + the terrible spiritual struggles in the souls of those who + commenced to doubt, and the outcome is generally a pitiful + catastrophe, either submission and hypocrisy with the weak, + or tribulation, renunciation, and ruin with those who thought + higher of truth than of their worldly emoluments. + + “Most of the other professions and trades know nothing of the + indispensability of a certain world-conception. The merchant, + the mechanic, the lawyer, the soldier, the teacher, the + laborer, can upon the whole think concerning these highest + problems of life as they please. An inner and ideal conflict + between their views and their calling seems definitely + excluded. Outer and practical conditions—such as administrative + injunctions of a certain kind, the aspiration of progress, the + ambition to be better off, etc.—may sometimes produce conflicts. + + “Yet this character of indifference concerning a general + world-conception which is found in the secular professions and + trades does not bear the stamp of permanence. For ultimately + the entire doing and achieving of every thinking man, so far + as it rises above the mere vegetative functions, is intimately + connected with that common world-conception which everywhere + influences and guides him. This is unnoticeable so long as the + harmony of the connection remains undisturbed, but it manifests + itself in consciousness as soon as its harmony is threatened + through some important change of any of its parts. Even to-day + a deep-going change is preparing itself; even now the struggle + about the world-conception is fought more severely and more + bitterly than ever and a new doctrine goes far enough to + uncover the ultimate roots of our civilisation, of our position + in life, of our calling; it attacks and shakes the present + world-conception. + + “This implies the possibility of a conflict between the old + and the new faith even outside the pale of the church, and + this conflict may influence the choice of a calling. This + possibility has become an imminent probability concerning the + office of judge, especially the judge of a criminal court. + + “The dispensation of justice rests to a great extent upon the + presupposition of guilt and the criminal law of to-day is + almost throughout built upon this idea of guilt. It is true + that this view has not always been taken. The Greek law and + the old Germanic law interfered even in the gravest cases + exclusively on account of the objective state of things without + taking into consideration the criminal intent of the defendant. + But this view was superseded in the former case by the Roman, + in the latter by the canonical law, both requiring the + conception of a moral and a subjective guilt, and at present + the criminal law of every civilised nation (with the sole + exception of the Chinese who threaten with capital punishment + him who accidentally kills no less than the intentional + murderer) rests upon the foundation of a belief in guilt. + + “But there is no room for guilt in the materialistic + world-conception. Everything that happens, the activity of the + human soul included is to be explained according to mechanical + principles and thus the view that man’s will is not free is + proposed as one of its fundamental doctrines. While in this + way there is no possibility left that a man might have acted + differently than he actually did, this view takes away his + responsibility. And this movement which either cancels or + weakens the momentum of guilt, has taken hold of the minds of + men far beyond the circle of decided materialists. + + “The foundation of our criminal law stands or falls with the + idea of guilt. With it stands and falls also the office of + the judge, whose duty is the dispensation and utilisation of + justice. He who does not believe in the possibility of guilt + cannot without inconsistency pronounce any one guilty. He who + as a matter of principle or at least within certain not well + defined limits denies the freedom of the human will can no + longer serve as a judge, certainly not as a criminal judge.” + +Justice Eugene Schiffer is a conservative man. He demands that for the +protection of the old world-conception the office of judge should be +carefully guarded against such intruders as are not in sympathy with the +present world-conception. He says: + + “Exactly as the church, in order to preserve herself and + to guard against her theology being diluted into a watery + philosophy of religion, is bound not to separate the conditions + of her life from a definite world-conception, so also justice, + in order to deserve its name, should oblige its servants to + take a definite position toward the ultimate world-problems.... + He who does not accept in his conviction the moral foundations + of a certain calling, must not choose it, or if he has chosen + it, he must renounce it—or he must in his profession act + against his conviction—unless he risks being discharged from + his office on account of a neglect of duties.” + +We agree with Justice Schiffer in one most important point, viz., +the intimate connection of religion with practical life and of our +world-conception with all our doing and achieving. But we differ from him +in another no less important point, viz., in the proposition to prevent +the present world-conception from undergoing a further growth and higher +evolution. His proposition is nothing less than to make humanity and all +its institutions stationary. + +Everything that exists has a natural right to defend its existence, and +so has the present world-conception. But that which grows and develops +out of the conditions of the present existence has also a natural +right to attain existence. The ideal world of the “is to be” is not a +non-existence, as it might appear to the unknowing, but a germ existence, +and if there is no room for both the actual existence of the present +state and the germ existence of a new state, a struggle will ensue. There +are at present and always have been many spurious world-conceptions +which if they overcame the present world-conception would lead humanity +backward to the beginning of civilisation. Indeed most propositions of +reform are reversals which would undo the results of evolution and reduce +mankind to primitive conditions. The fermenting minds of those who still +hope to cure all the ills and woes of society by one stroke, have not +yet outgrown the idea of the perfection, nobility, and happiness of the +so-called original state of nature, + + “When wild in woods the noble savage ran.” + +Yet among all the plans of reform there is one which is correct, +answering the wants of the time; and among all the world-conceptions +which struggle to exist there is also one which is the legitimate outcome +of the present world-conception. It is the present world-conception +enlarged through additional experience and purified of certain errors. +And it is an often repeated occurrence in history that the old and the +new, father and son, have to fight with each other. The heir apparent +either does not know that he is the child of his antagonist, or the +latter the defendant of the present state does not know that he fights +with his own son. This often repeated fact has found a mythological +expression in the old Teutonic song of Hildebrand meeting in combat his +son Hadubrand, a legend which in similar versions appears again in other +Aryan sagas, the best known of which is the tale of Rustem’s struggle +with Sohrab in Firdus’s great Iranian epic. + +Can the struggle between the old and the new world-conception be avoided? +No, it cannot and should not, for the new has to prove its legitimacy +by showing its intrinsic strength; it must show that it has the power +to exist. The struggle cannot be avoided, but the bitterness, the +severity, the barbarity of the struggle can be avoided. Let Hildebrand +and Hadubrand measure swords in a spiritual encounter, let the vanquished +ideas yield to the stronger ideas, and they will prepare the gradual +change of an evolution instead of the sudden rupture of a revolution. + +Freedom of thought is always the best soil for a peaceful evolution +but any system that binds the consciences of men and ties their ideas +down to the average level of a certain age will be as dangerous as a +boiler without a valve. There are periods of instability in history +when the strengthening of the conservative spirit by imposing fetters +upon the consciences of men appears useful and almost a condition for +the development of some kind of a civilisation. This found expression +in the historic legends of Lycurgus and Solon, binding their countrymen +by oath not to alter the laws of the state. But these periods are after +all ephemeral, and we ought to know by this time that we cannot bid +the sun stand still or check the spirit of progress and the growth of +mankind. There are nations which develop slowly because they rush into +innovations, but there are other nations which have gone to the wall +because of over-conservatism through which they were induced to suppress +the freedom of thought and to deny the right of doubting the absolute +validity of the prevailing world-conception. + +The proposition of Justice Schiffer to bind the conscience of the judge +by an oath of allegiance to that world-conception which is at present +recognised as orthodox, is actually a law in the constitution of the +church, and conflicts in the consciences of clergymen are of a common +occurrence. The opinion that a clergyman who has ceased to believe in +certain dogmas of his church has to resign this position is very common +among freethinkers as well as orthodox believers. At first sight this +seems to be the only choice left to a man of honesty and a lover of +truth. I held this opinion myself for a long time. There is nevertheless +another view of the subject which caused me to change my opinion +entirely, and I am glad to perceive that such a man as Mr. Moncure +D. Conway who held himself a position in the church and having grown +more and more liberal has retired from active service, declares most +emphatically that a clergyman who has grown liberal should not resign +but stay in the church and wait till the church forces him to leave his +position. This is an honest course, a clergyman has a right to pursue it +and he will thereby open the eyes of his fellow-men; he will further the +interests of mankind, and people will thus be enabled to judge better +whether or not it is just to impose these burdens upon the pastors of the +church. + +Let us consider the case more closely. First, the oath which a young +clergyman gives at his ordination is a promissory oath, and like all +promissory oaths it holds good on the supposition that all the main +conditions remain the same. If a man promises and binds himself by +an oath to start to-morrow morning on a journey he does so on the +supposition that it will be possible. So far as he can foresee it +is possible, but incidents may happen which will make it impossible +to-morrow. A promissory oath will be a weight on the conscience if it has +to be broken, but it has no legal force. Thus soldiers swear an oath of +allegiance to their king, and under ordinary circumstances there will be +no cause for doubt as to the propriety of remaining faithful to the oath. +But many cases of great perplexity will appear when a civil war splits a +nation in twain so that brother stands against brother and faithfulness +to the king may be the most degrading felony toward one’s highest and +holiest ideals, perhaps also toward one’s bodily parents and nearest +kin. Who does not recollect the sad end of Ludwig II, king of Bavaria. +When the mind of the unfortunate monarch was too much deranged to leave +him in possession of his royal power, a commission of several authorised +men went to the castle where he resided to place him under the care of +a physician. The king refused to receive the commission and ordered his +faithful guards by whom he was surrounded to seize the commission, gouge +out their eyes and treat them otherwise in the most outrageous way. The +commission not being protected were for a moment in great danger, but +happily the guards perceiving the seriousness of the situation did not +execute the king’s orders and we might say,—broke their oath. + +Did they really break their oath? No, they did not, for when they were +sworn to obey their sovereign master and lord, it was supposed that the +king was and would remain in his right mind. He became insane and this +changed the situation entirely. + +The oath of allegiance which the ministers of a church swear at their +ordination is made in the bona fide conviction on both sides,—the church +on the one side and the man that takes orders on the other side,—that +the dogmas to which he pledges his troth are the truth. The oath holds +good so long as a minister believes that the dogmas of the church are the +truth; it still holds good so long as he considers it possible that they +may be true. But the oath to believe them ceases to bind in the sense in +which it was demanded as soon as a minister sees clearly that they are +not true and that their truth is an actual impossibility. It ranks in the +same category as the oath of allegiance to a sovereign who has become +insane. + +But the case is more complex still. If promissory oaths have no legal +force because in certain cases a man would have to act against the letter +of the oath, have these oaths no binding power whatever, as soon as a +minister recognises the incongruity of the church belief with truth? I +should say that they have a binding power, yet this binding power must be +sought not in the letter but in the spirit of the oath. + +One of the most prominent of juridical authorities, Prof. Rudolf von +Jhering, has written a book entitled “Der Zweck im Recht.” He finds that +all laws, all wills, all decrees have a purpose, and this purpose is +their spirit. There are laws worded so badly that obedience to the letter +of the law would under certain and unforeseen circumstances enforce +exactly the contrary of that which the law was made for. Instances of +this kind are of not an uncommon occurrence especially with regard to +wills; testators and their legal advisors being often unable to formulate +their intentions in a logical shape. Jhering maintains that a judge in +construing a will, a decree, or a law has to find out the intention and +purpose of the testator, the magistrate that gave the decree, or the +legislator, and it is this intention or purpose with which his decisions +have to agree. Supposing however that this purpose of a will or a law +is wrong in itself or nonsensical, a judge has to construe it so that +it will have sense. If the purpose is criminal the whole transaction is +illegal, if it is irrational or illogical, it has to be interpreted so as +to make it rational and logical. If it has reference to antiquated views, +customs or institutions it has to be adapted to the corresponding modern +views and to existing conditions. + +An instance from practical life will explain the last point. There are +many institutions in Northern Germany which were founded as cloisters or +monasteries. The nuns and monks have been engaged partly in teaching, +partly in attending to the sick, and in other useful purposes. The funds +of these institutions exist still, and serve now those purposes directly +which they have served formerly indirectly through the service of nuns +and monks. Most of them are employed for the maintenance of schools, +some of them as hospitals, others as homes for unmarried daughters +of government officials or for homeless aristocratic ladies without +means, etc. These changes have been wrought by history as the natural +consequence of new conditions. Many of them were made in actual violation +of the letter of the testators’ will; yet they were made bona fide with +the intention to remain faithful to its spirit? The question is not what +a testator intended his will to be half a millennium ago, but what he +would intend it to be in the living present, knowing all the changes +which the progress of the times have wrought and having progressed with +the times. + +Before we answer the question, What is the purpose of the minister’s +oath? we should first see clearly, what is the purpose of the church. Is +the purpose of the church really to be sought in the propaganda of some +absurd dogmas? Or does not rather the preaching of these dogmas itself +serve a purpose? + +The dogmas of Christianity were some time ago supposed to be the +indispensable instruments of ethical instruction. All the churches are +educational institutions to inculcate the moral ought on the basis of +a popular world-conception. The church of England for instance is a +national institute and it is not true that one church party has the +right to impose its religious conception upon the rest of the nation. +When the church was founded some crude notions were taken to be absolute +truths and no man can at the present time be required to believe these +crudities. All institutions are conservative but most conservative are +the courts of justice and the church. The conservatism of jurisprudence +is characterised in the saying which appears to be its leading principle +_fiat justicia et pereat mundus_. Jurisprudence too often forgets that +the dispensation of justice serves the purpose of sustaining life, +of promoting the general welfare and enhancing the prosperity of the +community; it overlooks the spirit and clings to the letter. + +Our justices are inclined to believe that if a new world-conception +arises, (which by the bye will as we believe not be materialistic nor +will it destroy the idea of moral responsibility, although it may +change our views about guilt,) their whole system of jurisprudence +will break down. They are afraid of a _pereat justicia et vivat +mundus_. Justice Schiffer is not at all anxious to prove the truth of +the old world-conception, he is satisfied with proving that the new +world-conception is incompatible with the old view of justice. Criminal +law means punishment and punishment presupposes the idea of guilt. He +argues: + +“The question remains whether the conflict between the new and the old +world-conception could be avoided by adapting our views of justice to the +new world-conception; yet this question is to be denied, for the notions +of guilt and punishment belong to each other according to logical, +ethical, and moral principles. To punish without assuming guilt is as +nonsensical as it is immoral.” + +It would lead us too far here to show that moral responsibility still +subsists on the supposition of a strict determinism and that the +criminal law with its punishments will not be abolished in the future. +Yet there is no doubt that our views of punishment will have to be +changed; indeed they have changed and how much they have changed, can +be learned by a comparison of an execution of to-day with one of a few +hundred years ago. The idea of punishment in the sense of inflicting +pain as a retribution has gone and it has gone forever. There is no more +burning of the criminal with hot irons, or twitching with hot tongs, +or tearing out his tongue, or stretching on the wheel. The criminal is +executed with as little pain to him as possible. Why this change? Because +a new world-conception has entirely altered our views of punishment +and it is going to alter them still more. Penology is not to be based +upon sentimentality as some so-called philanthropists intend to do; +nevertheless it is to and it will become humane because we have abandoned +the old conception of guilt which as Justice Schiffer correctly states +was a fundamental idea in the old jurisprudence, and this antiquated +conception of guilt has partly but not as yet entirely been overcome. + +The church is in a position similar to that of the criminal law courts. +A change of our world-conception has set in and the church is not as +yet adapted to the change. The church having found it necessary for its +purpose of preaching ethics to insist on the belief in a world-conception +which demonstrates a moral world order, now attempts to perpetuate +certain errors of our ancestors’ conception of this moral world-order. + +The oath of a clergyman having been asked and given bona fide on the +supposition that the dogmas of the church were the truth, holds good +still, but it must be construed as in similar cases a judge would have +to construe a faulty will or an ill-worded law. It has to be construed in +the spirit and not in the letter. + +Clergymen who have grown liberal should not leave the church. It is their +duty to stay in the church and to make their influence felt to broaden +the spirit of the church. If the church removes them from their position, +they yield to the authority at present in power, but they should not +yield without a struggle, to be conducted on their part modestly but +firmly, with reverence toward their authorities, with tact and decency, +but fearlessly and bravely, for they are fighting not only for their +personal interests but for the progress of mankind, they are fighting for +the holiest treasures of the church—for truth. + +The abolition of these burdens on the consciences of the clergy would +be a natural consequence of repeated struggles. Let a pastor be bound +to respect his church authorities, to obey them in all matters of +administration, let him be bound to revere the ecclesiastical traditions +of which he should never speak lightly, but do not prescribe to him a +belief of any kind. Pledge him to serve the truth, to speak the truth and +to live the truth; and that simple pledge will have more weight than the +requirement to believe dogmas which, his superiors know but too well can +no longer be believed literally but must be taken _cum grano salis_. + +Christ says concerning the observances insisted upon by the Scribes +and Pharisees: “They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne: and +lay them upon men’s shoulders.” This passage is applicable also to the +present system of ordination. Christ’s saying is read in the churches and +it is, as most of his words are, as new to-day as it was at his time, +but who thinks of its application to our present system of burdening the +consciences of men? + + P. C. + + + + +A COMMENT BY PROF. F. MAX MÜLLER CONCERNING THE DISCUSSION ON EVOLUTION +AND LANGUAGE. + + +_To the Editor of The Monist:_ + +I must thank you and Professor Romanes for the frank and searching +criticism to which you have both subjected my article on “Thought and +Language,” published in _The Monist_. You have shown that you care for +truth and not for victory, and you have carefully abstained from any +personal remarks which are so apt to embitter scientific controversy +and in consequence to render its chief object, the discovery of more +truth, illusory. We all have the same object, we all want to know what +is true—why then should we not all work together, listen to friendly +criticism, accept useful advice, confess our mistakes, and work as hard +as we can in the special field allotted to each of us. + +As soon as I find a little more leisure, I shall not fail to reply fully +to both your articles. At present I only write to you to defend myself +against an undeserved charge brought against me by Professor Romanes. +I had said that Professor Romanes had no right to speak of men like +Noiré, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, to say nothing of Hobbes, with an air +of superiority. Professor Romanes replies that he never mentioned Mr. +Herbert Spencer at all, that it would have been well for me, if, before +condemning his supposed treatment of Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and Noiré, +I had looked at his Index. This is a serious charge. It would show a +want of accuracy unpardonable in a scholar. It is true, Mr. Herbert +Spencer’s name does not occur in the Index. But on p. 230 we read: “So +here again we meet with additional proof, were any required, of the folly +of regarding the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition.” Now +it is well known that it is Mr. Herbert Spencer who regards the copula +as an essential ingredient of a proposition. I have shown that the facts +of language are against Mr. Herbert Spencer, but I should not therefore +think it right to charge him with folly. This will show that if I wrote +without Index, I did not write without book. + + Yours truly, + + F. MAX MÜLLER. + +Oxford, Oct. 28, 1891. + + + + +BOOK REVIEWS. + + +SYNOPTIKER. APOSTELGESCHICHTE. Bearbeitet von Professor _H. J. Holzmann_. +Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Freiburg, i. B.: Akademische +Verlagsbuchhandlung von J. C. B. Mohr. 1892. + +This book is the first volume of the “Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament” +edited by the Professors H. Holtzmann, R. A. Lipsius, P. W. Schmiedel, +and H. v. Soden. + +No better man could have been selected for the first part of this great +work than Prof. H. J. Holtzmann, who is not only a theologian of most +comprehensive scholarship but also has devoted his energies to this +special subject. He has lectured regularly for a number of years at +the university of Strassburg six or eight times weekly on the synoptic +gospels and three times weekly on the Acts. The principle of his +method has been laid down in a former work of his, viz. “Lehrbuch der +historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament.” The present book +contains an enormously voluminous material condensed into a comparatively +small space of 448 pp. large octavo. The author being a theologian his +attitude toward his subject is naturally reverent, paying an unreserved +homage to the greatness of Jesus. Yet at the same time his investigations +are strictly scientific and in accordance with the rules of criticism +as employed in any historical investigation. It is no exaggeration to +consider Professor Holtzmann’s work as representative in the highest +degree; it embraces the most complete knowledge at present attainable and +that too in a most concise form as a practical handbook with parallel +tables and indexes of reference for students of the New Testament. + +The author first formulates “the synoptic problem,” which has been solved +after innumerable vain attempts by the so-called “Marcus-Hypothesis,” +which is at present considered as satisfactory, because it alone fulfils +every condition and explains all the difficulties. Holtzmann regards +the figure of Christ as historical. The impression of his powerful +personality was a living presence in the first congregation at Jerusalem. +But all the interest centred in his words. The words of their Lord were +faithfully preserved by oral tradition. Sentences so short and yet so +pregnant with meaning as “Blessed are the peacemakers,” or “Ye are the +salt of the earth,” “But let your communication be, Yea, yea: Nay, +nay, etc.,” are so impressive that whoever has heard them once, will +never forget them. The interest in the word was soon complemented by +an interest in facts and events which was much later followed by an +interest in dogma. The first differences among the Christians originated +through the mission among the heathens. The gentile Christian became +indifferent concerning the Jewish traditions and clung with all his +religious enthusiasm to the Christ as his saviour. Christianity became +a cosmic religion while the Jewish Christians still looked upon Christ +as the Messiah of the people of Israel. The Jewish view of Christianity +is represented by Matthew, the gentile view by Luke. Mark however does +not show any development of dogma. According to Papias, the Apostle +St. Peter had whenever it became necessary for an explanation of the +words of Christ, occasionally told certain events of the life of Jesus; +which were afterwards written down by Mark. We find in Mark, Matthew, +and Luke the same building stones, but how differently arranged! Mark +shows evidence of relating real facts of history, he begins with John +the Baptist, tells us how Jesus became baptised, how he preached the +kingdom of God; according to Mark, Jesus does not declare himself as the +Messiah from the beginning. His activity grows by degrees, his disciples +increase, he heals the sick, and it is from the mouth of these that +he was first proclaimed as the Messiah. He becomes a power among the +people and makes himself offensive to the authorities who consider him +as dangerous and attempt to take his life. Jesus forbids those whom he +heals to proclaim that he is the Messiah. He sends out his disciples not +to preach him as the Messiah, but to proclaim the kingdom. At last in +Peter the idea dawns that prompts him to declare: “Thou art the Christ.” +Yielding before the persecution of his enemies, Jesus travels North and +East and here he accustoms himself to the idea of a suffering son of man. +His self-confidence increases and he travels courageously to Jerusalem +where, as he could foresee, he would meet his fate. The drama of his +life culminates in his word “ἐγώ εἰμι” (1462) in which he reveals his +self-consciousness as being the Messiah. Being triumphantly hailed in +Jerusalem by people of Galilee and such as believed in him he hastened +his doom. It is not likely that Jesus could have publicly been held to +be the Messiah for any length of time, for the Roman police was wont +to suppress such movements without discrimination. They did not stop +to investigate the case as to the character or motive of the movement +whether or not it was purely religious or political. They never tolerated +any “son of David” or “king of Israel” who held any influence over large +masses of the people. + +While Mark still preserves the development of Jesus’s messianic +consciousness, Luke as well as Matthew have entirely obliterated it. +According to Mark, Jesus proclaims the kingdom; Matthew and Luke make +him preach his person. They make Jesus proclaim himself as the Messiah +from the very beginning and his command not to speak it out openly given +to those whom he healed and also to his disciples has no sense here. +Matthew has a liking for cabalistic numbers, there are three times +seven generations the names of which are not without doing violence to +historical facts adjusted to the pattern, there are three temptations, +seven parables, etc. Throughout we notice reflection, purposive selection +of the material, and artificial adjustment to a plan. The book has a +tendency to show that Jesus was the King of Israel predicted by the +prophets and in the psalms. Luke on the other hand has also a dogmatic +programme. It is the gospel of gentile Christianity as founded by Paul. + +The critical school finds adversaries among theologians as well as +unchristian thinkers, both of whom are apt to speak of fraud when +religious books are written with certain dogmatic tendencies. Professor +Holtzmann objects to such a view of the development of Christianity. He +says that a religion which did not rouse sufficient enthusiasm to develop +a religious poetry would be very poor and lifeless. Even the apocrypha of +the New Testament are evidence of the vigor of the new religion, although +we must be aware of the fact that the Church showed good judgment when +adopting its canon to accept those which were full of moral meaning and +to reject those which were mere myth without any deeper significance. + +We have given this abstract of one part of Holtzmann’s work with +the omission of all the learned by-work for those not familiar with +theological investigation. Similar results are obtained by an inquiry +into the origin of the Acts. The apostles were the first and living +representatives of the Christ. Out of the interest in the apostles’ words +grew an interest in their actions and lives, and there are a great many +writings of this subject preserved. One only has been received into the +canon. + +It is impossible to follow Professor Holtzmann into the details of his +work, but we can warmly recommend it as the best compendium existing, not +only for the student of theology but for everybody who is interested in +the results of the scientific criticism of the synoptic gospels and the +Acts.[51] + + κρς. + + +SCHRIFTEN DER GESELLSCHAFT FUER PSYCHOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNG. Heft 2. Ueber +Aufgaben und Methoden der Psychologie. By _Hugo Münsterberg_. Leipsic: +Ambr. Abel. 1891. + +In this monograph Professor Münsterberg prepares the way for greater and +more important work. His aim is to define the province of psychology and +to investigate the methods which have to be employed. Psychology is not +philosophy; accordingly the consideration whether there is a reality of +an outside world does not belong here. The psychologist is not bound +to wait till this and other metaphysical questions are decided with +certainty; the reality of the outside world has simply to be assumed +together with its cognisability. + +What means ‘to explain’? “To explain means simply to render clear that +which is not clear or to reduce the unknown to the known, the complex +to the simple (p. 104).... It is an indispensable presupposition of +any natural science to consider nature as being capable of explanation +(_erklärbar_), and this presupposition means that natural processes +can be perfectly separated into most simple mechanical processes. +This presumption can be realised to-day only on the basis of the +atom-conception. It is accordingly not an experience, but a postulate +of natural science to derive the whole material world-process from the +mechanism of atoms. A description becomes an explanation in the measure +in which it approaches this aim” (p. 105). The question is, whether in +psychology, description can be supplanted by explanation, whether laws +can be stated instead of mere rules. + +Professor Münsterberg takes that ground in psychology which as it appears +to us is the only tenable ground, viz. that feelings are not motions +and cannot be explained as converted physical processes. Professor +Münsterberg says: “A sensation, a feeling, a will can never fill even +the very smallest space. What is extended in space can never itself be +a state of consciousness. To the psychologist this distinction is now +a matter of course, so much so that it is difficult to call to one’s +mind how much trouble it cost to acquire this insight. The object +of psychology accordingly can never be an object in space, it can +never be a process of motion, accordingly, even brain-irritation can +under no circumstances ever become the object of psychology” (p. 97). +Psychology has to investigate the psychical phenomena of the individual +consciousness (p. 102), it has to separate it into its elements, i. +e. those ingredients which are no longer divisible; which being done, +psychology searches for the rules for the combinations of these psychical +elements and shows us the different complex contents which are formed in +this way by the elements up to that totality of single combinations which +is given us as the contents of our spiritual personality (p. 103). + +“The question is, (1) Are there psychological processes in us, the +development of which presents itself with immediate certainty as +necessary, and (2) can we reduce all the individual and with them all the +spiritual phenomena to such spiritual processes recognised as necessary? +The first question can be affirmed, although only in a limited sense, +and the second question must be unequivocally denied, thus making an +immediate explanation of psychical phenomena impossible” (p. 107). +The first question is to be affirmed in a limited sense, because “if +certain premises are thought, the conclusion, it appears to us as a +necessity, can be thought thus and not otherwise” (p. 108). But this +is “a logical and not a psychological necessity.” To actually think +the conclusion depends upon the will to think it. The will actually +existing, the logical necessity becomes a psychological, for “the +connection between the willing and the willed (_zwischen Willen und +Gewolltem_) always appears to us as necessary.... Where there is inner +will there is an inner necessity.” Now, in order to make explanations in +the physical world, we supplement that which has been actually observed +with not-observed connections. But we cannot, according to Münsterberg, +in an analogous way supplement in the world of psychical phenomena the +conscious states with any other kind of states which are not conscious, +thus referring our spiritual life and acts of will to unconscious +processes, for “the very nature of psychical states is consciousness, +i. e. a state of being conscious. _Ihr Sein ist das bewusst-sein...._ +A state of consciousness, says Münsterberg, which is not conscious, +is comparable not to a body which is not perceived, but to one which +does not exist. Accordingly unconscious psychical phenomena do not +exist. All psychical phenomena are directly given and the reduction of +their combinations in a certain way through hypothetical psychological +supplements is once for all excluded” (p. 110). + +We agree in all the main positions with Professor Münsterberg, but in the +last mentioned point we disagree. Professor Münsterberg limits psychical +states or feelings to states of consciousness without considering that +there are subconscious and even unconscious feelings. By consciousness +we understand those feelings alone which are concentrated so as to be +connected with the ego, i. e. the present centre of consciousness. We +assume that even the spinal ganglions of the brainless frog are feeling +if the skin is irritated, but this feeling can never become conscious, +it can no more be telegraphed to the central station so as to become +co-ordinated with other feelings which are registered in the brain. The +objection may be raised, We do not know whether the ganglion is feeling; +and I should answer, I call feeling anything that is of the same nature +as the elements of which consciousness consists, and we have all reasons +to assume that there is such an elementary psychical accompaniment of +the ganglionic irritations, and that consciousness rises from many such +elements through their co-ordinate combination in the brain. Isolated +feelings are never conscious, and consciousness is a co-operative system +of feeling. This distinction between consciousness and feeling is a mere +matter of terminology. If we find another terminology more practical +we are willing to surrender ours. Yet such a distinction between +consciousness and feeling seems to be necessary for a proper description +of the psychical facts. The assumption of subconscious states and even +of unconscious feelings is a great help in explaining the phenomena of +consciousness. But unless we are grossly mistaken, our disagreement is +merely apparent, for Professor Münsterberg, rejecting the idea of a +psychological explanation, believes in the parallelism of psychical and +physical phenomena. “The physical acts” (he says on p. 125) “reducible +to mechanical axioms can be explained through causation, the psychical +acts follow one another without inner necessity. If we connect both, we +are enabled to transfer the necessity-connection of the physical upon +the psychical and offer thus an explanation where otherwise description +only was possible.” But in doing this, have we not supplemented those +psychical elements which appear as conscious states by other psychical +elements which have not entered into that combination which makes them +actually conscious? It is an hypothetical addition for the sake of +explanation, a _Hilfsconstruction_ just as much as the supposition of the +existence of atoms or electric currents or other physical phenomena which +are not directly observed, but indirectly in their effects only. + +Supplements are necessary for explanation wherever the immediate facts +do not contain all the elements of a certain process. If an observable +phenomenon has not its conditions in observable facts we hypothetically +assume unobservable facts as its causes. But we may incidentally +remark that description and explanation are not different in kind, but +in degree. Explanation is an exhaustive description set forth in its +greatest possible simplicity. An exhaustive description enumerates all +the determinative factors of a process and it drops everything that +is of no account, so that information is imparted with the greatest +economy as well as completeness. An exhaustive description is a reliable +guide to preascertain the outcome of a process, and reveals in this +way the identity in the change, the continuity of the process and the +conservation of matter and energy in their transformations, or, in +other words, it reveals the necessity of the result. There is perhaps +no natural science in which the processes can be exhaustively described +without hypothetical supplements and so the science of psychology forms +no exception to the general rule. + +The aim of psychology in its wider sense will be “to separate all the +contents of consciousness into their elements, to state their laws of +combination, and to seek in an empirical way for the diverse elementary +psychical contents, their correspondent physiological irritations, +in order to explain in this way mediately from the coexistence and +succession of physiological irritations the purely psychological laws of +combinations which as such are unexplainable” (p. 127). + +Our objection to this view resembles much some of the objections which +Professor Münsterberg himself makes when speaking of the availability of +the mathematical method so-called. He says: “Measuring and counting of +psychological phenomena have been made repeatedly, directly as well as +indirectly, and it has been proved that mathematics can be applied to +psychology.... Nevertheless it would be a misuse of the word if we named +these numerical descriptions an ‘application of the mathematical method.’ +If an historian of literature counts the poems and dramas of authors, +if he also calculates how long it took them to write their literary +products, who would call his work a mathematical history of literature? +Even astronomy would be no mathematical science if we counted only the +stars in the sky.” If the aim of psychological explanation were as +Professor Münsterberg here asserts to be reached through the explanation +of physiological states only, we should say, that the physiological +method were alone admissible in psychology, a principle to which our +author rightly objects. Psychical states sometimes demand a physiological +explanation, and we cannot understand psychology without having a +certain amount of physiological knowledge. Nevertheless, the explanation +of psychical states and the necessity of certain connections must be +understood mainly from the psychical elements themselves. Psychical +elements, i. e. feelings, as has been explained on other occasions, +have acquired and constantly do acquire meaning. This meaning which +appears in sensation-symbols and thought-symbols and which is different +in the different forms of feeling (correspondent to different forms of +nervous action), creates a new domain,—the domain of spirit,—and thus +psychical states are changed into spiritual facts. Suppose for instance +that a merchant receives his mail; he opens a letter containing some +important news which sets at once all his nerves into irritation, makes +him neglectful of all other things in order to attend with great haste +to one special affair. How can we explain this instance, or any other +spiritual act through a consideration of physiological conditions. Is +it not the meaning alone which special sense-impressions convey that +produces the extraordinary effects? The physiologist would as little be +able to detect this meaning through an analysis of the sense-impressions, +as an electrician would be to understand the import of a telegram when +measuring the strength of the electric current in the telegraph wires. +The combinations of the purely psychical states may after all not be +quite unexplainable, while their physiological concomitants are in many +cases insufficient to account for spiritual interconnections. + +In discussing the methods of psychology Professor Münsterberg rejects the +speculative and the mathematical methods; he claims a great importance +(and we agree with him) for self-observation. But self-observation is +no easy task; it requires a high degree of training. “He who does not +understand botany cannot make observations of plant-life. The same things +which call into play certain associations in the botanist are also seen +by the layman, but they remain unobserved. Self-observation is in a +similar way ... not without its presuppositions; it is dependent upon a +rich store of ready associations” (p. 164). + +Psychological investigations under natural conditions are classified +by Münsterberg according to their objects, as those of the normal man, +the child, the savage, the insane, the animal, etc. In experimental +psychology, psychopetal, psychofugal, and psychocentral processes are +distinguished. For psycho-physiological investigations we have besides, +(1) the immediate experiment in the laboratory, (2) the method of +anatomy, (3) of comparative anatomy, (4) and of physiology. Professor +Münsterberg concludes with an appeal to institute special professorships +of psychology, which is at present a mere branch of philosophy. It +takes all the energy of one man to keep abreast with the progress of +psychological investigation. “No medical man, no lawyer, no theologian, +or educator should enter into practical life without having passed an +examination in psychology ... the growing generation of children, the +sick, the criminal, and the comfort-seeking souls of mankind have to +suffer if teachers, physicians, judges, and preachers are ignoramuses +in the matter of human soul-life.... But here also the gods have placed +sweat before virtue.” + + κρς. + + +LA PHILOSOPHIE DU SIÈCLE. By _E. de Roberty_. Paris: Félix Alcan. + +The author of the present work, which forms a volume of the Library of +Contemporary Philosophy, is one of those disciples of the founder of +French positivism who, while following in his footsteps to a certain +point, do not hesitate to diverge from the beaten track when they think +their leader has gone astray in his philosophic quest. M. de Roberty +speaks of Comte with reverence as his first guide and his best master, +and he finds in the very contradictions of the Master the germ of his own +conception of the general trend of philosophic development. + +The fundamental thesis of the present work is that the three +contemporaneous philosophic systems, those of Criticism, Positivism, +and Evolutionism, are merely varieties of a single species, as strictly +parallel manifestations of a common stock of beliefs and general +hypotheses. The basic identity of the thought of this century is shown +by the ever increasing convergence of the great leading ideas, as +exhibited in the prevailing theories of knowledge, by the preponderance +of relativism, and of agnosticism. It reveals itself, especially in the +similar conceptions formed by the most varied systems, not only of the +essential characters of philosophy, its method, and the ends it ought to +pursue, but also of the scientific laws which govern its evolution. We +cannot follow the author through his discussion of all these points and +we must therefore restrict ourselves to the most salient features of his +argument. + +Modern philosophy is represented by three principal schools: Criticism +which originated with Kant, Positivism founded by Comte, and Evolutionism +introduced by Spencer. These three systems had a common ancestry, +that of sensualism. The critical philosophy is the legitimate heir of +sensuous idealism, and the positive philosophy the immediate descendant +of sensuous materialism. The evolution philosophy is itself rooted in +sensualism, but it is really a conciliator of the two great philosophies +which preceded it, Criticism and Positivism. This conclusion, which +appears to us just, is supported by various considerations to which +reference here is not necessary. M. de Roberty bears testimony to +the influence of the philosophy of Kant over the development of the +evolutionist conception, which could be applied to society only by +giving an apparent universality to the mechanical hypothesis. This was +accomplished by Spencer, as it had been done to some extent by Comte. +The popularity of the evolution philosophy is explained by the author +as due to its admixture of agnosticism with a monism which captivates +the masses “by the audacious assertion that it has raised all veils and +resolved all enigmas.” Kant, Comte, and Spencer have equally seized this +characteristic trait of the genius of our century. They each treat, says +M. de Roberty, of the most transcendent problems of metaphysics, and +place them carefully under the cover of the experimental method. Let us +add that they are each different expressions of that genius, which marks +the progress of the mental evolution of mankind. + +The second part of M. de Roberty’s work deals in the first place with the +conceptions of philosophy, its nature and its end, framed by the three +great modern systems. The confusion generally made between philosophy +and science is first pointed out, the evil of which arises from the fact +that allowance is not made for the progress of scientific knowledge. The +author is strongly inclined to favor the idea of the general equivalence +of science and philosophy, in the sense that every effect is identified +with its cause. But as the effect is always modified with its cause, +neither the content not the general conception of philosophy can remain +unchangeable. Philosophy becomes thus the co-ordination of the sciences +in view of their general and abstract finality—by which is meant simply +the last term of an evolution—a conception of the world. + +In what do the conceptions of philosophy held by the criticist, the +positivist, and the evolutionist, differ from that formulated by M. de +Roberty? He affirms that they all entertain certain errors of method +derived chiefly from ancient metaphysics. The prototype is found in Kant, +who says that philosophy is a system of universal acquirements formed +of abstract notions, and that it has for its aim the passage of our +understanding from sensible to suprasensible knowledge. The latter is the +_a priori_, the permanent and verifiable hypothesis, for each of them. +It is the transcendental element which all modern philosophy has derived +from the past, and which forms the bond of alliance between faith and +knowledge. Of the three postulates of Spencer, the universal hypothesis +is in the first, an Unknowable Force. The other two belong to psychology, +proving that the English evolutionist, like Comte, confounds science with +philosophy, which to him, as to his predecessors, is a simple theory of +knowledge. + +Philosophy is a method which conducts to a conception of the world. But, +says M. de Roberty, modern philosophies fail in that they deal with +hypotheses. Now, although hypothesis is the soul of the special sciences, +for philosophy it must always be a purely mental recreation. To render +valid the universal hypothesis constructed by philosophers, it would be +necessary that the sum of the final truths of science should include the +sum of the phenomena which constitute nature. + +We cannot follow the author through his ingenious criticisms of Spencer’s +great synthetic formula, to which he devotes the twelfth chapter of the +present work, and which he characterises as the perfect type of the +universal unverifiable hypothesis. Nor can we do more than give a passing +glance at his views of the psychology of the three modern systems of +philosophy. He affirms that the metaphysical transformation by criticism +of psychology into philosophy left hardly anything to the special +science. To positivism is due the conception of psychology as forming an +integral part of biology, which has led to the important psycho-physical +experiments of the present day. But the biological analysis of the +individual should be followed by social analysis, the study of mental +manifestations in society, in connection with which should be created a +special concrete science to embrace the higher psychology, as pointed out +by the author in his work “La Sociologie.” Science, art, and industry are +a projection into the external world of the thinking, feeling, acting +subject, and psychology ought also to be thus projected by fusion with +biology, or with biology and sociology, which it is necessary to study if +we would discover psychic laws. + +In the chapter on the Supremacy of Science, the author affirms that +the philosophy which will result from the progress of psychology and +sociology will present a striking contrast with all known metaphysical +forms, but it will always remain a world-conception, and it will have +to submit to the law of correlation which explains the character and +destinies of its predecessor. Agnosticism, which invites men to bend +before the _Deus ignotus_ of all religions, marks the fatal termination +of ancient anthropomorphism, influenced by a progressive knowledge, +and thus appears as the final integration of all theology. It also +represents, however, the condition of incognisance to which the opposite +state will succeed when the cycle of abstract sciences is completed and +a really scientific psychology formed. Then hypotheses as to universal +causes will receive their psychological solution, and it will remain for +philosophy only to confront and co-ordinate them with the general results +of other sciences. Having arrived at this point M. de Roberty formulates +the conclusion that Philosophy and Science are terms which connote two +principle _species_ in the vast _genus_ designated by the single term +_knowledge_. The most marked trait of future philosophy will be the +distinction of these two species, as their confusion was the most general +character of the philosophy of the past. Philosophy and science will +then be perfectly identified, but the identity will be general and not +specific. Thus philosophy will not be positive in the sense of Comte, it +will never _completely_ identify itself with science. + +In his last chapter, entitled “The Intellectual Series,” M. de Roberty +continues his criticism of the views of Comte as to the law of the +evolution of philosophy. He shows that, so far from this being the most +general law of intellectual evolution, and therefore the supreme law of +all social phenomena, philosophy is only one of three intermediate terms, +the others being art and industry, by the aid of which the evolution +of scientific ideas acts on the ensemble of the social evolution. The +intellectual evolution is the direct consequence of the social fact, but +the social evolution is subject to the laws of intellectual evolution, +which embrace four great classes of conceptions, answering to the four +well recognised groups of facts known as science, philosophy, art, and +industry. We have here the same series of special evolutions as those +supposed by Comte, with the important change, however, marked by the +inversion of the first two members of the series. In this relation, the +author affirms that Comte’s law of the three states is false so far +as concerns the evolution of the sciences, and is of very secondary +importance as regards the evolution of philosophy and the two succeeding +evolutions. + +The author concludes his work with a criticism intended to show that the +principal defects of Comte’s system arise from the confusion previously +insisted on in relation to the first terms of the intellectual series, +science and philosophy. That confusion is exhibited in the statement +that among the ancients philosophy was developed before science and art. +M. de Roberty, moreover, declares Comte’s theory that the industrial +development is the point of departure of modern civilisation, leads to +a complete subversion of the logical and historical. Instead of the +useful or the proper being, as that theory would require, the foundation +of the good and this, in its turn, the germ of the true, the true is +the foundation of the beautiful, and of the good and the useful. But +the true is more complex than supposed by Comte. It possesses at least +two aspects, science and philosophy, which may be really distinguished, +although the line which separates them is yet undetermined. + +We have given a summary of M. de Roberty’s general argument, instead of +referring to particular propositions which may be open to criticism, +because his work appears to us a very valuable contribution towards the +elucidation of the important question as to the position of philosophy +in relation to science. We shall look with much interest for the +appearance of the author’s two further works which he announces as +supplementary to the present one. That on Agnosticism is already in the +press. The subject of the other work is Monism, which M. de Roberty +characterises as “the chimerical pursuit which has essayed, through the +ages, to fix the so-called unity of things, the extra or supralogical +identity of phenomena.” This hypothetical monism of philosophy is dealt +with incidentally in the present work. The “supralogical identity of +phenomena” is a different kind of monism from that of _The Monist_. + + Ω. + + +UEBER BEWEGUNGSEMPFINDUNGEN. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung +der Doctorwürde vorgelegt der hohen philosophischen Facultät der +Albert-Ludwigs-Universität zu Freiburg i. B. By _Edmund Burke Delabarre_ +of Massachusetts. Freiburg in Baden: Hch. Epstein, 1891. + +Dr. Edmund Burke Delabarre introduces himself to the world of science +with an excellent monograph on motion-sensations, based upon careful +observations which were made in Professor Münsterberg’s psychological +laboratory at Freiburg i. B. The subject of the dissertation is of +great importance and there is much confusion prevalent at present +even among the most prominent authorities. It appears to us that Dr. +Delabarre has adopted the right view and he certainly defends it with +great ability. Professor Wundt rejects in his Physiological Psychology +all the theory of the so-called “muscle-sense” and admits that there +is some truth in the three explanations devised as an explanation of +our consciousness of performed motions, which thus would be a complex +of (1) pressure-sensations, (2) specific muscle-sensations, and (3) +innervation-sensations. This third kind of sensations is of a very +hypothetical nature. The term signifies that, when muscles are innervated +we are supposed to have a direct sensation of the innervation in the +central nerve-organs; and this view is objected to by Münsterberg, who +says that “a brain irritation which is not accompanied with centripetal +effects or central after-effects of former muscular activity has its +physiological consequences but excites no conscious states.” Thus, +according to Dr. Delabarre, without the motion of the sense-organs, +i. e. muscular activity, there is no consciousness; all consciousness +derives its data from the periphery. Dr. Delabarre goes over the whole +field of the literature of the subject and weighs all pros and cons. He +finds that all cases are intelligible without the supposition of central +innervation-sensations. He admits that the term muscle-sense is vague, +but he believes that the term having been generally introduced may be +retained. He defines it as that complex of sensations which results from +muscular activity. + +The second part of the dissertation contains the reports of the +experiments, describing the instruments used and the methods employed. + +We are informed that Dr. Delabarre has been appointed to the chair of +psychology in Brown University. + + κρς. + + +LE NIHILISME SCIENTIFIQUE. I. Dialogue entre le Doctor Oudèn et +L’Etudiant Ti son Neveu. Rapporté par _P. Van Bemmelen_. Leide: E. J. +Brill, 1891. + +Dr. Oudèn’s nephew thus summarises the scientific, or rather +“philosophic” views of his uncle: “There is no God, but there is the +world. In this world there are neither souls, nor mind, nor life; there +is only matter and its elementary forces. Nevertheless these forces do +not exist; there is only movement, the sole function of matter, which is +inert. In its turn, matter has no reality; it is composed of geometrical +points which are susceptible of movement. But as there is neither time +nor space, there is no movement.” Nothingness is thus reached, but +beyond is illusion, the _maja_ of the Hindoos, which explains all our +conceptions of nature including that of our own being. This scientific +_maja_ is not the semblance of a real world, but that of a world which +does not exist, so that illusion and nothingness are the same thing. From +which it follows that there is no illusion and no mind to be deceived! +Mr. Van Bemmelen’s opuscule is an ingenious _jeu d’esprit_, evidently +intended to exhibit a certain phase of speculation as a _reductio ad +absurdum_. + + Ω. + + +DIRITTO SOCIALE TENTATIVO IN BOZZA. Dell’Avv. _Pietro Pellegrini_. Borga +a Mozzano. 1891. + +There is no denying the activity of the statesmen and scholars of modern +Italy in the cause of radical, social reconstruction and, as remarked by +a recent traveller in Italy, in the “building up again a Commonwealth, +founded on high principles of right and equality.” “Diritto Sociale,” in +Italian jurisprudence, of course, relates to municipal and positive law, +in its social-economical and social-political aspects. But, in a country +with the municipal and political traditions of Italy, this “Diritto +Sociale,” even in modern times, exhibits a tendency to crystallise into a +kind of concrete, social religion. The Avvocato Signor Pietro Pellegrini, +the learned author of this book, appears to feel deeply concerning the +present condition of this branch of jurisprudence in Italy. + +In his preface the author says, that during the present century legal +science has not made any very substantial progress; that the revolution +of the last century, while asserting the famous rights of man, forgot +the rights of juridic persons, of corporations, and law became an +_individualista_—or, individualiser. On the strength of his juridic +personality man thereupon engaged in a struggle for his rights on +the vast social field, but he found himself alone—an individual and +nothing more. As such, he could not form a juridic, social organism, +but he merely sought to adapt himself to an actual, external juridic +organisation, differing but slightly from old-time despotism. On this +basis the State still continues to create municipal and positive laws, +more or less adapts them to the facts of reality, arbitrarily creating +juridic persons and administrative bodies, such as the _mandamenti_, +_circondarii_, _provincie_ of the modern Italian kingdom—all of which are +only hybrid administrative _entia_, that do not in the least satisfy a +number of local public needs; and therefore, there is no harmony between +individual men and the juridic persons, between the public administrative +entia and the State, and there is bloody war among the States themselves. + +The ultimate cause of all this conflict is to be ascribed to the +individualism of the law, in not recognising organic, juridic relations; +and this, moreover, necessarily called forth the reaction of an +exaggerated socialism.... Person has a much wider significance than +individual; person cannot be isolated, individual, because, juridically, +person implies an exchange of relations with others; hence, juridic +persons ought to enjoy a greater legal authority than they actually +enjoy in our modern jurisprudence. The _plasma sociale_, or the original +social mould, is developed by degrees into a vital, practically real, +organism, endowed with a physical body, that needs the material means +of nutrition, in order to live, to preserve, and develop itself. These, +however, do not exist; because nature furnishes only sufficient means to +preserve man in a purely savage, animal condition. But, at least, there +exist the sources, or fountain-heads, from which it is possible to derive +the desired nutritive materials; on condition of molding or transforming +those fountain-heads, and of assuming their efficacious, practical +direction. In the individualised or individual system there takes place a +struggle among the individuals for the possession of that nourishment, in +which case, however, the sources themselves are appropriated rather than +the nutritive materials they contain. Such is the exclusive nature of +the social means of nutrition, present and future, through which a large +number of individuals will be at the mercy of a few, while the notorious +“rights of man,” remain powerless.... + +The rights emanating from the organic concept of personality, together +with the physico-economical laws of the fountain-heads of social +nourishment, spontaneously furnish the equitable distribution of +the nutritive materials to each organic member, so that there is no +monopolising of those natural fountain-heads, but a normal nutrition of +all the organs, according to their needs, and their actual capacity as +juridically displayed.... + +Those fountain-heads, besides being limited, are scattered through +space, because it is impossible to unite or concentrate them on any +particular point of the globe. Hence this _plasma sociale_ or social +mold is distributed through space according to imperative laws, that +result from the combined capacities of the respective juridic, that is, +social persons, with the capacities of the respective sources of social +nourishment—of different municipal organisations, of cities, townships, +and villages. All these are pre-eminently juridic and social persons, +each one possessing its peculiar functions, that cannot be exercised +by other persons. The present work contains a lengthy but valuable +introduction in four chapters, discussing the general concept of law; and +thereupon the book is divided into three parts, in which are explained +the principles and development of positive law in its respectively +civil-social, social-economical, and social-political aspects. This work, +throughout, presents a number of equally important and novel points of +view, through which the author’s concept of an organic municipal and +social law everywhere becomes the surest means of creating unity and +harmony, not only within the general department of law, but also within +the sphere of practical legislation. + + γνλν. + + +AN OUTLINE OF LOCKE’S ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. By _Mattoon Monroe Curtis_, M. +A. Leipsic: Gustav Fock, 1890. + +This excellent study was presented to the University of Leipsic as the +Inaugural Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and +it is well deserving of publication, if for no other reason than the +need of such a work. There appears to have been hitherto no complete +account of Locke’s System of Ethics, which does not even find a place in +Mackintosh’s “Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy.” The author has not +been able to discover any trace of the treatise on Ethics which Locke +proposed to write, but his published works “abound in ethical observation +and severally took their rise from ethical considerations,” so that there +is no deficiency of materials from which to ascertain his ideas on that +subject. + +Mr. Curtis very justly remarks that it is important to ascertain an +author’s views before criticising them, a truism which is not always +acted on, as indeed was the case with Locke’s own critics. He does not, +however, profess to criticise but, as the title of his work shows, +to give an outline of Locke’s Ethical Philosophy. In his Preface he +states that his author adopted the Stoic division of Philosophy into +Physics, Ethics, and Logic. The object of Ethics, is described by Locke, +in his noted “Essay,” as the seeking out of those rules and measures +of human actions, which lead to happiness, and the means to practice +them. The end of this, is not bare speculation, and the knowledge of +truth; but _right_, and a conduct suitable to it. In the application +of its principles Locke may be said to have gone further than any of +his predecessors and of most of his successors. As pointed out by Mr. +Curtis, he maintains that the institutions of government, religion, and +education are, in essence, ethical and that all are parts of a system +which must be based upon, and be in harmony with, the fundamental +physiological and psychological principles of human nature. This follows +from Locke’s principle that the Individual, and not the Family, is the +real social unit. Man is a rational, social, religious, and political +being, and, therefore, “in the individual is contained, potentially, all +institutionalism.” + +It must be noticed, however, that to Locke the moral dynamic in human +society is the concept of God. He regards this idea “as a natural, +formal, necessary and transcendental principle at the root of human +nature and institutions, and consistently declares that the denial of it +dissolves all,” as it alone gives a sufficient explanation and sanction +to the principles of morality. This brings us to the very foundation of +ethics. All depends, however, on our conception of God. Locke maintained +that duty “cannot be understood without a law, nor a law be known or +supposed without a law giver, or without reward or punishment.” His +conception of God, therefore, was that of a law-giver, and he believed +that the existence of God could be demonstrated not only by teleological +argument, but also by psychological proof drawn from the being and nature +of man. Locke was so thoroughly convinced of the dependence of morality +on the existence of God, that, notwithstanding his general liberality of +thought, he excluded atheists from toleration. He writes: “Promises and +Covenants, and Oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no +hold upon an Atheist.” + +It would be a mistake to suppose that, because Locke believed morality +to be founded in our conception of God, he considered the moral law +referable simply to the divine will, and therefore to be arbitrary and +changeable. So far from this, he regarded the moral law as eternal +and immutable, and affirmed that its cardinal principles could be +discovered and laid hold of by the light of nature. As says Pfleiderer, +when speaking of Locke and Wolff, “Locke also considers a supernatural +revelation to be possible, and to have actually taken place in +Christianity, but he insists as strongly as Wolff does, and even more +logically, that this revelation must not in any way contradict the +natural revelation given us by God in our reason.” Locke expressly +declares, that the reason _is_ natural revelation, while revelation is +natural reason enlarged. The latter he regarded as necessary because, +although reason is sufficient for the virtuous, penalties must be relied +upon for influencing the multitude; and in revelation the doctrine of +immortality with future rewards and punishments is made known. Whether +this revelation is true or false, the fear of future punishment has +undoubtedly had a restraining influence over the vicious. But reason +would not be sufficient for the virtuous without an inclination natural +or acquired, to virtue. It is a question of disposition, and this will +be virtuous or vicious, according to the conditions under which the +individual has come into being and been “educated,” in the fullest sense +of this term. Reason forms part of these conditions which, so far as they +are not purely objective, are dependent on or referable to human nature; +as, indeed, must be the supposed revelation of enlarged natural reason. + +In relation to the ethical life, Locke declares that happiness is the +only idea which reason takes up out of the sphere of pleasure and pain, +and yet that if we aim directly at happiness, we shall miss it. What then +has to be done is to seek out “the rules and measures of human actions +which lead to happiness.” This is the office of ethics, the end of which +is virtue, and thus happiness and virtue are one. With Locke moral +actions are only those that depend “upon the choice of an understanding +and free agent.” The agent here intended is, as pointed out by Mr. +Curtis, the man, and not the will. Locke says that the proper question +in connection with freedom, is not “whether the will be free, but whether +the man be free.” The will is determined by the mind, and liberty is +“a power to act, or not to act, according as the mind directs.” In his +“Thoughts concerning Education” Locke affirms that “the result of our +judgment, upon examination, is what ultimately determines the man, who +could not be free, if his will were determined by anything but his own +desire, guided by his own judgment.” The position of Locke is, says the +author, that of Plato and Kant: Reason is given as the governor of the +will, by its sway to constitute it good. Thence we may rightly conclude, +that those who are not governed by reason have not true freedom. + +We have not space to consider the views entertained by Locke on +Institutional Ethics, beyond referring to his doctrine that property +rights are given only by labor, and not by occupation, and that labor +is the source of all values. The latter doctrine cannot now be accepted +as sound, whatever may be said as to the former, but Locke deservedly +holds a high place as a political economist. He seems indeed to have +been a kind of universal genius. Mr. Curtis refers to the remark made of +him “that no philosopher since Aristotle has made and recorded so many +valuable observations, or given so great a stimulus to human thought.” +Any fresh light that can be thrown on the opinions entertained by so +profound a thinker, especially on the important question of ethics, is of +value and hence we welcome the present work as an acceptable addition to +philosophic literature. + + Ω. + + * * * * * + +N. B.—Owing to lack of space, reviews of a number of new works have +been crowded out of the present number of _The Monist_; among which the +following will appear in No. 3: _Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems +in der Philosophie seit Kant_, by Dr. Edmund Koenig; _Spinoza’s +Erkenntnisslehre in ihrer Beziehung sur modernen Naturwissenschaft +und Philosophie_, by Dr. Martin Berendt and Dr. Julius Friedländer; +_Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie_, by Dr. Th. Ziehen; _Handbook +of Psychology_, by J. M. Baldwin; _An Essay on Reasoning_, by Edward T. +Dixon; _Das Dasein als Lust, Leid und Liebe_, by Hübbe-Schleiden; _Die +Bedeutung der theologischen Vorstellungen für die Ethik_, by Wilhelm +Paszkowski; and _Einleitung in das Alte Testament_, by Prof. C. H. +Cornill. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] A companion work on the Old Testament has been written by Professor +Cornill. We shall review it in our next number. + + + + +PERIODICALS. + + +VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.[52] Vol. II. No. 6. September, 1891. + +CONTENTS: + + POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY AND THE UNITY OF SCIENCE. By _B. + Tchitcherin_. + + PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN THEOCRACY IN THE FIFTH CENTURY. The + Cosmic Views of St. Augustine in his Genesis. By _Prince E. + Trubetzkoi_. + + ETHICS OF LIFE AND OF THE FREE IDEAL (conclusion). By _K. N. + Ventzel_. + + OPINIONS CONCERNING L. N. TOLSTOÏ. By _N. Strachoff_. + + FROM THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. By _Vladimir Solovieff_. + + SPECIAL PART: (1) Fundamental Moments in the Evolution of + the New Philosophy. Metaphysical Philosophy: Descartes and + Occasionalists. By _N. Grote_. (2) Measurableness of the + Simplest Mental Acts. By _E. Tchelpanoff_. + + CRITICISM AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. Review of Philosophical + Periodicals. Book Reviews. + + APPENDIX: 1) Recent Publications. 2) Transactions of the Moscow + Psychological Society. + +_Positive Philosophy and the Unity of Science._ This article is made up +of extracts from a lengthy competitory dissertation presented by the +author to the Moscow Psychological Society. The writer points out the +fallacy of the “fundamental law” of the Comtist philosophy—the supposed +gradual evolution of human thought through three successive phases,—the +theological, metaphysical, and positive stage of development. The +writer contends, that the so-called “positive stage,” as conceived by +Comte, is really neither positive, nor even scientific, if we examine +its main foundations. As all the world knows, Comte was not satisfied +with the results of the particular sciences, but wished to effect their +comprehensive unity. The writer lays stress on the fact that Comte failed +to perceive the inward contradiction of his whole system. His followers, +in order to overcome this difficulty, were compelled to advance still +another step. Despite the teaching of Comte, they recognised in +mathematics the whole of a science that derived its principles from +experience. This is shown by Littré in his criticism of the system of +Comte (_Aug. Comte et la Philosophie positive_, page 567), where Littré +refers himself to the analysis of Stuart Mill in his Logic. The author, +in order to reach a definite and satisfactory solution of this important +problem, in his next, concluding article, will investigate the nature and +alleged solidity of the mathematical principle. + +_The Philosophy of the Christian Clergy in the Fifth Century._ In +analysing the whole literary activity of St. Augustine, we observe, in +the evolution of his doctrine, three stages, that closely correspond +to his own personal struggle against the three heresies of his +time—Manicheism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. Yet all of these three +stages are characterised by one and the same principle—the ideal unity +of the Christian churches. This ideal aspiration reveals itself as a +kind of constructive principle of the universe; as the supreme principle +of a social organisation of humanity, as the substance and contents of +subjective, human freedom. The Bishop of Hippona,—after thus having +developed the several aspects of his doctrine against the heresies,—sums +up, and concentrates his teaching, in its widest bearings, against +the heathen. Here this Christian ideal attains its fullest and final +expression, and is formulated as a _Civitas Dei_, as the unity of a +universal, divine Sovereignty. + +_Ethics of Life and of the Free Ideal._ In concluding his exhaustive +reflections on the subject of Guyau’s system of ethics, in which the +writer frequently has occasion to cite the critical parallel views of +A. Fouillé and of other English and Russian philosophers, Mr. Ventzel +remarks, that his aim has been, not only to introduce M. Guyau’s +system of ethics to his Russian readers, but also and mainly to show +the relations of this system of ethics to moral obligation. The writer +wishes to say in conclusion a few words about Guyau’s relation to ethical +sanction. Guyau rejected any moral sanction, in the strict sense of +the word, that was distinguished or detached from social sanctions, as +such. In this sense he conceives moral sanction and moral obligation in +his Ethics of Life, in his _Equisse d’une Morale_. If life, of itself, +creates an obligation to work, simply, on the strength of our capacity to +work, in such case life also will create its own ethical sanction. Even +when generously giving itself away, life will without fail, again and +again, find itself. No matter how it be cut short, life will preserve a +vivid consciousness of its fulness and significance and will reappear in +some other place and under other conditions; for, truly, nothing in this +world lives and works in vain. + +_Opinions Concerning Leon N. Tolstoï._ Mr. Strachoff’s psychological +study would doubtless possess an additional interest to western readers +if the writer had really given an exclusively Russian estimate of +Tolstoï’s character and intellectual activity. In this respect, however, +we must not expect to find any very marked deviation from the well-known +current views of the reading public of other nations. “The main cause,” +Mr. Strachoff observes, “why people are incensed against Tolstoï, is to +be found in the fact, that, of all men, Tolstoï has most widely deviated +from universally received ethical notions, and that he antagonises his +century, even in certain delicate problems, that will always be the +dearest to mankind. You cannot help feeling this, when you listen to the +clamour, reproach, and vituperation, that have been raised against him +throughout the civilised world. For the rest, it seems rather odd, that, +at the close of the nineteenth century, there should have risen such a +number of deadly foes against an inoffensive writer and thinker like +Tolstoï; and yet, long ago, we had been accustomed to the intemperate +utterances of a host of enraged freethinkers, whom we have endured with +patience and meekness. Why, accordingly, have we all of a sudden lost +our patient tolerance, and why are we almost ready to start a systematic +persecution against the thoughts and words of a book like the _Vasnaya +Polyana_ (Clear Field)?... It must be admitted, that there is a certain +originality in his writings. Every line possesses a freshness and novelty +that are entirely his own; and yet his language is tame, and the subjects +even more common than in other writers. He frequently describes the +birth and death of very plain people. He tells us how these same people +amuse themselves, eat, drink, and dance on feast-days, cut the hay, go to +church, to confession, and so forth. Occasionally he tells how a jealous +husband kills his wife,—a fact, that has been told in so many other +literatures. But in anything he relates, he has the art of throwing a +strong, clear light upon his subject, so that it seems to us, as if those +time-worn scenes were seen and heard for the first time. In this consists +the real originality of Tolstoï’s art. And he is the same in his ethical +teachings. They strike us by their directness, vigor, sincerity; and for +this very reason they powerfully arouse our love and our yearning for +those deep, spiritual cravings that invite man to lead a higher life—“to +live a god-like life.” Here also, at times, it appears to us, that we +hear about those lofty aspirations for the first time; but when you pay +close attention, you will find that his doctrine is really based on the +ethics of the past, and you meet with traits of that self-same Christian +doctrine with which you have been familiar from early childhood.” + +_From the Philosophy of History._ Mr. Solovieff, this time also, has +chosen a title that scarcely conveys a definite idea of the aim and +contents of his article, which describes the specific relations of the +Christian idea to the historical evolution and political ideal of the +nations of antiquity. (Moscow, 1891) + + γνλν. + + +MIND. October, 1891. No. LXIV. + +CONTENTS: + + BELIEF. By _G. F. Stout_. + + THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. (II.) By _H. R. + Marshall_. + + THE FESTAL ORIGIN OF HUMAN SPEECH. By _J. Donovan_. + + INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. By _L. T. Hobhouse_. + + DISCUSSION: (1) Dr. Münsterberg and Experimental Psychology. By + _E. B. Titchener_. (2) On the Origin of Music. By _H. Spencer_. + + VALEDICTORY. + +Under “Belief” Mr. Stout includes every mode and degree of assent or +dissent. To disbelieve a proposition is to believe its contradictory. +Doubt is belief in a disjunctive judgment. In a former article he +dealt with the “Genesis of the Cognition of Physical Reality.” He now +treats of the various kinds of real existence; as follows. _The Real in +Sensation._ The real as immediately apprehended in sensation must not be +confounded with the percipient mind. Sensation as such is real in so far +as it limits and controls the movement of attention, by restricting the +range of subjective selection. _The Real in Judgments of Comparison._ +In and through the peculiar movement of attention in endeavoring to +keep it fixed on _A_ in the very act of fixing it on _B_, the points of +agreement and difference between _A_ and _B_ gradually emerge into clear +consciousness. _Objective Attributes of Presentation._ Dr. Pikler’s +theory of the psychology of Objective Existence fails to distinguish +between the phenomena which are merely observed by voluntary attention +and those which are actually produced by it. The act of introspection +modifies more or less the mental processes which it examines. Their +pre-existing strength and mode of operation can be ascertained only by +elimination of the peculiar reinforcement or enfeeblement which they +acquire by emergence into distinct consciousness. _The Objectivity of +Space and Spatial Relations._ Although we can produce change of place +by moving our bodies, according to our will, this freedom of selective +selection has rigid limits imposed on it by the very nature of space. +This control imposed on our freedom by the nature of the object +constitutes its objectivity. The constant possibility of transition +from one position to another is apprehended as inherent in the very +nature of space independently of our will. Whenever I distinctly attend +to the nature of a spatial limit, I must of necessity admit that space +is boundless. What has been said about the objectivity of space in +general applies _mutatis mutandis_ to the objectivity of space-relations +as treated by the geometrician. The psychological conditions of my +subjective certitude lie ultimately in the impassable barriers, +arising from the very nature of space, which confine the freedom of +my constructive movement. _Reality in the Association of Ideas._ +Association is a cause of belief. If certain contents of consciousness +have once been copresented in a certain relation to each other, the +reproduction of the one tends to bring about the reproduction of the +other in the same relation in which they were originally copresented. +A comparatively feeble association may command belief merely from the +absence of counter-associations. This is the basis of Bain’s doctrine +of primitive credulity. _Subconscious Conditions of Belief._ The +presentations which successively emerge into the forms of consciousness +are only fragmentary portions of the total mental system. Many, if not +most, of our beliefs depend on the operation of subconscious elements +which, in massive combination, co-operate to support a certain connection +of ideas which appears in consciousness as an object of attention. But +such massive support may arise from the connexion of the belief with +practical interests or æsthetic enjoyments, or with some powerful organic +sensation. _Apperception and Belief._ Ideal combinations may be separable +or inseparable according as this or that apperceptive system happens to +be predominant. This is best seen in its pathological exaggeration in +the case of suggestible patients. Under normal conditions the necessary +alternation of different apperceptive masses produces a corresponding +variation in the conditions of belief. _The Real in the Products of +Constructive Imagination._ The work of imagination either imposes an +illusion on the mind, or it does not. In both cases there is a certain +reference to reality. Illusion is a temporary and often more or less +imperfect belief in the product of constructive imagination; a belief +which can be indirectly produced or dissipated at will. _The Real as +Physical Resistance._ In the experience of the irregular interruption +of otherwise continuous series of muscular sensation, which, apart from +this restriction, are producible at will, we apprehend real existence. +The reality, however together with that of sensation as such, being +communicated to the interpretations which we are constrained to put both +upon sensations and their order, gives rise by a very complex process to +the presentation of a physical world. _Conclusion._ The law of conflict +is the psychological counterpart of the logical law of contradiction. + +In the present paper Mr. Marshall examines in detail his thesis that +Pleasure and Pain are determined by the relations between the amount of +activity in, and the nutritive conditions of the organ which determines +the conscious content (_Mind_ No. 63). He states the psychological +conditions for Pleasure to be: “A content which appears normally at +regular intervals will tend to be indifferent. If it appear with +hypernormal intensity or frequency suddenly in the course of the normal +regularity, it will for a relatively short time appear as pleasurable, +but this pleasurableness will soon fall away into indifference.” The +psychological condition of Pain is said to be: “If a content which has +already often appeared in consciousness appear with unusual frequency +or exceptional intensity, it will ordinarily be accompanied at first by +pleasure, which usually will wane until the content appears indifferent. +If the hypernormal stimulus continue (except as after described) the +content will become painful, and this pain will increase in amount, and +having reached a maximum will decrease gradually until it disappears, but +in general with it will also gradually disappear the content itself, not +to reappear in consciousness for a considerable time, if ever. In some +cases, however, if the content be not over intense, we may look for a +gradual decrease of the pain felt at the beginning until a condition of +indifference is reached.” Time is an essential factor in the process of +organic repair. For each organ there will be a certain time after action +has ceased at which recurrent activity will be most effective. Here we +have the physical basis of the gratifications obtained through rhythms. +There is also a relation of rhythm to pain. The throbbing of acute pain, +so far as it is not directly traceable to _pressures_ of blood-supply, +is probably indirectly traceable to the _rhythm_ of blood-supply. +Turning to Psychology proper, the laws of Pleasure-Pain may be stated +in terms of Attention. Pleasure, as involving the use of stored force, +implies a continuance of activity in the organ of pleasurable content, +and therefore a tendency to continuance of Attention upon that content. +Pain, on the other hand, implies a tendency to cessation of activity +in the organ of the painful content, and therefore the disappearance +of the content. The notion that pleasure is mere absence of pain is +denied by this theory, which accounts for the connexion, in a broad way, +between Pleasure and Pain and activities respectively advantageous and +disadvantageous. In relation to Ethics this theory teaches that the _act_ +of will, _per se_, is pleasurable as the outcome of the conditions of +opposition which are anterior to the will-act. Further, action in the +direction of the greatest desire is the most pleasant action. But this +does not show that the effect of habit may not be such as to lead to +action against the strongest desire and away from the greatest pleasure. +Further, the object of desire, whilst it may be, is not necessarily the +attainment of pleasure. + +A scrutiny of the psychological aspect of musical pleasure, says Mr. +Donovan, will lead to the conviction that its origin required simpler +psychological machinery than the origin of speech, which was possible +only through the aid of that machinery. The ear is superior to the eye +in respect of their relative contributions toward making up our mental +life and activity. The superiority of the ear rests on its functional +passivity. This allowed auditory impressions to force themselves into +consciousness in season and out of season. The facts of history and +ethnology which may be given a new aspect when regarded in the light of +the analysis of music cover a very wide field, beginning with the first +and rudest vestiges of communal sympathy and tribal glorification, and +extending up to the national song or epic. It is peculiar to man to +give expression to communal interest in a way which has nothing to do +with life-caring instincts. That interest finds its first and rudest +expression in bodily play-excitement: (1) bodily play-movements in +imitation of actions, (2) rhythmic beating, (3) some approach to song, +and (4) some degree of communal interest, display themselves as the +most constant elements of all festal celebrations. If we start from the +generally-accepted explanations of play-movements in animals, and grasp +the ultimate reason why play-excitement became infused with the communal +spirit, there will be no difficulty in tracing evidence of this spirit +even where they are most hidden by accompanying habits. Success in a +common enterprise tends to preserve it. The natural modes of expression +of the communal elation follow, i. e. the bodily play-movements in +imitation of the successful actions and the rhythmic beating. These +movements give to consciousness preservative elements of sensation. Every +step of tonal development was made in order to prove the effectiveness +of the elements of sensation which could preserve the content of +consciousness springing out of play-excitement and communal elation. The +attention-drawing power a musical tone possessed was enhanced by the +conditions of its production which ensured repetition in a persistent +temporal succession. Animals’ excited cries were both before and after +the stimulating rhythmic beating—produced tones. The same excitement +which impelled to these cries also impelled to rhythmic beating, and thus +produced a persistent auditory model for the cries. The philologist says +that roots are elements of words which analysis can reduce no further. +The psychologist can trace them back to the musical tones which became +reproductive agents of the vague presentative elements of actions as they +had been repeatedly held together in consciousness by the psychological +machinery of nascent musical pleasure. + +In a previous article (_Mind_, No. 62) Mr. Hobhouse aimed at proving +that all reasoning involved generalisation from observed facts, and +that all such generalisation could be shown to proceed on a definite +principle. There are two main ways in which Induction and Deduction may +be distinguished. First we may distinguish the assertion of a universal +from its application. The application of a universal to a particular case +is represented by the syllogism in which the major is a general judgment +and the minor a particular judgment of perception. When two judgments are +compared they are found to be (1) Tautologous—the same assertion of the +same fact. (2) Different statements of the same fact. (3) Assertions of +different facts. A judgment expresses a relation between two terms, and +hence two judgments may be said to assert the same fact when they assert +the same relation between the same terms. But if either of the terms or +the relation differs, then they assert different facts. Generalisation +involves a universal principle connecting different facts. Syllogism does +not. Syllogism appears as simply the opposite side of generalisation. +In the latter we assert a universal for the first time, in the former +we apply a universal already asserted. But in both we are dealing with +the same relation of universal and particular. Whether we assert or +apply our universal, the same ultimate logical fact, expressed in the +axiom of Induction, is at the bottom of the process. But a different +distinction may be drawn between Induction and Deduction. The whole +process of bringing particular facts under universals by observation +of similar particulars may be called Induction, while the combination +of several universals in a chain of reasoning is called Deduction. In +the first, Generalisation, we assert a universal on the ground of a +particular, or a particular on the ground of a similar particular. In +the second, Construction, we assert a relation between two universals +on the ground of the relation of each to one or more intermediate +relations. Construction involves generalisation at every step, and is a +true reasoning process. The nature of the generalisation may be shown by +the typical Deductive axiom. If, where two terms are in any way related +to a third, a relation between the two is observed, then when any other +two terms are similarly related to any third, the relation between these +two will be similar to that observed between the first two. The simplest +construction on which others rest is that of two relations to the same +type, and this axiom applies to relations so understood. The axioms +postulated by Reasoning lay down the conditions under which facts not +presented may be known to exist, and they are thus distinguished from +those principles called the “Laws of Thought.” + +Mr. Titchener severely criticises Dr. Münsterberg’s experimental +psychology, pointing out various errors, and concludes that “whether the +theories of the _Beiträge_ stand or fall, their experimental foundation +has very little positive worth.” + +In reply to the criticisms in _Mind_, No. 63, Mr. H. Spencer points +out that Dr. Wallaschek has overlooked a passage in which the former +recognises rhythm as an essential component of music. He does not +coincide with Dr. Wallaschek’s view, however, since it regards music as +acquiring its essential character by a trait which it has in common with +other things, instead of by a trait which it has apart from other thing. +It is from the emotional element of speech that music is evolved—not from +its intellectual element. + +After referring to the fact that harmony, as ordinarily understood and as +spoken of by him, is concerned with the fundamental tones and ignores the +overtones, Mr. Spencer states that he cannot accept Prof. Cattell’s view +that harmony has been developed from melody. To establish the evolution +of the one from the other, there must be found some identifiable +transitions between the combinations of tones constituting _timbre_, +which do not constitute harmony to our perception, and those combinations +of tones which do constitute harmony to our perception. + +In his Valedictory on retiring from the Editorship of _Mind_, Professor +Robertson refers to the establishment of the _Review_ in 1876, on the +initiative of Professor Bain, by whom it has since been sustained, and he +mentions that most of the experimental research has been contributed by +the American hands “that have been or are now organising psychological +laboratories over all the breadth of their own land.” (London: Williams +and Norgate.) + + Ω. + + +INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. October, 1891. Vol. II. No. I. + +CONTENTS: + + THE UNITY OF THE ETHICS OF ANCIENT GREECE. By Prof. _Leopold + Schmidt_. + + THE PROBLEM OF UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION. By _Felix Adler_, + Ph. D. + + THE THEORY OF PUNISHMENT. By Rev. _Hastings Rashdall_. + + AN INTERPRETATION OF THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OF OUR TIME. By Prof. + _Henry C. Adams_. + + THE PREVENTION OF CRIME. By Dr. _Ferdinand Tönnies_. + + THE ETHICAL TEACHING OF SOPHOKLES. By Prof. _Arthur Fairbanks_. + + THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND. By Prof. _J. Platter_. + + DISCUSSIONS. + +Prof. Schmidt’s article is a reply to a criticism of his work on the +ethics of the ancient Greeks which had appeared in the _International +Journal of Ethics_. + +Dr. Adler’s article is the introductory lecture of his course on Moral +Instruction before the School of Applied Ethics at Plymouth. He refers +first to the difficulty in the way of combining moral and religious +instruction in the public schools arising from the difference in +religious belief of the tax payers, and to the devices suggested to +circumvent the difficulty. The first of these devices is that Catholics, +Dissenters, and Jews, shall formulate a common platform of belief. There +are two obvious objections to this proposal. It would leave out of +account the party of the agnostics and be a gross injustice to them, and +it would never content the really religious minds of any denomination. It +would be acceptable only to the comparatively small class of so-called +rationalists or theists pure and simple, and they have no right under +the specious plea of reconciling the various creeds, in effect, to force +their own creed upon the rest of the community. The second device is that +religious and moral instruction combined shall be given in the public +schools by persons of the several denominations. The high authority of +Germany is invoked in favor of that system but Dr. Adler states that the +example of Germany cannot be quoted as a precedent owing to the relation +between the state and the schools in that country. The system, moreover +is not a happy one as, agreeably to Professor Smith’s propositions that +scientific instruction must be unsectarian and religious instruction must +be sectarian, the latter ought to have no place in state schools, at +least in a country where the separation of church and state is complete. +To the third arrangement proposed, that each sect should build its own +schools, and draw upon the fund supplied by taxation according to the +number of children which it educates, there are two objections. Owing to +the power of sects and their influence, direct and indirect, the rules +and regulations prescribed by the state for the schools to conform to +would not be enforced. And secondly, the purpose for which the public +school exists would be defeated, as the sectarian schools tend to prevent +the growth of that national unit which it is the very business of the +public school to create and foster. The correct answer to the question +as to the way in which to impart moral instruction so as to satisfy +all parties will be the solution of the problem of unsectarian moral +education. The answer is: It is the business of the moral instructor +in the school to deliver to his pupil the subject matter of morality, +but not to deal with the sanctions of it; to give his pupils a clear +understanding of what is right and what is wrong, but not to enter into +the question why the right should be done and the wrong avoided. The +conscience can be enlightened, strengthened, and always without once +raising the question why. Professor Adler, it appears to us, overlooks +the intimate connection between the two questions of what is wrong, and +why is it wrong. With the “why,” which is the moral sanction so-called, +he excludes the criterion of right and wrong and confines himself to +conventional morality. Professor Adler proposes, that the material for +the moral lessons should be “the stock of moral truths accepted by all +good men.” This would be a very simple solution of the ethical problem. +Mankind need no longer remain in doubt as to what good and bad is. +We have only to accept the propositions of “all good men.” But where +is the judge that shall decide who are to be considered as good men? +Either Professor Adler considers his own views of moral goodness as +authoritative and ultimate or his reasoning moves in a vicious circle. + +Professor Tönnies and the Rev. Hastings Rashdall discuss punishment as a +preventive of crime. Professor Adams finds that the genius of invention +established the factory system replacing the old domestic system of +industry. The change of a society based upon tools into a society based +upon machinery means that the worker has lost control over the conditions +of labor which he now tries to regain. Arthur Fairbanks says that +according to the ethics of Sophokles, conscience was sense of conformity +to an æsthetic ideal. J. Platter of Zürich rejects Henry George’s theory +as “nonsense.” (Philadelphia: _International Journal of Ethics_, 1602 +Chestnut Street.) + + ωκ. + + +RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. September and October, 1891. + +CONTENTS: + + L’IMMAGINAZIONE NELLE SUE RELAZIONI NORMALI E MORBOSE COLLA + SENSIBILITA. By _L. Ambrosi_. + + L’ORIGINE INDIANA DEL PITAGORISMO SECONDO L. VON SCHRÖDER. By + _P. D’Ercole_. + + LUIGI VIVES, PEDAGOGISTA DEL RINASCIMENTO. By _A. Piazzi_. + + LA FILOSOFIA DI EMPEDOCLE. By _S. Ferrari_. + +_Imagination in its normal and diseased relations to sensibility._ The +writer calls our attention to the endless variety of different and +apparently contradictory things that are usually attributed to the +faculty of imagination. To some this faculty of the human mind is the +main cause of human errors, and with Montaigne they call it “la folle +du logis”; but to others, imagination plays a rather important part in +the discovery of great scientific theories. All unanimously admit, that +imagination lends fuel to the flames of all kinds of evil passions; but +on the other hand it cannot be denied, that imagination sustains the +will in every work of great stress, or great sacrifice, by the vivid +representation of an expected final success. All human votaries and +possessors of this fleeting, inconstant mental faculty are by turns +“happy, unhappy, sane, sick, wealthy or poor; it makes us believe, doubt, +or deny reason; it makes fools and sages.” (Pascal, _Pensées_, Art. 3, § +3). Yet how can the psychologist reconcile all this; how can he find the +different circumstances, through which one and the same cause produces +such an endless variety and discrepancy of facts? Several psychologists, +who have tried to follow the flights of imagination throughout all its +different manifestations by the sole aid of style and language, have +been poets rather than true philosophers. Such was Delille in his poem +_l’Imagination_; and such was even Professor Mantegazza himself, in that +chapter of his _Physiology of Pleasure_, which he has dedicated to the +“Gioie della fantasia,” where he describes this faculty with far more +enthusiasm than scientific precision. Bonstetten, in his _Recherches sur +la nature et lois de l’imagination_, Genève, 1807, is supposed to have +been the first to give a minute and exclusively psychological analysis +of imagination; but his investigations seem to prove, that a delicate +subject of this kind, like certain volatile essences, evaporates at +the moment we wish to analyse it, and cannot be defined by any strict +scientific formulas and classifications. And yet, if we really wish +to study the psychology of imagination, we must not be frightened by +these difficulties, or regard them as insurmountable. We may not be +able to reduce all these varied phenomena to very definite and limited +categories, but it does not follow from this, that we have only to make +a simple, empirical registration of these phenomena. As Michaut observes +(_L’Imagination_, Introduction): “Wherever we find a general element, +there also we shall find room for science.” Despite the inconstancy of +the phenomena, it remains true, that also in the facts of imagination +there is something constant and regular; that they are subject to laws, +which might be probably severed from the phenomena, and be reduced to a +certain unity and uniformity, without forgetting, at the same time, that +this fleeting and delicate subject is not always reducible to absolutely +strict classification. + +How are we, accordingly, to obtain that harmony and unity of view, that +will unite and group all those diversified manifestations? Mind cannot +be conceived as a collection of different states, but we have to assume, +that within the Psyche there is something substantial; there is unity, +constancy in its energy; and that this side of its being is also the +principle of its transitory actions. We recognise therefore the existence +of two distinct sources of spiritual energy, that will better make us +understand the diversity of its products: on the one side, the soul +itself, with the formal laws of its simple being, and, on the other side, +the power or force of its sensible representations,—of its reactions. +This distinction, applied to the present problem, will on the one hand +cause us to consider images as the products of an activity of an inferior +order, called psyche soul, but we shall behold on the other, that same +soul, when it has freed itself from the tyranny of the senses, itself +becoming properly what is called mind, its emancipation rising to the +higher function of arranging and organising the images produced by the +aid of the senses. Hence follows, that the relations of either conflict +or harmony which these products of the soul have among each other, and +to mind proper, will serve as a criterion of a classification, in which +we have to take note: (1) of the reciprocal action between sensations +and images; (2) of that between images and images; (in both of which +instances the power of the products possesses an advantage over the power +of mind;) and (3) of the action of mind upon images. By this road it +will be possible to follow all the phases of the evolution of mind from +the moment when overcome by obstinate images it is reduced to a life of +disorder, incoherency, or, as it were, to death of mind, until the moment +when in its own turn mind takes hold of the numerous images by which it +is besieged, and by subjecting them to its own laws—to laws of unity and +harmony—it creates out of that disorderly chaos of images the wonderful +synthesis of science and works of art. From that instant we behold mind +rise through a series of intermediate stages, from abject servitude to +the loftiest heights of freedom, from a state of humiliating impotency to +an unhampered display of its true, inward activity,—from folly to genius. +In other words, it is chiefly this psychic activity, in all its different +stages of development and power, that must be our guiding criterion in +the study of the phases and phenomena of imagination. + +The writer, thereupon, seeks to explain the nature of this psychic +activity in its application to images. He briefly investigates the +origin of images, their immediate derivation from the sensations, and +their intimate reciprocal connection, by virtue of which the one cannot +be produced without the other; and whence there arise many different +relations, that not only explain, but even enable us to classify a large +number of facts relating to this mental faculty. The writer concludes +with some general remarks on the diseases of imagination. + +_The Hindu Origin of Pythagorism according to L. von Schroeder._ This +article was suggested by Dr. L. v. Schroeder’s monograph: _Pythagoras +und die Inder. Eine Untersuchung über die Herkunft und Abstammung +der Pythagorischen Lehren_. The discussion about the local origin of +Pythagorism began with the ancients themselves, is being continued in our +own time, and, from the nature of the subject itself, bids fair to be +protracted for an indefinite period still. In recent times this arduous +problem has invaded the domain of comparative ethnology, comparative +religion, philology, in brief, of all the historical sciences, receiving, +doubtless, striking and copious illustrations from all these, yet at the +risk of almost losing sight of itself. In Pythagorism, as in certain +other products of the human mind, it is difficult to discriminate with +absolute historical certainty between “mine” and “thine.” The real +solution of the problem may perhaps be found in the original unity of +the evolution of the Indo-European mind. The writer, however, views +the problem simply as one of comparative religion and the history of +philosophy. The ancients advocated the Italic, or Tyrrhenian origin of +the Pythagorean system, and among modern Italians, Vico and Gioberti have +done the same. The Chinese origin was defended by Gladisch. The third, +the Egyptian origin, also dates from antiquity, and in modern times has +been ardently defended by Roth. The fourth, the supposed Hellenic origin, +has had the greatest number of followers, and has been ably championed by +Dr. Edw. Zeller in his work, _Die Philosophie der Griechen_. As regards +the last, the alleged Hindu origin, this was suggested of course by the +numerous striking analogies found between Hindu and Pythagorean doctrine. +Still, all that has been said on the subject by Schroeder, Max Müller, +Weber, and others, has failed to thoroughly convince the writer. In his +next article he promises to show, that everything has induced him to +believe that the Hindus themselves rather borrowed their doctrine of +transmigration from the philosophical system of Pythagoras. + +_Luigi Vives. A Pedagogist of the Renaissance._ The interesting subject +of this article is probably to this day but little understood or +appreciated by the pedagogists of northern Europe. To this day, many +among them seem ignorant of the fact, or, perhaps, are unwilling to +frankly admit, that along with the Catholic revival, and the intellectual +renaissance of the Latin nations, there was initiated the tradition of +really humane pedagogics, founded on the nature of man, and, in its aim +and workings, vastly superior to the educational systems of the nations +beyond the Alps. It was an earnest, liberal, refining educational +system, that professed an affectionate regard for youth. It banished +corporal punishment, and addressed itself directly to the heart and the +intelligence. The Jesuit maxim: “debetur pueris maxima reverentia,” still +recalls the original spirit of this humane system of education. It is +perhaps not an exaggeration to maintain, that, in the spirit of the time, +it also aimed at the _beautiful_ in education. It was a declared enemy +to any thought, speech or action in _bad form_. To the subject of this +article, the Spanish bishop of Valencia, Louis Vives, is due the honor +of having been one of the most ardent and successful promoters of this +new educational system, and to have been the Jean Jacques Rousseau of +his time. Vives was born in the year 1492, and died in the year 1540. He +had studied at the University of Paris, and was an intimate friend of +Erasmus of Rotterdam. He is moreover the author of a number of valuable +educational works. Bishop Vives, however, must also be regarded as a +clergyman, who in his practical career would at times find it difficult +to reconcile his broad-minded scholastic ideals with the duties of +his calling, and with the exaggerated ascetical tendencies by which +he was surrounded. As a matter of fact, in a short time the church is +seen practically to override all this liberal educational movement of +the renaissance. Within the college- and convent-walls, in the Latin +countries, the humane paternal pedagogics of the renaissance soon and +easily degenerated into oppressive, injurious, personal surveillance, and +an odious theocratic tyranny. With all our sincere admiration for the +work initiated by men like Louis Vives, we must nevertheless maintain, +that all, or nearly all, the ecclesiastic educational systems of the +Latin countries during the following centuries, can scarcely lay valid +claims to a place within the pale of true pedagogical science. + +_The Philosophy of Empedocles._ In this concluding article the writer +exhaustively discusses the religious tenets and ethical precepts of +Empedocles, as both appear in the Proëmium, in the third book on Physics, +and in the poem of the “καθαρμοί”—or expiatory atonements. + +_Bibliography._ In this department we notice a lengthy review of Prof. E. +Dal Pozzo di Mombello’s _Lectures on Monism_, delivered at the University +of Perugia. In this number are also contained the _Bollettino Pedagogico +Filosofico_, _Critical Notices_, and _Recent Publications_. (Rome. +Tipografia delle Terme Diocleziane. 1891.) + + γνλν. + + +REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. November, 1891. No. II. + +CONTENTS: + + LES ORIGINES DE NOTRE STRUCTURE INTELLECTUELLE ET CÉRÉBRALE. I. + Le Kantisme. By _A. Fouillée_. + + DU RÔLE DE LA VOLONTÉ DANS LA CROYANCE. By _J. J. Gourd_. + +In discussing the part of the will played in belief, M. J. J. Gourd +considers our belief in an ultra-phenomenal reality which he calls +“metaphysical belief.” “All thought,” he says, “involves a relation, +viz. a relation between subject and object. Every relation presupposes a +comparison of its terms and this comparison is not established if the +subject and object belong to different worlds. The subject is undoubtedly +found in consciousness, the object must be there also. All the ingenious +arguments to escape this conclusion are vain. Accordingly, one may well +believe in the truth of the metaphysical belief, but this belief is not +true.” + +M. G. Tarde, the great criminologist and an opponent of Professor +Lombroso’s school reviews the penological and criminological literature +of recent times in France, Italy, and Belgium. + +Alfred Fouillée revises in the article on “the origin of our intellectual +and cerebral structure” several solutions of the problem of the nature +of thought-forms, especially Kant’s view of the _a priori_. Strongly +influenced by Schopenhauer, he makes of the great pessimist’s will-theory +quite an original and peculiar application and finds that the question of +“_idées-forces_” is also at the bottom of the question of the origin of +ideas. In comparing the origin of ideas to the origin of solar systems, +he says: “Ideas are the condensation of that which exists everywhere in +a nebulous state into luminous centres and conscious focuses. Sensation +is desire.” And he sums up his view in the sentence: “Nihil est in +intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu et voluntate.” (Paris: Félix +Alcan.) + + κρς. + + +ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II. +No. 5. + +CONTENTS: + + DIE SINNE DER VERBRECHER. By _C. Lombroso_ and _S. Ottolenghi_. + (Mit 4 Figuren.) + + UEBER VERGLEICHUNGEN VON TONDISTANZEN. By _Gustav Engel_. + + LITTERATURBERICHT. + +Cesare Lombroso and his assistant S. Ottolenghi communicate the results +of their investigations of the senses of born criminals in a similar +way as the former of the two had done in his “Studies in Criminal +Anthropology,” _The Monist_, Vol. i, No. 2, p. 177 et sqq. Our authors +say: “Since the days of the famous Greek sage who said that nothing came +into the intellect save through the gateway of the senses, it could be +foreseen that a study of the senses would become the gateway to ethics.” +And, it is a fact recognised for some time but not as yet proved by exact +methods that a lack of moral sense is often accompanied with an obtusity +of the sense-organs. Dr. Azam’s famous Felida showed an entire absence of +the moral sense when she was in a state of analgesia; Romanes has pointed +out that the sensitiveness to pain is greater in tame animals than in +wild beasts, this is especially noticeable in the dog. It is noteworthy +also that savage peoples are almost insensible to pain while civilisation +often increases sensibility till it becomes hyperæsthesia. + +Obtusity of the sense-organs in criminals should not be confounded +however with the anæsthesia of criminals, because the rarity of +laterality, the absence of isolated insensible places, the lack of motory +anomalies, etc., exclude the supposition of hysteria. + +Our authors found among 15 criminal boys between 10 and 14 years no less +than ten cases of absolute analgesia, which proves that this symptom +cannot be the effect of alcoholism, syphilis, marasmus, or overwork of a +special trade. + +Several anecdotes are told about the insensibility to pain. An old thief +had his leg amputated with the greatest apathy: the operation done, he +took the limb into his hand and joked about it. An inveterate murderer, +his penal servitude being ended, was dismissed out of the bagnio of the +island S. He asked the warden to be retained, because he did not know how +to get food and shelter. His demand being refused, he opened his bowels +with the handle of a spoon, went to bed as usual, and died without even a +sigh. Mandrin, a criminal, shortly before his execution allowed himself +to be cut in eight places without giving a sign of pain; criminal R. +flayed the skin of his face with a piece of glass. In the penitentiary at +Chatham during the years 1871 and 1872, 841 voluntary wounds and injuries +were made. Among them 27 convicts had mutilated some limb, and in 17 +cases the limb had to be amputated. + +This obtusity of the sensory organs in criminals is supposed to be of +a cortical origin and being similar to the phenomena of savage life is +interpreted as atavism. Criminals show deficiencies in the senses of +touch, smell, taste, and hearing, but not of sight. And this is analogous +to the savage in whom the sense of sight is naturally very strong, and +no criminal could execute numerous thefts or escape the arm of justice +without a high development of the sense of sight. + +In the second article on comparisons of tone-distances Gustav Engel, +Professor at the Royal High-school of Music in Berlin, takes occasion +to explain his views of the subject with reference to the severe +criticism of C. Stumpf on Carl Lorenz’s theory. Wilhelm Wundt had taken +part in the discussion in favor of Lorenz. The subject of the article +lies in the border-land between the physiology of hearing and music; +and Professor Engel comes to the conclusion that affinity of tones, i. +e. the interval-sense in a melodious succession does not lead to the +same accuracy and reliability of hearing as their concord. He objects +to the idea of an arithmetical difference as proposed by Lorenz and +Wundt, and proves it through the fact that the Pythagorean tierce in +the unaccompanied scale makes a less noticeable disturbance than in a +concord, while the approximately pure tierce (which is too low only +by a small fracture of a comma) is excellent in the concord while it +causes a slight disturbance in the melody. Musical intervals are not +identical with the geometrical intervals, yet they are based upon them as +a selection made among innumerable possibilities for certain purposes. +Their acceptance is established only in harmonic music, but this fact too +adds some difficulties to the investigations made in this field, for if +two tones sound together, we can no longer distinguish them separately, +as would be required for the investigation; and if we let the one succeed +the other their geometrical relation is no longer discerned with the same +precision. (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.) + + κρς. + + +VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XV. Nos. 3 +and 4. + +CONTENTS of No. 3: + + PSYCHISCHE UND PHYSISCHE ACTIVITÄT. By _H. Höffding_. + + UEBER SPRACHREFLEX, NATIVISMUS UND ABSICHTLICHE SPRACHBILDUNG. + (Achter Artikel.) By _A. Marty_. + + ZUR PHILOSOPHIE DER MATHEMATIK. By _Chr. v. Ehrenfels_. + + DER FOLGERUNGSCALCUL UND DIE INHALTSLOGIK. By _E. G. Husserl_. + +CONTENTS of No. 4: + + DIE GESETZMÄSSIGKEIT DER PHYSISCHEN ACTIVITÄT. By _H. Höffding_. + + ETHNOLOGIE UND ÆSTHETIK. By _E. Grosse_. + + UEBER DIE FORTSCHREITENDE ENTWICKLUNG DES MENSCHENGESCHLECHTS. + (Erster Artikel.) By _F. Rosenberger_. + + UEBER SPRACHREFLEX, NATIVISMUS UND ABSICHTLICHE SPRACHBILDUNG. + (Neunter Artikel). By _A. Marty_. + + UEBER FERNWIRKUNG UND ANORMALE. WAHRNEHMUNGSFÄKHIGKEIT. + Methodologische Randglossen. By _M. Offner_. + +Prof. H. Höffding’s article on psychical and physical activity is an +answer to a criticism by Professor Kroman. Professor Höffding had +proposed, concerning the relation of the psychical to the physical, a +theory which he called the “identity hypothesis,” according to which +the physical and psychical activities are not different in their nature +but only in their phenomenal appearance. K. Kroman, a countryman and +colleague of H. Höffding—both are professors at the University of +Copenhagen—rejected in his recent work “Logic and Psychology” the +identity hypothesis and characterised it as “Duplicism,” a name against +which Höffding protests. Kroman’s objections are as follows: _a_) Natural +science knows of no reason to conceive of the relation of the psychical +to the material in the way expressed by the identity-hypothesis. _b_) +On the basis of the identity-hypothesis it remains unexplained how we +can know anything about the external world. _c_) It is inexplicable how +an identity can obtain of two so different things as are the bodily +multiplicity and the psychical unity. Professor Höffding investigates +these three objections separately and comes to the conclusion that +his identity-hypothesis shows the relation between the psychical and +material nature in a clear and simple light. It excludes on the one hand +materialism and on the other hand spiritualism. The question whether +either phenomenon, spirit or matter, represents the absolute nature of +existence, cannot, according to Höffding, be answered. It appears to +us that Professor Höffding’s position is sound in all main points and +may be considered as that view which is most prevalent among modern +psychologists. However, concerning the question whether spirit or matter +represents the absolute nature of existence, we refer the reader to the +editorial article “Are there Things in Themselves?” section XII, “The +Oneness of Subjectivity and Objectivity.” In our opinion the question +itself is illegitimate. Neither the subjectivity of spirit, nor the +objectivity of matter represents the absolute nature of existence; +both together form the nature of existence; and we omit here the word +“absolute” purposely. The question as to which abstract, matter or +spirit, represents the absolute nature of existence seems to us similar +to the question which of the two terms _A_ and _B_ represents in the +relation _A:B_ the absolute nature of the relation. The obvious answer is +neither. + +The eighth article of A. Marty of Prague on Language-reflex is mainly of +a controversial nature directed against L. Tobler’s article on the origin +of language in the _Zeitschrift für Völker-Psychologie_. By Nativism, +Marty understands the theory that certain involuntary articulate sounds +are associated with certain ideas, while the so-called empirical theory +attempts to explain the origin of the first words without such innate +mechanical relations between sounds and concepts. Marty represents the +empirical solution of the problem and objects to the extreme nativism, +but he grants that Tobler’s modified nativism approaches very much to his +own position. + +The longest article of the present number (63 pp.) is an essay full of +valuable hints by Chr. v. Ehrenfels on the Philosophy of Mathematics. +The epistemological basis of mathematics demands a psychological +investigation of its contents. Accordingly the author proposes to present +a psychological characterisation of the number-conceptions, from +which he derives some conclusions concerning the theory of cognition. +He investigates the origin of the unity conception which is generally +defined as “positing a unit” or as “conceiving as a unit.” We usually +believe that we abstract numbers directly from the objects, when we +look for instance at one house with two doors and five windows. But +this process of abstraction is not quite so direct as it seems. The +number-conception is not taken from external observation, but carried +into the same; yet this is done involuntarily and inadvertently so that +it appears as if they were _eo ipso_ contained in it. + +What is the origin of the concepts “unity” and “multiplicity”? Two +methods present themselves: 1) The concentration of attention and (2) +the act of bringing into relation. The former produces a unity and, +when successively directed to several objects, a series of units. The +latter appears to be required by the consideration that the conception +of a number is conditioned by acts of distinguishing. The number +“two” requires two acts of distinguishing, “three” requires three, +“four” requires six and the number _n_ requires _n_/2(_n_-1) acts +of distinguishing. This explains why we can have clear and direct +conceptions only of very low figures. The idea that a combination of both +methods will explain the facts is by no means excluded. But there is a +third source which may be used to explain the unity conception, viz. +inner experience. “The unity of consciousness,” Ehrenfels says, “has been +misused in philosophy to demonstrate the substantiality, simplicity, +and indestructibility of the soul.” Nevertheless there is some truth in +the unity idea, for the present psychical phenomena present themselves +in a peculiar amalgamation, which admits of a comparison between two +elements while it erects a barrier between the _ego_ and the _tu_. Our +psychical contents will always appear to us as a unit; and on this basis +we might declare that the unity conception is derived from this source. +[Here Ehrenfels does not see that the concentration of attention is +practically the same as the unity of consciousness, for attention means +consciousness, and concentration produces unity.] + +Number-conceptions originate by counting. We disjoin things; for +instance, we throw a number of apples into a basket, or we let the finger +slide over the division lines of a measuring stick naming each unit while +proceeding in the act. From such processes the function of counting +can be abstracted while the details are neglected as unimportant. Most +of the higher numbers are never directly but only indirectly realised. +So for instance twenty is to many that number which will be reached by +counting up to twenty, yet the single units of the number are lost sight +of entirely. Such number-conceptions belong to the class of “indirect +concepts” which represent objects not through marks belonging to the +object itself, but originating through its relation to other objects. +The basis of such indirect concepts had been called by Ehrenfels +_Gestaltsqualitäten_, i. e. figure qualities, and by Meinong _fundierte +Inhalte_ or founded contents. Thus indirect conceptions are parts +contingent upon some such basis. + +Number-conceptions are not always clearly thought out and there are some +helps to represent higher or more complex numbers. Thus we can think of +ten as represented by the outside and inside corners of a pentagram, +twelve as the edges of a cube, etc., and common among all nations is the +usage of the fingers to represent numbers up to ten. Such helps are quite +different from indirect number-conceptions and may be called figurative +number-conceptions. + +That there are mathematical conceptions of magnitudes which have no +objective analogon is quite natural, for there is even in an indirect +conception no warrant for its objective reality; and we ought to +consider how many word- and idea-combinations are possible without +their possessing some analogous reality. Yet the so-called irrational +cannot properly be called a number, it is the demand of a number which +in fractions can sufficiently for certain purposes but never fully be +realised. + +Negative numbers always presuppose a contrast and such conditions arise +naturally wherever the fundamental ideas imply two opposite directions, +for instance past and future in time, credit and debit in business, etc. +It is a matter of course that there are in reality as little either +positive or negative numbers, as there are positive or negative colors or +sounds. + +Concerning the necessity idea, Ehrenfels says: “Nobody will consider +it as possible that five plus seven will in some cases make any other +number than twelve. We are confident that the same addition will under +all circumstances yield the same sum.” Ehrenfels grants the psychical +certitude of this but not the mathematical, and thinks that on this +point there is a difference of opinion allowable. Here we disagree from +Ehrenfels and refer the reader to former articles on kindred subjects in +_The Monist_, especially the article on “The Origin of Thought-forms,” +Vol. II, p. 111. We must bear in mind that in mathematics we are moving +in a realm of pure forms and the statement 7 + 5 = 12 is, as the Germans +express it, _eindeutig bestimmt_, i. e. it is determined exhaustively in +one and the only one possible way. The numbers 7 and 5 being rigid, their +sum and their product will also be rigid. + +This difference of opinion may be contingent upon a difference of the +conception of the _a priori_. Ehrenfels defines as “a priori” such +judgments which having come into our possession, are readily accepted +without proof. We follow Grassmann in rejecting the acceptance of +anything without proof, including the idea of mathematical axioms. The +_a priori_ in our terminology becomes identical with that which pertains +to formal thought: and it would make no difference whether the instance +presented is as simple as 1 + 1 = 2 or extremely complex as are the +differential calculus and logarithms. Accordingly we disagree also from +Ehrenfels when he finds even in such additions as for instance 825 + +217 = 1042 vestiges of an _a posteriori_ character. The employment of +the logarithms accordingly appears to Ehrenfels also _aposterioristic_ +because the fruits of other peoples’ labors are utilised! + +Concerning John Stuart Mill’s view of the subject, Ehrenfels says that +“it is still deeply entangled in the errors of that conception which it +so bitterly opposes, viz. in the formalism of the old purely _a priori_ +conception. For only he who adheres to the view that all mathematics +are deduced from a few axioms can think of attributing to those axioms +the highest degree of plausibility which is assumed for them on the +ground of comprehensive deduction.” We agree with Ehrenfels’s objection +to Mill, but we cannot agree with his view that mathematics derives any +elements from _a posteriori_ elements, although we grant that quite new +departments are created simply by a different employment of certain +functions. Accordingly mathematics cannot be derived from a few axioms +only but is the products of certain functions. + +Ehrenfels calls attention to the fact that the mathematician operating +with symbols often forgets entirely what he has to think of in connection +with these symbols. “This is not strange,” he adds, “for thoughtless +word-combinations present analogous instances, yet it is strange that +the result almost without exception comes out right; _es stimmt!_” We +object here; operations with mathematical symbols are not thoughtless +combinations, at least, they are not meaningless. They are operations +not with things, but with symbols representing certain relations among +things. When gamblers play with chips representing real money, they need +not think during the game of the value represented by a chip, and yet +when the account is made, the result attained with the assistance of the +chips will come out right. There is no reason to wonder at it. Chips like +mathematical symbols might in a certain sense be called thoughtless, for +certainly they do not think; but they are not thoughtless in the sense +that they are meaningless, that nothing is thought by them. + +Ehrenfels apparently sees a problem where there is none and this is +closely connected with another point. He looks upon the mathematician’s +inability of thinking out in every respect the objective meaning of +mathematical symbols as a shortcoming of man’s intellect. While it +appears that we cannot think anything by many mathematical symbols (for +instance by _a⁰ = 1_) except the symbol itself, the enormous success +of mathematical thought is evidence that they must have some definite +meaning although it is to be excogitated only by those beings who will +transgress the average intelligence of to-day, the first germs of whose +existence are the mathematical geniuses of the present generation. It +appears to us that undoubtedly every mathematical symbol has a definite +meaning, representing the result of some function. That the result will +sometimes be unattainable or unrealisable, that especially all operations +with zero make the whole calculation indefinite (which naturally arises +from the nature of zero) does not alter the truth of this proposition in +the least. + +We have to make one additional remark. The peculiarity of mathematics +that we do not throughout our operations think out the meaning of the +symbols is not a shortcoming of our intelligence, but the strength of +mathematical science. The advantage of all the formal sciences and +especially of mathematics consists in this that we _need not_ think out +every detail, but that we can, through the assistance of mathematical +symbols, perform the most intricate operations with machine-like +exactness. The economy of thought produced in this way is not a +deficiency of man’s mind, but a virtue. + +Prof. H. Höffding (in No. 4) insists upon the causal law as being +indispensable in psychology. There are some people and among others his +colleague Professor Kroman who regard moral motives as an exception. +“Yet,” says Professor Höffding, “should the decisive moment of a decision +not be determined by the causal law, the will could never be determined +through a reflection on the possible effects of the action and thus every +reason would be missing to attribute to man any responsibility.” + +E. Grosse expatiates on the proposition to apply the comparative method +of ethnology to æsthetics. Ferd. Rosenberger proposes the following +programme: “Knowledge is power; activity based upon such power is the +cause of happiness. Therefore with the increase of knowledge, there is +an increase of happiness, successful activity however is impossible +without virtue. Therefore we conclude that an increase of happiness will +be accompanied with an increase of virtue.” A. Marty in this his ninth +article blames Steinthal for having misrepresented the eighteenth century +theories of the origin of language. + +M. Offner reviews Dr. Charles Richet’s reports of his telepathic +experiments, but the reviewer cannot assent to Richet’s opinion “that +these facts possess a strange coincidence and that they are, probably, +the result of a relation and not of pure chance.” (Leipsic: O. R. +Reisland.) + + κρς. + + +PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVIII. Nos. 1 and 2. + +CONTENTS: + + ZUM BEGRIFF DER UNBEWUSSTEN VORSTELLUNG. By _E. v. Hartmann_. + + UEBER DAS GEBET. EIN RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHISCHES FRAGMENT. + Sendschreiben an Herrn E. Renan in Paris. By _M. J. Monrad_. + + WERKE ZUR PHILOSOPHIE DES SOCIALEN LEBENS UND DER GESCHICHTE. + Erster Artikel (H. Spencer, Sociologie, Bd. III). By _F. + Tönnies_. + + RECENSIONEN: H. Münsterberg, Beiträge zur experimentellen + Psychologie No. 3. Neue Grundlegung der Psychophysik. By _Th. + Ziehen_. W. Enoch Der Begriff der Wahrnehmung. By _P. Natorp_. + Ch. Bénard. L’esthétique d’Aristote et de ses successeurs. By + _A. Döring_. + + LITTERATURBERICHT. + +The well-known philosopher Edward von Hartmann defines his position +with reference to the idea of an unconscious representation. Granting +that there are no unconscious sensations, perceptions, conceptions +or memories, because feeling either is conscious or not at all, he +introduces the idea of unconscious representations again as the most +adequate determination. He says, “Either we must renounce all speaking +and thinking of non-sensual objects or we must be satisfied with using +figurative expressions.” + +M. J. Monrad, a Norwegian, argues, in the second article against M. E. +Renan’s theory of prayer, whom he had visited some years ago in Paris, +that prayer has after all an effect upon the objective world and it is +not limited to a merely subjective and psychological influence. Monrad +presupposes a belief in God, prayer bringing the individual in unison +with God, changes the will of the individual into a co-ordinate willing +of God and thus renders the individual a co-worker of God. This, however, +should not be conceived to take place by magic and in contradiction to +nature, but through nature, man using the laws of nature. + +F. Tönnies of Kiel gives an exposition of Mr. Spencer’s social views +which are, briefly expressed, “the final victory of society over +the state.” Professor Tönnies answers that “we all want a higher +civilisation, but the development of a higher civilisation is not +conditioned by the final victory of society over the state. On the +contrary, it may be said that it depends upon a victory of the state over +society in so far as public rights will supersede private rights.... The +truth is that state and society are contingent, the one upon the other +and also limiting each other.” (Berlin: Dr. R. Salinger.) + + κρς. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[52] _Questions of Philosophy and Psychology._ In the Russian language. + + + + + VOL. II. APRIL, 1892. NO. 3. + + THE MONIST. + + + + +THE DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY EXAMINED. + + +In _The Monist_ for January, 1891, I endeavored to show what elementary +ideas ought to enter into our view of the universe. I may mention that on +those considerations I had already grounded a cosmical theory, and from +it had deduced a considerable number of consequences capable of being +compared with experience. This Comparison is now in progress, but under +existing circumstances must occupy many years. + +I propose here to examine the common belief that every single fact in +the universe is precisely determined by law. It must not be supposed +that this is a doctrine accepted everywhere and at all times by all +rational men. Its first advocate appears to have been Democritus the +atomist, who was led to it, as we are informed, by reflecting upon the +“impenetrability, translation, and impact of matter (ἀντιτυπία καὶ φορὰ +καὶ πληγὴ τῆς ὕλης).” That is to say, having restricted his attention +to a field where no influence other than mechanical constraint could +possibly come before his notice, he straightway jumped to the conclusion +that throughout the universe that was the sole principle of action,—a +style of reasoning so usual in our day with men not unreflecting as to be +more than excusable in the infancy of thought. But Epicurus, in revising +the atomic doctrine and repairing its defences, found himself obliged +to suppose that atoms swerve from their courses by spontaneous chance; +and thereby he conferred upon the theory life and entelechy. For we now +see clearly that the peculiar function of the molecular hypothesis in +physics is to open an entry for the calculus of probabilities. Already, +the prince of philosophers had repeatedly and emphatically condemned the +dictum of Democritus (especially in the “Physics,” Book II, chapters +iv, v, vi), holding that events come to pass in three ways, namely, +(1) by external compulsion, or the action of efficient causes, (2) by +virtue of an inward nature, or the influence of final causes, and (3) +irregularly without definite cause, but just by absolute chance; and this +doctrine is of the inmost essence of Aristotelianism. It affords, at +any rate, a valuable enumeration of the possible ways in which anything +can be supposed to have come about. The freedom of the will, too, was +admitted both by Aristotle and by Epicurus. But the Stoa, which in every +department seized upon the most tangible, hard, and lifeless element, +and blindly denied the existence of every other, which, for example, +impugned the validity of the inductive method and wished to fill its +place with the _reductio ad absurdum_, very naturally became the one +school of ancient philosophy to stand by a strict necessitarianism, thus +returning to the single principle of Democritus that Epicurus had been +unable to swallow. Necessitarianism and materialism with the Stoics went +hand in hand, as by affinity they should. At the revival of learning, +Stoicism met with considerable favor, partly because it departed just +enough from Aristotle to give it the spice of novelty, and partly because +its superficialities well adapted it for acceptance by students of +literature and art who wanted their philosophy drawn mild. Afterwards, +the great discoveries in mechanics inspired the hope that mechanical +principles might suffice to explain the universe; and though without +logical justification, this hope has since been continually stimulated +by subsequent advances in physics. Nevertheless, the doctrine was in +too evident conflict with the freedom of the will and with miracles to +be generally acceptable, at first. But meantime there arose that most +widely spread of philosophical blunders, the notion that associationalism +belongs intrinsically to the materialistic family of doctrines; and thus +was evolved the theory of motives; and libertarianism became weakened. +At present, historical criticism has almost exploded the miracles, great +and small; so that the doctrine of necessity has never been in so great +vogue as now. + +The proposition in question is that the state of things existing at any +time, together with certain immutable laws, completely determine the +state of things at every other time (for a limitation to _future_ time +is indefensible). Thus, given the state of the universe in the original +nebula, and given the laws of mechanics, a sufficiently powerful mind +could deduce from these data the precise form of every curlicue of every +letter I am now writing. + +Whoever holds that every act of the will as well as every idea of the +mind is under the rigid governance of a necessity co-ordinated with that +of the physical world, will logically be carried to the proposition +that minds are part of the physical world in such a sense that the laws +of mechanics determine everything that happens according to immutable +attractions and repulsions. In that case, that instantaneous state of +things from which every other state of things is calculable consists +in the positions and velocities of all the particles at any instant. +This, the usual and most logical form of necessitarianism, is called the +mechanical philosophy. + +When I have asked thinking men what reason they had to believe that every +fact in the universe is precisely determined by law, the first answer +has usually been that the proposition is a “presupposition” or postulate +of scientific reasoning. Well, if that is the best that can be said for +it, the belief is doomed. Suppose it be “postulated”: that does not +make it true, nor so much as afford the slightest rational motive for +yielding it any credence. It is as if a man should come to borrow money, +and when asked for his security, should reply he “postulated” the loan. +To “postulate” a proposition is no more than to hope it is true. There +are, indeed, practical emergencies in which we act upon assumptions of +certain propositions as true, because if they are not so, it can make no +difference how we act. But all such propositions I take to be hypotheses +of individual facts. For it is manifest that no universal principle can +in its universality be compromised in a special case or can be requisite +for the validity of any ordinary inference. To say, for instance, that +the demonstration by Archimedes of the property of the lever would fall +to the ground if men were endowed with free-will, is extravagant; yet +this is implied by those who make a proposition incompatible with the +freedom of the will the postulate of all inference. Considering, too, +that the conclusions of science make no pretence to being more than +probable, and considering that a probable inference can at most only +suppose something to be most frequently, or otherwise approximately, +true, but never that anything is precisely true without exception +throughout the universe, we see how far this proposition in truth is from +being so postulated. + +But the whole notion of a postulate being involved in reasoning +appertains to a by-gone and false conception of logic. Non-deductive, +or ampliative inference is of three kinds: induction, hypothesis, and +analogy. If there be any other modes, they must be extremely unusual +and highly complicated, and may be assumed with little doubt to be of +the same nature as those enumerated. For induction, hypothesis, and +analogy, as far as their ampliative character goes, that is, so far as +they conclude something not implied in the premises, depend upon one +principle and involve the same procedure. All are essentially inferences +from sampling. Suppose a ship arrives in Liverpool laden with wheat +in bulk. Suppose that by some machinery the whole cargo be stirred up +with great thoroughness. Suppose that twenty-seven thimblefuls be taken +equally from the forward, midships, and aft parts, from the starboard, +centre, and larboard parts, and from the top, half depth, and lower +parts of her hold, and that these being mixed and the grains counted, +four fifths of the latter are found to be of quality _A_. Then we +infer, experientially and provisionally, that approximately four fifths +of all the grain in the cargo is of the same quality. I say we infer +this _experimentally_ and _provisionally_. By saying that we infer it +_experientially_, I mean that our conclusion makes no pretension to +knowledge of wheat-in-itself, our ἀλήθεια, as the derivation of that word +implies, has nothing to do with _latent_ wheat. We are dealing only with +the matter of possible experience,—experience in the full acceptation +of the term as something not merely affecting the senses but also as +the subject of thought. If there be any wheat hidden on the ship, so +that it can neither turn up in the sample nor be heard of subsequently +from purchasers,—or if it be half-hidden, so that it may, indeed, turn +up, but is less likely to do so than the rest,—or if it can affect our +senses and our pockets, but from some strange cause or causelessness +cannot be reasoned about,—all such wheat is to be excluded (or have +only its proportional weight) in calculating that true proportion of +quality _A_, to which our inference seeks to approximate. By saying that +we draw the inference _provisionally_, I mean that we do not hold that +we have reached any assigned degree of approximation as yet, but only +hold that if our experience be indefinitely extended, and if every fact +of whatever nature, as fast as it presents itself, be duly applied, +according to the inductive method, in correcting the inferred ratio, +then our approximation will become indefinitely close in the long run; +that is to say, close to the experience _to come_ (not merely close by +the exhaustion of a finite collection) so that if experience in general +is to fluctuate irregularly to and fro, in a manner to deprive the ratio +sought of all definite value, we shall be able to find out approximately +within what limits it fluctuates, and if, after having one definite +value, it changes and assumes another, we shall be able to find that out, +and in short, whatever may be the variations of this ratio in experience, +experience indefinitely extended will enable us to detect them, so as +to predict rightly, at last, what its ultimate value may be, if it have +any ultimate value, or what the ultimate law of succession of values may +be, if there be any such ultimate law, or that it ultimately fluctuates +irregularly within certain limits, if it do so ultimately fluctuate. +Now our inference, claiming to be no more than thus experiential and +provisional, manifestly involves no postulate whatever. + +For what is a postulate? It is the formulation of a material fact which +we are not entitled to assume as a premise, but the truth of which is +requisite to the validity of an inference. Any fact, then, which might +be supposed postulated, must either be such that it would ultimately +present itself in experience, or not. If it will present itself, we +need not postulate it now in our provisional inference, since we shall +ultimately be entitled to use it as a premise. But if it never would +present itself in experience, our conclusion is valid but for the +possibility of this fact being otherwise than assumed, that is, it is +valid as far as possible experience goes, and that is all that we claim. +Thus, every postulate is cut off, either by the provisionality or by the +experientiality of our inference. For instance, it has been said that +induction postulates that, if an indefinite succession of samples be +drawn, examined, and thrown back each before the next is drawn, then in +the long run every grain will be drawn as often as any other, that is to +say postulates that the ratio of the numbers of times in which any two +are drawn will indefinitely approximate to unity. But no such postulate +is made; for if, on the one hand, we are to have no other experience of +the wheat than from such drawings, it is the ratio that presents itself +in those drawings and not the ratio which belongs to the wheat in its +latent existence that we are endeavoring to determine; while if, on +the other hand, there is some other mode by which the wheat is to come +under our knowledge, equivalent to another kind of sampling, so that +after all our care in stirring up the wheat, some experiential grains +will present themselves in the first sampling operation more often than +others in the long run, this very singular fact will be sure to get +discovered by the inductive method, which must avail itself of every sort +of experience; and our inference, which was only provisional, corrects +itself at last. Again, it has been said, that induction postulates that +under like circumstances like events will happen, and that this postulate +is at bottom the same as the principle of universal causation. But this +is a blunder, or _bevue_, due to thinking exclusively of inductions +where the concluded ratio is either 1 or 0. If any such proposition were +postulated, it would be that under like circumstances (the circumstances +of drawing the different samples) different events occur in the same +proportions in all the different sets,—a proposition which is false and +even absurd. But in truth no such thing is postulated, the experiential +character of the inference reducing the condition of validity to this, +that if a certain result does not occur, the opposite result will be +manifested, a condition assured by the provisionality of the inference. +But it may be asked whether it is not conceivable that every instance +of a certain class destined to be ever employed as a datum of induction +should have one character, while every instance destined not to be so +employed should have the opposite character. The answer is that in that +case, the instances excluded from being subjects of reasoning would not +be experienced in the full sense of the word, but would be among these +_latent_ individuals of which our conclusion does not pretend to speak. + +To this account of the rationale of induction I know of but one objection +worth mention: it is that I thus fail to deduce the full degree of +force which this mode of inference in fact possesses; that according to +my view, no matter how thorough and elaborate the stirring and mixing +process had been, the examination of a single handful of grain would +not give me any assurance, sufficient to risk money upon, that the next +handful would not greatly modify the concluded value of the ratio under +inquiry, while, in fact, the assurance would be very high that this ratio +was not greatly in error. If the true ratio of grains of quality _A_ were +0.80 and the handful contained a thousand grains, nine such handfuls out +of every ten would contain from 780 to 820 grains of quality _A_. The +answer to this is that the calculation given is correct when we know +that the units of this handful and the quality inquired into have the +normal independence of one another, if for instance the stirring has been +complete and the character sampled for has been settled upon in advance +of the examination of the sample. But in so far as these conditions are +not known to be complied with, the above figures cease to be applicable. +Random sampling and predesignation of the character sampled for should +always be striven after in inductive reasoning, but when they cannot be +attained, so long as it is conducted honestly, the inference retains some +value. When we cannot ascertain how the sampling has been done or the +sample-character selected, induction still has the essential validity +which my present account of it shows it to have. + +I do not think a man who combines a willingness to be convinced with a +power of appreciating an argument upon a difficult subject can resist the +reasons which have been given to show that the principle of universal +necessity cannot be defended as being a postulate of reasoning. But then +the question immediately arises whether it is not proved to be true, or +at least rendered highly probable, by observation of nature. + +Still, this question ought not long to arrest a person accustomed to +reflect upon the force of scientific reasoning. For the essence of +the necessitarian position is that certain continuous quantities have +certain exact values. Now, how can observation determine the value of +such a quantity with a probable error absolutely _nil_? To one who is +behind the scenes, and knows that the most refined comparisons of masses, +lengths, and angles, far surpassing in precision all other measurements, +yet fall behind the accuracy of bank-accounts, and that the ordinary +determinations of physical constants, such as appear from month to month +in the journals, are about on a par with an upholsterer’s measurements +of carpets and curtains, the idea of mathematical exactitude being +demonstrated in the laboratory will appear simply ridiculous. There is +a recognised method of estimating the probable magnitudes of errors in +physics,—the method of least squares. It is universally admitted that +this method makes the errors smaller than they really are; yet even +according to that theory an error indefinitely small is indefinitely +improbable; so that any statement to the effect that a certain continuous +quantity has a certain exact value, if well-founded at all, must be +founded on something other than observation. + +Still, I am obliged to admit that this rule is subject to a certain +qualification. Namely, it only applies to continuous[53] quantity. Now, +certain kinds of continuous quantity are discontinuous at one or at +two limits, and for such limits the rule must be modified. Thus, the +length of a line cannot be less than zero. Suppose, then, the question +arises how long a line a certain person had drawn from a marked point +on a piece of paper. If no line at all can be seen, the observed length +is zero; and the only conclusion this observation warrants is that the +length of the line is less than the smallest length visible with the +optical power employed. But indirect observations,—for example, that the +person supposed to have drawn the line was never within fifty feet of the +paper,—may make it probable that no line at all was made, so that the +concluded length will be strictly zero. In like manner, experience no +doubt would warrant the conclusion that there is absolutely _no_ indigo +in a given ear of wheat, and absolutely _no_ attar in a given lichen. +But such inferences can only be rendered valid by positive experiential +evidence, direct or remote, and cannot rest upon a mere inability to +detect the quantity in question. We have reason to think there is no +indigo in the wheat, because we have remarked that wherever indigo is +produced it is produced in considerable quantities, to mention only +one argument. We have reason to think there is no attar in the lichen, +because essential oils seem to be in general peculiar to single species, +if the question had been whether there was iron in the wheat or the +lichen, though chemical analysis should fail to detect its presence, +we should think some of it probably was there, since iron is almost +everywhere. Without any such information, one way or the other, we +could only abstain from any opinion as to the presence of the substance +in question. It cannot, I conceive, be maintained that we are in any +_better_ position than this in regard to the presence of the element of +chance or spontaneous departures from law in nature. + +Those observations which are generally adduced in favor of mechanical +causation simply prove that there is an element of regularity in nature, +and have no bearing whatever upon the question of whether such regularity +is exact and universal, or not. Nay, in regard to this _exactitude_, all +observation is directly _opposed_ to it; and the most that can be said +is that a good deal of this observation can be explained away. Try to +verify any law of nature, and you will find that the more precise your +observations, the more certain they will be to show irregular departures +from the law. We are accustomed to ascribe these, and I do not say +wrongly, to errors of observation; yet we cannot usually account for such +errors in any antecedently probable way. Trace their causes back far +enough, and you will be forced to admit they are always due to arbitrary +determination, or chance. + +But it may be asked whether if there were an element of real chance in +the universe it must not occasionally be productive of signal effects +such as could not pass unobserved. In answer to this question, without +stopping to point out that there is an abundance of great events +which one might be tempted to suppose were of that nature, it will be +simplest to remark that physicists hold that the particles of gases +are moving about irregularly, substantially as if by real chance, and +that by the principles of probabilities there must occasionally happen +to be concentrations of heat in the gases contrary to the second law +of thermodynamics, and these concentrations, occurring in explosive +mixtures, must sometimes have tremendous effects. Here, then, is in +substance the very situation supposed; yet no phenomena ever have +resulted which we are forced to attribute to such chance concentration of +heat, or which anybody, wise or foolish, has ever dreamed of accounting +for in that manner. + +In view of all these considerations, I do not believe that anybody, not +in a state of case-hardened ignorance respecting the logic of science, +can maintain that the precise and universal conformity of facts to +law is clearly proved, or even rendered particularly probable, by any +observations hitherto made. In this way, the determined advocate of exact +regularity will soon find himself driven to _a priori_ reasons to support +his thesis. These received such a sockdologer from Stuart Mill in his +Examination of Hamilton, that holding to them now seems to me to denote +a high degree of imperviousness to reason; so that I shall pass them by +with little notice. + +To say that we cannot help believing a given proposition is no argument, +but it is a conclusive fact if it be true; and with the substitution +of “I” for “we,” it is true in the mouths of several classes of minds, +the blindly passionate, the unreflecting and ignorant, and the person +who has overwhelming evidence before his eyes. But that which has been +inconceivable to-day has often turned out indisputable on the morrow. +Inability to conceive is only a stage through which every man must pass +in regard to a number of beliefs,—unless endowed with extraordinary +obstinacy and obtuseness. His understanding is enslaved to some blind +compulsion which a vigorous mind is pretty sure soon to cast off. + +Some seek to back up the _a priori_ position with empirical arguments. +They say that the exact regularity of the world is a natural belief, and +that natural beliefs have generally been confirmed by experience. There +is some reason in this. Natural beliefs, however, if they generally +have a foundation of truth, also require correction and purification +from natural illusions. The principles of mechanics are undoubtedly +natural beliefs; but, for all that, the early formulations of them were +exceedingly erroneous. The general approximation to truth in natural +beliefs is, in fact, a case of the general adaptation of genetic products +to recognisable utilities or ends. Now, the adaptations of nature, +beautiful and often marvellous as they verily are, are never found to +be quite perfect; so that the argument is quite _against_ the absolute +exactitude of any natural belief, including that of the principle of +causation. + +Another argument, or convenient commonplace, is that absolute chance is +_inconceivable_. This word has eight current significations. The Century +Dictionary enumerates six. Those who talk like this will hardly be +persuaded to say in what sense they mean that chance is inconceivable. +Should they do so, it would easily be shown either that they have no +sufficient reason for the statement or that the inconceivability is of a +kind which does not prove that chance is non-existent. + +Another _a priori_ argument is that chance is unintelligible; that is +to say, while it may perhaps be conceivable, it does not disclose to +the eye of reason the how or why of things; and since a hypothesis can +only be justified so far as it renders some phenomenon intelligible, we +never can have any right to suppose absolute chance to enter into the +production of anything in nature. This argument may be considered in +connection with two others. Namely, instead of going so far as to say +that the supposition of chance can _never_ properly be used to explain +any observed fact, it may be alleged merely that no facts are known +which such a supposition could in any way help in explaining. Or again, +the allegation being still further weakened, it may be said that since +departures from law are not unmistakably observed, chance is not a _vera +causa_, and ought not unnecessarily to be introduced into a hypothesis. + +These are no mean arguments, and require us to examine the matter a +little more closely. Come, my superior opponent, let me learn from your +wisdom. It seems to me that every throw of sixes with a pair of dice is a +manifest instance of chance. + +“While you would hold a throw of deuce-ace to be brought about by +necessity?” [The opponent’s supposed remarks are placed in quotation +marks.] + +Clearly one throw is as much chance as another. + +“Do you think throws of dice are of a different nature from other events?” + +I see that I must say that _all_ the diversity and specificalness of +events is attributable to chance. + +“Would you, then, deny that there is any regularity in the world?” + +That is clearly undeniable. I must acknowledge there is an approximate +regularity, and that every event is influenced by it. But the +diversification, specificalness, and irregularity of things I suppose is +chance. A throw of sixes appears to me a case in which this element is +particularly obtrusive. + +“If you reflect more deeply, you will come to see that _chance_ is only a +name for a cause that is unknown to us.” + +Do you mean that we have no idea whatever what kind of causes could bring +about a throw of sixes? + +“On the contrary, each die moves under the influence of precise +mechanical laws.” + +But it appears to me that it is not these _laws_ which made the die turn +up sixes; for these laws act just the same when other throws come up. The +chance lies in the diversity of throws; and this diversity cannot be due +to laws which are immutable. + +“The diversity is due to the diverse circumstances under which the +laws act. The dice lie differently in the box, and the motion given to +the box is different. These are the unknown causes which produce the +throws, and to which we give the name of chance; not the mechanical law +which regulates the operation of these causes. You see you are already +beginning to think more clearly about this subject.” + +Does the operation of mechanical law not increase the diversity? + +“Properly not. You must know that the instantaneous state of a system +of particles is defined by six times as many numbers as there are +particles, three for the co-ordinates of each particle’s position, and +three more for the components of its velocity. This number of numbers, +which expresses the amount of diversity in the system, remains the same +at all times. There may be, to be sure, some kind of relation between +the co-ordinates and component velocities of the different particles, by +means of which the state of the system might be expressed by a smaller +number of numbers. But, if this is the case, a precisely corresponding +relationship must exist between the co-ordinates and component velocities +at any other time, though it may doubtless be a relation less obvious +to us. Thus, the intrinsic complexity of the system is the same at all +times.” + +Very well, my obliging opponent, we have now reached an issue. You think +all the arbitrary specifications of the universe were introduced in one +dose, in the beginning, if there was a beginning, and that the variety +and complication of nature has always been just as much as it is now. But +I, for my part, think that the diversification, the specification, has +been continually taking place. Should you condescend to ask me why I so +think, I should give my reasons as follows: + +1) Question any science which deals with the course of time. Consider +the life of an individual animal or plant, or of a mind. Glance at the +history of states, of institutions, of language, of ideas. Examine the +successions of forms shown by paleontology, the history of the globe +as set forth in geology, of what the astronomer is able to make out +concerning the changes of stellar systems. Everywhere the main fact is +growth and increasing complexity. Death and corruption are mere accidents +or secondary phenomena. Among some of the lower organisms, it is a moot +point with biologists whether there be anything which ought to be called +death. Races, at any rate, do not die out except under unfavorable +circumstances. From these broad and ubiquitous facts we may fairly infer, +by the most unexceptionable logic, that there is probably in nature some +agency by which the complexity and diversity of things can be increased; +and that consequently the rule of mechanical necessity meets in some way +with interference. + +2) By thus admitting pure spontaneity or life as a character of the +universe, acting always and everywhere though restrained within narrow +bounds by law, producing infinitesimal departures from law continually, +and great ones with infinite infrequency, I account for all the variety +and diversity of the universe, in the only sense in which the really +_sui generis_ and new can be said to be accounted for. The ordinary view +has to admit the inexhaustible multitudinous variety of the world, has +to admit that its mechanical law cannot account for this in the least, +that variety can spring only from spontaneity, and yet denies without +any evidence or reason the existence of this spontaneity, or else shoves +it back to the beginning of time and supposes it dead ever since. The +superior logic of my view appears to me not easily controverted. + +3) When I ask the necessitarian how he would explain the diversity and +irregularity of the universe, he replies to me out of the treasury of his +wisdom that irregularity is something which from the nature of things we +must not seek to explain. Abashed at this, I seek to cover my confusion +by asking how he would explain the uniformity and regularity of the +universe, whereupon he tells me that the laws of nature are immutable and +ultimate facts, and no account is to be given of them. But my hypothesis +of spontaneity does explain irregularity, in a certain sense; that is, it +explains the general fact of irregularity, though not, of course, what +each lawless event is to be. At the same time, by thus loosening the +bond of necessity, it gives room for the influence of another kind of +causation, such as seems to be operative in the mind in the formation of +associations, and enables us to understand how the uniformity of nature +could have been brought about. That single events should be hard and +unintelligible, logic will permit without difficulty: we do not expect +to make the shock of a personally experienced earthquake appear natural +and reasonable by any amount of cogitation. But logic does expect things +_general_ to be understandable. To say that there is a universal law, and +that it is a hard, ultimate, unintelligible fact, the why and wherefore +of which can never be inquired into, at this a sound logic will revolt; +and will pass over at once to a method of philosophising which does not +thus barricade the road of discovery. + +4) Necessitarianism cannot logically stop short of making the whole +action of the mind a part of the physical universe. Our notion that +we decide what we are going to do, if as the necessitarian says, it +has been calculable since the earliest times, is reduced to illusion. +Indeed, consciousness in general thus becomes a mere illusory aspect of +a material system. What we call red, green, and violet are in reality +only different rates of vibration. The sole reality is the distribution +of qualities of matter in space and time. Brain-matter is protoplasm +in a certain degree and kind of complication,—a certain arrangement of +mechanical particles. Its feeling is but an inward aspect, a phantom. +For, from the positions and velocities of the particles at any one +instant, and the knowledge of the immutable forces, the positions at all +other times are calculable; so that the universe of space, time, and +matter is a rounded system uninterfered with from elsewhere. But from +the state of feeling at any instant, there is no reason to suppose the +states of feeling at all other instants are thus exactly calculable; so +that feeling is, as I said, a mere fragmentary and illusive aspect of the +universe. This is the way, then, that necessitarianism has to make up +its accounts. It enters consciousness under the head of sundries, as a +forgotten trifle; its scheme of the universe would be more satisfactory +if this little fact could be dropped out of sight. On the other hand, +by supposing the rigid exactitude of causation to yield, I care not how +little,—be it but by a strictly infinitesimal amount,—we gain room to +insert mind into our scheme, and to put it into the place where it is +needed, into the position which, as the sole self-intelligible thing, it +is entitled to occupy, that of the fountain of existence; and in so doing +we resolve the problem of the connection of soul and body. + +5) But I must leave undeveloped the chief of my reasons, and can +only adumbrate it. The hypothesis of chance-spontaneity is one whose +inevitable consequences are capable of being traced out with mathematical +precision into considerable detail. Much of this I have done and find the +consequences to agree with observed facts to an extent which seems to me +remarkable. But the matter and methods of reasoning are novel, and I have +no right to promise that other mathematicians shall find my deductions as +satisfactory as I myself do, so that the strongest reason for my belief +must for the present remain a private reason of my own, and cannot +influence others. I mention it to explain my own position; and partly to +indicate to future mathematical speculators a veritable goldmine, should +time and circumstances and the abridger of all joys prevent my opening it +to the world. + +If now I, in my turn, inquire of the necessitarian why he prefers to +suppose that all specification goes back to the beginning of things, +he will answer me with one of those last three arguments which I left +unanswered. + +First, he may say that chance is a thing absolutely unintelligible, and +therefore that we never can be entitled to make such a supposition. +But does not this objection smack of naïve impudence? It is not mine, +it is his own conception of the universe which leads abruptly up to +hard, ultimate, inexplicable, immutable law, on the one hand, and to +inexplicable specification and diversification of circumstances on the +other. My view, on the contrary, hypothetises nothing at all, unless it +be hypothesis to say that all specification came about in some sense, +and is not to be accepted as unaccountable. To undertake to account for +anything by saying boldly that it is due to chance would, indeed, be +futile. But this I do not do. I make use of chance chiefly to make room +for a principle of generalisation, or tendency to form habits, which I +hold has produced all regularities. The mechanical philosopher leaves +the whole specification of the world utterly unaccounted for, which is +pretty nearly as bad as to boldly attribute it to chance. I attribute +it altogether to chance, it is true, but to chance in the form of a +spontaneity which is to some degree regular. It seems to me clear at any +rate that one of these two positions must be taken, or else specification +must be supposed due to a spontaneity which develops itself in a certain +and not in a chance way, by an objective logic like that of Hegel. This +last way I leave as an open possibility, for the present; for it is as +much opposed to the necessitarian scheme of existence as my own theory is. + +Secondly the necessitarian may say there are, at any rate, no observed +phenomena which the hypothesis of chance could aid in explaining. +In reply, I point first to the phenomenon of growth and developing +complexity, which appears to be universal, and which though it may +possibly be an affair of mechanism perhaps, certainly presents all +the appearance of increasing diversification. Then, there is variety +itself, beyond comparison the most obtrusive character of the universe: +no mechanism can account for this. Then, there is the very fact the +necessitarian most insists upon, the regularity of the universe which for +him serves only to block the road of inquiry. Then, there are the regular +relationships between the laws of nature,—similarities and comparative +characters, which appeal to our intelligence as its cousins, and call +upon us for a reason. Finally, there is consciousness, feeling, a patent +fact enough, but a very inconvenient one to the mechanical philosopher. + +Thirdly, the necessitarian may say that chance is not a _vera causa_, +that we cannot know positively there is any such element in the universe. +But the doctrine of the _vera causa_ has nothing to do with elementary +conceptions. Pushed to that extreme, it at once cuts off belief in the +existence of a material universe; and without that necessitarianism +could hardly maintain its ground. Besides, variety is a fact which must +be admitted; and the theory of chance merely consists in supposing this +diversification does not antedate all time. Moreover, the avoidance of +hypotheses involving causes nowhere positively known to act—is only a +recommendation of logic, not a positive command. It cannot be formulated +in any precise terms without at once betraying its untenable character,—I +mean as rigid rule, for as a recommendation it is wholesome enough. + +I believe I have thus subjected to fair examination all the important +reasons for adhering to the theory of universal necessity, and have shown +their nullity. I earnestly beg that whoever may detect any flaw in my +reasoning will point it out to me, either privately or publicly; for if +I am wrong, it much concerns me to be set right speedily. If my argument +remains unrefuted, it will be time, I think, to doubt the absolute +truth of the principle of universal law; and when once such a doubt +has obtained a living root in any man’s mind, my cause with him, I am +persuaded, is gained. + + C. S. PEIRCE. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[53] _Continuous_ is not exactly the right word, but I let it go to avoid +a long and irrelevant discussion. + + + + +PSYCHICAL MONISM. + + +In modern thought, ever since Descartes introduced into the conception +of all-comprising nature that perplexing distinction between thinking +and extended substance, the problem of reconciling so radical a dualism +has formed the main task of those who have busied themselves with +philosophical interpretation. + +In the light of the Cartesian system there seemed to exist two entirely +disparate, independent worlds; the one in individual consciousness, the +other outside of it; the one made of mental, the other of material stuff. + +How to conceive these two antithetical worlds, as interdependent +constituents of one and the same unitary nature is, after many discarded +attempts, still the principal endeavor of systematic thinking. + +Every student of philosophy knows how Descartes himself ascribed the +evident concordance and intercommunication of the two worlds to the +miraculous decree and intervention of the Deity; how Spinoza sought to +overcome the distracting dilemma by proving that the two substances are +but attributes of one single absolute substance; how Leibnitz made both +realms, that of inwardness and that of outwardness, form a consistent +universe and keep consonant time by means of a divinely pre-established +harmony; and how numbers of less illustrious devices likewise failed to +gain general acceptance. + +A more important part in the development of modern thought was played by +those other attempts, which strove to reach a monistic interpretation +by showing that nature in all its manifestations is constituted, either +solely by mind and its original endowments; or, on the contrary, solely +by matter and its original endowments. Thinkers versed in physical +science felt inclined to look upon the material world as the matrix of +all natural occurrences; while those versed in psychical science were apt +to conceive the mental world as containing within itself all there is of +nature. + +The physical hypothesis has proved its eminent efficiency by leading to +a vastly more correct and faithful knowledge of the perceptible universe +than had ever been previously attained. + +Still, from the psychical standpoint it became nevertheless evident +beyond contention, that all so-called qualities of matter, all that +in any way enters into our perception of it, is composed of nothing +but mental constituents. And this means simply, that, whatever we +are actually conscious of, must of necessity form part of our own +consciousness, and not of anything outside of it. + +As to the truth of this fundamental psychological conception there is no +longer any dispute among philosophers. But there remains to be solved +the all-important question, whether or not there exists outside this +consciousness of ours, either beyond its peripheral, perceptual range, +or beyond its central, conceptual sphere, another world which it merely +symbolically reveals. And in case such another extra-conscious world is +found actually to exist, how it comes to constitute, together with the +world of consciousness, that unitary system of being of which we mentally +and bodily seem to form part. + +Professor Dewey in a series of articles in _Mind_ (Nos. 41, 42, 49, +57) and in one recently published in this journal (Vol. II, No. 1) +advocates—more profoundly and consistently than has been done before +by any Neo-Kantian or Neo-Hegelian—the view, that consciousness itself +intuits all phenomena of nature by force of its own intrinsic activity, +imparting to them their significance as knowledge by discriminating +their specific position and value within its own all-comprising organic +totality of being. He believes thus in no other world than that of +self-consciousness; asserting that neither its perceptual nor its +conceptual content are significative of any reality beyond. + +The editor, though an ardent defender of cosmic Monism, is by no +means a convert to such purely psychical monism. He maintains, on the +contrary, in the same issue of _The Monist_ (p. 85), that, “The mental +picture of a tree becomes a symbol for a special object outside of us, +and is projected to the place where experience has taught us to expect +that object.” Consequently, the mental picture refers as knowledge +to something outside of us, to something not forming part of our +consciousness. + +The present writer believes likewise, that the perceptual tree is merely +a mental symbol signalising an extra-mental, sense-stimulating existent; +and that the value of this symbol as knowledge consists altogether in +its implication of the existence of an entity subsisting outside our own +being and its consciousness, and having power to affect our sensibility +in definite more or less recognised ways. + +The editor and the present writer assert then, that the content of +perceptual consciousness forms merely a symbolical representation of a +corresponding reality subsisting outside consciousness; while Professor +Dewey acknowledges as really existent only self-consciousness, and +nothing outside of it, either peripherically stimulating the senses, or +centrally imparting universality to individual intelligence. + +The former view frankly admits duality in nature, so far as conscious +and extra-conscious existence are concerned. And in order to overcome +this dualism of _ordo idearum_ and _ordo rerum_—essentially the same +dualism as bequeathed to us by Descartes—it has to show how the world +within consciousness with its “mental picture,” and the world “outside of +us” containing the existent symbolically represented; how these totally +disparate worlds come to constitute a unitary nature, whose divers modes +of existence are throughout interdependently connected. + +It is clear that the reality symbolised by the “mental picture”—if any +such reality actually exists—can be known to us solely as thus mentally +symbolised, and not known to us in any way as it subsists extra-mentally +“outside of us,” as it subsists in itself when not thus symbolically +represented by our casual and intermittent perception of it. + +The mental picture being a mere representative symbol must needs differ +_toto genere_ from the non-mental existent symbolised thereby. We know +only what as mental representation is forming part of our consciousness. +We cannot possibly know anything we are not conscious of. The entity +“outside of us,” the “thing in itself”—if it at all exists—is therefore +as such of necessity unknown to us. This confession of ontological +ignorance is unavoidably involved in the acceptance of a symbolised +reality “outside of us.” + +The complex and prodigious difficulties in the way of a monistic +interpretation, when we start with the dualistic presupposition of a +conscious and an extra-conscious world, are all effectively circumvented, +as soon as with Professor Dewey we deny altogether the existence of a +world of “things-in-themselves” or sense-affecting existents, and roundly +assert that consciousness as such constitutes, comprises, and has direct +knowledge of ultimate reality; that it is in fact itself the absolute +all-sufficient and all-efficient entity. + +To understand the philosophical strength and influence of a position so +strangely at variance with that of current common sense, which holds as +self-evident the existence of body as well as mind, we have somewhat to +probe its deep-laid foundations in the history of modern thought. + +It was rendered plausible through Descartes’s, Locke’s, Berkeley’s, and +Hume’s philosophical argumentation, that what we are consciously aware +of, what is actually present to us as perception or “idea,” and therewith +as the world at large, is altogether made up of a more or less complex +combination of our own actual and remembered sensations. + +The conscious content itself was thus necessarily held to constitute +the exclusive object of philosophical research. And by starting with +sensations as its primordial elements, and taking all “ideas,” or facts +of memory, to be but faint reproductions of such elements, it became the +task of investigators “of the human mind” to analyse the given content of +consciousness into these its assumed elements, and to discover the “laws” +or general ways of their combination. + +Proud of its purely experiential method, concerned about nothing but what +is actually found present in consciousness, this mode of philosophising +disclaimed, in consequence, all knowledge of any “power” giving rise +from without to sensorial “impressions” and their order of conscious +emergence. And it ignored likewise the existence of any “power” combining +and systematising them from within; and, moreover, of any entity for whom +the sensorially constituted experience had intelligent significance. + +Such nominalistic, sensorial idealism has until lately reigned supreme +in English philosophy. Previous to the new departure introduced by it +philosophical interpretation had always followed the method of conceptual +evolution, carried on according to the rules of formal or deductive +logic. It took some widely inclusive, ready-made concepts as its starting +points or major premises, and extracted therefrom all knowledge that +seemed to be implicitly contained in them. + +Even Kant in his younger days had no idea that valid knowledge or +truth could possibly be attained in any other way than by logically +deducing it from ready-made premises. At a later period he learned from +Hume to distinguish between what he termed analytical and synthetical +propositions, and what had been called by the former thinker connection +between vivid impressions or matter of fact on the one side, and +connection between their faint copies or the so-called ideas on the other +side. + +The discovery on the part of Kant, that our knowledge of the actual +connection of matters of facts has in every instance to be learned from +direct experience and cannot be ratiocinatively deduced from ready-made +general notions, was a complete revelation to him. It changed his entire +way of thinking, and became the starting-point of his system of critical +or transcendental philosophy. He saw clearly, that, if all instructive +cognition is gained, and has always been gained, solely by means of +actual experience, if it has been synthetically built up bit by bit as +directly given to us, without our being able to construct a valid system +of knowledge transcending in any way actual experience; that reason then +as a knowledge-constituting faculty is impotent, and that metaphysics, +as the science of a realm of intelligible existence, must be ever more +rejected as a pure illusion. + +Kant’s thought, like that of most of our own rationalistic thinkers, was +however predominantly swayed by the belief in an intelligible world, +the veritable home of man’s spiritual being, where it eternally abideth +in close communion with a supreme creative intelligence. After a brief +attack of Humian scepticism, the theologically trained, though rationally +wide-awake and profound thinker, set out to examine the faculties of +reason with a view to discover a philosophically legitimate ingress +into that cherished realm of intelligible subsistence. Hitherto reason +had been effectively used in philosophy only as an analytic instrument. +Real knowledge being, however, as proved by Hume, a matter of synthesis, +it would evidently be making proper way toward a rationally conceived +intelligible world, if it could be proved that reason is itself in +possession of synthetical powers. + +After many years of profound meditation in this direction, Kant gave +its results to the philosophical world. He had become convinced that +mathematical truth, instead of being analytically derived as hitherto +believed, is on the contrary built up synthetically by intelligence +itself, and this without the aid of externally imparted experience; that +intelligence is therefore efficient to form synthetical propositions _a +priori_. It followed, as a matter of course, that time and space in which +mathematical figurations take shape, are not conditions of existence +outside of us, but original forms of our own perceptive faculty, and that +intelligence by dint of its synthetical powers constructs mathematical +figurations within these perceptual forms. And finally the conclusion +was reached that time and space, the empty forms of perception, +being themselves wholly deficient of any kind of activity, it must +be intelligence alone which possesses synthetical efficiency, which +exercises in fact whatever activity is operative in the conscious world. + +But though Kant enthroned intelligence as the creator of pure +mathematics, and endowed it with the exclusive gift of synthetical +efficiency, he did not see his way to constitute it also the creator of +the sense-given material that comes experientially to fill the empty and +passive forms of perception. Against all denunciations of his system as +purely idealistic, he insisted that there exists outside our being and +its consciousness a world of things-in-themselves, having power to affect +our sensibility, so that time and space, its receptive forms, become +filled with experiential, though wholly unsynthetised material. + +Reluctantly, though in faithful adherence to the unbiassed results of +his investigation, he was at last led to declare that intelligence or +reason as an instrument of knowledge—called by him theoretical reason in +contradistinction to practical reason, conceived as the leading principle +of moral conduct;—that such theoretical reason has power only over +sensorially given material, and is incapable of attaining knowledge of +the intelligible sphere. + +Still Kant regarded his so-called categories or synthetical functions +of reason as modes of activity, belonging not only to individual +reason, but to reason in general. And on the strength of this realistic +generalisation he attributed to them the power of imparting necessity to +synthetical propositions, such propositions—otherwise merely subjective +or empirical—being rendered thereby objective or universally valid. +He showed, moreover, that the relation of every kind of knowledge +to a common centre of all-inclusive awareness,—that this “synthetic +unity of apperception” as he called it,—presupposes an intelligible +ego, whose veritable nature becomes however nowise manifest within +our time-and-space-conditioned experience. And he taught that an +all-comprehending intelligible being had to be hypostatised in order to +complete the totality of rational knowledge. + +Thus, instead of giving us a monistic philosophy, Kant’s theoretical +speculations disclosed, on the contrary, a tripartite world. At the +centre the non-manifest intelligible ego in communion with a supernatural +sphere, and conceived as the veritable bearer of the synthetical reason. +In the median and only known region the synthetical reason itself, +constructing and cognising nature, by synthetically elaborating the +chaotic manifold in time and space. And at the periphery, beyond our own +being and its perception, an unknowable realm of things-in-themselves +affecting our sensibility. + +So complex an appearance did existence assume under Kant’s critical +inspection. Contemplative man, however, never ceases to hanker after a +monistic world-conception. Though individualised, he feels himself one +with universal being, and strenuously strives to understand how those +bonds of union are established, and what part he in verity is playing in +this stupendous drama of being and becoming. + +To most philosophers, before Kant, knowledge seemed to be given to us +ready-made, first conceptually as innate ideas or universal notions; and +then perceptually as the finished image of an outside world. + +Kant has exerted, and still exerts, a controlling influence over +thinkers by having systematically demonstrated, that not only knowledge, +but nature itself as we know it, is constructed by powers inherent in +our own being. He taught that we ourselves, by force of our combining +and ordering intellectual organisation, fashion out of meaningless +sense-material the wondrous world we know. And, moreover, that by force +of our intelligible being we have power to bend the otherwise rigorously +mechanical course of nature in compliance with moral injunctions. + +No wonder that so inspiriting a philosophy electrified to new vigor and +valiant self-reliance the dogmatically slumbering life of German thought. +And it was Fichte, above all other followers of Kant, who by his fervent +exposition kindled in crowds of hearers the vivifying spark of this “new +philosophy” of all-efficient intelligence. + +Fichte is the real father of such psychical monism as has recently found +so proficient an expounder in Professor Dewey. Fichte understood, what +Kant failed to see, that the “dynamical idealism” of nature-constituting +reason involves, not merely the _elaboration_ of sense-given material, +but the _out and out production_ within consciousness of the entire +world of perception. For perception undeniably takes place within our +own being, and must therefore be, as regards matter as well as form, the +outcome of powers inherent in ourselves. Between a consistent dream and +the apperception of reality the difference lies merely in our feeling, in +the latter instance, compelled in a peculiar manner to perceive what we +perceive. But this feeling of compulsion is likewise a constituent of our +own consciousness, and, moreover, under the influence of hallucinations +even this test of reality fails us. + +According to Fichte’s matured thought, our being consists altogether +in intellectual activity, an activity rendering explicit by means of +self-consciousness what it already implicitly contains. And it is +universal being that becomes thus self-conscious in us. Infinite reason, +constituting a system of ideas, a spiritual organisation, is the fount +and origin of all existence, its own self-revelation becoming manifest in +finite beings. + +Thus, by force of logical consistency, was eliminated from Kantian +transcendentalism the world of things-in-themselves as superfluous +to all-constituting intelligence. And the unification of individual +self-consciousness with universal intelligence was established +by considering individual self-consciousness as partaking in the +self-revealing activity of universal intelligence. + +Hegel elaborated systematically the psychical or idealistic monism thus +foreshadowed in Fichte’s later writings. Philosophical interpretation +turns principally upon the source and import of consciousness. And from +the recognition of the fact, that all constituents of perception form +part of this consciousness of ours, it obviously follows that objects, +and indeed the entire objective world realised in perception and solely +as perception; that the realisation of this entire world of perceptual +objects is in verity realisation of a world contained in our own being or +subject. Subject and object are therefore, from this point of view, at +bottom identical; the objective world—our human bodies included—being a +self-revelation of our all-comprehending subject. Mind as well as matter, +that which we call mental and that which we call material, are thus mere +abstract terms denoting the subjective and objective sides of one and the +same reality. + +This reality transcendental idealism declares to be “intellectual +activity.” It is intellectual activity which—from its point of view—is +revealing itself in the conscious content, becoming thus self-conscious. +This process of recognition of one’s self as subject-object, as the +unitary essence and completion of both, is what Hegel calls the “Idea.” +And with him theoretical or logical self-recognition and practical +or ethical self-realization coincide as “Absolute Idea.” For to think +absolute truth and to will its realisation are but two sides of one and +the same activity. Thought, intelligence, reason, knowing itself as in +every sense veritable being is thus the absolute One and All. + +Such out and out psychical monism is the legitimate outcome of a +conception which takes the content of consciousness to be ultimate +reality, signifying nothing beyond itself; and which then constitutes a +spiritually conceived entity, called thought, intelligence, or reason, as +the originator and bearer of such consciousness. + +After a period of glorious triumph the Hegelian philosophy of +self-evolving intelligence became a general laughing-stock at home and +abroad. This ignominious fate overtook it, first in consequence of its +fawning prostitution by the master himself to the reactionary service +of Church and State; and then also in consequence of the ridiculous +“pyrotechnical” abuse of its dialectical method by the “Young-Hegelians.” + +However, by “going back to Kant,” the teachings of transcendental +idealism have in our time once more gained the ascendency, and have +succeeded not only in conquering materialism, but also in invading and +almost supplanting English experientialism. + +In Germany, after a season of complete estrangement between science and +philosophy, a re-approachment was effected by the Neo-Kantian movement. +It originated principally in the recognition on the part of science, that +sense-perception is above all a psychical and not a purely physiological +process, a mental not a material fact; that therefore the effort to +arrive at a correct “theory of knowledge” is by no means a vain endeavor, +and that psychics as well as physics deserves a place in the hierarchy of +sciences. + +In England and America the Neo-Kantian movement owed, on the other hand, +its success, above all, to such theistic rationalism as found popular +expression in “Robert Elsmere.” In Professor Caird’s words it is said +to afford a means for the “vindication of the religious consciousness.” +And this it accomplishes “by an objective or absolute synthesis,” +which establishes “the indivisible unity of the intelligence and the +intelligible world,” “the unity of man as spiritual with an absolute +spirit.” + +Dr. Hutchison Sterling’s “Secret of Hegel” gave the first effective +impulse to this transcendental mode of thinking among university men +of a speculative turn. The late Thomas Hill Green of Oxford and Prof. +Edward Caird of Glasgow became its foremost exponents, and made numerous +converts. The former by elaborately disclosing, by force of Kant’s +principle of synthetical reason, the insufficiency of the sensorial +experientialism generally accepted in England since Locke’s “Essay +Concerning Human Understanding.” The latter by consistently developing +the idealistic and transcendental implications of this same principle of +synthetical reason. + +As repeatedly noticed, and never to be lost sight of, transcendental +idealism derives its convincing force from the undeniable truth, that +whatever we are directly aware of forms part of our own consciousness. +This involves the indivisible unity of such fact as we are directly +conscious of and the faculty through which we are conscious of it. This +unity of the realising self and the realised world, of object and subject +as content of consciousness; or rather the unity of the objective and +subjective factors of it, this subject-object oneness of conscious states +and occurrences is an irrefutable truth, from which one has to start, +whatever direction one may take. You assert, then, that that which exists +thus interblended as consciousness is itself ultimate reality, and you +will encounter but little difficulty in deducing therefrom a pretty +plausible psychical monism. For the power through which and as which +this ultimate reality exists is then immanent in us individually. And +when this power is conceived as intelligence or spirit, and the world +at large as existing solely as content of this spirit’s consciousness, +or indeed as such consciousness itself, it is clear that our own +self-and-world-awareness must be—according to this view—identical in +essence with the spiritual power which is ultimate and universal Reality. + +In self-consciousness, when regarded as a totality of all actual and +potential awareness, our feelings as well as the perceptual objects +composed of them constitute an organically completed order. They all +stand in definite and interdependent relations to our unitary being. +This all-comprising being has time and space as modes of gradual +self-realisation, but is not—according to transcendentalism—itself in +time and space. And this is undeniably true, so far at least as the being +that combines all transient events of experience into a unitary system +of permanent knowledge cannot possibly itself form part of the ephemeral +flux of conscious states experienced by it. + +Still the multifold individuations of the ultimate reality into +separate personal self-consciousnesses and deciduous bodily organisms +forms the great, if not insuperable, obstacle in the way of psychical +monism. If, on the one hand, we take with Green and Professor Caird +individual self-consciousness as a “reproduction,” and not as a mere +phase of universal consciousness; and on the other hand admit a natural +and gradual development “of man as an animal organism,” instead of +proving such natural development to be a misconception of our time +and space bound recognition, we are far from having as yet succeeded +in establishing a consistent psychical monism on Kantian lines. His +tripartite world remains ununified. + +To achieve its unification is, however, after a profound study and +appreciation of the difficulties to be encountered, the arduous task +Professor Dewey has courageously undertaken. To accomplish his purpose +he has to show how individual consciousness proves itself to be ultimate +reality, and as such identical with universal consciousness; how man, +appearing among other perceptible objects in multifold individuated +specimens as a gradually developed organism, is nevertheless in reality a +complete, all-comprising entity, not essentially subject to time, space, +or numerical limitations. And he has to make clear how all conscious +content, including the external world as well as the feeling and thinking +subject, has no other existence and significance than in and for +consciousness. + +Professor Dewey maintains that individual consciousness is in reality +one with universal consciousness, because it comprehends within itself +subject-and-object-consciousness; the abiding consciousness of oneself +as an ever-changing individual, and that of the world at large, though +figured in transient groups of sensations. This being so, that which +is thus the bearer and realiser of all being and becoming in nature, +cannot itself form part of this becoming, but must—according to +Professor Dewey’s view—be eternal and absolute. The all-comprehending +consciousness—and there is no existence outside of it—is thus identical +with universal intelligence, identical with that eternally active +intelligence which is everlastingly creating the organic synthesis of all +being and becoming. + +“Consciousness the ultimate fact reveals itself as reason.” Sensations +have no self-existence, no meaning in themselves. They exist only as +intellectually apprehended and for intelligence alone. It is from +intellectual interpretation that they receive their entire significance. +On solicitation of sensations the ideal content of universal intelligence +becomes partially and interruptedly revealed to individual consciousness. +The sole office of sensations is to give in us occasion to this +self-realisation of the eternal content of intelligence. + +Professor Dewey establishes his psychical monism by discovering +self-consciousness as the Absolute, the One and All. Individual idealism +or so-called solipsism, such as expounded by Fichte in his earlier +writings from the side of intellect, and in the writings of English +experientialists from the side of sensation, this individual idealism +presents itself likewise as a psychical monism, but as an absurdly narrow +one. Professor Dewey points out how it fails to understand that by +constituting mind, as such, the ego or subject for which all experience +exists, it artificially divides our unitary consciousness into two +separate constituents, and takes the subjective constituent to be the +bearer and realiser of the objective constituent; while in reality both +constituents are but elements of consciousness in general; are in fact +completely unified in eternal and absolute consciousness. + +Now it is perfectly true, that during conscious awareness object and +subject-consciousness are inextricably interblended so as to constitute +a unified experience. It is true also, that the veritable subject that +thus consciously experiences, and that furthermore imparts intelligent +meaning to such experience, cannot itself form part of these its own +fragmentary and transient moments of awareness. Comprehending them all, +it must evidently be an enduring, at least a relatively persistent being. +It is undoubtedly to such a persistent being or subject that experience +gradually accrues, and in whom it is all retained and organised into more +or less systematic order. + +But is there the least warrant for assuming that this persistent subject, +weaving thus intelligent experience out of its transient conscious +states, is itself “consciousness” or “intelligence”? + +Intelligent consciousness is very obviously only one of the functions +of the persistent subject, and by no means its being or essence. And +the experience accruing to it, that at least of the external world, +bears nowise the characteristics of Platonic reminiscence, does nowise +consist in self-revelation, in the becoming explicitly aware of what +already implicitly existed within itself. We may indeed say, that our +emotions, when aroused, constitute such self-revelation. But, for +instance, yonder visual figuration, consisting of nothing but colored +forms, though intelligently interpreted as a landscape with plains, +woods, and creeks; interpreted thus by the aid of no end of former +experience; this landscape now perceived by me for the first time was +certainly not implicitly immanent in my consciousness previous to all +my individual experience. Its conscious realisation does assuredly not +render explicit as objective experience what for ever has been an organic +member of my self-consciousness. What is immanent in my being—not in my +consciousness—is the sensorial faculty of symbolically picturing whatever +sense-affecting agent is placed before me. The conscious picture itself +is an evanescent phenomenon, having no steadfast existence or reality. + +To assert—as is usually done by transcendentalists and by Professor Dewey +among them—that our individual experience, when—as mostly occurs—not +actually conscious to ourselves, exists then nevertheless as conscious +content of a universal being; to venture such an utterly gratuitous +assertion, even when merely hypothetically advanced, transcends all +legitimate inference from given facts. When declared to be positively +justified by given facts, it all too obviously betrays the theological +bias by which it is inspired, the set purpose of vindicating the +religious consciousness which has faith in “the unity of man as spiritual +with an absolute spirit.” + +Through consciousness we indeed become aware of the divers faculties +of our being, together with their functionally accruing experience. +All this, however, rises into conscious awareness only at times, when +casually awakened. To give to the vast system of consciously latent being +and experience the name of “consciousness,” to call that “consciousness” +whose principal distinction is to constitute a persistent subject +with an organised system of experience abiding for the most part in +extra-conscious latency; to do this only because all this extra-conscious +existence may and does at times become more or less conscious; this is +surely committing the fatal error of denoting a state of things by its +outright opposite. + +There is no denying that most of the content of our being is usually +not present in consciousness. Consequently, abiding thus outside +consciousness, it cannot possibly form part of consciousness either +individual or universal. + +Nothing could be more to the point than Professor Dewey’s statement, +that “only a living actual fact (let us say existent instead of fact) +can preserve within its unity that organic system of differences in +virtue of which it lives and moves and has its being.” There is not the +least doubt that the subject, who at times is conscious of more or less +of his experience, is exactly such an existent as here described. But +consciousness, though the medium in which and through which everything +is realised, is itself but an intermittent function of that living +actual subject which preserves within its unity the organic system of +differences in virtue of which it lives and moves and has its being. The +consciousness of the subject conveys information to it only interruptedly +and in broken bits. These become organically unified into a more or less +consistent totality of experience. But this process of unification takes +place, not in the dream like stuff which makes up consciousness, but in +the persistent, extra-conscious matrix whence our ever lapsing, ever +renewed moment of conscious awareness emerges ready-made. + +The subject capable of thought and feeling becomes thinkingly and +feelingly manifest to _itself_, when its functions through which +consciousness arises are in operation; becomes manifest as bodily active +to _other sentient beings also_, when its functions through which such +activity arises are in operation. + +But if the real nature of the experiencing subject is not +self-consciousness or intelligence, what then can it be? + +Idealists, and with them Professor Dewey, become such by believing that +the perceptually realised objects are themselves veritable reality, +and not mere symbols of extra-conscious reality. Now can they in all +sincerity bring themselves to believe that a baby—to use one of Professor +Dewey’s illustrations—which experiences a sensation, say a pain caused +by the prick of a pin, that this pain-experiencing baby is no other +than that colored form within the perceptual consciousness of may be +half a dozen spectators; and that it is the perceptual pin within the +consciousness of each of them that has pricked the baby and caused the +pain? + +Does the pain-experiencing baby derive its existence from the fact that +the intellect of the spectator interprets the perceptual form within his +consciousness to signify a baby, which has forever implicitly formed part +of the organic content of his own self-consciousness? + +Surely the pain experienced by the baby is not experienced by the +perceptually realised baby, not by the baby existing as interpreted +perception in the consciousness of him who perceives it. The pain +experienced by the baby does nowise form part of the consciousness +of the perceiver. Consequently and incontestably, the subject that +experiences the sensation, that experiences in fact any kind of feeling +or thought, is itself an extra-conscious being, a being only casually and +symbolically realised in consciousness. + +And if the perceptual baby is merely a conscious symbol signalising +an extra-conscious existent, then all perceptual existence, all that +constitutes what we perceptually realise as nature, symbolises likewise +an extra-conscious reality, a reality that has power so to affect our +sensibility as to arouse in us perceptual representations of itself and +its characteristics. + +The matter stands then exactly as denied by Professor Dewey. It is +indeed the “baby thing-in-itself which is affected,” and it is “a +world thing-in-itself which calls forth the sensation.” It is not, as +maintained by Professor Dewey the baby known to him as his own perception +which experiences the sensation by having been pricked within the +beholder’s consciousness by a perceptually constituted pin. + +But if the entity, which affects the beholder’s sensibility and awakens +in him the percept of a baby, exists in verity outside his, the +beholder’s, consciousness, and is known to him only as thus symbolically +pictured by his own percept; such sense-affecting entity is, on the other +hand, nowise to be construed as the unknowable “First Cause,” nowise as +that protean Persistent Force, which Mr. Spencer imagines capable of +assuming every kind of mental or material appearance. + +The so-called material or physical modes which constitute in the beholder +the perceptually realised baby, and the so-called immaterial or mental +modes which are experienced by the baby as his sensations and emotions; +these material and mental modes are in no sense the manifestation of an +“Absolute Force” or “inscrutable Power,” as our Spencerians would lead us +religiously, and almost theologically to believe.[54] + +The material modes that constitute the perceptually realised baby are +awakened in the beholder by a definite sense-affecting existent, which is +thus revealing not only its bare presence, but most vividly and minutely +also its perceptible and distinguishing characteristics. And in the same +manner it makes also known that it is interdependently connected with +the vast system of sense-affecting entities, that constitutes nature in +general. + +All reality is interdependently conditioned. The “Unconditioned Reality” +of the Hamiltons, Mansels, and Spencers, has nowhere any existence, +either in consciousness or outside of it. It is altogether a fictitious, +superfluous, and most misleading conception. + +As regards the mental modes experienced by the baby, they are evidently +exclusively his own affections as a highly and most specifically +organised being, and not by any means are they modes of appearance of +that most empty abstraction “The Unknowable,” that has with so many +believers usurped the throne of their former anthropomorphic Deity. + +This coiled up thing over there, is it a rope or a snake? I see it move, +and my intellect interprets it to be a snake. Surely the significance +of the interpretation does not consist in my realising what was already +implicitly contained in my consciousness, but in knowing that in contact +with the being out there, which forms no part whatever of myself +though perceptually realised by me, I shall become affected in certain +additional ways taught by former experience. + +Will any unbiassed and competent judge assert that the far-fetched +idealistic interpretation is more in accordance with what we really +experience, than the very simple one here given? + +No doubt the immediate object of physical observation is not the +thing-in-itself, but its perceptual realisation. It is such, however, +only as symbolical representation of something subsisting outside +consciousness, only as a conscious affection awakened with compulsory +force in the observer from without. The observer offers his diversely +differentiated and delicately attuned sensibilities to the outside world +and carefully notices its specific modes of reaction upon definite modes +of stimulation. This in truth is the method of scientific observation, +from which all conclusions regarding the characteristics of nature are +drawn. + +The conscious subject phylogenetically evolved in constant interaction +with the medium in which he lives and moves and has his being, possesses +realising faculties so adjusted as to correctly subserve his needs in +relation to such a medium. He then furthermore uses these faculties +in order to gain a fuller and more accurate knowledge of further +perceptible characteristics of this same medium. + +A monistic interpretation of nature cannot possibly be reached by +assuming consciousness or intelligence to be ultimate reality, and +as such the One and All. It can be reached only by recognising that +consciousness is a function of subjects that stand in definite relations +to the rest of nature, and have power along with the other constituents +of nature so to affect the sensibility of other sentient beings as to +cause to arise therein the symbolical representation of themselves. + +Systematised experience consists in the organised totality of such +symbolical representations. And this organised totality of experience +exists as potential possession of the subject in extra-conscious +latency, in what we figuratively call memory. Emerging on occasion +into consciousness it reproduces more or less faithfully the order and +connection of the manifold that constitutes the sense-affecting universe. + +In highly developed sentient subjects self-realisation or the “inner +life,” which arises from the activity of their emotional and above all +their social nature, gains predominant influence over their sensual and +perceptual experience, urging them so to transform the given aspect of +the outer world as to render it subservient to the aspirations of that +inner life. + + EDMUND MONTGOMERY. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[54] Mr. Spencer grapples with the problem of ultimate reality from +three different and widely divergent standpoints. First, by assuming +that our out and out conditioned nature and knowledge presupposes the +existence of an “Unconditioned Reality,” he arrives at the conception of +an “Absolute Cause.” Second, by attributing—in keeping with the principle +of the Conservation of Energy, all physical and psychical activity to the +interconvertible play of modes of force, he arrives at the conception +of an “Absolute Force,” whence all these manifest modes proceed; +hinting, moreover, that, as our experience of force-manifestation is +of a psychical nature, the “Absolute Force” may rather be conceived as +psychical than as physical. Third, besides explaining at times that +the psychical and physical modes, instead of being interconvertible, +are only two different aspects of one and the same reality—and +contrary to his assumption of the interconvertibility of psychical and +physical modes proceeding from an Absolute Force, he advocates in his +_Transfigured Realism_ the view, that our perceptual consciousness +figures representatively the corresponding characteristics of a world of +things-in-themselves. No wonder that Spencerians are getting somewhat +mixed, as the saying is. + + + + +THE CONSERVATION OF SPIRIT AND THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS. + + +The consideration of the relation that subsists between body and mind is +a topic that has led to several theories, one of which has found favor +with many on account of its supposed monistic implications. Dr. Carus in +his work “The Soul of Man” seems to adopt that theory, and his method of +explaining the matter is one of notable superiority. He says: + + “Matter and mind (the elements of feeling) are to be considered + as one—not the same, but one. They are as inseparable as are + the two sides of a sheet of paper. If we look at it from the + mind side its activity represents itself as elements of feeling + and all kinds and degrees of actual feelings. If we look at it + from the matter side its activity represents itself as motions + or as all kinds of potential and kinetic energy.” + +This doctrine of a double-faced unity has no doubt been favored because +it has seemed the best and perhaps the only refuge available against +the various forms of dualism. Still this same doctrine is very far from +inducing that final pacification of mind which we rightly expect from a +competent theory. It is open to the charge of being arbitrary, and it +brings no access of insight. + +The expressions of those whom we must suppose to be well affected towards +any doctrine that gives promise of a monistic issue show this to be the +case. Thus Tyndall says: + + “I do not think that he (i. e. the materialist) is entitled + to say that his molecular groupings and his molecular motions + explain everything. In reality they explain nothing. The + utmost that he can affirm is the association of two classes + of phenomena of whose real bond of union he is in absolute + ignorance. _The problem of the connection of body and soul is + as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the prehistoric + ages._” + +And Huxley protests that, + + “How anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes + about as a result of irritating nervous tissue is _just as + unaccountable_ as the appearance of the Djinn when Alladin + rubbed his lamp.” + +In truth those who might be expected to speak with considerable reserve +in regard to the inabilities of human attainment have emphasised without +due sobriety the insuperable aspects of the problem. The past history +of culture should have counseled caution, especially in view of the +certainty that consciousness is _somehow_ dependent upon nerve action. + +It is submitted that the recent progress of science should induce a +hopeful temper of mind on this question. Not only have physiology and +psychology brought to light more results in the last decades than in +centuries past, but in positive monism and formal thought philosophy +has also attained to a clearness of method which will prove beneficial +to all special investigations. A clear and concise statement of the +new positivism is found in the chapter Form and Formal Thought of +“Fundamental Problems” by Dr. Carus. Any one who has watched the +development of the algebra of thought and the philosophy of logic, will +naturally expect signal aid towards the solution of the world-questions +from a proper consideration of form and the laws of form. In Dr. Carus’s +book and especially in the above mentioned chapter will be found a most +popular exposition of that subject. + +Those who hold that form and formal thought is the very constituted means +by which our information with respect to real existence may be improved, +ought to regard it a decided step towards the solution of any hitherto +apparently inexplicable problem, if we only but find ourselves able to +_formulate_ an idea or process that mediates between the known and the +unknown, and represents to our insight how it is possible to think of a +phenomenon in accordance with notions that yield perceptible imagery. + +Riemann in what has been well characterised as his “stupendous” essay on +“The hypotheses that lie at the basis of geometry” remarks: + + “We are quite at liberty to suppose that the metric relations + of space in the infinitely small do not conform to the + hypotheses of geometry; _and we ought in fact to suppose it if + we can thereby obtain a simpler explanation of phenomena_.” + +So also Jevons in his “Principles of Science” commenting on “The +Character of the Experimentalist” refers to the audacity of speculation +that characterised Faraday and that was the leading of his efforts +towards some of his most brilliant discoveries. He says: + + “We have only to notice the profound conviction in the unity of + natural laws, the active powers of inference and imagination, + _the unbounded license of theorising_.” + +Theory must precede experiment. We must formulate before we can verify. +The words of Faraday: “Let us encourage ourselves by a little more +imagination prior to experiment,” shows us the method he followed. + +Recent developments in connection with the study of electricity supply us +with at least an analogy that may instruct us as to how we may _suppose_ +the appearance of consciousness as a result of nerve action. + +The nature of electricity has long been an unformulated thesis. That it +may be produced by the motion of matter is proved by every dynamo in +operation: indeed the oldest experiments in static electricity are to the +same effect. + +At the present time it seems to be an acceptable doctrine or at least a +good working hypothesis that electricity and magnetism are manifestations +of that once hypothetical medium called _the ether_. + +Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald in his opening address before Section A of the +British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1888 made these +very important remarks: + + “In a presidential address on the borderlands of the known, + delivered from this chair, the great Clerk Maxwell spoke of it + as an undecided question whether electro-magnetic phenomena are + due to direct action at a distance or are due to the action of + an intervening medium. The year 1888 will ever be memorable as + the year in which this great question has been experimentally + _settled_ by Hertz in Germany. Henceforth I hope no learner + will fail to be impressed with the theory—_hypothesis no + longer_—that electro-magnetic actions are due to a medium + pervading all known space.” + +That the ether really exists: that it is a proved fact and that it is +the substantial basis out of which electricity and magnetism arises, +are pretensions too momentous to remain unchallenged if they lacked +good evidence in their favor. Yet instead of awakening dissent among +the critical hosts of science, these utterances of Professor Fitzgerald +have not only been received as voicing the convictions of the scientific +world but they are confirmed from time to time by the sometimes tacit and +sometimes express assent of all who discourse upon the matters involved. + +Prof. Oliver Lodge, one of the leading scientific men of England and an +acknowledged authority upon the subject has recently published a work +entitled “Modern Views of Electricity.” In his preface he says: + + “Few things in physical science appear to me more certain than + that what has so long been called electricity is a form or + rather a mode of manifestation of the ether.” + +He supposes the ether as a compound of two constituents corresponding +to positive and negative electricity. Each of these constituents has +affinities, cohesions, or entanglements with the various kinds of +matter, which affinities, cohesions, or entanglements are greater or +less according to the kind of matter involved, so that by the motions of +certain sorts of matter under proper conditions the two constituents of +the ether are torn apart or separated, or in the language of dynamics, +strained. But at the same time these constituents also tend with +unceasing persistence to reunite and saturate one another into a state of +absolute neutrality. Separate, these constituents show an existence and +an energy towards one another. United neither of them shows any existence +at all nor any efficacy whatever. They are as though they did not exist. + +It is of small moment to the present purpose whether or not this +electrical theory is well grounded. In either case its very formulation +supplies us with a suggestion as to how it is possible to think of +consciousness as a product of nerve action. + +Just as the ether is supposed as the substantial basis out of which in +consequence of the motion of matter electricity and magnetism becomes +manifest, so may we suppose an analogous (perhaps the same) basis +surrounding and permeating all things, and out of which in consequence of +nerve action, consciousness becomes manifest. + +Why may we not suppose this consciousness basis, (which suppose we name +spirit,) to be the ultimate substance which being variously modified +by energy manifests in one case the phenomena of mind, in another the +phenomena of electricity, magnetism, etc., and then again in a third case +that phenomenon, mass, or inertia, which is the essential attribute of +matter? + +As with the ether in the absence of any cause that separates it so that +electricity and magnetism become manifest, so spirit may be supposed +to be utterly without manifestation and neutral until nerve action +modifies its condition, when like electricity in the one case, so here, +consciousness becomes manifest. + +Why may we not imagine spirit as composed of two constituents +corresponding to feeling and volition which united saturate one another +into neutrality, but which separated by nerve action manifest feeling +that tends to pass into volition, or volition that tends to pass into +feeling? This would be in accordance with the phenomena if of reflex +action which is supposed to be the elementary type of mentality. + +This is in harmony with the views of the author of “The Soul of Man,” for +he, although for other reasons, also explains the origin of consciousness +from tension. He says: + + “Consciousness is an intensified state of feeling caused + through tension. It lies between a want and its satisfaction. + Satisfaction not being immediately attainable, feelings are no + longer in a state of equilibrium, and it is this tension which + concentrates and intensifies feeling into consciousness. + + “It appears that consciousness never arises without a certain + tension. Days spent in an idyllic life flow away almost + unconsciously; there is little friction, there are no problems + to be solved; there are no unsatisfied wants, or if there are + any, they are quickly and easily attended to. There is no need + of consciousness, there is not much tension to call it into + play, so life passes dreamlike as a tale that is told. The + more life is burdened with problems that demand a man’s full + care and deliberation, and the stronger are his attempts to + solve the problems of his situation, the more intense will his + consciousness be. + + “It appears to me very doubtful whether conscious beings could + exist in a world—if such a world were possible at all—where the + struggle for existence was unknown; for it is the struggle for + existence that presents the first and most imperative problems + to living and feeling beings.” + +Spirit or the elementary basis of consciousness considered as a +quantity, would on this supposition remain the same, but the forms of +its manifestations would change. There would be more or less straining +of spirit and accordingly more or less manifestation of consciousness. +Or to formulate it in one sentence, we would have to postulate _the +conservation of spirit_. + +Such a supposition or some similar supposition if tolerable would +bring our ideas into some sort of accord with scientific customs of +explanation, and would extricate our minds from that state of utter +stultification into which they are cast whenever they are confronted with +the relations of body and mind. + + FRANCIS C. RUSSELL. + + + + +ON CRIMINAL SUGGESTION. + + +A widely known criminal trial has brought before thoughtful minds, on +both sides of the water, this question, viz.: Whether a subject in a +hypnotic condition possesses any free will, and whether in such a state, +it is possible to transform him into a criminal or at least, for the time +being into becoming an accomplice in crime! It is not the first time +that this question has been agitated; indeed at the very beginning of +Mesmerism, as it was then called, this idea was brought forward. + +It was clearly formulated by Dr. Charpignon, whose own opinion +nevertheless is, that it was “much easier to restore moral rectitude to a +somnambulist who had fallen therefrom, than to pervert the integrity of +character of a woman of high moral standing.” In 1866 Dr. Liébeault, in +his work on, “Sleep and Kindred States of Being,” of which at that time +there were but six copies sold, coincides entirely with this opinion. The +passage is too noticeable, not to be quoted in its entirety. (P. 524.) + + “We may postulate, as a first principle, that a subject during + the state of magnetic sleep, is at the mercy of the hypnotiser. + I have made experiments that have confirmed me in this opinion; + I have many a time, removed the hats of such persons, searched + their pockets, drawn off the rings from their fingers, untied + their shoes, etc., ... without their having noticed the action + at all, or having made the least resistance, the isolation into + which I had thrown them, being the cause of this absence of all + consciousness.... + + “How very grave, the possibilities, are which may ensue from + this state of being, we may readily conceive! What I have + advanced here, is the result of certain experiments which I + made upon a young girl, who, while being very intelligent in + her natural waking condition, became during hypnotic sleep the + most cross-grained and wilful person I had ever had to deal + with. Nevertheless I always ended by mastering her will. I was + able to excite in her mind the most criminal resolves; I roused + her passions to a high degree. I was able to cause her to fall + into a violent rage with a person, to fly out upon her with a + knife in her hand; having displaced in her mind the sentiment + of friendship, still armed with that instrument, I sent her to + stab her best friend, whom I told her she saw in front of her; + she obeyed, the knife burying itself in the wall opposite. I + almost prevailed upon another young girl, who was however less + under the influence, to kill her own mother, and though she + wept, she actually prepared to do the deed. + + “After all, it has been known for a fact, that a man, who, up + to that moment, was of sound mind, hearing a voice continually + repeating: ‘Kill your wife. Kill your children’—has obeyed this + command, incited thereto by an irresistible impulse; and shall + the hypnotic subject already predisposed to hallucination, + escape this same involuntary impulse? I am firmly convinced, + after having made many other experiments, that a subject to + whom is suggested the commission of any bad action, will carry + out the crime after his awakening, by reason of what has + now become in him a fixed idea. The most moral will become + vitiated, the highest-minded perverted. + + “If it has already been found possible to reform a woman + of loose morals and bring her to abandon entirely her evil + courses, why cannot the reverse be effected and by the same + means? It would be in the power of the magnetiser to suggest to + his subject, not only to become a tale-bearer, a calumniator, + a thief, dissolute, etc., at some period subsequent to the + magnetic sleep, but, he might use him, for example, as the + instrument of his personal vengeance and the poor dreamer, + unmindful of the primary incitement to the criminal action, + would commit on another’s account, instead of on his own, the + evil deed, prompted and forced on thereto, by the irresistible + suggestion and will, imposed upon him by another person. And + when the crime shall have been consummated, where shall he find + the medical jurist, who can hold up to Justice, the torch which + is to throw the Light of Truth upon the act, and challenge the + innocency of a man, who, up to the moment of the crime never + exhibited the slightest sign of insanity, had shown every mark + of a sound mind and yet, when convicted of the dreadful deed, + states with every apparent sign of good faith, that he has + committed it of his own accord? And who can tell whether such + cases have not already taken place.” + +These momentous words passed unnoticed. At that time, the world did not +believe in Hypnotism. M. M. Richot and Charcot restored it to a place +of honor. The School of the Salpêtrière made its advent, and saw in +Hypnotism a pathological condition. Simultaneously with this school of +thought, there arose the rival one at Nancy, which following its leader, +Dr. Liébeault, saw in hypnotism, only a psychological phenomenon. One of +the masters in this school, M. Liégeois, Professor of the Faculty of Law, +in 1884, in his pamphlet on “Hypnotic Suggestion, in relation to Civil +and Criminal Law” also propounded to the public this idea of criminal +suggestion. + +M. Liégeois, like M. Liébeault, did not confine himself merely to theory. +He went on to demonstrate and prove his thesis by conclusive experiments. + +Strange to say, the Salpêtrière took issue on this point, adopting and +defending the opposite opinion. + +I would now ask permission to raise my own voice in this debate, and I am +the more emboldened so to do, inasmuch as my own personal observations +and the study which I have brought to bear on this matter, have caused me +to pass, so to speak, from one rival camp to the other. The thesis upheld +by the School at Nancy, while it found in me at first an adherent, finds +me to-day an adversary. + +Just a word about myself to the readers of _The Monist_. + +I have always been a believer in Magnetism. At the outset, and until +towards 1875, merely on the faith of books, later, because I had been +present at one or two more or less public exhibitions. And it appears +singular enough, that though thus imperfectly trained in the knowledge +of it, I should have explained, as I did in 1869, the ecstasies and +the stigmata of the celebrated Louise Lateau, as coming simply from +auto-suggestion; and that even to-day, there should be neither jot nor +tittle to subtract from what I then wrote, regarding it. + +I only began practising magnetism at the commencement of 1886. I was +returning from a visit to the Salpêtrière whither I had been attracted by +my doubts on this very transference of thought and from which I returned +with my doubts intensified. I have already recounted, in a series of +articles, that appeared in less than a year in the _Revue Philosophique_ +(“Upon Memory in Hypnotic Subjects”; “On the influence of Imitation +and Education in Somnambulism, as exhibited in the so-called hypnotic +sleep”; etc.) my experiences, observations, and inductions. Not to speak +of my contributions to the Magazines, and notably to the _Revue de +l’Hypnotisme_, I introduced hypnotism into the science course of the +Royal Academy of Belgium by means of two works. One, on the “Origin,” the +other on the “Extent of the Curative Effects of Hypnotism” (1887-1890). +Besides many other polemical writings in favor of the liberty of holding +public exhibitions (“Letters to M. Chiriar, Representative,” 1888. +“Magnetisers and Physicians,” 1890). I related at length what M. Charcot +and his pupils had shown me in Paris, as well as what M. M. Liébeault, +Bernheim, and Liégeois, had let me witness at Nancy (“A Visit to the +Salpêtrière,” 1886—“A Visit to the School at Nancy,” 1889). + +At the time then, that I took upon myself to hypnotise, I firmly believed +that the subject became the property of the magnetiser; passing over, +as of no importance, the manifest resistances that I met with at every +point and in every form on the part of subjects, who, in all other +respects I found perfectly adapted to such experiments; as for instance, +one who permitted his tongue to be pierced with a large darning needle +by my sceptical colleague, Dr. Masius; and to be burned several times, +both with a red hot iron and by thermocautery, by my colleague, the +surgeon Von Winiwarter, both these experiments having reference to the +curative effects of hypnotism. Thus, adhering entirely to the belief +of M. M. Liébeault and Beaunis, at the close of 1886 (“A Visit to the +Salpêtrière”) I wrote these words: + + “M. Beaunis’s statement is perfectly exact. The somnambulist, + in the hands of the hypnotiser, is less than the _corpse_, + which the perfect disciple of Loyola should resemble. He is a + slave, with no will other than that of his ruler, and in order + to fulfil the commands laid upon him, he will push precaution, + prudence, cunning, dissimulation and falsehood, to their + extremest limits. He will open and shut doors noiselessly, walk + in his stockings; will listen and watch, with what keen sight, + what acute hearing! He will remember anything and everything + you want him to, will forget all you desire him to forget. He + will, in good faith, accuse a perfectly innocent man before a + Court of justice. He will have seen everything, that in reality + he has never seen, if you command him so to do; he will have + heard, what he never could have heard and done everything that + he never could have done. He will swear by his Household Gods, + that he has acted throughout, of his own free will, without any + external pressure, will invent motives if need be, and will + completely protect and cover his hypnotiser. + + “Theoretically, such a power is the most dangerous thing on the + face of the earth! I believe though, that practically, with the + exception of what might relate to physical or moral abuses or + tampering with testamentary wills, there is actually little or + no danger. It appears to me the fear of this has been unduly + exaggerated.” + +In a foot-note of mine, while mentioning with highest praise the memoir +of M. Liégeois, I added further: “I do not express any alarm that I +cannot show a good reason for.” Among other reasons, I pondered on the +difficulty, say rather, the impossibility there is, of obtaining from the +subject an absolute abnegation of will-power, whilst at the same time we +allow him to retain the necessary free will to cope with any unforeseen +accidents which might occur to compromise the fulfilment of the thought +and action suggested. + +Two or three months later I should not have expressed myself thus; and +hence the remarks that accompany the experiments related in my articles +on Hypnotic Consciousness, _Revue Philosophique_, Feb., March, 1887, +experiments which took place about a year previous to this (see the +note to the contributed articles, Feb. 1887, p. 119). It may there be +noticed that my assent is tempered by certain marked reservations. I +was even then opposing practice to theory, i. e. I narrowed down these +apprehensions of danger to two legitimate causes of alarm, viz. attempts +against morals, and tampering with testamentary wills. + +Upon these two points I am still of the same opinion, with this +exception, that what I then feared probable, I now regard as exceedingly +problematic. I mean to say, that a villain who was contemplating the +perpetration of a crime, would not easily find an accomplice in a subject +of good moral standing. And in any case, I still think as I thought then, +that such an accomplice would not only be inapt, but compromising. It +is this latter point, I wish to demonstrate to you, by the following +criticism upon an experiment never before published. + +At the end of May, of last year, I was passing through Nancy with some +friends, among whom was Dr. L. Frédéricq, Professor of Physiology at the +University of Liège. We were spending the evening at M. Beaunis’s house +together with M. M. Liébeault, Bernheim, and Liégeois. Naturally this +question of Criminal Suggestion came upon the _tapis_ and was discussed +in all its phases, without advancing one step towards its solution. We +made an engagement to meet at the hospital on the following day, where M. +Bernheim invited me to be present at an experiment, which he maintained +would convince me. I will relate at length the occurrence, for in such +cases, the slightest details may acquire very great importance. + +M. Bernheim threw into the magnetic sleep a great, tall fellow, quite +easily influenced, and whose illness did not prevent him from walking +about in the ward. + +“Presently, when you have waked up, you will go and steal an orange from +the patient that you see over there, in that bed opposite. Remember that +what you are going to do is very wrong; it is strictly forbidden by +honesty and by the law, and you will run the risk of being punished.” +The man is waked. He appears to be collecting his thoughts. He rubs his +forehead, he is visibly meditating something. + +“What is the matter with you? What are you thinking about?” I ask him. + +“Nothing.” + +“You seem preoccupied.” + +“Well, yes, I have to do something.” + +“What?” + +“I am not obliged to render you an account of my actions.” + +“Ah! one would almost say you were meditating some mischief, where are +you going?” + +“That’s no business of yours.” + +“Oh! very well then, I shall watch you and follow you.” + +I follow him; he walks towards his companion’s bed, glances at the +orange, then leaning up against the window, he calls me to admire some +cherries growing on a potted plant. He keeps quite still. Why? Simply +because I had told him that I intended to watch him, _otherwise my +presence would not have troubled him in the least_. During this time, M. +Bernheim had acquainted the other patient with the intended proceeding, +he nevertheless having heard the whole transaction. “I do not think +he will do it,” said he to the Doctor, “he is one of my mates and he +wouldn’t steal from me.” I walk away and join the group of persons +present. I say to M. Beaunis, that this experiment will prove nothing, +he answers me by a gesture of surprise. The subject, as soon as he sees +me go away and _thinks that I am not watching him any more_, stretches +out his hand, seizes the orange that is behind his mate’s pillow, _the +latter meanwhile looking full at him_. A score for M. Bernheim, but one +also for M. Delbœuf! I should need twenty pages at least of commentary on +this experiment. But I shall only allow myself to point out the essential +points. + +This hypnotised subject then, or to speak more correctly, this man +to whom a thought has been suggested, after I had warned him that I +was watching him, and from whom I never took my eye, goes with the +unerringness, so to speak, “of the falling stone,” to carry out the +suggested action, not however without a certain distrust of me, and +this only, because he had been forewarned. And moreover in his dim +consciousness, it is I alone, whom he is watching in that clumsy fashion, +in order to seize upon some momentary forgetfulness on my part. He +has never noticed at all, that his mate is intently watching him and +following his every movement with open eyes; so he steals the orange +from under his very nose! Let us not forget that it was M. Bernheim +the house physician, who suggested to him to take the orange. But M. +Frédéricq himself would equally well have fulfilled that command, even +preceded as it was by the little homily, recorded above. Why should he +have disobliged M. Bernheim? But indeed, the logic of my opponents is +very weak. If, say they, a somnambulist resists criminal suggestion, it +is because he is not a susceptible subject, or, that the experiment has +been ill conducted, or, that the suggestion has not been strong enough. +At that rate, it is useless to continue experimenting, if failure is +always to be explained away. On my side, I might with equal reason, +argue, that they had been dealing with some licentious mind, as yet all +unknowing its inner self, or with a born criminal or a latent thief; and +though I object to this kind of argument, it would often prove to be more +legitimate reasoning than theirs. Who among us is absolutely virtuous? +How many actions which the law calls criminal have we committed, or might +we commit, under the pressure of circumstances, without a shadow of +remorse? But let us further examine this experiment. + +Our subject then put the orange in his trousers’ pocket which stuck +out very noticeably. This man might be a criminal, but he was not a +dissembler. Looking him straight in the face I said: “What have you been +doing?” + +“Nothing, I have just done my errand.” + +“You have stolen!” + +“What nonsense!” + +“What have you got in your pocket?” + +“Nothing” (notice the absurdity of this reply). + +“What do you mean?” + +“Nothing!” + +“What do you call that?” + +“Why! it’s an orange! it’s a very fine orange! _Ma foi!_ I can’t imagine +how it came there!” + +M. Bernheim intervenes: “You took it from a fellow-patient, from a +comrade! That was very wrong.” + +“Yes, that’s so, but I wanted it. Look! did you ever see such a fine +orange? I took a fancy to it and I determined to have it. Besides, _he +hadn’t seen it_(!) It’s not stealing when it isn’t missed.” + +Then I asked: “What is that you said?” + +“Why, yes, it is not stealing to take what nobody misses,” answers he, +with a scarce perceptible cunning and significant wink. + +A few minutes later, after we had ceased noticing him, he came up to M. +Frédéricq of his own accord laughingly told him that he was in the habit +of abstracting tobacco from his companions on this same ground, that if +they never missed it, it was not stealing. “It is all in fun, you know!” + +I conclude therefore, that this subject had in him latent tendencies to +theft, or if you prefer it, to pilfering. And dare any of us, honestly +confess to himself that we have not, deep down in ourselves, the germs +of any such vices? Who among the most upright of us, does not consider +himself perfectly entitled to defraud the government, or to get the +better of a Railway Company, or quietly to appropriate an object which he +may casually find? + +M. Liégeois will very likely say to me: “We will grant that this +experiment has not fulfilled the desired requirements; the subject has +not very high moral qualities, and he juggled a little. But here now, are +some experiments absolutely unimpeachable.” Thereupon M. Liégeois relates +the histories of Miss E..., of N..., of Mme. G..., and of Mme. C... Here +are the facts as collated by him in the Gouffe trial. + +_First narrative._ M. Liégeois believed that he had produced in Miss E... +such absolute automatism, so complete an annihilation of moral sense and +of all liberty of action, that he caused her, without moving a muscle, to +place the muzzle of a revolver close to her mother and fire upon her. The +youthful criminal appeared completely awake and far calmer than were the +witnesses of this scene. (Take notice of this.) Her mother, immediately +reproaching her and telling her that she might have killed her, Miss +E... answers smiling, with a great deal of common sense: “I have not +killed you, since you are speaking to me now.”—“Is any one likely to +believe that this is merely pretence and acting,” adds M. Liégeois, “that +a daughter will amuse herself by firing at her mother with a revolver, +_which she does not know is not loaded_, simply to deceive the public?” + +Well, shall I say it? The hypothesis of simulation, the simulation which +is practised in the hypnotic state appears to me to be the only plausible +explanation. The calm, smiling attitude of Miss E... is an unanswerable +proof of this. I have no doubt that if in a dream she had seen herself +firing at her mother, she would have suffered as in a terrible nightmare. + +Lately, it was in the beginning of January, I dreamed I was present at +a sale of paintings. Among others exposed for sale, there was a long +picture, nineteen or twenty feet high and less than three feet wide, +representing the assumption of some saint. Hardly had the auctioneer +mentioned the price, 6,000 francs, than I made a sign of assent. It is +knocked down to me. I start for home with my purchase, but on the way I +am seized with remorse. Where shall I hang the religious picture? And +even if I find a place for it on the staircase what will it look like in +my house, with its old black frame and its extraordinary dimensions? And +what a price to have paid, at such a moment when the house bills are +pouring in! In the midst of these reflections, I woke up, my heart was +beating tumultuously and during the remainder of the night I continued +under the most disagreeable impressions. In spite of my knowing that I +was awake and reasoning with myself, congratulating myself that it was +nothing but a dream, the enormity of my absurd action weighed upon my +mind and I kept continually dreading the reproaches of my family, when +they should learn the stupid bargain I had made. How widely different +is this mental distress from the placid, smiling condition of Miss E... +and how naturally one is brought to suppose that during the hypnotic +state the subject is not even under the sway of the ordinary illusions of +dreamland. + +M. Liégeois affirms that Miss E... _was not aware that the pistol was +not loaded_. I do not believe it. Upon what grounds are we to infer that +a somnambulist is an imbecile? You and I, and everybody would easily +surmise that M. Liégeois’s revolver was not loaded! Then why should not +Miss E... surmise the same? Is it not for the very reason that he handed +it to her, to fire at her mother, that she would opine as much? Might +she not have gathered this from the attitude of the spectators, full of +expectancy unmixed by any apprehension? and might she not have wished to +astonish them by her docility and _sang-froid_? All sorts of suppositions +are both rational and possible. Besides all this, somnambulists who +are absorbed in the work in hand, generally speaking, show a quicker +and surer perspicuity; their sensibilities are finer, their quickness, +their memory, overstep the ordinary limits as exhibited in their normal +state. Do we not hear of scholars, who in the hypnotic sleep, learn their +lessons in a very short time and write their essays admirably? I have +recorded in the _Revue Philosophique_, August, 1886, some facts about a +subject, upon whom I experimented before one of my classes. + + “The experiment I am about to give an account of might serve + very well as the explanation of many a miracle. B.[55] is in + the hypnotic sleep. We wish to give him some peculiar order, + which he shall execute, after he is awake, at a special + signal. The signal is to be a knock given by me on the desk; + the action, to carry a glass of water (a carafe of water + and glass being on a chair) to the student Eucher. He does + not know any of the fifteen students present, nor has he yet + heard their names. The pupils take their places, without any + special order, some standing, some sitting. B. is awakened. + We chat a little. I give the signal. B. rises, fills a glass, + and _without the slightest sign of hesitation_, carries it + to the student mentioned before, who was sitting on one of + the back benches, beside a fellow student. We looked at each + other with stupefaction. The intention of the experiment had + been, to see how he would obey an obscure command. There + were in my audience, certain persons, with leanings toward + belief in second-sight. This result seemed to overthrow all my + convictions. I again throw him into the sleep, and I command + him to carry a glass of water to the student Gérard; we are + all standing, awaiting with impatient curiosity what will take + place. B. fills the glass and this time sends a questioning + look over all the spectators, presents the glass first to one, + then to another, and finally I had to point out the student + Gérard, to whom he brought the water and made him drink it. I + again put him to sleep, and asked him to whom he carried the + first glass of water. To M. Eucher—Did you know him? No—How did + you recognise him?—By his attitude, he looked as if he wanted + to hide away.” + +And this is how the mystery was solved. We had unconsciously prepared +the scene, and it was this preparation which betrayed us. But it is none +the less a remarkable example of the perspicuity shown by somnambulists. +This goes to prove that hypnosis, instead of dulling the understanding, +sharpens it. + +The second of M. Liégeois’s experiments appears to me quite as open to +suspicion, and exactly for the same reasons. + + “I offered N. a white powder, of the nature of which he is + ignorant; I said to him: ‘Pay great attention to what I am + about to tell you. This paper contains arsenic. You will go + presently to such a street to your Aunt’s Mme. M. _who is here + now_. You will take a glass of water, carefully dissolve the + arsenic in it and then you will offer it to your Aunt.’ ‘Yes + Sir’—That evening I received the following note from Mme. M.: + ‘Mme. M. begs leave to inform M. Liégeois that the experiment + succeeded perfectly. Her nephew offered her the poison.’ The + criminal remembered nothing about it, and it was very difficult + to persuade him that he had indeed wished to poison an Aunt for + whom he had a deep affection. The automatism had been complete.” + +I cannot help seeing here an erroneous line of reasoning. They +conclude, from the absence of all remembrance, that the somnambulist +is an automaton, and from this they go on to deduce that he swallows +everything that is said to him. But, since he listens to the voice of +his hypnotiser; since he knows that to accomplish the behest, he must +do things that have not been expressly pointed out, though they are +understood in the execution of the deed:—such as to get the water from a +well or pump—why do they not allow that he is able also to reflect upon +the nature of the deed which he is told to do? Why is it that N..., who +is aware that he is being used in an experiment, cannot say to himself +during his hypnotic state, that this is only an experiment, that the +paper does not contain arsenic, that M. Liégeois never would really want +him to poison his aunt, _his aunt who is present at the time, and who +hears every word_? + +I repeat again, a hypnotic subject is not an idiot—quite the reverse. All +the precaution which M. Liégeois takes to render the experiments reliable +and conclusive, turns against the proof desired. Can you imagine the +poisoner, Dr. Castaing, saying to his servant before Hypolite Ballet, +whom he intended to kill, “Here is some poisoned wine, you will presently +give it to the sick man, whom you see over there in that bed.” If he had +done this, he would not have been condemned to lose his head, but they +would simply have shut him up in a lunatic asylum. And, as far as that +goes, the servant might easily, without any suspicion being attached to +the action, have given the poison to Hypolite Ballet, and the latter have +drunk it. + +But we have dallied long enough over these absurd suppositions. Let us +pass on now to the third narrative: + +M. Liégeois caused Mme. G... to fire at M. P..., an ex-magistrate. In +order to show clearly that the revolver was loaded, M. Liégeois fired a +shot in the garden and came in, showing a piece of card-board, through +which the ball had passed. “With absolute unconsciousness and perfect +docility Mme. G... advances to M. P... and fires. Being questioned +on the spot by the Chief Magistrate (who was present at the _séance_) +she avows the crime with entire indifference. She has killed M. P... +_because he was not pleasing to her_(!) They can arrest her; she knows +quite well what awaits her. If they take away her life, she will pass +into the other world like her victim, whom she sees stretched out, and +bathed in his own blood. They ask her whether it was not I who suggested +to her the idea of the murder. She denies it, and says she did it +spontaneously; that she alone is guilty; she is resigned to her fate, she +will accept without complaint the consequences of her deed.” + +The more I meditate to-day upon these experiments, the less they appear +to me to prove what it is desired they should. This perfect tranquillity +of Mme. G..., her generosity in not inculpating M. Liégeois; her +resignation to the fate that awaits her, establish entirely the fact that +she is present in mind and knowledge of events; and just because of this +very attitude, that she possesses her full presence of mind. She never +dreamed for an instant that she would really kill M. P.... She plays +her part conscientiously, she faithfully recites a lesson which she has +learned by heart and with which she intermingles side play of her own, +childish tricks, as for instance, saying that _her victim had displeased +her_. Let us recall to mind the patient who stole an orange, _because it +was a fine one_. That Mme. G.... sees M. P.... bathed in his own blood, +is more than doubtful. I can produce numberless proofs of facts that go +to prove that fictitious somnambulists are not dupes of the illusions +suggested to them; their calmness proves this. That it is possible to +make them commit an action dangerous to themselves or to others, I am not +prepared to deny. I will explain myself later upon this point. But from +this state, to that of criminal participation, there is an incalculable +distance. + +That the somnambulist repeats a lesson that he has learned, is shown +forth by M. Liégeois’s fourth narrative. + + “Mme. C.... was to give some arsenic in a liquid to M. D.... + who was thirsty. But M. D.... asked a question that I had not + foreseen; he asked what was in the glass. With a frankness that + precluded all idea of simulation Mme. C.... answered ‘Arsenic.’ + + “I was then obliged to amend my suggestion, and I said: ‘If you + are asked what is in the glass, say it is sweetened water.’ + + “Mme. C.... answered the question the second time, ‘Sweetened + water.’ + + “Very courageously M. D.... swallowed the supposed poison. + Questioned by the Chief Magistrate Mme. C. remembers nothing; + she had seen nothing, done nothing, given no drink to any one. + She does not know what they are talking about.” + +Again all this is proof to me, that Mme. C. feels that she is being told +to perform an innocent action. It would have been interesting to have +awakened her in the middle of the act, to see whether she would have +remembered her thoughts, just at the moment when she was giving the +drink to M. D.... I am not sure but that she would have answered like +Miss E... that she had no doubt the poison was imaginary, and the scene +prearranged. + +We have seen M. D... ask an unforeseen question, which upset the carrying +out of the crime. We have witnessed M. Bernheim’s patient steal an orange +under the nose of its proprietor, who was looking at him. Admitting, +therefore, that all had been foreseen, that M. Liégeois had warned +Mme. C... of all the possible questions that might be put to her; that +M. Bernheim had strongly recommended his subject to commit his theft +secretly, and that every possible detail had been perfectly carried +out—should we have even then a faithful transcript of a crime? Can we +have the unerring certitude from these occurrences, that a subject in the +hypnotic sleep, a bona fide somnambulist will allow himself to be used as +an accomplice by a veritable criminal? + + * * * * * + +In the preceding paragraphs, I carefully analysed the slightest details +invalidating experiments, in which the hypnotic subject acts the part +of a criminal, in a fictitious crime. I was able to show, that in all +these tests, there had been certain suspicious traits suggesting doubt +as to the complete illusion of the actor therein, and I finally added: +Supposing that everything had worked smoothly, i. e. that everything had +been foreseen and that the subject had not been tripped up anywhere, are +we authorised in maintaining that a subject thus far unimpeachable as +regards a fictitious crime, would accomplish this same deed in reality? I +answer, No. + +In order to justify this denial, it will be necessary for us to enter +into the Psychology of Hypnosis. + +A person in the hypnotic sleep, as well as in the natural sleep, is not +so absolutely withdrawn from the real world about him as is generally +supposed. The hypnotic subject even less so, than the sleeper, for the +former remains in intelligent communication with his magnetiser. If the +latter tells him to take a book from a table upon which is an inkstand, +some boxes, a statuette, he will pick up the book and not any of the +other objects. If he is enjoined to walk straight before him in a room +encumbered with chairs he will manage to avoid them, and even if the +illusion is pushed further he may knock up against them, but the action +will be done quite cautiously. And this is why, in public séances, he +never hurts himself, in spite of the wildness and apparent excitement of +his movements. This is also the reason, that in experiments intended to +demonstrate this absolute automatism, the preparation for the proposed +crime, the attitude of the spectators, while the subject is carrying out +his part, the integrity of the person who is suggesting the action, the +calmness of the intended victim; all these things, render the suggestion +less illusive than even an ordinary dream would be. + +M. Liégeois asks this question at the conclusion of his first narrative: +“Where is the spectator, who could believe that this scene was only a +melodrama with clever acting; and that a daughter for her amusement, +and solely to deceive an audience, would fire an unloaded revolver at +her mother?” To this I answer: And why should she not play her part in +this melodrama, when she sees M. Liégeois devise it, her mother lend her +co-operation, and the audience watch it with curiosity and interest? + +Here again we find the same fallacy in the argument: Because a subject +does not reveal what is going on within himself, and only puts into +visible speech what is suggested to him, it is taken for granted that he +is going through a mental process identical with that of his magnetiser. +But allow me to ask in my turn: Will it be easily credited, that a +daughter, would, deliberately and without a trace of feeling, shoot at +her mother, unless, she fully believed the action would have no serious +consequences, and that the person who had suggested this impious deed, +was only requiring her to act a part? + +Hypnotic subjects do not take long to realise that they are being used +as tests in experiments. Some are always gracious in responding to them, +many end by refusing to lend themselves to be used in such fashion, +especially in public séances. All these details go far to prove that in +hypnosis, the subjects retain, at least a partial independence. + +If a sleeper, who dreamed he was murdering his mother, should behold +her terrified, beseeching, invoking the pity of her son, calling for +help to the horrified spectators, he would feel that he was induced +to commit this deed by some sort of motive, which, absurd or unlikely +though it might be, would still be the controlling power; in a word, the +dream would be in reality a kind of incoherent and unreal drama, though +composed of very real elements, in which horror would play a very present +part. But if he should see his ostensible victim smiling and conversing +with him amidst a company animated only by a sentiment of curiosity, he +might well suspect, even in his sleep, that what he sees and what he +is doing, is a pure delusion. And this is exactly what he would say to +himself, should it come into his head to fire upon a _magistrate_, and +for the reason _that his looks displeased him_. + +These prearranged scenes fail in verisimilitude and no more deceive the +actors in them, than they do the spectators or the author. + +To this you may object: But, if the pistol had been loaded, Miss E. would +have shot her mother! This rests upon the supposition that the mother and +the spectators, still believed it to be unloaded, otherwise, their terror +alone, would have been quite sufficient to call back the subject to the +reality. And even with this assumption, this murder-test would have borne +a greater resemblance to a simple homicide from imprudence. By this I +mean to say, that so far as the spectators, the victim, and the assassin +were concerned, the act would not have been changed in its character, +simply because the magnetiser, had by mistake, given a loaded instead of +an unloaded pistol to the subject. I need hardly remark that a real crime +would never be perpetrated in this manner. + +Thoroughly convinced though I was, of the impossibility of making +experiments that would entirely fathom this question, circumstances +nevertheless, allowed me once more to make a test which is well adapted +to show that it is not as easy as some may think, to transform an +hypnotic subject into a murderous automaton. + +J... is that excellent somnambulist to whom my experiments have given a +certain notoriety. It is she together with her sister, whom I made use +of in my studies on “Memory in Hypnosis,” on “Imitation,” and “Hypnotic +Consciousness.” She it is, who three several times allowed herself to be +experimented upon by blistering on corresponding parts of the body; and +notably in one case where in accordance with suggestion no inflammation +took place.[56] She is tall, robust, intelligent, industrious, healthy. +She is now married and has had a child. The _accouchement_ took place in +the hypnotic sleep. The case being in the hands of M. Fraipont, Professor +of Obstetrics in the University of Liège; and never was the power of +hypnotism more remarkably exhibited.[57] In the case of this patient +there remained no trace of remembrance whatever, after awakening. + +I have gone into these details merely to show the reader that no +better subject could have been found for my purpose. I have in another +place (see _Revue Philosophique_, article on “Hypnotic Consciousness”) +pointed out certain traits in her case, which at my _début_, were +strongly calculated to make me a believer in the absolute servility of +the hypnotic subject; traits which I shall subsequently recall to your +attention and comment upon. + +To judge more fairly of the value of the experiment, I must further +state, that J. is both resolute and courageous. During several summers +she remained in the country in the environs of Seraing in attendance upon +my wife who was in ill-health, and in whose room she slept. After the +summer vacation it often happened that she spent the whole night alone +with her. At the head of the bed hung a six-barrelled revolver, loaded; a +precaution that we had taken on account of the well-known strikes which +took place in 1886, amongst the workmen of the numerous factories in our +neighborhood. + +In the summer of 1887 I happened to be absent. A man came one night, +prowling round the garden and fumbling at the lock of the door, which he +even tried to force. The barking of the dogs wakened J., she opened the +window, perceived the man, took the revolver and went down into the hall +watching for the moment in which to fire at the nocturnal visitor. The +man hearing the noise slipped away with celerity. And the same year that +this occurrence took place, J. slept on the first floor with her loaded +revolver hanging on a nail beside her bed. + +The 24th Feb. 1888, without communicating my intentions to anybody +except to my daughter, and that only at the very moment of beginning the +experiment, I discharged the revolver. It was six o’clock in the evening. +A young lady, (herself an hypnotic subject,) and my daughter, were seated +at a table, cutting out articles from a newspaper, which they afterwards +tied up in bundles. I called J. and at the moment she opened the door, I +hypnotised her by a motion. I said to her in an agitated tone—“Here are +some thieves, who are carrying off papers.”—J. came quickly forward and +turning towards me said: “No sir, they are playing with them—Why sure +enough they are taking them.” Then she walked resolutely up to them and +tore the papers out of their hands, put them on the table in front of her +and in an imperious tone said: “Don’t you touch them any more.” + +I—“You are never going to let those knaves remain in the house—run and +fetch the revolver” (it was in the adjoining room). J. ran without +hesitation. She returned holding the weapon in her hand and stood on the +threshold. “Fire,” cried I. + +“Sir, we must not kill them.” + +“Thieves? Why certainly!” + +“No sir! I will not kill them.” + +“You must.” + +“I won’t do it.” And she walked backwards still holding the revolver, I +following her and energetically reiterating my command. “I won’t. I won’t +do it. I will not murder.” She then placed the revolver on the floor but +_cautiously_. She continued to go backwards, I, meanwhile insisting and +following her. “I will not do it.”—Having come to a dead stand in the +corner of the room, she repulsed me violently and I thought it prudent to +awaken her, upon which she came to herself smiling in her usual pleasant +manner. She remembered, however, nothing whatever, although at the sight +of the revolver lying on the floor, she seemed to have a kind of vague +recollection. She did not seem at all discomposed in manner. If this +scene had taken place in a dream, she would certainly have exhibited more +excitement. + +This is what we may term conclusive evidence, that is to say if ever +negative evidence can be called so. Let us comment now upon these facts. + +It will be noticed that J. is not the dupe of the hallucination to which +she has been subjected. She does not take either of the young ladies +for thieves, nor the newspapers for valuable papers. Her first answer +is very significant—“No sir, they are playing with them.” Besides which +her expression, her attitude, the manner in which she looked at the +two reputed thieves, and tore the newspapers out of their hands, had +something so keenly observant, so prepared, so theatrical, that both my +witnesses and myself could not possibly believe her actions ingenuous. I +have often questioned her about the illusions that I suggested to her. I +asked her for example, if, when I appeared to her under another aspect, +for instance under the appearance of a young man, with clustering locks +and a black beard, she ever perceived anything of my real resemblance. +She invariably answered, that she saw my actual person, as it were in a +cloud, behind the figure which I had called up before her mental vision. +It is very probable that she recognised my daughter and her friend in the +persons whom I pointed out as the robbers. I might have assured myself of +this by causing her to recall her thoughts at the time. I am aware that +the opponents of this opinion challenge, and not unreasonably, tests made +in this manner because they have doubts about the suggestion. + +If then the facts were such as are related, J. was playing a rôle not +perhaps strictly in accordance with the rules of ordinary acting, knowing +that she was reciting a part, but feeling nevertheless that she had a +certain part to play and must enter into the spirit of it. + +It is incontrovertible that the hypnotic subject really does play his +part in precisely this fashion. When, for example, you extend his arm and +defy him to put it down he seems to make an effort to lower it, but in +reality he does not bring the required muscles into play at all. If you +bid him keep his hand open, he never dreams of using the flexor muscles. +Again, if the spectators try to change the position of either hand or +arm, they meet with energetic resistance. + +You will ask me how it was that J. did not carry out her acting all +through? Why, after she had gone for the revolver with such deliberation, +she did not fire it? It was because, the action being so rapid in its +development, she had no time for reflection; she must have thought and +she actually did believe, that the revolver was loaded as it always was. +This is proved by the precaution with which she handled it and put it on +the floor. It is evident that she thought it was a dangerous game. If I +had known how the affair would terminate, I would have taken the pistol +and told her that I would fire myself, in order to see what her thought +and action would have been. But notwithstanding all this, supposing she +had fired could we have concluded from this, that she really had latent +murderous tendencies? We could not have drawn any legitimate conclusions +even yet. For if, as we have just stated, J. was not entirely withdrawn +from her actual surroundings, she might naturally suppose that I was only +joking, and that I should never make her fire on my own child, and on +this account she need not feel any anxiety in fulfilling the order that I +had given her. + +The problem is a serious one. It is also a psychological problem. I have +already partially disclosed the solution which I myself am led to give +to it, and I can best translate my thoughts by these words and in the +following formula: Persons in hypnosis will only execute acts similar to +those they would naturally perform in dreams. I have asked a number of +persons, among others, those connected with the law, whether they had +ever dreamt they committed murders or robberies, and up to the present +time all have answered in the negative. And yet, lawyers interrogate +criminals, and it would be quite within the realm of possibility through +one of those duplications of personality which I pointed out in my work +on “Sleep and Dreams,”[58] that they should take up for an instant the +rôle of an assassin. This is not an impossible supposition. Does it ever +happen that the novelist or the actor, in portraying or impersonating an +infamous character, the creation of his imagination, does so identify +himself for the nonce, with his own invention, that even in sleep, for +a brief space, he incorporates himself, so to speak, into the fictitious +personage he has evoked. There are some very curious investigations +to make on this subject. But even if any positive facts could be +gathered from this, we should still be left in doubt, as to whether by +post-hypnotic suggestion the subject would continue to carry out the same +rôle. + +Doubtless, an anatomist may dream that he is dissecting a body, but +could we produce an hypnotic condition such as to make him use the +knife as freely upon a living body? Can I make a butcher believe that +a child is a sheep? I consider the thing to be perfectly feasible, yet +my thesis is not at all weakened by this concession. We will take it +for granted that, animated by evil designs you proceed to hypnotise +beforehand, the anatomist and the butcher, and then bring them at a given +moment to the victim! And let us further imagine that the combination +succeeds perfectly. How will you manage to veil in deepest secrecy all +your previous manœuvres and cast a semblance of likelihood over the +culpability of your accomplices? + +Will not the old adage, _Cui bono_, be quoted against you? In order to +insure perfect impunity, you would have to overcome such an accumulation +of material _impedimenta_, the lightest of which would suffice to +dissipate all apprehensions in the minds of those in whom chimerical +fears have not entirely obliterated their common sense. It is therefore +evident that in so far as we know now, from experiments intended to +test this theory and these possibilities of Criminal Suggestion, no +positive results can be obtained. These criminal actions, so appositely +named—Laboratory Crimes—bear no resemblance to actual ones. + +If this debate is ever to be closed it can only be before a Criminal +Court when a Troppman, a Pranzini, or an Eyraud, shall have been the +operator, and it shall have been clearly shown, what interest the +assassin had in making use of a so-called, unconscious and automatic +accomplice. Then only, shall we be able to appreciate to what degree +hypnotism may become a dangerous enemy to society at large. And even +then, we shall have to remind ourselves that all our medicines are +poisons and that they have the power of destroying even more surely, than +that of healing. + +Thus the problem is still unsolved. + +Here is a story told me by Dr. Liébeault. He, or perhaps it was M. +Bernheim, or both together, hypnotised a workman and told him to steal +a couple of little plaster figures, that were used as ornaments on the +mantel-piece in a house where he was working. He did so. The affair had +been forgotten for some time because the suggestion had not been carried +out on the spot. About three months after the occurrence, this same +workman was arrested for stealing a pair of trousers from the front of a +shop. Upon which the previous hypnotic suggestion was remembered. + +My opinion is that the workman—and how many there are of the same +calibre—had a very slight regard for _meum and tuum_. This reminds us +of that hospital patient, whom we saw pilfering the tobacco from his +comrades, and I do not think it was at all necessary to have thrown +the workman into the hypnotic sleep in order to make him steal the +statuettes. But from another point of view, this experiment, which did +not prove anything, might give rise to party arguments from those who +deem it desirable to maintain that it was the initiatory suggestion that +first gave this man the taste for stealing. + +To sum up in a few words this portion of my investigation; the result of +my experiments and of my analyses is this: that the experiments of my +opponents prove nothing. + +For the present I shall confine myself to this purely negative conclusion. + +But there are other grounds besides experiments on which we may examine +this question. We can do so by careful observation and minute analysis of +the actions of hypnotised persons. + +I have said before that the degree of morality observable in the dreams +of the subject, gives the measure of what may be expected from him during +hypnosis. + +According to my opinion, hypnotism is less powerful in inciting to +actions of grave moral import, than the corrupting influence of word or +example, the love of gold, or the excitement of the passions. + +All truly scientific experiments have brought into prominence the analogy +between physiological and incited dreams, and to-day we may say that this +is the doctrine of the future. Thus if an hypnotic subject admits without +opposition that he is made of sugar, or of glass, that he feels he is +melting in the rain, or being broken to atoms by the awkwardness of the +bystanders; if he thinks he is a lamp, or allows himself to be trundled +along like a wheelbarrow; if such a subject, I repeat, refuses to steal +a purse, or to receive an embrace, the conclusion forces itself upon one +that the hypnotic subject has more power over himself than some persons +would wish us to believe; in spite of his docility, there are some things +he absolutely refuses to do. + +If then, reasoning by analogy has ever been legitimate, it is surely so +in this case, when the inference can be drawn that the man who refuses to +give a blow will refuse to use a knife; and that the woman who refuses +to give a token of affection will certainly refuse to allow of serious +tampering with morals. + +Let us then pay close attention to what observation may teach us. + +I shall hope to be able to demonstrate by actual facts, that persons in +an hypnotic condition, preserve at least a sufficient portion of their +intelligence, their reason, together with freedom of action, to prevent +them from committing deeds that neither their conscience nor their habits +approve of. + + J. DELBŒUF. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[55] A lad of about 15, very bright. Has been one of Donato’s subjects. +Very susceptible and having been hypnotised in a great many public +séances. + +[56] See my pamphlet on _The Origin of Curative Effects in Hypnotism_. + +[57] See _Revue de L’Hypnotisme_. April, 1891. + +[58] _Sleep and Dreams_, p. 24 et seqq. (Paris: Félix Alcan). + + + + +LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE + + + + +I. + +FRANCE. + + +When, some ten years ago, M. de Roberty published in the _Review of +Positive Philosophy_ a series of articles, under the title of the +“New and the Old Philosophy,” I was much impressed by the work. The +conception of the three types; the idealistic, the materialistic, and the +sensualistic, under which nomenclature he ranged the various philosophic +systems, seemed to bring order into the history of philosophy. He also +proceeded to treat, after the same manner and in a very happy way, the +“law of the three states” of Auguste Comte, by this means rectifying +and justifying the latter. The law of the three states, wrote M. de +Roberty, corresponds with the present state of philosophy, which is again +explained by science, so that to whatever measure knowledge may attain +to, it will be equalled by philosophy, which borrows its types and its +characteristics from the sequence of facts, at the point where it leaves +the sphere of explanatory hypotheses. + +Since then M. DE ROBERTY has completed by a new study, his first work on +this subject. In the “Unknown” he has laid his finger on one of the weak +points of modern positivism; perhaps by dint of searching into details, +he has shown himself a little too severe on Comte in the book about +which I am going to speak to-day, _The Philosophy of the Century_ (_La +Philosophie du Siècle._). + +This book contains a thoughtful criticism of the three doctrines that +occupy contemporaneous thought; and which are: criticism, positivism, +and evolutionism. He considers these in conformance to his _criterium_, +as simply the varieties of one single species and the absolutely +identical manifestation of a common fund of beliefs and hypotheses held +generally by all. According to him critical philosophy derives its +direct origin from idealism. Positive philosophy, from materialism; and +the philosophy of evolution from sensualism. Going further still, he +considers critical philosophy as the legitimate outcome of sensualistic +idealism; and positive philosophy, similarly, as the product of +sensualistic materialism. Sensualism is thus the common ancestor; the +three systems inter-penetrating each other. But the promoters of these +systems must be judged with equity, put back into their proper places, +and ranged according to their epochs. In my opinion, a philosophical +doctrine is valuable, not so much by the clear solutions it affords us, +as by its methods of procedure, may I say, even by the coloring it gives +to thoughtful minds. + +I do not hesitate to recognise in Kant, the strong, rough-handed workman +of modern philosophy; in Comte, the most utilitarian; in Spencer the +subtlest as well as the most successful. Kant possesses the greatest +speculative vigor; Comte, the clearest scientific turn of mind; Spencer, +the keenest conception of, and insight into, psychological subjects. +Taking these philosophers as a whole, Spencer, in spite of his merits, +appears to me the least original, the least remarkable of the three. +His universal metaphysics has feet of clay. The classification of the +sciences that he wished to substitute for that of Comte is obscure, +devoid of general utility; in short the influence of Comte on succeeding +generations will be more considerable than Spencer’s, if indeed there are +any philosophers who will be bold enough to avow themselves deliberately +as Comtists. + +This contradiction should not surprise us. It not seldom happens that the +influence of a master continues even when his doctrines have suffered +shipwreck. We notice this in the great schools of thought of the +present day. We may say with truth, that the criticists are inclined to +dialectics; the positivists, to methods and systems; the evolutionists +to facts. The first excel in the analysis of ideas, but they expose +themselves to be lost in abstractions. The second endeavor to reduce to +a system all scientific matter, but they run the risk of being either +rigorists or becoming too elementary. The last while making rapid strides +in the genesis of the subtler phenomena of life, incur the danger of +accepting arbitrary _liaisons_, or of remaining in an inchoate condition. +Each one possesses most valuable qualities, which it would be desirable +indeed to meet with in the same mind. Each has rendered services which it +is but just to recognise and which it would be unwise to disregard. + +The main thing is always to be able to understand one another upon the +question of what philosophy means and its relation to science. What M. de +Roberty cares most for, in all his writings, is the elucidation of this +problem. We must concede, that it is one which is worth striving after. +And it is surely not asking too much if we demand of every philosopher, +that he shall know, more or less, what is meant by philosophising. + +Philosophy will be, in the future, very much what it has always been in +the past, a general _conception of the world_. This is a fixed fact for +M. de Roberty. Is it true that philosophy preceded science, or, that on +the contrary it has always been and will continue to be subsidiary to +it? Many are, we know, partisans of the first opinion; it has seemed to +them that the sciences have separated little by little from the hazy and +indistinct conglomerate which bore the name of theology, metaphysics, +in a word, of philosophy. M. de Roberty does not hesitate to adopt the +contrary opinion. Philosophy, according to him, has always sprung from +science, it has always been the equal of science. But though he proclaims +this equality as existing between science and philosophy, this does not +in the least oblige him to recognise any equality in their manifestations +“in history.” The knowledge of a given science, implies a certain +_conception of the world_; this is the supreme law of philosophical +evolution. Philosophy is an abstract science of general interest, having +for its end, the integration of the documentary evidence furnished +by the various sciences. Comte was strongly imbued with this truth. +Spencer made it his own, but he makes a more serious mistake than his +predecessor, when he asserts that philosophy is able to “play an active +part” in scientific discovery. In the opinion of M. de Roberty, it is +neither the antecedent of science, nor is it even to be called an art. +Must it then be called a science? Or is it to be comprehended in science? +Neither the one, nor the other. He prefers rather to regard it as a link +(“_un trait d’union_”) between these two different kinds of intellectual +activity, science and art. The mental faculties may, he tells us, aim +at subjugating nature, either in a direct manner, the result of which +will be called science; or in an indirect way, in which case we name it +art; or they may have still a third intention, taking a kind of middle +course between the utility of _science_ and the indirect utility of art, +which while actively participating in both, facilitates as well the +transition from one to the other, from which springs _philosophy_. “Most +unmistakably identical,” says he finally, “are the elements which produce +a particular combination, in the one, they are called science, in the +other philosophy.” + +But we must not confound the two propositions. “If a house is to be +built of brick, does that mean that we are not to distinguish between +the materials required in its erection?—that we are to apply to its +construction, the ingredients and the procedures used in the making and +firing of bricks? We never should build a house if we acted thus.” + +Let us not misunderstand this comparison! The house here spoken of is +entirely figurative. The hypothesis which underlies it is universally +accepted, but its primal condition is always wanting—i. e. universal +knowledge. It would be presumptuous indeed, to draw, to-day, the plans +and define the style of architecture which shall be used in our future +philosophical habitation, since we do not yet possess even the materials +wherewith to build it. We can only hope to erect such a temporary +shelter, a fort, that may be swept away in a few hours, whenever the +enemy shall have discovered an explosive powerful enough to blow it into +atoms. I do not care very much, I confess, for the distinction spoken of +“between a direct and an indirect utility” and the idea of philosophy +forming a link between art and science. This way of representing the +facts of the case, seems to me both cumbersome and incomplete. I will +not stop here to discuss it. The thoughtful study of M. de Roberty is +not compromised by such a small detail, and I would rather remember the +positive teaching which is given in the very striking book that I have +just been criticising. + +“Philosophy and science,” writes the author, “are terms which define +two principal _species_ of the vast _genus_ designated under the one +name,—knowledge.” The most marked trait of the philosophy of the future, +will be the _distinction_ between the two species, as _confusion_ was the +predominant characteristic of the philosophy of the past. + + * * * * * + +The work of M. de Roberty gave us a methodic history of philosophy. +That of M. F. PICAVET, _The Ideologists—An Essay on the Scientific, +Philosophic, Religious, etc., ideas and theories in France since 1789_, +stretches over a very vast area of descriptive history. His book +conducts us from Condorcet to Destutt de Tracy, and Cabanis; from these +to Degérando and Laromiguière; it embraces thus nearly the whole of +the philosophy of the eighteenth century, which it carries back to the +seventeenth, from thence following the thread of its history, through +the intervening years, down to our own times. The name “Ideologist” is +vague, as are all the rest of the battle-cries which are used by the +leaders of parties, or that their adversaries may make use of against +them. Ideology, in the sense used by Destutt de Tracy, signifies, that +philosophers must confine themselves to psychological research, more +particularly to that which concerns the origin and the formation of +ideas, an immense field, embracing philology, ethnology, etc. With +regard to the wrong sense which Napoleon attached to this word, it was +justified in a certain measure by the pretensions of the philosophers in +governing life, politics, and law, by doubtful hypotheses, which did not +often accord with practice. It cannot be denied that since the time of +Rousseau, we pass much too easily from theory to action, and that we fall +back too readily on our imagination, to supplement our actual experience. +We find in M. Picavet’s book, new and valuable information about all the +men who have contributed to the intellectual life of the French nation, +during and since the time of the Revolution. We can trace there the +origin of certain doctrines, which have appeared to spring up suddenly +before our eyes, and shall often be extremely surprised by what we shall +read there. It is a most valuable and important work, showing an enormous +amount of erudition, fine critical acumen, and a rare descriptive talent. +It is quite voluminous (more than 600 pp. 8vo.), and some might indeed +consider that it could have been more condensed. But it is primarily a +book of reference, in whose pages we shall surely not complain of finding +a large amount of information, when we refer to it. + + * * * * * + +With the book of M. BERNARD PÉREZ, _Le Caractère, de l’enfant à l’homme_, +(Character, from Childhood to Manhood), we leave the domain of philosophy +and history to enter into that of psychology. M. Pérez modestly disclaims +all pretension to founding a science of character. Nevertheless, that +which he has given us and produced here, bears the stamp of originality +in a subject in which authors have hitherto only repeated one another. +His work is composed of two parts, of which the second forms the +completion of, or rather a commentary on, the first. We find here, to +start with, a classification of characters, illustrated by portraits +which render the developments more tangible; secondly, a study on the +common combinations of the principle traits of personality. + +The classification of M. Pérez is founded on movements, that is to say +it is displayed in sufficiently complete groups connected with some +distinct mode of expression, such as rapidity, slowness, and energy of +movements. It offers the practical advantage of substituting for the four +or six temperaments of the old schools, which are frequently hard to +distinguish, classes more flexible and distinguished by visible gestures +which betray, more or less clearly, their physiological foundation. M. +Pérez has provisorily established six of these classes. He distinguishes +the vivacious, the vivacious-ardent, the ardent, the sluggish, the +sluggish-ardent, and lastly the balanced type. The last category is +in my judgment a sort of utility-box, apparently designed to receive +specimens which we are at a loss where else to put. For one of two things +is certainly true, either this balance is an insignificant trait or it +is one that is dominant in the person, and it is absolutely necessary to +state which. + +Many will undoubtedly question this doctrine that the movements of +a person express all his character and that consequently they are +competent to reveal it to us. We might maintain, indeed, that if the +movements supply us with the labels of each class, it is not always to be +distinctly seen how the different traits of character and of intelligence +(the author does not separate the two, and gives his reasons for so +doing) subordinate themselves to one another and vary with the motor sign +chosen to express them. There can be no question, however, that rapidity, +energy, or slowness of movement, do not have certain actual and profound +connections with our visceral and cerebral functions, and that the motor +sign is easy to be made use of, although it does not reach all the facts +which it is employed to describe, and although the explanation of these +facts still remains to be sought in the physiological substratum. + +M. Pérez has secondly attempted a systematisation of character-traits, by +successively studying the relations of gaiety and sadness, irascibility +and gentleness, courage and fear, kindness and malevolence, self-love and +will, with the principal emotional intellectual and volitional traits +of character. He has perceived, instinctively as it were, that the +pointing out of generic, specific, and individual marks does not possess +its entire worth except on the condition that we also point out _the +subordination_ of the same, and he has given this factor much prominence +in the last chapters of his book. This portion of the work is replete +with subtle observations, and ingenious and profound reflections, but it +is fragmentary in character, a half-way production, I might say, between +the disconnected literature of the moralist and a reasoned and methodical +description such as ethology ought to furnish later on, after the manner, +if possible, of the natural sciences. + +The desiderata which I here briefly refer to, are not set forth to +diminish the value of the work of M. Pérez. It will in its present form +render great services, and I should not be at all surprised if the +terminology which he has invented should pass into the language of the +day, as it is convenient and easily lends itself to the description of +character-portraits. Even readers who shall find here much to criticise, +will not refuse to accord to it real and solid merit. + + * * * * * + +After the work of M. Pérez, a study of my own naturally ranges itself—_La +Psychologie du peintre_[59]—concerning which I ask permission to +offer a few remarks. I have set myself the problem, in this work, of +determining a professional type, and I have chosen one of those which +are certainly the most distinctly defined. If other authors could give +us the psychology of the musician, of the lawyer, of the physician, and +of the geometer, such a task would not be an indifferent performance in +what concerns our knowledge of _character_, and we should arrive at the +construction of a natural history of society from a different point of +view and by different methods from those at the disposal of the novelist. +We should accomplish, unquestionably, the passage from general and +_abstract_ psychology, to _concrete_ psychology. + +Do professional types really exist? and if they exist, what are they +composed of? The question as I view it, is not bereft of interest for the +psychologist. We do, no doubt, find among painters, vivacious, sluggish, +and ardent individuals, and we may indeed, in studying this or that +particular painter, discover in him some one or other of the combinations +described by M. Pérez. But that does not stand in the way of the growth +and constitution of social types, and individuals may find a natural +place in the different categories of a general classification without +ceasing to belong to their professional category in consequence of a +natural self-grouping of their intellectual faculties, and a definite +tendency of the traits of their emotional nature. It would be justifiable +to say, at the same time simplifying and enlarging a little the facts, +that originally our viscera form our character but our cerebral organism +forms our profession; and if it is true furthermore that a certain +physiological state brings with it a definite intellectual mode of +operation, it is none the less true that the same culture of the mind and +the long-continued habits of a profession are apt to impose upon one’s +personality a definite discipline and mean equilibrium of tendencies and +sentiments; and it is in this sense that it has seemed to me we are at +liberty to speak of a professional type without equivocation or violence. + +Those who will not accept this manner of looking at this subject will +find, I hope, some additional interest in my work on the score of the +special questions which are treated of there: the heredity of genius, +memory, the classification of the sentiments (implied rather than +formulated), the relations of the will to the design considered as +writing, the evolution of art in its connection with visual analysis, +and so forth. There is here a sufficiently abundant supply of materials +capable of being wrought up in social psychology and the criticism of +art. But it does not become me to bestow praises on my own work, and it +would be too easy for me to subject it to criticism. My readers will +find in it themselves the weak portions, without my pointing them out to +them; and it would be a source of great pleasure to me to have the same +assurance that they will discover in it qualities which I do not perceive +there. + + * * * * * + +There remains still to be mentioned _La Première partie d’une étude sur +la théorie du droit musulman_,[60] by SAVVAS PACHA, one time governor +and governor general, one time minister of public works and foreign +secretary of Turkey. Savvas Pacha—a Christian of Greek descent—has held +high positions in the Ottoman Empire and is esteemed as one of the most +learned men in Islamic law who have ever lived. His book therefore +demands the greatest consideration; it will not possess less interest for +philosophers than for statesmen and jurists. In my opinion, works of this +class should be consulted by psychologists as much as by sociologists; we +are too much inclined nowadays to neglect certain social studies which +offer us valuable information respecting the genius of races and the +conditions of their moral existence. + +The work of Savvas Pacha will undoubtedly contribute much toward the +elucidation of some mooted points of very first importance; I should like +to mention—the history of creation, and the exposition of the principles +of a law which rules more than a million human beings and is intimately +interwoven with their political life; a more exact knowledge of the +Semitic genius; an estimate of the relations which have existed between +the juridical metaphysics of the Semitic peoples and that of the schools +of Greece, between the Mohammedan law and the Roman law in provinces once +Romanised but afterwards subjected to the empire of the Caliphs. + +It does not seem at all doubtful that the ontology of Aristotle in +particular has exercised an influence on the philosophy of the Arabian +jurisconsults. A second truly remarkable fact, too, is not the new +ontology which they have produced, but the use they have made of it in +their legislative fabrics. It is impossible to enter into details here; I +limit myself to the mere pointing out of the facts. + +With respect to the originality of the institutions that belong to the +period of the first Abbassids, the same has been contested by a number of +historians. M. Renan, among others has maintained that they are the work +of the Iranian genius. Savvas Pacha refutes this opinion in a peremptory +manner, and we shall no longer be able to deny, after having read him, +that the Mohammedan civilisation, with the _corpus juris_ which stands +for its most perfect production, has really proceeded from the genius of +the races that bore the banner of Islam from the confines of China to the +Straits of Gibraltar. + +Shall I add that we may deduce from this work, so learned and so +suggestive, the elements of an instructive comparison between two grand +divisions of human history whose evolution seems still to be pursued on +lines wholly apart—that which we call Christianity and that which has +sprung from the teachings of Mohammed? + +I fervently hope that Savvas Pacha will not delay the publication of +the other works which he has promised. When they appear he will have +furnished us with the most considerable work which we possess on the +institutions of a great division of humanity, still too little known to +us. + + LUCIEN ARRÉAT. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[59] All the works so far mentioned are published by F. Alcan. + +[60] Published by Marchal et Billard, Paris. + + + + +II. + +GERMANY. + + +Productions of a literary-historical character are under certain +circumstances also entitled to mention in a philosophical magazine, +especially if they present to us the intellectual development and +physiognomy of an individual or of a community in a scientific manner, as +is done in the _Essays_ of KARL WEIGAND which have just been published by +Merhoff, of Munich. Of the larger essays contained in this book we will +especially mention those on Voltaire, Rousseau, Baudelaire, and Taine, to +which in psychological respects a high value is to be accorded, and which +although not exactly easy are nevertheless pleasant reading. + +Viewed from this standpoint the _History of North American Literature_ by +KARL KNORTZ (Berlin, 1891, Lustenöder) hardly admits of consideration; +not even Edgar Allen Poe, who in the psychological point of view is of +unexceptionally great importance, is in any respect profoundly treated. +The work is made up of a series of well written articles which first no +doubt were published in newspapers and magazines for the public at large. +We deem it proper, however, to mention the work in this place, because it +contains a chapter on the philosophical literature of North America, in +which, we must admit, philosophy does not appear to the best advantage. +The representatives of philosophy in North America, the author says, +are in the main doctors of divinity and securely installed university +professors, and this department of study has therefore no dangerous +connections; the gentlemen calmly wend their way along the ancient and +well-trodden path of the aprioristic philosophers and proscribe without +any ado all modern innovations, Darwinism in particular. + +As they have not as yet consigned the belief in God and immortality and +the freedom of the will to the lumber-room of traditional opinions, and +as they are as a rule only superficially acquainted with the results of +the exact sciences, despite the fact that many assure us of the contrary, +they accordingly fancy that they are easily able to solve the imagined +chief problem of philosophy, the reconciliation of religion and science. + +This judgment may contain much that is true, but from the little that +we personally know of things in North America, is to be decidedly +restricted. Moreover, we by no means share the low opinion which the +author entertains of all attempts to reconcile religion and science. +Religion is a phenomenon of too great antiquity and its influence +in the life of nations is too thoroughly established to entitle us, +on the ground of science with which it is still involved in violent +conflict, summarily to disregard it; and consequently every attempt at +reconciliation is worthy of the best efforts of the noblest. It is of +course a question whether we shall ever arrive at the point where we +will completely understand _all_ religious things, but we certainly +must with time arrive at a point where religion shall no longer contain +inconsistencies, contain nothing, that is, of which the absurdities are +patent. + +There was indeed, in Germany also, a time when the belief was very +widely spread that religion as compared with science might be ignored +completely; it was the time when Ludwig Büchner and Karl Vogt were so +much read, when the magazine _Gartenlaube_ counted its greatest number +of readers. But this time is long since past, and just as since that +time employment with philosophy, especially with ethics, has become +more comprehensive, so also the interest in religio-philosophical +questions, which aim at a reconcilement of the two hostile powers, has +been considerably augmented. Aside from the German productions which have +been written in a conciliatory tone, like the book, to give an example, +of Moriz Carrière on Christianity and the Modern World Conception, +foreign works of this same class have also been much read, particularly +Drummond’s _Natural Law in the Spiritual World_, to which indeed in +our judgment no particular value is attributable, as it does not help +us to any real knowledge but contents itself with analogies which +scientifically are absolutely worthless. + +Recently the little treatise _Ernste Gedanken_ of the Saxon officer VON +EGIDY (Leipsic, 1891, Wilh. Wigand) has been much talked about. The +reformatory effect of this brochure has, indeed, hitherto been very +slight and will hardly become more extensive in the future, but the +response that it has met with in the widest circles of the German public, +proves that many ardent friends of religion anxiously desire that the +dogmatic shackles and integuments shall be stripped from the body of the +Christian beliefs, and that it shall appear, in the clearest and purest +light, that which it is, the religion of love. + +Theological criticism has not taken an exactly favorable attitude towards +the little book of Lieut. Egidy, and even the liberals, who pay the +fullest credit to the good intentions of the author call attention to the +fact that the greater part of what Egidy advances has been said before +and said better, and that there is an almost absolute lack of positive +proposals to be adopted. The Egidy movement will thus probably have, they +conclude, no lasting effects. + +We cannot indeed absolutely say that these critics are wrong, if we +are at all conversant with the development of protestant theology. +A very instructive and opportune work in this respect is a book +of the well-known Berlin professor OTTO PFLEIDERER, who, as his +religio-philosophical treatises evidence, himself belongs to the +reconcilers of Christianity and the modern world-conceptions. In the +year 1889, at the instigation of the editor of the Library of Philosophy +issued by Swan, Sonnenschein, & Co. of London, he published in the +English language a work on _The Development of Protestant Theology +since Kant and in Great Britain since 1825_, and this same work has now +just appeared in German (published by Mohr of Freiburg) in a somewhat +more extended form. As its title proclaims, and as its belonging to the +Library of Philosophy would signify, the work is chiefly concerned with +the influence which philosophy has exercised on theological thought. +To make this influence plain, the author presents at the start, in the +form of an introduction, a concise but extremely lucid exposition of the +philosophical doctrines that especially demand consideration in this +direction. Of German philosophers, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, +and of English, Herbert Spencer are treated of at length. + +In view of the great respect which Hegel still enjoys in America, it will +perhaps interest many of the readers of _The Monist_ if I give here an +utterance of Pfleiderer, which in the point of view of the history of +religion is also deserving of consideration, at least on the part of +those who are recognised adherents of evolutionism. + +“No other branch of inquiry,” says Pfleiderer, “owes so much to Hegel as +History; the arbitrary construction of details from the philosophical +concept which had crept in by Hegel and his immediate followers, has +of course been discarded by exact historical inquirers, but there has +remained that profounder conception of historical life generally as a +development of the common mind of all ages and nations, conformable +to law, dominated by ideas, and aiming at necessary general purposes; +there has remained that profounder insight into the intricate play of +phenomena, into the kernel of things and men, into the dominating ideas +that lie as guiding impulses at the foundation of even the apparent +disharmony of individual passions; there has remained that unprepossessed +understanding for the necessity of even the contrarieties and struggles, +for the errors and passions of men, for conflict is the father of all +things, as Hegel says with Heraclitus, and as it is only through the +struggle of partial rights and one-sided truths that the whole truth of +the idea can force its way into existence; there has remained finally +that intelligent respect for the heroic figures of history in which the +genius of a people and of an age have been incarnated, which as the +instruments of a higher power have awakened the thought that slumbered +in all souls, given it clear expression, and infused in it life by their +mighty deeds. Neither a Leopold Ranke, nor a Thomas Carlyle, nor a +Ferdinand Christian Bauer would be conceivable without Hegel’s philosophy +of history.” + +Pfleiderer expresses himself here very cautiously concerning Hegel, and +in other passages his caution is extended further still. Nevertheless, it +will seem to many as if that philosopher has been too highly estimated by +Pfleiderer. Especially will the followers of Herbart be dissatisfied, who +was involved in violent combat with Schelling and Hegel. It is not the +place here to enter minutely into this subject; but it is to be mentioned +that the name of Herbart does not occur once in this large book. Perhaps +Pfleiderer is of Edward Zeller’s opinion who says in his “History of +Modern Philosophy,” that the philosophy of Herbart has proved itself +unfruitful. It must be confessed, indeed, that the philosophy of Hegel +has proved itself for religious doctrine very fruitful; but whether we +should be satisfied with its results is quite a different question. Be +that however as it may; still, after Schoel has presented Herbart’s ideas +concerning religion in a special work, since men like Drobisch, Thilo, +and Strumpell have further elaborated these ideas; since particularly +Ziller in his Ethics has also profoundly treated religious problems in +the sense of Herbart, it is no longer allowable to omit the name of +Herbart when we treat of the modern philosophy of religion. + +In other respects also we are not always in full accord with the author. +So, for example, in Hausrath’s _Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte_, a work +to which we ourselves are very much indebted, the perfection of the form +of the presentment is justly praised, as is also the merit of having +inserted into the greater setting of universal history the development +of early Christianity; but it is not mentioned that Hausrath has often +allowed himself to be misguided into combinations whose flimsiness cannot +escape the notice even of the lay student. + +But these are only slight deficiencies of a work that is otherwise +excellent and full of matter, closing with the words: “This much is +certain, that the labors of the best and wisest of all the theologians of +our century, who have here been passed in review before the eyes of the +reader, however different the paths may be which individually they have +entered upon, have yet been all directed to the one end that Christianity +shall strip itself of its dogmatic coverings and fetters and evince its +world-conquering power in the ethical idealism of a love that unites us +with God and joins together the hands of humanity into the federation of +brotherhood.” + +If this aim were universal, that is if it were also recognised by the +theologians, a not inconsiderable portion of the dispute between religion +and science would be done away with, and the sole question would then +turn on the contrariety of theological and philosophical ethics. But even +respecting this point a settlement would be much sooner brought about, +if those concerned would evince the same spirit of reconciliation as +HANS GALLWITZ, city pastor of Sigmaringen, has recently done in his book +_Das Problem der Ethik in der Gegenwart_ (Göttingen, 1891, Vandenhoeck +and Ruprecht). The author, it is true, deals critically not only with +the philosophical ethics of a Paulsen and a Wundt, but also with the +theological ethics of a Hermann and a Kaftan; still the settlement of +things with the philosophers forms the bulk of this rather extensive +work, the contents of which we cannot of course give here. Gallwitz also +speaks in considerable detail of Kant, whom he opposes in respect of the +psychological questions here involved, wholly rejecting anything like +a transcendental will. If we must agree with him in this respect, we +can nevertheless not follow him in his assumption of a special ethical +constitution of the soul. + +In conclusion let me note the titles of two works to which I shall revert +in a subsequent letter. On _The Psychology in Kant’s Ethics_ Dr. ALFRED +HEGLER of Tübingen presents a meritorious and compendious treatise of 300 +pages (Freiburg, 1891, Mohr), and Professor HOSTINSKY of Prague publishes +an exposition and interpretation, based on the sources, of _Herbart’s +Æsthetics_, in which, as is well known, ethics and æsthetics in the +restricted sense are wholly severed from psychology. + + CHR. UFER. + + + + +CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS. + + + + +THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. + + +_To the Editor of The Monist_: + +SIR—I am glad to hear that Prof. Max Müller intends to answer our +double-barrelled criticism of his article on the above subject. +Meanwhile, however, I should like to say a few words with regard to the +point which he selects for immediate response (see _The Monist_, Jan. +1892, p. 286). And my object in saying these few words is to remove from +his mind the idea that with regard to the point in question I had the +smallest intention of bringing against him “a serious charge of want of +accuracy, unpardonable in a scholar.” On the contrary, as regards this +point I was simply defending myself from _his_ charge against _me_—to +wit, the charge of arrogance. + +In his article on “Thought and Language” he observed, “Professor Romanes +has no right to speak of men like Noiré, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, to say +nothing of Hobbes, with an air of superiority.” In answer to this charge +I stated the bare facts of the case,—viz. that in my book I had alluded +to Noiré merely for the sake of stating his theory as to the origin +of speech, and of expressing my large measure of agreement therewith; +that I had quoted Huxley only in places where my argument needed +authoritative opinions on matters of comparative anatomy; that I had +only once mentioned Hobbes, and then in order to back by his authority a +philosophical doctrine for which I was contending; and, lastly, that I +had never mentioned Herbert Spencer at all. Now, if my critic feels that +a mere statement of these facts amounts to a serious charge against him +as a scholar, I can only express my regret that he should have imposed on +me the necessity of stating them. + +But what now is his reply to this simple statement of facts? Briefly, +he drops his own “serious charge” as regards Noiré, Huxley, and Hobbes, +and takes his stand upon the case of Herbert Spencer. “It is true,” he +says, “Mr. Spencer’s name does not occur in the index. But on p. 230 we +read: ‘So here again we meet with additional proof, were any required, +of the folly of regarding the copula as an essential ingredient of a +proposition.’ Now it is well known that it is Herbert Spencer who regards +the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition.” As if it were +one man alone who takes this view, and that man Herbert Spencer! Or as +if Herbert Spencer’s name were so specially identified with it, that +in calling it a philosophically foolish view I expected my readers to +understand a disrespectful allusion to him! Surely my critic knows as +well as I do that this question touching the function of the copula +is one which has been debated for centuries; and therefore that with +much more show of reason he might accuse me of making an attack on the +President of the United States, on the ground that I had expressed a +decided opinion in favor of free trade. + +But more than this. So far is it from being “well known that it is +Herbert Spencer who regards the copula as an essential ingredient of a +proposition,” that I am under the necessity of asking Prof. Max Müller +for references in proof of such a statement. Chapters X and XI of the +“Principles of Psychology” (Vol. II) are those which, as far as I am +aware, most nearly approach the subject. Yet the word “copula” does not +once occur in them. Moreover, with all that Mr. Spencer has there said +upon the nature and structure of propositions I am, and always have been, +in full agreement. + + Yours faithfully, + + GEORGE J. ROMANES. + +Oxford, Feb. 12. + + + + +A DEFENSE OF LITTRÉ. + + +_To the Editor of The Monist._ + +If all the readers of _The Monist_ for October were acquainted with the +life and writings of Littré I should not have to defend him against your +criticism, as everyone could see that there is more truth than poetry +in my sonnet. But I fear that “the voice, the spirit, and the soul of +Positivism” is not so well known as he deserves to be, and I venture to +ask for space to reply. + +Proceeding in order, I should like to correct the impression left by the +following passage: “Comte had not nominated a successor who should in his +place be the _Directeur du positivisme_. Littré had forfeited this honor +on account of his quarrels with Comte in which he strongly sided with +Madame Comte against her husband.” The misunderstanding between the two +men had a more serious origin than these family squabbles and arose from +the fact that Littré would not follow Comte through the mystic vagaries +of the _Politique Positive_. He admits that being under his intellectual +ascendency he went too far on the new way, but he soon found that the +master was violating his own method and, having to choose between them, +he held to the method. Littré’s refusal to join Comte in his adhesion +to the régime of the coup d’état of 1851 was the immediate cause of the +rupture. His “excessive tolerance” did not extend to the Bonapartes, whom +he detested cordially. It is characteristic of the man that he continued +his yearly subscription to the fund that he had created for his friend’s +support notwithstanding this break in their relations. + +As to his tolerance, I think with you that he carried it a little too far +in his own family. Greater firmness might have spared us the vision of +priests bedeviling him in his agony and dragging his body in triumph to +holy ground. But the case that you take as an example does not seem to +me conclusive. It was not necessary to possess his knowledge of history +in order to appreciate the difficulties attendant upon interference with +his catholic wife in the education of their daughter, and as success was +impossible he wisely limited his endeavor to fields unobstructed by the +“eternal feminine.” + +Seriously, we admit that Littré was tolerant to excess, but not that the +attitude of his philosophy is, as you say, “mere scepticism leading to +indifferentism.” In the words of M. Wyrouboff, who aided him for many +years in editing the magazine called _La Philosophie Positive_, “men, no +matter how superior they may be, are never abstract formulas interpreting +with equal facility all the parts of a mental conception; they always +represent a mixture of strength and weakness in variable proportions.... +It seemed as if intellectual activity had absorbed all the living forces +of his (Littré’s) being, leaving in the place of physical activity only +the faculty of passive resistance to the will of others.” This refers +to the man in his old age but in youth he was an athlete of remarkable +strength. Renan said of him: “While his temperament was calm his mind was +revolutionary, and therefore he never gave way. In July 1830, he was in +the first line of those who broke into the place du Carrousel and George +Farcy was shot through by his side.” I am tempted to quote a little +more from this master of words. “So great was his love of truth that, +perhaps alone in our century, he could retract without lessening himself. +Truth led him like a child.... It is not well to be too perfect.... His +apparent negations were only the extreme reserve of a mind that dreads +hazardous appreciations. He was so much afraid of going beyond what he +saw clearly that he often stopped short of it. Hesitation that implies a +thousand times more delicate worship of the eternal ideal than the rash +solutions that satisfy superficial minds.” + +Even in old age there were no signs of “indifferentism” in his conduct. +In the words of Pasteur, “At the Mesnil he was consulting physician for +the whole village (always gratuitously). Continuing his labors till three +o’clock in the morning, the light of his lamp shone afar during the night +like a beacon that reassured the sick. It was known that at the first +call, M. Littré would leave his work and go wherever his aid was needed.” + +These are the words of men that knew him, but my first-hand opinion of +him was formed solely from his writings and his public acts as senator, +etc.; fancy such a man in _our_ senate! + +The note in which you say that I attended positivistic lectures +(Comte’s?) in France together with Mr. Frederic Harrison is a flattering +anachronism. + +Littré’s father received a sword of honor while in the navy for beating +off an English ship of superior force, and the son’s philosophy prompts +not only to action but to action, if necessary, in the good old fashioned +positive way. + +My second objection refers to the line where you say that your positivism +“has nothing to do with Comte or with any of Comte’s disciples,” and, +leaving Comte aside, I hope to show that you and Littré are much better +friends than you imagine. A view noted by him on p. 27, Vol. 1, of his +magazine, _La Philosophie Positive_, ought to assure this happy result. + +In the preface of your valuable work entitled “Fundamental Problems” you +draw particular attention to the part that treats of “Form and Formal +Thought,” which, you say, discusses a subject of fundamental importance. +“A correct conception of form and the laws of form will clear away many +mysteries; it will afford a satisfactory explanation of causality and +shed a new light on all the other problems of philosophy.” + +The part referred to begins thus: “In the introduction to his ‘Critique +of Pure Reason,’ Immanuel Kant proposes the question: How are synthetical +Judgments _a priori_ possible? on the solution of this problem the +whole structure of his philosophy rests, which he characterises as +_Transcendental Idealism_.” (“A priori, as used in the limited sense by +Kant, is purely formal knowledge, while a posteriori is identical with +experience.”) + +Further on I read, “Our own views grew out of a study of Kant’s +Transcendentalism”; and the first words of your “Conclusion” are these: +“Although Kant’s Transcendental Idealism cannot be considered as a final +solution of the basic problem of philosophy, it nevertheless pursues the +right method and has thus actually led us to a solution which, we hope, +will in time be recognised as final.” + +In looking for the difference between the two solutions to find the +part in yours that belongs to you alone, I see on p. 50 of “Fundamental +Problems” that “Kant thinks it is a strange and wonderful fact that +our formal thought (the rules of arithmetic, mathematics, logic, etc., +which are _a priori_) agrees so precisely with the highest (i. e. the +most general) laws of nature, which can be ascertained and verified by +experience. Kant sees only two ways of solution. Either the laws of pure +reason, he says, have been gathered by experience from nature, or, on +the contrary, the laws of nature have been deduced from our _a priori_ +rules. The former solution is impossible, since the formal sciences +are proven to have been formulated with the exclusion of all sensory +experience. ‘Therefore,’ says Kant, ‘the second solution only remains. +Reason dictates its laws to nature’; i. e. ... the sensory impressions +are the raw material only from which the well-ordered whole of nature, as +an object of science, is created by the synthetic faculty of reason.... +Kant has taken into consideration two ways only. He overlooks the third +and most obvious explanation.... The third possibility is that which has +been propounded in the foregoing pages. According to our explanation, the +formal (the highest or most general) laws of nature and the formal laws +of thought are identical. Their agreement is not wonderful but inevitable +as both are expressions of the forms of existence in general.” + +This then is your “solution of the basic problem of philosophy.” + +Turning back to page 34, I find under the title “The Origin of the A +Priori”: “Kant answers the question ‘How are synthetic judgments _a +priori_ possible?’ by showing that such synthetic judgments undoubtedly +exist.” “He might have ventured a step further by proposing another +question: ‘What is the origin of the _a priori_?’ Only by answering +this question could he have shown _how_ synthetic judgments _a priori_ +are possible. This he did not do, and the omission has produced great +confusion among German, French, and English thinkers.” On the next +page, 36, I find “According to our view, form is a property of reality +as well as of our cognition. Formless matter does not exist. Form and +matter as they exist in reality, are inseparable.... Knowledge also +in its primitive shape, when it is, so to say, natural and crude, is +an intimate combination of sense-perceptions and formal cognition. +The sense-perceptions are the real substance of knowledge, while +formal cognition is the principle which arranges and systematises +sense-experiences.” ... “Logic does not create order and system in our +brain, but it makes us conscious of the order that naturally grew in our +mind.” + +In the division entitled “The Order of Nature” you say that “Formal +thought represents the mere laws of thought in their abstractness, and +has been acquired by abstraction. The mere forms of thought exhibit +a wonderful regularity.... This regularity of formal thought, which +is expressed in all logical laws, arithmetical calculations, and in +all mathematical conceptions, has naturally grown in our mind as the +psychical expression of a physical regularity in the arrangement of the +various brain-structures and their combinations. The arrangement of +brain-structures in certain regular forms has been effected in accordance +with the same laws that govern the development of forms generally.” + +This answer to the question, “What is the origin of the _a priori_” is +what you call the corner-stone of your positivism, which, you say, “it is +to be hoped, will prove the only true Monism.” + +Now I give my translation of Littré’s view, which he published in 1867, +in an article entitled “The Three Philosophies.” + +“The effective certainty that the mathematical laws of number, of figure +and of motion are at the base of physical phenomena, and the inductive +belief that they are equally at the base of chemical and of biological +phenomena induce me to note here a view upon the relation that must be +found between subjective phenomena and objective phenomena, that is to +say upon the relation that causes the subject to draw from the object +a science and laws. The nervous substance, which is the organ of all +intelligence, is made up of material elements which arrive with their +conditions; and when this substance becomes capable of thinking, it +passes under the conditions proper to the elements that form it; which +results in (_se traduit par_) a science and its laws. The material +work that takes place in the brain while it fulfils its office, is, as +is known, a work of nutrition, which consists of a chemical exchange +of molecules. Every chemical action is, in turn, equivalent to a +certain quantity of heat; and again, this heat is equivalent to a +certain quantity of motion. Thus thought, no matter how we represent +to ourselves the relation to nervous substance, is connected with +mathematical modes of which it becomes conscious when it becomes +luminous. Not that I would in any way have it understood that thought +is but an equivalent of heat or of motion. Far from that, equivalence +is not identity; and whenever we change from one degree to another in +the natural and scientific order we meet a new unknown which is the +characteristic of this degree. The induction that leads us to connect +thought with mathematical conditions, leads us also to connect it with +physical, chemical, and biological conditions, of which it is necessarily +participant. Finally, when, at the highest point, it arrives face to face +with itself, it studies itself experimentally like the rest, and forms +its own doctrine. If it attempts to go out metaphysically into space, +it is reduced to combining subjectively its own elements, turns in a +circle without issue and falls back upon itself. If, on the contrary, it +makes the same attempt towards nature from which it emanates, then the +ways open, science is established, and positive philosophy appears. The +material constitution of the nervous substance is the point of junction +between the human mind and laws or general facts. If I had been younger, +I should have made a work of this view, not a paragraph; but old age must +hasten.” + +I have translated more than was necessary so as to give the “view” as +a whole. Does it not contain the answer to your question, “What is the +origin of the _a priori_”? + +Though Littré solved your “basic problem of philosophy” he did not attach +so much importance to this solution as you do because his philosophy is +based upon a generalisation from all facts and not upon any one fact, +however important it may be. + +“Positive Philosophy is the conception of the world that results from the +systematised ensemble of the positive sciences” and does not depend upon +the solution of any psychological problem, although it recognises the +importance of all psychological facts. + +Your originality lies in your application of Littré’s discovery. + +The reader has his choice between Littré’s positivism and your +neo-Kantism, but if he side with you he must at least thank Littré for +the solution on which your philosophy is based. + +You say that “Comtean Positivism, especially as it is represented by +Littré, consists mainly if not exclusively of the doctrine to ‘let +metaphysics alone.’” Is this fair to the man that solved your “basic +problem of philosophy” in a paragraph? + +Positivism as represented by Littré gives due importance to the +subjective element. He recognised that three essentials were necessary +to the completion of Comte’s philosophy: a political economy, a cerebral +theory, and what, for want of a better name he termed the subjective +theory of humanity. This last comprised ethics, æsthetics, and +psychology. Speaking of a confusion that obscures the whole discussion +relative to psychology, he says: “_Cerebral theory_, _mental_ or +_psychological theory_ are taken in two very different senses, which +are never distinguished. These terms signify sometimes the organic +conditions under which intelligence manifests itself, sometimes the +formal conditions under which the intellect operates. As soon as these +two significations are separated we perceive the means of settling the +debate as to the place of psychology; for to the question: Where should +these two orders be studied? it will be answered that the first should +be studied in anatomy, physiology, zoölogy, the evolution of ages, +pathology, it belongs therefore without contest to biology; but it will +be answered that the second should be studied in the total development +of history and in the application to all the modes of cognition; it +belongs incontestably to philosophy. Thus there are two psychologies, +one biological, the other philosophical, one relating to the individual +man, the other to the collective man, one furnishing what is necessary +in order to pass from biology to sociology, the other examining the +subjective instrument by the light of all positive knowledge. But +this complement of philosophy I do not call psychology, I call it the +_subject-theory_ of _humanity_; because while including psychology, it +includes much more.” That is to say; ethics and æsthetics.... “In the +order of the positive method it is at first by means of the object that +human knowledge is built up, and we end with the subject.” “The theory of +the subject is the indispensable complement of the theory of the object.” + +Of positive philosophy Littré says: “While it constructs the series of +the partial philosophies and thus embraces all objective knowledge, it +constructs at the same time the series of effective methods and thus +embraces all logical power. I borrow this expression from M. Comte, who +so happily named these effective methods the logical powers of the human +mind. When it has terminated its first series it is found to have also +terminated the second. Thus the ensemble of the methods represents the +function of the subject; the ensemble of the partial philosophies, the +function of the object.” + +Is this what you call a “one-sided philosophy”? + +You say that Littré is the worst kind of a metaphysician because he +maintains that we can know nothing about first and final causes; I quote +him to show his position: “Positive philosophy is at the same time a +system that comprises all that is known of the world, of man and of +society, and a general method including all the ways by which things have +been learned. What is beyond, either, materially, the depths (fond) of +boundless space, or, intellectually, the endless enchainment of causes, +is absolutely inaccessible to the human mind. But inaccessible does not +mean null or non-existent. Immensity, both material and intellectual, +holds by a narrow tie to what we know and becomes by this alliance a +positive idea of the same order; I mean to say that by touching and +bordering it, this immensity appears in its double character, reality and +inaccessibility. It is an ocean that washes our shore, and for which we +have neither bark nor sail, but whose clear vision is as salutary as it +is formidable.” _Aug. Comte et la Phil. Pos._, 2d Ed., p. 519. + +As Littré had found this shore encumbered with the wrecks of expeditions +that had started out in search of first causes and final causes, it is no +wonder that he was a little timid. His metaphor needs explanation in the +light of other passages, otherwise it might seem to discourage pursuit +of the unknown. He did not discountenance hypotheses but he was very +much afraid of our inclination to take guesses for truth; and this, by +the way, is the reason why he is not appreciated in this country, where +we are so fond of guessing. What he really did was to discourage those +navigators who would go in search of the Jumping-off-place, for the best +that can befall them is to come back to where they started. The men that +know the earth is round are the only men that find new worlds. + +In answer to your statement that Littré’s philosophy “is an inventory +rather than a plan to guide science in its further evolution” I will only +repeat in his words, what he has shown so well, that “positive philosophy +is the ensemble of human knowledge, disposed according to a certain order +which enables us to grasp its connections and its unity, and to draw from +it the general directions for each part and for the whole.” + +You say that “Littré rejects the evolution theory and its attempts to +explain ethics.” I quote him from _La Philosophie Positive_, March, 1880: +“Positive philosophy does not deny the evolution of ethics; far from +doing so, it maintained and inculcated this evolution long before the +utilitarian doctrine made it its ethical pivot.”.... “General morality, +born of the gradual culture of the sentimental basis of the human +soul under the social protection of progressive centres, is entirely +disinterested, and this is what makes its purity and its force.” + +In your philosophy you have a god and a religion, in his we have the same +things, but as they are so different from what is generally understood by +these terms, we use others. Here are some of the _Paroles de Philosophie +Positive_: “In the eyes of history, there are no false religions, there +are only incomplete religions which make their way through time and +perfect themselves.... The definition of religion is taken from its +office, which is: to put education, and consequently moral life, en +rapport with the conception of the world at each phase of humanity. +Whoever examines this definition will find that it satisfies all the +conditions of religion, either in the past, the present, or the future. +It will be perceived that theology is not inherent in the religious +idea. It was not always there in the past; for we cannot give the name +of theology to primordial fetichism, which addressed its worship to +neighboring objects, nor to the religions that adore natural agents, such +as air, wind, night, dawn; it is with polytheism that theology begins. As +for the future, general science, conceiving the world differently from +the way in which it was conceived during the reigns of the successive +religions, takes an office equivalent to the religious office, and must +in its turn place education and moral life in accord with the universe as +it appears to us.”.... “We do not outrage the old doctrine, whose past +is glorious and venerable; but there is a public for which it is a dead +letter; and it is to this public that we address ourselves and for this +public that we labor.” + +Is this not aspiration to be in unison with “the order of the world,” +which you call God? And when Littré traces this aspiration back to its +organic origin is he not explaining what you affirm? + +Our philosophies are not perfect, but we must apply them, such as they +are, to the needs of the day. The most pressing of all these needs, in +my opinion, is unity of action among those who are animated with the new +spirit. + +Let us pull together. + + Very truly yours, + + LOUIS BELROSE, JR. + + + + +ÉMILE LITTRÉ’S POSITIVISM. + + +An editor cannot make it a rule to accept criticisms of considerable +length which have reference to a remark incidentally made in a book +review. The present case, however, although it belongs in this category, +is of a peculiar nature. First, the remark on Littré was made by the +editor himself, and accordingly he feels personally responsible for it; +secondly, it contains a brief delineation of Littré’s character as a man +and as a philosopher in the way in which he is usually regarded by the +most prominent historians of philosophy. Mr. Belrose presents Littré in +quite a new light and quotes passages in corroboration of his conception +of Littré which are perhaps not generally known, for they are buried in +articles of the positivistic journal _La Philosophie Positive_, and this +journal enjoyed neither a long life nor a large circulation; nor is it +to be had in any of the libraries accessible to me. Seventeen editorial +articles were republished in bookform, (_La Science. Au point de vue +philosophique, par_ É. LITTRÉ. Paris, 1873), but the article “The Three +Philosophies” is not among them. + +If Mr. Belrose’s conception of Littré proves to be true, I shall not +only gladly correct my own wrong view of Littré, but I wish also to call +attention to the fact that he has been misrepresented by almost all and +certainly by the best and most painstaking philosophical historians. + +I cannot however in the main points accede to Mr. Belrose’s view and will +have to sustain my former opinion that M. Littré was an agnostic. He +made it a matter of principle to suspend his opinion on some of the most +fundamental philosophical problems, which he considered as inaccessible. +His positivism, accordingly, differs _toto cœlo_ from the positivism +presented in _The Monist_. His philosophy, like that of Comte, is so far +as I understand it, a policy of let-metaphysics-alone. It gives up the +struggle with metaphysics as a hopeless undertaking. Therefore, I should +say, Littré’s positivism has not conquered metaphysics, and although it +lets metaphysics alone, metaphysics plays an important part in it. Littré +is an agnostic and like every agnostic that believes in the unknowable, a +metaphysician without knowing it. + +The doctrine of the three stages of knowledge, viz., the theological, +metaphysical, and positive stages, appears to me of less importance. The +doctrine of the three stages is at the same time not properly a Comtean +idea; Comte adopted it from Turgot, the great statesman and one of the +greatest men as a thinker and also as a character that ever lived and who +is too little appreciated as such. + +The main doctrine of Comte’s positivism is the doctrine that first and +final causes cannot be known, and we must abandon our search for them; +that human knowledge is limited to the middle, while the two ends are +inaccessible. These insoluble questions, he declares, have made no +progress from the beginning. Mr. Lewes in his book “Comte’s Philosophy of +the Sciences” expresses this agnosticism in the following words (p. 31): +“Our province is to study her [nature’s] laws, to trace her processes, +and, thankful that we can so far penetrate the divine significance of the +universe, be content—as Locke wisely and modestly says—to sit down in +quiet ignorance of all _transcendent_[61] subjects.” + +This idea has so far as I am aware never been given up by Littré; it +remained the basis of his belief in the unknowable and his works abound +in expressions that concerning the main problems of life, “the positive +philosophy will neither assert nor deny anything.” + +Littré concludes the last article of his volume “La Science” with the +following words: + + “Le domaine ultérieur est celui des choses qui ne peuvent + pas être connues. La science positive professe de n’y rien + nier, de n’y rien affirmer; en un mot, elle ne connaît pas + l’inconnaissable, mais elle en constate l’existence. Là est la + philosophie suprême; aller plus loin est chimérique, aller moin + loin est déserter notre destinée.” + +This quotation alone, I think, settles the first main point at issue. + +Now I maintain that Comte’s view of causation where he refers to first +and final causes is fundamentally wrong; causation is transformation +and causality is the formula under which we comprehend the changes of +matter and energy that take place. The expressions first and final causes +are misnomers (see “Fundamental Problems,” the chapter The Problem of +Causality). First cause is either the starting point of a series of some +longer chain of causes and effects, or as the term is generally applied +or rather misapplied, stands for the last ground or reason, i. e. the +answer given to the ultimate question why?, which is the most general +_raison d’être_ that would explain and contain all the other and less +general _raisons d’être_ regarding the nature of existence. The term +final cause, again, means either the last cause in a series of causes or +(and so it is generally used) it is a misnomer for purpose; and the final +cause supposed to be inaccessible to human comprehension is the purpose +of the existence of the world at large. I object to there being three +kinds of causes. There is one kind of causality only, and the causes of +this causality in all the causal processes with which we are confronted +are perfectly intelligible. + +The problem of the first cause of the origin of our world, viz. the +solar system and the milky way, was attacked first by Kant and later by +Laplace, and the latter, without knowing of Kant’s solution, solved it +in the main in the same way. All recent investigations stand upon this +Kant-Laplace hypothesis so called, having added corrections only as to +details. Shall we declare that these labors are vain and gratuitous +efforts of vague speculations? Littré says, with reference to such +speculations, concerning the past and future states of the world (le +monde): + + “La dissémination primordiale de la matière qui devait le + composer, la dissémination future de la matière qui le compose, + dépassant toute expérience, dépassent toute conjecture.” + +If I misunderstand Littré, it appears to me a pardonable mistake. + +Yet is not the problem as to the origin of the world at large, why +matter and energy exist at all, insolvable? Littré says that the +positive cosmogonies, such as the doctrine of evolution do not touch +the absolute; they have nothing to do with first and final causes. He +says: “Les cosmogonies positives la [i. e. la place des cosmogonies +religieuses] remplissent, non pas qu’elles aient la prétention ni le +pouvoir de pénétrer dans l’absolu et d’embrasser, les causes premières et +finales.”—l. c., p. 560. + +That kind of causality which is sometimes called “ontological,” having +reference to the existence, not of single things as transformations from +other things, but of the world at large and formulated in such questions +as how did the universe itself, the world as a whole, originate, is +properly speaking no causality, it is not a question concerning a cause, +but concerning a _raison d’être_. However without haggling about the +words cause and _raison d’être_, this ontological causality so called +is by no means beyond human comprehension. The ontological question +has found a very definite answer in the formulation of the law of the +conservation of matter and energy; which declares that existence at +large did not originate, the total amount of matter as well as of energy +existed always and will exist always. It has not been created; it is +uncreatable and indestructible; it is eternal. + +Littré is quite explicit in declaring that the positive philosophy lets +alone all theological and metaphysical problems. It is neither atheistic +nor theistic, and does not side with either materialism or spiritualism. +He says: + + “Ni spiritualiste, ni matérialiste, la philosophie positive + écarte de la science générale les débats que la science + particulière a depuis long temps et à son grand profit + rejetés.”—Preface d’un disciple in Comte’s “Course de Phil. + pos.” p. xxvii. + +Littré characterises as the main object of the positive philosophy, “to +give to philosophy the positive method of the sciences, to the sciences +the idea of the unity of philosophy.” He says: “Ainsi fut accompli ce +qu’on doit appeler l’œuvre philosophique du dix-neuvième siècle, donner +à la philosophie la méthode positive des sciences, aux sciences l’idée +d’ensemble de la philosophie.” Preface, p. viii. + +I am in perfect agreement with Littré that this is the object of +positivism; but, if I understand Littré correctly, I disagree from his +conception of the positive method. He limits the positive method to what +he calls “experience,” and excludes every notion of the _a priori_. +Littré apparently misunderstood the proper meaning of Kant’s idea of +the _a priori_, for he used as a matter of course the _a priori_ method +wherever it was indispensable, so for instance in mathematics and in the +application of mathematics. + +Mr. Belrose says: + +[Littré] “solved your basic problem of philosophy [i. e. what is the +origin of the _a priori_] in a paragraph.” + +The problem of the _a priori_ reasoning is the question “Why can we +know certain things before we have tested them by experiment? Man has +not arrived by experience but by pure reasoning at the conclusion that +the sum of the angles of every plane triangle has 180 degrees. How is +he justified in declaring _a priori_ that the angles of a certain plane +triangle make up 180 degrees, although he has not measured them?” This +problem is the fundamental problem of the scientific or positive method; +it is the same problem which Mr. Charles S. Peirce discusses in his +article (see pp. 321 et seqq. of the present number of _The Monist_), for +the problem of apriority is identical with the question of necessity. + +Littré has, so far as I know, never discussed the problem of apriority +and necessity. He has simply rejected the idea of the _a priori_ as +the method of a false metaphysics, which is incompatible with the _a +posteriori_ method of positive science. The passage quoted by Mr. Belrose +most certainly does _not_ contain a solution of the problem. Littré +declares therein that every chemical action is equivalent to a certain +quantity of heat; and again this heat is equivalent to a certain quantity +of motion. Thus, he says, thought is connected with mathematical modes +of which it becomes conscious. Thought, he adds, is not an equivalent of +heat or motion, for equivalence is not identity, but it is connected with +mathematical conditions. This means that that kind of brain-action which +represents conscious thought, depends upon definite proportions. But +what in all the world has this idea to do with the problem of apriority? +The phrase “mathematical modes” (which is misleading in this passage) is +an unfortunate expression for “proportions” and we must add that Littré +is mistaken when he says that the nervous substance when it becomes +luminous, becomes conscious of these mathematical modes with which it is +connected. Aside from “luminous” being simply an allegorical expression +for conscious, it is wrong to say that the nervous substance becomes +conscious of the mathematical modes of heat as they are proportioned in +the brain. A sentient being knows through sensation nothing about the +mechanism or the mechanical proportions of its own sentient structure. +Sensation is the act of a becoming conscious not of the sentient +structure itself but of the meaning which this sentient structure has +acquired, and a consciousness of the mathematical modes which according +to Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences ought to be the beginning of +knowledge develops at a very late period. Any explanation of the origin +of _a priori_, be it ever so brief, would lead us too far away from the +points of our controversy. It is sufficient here to point out that the +passage quoted by Mr. Belrose, contains no solution of the problem of +our knowledge and certitude of mathematical, arithmetical, and other +purely formal laws. On the contrary, this very passage is replete with +error; it is a misstatement of facts and does not even bring to light the +difficulties of the problem. + +Littré was prejudiced against the _a priori_, and his prejudice induced +him to underrate its importance. I read in one of Littré’s passages +quoted by Mr. Belrose: + + “If it [thought] attempts to go out metaphysically into space, + it is reduced to combining subjectively its own elements, turns + in a circle without issue and falls back upon itself.” + +The _a priori_ method of thought subjectively combining its own elements, +is by no means a turning in a circle without issue so that in the end it +will fall back upon itself. The _a priori_ method of thought subjectively +combining its own elements is employed by arithmetic, mathematics, and +logic, and we are confronted with the astonishing fact that rules, or +formulas, or calculations which were made by pure thought subjectively +combining its own elements, are applicable and hold good as reliable +guides in our experiments. If there were no _a priori_, how could we +foretell or, what is more still, how could we predetermine the course +of nature? The _a priori_ has been wrongly employed by the so-called +metaphysical philosophers to give us information about the substance and +essence of the world. But the misapplication of the _a priori_ is no +reason for denouncing it as radically wrong. + +The existence of the _a priori_ is an undeniable fact. Kant was +right in recognising it in its sweeping importance, yet he was wrong +in his interpretation of the _a priori_, which according to his +transcendentalism was based exclusively upon a peculiarity of the mind +and not upon the nature of things. The positivists in France did not only +object to the wrong interpretation of the transcendentalists but also +denied the existence of the _a priori_. Accepting the principle that +every knowledge must ultimately be a statement of facts, the question +How is the _a priori_ to be based upon facts? became in my conception of +philosophy the burning problem which was next in order as a conciliation +between Kant and Comte. + +The French positivists, foremost among them Comte and Littré, have not +given us an explanation of what is true and false in the theological +and metaphysical notions of first and final causes, of the _a priori_ +of God, of substance, of force, etc.; they have simply abandoned the +investigation of these ideas which are after all the most important tools +in the household of the human mind for scientific and ethical purposes; +and thus they have, in spite of their positivism in questions of detail, +retained the metaphysical method of _a priori_ reasoning which is quite +legitimate in the formal science but out of place concerning facts. Take +for instance the following argument concerning the materiality of things: + + “Là, c’est à dire dans les sciences positives, on ne connaît + aucune propriété sans matière, non point parce que, _a priori_, + on y a l’idée préconçue qu’il n’existe aucune substance + spirituelle indépendante, mais parce que, _a posteriori_, + on n’a jamais rencontré la gravitation sans corps pesant, + la chaleur sans corps chaud, l’électricité sans corps + électrique, l’affinité sans substances de combinaison, la + vie, la sensibilité, la pensée, sans être vivant, sentant et + pensant.”—_La Science_, p. 307. + +I do not mean to say that there are immaterial or spiritual substances, +but I should say that any purely _a posteriori_ argument in favor of +their non-existence is insufficient. Would Littré mean that a Zulu +should declare that ice cannot exist because he has never seen water +frozen as hard as a stone? Any amount of experience, i. e. all _a +posteriori_ evidence, is in parts and will out of itself never acquire +universal validity. + +How strongly Littré is still implicated in the metaphysical method of +applying _a priori_ ideas to _a posteriori_ experiences can be learned +from the following statement: + + “Le monde est constitué par la matière et par les forces de + la matière: la matière dont l’origine et l’essence nous sont + inaccessible; les forces qui sont immanentes à la matière. Au + delà de ces deux termes, matière et force, la science positive + ne connaît rien.” Preface, p. ix. + +The metaphysical ideas, matter and force, are _a priori_ notions of +mystical entities or things in themselves, and thus it appears natural +that experience should know nothing of them. But real matter and actual +force are not unknowable existences. They can be known. We know something +of them and positive science is engaged in broadening and deepening this +knowledge. Says Littré: + + “Les propriétés physiques sont manifestes en toute substance, + dans quelque état qu’elle soit, isolée ou non isolée, et + s’exercent sur les masses; les propriétés, n’apparaissent + qu’entre deux substances, ont besoin de la binarité et + s’exercent sur les molécules; enfin les propriétés vitales + dépassant la binarité, ne sont compatibles qu’avec un état + moléculaire plus composé.” Preface, p. x. + +One of the fundamental principles of positivism, as I conceive it, +is the definition of knowledge as a description of facts or of their +properties. We call certain properties of the facts (i. e. the objects +of our experience) matter and others force. When we say that we do or do +not know a certain phenomenon we mean that we have or have not as yet +succeeded in placing them properly in that system of thought-symbols of +which our mind consists. Yet there is no sense in speaking of matter and +force as being unknowable while the properties of matter and force are +said to be manifest and appearing under certain conditions. + +I have presented the main reasons why I still hold that there is a +radical difference between Littré’s view of positivism and my own. +Littré is an agnostic and he was an agnostic before that name had been +invented. His objection to metaphysicism consists in the doctrine not +that the object of metaphysics is a chimerical non-existence, but that +the object of metaphysics exists yet it cannot be known. Thus Littré is +as much a metaphysician as those philosophers whom he censures for their +metaphysical views. He does not censure them for believing that the +metaphysical exists, but for believing that it is knowable and attempting +to investigate its nature. + +As to the hierarchy of the sciences I shall simply quote a few extracts +from Eugen Dühring’s criticism of Comte. Dühring says (_Krit. Gesch. der +Phil._, p. 486): + + “If Comte’s _positivism_ were nothing more than what we have + here laid down, its main contents would, strange enough, + consist in _negativity_. The criticism of a certain kind of + metaphysics, viz. of an ontology phantastical to a greater or + lesser extent, would form its most significant character. The + other element which consists in presenting a hierarchy and + unitary conjunction of some of the sciences which are called + positive in the usual sense of the term, cannot pretend to + be philosophy in the higher sense of the word or even to be + useful for science. A general view of knowledge, whether it + consists of six or sixty volumes, does not add the least iota + to the contents of our knowledge.... We cannot expect that a + specialist should be pleased with a hierarchical sketch of his + science, especially if the delineations are filled out with + details of which he would be a better judge.” + +It is true, and I concur in this with the French positivists, that a +positive philosophy must be a systematic arrangement of knowledge. But I +conceive it to be the philosopher’s work, not to take an inventory of the +sciences, but to define the fundamental concepts of scientific enquiry +and to elucidate the methods of cognition. Such fundamental concepts +are the ideas, truth and criterion of truth, cause and effect, mind, +thought, knowledge, ethics, etc. Concepts are the tools of thought and +the practice of using them correctly has to be learned. + +Positivism is not the original invention of a world-system, but the +systematising of statements of facts so as to produce a world-system. +The old philosophers gave us first a world-system, from which and in +accord with which they defined their views of truth, cognition, cause, +etc. They began to build their philosophy from the top down. Positivism +begins from the bottom and is building up to the top with the assistance +of the special sciences. A positive philosophy is inseparable from, but +it cannot be replaced by, the sciences. The field of philosophy is to +superintend the method and the plan of building, so as to compare the +details and bear in mind the unity of the whole. In this sense Dühring +says in criticising Comte (p. 486): + + “However, concerning the form of the connections of methodical + reflections, something can be done. Yet it must be possible + to separate everything of such a kind and also new insights, + so as to constitute a special branch of knowledge. Otherwise + they will escape the specialists’ attention.... Not only Comte + but all philosophers given to the idea of systematisation and + construction of particular knowledge have made attempts in + this direction which at most may range as sketches or popular + presentations in a higher sense.” + +Concerning Littré’s view of Comte’s religious vagaries Dühring says (p. +483): + + “His [Comte’s] biographer, the Academician Littré of Paris, + and also Stuart Mill are right in considering ‘The Course of + Positive Philosophy’ as the main and fundamental work which is + decisive as a contribution of his and a source of instruction + to the world. However, they are very one-sided when they + overlook that the philosopher even in his vagaries exhibited a + universality of mind which remains superior to the standpoint + of either Littré or Mill.” + +I agree with Mr. Belrose that Comte’s religion as he conceived it +consists of vagaries, but the main idea of developing the religions +of the past which, as Littré says, are not false but only incomplete +religions, into a religion that shall be in accord with the science of +our day is no vagary, but a great and an important ideal. + +Far be it from me to belittle Littré because I disagree from him in +some fundamental questions. He was in his time, he is still, and will +remain for ever a star of first magnitude in our philosophical galaxy. +That which I consider as his errors does not detract from his greatness. +Were not Kant’s mistakes in a similar way closely interwoven with his +greatest merits? It is flattering to me that Mr. Belrose finds an +agreement between his master’s and my views concerning the basic problem +of philosophy, but I cannot discover it. Yet I gladly acknowledge that +there exists an agreement of aim, and this agreement of aim which finds +its truest expression in the word “positivistic” is perhaps of greater +importance than the agreement of views. + + P. C. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[61] Italics are not mine. + + + + +OBSERVATIONS ON SOME POINTS IN JAMES’S PSYCHOLOGY.[62] + + +In calling attention to some objections to the views advanced by +Professor James on the subjects of Belief, Emotion, and Will, it is only +justice to myself to express the admiration I feel for his work as a +whole. The thoroughly scientific spirit which pervades it, the author’s +candor in admitting and his skill in surmounting difficulties, his +learning and his originality, his aptness in illustration, and the energy +and vivacity of his style combine to make it full of interest as well as +instruction. It is because it should be, and doubtless will be widely +influential, that it is important that any doubtful positions assumed in +it should be subjected to a careful examination. + +I shall endeavor to avoid any misrepresentation of the views which I +combat, but space will not allow me to do full justice to the arguments +by which they are supported, if such a thing is possible for an +antagonist. For this, I must refer the interested reader to the original +book. If what I have to say should have the effect of increasing the +number of its readers, I shall not have written altogether in vain, +whether I succeed or fail in setting the truth in a clearer light. + + +I. BELIEF. + +Professor James entitles the chapter devoted to this subject “The +Perception of Reality,” and defines belief to be “the mental state +or function of cognising reality.” He explains that, “As used in the +following pages, ‘Belief’ will mean every degree of assurance, including +the highest possible certainty and conviction” (Vol. II, p. 283). + +According to this definition, erroneous beliefs, such, for instance, as +the belief that the earth is flat, stationary, and the centre of the +universe, or the delusion of an insane man that he is Jesus Christ, are +cognitions of reality. Professor James would probably say that they are +realities to the mind entertaining them, and it is true that the feeling +of belief is the same, whether the thing believed be true or false. +I think, however, that it is more customary to use the verb which he +employs in connection with beliefs which agree with the objective facts, +and that the “feeling” or “sense” of reality would be a better term than +“perception” or “cognition.” + +This, however, is not, to my mind, the most serious objection to the +definition. Although Professor James does not use the word “knowledge” +in this connection, it seems evident, from the passage quoted above, and +from what he says elsewhere, that he considers all kinds, as well as all +degrees of certainty to be beliefs. It seems to me evident, on the other +hand, that many of our cognitions of reality are not properly called +beliefs. As an instance, I will quote the illustration with which he +opens the discussion of “The Various Orders of Reality” (p. 287). + + “Suppose a new-born mind, entirely blank and waiting for + experience to begin. Suppose that it begins in the form of a + visual impression (whether faint or vivid is immaterial) of a + lighted candle against a dark background, and nothing else, so + that whilst this image lasts it constitutes the entire universe + to the mind in question. Suppose, moreover (to simplify the + hypothesis), that the candle is only imaginary, and that no + ‘original’ of it is recognised by us psychologists outside. + Will this hallucinatory candle be believed in, will it have a + real existence for the mind? + + “What possible sense (for that mind) would a suspicion have + that the candle is not real? What would doubt or disbelief + of it imply? When _we_, the onlooking psychologists, say the + candle is unreal, we mean something quite definite, viz. + that there is a world known to _us_ which _is_ real, and to + which we perceive that the candle does not belong; it belongs + exclusively to that individual mind, has no status anywhere + else, etc. It exists, to be sure, in a fashion, for it forms + the content of that mind’s hallucination; but the hallucination + itself, though unquestionably it is a sort of existing fact, + has no knowledge of _other_ facts; and since those _other_ + facts are the realities _par excellence_ for us, and the only + things we believe in, the candle is simply outside of our + reality and belief altogether. + + “By the hypothesis, however, the mind which sees the candle + can spin no such considerations as these about it, for of + other facts, actual or possible, it has no inkling whatever. + That candle is its all, its absolute. Its entire faculty of + attention is absorbed by it. It _is_, it is _that_; it is + _there_; no other possible candle, or quality of this candle, + no other possible place, or possible object in the place, no + alternative, in short, suggests itself as even conceivable; + so how can the mind help believing the candle real? The + supposition that it might possibly not do so is, under the + supposed conditions, unintelligible.” + +I readily grant that it is, under the supposed circumstances, +unintelligible that the candle should be thought to be unreal, but it +seems to me equally so that it should be believed to be real. What does +Professor James mean by a belief in the reality of the candle under such +conditions? Nothing more than that the mind is conscious of a sensation +which we know, but it does not, is like that produced by the sight of +a candle. This sensation is certainly a reality, and the only possible +reality to that mind. Professor James must, then, be understood as +maintaining that a sensation, pure and simple, is a belief in an object +exciting the sensation. If, for instance, the first consciousness of the +supposed mind were the odor of a rose, or the whistle of a locomotive, +he must admit that the mind would believe in the rose or the locomotive. +If I have a headache, or am hungry or tired, I not only have beliefs +about these sensations, but the headache, the hunger, the weariness, are +themselves beliefs. Now I submit that this is contrary to all ordinary +use of language. It is, perhaps, impossible for an adult, with his mind +full of memories of past experiences, to have a sensation without some +sort of a belief about it, but although the sensation and the belief +may be inseparable, they are not indistinguishable, and, as a matter of +fact, every one does distinguish between his sensations and his beliefs +about them. I do not think it would be quite correct to say even of an +adult who had never seen or heard of a candle, that, on seeing one for +the first time, he would believe in the reality of the candle, although +doubtless he would believe he saw something real—a real flame, for +instance. + +If it be admitted that sensations are entitled to be called beliefs, +it seems impossible to stop short of the conclusion that all states of +consciousness are beliefs. + +Emotions and volitions are as much realities as sensations, and are known +as such by the mind that experiences them. That memory and imagination +involve belief, is too evident to need discussion. But if this be the +case, the chapter on belief could have been very greatly abbreviated—need +not in fact, contain more than four words. To say that all consciousness +is belief would perhaps simplify matters, but it would not advance our +knowledge very much, nor would it accord with the ordinary use of the +word, which has reference to a particular kind of consciousness, which +every one knows, however hard he may find its definition. + +It seems to me, therefore, that Professor James’s definition of belief +is defective in two ways. There are beliefs which are not cognitions +of reality, and there are cognitions of reality which are not beliefs. +Especially in regard to the latter class, I think that the definition +confuses a distinction that is real and important, between different +kinds of knowledge. We know our sensations, emotions and volitions in a +way which differs not only in degree but in kind from any usual, or, I +think, legitimate sense of the word “Belief.” + +Perhaps it would be the safer course to rest content with pointing out +the objections to the author’s definition without laying myself open +to retaliation by attempting one of my own, but it does not seem to me +impossible to give one which will include all that is understood by the +term and nothing more. I should say that belief is the sense or feeling +of relation between mental objects. That we have belief whenever we have +this feeling, seems to me too plain to require argument, and I am unable, +after a good deal of reflection, to call to mind any belief that is not +included in the definition. If I see, or imagine that I see a lighted +candle, it may excite in my mind a great variety of beliefs, as, that the +flame is hot, that the light and heat are caused by the chemical union of +oxygen with carbon and hydrogen, that the material of which the candle +is composed is wax, paraffine or tallow, that it has a cotton wick, that +it is of a certain size, weight, and color, and so on indefinitely. +All of these are evidently ideas of relation. To say “flame,” or “hot” +does not express a belief, unless something else is understood, but to +say “flame is hot” does so. If I say that the color red is equal to the +square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, I fail to express +a belief because the mind perceives no relation between the objects, and +the answer to such a statement would be, not that it is or is not true, +but that it has no meaning. The only cases which occur to me in which it +might be plausibly argued that a belief did not involve the feeling of +relation are such impersonal expressions as “it rains,” or, “it is cold.” +The exception, however, is only apparent, arising from the erroneous +idea that everything which is implied in language must be expressed. +When we say, “it rains,” we mean, “rain is falling.” In either form of +language, the thought conveyed is that of the relation of the drops of +water and their motion. The stock-broker, with his prearranged code, +may communicate the ideas of a long sentence in a single word, or the +Freemason may do the same to the initiated by a gesture. In such a case, +it would be absurd to contend that no relation is felt or communicated +because there is no formal subject or predicate. + +Whatever may be thought of the sufficiency of my definition, I risk the +assertion that it includes all beliefs that can be affirmed, denied or +doubted. We never question our sensations, emotions or volitions—we +have them, are aware of them, and that is the end of the matter. It is +the relations of our sensations to each other, and to our pleasures +and pains, our choices and rejections, that involve us in all sorts of +perplexities. The whole question of the grounds of belief in general, and +the truth or falsehood of particular beliefs is a question of relations. +It is, then, in the sense indicated above that I shall use the word +hereafter. + +Having settled the definition, it may be worth while to consider for +a moment whether this feeling of relation, which can only be known by +experience, is enough like any other mental states to be classed with +them. On this point Professor James says: “_In its inner nature, belief, +or the sense of reality, is a sort of feeling more allied to the emotions +than to anything else._ Mr. Bagehot distinctly calls it the ‘emotion’ +of conviction. I just now spoke of it as acquiescence. It resembles +more than anything else what in the psychology of volition we know as +consent. Consent is recognised by all to be a manifestation of our active +nature. It would naturally be described by such terms as ‘willingness’ +or the ‘turning of our disposition.’ What characterises both consent +and belief is the cessation of theoretic agitation through the advent +of an idea which is inwardly stable, and fills the mind solidly to the +exclusion of contradictory ideas. When this is the case, motor effects +are apt to follow. Hence the states of consent and belief, characterised +by repose on the purely intellectual side, are both intimately connected +with subsequent practical activity. This inward stability of the mind’s +content is as characteristic of disbelief as of belief. But we shall +presently see that we never disbelieve anything except for the reason +that we believe something else that contradicts the first thing. +Disbelief is thus an incidental complication to belief, and need not be +considered by itself.” (P. 283). + +I am unable to satisfy myself whether, in the above passage, Professor +James has in mind the feeling of belief or other feelings which often +accompany it. The “cessation of theoretic agitation,” “willingness,” +“turning of our disposition,” are accompanied by feelings which I should +say are not only like, but identical with emotion. In the case of old, +confirmed beliefs, however, theoretic agitation ceased, and the turning +of the disposition occurred, if at all, long ago, and I am unable to +recognise anything resembling emotion in my belief that two and two make +four, that cows eat grass, that iron is a metal, and many others that +might be mentioned. Nor do these beliefs, at the present time, give rise +to motor effects, which, so far as I am able to see, only result from +such beliefs as are, directly or indirectly, associated with emotion. +If such beliefs as I have mentioned are not purely intellectual, as +distinguished from emotional phenomena, I should be at a loss to know +where the distinction is to be made between “the head” and “the heart.” +The sense of relation seems to me to be the most purely intellectual of +all the mental functions, and, although it may give rise to all sorts of +emotions, the more settled, undisturbed and unquestioning the belief, +the less likely is it to give rise to any but the feeling of calm, which +seems to me to be the antithesis of emotion. I should say that belief is +a feeling _sui generis_, without enough analogy with any other to justify +classing them together. + +I have already quoted the illustration with which Professor James opens +the discussion of the subject of Reality. After quoting from Spinoza, +to the same effect, the supposed case of a horse with wings imagined to +be real in the absence of any contradictory thought, he goes on to say: +“The sense that anything we think of is unreal can only come, then, when +that thing is contradicted by some other thing of which we think. _Any +object which remains uncontradicted is ipso facto believed and posited as +absolute reality._” (P. 288). Elsewhere he says: + + “... _all propositions, whether attributive or existential, are + believed through the very fact of being conceived, unless they + clash with other propositions believed at the same time, by + affirming that their terms are the same as the terms of those + other propositions._” (P. 290). + +This, I think, is stated too strongly, at least, in the latter quotation. +A proposition that is uncontradicted will be believed, but it is not +necessary that the contradictory proposition should be believed in +order that the first may fail of belief. I believe nothing, at present, +contradictory of the proposition that it is now raining in Boston. I +think it not improbable that such may be the case, but at the same time +the contrary proposition is present to my mind, that it may not be +raining in Boston, and the result is the state of mind which Professor +James very properly regards as the opposite of belief—doubt. But +supposing that a proposition is presented to the mind, which, being for +the time uncontradicted, is believed, and that subsequently another, +contrary proposition is presented, is it certain that the latter will +be disbelieved? May not a state of doubt replace belief in this case +also? Or supposing that two propositions, which have been believed +independently, are brought into juxtaposition in such a way as to show +that they are inconsistent, how are we to determine which if either, +shall be believed? Professor James seems to teach that it is a matter of +choice. + + “That we can at any moment think of the same thing which + at any former moment we thought of is the ultimate law of + our intellectual constitution. But when we now think of it + incompatibly with our other ways of thinking of it, then we + must choose which way to stand by, for we cannot continue to + think of it in two contradictory ways at once. _The whole + distinction of real and unreal, the whole psychology of + belief, disbelief and doubt, is thus grounded on two mental + facts—first, that we are liable to think differently of the + same; and second, that when we have done so, we can choose + which way of thinking to adhere to and which to disregard._[63] + The subjects adhered to become real subjects, the attributes + adhered to real attributes, the existence adhered to real + existence; while the subjects disregarded become imaginary + subjects, the attributes disregarded erroneous attributes, and + the existence disregarded an existence in no man’s land, in the + limbo ‘where footless fancies dwell.’” (P. 290). + +The doctrine that belief is, in the last analysis, a matter of choice +is a prominent feature of Professor James’s teaching, to which I shall +have occasion to refer again. It seems to me to involve him in some +inconsistencies. For the present, it should be noted that he admits the +reality of every mental object in its proper relations. + + “If I merely dream of a horse with wings, my horse interferes + with nothing else and has not to be contradicted. That horse, + its wings, and its place are all equally real. That horse + exists no otherwise than as winged, and is moreover really + there, for that place exists no otherwise than as the place + of that horse, and claims as yet no connection with the other + places of the world. But if with this horse I make an inroad + into the _world otherwise known_, and say, for example, ‘That + is my old mare Maggie, having grown a pair of wings where + she stands in her stall,’ the whole case is altered; for now + the horse and place are identified with a horse and place + otherwise known, and _what_ is known of the latter objects is + incompatible with what is perceived of the former. ‘Maggie + in her stall with wings! Never!’ The wings are unreal, then, + visionary. I have dreamed a lie about Maggie in her stall.” (P. + 289). + +Here, the dream is a reality, and the winged horse is as really a part of +it as the mare Maggie is of the outside world. The reality of the winged +horse in the one case, and his unreality in the other, depend on his +relations to other mental objects. So, for instance, if any one should +say that a mermaid was a creature with the portion of a man from the +waist up united to the body and limbs of a horse, I should be justified +in contradicting him, and saying that it was not a mermaid but a centaur +that he had in mind. It would not be a valid answer to say that there +were really no such things as mermaids and centaurs. In mythology, a +centaur has as definite a structure as a giraffe has in zoölogy, and +it is as inexcusable to confound the one as the other with anything +else. This point is amplified by the author in a section on “The Many +Worlds,” in which the various objects of thought are found in their +proper relations, and out of which each one selects a world of practical +realities, according to his dominant habits of attention. _In the +relative sense_, in which we contrast reality with unreality, or consider +one object more real than another, + + “_Reality means simply relation to our emotional and active + life_ ... in this sense, whatever excites and stimulates our + interest is real.” (P. 295). + + “_Whatever things have intimate and continuous connection with + my life are things of whose reality I cannot doubt._” (P. 298). + +This power of exciting and stimulating our interest, Professor James +finds to be possessed in a pre-eminent degree by sensations, which thus +become, directly or indirectly, our tests of reality, and among which +those which are pleasurable or painful hold the first rank. Next to them, +if not of equal power, are emotions. + + “The greatest proof that a man is _sui compos_ is his ability + to suspend belief in the presence of an emotionally exciting + idea. To give this power is the highest result of education. + In untutored minds the power does not exist. Every exciting + thought in the natural man carries credence with it. To + conceive with passion is _eo ipso_ to affirm.” (P. 308). + +Professor James’s account of the grounds of belief seems to me inadequate +in that it fails to show the connection between our sensations and +emotions and other mental states and our beliefs. Why is it that the +sight of the heavenly bodies, for instance, awakens in different minds +such diverse beliefs as the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems of +astronomy? What does a man who is frightened believe? What belief would +necessarily result from a colic? It is not enough to say that sensations +and emotions are connected with belief; we want to know how they are +connected. + +Bearing in mind the definition of belief as the sense of relation between +objects, the question resolves itself into the origin of feelings of +relation. As relations are of various kinds, they may be suggested to the +mind by different circumstances. They may, I think, be divided into three +classes: + +1) Relations of likeness and unlikeness. These result from the +comparison and discrimination of objects. All the beliefs involved +in the recognition and classification of objects arise in this way. +When, on seeing a certain object, I say that it is a bay horse, and +will weigh about eleven hundred pounds, I give expression to relations +of comparison. The comparison may be immediate, between objects +simultaneously present to the senses, or alike present only to memory +or imagination, or between a present object and a remembered one, or +mediate, by comparison of two or more objects with some other. All +mathematical truths are of this kind. + +2) Relations of cause and effect, of substance and quality, of whole and +component parts, of order in time and space, are due to association. +When I say of the horse that his movements are caused by muscular +contractions, that he is of a gentle disposition, that he has a bony +skeleton and red blood, that he is five years old and is harnessed +to a carriage, I express relations of association. In his chapter on +Association Professor James says: + + “_Belief_ in anything _not_ present to sense is the very + lively, strong, and steadfast association of the image of that + thing with some present sensation, so that as long as the + sensation persists the image cannot be excluded from the mind.” + (Vol. I, p. 598). + +I do not think it is a fact that the image of the thing believed in need +be associated with any present sensation. I am not aware, for instance, +that there is, at present, any such association in my belief in the +existence of the city of Constantinople, or that Queen Victoria is +reigning in England. The associations in these and similar cases are with +objects of memory and not with present sensations. On the other hand, +what we mean by belief in a present object always involves memory of the +past. When we say that we believe in anything, we either mean that it is +like other things of the same sort of which we have had experience, or +that it stands in some other relation to them. Complete loss of memory +would not only destroy all our past beliefs, but, if it were permanent, +would prevent our ever forming any new ones. The universe, in such a +case, would be a mere chaos of sensations. + +In order that things may be associated, they must first be discriminated, +otherwise, as Professor James has shown, in his chapter on Discrimination +and Comparison, they are thought of, not as associated things, but as +one thing. In like manner, when discriminated things have once been +associated, the tendency is, in the absence of contrary experience, to +think of them as belonging together. A child, attracted by the brightness +of the teapot, touches it and burns his fingers. He naturally expects the +teapot to be hot the next time he sees it. He is told that his Christmas +gifts were brought down the chimney by Santa Claus. Until the statement +is contradicted, he believes it. Why should he not? Or the association +of things in the mind may come about without any external suggestion. +I remember that the first time that I ever heard a person snore, the +thought came into my mind that the strange noise was made by a bear, and +I lay awake most of the night, in fear of being devoured. The tendency +is to think of things as related in the way in which they are first +presented to the mind, until they come up in some different relation. +This seems to be the explanation of the tendency to “believe as much as +we can,” to “affirm immediately the reality of all that is conceived,” +of which Professor James speaks. With increased experience, we find that +there is a difference in the uniformity of associations, and accordingly +the coincidence of two or more things is associated with the doubt +whether or not the association is a constant one. + +3) In addition to the relations considered above, there are some which, +although expressed in terms of association and comparison, seem to me to +have a different origin. That the whole is greater than any of its parts +is a relation of comparison; that a thing cannot be in two different +places at the same time, that every event has a cause, that there is +an external world, are relations of association. Although they do not +arise independently of experience, they contain more than is given in +experience, and the uniformity and firmness with which they are believed +can, it seems to me, only be accounted for by the assumption of an innate +propensity to look upon things as related in these ways. + +So far as I am able to judge, beliefs always arise in one or another +of these three ways. But a still more interesting question, from the +practical point of view, than that of the origin of beliefs, is that of +the comparative validity of the various grounds of belief. Are they all +of equal worth, and if not, is there any way of determining which are to +be given the preference, or is belief, like taste, a matter about which +“_non disputandum_”? + +Professor James does not go very deeply into the discussion of this +question. As we have seen, he assigns to sensation the greatest efficacy +in producing belief, and discusses the comparative power of various +sorts of sensations in this respect. Emotion he makes a close second. +But the question which gives us the more reliable information, in cases +in which they conflict, he does not discuss at all. As a matter of fact, +there is no doubt that a man under the influence of strong emotion often +draws different conclusions from the evidence of his senses from those +at which he would arrive in its absence. Is he warranted in doing so? +Would any degree of personal interest warrant a man in believing or +disbelieving the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Newtonian theory of +gravitation, the Mosaic or the Darwinian view of the origin of species? +There is no doubt that belief on such subjects as these is influenced by +our interest, real or supposed, in one or the other view, and perhaps +Professor James would say that he deals with the working of minds as they +are, not as we imagine that they ought to be, but the general knowledge +that a class of considerations is reliable or the reverse is another +thing that not only ought to, but actually does affect our beliefs, and +the question of the method to be pursued in ascertaining the actual +relations of things, of forming true beliefs instead of false ones, is +one which hardly ought to be ignored in a discussion of the subject. + +Referring to the three classes of relations already considered, it is, I +think, evident that there are differences in the way in which they affect +our belief. In comparison, the essential thing is the accuracy of the +observation. One who has once fully comprehended the proof that the sum +of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, is as sure of +it as he could be after any amount of experience. In comparing sensible +objects, we may, it is true, and our belief confirmed by repetition, but +this is only in case that we doubt whether the comparison was rightly +made in the first place. That red does not look like blue, nor sweet +taste like sour, we are as certain on one trial as a hundred. If we +apply a foot measure to an object eight inches long, nothing can add +to our certainty that they are not of the same length. In matters of +association, on the other hand, a great deal depends on the uniformity of +the association—the number of times that we have experienced it without +contrary experience. When I hear a crow, for instance, I believe that it +is black, because all the crows that I have ever seen have been so. A +sheep I assume to be white, but with a less degree of confidence, because +black sheep are more numerous than white crows. In the case of a horse, +I have no belief in regard to the color within a certain range, unless +I have some means of knowing about the particular animal in question. +If I were told that my friend had bought a horse, I should have no idea +whether it was bay, or black, or white, or some mixture of these colors. +If, however, I were told that the natural color of my friend’s horse +was green, I should be much more confident that the statement was false +than if the same person should tell me he had seen a white crow, for, +the same reason that I should more readily believe in a black sheep than +in the latter. In the customary use of the word, I might say I _knew_ +it was not so. In the case of intuitive judgments experience has little +or nothing to do with the strength of belief. The adult man is no more +firmly convinced of the existence of something external to himself than +the child, and, although he may come to doubt it on speculative grounds, +he no more fails than the child to show by his actions that he has a +practical faith in it. + +In many, if not most of our beliefs, all of these elements are present. +If I see an orange, for instance, I have the intuition of externality, +the comparison with other oranges that I have already seen, and +associations of internal structure, taste, smell, and the like. All of +these, and very possibly some emotion, as, for instance, a desire to eat +it, may arise, simultaneously or so nearly so as not to be distinguished +in time, as parts of a single mental state. + +There is one kind of association, of importance enough to deserve +mention, of which Professor James makes no mention. The beliefs, or +alleged beliefs of other people have an influence on our minds which +is, I think, not inferior to that of emotion. The man who can, without +misgiving, maintain an opinion which contradicts all that he learned +in childhood and all that is held by those whose good opinion he most +values is, I fancy, quite as rare as he who can suspend judgment in the +presence of an emotionally exciting idea. Most of us take our religious, +political, scientific, and practical beliefs at second hand, from the +friends with whom we associate or the books and papers we read. Take a +young man out of his home and put him, for instance, in college, and it +will probably work a change in his moral standards, not necessarily for +the better. At home, if he knew of a theft, or an assault, he would very +probably be ready to bring the offender to justice, but if the offender +is his classmate, and the sufferer a member of the succeeding class, he +will very probably think it a more shameful thing to report the wrong +than to do it. At the same time, he doubtless considers it utterly +reprehensible that ignorant Italian peasants should feel in the same way +about betraying their neighbors who are guilty of robbery or murder. + +Coming now to the influence of emotion on belief, it will not, I presume, +be disputed that it comes about by way of association. Professor James, +as we have seen, holds that “every emotionally exciting thought, in +the natural man, carries credence with it.” I suspect that this is true +only in the sense that, in the absence of experience, not only every +exciting thought, but every thought is believed. However this may be, +in respect to the natural man, I think it is pretty certain that, in +the case of such artificial beings as those who reflect on the causes +of their emotions and beliefs, it will be found that in order for an +idea to excite our emotions, a certain degree of belief is necessary. +Professor James illustrates his position by the fact that a man can +walk along a curbstone without any apprehension of falling, because +the thought of falling awakens no emotion of dread, while on the edge +of a precipice the emotion caused by the thought of the consequences +of a mis-step may quite overcome his belief in his ability to keep his +balance. But a chamois-hunter or an acrobat will pass along the same +place without the slightest apprehension, not because he does not think +of what would happen if he should fall, nor because he has more liking +than any one else for being dashed to pieces, but because he has what the +inexperienced man lacks, entire confidence in his ability to avoid the +danger. + +Since I began writing the last paragraph, a number of thoughts have +passed through my mind, any one of which would be sufficiently exciting +if I believed in them, as, that I may die within the next half hour; +that I may fall heir to a fortune, and the like, none of which have +produced any emotional disturbance, because I do not believe that there +is any probability of their being true. Why was it that not only the +medical profession but the public in general became so much interested, +recently, in the announcement that Dr. Koch had discovered a substance +that promised to be a cure for tuberculosis? Partly on account of the +interests involved, but at least equally because his reputation was such +as to inspire confidence in what he said. There are plenty of medicines +advertised in the newspapers for which greater claims are made than +Dr. Koch made for his discovery, which fail to arouse any such general +interest. These examples are probably enough for illustration of the +familiar fact that belief is the most common cause of emotion, and that a +thought that is not believed is apt to leave us unmoved. + +Nevertheless, it is a notorious fact that emotion has a great deal to do +with determining the sort and degree of evidence which is satisfactory +to us. Love and hate, respect and contempt, affect our beliefs in regard +to the character of their objects in matters entirely independent of the +qualities which originally inspired the feelings. We find it an easy +matter to believe that a man whose religious or political opinions we +think pernicious is a bad man in matters which have nothing to do with +his opinions, and may find it almost incredible that one whom we like +personally should think differently from ourselves on matters in which we +are deeply interested. But what particular evil we shall believe of the +person whom we dislike, or good of the one whom we like, depends entirely +on circumstances. A man, for instance takes a dislike to a stranger +on account of some lack of good manners. Whether he shall suspect him +of being a clergyman or an infidel, a drinker or a prohibitionist, a +Sunday-school teacher or a gambler, or both, is likely to depend very +largely on his own tastes and principles in regard to such matters. +So, on the other hand, his views in regard to religion, temperance and +gambling, are probably due in great measure to the practice of the +people whom he likes. A woman who has been brought up with a horror of +drunkenness hears that a man with whom she is violently in love is a +drinker. She will probably disbelieve it at first, but if she becomes +convinced of the truth of the report, she will very likely come to think +that a drunkard need not be such a bad fellow after all. If there is any +one thing that more affects our beliefs than what the people we like say, +it is what they do. + +In like manner, emotional states without any definite object, such as +we call moods if they are transient, and disposition or temperament if +they are habitual, color our belief, not by originating any definite +propositions, but by making us receptive to those that tend to confirm +them. It is not when a man is broken in spirit by repeated calamities +that he is most ready to believe that “where there’s a will there’s a +way,” nor in the flush of youth, health and triumph that the doctrine +that “all is vanity,” comes home to his heart. In whatever way such +states of mind come about, whether as a result of original constitution, +or of experience, or of disease, they make the mind inhospitable to +whatever does not harmonise with them. In the case of insanity, this +disposition may outweigh the plainest evidence of the senses, so that +a man may believe that he is rolling in wealth and luxury when he is +destitute of the ordinary comforts of life, or that his wife and children +are dead when they are present before his eyes. In a lower degree, most +of us probably have experience of something of the sort in “fits of the +blues,” but while the general character of the belief may be decided +by the emotional tone of the mind, its precise form is determined by +the man’s interests. Low spirits would not be likely, for instance, to +effect a man’s opinion as to the probable course of the stock market, +unless he were in some way interested in stocks, and the view favored by +his emotional condition would depend on the side of the market on which +his interest lay. Beliefs which, in our ordinary state of mind, are not +associated with any strong feeling, such as mathematical truths and the +physical and chemical laws of matter, remain unaffected in all kinds and +degrees of emotional disturbance. + +It seems clear, then, that, as a matter of fact, emotions affect our +beliefs through association. It is not difficult to see how this comes +about. Emotions tend to perpetuate themselves. A man who is in high +spirits will laugh at vexations which, if he were in an irritable frame +of mind would seem intolerable. We allow liberties to our friends which +would offend us in persons to whom we are indifferent. The same inertia +of the mind which is shown in these cases offers a resistance to any +thought that tends to disturb it. If I like a man and hate dishonesty, +evidence that the man is dishonest calls up at the same time two contrary +emotional states, which cannot subsist together. One of three things must +happen; either the association of the feeling of liking with the person +of the man, or of that of repugnance with dishonesty, or of the quality +of dishonesty with the man must be given up, or at least impaired. But +the feeling of affection for my friend and that of hatred for the alleged +fault are old established associations, while that of dishonesty with +his personality is a new one, which, in order to find lodgement, must +expel the original inhabitant. Although I may have formed no definite +association of honesty with him, the difficulty is of precisely the same +sort as if I had. In either case it is the breaking up of an habitual +association. + +Such being the way in which emotion affects belief, its value as a +ground of belief must be determined in the same way as in other cases +of association. If any emotion is so exclusively connected with some +definite object that the one is never present without the other, we are +warranted in inferring the existence of the object from the presence of +the emotion, as Robinson Crusoe inferred from the human footprints on the +sand that men had been there. As a matter of fact, there is comparatively +little uniformity in associations of this kind. The same things affect +different persons differently, and the same persons differently at +different times. Our hopes and fears are sometimes realised and +sometimes disappointed, and people to whom, on slight acquaintance, we +feel attracted, often develop qualities of a different kind from what +we expected as we come to know them better. If I am fond of money, and +also of idleness, or of friendship, and also of having my own way at all +times, it does not follow that taking my ease is the way to get rich, nor +that always insisting on my own way is the course to make friends. The +most, I think, that can be said in favor of emotion as a ground of belief +is, that its existence presupposes the existence of some object adapted +to excite it. Avarice may be said, in a sense, to prove the existence of +wealth—if there were no wealth there would doubtless be no avarice—but +not that a particular avaricious man will be wealthy. Fear implies the +existence of harm, but not necessarily that harm is coming upon the +one that fears. These are matters in which we can apply the test of +experience to our beliefs, and it seems evident that emotion adds nothing +to our knowledge. We know the things independently of the emotions they +excite, and every one recognises that to expect a thing merely because we +either desire or fear it is, in matters which we can test by experience, +utterly fallacious. + +But there are matters lying outside the range of our experience in regard +to which it is often confidently asserted that our desires and fears are +sufficient proof of their reality—a view in which I cannot agree. If it +could be shown that we long for something of an entirely different kind +from anything we have known, that might perhaps be an argument in favor +of its existence, but such is not the case. The wish for immortality, +for instance, is nothing more than the wish for life. Probably there +are but few who would not rather have immortality without death than +after it, but experience has at last convinced the most hopeful that +this is not to be expected, and the search for fountains of youth and +elixirs of life has few devotees. We want life, and we have life; we want +happiness, and we know happiness, whether we ourselves have it or not, +but to say that the fact that we want more than we get of both is a +reason for supposing that we shall ever have all that we want of either +is to reason in a way which we should all see to be fallacious if applied +to things of every-day life. I conclude, then, that the emotions which +a belief excites are utterly valueless as a test of its truth, and that +we may expect that, both with individuals and the race, emotion will +play a smaller and smaller part in belief as true knowledge and culture +increase. This is not saying that, in cases of doubt, it is unreasonable +to hope that things may turn out as we wish. + +As to innate beliefs, it is enough to say that we cannot altogether rid +our minds of them, and that they answer perfectly the purpose of working +hypotheses. A man may question the reality of an external world to his +heart’s content, but if he runs his head against a wall, or drops a brick +on his toe, it will hurt him just as much as the most thorough-going +materialist. The consequence is that such a doubt does not affect our +conduct. Abstractly, these beliefs do not all impress us with the same +degree of certainty. That the same thing cannot be in two different +places at once, is, I think, felt to be more absolutely and necessarily +true than that there is such a necessity in the order of events as is +implied in the idea of causation, but for all practical purposes we are +as sure of the one as of the other. + +I have already quoted Professor James’s assertion of our ability to +choose which among different ways of thinking of the same we shall +adhere to and which disregard. Perhaps the most prominent feature of his +teaching on the subject of belief is that it is an active, not a passive +state of the mind—a choice, not a necessity. One or two more quotations +on this point will make this plain. + + “As bare logical thinkers, without emotional reaction, we give + reality to whatever objects we think of, for they are really + phenomena, or objects of our passing thought, if nothing + more. But, _as thinkers with emotional reaction, we give what + seems to us a higher degree of reality to whatever things we + select and emphasise and turn to WITH A WILL_. These are our + _living_ realities, and not only these, but all things that are + intimately connected with these (p. 297). + + “Now the important thing to notice is that the difference + between the objects of belief and will is entirely immaterial, + as far as the relation of the mind to them goes. All that the + mind does is in both cases the same; it looks at the object and + consents to its existence, espouses it, says ‘it shall be my + reality.’ It turns to it, in short, in the interested emotional + way” (p. 320). + +Although the doctrine is stated, in these and other passages, without +qualification, it is hard to reconcile it with some other statements. He +devotes a chapter to “Necessary Truths,” and says: + + “We _must_ attach the predicate ‘equal’ to the subject + ‘opposite sides of a parallelogram’ if we think those terms + together at all” (p. 617). + +I do not know that it makes much difference whether we say that, in a +case like this, we cannot think differently of the same, or that, having +thought so, we cannot choose which way of thinking to adhere to and which +to disregard. The proposition that a horse is a vertebrate animal cannot +be called a necessary, _a priori_ truth, but I find it as impossible to +think of a horse that is not a vertebrate animal as of a parallelogram +with the opposite sides unequal. A figure with the opposite sides unequal +would not be a parallelogram, and anything that was not animal and +vertebrate would not be a horse. Whether the difficulty in the two cases +is the same or not, it is clear that, by Professor James’s admission, +here is a restriction of our choice as to what we will believe. + +Again, he speaks of pleasurable and painful sensations as +“belief-compelling.” Compulsion, so far as it exists, excludes choice, +and if this expression is justified it implies another limitation on the +freedom of belief. + +With regard to painful sensations, it seems to me that the fact is that +they, and their associations, force themselves on our attention, rather +than that we “select, and emphasise and turn to them with a will.” If I +have a toothache, I may believe that if I retain the tooth it will keep +me in pain for a long time, and if I have it extracted, that will also +be a painful process. It does not seem to me that the expressions quoted +above accurately describe my state of mind in regard to either of these +beliefs. + +According to Professor James, when a man becomes convinced that he is +financially bankrupt, or that he has lost his good name, or that he +is suffering from an incurable and fatal disease, it is because he +“espouses” this view of the matter, “consents to its existence,” says +“it shall be my reality.” This notwithstanding that such a belief may +drive him to determine that, so far as in him lies, all existence, all +reality shall cease; to consent to death and espouse the grave. Would +not the criminal who hears his death-sentence pronounced prefer, if he +could, to disbelieve his eyes and ears, and to feel that it was all a bad +dream? So far as I can judge with regard to many unwelcome beliefs, they +are not like the highwayman who offers the alternative of “your money or +your life,” but like him who throws you down, binds and robs you without +offering any choice. + +Perhaps the most striking example of the view under consideration is +found in a foot-note on p. 318, in which, after quoting, with approval, a +statement of Royce that “The ultimate motive with men of every-day life +is the will to have an external world,” he goes on to say: + + “This immixture of the will appears most flagrantly in the fact + that although external matter is doubted often enough, minds + external to our own are never doubted. We need them too much, + are too intensely social to dispense with them. Semblances + of matter may suffice to react upon, but not semblances of + communing souls. A psychic solipsism is too hideous a mockery + of our wants, and, so far as I know, has never been seriously + entertained.” + +Leaving aside the question whether any one who really disbelieved that +there was any reality, outside of his own mind, in objects of sense, +could believe in the existence of that which he only infers from the +conduct of those objects, it seems to be distinctly stated that the +reason of these beliefs is, not that we cannot help believing so, but +that we choose to believe so, and not otherwise, and that we are able, +having so chosen, to believe as we wish. That there may be no doubt as to +the sense in which the term “Will” is used, I will quote the explanation +with which he opens his chapter on that subject: + + “We desire to feel, to have, to do, all sorts of things which + at the moment are not felt, had, or done. If with the desire + there goes a sense that attainment is not possible, we simply + _wish_; but if we believe that the end is in our power, we + _will_ that the desired feeling, having or doing shall be real; + and real it presently becomes, either immediately upon the + willing or after certain preliminaries have been fulfilled” (p. + 486). + +Now each one must judge for himself whether this, or anything like this +is the way in which he came to believe in an external world. Judging from +my own experience, I should say that the reason we originally have such +a belief is that it arises spontaneously in our minds, and that, for a +long time, it never occurs to us that it can be otherwise. However that +may be, I am certain that when the contrary possibility was presented +to my mind, it struck me as strange, rather than dreadful, and that I +firmly believe many things that seem to me far more hideous than the +doctrine that I am the universe. So far as society is concerned, if I +can _be_ Shakespeare and Milton and Goethe, Plato and Bacon, Newton and +Darwin, Luther and Columbus and Washington, as well as all the people +of my acquaintance, it strikes me that I can be pretty good company for +myself. To use the universality of the belief as a proof of its voluntary +nature seems to me very much such an argument as to say that because all +bodies attract each other in the ratio of their mass and inversely as the +square of the distance, the falling of a stone must be a purely voluntary +matter. I do not see what stronger argument, in a case like this, could +be made for the necessity of a belief than the alleged fact that no one, +under any circumstances, is free from it. + +Now, if we substitute the term “Propensity” for “Will” in the passage +quoted above, it would seem to me an entirely accurate description of +the facts, and I can only understand how the authors quoted could take +the ground they do except on the assumption that all propensities, or +at least all which prevail, are choices or volitions. That such is not +the case seems to me clear enough in regard to belief from some of +the instances which I have already mentioned, but it will perhaps be +still more evident from cases in which belief is not in question. The +propensity to remember and constantly think of painful and distressing +things, which we would gladly banish from our thoughts, or such things as +silly rhymes and trifling tunes; to tremble and lose our presence of mind +in danger, when we have most need of the full use of all our faculties; +to express our emotions by muscular movements when we wish to conceal +them, and many others that might be mentioned, are examples of the fact +that an invincible propensity may be quite the reverse of a choice. + +That belief is an activity of the mind may be freely admitted. The +mind—whatever the substratum of our states of consciousness may be—is +not a receptacle, to hold indifferently whatever may be poured into +it nor a sheet of blank paper, on which this or that may be written +by circumstances; it has a character of its own, and reacts to its +environment. What the reaction shall be depends both on the character of +the mind and what is presented to it, but it seems incorrect to assume +that all the dispositions of the mind are of the nature of desires or +aversions. In the last analysis of which we are capable, our character +is probably due to our physical constitution, original and acquired, and +our beliefs may be profoundly affected by a few glasses of whiskey or an +attack of fever. Whether the reactions of the matter of which our brains +are formed are as invariable as those of inorganic matter need not be +discussed here; the present point is that while belief is a sense of the +relations of things as they are, the essence of will is the desire to +have them otherwise than as they are. To make belief a matter of choice +is the same as to say that I may at the same time choose that things +shall be as they are and otherwise. + +Professor James closes the chapter with a practical observation: + + “If belief consists in an emotional reaction of the entire man + on an object, how _can_ we believe at will? We cannot control + our emotions. Truly enough, a man cannot believe at will + abruptly. Nature sometimes, and indeed not very infrequently, + produces instantaneous conversions for us. She suddenly puts + us in an active connection with objects to which she had till + then left us cold. ‘I realise for the first time,’ we then say, + ‘what that means!’ This happens often with moral propositions. + We have often heard them; but now they shoot into our lives; + they move us; we feel their living force. Such instantaneous + beliefs are truly enough not to be achieved by will. But + _gradually_ our will can lead us to the same results by a very + simple method; _we need only in cold blood act as if the thing + in question were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and + it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with + our life that it will become real_. It will become so knit with + habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which + characterise belief. Those to whom God and Duty are now mere + names can make them much more than that, if they make a little + sacrifice to them every day. But all this is so well known in + moral and religious education that I need say no more” (p. 321). + +The above passage seems to me to illustrate at the same time the force +of Professor James’s rhetoric and an occasional tendency on his part to +be carried away by it into statements that are altogether too sweeping. +In an immense proportion of cases, the method that he recommends is +precisely the surest way to convince ourselves that the thing in question +is _not_ real. It is the method which the small boy takes to convince +himself that the gun is not loaded; the drunkard and spendthrift to +satisfy themselves that their vices will not bring them into poverty and +disgrace. A man may sit all day at the fork of the road, and believe that +the broad way does not lead to destruction, but when he puts his belief +in practice he discovers the truth. So far as practical matters, capable +of being brought to the test of experience, are concerned, it can only be +said that _if they are real_, we shall convince ourselves that such is +the case by acting as if they were real. Doubtless Professor James had +not such prosaic things as these in mind when he wrote the passage, but +a method that will not serve us in regard to such questions as whether +water will wet us or fire burn us, can hardly be called infallible. But +even in regard to questions that must always remain matters of opinion +it is not true in the unqualified sense in which Professor James puts +it. Probably many men, brought up in the belief that it was their duty +to observe the first day of the week by religious worship because the +Hebrews were required to abstain from labor on the seventh day, have come +to modify their belief without any material change in their practice, +and even the belief in regard to the nature and attributes of God may be +affected in advance of a change in the conduct based upon it. + +The law of association in this regard is subject to the same limitations +as we have already found to hold in respect to other matters. +Associations of action with belief have a tendency to strengthen it, but, +as in the case of emotion, they may be overcome by other considerations, +and it is entirely possible for a man to go on for the better part of +a lifetime in punctilious conformity to usages which in his heart he +despises, and break out in open rebellion at last. From the ethical +point of view, the advice which seems to be implied, of deliberately +choosing a way of setting doubts at rest which is as efficacious on the +side of error as of truth, of vice as of virtue, seems to me, to say the +least, of doubtful tendency. We must often act in doubtful cases, and +take the risk, amongst others, of thus confirming ourselves in error, +but certainly there can be no more solemn motive for weighing well our +beliefs before committing ourselves to them by action than the fact that +we may, by habit, pervert our moral sense, blind our judgment and stifle +our conscience. + +To the man who believes that there is a universe, of which he forms an +infinitesimal part, and that all his interests depend on his attitude +toward the power that works in it, it is of infinitely more interest to +know how he can know the truth than how he can convince himself of this +or that. Shall truth be our master, to be followed and obeyed, though he +command us to give up all else that we hold dear, or our servant, to be +employed as suits our passion or caprice, and dismissed when he will no +longer serve our purpose? + +This is perhaps the most momentous question that we are called on to +decide. The man who makes the wrong choice may or may not attain what he +seeks, but though he gain the whole world, he will lose his own soul. + + W. L. WORCESTER. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[62] _The Principles of Psychology_, by William James, Professor of +Psychology in Harvard University. In two volumes. New York: Henry Holt & +Company, 1890. + +[63] The italics, in this and my other quotations, are the author’s. + + + + +THE NATURE OF MIND AND THE MEANING OF REALITY.[64] + + +Professor William James’s supposition of “an hallucinatory candle” seen +by a “new born mind entirely blank and waiting for experience to begin” +is an impossible and self-contradictory figment. We might as well speak +of the dry Niagara falls employed in the manufacture of some material +goods out of nothing. For, first, a mind entirely blank is no mind +and, secondly, a blank mind if it could exist at all, would have no +hallucinations. An hallucinatory candle can be produced only out of the +memories or the combination of memories of former candle-sensations. A +blind man sees in his dream no colors, and a deaf man hears no symphonies. + +A new-born babe is already in possession of many inherited memories. Thus +the first sense-impressions after the babe’s birth find the organism, +especially its skin, nerves and muscles predisposed for their reception. +The babe’s organism accordingly presents an instance of a relative but +not of an absolute blank; an absolute blank of a something that is to +develop into mind can mean only a lump of sentient matter at the moment +of formation. As soon as it is formed it is exposed in every second +of its existence to innumerable impressions which fill the blank with +contents and these contents are the mind that is developing. + +Sentient substance is not at rest, but like a flame it is possessed of +an incessant activity. The form of this activity is both extraordinarily +plastic and stable. It is plastic, for every impression together with the +reaction of the impression modifies it and leaves a trace: it is stable +for the traces of all the impressions and reactions are preserved. + +The first sense-impression of a lump of sentient substance produces an +irritation which objectively considered is a commotion of the sentient +substance and subjectively considered a feeling, the substance being +sentient _ex hypothesi_. This first and primitive feeling is meaningless, +for it has not, and cannot have, any reference to any other feeling, +memory or mind, and meaning is created through the interaction of +feelings with memories of feelings. + +Some later sense-impression of the same kind will not only produce +the same irritation but also serve as an irritation to awaken the +memory-trace left by the former sense-impression. The new feeling will +melt into one with the reawakened memory of the former feeling. In the +long run many traces of the same kind which are, as it were, deposited +in the same place will constitute an organ predisposed to receive the +correspondent impressions; and now a sense-impression received by such an +organ may be called a sensation. A sensation is not merely a feeling, it +is a feeling of a special kind and it is felt to be of a special kind. In +other words, a sensation is a feeling that has acquired meaning; and this +meaning is the product of the interaction and coöperation of feelings +and memories. Sensations have become symbols representing the cause of +the sense-impression which produced the sensation, and ideas are symbols +of a higher order representing either whole classes of a certain kind +of causes of sense-impressions or certain features thereof, or certain +relations among them. + +Thus every mind is a system of sentient symbols. These symbols being as +it were pictures intended somehow to represent or allegorically speaking +to portray things are called “ideas,” while the things symbolised are in +their totality called objective existence or “reality.” + +Considering the nature of mind, it is obvious that there cannot be +an entirely blank mind. We might as well speak of an entirely blank +picture. But an entirely blank picture is a canvas and no picture at +all. That a mind which is not as yet a mind can have neither sensations +nor hallucinations is almost self-evident. Similarly there is no sense +in saying that a picture that consists of an utter blank and thus is +properly speaking no picture at all but an empty canvas, either does or +does not correctly represent a certain object. + +The word “real” is used in two senses (1) as a name for everything that +exists and (2) to signify that kind of existence which is the object of +our sensory and mental experience, i. e. the objective world so-called. +The former of these two definitions is more comprehensive; for it +includes the realm of mentality, the ideal world of subjectivity. The +latter is used in contrast to the subjective world of mental life and +thus expressly excludes the ideal realm of the mind and of mental symbols. + +The questions as to What is reality? and Is there anything real at all? +must not be formulated as they are by Professor James, in terms of belief +but in a statement of facts and by defining certain facts as real. + +An hallucination is real in the first sense of the word; it is an actual +existence; it is a feeling taking place in the mind of some organism. +It is also real in the second sense of the word in so far as it is a +vibration of a brain structure. However an hallucination is not real +in the second sense of the word in so far as its meaning has not its +correspondent analogue. + +Let the meaning of a certain mental symbol be a candle, under which +name we comprise a certain group of experiences, and let the cerebral +structure of this mental symbol be awakened by another stimulus than +that which is generally called a candle. Those experiences which as a +group are called a candle are of a certain kind. If a piece of paper +approaches the lighted candle, it will burn. An hallucinatory candle will +leave the paper intact, although the person who has the hallucination may +see the paper burn. Thus the ideas or images of objects are built up of +experiences which have taught us that under certain conditions certain +events happen; in consequence of certain actions there are constantly +certain reactions taking place. Reality consists of such facts; it is the +sum total of all reactions; reality is the nature of objects which react +somehow. + +Those who jump at the conclusion that our subjective sensations, such as +colors, tastes, sounds, etc., must be regarded as objective properties +of things, are grossly mistaken. Our sensations are not qualities of +things but subjective phenomena: they do not inform us about the nature +of things, but reveal to us how things affect our senses. Those however +who deny or doubt objective existence are no less mistaken. The world +is not a subjective phenomenon of sensations, but an objective existence +symbolised in sensations. + +The question is not “Does reality exist?” but “What is Reality?” or +“What is the meaning of ‘real’?” When we say “Objects are real,” we +mean that they resist, they react, their presence produces somehow some +effect. When we say, We ourselves are real, we mean that we react upon +the objects with which we come in contact, we mean, that in our bodily +existence we are objects in an objective world. + +Actions and reactions are taking place. This is a fact. He who denies +it is like the man who declares that he is not at home; he contradicts +himself: for the denial of a question is a reaction upon an action. The +term reality is the symbol of the nature of actions and reactions in +their efficacy, it denotes the essence of facts and thus the question +“Does reality exist?” has no sense. We denote that which exists, that +which acts and reacts, that which is a fact, or howsoever we may +express it, by the word “reality.” We might deny that the reactions of +the objective world are constant, or that a certain idea of a certain +reaction is erroneous, viz. that the reaction if put to the test would +prove to be different from what it was expected—but all these denials and +doubts which are of daily occurrence in the domain of science presuppose +that there are reactions taking place and reality or objective existence +is only a collective name for these reactions and their nature. The name +object still preserves the idea of reaction, for object is that which +reacts upon touch, which resists, which is objected. + +We shall lose ourselves in inextricable confusion by making a matter of +doubt and belief what is really a statement of facts. To speak of a doubt +or belief in the reality of things in general is tantamount to speaking +of a belief in our experiences which, whatever their particular nature +may be, are facts. And to doubt our experiences, not the correctness +of a particular experience, but experience in general, i. e. the very +existence of experience is tantamount to doubting our own being. + +A consideration of what we mean by an hallucination can best make clear +what we mean, and rationally can only mean, by reality. A real candle is +a mental symbol of something which will under certain conditions react +in a certain way. An hallucinatory candle is also a mental symbol, but +the thing which it purports to mean, does not exist; i. e. there is +nothing that will react. The symbol is there, but not that something the +existence of which the symbol of the idea “candle” would indicate. + +This method of dealing with the problem of the old naïve realism and the +pseudo-critical idealism of former times is not based upon the assumption +of the reality of things (which means, of the reality of reality); it +is simply a careful formulation of the problem to prevent our being +entangled all about with contradictions; it is the method of rendering +clear the basic principle of positivism, that all knowledge is a +description of facts, which description of facts is made for the purpose +of, dealing with facts. + + P. C. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[64] This article was suggested by Dr. W. L. Worcester’s criticism on +Professor James’s Psychology. When Dr. Worcester discusses Professor +James’s supposition of an hallucination in a blank mind, saying that it +would be “the only possible reality of that mind,” he almost seems to +adopt Professor James’s views of the subject himself. Clearness about +such fundamental terms as mind and reality, are so much needed that the +following remarks may not be out of place as a further explanation of the +subject. Exactness in fundamental and general terms will save much labor +in detail work. + + + + +MONISM NOT MECHANICALISM. + +COMMENTS UPON PROF. ERNST HAECKEL’S POSITION. + + +Prof. Ernst Haeckel’s Anthropogeny, the fourth edition of which appeared +of late,[65] brings again into prominence that conception of monism which +identifies the monistic view with mechanicalism. + +A review of this book has appeared already in _The Open Court_, No. +231, in which we called attention to the great merits of a work which +has become a household book, not only for the scientist, but for every +educated reader who is interested in man and the origin of man. Our +knowledge in Anthropogeny, certainly, will influence not only our general +world-conception, but through our general world-conception it will extend +its influence not only over every branch of science but also into the +broader fields of man’s daily life and his practical morality. + +Professor Haeckel is the most popular naturalist of to-day and there +is no one, perhaps, who has made a more effective propaganda for the +monistic world-conception than he. So it is almost a matter of course +that his definition of monism is generally accepted as the standard. +We have formulated our view of monism in a way which in principle and +general outlines concurs with the commonly accepted usage of the term, +yet it deviates from it in some important points which are perhaps not +merely matters of detail. It will be difficult to say how far we agree +and how far we disagree with Professor Haeckel’s monism because those +subjects in which we disagree, have never been elaborated by him, and we +are inclined to believe that he would modify some of his expressions, if +he devoted a quiet hour’s thought to the objections we have to make to +his definitions. + +Professor Haeckel’s monism being mechanicalism savors strongly of +materialism. He says in the latest edition of his “Anthropogenie” which +is now before us, Vol. II, p. 851: + +“There can be no doubt that a thorough consideration and unprejudiced +deliberation of these facts will lead to a decisive victory of that +philosophical conception which with one word we call monistic or +mechanical in opposition to the dualistic and teleological. Upon the +latter are based most of the philosophical systems of antiquity, of +the mediæval times, and also of the present time. The mechanical or +monistic philosophy declares that certain and immutable laws obtain +everywhere in the phenomena of human life as much as in nature generally, +that a necessary causal connexus obtains everywhere in phenomena and, +accordingly, that the knowable world forms throughout a unitary whole, a +monon. Monism moreover maintains that all phenomena are produced alone +through mechanical causes (_causæ efficientes_) not through premeditated +purposive causes (_causæ finales_).” + +And in the first lecture “The History of Evolution and Philosophy,” (p. +15) he says: + + “We shall clearly recognise in the following investigations how + the most wonderful enigmas of human and animal organisations, + heretofore considered as inaccessible, have become accessible + to a natural solution through Darwin’s reform in the doctrine + of evolution by a mechanical explanation of purposeless + efficient causes.” + +In agreement with these views, Professor Haeckel regards the terms +necessity and mechanicalism as equivalent terms. He rejects any kind of +teleology, any kind of final causes, and also the freedom of the will. +He opposes the so-called moral world-order as contradictory to the idea +that the world is regulated by mechanical law and he adopts the latter to +the exclusion of the former. All these points come out very strongly and +clearly in Professor Haeckel’s letter to the editor of _The Open Court_, +where his view of monism is graphically presented in a concise tabular +form. + +We here reproduce this table from No. 212 of _The Open Court_, for the +convenience of our readers: + + =======================+=======================+======================== + MONISM. | FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS. | DUALISM. + -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ + Inseparable. | Matter and force. | As a matter of + | God and world. | principle distinct + | Soul and body. | entities. + -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ + Mechanicalism. | Life. | Vitalism. + Necessary evolution. | | Teleological creation. + -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ + Universal (conservation| Immortality. | Individual. + of energy). | Freedom of will. | A person’s will being + Determinism. | | absolutely free. + -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ + Causæ efficientes. | Causation. | Causæ finales. + (Efficient causes.) | | (Final causes.) + -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ + Regulated by mechanical| World-order. | So-called “Moral.” + law. | | + -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ + Inseparable and subject| Inorganic and organic | As a matter of + to the same laws. | nature. | principle distinct + | | and subject to + | | different laws. + -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ + +Now we agree with Professor Haeckel in one main point, viz. “that certain +and immutable laws obtain everywhere in the phenomena of human life as +much as in nature generally, and that the knowable world forms throughout +a unitary whole, a monon.” But we cannot agree to his proposition that +“the wonderful enigmas of organised life are accessible to a natural +solution by a mechanical explanation of purposeless efficient causes.” +We grant willingly that mechanical explanations will serve for all +motions that take place in the world; even the motions of the brain +take place in strict obedience to the laws of molar and molecular +mechanics. But a mechanical explanation is not applicable to that which +is not motion. If it were applicable it would not be desirable, for +it would be of no avail. Mechanical explanations are to be limited to +mechanical phenomena. Feeling however is not a mechanical phenomenon, +and an idea, being a special and a very complex kind of a feeling, or +rather and more accurately expressed, being the special meaning of a +very complex feeling, is not a mechanical phenomenon either. It is true +that when a feeling takes place and when an idea is thought in the +brain of an organised being, that a certain nervous action takes place. +The nervous action is a motion and this motion represents a definite +amount of energy. There is no theoretical difficulty, although there are +almost insurmountable practical difficulties, in measuring the definite +amount of potential energy that is changed into kinetic energy when a +man thinks. Yet the brain-motion is not the idea and by a mechanical +explanation of the brain-motion we have not even touched the problem of +what the nature of the idea is, why ideas originate and how they act. + +We know that Professor Haeckel when he so vigorously insists on +mechanicalism, opposes those philosophers who believe that there are +motions which cannot be explained by mechanical laws. We side with +Professor Haeckel against any one who maintains that some motions are +mechanical (molar or molecular) and others are exceptions to the laws of +mechanics, representing a kind of hypermechanics. But we cannot admit the +explanation by mechanical laws of non-mechanical phenomena. + +Professor Haeckel speaks of purposeless efficient causes—_zwecklos +thätige Ursachen_. He speaks of efficient causes, as excluding final +causes. He is right in his objection to final causes as the term is +commonly used. But while there are causes that are _zwecklos_, there +are no causes that are _ziellos_. Every process of causation takes a +definite course, it has a certain and definable direction. The end of +this direction need not be a conscious aim, but it is an aim whatever it +be, it is a _Ziel_. In this sense every efficient cause is at the same +time a final cause. The gravitating stone has no purpose, yet it has an +aim. So the evolution of organised life is a natural process having a +very definite aim. And this aim of the evolution of organised life is +determined by factors of a very complex nature. One of these factors is +almost imperceptible at the beginning, but it is of a constantly and +rapidly growing importance; and this factor is the psychical element +that appears with organised life. This factor is nothing supra-natural, +nothing extra-natural, and yet it is not something material or +mechanical. It is this factor which in its highest efflorescence changes +aims into purposes, and with this change it creates again a new factor of +evolution which is the purposive aspiration to conform to the world-order +and thus to advance the further progress of mankind. This aspiration is +in one word called morality. + +When we speak of a moral world-order we mean that such moral behests +as were formulated in prescripts by Confucius, by Buddha, by Moses, +by Jesus, and other moral teachers of mankind have an objective and +immutable foundation in the nature of things. The mechanical law in the +province of motions, the logical law in the realm of thought, geometrical +proportions in mathematics, the regularity of natural laws, etc., form in +our world-conception a part of this moral world-order. The laws of social +life are not opposed to them but correlative. + +The purpose of a man’s action reveals his character, and the character +of the man is his innermost nature. In an analogous way the aim of +evolution and especially the aim of the evolution of organised beings +reveals the character, the innermost nature of the universe. Psychic life +is absent so far as we can see in the primordial world substance as it +appears in the form of a nebula; it is absent still in the primordial +state of planets. It appears with the subjective states of awareness that +rise into existence in organised life. The subjectivity of unorganised +matter is, in comparison with man’s subjectivity, to be considered as +a blank; i. e., if there is in it a state of awareness, which we have +reasons to doubt, it is apparently without meaning; it does not symbolise +external objects; it is no mind; it is, as it were, blind. Yet the aim +of evolution being the development of psychical life, shows that the +subjectivity of unorganised matter is spiritual in its innermost nature. +And the aim of psychical life being the development of moral ideals, we +are very well justified in speaking of the world-order as moral. When +speaking of the world-order as moral we mean that the moral prescripts of +the great ethical teachers of mankind are founded in and derived from the +world-order of nature. + +There is one objection to calling the world-order moral, and we therefore +dislike to use the phrase. It is this: Morality means conformity to +a certain standard. The standard is not moral, but those who do or +do not conform to it are moral or immoral. Therefore if there is any +truth in the idea of God it is this that there is a standard for human +conduct to conform to, there is an authority which has to be obeyed +and this authority is God. To speak of God as moral or immoral is +anthropomorphism. If “God” means anything, it means that power of the +world-order obedience to which is called morality. If we say God is +moral, God ceases to be God, the moral authority above him to which he +has to conform would be the really true God. Thus logically the personal +conception of God leads to a superpersonal conception of God. + +These are in brief our objections to Professor Haeckel’s definition +of monism as being identical with mechanicalism and perhaps also with +materialism. My opinion that Professor Haeckel may after all accede to +our view of monism is based upon an interesting and friendly conversation +which I enjoyed with him several years ago in Jena. Professor Haeckel +is not the one-sided naturalist that he is often represented to be by +orthodox clergymen. He does not see the workings of the natural laws +only, he sees also the moral aspect to which a consideration of the +natural laws leads. That his books emphasise the former without entering +into the problems of the latter is natural for a scientist, but he +personally is certainly even broader than are his books, and I should say +that his very opposition to certain errors which have been foisted by an +antiquated dogmatism upon our religious institutions, show the deeply +religious spirit of his character. + + P. C. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[65] _Anthropogenie oder Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen._ +Keimes-und Stammesgeschichte. By Ernst Haeckel. Mit 20 Tafeln, 440 +Holzschnitten und 25 genetischen Tabellen. Vierte, umgearbeitete und +vermehrte Auflage. Leipzig: Engelmann. + + + + +MR. CHARLES S. PEIRCE ON NECESSITY. + + +Mr. Charles S. Peirce is one of those thinkers who in the investigation +of a subject go right down to the bottom of the problem. This +appears to me the more conspicuously so, as the result to which his +investigations lead stand in a strong contrast to my own views. Yet I +cannot help admiring the boldness of his trenchant critique which finds +the difficulties at the point where really the main difficulty of all +philosophical inquiry lies buried. It lies buried, i. e. it does not +appear on the surface of things. If it lay on the surface, our most +superficial thinkers would naturally light on it; but most of them walk +their way in peace, unmolested by the question, Is there any truth in the +idea of necessity. An editorial treatment of this problem may be expected +in a forthcoming number of _The Monist_. + + P. C. + + + + +BOOK REVIEWS. + + +EINLEITUNG IN DAS ALTE TESTAMENT. By _C. H. Cornill_, Professor at the +University at Königsberg. + +When Darwin and his followers first gave to the world the astonishing +results of their studies, few were those who at once recognised the +importance of the new theories and still fewer those who readily accepted +them. But within the last thirty years, gradually but steadily the +number of those who have adopted as virtually true the hypotheses of the +new school, has been increasing until to-day those are in the minority +who teach a view different from Darwin on the origin and evolution +of the universe. The history and fate of the new studies in Biblical +criticism bear a striking analogy to the reception accorded to Darwinian +researches. At first they were met with well nigh universal opposition. +They were declared to be subversive of the holiest interests of religion. +They were held to rob the Bible of its glory. But by slow degrees the +first passion yielded to wiser counsel. Curiosity led to the examination +of the new positions; and in consequence in ever widening circles the +conviction gained ground that far from taking away from the dignity of +the old Hebrew literature, these new investigations and the method upon +which they footed, lent new lustre to the collection of ancient writings. +And to-day the battle has been won by the school of Wellhausen and +Kuenen. Few are those who to-day urge the old views on the authorship +date and historical succession of the several parts composing what is +called the O. T. or even on the canonisation of the whole collection. + +The startling assumptions of Wellhausen, Graf, and their Dutch colleagues +had their forerunners, as had Darwin and Wallace. But when George and +Vatke in the fourth decade of our century and Reuss, in his first +academic lectures, virtually anticipated the lines of research of their +later successors, the world was too busy with other matters to give their +labors much attention. (Cfr. this work, p. 8.) For all this, primitive +orthodoxy had only few representatives in this domain, at least in +Germany. While Hävernick and Keil and Hengstenberg, are ranged on the +extreme right of the line defending with all the resources of a vast +erudition the traditional views, the middle ground is occupied by such +men as Ewald, and Hitzig, and the teacher of these De-Wette, a school +of critics that to-day yet counts among its protagonists such men as +Dillmann and Schrader and Kittel. With Graf, a new era may be said to +have begun for Biblical criticism. Notwithstanding the violent opposition +encountered, the school has won the day. Its greatest triumph was perhaps +the acquiescence in its positions shortly before his death by that master +of Biblical science, Professor Delitzsch of Leipzig. What the cardinal +point of contention is between the warring camps, is well known. It is +the relative age and position of what is technically designated as the +Priestly code, in the Hexateuch. According to the new school this portion +is the capping stone of the edifice, as it were. For Dillmann it is +pre-exilic; for Wellhausen post-exilic. + +The book before us places itself without equivocation on the standpoint +of this latest criticism. It is thus another leaf in the laurel wreath +crowning the men of the new dispensation. For the name of the author is +guarantee of the scholarly character of the work; and views which have +the endorsement of a man of the renown and the scholarship of Professor +Cornill carry the presumption of having truth on their side. Professor +Cornill is however, a new-comer in this special field. His life work, as +he himself says, lies in another province of the vast realm of Biblical +critical studies. His fame is associated with his critical edition of +the text of Ezekiel, a work which will forever stand as the best guide +for all who would venture on the dangerous ground of conjectural textual +emendations. For Cornill was the first to lay down the method which above +all must be followed in so venturesome a task and his new version is the +classic illustration of the correctness of his method of proceeding. That +a man who has established for himself the reputation of being methodic +and painstaking almost to a fault, a man who is dowered with critical +acumen of the highest order, should after going anew over the whole +ground cast the weight of his scholarly authority in favor of the views +of the new critical school is a fact the significance of which cannot be +blinked. We are indeed glad that the publishers entrusted this number of +their intended series of manuals for theological students, to a scholar +who had hitherto not written _ex cathedra_ on this particular subject. +Thus was ensured a new and impartial examination of all the points +involved. + +The ends which this series of manuals is to serve, decided of course the +style and scope of this work. Of introductions (_Einleitungen_) to the O. +T. there was no scarcity; but (see preface) they were either too bulky +and too full and thus did not answer the requirements of the student, +not yet a scholar; or they were too brief, mere “ponies” as we here in +America would say, intended to be learnt by heart for the purpose of +passing a good examination. The difficulty thus consisted in combining +thoroughness with the necessary brevity without sacrificing lucidity. +No mere results on the other hand were to be stated. The student was to +be initiated into the course of the investigations, the reasons for the +conclusions and thus his interest was to be awakened and the way prepared +for independent research on his own part. That the author has succeeded +in carrying out this his programme, every section of the book confirms. +His fear that the full analysis in paragraph 12, of the priestly code +will be found to be out of place in an “outline of this kind” is +groundless. We do not hesitate that this very section is the gem of the +whole work full as it is of numerous passages which cannot but stir to +profitable reflection the student. None can lay this book aside without +confessing that he has gained a “Gesammtanschauung,” an insight into +the unity and coherence of the new views, apt to convince all earnest +and unbiased minds of the truth that in this science (_Wissenschaft_) +criticism is standing on firm ground. In the selection of the books +named at the head of each chapter, or in the course of the discussion, +the Professor has displayed most consummate skill. There is scarce one +important work which with profit may be consulted but is mentioned; and +what is more in the right connection. This feature is not the least +valuable in the whole work; the student thus has at ready command a +bibliography which excludes the chaff and stores the wheat. + +But let us dwell a little more specifically on the plan and execution +and the contents of this book. Two plans may suggest themselves to +the writer of an “introduction” of this kind. He may attempt to give +a picture of the rise of literature among the ancient Hebrews and +treat of the different writings which have come down to us, often the +fragments of larger works, in the order of their composition and at the +same time connect with this discussion the reasons for departing from +the traditional views as to their dates and so forth and for assigning +them to a new age. This would be virtually writing a history of the +literature. It is this plan which Reuss adopted. But according to our +Professor, investigation has not proceeded far enough to make such a +history possible. He even doubts whether it ever will (p. 2). Perhaps his +verdict is justified. At all events he is right when he urges that in +such a sequence much which belongs to the branch which he is to teach, +will scarcely find its proper or organic place. And therefore it was a +wise conclusion of his to adhere to the second plan, the traditional, for +such _Einleitungen_ which treats of the different books in the order of +the Hebrew canon and finally takes up the discussion of such questions +as the collection of the canon, the condition of the text, the different +ancient versions and their value for the reconstruction, if possible, of +the true original. But what is an _Einleitung_? It is that theological +“discipline” which concerns itself about holy scripture as a book. It is +its business to fix the time when and the manner how the several writings +were composed, which now collectively form the holy scriptures, again it +is one of its main objects to understand at what period and under what +conditions the several writings were collected and also the manner of +the tradition of this collection down to us. The method of this inquiry +can be none other but the historic critical. To this definition of the +character of this discipline, to retain this German name, none will take +exception. It is both succinct and complete. The second paragraph gives a +full survey of the history of the studies in this field. It covers within +the brief space of ten pages the results of scholarly labors extending +over a period of over fourteen hundred years. It is not a dry enumeration +of names and book titles. Under each scholar, the salient element of his +contribution is emphasised. The living principle of these studies is thus +illustrated in its growth and successive development. Take for instance +this description of Wellhausen’s method, and in a similar manner that +of all other predecessors or co-laborers is brought out: “At the hand +of the history of the cultus and that of tradition, he shows how these +two lines of development run parallel to each other, how the religious +process of evolution at every halt and turn finds its expression and at +the same time its corroboration in the productions of literature: Israel +and Judaism are two concepts radically different from each other; it is +the canon that differentiates Judaism from old Israel.” Paragraph three +states the author’s reasons for treating the single books first before +taking up the discussion of their collection into a canon, and also why +the apocrypha are excluded. These not being in the canon, are foreign to +the purposes of an introduction into the canon books. None will deny that +the Professor’s arguments on these points are irrefutable. His inquiry +into the age of the art of writing among the Hebrews concludes this +general preliminary. He is of the opinion that as far back as the memory +of the Hebrews goes, they were acquainted with this art as nowhere there +is a sign that among them there was a dim recollection of an analphabetic +period. Recent finds have made it plain that during the reign of the +Pharaoh of the exodus a lively correspondence was kept up between +Palestine and Egypt, while for the reign of David the names of his court +officials is documentary proof that there were writers at his court. The +use of the pen must have been pretty general among the people as is shown +by Judges viii, a chapter which belongs to the oldest layer of historical +compositions. + +Our space is too limited to abstract every chapter of this remarkable +book. Much as we should like to do this, and especially as in this +manner alone we can hope to do justice to its merits, we must confine +ourselves, now that we come to the “special introduction” to a few +selections taken from the discussion of the main points in reference to +books which have been the centre of critical study. The Pentateuch as +is natural receives the lion’s share of the author’s attention. We have +no hesitancy in saying that his is the best exposition of the modern +views which has yet come under our notice. The Pentateuch cannot be the +work of Moses; internal evidence, as already pointed out by Aben Esra, +Hobbes, Peyrerius, and Spinoza, render the traditional assumption of +Mosaic authorship untenable. But the Pentateuch cannot be the work of +one author. The critical labors of one and a half century, sketched +most skillfully, has made it plain that the Pentateuch has been “worked +together” from four independent original writings, (_Quellenschriften_) +a yahwistic work, J. an elohistic, E. a Deuteronomistic D. and a +priestly which after Kuenen is denoted as P. On this general division +the scholars are agreed, the relative age of the separate parts alone +is yet under controversy. In paragraph seven an analysis is given of +the first four books as assigned to the three sources. Deuteronomy +occupies a position of its own. It is characteristically different in +language and thought from the others; it is something essentially new +and is in itself homogeneous. In the main Deuteronomy is the book of +the covenant mentioned in II. Kings xxiii; this original D. is now +incorporated in chapters xii, xiii, xiv-xvii, where however certain +verses and even parts of verses must be eliminated. Perhaps xxviii, or +as Professor Cornill argues, something more succinct but of the same +general nature, a curse, may have belonged to the original D. This must +have been the book published under such extraordinary circumstances +in 621. Who is its author? It presents itself as the work of Moses. +But this is characteristic of the tendency of the age to take a great +man as the father of a new literary production, a tendency which was +perfectly well understood and was far above the level of a literary +deception. Its early manifestation in D. is merely proof that even then +Moses was among the people the law-giver _par excellence_. The author +of D. must be looked for in the circle of the pious who in consequence +of Manasse’s retrogression were bound all the more closely unto each +other. In other words among the men of the prophetic party, who must have +had influence also over certain priestly orders, for D. is a compromise +and an alliance between the prophets and the priests. Besides these +components of original D. the book contains in its present form additions +and duplicates which partly are historical and hence are denoted by +D.h, partly parenetic, hence D.p; but again in these are many later +interpolations. For the particulars in this regard, we must refer to the +work of Cornill itself. His analysis displays a keen eye and will on the +whole be sure to be accepted as final. The date of D. being 621, what +is the time of the other great sources of the present Pentateuch. It +is clear that D. is acquainted with the “book of the covenant” Ex. xx, +23.-xxiii, 33. and with both Decalogues (?). Thus it was acquainted with +JE. P. on the other hand is totally unknown. The historical portions of +D. confirm this deduction from the legislative pieces. JE is clearly +known to D. while of a knowledge of P. there is not the least trace. +How far back of 621 may we go to fix the date of both J. and E.? The +period of the first kings seem to be the limit, or more particularly +the reign of David. But which of the two is the elder, J. or E.? There +can be no question that J. is. For he is more naïve as appears from +a comparison among others of chapters Gen. xx, 1-17, xxi 22-32 which +belong to E., with chapter Gen. xxvi. 1-33 which is J.’s. E. appears +to be a theological recasting of J. E. is the work of the Northern +kingdom. Joseph always appears as the leader of his brothers and other +features confirm this impression. The year 722, when in the Northern +realm national consciousness was at its high water mark may then be +supposed to be the _terminus ad quem_. But is E. as we have it a literary +unit? Kuenen has proven that it is not. A century after its original +composition a second edition so to speak must have been made with a +view to meet the requirements and prejudices of the Judaic population +of the South. Ex. chapters 32-33, are of great decisive importance in +this connection. They are a rebuke for the golden calf worship at Dan +and Bethel. Thus E. is divided again into two E.1 and E.2, to which come +yet other later amplifications f. i. Num. xxi, 32-35. E.1 then belongs +to the reign of Jeroboam II (750); and E.2 is the work of a later author +living in Judah and under the influence of prophetic ideas. The locality +of J. is a point of controversy. Cornill sides with those who maintain +that his home is the Southern kingdom of Judah. The incidents in the +Patriarchal biographies which seem to weaken such an assumption are +explained as original traits of tradition which J. had no interest to +change. J. again is not a literary unit; it compromises J.1, J.2, and +even J.3. The reasons for these subdivisions are clearly given in the +book. J. must have been composed in its different parts between 850-625. +The priestly code occupies a whole paragraph, the signal merit of which +we have noticed above. This is indeed the master-piece of a great +critical master. The many points which are involved in the discussion of +this mooted problem are treated with a clearness and a calmness which +carry conviction to the most sceptical. P. presents a spiritual unity +but not a literary. P. is the offspring of P.1 an old priestly record +and P.2 a narrative and legislative composition which is as it were +the substance and skeleton of P. around which younger accretions have +gathered at different times for which Cornill in order to simplify his +symbols proposes the designation of P.x. J. S. Vater as early as 1805 has +proven that in the so-called Mosaism, of the influence in literary and +legislative respect of our P. there is no evidence before the captivity. +Wellhausen and Kayser and Kuenen have demonstrated what for Vatke was a +dim suspicion. Dillmann, Kittel, and Delitzsch as little as Baudissin +have succeeded in saving the pre-exilic character of P. Certain it is +that before Esra 458 (444), this code had no official recognition. From +Nehemiah we have the proof that our P. corresponds to the “Book of the +Law of Moses” which was read at the great assembly in October 444. On the +other hand the book of Chronicles is based on P. as it details history, +as it would have been, if P. had been the law regulating life and liturgy +and temple service. Had P. been known before D. what reason should the +priest have had who promulgated it to substitute for it another code +less advantageous for his own order? P. is clearly a development of +D. D. presents itself as something new in all of its demands, in its +insistence on centralisation, in one sanctuary and in one priestly order +on the legitimacy of the tribe of Levi exclusively. Of the tabernacle +there is not one syllable in the whole of the pre-exile literature. +It is a clear projection into antiquity of the Deuteronomic Central +sanctuary. The relations of P. to Ezekiel make this still plainer. This +prophet is the link of transition between D. and P. The omissions in the +festal cycle of E. can only be explained that this prophet-priest was +unacquainted with P. The captivity is thus the time for the composition +of P. in the main. Its emphasis on circumcision as the sign of the +covenant which decides the connection with the chosen seed and nation, +is proof of this. And the chronology finally corroborates all previous +inferences as the chronology of Genesis which is so important a part +of P. is unmistakably a reconstruction after certain principles of the +Babylonian history of the beginnings. (Oppert.) P. was written during +the century from Ezekiel to Esra (570-458). It was not merely P.2 that +Esra read before the assembled people. P.1 and P.2 seem thus to have +been united even at this time. But it is not to be assumed that under +Esra P. was already a part of the other portions of our Pentateuch. P. +itself contains parts which are later than Esra. P.x is undoubtedly +later and these additions are easily explained on the very assumption +of the official introduction of P. P. is not the work of an individual; +it is that of a whole school, a school which naturally formed in the +captivity. Besides these “source-writings,” the Pentateuch contains +smaller pieces of great antiquity mostly of a poetic character which +had for a long time an independent existence. Such is Gen. xlix, Exodus +xv, and others. Exodus xxi-xxiii, the so-called book of the covenant, +requires also a treatment by itself. It is characteristic of this book +that it ignores totally the Decalogue. Kuenen has solved the difficulties +in which this collection of judicial precedents is involved by pointing +out that it is the predecessor of D. D. is merely the substitute for +this. As it is older than E. and is the precipitate of the unwritten law +of the earlier kingly period, we place its date in the ninth century. +Lev. xvii-xxvi while betraying in many regards affinity with P. is still +distinct from it. It stands between Ezekiel and P.; it is one of the many +priestly Thoroth which undoubtedly were current among the class whom +they concerned. How now did these component parts finally combine? This +is elucidated in paragraph fourteen. First J. and E. were put together, +by an editor of Jehovistic leanings, whom Wellhausen has styled Rj. (R. +standing for German Redacteur, Editor). This Rj. worked over, and that +often decidedly, his materials in keeping with his own convictions. This +Rj. probably lived about 650. His position is pre-deuteronomic. A second +editor combined the work of Rj. with D. He is designated as Rd. His +was the placing of the old book of the covenant near Sinai in order to +gain room for Deuteronomy. He thus became the cause of much confusion. +He lived during the second half of the Babylonian captivity. JED. was +finally combined with P. by a third editor (Rp.) who is characterised by +considerable reverence for the old documents. He omitted much to guard +against repetition but at the same time where the relations differed he +preserved them most faithfully and endeavored to place them into their +proper position and connection. Rp. was thus virtually the author of our +Pentateuch. But living after Esra even with him the Pentateuch was not +yet closed. Many younger hands had a share in its final shaping. Glosses +were added or crept into the text, as is shown by comparison with the +lxx. The book of Joshuah is a necessary continuation and complement of +the Pentateuch. + +But here we must stop quoting in detail. Much as we should desire to +reproduce Cornill’s own words relating to other Biblical books, want +of space precludes even the attempt. Suffice it to say that as in his +treatment of the Pentateuch, so every question bearing on Biblical +criticism is handled with the skill of the master. At whatever turn we +ask information of this book we receive it most abundantly. This is +indeed a students book. It stimulates while it instructs. It leads while +it describes the road passed over. In the discussion of the critical +problems on the Psalms, the prophets Isaiah and Zechariah, on the final +collection of the canon, the translation of the Bible and the relation of +the different recensions to each other, the historical books as distinct +from Chronicles, and Esra, and so forth, every point is treated with a +lucidity of style and a fulness of material which is the rare gift of +a man who is saturated with his science and loves it for its own sake. +This book is destined to rank among the classics. Its earnest study and +repeated consultation can therefore be recommended to all who wish to +inform themselves about the method and the achievements of the critical +schools. The kindred book by Driver, recently published will not make +a translation into English of Cornill’s manual less desirable. We take +leave from the author with a feeling of great gratitude for the pleasure +and the profit we derived from his contribution to the literature of +Biblical scholarship. The book is well printed and singularly free from +typographical errors. + + DR. E. G. HIRSCH. + + +THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES. An Inaugural Lecture. +By _Andrew Seth_, M. A. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. +1891. + +As stated by the author, this lecture deals, not with the circle of +the philosophical sciences, but only with the subjects traditionally +associated with a Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in Scotland. +These subjects belong to the three-fold classification of logical, +psychological, and metaphysical, or philosophical in the strict sense. +They therefore embrace the study of the conditions to which valid +reasoning must conform, the investigation, introspectively and otherwise, +of the phenomena of consciousness, and the study of the two-fold question +of knowing and being, which as epistemology and metaphysics are included +under the designation of Philosophy. These three lines of learning are +cognate, and the first two are in a measure introductory to the third, or +at least, says Professor Seth, if we go beneath the surface they lead us +into the very heart of philosophical difficulties. The lecturer refers in +his sketch of the present outlook in these three departments of science +to the marvellous activity displayed in the department of psychology. All +the influences at work may be said to meet and come to fruition in Mr. +Ward’s “masterly treatise” in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” and “the rich +and stimulating volumes” of Professor James, of Harvard. Experimental +psychology is now widely spread in Germany and has been enthusiastically +taken up in America, “where every well-equipped college aims at the +establishment of a psychological or psycho-physical laboratory.” +Professor Seth thinks, however, that the experimental psychologists +magnify their office overmuch. The field of experiment is necessarily +limited to the facts of sensation, the phenomena of movement, and the +time occupied by the simpler mental processes. The results are often +so contradictory as to leave everything in doubt, and where definite +results are obtainable, their value is often not apparent. Moreover, +many of the results are of a purely physiological nature, and are only +by courtesy included in psychological science. We would remark on this, +that without the experiments the results would not have been obtained +and that their value will become apparent when the methods of experiment +are perfected. After referring to the critical function of philosophy as +a doctrine of knowledge, Professor Seth states that as constructive it +should lay special stress on a _teleological_ view of the universe. By +this is meant, that philosophical teleology should concentrate itself +upon the proof that there is an end of evolution, “that there is an +organic unity or purpose binding the whole process into one and making +it intelligible—in one word, that there _is_ evolution and not merely +aimless change,” such as is supposed in a purely mechanical view of the +universe. As to the nature of the end, although the lecturer accepts +Hegel’s view that all things are relative to man as rational, he cannot +accept “the abstraction of the race in place of the living children of +men.” + + Ω. + + +DER MENSCHLICHE WELTBEGRIFF. By Dr. _Richard Avenarius_, Ord. Professor +der Philosophie an der Universität Zürich. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland. 1891. + +This monograph is as it were a self-confession. The author endeavors +to attain clearness in his own philosophical standpoint. He looked +back upon the path he has traveled and feels that “the solution of +the problem-attained is fundamentally a personal self-liberation” +(Preface, ix). This book is most commendable reading to all idealists +and agnostics. It is an interesting and instructive little work, +tracing with a keen psychological criticism the vagaries of certain +philosophical conceptions, through which not alone the author but the +thinkers of mankind in general have strayed. The philosopher begins +with what Avenarius calls the “natural world-conception.” But this +natural world-conception leads to contradictions and the evil spirit of +speculation leads us in a circle through the barren fields of idealism. +Avenarius asks: “Is the world really of such a nature that it appears +unitary and consistent only to the superficial thinker, while it +leads every one astray who attempts to grasp it more precisely in its +entirety—the more so the more consistently the thinker proceeds?” (p. +xiii.) + +The author proposes the question: “In what consists the inevitableness +of the contradiction to which every general world-conception seems to +have led? Or, if the world really be unitary what is the evil spirit that +leads those astray who hunger and thirst after a true cognition of the +world?” + +The author has entirely abandoned the idealistic standpoint, an +inclination to which he showed in his first publication, “Philosophie +als Denken der Welt gemäss dem Princip des kleinsten Kraftmasses.” +He says: “Doubt of the correctness of my way heretofore pursued was +induced through the barrenness of theoretical idealism in the field +of psychology; and yet cognition and experience should belong to this +science as psychological ideas.” + +The author in explaining the development of thought as it takes place in +man proceeds in a personal way, so much so that every idealist ought to +be satisfied. There are whole pages which teem with _ME_’s and _I_’s. +The method of notation is what might be called American. Europeans often +complain about our abbreviations, the Y. M. C. A., the S. A. S., the C. +B. & Q. Ry., etc., which are great puzzles to the uninitiated new-comer. +In a similar way Avenarius introduces such algebraic signs as _R_ and +_E_, which means reality and the sensations which our fellow-men are +supposed to have. _M_ is Man, _T_ is fellow-man. _T₁_ is the bodily +appearance of _T_, it is _R_; while _T₂_ is the _E_ of _T_, i. e. his +soul or spirit. _C_ is the nervous central organ, etc. Thus Avenarius +says (p. 18): + +“I can in a relative consideration assume _R_ to be the condition of +changes in the _E_ values, supposed to exist in _M_, only if _M_ and in +_M_ the system _C_ are parts of my supposition,” and in a note (p. 117) +he adds: + +“The skeleton in Goethe’s poem, ‘The Dead’s Dance,’ scents without an +organ of smell, sees without eyes, thinks without a brain; it also +moves without muscles. To consider such acts as true is now universally +declared to be superstition. The time will come when the assumption of +psychical phenomena without the coördination of the system _C_ will +universally be considered in the same way.” + +The first three chapters remind us very much of W. K. Clifford’s article +“On the Nature of Things in Themselves.” But the article is nowhere +mentioned and it is most probable that it is unknown to the author. If +Avenarius had known Clifford’s view, he might have presented his ideas +with more economy of space. But if he did not know Clifford’s article, +the coincidences of procedure and to a great extent also of the result +attained are the more remarkable. What Avenarius calls the _E_ values are +termed by Clifford “ejects,” and the formation of ejects is called by +Avenarius “introjection.” + +On page 52 we read the following sentence on the three phases of the +cognition of the data of experience: + +“The first phase alone, that of ingenuous empiricism, cognises, i. +e. explains the totality of these facts without the assistance of +a non-sensible ... the second that of ingenuous realism conceives +the non-sensible as supersensible, and the third, that of ingenuous +criticism, as the pre-sensible. The epithet ingenuous has reference to +the foundation, not to the doctrinary system built upon it. That which +makes the said realism and criticism ingenuous is a survival of the +ingenuous empiricism.” + +The theory which conceives the external cause of an experience as an +object, effecting _in_ the subject sensations, passes successively +through the following views. The object is said to be (1) not within +the range of experience, (2) not within the range of cognition, (3) +not-existing. Thus it reaches _via_ agnosticism its climax in idealism +and “pure experience becomes a something that is never truly experienced, +it becomes the totality of mere or pure sensations” (p. 62). + +The third part of the pamphlet is devoted to “the restitution of the +natural world-idea.” Here the author comes, at least in some expressions, +very close to the solution editorially upheld in _The Monist_. Avenarius +says: “The task is ... to _describe_ the what of my experience so as to +make a practical application of it in my dealings with my fellow-men” (p. +79). + +Professor Avenarius sums up his conclusions in the term “empirio-critical +principal-coördination” which he defines as the inseparability of +the ego-experience from the surrounding experience. “The ego and the +surrounding belong in the same sense to every experience. It is a +co-ordination peculiar to all experience” (p. 83). If we understand +Avenarius correctly he means to say, to express it in our terms, that +there is no object but there is a subjective aspect of it, no subject but +it appears objectively. Thus there is no subjectivity in itself and there +is no objectivity in itself. This is exactly our position, which we call +Monism. + +The “introjection” was according to Avenarius the evil spirit that led +speculation astray. To get rid of this evil spirit the proposition is +made to discard “introjection” and replace it by the empirio-critical +principal-coördination. But closely considered the latter is only +an improved modification of the former, and this plan would better +be characterised as discarding the error implied in that kind of +introjection theory which assumes that sensations alone are given. The +data of experience are not mere feelings, not mere subjectivity, as +is maintained by the idealist; nor are they mere objectivity, as is +maintained by the ingenuous realist; the data of experience are states +of subject-objectness, they are feelings of a certain kind possessing +objective significance, and the ideas subject as well as object are +abstractions made in a late stage of mental development from this one +inseparable whole of subject-objectness (see _The Monist_ I, No. 1, pp. +78-79). + +Avenarius says in a note (p. 132), “The question should not be ‘Why do we +believe in the reality of an external world?’ but ‘Why did we not believe +that the external world is real?’” We should say that neither question +is admissible. We should first ask: What do we mean by real? Reality is +the sum total of our experiences, including the meaning of sensations +and ideas, and finds its special application in their reliability. The +question, Is the candle I see real? means, Does it react in special ways? +Every name of a special object signifies a certain group of actions or +reactions observable by the subject. This is what we _call_ real and the +idealist would have to deny the existence of his own experience to deny +the reality of objects in this sense. + +Avenarius’s books are not easy reading to the English and American +student, for his style is sometimes heavy and his constructions are +involved. So are his thoughts. But his thoughts show the earnest thinker; +the evolution of his views goes in the right direction and his works +deserve the attention of his co-workers in the philosophical field. + + κρς. + + +DIE BEDEUTUNG DER THEOLOGISCHEN VORSTELLUNGEN FÜR DIE ETHIK. By Dr. +_Wilhelm Paszkowski_. Berlin: Mayer & Müller. 1891. + +Religion originates everywhere, according to the author, in the +self-consciousness of man who feels himself an acting and willing being +limited by and dependent upon greater and higher powers. The religious +relation consists in the regulation of his actions as well as his will +with reference to the ordinances of these powers. Dr. Paszkowski lets +all the best known religions pass in review before our eyes, tracing +in all of them the connection between the properly religious elements +and morality and singling out those religious factors which are most +effective in determining man’s will in a moral way. In the second part +of the little volume he endeavors to show in how far the ecclesiastical +organisation of religion in dogma and cult have strengthened and in how +far they have weakened this result. + +Concerning the most important dogma, which is the belief in immortality, +Paszkowski declares that it had its undoubted effects favorable and +unfavorable upon the social and moral life of mankind. It has prevented +some crimes while it has enhanced others. The question is, he says, +whether an individual immortality such as the religions usually picture +it, is tenable or not. Modern science and anthropology seem to have +proved it an illusion. Yet, as Paulsen says, the belief in immortality is +not a mere imagination. Every reality and so also man’s life is eternal. +It is nonsensical to think of death as a finality. That which has been +alive is a necessary, an eternal and inexpugnable part of reality and can +never again be blotted out. Through death the continuance of a man’s life +is cut off, but the contents of his life can never again be annihilated. +The real is in its very nature eternal. Paszkowski adds to Paulsen’s +remarks that man should find the norm of moral action in his relation to +his fellow-men and posterity, so that morality need not depend upon any +religious views. He will also have to act morally after he has resigned +the belief in the reality of the beautiful immortality-dream as it is +presented by enthusiastic religiosity. + +It appears to us that if the usual conception of immortality is +scientifically untenable it devolves upon the moral teacher to present an +immortality conception that is tenable. The true immortality conception +will never enhance crimes, it will always have a favorable effect upon +the morality of mankind. Furthermore man’s relation to mankind and also +to the universe is of a religious nature. The social order to which +man has to conform is one part of those powers a recognition of which +constitute religion. If these powers are conceived to be outside the +world we have a supernatural deity, if they are the highest, best, +and greatest of, and in the world itself, we have an immanent deity +and ethics still remains intimately connected with and dependent upon +religion. + +This it appears must be after all the author’s meaning, for he says in +prominent print, p. 89: “So long as there are men religion will not +cease, for it is one of the constitutional elements of human nature.” “In +the same measure as religion becomes spiritual, the moral conceptions +also will be purified, the mere ceremonial and the cult-element will lose +their importance in religion” (p. 92). “To divide the ethical factor from +the religious, as a matter of principle, will be seen to be impossible. +We can only conciliate the one with the other, both having originated out +of the same source of emotions” (p. 90). + + κρς. + + +DAS WAHRNEHMUNGSPROBLEM VOM STANDPUNKTE DES PHYSIKERS, DES PHYSIOLOGEN +UND DES PHILOSOPHEN. Beiträge zur Erkenntnisstheorie und empirischen +PSYCHOLOGIE. By Dr. _Hermann Schwarz_. Leipsic: Duncker & Humbolt 1892. + +Dr. Hermann Schwarz treats the most fundamental problem of +philosophy—viz. that of perception. He says in the preface: “There is +a triple state of facts to which obvious yet strange as it appears to +thought, the attention of the naturalist and the philosopher is drawn: +the physical, the physiological, the psychical.” The physical is the +empire of mechanical motion that can be observed with great accuracy to +take place everywhere. The physiological is the fact that when certain +impressions produce mechanical effects upon the nerves, the result +consists in certain sense-data; nervous action is accompanied with +sensation. The psychical state of things exhibits the fact that whether +or not we want it to be so, colors, sounds, odors, tastes, and touches +are always referred to external things, never to the own internal states +of the mind. Every one of these facts is strange in itself, for every +one represents the contrary of what might be expected _a priori_. Who +would expect that the machine-like world of jostling atoms and the +glorious world of colors and sounds should have anything in common? And +the sense-organs appear to the physiologist as mere physical apparatuses +modifying the ether-vibrations somehow. We do not see on the one hand how +consciousness can acquire information concerning the external world and +on the other hand, how motions can develop something so heterogeneous +as is consciousness. If we were confronted with one set of facts only, +everything would be plain, but this triple set of facts produces a +problem, it makes an explanation necessary and to this explanation Dr. +Schwarz has devoted a careful investigation of some four hundred and odd +pages. + +Schwarz distinguishes two elements in what he calls “ingenuous realism,” +(1) its methodology and (2) its metaphysics. The methodology of physical +science consists in arranging the sense-data, while the metaphysics +assume that the objectivity of the sense-data is correctly represented +as “things, qualities, and effects.” Natural science arrived at a +scepsis of the usual metaphysics of naïve realism by a correction of the +ingenuous-realistic method, and Kant by critically investigating the +background or frame of its theory of cognition. The question is, What is +altered by physical science in the conception of ingenuous realism, what +by physiology, what by philosophy and why? + +In the consciousness of an ingenuous realist the data of touch receive a +preference over those of the other senses, which is due to their greater +stability. The color of an object disappears, the sounds cease, while the +objects remain comparatively the same things to the sense of touch. Thus +they are considered as the real objects having certain qualities which +produce the phenomena of the other senses. This view is called by Schwarz +the first methodological dogma of ingenuous realism. The second dogma is +the conception that sense-data are considered as relatively permanent. So +colors are conceived to exist objectively in the dark, an error which has +been sufficiently explained by Helmholtz in his “Physiological Optics,” +§ 26. The third dogma completes the second; it is the view that the +relative permanence or disappearance of the qualities of objects depends +upon causes. Fire is said to be the cause which makes a wire red-hot. The +ingenuous realist knows no reciprocal causation, no action and reaction, +no _Wechselwirkung_. He assumes in addition to the objects certain +force-beings which are regarded as the causes of all change. The sun is +said to produce light. + +Schwarz explains very well how this view of ingenuous realism naturally +arises and also how in the progress of thought it naturally corrects +itself. Suppose there were thinking beings with whom smell took the +place of touch and sight, would not their world-conception be based upon +the data of the sense of smell as is ours upon the data of mechanical +motions? If the females of a certain butterfly (_Frostspanner_) are +caught in the country and placed at a great distance in some house of +the city, the males will be seen on the next morning in great numbers +fluttering before the window of the room in which the females are kept. +What a perfection of the sense of smell while the senses of touch and +sight are very poorly developed! The dog owes his intelligence mainly +to the development of the sense of smell. Would not beings whose +intelligence is mainly due to the sense of hearing rather attempt to hear +the world than to grasp or comprehend it,—to _behorchen_ rather than to +_begreifen_? + +Ingenuous realism is not consistent, and its methodology leads to +alterations of its metaphysics. We shall have to attribute either to +all the sense-data objective reality or to none of them. The data of +touch cannot be treated as exceptions and thus we have the alternative +either to return from our scepsis to realism, not to the ingenuous but +to a critically modified view of it, or to adopt the extremest form of +idealism, be it that of Berkeley or the subjectivism of Fichte. + +The author (not unlike Professor Avenarius in his book “Der menschliche +Weltbegriff”) takes the former view. He says in the concluding chapter +(_Die Mängel der Ding-an-sich-Hypothese_): “This view, viz. that of +ingenuous realism, will in the end of our inquiry be seen to be not only +the most natural, and practically considered the most useful metaphysical +theory, but also that conception which is freest from all theoretical +obscurities” (p. 381). + +We believe that the book which contains much valuable material, would +have been more useful than it actually is, if a chapter had been added +containing a summary of the whole inquiry and delineating in great +outlines the critically modified form of realism whose most appropriate +name we should say is monism—not materialism or mechanicalism which +allows all facts to be swallowed up by the conception that the world +consists only of matter in motion, but that monism which is a unitary +view of the whole, mindful of the fact that the sense-data as well as our +concepts are one-sided aspects only of the one and all. If we bear this +truth in mind we shall avoid from the beginning the three dogmas (alias +errors) of ingenuous materialism. + + κρς. + + +DIE ENTWICKELUNG DES CAUSALPROBLEMS IN DER PHILOSOPHIE SEIT KANT. Studien +zur Orientirung über die Aufgaben der Metaphysik und Erkenntnisslehre. +(Part II.) By Dr. _Edmund Koenig_. Leipsic: Otto Wigand. + +The present work forms the conclusion of a volume published by Dr. Koenig +in 1888, entitled _Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems von Cartesius +bis Kant_. This same subject is here pursued in the history of modern +philosophy since Kant. + +The problem of causality, according to Dr. Koenig, has two aspects, an +epistemological and a metaphysical. The pre-Kantian efforts dealt chiefly +with the latter, the post-Kantian more principally with the former. The +latter, the metaphysical question, is, How do things in the world of +reality produce effects in one another? The former, or that which relates +to the theory of knowledge, is, (1) What is the logical foundation of +the idea of causality, what do we imply when we set up two objects +as cause and effect, and (2) By what right and to what extent are we +justified in imputing to the axiom of causality an objective validity? +With respect to the latter, the epistemological, point of view, Hume and +Kant believed they had established indisputably that experience as given +does not furnish sufficient grounds either for the idea or the axiom of +causality. On the other hand, others, like Maine de Biran, Schopenhauer, +and Trendelenburg, hold, that causality is given us in experience, that +we apprehend the causal relation subsisting between things, together with +the things. Herbart maintains that the idea of the causal relation has +been reached by the logical elaboration of experience in conformity with +the general laws of logical thought. Mill and Spencer see in this idea an +element that goes beyond experience, but justify it only psychologically, +not logically. According to Lotze, Riehl, Wundt, v. Hartmann, Volkelt, +the idea is either wholly or partly of intellectual origin. Finally, +Comte and a few modern scientists look upon the idea of causality as +logically valueless and scientifically superfluous. + +This is, in brief, the opinions of the greatest thinkers whom Koenig +treats of, respecting the logical composition of the idea of causality. +But another question, that namely as to the character of the relation +in which in the causal judgment the notions of the concrete causes +and their effects exist, is one closely allied with this. Some hold, +(Trendelenburg, Goering, Herbart, Hamilton, Spencer,) that the relation +is one of identity; others that it is synthetical. This aspect is also +developed in connection with the last-named thinkers. + +With respect to the axiom of causality, we find diametrically opposed to +each other the doctrines of empiricism and apriorism; but a number of +intermediate opinions have also established themselves. Of the first, +Schopenhauer, Lotze, and Volkelt are representatives, but only the theory +of the first-named is developed at length. The empiricism of Mill and +Goering meets with exhaustive treatment, as does the opposed view of +Laas, Riehl, and Wundt and the conciliatory view of Spencer. + +With respect to the metaphysical aspect of the question, above-mentioned, +we find the modes of conception of phenomenalism and realism opposed. +The latter only is, in the nature of its doctrine, required to explain +ontologically the coming about of the causal relation in reality; the +former does not recognise Being in itself, and hence there can be no +causal connection of such. Schopenhauer’s attempt (the view of the +forces of nature as the emanation of a Universal Will), and the splendid +ontological theories of Herbart and Lotze are regarded by Dr. Koenig +as being no more a solution of the problem than were the efforts of +their famous predecessors Spinoza, Malebranche, and Leibnitz. These +dogmatic realists, as Koenig calls them, proceed from the assumption of +the knowableness of the absolute; opposed to them, in this regard, are +Spencer, Von Hartmann, and Volkelt, the critical realists, the first of +whom gives an ontology that is a vague and metaphysical rendering of the +principle of the conservation of energy, the two last of whom impute a +transcendental ontological significance to the idea of causality. + +The connection, Dr. Koenig concludes, is thus apparent and definite +between the metaphysical and epistemological divisions of the question. +The ontologist, unless he proceed dogmatically, must prove, that +the notion of causality in the form in which critical analysis has +established it as a valid and indispensable empirical idea, calls +inevitably for the notion of an absolute reality and of a state of things +in that reality corresponding to the forms of the connection given. +Therefore, the logical analysis of the idea of causality is in any +philosophy, pre-eminently determinative of its whole position and bearing. + +On the whole, then, in the treatment of the problem forming the subject +of this work, four comparatively independent views are found opposed +to one another and considered in this opposition; viz., Sensualism and +Intellectualism, Positivism and Rationalism, Empiricism and Apriorism, +Realism and Phenomenalism. The author views the result of his researches +to be, the proof of the untenability of Sensualism, Rationalism, +Empiricism, and Realism, so far as this, by an historico-critical +analysis, is possible. + +This is but a brief sketch of the treatment pursued by the author. +The author’s own view has been barely hinted at. He is a Kantian. He +calls himself a “transcendental idealist.” Dr. Koenig’s developments, +appreciative, acute and pointed as they are, are too detailed and +exhaustive to be separately taken into discussion here; but we may +illustrate his point of view by a summary of a few remarks of his on the +ontological problem as solved by physics. They are as follows. + +The _natural_ modes of thought cling irresistibly to the notion of +a constant substratum; this being so, how does process, how does +change spring from an invariability of existence? Physical science +answers, by _force_; which exists as a constant potentiality of the +substratum, is now active, now latent. Dr. Koenig maintains that in +this physical science accomplishes nothing towards the solution of the +present problem; it does not by its notion of force make intelligible +the _acting_ of bodies on each other, for when it comes to define the +mode of action of force it involves itself in hopeless difficulties. +What is the consequence then, of this dilemma of science, where it can +neither render plain the “nature” of the material substratum, nor the +nature of “force,” which is, so to speak, the source of the activity of +the substratum? It is either agnosticism, which places limits to our +knowledge, and which Dr. Koenig rejects as unbecoming true thought, or +it is that theory which regards the phenomena alone as real and views +the concepts of theoretical physics as the mere shifts and helps of +thought whereby we bring the phenomena into connection with one another. +This latter view also Dr. Koenig cannot accept. His express contention +is, that we can interpret, _ontologically_, the phenomena of reality +by the notions of substance, force, etc.; he holds that the position +of transcendental idealism is the correct theory here, the position +namely that matter and force conceived as transcendent, independent +entities cannot be _thought away_, because substantiality and causality +are _forms_ of transcendental apperception, which alone can make +nature an object of cognition; matter and force must, for purposes of +empiric observation, of necessity possess the same reality as phenomena +themselves. + +In connection with this subject Dr. Koenig contests Mach’s doctrine, that +natural laws are simple economical descriptions of phenomena; he contends +that “law” is the foundation of natural science, and particularly so the +law of causality. + +This, however, does not say much. For the formal laws _in themselves_ +are empty. The law, the axiom of causality may, _a priori_, be without +exception; but this circumstance, the _conviction_ we may call it, +offers us no hold on nature. When we investigate nature we have to +perceive _definite facts_; about which we formulate particular laws or +statements. The law of causality, however, does not help us to _discern_ +the determinative facts or features of any phenomenon. It simply says +that _if_ we have hit upon the determinative facts and formulated a law +describing them, that law holds good throughout all nature. But what is +to tell us _what_ the characteristic and determinative features of a +given event are and when we have lighted on them? The law of causality? +Surely not. The law of causality cannot tell us that for falling bodies +_v_ = _gt_, i. e. that _t_ is decisive. It simply says that when once +this fact has been _discerned_ it holds universally good. But it would +have asserted the same thing with regard to Galileo’s first (false) +assumption, namely that _v_ = _Cs_. If, then, the law of causality cannot +tell us what those features are between which the causal connection is +assumed to exist, what is to tell us? Our observation simply, which +must be tested by experience. But our observation has no limits placed +to it except this, that it shall select some fact that _represents_ the +phenomenon and best and most easily enables _us_ to represent it. And +there is nothing that requires that there should be only _one_ feature +or _one_ aspect of an event by which it is representable; there may +be several, as the development of science proves. Accordingly, what +selection we make may depend on arbitrary and historical circumstances. +And this, as we take it, is Prof. Mach’s contention. If it is true, Dr. +Koenig’s criticism of Mach’s view does not hold in its whole extent. + +Dr. Koenig’s treatment of the separate representative thinkers is +exhaustive and in an eminent degree scientific. His work is distinguished +by accuracy and pointedness of characterisation, and by special +knowledge of great range. It is a valuable contribution which he has +given us, to the study of the theory of knowledge and metaphysics, and he +has been true to his promise, as we judge, critically to discuss and not +summarily to dispose of the opinions of others. + + μκρκ. + + +EINE NEUE DARSTELLUNG DER LEIBNIZISCHEN MONADENLEHRE AUF GRUND DER +QUELLEN. By _Eduard Dillmann_. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland, 1891. + +The author is an admirer of Leibnitz’s monadology which he considers +as “the most beautiful, most perfect fruit of philosophic thought and +the most glorious system to be found in the history of philosophy.” +This enthusiasm however is not shown in panegyrics but in a careful +investigation of the great master’s work and we should scarcely know +the attitude of the author toward the philosopher whose thoughts he +discusses, if he did not give vent to his feelings in a few sentences of +the concluding chapter. The rest of the book consists of purely critical +and historical studies by a sober and cool-headed scholar. Leibnitz’s +system as it is represented in our histories of philosophy and as it is +currently conceived lacks a unitary and leading idea, so that many of +its most fundamental propositions appear to be at variance. Mr. Dillmann +maintains that Leibnitz’s philosophy as it really is does not lack this +unity; he has made an extensive and most diligent study of Leibnitz’s +works and proves with great plausibility through the assistance of many +pertinent quotations the justice of his cause. + +Leibnitz’s monadology is according to Dillmann essentially a conciliatory +system. It attempts to reconcile the world-conceptions of his time. The +mechanical explanation of nature as it was proposed in modern times and +according to which all processes should be conceived as motions of bodies +is harmonised with the formalistic views of classical antiquity and of +the schoolmen which seeks for the causes of all phenomena in substantial +forms. In aiming at such a combination, he had to show that all single +phenomena of bodies and also their qualities had some ground and that +the principle of the body itself consisted in a substantial form. This +led him to conceive of bodies and of all things not as phenomena of an +external world but as representations in the mind, and thus an entirely +new standpoint was gained (p. 511). Representations are the inner states +of Monads (p. 318). Monads are substances because representations are +units; for representations are the many expressed in a unity (p. 319). +Every monad is a concentration of the universe (p. 313). It is as if God +had multiplied the universe as often as there are souls (p. 314). Every +substance is a little world in itself, expressing the great world of the +universe. The substance imitates in its little world what God does in the +universe (p. 313). + +Leibnitz’s God-idea has suffered most from a misconception of the +fundamental idea of his system. Dillmann declares that the traditional +view, especially Fischer’s, is in conflict with the philosopher’s own +words. While Fischer says that Leibnitz’s God has created the substances +and arbitrarily endowed them with their natures, Dillmann maintains on +the ground of ample quotations that Leibnitz considers the forms of all +possible existences as given: not even God can alter them. God however +can and did compare all possible worlds, and then created that which his +wisdom found to be the best world. “God,” says Leibnitz, “does not select +a general Adam, but such a one,” i. e. an individual Adam, “whose perfect +representation is found among all the possible beings which exist in +the ideas of God. The nature of every creature is determined by eternal +truths which are in the understanding of God independent of his will.” +“God’s decree consists alone in the decision arrived at after having +compared all possible worlds and having admitted into existence that one +which is the best of all.” + + κρς. + + +LEITFADEN DER PHYSIOLOGISCHEN PSYCHOLOGIE IN 14 VORLESUNGEN. By Dr. +_Th. Ziehen_, Docent in Jena. Mit 21 Abbildungen im Text. Jena: Gustav +Fischer. 1891. + +The merits of these 14 lectures on physiological psychology are +thoroughness, lucidity, and conciseness; the whole book is a pamphlet +of 174 pp. only. The method of presentation is in all its detail work +positive, stating the facts as they have been found to be by experience +and as they are corroborated by experiment. Upon the whole it is a good +résumé of the present state of knowledge. A translation would be very +desirable and it is to be hoped that some of our psychologists will +undertake the work. + +The contents are briefly as follows: I. Contents and scope of psychology. +II. Sensation, association, action. III. Stimulus, sensation. IV. +Taste, smell, touch. V. Hearing. VI. Vision. VII. Affective aspect of +sensation (pleasure and pain). VIII. Sensation, memory, concept. IX. +Association of ideas. X. Judgment and syllogism. XI. Attention, voluntary +thought, the ego (Ziehen says: “psychologically considered the simple +ego is a theoretical fiction,” p. 139). XII. Diseased thinking, sleep, +hypnosis. XIII. Action, expressive motions, language. XIV. Will, general +conclusions. + +Although Dr. Ziehen’s pamphlet is upon the whole an excellent treatise, +we cannot agree with the author in several questions which are of great +importance in their consequences. + +Dr. Ziehen acknowledges that the specifically nervous processes, a +sensible stimulus and a reaction, which latter is a motory effect, +cannot be explained from physical laws alone (p. 4). Yet at the same +time he denies that the fact that the reflexes are adapted to a purpose +(_Zweckmässigkeit_) proves the presence of a psychical parallelism. +“Pflüger,” he says, “was wrong in attributing for this reason to the +spinal cord a spinal-cord-soul.” The _Zweckmässigkeit_ of reflexes (i. +e. their being adapted to a purpose) has originated not otherwise than +the _Zweckmässigkeit_ of the color of the bird’s plumage, i. e. through +natural selection and inheritance. This argument might be admissible, +if we had not to account for the gradual origin of consciousness also. +There was a time when our personal consciousness did not exist, and there +was also a time when no conscious being lived upon the earth. Unless we +assume that consciousness suddenly appeared, creating out of its own +subjectivity alone the objective world which appears to us as what we +call matter in motion, we shall have to adopt some monistic view of the +subject. To consider the psychical states as known and the objectivity of +existence as utterly unknown is no monism. + +Dr. Ziehen is opposed to the idea of psychical parallelism which he +conceives to be dualism, but he proposes a spiritual monism in its stead, +the difficulties of which he does not explain. It is to be regretted +that Dr. Ziehen has not understood the main idea of the parallelism +doctrine. He says in a foot-note (p. 6): “In the most extreme way, but +with quite insufficient reasons Lewes has maintained the omnipresence +of consciousness.” This is a misstatement of Lewes’s view, which by the +bye is held by the reviewer also, although he confesses that the term +parallelism is inappropriate and leads to misunderstandings. The theory +of parallelism, (at least as the reviewer holds it) is not dualistic +but monistic. It implies that the subjectivity and objectivity of +existence are two different abstractions of one and the same reality. +Its parallelism is a parallelism of these two sets of abstraction, while +the reality from which they have been derived is one throughout. There +exist no subjects that are not objects to other subjects, and every +object admits of a subjective aspect. There is a something supposed to +be present throughout nature which under certain conditions appears as +consciousness. This certain something is called by Clifford elements +of feeling, by Lloyd Morgan metakinesis, it has been characterised in +the editorials of _The Monist_ as the subjectivity of existence, and +the presence of this something in the spinal cord was called by Pflüger +_Rückenmarksseele_. + +It appears to me that if we could explain the well adapted reaction of +nervous substance without assuming a psychical element in it, we could +explain the whole process of evolution and the historical development of +mankind, without the assumption of consciousness. Yet it is obvious that +even the explanation of the color of the bird’s plumage by the theory +of natural selection and heredity presupposes the presence of psychical +elements somewhere. Either the bird and his mates show a color sense, or +his enemies do, whose persecution he escapes, or the animals upon whom he +preys do. Man’s entire existence, physical and psychical, including his +feelings of pleasure and pain, can be explained by the theory of natural +selection and heredity; yet this is no proof that psychical elements do +not exist in him. + +It has become customary at present to define “psychical” as that only +which appears in states of consciousness, and to exclude subconscious and +unconscious states. Dr. Ziehen says: “Everything given in consciousness +and that alone is conscious” (p. 3). Yet he introduces after all the +expression “psychically latent,” “latent memory pictures,” and similar +expressions. Dr. Ziehen says, “We cannot even have a conception of that +which an unconscious idea can be”; yet what is a latent memory-picture +but an unconscious idea? + +There are two kinds of unconscious ideas: (1) Latent ideas. Every man’s +brain is full of latent ideas, i. e. of memory-pictures which are at +present unconscious but can become conscious at once if their activity +is roused by an appropriate stimulus. (2) Ideas unrelated to the +centre of consciousness. Those active ideas which, although at present +in a state of activity, are unrelated to the centre of consciousness +that constitutes the ego of the man, remain unconscious. Unconscious +cerebration (which takes place in dreams, in diseased brains and also in +certain phases of healthy brains being, as it were, a by-play of their +conscious activity) need not be destitute of feeling. Any pain may be +lessened when our attention is called away from it. The nervous disorder +remains the same, the feeling substance of the nervous structures in +which the pain was perceived also remains the same, its activity and +throbbing pulsations do not cease. Yet if we succeed in separating its +immediate relation to the centre of consciousness it sinks down into +subconsciousness. There is no reason for assuming that the feeling, no +longer perceived, is wiped out entirely. + +While Dr. Ziehen’s pamphlet is a presentation of the results of positive +science, we were astonished to find in the first chapter the following +statement: “Later on we shall have to investigate whether there are for +all psychical phenomena such material parallel processes in the central +nervous system, and our answer will be decidedly in the negative.” +And again we find in the schedule of psychology a distinction between +(_a_) psychical processes _not_ contingent upon cerebral functions +(transcendental psychology), and (_b_) psychical processes contingent +upon cerebral functions (physiological psychology). These statements +are the more perplexing as the author joins the opposition made by +Münsterberg against Professor Wundt’s idea of apperception, which is +rejected as metaphysical, mystical, and even animistic. While we cannot +in all points agree with Professor Wundt’s theory of apperception, +which received a critical examination by Professor Delabarre (see _The +Monist_ II, No. 2, p. 297), we can most positively say that Dr. Ziehen +in so far as he classes Wundt’s view among the dualistic theories, +misunderstands Wundt’s position. Wundt’s physico-psychical parallelism +cannot be identified with the metaphysical fiction of a subject, be +this subject called ego or soul.[66] Wundt says in a late publication +of his: “Psychology of to-day, since Kant has shown the way, seeks the +nature of the soul again, as did Aristotle of yore, in the facts of the +spiritual life themselves and not in an unknowable ‘thing in itself’....” +_Deutsche Rundschau_ of 1891, p. 203. Wundt’s “apperception” is no +metaphysical being, but simply means the focus of perception, the centre +of consciousness. Wundt is certainly not infallible and we are inclined +to believe that in some details he is mistaken. He is nevertheless one +of the very greatest leaders among the investigators of the soul and his +monism as well as his antimetaphysical tendencies cannot be doubted. + +Ziehen reaches his monism by considering objective existence, as +it appears to us and which we call matter, as “something utterly +unknowable.” He says, “The psychical series alone is given.... Thus the +psycho-physical dualism or parallelism is apparent only. Considering +that the psychical series alone is given, we shall understand, that we +had repeatedly to face in our investigations such factors in which the +material foundations are missing. I here remind you of the projection +of our sensations into space and time, for which we could not find a +psycho-physical explanation.” + +We hope that Dr. Ziehen will soon find occasion to explain his +philosophical views. Such an explanation may throw light on his +psychological theory. We do not as yet see how he can solve without +inconsistency the many difficulties in which his philosophical standpoint +will involve his psychology. + + κρς. + + +PSYCHOLOGIE DER SUGGESTION. By _Dr. Hans Schmidkunz_. Stuttgart, +1892,—pp. 425. Large 8vo. + +The rapidly increasing devotion to the study of Hypnotism has yielded +many valuable results, both practical and theoretical. Its application +to the cure of disease—psychotherapeutics—has been most extensively +introduced and bids fair to become the representative in scientific form +of the germ of truth buried amongst the vast rubbish-heap of suspicious +practices and pseudo-scientific “isms.” New light has been thrown on the +questions of responsibility and the legal aspects of slightly abnormal +states. Education and ethics, it has been more than hinted, are to find +practical aids in hypnotism; while in the light of modern scientifically +recognised phenomena, many of the events influential in the development +of religions find a rationalistic interpretation. But the science which +more than all others, the study of hypnotism is destined to enrich, is +that of Experimental Psychology; and it is this phase of the subject to +which Dr. Schmidkunz has devoted his volume. + +The central core of the whole subject is the fact of suggestion,—a fact +so comprehensive that it is almost easier to say what it is not than what +it is. If we make allowance for that portion of our conduct that is based +upon individual acquisitions and proceeds by logically reasoned steps, +all the rest is more or less the result of suggestions, of one kind or +another. To appreciate the psychology of this process it is necessary +to appreciate its varieties and universality. We receive suggestions +from things and deeds; the sight of food makes us hungry; the sight of +our neighbor consulting his watch induces a strong desire to know what +time it is. Words are powerful implements of suggestion; we accept those +doctrines that we hear about us and are influenced much more frequently +than we are convinced. The personal factor in suggestion is important; +to some we feel attracted and accept as leaders, while others excite +repulsion and antagonism. The indirectness of the process of suggestion +is to be noted; in most cases we are quite unconscious of the influences +exerted upon us and by which our conduct is guided, and this ignorance of +the motives of our acts, Spinoza tells us, is the cause of the illusion +of free will. Sympathy, imitation, the contagion of masses, the action +of the mind upon the body, the formation of public sentiment,—all +exemplify the process of suggestion and add their testimony to its power +and domain. + +We must recognise, too, that our suggestibility is a variable phenomenon; +at some moments we are self-assertive and determined, at others passive +and readily following another’s lead. Sometimes we take the reins in +our own hands, and again allow the vehicle to find its way as it will. +Every night we pass into a condition in which conscious control is +abandoned and logic gives way to suggestion. A trifling illness, a dose +of medicine may increase our suggestibility, and place us in a position +allied to that of the hypnotic subject. All this prepares the way for +recognising as the distinctive characteristic of the hypnotic condition, +an exaggerated suggestibility. Not alone is there a ready yielding to +every suggestion of the operator, but functions normally not under +volitional control may be appealed to and utilised by the slighter and +subtler processes of hypnotic suggestion. The variable threshold between +the voluntary and the involuntary is shifted to a surprising extent. That +complex interrelation of centres with which the sense of personality is +intimately connected yields to the same influences and makes possible an +experimental study of this vexed problem. + +This, then, is the Psychology of Suggestion, the contribution that +Hypnotism makes to Psychology. It lays stress upon the great rôle +this process plays in every day mental life and thus asks us to see +in hypnotism a condition closely allied to the normal, and simply +illustrating in an unusually striking way, one great factor in our mental +composition. It rearranges the hierarchy of mental faculties and finds +a more important place for suggestion than has been before accorded +to it. From a somewhat obscure and sporadic phenomenon occasionally +entering into mental states, it is raised to the dignity of one of the +most frequent, most important, most fertile generalisations of scientific +psychology. Whether one fully agrees with this position or not, it is +certainly a service to have it so comprehensively, even if at times +prolixly stated, and to be assured that the study of Psychology is +deriving as much benefit from the researches in hypnotism as are the more +practical sciences. + + J. J. + + +HYPNOTISME, SUGGESTION, PSYCHOTHEROPIE. Études Nouvelles par le _Dr. +Bernheim_, Professeur à la Faculté de médécine de Nancy. Paris: 1891. +Octave Doin, pp. 518. + +The literature of the new science of Hypnotism continues to increase with +unabated pace; most of the contributions consist of studies of a few +cases or a brief exposition of a single point, in most cases of points +relative to the application of hypnotism to disease. The present volume, +however, is of special importance not alone because of the authority that +Dr. Bernheim’s name brings with it,—but because of the comprehensiveness +and the skill and interest of the exposition. It is supplementary to Dr. +Bernheim’s former volume, “Suggestive Psychotherapeutics,” (1886-87, +English translation, 1889) and reflects the progress that has resulted +from continued and systematic observation. The therapeutic interest in +it naturally finds most complete representation and about half the volume +is devoted to the description of cases cured or benefited by suggestive +treatment. Although nervous complaints predominate in these well arranged +and well described cases, yet the method is shown applicable to all the +ills that flesh is heir to. While this portion of the volume will be of +greatest interest to the medical world, the psychologist will find most +food for reflection in the first and more theoretical half of the book. +He will find there an interesting historical sketch illustrating how +processes similar to those now studied as hypnotism have been in use from +ancient times; how all the various healers, and the various processes +and agencies used by them, involve different modes of application of the +one principle of suggestion. “It is the human imagination that works +miracles.” + +Suggestion is defined as the act by which an idea is introduced in +the brain and accepted by it, and thus many of the means by which one +person influences another under every day, normal circumstances would be +included in the term. Hypnotism is simply one of the most important and +efficient methods of producing a state of increased suggestibility. In +every day life we have abundant evidence of the tendency of ideas to be +realised in actions; with every change in thought and emotion there is +associated some motor expression, too subtle perhaps for analysis and +description, but still present and significant. Under excitement and +nervous strain these motor accompaniments of thought are increased and +serve as the basis of the muscle reader’s skill. Again the possibility +of disbelief and of recognising the illusory character of a sensation +involve the control of higher directing powers; the accumulated +experience of the past passes sentence upon the new candidate. If we +imagine a condition in which this form of control is abolished, we should +have a subject accepting as real almost any idea or sensation that is +suggested to him, and expressing freely and unreservedly his acceptance +of the same. And this it is that hypnotism does. It builds upon the +natural credulity which it is the difficult task of reason to shape and +control, and brings into prominence the automatic, subconscious phases +of mental action. It does not endow subjects with new faculties or +deprive them of their individuality, but shows in a strangely perverted +perspective the various faculties and processes that go to build the +endlessly complex elements of a personality. This “suggestion” view of +hypnotism is the contribution of the Nancy School, and is fast becoming +the recognised view of science; one will nowhere find a clearer and more +convincing exposition of it than in Dr. Bernheim’s pages. + +It is clearly impossible to summarise the various details that make +up the body of the volume; but all the important topics are discussed +and result in conclusions unusually free as well from vagueness as +from narrowness. The processes inducing the state, the proportion of +susceptible individuals, the various kinds and stages of hypnotism, +its relation to sleep and other normal states, the rôle of memory in +hypnotism, the interesting post-hypnotic, negative and retroactive +hallucinations, its relation to hysteria, its possible use in +crime,—these are some of the chief topics treated. The volume is a +valuable contribution to the literature of the subject, reflects its most +recent acquisitions, and would well merit a presentation in an English +translation. + + J. J. + + +HANDBOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY. In two volumes; Senses and Intellect, and, +Feeling and Will. By _James Mark Baldwin_, M. A., Ph. D., Professor in +the University of Toronto. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1891. + +These are two books diligently worked out, the former of 343, the latter +of 397 pp. They cover almost the entire field of psychology excluding +however the treatment of such abnormal states as are Mental Pathology +and Hypnotism. The author is a disciple of Dr. McCosh, and is strongly +influenced by Wundt, of Leipzig, and Rabier, of Paris; yet he has +developed an independent view of the nature of the soul which perhaps +comes nearest to that of Prof. William James, of Harvard. The two books +are actually two parts of one work, the one complementing the other. The +former however is not, as the name suggests, an exposition of the nature +of the senses in their relation to or as the basis of the intellect; it +is an inquisition into consciousness, sensation, perception, association, +imagination, rational thought, and kindred subjects. The latter, after +an introduction of 50 pp., characterising the mechanism of the nervous +system, treats of feeling as sensation, as pleasure and pain, as interest +and belief, as emotion, and passes over to the subject of a motor +consciousness, or will, ending in a chapter on volition. + +Professor Baldwin states that “after we enter consciousness we find a +principle of apperception to which there is no analogy in physiological +integration,” adding in a foot-note: “Since the section of the ‘Unity +of Composition’ theory was written, Professor James has published an +acute criticism in substantial agreement with it, and the passage quoted +makes reference to the sixth chapter of Professor James’s Psychology +in which he rejects the so-called ‘mind-stuff,’ theory, declaring a +self-compounding of mental facts to be inadmissible and proposes at last +what he calls ‘soul-theory.’” Professor James in this chapter commits the +mistake indicated in the editorial of the last number of _The Monist_ (p. +248) that he considers things as things in themselves and then looks for +a relation producing principle. He says: + +“In the parallelogram of forces, the ‘forces’ themselves do not combine +into the diagonal resultant; a _body_ is needed on which they may +impinge, to exhibit their resultant effect.” + +“Take a sentence of a dozen words, and take twelve men and tell to each +one word. Then stand the men in a row or jam them in a bunch, and let +each think of his word as intently as he will; nowhere will there be a +consciousness of the whole sentence.” + +Thus Professor W. James is in need of what he calls a “medium.” He says: + +“_All the ‘combinations’ which we actually know are EFFECTS, wrought by +the units said to be ‘combined,’ UPON SOME ENTITY OTHER THAN THEMSELVES._ +Without this feature of a medium or vehicle, the notion of combination +has no sense.” + +We observe that feelings which originate through the impressions of +the outer world upon some sentient organism, enter into relations to +each other, as naturally as things are in relations, or under certain +circumstances will enter more closely into relations with each other. +The “soul” accordingly is postulated by Professor James as a medium to +combine the effects of the manifold brain processes in order to “escape +the absurdity of supposing feelings which exist separately and then ‘fuse +together’ by themselves. The separateness is in the brain-world, on +this theory, and the unity in the soul world, and the only trouble that +remains to haunt us is the metaphysical one of understanding how one sort +of world or existent thing can affect or influence another at all.” This +is dualism and we suppose that Professor James is conscious of it. + + κρς. + + +UNTERSUCHUNGEN ZUR PHYSIOLOGISCHEN MORPHOLOGIE DER THIERE. II. +ORGANBILDUNG UND WACHSTHUM. By Dr. _Jacques Loeb_. Mit 2 Tafeln in +Lithographie und 9 Figuren im Text. Würzburg: Georg Hertz. 1892. + +Dr. Jacques Loeb formerly of Zürich and lately returned from the +Zoological station at Naples has been appointed Professor at Bryn Mawr +College, Pennsylvania. Former publications of his were reviewed in _The +Monist_ I, No. 2, p. 300. The present pamphlet is a continuance of his +investigations in physiological morphology. Some of his experiments are +made with _Antennularia antennina_ (a hydroid polyp) and the author +describes how without mutilation, simply by giving the creature a fixed +position he succeeded in making it develop certain organs in certain +places, thus proving gravitation to be an important factor in determining +the growth of certain limbs. Dr. Loeb adds a few articles on the +dependence of the longitudinal growth and also of the regeneration of +Tubularia upon the concentration of the salt-water. His experiments with +_Ciona intestinalis_ (a solitary ascidia) prove that (1) a section in the +side of the oral orifice as well as of the anus will cause the formation +of ocelli on the margin of the section, (2) after an extirpation of the +central nervous system the reflexes continue although with a higher +threshold of the stimulus, and (3) the ciona is capable of developing the +central nervous system again. + + κρς. + + +DAS DASEIN ALS LUST, LEID, UND LIEBE. Die altindische Weltanschauung in +neuzeitlicher Darstellung. Ein Beitrag zum Darwinismus. Mit 2 Tondrucken, +24 Zeichnungen und 10 Tabellen. By Dr. _Hübbe-Schleiden_. Braunschweig: +C. A. Schwetschke & Sohn, 1891. + +The author of this book is Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden, editor of _The Sphinx_, +a monthly magazine published in Germany which professes to “lay down +historically and experimentally the supersensible World-Conception upon +a monistic basis.” Love of Mysticism is the main feature of _The Sphinx_ +as well as Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden’s book. _The Sphinx_ contains reports +of cases of telepathy and is quite serious in investigating the spook +of a haunted house. The present book contains the author’s confession +of faith. The symbols by which he depicts his world-conception reveal +a cabalistic taste, and we believe that the illustrations will be +rather repugnant to the man of science, as they give the impression of +fantasticism. The main idea of the book is to modernise the old Hindoo +view that “Kama” desire or _Lust_ is the ground of all being, as is said +in the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad (IV, 4, 5): “Man consists entirely of +desire (_Kama_); as is his desire, so is his will (_Kratu_); as is his +will, so is his life (_Karma_, i. e., activity); as is his life, so is +his fate.” + +Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden rejects the Hindoo view of a migration of soul in +so far as it suggests the idea of something personal; he prefers to +speak of a transformation of soul. This, he says, has been and it may be +called “metaphysical Darwinism”, and we must confess that the nucleus +of the idea touches the most vital point of all the problems of life. +We cannot explain ethics and the ethical instinct of man without taking +into consideration that man lives and aspires for something that will +outlast his individual existence. The author says: “Why do you strive +for something higher, for perfection, for completion or whatever your +aim may be called? Why all that, if you imagine that your individuality +has only this one life upon earth and you can realise only a very small +part of what you strive for? Why all your trouble, if the main thing is +in vain?” We agree with the author that our moral instinct, our ideals +and aspirations which are most powerful realities in life point to a life +beyond the grave, they indicate that death is no finality and evolution +teaches us that our souls actually continue to exist. Our souls in their +individual features are parts only of the whole evolution of our race and +these very individual features of our souls can be and will be preserved +in the future generations. + +Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden’s book is characteristic of a strange tendency of +our time to combine the results of modern science with the old notions +of occultism. There is in it a psychological and ethical truth overgrown +with a fanciful imagination. + + κρς. + + +MAX MÜLLER AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. A Criticism. By _William Dwight +Whitney_, Professor in Yale University. New York: D. Appleton and +Company. 1892. + +The Professors W. D. Whitney and F. Max Müller are not on good terms. +They do not only disagree on several fundamental and many minor points, +concerning the science of language, but their warfare, as is well known, +is at the same time of a personal nature. The present little volume is a +criticism of the new edition of Max Müller’s “Science of Language.” The +great Yale philologist recognising that this work of his antagonistic +Oxford colleague “is still the principal and most authoritative text-book +of that study,” and noting that “its author has gained no new light from +the criticisms that have been made upon his work,” feels called upon to +warn the reader that “it may not be trusted where it is untrustworthy and +so do harm to the science which it was intended to help.” The title of +the book, according to Professor Whitney, ought to be “Facts and Fancies +in Regard to Language and Other Related Subjects.” + +Schleicher says: “Languages are natural organisms which, without +being determinable by the will of man, grew and developed themselves +in accordance with fixed laws.... Its method is on the whole and in +general the same with that of the other natural sciences.” Professor +Whitney censures Max Müller for calling the first part of Schleicher’s +proposition “sheer mythology,” and then adopting the inference made +therefrom considering the science of language as a physical science. Now +it is true that the expression “organism” must not be taken literally; +languages are not animals or plants, but they have some quality that is +comparable to animals and plants. Their life and the development of their +life is in many respects analogous to the life of organisms. Professor +Whitney regards language as “a body of conventional signs for ideas” and +protests against Prof. Max Müller’s usage of the word “conventional” as +if it implied “a convention of people gathered to discuss and decide +on the words and forms by which conceptions should be represented.” In +contradistinction to Max Müller who holds that philology is a physical +science, Professor Whitney regards it as an historical science. “Physical +science,” says Max Müller, “deals with the works of God, historical +science with the works of man.” Thus optics is a physical science, +painting an historical science. Whitney declares that individuals +initiate changes and the community either accepts and uses them, making +them language by its use or rejects and annuls them by refusing to use +them. In one word Max Müller says language is φύσει, a product of nature, +and Whitney says it is θέσει, an institution of man. We believe that +Professor Whitney stands almost alone in his conception of language. + +Another no less important point is Professor Whitney’s objection to Prof. +Max Müller’s proposition of the Identity of Language and Thought. Here +Professor Whitney will find many supporters for his case; but we must +add that Prof. Max Müller does not exactly mean what he says. He means +by identity inseparableness. It is not so much Max Müller’s position +that should be attacked as his misleading terminology. Concerning the +origin of language Professor Whitney finds an instructive parallel in the +beginnings of writing which were mutually intelligible signs, or in the +written language of mathematics. “So we do no longer see,” he says, “the +two and three strokes in our figures 2 and 3, although they are really +there disguised from view.” This is a good simile, and undoubtedly _cum +grano salis_ true. But it is rather strange that Professor Whitney should +find Noiré’s theory of the origin of language “utterly fantastic.” + +These are fundamental differences. There are some more, less important +points such as the etymology of king being the Sanskrit _janaka_. Max +Müller proposes a very improbable reason for the change of meaning in the +Lat. _fagus_, O. Germ. _boka_ (beech), Greek _phegos_, Lat. _quercus_, +and Germ. _foraha_ (fir). Professor Whitney might have mentioned that a +more probable reason for this change has been proposed of late by those +who seek the home of the Aryans in Europe. A migrating people would +naturally have called in their old home the beech, in their new the oak +“a tree with edible fruit.” The same method is applicable to explain the +change of meaning in _forah-a-quercus_ which means in northern countries +a fir and in Italy an oak. + +Professor Whitney sums up his case as follows (p. 77): he finds “language +study ... declared on transparently false grounds, to be a physical +science, and language an existence which man had no part in making +and changing; dialectic growth misunderstood, families of language +regarded as exceptional, and a ‘Turanian’ barathrum arranged to catch +all little-known varieties of speech; antecedent unity of dialect taught +in one case and denied in another; a word held to be killed by the +least mispronunciation; _conventional_ explained to mean ‘voted by a +convention’; thought and its expression viewed as inseparable, and even +identical; the origin of language seemingly ascribed to an instinctive +ding-dong of the tongue—and so on; to complete the list would be almost +to give a table of principal contents of the two volumes—and a style of +discussion used throughout which indicated that the author was playing +with his subject rather than investigating it seriously.... The book is +not science, but literature. Taken as literature, it is of high rank, as +the admiration of the public sufficiently testifies; its author has a +special gift for interesting statement and illustration, for lending a +charm to the subjects he discusses; and he carries captive the judgments +of his hearers and of many of his readers. He is a born _littérateur_.” + +Professor Whitney concludes: “Now as heretofore, I rest my defense on not +the just intent alone, but the real substantial justice of my criticisms; +if they are unfounded, I deserve reprehension for making them; if they +are right, then there is nothing, either in the degree of importance of +the subjects to which they relate, or in the personality against whom +they are directed, to call for their condemnation.” + + κρς. + + +SEIFENBLASEN. Moderne Märchen. By _Kurd Lasswitz_. Hamburg and Leipsic: +Leopold Voss. 1890. + +“Märchen,” in the province of science, we are inclined to believe are +a prize problem for our modern poets. Who will solve it? Kurd Lasswitz +has made an attempt and considering the great difficulty of the problem, +we are not inclined to criticise him. The author, who has worked in +scientific fields and has proved his ability as a close student, exhibits +in these “soap-bubbles” a fertile imagination and poetic invention. Most +of his sketches fall short of the ideal märchen of science as we conceive +it, but their reading is suggestive and deserves the attention of those +whose disposition favors the creation of a middle ground between science +and poetry. + + κρς. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[66] Ziehen declares (p. 129) that the problem of physiological +psychology consists in reducing the different forms of thinking up to +the most complex argumentation to simple associations of ideas and its +laws. Wundt says, that there are many psychical idea-combinations which +cannot be explained simply by association of ideas. So, Ziehen continues +(p. 130), Wundt assumes above idea associations a special faculty of the +soul called apperception, which serves now as attention, now as will, but +is in either case a metaphysical faculty of the soul, the active subject +which independent of mechanical causality is said to be the cause of +these phenomena.—I do not think that anyone who knows Wundt will accept +this as a fair representation of his views. + + + + +PERIODICALS. + + +REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. + +CONTENTS: December, 1891. No. 192 + + UN PROBLÈME D’ACOUSTIQUE PSYCHOLOGIQUE. By _L. Dauriac_. + + LES ORIGINES DE NOTRE STRUCTURE INTELLECTUELLE ET CÉRÉBRALE. + II. L’ÉVOLUTIONNISME. By _A. Fouillée_. + + LÉONARD DE VINCI ARTISTE ET SAVANT. By _G. Séailles_. + + SUR LES DESSINS D’ENFANTS. By _J. Passy_. + + SUR UN CAS D’INHIBITION PSYCHIQUE. By _A. Binet_. + +CONTENTS: January, 1892. No. 193. + + LE PROBLÈME DE LA VIE. By _Dunan_. + + LA MALADIE DU PESSIMISME. By _B. Pérez_. + + PHILOSOPHES ESPAGNOLS DE CUBA: F. VARELA, J. DE LA LUZ. By + _J.-M. Guardia_. + + VARIÉTÉS: LE PROBLÈME D’ACHILLE. By _J. Mouret_. + +CONTENTS: February, 1892. No. 194. + + LES MOUVEMENTS DE MANÈGE CHEZ LES INSECTES. By _A. Binet_. + + LE PROBLÈME DE LA VIE (2nd article). By _Dunan_. + + PHILOSOPHES ESPAGNOLS DE CUBA (concluded). _J.-M. Guardia_. + + REVUE GÉNÉRALE: JUSTICE ET SOCIALISME, D’APRÈS LES PUBLICATIONS + RÉCENTES. By _Belot_. + +One of the problems of the unique and great work of Carl Stumpf’s +“Tonpsychologie” is the subject of L. Dauriac’s essay. The question +is when several sounds enter the ear at the same time, the plurality +of which is not directly known, do you have your information through +an inner sense? Does every unit of the irritation correspond to a +distinct unit of sensation? Is there in consciousness a simultaneousness +of sensations similarly as outside of consciousness there is a +simultaneousness of vibrations? M. Dauriac maintains that Stumpf’s +question can be answered only on the ground of metaphysical postulates, +and if preconceived solutions are to be excluded, it must be considered +as insoluble. + +Alfred Fouillée, in his second article on the origin of our intellectual +and cerebral structure, which treats on evolutionism, comes to the +conclusion that the hypothesis which in the most simple way explains the +agreement of thoughts and objects is the doctrine of a radical unity +generally called Monism. + +J. Passy notes certain characteristic and psychologically interesting +features of the drawings of children. + +M. A. Binet presents two physiognomical pictures of the same face, one +representing disgust or scorn, the other a good-humored and happy smile. +The upper parts of both faces are exactly alike and yet the eyes of +the former look disdainful while the very same eyes of the latter are +full of jest and merriment. This is the fact. M. Binet psychologically +interprets the fact as a phenomenon of automatic inhibition. The fact is +interesting, but its interpretation seems doubtful. + +Charles Dunan discusses the metaphysical aspect of the problem of life. + +B. Pérez’s article is a contribution to pathological psychology with +special reference to M. Magalhâes’s work on the subject. Pessimism, +M. Pérez says, is a disease only if exaggerated, yet he believes that +medico-psychological studies which consider the relation between the +physical system and morality are very helpful even if carried too far. + +M. J.-M. Guardia’s article will have a special interest for Americans. +Three men arose in Spain of late, Valentin Almirall, M. L. Mallada, +and J.-M. Escudor, who spoke bold and hard words of truth to their +country. Cuba is the hen that lays golden eggs for Spain, but the Cubans +are treated with great contempt in Spain; and yet the Spaniards are +by no means their intellectual superiors, for while Spain is poor in +philosophy, Cuba is the only country of Latin America where philosophy +has taken root. M. Guardia sketches in the first article the history and +philosophy of Don Félix Varélay y Moralès who is the harbinger of the +other Spanish-Cuban philosopher, José de la Luz. The second article in +the February number treats of the latter (1800-1862) whom Guardia calls +the master. + +George Mouret with reference to Frontera’s book on Zeno’s argument +against motion makes a few remarks concerning the Eleatic sophism about +Achilles and the tortoise. + +An injury of a thalamus opticus produces in horses and other animals +the effect of their making rotatory movements when intending to walk +straight on. Forel proved that a similar effect is produced in ants by a +lesion of one of their lobes. M. Binet publishes in the present essay his +experiments on certain water-beetles, exhibiting diagrams of their normal +and abnormal walk. (Paris: Félix Alcan.) + + κρς. + + +ZEITSCHRIFT FUR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vols. II +and III. + +CONTENTS: November, 1891. No. 6. + + UEBER BRÜCKES THEORIE DES KÖRPERLICHEN SEHENS. By Dr. _C. du + Bois-Reymond_. + + MEIN SCHLUSSWORT GEGEN WUNDT. By _C. Stumpf_. + + ERWIDERUNG. By _O. Flügel_. + + LITTERATURBERICHT. + +CONTENTS: December, 1891. No. 1. + + VERSUCH, DAS PSYCHOPHYSISCHE GESETZ AUF DIE FARBENUNTERSCHIEDE + TRICHROMATISCHER AUGEN ANZUWENDEN. By _H. v. Helmholtz_. + + UNTERSUCHUNGEN ÜBER BINOKULARES SEHEN MIT ANWENDUNG DES + HERINGSCHEN FALLVERSUCHS. By Dr. _Richard Greeff_. + + BEMERKUNGEN ZU DEM AUFSATZE VON DR. SOMMER “ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER + SPRACHE.” By Prof. _A. Pick_. + + LITTERATURBERICHT. + +Dr. C. du Bois-Reymond believes that corporeal vision is either produced +by one eye running in succession over several places or two eyes viewing +two aspects of the object. Mach’s theory of the influence of shade upon +the production of the third dimension in vision which affords quite a +new and a better explanation of the phenomenon is not mentioned. Stumpf +closes his controversy with Wundt with a few remarks in answer to Wundt’s +reply (in _Philos. Studien_ VII, pp. 298-327); and Flügel objects to +Professor Rehmke’s proposition made in a criticism of Flügel’s book “Die +Seelenfrage,” that Herbart’s psychology, being atomism, is at bottom +materialism. + +Dr. Richard Greeff describes Hering’s apparatus for investigating the +cause of binocular vision. Wheatstone believes that the perspective +of the two retina pictures produces the effect of corporeality while +Brücke declares that it is mainly due to muscle-sensations. Hering sides +with Wheatstone, and the experiments as described by Greeff prove that +the third dimension is unfailingly perceived whenever the ocular axes +diverge, while in other cases the same result is not attained. + +Dr. Sommer had presented in a former article the facts of an interesting +case of aphasia, (see _The Monist_, Vol. I, No. 4, p. 629) where the +patient, his name is Voit, could remember and pronounce words only when +writing them. Prof. A. Pick objects to Dr. Sommer’s regarding the case as +contrary to our present experience and following two French authorities +Ballet and Bernard, adduces cases of Aphasia by right-sided hemiphlegia +where patients could read only when they were able to write or represent +to themselves the writing motions of their hand. Thus one patient of +Charcot could only read print, and not written words “because,” as +he said, “it was easier for him to reproduce in his mind the written +letter.” This reminds one of the case a deaf-mute who said: “I feel +whenever I think of the motions of my fingers although they are perfectly +at rest. I see internally an image of my moving fingers.” Professor Pick +concludes that the case Voit is a good argument against Max Müller’s +proposition of the identity of language and thought. Max Müller however +includes in his conception of word any symbol of an idea. The finger +motion of a deaf-mute is a word, and the writing motion of Voit is also a +word, according to Professor Max Müller’s theory. + +Prof. H. v. Helmholtz publishes the tables of his experiments in applying +the psycho-physical law upon color differences of trichromatic eyes, and +presents the three fundamental colors diagrammatically in an equilateral +triangle in the centre of which lies white. A curve winding round +this centre shows the relation of the rainbow spectrum in the system +of three fundamental colors. The results do not as yet agree with the +investigations of A. König and C. Diterici who make similar inquiries +with bichromatic eyes. (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.) + + κρς. + + +VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XVI. No. 1. + +CONTENTS: + + BEITRÄGE ZUR LOGIK. (Erster Artikel.) By _A. Riehl_. + + DIE DIMENSIONEN DER WAHRSCHEINLICHKEIT UND DIE EVIDENZ DER + UNGEWISSHEIT. By _Ad. Nitsche_. + + UEBER DIE FORTSCHREITENDE ENTWICKLUNG DES MENSCHENGESCHLECHTS. + II. By _F. Rosenberger_. + + ERNST PLATNER’S WISSENSCHAFTLICHE STELLUNG ZU KANT IN + ERKENNTNISSTHEORIE UND MORALPHILOSOPHIE. I. By _B. Seligkowitz_. + + UEBER SPRACHREFLEX, NATIVISMUS UND ABSICHTLICHE SPRACHBILDUNG. + X. By _A. Marty_. + +Prof. A. Riehl begins in this number a series of articles on logic. The +first two chapters are (1) concepts and definitions. Riehl distinguishes +between a definition and a predicating sentence (_Aussage_), for +instance, “Space has three dimensions,” is a mere definition, but “Space +is the form of our intuition,” is an _Aussage_. (2) Conceptual sentences +and judgments. The former are merely representative and cannot as the +latter be said to combine or separate ideas. + +Ad. Nitsche criticises Johannes v. Kries’s idea that the calculus +of probabilities is admissible only if the chances are equivalent. +Equivalent Chances (_gleiche Spielräume_), he objects, are apparently +impossible, yet he admits that upon the degree of a knowledge of the +conditions will depend the reliability of the probability. + +The Object of B. Seligkowitz’s article is to rescue from oblivion a +philosopher who especially as a critic of Kant deserves to be better +known than he is, Ernst Platner (1744-1818.) + +The tenth and concluding article of A. Marty on the origin of language +reviews Paul Regnaud’s work _Origine et philosophie du langage_. +(Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.) + + κρς. + + +THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. December, 1891. Vol. IV. No. 2. + +CONTENTS: + + A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY AMONG THE GREEKS. By + _Charles A. Strong_. + + STUDIES FROM THE LABORATORY OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY OF THE + UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. By Prof. _Joseph Jastrow_, Ph. D. + + THE SIZE OF SEVERAL CRANIAL NERVES IN MAN AS INDICATED BY THE + AREAS OF THEIR CROSS-SECTIONS. By _Henry H. Donaldson_, Ph. D. + + VISUALISATION AS A CHIEF SOURCE OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HOBBES, + LOCKE, BERKELEY, AND HUME. By _Alexander Fraser_, B. A. + + ANATOMICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE BRAIN AND SEVERAL SENSE-ORGANS + OF THE BLIND DEAF-MUTE, LAURA DEWEY BRIDGMAN. II. By _Henry H. + Donaldson_, Ph. D. + + PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. I. Nervous System. By Prof. _H. H. + Donaldson_. + + A LABORATORY COURSE IN PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. II. By _E. C. + Sanford_. + + PSYCHIATRY. PSYCHOSES FOLLOWING ACUTE SURGICAL AND MENTAL + AFFECTIONS AND IN MULTIPLE NEURITIS. By _William Noyes_, M. D. + +The post mortem examination of Laura Bridgman shows a brain in which the +olfactory bulbs and nerves, the optic nerves, the auditory nerves, and +possibly the glossopharyngeal, had all been more or less destroyed at +their peripheral ends. This destruction caused a degeneration—most marked +in the optic nerves—which extended towards the centres and involved them +indirectly.... This case represents a maximum loss in these defective +senses with a minimum amount of central disturbance, thus offering the +very best sort of opportunity for education by way of the surviving +senses.... Mental association was for Laura Bridgman limited to various +phases of the dermal sensations and the minor and imperfect senses of +taste and smell.... The motor centre there had lost some, but not all its +associative connections. (Clark University, Worcester, Mass.) + + κρς. + + +INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. January, 1892. Vol. II. NO. 2. + +CONTENTS: + + THE ETHICAL ASPECTS OF THE PAPAL ENCYCLICAL. By _Brother + Azarias_. + + THE THREE RELIGIONS. By _J. S. Mackenzie_, M. A. + + THE ETHICS OF HEGEL. By _Rev. J. Macbride Sterrett_. + + A PALM OF PEACE FROM GERMAN SOIL. By _Fanny Hertz_. + + AUTHORITY IN THE SPHERE OF CONDUCT AND INTELLECT. By _Prof. H. + Nettleship_, Oxford. + + DISCUSSIONS AND REVIEWS. + +Brother Azarias paraphrases and praises the ethics of the Papal +Encyclical. J. S. Mackenzie starts from Kant’s famous remarks that two +things fill our minds with reverence, the starry, heavens above and the +moral law within. The worship of these two separately and the worship of +them in combination are set forth as the three great religions of the +world. Fanny Hertz pleads for the abolishment of war. She quotes largely +from Bertha Suttner’s novel, “Die Waffen nieder,” and from Friederich’s +letters. Authority, according to Professor Nettleship, is “the power +which in the sphere of conduct, in the long run determines our practice +and in the sphere of intellect in the long run determines our assent.” +There are roughly speaking four kinds of authority: (1) the authority +of law, (2) the authority of religious bodies, (3) the authority of +society or public opinion and (4) the authority of great men. Where +is the seat of authority? “For each individual,” Professor Nettleship +maintains, “the absolute guide can, in the long run be no other than his +own conscience.” The origin of conscience and the criterion whether the +voice of conscience be true or not are not explained. (Philadelphia: +_International Journal of Ethics_, 118 S. Twelfth Street.) + + κρς. + + +MIND. New Series. No. 1. January, 1892. + +CONTENTS: + + PREFATORY REMARKS. _The Editor._ + + THE LOGICAL CALCULUS. (1) General Principles. By _W. E. + Johnson_. + + THE IDEA OF VALUE. By _S. Alexander_. + + THE CHANGES OF METHOD IN HEGEL’S DIALECTIC. (1) By _J. Ellis + McTaggart_. + + THE LAW OF PSYCHOGENESIS. By _Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan_. + + DISCUSSIONS: The Feeling-Tone of Desire and Aversion. By _Prof. + H. Sidgwick_. Sur la Distinction entre les Lois ou Axiomes et + les Notions. By _George Mouret_. + + CRITICAL NOTICES. + +W. E. Johnson says: “As a material machine is an instrument for +economising the exertion of force, so a symbolic calculus is an +instrument for economising the exertion of intelligence. And, employing +the same analogy, the more perfect the calculus, the smaller would be the +amount of intelligence applied as compared with the results produced.” He +continues: + +“But as the exertion of _some_ force is necessary for working the +machine, so the exertion of _some_ intelligence is necessary for working +the calculus.” + +Here we feel inclined to stop our author. That which makes of a certain +amount of metal, brass, and wood a machine, is the form in which they +are composed, and this form is instrumental in using a certain amount of +energy for doing a certain kind of work. Intelligence is not analogous +to force but to the form of force. Not intelligence is necessary to run +the instrument of intelligence, but some power, some force, some energy, +and this power needed for running the instrument of intelligence, as it +exists in man, is generally called will. So we are at variance with Mr. +W. S. Johnson from the outset. Mr. Johnson from his standpoint considers +it “important to examine the kind and degree of intelligence that are +demanded in the employment of any symbolic calculus. It will appear that +the _logical_ calculus stands in a unique relation to intelligence; for +it aims at exhibiting, in a non-intelligent form, those same intelligent +principles that are actually required for working it.” + +We abstain here from discussing the details of this highly suggestive +article which contains much that is of interest to logicians. The author +claims especially with regard to his interpretation of the universal and +particular that his results exactly correspond with the interpretation +given by Dr. Venn and Mr. Peirce, and worked out by Dr. Keynes. + +The Germans distinguish between _Urtheil_ and _Beurtheilung_, the first +being judgment in general, the latter a judgment that declares something +to possess value from the view of truth, beauty or goodness. In this +sense Mr. S. Alexander deals with the idea of value. He states two main +principles. (1) That value is “the efficiency of a conscious agent +to promote the efficiency of society” and this, the author says, was +maintained indirectly in opposition to the view that value was determined +by pleasure. (2) That value is itself no something separable from other +mental facts by a wide gulf, but was itself a fact of a purely natural +order. “Sollen” is one kind of “Sein.” + +Mr. J. Ellis McTaggart in discussing the changes of method in Hegel’s +Dialectic arrives at a conclusion which according to the author must +be admitted to be quite un-Hegelian. Hegel apparently regarded the +procession of the categories with its advance through oppositions and +reconciliations as presenting absolute truth. From this the author +dissents, “for,” he says: “the true process of thought is one in which +each category springs out of the one before it, and not by contradicting +it, but as the expression of its deepest nature, while it, in its turn, +is seen to have its deepest reality in again passing on to the one +after it. There is no contradiction no opposition, and consequently no +reconciliation. There is only development, the rendering explicit what +was implicit, the growth of the seed to the plant. In the actual course +of the dialectic this is never attained. It is an ideal which is never +quite realised, and from the nature of the case never can be quite +realised. In the dialectic there is always opposition, and therefore +always reconciliation. We do not go straight onward, but more or less +from side to side. It seems inevitable, therefore, to conclude that +the dialectic does not completely and perfectly express the nature of +thought.” + +Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan starting from the proposition that “the business +of consciousness is the control of action” shows that “we identify +ourselves rather with the action of our control centres than with our +lower animal instincts. Through experience we learn, and habits being +formed by individual repetition become innate.” Professor Morgan reviews +use-inheritance natural selection, sexual selection, the law of beauty, +and conduct and verification with regard to psychogenesis. “Our nature,” +he says, “is intellectual, æsthetic, moral, and sensitive”: + +“The false is rejected as incongruous to our nature as intellectual; +the ugly is avoided as incongruous to our nature as æsthetic; the wrong +is shunned as incongruous to our nature as moral; so is the painful, so +far as possible, avoided as incongruous to our nature as sensitive.... +The guidance of pleasure and pain is of great importance—so great that +some are found to argue that in moral matters we are influenced solely +by considerations of happiness.... Only by extending the meaning of the +words pleasure and pain so as to be coextensive with what I have here +termed congruous and incongruous can it be said that our actions and +our thoughts are determined by pleasure and pain.” (London: Williams & +Norgate.) + + κρς. + + +THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. Vol. I, No. 1. January, 1892. + +CONTENTS of No. 1. + + PREFATORY NOTE. + + THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND IDEALISM. By Prof. _John Watson_. + + PSYCHOLOGY AS SO-CALLED “NATURAL SCIENCE.” By Prof. _George T. + Ladd_. + + ON SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE CHINESE MUSICAL SYSTEM. By + _Benj. Ives Gilman_. + + REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES. + +CONTENTS of No. 2: + + PSYCHOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND METAPHYSICS. By Prof. _Andrew + Seth_. + + A PLEA FOR PSYCHOLOGY AS A “NATURAL SCIENCE.” By Prof. _William + James_. + + ON SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE CHINESE MUSICAL SYSTEM. + II. By _Benj. Ives Gilman_. + + DISCUSSIONS: Dr. Münsterberg’s Theory of Mind and Body and its + Consequences. By _Charles A. Strong_. + + REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES. + +This is a new magazine which will be an additional proof that the +philosophical interest in America is by no means so poor as the +inhabitants of the old world generally suppose it to be. The character +of the journal, it is to be expected, will be in harmony with the +publications of its scholarly editor, Prof. J. G. Schurmann, whose +position is clearly set forth in a little volume of his “Belief in God,” +in which he conceives God in three ways (1) as the cause or ground of the +world (2) as the realising purpose of the world, and (3) as the father of +spirits. + +Professor Watson reviews in an elaborate article Edward Caird’s work +“The Critical Philosophy of Emanuel Kant.” “The philosophy of Kant,” +says Watson, “was accepted at first by submissive disciples, but it had +afterwards to submit to a severe process of criticism which culminated +in the Absolute Idealism of Hegel. The synthesis of Kant, as based upon +an untenable opposition of the phenomenal and the real, was weighed +and found wanting.... We must be grateful to any one who helps us, +not merely to see Kant, but to see beyond him. This is the task which +Professor Caird, in his exhaustive work on the Critical Philosophy, has +set himself to perform,” and adds Watson, “he has done it in a way that +leaves nothing to be desired.” + +Professor Ladd criticises Professor James’s Psychology as so-called +natural science. + +“What we wish to have in the name of cerebral psychology, is a +description, in terms of a comprehensible theory of molecular physics; +and, also, a statement of the formulæ which define the relations between +the molecular changes and the ‘corresponding’ orders of mental phenomena. +But this is precisely what Professor James avoids doing, even to the +extent which so-called ‘nerve-physiology’ makes possible. And, nothing +worthy of the name ‘science’ _is_ possible for any one in this branch of +cerebral psycho-physics.” + +Professor James replies to the criticism in the second number of _The +Philosophical Review_. He says: + +“Psychology is to-day hardly more than what physics was before Galileo, +what chemistry was before Lavoisier. It is a mass of phenomenal +description, gossip, and myth, including, however, real material enough +to justify one in the hope that its study may become worthy of the +name of natural science at no very distant day. I wished, by treating +Psychology _like_ a natural science, to help her to become one.” + +Professor Ladd is a transcendentalist and Professor James has great +expectations of the work inaugurated by the Society for Psychical +Research. + +Theoretically they stand much nearer than practically, as well indicated +by Professor James’s remark: + +“In Professor Ladd’s own book on ‘Physiological Psychology,’ that ‘real +being, proceeding to unfold powers that are _sui generis_, according to +laws of its own,’ for whose recognition he contends, plays no organic +part in the work, and has proved a mere stumbling block to his biological +reviewers.” + +He adds in a foot-note: + +“I mean that such a being is quite barren of particular consequences. Its +character is only known by its reactions on the signals which the nervous +system gives, and these must be gathered by observation after the fact. +If only it were subject to successive reincarnations, as the theosophists +say it is, so that we might guess what sort of a body it would unite with +next, or what sort of persons it had helped to constitute previously, +those would be great points gained. But even those gains are denied us; +and the real being is, for practical purposes, an entire superfluity, +which a _practical_ psychology can perfectly well do without.” + +Andrew Seth, the well-known coryphæus of philosophy and psychology +at Edinburgh, presses the importance of distinguishing the different +standpoints of psychology, epistemology, and metaphysics. Locke, +Berkeley, Hume and other English as well as Continental thinkers “speak +sometimes from one point of view, sometimes from the other without being +aware that the two points of view are different.” + +“Psychology, assuming the existence of a subject or medium of +consciousness, seeks to explain, mainly by the help of association or +processes practically similar, how out of the come-and-go of conscious +states, there are evolved such subjective facts as perceptions, the +belief in an independent real world, and the idea of the Ego or subject +himself.... Metaphysics has to do with the ultimate nature of the reality +which reveals itself alike in the consciousness which knows and the world +which is known.... The epistemological thing-in-itself to be identified +with the metaphysical essence.... The problem of knowledge and the Real, +is the question which Epistemology has to face.” (Boston, New York, +Chicago: Ginn & Co.) + + κρς. + + +VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.[67] Vol. III. No. 11. January, 1892. + +CONTENTS: + + POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY AND THE UNITY OF SCIENCE. Part V. + Sociology. By _B. Tchitcherin_. + + COUNT GIACOMO LEOPARDI AND HIS PESSIMISM. Part IV. Continued + from No. 10 of this review. (Conclusion.) By _V. Stein_. + + AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF NATURE. + (Conclusion.) By _M. Menzhir_. + + J. V. KIRYEBSKII AND THE ORIGIN OF MUSCOVITE SLAVOPHILISM. + Public lecture delivered November 20, 1891, for the benefit of + the rural districts suffering from the bad harvests. By _Paul + Vinogradoff_. + + FOUILLÉ AND THE METAPHYSICS OF THE FUTURE. Part III. General + estimate of Fouillé’s views. Continued from No. 10 of this + review. (Conclusion) By _Aleksei Vnedenskii_. + + TELEPATHY. To be concluded in the next number. By _M. + Petrovo-Solovo_. [This is a review of the publications of and + the work done by the Society for Psychical Research in England.] + + SPECIAL PART: (1) Wundt’s System of Philosophy. By _K. + Ventzel_. (2) Hegel’s Ontology. By _N. P. Hilyaroff-Platonoff_. + New Researches on Plato. By _A. Kozloff_. + + CRITICISM AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. Review of Russian and Foreign + Periodicals. Book Reviews. Bibliographical Index of recent + Philosophical works. Answer to an anonymous letter received + by N. Strachoff on the subject of his article: “Opinions + concerning L. N. Tolstoï.” By _N. Strachoff_. Transactions of + the Moscow Psychological Society. (Moscow, 1892.) + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[67] _Questions of Philosophy and Psychology._ + + + + + VOL. II. JULY, 1892. NO. 4. + + THE MONIST. + + + + +OUR MONISM. + +THE PRINCIPLES OF A CONSISTENT, UNITARY WORLD-VIEW. + + +The question, What are the essential features of Monism? was brought home +to me when I read in the last number of _The Monist_ the critical remarks +made with reference to the new edition of my “Anthropogeny.” I shall +here endeavor briefly to draw up the outlines of my conception of the +world in a manner which will indicate the most characteristic features +of my views. Thus both the agreements with and the divergences from the +position editorially upheld in _The Monist_ will plainly appear. + +As is the case with the majority of philosophical differences, so also +in the present instance I find that the divergences which exhibit +themselves in our respective unitary conceptions of the world are in part +only apparent and in part occasioned by the divergent significances of +our fundamental ideas. But this will, perhaps, be made clearer by the +following methodically arranged eight theses. + + +I. MONISM. + +Like all general concepts of fundamental scope, that of monism also +is liable to different definitions and divergent modifications,—the +natural result of individual differences of subjective conception. In the +determinate sense in which monism is at present employed by the majority +of philosophers and physical inquirers, the sense which I believe I +was the first to establish in 1866 in my “General Morphology” (Vol. I, +p. 105), it denotes a unitary or _natural_ conception of the world, in +opposition to a _supernatural_ or mystical one, that is, in opposition +to _dualism_. For us, accordingly, there exists (in the sense of Goethe) +_no_ opposition whatsoever between nature and mind, between World and +God. Mental existences, “spirits,” outside nature, or in opposition to +nature, do not exist. What are commonly termed the “mental sciences,”—for +example, philology, history, and philosophy,—are in reality simply a part +of _physical philosophy_, of _Natur-philosophie_. The latter discipline +embraces, in our opinion, the entire body of human knowledge; it is +based upon _empiricism_, on the experiences, the observations, and the +experiments of physical inquiry; but it does not become _philosophy_ +until it has brought together and united its empiric products, abstracted +general laws from its isolated experiential facts, and _synthetised_ the +isolated results which _analysis_ has empirically ascertained. + + +II. MECHANICALISM. + +Since an early date, this important fundamental concept has frequently +been used in three different and divergent senses, namely: + +_A._ In its widest sense, as synonymous with _monism_; wherein mechanical +causes (_causæ efficientes_), in the sense of Kant, are assumed as the +sole effective causes and are placed in opposition to the teleological +causes (_causæ finales_) in the sense of dualism. “Mechanical conception +of the world” is in this sense synonymous with “monistic conception of +the world.” + +_B._ In its more restricted sense, as a universal _motion_-principle +of physics, so that, for example, the postulated ether-vibrations of +optics, of electricity, and so forth, as well as the grosser material +oscillations of acoustics, heat, and so forth, are designated as +mechanical processes subject to definite laws. “Mechanical natural +philosophy,” in this sense, is identical with _physics_. + +_C._ In its narrowest sense, as that _branch_ of physics which deals +with the grosser and visible processes of _motion_; as gravitation, +locomotion, and the phoronomy of organisms. Mechanics, in this the most +restricted sense, is viewed as opposed to optics, acoustics, etc., as the +usages of the schools indicate. + +Since, now, the phrases “mechanical laws” and “mechanical +explanation,” at the present day even, are frequently understood in +these three distinct senses, no end of misunderstandings arise. Such +misunderstandings may be best avoided, perhaps, by retaining the notion +of mechanics in its narrowest (_C_) sense, and by substituting _physics_ +for the next narrower sense (_B_) and _monism_ for its most extended +sense (_A_). + + +III. PSYCHISM. + +In exactly the same way as the idea of mechanicalism, so also that of +psychism is employed in a three-fold divergent sense. As in the former +case _motion_, so here _feeling_ is conceived, now as a universal +world-principle, now simply as a vital activity of all organisms, now +simply as the particular mental activity of man. + +_A._ In its widest sense: _Panpsychism_. All matter is ensouled, because +all natural bodies known to us possess determinate chemical properties, +that is to say react uniformly and by law when subjected to the +determinate chemical (i. e. molecular-mechanical) influences of other +bodies: _chemical affinity_. Simplest example: sulphur and quicksilver +rubbed together form cinnabar, a new body of entirely different +properties. This is possible only on the supposition that the molecules +(or atoms) of the two elements if brought within the proper distance, +mutually _feel_ each other, by attraction move towards each other; on the +decomposition of a simple chemical compound the contrary takes place: +repulsion. (Empedocles’s doctrine of the “love and hatred of atoms.”) + +_B._ In its more restricted sense: _Biopsychism_. The _organisms_ alone +are regarded as “ensouled,” because here the chemical processes are +more complicated and more striking (producing motions in cyclically +repeated succession) than in the case of the so-called “dead matter” of +the inorganic bodies. In particular does organic “irritability” appear +here as a higher form of the physical reaction called “_Auslösung_” +[the setting free, disengagement], and “soul-activity” (reflexes) +again as a higher form of irritability. However, all the phenomena +of organic life ultimately admit of being reduced to “mechanical” +(or “physico-chemical”) processes that differ from the processes of +the inorganic world only in point of degree or quantitatively, not +qualitatively. (“General Morphology,” I, Chap. V; VII, pp. 109-238. +“Natural Creation,” VIII, First Edition, Lecture XV.) + +_C._ In its narrowest sense: _Zoopsychism_. Irritability, or universal +organic soul-activity, such as is the attribute of all organisms, +(identical with “life,”) reaches a higher stage through abstraction, +through the formation of _ideas_. _Feeling_ and _will_ become more +distinctly separated. This real soul-life, which is the attribute only +of the higher animals, passes through a long succession of different +stages of development, the most perfect of which is the soul of man. +The so-called “freedom of the will” is apparent only, as each single +volitional action is determined by a chain of precedent actions which +ultimately rest either upon _heredity_ (propagation) or upon _adaptation_ +(nutrition). As these last are (“mechanically”) reducible to molecular +motions, the same also holds true of the former. + + +IV. THEISM. + +The idea of god that alone appears to be logically compatible with +monism, is pantheism (or “cosmotheism”) in the sense of Goethe and +Spinoza. God according to this view is identical with the sum-total +of the force of the universe, which is inseparable from the sum-total +of the matter of the universe. In opposition to this view stands +_anthropotheism_. This is the outcome of dualism, which places God +as a personal being in opposition to the “world” created by him, +and consequently is always forced in its reasonings to resort to +anthropomorphic expedients. + + +V. MATERIALISM. + +The most important differences of form in which this much misunderstood +and variously interpreted movement of philosophy has presented itself, +may be classed as follows: + +_A._ In its most extended sense: as synonymous with _monism_ (or with +mechanicalism). All the phenomena of the world are founded upon material +processes, upon _motions_ (mechanicalism) or upon _feelings_ (psychism), +both of which, as fundamental qualities, are inseparable from matter. +Immaterial forces or immaterial “spirits” (minds) are unknown to us. As +Goethe once said, “Mind can never exist and act without matter, matter +never without mind.” + +_B._ In its more restricted sense: originally matter alone exists and +creates _secondarily_ force (or “mind”). The fallacy of this view lies in +its regarding the two things “matter and force” as disjoint and separate. +According to our view the two are inseparably connected,—united in each +atom from the very first. + + +VI. SPIRITUALISM. + +This phase also of the world-conception has been the subject of the same +misunderstandings and perverted conceptions as its apparent opposite, +materialism. + +_A._ In its most extended sense, spiritualism is susceptible of +identification with _psychism_—consequently also with monism. For +_feeling_ (pleasure and pain) is just as much a thoroughly universal and +fundamental property of matter (of each atom!) as is _motion_ (attraction +and repulsion). Every single “spirit” is inseparably united with some +“matter.” + +_B._ In its more restricted sense: originally force alone exists and +creates _secondarily_ matter. This view, which is very old and very +widely spread (“creation of the world”), is just as false and as +one-sided as its contrary (5 _B_). + + +VII. IMMORTALISM. + +The “belief in immortality” is scientifically (_critically_) tenable only +as a _general_ proposition, and is in this case identical with the most +universal law of physics, the _conservation of energy_ (coincidently, +of course, the conservation of matter). On the other hand, the widely +disseminated _dogmatic_ belief in a _personal_ immortality, a belief +supported by the mass of the ecclesiastical religions, and of utmost +importance as the consciously or unconsciously assumed _base_-axiom of a +great number of philosophical systems, is, _scientifically_, absolutely +untenable. The “human soul” (i. e. the sum-total of the individual +life-activity: feeling, motion,—will,—and idea) is simply a transient +developmentary phenomenon—a very highly developed “vertebrate-soul.” + + +VIII. COSMISM. + +The determinate, and, as I believe, logical, form of the conception of +the world, the principles of which I have advocated for thirty years, +and whose most important aspects have been briefly outlined in the +preceding paragraphs, may also be designated _cosmism_, to the extent +that it proceeds from the fundamental idea that _cosmogeny_ or the +“world-process,” as world-_development_, is, within certain limits, +(within the limits namely of a reduction to the basic notions: matter +and its two inseparable fundamental qualities motion and feeling,) a +_knowable_ natural process. Cosmism is opposed, thus, to _agnosticism_. + + * * * * * + +One highly important principle of my monism seems to me to be, that +I regard _all_ matter as _ensouled_, that is to say as endowed with +_feeling_ (pleasure and pain) and with _motion_, or, better, with the +power of motion. As elementary (atomistic) attraction and repulsion +these powers are asserted in every simplest chemical process, and +on them is based also every other phenomenon, consequently also the +highest-developed soul-activity of man. For the comprehension of this +_graduated_ psychical development of matter perhaps my three stages will +be useful: III _A._ (Panpsychism), III _B._ (Biopsychism), III _C._ +(Zoopsychism). So too consciousness, as the highest psychical action and +the one most difficult to be explained, is in my views imply a higher +stage of brain-activity, based upon the association, the abstraction, +and centralisation of groups of ideas. Perhaps I have expressed myself +poorly in these expositions, as I am little accustomed to dealing with +philosophical axioms abstractly, and am too exclusively engaged in the +concrete activity of my own special department. I cherish the hope, +however, of being able within two or three years to devote more of my +time to purely philosophical labors; when my work with the Challenger +material, which has now absorbed twelve years of unremitting toil, is +ended, my special zoological activity will have been completed; and I +shall then find the opportunity of contributing more frequently to your +highly valued magazines _The Monist_ and _The Open Court_. + + ERNST HAECKEL. + + + + +THE MAGIC SQUARE. + + +I. + +INTRODUCTORY. + +Among the philosophies of modern times there is no other which emphasises +so much the importance of form and formal thought as the monism of _The +Monist_. An expression thereof is found in the following passages: + + “The order that prevails among the facts of reality is due + to the laws of form. Upon the order of the world depends its + cognisability. + + “... The laws of form are no less eternal than are matter and + energy and ‘Verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, + one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law!’ + + “The laws of form and their origin have been a puzzle to all + philosophers. ‘Ay, there’s the rub!’ The difficulties of Hume’s + problem of causation, of Kant’s _a priori_, of Plato’s ideas, + of Mill’s method of deduction, etc., etc., all arise from a + one-sided view of form and the laws of form and formal thought.” + +Considering the great results which engineering and other applied +sciences accomplish through the assistance of mathematics, we must +confess that the forms of thought are wonderful indeed, and it is not +at all astonishing that the primitive thinkers of mankind when the +importance of the laws of formal thought in some way or another first +dawned on their minds, attributed magic powers to numbers and geometrical +figures. + +We shall devote the following pages to a brief review of magic squares, +the consideration of which has made many a man believe in mysticism. +And yet there is no mysticism about them unless we either consider +everything mystical, even that twice two is four, or join the sceptic in +his exclamation that we can truly not know whether twice two might not be +five in other spheres of the universe. + +[Illustration: ALBERT DÜRER’S ENGRAVING + +MELANCHOLY OR THE GENIUS OF THE INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE OF MECHANICS] + +The author of the short article on “Magic Squares” in the English +Cyclopædia (Vol. III, p. 415), presumably Prof. DeMorgan, says: + + “Though the question of magic squares be in itself of no use, + yet it belongs to a class of problems which call into action + a beneficial species of investigation. Without laying down + any rules for their construction, we shall content ourselves + with destroying their magic quality, and showing that the + non-existence of such squares would be much more surprising + than their existence.” + +This is the point. There obtains a symphonic harmony in mathematics which +is the more startling the more obvious and self-evident it appears to him +who understands the laws that produce this symphonic harmony. + + * * * * * + +On the wood-cut named “Melancholia”[68] of the famous Nuremberg painter, +Albrecht Dürer, is found among a number of other emblems, which the +reader will notice in our reproduction of the cut, the subjoined square. +This arrangement of the sixteen natural numbers from 1 to 16 possesses +the remarkable property that the same sum 34 will always be obtained +whether we add together the four figures of any of the horizontal rows +or the four of any vertical row or the four which lie in either of the +two diagonals. Such an arrangement of numbers is termed a magic square, +and the square which we have reproduced above is _the first magic square +which is met with in the Christian Occident_. + +[Illustration: Fig. 1. + + +--+--+--+--+ + | 1|14|15| 4| + +--+--+--+--+ + |12| 7| 6| 9| + +--+--+--+--+ + | 8|11|10| 5| + +--+--+--+--+ + |13| 2| 3|16| + +--+--+--+--+ +] + +Like chess and many of the problems founded on the figure of the +chess-board, the problem of constructing a magic square also probably +traces its origin to Indian soil. From there the problem found its way +among the Arabs, and by them it was brought to the Roman Orient. Finally, +since Albrecht Dürer’s time, the scholars of Western Europe also have +occupied themselves with methods for the construction of squares of this +character. + +The oldest and the simplest magic square consists of the quadratic +arrangement of the nine numbers from 1 to 9 in such a manner that the sum +of each horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row, always remains the same, +namely 15. This square is the adjoined. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2. + + +-+-+-+ + |2|7|6| + +-+-+-+ + |9|5|1| + +-+-+-+ + |4|3|8| + +-+-+-+ +] + +Here, we will find, 15 always comes out whether we add 2 and 7 and 6, or +9 and 5 and 1, or 4 and 3 and 8, or 2 and 9 and 4, or 7 and 5 and 3, or 6 +and 1 and 8, or 2 and 5 and 8, or 6 and 5 and 4. + +The question naturally presents itself, whether this condition of the +constant equality of the added sum also remains fulfilled when the +numbers are assigned different places. It may be easily shown however +that 5 necessarily must occupy the middle place, and that the even +numbers must stand in the corners. This being so, there are but 7 +additional arrangements possible, which differ from the arrangement +above given and from one another only in the respect that the rows at +the top, at the left, at the bottom, and at the right, exchange places +with one another and that in addition a mirror be imagined present with +each arrangement. So too from Dürer’s square of 4 times 4 places, by +transpositions, a whole set of new correct squares may be formed. A magic +square of the 4 times 4 numbers from 1 to 16 is formed in the simplest +manner as follows. We inscribe the numbers from 1 to 16 in their natural +order in the squares, thus: + +[Illustration: Fig. 3. + + +--+--+--+--+ + | 1| 2| 3| 4| + +--+--+--+--+ + | 5| 6| 7| 8| + +--+--+--+--+ + | 9|10|11|12| + +--+--+--+--+ + |13|14|15|16| + +--+--+--+--+ +] + +We then leave the numbers in the four corner-squares, viz. 1, 4, 13, 16, +as well also as the numbers in the four middle-squares, viz. 6, 7, 10, +11, in their original places; and in the place of the remaining eight +numbers, we write the complements of the same with respect to 17: thus 15 +instead of 2, 14 instead of 3, 12 instead of 5, 9 instead of 8, 8 instead +of 9, 5 instead of 12, 3 instead of 14, and 2 instead of 15. We obtain +thus the magic square + +[Illustration: Fig. 4. + + =34 =34 + \ / + +--+--+--+--+ + | 1|15|14| 4|=34 + +--+--+--+--+ + |12| 6| 7| 9|=34 + +--+--+--+--+ + | 8|10|11| 5|=34 + +--+--+--+--+ + |13| 3| 2|16|=34 + +--+--+--+--+ + 34 34 34 34 +] + +from which the same sum 34 always results. It is an interesting property +of this square that any four numbers which form a rectangle or square +about the centre also always give the same sum 34; for example, 1, 4, +13, 16, or 6, 7, 10, 11, or 15, 14, 3, 2, or 12, 9, 5, 8, or 15, 8, 2, +9, or 14, 12, 3, 5. We may easily convince ourselves that this square is +obtainable from the square of Dürer by interchanging with one another the +two middle vertical rows. + + +II. + +EARLY METHODS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF ODD-NUMBERED SQUARES. + +Since early times rules have also been known for the construction of +magic squares of more than 3 times 3, or 4 times 4 spaces. In the first +place, it is easy to calculate the sum which in the case of any given +number of cells must result from the addition of each row. We take the +determinate number of cells in each side of the square which we have to +fill, multiply that number by itself, add 1, again multiply the number +thus obtained by the number of the cells in each side, and, finally, +divide the product by 2. Thus, with 4 times 4 cells or squares, we get: +4 times 4 are 16, 16 and 1 are 17, and one half of 17 times 4 is 34. +Similarly, with 5 times 5 squares, we get: 5 times 5 are 25, and 1 makes +26, and the half of 26 times 5 is 65. Analogously, for 6 times 6 squares +the summation 111 is obtained, for 7 times 7 squares 175, for 8 times 8 +squares 260, for 9 times 9 squares 369, for 10 times 10 squares 505, and +so on. The Hindu rule for the construction of magic squares whose roots +are odd, may be enunciated as follows: To start with, write 1 in the +centre of the topmost row, then write 2 in the lowest space of the +vertical column next adjacent to the right, and then so inscribe the +remaining numbers in their natural order in the squares diagonally +upwards towards the right, that on reaching the right-hand margin the +inscription shall be continued from the left-hand margin in the row just +above, and on reaching the upper margin shall be continued from the lower +margin in the column next adjacent to the right, noting that whenever we +are arrested in our progress by a square already occupied we are to fill +out the square next beneath the one we have last filled. In this manner, +for example, the last preceding square of 7 times 7 cells is formed, in +which the reader is requested to follow the numbers in their natural +sequence (Fig. 5). + +[Illustration: Fig. 5. + + =175 =175 + \ / + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + |30 |39 |48 | 1 |10 |19 |28 |=175 + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + |38 |47 | 7 | 9 |18 |27 |29 |=175 + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + |46 | 6 | 8 |17 |26 |35 |37 |=175 + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 5 |14 |16 |25 |34 |36 |45 |=175 + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + |13 |15 |24 |33 |42 |44 | 4 |=175 + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + |21 |23 |32 |41 |43 | 3 |12 |=175 + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + |22 |31 |40 |49 | 2 |11 |20 |=175 + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + 175 175 175 175 175 175 175 +] + +For the next further advancements of the theory of magic squares and +of the methods for their construction we are indebted to the Byzantian +Greek, Moschopulus, who lived in the fourteenth century; also, after +Albrecht Dürer who lived about the year 1500, to the celebrated +arithmetician Adam Riese, and to the mathematician Michael Stifel, which +two last lived about 1550. In the seventeenth century Bachet de Méziriac, +and Athanasius Kircher employed themselves on magic squares. About +1700, finally, the French mathematicians De la Hire and Sauveur made +considerable contributions to the theory. In recent times mathematicians +have concerned themselves much less about magic squares, as they have +indeed about mathematical recreations generally. But quite recently the +Brunswick mathematician Scheffler has put forth his own and other’s +studies on this subject in an elegant form. + +[Illustration: Fig. 6. + + | 7| + | | + | 6| |14| + | | | | + | 5| |13| |21| + +==+==+==+==+==+==+==+ + | 4| |12| |20| |28| + ---|--+--+--+--+--+--+--|--- + 3| |11| |19| |27| |35 + ------|--+--+--+--+--+--+--|------ + 2 |10| |18| |26| |34| 42 + --------|--+--+--+--+--+--+--|--------- + 1 9| |17| |25| |33| |41 49 + --------|--+--+--+--+--+--+--|--------- + 8 |16| |24| |32| |40| 48 + ------|--+--+--+--+--+--+--|------ + 15| |23| |31| |39| |47 + ---|--+--+--+--+--+--+--|--- + |22| |30| |38| |46| + +==+==+==+==+==+==+==+ + |29| |37| |45| + | | | | + |36| |44| + | | + |43| +] + +The best known of the various methods of constructing magic squares of an +odd number of cells is the following. First write the numbers in diagonal +succession as in the preceding diagram (Fig. 6). After 25 cells of the +square of 49 cells which we have to fill out, have thus been occupied, +transfer the six figures found outside each side of the square, without +changing their configuration, into the empty cells of the side directly +opposite. By this method, which we owe to Bachet de Méziriac, we obtain +the following magic square of the numbers from 1 to 49: + +[Illustration: Fig. 7. + + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 4|29|12|37|20|45|28| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |35|11|36|19|44|27| 3| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |10|42|18|43|26| 2|34| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |41|17|49|25| 1|33| 9| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |16|48|24| 7|32| 8|40| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |47|23| 6|31|14|39|15| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |22| 5|30|13|38|21|46| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ +] + + +III. + +MODERN MODES OF CONSTRUCTION OF ODD-NUMBERED SQUARES. + +The reader will justly ask whether there do not exist other correct +magic squares which are constructed after a different method from that +just given, and whether there do not exist modes of construction which +will lead to all the imaginable and possible magic squares of a definite +number of cells. A general mode of construction of this character +was first given for odd-numbered squares by De la Hire, and recently +perfected by Professor Scheffler. + +To acquaint ourselves with this general method, let us select as our +example a square of 5. First we form two auxiliary squares. In the +first we write the numbers from 1 to 5 five times; and in the second, +five times, the following multiples of five, viz.: 0, 5, 10, 15, 20. +It is clear now that by adding each of the numbers of the series from +1 to 5 with each of the numbers 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, we shall get all the +25 numerals from 1 to 25. All that additionally remains to be done +therefore, is, so to inscribe the numbers that by the addition of the +two numbers in any two corresponding cells each combination shall come +out once and only once; and further that in each horizontal, vertical, +and diagonal row in each auxiliary square each number shall once appear. +Then the required sum of 65 must necessarily result in every case, +because the numbers from 1 to 5 added together make 15, and the numbers +0, 5, 10, 15, 20 make 50. + +We effect the required method of inscription by imagining the numbers +1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (or 0, 5, 10, 15, 20) arranged in cyclical succession, +that is 1 immediately following upon 5, and, starting from any number +whatsoever, by skipping each time either none or one or two or three etc. +figures. Cycles are thus obtained of the first, the second, the third +etc. orders; for example 3 4 5 1 2 is a cycle of the first order, 2 4 1 +3 5 is a cycle of the second order, 1 5 4 3 2 is a cycle of the fourth +order, etc. The only thing then to be looked out for in the two auxiliary +squares is, that the same “cycle” order be horizontally preserved in all +the rows, that the same also happens for the vertical rows, but that the +cycle order in the horizontal and vertical rows is different. Finally we +have only additionally to take care that to the same numbers of the one +auxiliary square not like numbers but _different_ numbers correspond in +the other auxiliary square, that is lie in similarly situated cells. The +following auxiliary squares are, for example, thus possible: + +[Illustration: Fig. 8. + + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |3 |4 |5 |1 |2 | + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |5 |1 |2 |3 |4 | + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |2 |3 |4 |5 |1 | + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |4 |5 |1 |2 |3 | + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |1 |2 |3 |4 |5 | + +--+--+--+--+--+ +] + +and + +[Illustration: Fig. 9. + + +--+--+--+--+--+ + | 0|10|20| 5|15| + +--+--+--+--+--+ + | 5|15| 0|10|20| + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |10|20| 5|15| 0| + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |15| 0|10|20| 5| + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |20| 5|15| 0|10| + +--+--+--+--+--+ +] + +Adding in pairs the numbers which occupy similarly situated cells, we +obtain the following correct magic square: + +[Illustration: Fig. 10. + + +--+--+--+--+--+ + | 3|14|25| 6|17| + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |10|16| 2|13|24| + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |12|23| 9|20| 1| + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |19| 5|11|22| 8| + +--+--+--+--+--+ + |21| 7|18| 4|15| + +--+--+--+--+--+ +] + +It will be seen that we are able thus to construct a very large number +of magic squares of 5 times 5 spaces by varying in every possible manner +the numbers in the two auxiliary squares. Furthermore, the squares thus +formed possess the additional peculiarity, that every 5 numbers which +fill out two rows that are parallel to a diagonal and lie on different +sides of the diagonal also give the constant sum of 65. For example: +3 and 7, 11, 20, 24; or 10, 14 and 18, 22, 1. Altogether then the sum +65 is produced out of 20 rows or pairs of rows. On this peculiarity is +dependent the fact that if we imagine an unlimited number of such squares +placed by the side of, above, or beneath an initial one, we shall be +able to obtain as many quadratic cells as we choose, so arranged that +the square composed of any 25 of these cells will form a correct magic +square, as the following figure will show: + +[Illustration: Fig. 11. + + 2|13|24|10|16| 2|13|24|10|16| 2 + --+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-- + 9|20| 1|12|23| 9|20| 1|12|23| 9 + --+--+--+--+--+==============+-- + 11|22| 8|19| 5¦11|22| 8|19| 5¦11 + --+--+--+--+--¦--+--+--+--+--¦— + 18| 4|15|21| 7¦18| 4|15|21| 7¦18 + --+--+--+--+--¦--+--+--+--+--¦— + 25| 6|17| 3|14¦25| 6|17| 3|14¦25 + --+--+--+--+--¦--+--+--+--+--¦— + 2|13|24|10|16¦ 2|13|24|10|16¦ 2 + --+--+========¦=====+--+--+--¦— + 9|20¦ 1|12|23¦ 9|20¦ 1|12|23¦ 9 + --+--¦--+--+--+=====¦========+-- + 11|22¦ 8|19| 5|11|22¦ 8|19| 5|11 + --+--¦--+--+--+--+--¦--+--+--+-- + 18| 4¦15|21| 7|18| 4¦15|21| 7|18 + --+--¦--+--+--+--+--¦--+--+--+-- + 25| 6¦17| 3|14|25| 6¦17| 3|14|25 + --+--¦--+--+--+--+--¦--+--+--+-- + 2|13¦24|10|16| 2|13¦24|10|16| 2 + --+--+==============+--+--+--+-- + 9|20| 1|12|23| 9|20| 1|12|23| 9 + --+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-- + 11|22| 8|19| 5|11|22| 8|19| 5|11 +] + +Every square of every 25 of these numbers, as for example the two +dark-bordered ones, possesses the property that the addition of the +horizontal, vertical, and diagonal rows gives each the same sum, 65. + +As an example of a higher number of cells we will append here a magic +square of 11 times 11 spaces formed by the general method of De la +Hire from the two auxiliary squares of Figs. 12 and 13. From these two +auxiliary squares we obtain by the addition of the two numbers of every +two similarly situated cells, the magic square, exhibited in Diagram 14, +in which each row gives the same sum 671. + +[Illustration: Fig. 12. + + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11| 1 | 2 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 9 | 10| 11| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 11| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11| 1 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11| 1 | 2 | 3 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10| 11| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 8 | 9 | 10| 11| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 10| 11| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +] + +[Illustration: Fig. 13. + + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 0 | 11| 22| 33| 44| 55| 66| 77| 88| 99|110| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 33| 44| 55| 66| 77| 88| 99|110| 0 | 11| 22| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 66| 77| 88| 99|110| 0 | 11| 22| 33| 44| 55| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 99|110| 0 | 11| 22| 33| 44| 55| 66| 77| 88| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 11| 22| 33| 44| 55| 66| 77| 88| 99|110| 0 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 44| 55| 66| 77| 88| 99|110| 0 | 11| 22| 33| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 77| 88| 99|110| 0 | 11| 22| 33| 44| 55| 66| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + |110| 0 | 11| 22| 33| 44| 55| 66| 77| 88| 99| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 22| 33| 44| 55| 66| 77| 88| 99|110| 0 | 11| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 55| 66| 77| 88| 99|110| 0 | 11| 22| 33| 44| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 88| 99|110| 0 | 11| 22| 33| 44| 55| 66| 77| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +] + +[Illustration: Fig. 14. + + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 1 | 13| 25| 37| 49| 61| 73| 85| 97|109|121| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 36| 48| 60| 72| 84| 96|108|120| 11| 12| 24| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 71| 83| 95|107|119| 10| 22| 23| 35| 47| 59| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + |106|118| 9 | 21| 33| 34| 46| 58| 70| 82| 94| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 20| 32| 44| 45| 57| 69| 81| 93|105|117| 8 | + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 55| 56| 68| 80| 92|104|116| 7 | 19| 31| 43| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 79| 91|103|115| 6 | 18| 30| 42| 54| 66| 67| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + |114| 5 | 17| 29| 41| 53| 65| 77| 78| 90|102| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 28| 40| 52| 64| 76| 88| 89|101|113| 4 | 16| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 63| 75| 87| 99|100|112| 3 | 15| 27| 39| 51| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 98|110|111| 2 | 14| 26| 38| 50| 62| 74| 86| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +] + + +IV. + +EVEN-NUMBERED SQUARES. + +Of magic squares having an even number of places we have hitherto +had to deal only with the square of 4. To construct squares of this +description having a higher even number of places, different and more +complicated methods must be employed than for squares of odd numbers +of places. However, in this case also, as in dealing with the square +of 4, we start with the natural sequence of the numbers and must then +find the complements of the numbers with respect to some other certain +number (as 17 in the square of 4) and also effect certain exchanges of +the numbers with one another. To form, for example, a magic square of 6 +times 6 places, we inscribe in the 12 diagonal cells the numbers that in +the natural sequence of inscription fall into these places, then in the +remaining cells the complements of the numbers that belong therein with +respect to 37, and finally effect the following six exchanges, viz. of +the numbers 33 and 3, 25 and 7, 20 and 14, 18 and 13, 10 and 9, and 5 and +2. In this way the following magic square is obtained. + +[Illustration: Fig. 15. + + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 1|35|34| 3|32| 6| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |30| 8|28|27|11| 7| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |24|23|15|16|14|19| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |13|17|21|22|20|18| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |12|26| 9|10|29|25| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |31| 2| 4|33| 5|36| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ +] + +This square may also be constructed by the method of De la Hire, from two +auxiliary squares with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 0, 6, 12, 18, +24, 30 respectively. In this case, however, the vertical rows of the one +square and the horizontal rows of the other must each so contain two same +numbers thrice repeated that the summation shall always remain 21 and 90 +respectively. In this manner we get the magic square last given above +from the two following auxiliary squares: + +[Illustration: Fig. 16. + + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 1| 5| 4| 3| 2| 6| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 6| 2| 4| 3| 5| 1| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 6| 5| 3| 4| 2| 1| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 1| 5| 3| 4| 2| 6| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 6| 2| 3| 4| 5| 1| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 1| 2| 4| 3| 5| 6| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ +] + +and + +[Illustration: Fig. 17. + + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 0|30|30| 0|30| 0| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |24| 6|24|24| 6| 6| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |18|18|12|12|12|18| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |12|12|18|18|18|12| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 6|24| 6| 6|24|24| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |30| 0| 0|30| 0|30| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ +] + +It is to be noted in connection with this example that here also as in +the case of odd-numbered squares, it is possible so to inscribe six +times the numbers from 1 to 6 that each number shall appear once and only +once in each horizontal, vertical, and diagonal row; for example, in the +following manner: + +[Illustration: Fig. 18. + + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 2| 4| 6| 1| 3| 5| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 3| 6| 5| 2| 1| 4| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 5| 3| 1| 6| 4| 2| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 6| 5| 4| 3| 2| 1| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 4| 1| 2| 5| 6| 3| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+ +] + +But if we attempt so to insert, in a like manner, the other set of +numbers 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 in a second auxiliary square, that each +number of the first auxiliary square shall stand once and once only in +a corresponding cell with each number of the second square, all the +attempts we may make to fulfil coincidently the last named condition will +result in failure. It is therefore necessary to select auxiliary squares +like the two given above. It is noteworthy, that the fulfilment of the +second condition is impossible only in the case of the square of 6, but +that in the case of the square of 4 or of the square of 8, for example, +two auxiliary squares, such as the method of De la Hire requires, are +possible. Thus, taking the square of 4 we get + +[Illustration: Fig. 19. + + +--+--+--+--+ + | 1| 2| 3| 4| + +--+--+--+--+ + | 4| 3| 2| 1| + +--+--+--+--+ + | 2| 1| 4| 3| + +--+--+--+--+ + | 3| 4| 1| 2| + +--+--+--+--+ +] + +and + +[Illustration: Fig. 20. + + +--+--+--+--+ + | 0| 4| 8|12| + +--+--+--+--+ + | 8|12| 0| 4| + +--+--+--+--+ + |12| 8| 4| 0| + +--+--+--+--+ + | 4| 0|12| 8| + +--+--+--+--+ +] + +The reader may form for himself the magic square which these give. + +The existence of these two auxiliary squares furnishes a key to the +solution of a pretty problem at cards. If we replace, namely, the +numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 by the Ace, the King, the Queen, and the Knave, and +the numbers 0, 4, 8, 12 by the four suits, clubs, spades, hearts, and +diamonds, we shall at once perceive that it is possible, and must be so +necessarily, quadratically to arrange in such a manner the four Aces, +the four Kings, the Four Queens, and the four Knaves, that in each +horizontal, vertical, and diagonal row, each one of the four suits and +each one of the four denominations shall appear once and once only. The +auxiliary squares above given furnish the appended solution of this +problem: + +[Illustration: Fig. 21. + + +--------+--------+--------+--------+ + | CLUBS | SPADES | HEARTS |DIAMONDS| + | ACE | KING | QUEEN | KNAVE | + +--------+--------+--------+--------+ + | HEARTS |DIAMONDS| CLUBS | SPADES | + | KNAVE | QUEEN | KING | ACE | + +--------+--------+--------+--------+ + |DIAMONDS| HEARTS | SPADES | CLUBS | + | KING | ACE | KNAVE | QUEEN | + +--------+--------+--------+--------+ + | SPADES | CLUBS |DIAMONDS| HEARTS | + | QUEEN | KNAVE | ACE | KING | + +--------+--------+--------+--------+ +] + +To fix the solution of the problem in the memory, observe that, starting +from the several corners, each suit and each denomination must be placed +in the spots of the move of a Knight. If we fix the positions of the four +cards of any one row, there will be only two possibilities left of so +placing the other cards that the required condition of having each suit +and each denomination once and only once in each row shall be fulfilled. + +Of magic squares of an even number of places we have up to this point +examined only the squares of 4 and of 6. For the sake of completeness we +append here one of 8 and one of 10 places. The mode of construction of +these squares is similar to the method above discussed for the lower even +numbers. + +[Illustration: Fig. 22. + + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 1|63|62| 4| 5|59|58| 8| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |56|10|11|53|52|14|15|49| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |48|18|19|45|44|22|23|41| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |25|39|38|28|29|35|34|32| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |33|31|30|36|37|27|26|40| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |24|42|43|21|20|46|47|17| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |16|50|51|13|12|54|55| 9| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |57| 7| 6|60|61| 3| 2|64| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ +] + +[Illustration: Fig. 23. + + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 1 | 99| 3 | 97| 96| 5 | 94| 8 | 92| 10| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 90| 12| 88| 14| 86| 85| 17| 83| 19| 11| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 80| 79| 23| 77| 25| 26| 74| 28| 22| 71| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 31| 69| 68| 34| 66| 65| 37| 33| 62| 40| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 60| 42| 58| 57| 45| 46| 44| 53| 49| 51| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 50| 52| 43| 47| 55| 56| 54| 48| 59| 41| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 61| 32| 38| 64| 36| 35| 67| 63| 39| 70| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 21| 29| 73| 27| 75| 76| 24| 78| 72| 30| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 20| 82| 18| 84| 15| 16| 87| 13| 89| 81| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 91| 9 | 93| 4 | 6 | 95| 7 | 98| 2 |100| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +] + +The magic squares of even numbers thus constructed are not the only +possible ones. On the contrary, there are very many others possible, +which obey different laws of formation. It has been calculated, for +example, that with the square of 4 it is possible to construct 880, and +with the square of 6, _several million_, different magic squares. The +number of odd-numbered magic squares constructible by the method of De la +Hire is also very great. With the square of 7, the possible constructions +amount to 363,916,800. With the squares of higher numbers the multitude +of the possibilities increases in the same enormous ratio. + + +V. + +MAGIC SQUARES WHOSE SUMMATION GIVES THE NUMBER OF A YEAR. + +The magic squares which we have so far considered contain only the +natural numbers from 1 upwards. It is possible, however, easily to +deduce from a correct magic square other squares in which a different +law controls the sequence of the numbers to be inscribed. Of the squares +obtained in this manner, we shall devote our attention here only to such +in which, although formed by the inscription of successive numbers, the +sum obtained from the addition of the rows is a determinate number which +we have fixed upon beforehand, as _the number of a year_. In such a case +we have simply to add to the numbers of the original square a determinate +number so to be calculated, that the required sum shall each time appear. +If this sum is divisible by 3, magic squares will always be obtainable +with 3 times 3 spaces which shall give this sum. In such a case we divide +the sum required by 3 and subtract 5 from the result in order to obtain +the number which we have to add to each number of the original square. +If the sum desired is even but not divisible by 4, we must then subtract +from it 34 and take one fourth of the result, to obtain the number which +in this case is to be added in each place. If, for example, we wish to +obtain the number of the year 1890 as the resulting sum of each row, we +shall have to add to each of the numbers of an ordinary magic square of +4 times 4 spaces the number 464; in other words, instead of the numbers +from 1 to 16 we have to insert in the squares the numbers from 465 to +480. As the number of the present year 1892 is divisible by 11, it must +be possible to deduce from the magic square constructed by us at the +conclusion of Section III a second magic square in which each row of 11 +cells will give the number of the year 1892. To do this, we subtract from +1892 the sum of the original square, namely 671, and divide the remainder +by 11, whereby we get 111 and thus perceive that the numbers from 112 to +232 are to be inscribed in the cells of the square required. We get in +this way the preceding square, from which _one and the same sum, namely +1892, can be obtained 44 times_, first from each of the 11 horizontal +rows, secondly from each of the 11 vertical rows, thirdly from each of +the two diagonal rows, and fourthly twenty additional times from each +and every pair of any two rows that lie parallel to a diagonal, have +together 11 cells, and lie on different sides of the diagonal, as for +example, 196, 122, 158, 205, 131, 167, 214, 140, 187, 223, 149. + +[Illustration: Fig. 24. + + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ + | 112| 124| 136| 148| 160| 172| 184| 196| 208| 220| 232| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- + | 147| 159| 171| 183| 195| 207| 219| 231| 122| 123| 135| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- + | 182| 194| 206| 218| 230| 121| 133| 134| 146| 158| 170| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- + | 217| 229| 120| 132| 144| 145| 157| 169| 181| 193| 205| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- + | 131| 143| 155| 156| 168| 180| 192| 204| 216| 228| 119| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- + | 166| 167| 179| 191| 203| 215| 227| 118| 130| 142| 154| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- + | 190| 202| 214| 226| 117| 129| 141| 153| 165| 177| 178| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- + | 225| 116| 128| 140| 152| 164| 176| 188| 189| 201| 213| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- + | 139| 151| 163| 175| 187| 199| 200| 212| 224| 115| 127| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- + | 174| 186| 198| 210| 211| 223| 114| 126| 138| 150| 162| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+------- + | 209| 221| 222| 113| 125| 137| 149| 161| 173| 185| 197| = 1892 + +----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ + 1892 1892 1892 1892 1892 1892 1892 1892 1892 1892 1892 +] + + +VI. + +CONCENTRIC MAGIC SQUARES. + +The acuteness of the mathematicians has also discovered magic squares +which possess the peculiar property that if one row after another be +taken away from each side, the smaller inner squares remaining will +still be magical squares, that is to say, all their rows when added +will give the same sum. It will be sufficient to give two examples here +of such squares, (the laws for their construction being somewhat more +complicated,) of which the first has 7 times 7 and the second 8 times 8 +places. The numbers within each of the dark-bordered frames form with +respect to the centre smaller squares which in their own turn are magical. + +[Illustration: Fig. 25. + + +--+---+---+--+--+---+---+ + | 4| 5| 6 |43|39| 38| 40| + +--++================++--+ + |49||15| 16|33|30| 31|| 1| + +--||--++========++--||--+ + |48||37||22|27|26||13|| 2| + +--||--||--+--+--||--||--+ + |47||36||29|25|21||14|| 3| + +--||--||--+--+--||--||--+ + | 8||18||24|23|28||32||42| + +--||--++========++--||--+ + | 9||19| 34|17|20| 35||41| + +--++================++--+ + |10| 45| 44| 7|11| 12| 46| + +--+---+---+--+--+---+---+ +] + +[Illustration: Fig. 26. + + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ + | 1 | 56| 55| 11| 53| 13| 14| 57| + +---++=====================++---+ + | 63||15| 47| 22| 42| 24|45|| 2 | + +---||--+==============++--||---+ + | 62||49||25| 40| 34|31||16|| 3 | + +---||--||--+---+---+--||--||---+ + | 4 ||48||28| 37| 35|30||17|| 61| + +---||--||--+---+---+--||--||---+ + | 5 ||44||39| 26| 32|33||21|| 60| + +---||--||--+---+---+--||--||---+ + | 59||19||38| 27| 29|36||46|| 6 | + +---||--++=============++--||---+ + | 58||20| 18| 43| 23| 41|50|| 7 | + +---++=====================++---+ + | 8 | 9 | 10| 54| 12| 52| 51| 64| + +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ +] + +In the first of these two squares the internal square of 3 times 3 places +contains the numbers from 21 to 29 in such a manner that each row gives +when added the sum of 75. This square lies within a larger one of 5 times +5 spaces, which contains the numbers from 13 to 37 in such a manner that +each row gives the sum of 125. Finally, this last square forms part of +a square of 7 times 7 places which contains the numbers from 1 to 49 so +that each row gives the sum of 175. + +In the second square the inner central square of 4 times 4 places +contains the numbers from 25 to 40 in such a manner that each row gives +the sum of 130. This square is the middle of a square of 6 times 6 places +which so contains the numbers from 15 to 50 that each row gives the sum +165. Finally, this last square is again the middle of an ordinary magic +square composed of the numbers from 1 to 64. + + +VII. + +MAGICAL SQUARES WITH MAGICAL PARTS. + +If we divide a square of 8 times 8 places by means of the two middle +lines parallel to its sides into 4 parts containing each 4 times 4 +spaces, we may propound the problem of so inserting the numbers from 1 +to 64 in these spaces that not only the whole shall form a magic square, +but also that each of the 4 parts individually shall be magical, that +is to say, give the same sum for each row. This problem also has been +successfully solved, as the following diagram will show. + +[Illustration: Fig. 27. + + +--+--+--+--++--+--+--+--+ + | 1| 4|63|62|| 5| 8|59|58| + +--+--+--+--++--+--+--+--+ + |64|61| 2| 3||60|57| 6| 7| + +--+--+--+--++--+--+--+--+ + |42|43|24|21||34|35|32|29| + +--+--+--+--++--+--+--+--+ + |23|22|41|44||31|30|33|36| + +===========++===========+ + |13|16|51|50|| 9|12|55|54| + +--+--+--+--++--+--+--+--+ + |52|49|14|15||56|53|10|11| + +--+--+--+--++--+--+--+--+ + |38|39|28|25||46|47|20|17| + +--+--+--+--++--+--+--+--+ + |27|26|37|40||19|18|45|48| + +--+--+--+--++--+--+--+--+ +] + +The 4 numbers in each row of any one of the sub-squares here, gives 130; +so that the sum of each one of the rows of the large square will be 260. + +Finally, in further illustration of this idea, we will submit to the +consideration of our readers a very remarkable square of the numbers from +1 to 81. This square, which will be found on the following page (Fig. +28), is divided by parallel lines into 9 parts, of which each contains 9 +consecutive numbers that severally make up a magic square by themselves. + +[Illustration: Fig. 28. + + +---+---+---++---+---+---++---+---+---+ + | 31| 36| 29|| 76| 81| 74|| 13| 18| 11| + +---+---+---++---+---+---++---+---+---+ + | 30| 32| 34|| 75| 77| 79|| 12| 14| 16| + +---+---+---++---+---+---++---+---+---+ + | 35| 28| 33|| 80| 73| 78|| 17| 10| 15| + +===========++===========++===========+ + | 22| 27| 20|| 40| 45| 38|| 58| 63| 56| + +---+---+---++---+---+---++---+---+---+ + | 21| 23| 25|| 39| 41| 43|| 57| 59| 61| + +---+---+---++---+---+---++---+---+---+ + | 26| 19| 24|| 44| 37| 42|| 62| 55| 60| + +===========++===========++===========+ + | 67| 72| 65|| 4 | 9 | 2 || 49| 54| 47| + +---+---+---++---+---+---++---+---+---+ + | 66| 68| 70|| 3 | 5 | 7 || 48| 50| 52| + +---+---+---++---+---+---++---+---+---+ + | 71| 64| 69|| 8 | 1 | 6 || 53| 46| 51| + +---+---+---++---+---+---++---+---+---+ +] + +Wonderful as the properties of this square may appear, the law by which +the author constructed it is equally simple. We have simply to regard the +9 parts as the 9 cells of a magic square of the numbers from I to IX and +then to inscribe by the magic prescript in the square designated as I the +numbers from 1 to 9, in the square designated as II the numbers from 10 +to 18, and so on. In this way the square above given is obtained from the +following base-square: + +[Illustration: Fig. 29. + + +----+----+----+ + | IV | IX | II | + +----+----+----+ + | III| V | VII| + +----+----+----+ + |VIII| I | VI | + +----+----+----+ +] + + +VIII. + +MAGIC SQUARES THAT INVOLVE THE MOVE OF THE CHESS-KNIGHT. + +What one of our readers does not know the problems contained in the +recreation columns of our magazines, the requirements of which are to +compose into a verse 8 times 8 quadratically arranged syllables, of +which every two successive syllables stand on spots so situated with +respect to each other that a chess-knight can move from the one to the +other? If we replace in such an arrangement the 64 successive syllables +by the 64 numbers from 1 to 64, we shall obtain a knight-problem made +up of numbers. Methods also exist indeed for the construction of +such dispositions of numbers, which then form the foundation of the +construction of the problems in the newspapers. But the majority of +knight-problems of this class are the outcome of experiment rather than +the product of methodical creation. If however it is a severe test of +patience to form a knight-problem by experiment, it stands to reason that +it is a still severer trial to effect at the same time the additional +result that the 64 numbers which form the knight-problem shall also form +a magic square. + +This trial of endurance was undertaken several decades ago, by a +pensioned Moravian officer named Wenzelides, who was spending the last +days of his life in the country. After a series of trials which lasted +years he finally succeeded in so inscribing in the 64 squares of the +chess-board the numbers from 1 to 64 that successive numbers, as well +also as the numbers 64 and 1, were always removed from one another in +distance and direction by the move of a knight, and that in addition +thereto the summation of the horizontal and the vertical rows always +gave the same sum 260. Ultimately he discovered several squares of this +description, which were published in the _Berlin Chess Journal_. One of +these is here appended: + +[Illustration: Fig. 30. + + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |47|10|23|64|49| 2|59| 6| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |22|63|48| 9|60| 5|50| 3| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |11|46|61|24| 1|52| 7|58| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |62|21|12|45| 8|57| 4|51| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |19|36|25|40|13|44|53|30| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |26|39|20|33|56|29|14|43| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |35|18|37|28|41|16|31|54| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |38|27|34|17|32|55|42|15| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ +] + +The move of the knight and the equality of the summation of the +horizontal and vertical rows, therefore, are the facts to be noted here. +The diagonal rows do _not_ give the sum 260. Perhaps some one among our +readers who possesses the time and patience will be tempted to outdo +Wenzelides, and to devise a numeral knight-problem of this kind which +will give 260 not only in the horizontal and vertical but also in the two +diagonal rows. + + +IX. + +MAGICAL POLYGONS. + +So far we have only considered such extensions of the idea underlying +the construction of the magic square in which the figure of the square +was retained. We may however contrive extensions of the idea in which +instead of a square, a rectangle, a triangle, or a pentagon, and the +like, appear. Without entering into the consideration of the methods for +the construction of such figures, we will give here of magical polygons +simply a few examples, all supplied by Professor Scheffler: + +1) The numbers from 1 to 32 admit of being written in a rectangle of 4 × +8 in such a manner that the long horizontal rows give the sum of 132 and +the short vertical rows the sum of 66; thus: + +[Illustration: Fig. 31. + + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 1|10|11|29|28|19|18|16| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + | 9| 2|30|12|20|27| 7|25| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |24|31| 3|21|13| 6|26| 8| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ + |32|23|22| 4| 5|14|15|17| + +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ +] + +2) The numbers from 1 to 27 admit of being so arranged in three regular +triangles about a point which forms a common centre, that each side of +the outermost triangle will present 6 numbers of the total summation 96 +and each side of the middle triangle 4 numbers whose sum is 61; as the +following figure shows: + +[Illustration: Fig. 32. + + 26 3 6 10 24 27 + 20 9 11 21 + 18 2 + 16 17 + 15 8 + 22 5 + 12 + 7 13 + 4 23 + 19 + 1 14 + + 25 +] + +3) The numbers from 1 to 80 admit of being formed about a point as common +centre into 4 pentagons, such that each side of the first pentagon from +within contains two numbers, each side of the second pentagon four +numbers, each of the third six numbers, and each side of the fourth, +outermost pentagon eight numbers. The sum of the numbers of each side of +the second pentagon is 122, the sum of those of each side of the third +pentagon is 248, and that of those of each side of the fourth pentagon +254. Furthermore, the sum of any four corner numbers lying in the same +straight line with the centre, is also the same; namely, 92. + +[Illustration: Fig. 33. + + 1 + 26 54 + 31 49 + 10 15 80 + 76 36 44 9 + 50 70 72 32 + 55 71 16 66 27 + 5 45 25 65 37 2 + 11 61 60 24 14 + 30 20 17 53 + 40 56 59 43 + 35 21 64 48 + 69 57 58 73 + 6 79 + 77 75 62 23 67 8 + 46 41 19 22 63 18 38 33 + 51 12 39 68 74 42 13 28 + 4 29 34 7 78 47 52 3 +] + +4) The numbers from 1 to 73 admit of being arranged about a centre, +in which the number 37 is written, into three hexagons which contain +respectively 3, 5, and 7 numbers in each side and possess the following +pretty properties. Each hexagon always gives the same sum, not only when +the summation is made along its six sides, but also when it is made along +the six diameters that join its corners and along the six that are +constructed at right angles to its sides; this sum, for the first hexagon +from within, is 111, for the second 185, and for the third 259. + +[Illustration: Fig. 34. + + 1 5 6 70 60 59 58 + 63 8 + 62 19 53 46 22 45 9 + 61 20 24 64 + 2 48 31 42 38 49 57 + 3 47 39 40 44 56 + 67 51 41 37 33 23 7 + 66 50 34 35 54 11 + 65 25 36 32 43 26 12 + 10 30 27 13 + 17 29 21 28 52 55 72 + 18 71 + 16 69 68 4 14 15 73 +] + + +X. + +MAGIC CUBES. + +Several inquirers, particularly Kochansky (1686), Sauveur (1710), Hugel +(1859), and Scheffler (1882), have extended the principle of the magic +squares of the plane to three-dimensioned space. Imagine a cube divided +by planes parallel to its sides and equidistant from one another, +into cubical compartments. The problem is then, so to insert in these +compartments the successive natural numbers that every row from the right +to the left, every row from the front to the back, every row from the top +to the bottom, every diagonal of a square, and every principal diagonal +passing through the centre of the cube shall contain numbers whose sum is +always the same. For 3 times 3 times 3 compartments, a magic cube of this +description is not constructible. For 4 times, 4 times 4 compartments a +cube is constructible such that any row parallel to an edge of the cube +and every principal diagonal give the sum of 130. To obtain a magic cube +of 64 compartments, imagine the numbers which belong in the compartments +written on the upper surface of the same and the numbers then taken +off in layers of 16 from the top downwards. We obtain thus 4 squares of +16 cells each, which together make up the magic cube; as the following +diagrams will show: + +[Illustration: + + First Layer Second Layer Third Layer Fourth Layer + from the Top. from the Top. from the Top. from the Top. + +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ + | 1|48|32|49| |63|18|34|15| |62|19|35|14| | 4|45|29|52| + +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ + |60|21|37|12| | 6|43|27|54| | 7|42|26|55| |57|24|40| 9| + +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ + |56|25|41| 8| |10|39|23|58| |11|38|22|29| |53|28|44| 5| + +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ + |13|36|20|61| |51|30|46| 3| |50|31|47| 2| |16|33|17|64| + +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +--+--+--+--+ +] + +The same sum 130 here comes out not less than 52 times; viz. in the first +place from the 16 rows from left to right, secondly from the 16 rows from +the front to the back, thirdly from the 16 rows counting from the top +to the bottom, and lastly from the 4 rows which join each two opposite +corners of the cube, namely from the rows: 1, 43, 22, 64; 49, 27, 38, 16; +13, 39, 26, 52; 61, 23, 42, 4. + +For a cube with 5 compartments in each edge the arrangement of the +figures can so be made that all the 75 rows parallel to any and every +edge, all the 30 rows lying in any diagonal of a square, and all the +4 rows forming any principal diagonal shall have one and the same +summation, 315. + +Just as the magic squares of an odd number of cells could be formed with +the aid of _two_ auxiliary squares, so also odd-numbered magic cubes can +be constructed with the help of _three_ auxiliary cubes. + +[Illustration: + + First Layer from Top. Second Layer from Top. Third Layer from Top. + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + |121| 27| 83| 14| 70| | 2 | 58|114| 45| 96| | 33| 89| 20| 71|102| + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + | 10| 61|117| 48| 79| | 36| 92| 23| 54|110| | 67|123| 29| 85| 11| + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + | 44|100| 1 | 57|113| | 75|101| 32| 88| 19| | 76| 7 | 63|119| 50| + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + | 53|109| 40| 91| 22| | 84| 15| 66|122| 28| |115| 41| 97| 3 | 59| + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + | 87| 18| 74|105| 31| |118| 49| 80| 6 | 62| | 24| 55|106| 37| 93| + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + + Fourth Layer from Top. Lowest Layer. + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + | 64|120| 46| 77| 8 | | 95| 21| 52|108| 39| + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + | 98| 4 | 60|111| 42| |104| 35| 86| 17| 73| + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + |107| 38| 94| 25| 51| | 13| 69|125| 26| 82| + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + | 16| 72|103| 34| 90| | 47| 78| 9 | 65|116| + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ + | 30| 81| 12| 68|124| | 56|112| 43| 99| 5 | + +---+---+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+---+---+ +] + +In this manner the preceding magic cube of 5 times 5 times 5 compartments +is formed, in which, it may be additionally noticed, the middle number +between 1 and 125, namely 63, is placed in the central compartment; by +which arrangement the attainment of the sum of 315 is assured in the four +principal diagonals and the 30 sub-diagonals. The condition attained in +the magic squares, that the diagonal-pairs parallel to the sub-diagonals +also shall give the sum 315 is not attainable in this case but is so in +the case of higher numbers of compartments. + + +CONCLUSION. + +Musing on such problems as are the magic squares is fascinating to +thinkers of a mathematical turn of mind. We take delight in discovering +a harmony that abides as an intrinsic quality in the forms of our +thought. The problems of the magic squares are playful puzzles, invented +as it seems for mere pastime and sport. But there is a deeper problem +underlying all these little riddles, and this deeper problem is of a +sweeping significance. It is the philosophical problem of the world-order. + +The formal sciences are creations of the mind. We build the sciences of +mathematics, geometry, and algebra with our conception of pure forms +which are abstract ideas. And the same order that prevails in these +mental constructions permeates the universe, so that an old philosopher, +overwhelmed with the grandeur of law, imagined he heard its rhythm in a +cosmic harmony of the spheres. + + H. SCHUBERT. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[68] The term melancholy meant in Dürer’s time, as it did also in +Shakespeare’s and Milton’s, “thought or thoughtfulness.” Says Milton in +_Il Penseroso_: + + “Hail, thou Goddess, sage and holy, + Hail divinest melancholy + Whose saintly visage is too bright + To hit the sense of human sight, + And therefore to our weaker view + O’erlaid with black, staid Wisdom’s hue.”—I, 12. + +Thought that does not lead to action produces a gloomy state of mind. +Thoughtfulness which cannot find a way out of itself is that melancholy +which engenders weakness,—a truth which is illustrated in Hamlet. +Shakespeare still uses the words thought and melancholy as synonyms, +saying: + + “The native hue of resolution + Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.” + +Dürer’s melancholy does not represent the gloominess of thought, but the +power of invention. Soberness and even a certain sadness are considered +only as an element of this melancholy, but on the whole the genius of +thought appears bright, self-possessed, and strong. + +Dürer represents the Science of Mechanical Invention as a winged female +figure musing over some problem. Scattered on the floor around her lie +some of the simple tools used in the sixteenth century. A ladder leans +against the house, that assists in climbing otherwise inaccessible +heights. A scale, an hour-glass, a bell, and the magic square are hanging +on the wall behind her. + +At a distance a bat-like creature, being the gloom of melancholy, hovers +in the air like a dark cloud, but the sun rises above the horizon, and at +the happy middle between these two extremes stands the rainbow of serene +hope and cheerful confidence. + + + + +MR. SPENCER ON THE ETHICS OF KANT. + + +Mr. Herbert Spencer published in the _Fortnightly Review_ for July 1888 +and in the _Popular Science Monthly_ for August of the same year an +article on “The Ethics of Kant” in which he so strangely misrepresents +Kant’s position that Kant to any uninitiated reader must appear not only +as superficial and shallow, but even as palpably nonsensical. + +Mr. Spencer’s article on “The Ethics of Kant” is a severe criticism +mainly of the nonsensical idea, erroneously imputed to Kant, of a will +that has no end. At the same time Mr. Spencer reproaches Kant with +assuming the simplicity of conscience and believing in a non-evolutionary +origin of the minds of living beings. + +In reply to Mr. Spencer an editorial article appeared in _The Open +Court_ under the caption “Herbert Spencer on the Ethics of Kant” (Nos. +51 and 52), which was supplemented by another article entitled “Kant on +Evolution” (No. 158), the latter being elicited by a renewed attack of +Mr. Spencer upon Kant’s views (which appeared in _Mind_, No. LIX, p. 313). + +Mr. Spencer has republished his article “The Ethics of Kant” together +with many other older articles in a work of three volumes entitled +“Essays Scientific, Political, and Speculative,” 1891, in which he +repeats the following sentence: + + “Thus the basis of the argument by which Kant attempts to + justify his assumption that there exists a good will apart from + a good end, disappears utterly; and leaves his dogma in all its + naked unthinkableness.” + +To this sentence he adds the following foot-note as a reply to my +criticisms: + + “I find that in the above three paragraphs I have done Kant + less than justice and more than justice—less, in assuming + that his evolutionary view was limited to the genesis of + our sidereal system, and more, in assuming that he had not + contradicted himself. My knowledge of Kant’s writings is + extremely limited. In 1844 a translation of his ‘Critique of + Pure Reason’ (then I think lately published) fell into my + hands, and I read the first few pages enunciating his doctrine + of Time and Space: my peremptory rejection of which caused + me to lay the book down. Twice since then the same thing has + happened; for, being an impatient reader, when I disagree with + the cardinal propositions of a work I can go no further. One + other thing I knew. By indirect references I was made aware + that Kant had propounded the idea that celestial bodies have + been formed by the aggregation of diffused matter. Beyond + this my knowledge of his conceptions did not extend; and my + supposition that his evolutionary conception had stopped + short with the genesis of sun, stars, and planets, was due + to the fact that his doctrine of Time and Space, as forms of + thought anteceding experience, implied a supernatural origin + inconsistent with the hypothesis of natural genesis. Dr. Paul + Carus, who, shortly after the publication of this article + in the _Fortnightly Review_ for July, 1888, undertook to + defend the Kantian ethics in the American journal which he + edits, _The Open Court_, has now (Sept. 4, 1890), in another + defensive article, translated sundry passages from Kant’s + ‘Critique of Judgment,’ his ‘Presumable Origin of Humanity,’ + and his work ‘Upon the different Races of Mankind,’ showing + that Kant was, if not fully, yet partially, an evolutionist in + his speculations about living beings. There is, perhaps, some + reason for doubting the correctness of Dr. Carus’s rendering + of these passages into English. When, as in the first of + the articles just named, he failed to distinguish between + consciousness and conscientiousness, and when, as in this + last article, he blames the English for mistranslating Kant, + since they have said ‘Kant maintained that Space and Time are + intuitions,’ which is quite untrue, for they have everywhere + described him as maintaining that Space and Time are _forms_ + of intuition, one may be excused for thinking that possibly + Dr. Carus has read into some of Kant’s expressions, meanings + which they do not rightly bear. Still, the general drift of + the passages quoted makes it tolerably clear that Kant must + have believed in the operation of natural causes as largely, + though not entirely, instrumental in producing organic forms: + extending this belief (which he says ‘can be named a daring + venture of reason’) in some measure to the origin of Man + himself. He does not, however extend the theory of natural + genesis to the exclusion of the theory of supernatural genesis. + When he speaks of an organic habit ‘which in the wisdom of + nature appears to be thus arranged in order that the species + shall be preserved’; and when, further, he says ‘we see, + moreover, that a germ of reason is placed in him, whereby, + after the development of the same, he is destined for social + intercourse,’ he implies divine intervention. And this shows + that I was justified in ascribing to him the belief that Space + and Time, as forms of thought, are supernatural endowments. Had + he conceived of organic evolution in a consistent manner, he + would necessarily have regarded Space and Time as subjective + forms generated by converse with objective realities. + + “Beyond showing that Kant had a partial, if not a complete, + belief in organic evolution (though with no idea of its + causes), the passages translated by Dr. Carus show that he + entertained an implied belief which it here specially concerns + me to notice as bearing on his theory of ‘a good will.’ He + quotes approvingly Dr. Moscati’s lecture showing ‘that the + upright walk of man is constrained and unnatural,’ and showing + the imperfect visceral arrangements and consequent diseases + which result: not only adopting, but further illustrating, + Dr. Moscati’s argument. If here, then, there is a distinct + admission, or rather assertion, that various human organs are + imperfectly adjusted to their functions, what becomes of the + postulate above quoted ‘that no organ for any purpose will be + found in it but what is also the fittest and best adapted for + that purpose’? And what becomes of the argument which sets out + with this postulate? Clearly, I am indebted to Dr. Carus for + enabling me to prove that Kant’s defence of his theory of ‘a + good will’ is, by his own showing, baseless.” + +Mr. Spencer’s reply to my criticisms is surprising in more than one +respect. + +First, without even mentioning the objections I make he discredits my +arguments by throwing doubt upon the correctness of the translations of +the quoted passages. + +Secondly, he alleges, with a view of justifying his doubt, that in the +first of my articles I “failed to distinguish between consciousness and +conscientiousness.”[69] + +Thirdly, Mr. Spencer declares that I had “read into some of Kant’s +expressions, meanings which they do not rightly bear.” + +Fourthly, Mr. Spencer bases this opinion upon a double mistake: he blames +me for not distinguishing between the Kantian phrases that “Space and +Time are intuitions” and that they are “forms of intuition.” + +Fifthly, acknowledging after all that Kant had at least “a partial belief +in organic evolution,” Mr. Spencer accuses him of inconsistency. + +Sixthly, several statements concerning Kant’s views are made not because +Kant held them but because Mr. Spencer assumes for trivial reasons that +he is “justified in ascribing them to him.” + +Seventhly, these statements so vigorously set forth are accompanied by +Mr. Spencer’s remarkably frank confession of unfamiliarity with the +subject under discussion. + +It may be added that Mr. Spencer calls my criticisms “defensive +articles.” He says that “I undertook to defend the Kantian ethics”; +while, in fact, my articles are aggressive. Kant needs no defense for +being misunderstood, and it would not be my business to defend him, for +I am not a Kantian in the sense that I adopt any of the main doctrines +of Kant. On the contrary I dissent from him on almost all fundamental +questions. In ethics I object to Kant’s views in so far as they can be +considered as pure formalism.[70] I am a Kantian only in the sense that +I respect Kant as one of the most eminent philosophers, that I revere +him as that teacher of mine whose influence upon me was greatest, and +I consider the study of Kant’s works as an indispensable requisite for +understanding the problems of the philosophy of our time. Far from +defending Kant’s position, I only undertook to inform Mr. Spencer of what +Kant had really maintained, so that instead of denouncing absurdities +which Kant had never thought of, he might criticise the real Kant. + + * * * * * + +I shall now take up the details of Mr. Spencer’s reply: + + +I. + +I am sorry to see that Mr. Spencer, instead of frankly acknowledging +his errors, has taken refuge in discrediting the translations, which +might very easily have been examined either by himself or by friends of +his; especially as the German original of the most important passages, +wherever any doubt might arise, and also of those expressions on the +misconception of which Mr. Spencer bases his unfavorable opinion of Kant, +were added in foot-notes. + + +II. + +But Mr. Spencer adduces, as if it were a fact, an instance of my grave +mistakes. He says that I failed to distinguish between “consciousness” +and “conscientiousness.” Mr. Spencer makes much of a small matter, which, +if it were as he assumes, would have to be considered as a misprint. + +Mr. Spencer’s statement is so positive that it must make on any reader +the impression of being indubitably true. However, in the whole first +article of mine, and indeed in both articles, “conscientiousness” +is nowhere mentioned and it would be wrong to replace the word +“consciousness” in any of the passages in which it occurs by +“conscientiousness.” + +I should be glad if Mr. Spencer would kindly point out to me the +passage which he had in mind when making his statement, for since there +is not even so much as an occasion for confounding consciousness and +conscientiousness, I stand here before a psychological problem. Mr. +Spencer’s statement is a perfect riddle to me. Either I have a negative +hallucination, as psychologists call it, so that I do not see what is +really there, or Mr. Spencer must have had a positive hallucination. That +which Mr. Spencer has read into my article, was never written and it is +not there. The alleged fact to which he refers, does not exist. + +This kind of erroneous reference into which Mr. Spencer has inadvertently +fallen is a very grievous mistake. It appears more serious than a simple +slip of the pen, when we consider that Mr. Spencer uses the statement for +the purpose of incrimination. He justifies upon this exceedingly slender +basis his doubt concerning the correctness of the translations of the +quoted passages, and Mr. Spencer’s doubt concerning the correctness of +these translations is his main argument for rejecting my criticisms _in +toto_. + +It is not impossible, indeed it is probable, that Mr. Spencer meant +“conscience” instead of “conscientiousness.” There is one passage in +which a superficial reader might have expected “conscience” in place of +“consciousness.” However that does not occur in any of the translations, +but in a paragraph where I speak on my own account. This passage appears +in the appended reprint on page 23, line 14. Whatever anybody might have +expected in that passage, I certainly intended to say “consciousness,” +and only a hasty reader, only he who might merely read the first line of +the paragraph, would consider the word “consciousness” a mistake. + +To avoid any equivocation, however, even to hasty readers, and to guard +against a misconstruction such as Mr. Spencer possibly has given to the +sentence, I propose to alter the passage by adding a few words as follows: + + “It is quite true that _not only conscience, but_ every state + of consciousness is a feeling,” etc. + +The italicised words are inserted, simply to show that here I mean +“consciousness,” and _not_ “conscience.” For the rest, they do not alter +in the least the sense of the sentence. In this passage as throughout the +whole article the terms “consciousness,” and “conscience” have been used +properly. + + * * * * * + +Observing that Mr. Spencer appears to have committed the same mistake for +which he erroneously blames me, I do not mean to say that he “failed to +distinguish between” conscientiousness and conscience. I should rather +regard it as trifling on my part if I drew this inference from what is +either a slip of the pen or an oversight in proof-reading. But it strikes +me that that knavish rogue among the fairies whom Shakespeare calls Puck +and scientists define as chance or coincidence played in a fit of anger +and perhaps from a sentiment of pardonable irony a humorous trick upon +Mr. Spencer. The moral of it is that when an author censures his fellow +authors with undue severity for things that might be mere misprints, he +should keep a close eye on his own printer’s devil. + + +III. + +Mr. Spencer discredits my knowledge of Kant. He says of me: + + “One may be excused for thinking that possibly Dr. Carus has + read into some of Kant’s expressions, meanings which they do + not rightly bear.” + +I did not give Mr. Spencer any occasion for making this personal +reflection. I do not boast of any extraordinary familiarity with Kant’s +writings. There are innumerable German and also English and American +scholars and philosophers who know Kant almost by heart. But the question +at issue is not what I conceive Kant’s ideas to be, but what Kant has +really said, and I was very careful in letting Kant speak for himself. + +My criticism of Mr. Spencer’s conception of Kant consisted almost +exclusively in collating and contrasting Mr. Spencer’s views of Kant with +quotations from Kant’s works. How can I read anything into some of Kant’s +expressions, if I present translations of the expressions themselves, +adding thereto in foot-notes the original whenever doubts could arise? +And the general drift of the quotations alone suffices to overthrow Mr. +Spencer’s conception of Kant. + +The truth is that Mr. Spencer committed the mistake himself, for which +he censures me unjustly. “Mr. Spencer has read into some of Kant’s +expressions meanings which they do not rightly bear.” + + +IV. + +But Mr. Spencer adduces a fact, which, if it were as Mr. Spencer +represents it, would show an inability on my part of making important +distinctions. He says of me: + + “He blames the English for mistranslating Kant, since they have + said ‘Kant maintained that Space and Time are intuitions,’ + which is quite untrue, for they have everywhere described him + as maintaining that Space and Time are _forms_ of intuition.” + +This is a double mistake: (1) Kant and his translators did not make +the distinction of which Mr. Spencer speaks, and (2) the quotation Mr. +Spencer makes from my article is represented to mean something different +from what it actually means in the context. + +Before I speak for myself as to what I actually said, let us state the +facts concerning Kant’s usage of the terms “intuitions” and “forms of +intuition.” + +Kant defines in § 1 of his “Critique of Pure Reason” what he understands +by “Transcendental Æsthetic.” He distinguishes between “empirical +intuition” (_empirische Anschauung_) and “pure intuition” (_reine +Anschauung_). He says: + + “That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of + sensation, is called an empirical intuition.” + +Representations contain besides that which belongs to sensation some +other elements. Kant says: + + “That which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be + arranged under certain relations, I call its _form_.” + +And later on he continues: + + “This pure form of sensibility I shall call pure intuition.” + +These are Kant’s phrases in J. M. D. Meiklejohn’s well known translation. +The term “pure intuition” is repeated again and again, and we find +frequently added by way of explanation the phrases “as a mere form +of sensibility,” “the mere form of phenomena,” “forms of sensuous +intuition,” and also (as Mr. Spencer emphasises as the only correct way) +“forms of intuition.” + +Kant says: + + 1) “_Diese reine Form der Sinnlichkeit wird auch selber reine + Anschauung heissen._ § 1. + + 2) “_Zweitens worden wir von dieser (der empirischen + Anschauung) noch alles abtrennen, damit nichts als reine + Anschauung und die blosse Form der Erscheinungen übrig bleibe._ + § 1. + + 3) “_Raum ... muss ursprünglich Anschauung sein._ § 3. + + 4) “_Der Raum ist nichts anderes als nur die Form aller + Erscheinungen äusserer Sinne._ § 3. + + 5) “_Der Raum aber betrifft nur die reine Form der Anschauung._ + (This passage appears in the first edition only, the paragraph + containing it is omitted in the second edition.) § 3. + + 6) “_Die Zeit ist ... eine reine Form der sinnlichen + Anschauung...._ § 4. + + 7) “_Es muss ihr[71] unmittelbare Anschauung zum Grunde + liegen._ § 4. + + 8) “_Die Zeit ist nichts anderes als die Form des inneren + Sinnes._ § 6. + + 9) “_... dass die Vorstellung der Zeit selbst Anschauung sei._ + § 6. + + 10) “_Wir haben nun ... reine Anschauung a priori, Raum und + Zeit._ § 10. _Beschluss der transcendentalen Æsthetik._” + +These quotations do not pretend to be exhaustive, nor is that necessary +for the present purpose. + +Kant, as we learn from these quotations, makes no distinction between +_reine Anschauung_ and _Form der Anschauung_. He uses most frequently the +term _reine Anschauung_ and designates in several places Space and Time +simply as _Anschauung_. (See the quotations 3, 7, and 9.) So far as I can +gather from a renewed perusal, the expression proposed by Mr. Spencer, +“form of intuition,” _Form der Anschauung_, occurs only once and that too +in a passage omitted in the second edition. + +It is almost redundant to add that the English translators and +interpreters of Kant follow the original pretty closely. Accordingly it +is actually incorrect “that they have everywhere(!) described Kant as +maintaining that Space and Time are _forms_ of intuition.” In addition +to the quotations from Meiklejohn, I call Mr. Spencer’s attention to +William Flemming’s “Vocabulary of Philosophy” (4th ed., edited by Henry +Calderwood) which reads _sub voce_ “Intuition,” p. 228 with reference to +Kant’s view: + + “Space and time are _intuitions_ of sense.” + +To say “Time and Space are forms of intuition” is quite correct according +to Kantian terminology. No objection can be made to Mr. Spencer on that +ground. But to say “Time and Space are intuitions” is also quite correct, +and Mr. Spencer is wrong in censuring the expression. + +Why does Mr. Spencer rebuke me so severely on a point which is of no +consequence? He appears confident that I have betrayed an unpardonable +misconception of Kant’s philosophy. But having pointed out by quotations +from Kant that this is not so, I shall now proceed to explain why the +quotation which Mr. Spencer makes from my article, although the eight +words in quotation marks are literally quoted, is a misquotation. It +is torn out of its context. I did not blame the English translators +of Kant at all, but I blamed his interpreters, among whom the English +interpreters (not all English interpreters, but certainly some of them) +are the worst, for “mutilating Kant’s best thoughts, so that this hero of +progress appears as a stronghold of antiquated views”; and as an instance +I called attention to the misconception of Kant’s term _Anschauung_, +saying: + + “How different is Kant’s philosophy, for instance, if his + position with reference to time and space is mistaken! ‘Time + and Space are our _Anschauung_,’ Kant says. But his English + translators declare ‘Kant maintained that space and time + are intuitions.’ What a difference it makes if intuition + is interpreted in the sense applied to it by the English + intuitionalist school instead of its being taken in the + original meaning of the word _Anschauung_.” + +The word “intuition” implies something mysterious; the word _Anschauung_ +denotes that which is immediately perceived, simply, as it were, by +looking at it. So especially the sense-perceptions of the things before +us are _Anschauungen_. + +Mr. Spencer, believing that he had caught me in making unawares a +blunder, tears the passage out of its context, ignores its purport, +makes a point of an antithesis which had nothing in the world to do +with the topic under discussion, only to throw on me the opprobrium +of incompetence. Even if Mr. Spencer’s antithesis of “intuition” and +“forms of intuition” were of any consequence (as, unfortunately for Mr. +Spencer, it is not), it would count for nothing against me because I did +not speak of “forms” in the passage referred to, I simply alluded to one +misinterpretation of the term _Anschauung_, which is quite common among +English Kantians. It was not required by the purpose I had in view, to +enter into any details as to what kind of _Anschauung_ I meant, and an +allusion to “form” or to any other subject would have served only to +confound the idea which I intended to set forth in the paragraph from +which Mr. Spencer quotes. + +Misquotation of this kind, into which Mr. Spencer was inveigled by a +hasty reading, should be avoided with utmost care, for it involves an +insinuation. It leads away from the main point under discussion to side +issues, and it misrepresents the author from whom the quotation is made. +It insinuates a meaning which the passage does not bear and which was not +even thought of in the context out of which it is torn. + +Mr. Spencer quotes the passage as if I had preferred the term “intuition” +to the term “form of intuition,” or at least, as if I had no idea that +Kant conceives Time and Space as “forms.” Yet Mr. Spencer in trying to +make out a point against me betrays his own lack of information. Kant +insisted most emphatically on calling the forms of our sensibility (i. e. +space and time) “_Anschauungen_.” + +But Mr. Spencer’s case is worse still. While he insists upon the +statement that according to the translators of Kant space and time are +“forms of intuition,” which is at least correct, he uses twice in the +very same paragraph the expression that according to Kant “space and +time are forms of thought,” which is incorrect. The forms of thought +according to Kantian terminology are not space and time but the domain of +the transcendental logic. Anyone who confounds the two terms “forms of +intuition” and “forms of thought” proves himself unable to form a correct +opinion on Kant’s philosophy. That is just characteristic of Kant that +he regards time and space not as thought, nor as forms of thought, but +as _Anschauungen_ and in contradistinction to sense-intuitions (i. e. +sensations) he calls them _reine Anschauungen_ or _Formen der Anschauung_. + + +V. + +Mr. Spencer commenting upon his criticism of Kant’s idea of a Good Will, +says: + + “I find that in the above three paragraphs I have done Kant + less than justice and more than justice—less, in assuming + that his evolutionary view was limited to the genesis of + our sidereal system, and more, in assuming that he had not + contradicted himself. + + “Clearly, I am indebted to Dr. Carus for enabling me to prove + that Kant’s defence of his theory of ‘a good will’ is, by his + own showing, baseless.” + +Kant’s idea of a good will has nothing to do with evolution, and we can +abstain here from discussing whether or not Kant was an evolutionist. +Whether evolution is true or not, what difference does it make to the +proposition, that a good will is the only thing which can be called good +without further qualification (_ohne Einschränkung_)? Pleasure is good, +but it is not absolutely good, there are cases in which pleasure is a +very bad thing. We must qualify our statement and limit it to special +cases. A good will, however, says Kant, is in itself good under all +circumstances. + +Did Mr. Spencer prove the baselessness of Kant’s proposition by proving +evolution? Is it inconsistent to believe in evolution and at the same +time to regard a good will as absolutely good, as good without reserve or +limitation? I think not! + + +VI. + +Mr. Spencer in admitting that “the general drift of the passages quoted +makes it tolerably clear that Kant must have believed in the operation of +natural causes ... in producing organic forms,” adds: + + “He does not, however, extend the theory of natural genesis to + the exclusion of the theory of supernatural genesis.” + +How does Mr. Spencer prove his statement? Does he quote a passage from +Kant which expresses his belief in supernaturalism? No, Mr. Spencer does +not quote Kant, and it would be difficult to find a passage to suit that +purpose. Mr. Spencer adduces a few unmeaning phrases gleaned at random +and torn out of their context, and from these phrases he concludes +that Kant believed in the supernatural. Kant spoke somewhere of “the +wisdom of nature” who has things so arranged that the species might be +preserved. If the wisdom of nature in preserving the species is to be +taken literally, the phrase might prove that Kant believed nature to be a +wise old woman. Kant spoke further of “the germ of reason placed in man +whereby he is destined to social intercourse.” Does the usage of the word +“destined” really “imply divine intervention,” as Mr. Spencer says? Mr. +Spencer adds: + + “And this [viz. Kant’s usage of these phrases] shows that I was + justified in ascribing to him the belief that Space and Time, + as forms of thought [sic!], are supernatural endowments.” + +What might we not prove by this kind of loose argumentation! + +Kant did not introduce any supernatural explanations; on the contrary, he +proposed to exclude “supernatural genesis.” He says e. g. in a passage of +the “Critique of Judgment” quoted on page 41 of the appendix: + + “If we assume occasionalism for the production of organised + beings, nature is thereby wholly discarded ... therefore it + cannot be supposed that this system is accepted by anyone who + has had to do with philosophy.” + +And furthermore Kant rejects the partial admission of the supernatural, +saying: + + “As though it were not the same to make the required forms + arise in a supernatural manner at the beginning of the world as + during its progress.” + +Mr. Spencer charges Kant with inconsistency. We do not intend to say that +Kant was in all the phases of his development consistent with himself. +But we do say that the charge of Mr. Spencer against Kant consists in +this: the real Kant has said things which are incompatible with Mr. +Spencer’s view of Kant. + +This settles the sixth point. + + +VII. + +Mr. Spencer’s reply to my criticism is a very strange piece of +controversy and I have actually been at a loss, how to account for it. + +The situation can be explained only by assuming that Mr. Spencer, +being an impatient reader, when finding out that he disagreed with my +propositions, could go no further and wrote his reply to me without +having read my articles. This is very hard on a critic who, carefully +avoiding everything that might look like fault-finding, is painstakingly +careful in giving to the author criticised every means of investigating +the truth himself and helps him in a friendly way to correct his errors. + +There is only one consolation for me, which is, that I am in good +company. The great thinker of Koenigsberg is very severely censured in +almost all of Mr. Spencer’s writings for ideas which he never held. And +now Mr. Spencer confesses openly and with ingenuous sincerity, that his +knowledge of Kant’s writings is extremely limited. But why he condemns a +man of whom he knows so little Mr. Spencer does not tell us. + +Mr. Spencer says: + + “My knowledge of Kant’s writings is extremely limited. In 1844 + a translation of his “Critique of Pure Reason” (then I think + lately published) fell into my hands, and I read the first few + pages enunciating his doctrine of Time and Space: my peremptory + rejection of which caused me to lay the book down. + + “Twice since then the same thing has happened; for, being + an impatient reader, when I disagree with the cardinal + propositions of a work I can go no further. + + “One other thing I knew. By indirect references I was made + aware that Kant had propounded the idea that celestial bodies + have been formed by the aggregation of diffused matter. Beyond + this my knowledge of his conceptions did not extend; and my + supposition that his evolutionary conception had stopped short + with the genesis of sun, stars, and planets was due to the + fact that his doctrine of Time and Space, as forms of thought + [sic] anteceding experience, implied a supernatural origin + inconsistent with the hypothesis of natural genesis.” + +Kant has been a leader in thought for the last century. It is very +important to criticise his ideas wherever they are wrong, but his errors +cannot be conquered by _ex cathedra_ denunciations. + +Darwin’s habits in investigating and weighing the pro and con of a +question were very different from Mr. Spencer’s, and Darwin’s success is +in no small degree due to the sternness with which he adhered to certain +rules of reading and studying. We find in his “Autobiography” certain +reminiscences labeled “important” from which the following is most +instructive: + + “I had also, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, + that whenever a published fact, a new observation or a thought, + came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to + make a memorandum of it without fail, for I had found by + experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to + escape from the memory than favorable ones.” + +Experience teaches that we can learn most from those authors with whom we +do not agree. The ethics of reading and studying demand other habits than +laying a book down when we disagree with its cardinal propositions. Such +habits prevent progress and create prejudices. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Spencer has not answered my criticism at all. Mr. Spencer did +not even take into consideration the passages quoted from Kant. He +republished all the false statements of Kant’s views, so inconsiderately +made, together with all the perverse opinions based upon them. The +assurance with which Mr. Spencer makes statements which have no +foundation whatever is really perplexing even to a man who is well +informed on the subject, and it will go far to convince the unwary +reader. What, however, shall become of the general tenor of philosophical +criticism and controversy if a man of Mr. Spencer’s reputation is +so indifferent about being informed concerning the exact views of +his adversary, if he is so careless in presenting them, if he makes +positively erroneous statements on confessedly mere “supposition,” and +finally, if in consequence thereof he is flagrantly unjust in censuring +errors which arise only from his own too prolific imagination? + +We feel confident that Mr. Spencer will explain his side of the question +satisfactorily. His mistakes being undeniable, we do not believe that he +will seek to deny them. Yet we trust that Mr. Spencer as soon as he finds +himself at fault, will not even make an attempt at palliation, that he +will not blink the frank acknowledgment of his misstatements and also of +having treated Kant with injustice. A man who has devoted his life to the +search for truth will not suffer any blot to remain on his escutcheon. + + EDITOR. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[69] This article “Herbert Spencer on the Ethics of Kant” was +electrotyped at the time it appeared in _The Open Court_. It is appended +to this number of _The Monist_ as documentary evidence of the fact, that +there is not even so much as an occasion in the article for confounding +“consciousness” and “conscientiousness.” + +[70] See _Fundamental Problems_, pp. 197-206; and _The Ethical Problem_, +p. 32, seq., especially p. 33, lines 18-20. + +[71] Second edition reads “_ihnen_” in place of “_ihr_,” viz. _der Zeit_. +The word “_ihnen_” refers to _Theilvorstellungen der Zeit_. + + + + +WHAT DOES ANSCHAUUNG MEAN? + + +Mr. Spencer’s erroneous statement that Kant conceives space and time as +forms of thought instead of forms of intuition induces me to make a few +explanatory remarks concerning the term _Anschauung_. + +Kant means that space and time are immediately given in experience and +not inferences drawn from the data of experience; they are not thoughts, +but objects of direct perception. + +Sense-impressions are data, they are prior to ideas, the latter being +constructions made out of sense-impressions. Sense-impressions are +facts, but ideas are of an inferential nature; they are (to use Lloyd +Morgan’s excellent term) constructs. Now Kant claims that space and +time are in the same predicament: they also are immediately given, they +also are _Anschauungen_. Kant did not trouble himself much to prove +that they are forms; he seems to have taken that for granted. But he +was very careful to show that they are not ideas, not thoughts, not +abstractions, not generalisations, but that they are as direct data +as are sense-impressions and he calls the knowledge which man has by +directly facing the object of knowledge “_Anschauung_.” + +The conclusion which Kant draws from this may be characterised as follows: + +Sensations are not things but appearances; they are subjective, not +objective, they are not the objects themselves but what our sensibility +makes of objects. Space and time being _Anschauungen_, Kant argues that +they are of the same kind as the sense-data of knowledge, that they +are inherent in our nature. Thus Kant maintains: “Sensations are the +products of our sensibility, and space and time are the forms of our +sensibility.” + +The word _Anschauung_ has been a _crux interpretum_ since translations +have been made from Kant, and it is quite true that no adequate word to +express it, exists in English. I enjoyed of late a discussion on the +subject with Mr. Francis C. Russell who called my attention to several +notes in _The Journal of Speculative Philosophy_. The following is from +the pen of Dr. W. T. Harris (Vol. II, p. 191): + + “Through a singular chance, the present number of the journal + contains two notes from two contributors on the proper + translation of the German word _Anschauung_. Mr. Kroeger holds + that the word _Anschauung_, as used by Fichte and also by Kant, + denotes an act of the Ego which the English word _Intuition_ + does not at all express, but for which the English word + ‘contemplation’ is an exact equivalent. Mr. Peirce suggests + that no person whose native tongue is English will translate + _Anschauung_ by another word than _Intuition_. Whether there + is a failure to understand English on the one hand or German + on the other, the Editor does not care to inquire. It is + certain that while intuition has been adopted generally as an + equivalent for the word under consideration both by English + and French translators, yet it was a wide departure from the + ordinary English use of the term. Besides this, we have no + English verb _intuite_ (at least in the Dictionaries), and + the reader will find that the verb used by Meiklejohn (in the + translation of Kant’s _Kritik_) for it, is _contemplate_, + and the same rendering is given by Smith in his excellent + translation of Fichte’s Popular Works (London, 1849).” + +Mr. Charles S. Peirce says: + + “No person whose native tongue is English will need to be + informed that contemplation is essentially (1) protracted (2) + voluntary, and (3) an action, and that it is never used for + that which is set forth to the mind in this act. A foreigner + can convince himself of this by the proper study of English + writers. Thus, Locke (Essay concerning Human Understanding, + Book II., chap. 19, § 1) says, ‘If it [an idea] be held + there [in view] long under attentive consideration, ’tis + _contemplation_”; and again, (_Ibid._, Book II., chap. 10, § 1) + ‘Keeping the _Idea_, which is brought into it [the mind] for + some time actually in view, which is called _Contemplation_.’ + This term is therefore unfitted to translate _Anschauung_; + for this latter does not imply an act which is necessarily + protracted or voluntary, and denotes most usually a mental + presentation, sometimes a faculty, less often the reception of + an impression in the mind, and seldom, if ever, an action. + + “To the translation of _Anschauung_ by intuition, there is, + at least, no such insufferable objection. Etymologically the + two words precisely correspond. The original philosophical + meaning of intuition was a cognition of the present manifold + in that character; and it is now commonly used, as a modern + writer says, ‘to include all the products of the perceptive + (external or internal) and imaginative faculties; every act of + consciousness, in short, of which the immediate object is an + _individual_, thing, act, or state of mind, presented under the + condition of distinct existence in space and time.’ Finally, we + have the authority of Kant’s own example for translating his + _Anschauung_ by _Intuitus_; and, indeed, this is the common + usage of Germans writing Latin. Moreover, _intuitiv_ frequently + replaces _anschauend_ or _anschaulich_. If this constitutes a + misunderstanding of Kant, it is one which is shared by himself + and nearly all his countrymen” (_ibid._ p. 152 et seqq.). + +Mr. Peirce adds the following explanation concerning the term intuition +in another note (_ibid._ p. 103): + + “The word _intuitus_ first occurs as a technical term in St. + Anselm’s Monologium. He wished to distinguish between our + knowledge of God and our knowledge of finite things (and, in + the next world, of God, also); and thinking of the saying of + St. Paul, _Videmus nunc per speculum in œnigmate: tunc autem + facie ad faciem_, he called the former _speculation_ and the + latter _intuition_. This use of ‘speculation’ did not take + root, because that word already had another exact and widely + different meaning. + + “In the middle ages, the term ‘intuitive cognition’ had two + principal senses, 1st, as opposed to abstractive cognition, + it meant the knowledge of the present as present, and this is + its meaning in Anselm; but 2d, as no intuitive cognition was + allowed to be determined by a previous cognition, it came to + be used as the opposite of discursive cognition (see Scotus, + In sentent. lib. 2, dist. 3, qu. 9), and this is nearly the + sense in which I employ it. This is also nearly the sense in + which Kant uses it, the former distinction being expressed + by his _sensuous_ and _non-sensuous_. (See Werke, herausg. + Rosenkrantz, Thl. 2, S. 713, 31, 41, 100, u. s. w.) + + “An enumeration of six meanings of intuition may be found in + Hamilton’s Reid p. 759.” + +If we have to choose between the two translations “intuition” and +“contemplation,” we should with Mr. Peirce decidedly prefer the +word “intuition.” The word contemplation corresponds to the German +_Betrachtung_ and all that Mr. Peirce says against it holds good. But +we must confess that the term intuition (as Mr. Peirce himself seems to +grant) is not a very good translation either. The term intuition has +other meanings which interfere with the correct meaning of _Anschauung_ +and was actually productive of much confusion. + +The English term intuition is strongly tinged with the same meaning that +is attached to the German word _Intuition_. It means an inexplicable +kind of direct information from some supernatural sources, which mystics +claim to possess as the means of their revelations. In this sense +Goethe characterises it satirically in Faust (Scene XIV). Mephistopheles +describes the process as follows: + + A blessing drawn from supernatural fountain! + In night and dew to lie upon the mountains; + All Heaven and Earth in rapture penetrating; + Thyself to Godhood haughtily inflating; + To grub with yearning force through Earth’s dark marrow, + Compress the six days’ work within thy bosom narrow,— + To taste, I know not what, in haughty power, + Thine own ecstatic life on all things shower, + Thine earthly self behind thee cast, + And then the lofty intuition [with a gesture] at last. + +The satire is good on _Intuition_ but it would not apply to _Anschauung_, +for the latter word excludes rigidly any mysticism or supernaturalism +which the former essentially involves. To employ the term “intuition” for +both ideas must necessarily weaken the meaning of _Anschauung_. + +Besides we should bear in mind that the German _Anschauung_ is +vernacular and should find a correspondent Saxon word. Such Latin words +as intuition convey in English as much as in German the impression of +being terms denoting something very abstract. Vernacular terms much more +strongly indicate the immediateness and directness which is implied in +_Anschauung_. In my conversation with Mr. Russell, we tried to coin a +new word that should cover the meaning of _Anschauung_ as an act of +“atlooking” and the word “atsight” readily suggested itself. + +The word “atsight” is an exact English equivalent of the German +_Anschauung_. It describes the looking at an object in its immediate +presence. At the same time the word is readily understood, while +philologically considered, its formation is fully justified by the +existence of the words “insight and foresight.” + + * * * * * + +One of the most important of Kant’s doctrines is the proposition that +all thought must ultimately have reference to _Anschauung_, i. e. to +atsight. Through atsight only the objects of experience can be given us. +All speculations not founded upon this bottom rock of knowledge are mere +dreams. This is the maxim of positivism and it is the basis of all sound +philosophy. Says Kant in the “Anhang” to his Prolegomena (in reply to a +critic who had misunderstood his idealism) as a summary statement of his +views: + + “_Der Satz aller echten Idealisten, von der eleatischen Schule + an bis zum Bischof Berkley, ist in dieser Formel enthalten: + ‘alle Erkenntnis durch Sinne und Erfahrung ist nichts als + lauter Schein, und nur in den Ideen des reinen Verstandes und + Vernunft ist Wahrheit.’_ + + “_Der Grundsatz, der meinen Idealismus durchgängig regiert + und bestimmt, ist dagegen: ‘Alles Erkenntnis von Dingen, aus + blossem reinen Verstande oder reiner Vernunft, ist nichts als + lauter Schein, und nur in der Erfahrung ist Wahrheit.’_” + + “The doctrine of all genuine idealists from the Eleatic School + down to Bishop Berkeley is contained in this formula: All + cognition through the senses and experience is nothing but + illusion; and in the ideas of the pure understanding and reason + alone is truth. + + “The principle, however, that rules and determines my idealism + throughout is this: All cognition out of pure understanding + or pure reason is nothing but mere illusion and in experience + alone is truth.” + +Kant then proposes in order to avoid equivocation to call his views +“formal or critical idealism,” adding that his idealism made any other +idealism impossible. Criticism truly is the beginning of philosophy as +an objective science. It gives the _coup de grace_ to those worthless +declamations which still pass among many as philosophy. Says Kant: + + “_So viel ist gewiss: wer einmal Kritik gekostet hat, den ekelt + auf immer alles dogmatische Gewäsche._” + + “That much is certain: He who has once tasted critique will be + forever disgusted with all dogmatic twaddle.” + +It is strange that in spite of Kant’s explicit declaration, which leaves +no doubt about the positive spirit that pervades the principles of his +philosophy, he is still misunderstood by his opponents no less than by +those who profess to be his disciples. + + * * * * * + +There is no occasion now to treat the subject exhaustively, but it may be +permitted to add a few remarks on Kant’s proposition that space and time +are atsights. + +We must distinguish three things: + +1) Objective space. + +2) Space as atsight, and + +3) Space-conception. + +Space as atsight is the datum. It is the immediate presence of relations +among the sensory impressions. This, however, is not as yet that +something which we generally call space. That which generally goes by the +name of space is a construction built out of the relational data that +obtain in experience and we propose to call it space-conception. Our +space-conception, accordingly, (and here I include the mathematician’s +space-conception) is based upon space as atsight, but it is more +than atsight. It is an inference made therefrom, it is the product +of experience. Space-conception, however, is as are all legitimate +noumena, no mere subjective illusion, it possesses objective validity; +it describes some real existence and this real existence represented in +space-conception is what may be called objective space. + +Objective space is the form of reality. Space as atsight is the form of +sensibility. Space as space-conception is a construct of an abstract +nature and serves as a description or plan of the form of reality. + +The same is true of Time. Time as atsight is the relation of succession +obtaining in the changes of experience. Time as time-conception is the +noumenon constructed out of these data to represent that feature of +reality which may for lack of a better term be called objective time. + +Briefly: Space and Time are not things, not essences, not entities, +but certain features of existence. They are the forms of reality. When +existence finds a representation in the feelings of a sentient being, +time and space appear as their forms, and these forms furnish the +material out of which are built the conceptions of Space and Time. + + EDITOR. + + + + +THE LAW OF MIND. + + +In an article published in _The Monist_ for January 1891, I endeavored +to show what ideas ought to form the warp of a system of philosophy, and +particularly emphasised that of absolute chance. In the number of April +1892, I argued further in favor of that way of thinking, which it will be +convenient to christen _tychism_ (from τύχη, chance). A serious student +of philosophy will be in no haste to accept or reject this doctrine; but +he will see in it one of the chief attitudes which speculative thought +may take, feeling that it is not for an individual, nor for an age, to +pronounce upon a fundamental question of philosophy. That is a task for +a whole era to work out. I have begun by showing that _tychism_ must +give birth to an evolutionary cosmology, in which all the regularities +of nature and of mind are regarded as products of growth, and to a +Schelling-fashioned idealism which holds matter to be mere specialised +and partially deadened mind. I may mention, for the benefit of those who +are curious in studying mental biographies, that I was born and reared +in the neighborhood of Concord,—I mean in Cambridge,—at the time when +Emerson, Hedge, and their friends were disseminating the ideas that they +had caught from Schelling, and Schelling from Plotinus, from Boehm, or +from God knows what minds stricken with the monstrous mysticism of the +East. But the atmosphere of Cambridge held many an antiseptic against +Concord transcendentalism; and I am not conscious of having contracted +any of that virus. Nevertheless, it is probable that some cultured +bacilli, some benignant form of the disease was implanted in my soul, +unawares, and that now, after long incubation, it comes to the surface, +modified by mathematical conceptions and by training in physical +investigations. + +The next step in the study of cosmology must be to examine the general +law of mental action. In doing this, I shall for the time drop my tychism +out of view, in order to allow a free and independent expansion to +another conception signalised in my first _Monist_-paper as one of the +most indispensable to philosophy, though it was not there dwelt upon; +I mean the idea of continuity. The tendency to regard continuity, in +the sense in which I shall define it, as an idea of prime importance in +philosophy may conveniently be termed _synechism_. The present paper +is intended chiefly to show what synechism is, and what it leads to. +I attempted, a good many years ago, to develop this doctrine in the +_Journal of Speculative Philosophy_ (Vol. III.); but I am able now +to improve upon that exposition, in which I was a little blinded by +nominalistic prepossessions. I refer to it, because students may possibly +find that some points not sufficiently explained in the present paper are +cleared up in those earlier ones. + + +WHAT THE LAW IS. + +Logical analysis applied to mental phenomena shows that there is but +one law of mind, namely, that ideas tend to spread continuously and to +affect certain others which stand to them in a peculiar relation of +affectibility. In this spreading they lose intensity, and especially the +power of affecting others, but gain generality and become welded with +other ideas. + +I set down this formula at the beginning, for convenience; and now +proceed to comment upon it. + + +INDIVIDUALITY OF IDEAS. + +We are accustomed to speak of ideas as reproduced, as passed from mind to +mind, as similar or dissimilar to one another, and, in short, as if they +were substantial things; nor can any reasonable objection be raised to +such expressions. But taking the word “idea” in the sense of an event in +an individual consciousness, it is clear that an idea once past is gone +forever, and any supposed recurrence of it is another idea. These two +ideas are not present in the same state of consciousness, and therefore +cannot possibly be compared. To say, therefore, that they are similar +can only mean that an occult power from the depths of the soul forces +us to connect them in our thoughts after they are both no more. We may +note, here, in passing that of the two generally recognised principles of +association, contiguity and similarity, the former is a connection due to +a power without, the latter a connection due to a power within. + +But what can it mean to say that ideas wholly past are thought of at +all, any longer? They are utterly unknowable. What distinct meaning can +attach to saying that an idea in the past in any way affects an idea in +the future, from which it is completely detached? A phrase between the +assertion and the denial of which there can in no case be any sensible +difference is mere gibberish. + +I will not dwell further upon this point, because it is a commonplace of +philosophy. + + +CONTINUITY OF IDEAS. + +We have here before us a question of difficulty, analogous to the +question of nominalism and realism. But when once it has been clearly +formulated, logic leaves room for one answer only. How can a past idea be +present? Can it be present vicariously? To a certain extent, perhaps; but +not merely so; for then the question would arise how the past idea can +be related to its vicarious representation. The relation, being between +ideas, can only exist in some consciousness: now that past idea was in no +consciousness but that past consciousness that alone contained it; and +that did not embrace the vicarious idea. + +Some minds will here jump to the conclusion that a past idea cannot in +any sense be present. But that is hasty and illogical. How extravagant, +too, to pronounce our whole knowledge of the past to be mere delusion! +Yet it would seem that the past is as completely beyond the bonds of +possible experience as a Kantian thing-in-itself. + +How can a past idea be present? Not vicariously. Then, only by direct +perception. In other words, to be present, it must be _ipso facto_ +present. That is, it cannot be wholly past; it can only be going, +infinitesimally past, less past than any assignable past date. We are +thus brought to the conclusion that the present is connected with the +past by a series of real infinitesimal steps. + +It has already been suggested by psychologists that consciousness +necessarily embraces an interval of time. But if a finite time be meant, +the opinion is not tenable. If the sensation that precedes the present +by half a second were still immediately before me, then, on the same +principle the sensation preceding that would be immediately present, and +so on _ad infinitum_. Now, since there is a time, say a year, at the end +of which an idea is no longer _ipso facto_ present, it follows that this +is true of any finite interval, however short. + +But yet consciousness must essentially cover an interval of time; for +if it did not, we could gain no knowledge of time, and not merely no +veracious cognition of it, but no conception whatever. We are, therefore, +forced to say that we are immediately conscious through an infinitesimal +interval of time. + +This is all that is requisite. For, in this infinitesimal interval, +not only is consciousness continuous in a subjective sense, that is, +considered as a subject or substance having the attribute of duration; +but also, because it is immediate consciousness, its object is _ipso +facto_ continuous. In fact, this infinitesimally spread-out consciousness +is a direct feeling of its contents as spread out. This will be further +elucidated below. In an infinitesimal interval we directly perceive the +temporal sequence of its beginning, middle, and end,—not, of course, +in the way of recognition, for recognition is only of the past, but in +the way of immediate feeling. Now upon this interval follows another, +whose beginning is the middle of the former, and whose middle is the end +of the former. Here, we have an immediate perception of the temporal +sequence of its beginning, middle, and end, or say of the second, third, +and fourth instants. From these two immediate perceptions, we gain a +mediate, or inferential, perception of the relation of all four instants. +This mediate perception is objectively, or as to the object represented, +spread over the four instants; but subjectively, or as itself the subject +of duration, it is completely embraced in the second moment. [The reader +will observe that I use the word _instant_ to mean a point of time, and +_moment_ to mean an infinitesimal duration.] If it is objected that, +upon the theory proposed, we must have more than a mediate perception +of the succession of the four instants, I grant it; for the sum of the +two infinitesimal intervals is itself infinitesimal, so that it is +immediately perceived. It is immediately perceived in the whole interval, +but only mediately perceived in the last two thirds of the interval. +Now, let there be an indefinite succession of these inferential acts of +comparative perception; and it is plain that the last moment will contain +objectively the whole series. Let there be, not merely an indefinite +succession, but a continuous flow of inference through a finite time; +and the result will be a mediate objective consciousness of the whole +time in the last moment. In this last moment, the whole series will +be recognised, or known as known before, except only the last moment, +which of course will be absolutely unrecognisable to itself. Indeed, +even this last moment will be recognised like the rest, or, at least be +just beginning to be so. There is a little _elenchus_, or appearance +of contradiction, here, which the ordinary logic of reflection quite +suffices to resolve. + + +INFINITY AND CONTINUITY, IN GENERAL. + +Most of the mathematicians who during the last two generations have +treated the differential calculus have been of the opinion that an +infinitesimal quantity is an absurdity; although, with their habitual +caution, they have often added “or, at any rate, the conception of an +infinitesimal is so difficult, that we practically cannot reason about it +with confidence and security.” Accordingly, the doctrine of limits has +been invented to evade the difficulty, or, as some say, to explain the +signification of the word “infinitesimal.” This doctrine, in one form or +another, is taught in all the text-books, though in some of them only as +an alternative view of the matter; it answers well enough the purposes of +calculation, though even in that application it has its difficulties. + +The illumination of the subject by a strict notation for the logic +of relatives had shown me clearly and evidently that the idea of an +infinitesimal involves no contradiction, before I became acquainted with +the writings of Dr. Georg Cantor (though many of these had already +appeared in the _Mathematische Annalen_ and in _Borchardt’s Journal_, +if not yet in the _Acta Mathematica_, all mathematical journals of the +first distinction), in which the same view is defended with extraordinary +genius and penetrating logic. + +The prevalent opinion is that finite numbers are the only ones that we +can reason about, at least, in any ordinary mode of reasoning, or, as +some authors express it, they are the only numbers that can be reasoned +about mathematically. But this is an irrational prejudice. I long ago +showed that finite collections are distinguished from infinite ones +only by one circumstance and its consequences, namely, that to them +is applicable a peculiar and unusual mode of reasoning called by its +discoverer, DeMorgan, the “syllogism of transposed quantity.” + +Balzac, in the introduction of his _Physiologie du mariage_, remarks that +every young Frenchman boasts of having seduced some Frenchwoman. Now, as +a woman can only be seduced once, and there are no more Frenchwomen than +Frenchmen, it follows, if these boasts are true, that no French women +escape seduction. If their number be finite, the reasoning holds. But +since the population is continually increasing, and the seduced are on +the average younger than the seducers, the conclusion need not be true. +In like manner, DeMorgan, as an actuary, might have argued that if an +insurance company pays to its insured on an average more than they have +ever paid it, including interest, it must lose money. But every modern +actuary would see a fallacy in that, since the business is continually +on the increase. But should war, or other cataclysm, cause the class +of insured to be a finite one, the conclusion would turn out painfully +correct, after all. The above two reasonings are examples of the +syllogism of transposed quantity. + +The proposition that finite and infinite collections are distinguished by +the applicability to the former of the syllogism of transposed quantity +ought to be regarded as the basal one of scientific arithmetic. + +If a person does not know how to reason logically, and I must say that +a great many fairly good mathematicians,—yea, distinguished ones,—fall +under this category, but simply uses a rule of thumb in blindly drawing +inferences like other inferences that have turned out well, he will, +of course, be continually falling into error about infinite numbers. +The truth is such people do not reason, at all. But for the few who do +reason, reasoning about infinite numbers is easier than about finite +numbers, because the complicated syllogism of transposed quantity is not +called for. For example, that the whole is greater than its part is not +an axiom, as that eminently bad reasoner, Euclid, made it to be. It is a +theorem readily proved by means of a syllogism of transposed quantity, +but not otherwise. Of finite collections it is true, of infinite +collections false. Thus, a part of the whole numbers are even numbers. +Yet the even numbers are no fewer than all the numbers; an evident +proposition since if every number in the whole series of whole numbers be +doubled, the result will be the series of even numbers. + + 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. + 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc. + +So for every number there is a distinct even number. In fact, there are +as many distinct doubles of numbers as there are of distinct numbers. But +the doubles of numbers are all even numbers. + +In truth, of infinite collections there are but two grades of magnitude, +the _endless_ and the _innumerable_. Just as a finite collection is +distinguished from an infinite one by the applicability to it of a +special mode of reasoning, the syllogism of transposed quantity, so, +as I showed in the paper last referred to, a numerable collection is +distinguished from an innumerable one by the applicability to it of +a certain mode of reasoning, the Fermatian inference, or, as it is +sometimes improperly termed, “mathematical induction.” + +As an example of this reasoning, Euler’s demonstration of the binomial +theorem for integral powers may be given. The theorem is that _(x+y)ⁿ_, +where _n_ is a whole number, may be expanded into the sum of a series +of terms of which the first is _xⁿy⁰_ and each of the others is derived +from the next preceding by diminishing the exponent of _x_ by 1 and +multiplying by that exponent and at the same time increasing the exponent +of _y_ by 1 and dividing by that increased exponent. Now, suppose this +proposition to be true for a certain exponent, _n_ = _M_, then it +must also be true for _n_ = _M_ + 1. For let one of the terms in the +expansion of _(x+y)ᴹ_ be written A_xᵖy𐞥_. Then, this term with the two +following will be + +=Transcriber’s Note:= Unicode has no subscript q character, so the Greek +subscript phi character ᵩ is used in these formulæ to represent it. +Italics have been removed for readability. + + Axᵖy𐞥 + A(ᵖ⁄ᵩ₊₁)xᵖ⁻¹y𐞥⁺¹ + A(ᵖ⁄ᵩ₊₁)(ᵖ⁻¹⁄ᵩ₊₂)xᵖ⁻²y𐞥⁺² + +Now, when _(x+y)ᴹ_ is multiplied by _x+y_ to give _(x+y)ᴹ⁺¹_, we multiply +first by _x_ and then by _y_ instead of by _x_ and add the two results. +When we multiply by _x_, the second of the above three terms will be the +only one giving a term involving _xᵖy𐞥⁺¹_ and the third will be the only +one giving a term in _xᵖ⁻¹y𐞥⁺²_; and when we multiply by _y_ the first +will be the only term giving a term in _xᵖy𐞥⁺¹_, and the second will be +the only term giving a term in _xᵖ⁻¹y𐞥⁺²_. Hence, adding like terms, +we find that the coefficient of _xᵖy𐞥⁺¹_in the expansion of _(x+y)ᴹ⁺¹_ +will be the sum of the coefficients of the first two of the above three +terms, and that the coefficient of _xᵖ⁻¹y𐞥⁺²_ will be the sum of the +coefficients of the last two terms. Hence, two successive terms in the +expansion of _(x+y)ᴹ⁺¹_ will be + + A[1+(ᵖ⁄ᵩ₋₁)]xᵖy𐞥⁺¹ + A(ᵖ⁄ᵩ₊₁)[1+(ᵖ⁻¹⁄ᵩ₋₂)]xᵖ⁻¹y𐞥⁺² + + = A(ᵖ⁺𐞥⁺¹⁄ᵩ₊₁)xᵖy𐞥⁺¹ + A(ᵖ⁺𐞥⁺¹⁄ᵩ₊₁). (ᵖ⁄ᵩ₊₂)xᵖ⁻¹y𐞥⁺². + +It is, thus, seen that the succession of terms follows the rule. Thus if +any integral power follows the rule, so also does the next higher power. +But the first power obviously follows the rule. Hence, all powers do so. + +Such reasoning holds good of any collection of objects capable of being +ranged in a series which though it may be endless, can be numbered so +that each member of it receives a definite integral number. For instance, +all the whole numbers constitute such a numerable collection. Again, all +numbers resulting from operating according to any definite rule with +any finite number of whole numbers form such a collection. For they may +be arranged in a series thus. Let F be the symbol of operation. First +operate on 1, giving F(1) Then, operate on a second 1, giving F(1,1). +Next, introduce 2, giving 3rd, F(2); 4th, F(2,1); 5th, F(1,2); 6th, +F(2,2). Next use a third variable giving 7th, F(1,1,1); 8th, F(2,1,1); +9th, F(1,2,1); 10th, F(2,2,1); 11th, F(1,1,2); 12th, F(2,1,2); 13th, +F(1,2,2); 14th, F(2,2,2). Next introduce 3, and so on, alternately +introducing new variables and new figures; and in this way it is plain +that every arrangement of integral values of the variables will receive a +numbered place in the series.[72] + +The class of endless but numerable collections (so called because they +can be so ranged that to each one corresponds a distinct whole number) is +very large. But there are collections which are certainly innumerable. +Such is the collection of all numbers to which endless series of +decimals are capable of approximating. It has been recognised since the +time of Euclid that certain numbers are surd or incommensurable, and +are not exactly expressible by any finite series of decimals, nor by a +circulating decimal. Such is the ratio of the circumference of a circle +to its diameter, which we know is nearly 3.1415926. The calculation of +this number has been carried to over 700 figures without the slightest +appearance of regularity in their sequence. The demonstrations that this +and many other numbers are incommensurable are perfect. That the entire +collection of incommensurable numbers is innumerable has been clearly +proved by Cantor. I omit the demonstration; but it is easy to see that to +discriminate one from some other would, in general, require the use of an +endless series of numbers. Now if they cannot be exactly expressed and +discriminated, clearly they cannot be ranged in a linear series. + +It is evident that there are as many points on a line or in an interval +of time as there are of real numbers in all. These are, therefore, +innumerable collections. Many mathematicians have incautiously assumed +that the points on a surface or in a solid are more than those on a line. +But this has been refuted by Cantor. Indeed, it is obvious that for every +set of values of coördinates there is a single distinct number. Suppose, +for instance, the values of the coördinates all lie between 0 and + 1. +Then if we compose a number by putting in the first decimal place the +first figure of the first coördinate, in the second the first figure of +the second coördinate, and so on, and when the first figures are all +dealt out go on to the second figures in like manner, it is plain that +the values of the coördinates can be read off from the single resulting +number, so that a triad or tetrad of numbers, each having innumerable +values, has no more values than a single incommensurable number. + +Were the number of dimensions infinite, this would fail; and the +collection of infinite sets of numbers having each innumerable +variations, might, therefore, be greater than the simple innumerable +collection, and might be called _endlessly infinite_. The single +individuals of such a collection could not, however, be designated, even +approximately, so that this is indeed a magnitude concerning which it +would be possible to reason only in the most general way, if at all. + +Although there are but two grades of magnitudes of infinite collections, +yet when certain conditions are imposed upon the order in which +individuals are taken, distinctions of magnitude arise from that cause. +Thus, if a simply endless series be doubled by separating each unit into +two parts, the successive first parts and also the second parts being +taken in the same order as the units from which they are derived, this +double endless series will, so long as it is taken in that order, appear +as twice as large as the original series. In like manner the product of +two innumerable collections, that is, the collection of possible pairs +composed of one individual of each, if the order of continuity is to be +maintained, is, by virtue of that order, infinitely greater than either +of the component collections. + +We now come to the difficult question, What is continuity? Kant confounds +it with infinite divisibility, saying that the essential character of +a continuous series is that between any two members of it a third can +always be found. This is an analysis beautifully clear and definite; +but unfortunately, it breaks down under the first test. For according +to this, the entire series of rational fractions arranged in the order +of their magnitude, would be an infinite series, although the rational +fractions are numerable, while the points of a line are innumerable. +Nay, worse yet, if from that series of fractions any two with all that +lie between them be excised, and any number of such finite gaps he made, +Kant’s definition is still true of the series, though it has lost all +appearance of continuity. + +Cantor defines a continuous series as one which is _concatenated_ and +_perfect_. By a concatenated series, he means such a one that if any +two points are given in it, and any finite distance, however small, it +is possible to proceed from the first point to the second through a +succession of points of the series each at a distance from the preceding +one less than the given distance. This is true of the series of rational +fractions ranged in the order of their magnitude. By a perfect series, he +means one which contains every point such that there is no distance so +small that this point has not an infinity of points of the series within +that distance of it. This is true of the series of numbers between 0 and +1 capable of being expressed by decimals in which only the digits 0 and 1 +occur. + +It must be granted that Cantor’s definition includes every series that +is continuous; nor can it be objected that it includes any important +or indubitable case of a series not continuous. Nevertheless, it has +some serious defects. In the first place, it turns upon metrical +considerations; while the distinction between a continuous and a +discontinuous series is manifestly non-metrical. In the next place, a +perfect series is defined as one containing “every point” of a certain +description. But no positive idea is conveyed of what all the points +are: that is definition by negation, and cannot be admitted. If that +sort of thing were allowed, it would be very easy to say, at once, that +the continuous linear series of points is one which contains every point +of the line between its extremities. Finally, Cantor’s definition does +not convey a distinct notion of what the components of the conception of +continuity are. It ingeniously wraps up its properties in two separate +parcels, but does not display them to our intelligence. + +Kant’s definition expresses one simple property of a continuum; but +it allows of gaps in the series. To mend the definition, it is only +necessary to notice how these gaps can occur. Let us suppose, then, a +linear series of points extending from a point, _A_, to a point, _B_, +having a gap from _B_ to a third point, _C_, and thence extending to +a final limit, _D_; and let us suppose this series conforms to Kant’s +definition. Then, of the two points, _B_ and _C_, one or both must be +excluded from the series; for otherwise, by the definition, there would +be points between them. That is, if the series contains _C_, though +it contains all the points up to _B_, it cannot contain _B_. What is +required, therefore, is to state in non-metrical terms that if a series +of points up to a limit is included in a continuum the limit is included. +It may be remarked that this is the property of a continuum to which +Aristotle’s attention seems to have been directed when he defines a +continuum as something whose parts have a common limit. The property may +be exactly stated as follows: If a linear series of points is continuous +between two points, _A_ and _D_, and if an endless series of points be +taken, the first of them between _A_ and _D_ and each of the others +between the last preceding one and _D_, then there is a point of the +continuous series between all that endless series of points and _D_, and +such that every other point of which this is true lies between this point +and _D_. For example, take any number between 0 and 1, as 0.1; then, any +number between 0.1 and 1, as 0.11; then any number between 0.11 and 1, as +0.111; and so on, without end. Then, because the series of real numbers +between 0 and 1 is continuous, there must be a _least_ real number, +greater than every number of that endless series. This property, which +may be called the Aristotelicity of the series, together with Kant’s +property, or its Kanticity, completes the definition of a continuous +series. + +The property of Aristotelicity may be roughly stated thus: a continuum +contains the end point belonging to every endless series of points which +it contains. An obvious corollary is that every continuum contains its +limits. But in using this principle it is necessary to observe that a +series may be continuous except in this, that it omits one or both of the +limits. + +Our ideas will find expression more conveniently if, instead of points +upon a line, we speak of real numbers. Every real number is, in one +sense, the limit of a series, for it can be indefinitely approximated +to. Whether every real number is a limit of a _regular_ series may +perhaps be open to doubt. But the series referred to in the definition +of Aristotelicity must be understood as including all series whether +regular or not. Consequently, it is implied that between any two points +an innumerable series of points can be taken. + +Every number whose expression in decimals requires but a finite number of +places of decimals is commensurable. Therefore, incommensurable numbers +suppose an infinitieth place of decimals. The word infinitesimal is +simply the Latin form of infinitieth; that is, it is an ordinal formed +from _infinitum_, as centesimal from _centum_. Thus, continuity supposes +infinitesimal quantities. There is nothing contradictory about the idea +of such quantities. In adding and multiplying them the continuity must +not be broken up, and consequently they are precisely like any other +quantities, except that neither the syllogism of transposed quantity, nor +the Fermatian inference applies to them. + +If A is a finite quantity and _i_ an infinitesimal, then in a certain +sense we may write A + _i_ = A. That is to say, this is so for all +purposes of measurement. But this principle must not be applied except +to get rid of _all_ the terms in the highest order of infinitesimals +present. As a mathematician, I prefer the method of infinitesimals to +that of limits, as far easier and less infested with snares. Indeed, +the latter, as stated in some books, involves propositions that are +false; but this is not the case with the forms of the method used by +Cauchy, Duhamel, and others. As they understand the doctrine of limits, +it involves the notion of continuity, and therefore contains in another +shape the very same ideas as the doctrine of infinitesimals. + +Let us now consider an aspect of the Aristotelical principle which is +particularly important in philosophy. Suppose a surface to be part red +and part blue; so that every point on it is either red or blue, and, of +course, no part can be both red and blue. What, then, is the color of the +boundary line between the red and the blue? The answer is that red or +blue, to exist at all, must be spread over a surface; and the color of +the surface is the color of the surface in the immediate neighborhood of +the point. I purposely use a vague form of expression. Now, as the parts +of the surface in the immediate neighborhood of any ordinary point upon a +curved boundary are half of them red and half blue, it follows that the +boundary is half red and half blue. In like manner, we find it necessary +to hold that consciousness essentially occupies time; and what is +present to the mind at any ordinary instant, is what is present during a +moment in which that instant occurs. Thus, the present is half past and +half to come. Again, the color of the parts of a surface at any finite +distance from a point, has nothing to do with its color just at that +point; and, in the parallel, the feeling at any finite interval from the +present has nothing to do with the present feeling, except vicariously. +Take another case: the velocity of a particle at any instant of time is +its mean velocity during an infinitesimal instant in which that time +is contained. Just so my immediate feeling is my feeling through an +infinitesimal duration containing the present instant. + + +ANALYSIS OF TIME. + +One of the most marked features about the law of mind is that it makes +time to have a definite direction of flow from past to future. The +relation of past to future is, in reference to the law of mind, different +from the relation of future to past. This makes one of the great +contrasts between the law of mind and the law of physical force, where +there is no more distinction between the two opposite directions in time +than between moving northward and moving southward. + +In order, therefore, to analyse the law of mind, we must begin by asking +what the flow of time consists in. Now, we find that in reference to any +individual state of feeling, all others are of two classes, those which +affect this one (or have a tendency to affect it, and what this means we +shall inquire shortly), and those which do not. The present is affectible +by the past but not by the future. + +Moreover, if state _A_ is affected by state _B_, and state _B_ by state +_C_, then _A_ is affected by state _C_, though not so much so. It +follows, that if _A_ is affectible by _B_, _B_ is not affectible by _A_. + +If, of two states, each is absolutely unaffectible by the other, they are +to be regarded as parts of the same state. They are contemporaneous. + +To say that a state is _between_ two states means that it affects one +and is affected by the other. Between any two states in this sense lies +an innumerable series of states affecting one another; and if a state +lies between a given state and any other state which can be reached by +inserting states between this state and any third state, these inserted +states not immediately affecting or being affected by either, then the +second state mentioned immediately affects or is affected by the first, +in the sense that in the one the other is _ipso facto_ present in a +reduced degree. + +These propositions involve a definition of time and of its flow. Over and +above this definition they involve a doctrine, namely, that every state +of feeling is affectible by every earlier state. + + +THAT FEELINGS HAVE INTENSIVE CONTINUITY. + +Time with its continuity logically involves some other kind of continuity +than its own. Time, as the universal form of change, cannot exist +unless there is something to undergo change, and to undergo a change +continuous in time, there must be a continuity of changeable qualities. +Of the continuity of intrinsic qualities of feeling we can now form but +a feeble conception. The development of the human mind has practically +extinguished all feelings, except a few sporadic kinds, sound, colors, +smells, warmth, etc., which now appear to be disconnected and disparate. +In the case of colors, there is a tridimensional spread of feelings. +Originally, all feelings may have been connected in the same way, and the +presumption is that the number of dimensions was endless. For development +essentially involves a limitation of possibilities. But given a number of +dimensions of feeling, all possible varieties are obtainable by varying +the intensities of the different elements. Accordingly, time logically +supposes a continuous range of intensity in feeling. It follows, then, +from the definition of continuity, that when any particular kind of +feeling is present, an infinitesimal continuum of all feelings differing +infinitesimally from that is present. + + +THAT FEELINGS HAVE SPATIAL EXTENSION. + +Consider a gob of protoplasm, say an amœba or a slime-mould. It does +not differ in any radical way from the contents of a nerve-cell, +though its functions may be less specialised. There is no doubt that +this slime-mould, or this amœba, or at any rate some similar mass of +protoplasm feels. That is to say, it feels when it is in its excited +condition. But note how it behaves. When the whole is quiescent and +rigid, a place upon it is irritated. Just at this point, an active motion +is set up, and this gradually spreads to other parts. In this action, no +unity nor relation to a nucleus, or other unitary organ can be discerned. +It is a mere amorphous continuum of protoplasm, with feeling passing +from one part to another. Nor is there anything like a wave-motion. The +activity does not advance to new parts, just as fast as it leaves old +parts. Rather, in the beginning, it dies out at a slower rate than that +at which it spreads. And while the process is going on, by exciting the +mass at another point, a second quite independent state of excitation +will be set up. In some places, neither excitation will exist, in others +each separately, in still other places, both effects will be added +together. Whatever there is in the whole phenomenon to make us think +there is feeling in such a mass of protoplasm,—_feeling_, but plainly no +_personality_,—goes logically to show that that feeling has a subjective, +or substantial, spatial extension, as the excited state has. This is, no +doubt, a difficult idea to seize, for the reason that it is a subjective, +not an objective, extension. It is not that we have a feeling of bigness; +though Professor James, perhaps rightly, teaches that we have. It is that +the feeling, as a subject of inhesion, is big. Moreover, our own feelings +are focused in attention to such a degree that we are not aware that +ideas are not brought to an absolute unity; just as nobody not instructed +by special experiment has any idea how very, very little of the field of +vision is distinct. Still, we all know how the attention wanders about +among our feelings; and this fact shows that those feelings that are not +co-ordinated in attention have a reciprocal externality, although they +are present at the same time. But we must not tax introspection to make a +phenomenon manifest which essentially involves externality. + +Since space is continuous, it follows that there must be an immediate +community of feeling between parts of mind infinitesimally near together. +Without this, I believe it would have been impossible for minds external +to one another, ever to become coördinated, and equally impossible for +any coördination to be established in the action of the nerve-matter of +one brain. + + +AFFECTIONS OF IDEAS. + +But we are met by the question what is meant by saying that one idea +affects another. The unravelment of this problem requires us to trace out +phenomena a little further. + +Three elements go to make up an idea. The first is its intrinsic quality +as a feeling. The second is the energy with which it affects other +ideas, an energy which is infinite in the here-and-nowness of immediate +sensation, finite and relative in the recency of the past. The third +element is the tendency of an idea to bring along other ideas with it. + +As an idea spreads, its power of affecting other ideas gets rapidly +reduced; but its intrinsic quality remains nearly unchanged. It is long +years now since I last saw a cardinal in his robes; and my memory of +their color has become much dimmed. The color itself, however, is not +remembered as dim. I have no inclination to call it a dull red. Thus, the +intrinsic quality remains little changed; yet more accurate observation +will show a slight reduction of it. The third element, on the other +hand, has increased. As well as I can recollect, it seems to me the +cardinals I used to see wore robes more scarlet than vermilion is, and +highly luminous. Still, I know the color commonly called cardinal is on +the crimson side of vermilion and of quite moderate luminosity, and the +original idea calls up so many other hues with it, and asserts itself so +feebly, that I am unable any longer to isolate it. + +A finite interval of time generally contains an innumerable series +of feelings; and when these become welded together in association, +the result is a general idea. For we have just seen how by continuous +spreading an idea becomes generalised. + +The first character of a general idea so resulting is that it is living +feeling. A continuum of this feeling, infinitesimal in duration, but +still embracing innumerable parts, and also, though infinitesimal, +entirely unlimited, is immediately present. And in its absence of +boundedness a vague possibility of more than is present is directly felt. + +Second, in the presence of this continuity of feeling, nominalistic +maxims appear futile. There is no doubt about one idea affecting another, +when we can directly perceive the one gradually modified and shaping +itself into the other. Nor can there any longer be any difficulty about +one idea resembling another, when we can pass along the continuous field +of quality from one to the other and back again to the point which we had +marked. + +Third, consider the insistency of an idea. The insistency of a past idea +with reference to the present is a quantity which is less the further +back that past idea is, and rises to infinity as the past idea is brought +up into coincidence with the present. Here we must make one of those +inductive applications of the law of continuity which have produced such +great results in all the positive sciences. We must extend the law of +insistency into the future. Plainly, the insistency of a future idea with +reference to the present is a quantity affected by the minus sign; for it +is the present that affects the future, if there be any effect, not the +future that affects the present. Accordingly, the curve of insistency is +a sort of equilateral hyperbola. [See the figure.] Such a conception is +none the less mathematical, that its quantification cannot now be exactly +specified. + +[Illustration] + +Now consider the induction which we have here been led into. This curve +says that feeling which has not yet emerged into immediate consciousness +is already affectible and already affected. In fact, this is habit, by +virtue of which an idea is brought up into present consciousness by a +bond that had already been established between it, and another idea while +it was still _in futuro_. + +We can now see what the affection of one idea by another consists in. +It is that the affected idea is attached as a logical predicate to the +affecting idea as subject. So when a feeling emerges into immediate +consciousness, it always appears as a modification of a more or less +general object already in the mind. The word suggestion is well adapted +to expressing this relation. The future is suggested by, or rather is +influenced by the suggestions of, the past. + + +IDEAS CANNOT BE CONNECTED EXCEPT BY CONTINUITY. + +That ideas can nowise be connected without continuity is sufficiently +evident to one who reflects upon the matter. But still the opinion may +be entertained that after continuity has once made the connection of +ideas possible, then they may get to be connected in other modes than +through continuity. Certainly, I cannot see how anyone can deny that the +infinite diversity of the universe, which we call chance, may bring ideas +into proximity which are not associated in one general idea. It may do +this many times. But then the law of continuous spreading will produce a +mental association; and this I suppose is an abridged statement of the +way the universe has been evolved. But if I am asked whether a blind +ἀνάγκη cannot bring ideas together, first I point out that it would not +remain blind. There being a continuous connection between the ideas, they +would infallibly become associated in a living, feeling, and perceiving +general idea. Next, I cannot see what the mustness or necessity of this +ἀνάγκη would consist in. In the absolute uniformity of the phenomenon, +says the nominalist. Absolute is well put in; for if it merely happened +so three times in succession, or three million times in succession, in +the absence of any reason, the coincidence could only be attributed to +chance. But absolute uniformity must extend over the whole infinite +future; and it is idle to talk of that except as an idea. No; I think we +can only hold that wherever ideas come together they tend to weld into +general ideas; and wherever they are generally connected, general ideas +govern the connection; and these general ideas are living feelings spread +out. + + +MENTAL LAW FOLLOWS THE FORMS OF LOGIC. + +The three main classes of logical inference are Deduction, Induction, +and Hypothesis. These correspond to three chief modes of action of the +human soul. In deduction the mind is under the dominion of a habit or +association by virtue of which a general idea suggests in each case +a corresponding reaction. But a certain sensation is seen to involve +that idea. Consequently, that sensation is followed by that reaction. +That is the way the hind legs of a frog, separated from the rest of the +body, reason, when you pinch them. It is the lowest form of psychical +manifestation. + +By induction, a habit becomes established. Certain sensations, all +involving one general idea, are followed each by the same reaction; and +an association becomes established, whereby that general idea gets to be +followed uniformly by that reaction. + +Habit is that specialisation of the law of mind whereby a general idea +gains the power of exciting reactions. But in order that the general +idea should attain all its functionality, it is necessary, also, that +it should become suggestible by sensations. That is accomplished by a +psychical process having the form of hypothetic inference. By hypothetic +inference, I mean, as I have explained in other writings, an induction +from qualities. For example, I know that the kind of man known and +classed as a “mugwump” has certain characteristics. He has a high +self-respect and places great value upon social distinction. He laments +the great part that rowdyism and unrefined good-fellowship play in the +dealings of American politicians with their constituency. He thinks that +the reform which would follow from the abandonment of the system by which +the distribution of offices is made to strengthen party organisations +and a return to the original and essential conception of office-filling +would be found an unmixed good. He holds that monetary considerations +should usually be the decisive ones in questions of public policy. He +respects the principle of individualism and of _laisser-faire_ as the +greatest agency of civilisation. These views, among others, I know to +be obtrusive marks of a “mugwump.” Now, suppose I casually meet a man +in a railway-train, and falling into conversation find that he holds +opinions of this sort; I am naturally led to suppose that he is a +“mugwump.” That is hypothetic inference. That is to say, a number of +readily verifiable marks of a mugwump being selected, I find this man +has these, and infer that he has all the other characters which go to +make a thinker of that stripe. Or let us suppose that I meet a man of a +semi-clerical appearance and a sub-pharisaical sniff, who appears to look +at things from the point of view of a rather wooden dualism. He cites +several texts of scripture and always with particular attention to their +logical implications; and he exhibits a sternness, almost amounting to +vindictiveness, toward evildoers, in general. I readily conclude that +he is a minister of a certain denomination. Now the mind acts in a way +similar to this, every time we acquire a power of coördinating reactions +in a peculiar way, as in performing any act requiring skill. Thus, most +persons have a difficulty in moving the two hands simultaneously and in +opposite directions through two parallel circles nearly in the medial +plane of the body. To learn to do this, it is necessary to attend, first, +to the different actions in different parts of the motion, when suddenly +a general conception of the action springs up and it becomes perfectly +easy. We think the motion we are trying to do involves this action, and +this, and this. Then, the general idea comes which unites all those +actions, and thereupon the desire to perform the motion calls up the +general idea. The same mental process is many times employed whenever we +are learning to speak a language or are acquiring any sort of skill. + +Thus, by induction, a number of sensations followed by one reaction +become united under one general idea followed by the same reaction; +while by the hypothetic process, a number of reactions called for by one +occasion get united in a general idea which is called out by the same +occasion. By deduction, the habit fulfils its function of calling out +certain reactions on certain occasions. + + +UNCERTAINTY OF MENTAL ACTION. + +The inductive and hypothetic forms of inference are essentially probable +inferences, not necessary; while deduction may be either necessary or +probable. + +But no mental action seems to be necessary or invariable in its +character. In whatever manner the mind has reacted under a given +sensation, in that manner it is the more likely to react again; were +this, however, an absolute necessity, habits would become wooden and +ineradicable, and no room being left for the formation of new habits, +intellectual life would come to a speedy close. Thus, the uncertainty of +the mental law is no mere defect of it, but is on the contrary of its +essence. The truth is, the mind is not subject to “law,” in the same +rigid sense that matter is. It only experiences gentle forces which +merely render it more likely to act in a given way than it otherwise +would be. There always remains a certain amount of arbitrary spontaneity +in its action, without which it would be dead. + +Some psychologists think to reconcile the uncertainty of reactions with +the principle of necessary causation by means of the law of fatigue. +Truly for a _law_, this law of fatigue is a little lawless. I think it is +merely a case of the general principle that an idea in spreading loses +its insistency. Put me tarragon into my salad, when I have not tasted +it for years, and I exclaim “What nectar is this!” But add it to every +dish I taste for week after week, and a habit of expectation has been +created; and in thus spreading into habit, the sensation makes hardly +any more impression upon me; or, if it be noticed, it is on a new side +from which it appears as rather a bore. The doctrine that fatigue is +one of the primordial phenomena of mind I am much disposed to doubt. +It seems a somewhat little thing to be allowed as an exception to the +great principle of mental uniformisation. For this reason, I prefer to +explain it in the manner here indicated, as a special case of that great +principle. To consider it as something distinct in its nature, certainly +somewhat strengthens the necessitarian position; but even if it be +distinct, the hypothesis that all the variety and apparent arbitrariness +of mental action ought to be explained away in favor of absolute +determinism does not seem to me to recommend itself to a sober and sound +judgment, which seeks the guidance of observed facts and not that of +prepossessions. + + +RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW. + +Let me now try to gather up all these odds and ends of commentary and +restate the law of mind, in a unitary way. + +First, then, we find that when we regard ideas from a nominalistic, +individualistic, sensualistic way, the simplest facts of mind become +utterly meaningless. That one idea should resemble another or influence +another, or that one state of mind should so much as be thought of in +another is, from that standpoint, sheer nonsense. + +Second, by this and other means we are driven to perceive, what is +quite evident of itself, that instantaneous feelings flow together into +a continuum of feeling, which has in a modified degree the peculiar +vivacity of feeling and has gained generality. And in reference to such +general ideas, or continua of feeling, the difficulties about resemblance +and suggestion and reference to the external, cease to have any force. + +Third, these general ideas are not mere words, nor do they consist in +this, that certain concrete facts will every time happen under certain +descriptions of conditions; but they are just as much, or rather far +more, living realities than the feelings themselves out of which they +are concreted. And to say that mental phenomena are governed by law does +not mean merely that they are describable by a general formula; but that +there is a living idea, a conscious continuum of feeling, which pervades +them, and to which they are docile. + +Fourth, this supreme law, which is the celestial and living harmony, +does not so much as demand that the special ideas shall surrender +their peculiar arbitrariness and caprice entirely; for that would be +self-destructive. It only requires that they shall influence and be +influenced by one another. + +Fifth, in what measure this unification acts, seems to be regulated only +by special rules; or, at least, we cannot in our present knowledge +say how far it goes. But it may be said that, judging by appearances, +the amount of arbitrariness in the phenomena of human minds is neither +altogether trifling nor very prominent. + + +PERSONALITY. + +Having thus endeavored to state the law of mind, in general, I descend +to the consideration of a particular phenomenon which is remarkably +prominent in our own consciousnesses, that of personality. A strong +light is thrown upon this subject by recent observations of double and +multiple personality. The theory which at one time seemed plausible that +two persons in one body corresponded to the two halves of the brain +will, I take it, now be universally acknowledged to be insufficient. +But that which these cases make quite manifest is that personality is +some kind of coördination or connection of ideas. Not much to say, this, +perhaps. Yet when we consider that, according to the principle which we +are tracing out, a connection between ideas is itself a general idea, +and that a general idea is a living feeling, it is plain that we have at +least taken an appreciable step toward the understanding of personality. +This personality, like any general idea, is not a thing to be apprehended +in an instant. It has to be lived in time; nor can any finite time +embrace it in all its fulness. Yet in each infinitesimal interval it is +present and living, though specially colored by the immediate feelings +of that moment. Personality, so far as it is apprehended in a moment, is +immediate self-consciousness. + +But the word coördination implies somewhat more than this; it implies +a teleological harmony in ideas, and in the case of personality this +teleology is more than a mere purposive pursuit of a predeterminate end; +it is a developmental teleology. This is personal character. A general +idea, living and conscious now, it is already determinative of acts in +the future to an extent to which it is not now conscious. + +This reference to the future is an essential element of personality. +Were the ends of a person already explicit, there would be no room for +development, for growth, for life; and consequently there would be +no personality. The mere carrying out of predetermined purposes is +mechanical. This remark has an application to the philosophy of religion. +It is that a genuine evolutionary philosophy, that is, one that makes the +principle of growth a primordial element of the universe, is so far from +being antagonistic to the idea of a personal creator, that it is really +inseparable from that idea; while a necessitarian religion is in an +altogether false position and is destined to become disintegrated. But a +pseudo-evolutionism which enthrones mechanical law above the principle of +growth, is at once scientifically unsatisfactory, as giving no possible +hint of how the universe has come about, and hostile to all hopes of +personal relations to God. + + +COMMUNICATION. + +Consistently with the doctrine laid down in the beginning of this paper, +I am bound to maintain that an idea can only be affected by an idea in +continuous connection with it. By anything but an idea, it cannot be +affected at all. This obliges me to say, as I do say, on other grounds, +that what we call matter is not completely dead, but is merely mind +hide-bound with habits. It still retains the element of diversification; +and in that diversification there is life. When an idea is conveyed +from one mind to another, it is by forms of combination of the diverse +elements of nature, say by some curious symmetry, or by some union of a +tender color with a refined odor. To such forms the law of mechanical +energy has no application. If they are eternal, it is in the spirit +they embody; and their origin cannot be accounted for by any mechanical +necessity. They are embodied ideas; and so only can they convey ideas. +Precisely how primary sensations, as colors and tones, are excited, we +cannot tell, in the present state of psychology. But in our ignorance, I +think that we are at liberty to suppose that they arise in essentially +the same manner as the other feelings, called secondary. As far as +sight and hearing are in question, we know that they are only excited +by vibrations of inconceivable complexity; and the chemical senses +are probably not more simple. Even the least psychical of peripheral +sensations, that of pressure, has in its excitation conditions which, +though apparently simple, are seen to be complicated enough when we +consider the molecules and their attractions. The principle with which +I set out requires me to maintain that these feelings are communicated +to the nerves by continuity, so that there must be something like them +in the excitants themselves. If this seems extravagant, it is to be +remembered that it is the sole possible way of reaching any explanation +of sensation, which otherwise must be pronounced a general fact +absolutely inexplicable and ultimate. Now absolute inexplicability is a +hypothesis which sound logic refuses under any circumstances to justify. + +I may be asked whether my theory would be favorable or otherwise to +telepathy. I have no decided answer to give to this. At first sight, it +seems unfavorable. Yet there may be other modes of continuous connection +between minds other than those of time and space. + +The recognition by one person of another’s personality takes place by +means to some extent identical with the means by which he is conscious +of his own personality. The idea of the second personality, which is as +much as to say that second personality itself, enters within the field of +direct consciousness of the first person, and is as immediately perceived +as his ego, though less strongly. At the same time, the opposition +between the two persons is perceived, so that the externality of the +second is recognised. + +The psychological phenomena of intercommunication between two minds have +been unfortunately little studied. So that it is impossible to say, for +certain, whether they are favorable to this theory or not. But the very +extraordinary insight which some persons are able to gain of others from +indications so slight that it is difficult to ascertain what they are, is +certainly rendered more comprehensible by the view here taken. + +A difficulty which confronts the synechistic philosophy is this. In +considering personality, that philosophy is forced to accept the doctrine +of a personal God; but in considering communication, it cannot but admit +that if there is a personal God, we must have a direct perception of that +person and indeed be in personal communication with him. Now, if that be +the case, the question arises how it is possible that the existence of +this being should ever have been doubted by anybody. The only answer +that I can at present make is that facts that stand before our face and +eyes and stare us in the face are far from being, in all cases, the ones +most easily discerned. That has been remarked from time immemorial. + + +CONCLUSION. + +I have thus developed as well as I could in a little space the +_synechistic_ philosophy, as applied to mind. I think that I have +succeeded in making it clear that this doctrine gives room for +explanations of many facts which without it are absolutely and hopelessly +inexplicable; and further that it carries along with it the following +doctrines: 1st, a logical realism of the most pronounced type; 2nd, +objective idealism; 3rd, tychism, with its consequent thorough-going +evolutionism. We also notice that the doctrine presents no hindrances to +spiritual influences, such as some philosophies are felt to do. + + C. S. PEIRCE. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[72] This proposition is substantially the same as a theorem of Cantor, +though it is enunciated in a much more general form. + + + + +MR. CHARLES S. PEIRCE’S ONSLAUGHT ON THE DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY. + + +The problem of necessity lurks at the bottom of all problems, and +according as we accept or reject the idea of necessity we shall be led to +two entirely different world-conceptions. + +The conception of indeterminism generally offers itself first to the +doubting mind; and it is apparently a pleasant idea. It promises +freedom, it leaves room for the imagination, it makes the world and +its possibilities wide, much wider than it could be on the plan of +determinism. Determinism is at first sight an oppressive notion and we +naturally shrink from it. It seems to destroy the freedom of the will +and all moral responsibility. From infinite possibilities it narrows the +world down to one single actuality; and thus it seems to destroy all the +charms of life. + +The former view may be represented as conceiving the all-power of +the whole in which and through which we live as a well meaning and +yielding ruler or a kind-hearted parent who if strongly plied with +prayer, will for a trifle in order to please an importune favorite +change his decisions. The dispensations of his government will be +full of exceptions, of private cabinet decrees, of counter orders and +irregularities. The latter view, however, would represent the entirety +of the All as an inexorable and uncompromising sovereign, or as a severe +educator, a stern father who unfalteringly clings to his principles. +He leaves full independence to his children, he does not prevent their +mistakes, yet rigidly lets them bear the consequences of their actions. +He never answers prayers except that the prayer itself has its educating +effects upon him who prays; but he never alters objective facts for the +sake of him who requests his interference, and he never makes exceptions +either in favor or disfavor of anybody. In brief; the God of him who +accepts the former view, will be Chance, while the God of him who accepts +the latter view will be Law. + +The choice between the two views seems to remind us of the choice left +to the heroes of our fairy tales. He who chooses that which appears +pleasant will be led into inextricable confusion, he who chooses that +which appears rigid and oppressive will be led on a path where in spite +of many difficulties he will be able to make firm and certain steps and +will arrive at clearness as well as moral freedom. It is not the golden +casket that contains Portia’s picture. + +Science constantly operates on the basis of the maxim that there is no +chance, that everything that happens, happens as it does with necessity. +The question is, Is this maxim a mere assumption, a non-verifiable +working hypothesis; or is there any reliable evidence in its favor? Is it +true, and if it is, how can it be proved? + + +I. + +DAVID HUME REDIVIVUS. + +Mr. Charles S. Peirce’s article entitled “The Doctrine of Necessity +Examined,” which appeared in the last number of _The Monist_, must have +been a surprise to many thinking readers. It must have affected them in +a somewhat similar manner as Hume’s “Treatise of Human Nature” affected +Kant. It roused him from his dogmatic slumber: He abandoned dogmatism +but nevertheless did not accept Hume’s skepticism; he remained positive; +yet he propounded a better positive view than was the old dogmatism; he +established in philosophy the method of critique. + +The parallelism between David Hume, who doubted the validity of our +conception of causation, and Mr. Charles S. Peirce who denies the +universality of the doctrine of necessity, is very marked in more than +one respect. It is, in spite of many differences, a case of close +analogy, and the answer which we shall have to give to either, will in +many respects be suited to both. Both shake the ultimate ground of +scientific research at its very root. Both call in question the most +fundamental concept upon which all our methods of investigation and +philosophy rest. Both challenge the reliability of an idea of which few +would hesitate to say that it is all but universally accepted. In fact +the ideas “causation” and “necessity” are more than kin. If analysed, +many of their elements will be found to be actually identical. Thus the +one cannot be either established or doubted without establishing or +doubting the other. Accordingly Mr. Peirce, in some respect, repeats +David Hume’s onslaught upon the current conception of the basis of human +knowledge with the more formidable weapons which a century of close +thought and scientific investigation have furnished him. + +If Kant’s answer to Hume had been satisfactory, Mr. Peirce probably +would not have renewed the attack or he would have had to modify it +considerably. Kant, however, whom we both, Mr. Peirce as much as I +myself, admire as a master of philosophic thought, did not solve the +question satisfactorily. Yet Kant pointed out the way of solving it, +which was the middle way between dogmatism and scepticism, called by him +and his followers “Criticism,” and it is this way on which we trust is +safest travelling. + +Mr. Peirce is right that the doctrine of necessity cannot be +“postulated,” for “to postulate a proposition is no more than to hope it +will be true.” The doctrine of necessity is, indeed, usually treated as +a postulate, and Mr. Peirce’s attack appears formidable because he shows +the weakness of the arguments which are commonly brought forward in its +favor and which we grant to be insufficient. + +Mr. Peirce says (_The Monist_, II, 3, p. 330): + + “In view of all these considerations, I do not believe that + anybody, not in a state of case-hardened ignorance respecting + the logic of science, can maintain that the precise and + universal conformity of facts to law is clearly proved, or even + rendered particularly probable, by any observations hitherto + made. In this way, the determined advocate of exact regularity + will soon find himself driven to _a priori_ reasons to support + his thesis. These received such a sockdologer from Stuart Mill + in his Examination of Hamilton, that holding to them now seems + to me to denote a high degree of imperviousness to reason; so + that I shall pass them by with little notice.” + +Mr. Peirce is right when saying that necessitarianism must be founded +on something other than observation. Observation is _a posteriori_; it +has reference only to single facts, to particulars; yet the doctrine +of necessity, if there is anything in it at all, is of universal +application. The doctrine of necessity, let us not be afraid to pronounce +it clearly, is of an _a priori_ nature. The scientist assumes _a priori_, +i. e. even before he makes his observations or experiments, as a general +law applicable to every process which takes place, that, whatever +happens, happens of necessity in consequence of a cause and in conformity +to law, so that the same cause under the same circumstances will produce +the same effects. If all the _a priori_ reasons, as Mr. Peirce maintains, +received a sockdologer from Stuart Mill, then indeed we shall have to +abandon the idea of necessity as the superstition of a past and erroneous +philosophy and we shall have to start the world of science over again. + +Mr. Peirce denies the strict regularity of natural law and introduces an +element of chance. He says (ibid. p. 336): + + “To undertake to account for anything by saying boldly that it + is due to chance would, indeed, be futile. But this I do not + do. _I make use of chance chiefly to make room for a principle + of generalization, or tendency to form habits, which I hold + has produced all regularities._[73] The mechanical philosopher + leaves the whole specification of the world utterly unaccounted + for, which is pretty nearly as bad as to boldly attribute it to + chance. I attribute it altogether to chance, it is true, but + to chance in the form of a spontaneity which is to some degree + regular.” + +Mr. Peirce is the pathfinder of a new and as yet untried road. He strikes +out boldly into the tumultuous ocean of chance, hoping to find in his +journey the connection between the East and the West, between contrasts +that seem to him otherwise unconnectible. The confidence of the bold +discoverer is set forth in the warnings he gives to all seafaring people. +He attempts to frighten the ill-informed minds who might innocently +venture out in other directions; and he will thus naturally prevent +many from falling either into the Charybdis of doubting the propriety +of applying the logic of probabilities to the problem of necessity +and causation in general, or, worse still, into the Scylla of the _a +priori_. The former, he tells us denotes “a state of case-hardened +ignorance respecting the logic of science,” the latter “a high degree of +imperviousness to reason.” + +Mr. Peirce is well known as one of the keenest logicians now living. +Considering this fact I am slow to take up arms against him in defending +a case which he so strongly brands beforehand. I must from the beginning +plead guilty to a belief in necessity, and having critically revised +my view once more I cannot help upholding it. I am fully conscious of +the fact that hundreds, thousands, and millions of single experiences +(which in Kantian terminology are called _a posteriori_ arguments) cannot +establish a solid belief in necessity, nor can any imaginable number of +sequences prove the rigidity of causation, and I confess freely that I +support my thesis with _a priori_ reasons. Yet at the same time attention +must be called to the fact that neither Mr. Hamilton nor Mr. Mill had any +adequate conception of the _a priori_, and Mr. Mill’s sockdologer does +not disturb in the least the assurance of my view; for the _a priori_ +can, in my opinion, be based upon the firm ground of experience. + +All the many sense-experiences at our command, if considered singly, +cannot constitute knowledge. In order to weave the woof of the _a +posteriori_ into coherent cloth we want the warp of the _a priori_, and +I do not see how we can do without it. But the _a priori_ is not that +mystical hocus-pocus of absolute truth with its impertinent assumptions +such as it is presented by pseudo-Kantians and justly denounced by Mill; +it is not as Mr. Peirce brands it an “I cannot help believing,” it is +not a “natural belief,” nor is it as others conceive it an innate idea. +It is, briefly described, simply and solely formal knowledge, such as 2 +× 2 = 4, to which we attribute universality and necessity and with the +assistance of which we are enabled to predict and predetermine certain +results beforehand (i. e. _a priori_). We might invent a new name for the +_a priori_, the latter having become odious through the denunciations of +its enemies and worse still, having been distorted beyond recognition +through the misuse to which it was put by its defenders and suppositional +friends. Yet that would be another question, and the idea of the _a +priori_, i. e. of formal knowledge involving universality and necessity +would remain the same. + +The universality and necessity of formal knowledge are as a rule taken +for granted by scientists. But philosophy can take nothing for granted, +and the problem rises: How is the belief in the universality and +necessity of formal knowledge to be justified? Mr. Peirce’s onslaught on +the doctrine of necessity is a challenge to answer this question. + + +II. + +CAUSATION NOT MERE SEQUENCE. + +Mr. John Venn published some twenty-five or six years ago an excellent +treatise called “The Logic of Chance.” This work opened the eyes of many +to the great importance of the calculus of probabilities as a method +of science which was of much wider application than had before been +suspected. This admirable work we may boldly say marks a new epoch in the +study of logic, it opened new vistas, and many expectations created by +it have since been realised. Yet it is to be regretted that the author +adopts Hume’s erroneous conception of causality and thus implicitly +paves the way which Mr. Peirce has actually followed and which leads +to a denial of the doctrine of necessity. Concerning “the doctrine of +universal causation” Mr. Venn says, in Chapter XIV: + + “We will employ the word simply in the sense which is becoming + almost universally adopted by scientific men, viz. that of + invariable unconditional sequence. + + “It is in this sense that the word _cause_ is used by Mr. + Mill.... + + “This meaning of the term is rapidly becoming the popular, or + rather, the popular scientific one.” + +This idea of “sequence” however was exactly Hume’s mistake, adopted by +Mr. Mill and through Mr. Mill popularised among English thinkers. If +the nature of cause and effect were really constituted by invariable +sequence, then the night might be called the effect of the day because +night is invariably consequent upon day. + +Hume, taking the ground that cause and effect constitute a sequence, +attempted a synthesis of both; he searched for a proof of their identity +and failed. And it was natural that he failed, for cause and effect are +so radically different that we cannot bring them into the formula of an +equation as “cause = effect.” There is no cause that is equal to its +effect. + +Hume should have considered causation as one single process, and instead +of attempting a synthesis, he should have made an analysis. The analysis +would have shown that cause and effect are two abstract and correlative +terms of one whole and inseparable event. Cause is not identical with +effect, but the whole event is identical with itself. + +If my finger touches a key of the piano, a chord is struck; the chord +swings and produces certain air-vibrations. In this process from the +beginning to the end all the energy employed and the mass of the material +particles remain in amount the same, yet there is a change of form taking +place. Causation is not mere sequence, but a sequence of quite a special +kind. It is a sequence of two states which belong together as an initial +and a final aspect of one and the same event. + +So long as we know of two events simply that they follow one another, +although the sequence may in every case be invariable and unexceptional, +we are not justified in calling them cause and effect. No amount of +experience is sufficient to constitute causation by a mere synthesis of +sequences, and to have appreciated this truth is the immortal merit of +the great Scotchman who boldly took the consequence of the argument and +acquiesced in scepticism. + +The problem, however, is not so desperate as Hume thought. If Hume +could have considered his argument in the light which the law of the +conservation of matter and energy sheds upon it, he would most likely +have abandoned his scepticism; for causality is perfectly intelligible if +conceived not as a synthesis of two radically different events, but as a +process of transformation, of which the prior state is called cause and +the final one effect. + +That two radically different events, which are not thought of as +transformation, invariably follow each other without our being able to +discover any connection between them, will naturally appear as a mystery; +but that two forms are radically different things, although they may be +forms of the same amount of matter and energy, is no mystery. The effect +is, or may be, something entirely new. + +The configuration of things as it appears in the effect, did not exist +before. But for that reason, it is no creation out of nothing, it is not +an incomprehensible event, it is no miracle. + +It is a very wonderful thing that two congruent regular tetrahedrons, +when put together, will form a hexahedron, but the laws of form do +perfectly and satisfactorily explain it. Supposing we had no idea of the +laws of form or only an incoherent and fragmentary knowledge of them, +should we not look upon the result of this combination as a strange and +incomprehensible mystery. Two heaps of flour one poured upon the other +will give one heap of the same kind and shape but of a larger size. +However, the combination of the two four-sided bodies does not produce +another four-sided body doubly as large as any of the two four-sided +bodies. Nor does it produce an eight-sided body. It produces a six-sided +body, which is something quite new. The result is not contained in the +conditions singly, for no one can say that six-sidedness is a quality +implicitly contained in four-sided bodies. + +The process of combining hydrogen with oxygen into water (H₂O) is +an immensely more complex case, and the qualities resulting from a +difference of density as well as configuration are entirely unknown to +us. There is nevertheless no reason whatever to consider the process +as different in principle; it is a case of transformation in which the +amount of matter and energy remains the same. + +Whatever the value of the logic of chance may be for scientific reasoning +in establishing gradations of certainty and formulating the reliability +of a certain belief, we deny most positively its applicability to the +principle of causation in general. If we ask what the chance is of a +combination of two congruent tetrahedrons becoming a hexahedron, we must +answer that the probability is exactly 1, which means certainty, and +certainty is but another name for necessity. + +Mr. Peirce does not object to necessity in certain cases, he objects +to necessity being a universal feature of the world. He objects to the +rigidity of causation in so far only as to allow a trifle of chance to +enter into nature. + +One or two cases or even a hundred, and a thousand, nay millions of +millions of cases in which causation is explicable as transformation +is no proof that this must always be so. Mr. Peirce may grant and most +likely he does grant that causation in a definite set of experiences is +transformation, yet what guarantee do we have for saying that it is the +only kind of causation. Might there not be room in this world for another +causation which for lack of a full comprehension of its nature, we may +call the causation of chance? + +We answer that form is a quality of this world, not of some samples of +it, but throughout, so far as we know of existence even in the most +superficial way, and thus we know beforehand or _a priori_ that the laws +of form hold good so far as our telescopes sweep through space. We are +ignorant as to the qualities dependent upon special forms of matter or +energy, and we can acquire any knowledge thereof only through experience; +but that is no reason to doubt the validity of causation in general, +or to surmise the probability of there being somewhere a different +arrangement of nature. + +Thus we come to the conclusion that the calculus of probabilities is not +applicable to the order of the world as to whether it may or may not +be universal. And in corroboration of this our position we quote the +following passage from a high authority in the science of logic, who is +no less than Mr. Charles S. Peirce himself. “Illustrations of the Logic +of Science,” (_Popular Science Monthly_, 1877, p. 714): + + “The relative probability of this or that arrangement of + Nature is something which we should have a right to talk about + if universes were as plenty as blackberries, if we could put + a quantity of them in a bag, shake them well up, draw out a + sample, and examine them to see what proportion of them had + one arrangement and what proportion another. But, even in + that case, a higher universe would contain us, in regard to + whose arrangements the conception of probability could have no + applicability.” + +Mr. Peirce is still more emphatic in another passage which reads (ib. +1878, p. 205): + + “If any one has ever maintained that the universe is a pure + throw of the dice, the theologians have abundantly refuted him. + ‘How often,’ says Archbishop Tillotson, ‘might a man, after + he had jumbled a set of letters in a bag, fling them out upon + the ground before they would fall into an exact poem, yea, + or so much as make a good discourse in prose! And may not a + little book be as easily made by chance as this great volume + of the world?’ The chance world here shown to be so different + from that in which we live would be one in which there were + no laws, the characters of different things being entirely + independent; so that, should a sample of any kind of objects + ever show a prevalent character, it could only be by accident, + and no general proposition could ever be established. Whatever + further conclusions we may come to in regard to the order of + the universe, thus much may be regarded as solidly established, + that the world is not a mere chance-medley.” + +Here follows a close reasoning of several pages which ends (on p. 207) +with a paragraph beginning with the words: + + “This shows that a contradiction is involved in the very idea + of a chance world.” + +And a long paragraph on p. 208 winds up with these sentences: + + “The actual world is almost a chance-medley to the mind of a + polyp. The interest which the uniformities of Nature have for + an animal measures his place in the scale of intelligence.” + +This is exactly the position which I defend. If universes were as plenty +as blackberries we might talk about the order of other universes. They +might be four- or five- or _n_-dimensional. Yet even in all these cases +they would not be void of form. The four-dimensional universe would have +another arrangement, but its laws would be none the less orderly, none +the less regular, and a higher universe would contain them all. Supposing +there were four- or five-dimensional space somewhere, we could state +with absolute precision all the formal laws by which bodies of so many +dimensions were governed.[74] + +The order of form and the rigidity of formal laws is as universal and +omnipresent as God. They encompass our path and our lying down, they have +beset our behind and before. If we ascend up into heaven they are there, +if we make our beds in hell, behold they are there. If we take the wings +of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there +they shall lead us and hold us. + + +III. + +MR. PEIRCE’S LOGIC OF SCIENCE. + +In spite of the fundamental difference that obtains between Mr. Peirce’s +and our own world-conception, we must state that there are many +most important points of agreement. Mr. Peirce says in his article +“Illustrations of the Logic of Science,” (ibid. p. 3 and 7): + + “The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration + of what we already know, something else which we do not know.... + + “The settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry.” + +There are according to Peirce several methods of settling opinion, which +swayed humanity in an historic succession: (1) The method of tenacity. +Doubt being an uneasy and dissatisfied state, we cling tenaciously not +merely to believing, but to believing just what we do believe. (2) The +method of authority, which is that of the Roman Church and of all great +political and religious institutions of the past. (3) The _a priori_ +method, by which Mr. Peirce understands the fixing of belief agreeably to +reason, i. e. to the subjective conviction of the individual thinker. All +these methods have their merits, says Mr. Peirce (ibid. p. 13): + + “The _a priori_ method is distinguished for its comfortable + conclusions. It is the nature of the process to adopt whatever + belief we are inclined to, and there are certain flatteries + to the vanity of man which we all believe by nature, until we + are awakened from our pleasing dream by some rough facts. The + method of authority will always govern the mass of mankind.... + But most of all I admire the method of tenacity for its + strength, simplicity, and directness.” + +It is apparent that the merit of the _a priori_ method so called +is really a vice. The _a priori_ method so called is the basis of +agnosticism. If according to my reason this, and according to your reason +that, may be the truth, where does truth remain? If truth is purely +subjective, truth becomes impossible. The method of settling belief +agreeably to our individual tempers is the death of objective truth, of +science and philosophy. + +Mr. Peirce fully recognises the practical importance of thought. He says: + + “The production of belief is the sole function of thought” + (ibid. p. 289). + + “Our beliefs guide our desires and shape our actions” (ibid. p. + 5). + + “What is belief? First, it is something that we are aware of; + second, it appeases the irritation of doubt; and third, it + involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action, + or, say for short, a _habit_” (ibid. p. 291). + + “Thus, we come down to what is tangible and practical, as + the root of every real distinction of thought, no matter how + subtile it may be; and there is no distinction of meaning so + fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of + practice” (ibid. p. 293). + +Mr. Peirce is very far from considering philosophy as a mere matter of +speculation or theory without practical importance. He says: + + “What sort of a conception we ought to have of the universe, + how to think of the _ensemble_ of things, is a fundamental + problem in the theory of reasoning.” + +The _a priori_ method, so called by Mr. Peirce, translated into practical +life is not only the death of truth but also of morality. The objective +criterion of truth is gone, and with it goes the objective standard of +right and wrong. If that is true which seems so to my individual reason, +then that is right which pleases me best. What is right to me might be +wrong to you. Thus this method leads either to moral indifference, or to +basing ethics upon the greatest amount of pleasure attainable, (Hedonism, +as represented by Mr. H. Spencer, Prof. Harald Höffding, Professor +Gizycki, and others,) or to relying upon the individual conscience as an +absolute and ultimate authority.[75] + +The method of settling opinion agreeably to individual reason is at +present the most fashionable and widely spread conception, and it shows +its influence in the almost universal acceptation of agnosticism to-day. +Is that the final decision with which we have to rest satisfied? If it +were, we would better return to the method of authority or tenacity. +No, it is not the sum of all wisdom. The _a priori_ method so called +represents a period of transition, which, if persistently pursued, will +lead to the bankruptcy of thought, the desperate appearance of which is +well disguised in the big sounding and modesty-parading term agnosticism. +And here we return to the exposition of Mr. Peirce’s views. Mr. Peirce +does not accept the _a priori_ method, he believes in “the logic of +science.” Mr. Peirce says: + + “To satisfy our doubts, therefore, it is necessary that a + method should be found by which our beliefs may be caused by + nothing human, but by some external permanency—by something + upon which our thinking has no effect.... The method must be + such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the + same. Such is the method of science” (ibid. p. 11.) + + “That whose characters are independent of how you or I think is + an external reality” (ibid. p. 298). + + “All the followers of science are fully persuaded that the + processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough, will + give one certain solution to every question to which they can + be applied.... They may at first obtain different results, but, + as each perfects his method and his processes, the results + will move steadily together toward a destined centre.... The + opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who + investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object + represented in this opinion is the real” (ibid. pp. 299-300). + +The word “fated” must be understood as Mr. Peirce understands it. He adds +in a foot-note: + + “Fate means merely that which is sure to come true, and cannot + be avoided.” + + +IV. + +NECESSITY IN THOUGHT PRESUPPOSES NECESSITY IN FACTS. + +I have thus outlined Mr. Peirce’s views, not only because his line of +reasoning[76] is admirable and deserves to be universally known and +recognised, but also because it seems to me to have some bearing upon the +question at issue. + +If the ultimate conclusion of every man concerning reality shall be the +same, there must be some truth in the idea of necessity. If there is an +opinion “fated to be ultimately agreed to,” we are confronted in our +representation of reality with something that is inevitable. Shall there +be necessity in thought but not in that of which all our ideas are but +images and symbols? We can conceive of the necessity in the ideal realm +of thought only as a reflection of that necessity which pervades the +original and prototype of our thought, which lives in reality. + + +V. + +MR. PEIRCE’S EVOLUTIONISM. + +I have tried to find an explanation of Mr. Peirce’s position which +appears to me self-contradictory and I believe I have found the key that +will explain it. + +I read somewhere a stray remark of Mr. Peirce’s in which he demanded +that evolutionism should be thorough-going. The conception of evolution +in vogue at present, he said, stops short at a certain point, and +substitutes for an explanation the unknowable. Mr. Peirce says: + + “Does not space call for some explanation? Is not that a + half-way philosophy which in these our days does not explain, + or at least hold out some promise of explaining, why space + is continuous, why it has such a wonderful uniformity in all + its parts, why there are neither more nor less than three + dimensions everywhere, why every closed curve can, by a + continuous change of position, size, and form, be brought into + coincidence with every other, and why the three angles of a + triangle make exactly one hundred and eighty degrees, or at + least so very closely so that we cannot tell whether they make + more or less?” + +Mr. Peirce does not intend to halt before these problems, but to explain +them and carries the principle of evolution to its ultimate conclusions, +so as to explain from it not only the forms of living organisms but also +the laws of nature including the laws of space. Mr. Peirce declares in +his article “The Architecture of Theories” (_The Monist_, Vol. I, No. 2, +p. 165): + + “Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be + accounted for.... Law is _par excellence_ the thing that wants + a reason.” + +And what he means by it is further elucidated in his article “The +Doctrine of Necessity Examined” (_The Monist_, Vol. II, No. 3, p. 334): + + “That single events should be hard and unintelligible, logic + will permit without difficulty: we do not expect to make the + shock of a personally experienced earthquake appear natural and + reasonable by any amount of cogitation. But logic does expect + things _general_ to be understandable. To say that there is a + universal law, and that it is a hard, ultimate, unintelligible + fact, the why and wherefore of which can never be inquired + into, at this a sound logic will revolt; and will pass over + at once to a method of philosophising which does not thus + barricade the road of discovery.” + +It is perfectly true that “law is _par excellence_ the thing that wants +a reason,” and any explanation that explains it by the assumption of an +unknowable is unphilosophical. I agree with Mr. Peirce that we must not +halt here; but I have no confidence in his method of explanation. Mr. +Peirce’s original idea, then, and I should add, his main mistake, is that +he proposes to explain the origin of natural law by evolution. + +In his legitimate anxiety to explain law, Mr. Peirce declares chance to +be exempt therefrom. He says: + + “That a pitched coin should sometimes turn up heads and + sometimes tails calls for no particular explanation.” (_The + Monist_, Vol. I, No. 2, p. 165.) + +But chance in our opinion needs exactly as much explanation as anything +else. Mr. Peirce very improperly identifies “that which cannot be +accounted for” with “that which need not be accounted for.” Absolute +chance, if it existed, would _not_ so much _not_ call for a particular +explanation as actually be unexplainable, and being incapable of +explanation, it would have to be considered as an unintelligible fact, +as inscrutable, incomprehensible, and mystical. On the assumption that +chance need not be accounted for, Mr. Peirce builds the architecture of +his theory. He says: + + “Chance is first, law is second, the tendency of habits is + third.” + +The application of this general statement is set forth in the following +passage: + + “In psychology Feeling is First, Sense of reaction Second, + General conception Third, or mediation. In biology, the idea of + arbitrary sporting is first, heredity is second, the process + whereby the accidental characters become fixed is third.” + +How little after all we can escape the determinism of law as being a +feature of the world will be seen from the fact, that the explanation +for the evolution of law is presented by Mr. Peirce as being itself a +law, i. e. a formula describing a regularity supposed to obtain in facts. +Does not Mr. Peirce’s formula, supposing it to be true, deserve the same +reproach which he casts upon natural law in general, viz., that it is “a +hard, ultimate, unintelligible fact, the why and wherefore of which can +never be inquired into”? + + +VI. + +WORLD-CONSTRUCTIONS. + +There are two methods of philosophising, one starts with ideas which +are supposed not to need any explanation, the other starts from facts +and uses facts as data. The former is the method of the constructionist +or ontologist, the latter that of the positivist. The constructionist +attempts to beget a world-theory in the same way that God was supposed +to have created the world; he attempts to bring it into being either +out of a real nothing or out of something like nothing. He constructs a +world-theory out of the self-evident, out of the absolute, out of the +indubitable, or out of that the contrary of which is inconceivable. The +positivist, however, employs facts as the given material, which he works +out into a consistent and systematic whole. The former view is synthetic +and constructive, the latter is analytic and descriptive. The former view +is the method of Hegel, Oken, and also of Mr. Spencer, the latter is the +method of all scientists and the ideal of the positive philosophy. + +Mr. Peirce although very positivistic in his logic of science, must in +philosophy still be counted among the constructionists. + +Chance is to Mr. Peirce as much absolute as was to Hegel the idea +of “abstract being,” which as such, Hegel said, is equivalent to +“non-being.” Non-being need not be accounted for. So Hegel starts with +this idea, and finding that “becoming” is the oscillation between being +and non-being launches his abstract thought upon the terra firma of +reality. + +In the same way and with similar ingenious ingenuity Oken starts +the world with zero. Zero or non-being need not be accounted for. +Its existence calls for no particular reasons. What is zero? We can +conceive it as “0 = 1 - 1.” Thus we have “+1” and “-1,” two units. The +whole world, according to Oken, is only a disintegration of Nothing, +an equation of enormous complexity but always equal to zero. And that +explains the world! + +Mr. Spencer, adopts “the principle of setting out with propositions of +which the negations are unconceivable,” without being aware that any +inveterate belief or prejudice can be defended from that standpoint. +The principle is purely subjective. It does not admit of any objective +verification and limits knowledge to individual conception. If Mr. +Spencer’s principle were admissible, we could not refute the adversaries +of the Copernican system, when they declare that the rotation of the +earth up on which we stand is inconceivable. The maxim that that +proposition is most certain the negation of which is inconceivable might +after all, and it actually did very often, come into conflict with facts. +Many propositions are now confidently accepted which were formerly +declared to be positively inconceivable. + +Mr. Peirce, I say, starts the world with an abstract idea of a something +of which he assumes we need not give any account, as did the great +ontologists of former times. He constructs, agreeably to his reason, a +theory of the way in which the world might have originated, and thus he +falls into the mistake criticised by himself as the _a priori_ method. +Yet the weakest point of Mr. Peirce’s system is that his “absolute +chance” begets order; irregularity becomes law by practice, as if by a +sufficiently prolonged shaking the dice would by and by acquire the habit +of turning up the same faces each time. + +The present world-conception of the scientist regards natural laws as +eternal. The order that prevails in these laws constitutes the principle +of evolution and changes the chaos of a nebula into a well-arranged +planetary system. Thus the original chaos is properly speaking no chaos. +It is in all its parts regulated by law and only appears chaotic in +comparison with more advanced stages of evolution. + +Desirous to account for the regularities of nature Mr. Peirce proposes +the idea that nature in the beginning was a real, true chaos, without +order, without laws, the single actions of reality taking place +irregularly and in a sportive manner. Absolute chance prevailed. +Everything was undetermined, exactly as much so as a man is undetermined +in his action before his belief is settled. Yet a man, by and by, forms +a belief and acts accordingly, not once or twice, but often, until a +habit is formed. Thus Mr. Peirce assumes, Nature’s actions are first +undetermined, they may be of this kind or of another kind. The same +particle of reality may under the same conditions act in different ways, +yet it acts somehow; it acts again, and repeats a certain kind of action +more frequently than others, thus forming habits. Laws according to Mr. +Peirce are the habits acquired by nature. + +The proposition of Mr. Peirce’s logic of science points out another +method of constructing a world-conception. The recognition of reality in +the sense as he conceives it, admonishes us that our world-conception +should be a picturing, a mirroring, an imitation of the objective world +of facts. It should not be the architecture of a theory, but first +an analysis and then a reconstruction of experience; it should be a +description of facts, methodically arranged. + + +VII. + +FACTS AND LAWS. + +That which we call natural law is not the description of a certain +special and concrete form of existence which is now or then and here +or there, but of some general quality of facts which is everywhere and +always. The former, i. e. every special and concrete form of existence, +can be explained by evolution, the latter, i. e. natural law, cannot. The +former has to be accounted for by the law of causation, the latter by the +principle of sufficient reason. And it is this distinction between cause +and reason which Mr. Peirce does not seem to have regarded. + +Every special form of existence must, at least theoretically, be +traceable as the effect of some cause and every law of nature must be +explainable by showing its connection with other natural laws. The only +thing in the world of which we cannot and need not give account is the +existence of facts itself, or being in general, which is the stubborn +presence of reality in us ourselves and also outside of us, objected +to our own being as an independent power to which we have to adapt our +conduct. We need not prove its existence, for it exists. If anything +is ultimate, facts are ultimate; and cognition is nothing but the +reconstruction of facts for the purpose of orientation among them, it is +a methodical description of reality in the symbols of the feelings that +exist in sentient beings. + +A scientist having observed a special process of nature, describes it, +if possible, in such a way that it is recognised as a transformation. A +description of this kind is called an explanation. It renders the process +intelligible to us; it is complete and exhaustive. In order to make such +a description available for comprehending other cases of the same or +similar kind, we have to introduce another principle, which is that of +economy. We must single out those features which are common to a certain +class and remove all diversity and specificalness. All specificalness +and diversity are transient features due to special conditions; they +disappear with these special conditions. Thus the notion of natural law +involves as an essential characteristic and fundamental quality the +absence of the incidental and the temporal. + +Natural laws describe the facts of nature _sub specie aeternitatis_. They +cease to be natural laws in the proper sense of the word as soon as they +are conceived, like legal laws, as products of evolutions, which have +appeared in time and may disappear again. Eternity is the characteristic +feature of a natural law, it is its backbone, the essence of its being, +its _conditio sine qua non_. + +Thus in considering a natural phenomenon we are led to distinguish +between its cause and its reason: Its cause is something special, it is +an individual event, happening in time, and accordingly being transient; +it is an occurrence of some kind, it is a single and definite fact. +However its reason is not anything special, it is something general; +it is not a single and definite fact, but it is a law of universal +application; it is not transient, but a conception of things in which the +incidental and temporal are eliminated. A reason is applicable to all +cases of the same kind and also to all cases of any time. A cause, i. e. +a fact, if it truly exists, is real (not true); a law, i. e. a reason, +if it really obtains in nature, is true (not real), and any attempt at +explaining natural laws as a product of evolution, being based upon the +view that regards them as causes not as reasons, as real not as true, as +a description of temporal existences, not as viewing facts _sub specie +aeternitatis_, must from the outset be a failure.[77] + +Mr. Peirce attempts to explain natural laws as if they were single and +concrete facts. Where we have to look for reasons he evidently employs +the method of searching for causes. He treats that which in its very +nature is eternal, as if it were temporal. He regards the everlasting, +the imperishable, the immutable as if it had originated, as if it were +transient, as if it were the product of a development. + + +VIII. + +LAWS NOT INEXPLICABLE. + +But is not Mr. Peirce justified in declaring that law remains +unexplained? Is law really as he says “hard, ultimate, inexplicable, +immutable”? Law is to be regarded as immutable but not as ultimate or +inexplicable, and thus Mr. Peirce’s denunciation of natural law is not +justified. All natural laws must be conceived as forming one system +ascending from the lower to the higher, from the more special to the +more general. And the more comprehensive law represents in each case the +reason for the less comprehensive law which is comprised in it. Thus we +must finally reach the most general or all-comprehensive law, which is a +description of that which is a universal quality of existence. + +There is wrong notion prevalent among many thinkers that the most +comprehensive description (law or reason) of a certain kind should, +as in a nutshell, contain and immediately explain all that which it +embraces, so that if once in its possession, we should be omniscient as +to all the rest. The most universal law is looked upon as the centre of +existence—_das Innerste der Welt_. If we could but get there, we should +solve all the world-problems by mere intuition. This is the old error of +the students of magic, whose hope is expressed by Faust when he says: + + “_Dass ich erkenne, was die Welt_ + _Im Innersten zusammenhält._” + + That I may detect the inmost force + Which binds the world and shapes its course.—_Bayard Taylor._ + +Comprehension is not attained simply by finding out and stating the most +general feature of a certain class of facts; comprehension does not alone +consist of generalisation but also of discrimination. The differences +among less general laws must be recognised as results of special +conditions. And any knowledge of a general law reveals nothing about the +special conditions under the influence of which the same law will work +differently. + +It is but too often overlooked that the more general a statement is, the +less it will contain, the vaguer it will appear, the emptier it must be. +There is no royal road to cognition and mere generalisation is of no +avail. We shall have to investigate the details of every case and view +it in its relation to the general law. The general law must be viewed +under those conditions which will invariably produce the same special +modifications. + +But do not the most general reasons remain uncomprehended? Do we not at +last arrive at an ultimate law which, then, must be hard and inexplicable? + +Those laws which appear in every respect to be universal are the formal +laws of mathematics, arithmetic, and their kindred sciences. And all +these formal sciences are not only _not_ mystical, unintelligible, and +inexplicable, but they are the most perspicuous, most reliable, and most +certain knowledge we possess. All their theorems admit of the most rigid +demonstration, and the last shadow of mysticism has been removed by +Hermann Grassmann. Owing to his searching investigations we are no longer +in need of axioms which were formerly supposed to be the indispensable +basis of mathematics. + +There is however a basis of formal thought left which we cannot dispense +with; that is the idea of sameness, generally formulated as the law of +identity. Is perhaps the law of identity by which all the regularities +of nature are to be accounted for, inexplicable? Hardly! The idea of +sameness has a solid basis in the facts of experience.[78] + + +IX. + +CONCLUSION. + +The contrast between Determinism and Indeterminism is old, yet Mr. +Peirce has worked out quite a new aspect of Indeterminism and places it +upon a basis that appears to be a more solid foundation than it ever +before possessed. At the same time he succeeds in making some of its +consequences so plausible, that in this new garb it will appeal more +strongly than before to scientifically trained minds. With all deference +to the logical acuteness of Mr. Peirce and with all admiration for the +originality and depth of his thought, we cannot, however, accede to the +new philosophy which he proposes. + +Mr. Peirce’s propositions go to the core of all problems, they upset +everything that has heretofore been considered as firm ground, they +question the most fundamental concepts of the world-conception upon +which all scientific reasoning and the methods of the positive philosophy +rest. Thus they set us a-thinking and will help us to attain greater +clearness on points which are to all of us of greater concern than may +at first sight appear. For the fundamental problems of philosophy have +a deep practical importance. Their importance is less noticeable, less +obvious, but at the same time more sweeping the more fundamental they are. + +Let us here in concluding this article consider only one, but the most +striking one, of the consequences to which both views lead. + +Indeterminism leads to a conception of God which although we may call +it “mind” and place it at the beginning of the world, is pure chance or +the indeterminateness of an arbitrary sporting. Determinism on the other +hand leads to a recognition of God as that something in nature that is +as it is, that has been and will be. Science, whose method of cognising +the truth is and can only be to know in parts, attempts to describe the +partial qualities of this something in natural laws. + +It is of great consequence in practical life whether God is what the +name Jahveh intends to convey, eternal and unalterable being, immutable +sameness in the perpetual flux, irrefragable law in the changes of +evolution, or whether it is the Τυχή of the pagans, i. e. indeterminable +and absolute chance, unaccountable, irregular, capricious, and uncertain. + +The God-idea is the basis of ethics. It matters little whether we use or +avoid the name God, for the atheist has also a God-idea in his conception +of that existence in which he lives and moves and has his being. This +God-idea is always the ground from which we derive our rules of conduct; +and whenever we change, not our terminology but our idea of God, we shall +as a matter of consistency have to change our views of ethics also. + + EDITOR. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[73] Italics are ours. + +[74] See _Fundamental Problems_, p. 55. + +[75] This is the position of the Societies for Ethical Culture which are +not confessedly but practically agnostics. Professor Adler’s position is +characterised in _The Monist_, Vol. I, No. 4, p. 567, 599, and _The Open +Court_ Nos. 225 and 234. Mr. Salter bases ethics upon “the immovable rock +of conscience.” (See his _Ethical Religion_, p. 295.) + +[76] Ernst Schroeder in his great work _Vorlesungen über die Algebra der +Logik_ adopts in the main the results of Peirce. A sketch of Mr. Peirce’s +line of thought, (his _Gedankengang_, as Schroeder calls it,) is found in +the _Einleitung_, pp. 107-118. + +[77] I laid down my views on the subject in a short monograph of only 82 +pages, entitled _Ursache, Grund und Zweck, eine philosophische Abhandlung +zur Klärung der Begriffe_ (Dresden: R. von Grumbkow, Hof. Verlag, 1883). +In all main points I maintain the same standpoint still. See also +_Fundamental Problems_, the chapter on Causality, pp. 79-91 and 96-109. + +Since the publication of my German pamphlet my confidence that we can, +(not only in the special sciences such as chemistry, mineralogy, botany, +etc., but also in philosophy) arrive at truth, has rather been confirmed +than shaken. We can create a common ground on which all philosophers +agree, as much as mathematicians agree concerning the Pythagorean +theorem. But in order to achieve this ideal, philosophers must abandon +all attempts at originality. The hankering after originality is an +inherited evil in the family of philosophers. The first philosophers +were poets, priests, and prophets; later on in the natural evolution +of human culture, a differentiation of their combined functions took +place. Originality is a virtue in the poet but a vice in his brother, +the philosopher. The philosopher’s ideal must be to free himself of all +individualism, subjectivity, and original conceptions; he must become +strictly objective. He must renounce his personal likes and dislikes, and +make his soul a mirror of nature, faithfully and correctly to represent +the facts and nothing but the facts. This is the ethics of philosophical +inquiry, and the philosophy that takes its stand on this principle we +call positivism. + +Almost all divergencies of importance in the different philosophical +systems can be traced to different conceptions or rather misconceptions +of causation. + +This last century since Kant has been the most fertile age of original +world-theories, all different in style and manner of construction, but +all alike in so far as the author of each system had strained his utmost +efforts to be original. Thus all these world-theories were so many +beautiful poems on ontology, they were so many grand air-castles produced +by the magic wand of a fairy-tale causation. The philosopher’s aspiration +must not be to present original ideas but to reach that one solution +which any other unbiassed thinker must find, to express that truth which +in the end will have to be recognised universally, to formulate facts in +objective exactness. The degree of originality in philosophic thought +marks the degree of aberration from the common aim of the one sole +solution, and the greatest source of original ideas is the confusion of +cause and reason, of _Ursache_ and _Grund_, of event and law, of fact and +truth. + +[78] I expect to discuss the problems of sameness, of chance, of +mechanicalism, and the freedom of will in the next number of _The Monist_ +under the caption _The Doctrine of Necessity: Its Basis and its Scope_. + + + + +LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE + + + + +I. + +FRANCE. + + +Professor Lombroso is unremitting in bringing up new facts in support +of his doctrines. His _Nouvelles Recherches de Psychiatrie et +d’Anthropologie criminelle_ (New Researches in Psychiatry and Criminal +Anthropology) comprise a good many, gathered from the latest works +relating to criminality. In adding psychiatry to anthropology in the +title to this volume, writes the learned author, “I return to my +starting point and to the true source of these studies, which is only +a clinical demonstration, but a more perfect one, of what is called in +old psychiatry, moral insanity and masked epilepsy.” Lombroso may be +reproached with a certain exaggeration, a certain haste, in his views +respecting criminal man: yet can we conceive of an opinionated inquirer +who would not have faith in his work, and who could resist the desire +to generalise from the facts already obtained? But I have little doubt +that the works of his school will end in producing a precise conception, +which will force itself on the attention of legislators and jurists. I +say _precise_, because one has a glimpse of the truth in criticising +the evidence offered to us in such variety, though what one perceives +sometimes vanishes. + +How can we conceive of the criminal type? This is a prime question on +which it is not useless to insist. Crime, as M. Tarde tells us, has +become a real profession in our modern societies. Although there is some +truth in it, we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the subtle +form of this paradox. There is no want of delinquents carrying on a +business; the army of crime recruits itself from all classes, it includes +peasants and workmen, chemists and physicians, lawyers and merchants, +soldiers and poets, that is to say, subjects possessing some one at least +of the aptitudes which form a calling. We have here, then, on the one +side, wretches destitute of all aptitude for a trade, and on the other +men who do not adhere to the exercise of their profession, although +capable of making use of it. The delinquent appears to us, in short, +as stricken with some degree of professional incapacity, and if crime +has become a profession in some sort, the criminals of every category +first represent, if I may thus say, a professional or social waste. The +study of the causes and the signs of this waste is just what has been +undertaken. + +The social causes of crime have often been put in prominence. They are +numerous, and persons unacquainted with these questions are inclined to +attribute the largest proportion of crimes and offences to distress and +misery. But, according to the inquiries of Morrison, for example—and by +the confession also of M. Troal, of whom I shall speak immediately—misery +rarely produces crime, and if we examine carefully, one after the other, +the social causes of crime, we shall soon be convinced that poverty, +drunkenness, etc., feed criminality by producing degeneracy of the race, +rather than that they directly arouse the criminal.[79] We are compelled +then to seek the immediate reason for a crime in the criminal himself, +and to learn to distinguish the delinquent by means of the methods fixed +upon by anthropologists and physicians. + +At first, as we know, Lombroso recognised only one criminal type. He has +since found that there are many. The distinction between the thief and +the murderer is classical. Benedikt has described the born vagabond; +Brouardel, the feminine type. It is always necessary in describing a +type to resort to the methods of natural history, to pass in review the +emotional and intellectual characters, the physiological or functional +characters, the anatomical or morphological characters, and endeavor +to seize certain constant correlations between the signs one has been +successful in observing. The delinquent may be described as abnormal +from the emotional standpoint, and as deficient or perverted from the +intellectual point of view. We could then begin by describing exactly +certain intellectual and emotional types, and it is no exaggeration +to say that experienced magistrates in their way have done so, those +even who, with M. Proal, we shall see to be the most hostile to +anthropological theories. But they are reluctant to admit any relations +between the moral agent and physical nature, whereas the new school, on +the contrary, makes every effort to discover and determine them. + +How far is it successful? That is the question. + +If we take the ensemble of the emotional and intellectual characters, we +shall affirm with Professor Pelman (whose opinion Mr. Christian Ufer has +made known in _The Monist_) that the portrait of the imbecile traced by +Sollier corresponds strongly to that of the born criminal of Lombroso. +We shall aver also that this portrait does not answer equally well for +all kinds of delinquents, and that we pass gradually from the malignant +imbecile to the average or mediocre man. The same observation applies +when we study the physiognomical characters of which the little book of +Lombroso furnishes a great variety. We shall have evidently to consider, +with respect to physiognomical characters and physical marks, a strong +type (certainly inborn), a weak type, and, I would add, an _acquired_ +type. + +If we take functional anomalies—those of touch, sight, etc.—we shall be +struck with their number as well as with their importance, and, I may say +in passing, the alienist physicians who continue to be the adversaries +of Lombroso discover every day fresh examples of them, which could +give to the conception of the type, the reality they still deny it to +possess. The latest discovery, and certainly one of the most striking, +is that which Ottolenghi has just made, in the clinic of Lombroso +himself, respecting the visual field of epileptics and of the morally +insane. According to the researches of Ottolenghi, the visual field will +be remarkably limited, both with epileptics not in paroxysms, and with +born delinquents, but more often with the latter. They present a partial +hemiopia, vertical and heteronymous; the periphery of the field is +sinuous and irregular. This discovery tends, then, to confirm the analogy +of epilepsy with criminal tendencies; it will furnish a sign of the first +order for a well marked category of delinquents. + +Let us pass on to morphological characters. The abundance of evidence +is truly extraordinary, and one cannot abstain from remarking, in this +relation, that a certain number of the anomalies designated ought to +be found, and indeed are found, in morally healthy subjects, and that +therefore they do not alone suffice to furnish a ground of distinction +from the medium normal type. As certain functional anomalies are not +wanting either in many subjects whose morality remains perfect, it would +be necessary to aim, it seems to me, at establishing an approximate +_quantum_ for the criminal type, or rather for the _kinds_ which ought to +lead, by sensible gradations, from the most pronounced type to that which +is the least so. Some scattered elements of this work will be found in +the book of Lombroso; the studies of Clouston on the palate (deformation +of the palate existed in 19 per cent. of the general population, 61 +per cent. of imbeciles, 35 per cent. of criminals, and 33 per cent. of +madmen); the monographs of Ottolenghi and Roncoroni on the pathological +anomalies of 100 criminals, with an indication of the number and the +nature of the anomalies, etc. + +In short, it cannot be questioned that the new school holds its ground +well, since it circumscribes and makes more and more precise the object +of its researches. In my humble opinion, it is of importance for it to +get rid of hazardous or useless explanations, for it to tell us as little +as possible of remote atavism—for if heredity is constant, it is not +possible to trace it link by link as far as the deluge!—and finally for +pure anthropologists and psychiatrists to beware of themselves drawing +practical conclusions from their doctrines. The applications concern +jurists, and constitute a question of another kind, into which other +considerations also enter. + + * * * * * + +In the juridical domain, a French magistrate, M. LOUIS PROAL, has +just published a considerable work, _Le Crime et la Peine_ (Crime and +Punishment) which is truly the performance of an adversary, but not of +such an adversary as M. Tarde. M. Proal is an irreconcilable, and all +his dialectic—charged a little too much with citations of which many are +useless or prove nothing—turns on the absolute affirmation of free-will. +He flatters himself to have demonstrated freedom, in which he is wrong. +It is a matter of faith, as criticists have very well perceived. Human +science can know only determinism; it proves only what it finds.[80] + +M. Proal claims then to found on free-will the two principles of the +moral responsibility of the delinquent, and the moral character of +punishment, in opposition to the purely social point of view in which +the new criminalists place themselves. The physical anomaly of the +criminal seems to him a chimera, and he goes so far as to deny, or falls +little short of it, the relations of frenzied impulsion with degeneracy. +Willingly, perhaps, he would accept as truly mad and irresponsible only +the insane, those who are shut up forever in the asylums! + +Certainly, M. Proal possesses the experience of the magistrate, he +has erudition and triumphs easily, in details, by the defects and +deficiencies of the doctrine he combats. His objections, nevertheless, do +not touch the general conception which connects crime, in a great number +of cases, with the disorders of the living machine. He is not willing +for the criminal to differ from the honest man otherwise than by his +inclinations and will, as though will and inclinations had no dependence +on the state of our organs, and as though heredity entered for nothing +into the “personal factor” of character! He is not averse to saying that +moral and physical decadence is always the effect of criminality, as +though it was never its cause! He allows with that attenuations of moral +responsibility, resulting from physiological and physical influences, as +though a weakened responsibility was a true moral responsibility in the +sense he understands, and as though the judge had the means of deciding +at what moment morbid evolution involves irresponsibility! + +These absolute principles once established, he defines an offense “the +violation of a social duty,” and he grants that the judge “ought to take +account of the importance of the social evil resulting from the crime.” +It is sufficient for him that the _intention_ and the _responsibility_ +is appreciated, in order to attach the penalty to morality. In default +of which, writes he, there would be no more justice. It is a noble +solicitude, that of wishing to justify punishment in the eyes of the +guilty person himself, and to inflict it on him as an expiation of the +evil he has committed. But here an error is fallen into, which is, in +my opinion, to suppose that the law punishes “morally.” The law has +not the power to inflict moral chastisement. It strikes the delinquent +materially, in his goods, in his person; the rest depends not on the +judge who applies the law, but on the judge who is in ourselves, +the avenger more or less severe according to the complex incidences +of education and heredity. Moral chastisement can exist only in the +conscience of the delinquent, and, if this conscience is wanting, or +nearly so, all the affirmations of the judge cannot cause the punishment +to have the quality of moral expiation for the guilty. The criminal will +submit to it through force, and the magistrate will apply it by necessity. + +Such is, I think, the true situation. The new school of criminology +will introduce reforms in the practice of the tribunals and in the +administration of the penal laws; it will not change justice and could +not compromise morality. And now pardon me for adding to these some +further remarks, in connection with the books of which I have still to +speak. + + * * * * * + +The interests and the passions of men, habits too long acquired to alter, +can be considered as the immediate and constant motives of societies, +the _vis à tergo_ of their evolution. Political theories work on a +pre-existing social matter, and more or less in the direction of the +tendencies which have produced the state of things that they aspire to +reform or overturn. In a general manner, they possess then neither the +power necessary to create, attributed to them by utopists, nor the power +to destroy, which makes them appear so formidable to conservatives. +Without denying all efficiency to the intellectual ideal, it is +permissible to say that its action has a bearing purely conditional, +and that the revolutions of growth of social organisms never absolutely +depend on the theorist who establishes its diagnosis, and endeavors to +regulate its march. We behold, in a word, history making itself, rather +than that we make it ourselves and according to our inclination. It is +hardly possible for us to foresee the remote effects of our inventions, +of our discoveries. In sociology as well as in physics, man remains the +servant and the interpreter of nature. + +There is in this, if I am not deceived, a reason for reassuring ourselves +concerning certain alarming predictions as to the future of our +civilisation. In his book _La Civilisation et la Croyance_ (Civilisation +and Belief), the second edition of which has just appeared, M. CHARLES +SECRÉTAN estimates that our societies will sink down, at least that they +will neither return to a purified Christianity—a Christianity that has +never yet been practised—nor restore the great principles of the free +soul and of God. M. Secrétan is a brilliant writer and has a noble heart, +and his book contains at least one truth of the first order, always good +to repeat, which is that nothing durable is founded on hatred. He dare +not flatter himself, however, that his warnings will be listened to, his +lessons observed. Perhaps he exaggerates the real dangers which menace +us, because he enlarges, unknown to himself, the rôle of philosophic +doctrines, and attributes to the mind a kind of discretionary power over +the sentiments and the interests of mankind. + +Here we have the intellectualist mistake. It appears chiefly in the +revolutionist propaganda which agitates our Europe, and of which M. +J. BOURDEAU makes known the ideas and the progress, in a clear and +interesting manner, in his work _Le Socialisme allemand et le Nihilisme +russe_ (German Socialism and Russian Nihilism). It is a fact well worthy +of remark, that the genial promoter of the theories of Fourier, St. +Simon, and others—I refer to J. J. Rousseau—had had the conjecture of a +social physiology: fragments of his that have been published show well +that he did not regard the age of gold as one of savagery, and that +he foresaw the part that human nature had to do in our calculations +of government. What is found just in his writings could even well be +intimately connected with this naturalist point of view. But he lived +in the century _par excellence_ of rationalism, where such ideas could +be neither developed nor understood; he constructed the political world +according to reasoning, and I shall not be far wrong in thinking that +socialism represents in its turn, definitively, at least in its essential +features, a last offshoot from this rational school which has already, a +hundred years ago, made us the villainous present of Jacobinism. + +Absolute communism has no chance of ever realising itself. Neither Karl +Marx, nor Engels, has ventured even to indicate the possible form of +the society of which they dream. The action of the socialists, in turn, +could have as its result the substitution for our régime of excessive +individualism and of disordered democracy, a régime of corporations and +of more regular co-operation, by one of those reversions to institutions +anciently delineated that history presents to us, and which respond to a +sort of “law of oscillation” of social phenomena. There is no occasion, +however, to give it long consideration to establish that these returns +do not exclude novelty, for the apparent form of social arrangements is +of less moment than the nature of the ideas and of the relations which +sustain them, and here is what I would readily call a “law of progressive +repetition.” As to the exact sense of the evolution which there manifests +itself, the great task of disengaging it falls to the sociologists. But +the school of Marx has wished to see things only from one side, and his +theory, which is too simple, does not embrace the complexity of the +phenomena.[81] + +Without any pretension to renew the face of the world and to interpret +economic phenomena in favor of an arbitrary thesis, M. AD. COSTA, in his +opuscule _Alcoholisme ou Épargne_ (Alcoholism or Thrift) places before +us the truly immediate question of socialism, in the presence of this +“social dilemma” which reformers willingly mask in their discourses: +on one side, alcoholism, life from day to day, the unreasonable and +momentary illusion that one imbibes with stimulants, the wasting of daily +resources, finally the pauperism which leads to social servitude; on the +other side, thrift under all its forms, a provident life ordered with +intelligence, abstention from dangerous stimulants, progressive comfort +and increasing happiness, more and more freedom. Yes, here are the two +issues between which the workers have to choose. Those who read this +little book can learn there, both what milliards of salaries alcohol has +devoured, and what misery both physical and moral it engenders, and the +degradation that it brings to those who give themselves up to it. To +many this may be only the small side of a great problem. Without thrift +and the qualities which render it possible, there is neither family nor +morality. How can a man pretend to possess instruments of labor when he +deteriorates the chief of all, his own living machine? How can a social +class have the illusion to believe that a revolution ever profits him who +is neither able nor capable of preparing and conducting it? + + * * * * * + +The last work of M. E. DE LAVELEYE, _Le Gouvernement dans la Démocratie_ +(Democratic Government),[82] published a few months before his death, +treats chiefly of the organisation of public powers. This question has +importance to-day, writes the learned author, only in relation to the +great questions which will agitate the world of to-morrow, the social +question and the religious question. Conservatives make use of government +as a brake; revolutionists seek to seize hold of it as a lever. The fact +is that our Europe marches towards democracy. But will democracy give +us freedom? On what conditions can it form an acceptable régime and one +compatible with high culture? + +It is not necessary for me to explain here the reasonings and conclusions +of M. de Laveleye. His book, to speak the truth, is less a book than a +collection of Review articles and historical sketches. The politics of +action will find in it too much theory, and philosophers will regret the +absence of master-ideas. It is well to read this work for its practical +advice and the rich details that it contains; we must not look there for +a real historical or social conception. + +The sentiment which is dominant, finally, in all the writings of which +I have just spoken is inquietude, and unfortunately it is only too well +justified. We see, in our Occident, alcoholism increasing with salaries, +the hatred of classes with wealth, immorality with enfranchisement, +public burdens with political progress, the aggregation of individuals +with great industry, criminality even with education. The wealth acquired +is compensated for by new evils; it seems that all our conquests have the +result of putting social order in peril, and that the civilisation of +which we are so proud is bound, in a short time, to become bankrupt. + +We have, nevertheless, a weighty capital with which to restore ourselves, +and it is only right to say that it is beginning to be applied. But we +must give up some errors as to which it is good time to open one’s eyes. +One of the gravest, certainly, is always to place instruction before +education, and the mind before the heart. We have allowed to drop, at +the same time with religion, the difficult task of forming moral habits. +Let us understand in a word that, in a society, the most valuable thing +is neither the steam engine, nor the bank note, but the man himself, +and that in the man even it is not ability or special knowledge but +_character_. + + LUCIEN ARRÉAT. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[79] I reserve, as well understood, the question of education, in order +to simplify matters here. + +[80] A ground of mutual understanding would be supplied by accepting +the distinction proposed by P. Carus between _constraint_, which alone +excludes freedom, and _necessity_, which leaves our will free within +the limits of our character. Already Plotinus had written: “How can it +be said of this being (he who obeys his nature) that he obeys, if he is +not constrained to follow something external?” (6th _Enn._ lib. viii.)—I +recommend to the curious on these questions the book of M. BERTAULD, +_Méthode Spiritualiste, Esprit et Liberté_. M. Bertauld places freedom +in _autonomy_, which is perfectly reconcilable with psychological +determinism; there is on the contrary, he declares, no radical +contradiction between determinism and free-will, and indeterminism is +an absurd conception. The work is well written, and I do not intend to +belittle it by mentioning it in a simple note. + +[81] In this relation, I will particularly refer to the great work, in +course of publication, of M. B. MALON, _Le Socialisme intégral_, and I +recommend at the same time the article _Justice and Socialism_ of M. +Belot, which has been much spoken of, in the number for February last of +the _Revue Philosophique_. + +[82] All the works mentioned in this article are published by F. Alcan. + + + + +II. + +GERMANY. + + +In the January number of _The Monist_ I mentioned a treatise written +by G. Ludwigs, in which the novels of Wilhelm Walloth were criticised, +and expressed my surprise that in the work discussed a personality +unquestionably diseased was stamped as a poet of almost the first order. +Much that then struck me as strange and was unclear to me, was later +rendered plain and intelligible; and the explanation was not long in +forthcoming. + +As the newspapers shortly afterwards announced, Ludwigs was simply the +pseudonym of a sixteen year old gymnasium student of Darmstadt, who had +already attracted the attention of wider circles by the poems he had +written. It happens at times that individualities of this description +bear out in the advanced years of their life the promise of their youth. +Extraordinary things were to be expected, though I cannot say _hoped_, +of Ludwigs; but the expectation was not fulfilled. He, an instance of +real decadence, yet a boy in years, voluntarily took his own life, +deeply mourned by his literary associates, the “Young Germans,” in whose +magazine _Die Gesellschaft_ a brother of the deceased is now publishing +biographical notes and literary remains—novels and poems—all more of a +psychological than literary interest. The biographical notes plainly +mark out a personality smitten with psychosis and suffering in a marked +degree with hyperæsthesia, and the literary remains reflect this mental +condition; light-sensations especially playing an important rôle. His +nervous system was too weak to assert itself permanently against the +outer world. This pressure, which objectively considered was not at all a +powerful one, did not admit of the rise of a powerful sense of life; and +especially oppressive to the precocious youth was the life of the school +in the most varied ways, and in an unexpected moment the flame of his +life went out. + +As psychologists, we should find considerable interest in the study +of this phenomenon of Ludwigs. We must admire his abilities and his +capacity for work, which not only enabled him to perform his duties as +a student of the gymnasium, but also left him time enough, in addition +to his literary work, to employ himself with the psychological writings +of Wundt and Münsterberg, which he desired to turn to account in the +field of poetry. We must mourn too his sad fate. But we have no reason to +_glorify_ such a diseased personality, as is done on many sides in the +April number of _Die Gesellschaft_. + +But this is a peculiar characteristic of the Young-German writers and +their confrères abroad, that they make the diseased take the place of +the sound, and the ugly of the beautiful, and thus help greatly to +undermine the health of the common mind. There are it is true a goodly +number of trusting souls who believe that we may regard with security and +composure, the endeavors and tendencies of the naturalistic apostles, as +our taste in literature and art—a few cases excepted—can surely not be +reversed into its opposite. On this point, perhaps, those who so think +are not wrong. But the stage may easily be reached where literary taste +no longer remains determinative, and the place of the æsthetical interest +in things is taken by the scientific, before whose judgment-seat no +difference of the beautiful and the hideous exists. + +This view is the direct outcome of philosophical materialism. The latter +doctrine may at present, it is true, be regarded in all its main points +as definitively overthrown, so far as philosophy is concerned; but in +the domain of _belles lettres_—a term not quite allowable here—the wave +which it has created still sweeps mightily onward. Two new works seek +to break its force, which have been published in the series _Gegen den +Materialismus_ edited by Dr. Schmidkunz (Stuttgart: Krabbe). The first +treatise bears the title _Materialismus und Æsthetik_ and has no less a +person as author than MORIZ CARRIÈRE; the second treats of _Materialism +in Literature_ and is the production of the northerner OLA HANSSON. I +am unable to say that these two treatises have especially satisfied me. +Both authors look at the subject too one-sidedly from the point of view +of æsthetics, and have not by far given a sufficient recognition to the +psychological aspect of the subject. I recognise indeed with Carrière, +in spite of all the apparent mutability of taste, a normative æsthetics; +but that man bears within him an ideal of life, as the seed does the +plant with its blossom and its fruit, I am unable for psychological +reasons to concede. I grant that I find with Ola Hansson psychology is so +far poorly represented in the naturalistic literature as the growth and +evolution of character is made to appear a much too simple process; and +I concede furthermore that the evolution of character in the individual +case is very far removed from anything like resemblance to an example +in mathematics, inasmuch as quantities may be lacking us in such a case +which are absolutely necessary to be taken account of for a correct +solution of the problem; but these missing quantities need not for that +reason be at all matters of mystery, in their true nature wholly unknown +to us. + +To what limits the domain of mystery has shrunk and to how great an +extent its expressions may be made intelligible and to a certain degree +even may be “regulated,” provided, equipped with thorough knowledge, we +courageously look the things in the face, is exemplified in a marked +degree by a voluminous work of the above mentioned Dr. Schmidkunz. The +so-called Suggestion passed for a long time as something wonderful +and had to rest its defence in the hands of the representatives of a +psycho-physical mysticism as opposed to a “surface”-psychology which +in the words of Du Prels occupied itself exclusively with surface work +without penetrating to the depths. SCHMIDKUNZ now points out in his +_Psychologie der Suggestion_ (Stuttgart, 1892: Ferdinand Enke) in a +very comprehensive manner what others had very plainly hinted at before +him, namely, that in the case of a very great number of phenomena we +have, exactly viewed, to deal only with some very simple and quite +explainable things which unite in the composition of what is commonly +called suggestion. The contents of the work, however, are not exhausted +with this; under the influence of a tremendous scope of reading, the +author treats the whole domain of suggestion, and if he understood more +perfectly the art of good writing, he would have earned a much greater +gratitude than that which in any event is his due. + +Schmidkunz touches repeatedly in his work upon a domain which still +belongs to the most obscure of the history of civilisation, namely +witchcraft and the trials of witches. This topic, likewise viewed from +a psychological point of view, forms the subject of a special treatise +by SNELL, entitled _Hexenprocesse und Geistesstörung_ (Munich, 1891: +J. F. Lehmann). In this book no rôle is ascribed to suggestion, but as +the title indicates the treatment centres about the question of what +significance mental disorders generally may have possessed in the trials +of witches. The author concedes that demented persons became the victims +of the trials for witchcraft either because they had rendered themselves +by their character open to the suspicion of a compact with the devil, +or because they had by self-obtrusion directly drawn upon themselves +this persecution, but asserts nevertheless, that the number of demented +persons that fell victims to the trials for witchcraft, was comparatively +very small. Mental disorder however played in so far a great rôle in the +trials for witchcraft as demented persons, especially such as suffered +from hysteria, became false witnesses and brought sound and healthy +people into the hands of the persecuting judges. + +As I am now treading the province of psychiatry, I will mention, that +WILHELM GRIESINGER’S celebrated work _Pathologie und Therapie der +psychischen Krankheiten_ has just been published in its fifth edition +under the direction of Dr. Levinstein-Schlegel, the director of the +Maison de Santé in Schöneberg (Berlin: August Hirschwald). I do not of +course specify this work solely for the sake of the physicians who may be +readers of _The Monist_, but am rather impelled to the act by a universal +psychological consideration, for Griesinger in the first edition of +the work also made a name for himself as a psychologist. It appeared +originally in 1845, and possessed a compass of 396 pages; the fifth +edition numbers 1100 pages and has increased considerably in size as +compared with the fourth. Whether the augmentations have added anything +to the value of the work is a question which must first be submitted for +answer to our physicians. In psychological respects its value has in so +far been very much increased as the experiential data have assumed much +greater proportions: the psychological analysis however has been somewhat +neglected. + +Psychological analysis in fact is not the strong side of the majority of +our psychiatrists. What Griesinger and still more so Spielmann sought +after in this direction, has been greatly forced in the background. +As a general rule our inquirers content themselves with a description +of symptoms and the construction of a more than copious nomenclature, +in the midst of which the connections are Very easy to be overlooked. +Among the commendable exceptions is to be named in this respect the +well-known Vienna professor THEODOR MEYNERT. In addition to his extensive +psychiatrical works he has also published a considerable number of +lectures and discourses partly in magazines and partly in separate +brochures. These discourses are now presented in collected form in a +book entitled _Sammlung von populärwissenschaftlichen Vorträgen über den +Bau una die Leistungen des Gehirns_ (Vienna, 1892, Wilhelm Braumüller). +The most noticeable discourses are the following: The Significance of +the Brain for the World of our Ideas; The Mechanics of the Cerebral +Structure; On the Feelings; On Illusion; On the Significance of the +Development of the Forehead; The Mechanics of Physiognomy; Brain and +Culture; The Co-operation of the Parts of the Brain; On Artificial +Disturbances of the Psychic Equilibrium. No words need be wasted in the +recommendation of the book of Meynert. + + CHR. UFER. + + + + +DIVERSE TOPICS. + + + + +PROFESSOR HAECKEL’S MONISM. + + +There are two Latin proverbs which are both good rules for +controversialists who seek for the truth on different roads. The one +reads: _In verbis simus faciles dummodo conveniamus in re_, the other +reads: _In verbis simus difficiles ut conveniamus in re_. A difference +of terms often prevents two thinkers from noticing that they actually +agree. Therefore let us be lenient in terms and never lose sight of their +meaning and purport. On the other hand terms are not indifferent, and +the selection of terms should not be regarded as arbitrary. In order to +arrive at a solid and permanent agreement, permanent because it is based +upon objectively demonstrable truth, we have to be scrupulously careful +with our terminology; and we must not allow the arbitrary employment of +terms where they are inappropriate. An inappropriate usage of terms will +lead us astray and involve us in confusion and error. + +Says Professor Haeckel: + + “The divergences which exhibit themselves in our respective + unitary conceptions of the world are in part only apparent + and in part occasioned by the divergent significances of our + fundamental ideas.” + +This seems to me very true and, indeed, I have very good evidence that it +is true. Professor Haeckel writes in his letter to me: + + “I have marked in _red_ those passages of your kind review of + my ‘Anthropogeny’ in which I agree with you and in _blue_ those + in which I differ.” + +Now I find all those passages where I should have anticipated an +objection on Professor Haeckel’s part marked red, while a blue mark +appears where in my opinion there is only a difference of terminology. It +is the following sentence on page 441: + + “Psychic life is absent so far as we can see in the primordial + world-substance as it appears in the form of a nebula; it is + absent still in the primordial state of planets. It appears + with the subjective states of awareness that rise into + existence in organised life. The subjectivity of unorganised + matter is, in comparison with man’s subjectivity, to be + considered as a blank; i. e., if there is in it a state of + awareness, which we have reasons to doubt, it is apparently + without meaning; it does not symbolise external objects; + it is no mind; it is, as it were, blind. Yet the aim of + evolution being the development of psychical life, shows that + the subjectivity of unorganised matter is spiritual in its + innermost nature.” + +This difference is probably a difference of terminology only, for I +insist most strongly on the doctrine that all nature is alive. However, I +make a difference between “life” and “soul.” Nature is alive throughout, +but it is not ensouled; the action of chemical elements and of the +falling stone are no psychical actions.[83] + +Another blue stroke appears at the following passage: + + “We grant willingly that mechanical explanations will serve + for all motions that take place in the world; even the motions + of the brain take place in strict obedience to the laws of + molar and molecular mechanics. But a mechanical explanation + is not applicable to that which is not motion. If it were + applicable it would not be desirable, for it would be of no + avail. Mechanical explanations are to be limited to mechanical + phenomena. Feeling however is not a mechanical phenomenon, + and an idea, being a special and a very complex kind of a + feeling, or rather and more accurately expressed, being the + special meaning of a very complex feeling, is not a mechanical + phenomenon either.” + +The subsequent sentences are again approved by Professor Haeckel; they +are marked red: + + “It is true that when a feeling takes place and when an + idea is thought in the brain of an organised being, that a + certain nervous action takes place. The nervous action is + a motion and this motion represents a definite amount of + energy. There is no theoretical difficulty, although there are + almost insurmountable practical difficulties, in measuring + the definite amount of potential energy that is changed into + kinetic energy when a man thinks. Yet the brain-motion is not + the idea and by a mechanical explanation of the brain-motion + we have not even touched the problem of what the nature of the + idea is, why ideas originate and how they act.” + +We do not understand how Professor Haeckel can object to the view that +ideas and feelings are no motions. We fully grant that the nervous +action that takes place when an idea is thought is a motion, and that, +considered as a brain-action, it is mechanically explainable. But by +feeling we understand not the brain-action but a state of awareness, and +states of awareness are not objective phenomena, they are subjective +phenomena; whereby we do not at all deny that there are no feelings which +must not in their objective existence at the same time be supposed to be +brain-motions. + +Feelings are not motions but ideas are still less motions. Ideas are +the meanings which certain feelings that are representative of certain +sets of experiences have acquired. Is the meaning of a word a motion? +Can the significance of words be mechanically explained? The meaning of +ideas, the significance of words, the representativeness of feelings are +phenomena which have nothing to do with motions but constitute a domain +of their own. + +Professor Haeckel in our opinion can mean only that there are no feelings +in themselves, but all our feelings are at the same time brain-motions, +and as such they are mechanical phenomena. We have to add, however, that +an explanation of the mechanism of brain-action does not as yet explain +the significance of mental operations. + +Professor Haeckel insists so strongly upon his view of monism as being +mechanicalism that this seems to mark a difference in our conceptions +which might be of consequence. + +I was very glad to notice the long strokes of red along the passages +which contain my proposition that “the evolution of organised life is a +natural process having a definite aim”; further, along the paragraphs +concerning the world-order as being moral in so far as the world-order is +the basis of morality, and also those which represent God as being that +power of the world-order obedience to which is called morality. + +Professor Haeckel’s agreement with these passages indicates that those +expressions of his to which we should take exception, and which he +employs again in his article of the present number, might not be regarded +as divergences. + +Professor Haeckel’s definition of God appears to us insufficient, and +also his definition of immortality. + +God is not only the sum-total of matter and force, God is also that +quality of the world which the naturalist describes in natural laws. +God is the life of the world, he is that feature of existence which +makes mind and knowledge possible. In addition he is that which men +call progress, the ideal of the future that lives in our souls and the +principle of evolution in nature. + +There is a deeper truth too in the doctrine of immortality. There is a +conservation of matter and energy, but there is also a preservation of +soul. Says Professor Haeckel, “the human soul is a very highly developed +vertebral soul.” If that is so, the soul of our fossil ancestors +continues to live in us. This soul has been altered, it is true, but the +alterations are not so much a loss as a gain. The alterations consist in +the additional growth of new powers and represent a higher development. +All that which was worth preserving has been preserved. + +And as it has been in the past, so we can confidently expect that it +will be in the future. All that is worth preserving of our souls will be +preserved in the ages to come. Our souls will live and develop to higher +possibilities. They will be transmitted from generation to generation, +advancing on the unlimited path of evolutionary progress. + + P. C. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[83] We intend to express our views more fully in a special article to be +published in a subsequent number of _The Monist_. + + + + +THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE. + + +There was during the last winter great excitement in Germany, concerning +a new school-bill proposed by the chancellor Caprivi, and the late +Prussian minister of cultus, Zedlitz-Trützschler. This school-bill +proposed to take the direction of the public schools out of the hands of +scientific men and transfer it to the clergy. The idea of the Emperor +was to let the education of the young be guided in a religious spirit. He +intended to wage a war against atheism. + +Among the pamphlets which were written during the crisis, is especially +noteworthy the monograph of the late minister of cultus, Herr von Gosler, +whom we should count among the most conservative of Prussian officials. +His opposition, accordingly, is the more remarkable, and his objections +had much weight with the Emperor. + +The Emperor has withdrawn the bill. Nevertheless, the spirit of +ultra-conservatism, which shows itself in an outspoken hostility against +science, still remains strong enough, and new onslaughts upon the +progressive policy in school and church, may be expected in the future. +The question is timely still and will remain timely until there be a +common agreement concerning the principles of education, so that our +school politics may no longer be decided by and subjected to partisan +strife. + +Attacks that are made upon the very spirit of the institution of our +civilisation and the political crises following thereupon are beneficial +in one respect. They make people pause; they make them reconsider the +principles by which they allow their conduct to be regulated. They make +men conscious of the maxims that ought to underlie their lives and which +generally are accepted by the majority without much reflection. The +Prussian school-bill has indeed exercised a wholesome influence, for it +called attention to the importance of principles and roused the German +nation from religious indifference. During the conflict many scientists +and professors of universities, who as a rule interfere little with +politics, have raised their voice in warning, and many valuable ideas +were expressed that found a strong echo in the heart of the people. + +There are two articles written by German professors which have commanded +very wide attention inside and outside of Germany. The one article +was written by Professor Haeckel of Jena, in the _Freie Bühne_, the +most important passages of which appeared at the time in _The Open +Court_, No. 243. The other article was written by Friedrich Jodl, of +Prague. It appeared first in the Augsburger _Allgemeine Zeitung_, and +was republished in pamphlet form by Cotta, in Stuttgart. The former +is an enthusiastic appeal to let science, which is the basis of our +civilisation, remain the basis of our educational maxims in schools and +universities. The latter discusses the philosophical principles of the +conflict. + +We are greatly in sympathy with the spirit in which Professor Jodl +has treated his subject. Nay, more, we substantially agree with him +concerning all main facts, and also concerning the sense in which our +future development should be directed. Nevertheless there are points of +disagreement, which we consider of sufficient importance to point out and +explain. + +The ultra-conservative party stands upon the platform that there can be +no morality without religion, and no religion without dogmatism. For this +reason dogmatism should rule supreme in the schools, and science should +be subservient to religious creed. That this means curtailment of the +freedom of investigation, and the suppression of the liberty of science, +is understood by all the parties concerned. The liberals so apprehend it, +and the ultra-conservatives do not deny it. In the face of this situation +Professor Jodl proposes the question, “Is there a humanitarian morality +possible?” (p. 8 of the pamphlet “Moral, Religion, und Schule.”) He says: + + “A mere glance into the numerous anthologies of the moral + wisdom of all times and centuries, shows that the agreement + concerning moral ideas and norms is much greater, and it + recedes much more into the dim past than is usually assumed. + The writings of Laotse and Confutse, the popular literature + of Buddhism, the fragments of old Egyptian law, the didactic + poetry of Islam, contain a great wealth of moral wisdom, and + treasures of the noblest ethical sentiment which the Christian + Occident likes to regard as its own exclusive property. + Especially the ancients, whose civilisation, in spite of much + opposition, is still the basis of our civilisation, furnish us + with a series of the most beautiful moral types and ideals, + and there we find, beside many valuable features of Christian + ethics, other no less valuable gems which we seek for in vain + in the old Christian morality, and which were not recognised + until Christianity came into contact with the Teutonic nations + of northern Europe. Our ultra-conservatives argue that without + catechisms humanity would stand helpless before the question of + what is right and wrong, and what the growing generation should + be taught in order to make them useful and honorable members of + society.” + +In opposition to these views Professor Jodl urges that + + “If society of to-day can at all tolerate that such doctrines + as Christian morality are taught in our schools as the + foundation of practical conduct of life, this is possible only + because the ethics of the old biblical Christianity has, in + the course of centuries, grown to be something quite different + from what it was in the beginning. The throughout communistic, + labor-abhorring, world-hating, miracle-infatuated morality of + original Christianity, constantly dreaming of the collapse + of the world near at hand, and suited only to the demands of + the paupers of the time, could only be changed and adapted + to the conditions of later periods of radically different + conditions, with great difficulty. The Catholic church has + done much to accomplish this purpose, and in a still higher + degree Protestantism has made many concessions to humanitarian + ethics and practical reason. These concessions, however, must + appear from the historical standpoint, as adulterations of the + Christian ideas. Exactly in the degree that Christian morality + in modern times has remained a living power, it has ceased + to remain Christian in the historical sense.... The tendency + of the whole development of the modern world is to conceive + the moral norms as natural conditions of human society, and + to understand them in their connection of the individual with + the whole. This thought and sentiment must become in the child + a living power, and morality cannot expect in this respect + help from religion. Religion knows only the relation of the + individual to God, as it is expressed in the mystical ideas of + sin and mercy. Religion knows no duties and goals for humanity, + but only for the egotistic desire of salvation for the + individual. Religion knows no progress, no evolution, but only + eternal life or eternal damnation. The civilised nations of + Europe had to go through with many hard struggles in order to + arrive at the idea that there is a humanitarian, and a natural, + morality, in comparison with which all religious dogmatism must + be considered as indifferent additions. Only on the basis of + this conviction is it possible that there exist to-day so many + religious confessions of faith, and among them also those + who are religious without having any special confession. Here + lies the great duty of our time for enlightened legislation, + for our schools, to take care that the universal Christian + be developed from the narrow dogmatism, and, further, the + universal human ideal, from the universal Christian. To expect + this of the clergy of the different religious societies, would + be a mistake.... The theological spirit and the principle of + free investigation, are irreconcilable adversaries. Every + religion, of whatever denomination it may be, is stable in its + very nature. It pretends to be eternal truth, and whenever it + compromises with the idea of progress, it does so reluctantly, + and in the form of concessions.” + +We agree with Professor Jodl in his opinion that our present dogmatic +religions are entirely unfit to understand the demands of the present. +And it is true that the humanitarian ideas of morality have been slowly +developed from the crude and immature notions of the apostolic times. The +aim of our moral development must be humanitarian ethics. But we disagree +with professor Jodl that we cannot expect a further evolution of our +moral ideas from the clergy. + +It seems to me that here lies the important difference between the old +and the new world. Conditions favor religious progress in America, +while the conditions in Europe cut off all hope and produce an ominous +stagnancy. + +The clergy of the old world, in Germany as well as in England, and in +all Catholic countries, are appointed only on the condition of being +ultra-conservative in religious matters, as well as otherwise. No young +man whose enthusiasm would carry him so far as to suggest reforms on +broader humanitarian principles, would be admitted in the church as +ministers. And if he had been admitted by mistake, he would meet with +a fate similar to that of the Abbé Lamennais, whose experiences are +admirably described by George Julian Harney, in No. 213 of _The Open +Court_. + +The situation is greatly different in America. Our clergymen, our +congregations, our churches, are perhaps more orthodox in many respects, +and especially in their belief, than those of Europe. Nevertheless, they +are more liberal in principles, and they are less obstinate concerning +dogma. Most of our churches here do not even possess dogmatic creeds, or +confessions of faith. The clergy of the Baptists, the Congregationalists, +the Unitarians, are not bound by oath before taking orders; to believe +in sundry articles and to preach certain doctrines which are supposed +to be absolute truth. The Baptists, it is true, are as a rule very +orthodox and very dogmatic, but they are liberal in spite of it, open to +conviction, and not averse to going onward with the times. This attitude +of the American clergy must appear inconsistent to Europeans who can, in +ecclesiastical affairs, only judge from their own experiences. And it +may be that their position is as much inconsistent as was for instance +that of Newton, who considered the trash he wrote on some theological +questions concerning the apocalypse as infinitely superior to his +mathematical and astronomical works and did not see that the recognition +of the law of gravitation would go far toward freeing humanity from many +of those nonsensical ideas which he cherished so highly. + +In former times I was inclined to blame the clergy for the lack of +progressiveness in the churches, but I have come to the conclusion that +not the clergy are to be blamed for retarding the broadening of the +religious spirit, but the lay-members of the churches. I am personally +acquainted with several clergymen of different denominations, Christian +as well as Jewish, who conceive it their duty to point out the way of +progress and to further the spirit of a scientific world-conception in +religious matters. They advance exactly as quickly and exactly as far as +they can in working out of the narrow dogmatism of the religious views of +their flock the ideas of a broad humanitarianism. + +It has often happened that clergymen, encouraged by their congregations, +have grown too broad in the opinion of their narrower brethren, and it +was customary, in former years, to cast them out according to the old +fashion of dealing with heretics, which is still customary in European +churches. The churches have become more careful here, for, whenever such +a case happened, these liberal clergymen were, as a rule, not deserted +by their congregations. Thus every act of removing a clergyman usually +led to a schism, and it seems that, at least to some extent, the churches +have of late given up their policy of removing heretics within their +ranks. + +This much is certain, that many among the American clergy are ready to +progress with the times, and to accept the truth wherever they find it. +In Europe religion is dictated to the people from above by government and +church authority. The clergymen are servants of these authorities. Their +consciences are not bound, as they ought to be, to teach the truth and +nothing but the truth, but to teach the doctrines which their employers +bid them teach. And this policy is still considered right and natural, +even among liberal minded people. + +In America the clergy are exponents of the views of their congregations. +In Europe the congregations are separated from their pastors by a deep +gap: there is no gap between the congregation and the clergy in America. +Both are in the closest contact. Our congregations are more orthodox than +European congregations; therefore our clergy is more sincerely orthodox, +and more honestly narrow, than the European clergy. The European clergy +are more scholarly, yet at the same time there may be more hypocrites +among them in Europe who know better than they preach. But there is no +doubt that with a further development of intellectuality and scientific +insight, our congregations will become broader and more liberal and +more humanitarian, and, with the congregations, our clergy are bound to +develop in the same lines. + +European theology is much superior to American theology in scholarly +critique, in historical investigation, and in philosophical depth. +Nevertheless, we must not hope from European theologians that they +will undertake the great work of reform that is so much needed in our +churches, which is nothing less than to reconcile religion with science; +to let religion develop into a religion of science, preaching boldly and +unreservedly those humanitarian ethics which stand upon the principles +of truth; that is, of scientifically proved truth, which finds the +sanction of the moral “ought” in the facts of experience. + +Professor Jodl says: + + “The main objection of the supporters of dogmatism in school + politics is this: They propose it is not so much religion that + is needed in education; not the contents of ecclesiastical + doctrines, but to give to morality a foundation; to give it + what science calls the sanction of ethical rules.... From this + standpoint, every attempt that is liable to weaken the ethics + of religious sanction must appear equivalent to the attempt of + abolishing criminal law and penal institutes, and to deliver + the peaceful citizens into the hands of murderers and robbers.” + +Professor Jodl continues: + + “The nature of religious sanction consists in this: that the + moral rules are conceived as the behests of an all-powerful, + omniscient being, that promises to immortal man for their + fulfilment, eternal rewards, and for their non-fulfilment + eternal punishment in the life beyond.” + +In opposition to this view Professor Jodl maintains that + + “Man’s morality, on the one hand, has never been preserved from + error by an outlook into the beyond of heaven and hell, and, on + the other hand, there have never been missing those impulses + that originate in the depths of human nature working in the + line of moral ideas.” + +These impulses are, according to Professor Jodl, the purely moral +sanction of conscience. And conscience is represented as, and in another +place called, “the natural sanction of morality.” + +This view of regarding conscience as the natural sanction of morality +does not appear to us as a happy expression, and it seems to us that +Professor Jodl did not intend it as it might be understood. For Professor +Jodl speaks in another passage of “the natural impulses of morality as +having their sanction in _experience_.” + +If that be so, conscience would not be the ultimate authority, but +conscience would have to be regulated and corrected by a rationalised +experience. + +If “the natural impulses of morality have their sanction in experience,” +the ultimate authority would be the facts represented in experience; and +the facts of experience, in their totality, are nothing more or less than +the whole universe with its natural laws and conceived in its cosmical +order. The universe, the All, nature, or whatever you call it, is indeed +an omnipotent reality which man cannot resist, and in which he can live +only by adapting himself to its laws. If this ultimate authority of the +natural laws be called by the religious term “God,” we shall see at once +that the old dogmatic religions express a very deep truth in mythological +language. The ultimate sanction of morality is not our conscience, but +that omnipotent power which resides in the objective world of realities, +in the cosmical order of the universe. + +We might as well say that everybody shall regard his watch as the +ultimate standard of time as to make his conscience the criterion of +morality. May everybody use his watch wisely and regulate it well. And so +may everybody revise his conscience and investigate diligently whether +it agrees with the laws of that all-power of which we are a small part +and through which alone we exist. + +Professor Jodl praises very highly the French institution of a so-called +purely moral instruction in the public schools. Father H. Gruber, +however, points out some serious shortcomings in this system of moral +education, resulting from a lack of principle. (See _Stimmen aus +Maria-Laach_, Freiburg i. B., 1892, No. 4.) + +It is apparent that moral commands cannot be based upon purely subjective +notions or ideals, they must be based upon some objective authority which +is a power that enforces obedience. Such a power exists. It is the world +in which we live. It is that All-being of which we are a part. And that +feature of nature which enforces that conduct which we call moral is +named God in the terminology of religious language. + +A consideration like this points out the way to a reconciliation between +science and religion. There is a truth in the old religions, and this +truth need only be purified from the errors that cluster about it, hiding +its grandeur, beauty, and importance. Let the church and its authorities +recognise science and the principle of free investigation; let them +be ready to accept the scientific methods of research; let them be +willing to accept truth as it can be proved by arguments and verified by +experience as well as by experiments; and we need no longer worry about +dogmatism and the narrowness of their sectarian doctrines. All these +accidental features of religion will, then, pass away, and we shall have +a religion which the scientist and the philosopher can embrace. + +This is what we call the Religion of Science; and the Religion of Science +is bound to be the religion of the future. The Religion of Science will +not abolish the religions of the past, but it will develop them, broaden +them, perfect them, into the cosmical religion of humanitarianism. + +To teach an ethics that either has no sanction, or whose sanction is +built upon the diverging opinions of individuals, will not do. Ethics +must be based upon the sanction of some objective authority, and the +recognition of an objective authority, of a power which enforces a +certain kind of conduct, being religion, we say that no ethics can be +without a religious basis. + +The problem at present is not how to teach irreligious ethics—all such +attempts are failures at the start; but to change the mythology of +the old religions into a clear, scientific conception of the natural +conditions which demand of man that he should observe those rules which +we are wont to call moral. + + P. C. + + + + +THE FUTURE POSITION OF LOGICAL THEORY. + + +In last October’s number of _The Monist_, Professor John Dewey gives a +sketch of what in his view is “the present position of logical theory.” +According to this the basis of the position seems to be that “the only +possible thought is the reflection of the significance of fact,” and +that therefore logic, which is the science of the laws of thought, +rests in reality on an objective basis. He supports Hegel in denying +“the existence of any faculty of thought which is other than the +expression of fact itself.” Now it is doubtless the case that this is +the position at present taken up by a large number of logicians, but as +this position seems to me to be fundamentally erroneous I should like +to put before your readers what I hope will be “the future position of +logical theory.” I have elsewhere worked out in some detail a theory of +reasoning which differs from that commonly accepted chiefly in this, +that it recognises not two, but three kinds of reasoning, which I call +Objective, Subjective, and Symbolic. Reasoning is commonly divided into +two branches, denoted by various pairs of terms, such as Objective and +Subjective, Inductive and Deductive, Empirical and Formal. The lines +of division indicated by these various pairs of terms are not quite +identical; but they none of them indicate what seems to me the most +important distinction of all, namely that between real, and symbolic +argument. There _does_ exist (I will not say a “faculty of thought,” but) +a method of argument which “is other than the expression of fact itself,” +whether of objective or of subjective fact. The term “formal reasoning” +is indeed often used to denote this kind of argument, but this is a bad +name to give it, since it seems to imply, and frequently is held to +imply, that it deals with the _forms_ of objective or subjective facts, +whereas in reality it deals only with symbols, which are arbitrarily +defined, and which do not necessarily correspond to any things whatever, +whether objective or subjective. That this kind of argument not only +exists, but flourishes is evident as soon as it is grasped that pure +mathematics is nothing but a branch of symbolic logic. It may be that +there exists somewhere a fact of which any conceivable mathematical +formula might be regarded as the reflexion, but it must surely be evident +that it was not to the reflexion of such facts that mathematical formulæ +in general owe their existence or validity. It may perhaps be true “that +fact, reality is significant,” and even that thoughts are themselves such +significant realities, but it is the thoughts that are given to us first, +or rather sensations which are the elements of thoughts, and we can only +infer the realities from them, and not _vice versa_. + +The essence of my theory of logic may be briefly stated thus. The +meaning of a logical term contains two parts, its denotation and its +connotation. Either of these parts may be laid down arbitrarily as its +_definition_, leaving the other part which I call its _import_ to be +found out by experience. To understand both parts of the meaning of any +term is therefore to possess real knowledge. Pure symbolic reasoning +deals only with the definitions of terms, and is not therefore founded +on real knowledge, nor can it alone ever lead to real knowledge. Thus +if in any proposition the definitions of the terms are deducible from +one another, the proposition may be proved symbolically and is what I +call a truism: it gives no real information. But if the definitions of +the terms are independent of each other, and yet not inconsistent, the +proposition can only be intended to assert the identity of the imports +of the terms; it therefore ascribes import to the terms and gives real +information, whether true or false. If any terms in a symbolic argument +are however known to have real import, it may be ascribed to them in +real propositions, and any conclusions of the argument which contain only +such terms will _ipso facto_ be made to yield real information, which may +be new in the sense that it was not before recognised, though it was of +course implied in the real assertion or assertions which ascribed import +to the terms of the symbolic argument. + +It is in this way possible to separate any science into two branches, +one of which consists purely of symbolic argument founded on definitions +alone, while the other may be expressed in a series of propositions, +the definitions of whose terms are independent of each other, and which +ascribe real import (whether objective or subjective) to the terms of the +symbolic science, or some of them. + +This is as far as pure logic can go. The question how the truth of any +real propositions comes to be known is not, in my opinion, any part of +logical theory, but belongs to metaphysics. However that is no reason for +not discussing it here, especially as it is the chief question discussed +in Professor Dewey’s paper. + +“Truth” means some sort of consistency in a proposition. We may compare +a symbolic argument to a game with counters, the rules of which are laid +down arbitrarily, and to say that a given conclusion of such an argument +is true only means that the game has been “played fair.” But the truth of +a real proposition does not depend on any arbitrary rules. It expresses +a consistency between two real facts, either that two named groups of +things possess certain common attributes, or that certain of the things +possessing named groups of attributes are identical. The essential +element of all real knowledge is then a connecting link between a thing +and an attribute, such as is afforded by a well-understood word. + +Now the only “things” which we can apprehend directly are our subjective +sensations and conceptions. We can compare two or more sensations or +conceptions, and recognise in them common attributes. Thus I can say +of my own knowledge that the sensations I denote by “the taste of +sugar” and “the taste of lead acetate” have a common attribute, which +I call “sweetness.” This is a real assertion, for its truth is not +deducible from the definitions of its terms, and yet I know, by direct +apprehension, that it is true. But it is only a subjective truth. The +corresponding objective assertion would be sugar and acetate of lead +both produce, when tasted, the sensation of sweetness. And I have no +direct apprehension of this fact. That the tastes referred to in the +former proposition were produced by objective things denoted by the terms +sugar and acetate of lead, can only be inferred by the process called +induction, which can never lead to a positive or necessary truth. + +Thus we may from a pure symbolic science proceed one step further, to a +subjective science, by the aid of direct apprehension, and the results +of such a subjective science may in certain cases attain the position +of absolute, or necessary truths. But on the other hand, all objective +sciences must rest on induction. Now the true nature of induction is, +I am persuaded, commonly misapprehended, because it is not realised +sufficiently clearly that the prime data of induction are not themselves +objective, but subjective facts. An “objective fact” is really only +an hypothesis, postulated to account for certain of our subjective +sensations. The only justification for making such an hypothesis is +that it actually does explain certain sensations, and the measure of +its probability (for we can never assert it as a necessary certainty) +is the number and complexity of the sensations which it accounts for. +The first of all such objective hypotheses is that we have an objective +environment to whose action our sensations, or some of them, are due. +This suggests at once a more general hypothesis, commonly known as the +law of causation, namely that the conditions obtaining in the objective +universe at any one moment are the effective causes of those obtaining +at the next, and so at any subsequent moment. These two hypotheses, +together with certain subsidiary ones, do suffice to account for an +enormous number, if not all, of our sensations, and so we are justified +in entertaining them. But to leave out the notion of _effective_ +causation, and to substitute a mere rule of sequence, is to remove the +only justification we have for assuming the hypothesis of causation at +all. It is perhaps conceivable that the hypothesis may be false, that +our sensations are not “caused by” an objective environment but if so +what reason remains for believing in that environment at all? I can never +know anything whatever about an objective universe, unless some of my +sensations about which alone I know anything directly, are caused by +that universe. It is perhaps thinkable that there should be an objective +universe in which events occur which in no sense _cause_ my subjective +sensations, but to which those sensations nevertheless happen to +correspond; but if this is so the sensations afford me no ground whatever +for believing in the occurrence of the events, or the objectivity of the +universe. + +Well then, the essence of induction is the assumption of an hypothesis to +account for observed facts—first of all of directly observed sensations, +and then of facts assumed to be objective in virtue of the primary +hypothesis. That this account of induction is the true one is I think +particularly enforced by the consideration of those cases to which at +first sight it does not seem to apply. A common example of induction is +afforded by our belief that the sun will rise to-morrow. That it has +risen every morning for the last four thousand years or more is no reason +whatever for believing that it will rise to-morrow, unless it is held to +point to some explanatory hypothesis. Such an hypothesis has actually +been framed by astronomers, and no one would now pretend to found his +belief in the sun’s rising to-morrow on the mere fact that it has often +risen before, but would go on to explain that it must rise unless the +earth were to stop revolving, etc. If at Monte Carlo the red turned up +ten times running, would that be any reason for expecting it to turn up +again, the eleventh time? No, it would not unless the succession of reds +seemed to point to some explanatory hypothesis, such as a defect in the +roulette. Again, the fact that in the last fifty years the death rate +in London has been about twenty-eight per thousand would be no reason +for believing that it will be about that figure this year except on +the assumption that the constancy of the death rate indicated certain +constant causes, which we have no reason to believe have been altered +this year. + +Having once assumed that our environment is objective, and as a corollary +the hypothesis of causation, the whole of physical science follows, +step by step. Subsidiary hypotheses are introduced at each stage and +justified by the way they account for observed results. To show how a +single hypothesis is capable of explaining a large number of observed +results, the full meaning of the hypothesis is elucidated by symbolic +reasoning. By such reasoning it is for example shown that the same +hypothesis, of universal gravitation, is capable of accounting, not only +for the movements of the stars, but for the tides, the flow of rivers, +the falling of unsupported bodies, the rising of balloons, the movements +of the balance in Cavendish’s experiment, and so on. That such wide +extensions of an hypothesis are possible tends greatly to confirm, not +only the hypothesis itself, but the fundamental hypotheses of objectivity +and causation also. But it does not prove either the one or the others. +We cannot know anything about the objective universe with absolute +certainty, but we may reasonably believe a certain hypothesis about it +with any degree of conviction we think suitable; that is we may (and of +course we actually do) act on all occasions _as if_ we knew absolutely +that they were true. + +We may then believe, and I for one do believe, not only in the +objectivity of the universe, but that even my own subjective sensations +are mere bye-products of that universe. I _believe_ that objective facts +are, if I may so express it, more real than subjective sensations; that +in fact the objective universe might have existed, and might exist again +without any subjective element in it anywhere. But I cannot _know_ +this, it is with me a matter of faith. Thus I cannot agree with Hegel, +that “all possible thought is the reflexion of the significance of +fact” (except perhaps in the sense that thought is the reflexion of the +significance of certain changes in the grey matter of the brain) for +this would seem to imply that stupid or contradictory thoughts reflected +stupid or contradictory significance in certain facts. But I believe that +men of science are gradually evolving a system of thought which will +more and more faithfully reflect the significance of fact, and that thus +science is actually building up truth. But all science must begin with, +and be founded upon, subjective knowledge, and therefore any theory of +positivism contradicts itself for it must be founded on faith. Science +is thus founded on faith, faith in things not directly apprehended, just +as truly as religion is. It is only because we unconsciously acquire +this faith in our infancy, and that it is in most cases amply justified +by subsequent experience, that we do not even recognise the fact that it +is faith, in exactly the same sense that belief in God is. But just as +men have sometimes lost their faith in God, so it may happen to a man to +loose his faith in reality, and logic is quite as incapable of shaking a +man out of the one position as out of the other. + +This I take it is the key to the agnosticism of such men of science as +Mr. Huxley. I do not for a moment suppose that Mr. Huxley believes less +than most men; he probably has good grounds for believing a great deal +more. Only he rightly refuses to say that he _knows_ facts of which +he can have had no direct apprehension and which he can only infer +more or less probably, to be true. Hypotheses which as we push our +investigations are shown to be capable of explaining more and more facts, +that is, ultimately, more and more sensations, will in the end come to +be believed in without doubt or hesitation. If a man says he _knows_ the +law of gravitation to be true, he commits a logical blunder; but there +is nothing to prevent a scientific man from believing in any miracle +or prodigy, so long as the account he gives of it does not contradict +itself. Not only may two equally reasonable men form very different +estimates of the probability of the same event, even with the same +evidence before them, but one man may put his faith to a proposition with +admittedly much lower degree of probability than would be required to +convince another. Only, a scientific man will always distinguish between +what he knows and what he believes, and will admit that though he has +made up his mind to act _as if_ he knew to be true the propositions he +only believes to be so, yet another man may reasonably take a different +view of any one of them. + + EDWARD T. DIXON. + +Trin. Coll., Cambridge, Jan. 8, 1892. + + + + +COMTE AND TURGOT. + + +On page 410 of the last number of _The Monist_, it was stated that the +doctrine of the three stages of knowledge was not properly a Comtean idea +but belonged to Turgot. The following letter from Professor Schaarschmidt +of Bonn informs us of the passages in Turgot where the statement of the +doctrine is found: + + _To the Editor of The Monist_: + + To your note of inquiry of the 22d of last month I have the + honor to reply, that the Comtean theory of the _trois états_ + may be traced back to utterances of Turgot made by him in his + _Second discours sur les progrès successifs de l’esprit humain + prononcé le 2me décembre 1750_—namely in the Sorbonne. You will + find the discourse referred to in the edition of the works of + Turgot which I now have before me, namely that of Guillaumin, + Paris, 1844, in Vol. II, at pages 597 et seqq. The passage in + question is found at p. 600-601. However, it is highly probable + that the so-called _loi des trois états_ was _directly_ + transmitted to Comte by St. Simon, who reproduced the idea + of Turgot in his _Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du + XIXme Siècle_, at pages 62-63. For Comte was dependent in many + respects on St. Simon, while it is probable that he had never + studied Turgot. To St. Simon, in fact, is due the expression + “philosophie positive,” as well as the germ-notion of the + division of the Sciences, which Comte further elaborated. + + SCHAARSCHMIDT. + + + + +BOOK REVIEWS. + + +DARWIN AND AFTER DARWIN. I. THE DARWINIAN THEORY. By _George John +Romanes_, M. A., LL. D., F. R. S. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Chicago: +The Open Court Publishing Co. 1892. + +In the present work by Professor Romanes, who may be regarded as the +special exponent of Darwin’s theory of organic evolution, we have a +complete and systematic presentation of “Darwinism according to Darwin.” +It is the outcome of a course of lectures delivered by the author in 1889 +before the Royal Institution, London, and forms only part of a much more +extensive treatise on the Darwinian theory, embracing the early history +of biology, and a discussion of the further developments of the theory +subsequent to the death of the great naturalist who gave it birth. The +present part is limited to what is distinctly Darwinian, dealing with it +and with the main objections raised against the general theory of organic +evolution it enforces. + +The subject naturally divides into two parts, and Professor Romanes +accordingly deals with it in two sections, in the first of which he +considers organic evolution as a fact, stating the main evidences in +support of the doctrine, while in the second section he furnishes “the +evidences which thus far have been brought to light touching the causes +of organic evolution considered as a process.” The author points out +in his introductory remarks, that in order to establish a theory of a +continuous transmutation of species, which is what is meant by organic +evolution, it is not necessary to furnish proof of _all_ the natural +causes which have been at work. The issue is between the theory of a +supernatural cause, as operating immediately in numberless acts of +special creation, and the theory of “natural causes as a whole whether +these happen, or do not happen, to have been hitherto discovered.” +Moreover, the discussion is concerned only with the origin of species, +and not with that of life, as to which the author says with truth, +“although in the opinion of most biologists it is a question which we may +well hope will some day fall within the range of science to answer, at +present, it must be confessed, science is not in a position to furnish so +much as any suggestion upon the subject; and therefore our wisdom as men +of science is frankly to acknowledge that such is the case.” + +The idea of evolution implies continuity, and the author refers to +the fact that the uniformity of nature’s method in the production of +phenomena to which continuity is due, recognised in other fields of +science, strongly recommended the theory of organic evolution for +acceptance on merely antecedent grounds. There is another important fact, +from the antecedent point of view, to which Professor Romanes draws +attention. He states it in the words of Mr. Wallace, who lays down as a +general law that “every species has come into existence coincident both +in space and time with a pre-existing and closely allied species.” This +is a necessary consequence of natural evolution, but no reason can be +assigned for it on the theory of special creation, and the existence of +such a correlation may be regarded as a test-question between the two +theories. + +The direct evidence in favor of organic evolution brought together in +the first section of the present work is considered under the several +heads of classification, Morphology, Embryology, Palæontology, and +Geographical Distribution. As to the first of these subjects, the object +of classification has been the arranging of organisms in accordance +with their natural affinities. Organisms have been compared for the +purpose of ascertaining which of the constituent organs are of the most +invariable occurrence, and therefore of the most typical significance, +and the author shows that “all the general principles and particular +facts appertaining to the natural classification of plants and animals, +are precisely what they ought to be according to the theory of genetic +descent; while no one of them is such as might be—and indeed, used, to +be—expected upon the theory of special creation.” In connection with +the important subject of Morphology, the author, after showing that the +theory of descent with continued adaptive modification fully explains +all the known cases of divergence from the typical structure which an +organism presents, devotes himself especially to the argument from +rudimentary structures. These are of such general occurrence that they +are found in every species, and such obsolescent or vestigial structures, +as the author terms them, are of great value as evidence for the theory +of evolution, particularly those found in adult man. To human vestigial +structures the author pays particular attention, his observations being +accompanied by excellent illustrations from nature. It is noteworthy that +he abandons the flattening of the tibia in man, and the disposition of +valves in human veins, as arguments in support of man’s natural origin, +which is abundantly supported, however, by reference to other rudimentary +organs. + +The science of Embryology is of special importance, on account of the +history it affords of the _process_ of evolution, and thus supplying +evidence of the fact, although the author remarks, “the foreshortening of +developmental history which takes place in the individual lifetime may +be expected often to take place, not only in the way of condensation, +but also in the way of excision.” To understand the argument from +embryology it is necessary to trace the first beginning of individual +life in the ovum, and for this purpose to consider the phenomena +of reproduction in their most simple form. In connection with this +subject, Professor Romanes, after examining the features in which +the cell-division of protozoa differs from that of metazoa, and after +considering the grounds on which it may be concluded that there is a +physiological continuity between growth and sexual reproduction, points +out that the constructive argument in favor of evolution derived from +embryology commences with the fertilisation of the metazoal ovum. As +this first stage has not been adequately treated by any other writer, +the author deals with it at considerable length. The later stages of +individual development, including that of the vertebrata, on the lines +of Haeckel’s ideal primitive vertebrate, are more concisely treated. +The science of embryology, covers the whole field of animal life, and +it is not surprising therefore that it is considered by the author and +other evolutionists as furnishing the strongest support to the theory of +evolution. + +As to the palæontological evidence, Professor Romanes does not ascribe +to it the paramount importance which it has in popular judgment. +Nevertheless he asserts that, not only is no positive proof against the +theory of descent to be drawn from a study of palæontology, but it proves +two very important general facts in favor of it. These are that from the +earliest to the latest times there has been a constant and progressive +increase in the diversity of types both of animals and plants, and that +“through all these branching lines of ever-multiplying types, from the +first appearance of each of them to their latest known conditions, there +is overwhelming evidence of one great law of organic nature—the law of +gradual advance from the general to the special, from the low to the +high, from the simple to the complex.” These general facts are supported +by detailed consideration of fossil horns, bones, teeth and shells, which +supply four special lines of evidence. The evolution of mammalian limbs +with particular reference to the hoofed animals is treated with a fulness +its importance requires. + +As the geological argument is concerned with the distribution of species +in time, so that based on the present geographical distribution of +animal and plant species is concerned with their distribution in space. +This, although not regarded by the author as a crucial test between the +rival theories of creation and evolution, is declared to be one of the +strongest lines of evidence in favor of the latter. The general facts +relied on are, the discontinuity of distribution of certain species, the +absence of any _constant_ correlation between habitats and animals or +plants suited to live upon them, and the presence in every biological +region of species related to other species in genera, and usually also +genera related to other genera in families; this correlation between a +geographically restricted habitat and the affinities of its fauna and +flora being repeated over and over again throughout the earth’s surface. +But further, the correlation between habitats and their animals and +plants is not limited to the now existing species, that is, the dead +and living species are allied, showing that the latter are modified +descendants of the former. Moreover, where the areas of distribution are +not restricted, through species wandering away from their native homes, +the course of their wanderings is marked by the origination _en route_ of +new species. Another important consideration is that a double correlation +exists in the geographical distribution of organic types. That between +the geographical restriction and natural affinity among inhabitants of +the same areas has already been mentioned. The second is the correlation +between _degrees_ of geographical restriction and _degrees_ of natural +affinity. This is consonant with the theory of descent with modification, +as “the more distant the affinity, and therefore, _ex hypothesi_, the +larger and the older the original group of organisms, the greater must +be the chance of dispersal.” These general considerations are supported +by detailed illustrations drawn from the distribution of aquatic and +terrestrial organisms. The author shows that an examination of the +faunas and floras of oceanic islands establishes the general law “that +_wherever_ there is evidence of land-areas having been for a long time +separated from other land-areas, there we meet with a more or less +extraordinary profusion of unique species, often running up into unique +genera.” There is, moreover, a constant correlation between the _degree_ +of this peculiarity, and the time during which the fauna and flora have +been isolated. The author concludes this part of his argument by the +forcible observation that “if the doctrine of special creation is taken +to be true, then it must be further taken that the one and only principle +which has been consistently followed in the geographical disposition of +species, is that of so depositing them as to make it everywhere appear +that they were not thus deposited at all, but came into existence where +they now occur by way of genetic descent with perpetual migration and +correlative modification.” + +The second part of this work, that which treats of selection, under the +two heads of Natural Selection and Sexual Selection, although in some +respects the most important, does not need to be noticed so fully as that +which deals with the facts of natural evolution. After stating the theory +of natural selection, the author notices various fallacies connected +with it which are largely prevalent among the adherents of Darwinianism, +although nowhere fallen into by Darwin himself, and the still greater +fallacies found in the writings of his opponents. In the two following +chapters Professor Romanes, after stating the main arguments in favor +of the theory of natural selection, reviews the main objections which +have been urged against it. The first argument is that, as a matter of +observation, “the struggle for existence in nature does lead to the +extermination of forms less fitted for the struggle, and thus makes room +for forms more fitted.” The second argument, which the author considers +of overwhelming significance, is that there is not a single instance, in +either the vegetable or the animal kingdom, of a structure or an instinct +which is developed for the exclusive benefit of another species. Its +importance may be judged by the fact that Darwin considered that a single +instance to the contrary would invalidate the whole theory of natural +selection. The third argument is based on the facts connected with the +variation of animals and plants under domestication. Ocular evidence +of the value of this argument is furnished by a series of drawings +prepared for the present work representing varieties of pigeons, and of +eight other animals. As special illustrations of natural selection the +author considers the subjects of protective colouring, warning colours, +and mimicry. In referring to his treatment of the criticisms of the +natural selection theory, in the course of which he deals with the main +objections, we cannot do more than mention that based on the possession +by the skate of an electric organ, which, owing to the weakness of +its discharges, cannot apparently be of any use to the animal. This +difficulty seems to be unexplainable according to the principles of +natural selection, and Professor Romanes, in admitting the fact, remarks +that it is of a magnitude and importance “altogether unequalled by that +of any other single case—or any series of cases—which has hitherto been +encountered by the theory.” + +The last chapter of the work is devoted to the consideration of the +theory of Sexual Selection, which was suggested by Mr. Darwin to furnish +a scientific explanation of the wide generality of beauty in organic +structures. It is an observed fact that sexual selection does take place +among the higher animals, and it is inferred that, the selection has +reference to an æsthetic taste on the part of the animals themselves; +and that this cause is adequate to explain the phenomena of beauty +presented by such animals. After stating the evidence in favor of these +conclusions, the author considers at length Mr. Wallace’s views on the +subject. These constitute the objections urged against the theory of +sexual selection, of the truth of which, however, Darwin shortly before +his death expressed himself as remaining firmly convinced. + +Professor Romanes concludes his present volume with a few general remarks +on the philosophical relations of Darwinism to the facts of adaptation +on the one hand and to those of beauty on the other. In none of these, +says the author, do we meet with any independent evidence of supernatural +design, although there is abundant evidence throughout organic nature of +natural causation. And yet natural causation furnishes no disproof of the +existence of a Supreme Being. The whole of organic and inorganic nature +is made subject to one rule of government, but “the ulterior and ultimate +question touching the nature of this government as mental or non-mental, +personal or impersonal, remains exactly where it was.” Moreover, if +there be an intelligent First Cause, of whose Will all secondary causes +are the expression, their operation must be uniform, so far as the Will +is consistent, and therefore it must appear as what we call mechanical. +Thus according to the pure logic of the matter, “the proof of organic +evolution amounts to nothing more than the proof of a natural process.” + +In an appendix to Chapter V, Professor Romanes offers suggestions as to +the imperfection of the geological record, and meets various objections +against the theory of organic evolution on that ground. But we must now +leave this excellent work, which will undoubtedly answer the expectation +with which it was prepared, of being “a compendium, or handbook, adapted +to the requirements of a general reader or biological student, as +distinguished from those of a professed naturalist.” + +It is enriched by a very good portrait of Darwin, in whose footsteps +the author has sought to tread by “avoiding dogmatism on the one hand, +and undue timidity as regards general reasoning on the other.” In +his introductory observations he dwells on the remarkable influence +exercised by Darwin over the method of investigation of organic nature, +by treating the discovery or accumulation of facts, not as an end, but +as a means for generalisation, thus bringing natural history into a line +with other inductive sciences. + +The value of the work is materially increased by the addition of numerous +well executed original illustrations, besides various plates derived from +Haeckel’s works and other sources, some of them American. It has also a +good Index which will add much to its usefulness. + + Ω. + + +GRUNDRISS DER NATURLEHRE FÜR DIE OBEREN CLASSEN DER MITTELSCHULEN. Von +Dr. _E. Mach_. Ausgabe für Gymnasien. Mit 358 Abbildungen. 315 pp. Vienna +and Prague: F. Tempsky. Leipsic: G. Freytag. + +The principles that have guided Professor Mach in the preparation of +these outlines of Physics, are in the main as follows: + +The concepts and notions of physical science should not be set forth +dogmatically, but should be presented as much as possible under the +influence of the actual natural facts that lead to them. Hypotheses +and theories should be employed only when actually necessary. Long +mathematical developments and pages of formulæ only impede the scholar’s +total view of his subject and afford of themselves no insight. _Logical_ +finish should not be sought after in elementary presentations; the method +of the inculcation of truths should, so to speak, be _psychological_: the +method of their acquisition. + +From the brief statement of these guiding principles, the reader will +observe that Professor Mach’s conception of the proper form of an +elementary text-book, differs greatly from that usually entertained. +The method of presentation is not the dogmatic, the “logical,” which +sets forth a science as a ready-made and perfected, mystically created, +product; but the genetic, the historical, the natural. We are constantly +made aware, in the study of this book, of what knowledge really means +and what it does not. We are not treated, in its introductory chapter, +as we are in most of the text-books of Physics, to disquisitions on the +insolubility of the questions What is Matter, What is Energy, What is +Force, and to like professions of metaphysical ignorance, which make us +wonder how people can request us to read hundreds of pages about things +it is impossible to have knowledge of; but we are presented throughout +with a simple statement and description, in terms of facts, of what +our fundamental, as well as our derived, notions _are_, and what their +import. It is unnecessary to say that the need of such a book is very +great. And it is pleasant, constantly to discover how well its idea +has been executed. Concise, unburdened by unnecessary and self-evident +developments, it is in our judgment a model of elementary exposition. + +With characteristic modesty, Professor Mach disclaims all pretension to +having fully realised his conception, and views his performance simply as +an attempt. The book was submitted, before publication, to a number of +competent educators, whose advice in regard to alterations was frequently +acted upon. + + μκρκ. + + +NOUVELLES RECHERCHES DE PSYCHIATRIE ET D’ANTHROPOLOGIE CRIMINELLE. By _C. +Lombroso_. Paris: Félix Alcan. 1892. + +Prof. C. Lombroso’s activity reaches a climax that is almost superhuman. +He contributed to the Italian Archives of Psychiatry two articles, +one of which proves that, at least in Italy, the sense of touch is +weaker in women than in men; it is still weaker and more irregular in +criminal women than in normal women. (Archiv. di. Psichiatr. Sc. pen. +ed. Antrop. Vol. XII, 1891, p. 1-6). The other article (l. c. p. 58-108) +is an inquiry concerning thought-transmission, which contains besides a +critical review of the usual rubbish of so-called telepathic phenomena +two strange observations. The first is the case of a low-bred hysterical +lad who does not possess the faculty claimed by him to understand +telepathically the intentions of whosoever employs him, but strange +enough, if sufficiently charged with whiskey, is able to read any writing +through the envelope with closed eyes. The other case is a somnambulistic +compositor, who sets type correctly in the state of somnambulism. +Blindfolded he draws the figures drawn behind his back upon a slate, and +hypnotised he guesses the numbers which the experimenter thinks. Lombroso +is one of our greatest psychologists, but these experiments perhaps with +the same subjects should be repeated by other psychologists so as to make +sure of their correctness. Lombroso concludes that there seems to be some +foundation in thought-transmission. + +The present little volume of new researches applies Lombroso’s theories +concerning morphological abnormalities of the criminal type in the +anthropological field. It appears natural that the criminal type should +show abnormal features, but sometimes Lombroso’s eagerness to discover +abnormal features, even in political criminals such as Charlotte Corday, +is exaggerated. At least we must confess that many abnormalities appear +very frequently among peaceful and law-abiding citizens. The Corday +skull, although a trifle platycephalic, is beautifully rounded and +normal. M. Topinard finds no abnormal features but Lombroso maintains +that its platycephaly is doubly abnormal and he adds: “The capacity of +the skull is 1.360 cubic centimeters while those of Parisian women is +1.337. Must we not conclude that its capacity exceeds the average?” We +read on p. 124 and sq.: “The more our women will be forced to enter +the economical struggle for existence, the more will they become +criminals.... The result (of letting them enter public life) will be to +lower the nature of women.” + +The booklet is very instructive even to those who disagree with the +professor, for it is full of facts and valuable observations. + + κρς. + + +VORLESUNGEN ÜBER DIE ALGEBRA DER LOGIK. (Exakte Logik.) By Dr. _Ernst +Schröder_. Erster Band mit viel Figuren im Texte. Leipsic: B. G. Teubner. +1890. + +Professor Mach says, “The essence of science is economy of thought.” +If that is so, there is no discipline more imbued with the spirit of +science than algebra. When operating with algebraic symbols we cease +to think out the whole calculation at every stage, and we are enabled +to keep track of the different factors, and of their mutual relations +during the operation from the beginning to the end. In common arithmetic +these factors are lost like rivers in an ocean of homogeneous numbers +which increase and decrease without betraying the way by which they were +reached. Algebraic symbols generalise calculation, and thus we have +the advantage of calculating from the resultant formula any particular +example with machine-like exactness and without the trouble of going +over the whole operation again. The ease with which we can operate +with symbols brings it about that we sometimes out-run our thought and +the correct result may be obtained by an operator who only partially +understands the operation, just as an engineer is able to run a machine +the mechanism of which he but partially understands. + +Mathematics having gained so great advantages through the introduction of +algebraic symbols, the question suggests itself whether the same method +might not with some advantage be introduced into the other provinces of +formal science, especially in the domain of logic. The first logicians +who borrowed signs from algebra and introduced them into logic by +generalising their meanings, were two Germans, Gottfried Ploucquet and +Johann Heinrich Lambert. Ploucquet wrote “Principia de substantiis et +phaenomenis, accedit methodus calculandi in logicis ab ipso inventa, cui +praemittitur commentatio de arte characteristica universali,” Frankfort +and Leipsic, 1753, ed. II. 1764.[84] Lambert’s investigations on the +subject are found in his “Logische Abhandlungen.” Prof. Venn, in his +“Symbolic Logic,” p. xxxii, says of Lambert, “He fully recognised that +the four algebraic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, +and division, have each an analogue in Logic; that they may here be +respectively termed aggregation, separation, determination, abstraction, +and be symbolised by +, -, ×, :. He also perceived the _inverse_ nature +of the second and fourth as compared with the first and third; and no one +could state more clearly that we must not confound the mathematical with +the logical signification.” + +The algebra of logic which through the work of these ingenious men, +had received so favorable a start, was very soon neglected; yet it was +revived after some time in England by Boole, DeMorgan, and Jevons. It +remained for quite a while the almost exclusive property of the English +where at the present time Prof. Venn may be considered as the greatest +English authority on the subject. Venn’s works were rivalled by an +American scholar, Mr. Charles S. Peirce, the same who has contributed +several articles to _The Monist_. The algebra of logic which had been +so long neglected in Germany, is now reviving in the country of its +first birth. The author of the work, the first volume of which lies now +before us for review, is Professor of Mathematics at the Polytechnicum of +Karlsruhe in Baden. The second volume is not yet worked out in detail, +but its publication may be expected in one or two years. The whole work, +when completed, will be the most comprehensive treatise on the algebra +of logic that has as yet appeared. The plan and treatment of Professor +Schröder’s “Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik” exhibit that uncommon +thoroughness and exhaustiveness, for which German scholars are justly +famous. The book, in one word, will be the standard work on the algebra +of logic for a long time to come. + +It would lead us here too far to review or to sketch the main contents +of Professor Schröder’s work, which, it seems to us, is difficult to +explain without entering into the details and thus going beyond the scope +of mere review. But we shall briefly set forth the chief foundations +upon which Schröder builds his algebra of logic. Professor Schröder has +inscribed two mottos on the title page of his book, but we confess that +we suspect at least one of them is intended to be ironical; it certainly +seems to have been selected when the author was in a mood of humor. Being +conscious of the great value of theoretical speculation, he quotes from +Goethe the following Mephistophelian sentiment: + + “I say to thee, a speculative wight + Is like a beast on moorlands lean, + Led circling there by some malicious sprite + While all around lie pastures fair and green.” + +There are two kinds of speculation: first, that which attempts to find +out by pure thought a substantial extension of knowledge; and secondly, +that which investigates the methods of inquiry. The former is futile, the +latter is fruitful. The former is that which Goethe censures. To censure +the latter would be a grave mistake. The man who would try to forge bread +out of iron must meet with disappointment, but the smith who invented and +shaped the plow did more for the production of bread than many thousand +farmers taken together, although it may be he did not raise a blade of +wheat. Speculation that attempts to find out things by mere brooding +is _prima facie_ wrong; but speculation that constructs the methods of +investigation is the basis of all progress in science. + +The other motto of Schröder’s book is Goethe’s saying: “Man is not born +to solve the problem of the world, but to seek for the point where the +problem begins and then to keep within the limits of the comprehensible.” +It would be well to compare this saying of Goethe’s with another one by +the same author which is “Man should hold fast to the belief that that +which seems incomprehensible, is comprehensible. Otherwise, he would +not investigate.” Schröder follows rather the spirit of the second than +that of the first quotation. He says on p. 105 of the recent volume, +with reference to some critical remarks made by the late Professor +Lotze of Göttingen, who was more brilliant and ingenious than exact +in his philosophical views and who showed an undisguised dislike for +any severe method that has recourse to numbers, figures, schedules, or +classifications, as does the algebra of logic: “If Lotze concludes his +logic with the wish that German philosophy should rise to the attempt at +comprehending the course of the world instead of merely calculating it, +we should answer, Could we first calculate it, then we should certainly +comprehend it so far as comprehension on earth is possible.” But how +is it possible? Simply by properly limiting and defining the field of +investigation; and here we can see that the first saying of Goethe’s +should not be construed in such a way as to appear contradictory to the +second. + +Every thinker starts with certain limits of comprehension, but he extends +them so that the stock of knowledge increases in every generation, +and there is no probability that we shall ever reach the limits of an +absolutely incomprehensible. There is no solid progress to be made by +making wild raids in the domain of the unknown, a method which is pursued +only by dreamers and metaphysicians. We must start from the boundary +of the present stock of knowledge, and let our progress be confined +to single well defined and limited problems. How a solution of the +world-problem is possible in this sense, is explained by Schröder on p. +103: “The answer is given in the old parable of the bundle of arrows, +which resists all attempts at breaking it. As a whole it withstood, but +it yielded to him who untied the bundle and broke the arrows singly. The +difficulties which present themselves to the progress of knowledge can +also only be overcome singly, and in their one-sidedness. In the division +of labor thus produced, lies exactly the advantage and the strength of +the diverse disciplines,—_qui trop embrasse, mal étreint_.” + +Professor Schröder advertises his book with the following words: + +“From the title the reader will observe that here the deductive or formal +logic alone is treated. The calculative treatment of the deductive +logic, through which this discipline is redeemed from the fetters by +which through the power of habit, word-language has bound the human +mind, should deserve, more than anything else the name ‘Exact Logic’! +This method alone can give to the laws of valid inference, their most +pregnant, concise, and clear expression, and is thus enabled to reveal +numerous and important gaps,—why not mistakes,—in the older presentations +of the subject.” + +“Since the appearance of the author’s ‘Operationskreis des Logikkalkuls,’ +this method of treatment has made progress of highest importance, +especially through the works of the Americans, Mr. Charles S. Peirce and +his school. To Mr. Peirce, more than to anybody else, is due the merit +of having built a bridge from the older and purely verbal treatment +of our discipline to the new calculative method; a bridge which the +professional philosophers rightly found lacking and to which lack is well +to be ascribed the fact that the new method received only a partial and +bewildered attention. Through Mr. Peirce’s works, upon which also the +author has had some influence, the theory is now so far developed and +perfected that for the first and main part of its whole system, a final +presentation and arrangement may be obtained.” + +“Endeavoring to offer so far as possible such a final and comprehensive +presentation, the author desires to offer at the same time and in +a systematic way a handbook of the most valuable materials of the +literature of the subject which especially in the English language, is +quite considerable.” + +The book addresses two kinds of readers which are of a greatly different +turn of mind, and it will go far in reconciling the methods of both, the +mathematicians and the philosophers. + +In the preface Schröder says, “In consideration of the formulæ which +appear in the book, it may be wise to state, that no mathematical +training or any specific knowledge is presupposed to be known by the +reader. We might repeat the words of Dedekind, prefixed to one of his +books: ‘Everybody can understand this work who is in possession of what +is generally called, common-sense.’ But we may add another saying from +another author: ‘The beaux esprits certainly, who are not accustomed to +the severe demands of thought, will very soon turn away from it.’” + +The introduction is comparatively long, comprising no less than 125 +pages. But, considering that it is more than an introduction, that it +explains the foundation on which the whole work rests, it is not too +long, for it forms an essential and indeed the most important part of +the book. Schröder discusses in it the character and the limitation of +his problem. He explains induction, deduction, contradiction and valid +inference. He considers the nature of signs and names. He says, on p. +38: “Humanity, it appears, does not rise above the absolute zero of +civilisation and the level of animal life, until it develops the activity +of denotation and symbolising. And there is indeed nothing to which the +human mind owes so much for its progress as to the signs of things. + +“The sign which speaks in attitude and gesture to emotion, speaks in word +and sentence to the intellect. And it possesses, in accordance with the +laws of the association of ideas, the power of producing in the person +addressed certain ideas. + +“While the sign coalesces with the idea, it reacts upon thought itself. +Through signs the ideas which otherwise would remain confused and vague, +are analysed and they become as separate elements, a permanent possession +over which the thinking mind has forthwith free control. Through the sign +we distinguish, we fix differences and make them ready for new peculiar +combinations. The sign, is as it were, the handle by which we take hold +of the objects of thought. Through the sign only, the idea is liberated +from the elements of sense, which are attached to it, and is enabled to +rise into the sphere of generalisation. Thus thinking is on the one hand +liberated, on the other determined by the sign. + +“Further, through the sign alone which makes it possible that the same +idea the same purpose can live in many, there is _one_ will, _one_ soul, +and a community of human aspirations exists upon which is based the life +of mankind as a life of individuals in society. And this again is the +basis of our morality and civilisation. + +“The efficacy of the sign spoken is considerably increased by the +invention of writing.” + +Professor Schröder discusses those two methods of logic which are known +by the names: the Logic of Intension and the Logic of Extension. (_Logik +des Inhaltes_, and _Logik des Umfangs_.) This leads to a discussion of +definition, the categories, and conceptual writing which would find +its ideal in a system of pasigraphy, or universal language, for the +perfection of which an algebra of logic would be indispensable. + +The symbols employed by Schröder are borrowed to a great extent from +Peirce, but they are considerably improved and it is probable that +Schröder’s innovations will be universally accepted. + +We purposely refrain here from discussing the particulars of Schröder’s +work, stating only in a general way that his proposition of a new symbol +for subsumption, (he proposes to replace the old symbol [symbol] by +[symbol] to signify “equal to or subsumed under”), his treatment of the +symbols 0 and 1, the former representing an absence of certain marks, +or as it has been called their “incompossibility,” as being excluded by +the presence of other marks; the other the universe of the whole subject +under discussion, and all the other problems which he separately treats +in his lectures are admirably presented and command almost throughout +the reader’s consent. We now conclude our review with the quotation of +the last paragraph of Schröder’s introduction on p. 125. Having declared +that “logical inquiry should not be judged from the short-sighted or +narrow-minded, not to say _borné_, utilitarian standpoint,” he points out +the great practical importance of his science, saying: + +“Similarly, as with other sciences, so logic also may be expected to +realise and produce undreamed of results, which may incidentally bring +about, in a most surprising way, incalculable advantages. Let me only +point out one thing. Since the impulse which this science has of late +received, there have been already constructed three logical machines +which although we grant, scarcely deserve their name, because their +efficacy remains still very rudimentary, may be compared to Papin’s pot +that in a more advanced state became the steam-engine. Indeed, nobody can +presage whether after all a thinking machine might not be constructed, +which would be analogous to, but more perfect than the calculating +machines. The latter have relieved man of a considerable portion of much +fatiguing thought-work, just as the steam-engine has been successful in +relieving him from physical labor. + +“To be sure we must not expect to reap while we are still sowing, and +least so in such a case as this where the harvest is to be expected from +trees.” + + κρς. + + +THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE. By _Karl Pearson_, M. A. With 25 figures in +the text. London: Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane. Imported by Charles +Scribner’s Sons, New York. + +We are greatly in sympathy with the methods and principles of Professor +Karl Pearson’s “Grammar of Science.” The work is a comparatively popular +and also brief exposition of the modern ideal of scientific inquiry. +“The goal of science is clear—it is nothing short of the complete +interpretation of the universe. But that goal,” adds the author, “is an +ideal one—it marks the _direction_ in which we move and strive.” + +The best part of the book is in our opinion the introductory chapter +which sets forth “the scope and method of science” and shows the need of +a “Grammar of Science.” Says the author in the summary of this chapter: + +“The scope of science is to ascertain truth in every possible branch +of knowledge. There is no sphere of inquiry which lies outside the +legitimate field of science. To draw a distinction between the scientific +and philosophical methods is obscurantism.” + +The present generation is in a state of fermentation. While one man +finds a restlessness, a distrust of all authority, a questioning of the +basis of all social institutions and long established methods, another +pictures for us a golden age in the near future. One teacher propounds +what is flatly contradicted by a second. We require some guide in the +determination of our actions, and not for our own private but also our +public duties. “Every citizen is thrust into an appalling maze of social +and educational problems; and if his tribal conscience has any stuff +in it, he feels that these problems ought not to be settled, so far as +he has the power of settling them, by his own personal interests, by +his individual prospects of profit or loss. He is called upon to form a +judgment apart from his own feelings and emotions if it possibly may be—a +judgment in what he conceives to be the interests of society at large. + +“How is such a judgment to be formed?” The answer is by science. Such +a judgment can only be based on a clear knowledge of facts, on an +appreciation of their sequence and relative significance. The judgment +based upon them ought to be independent of the individual mind which +examines them, and this frame of mind which is that of the scientist is +an essential of good citizenship. Not as if the scientist were _eo ipso_ +a good citizen, but society has an interest in the propagation of the +methods of modern science. Sound citizenship will be promoted by training +the mind to an exact and impartial analysis of facts. + +How much a grammar of science is needed can be learned from the confusion +that prevails concerning the fundamental concepts of science. Says +Pearson: + +“Anything more hopelessly _illogical_ than the statements with regard +to force and matter current in elementary text-books of science, it is +difficult to imagine; and the author, as a result of some ten years’ +teaching and examining, has been forced to the conclusion that these +works possess little, if any, _educational_ value; they do not encourage +the growth of _logical_ clearness or form any exercise in scientific +method. + +“The views expressed in this _Grammar_ on the fundamental concepts of +science, especially on those of force and matter, have formed part of +the author’s teaching since he was first called upon to think how the +elements of dynamical science could be presented free from _metaphysics_ +to young students.” + +Professor Pearson calls attention to the danger that arises from two +modes of thought, viz. that of the metaphysician and that of the +agnostic. He says: + +“The poet is a valued member of the community, for he is known to be a +poet; his value will increase as he grows to recognise the deeper insight +into nature with which modern science provides him. The metaphysician is +a poet, often a very great one, but fortunately he is not known to be a +poet, because he clothes his poetry in the language of apparent reason, +and hence it follows that he is liable to be a dangerous member of the +community. The danger at the present time that metaphysical dogmas may +check scientific research is, perhaps, not very great.” + +Fortunately the danger that arises from metaphysicism is past. “For,” +adds Pearson, “The day has gone by when the Hegelian philosophy +threatened to strangle infant science in Germany;—that it begins to +languish at Oxford is a proof that it is practically dead in the country +of its birth. The day has gone by when philosophical or theological +dogmas of any kind can throw back, even for generations, the progress of +scientific investigation.” + +The scientist will, it is true, often have to confess: “There I am +ignorant.” But it would be absurd to restrict science to the limited +field of thought which it occupies to-day. Professor Pearson continues: + + “It is true that this view is not held by several leading + scientists, both in this country and Germany. They are not + content with saying, ‘We _are_ ignorant,’ but they add, with + regard to certain classes of facts, ‘Mankind must _always_ be + ignorant.’ Thus in England Professor Huxley has invented the + term _Agnostic_, not so much for those who are ignorant as for + those who limit the possibility of knowledge in certain fields. + In Germany Professor E. du Bois-Reymond has raised the cry: + ‘_Ignorabimus_’—‘We shall be ignorant,’ and both his brother + and he have undertaken the difficult task of demonstrating that + with regard to certain problems human knowledge is impossible. + We must, however, note that in these cases we are not concerned + with the limitation of the scientific method, but with the + denial of the possibility that any method whatever can lead to + knowledge. Now I venture to think that there is great danger in + this cry: ‘We _shall_ be ignorant.’ To cry ‘We are ignorant,’ + is safe and healthy, but the attempt to demonstrate an endless + futurity of ignorance appears a modesty which approaches + despair. Conscious of the past great achievements and the + present restless activity of science, may we not do better + to accept as our watchword that of Galilei: ‘Who is willing + to set limits to the human intellect?’—interpreting it by + what evolution has taught us of the continual growth of man’s + intellectual powers.” + +The introductory chapter presents the general plan of Professor Pearson’s +book. The following chapters contain the detailed work of the plan. +The headings of these chapters are: II, The Facts of Science; III, The +Scientific Law; IV, Cause and Effect—Probability; V, Space and Time; VI, +The Geometry of Motion; VII, Matter; VIII, The Laws of Motion; IX, Life; +X, The Classification of the Sciences. + +Professor Pearson follows Professor Ernst Mach in his expositions +(especially in Chap. II) very closely, and especially refers to the +latter’s contributions to _The Monist_. Pearson emphasises with Mach +the distinction between the conceptual and perceptual, between ideas +or noumena and sensations. He rejects, as does Professor Mach, the +assumption of unknowables beyond our groups of sense-impressions, saying: +“It is idle to postulate shadowy unknowables behind that real world of +sense-impression in which we live” (p. 88), and yet he says in another +passage on p. 134: “There is mystery enough in the chaos of sensations +and in its capacity for containing those little corners of consciousness +which project their own products, of order and law and reason, _into an +unknown and unknowable world_.” + +It appears to us that the deeper reason of this apparent inconsistency +can be traced to the author’s conception of the import of knowledge. He +follows Kirchhoff in the acceptance of the theory that scientific law is +a brief description of facts in mental shorthand. But at the same time he +follows Clifford and Mach too closely; the former in the respect that we +can know the “how” only and not the “why,” and the latter in overlooking +the fact that concepts are symbols which stand for something and have a +meaning. Pearson says on p. 145, “Science describes how they [motions] +take place, but the _why_ remains a mystery.” But should we not, we ask, +rather supplant the old and metaphysical conception of the “why” (the +sense of it as here implied) by a better and more correct conception? The +metaphysical “why” is not so much a mystery as it is the incorporation of +an illegitimate problem. The “why” of positive science demands as answer +an exhaustive description of those conditions which as the outcome of a +definite transformation inevitably produce a certain phenomenon. + +But here we must criticise Professor Pearson’s view of “description,” +as well also as his view of causation. Cause and effect are to him, as +they were to Mill, mere sequences; necessity belongs exclusively to +the conceptual realm, and is “illogically transferred to the world of +perceptions.” + +An exhaustive description will trace the process of causation, and +whenever we succeed in this we have answered the question “why” in the +only sensible meaning it possesses. Sense-impressions do _not_, as +Professor Pearson expresses it, “shut us in,” so that the beyond remains +a mystery to us. Sense-impressions represent the beyond of reality and +they represent it in such a way as to enable us to deal with it properly. +This representation is knowledge and thus the world is _not_ unknowable. +The world is full of mystery, but knowledge itself is not mysterious. +Having sense-impressions and interpreting them in our conceptual +inferences we know something of the world. + +We are not prepared to accept Professor Pearson’s views that “change is +perceptual, motion conceptual,” and also that “we are not compelled to +postulate a space outside of self for phenomena” (p. 196). We should +say that our concepts, the concepts motion and space included, represent +certain features of reality. We might give a special name to those +features of reality which are represented by the terms motion and space, +but we could not deny their objective reality without at the same time +denying the validity of the concepts. + +Says Professor Pearson, “All things move—but only in conception” (p. +385). “What moves in conception is a geometrical ideal, and it moves +because we conceive it to move.” These propositions have no meaning if +pronounced from our standpoint. Observe also that Professor Pearson +inculcates the conceptuality of motion by unnecessarily repeating the +word in the formula on page 341 which begins as follows: “Every corpuscle +in the _conceptual_ model of the universe must be _conceived_ as +moving....” When we conceive something as moving we mean that not only in +the conceptual model, but also in reality there is an action taking place +which we represent by the concept motion. To say that we have knowledge +only of changes but that we do not know whether those changes which we +describe as mechanical are really motions, appears to us idle subtlety. +The point is whether this method of describing those events enables us to +deal with them properly. If it does it answers the purpose. + +In spite of all our disagreements we feel ourselves in close contact with +the author of “The Grammar of Science,” for we agree with respect to the +principles of science and we certainly can leave the settlement of our +differences to a common test on the basis of these principles. Moreover, +the attitude of the author seems to us very much like that which we take +ourselves. We quote from a former publication of his, the following +passage[85]: + + “I set out from the standpoint that the mission of Freethought + is no longer to batter down old faiths; that has been long + ago effectively accomplished, and I, for one, am ready to put + a railing round the ruins, that they may be preserved from + desecration and serve as a landmark. Indeed I confess to have + yawned over a recent vigorous inditement of Christianity, and + I promptly disposed of my copy to a young gentleman who was + anxious that I should read a work entitled: _Natural Law in the + Spiritual World_, which he told me had given quite a new width + to the faith of his childhood.” + + κρς. + + +PHILOSOPHIE DER ARITHMETIK. Psychologische und logische Untersuchungen. +By Dr. _E. G. Husserl_. Erster Band. Halle-Saale: C. E. M. Pfeffer. 1891. + +The present volume does not pretend to be a complete system of the +philosophy of arithmetic, but it attempts to prepare, in a series of +psychological and logical investigations, the scientific foundation +for a future construction of this discipline, which would be of equal +value to the mathematician and philosopher. The first volume which is +now before us analyses in its first part the ideas plurality, unity, and +number, so far as they are directly given us and not in their indirect +symbolisation. The second part considers the symbolical representations +of plurality and number, and the author attempts to show that the fact +of our being almost throughout limited to symbolical ideas of number +determines the meaning and the purpose of that view which the author +calls “Anzahlenarithmetik.” + +The author criticises several theories which in different ways explain +the origin of plurality and unity. There is one theory which explains +the origin of the unit from the unity of consciousness; there is another +one which explains the origin of number from a succession in time. F. +A. Lange bases his theory of number upon space-conception and Bauman +declares there is something mathematical in the external world which +corresponds to the mathematical in us. The theory of difference held +by Jevons, Schuppe, and Sigwart, is declared to be superior to all +others, but even that is rejected by the author. Jevons says, “Number +is but another name for diversity. Exact identity is unity, and with +difference rises plurality.... Abstract number then, is the empty form +of difference.” Dr. Husserl objects: if numbers are all empty forms of +difference, what makes the difference between two, three, four, etc.? The +contents of these numbers are very different. The inability of defining +this difference shows the imperfection of the theory of difference. +Dr. Husserl proposes what he calls “collection” as a special method of +combination by which unities are formed. + +Although the book contains many valuable suggestions, it is very hard +reading. The author’s views are not at all clearly set forth. Neither +is the table of contents so systematically arranged as to give us a +clue to the plan of the book, nor is there any index that might give us +assistance in finding out the most characteristic passages. The reader is +supposed to read the book right through, in order to understand detached +chapters or even sentences. And even then we are not sure whether or not +we have understood the author’s propositions the consistency of which is +not as apparent as it might be expected. For, after having criticised +so many attempts at explaining and analysing the ideas, plurality, +unity and number, and after having proposed definitions, explanations, +and analyses of his own, we find on p. 130 a passage where these ideas +are incidentally declared to be incapable of definition. Speaking of +Frege’s theory, Dr. Husserl says, “As soon as we come down to elementary +concepts, all definition has an end. Such concepts as quality, intensity, +place, time, etc., cannot be defined. The same is true of elementary +relations, and of those concepts upon which they are founded. Equality, +similarity, gradation, whole and part, plurality and unity, etc., are +concepts which are utterly incapable of a formal-logical definition. +All we can do in such cases is to produce the concrete phenomena from +which they have been abstracted, and to explain the method of this +process of abstraction. One can, where it is necessary, exactly fence in +(umgrenzen) by diverse circumscriptions, the concepts in question, and +thus prevent confusion with kindred concepts.” We must confess that we do +not understand the author’s idea; what is an act of defining if not an +“umgrenzen,” a fencing in of the concept? The book contains many similar +passages, which, it seems to us, are not properly thought out by the +author. But the subject is a difficult one, and, as the author says in +the preface, “A work of this kind should, with regard to the difficulties +of the problem it treats, be judged with leniency.” + + κρς. + + +CHRISTIANITY AND INFALLIBILITY. Both or Neither. By the Rev. _Daniel +Lyons_. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1891. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & +Co. + +This little book of Dr. Lyons’s is got up in a much more substantial +and prepossessing form than the majority of the works that come from +Catholic quarters. It contains 284 pages and is supplied with the _Nihil +obstat_ of a Catholic “censor deputatus” and with the _Imprimatur_ of the +Bishop of Denver. In this book, therefore, the reader may be sure that he +possesses a correct exposition of Catholic doctrine. + +The purpose of Dr. Lyons is to establish the thesis,—a thesis always +insisted upon by the Catholic church,—“that Christianity, to maintain +its rightful hold on the reason and conscience of men, needs a living, +infallible Witness to its truths and principles; a living, infallible +Guardian of its purity and integrity, and a living, infallible +Interpreter of its meaning.” By Christianity Dr. Lyons means “that body +of sacred truths which the Almighty revealed through the _ministry_ of +Christ and His Apostles.” + +We italicise the word “ministry,” for on this word hinges in our +judgment the main and unmistakable argument of Dr. Lyons’s advocacy. +If the results of modern Biblical criticism are at all true, the +“Church,” so-called, must have existed before the New Testament. And +in establishing the authority of the church, the Catholic theologians +regard and use the Bible merely as an “historical narrative, whose +trustworthiness (at least in the parts quoted) can be proved in the same +way as that of any other history, sacred or profane.” They take their +argument “for the institution, mission, and authority of the Church +from the Bible as a mere human record of the sayings and doings of our +Divine Lord and His Apostles.” What is the mission of the church? “_And +he said unto them. Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to +every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, but he +that believeth not shall be damned._” These are awful powers, and awful +are the sanctions placed by the same Divine letter-patent in the hands +of the institution that dispenses them. And in the face of the great +complexity and peculiar nature of the Holy writings, in view of their +recognised liability to manifold and multifarious interpretation, does +not such a great and fearful commission of power as this necessarily +and logically imply a concession of Infallibility—of infallibility, let +us add, as _technically_ understood. “Who can suppose that God would +formally commission anybody to teach in his name and command all to hear +and accept His teaching under the severest of penalties, and at the same +time not secure that teacher against the possibility of teaching error +for truth? Suppose the Church thus commissioned by God did actually teach +error, even then would not all (there is no exception made), by reason of +the divine command, be bound to believe? And in that case would not God +Himself be accountable for the erroneous belief? I conclude, therefore, +that the formal commission to teach the Gospel in God’s name, and by His +authority, joined to the express command to believe carries with it a +pledge of the divine assistance of Infallibility as a guarantee to all +men that in yielding the obedience of faith, they are perfectly secure +against all danger of error.” This inference is incorporated in a dogma, +a “Catholic dogma,” of infallibility, which is this: “that the Pope, by +virtue of a special supernatural assistance of the Holy Spirit of Truth +promised to him, in and through St. Peter, is exempt from all liability +to err when, in the discharge of his Apostolic Office of Supreme Teacher +of the Universal Church, he defines or declares, in matters of or +appertaining to Christian faith or morals, what is to be believed and +held, or what is to be rejected and condemned by the faithful throughout +the world. This definition substantially embodies the whole Catholic +teaching on the subject of Infallibility.” + +Dr. Lyons’s arguments are well put and well reasoned out. He sees +clearly where the vulnerable point of the present condition of the +Christian churches lies,—which the majority of Protestant theologians +do not see. He sees clearly, though he does not say it, that the +rococo superstructure of neo-Christian dogmatism was long and long ago +undermined by science and that it is now toppling in the minds of the +unscientific generally; and he justly advises all who have set their +hearts on the preservation of the subtle and irrelevant externalities +of religion, to forsake their ancient dwelling-place and seek a safe +and easy abode in the grandly simple and grandly spacious, Roman temple +of Papal infallibility. That edifice is safe against the artillery of +science. It has by one simple act placed itself beyond the reach of all +scientific attacks. For science, or rather the _method of science_, +directly owes its origin to the consciousness of our individual +liability to error and the consequent aspiration of man to establish an +_objective_ criterion of truth. If it attempted to demolish doctrines +of infallibility of any kind, it would simply seek to justify its own +foundations, which it has long ago done. In so far as the doctrine of +infallibility is the only logical outcome of a dilemma in which the +Christian church has, discreetly or indiscreetly, implicated itself, +science has no objection to it; or for that matter to any other +conclusion that logically results from premisses it does not grant. +The question really most worthy of the attention of the “thoughtful,” +“truth-seeking,” and “religious” mind, as Dr. Lyons styles it, is not the +doctrine of infallibility, but the questions, What is religion, What is +God, etc., etc.; and such questions the _truth_-seeking mind will find +it impossible to answer arbitrarily: it must, perforce, answer them in +conformity with that objective criterion of truth called science. And +such subjects are as much the object of science as are motion and matter. + + μκρκ. + + +DER SATZ VOM GRUNDE ALS PRINZIP DES SCHLIESSENS. By Dr. _Franz Erhardt_. +Halle a. S.: C. E. M. Pfeffer. 1891. + +This little pamphlet of fifty-six pages, written and published to +acquire for the author the _venia legendi_ at the philosophical faculty +of the University of Jena, treats the several figures of the syllogism +from the standpoint that the middle term of the premisses is, logically +considered, the consequence (_Folge_) of the subject and the reason +(_Grund_) of the predicate in the conclusion. A few remarks are added on +induction and analogy, without, however, entering into the problem as +to the rôle which the method of induction plays in the evolution of the +method of deduction. + + κρς. + + +AGNOSTICISME. Essai sur quelques Théories pessimistes de la Connaissance. +By _E. de Roberty_. Paris: Félix Alcan. + +By the publication of this little book M. de Roberty redeems a promise +made in his larger work, on the philosophy of the present century, +already reviewed in _The Monist_ (January, 1892). The pessimist +theories of knowledge of which he treats are the three systems, those +of Criticism, Positivism, and Evolutionism, to which he reduces +contemporaneous philosophy. As these systems are regarded as parallel +manifestations of a common stock of beliefs and general hypotheses, they +must equally adopt the doctrine of Agnosticism. It is the aim of the +present work to point out the several forms assumed by this doctrine and +to show its falsity by an examination of the principles on which it is +based. The author properly insists on the importance of distinguishing +between the affirmation of the unknown and that of the unknowable. The +recognition of the former is essential to all progress in knowledge, +but the latter is “the direct negation of all possibility whatever of +utilising the deficiencies of knowledge,” and leads infallibly to the +worship of ignorance. The best definition of the mental phenomenon +of agnosticism, says M. de Roberty is the _pessimism_ of the theory +of knowledge, and it is not for nothing therefore that Kant preceded +Schopenhauer in the development of idealism. + +Modern agnosticism is based on the old notion of the separation of the +phenomenon from the noumenon, and it was Kant who cleared it from its +early theological and metaphysical conceptions. He affirmed the reality +of the “thing in itself” as a fundamental postulate, and then declared +that we can know nothing of things considered in themselves. Among +the conceptions formed by the human mind through the exercise of its +imaginative faculty are three which exhaust the entire content of the +Unknowable. Thus it may be reduced to the idea of a reality other than +that of which we are sensible; to the idea of a subject which perceives +in a different manner from the real subject; and finally to the idea that +our cerebral organisation reveals the world to us under delusive colors, +all of which M. de Roberty declares to be simple fiction. His own ideas +on the subject will appear later on. + +Positivism stands towards materialism in the same relation as criticism +stands towards idealism, whose noumenon becomes the unknowable thing +in itself; as the simple matter of materialism becomes the unknown +existence about which positivism says we can neither affirm nor deny +anything. Modern agnosticism may be regarded thus as representing the +long sought synthesis of the purest materialism and the most transcendent +spiritualism, and it offers a striking demonstration of the fundamental +equivalence of the hypotheses hitherto formulated as to the origin and +essence of things. It proves also, says M. de Roberty, that the great +law of the identity of contraries is applicable directly to all our +very general conceptions. Contradictory as they seem to be, universal +postulates must, by virtue of that law, be fundamentally identical. This +introduces a discussion of the antinomies, developed but not invented +by modern criticism, which found in them ample justification for its +conclusion of the reality of the unknowable. + +The double antinomy of time and space is regarded by the author as always +presenting itself under the aspect of a long chain of contradictions +which are manifestly merely verbal. The opposition between finite and +infinite may be resolved into the distinction between concrete and +abstract, between particular and general, if infinity is taken as +synonymous with, or the perfect substitute for, general and abstract +quantity, the universal attribute of things isolated from the things +themselves. As to the problems connected with the ideas of a vacuum, +matter, force and motion, M. de Roberty supposes them to have a purely +psychological solution. Such ideas go beyond the “conceptive” capacity +of mechanics and belong to psychology considered, not as a branch of +philosophy, or as philosophy itself, but as a science of abstract +concepts. + +The philosophy of evolution, although monistic in the sense that it +recognises the law of the identity of opposites, shows itself not to +be so in reality by its doctrine of the unknowable. In this monism and +agnosticism contradict each other, as it is contrary to reason “to +affirm at the same time the identity of every phenomenon and their +unknowability. The first marks the supreme term of the second. Identity +in general serves to define knowableness. So that, if we remain on +the elevated summits of pure abstraction too long, we run the danger +anticipated by the law of identity of contraries. We fall directly +into the error of taking the apparent negation of identity or of pure +knowledge, the unknowable, for something really distinct, really +separated from the knowable.” This is the illusion of Spencer and of +all the philosophers who have undertaken the difficult task of applying +monism as a corrective of agnosticism. + +M. de Roberty concludes the present work with a discussion of the +relation between idea and reality, the thought and the object thought of, +in which he gives us his opinion on that disputed point. He says that +what philosophy calls “the object” is composed essentially of external +nature, in which is included our own organism. Very complicated systems +of motions are transmitted to the grey nuclei or opto-striated bodies +of the central regions of the brain. Here these motions determine new +motions of which the totality is described in psycho-physics by the term +“unconscious ideation.” But this internal motion, continually tending to +become again an initial or external motion, gives rise to unconscious +reflex activity. The motion passes by the white nerve-fibres to the +cortical periphery of the brain which becomes “the seat of a phenomenon, +an excitation, a motion which prolongs or repeats the immediately +preceding phenomenon, excitation, or motion, while giving it a shorter +and more steady action.” The sensations and the reflex-actions derived +from them traverse the opto-striated nuclei without retardation and +without giving rise to any system of ideas; while consciousness resides +in the systemisation or union of the same sensations and reflex-actions. +The notion of the ego results from the union or memory of certain ideas, +sensations, and actions, which before their union and preservation by +the cerebral cortex were unconscious. But before becoming unconscious +ideas, those “intellectual virtualities” were in every other part of the +organism, and in all the media which surround it, as, “manifestations +of energy or of motion, it may be objective phenomena.” Thus, says M. +de Roberty, if the universe is composed of two parts, the ego and the +non-ego, it can be affirmed that they form an uninterrupted circuit. +He supposes that when the cosmical energy has produced the phenomena +of unconscious mentality in the brain-centres, it is divided into two +currents, one of which returns to its source and becomes directly cosmic +energy again, and this will be the fate of the other current also when +the life of the organism ceases. + +This view the author supports by a consideration of the morphological +and functional difference supposed to exist between the facts which +constitute the notion of the “ego” and the primordial facts of +unconsciousness comprised under the generic denomination of the +“non-ego.” He regards conscious ideas as the telegraphic alphabet, the +stenographic writing of the cosmos. Consciousness serves to coördinate +the incoherent crowd of events which at each instant invades the normal +brain. In these we may see effects of the cause called “universe,” and +therefore its representatives and substitutes, which they could not +be unless there was identity between the two. Thus the “ego” could be +defined as the final synthesis of the “symbolic abridgments,” of the +micrographical abbreviations, of the “non-ego.” Thus the ego serves only +for the purpose of concentrating or condensing, so to say the non-ego, +which it represents in a manner more or less durable and efficient. + +This monistic theory gets rid of the unknowable and therefore is a great +improvement on that of the materialist or of the idealist. Nevertheless +it requires further elaboration. There is no difficulty in understanding +that cosmic motion may become transformed within the organism into a +feeling. This still, however, leaves unaccounted for the existence of the +organism itself. A true monism will, therefore, require that the organism +must be in some way identifiable with the cosmos. This is the true +problem that has to be solved, and its solution will be greatly aided by +the overthrow of agnosticism, against which M. de Roberty has made so +vigorous and successful an attack in the present volume. + + Ω. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[84] See Aug. Friedr. Böck. _Sammlung von Schriften, welche den logischen +Calcul des Prof. Pl. betreffen_, Frankfort and Leipsic, 1766. + +[85] The book from which we quote, namely _The Ethic of Freethought_, +like the book here under discussion, contains much detail matter in which +we differ most emphatically from the author; (he is, for instance, in our +opinion very unjust to Martin Luther;) but it seems to us that he pursues +an aim that we have in common with him. + + + + +PERIODICALS. + + +ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. III. +Nos. 2 and 3. + + UEBER DIE EMPFINDLICHKEIT DES GRÜNBLINDEN UND DES NORMALEN + AUGES GEGEN FARBENÄNDERUNG IM SPEKTRUM. By _E. Brodhun_. + + KÜRZESTE LINIEN IM FARBENSYSTEM. By _H. v. Helmholtz_. + + DIE RAUMANSCHAUUNGEN UND DIE AUGENBEWEGUNGEN. By _Th. Lipps_. + + EINE BEOBACHTUNG ÜBER DAS INDIREKTE SEHEN. By _Th. Wertheim_. + + UEBER EINIGE EIGENTÜMLICHKEITEN DES TASTSINNS. By _G. Sergi_. + + BEITRÄGE ZUR VERGLEICHENDEN PSYCHOLOGIE. I. Das Verhalten + wirbelloser Tiere auf der Drehscheibe. By _K. L. Schaefer_. + + GEGENANTWORT AUF DIE ERWIDERUNG VON O. FLÜGEL. By _J. Rehmke_. + + LITTERATURBERICHT. + +The value of the first article on the sensitiveness of the green-blind +and the normal eye in perceiving color-variations in the spectrum +consists mainly in the three diagrams that exhibit the results obtained +in the author’s experiments. + +Professor H. v. Helmholtz published in a former number his attempt at +propounding “a formula which should play the same part in the province +of color-sensations as the formula of the length of the linear element +plays in geometry.”... As geometry begins with the concept of a shortest +line between two points, so our fundamental formula in this subject shall +enable us to find that series of transitions between two given colors +for which the sum of the perceptible differences is a minimum. Helmholtz +proposes to call them “shortest color-lines” and comes to the conclusion +that the whole domain of these apparently irregular phenomena are easily +subsumed under a generalised formulation of Fechner’s law. + +Professor Th. Lipps criticises Wundt with regard to the latter’s +theory of measuring the visual field by ocular motion. Wundt’s theory, +he declares, is in need of several auxiliary hypotheses, such as the +assumption that certain ocular motions are supposed to be more difficult +than others: the visual field is said to possess the form of a spherical +surface, etc. The author maintains that ocular motions do contribute to +the construction of our space-conception, but in a different way than +Wundt assumes. The most interesting part of the article appears to be the +discussion of the genesis of the third dimension which is not given in +the data of sensation but added to them as a judgment concerning these +data. It is an interpretation of the data. There are still psychologists +who regard the third dimension as immediately given. Professor Lipps +refers as an instance to Prof. William James’s article “The Perception +of Space” in (_Mind_, Vol. XII), where the latter declares that “no +arguments in the world can prove a feeling which actually exists, to be +impossible.” While Wundt says that to the resting eye the form of the +visual field is spherical because the sky appears to us as spherical; +Lipps declares that we might just as well say that the visual field of +the resting eye is a plane, because the earth appears to us as a level +surface. We attribute to the visual field the form which certain reasons +prompt us to. Certain convergences of the eyes induce us to place certain +points at certain distances. We read, as it were, the distances out of +the convergences of the ocular axes. Accordingly, when we cease to feel +any difference in our feeling of convergency we cannot help attributing +the same “depth” throughout to all the things with respect to which such +feeling is wanting, and we place all objects beyond a certain range upon +a spherical surface. Thus Lipps interprets the spherical form of the +firmament as the result of our using both eyes, which use from habit has +become the form of monocular vision also, and not as Wundt does from the +spherical form of each visual field, which by habit has been transferred +to binocular vision. There is a strange fact that distances on the left +side are overestimated in comparison with those on the right side; and +this fact is also claimed by Professor Lipps to be incompatible with +Professor Wundt’s theory, but in favor of his own views. + +Th. Wertheim has made an observation which tends to prove that positive +as well as negative fluctuations of light-intensity, cause the +disappearance of objects indirectly seen. + +G. Sergi publishes the results of his investigations concerning the +sense of touch made in the Institute for Anthropology and Experimental +Psychology at the University of Rome. + +Karl L. Schaefer’s results of experiments with invertebrate animals +upon the rotatory table show that in the beginning a counter-rotation +takes place, but not in all animals. It does not take place in some +caterpillars; it does take place in black beetles, ants, flies, earwigs, +provided they are at the time in actual motion. There is no after-affect +from the rotation and thus they are not subject to vertigo as are the +vertebrates. (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.) + + κρς. + + +VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XVI. No. 2. + + BEITRÄGE ZUR LOGIK. (Zweiter Artikel. Schluss.) By _A. Riehl_. + + ERNST PLATNER’S WISSENSCHAFTLICHE STELLUNG ZU KANT IN + ERKENNTNISSTHEORIE UND MORALPHILOSOPHIE. (Zweiter Artikel. + Schluss.) By _B. Seligkowitz_. + + UEBER BEGRIFF UND GEGENSTAND. By _G. Frege_. + + BEMERKUNGEN ZU RICHARD AVENARIUS’S “KRITIK DER REINEN + ERFAHRUNG.” By _R. Willy_. + +A. Riehl discusses in the second instalment of his “Contributions to +Logic” the forms of judgment and the different kinds of conclusion. B. +Seligkowitz concludes his article on Ernst Platner’s relation to Kant, +setting forth the former’s criticism of the latter’s views of synthetic +judgments _a priori_, his moral theology, his psychological ideas, and +moral philosophy. G. Frege explains his view of “concept and object” with +reference to the idea of Benno Kerry, who does not recognise between the +two any absolute difference. (Leipsic: Reisland.) + + κρς. + + +PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVIII. Nos. 3 and 4. + +CONTENTS: April, 1892. No. 3. + + DIE WIRKLICHKEIT ALS PHÄNOMEN DES GEISTES. By _A. Rosinski_. + + RECENSIONEN. + + LITTERATURBERICHT. + +CONTENTS: May, 1892. No. 4. + + UEBER DAS ABSOLUTE GEHÖR. By _J. v. Kries_. + + DIE ZWEITEN PURKINJESCHEN BILDER IM SCHEMATISCHEN UND IM + WIRKLICHEN AUGE. By _L. Matthiessen_. + + BESPRECHUNGEN. + + LITTERATURBERICHT. + +Adolf Rosinski describes reality as a phenomenon of the mind and, +following Quäbicker, he regards “the real as belonging to that complex +which is given us in appearance. Being (_Wesen_) is not behind or beyond +appearance; Being, being that which exists, existence is appearance. +Appearance shows nothing but that which is in Being, and there is in +Being nothing which is not manifested.” (Berlin: Dr. R. Salinger.) + +There are but few musicians who are able to recognise directly and +without reference to another note, the pitch of a sound. This ability +is called by musicians “absolutes Gehör.” Professor Kries investigates +in a long article, the conditions of this absolute musical ear so +called, exhibiting the difficulties of an explanation without arriving +at a definite result, which, however, may be expected from further +investigations of the subject. Mr. Matthiessen’s article on the second +Perkinje-pictures, in the ideal and the real eye, consists exclusively +of measurements and calculations of the curvature of the lens. The same +number contains an appreciative and long (37 pp.) review of Prof. W. +James’s “Principles of Psychology.” (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.) + + κρς. + + +THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. April, 1892. Vol. IV. No. 3. + + ON CERTAIN PECULIARITIES OF THE KNEE-JERK IN SLEEP IN A CASE OF + TERMINAL DEMENTIA. By _William Noyes_, M. D. + + THE GROWTH OF MEMORY IN SCHOOL CHILDREN. By _T. L. Bolton_, A. + B. + + STUDIES FROM THE LABORATORY OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY OF THE + UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. By Prof. _Joseph Jastrow_, Ph. D. + + THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF REALISM. By _Alexander Fraser_, + A. B. + + PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE: I. Nervous System. By Prof. _H. H. + Donaldson_, Clark University; II. Association, Reaction. By + Prof. _J. McK. Cattell_, Columbia College; III. Hypnotism and + Suggestion. By Prof. _Joseph Jastrow_, University of Wisconsin; + IV. Sight. + + LETTERS AND NOTES. + +Dr. Noyes’s investigations seem to corroborate the theory that not only +the lower but also “the higher activities of the brain are also subject +to a rhythmic rise and fall synchronous with vascular dilatation and +contraction.” Mr. Bolton publishes the results of his examination of the +span of memory in the Grammar Schools of Worcester, Mass. The memory +span measuring the power of concentrated and prolonged attention, +increases with age rather than with the growth of intelligence. The +girls have better memories than the boys. Memory can be increased by +practice. The tests made before and after school do not show that the +pupils suffer fatigue from the day’s work. Memory-images before they +are completely lost first suffer a confusion of order, then a loss of +certain of its elements which are often replaced by similar elements. +Previous ideas being one of the factors of confusion. Professor Jastrow’s +article presents a description of a series of experiments made in his +psychological laboratory. He reproduces the Zöllner figures, briefly +summarising their different interpretations by Zöllner, Hering, Aubert, +Classen, Lipps, Hoppe, Wundt, Pisco, and Helmholtz. He further presents a +study of involuntary movements of the hand on the glass plate apparatus, +and describes the experiments of time measurement in classifying ideas, +and in finding a given object within a given field. Mr. Fraser defends +the Natural Realism of the Scotch school, making the tactumotor sense the +ultimate test of reality. (Worcester, Mass.: Clark University.) + + κρς. + + +REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. + +CONTENTS: April, 1892. No. 196. + + LES PROCESSUS NERVEUX DANS L’ATTENTION ET LA VOLITION. By + _Charlton Bastian_. + + LA RESPONSABILITÉ. By _F. Paulhan_. + + REVUE GÉNÉRALE: LE SPIRITISME CONTEMPORAIN. By _Janet_ + (_Pierre_). + + ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS: Der Positivismus vom Tode August + Comte’s bis auf unsere Tage. By _H. Gruber_. Die Psychologie + der Suggestion. By _H. Schmidkunz_. + + TRAVAUX DU LABORATOIRE DE PSYCHOLOGIE PHYSIOLOGIQUE: Etude + expérimentale sur deux cas d’audition colorée. By _Beaunis and + Binet_. Etude sur un nouveau cas d’audition colorée. By _Binet + and Philippe_. + +CONTENTS: May, 1892. No. 197. + + DU SENS DE L’INÉGALITÉ. By _G. Mauret_. + + LA RESPONSABILITÉ (concluded). By _F. Paulhan_. + + LE PROBLÈME DE LA VIE (third and last article). By _Dunan_. + + ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS: Leçons cliniques sur l’hystérie + et l’hypnotisme By _Pitres_. Corps et âme. Essais sur la + philosophie de St. Thomas. By _J. Gardair_. Agnosticisme. + By _E. de Roberty_. La physique de Straton de Lampsaque. + By _Rodier_. Das Wahrnehmungsproblem vom Standpunkte des + Physikers, des Physiologen und des Philosophen. By _H. Schwarz_. + + REVUE DES PÉRIODIQUES ÉTRANGERS: Vierteljahrsschrift für + wissenschaftliche Philosophie. + + CORRESPONDANCE ET INFORMATIONS. + +The processes of attention and volition lie at the basis of all our +mental and physical activities. Mr. Charlton Bastian discusses their +nervous condition and comes to the conclusion _Voluntas et intellectus +unum et idem sunt_. M. Paulhan treats the problem of responsibility under +healthy and morbid conditions, in two consecutive articles. M. Mouret, +whose former articles on relations will be reviewed in a future number by +Mr. F. C. Russell, treats in a long article of the sense of inequality. +M. Ch. Dunan concludes his essay on the problem of life, viewing the +subject from a rather metaphysical standpoint. M. Pierre Janet presents +us with a very accurate review of the importance of the contemporary +spiritism and spiritualism. He calls attention to the fact that modern +psychology owes to the researches of the spiritualists, many new, +startling, and interesting facts. He does not share their standpoint, yet +his review is kind and sympathetic. (Paris: Félix Alcan.) + + κρς. + + +VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.[86] Vol. III. No. 12. March, 1892. + + POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY AND THE UNITY OF SCIENCE. (Continuation). + By _B. N. Tchitcherin_. Article crowned by the Psychological + Society of Moscow. + + HOW DOES THE MINISTRATION TO THE GENERAL GOOD OF ALL RELATE TO + THE CARE FOR THE SALVATION OF OUR OWN SOUL? A letter to the + Editor. By the _Archimandrite Antonii_. + + HUXLEY AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MODERN SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF THE + WORLD. + + TELEPATHY. (Concluded.) By _Petrovo-Solovo_. + + THE BASIS OF ETHICAL OBLIGATION. By _N. Grote_. + + SPECIAL DEPARTMENT. About Ethical Fragments from Democritus. By + _J. Radloff_. One of the Possible Cosmic Theories. A Study. By + _A. Wilkins_. + + CRITICISM AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. I. Review of Periodicals. II. + Review of Recent Publications. Transactions of the Moscow + Psychological Society. (Moscow, 1892.) + + +MIND. New Series. No. 2. April, 1892. + + PLEASURE AND PAIN. By _A. Bain_. + + THE CHANGES OF METHOD IN HEGEL’S DIALECTIC. II. By _J. Ellis + McTaggart_. + + THE LEIPSIC SCHOOL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. By _E. Bradford + Titchener_. + + THE LOGICAL CALCULUS. II. By _W. E. Johnson_. + + DISCUSSIONS: Dr. Münsterberg and his Critics. By _S. Alexander_. + + CRITICAL NOTICES. + +Prof. A. Bain criticises Mr. H. R. Marshall’s theory of pleasure and +pain as being determined by the relation between the energy given out +and the energy received, saying that it leaves a very large region +untouched and inexplicable. J. Ellis McTaggart defends the Hegelian +dialectic system which, he declares, “is not so wonderful or mystic +as it has been represented to be. It makes no attempt,” he says, “to +deduce existence from essence; it does not even attempt to eliminate the +element of immediacy, in experience, and to produce a self-sufficient +and self-mediating thought.” E. Bradford Titchener gives a general +survey of the researches carried out in Wundt’s Institute, and of the +other psychological contents of the _Philosophische Studien_, from the +date of Professor Cattell’s paper on “The Psychological Laboratory at +Leipsic” to the present time. W. E. Johnson, in his paper on “The Logical +Calculus,” brings out some of the underlying principles and assumptions +which belong equally to the ordinary Formal Logic, to Symbolic Logic, +and to the so-called Logic of Relatives. Prof. S. Alexander takes +issue with Mr. Titchener’s criticism of Professor Münsterberg’s +psychological investigations. Mr. Titchener’s article which appeared +in the October number of _Mind_, 1891, leaves the impression that the +whole of the work under review is valueless. “Many of his objections,” +however, says Professor Alexander, “refer to unimportant points, and +the graver theoretical ones are really groundless,” and thus the +critic “has contrived to give a one-sided judgment by neglecting the +other considerations which give Dr. Münsterberg’s work its value and +significance.” (London: Williams & Norgate.) + + κρς. + + +THREE AMERICAN MAGAZINES. + +INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. April, 1892. Vol. II. No. 3. + + ECONOMIC REFORM SHORT OF SOCIALISM. By _E. Benj. Andrews_. + + PLEASURE AND PAIN IN EDUCATION. By _Miss M. S. Gilliland_, + London. + + THE ESSENTIALS OF BUDDHIST DOCTRINE AND ETHICS. By Prof. + _Maurice Bloomfield_. + + THE THREE RELIGIONS. (Concluded.) By _J. S. Mackenzie_, M. A. + + DISCUSSIONS AND REVIEWS. + + THE SCHOOL OF APPLIED ETHICS. + +THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. Vol. I. No. 3. May, 1892. + + HERBERT SPENCER’S ANIMAL ETHICS. By Prof. _Henry Calderwood_. + + THE ULTIMATE GROUND OF AUTHORITY. By Prof. _J. Macbride + Sterrett_. + + WHAT IS REALITY? By _David G. Ritchie_. + + NATURAL SCIENCE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE. By Dr. _B. C. + Burt_. + + A MATHEMATICAL VIEW OF FREE WILL. By Prof. _J. E. Oliver_. + + DISCUSSIONS: Professor Ladd’s Criticism of James’s Psychology. + By Prof. _J. P. Gordy_. + + REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES. + +THE NEW WORLD. Vol. I. No. 1. March, 1892. + + THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY. By _Lyman Abbott_. + + THE HISTORIC AND THE IDEAL CHRIST. By _Charles Carroll Everett_. + + THE FUTURE OF LIBERAL RELIGION IN AMERICA. By _J. G. Schurmann_. + + THE COMMON, THE COMMONPLACE AND THE ROMANTIC. By _William + Rounseville Alger_. + + ABRAHAM KUENEN. By _Crawford Howell Toy_. + + THE THEISTIC EVOLUTION OF BUDDHISM. By _J. Estlin Carpenter_. + + “BETWEEN THE TESTAMENTS.” By _Thomas R. Slicer_. + + THE NEW ORTHODOXY. By _Edward H. Hall_. + + THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THOMAS HILL GREEN. By + _Charles B. Upton_. + + INTRODUCTORY NOTE. + + BOOK REVIEWS. + +There have sprung up within the last two years not less than four +American magazines of progressive thought, which now compete in the +proposition of their religious and philosophical conceptions to the +world. These four magazines are, in the chronological order in which +they were founded, _The Monist_, _The International Journal of Ethics_, +_The Philosophical Review_, and _The New World_. _The Monist_ represents +that world-conception which takes its stand upon facts and systematises +facts into a unitary view. Thus it recognises the methods of science +as the methods of all knowledge, to the exclusion of supernatural +revelation, or intuitionalism, or any kind of mysticism. But _The Monist_ +does not rest satisfied with this. _The Monist_ preaches a religion; and +the prophets of this religion are not only the great ethical teachers +of mankind, but everybody who reveals truth, Kant and Comte, Kepler, +Copernicus, Darwin, and all living representatives of scientific inquiry. +Thus _The Monist_ is a magazine that points out the religious import of +science and philosophy. + +_The International Journal of Ethics_ follows in the same line in so +far only as it has nothing to say to the old orthodox conceptions of +religion. It tries to teach a higher morality, but in establishing ethics +it pursues quite another course. It is the organ of the Ethical Societies +and the leaders of the Ethical Societies are confident that they can have +ethics not only without theology but also without religion, science, or +philosophy. They consider the world-conception of a man as something +indifferent, or unessential, in ethics, and by proposing a non-committal +policy with respect to religious and philosophical views, they expect +to be the better fitted to preach good conduct. (Philadelphia: +_International Journal of Ethics_, 118 S. Twelfth Street.) + +_The Philosophical Review_ represents a philosophical conception +which has still a strong hold upon the Universities on this side of +the Atlantic. Transcendentalism, metaphysicism, and that theological +philosophy which still operates with supernatural quantities, or at +least has not discarded the dualistic features of supernaturalism, are +represented in its columns. Certainly they are well represented and by +their best upholders of the present time, and authors of more modern and +positivistic views are not excluded. Exactly so in _The Monist_, the +representatives of metaphysicism and those who still believe in the dual +existence of man, in his self, or ego, and his transcendental existence +are welcome; but there is nevertheless a fundamental difference in the +world-conception of the two magazines. (Boston, New York, Chicago: Ginn & +Co.) + +_The New World_ is the latest new-comer in the field of magazine +literature, and we welcome its appearance most cordially. There are +strongly marked differences between _The New World_ and _The Monist_, +for the former is a theological magazine that deepens religion with the +assistance of philosophy while the latter, rather the reverse, is a +philosophical magazine that widens philosophy and applies it to practical +life so as to become a religion. But for that very reason _The New World_ +seems to meet _The Monist_ half way. _The New World_ is an offshoot of +modern theology. Its contributors come largely from the ranks of the +maturest unitarian thinkers. They practically accept the principles of +criticism and scientific inquiry and thus they are approaching rapidly +that common goal of human thought, which _The Monist_ propounds as the +leading maxim of philosophy and religion, namely, to regard nature as the +only revelation and experience as our guide in life; to base religion +upon and to derive ethics from a critically-sifted statement of facts. +(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) + + κρς. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[86] _Questions of Philosophy and Psychology._ + + + + +APPENDIX TO THE MONIST, VOL. II, NO. 4 + + + KANT AND SPENCER + + TWO ARTICLES REPRINTED FROM NOS. 51, 52, AND 158 + OF THE OPEN COURT + + 1. THE ETHICS OF KANT + 2. KANT ON EVOLUTION + + BY + DR. PAUL CARUS + + CHICAGO: + THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY + + + + +THE ETHICS OF KANT. + +IN CRITICISM OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S PRESENTATION OF KANTISM. + + +Mr. Herbert Spencer has published in _The Popular Science Monthly_ for +August, an essay on the Ethics of Kant; a translation of this article +had appeared in the July Number of the _Revue Philosophique_, and it +cannot fail to have been widely noticed. It is to be regretted that +unfamiliarity with the German language and perhaps also with Kant’s +terminology has led Mr. Spencer into errors to which attention is called +in the following discussion.[87] + +Mr. Spencer says: + + “If, before Kant uttered that often-quoted saying in which, + with the stars of Heaven he coupled the conscience of Man, as + being the two things that excited his awe, he had known more + of Man than he did, he would probably have expressed himself + somewhat otherwise.” + +Kant, in his famous dictum that two things excited his admiration, the +starry heaven above him and the conscience within him, contrasted two +kinds of sublimity.[88] The grandeur of the Universe is that of size and +extension, while the conscience of man commands respect for its moral +dignity. The universe is wonderful in its expanse and in its order of +mechanical regularity; the conscience of man is grand, being intelligent +volition that aspires to be in harmony with universal laws. + +Mr. Spencer continues: + + “Not, indeed, that the conscience of Man is not wonderful + enough, whatever be its supposed genesis; but the wonderfulness + of it is of a different kind according as we assume it to + have been supernaturally given or infer that it has been + naturally evolved. The knowledge of Man in that large sense + which Anthropology expresses, had made, in Kant’s day, but + small advances. The books of travel were relatively few, and + the facts which they contained concerning the human mind as + existing in different races, had not been gathered together and + generalized. In our days, the conscience of Man as inductively + known has none of that universality of presence and unity of + nature which Kant’s saying tacitly assumes.” + +Mr. Spencer apparently supposes that Kant believed in a supernatural +origin of the human conscience. This, however, is erroneous. + +Mr. Spencer’s error is excusable in consideration of the fact that some +disciples of Kant have fallen into a similar error. Professor Adler, of +New York, who attempts in the Societies for Ethical Culture to carry into +effect the ethics of Pure Reason, maintains that the commandments of the +_ought_ and “the light that shines through them come from beyond, but its +beams are broken as they pass through our terrestrial medium, and the +full light in all its glory we can never see.” + +Ethics based on an unknowable power, is mysticism; and mysticism does not +essentially differ from dualism and supernaturalism. + +Kant’s reasoning is far from mysticism and from supernaturalism. He +was fully convinced that civilized man with his moral and intellectual +abilities had naturally evolved from the lower state of an animal +existence. We read in his essay, “Presumable Origin of the History +of Mankind” (Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte. Editio +Hartenstein, Vol. IV, p. 321): + + “From this conception of the primitive history of mankind it + follows that the departure of man from the paradise represented + to him by his reason as the earliest place of sojourn of his + race, has been nothing else than the transition from the rude + condition of a purely animal existence to the condition of a + human being; a transition from the leading-strings of instinct + to direction by reason, in a word, from the protectorate of + nature to a status of freedom.” + +The view that the conscience of man is innate, in the sense of a +non-natural, of a mysterious, or even of a supernatural origin, is +untenable. Those disciples of Kant who entertain such views have +certainly misinterpreted their great master, and the passages adduced by +Mr. Spencer from so many sources are sufficient evidence of the fact that +“there are widely different degrees” [we should rather say kinds] “of +conscience in the different races.” Mr. Spencer continues: + + “Had Kant had these and kindred facts before him, his + conception of the human mind, and consequently his ethical + conception, would scarcely have been what they were. Believing, + as he did, that one object of his awe—the stellar Universe—has + been evolved,[89] he might by evidence like the foregoing + have been led to suspect that the other object of his awe—the + human conscience—has been evolved; and has consequently a + real nature unlike its apparent nature.” ... “If, instead of + assuming that conscience is simple because it seems simple to + careless introspection he had entertained the hypothesis that + it is perhaps complex—a consolidated product of multitudinous + experiences received mainly by ancestors and added to by + self—he might have arrived at a consistent system of Ethics.” + ... + + “In brief, as already implied, had Kant, instead of his + incongruous beliefs that the celestial bodies have had an + evolutionary origin, but that the minds of living beings on + them, or at least on one of them, have had a non-evolutionary + origin, entertained the belief that both have arisen by + Evolution, he would have been saved from the impossibilities of + his Metaphysics, and the untenabilities of his Ethics.” + +Mr. Spencer believes that Kant had assumed conscience to be “simple, +because it seems simple to careless introspection.” But there is no +evidence in Kant’s works for this assumption. On the contrary, Kant +reversed the old view of so-called “rational psychology” which considered +conscience as innate and which was based on the error that consciousness +is simple. Des Cartes’s syllogism _cogito ergo sum_ is based on this +idea, which at the same time served as a philosophical evidence for +the indestructibility and immortality of the _ego_. The simplicity of +consciousness had been considered as an axiom, until Kant came and showed +that it was a fallacy, a paralogism of pure reason. Dr. Noah Porter has +written, from an apparently dualistic standpoint, a sketch entitled “The +Ethics of Kant,” in which he says: + + “The skepticism and denials of Kant’s speculative theory + in respect to noumena, both material and psychical, had + unfortunately cut him off from the possibility of recognizing + the personal _ego_ as anything more than a logical fiction.” + +Kant says in his “Critique of Pure Reason”:[90] + + “In the internal intuition there is nothing permanent, for the + _Ego_ is but the consciousness of my thought.... From all this + it is evident that rational psychology has its origin in a mere + misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which lies at + the basis of the categories, is considered to be an intuition + of the subject as an object; and the category of substance is + applied to the intuition. But this unity is nothing more than + the unity in _thought_, by which no object is given; to which + therefore the category of substance cannot be applied.”[91] + +Concerning the statement that Kant had believed in the non-evolutionary +origin of living beings, we quote from his essay on _The Different Races +of Men_, Chap. III, where Kant speaks of “the immediate causes of the +origin of these different races.” He says: + + “The conditions (_Gründe_) which, inhering in the constitution + of an organic body, determine a certain evolutionary process + (_Auswickelung_[92]) are called, if this process is concerned + with particular parts, _germs_; if, on the other hand, it + touches only the size or the relation of the parts to one + another, I call it _natural capabilities_ (_natürliche + Anlagen_).”[93] + +And in a foot-note Kant makes the following remark: + + “Ordinarily we accept the terms natural science + (_Naturbeschreibung_) and natural history in one and the + same sense. But it is evident that the knowledge of natural + phenomena, as they _now are_, always leaves to be desired + the knowledge of that which they _have been_ before now and + through what succession of modifications they have passed in + order to have arrived, in every respect, to their present + state. _Natural History_, which at present we almost entirely + lack, would teach us the changes that have affected the form + of the earth, likewise, the changes in the creatures of the + earth (plants and animals), that they have suffered by natural + transformations and, arising therefrom, the departures from the + prototype of the original species, that they have experienced. + It would probably trace a great number of apparently different + varieties back to species of one and the same kind and would + convert the present so intricate school-system of Natural + Science into a natural system in conformity with reason.”[94] + +Kant has nowhere, so far as we know, made any objection to the idea of +evolution. But he opposed the theory that all life should have originated +from _one single_ kind. In reviewing and epitomizing Joh. Gottfr. +Herder’s work, “_Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit_,” Kant says: + + ... “Book II, treats of organized matter on the earth.... The + beginnings of vegetation.... The changes suffered by man and + beast through climatic influences.... In them all we find one + prevailing form and a similar osseous structure.... These + transitional links render it not at all impossible that in + marine animals, in plants, and, indeed, possibly in so-called + inanimate substances, one and the same fundamental principle + of organization may prevail, although infinitely cruder and + more complex in operation. In the sight of eternal being, which + beholds all things in one connection, it is possible that the + structure of the ice-particle, while receiving form, and of + the snowflake, while being crystallized, bears an analogous + relation to the formation of the embryo in a mother’s womb.... + The third book compares the structure of animals and plants + with the organization of man.... It was not because man was + ordained to be a rational creature that upright stature was + given him for using his limbs according to reason; on the + contrary he acquired his reason as a consequence of his upright + stature.... From stone to crystals, from crystals to metals, + from metals to plant-creation, from thence to the animal, + and ultimately to man, we have seen the form of organization + advancing, and with it the faculties and instincts of creatures + becoming more diversified, until at last they all became united + in the human form, in so far as the latter could comprise + them.... As the body increases by food, so does the mind by + ideas; indeed, we notice here the same laws of assimilation, of + growth, and of generation. In a word, an inner spiritual man is + being formed within us, which has a nature of its own and which + employs the body as an instrument merely.... Our humanity is + merely a preliminary training, the bud of a blossom to come. + Step by step does nature cast off the ignoble and the base, + while it builds and adds to the spiritual and continues to + fashion the pure and refined with increasing niceness; thus are + we in a position to hope from the artist-hand of nature that in + that other existence our bud of humanity will also appear in + its real and true form of divine manhood.” ... + +[Herder’s idea of evolution would stand on the whole if his conception of +“the spiritual” did not imply a preternatural agent.] + + “The present state of man is probably the link of junction + between two worlds.... Yet man is not to investigate himself in + this future state; he is to believe himself into it.” + +Kant makes no objection whatever to the evolutionary ideas of Herder. +But Herder was not free from supernaturalism and from fantastic ideas +in reference to the future development of man. He had not yet dropped +the dualistic conception of the ‘duplicity’ of man and believed in the +immortality of a distinct spiritual individual within his body. Kant’s +objection, therefore, is two-fold; 1) against Herder’s supernaturalism +which leads him beyond this world; and, 2) against the descent of _all_ +species from _one and the same genus_. He says: + + “In the gradation between the different species and individuals + of a natural kingdom, nature shows us nothing else than the + fact that it abandons individuals to total destruction and + preserves the species alone.... As concerns that _invisible_ + kingdom of active and independent forces, we fail to see why + the author, after having believed he could confidently infer + from organized beings, the existence of the rational principle + in man did not rather attribute this principle directly to + him merely as spiritual nature, instead of lifting it out of + chaos through the structural form of organised matter.... As + to the gradation of organized beings, our author is not to + be too severely reproached, if the scheme has not met the + requirements of his conception, which extends so far beyond + the limits of this world; for its application even to the + natural kingdoms here on earth leads to nothing. The slight + differences exhibited when species are compared with reference + to their common points of resemblance, are, where there is + such great multiplicity, a necessary consequence of just this + multiplicity. The assumption of common kinship between them, + inasmuch as one kind would have to spring from another and all + from one original and primitive species, or from one and the + same creative source (Mutterschoss)—the assumption of such + a common kinship would lead to ideas so strange that reason + shrinks from them, and we cannot attribute this idea to the + author without doing him injustice. Concerning his suggestions + in comparative anatomy through all species down to plants, + the workers in natural science must judge for themselves + whether the hints given for new observations, will be useful + and whether they are justified.... It is desirable that our + ingenious author who in the continuation of his work will find + more _terra firma_, may somewhat restrain his bright genius, + and that philosophy (which consists rather in pruning than in + fostering luxuriant growth) may lead him to the perfection of + his labors not through hints but through definite conceptions, + not by imagination but by observation, not by a metaphysical or + emotional phantasy but by reason, broad in its plan but careful + in its work.” + +Kant rejected certain conceptions of evolution, but he did not at all +show himself averse to the idea in general. He touched upon the subject +only incidentally and it is certain that he did not especially favor or +entertain the belief in a non-evolutionary origin of living beings. + +Before proceeding to the main points of his criticism, Mr. Spencer calls +attention to what he designates as Kant’s _abnormal_ reasoning. Mr. +Spencer says: + + “Something must be said concerning abnormal reasoning as + compared with normal reasoning.” ... + + “Instead of setting out with a proposition of which the + negation is inconceivable, it sets out with a proposition of + which the affirmation is inconceivable, and therefrom proceeds + to draw conclusions” ... + + “The first sentence in Kant’s first chapter runs thus: ‘Nothing + can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, + which can be called good without qualification, except a Good + Will.’” ... + + “Most fallacies result from the habit of using words without + fully rendering them into thoughts—passing them by with + recognitions of their meanings as ordinarily used, without + stopping to consider whether these meanings admit of being + given to them in the cases named. Let us not rest satisfied + with thinking vaguely of what is understood by ‘a Good Will,’ + but let us interpret the words definitely. Will implies the + consciousness of some end to be achieved. Exclude from it every + idea of purpose, and the conception of Will disappears. An + end of some kind being necessarily implied by the conception + of Will, the quality of the Will is determined by the quality + of the end contemplated. Will itself, considered apart from + any distinguishing epithet, is not cognizable by Morality at + all. It becomes cognizable by Morality only when it gains its + character as good or bad by virtue of its contemplated end as + good or bad.” ... + + “Kant tells us that a good will is one that is good in and for + itself without reference to ends.” + +It is unfortunate that Mr. Spencer misunderstood the first sentence of +Kant’s book (_Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten_). Kant does not +speak of “a good will without qualification,” nor does the expression +“without qualification” refer to “a will without reference to ends.” Kant +speaks of good will in opposition to other good things. Nothing, he +says, can without qualification (_ohne Einschränkung_) be called good, +except a good will.[95] Dr. Porter sums up the first page of Kant’s essay +in the following words: + + “The first section of the treatise opens with the memorable + and often-quoted utterance, that ‘nothing can be possibly + conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called + good without qualification, except a good will.’ If character + is compared with gifts of nature, as intelligence, courage, + and gifts of fortune, as riches, health, or contentment, all + these are defective, ‘if there is not a good will to correct + their possible perversion and to rectify the whole principle of + acting, and _adapt it to its end_.’[96] A man who is endowed + with every other good can never give pleasure to an impartial, + rational spectator unless he possesses a good will. ‘Thus a + good will appears to constitute the indispensable condition of + being worthy of happiness.’ ... ‘Moreover, a good will is good + not for what it effects but for what it intends, even when it + fails to accomplish its purposes, ... as when the man wills + the good of another and is impotent to promote it, or actually + effects just the opposite of what he proposes or wills.’” + +In the passages quoted by Dr. Porter, Kant speaks of “the _end_ to which +good will adapts other goods”; and in another passage of the same book, +Kant directly declares that “it is the _end_ that serves the will as +the objective ground of its self-determination.” Mr. Spencer must have +overlooked these sentences. Kant says: + + “The will is conceived as a power of determining itself to + action in accordance with the conception of certain laws. And + such a power can only be met with in rational beings. _Now it + is the END that serves the will as the objective ground of its + self-determination_, and this end, if fixed by reason alone, + must hold equally good for all rational creatures.” + + * * * * * + +Mr. Spencer interrupts his essay on the Ethics of Kant by a digression +on Kant’s conception of time and space. It would lead us too far at +present if we would follow Mr. Spencer on this ground also. A comparison +of Spencer’s remarks on the subject with Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” +will show that Kant’s view of space and time is radically different from +that view which Mr. Spencer represents as the Kantian conception of time +and space. + + * * * * * + +Kant rejects the idea that happiness is the end and purpose of life +and at the same time he declares that ethics must be based not on the +pursuit of happiness but on the categorical imperative or more popularly +expressed on our sense of duty. + +Mr. Spencer argues: + + “One of the propositions contained in Kant’s first chapter is + that ‘we find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself + with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness, + so much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction.’” ... + + “That which Kant should have said is that the _exclusive_ + pursuit of what are distinguished as pleasures and amusements + is disappointing.” ... + + “It is not, as Kant says, guidance by ‘a cultivated reason,’ + which leads to disappointment, but guidance by an uncultivated + reason.” + +The passage quoted by Mr. Spencer from Kant, reads in its context as +follows: + + “In the physical constitution of an organized being we take it + for granted[97] that no organ for any purpose will be found + in it but such as is also the fittest and best adapted for + that purpose. If in a being possessing reason and will, the + preservation, the prosperity, in a word, the happiness of that + being, constituted the actual purpose of nature, nature had + certainly adopted an extremely unwise expedient to this end, + had it made the reason of that being the executive agent of its + purposes in this matter. For all actions that it had to perform + with this end in view, and the whole rule of its conduct, would + have been far more exactly prescribed by _instinct_, and this + end would have been far more safely attained by this means than + can ever take place through the instrumentality of _reason_.” + ... + + “As a matter of fact we find that the more a cultivated + reason occupies itself with the purpose of enjoying life and + happiness, the farther does the person possessing it recede + from the state of true contentment; and hence there arises in + the case of many, and pre-eminently in the case of those most + experienced in the exercise of reason, if they are only frank + enough to confess it, a certain degree of misology or hate of + reason; for after weighing every advantage that they derive, + I will not say from the invention of all arts facilitating + ordinary luxury, but even from the sciences, (which after + all are in their eyes a luxury of the intellect,) they still + discover that virtually they have burdened themselves more with + toil and trouble than they have gained in point of happiness, + and thus, in the end, they are more apt to envy than contemn + the commoner type of men who are more immediately subject to + the guidance of natural instinct alone, and who do not suffer + their reason to influence in any great degree their acts and + omissions.” + +Kant uses the expression “cultivated reason” not in opposition to +“uncultivated reason,” but to “instinct” as that inherited faculty +which teaches a being to live in accordance with nature and its natural +conditions, without the interference of thought and reflection. + +That uncultivated reason would lead to disappointment, Kant never would +have denied. He would have added: “It does more, it leads to a speedy +ruin.” + +But if reason does not produce happiness, what then is the use of reason? +Kant answers, reason produces in man the good will. + +It is reason which enables man to form abstractions, to think in +generalizations and to conceive the import of universal laws. When his +will deliberately and consciously conforms to universal laws, it is good. +Kant says: + + “Thus will (viz. the good will) can not be the sole and whole + Good, but it must still be the highest Good and the condition + necessary to everything else, even to all desire of happiness.” + ... + + “To know what I have to do in order that my volition be good, + requires on my part no far-reaching sagacity. Unexperienced + in respect of the course of nature, unable to be prepared for + all the occurrences transpiring therein, I simply ask myself: + Can’st thou so will, that the maxim of thy conduct may become a + universal law? Where it can not become a universal law, there + the maxim of thy conduct is reprehensible, and that, too, not + by reason of any disadvantage consequent thereupon to thee or + even others, but because it is not fit to enter as a principle + into a possible enactment of universal laws.” + +If a maxim of conduct is fit to enter as a principle into a possible +enactment of universal laws, it will be found in harmony with the +cosmical laws; if not, it must come in conflict with the order of things +in the universe. It then cannot stand, and will, if persistently adhered +to, lead (perhaps slowly but inevitably) to certain ruin. + +Concerning the proposition that happiness may be regarded as the purpose +of life Kant in his review of Herder’s “Ideen zur Philosophie der +Geschichte der Menschheit” (Ed. H. IV, p. 190), speaks of the relativity +of happiness and its insufficiency as a final aim of life: + + ... “First of all the happiness of an animal, then that of a + child and of a youth, and lastly that of man! In all epochs + of human history, as well as among all classes and conditions + of the same epoch, that happiness has obtained which was in + exact conformity with the individual’s ideas and the degree + of his habituation to the conditions amid which he was + born and raised. Indeed, it is not even possible to form a + comparison of the degree of happiness nor to give precedence + to one class of men or to one generation over another.... + If this shadow-picture of happiness ... were the actual aim + of Providence, every man would have the measure of his own + happiness within him.... Does the author (Herder) think perhaps + that, if the happy inhabitants of Otaheite had never been + visited by more civilized peoples and were ordained to live + in peaceful indolence for thousands of years to come—that we + could give a satisfactory answer to the question why they + should exist at all and whether it would not have been just as + well that this island should be occupied by happy sheep and + cattle as that it should be inhabited by men who are happy only + through pure enjoyment?” + +Concerning the mission or purpose of humanity and its ultimate +realization, Kant interprets Herder’s views as follows: + + “It involves no contradiction to say that no individual + member of all the offspring of the human race, but that + only the species, fully attains its mission (Bestimmung). + The mathematician may explain the matter in his way. The + philosopher would say: the mission of the human race as a whole + is _unceasing progress_, and the perfection (Vollendung) of + this mission is a mere idea (although in every aspect a quite + useful one) of the aim towards which, in conformity with the + design of providence, we are to direct our endeavors.” + +We learn from the passages quoted from Kant that his idea of good will is +neither mystical and supernatural, nor is it vague. It is a conception +as logically and definitely defined as any mathematical definition. +Good will in the sense in which Kant defines it, is only possible in +a reasonable being by the power of its reason. The good will is the +intention of conforming to universal principles and thus of being in +harmony with the All. This good will is the corner-stone of Kant’s +ethics; it appears as the categoric imperative of duty, so to act that +the maxim of one’s conduct may be fit to become a universal law. It is +formulated in another passage: “Act so as if the maxim of thy conduct by +thy volition were to become a natural law.” + +It is easily seen that, in Kant’s conception, the _ought_ of morals (viz. +of the categoric imperative) does not stand in contradiction to the +_must_ of natural laws. Kant’s conception is monistic, not dualistic. +Kant says: + + “The moral _ought_ is man’s _inner_, _necessary_ volition as + being a member of an intelligible world and is _conceived_ by + him as an ought only in so far as he considers himself also as + a member of the sensory world.”[98] + +Our way of explaining it would be: Man _feels_ in his activity the +categoric imperative as an ought. So the snow crystal, if it were +possessed of sensation, would _feel_ its formation as an “ought.” But +both are, and to an outside observer will appear, as a “must.” + + * * * * * + +In the Spencerian system of ethics, which is utilitarianism, the moral +maxim or the idea of duty is not distinguished from the feeling of +pleasure or pain that accompanies ethical thoughts and acts, and their +consequences. This lack of distinction induces Mr. Spencer to consider +man’s pursuit of happiness as the basis of ethics. Accordingly the +aim of ethics, he maintains, is not the performance of duty, not the +realization of the good; to the utilitarian this is only the means. The +end of ethics is the greatest happiness of the greatest number. + +It is strange that Mr. Spencer’s essay contains a passage which, although +intended as a point of objection to Kant, is a corroboration of Kant’s +ethics, and a refutation of Mr. Spencer’s own views. While denying the +statement that “a cultivated reason, if applied with deliberate purpose +to the enjoyment of life and happiness, will fail to produce true +satisfaction,” Mr. Spencer says: + + “I assert that it is untrue on the strength of personal + experiences. In the course of my life there have occurred + many intervals, averaging a month each, in which the pursuit + of happiness was the sole object, and in which happiness was + successfully pursued. How successfully may be judged from the + fact that I would gladly live over again each of those periods + without change, an assertion which I certainly cannot make of + any portions of my life spent in the daily discharge of duties.” + +This statement, if it proves anything, proves that happiness is one thing +and duty is another; it proves that Kant’s theory of ethics, which is +based on the discharge of duty and not on the pursuit of happiness, is +correct, and that Mr. Spencer’s theory which identifies duty with the +pursuit of happiness, is wrong. + +However, we must in this place express our opinion that Mr. Spencer’s +statement _cannot_ be quite correct. The discharge of duty, unpleasant +though the drudgery part of it may have been, was undoubtedly accompanied +and followed by a certain satisfaction, which perhaps was less in +quantity, but certainly higher in quality than the pleasure derived from +the mere pursuit of happiness. And in the valuation of the intrinsic +and of the moral worth of pleasures, the quality alone should be taken +into consideration, not the quantity. In this sense only can an ethical +hedonism or utilitarianism be acceptable. The man whose pleasures and +pains are of a higher kind, of a nobler form, and of a better quality, is +morally and generally the more evolved man. And then, the basis of ethics +would be, not so much pleasure or happiness as the quality of pleasure or +happiness; it would be an aspiration to evolve toward a higher plane of +life, to shape our lives in nobler forms, and to enjoy nobler, greater, +and more spiritual pleasures, or, as Kant says, “unceasing progress.” + +Mr. Spencer’s assertion, if taken in the sense in which it stands, is a +contradiction of his ethical theory. But even if Mr. Spencer had declared +that the discharge of duty affords a kind of happiness or satisfaction, +as it truly does, there would still remain a deep gap between his and +Kant’s ethics. Mr. Spencer reduces ethics to mere worldly prudence; he +says that we must do the good in order to be happy, and for the sake of +its utility, and Kant says we must act so as to be in agreement with +universal law. Mr. Spencer says: + + “But now, supposing we accept Kant’s statement in full, what + is its implication? That happiness is the thing to be desired, + and, in one way or another, the thing to be achieved.” ... + + “An illustration will best show how the matter stands. To + a tyro in archery the instructor says: ‘Sir, you must not + point your arrow directly at the target; if you do, you will + inevitably miss it; you must aim high above the target, and you + may then possibly pierce the bull’s-eye.’ What now is implied + by the warning and the advice? Clearly that the purpose is + to hit the target. Otherwise there is no sense in the remark + that it will be missed if directly aimed at; and no sense in + the remark that to be hit, something higher must be aimed at. + Similarly with happiness. There is no sense in the remark that + happiness will not be found if it is directly sought, unless + happiness is a thing to be somehow or other obtained.” ... + + “So that in this professed repudiation of happiness as an end, + there lies the inavoidable implication that it _is_ the end.” + +The pursuit of happiness is by no means repudiated by Kant as wrong or +immoral; it is only maintained to be insufficient as a foundation of +ethics. Kant’s remark that happiness will not be found if it is directly +sought has no reference to his own ethics. Kant, speaking from the +standpoint of one who takes the view of utilitarianism, says that if a +cultivated reason applies itself to the sole purpose of enjoying life and +happiness, it will meet with a failure.[99] + +Any other explanation of the moral _ought_ than that from the Good Will, +Kant declares to be _heteronomy_. Will would no longer be itself, and the +principle of action would lie in something foreign to the will. Kant says: + + “Will in such a case would not be a law to itself; but the + object by its relation to the will would impose the law upon + the will.... This would admit of hypothetical imperatives + only: ‘I ought to do a certain thing, because I want something + else.’ The moral and therefore categorical imperative, on the + contrary, says: ‘I ought to act so or so, even if I had nothing + else in view.’ For instance: the hypothetical imperative + of heteronomy says: ‘I ought not to lie, if I ever wish to + preserve my honor.’ The categorical imperative says: ‘I ought + not to lie even if it would not in the least bring me to + shame.’” + +Mr. Spencer quotes the following passage from Kant: + + “I omit here all actions which are already recognized as + inconsistent with duty, although they may be useful for this + or that purpose, for with these the question whether they are + done _from duty_ can not arise at all, since they even conflict + with it. I also set aside those actions which really conform + to duty, but to which men have _no_ direct _inclination_, + performing them because they are impelled thereto by some + other inclination. For in this case we can readily distinguish + whether the action which agrees with duty is done _from + duty_, or from a selfish view. It is much harder to make this + distinction when the action accords with duty, and the subject + has besides a _direct_ inclination to it. For example, it is + always a matter of duty that a dealer should not overcharge an + inexperienced purchaser, and wherever there is much commerce + the prudent tradesman does not overcharge, but keeps a fixed + price for every one, so that a child buys of him as well as any + other. Men are thus _honestly_ served; but this is not enough + to make us believe that the tradesman has so acted from duty + and from principles of honesty: his own advantage required it; + it is out of the question in this case to suppose that he might + besides have a direct inclination in favor of the buyers, so + that, as it were, from love he should give no advantage to one + over another[!]. Accordingly the action was done neither from + duty nor from direct inclination, but merely with a selfish + view. + + “On the other hand, it is a duty to maintain one’s life, and, + in addition, every one has also a direct inclination to do + so. But on this account the often anxious care which most men + take for it has no intrinsic worth, and their maxim has no + moral import. They preserve their life _as duty requires_, no + doubt, but not _because duty requires_. On the other hand, + if adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away + the relish for life; if the unfortunate one, strong in mind, + indignant at his fate rather than desponding or dejected, + wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving + it—not from inclination or fear, but from duty—then his maxim + has a moral worth. + + “To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, + there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that + without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find + a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight + in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. + But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, + however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no + true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations.” + (pp. 17-19) + +Kant’s metaphysics of ethics is to practical ethics what pure mathematics +is to applied mathematics, or what logic is to grammar. Kant’s method of +reasoning _in abstracto_ everywhere shows the mathematical bent of his +mind. In a foot-note (Editio Hartenstein, IV), p. 258, he says: + + “As pure mathematics is distinguished from applied mathematics + and pure logic from applied logic, so may the pure philosophy + (the metaphysics) of ethics be distinguished from the applied + philosophy of ethics, that is, as applied to human nature. + By this distinction of terms it at once appears that ethical + principles are not based upon the peculiarities of human + nature but that they must be existent by themselves _a + priori_,—whence, for human nature, just as well as for _any_ + rational nature, practical rules can be derived.” + +Schleiermacher says: + + “A good is any agreement (“unity”) of definite sides [certain + aspects] of reason and nature.... The end of ethical praxis + is the highest good, _i. e._, the sum of all unions of nature + and reason.... The moral law may be compared to the algebraic + formula which (in analytical geometry) determines the course + [path] of a curve; the highest good may be compared to the + curve itself, and virtue, or moral power, to an instrument + arranged for the purpose of constructing the curve according to + the formula.” (Quoted from a translation of Ueberweg.) + +Kant declares in other passages that in examples taken from practical +life, it will be difficult to separate clearly and unmistakably the +sense of duty as the real moral motive from other motives, inclinations, +habits, etc. But such a distinction must be made, if the moral value of +motives is to be considered _in abstracto_. This is necessary for a clear +conception of the essential features of morality. Mr. Spencer has on +other occasions highly praised the power of generalization, which indeed +is fundamentally the same faculty, as thinking _in abstracto_; here, +however, he does not follow Kant’s argument, but declares “that the +assumed distinction between sense of duty and inclination is untenable.” +He says: + + “The very expression _sense_ of duty implies that the mental + state signified is a feeling; and if a feeling it must, + like other feelings, be gratified by acts of one kind and + offended by acts of an opposite kind. If we take the name + conscience, which is equivalent to sense of duty, we see the + same thing. The common expressions ‘a tender conscience,’ ‘a + seared conscience,’ indicate the perception that conscience + is a feeling—a feeling which has its satisfactions and + dissatisfactions, and which _inclines_ a man to acts which + yield the one and avoid the other—produces an _inclination_,” + (p. 476). + +It is quite true that every state of consciousness is a feeling, but +we can and must discriminate between consciousness or feeling and the +idea or thought which becomes conscious, in which the feeling appears, +and which is, so to speak, the special form of a certain feeling. The +consciousness and its special form, the feeling and the mental object +of feeling, are in reality one and the same. Yet they are different and +must _in abstracto_ be well distinguished. Mr. Spencer’s method is that +of generalization, but generalizing can lead to no satisfactory results, +if it is not constantly accompanied by discrimination. We must generalize +and discriminate. + +If a certain group of states of consciousness takes the form of a +logical syllogism, it must not be expected that logic will find its +explanation in feeling, although it cannot be denied that all the +states of consciousness are feelings. Not the feeling in this case is +to be explained, but logic. In our generalizations we must discriminate +_in abstracto_ between the feeling and the idea which feels. We must +positively abstract from feeling and cannot consider whether the feeling +of logical arguments is pleasant or unpleasant. Mr. Spencer’s method +of explaining ethics, if applied to logic, would be as follows: “Man’s +logical sense is a very complex feeling and has developed from simple +percepts such as can be observed in the lowest animals; percepts are +a higher evolved form of reactions against irritations such as take +place in protoplasm. The old method of explaining logic is that of +deduction, modern logic will be inductive. Formerly pure logic was +considered as a science _a priori_; but the evolution-philosophy shows +that logic is developed by steps, it appears _a priori_ to the individual +now, but it is in reality a consolidated product of multitudinous +experiences received mainly by ancestors and added to by self. Logical +sense accordingly finds its explanation in most simple feelings. Our +conceptions of logically incorrect feelings will be more and more +avoided because they will ultimately be found to be unpleasant; logical +correctness is striven for because of the feeling of satisfaction that +accompanies the conception of a logically correct conclusion.” + +Sense is feeling, there can be no doubt. Logical sense and mathematical +sense are feelings and if a person thinks a mathematical axiom or a +logical syllogism or an ethical maxim, he has a feeling. Logical sense +of reason is the product of evolution, and it cannot be denied either +that one man has a more logical or mathematical or moral sense than +another. But it does not follow that an explanation of mathematics, or +logic, or ethics, must be derived from feeling pleasure and pain, or +happiness. On the contrary we must abstract from feeling altogether and +concern ourselves with the object of feeling only, which is the idea +or the special form in which and as which feeling appears. States of +consciousness (never mind whether they are painful or pleasurable) must +be considered as moral if their mental object, _i. e._, the idea, the +thought, the motive, the form in which feeling becomes manifest, is in +harmony with the universal order of things. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Spencer declares that the world would be intolerable “if Kant’s +conception of moral worth were displayed universally in men’s acts.” +And it must be acknowledged that Kant’s ethics in their logical and +irrefutable rigidity not only impressed the literary world of his time +with the grandeur and sublimity of ethics; Kant’s ethics also astounded, +and overwhelmed his readers with awe. Virtue no longer appeared to be the +fervid enthusiasm of sentiments; it congealed into the cold idea of duty +which can be fixed in abstract rules and will operate like the correctly +calculated gear of a machine. Objections have been raised by some of +Kant’s own disciples; but it must be known that the Kantian view of +ethics does not suppress feelings, emotions and inclinations, it excludes +them only from an estimation of the moral worth of actions. Kant gave the +_coup de grace_ to all sentimentality which had taken the lead in ethical +questions too long. Mr. Spencer says: + + “If those acts only have moral worth which are done from a + sense of duty ... we must say that a man’s moral worth is + greater in proportion as the strength of his sense of duty + is such that he does the right thing not only apart from + inclination but against inclination. According to Kant, + then, the most moral man is the man ... who says of another + that which is true though he would like to injure him by a + falsehood; who lends money to his brother though he would + prefer to see him in distress.” + +Schiller, although an admirer of Kant, makes in his Xenions a similar +objection to this corollary of the ethics of pure reason. He says: + + “Willingly serve I my friends; but ’tis pity, I do it with pleasure. + And I am really vexed, that there’s no virtue in me!” + +And he answers in a second distich: + + “There is no other advice than that you try to despise friends, + And, with disgust, you will do what such a duty demands.” + +The difficulty is removed under the following consideration: A man with +good inclinations is less exposed to temptation than a man with bad +inclinations. If both act morally under conditions otherwise the same, +the latter has shown greater strength of moral purpose than the former. +The former’s character (viz., his inherited inclinations and habits which +represent the sum total of the moral energies of his ancestors,) is more +moral than that of the latter. But the latter deserves more credit than +the former for overcoming the temptation; he has in this special act +shown more moral strength of will than his more fortunate and morally +higher advanced fellow-man. To those who have accepted the Kantian view, +Mr. Spencer’s and Schiller’s objection can serve as a warning, not to +lose sight of emotions altogether. Man is not only a reasonable being, he +is at the same time a feeling creature. The instinctive faculties of man, +the so-called subconscious states, are the basis of his consciousness. +They form the roots of his soul from which spring the clear conceptions +of his reason. The more man’s habits and inclinations agree with morals, +the more strength of purpose is left for further ethical advancement and +moral progress. + +Similar objections have also been made to Kant’s mechanical explanation +of the origin of the planetary systems and milky ways. It seemed as if +the divinity of nature were replaced by the rigid law of gravity. In his +poem “The God’s of Greece,” Schiller complains: + + “Fühllos selbst für ihres Künstlers Ehre, + Gleich dem todten Schlag der Pendeluhr, + Dient sie knechtisch dem Gesetz der Schwere, + Die entgötterte Natur.” + + “Dead even to her Master’s praise, + Like lifeless pendulum’s vibration, + Lo, godless Nature now obeys, + Slave-like, the law of gravitation.”[100] + +Such objections are always raised when a scientific explanation destroys +the mystic view that a spirit or at least something unexplainable is +the supposed cause of certain phenomena. Our sentiments are so closely +connected and intimately interwoven with our errors that truth appears +hostile to sentiment, and it becomes difficult to part with errors +sanctified by emotion. Sentimentality always complains that clear thought +is an enemy of romanticism, and romanticism is the only possible poetry +to the taste of the sentimental. + +Now it cannot be denied that a one-sided knowledge not only appears +rigid, it truly _is_ so, and will be destructive of such emotions as +reverence, awe, æsthetic taste, religion and art. Criticism is a most +essential feature of science and philosophy, and how negative, how +desolate and melancholy appear the results of criticism! But the pruning +process of criticism is very wholesome, and true science will only profit +by discarding the vagueness of indistinct conceptions. Alpine lakes that +are really deep can only gain by lucidity. Thus the clearness of genuine +science and broad philosophy will only show the depth of truth into which +by all its lucidity our emotions can plunge without ever finding it +shallow or fathoming it in all its profundity. + +Kant’s doctrine of ethics is a truth that can stand the severest test. + +Ethics, in the sense of the word as used by Kant, can be found in +man only, in so far as he is a reasonable being. A truly reasonable +being does not allow himself to be guided by impulses but is led by +maxims. Inclinations and habits are remnants of instinct. Not he who +in instinctive good-naturedness acts morally, is the ethical man, but +he who deliberately and consciously considers himself a representative +of the general order of things. The man, who adopts such maxims as can +become universal principles, identifies his will with the laws of the +universe. Man’s moral dignity must not be sought in vague feelings or in +instinctive inspirations; it is based upon his reason and is developed in +so far only as he makes use of his reason. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[87] Quotations from Mr. Spencer’s essay will be distinguished +by quotation-marks, while those from Kant will appear in hanging +indentations. + +[88] Kant distinguishes two kinds of sublimity: 1) the mathematical, and +2) the dynamical. His definitions are: 1) sublime is that in comparison +with which everything else is small; and 2) sublime is that the mere +ability to conceive which shows a power of emotion (Gemüth), the latter +transcending any measurement by the senses. [1) Erhaben ist, mit welchem +im Vergleich alles andere klein ist. 2) Erhaben ist, was auch nur denken +zu können ein Vermögen des Gemüths beweist, das jeden Maasstab der Sinne +übertrifft. Editio Hartenstein, Vol. V, pp. 257, 258.] + +[89] The stellar Universe, of course, has not been evolved; Mr. Spencer +means that according to Kant’s mechanical explanation the planetary +systems and milky ways of the stellar Universe are in a state of constant +evolution. + +[90] Translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, pp. 244, 249. + +[91] Compare also Kant’s “Prol. zu jeder künftigen Metaphysik,” § 46. + +[92] We call attention to Kant’s peculiar expression, in this passage, of +_Auswickelung_ which has now yielded to the term _Entwickelung_. + +[93] Die in der Natur eines organischen Körpers (Gewächses oder Thieres) +liegenden Gründe einer bestimmten Auswickelung heissen, wenn diese +Auswickelung besondere Theile betrifft, _Keime_; betrifft sie aber nur +die Grösse oder das Verhältniss der Theile unter einander, so nenne ich +sie _natürliche Anlagen_. + +[94] Wir nehmen die Benennungen _Naturbeschreibung_ und _Naturgeschichte_ +gemeiniglich in einerlei Sinne. Allein es ist klar, dass die Kenntniss +der Naturdinge, wie sie _jetzt sind_, immer noch die Erkenntniss von +demjenigen wünschen lasse, was sie ehedem _gewesen_ sind und durch +welche Reihe von Veränderungen sie durchgegangen, um an jedem Ort +in ihren gegenwärtigen Zustand zu gelangen. Die _Naturgeschichte_, +woran es uns noch fast gänzlich fehlt, würde uns die Veränderung der +Erdgestalt, imgleichen die der Erdgeschöpfe (Pflanzen und Thiere), die +sie durch natürliche Wanderungen (sic! I take it as a misprint for +_Wandelungen_) erlitten haben, und ihre daraus entsprungenen Abartungen +von dem Urbilde der Stammgattung lehren. Sie würde vermuthlich eine +grosse Menge scheinbar verschiedener Arten zu Racen ebenderselben +Gattung zurückführen, und das jetzt so weitläuftigte Schulsystem der +Naturbeschreibung in ein physisches System für den Verstand verwandeln. + +[95] The original of the first sentence reads: “Es ist überall nichts in +der Welt, ja überhaupt auch ausser derselben zu denken möglich, was ohne +Einschränkung für gut könnte gehalten werden, als allein ein guter Wille.” + +[96] _Italics are ours._ + +[97] The phrase “we take it for granted” (in the original “nehmen wir es +als Grundsatz an)” reads in the translation quoted by Mr. Spencer: “we +take it as a fundamental principle.” Mr. Spencer objects to the passage +declaring that there _are_ many organs (such as rudimentary organs) in +the construction of organized beings which serve _no_ purpose. This +however does not stand in contradiction to Kant’s assumption that organs +of organized beings serve a special purpose. The rudimentary organs have +under other conditions served a purpose for which they then were fit and +well adapted and are disappearing now because no longer used. + +[98] Das moralische Sollen ist also ein eigenes nothwendiges Wollen als +Gliedes einer intelligiblen Welt, und wird nur sofern von ihm als Sollen +gedacht, als er sich zugleich wie ein Glied der Sinnenwelt betrachtet. +Ed. Hartenstein vol. IV. p. 303. + +[99] The passage referred to is quoted in full on page 16. + +[100] Slightly altered from B. W. BALL’S translation in THE OPEN COURT, +p. 83. + + + + +KANT ON EVOLUTION. + +IN CRITICISM OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S PRESENTATION OF KANTISM. + + +It is very strange that Mr. Herbert Spencer will again and again attack +the philosophy and ethics of Kant for views which Kant never held.[101] +It is possible that there are disciples of Kant who deny the theory of +evolution. Yet it is certain that Kant himself is not guilty of this +mistake. Thinkers who reject the theory of evolution are in this respect +as little entitled to call themselves disciples of Kant as, for instance, +the Sadducees were to call themselves followers of Christ. Kantian +philosophy was foremost in the recognition of the need of evolution, and +that at a time when public interest was not as yet centered upon it. + +Mr. Spencer’s merits in the propagation of the theory of evolution are +undeniable, and he deserves our warmest respect and thanks for the +indefatigable zeal he has shown in the performance of this great work, +for the labors he has undergone, and the sacrifices he has made for it. +Yet recognising all that Mr. Spencer has done, we should not be blind to +the fact that Kant’s conception of evolution is even at the present day +more in conformity with the facts of natural science than Mr. Spencer’s +philosophy, although the latter commonly goes by the name of the +philosophy of evolution. + +It is painful to note that in many places where Mr. Spencer refers to +Kant’s philosophy, he does it slightingly, as though Kant were one of the +most irrational of thinkers. Kant’s reasoning is denounced as “abnormal” +and “vicious.” I find such phrases as, “It is a vice of Kant’s +philosophy ...,” “If Kant had known more of Man than he did ...,” etc. +Mr. Spencer characterises Kant’s method as follows: + + “Instead of setting out with a proposition of which the + negative is inconceivable, it sets out with a proposition of + which the affirmation is inconceivable, and proceeds to draw + conclusions therefrom.” + +These attacks of Mr. Spencer on Kant are not justifiable. Kant is not +guilty of the faults for which he is arraigned by Mr. Spencer. + + * * * * * + +It is, however, fair to state that these misunderstandings appear +excusable if the difficulties are borne in mind with which the English +student of Kant is confronted. First, Kant cannot be understood without +taking into consideration the historical development of his philosophy, +and, secondly, most translations of the fundamental terms, he employs, +are so misleading that errors can scarcely be avoided. + +Kant’s philosophy is by no means a perfected system; it rather represents +(as perhaps necessarily all philosophies do) the development of a +thinker’s mind. The “Critique of Pure Reason” especially shows traces +of the state of Kant’s mind at different periods, and thus it is that +we discover passages which closely considered will be found to be +contradictory. When reading this remarkable work we feel like travelers +walking over the petrified relics of a powerful eruption. There are +strata of ideas of the oldest formation close to the thoughts of a recent +date. There are also vestiges of intermediate phases. Here they stand +in the petrification of printed words, peacefully side by side, as +memorials of a great revolution in the development of human thought. It +is this state of things which more than anything else makes of Kant’s +writings such difficult reading. At the same time it is obvious that we +cannot simply take the results of Kant’s philosophy; we must follow him +in the paths by which he arrived at any given proposition. + +There is no philosopher that has been worse misinterpreted than Kant; +and the English interpreters of Kant have succeeded in mutilating his +best thoughts so that this hero of progress appears as a stronghold of +antiquated views. Mistranslations or misconceptions of his terms are +to a great extent the cause of this singular fate. As an instance we +mention the errors that attach to Kant’s term _Anschauung_. _Anschauung_ +is the present object of our senses; it is the impression a man has +from looking at a thing and might have been translated by “perception” +or perhaps “sensation.” It is usually translated by “intuition.” The +_Anschauung_ of objects comprises the data of knowledge, and they are +previous to our reflection upon them. An intuition in the sense of the +English Intuitionalists is defined as “a presentation which can be +given previously to all thought,” yet this presentation is supposed +to be a kind of revelation, a knowledge that comes to us without our +contemplation, a cognition the character of which is immediate as well as +mysterious; in short something that is supernatural. + +How different is Kant’s philosophy, for instance, if his position +with reference to time and space is mistaken! “Time and Space are our +_Anschauung_,” Kant says. But his English translators declare: “Kant +maintained that space and time are intuitions.” What a difference it +makes if intuition is interpreted in the sense applied to it by the +English Intuitionalist School instead of its being taken in the original +meaning of the word _Anschauung_. + + * * * * * + +Any one who knows Kant through Mr. Spencer’s representations only, must +look upon him as having the most perverse mind that could possibly +exist; and yet it is Kant from whom Spencer has indirectly derived the +most characteristic feature of his philosophy. What is Mr. Spencer’s +agnosticism but a popularisation of Kant’s view that things in themselves +are unknowable? + +We conclude from the animosity which Mr. Spencer shows toward Kant that +he does not know how much in this respect he agrees with Kant, how much +he has unconsciously imbibed from the _Zeitgeist_ which in part was +formed under the influence of this huge error of the great philosopher. + +I feel confident that any clear thinker who studies Kant and arrives +along with him at the “thing in itself” will soon free himself from this +error of Kantian thought. Kant himself suggests to us the method by which +we are to find the way out of agnosticism. As a proof I quote the views +of two independent thinkers; both influenced by Kant’s criticism but +neither a blind follower. Professor Mach says: + + “I have always felt it as a special good fortune, that early + in my life, at about the age of fifteen, I happened to find + in the library of my father Kant’s ‘Prolegomena to Any + Future Metaphysic.’ The book made at that time a powerful, + ineffaceable impression upon me that I never afterwards + experienced to the same degree in any of my philosophical + reading. Some two or three years later I suddenly discovered + the superfluous rôle that ‘the thing in itself’ plays.” _The + Monist_, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 65 and 66. + +And Schiller guided by similar considerations says in one of his Xenions: + + “Since Metaphysics, of late, without heirs to her fathers was gathered: + Under the hammer are now ‘things in themselves’ to be sold.” + +The latest attack of Mr. Spencer upon Kantism is in the article “Our +Space-Consciousness,” in _Mind_, written in reply to Professor Watson. +Mr. Spencer there repeats his misconception of Kantism, so that I feel +urged to utter a few words of protest against his gross misrepresentation +of Kant’s views. I shall confine myself mainly to quotations from Kant’s +works—and the passages quoted will speak for themselves. Should there +indeed be any disciples of Kant who are, as Mr. Spencer says, “profoundly +averse to that evolutionary view which contemplates mind as having had a +genesis conforming to laws like those conformed to by the genesis of the +body,” these quotations will suffice to prove that they have misconstrued +the views of their master. Philosophers hostile to the theory of +evolution had better select another patron for their ideas. Kant is too +radical a mind to protect those men who in the domains of thought give +the signal for retreat. + +Mr. Spencer adopted the evolution theory as it was presented by Von Baer, +who explains “_Entwickelung_” as a progress from the homogeneous to the +heterogeneous. + +Baer’s “Developmental History of Animals” was published in 1828. Mr. +Spencer adopted the theory in 1854. But the history of the theory of +evolution is older than Von Baer’s book. Professor Baer concludes +his work with a few corollaries among which near the end we find the +following passage: + + “If we survey the contents of the whole Scholia, there + follows from them a general result. We found that the effect + of generation continues to advance from a part to a whole + [Schol. 2.]; that in development, self-dependence increases + in correspondence with its environment [Schol. 2.], as well as + the determinateness of its structure [Schol. 1.]; that in the + internal development special parts shape themselves forth from + the more general, and their differentiation increases [Schol. + 3.]; that the individual, as the possessor of a fixed organic + form, changes by degrees from more general forms into more + special [Schol. 5.]. + + “The general result of our inquiry and consideration can now + well be declared as follows: + + “That the developmental history of the individual is the + history of increasing individuality in every relation; that + is, Individualisation. + + “This general conclusion is, indeed, so plain, that it needs + no proof from observation, but seems evident _a priori_. But + we believe that this evidentness is merely the stamp of truth, + and therefore is its guarantee. Had the history of development + from the outset been perceived as just expressed, it could and + should have been inferred, that the individual of a determinate + animal type attains to this by changing from a general into + a special form. But experience teaches everywhere, that + deductions are always safer if their results are discovered + beforehand by observation. Mankind would have obtained a still + greater intellectual possession than it really has, had this + been otherwise. + + “But if this general conclusion has truth and contents, it is + _one fundamental idea_ which runs through all forms and degrees + of animal development, and governs every single relation. It is + the same idea that collected in space the distributed particles + into spheres and united them in solar systems; which caused the + disintegrated dust on the surface of our metallic planet to + grow up into living forms; but this idea is nothing else than + life itself, and the words and syllables in which it expresses + itself, are the different forms of life.” + +These corollaries were not inserted by Baer because he intended to +proclaim a new truth, but simply to excite a popular interest in a +strictly scientific work, in order to extend the circle of its readers. +Baer says in the preface: + + “So much about the first part. In order to procure for the + work readers and buyers, I have added a second part in which + I make some general remarks under the title of Scholia and + Corollaries. They are intended to be sketches of the confession + of my scientific faith concerning the development of animals, + as it was formed from the observation of the chick and by other + investigations.” + + * * * * * + +The “Encyclopædia Britannica” says of Baer that he “prepared the way for +Mr. Spencer’s generalisation of the law of organic evolution as the law +of all evolution.”[102] + +Baer declares that individualisation is “the one fundamental idea that +goes through _all_ the forms of cosmic and animal development.” The +generality of the law of evolution is clearer in the language employed +by Baer, in the full context of the Scholia than appears from the short +statement of the “Encyclopædia Britannica.” Nevertheless it is clear +enough in the quoted passage that Baer made a statement of universal +application. How can such a universal statement be made more general? + +We must add here that Mr. Spencer and his disciples overvalue the +importance of generalisation. It is not the power of generalisation that +makes the philosopher and the scientist but the power of discrimination. +The habit of generalising whatever comes under our observation is very +common among the uneducated and uncivilised, and almost nine tenths of +human errors arise from unwarranted generalisations. + +In Kant’s time the interest in the theory of evolution was confined to a +few minds. It is well known that Goethe was one of its most enthusiastic +supporters.[103] In the middle of the eighteenth century there were +three views proposed to explain the origin and the development of +organised beings: (1) Occasionalism, (2) the theory of Evolution, and +(3) the theory of Epigenesis. Occasionalism maintained that God created +on each new occasion a new animal. The word evolution was used in a +different sense from that in which it is now understood: evolutionism, as +maintained by Bonnet, Haller, and others, was the view that the sperma +contained a very small specimen of the animal that was to grow from it. +The hen’s egg was supposed to contain an excessively minute but complete +chicken. The theory of epigenesis, however, propounded in 1759 by Caspar +Friedrich Wolff in his “Theoria Generationis,” explained development +by additional growth, and it is this theory of epigenesis which later +on, after the total defeat of the old evolutionism, was called (but +improperly) the evolution theory. The word “evolution” has thus again +admitted the erroneous idea of an unfolding. + +In Kant’s time the battle between the occasionalists, the evolutionists, +and the adherents of the epigenesis theory was hot indeed; and Kant +unquestionably gave preference to the epigenesis theory. The most +important passage on the subject appears in his “Critique of Judgment.” +It is as follows: + + “If now the teleological principle of the generation of + organised beings be accepted, as it would be, we can account + for their internally adapted form either by _Occasionalism_ + or by _Prestabilism_.[104] According to the first, the + supreme world-cause would, in agreement with its idea, on the + occasion of every coition directly give the proper organic + form to the material thereby blended; according to the second, + it would have implanted into the original products of its + designing wisdom merely the power by means of which an organic + being produces its like and the species itself is constantly + maintained and likewise the death of individuals is continually + replaced by their own nature, which is operating at the same + time for their destruction. + + “If we assume occasionalism for the production of organised + beings, nature is thereby wholly discarded, and with it the use + of reasoning in determining the possibility of such kinds of + products; therefore, it cannot be supposed that this system is + accepted by any one who has had to do with philosophy.” + + “As to _Prestabilism_, it can proceed in a two-fold manner, + namely, it considers every organic being produced by its like, + either as the _educt_ or as the _product_ of the first. The + system which considers generated beings as mere _educts_ is + called that of _individual preformation_, or also the _theory + of evolution_; that which makes generated beings _products_ is + named the system of _epigenesis_. The latter can also be called + a system of _generic preformation_, because the productive + power of those generating was virtually preformed to agree with + the internal adapted arrangements that fell to the lot of their + race. The opposing theory to this view should be named that + of individual preformation, or still better, the _theory of + evolution_.” + + “The defenders of the theory of evolution, who exempt each + individual from the formative power of nature, in order to + derive the same directly from the hand of the Creator, would + not dare to permit this to happen in accordance with the + hypothesis of occasionalism, so that coition would be a mere + formality, a supreme national world-cause having decided to + form every particular fœtus by direct interference, and to + resign to the mother only its development and nourishment. + They declared themselves in favor of preformation, _as though + it were not the same to make the required forms arise in a + supernatural manner at the beginning of the world, as during + its progress_; and as if a great multitude of supernatural + arrangements would not rather be dispensed with through + occasional creation which were necessary in order that the + embryo formed at the beginning of the world should, throughout + the long period up to its development, not suffer from the + destructive forces of nature, but endure and maintain itself + intact; moreover, an immensely greater number of such preformed + beings would be made than ever would be developed, and with + them as many creations be thus rendered unnecessary and + purposeless. They still, however, resign at least something to + nature, in order not to fall in with complete hyperphysics, + which can dispense with explanation from nature. They still + held fast indeed, to their hyperphysics; even finding in + monsters (which it must be impossible to regard as designs + of nature) cases of adaptation which call for admiration, + although the only purpose of that adaptedness might be to make + an anatomist take offence at it as a purposeless adaptedness, + and have a sense of melancholy admiration. Yet they could + not well fit the generation of hybrids into the system of + preformation, but were obliged still further to endow the sperm + of male creatures with a designedly acting power, whereas they + had otherwise accorded it nothing except mechanical force to + serve as the first means of nourishment of the embryo; yet + this designedly acting force, in the case of the products of + generation between two creatures of the same kind, they would + grant to neither of them. + + “If on the contrary the great advantage was not at once + recognised which the theory of epigenesis possessed over the + former in view of the experimental foundation on which the + proof of it rested; yet reason would be especially favorably + predisposed from the outset for this mode, of explanation, + inasmuch as it regards nature—with reference to the things + which originally can be conceived as possible only in + accordance with the theory of causality and design, at least + so far as propagation is concerned—as self-producing and + not merely as developing, and thus with the least possible + employment of the supernatural, leaves all that comes + afterwards, from the very beginning on, to nature: without + concerning itself with the original beginning, with regard to + the explanation of which physics in general miscarries, try + with what chain of causes it may.” + +Kant recognises neither the stability of species nor any fixed limits +between them. And this one maxim alone suffices to prove that he was +of the same opinion as the great biologist who wrote the “Origin of +Species.” Kant says (Ed. Hart. III. p. 444): + + “_Non datur vacuum formarum_, that is, there are not different + original and primitive species, which were, so to say, isolated + and separated by an empty space from one another, but all the + manifold species are only divisions of a single, chief, and + general species; and from this principle results again this + immediate inference: _datur continuum formarum_, that is, all + differences of species border on each other, and allow no + transition to one another by a leap, but only through very + small degrees of difference, by which we can arrive at one + from another; in one word, there are no species or sub-species + which, according to reason, would be _next_ each other in + affinity, but intermediate species are always possible, whose + difference from the first and second is less than their + difference from one another.” + +In Kant’s “Critique of Judgment” (§. 80) we find the following passage: + + “The agreement of so many species of animals, with reference + to a definite, common scheme, which appears not only to be + at the foundation of their bony structure, but also of the + arrangement of their other parts, in which, by abridgment of + one and prolongation of another, by envelopment of this and + unfolding of that, a wonderful simplicity of plan has been able + to produce so great a diversity of species—this agreement casts + a ray of hope, although a weak one, in the mind, that here, + indeed, something might be accomplished with the principle of + the mechanism of nature, without which in general there can be + no physical science. + + “This analogy of forms, so far as they appear, notwithstanding + all their diversity, to be produced after the model of a common + prototype, strengthens the conjecture of a real relationship + between the same by generation from a common ancestral + source, through the gradual approach of one animal species to + another, from man, in whom the principle of design appears + to be best proved, to the polyp, from this to the moss and + lichen, and finally to the lowest stage of nature perceptible + to us, to crude matter, from which and its forces, according + to mechanical laws (like those which work in the production + of crystals), the whole technic of nature (which is so + incomprehensible to us in organised beings that we imagine + another principle is necessitated for their explanation) + appears to be derived.[105] + + “The Archæologist of nature is now free to make that great + family of beings (for such we must conceive it, if the + uninterrupted relationship is to have a foundation) arise out + of the extant vestiges of the oldest revolutions, following + every mechanism known to him or which he can suppose.” + +Kant adds in a foot-note: + + “An hypothesis of such a kind can be named a daring venture of + reason, and there may be few of the most sagacious naturalists, + through whose minds it has not sometimes passed. For it is not + absurd, as the _generatio equivoca_, by which is understood + the production of an organised being through the mechanical + action of crude unorganised matter. But it would still be + _generatio univoca_ in the common understanding of the word, + in so far only as something organic was produced out of + another organic body, although specifically distinguished + from it; for instance, if certain aquatic animals by and by + formed into amphibia, and from these after some generations + into land animals. _A priori_ this does not contradict the + judgment of pure reason. Only experience shows no example + thereof; according to it, rather, all generation which we know + is _generatio homonyma_ (not mere _univoca_ in opposition to + production out of unorganised material), that is, the bringing + forth of a product homogeneous in organisation, with the + generator; and _generatio heteronyma_, so far as our actual + experience of nature goes is nowhere met with.” + +The treatise “Presumable Origin of Humanity,” Kant sums up in the +following sentence: + + “From this representation of the earliest human history it + results, that the departure of man from what, as the first + abode of his kind, his judgment represented as Paradise, was + no other than the transition of mere animal creatures out of + barbarism into man, out of the leading-strings of instinct into + the guidance of reason, in a word, out of the guardianship of + nature into the state of freedom.” + +In his work “Upon the Different Races of Mankind,” Kant discusses the +origin of the species of man in a way which would do honor to a follower +of Darwin. It is written in a spirit which recognises the difference of +conditions as the causes that produce different species. We select a few +passages from this work. + +In a foot-note we read: + + “Ordinarily we accept the terms natural science + (_Naturbeschreibung_) and natural history in one and the + same sense. But it is evident that the knowledge of natural + phenomena, as they _now are_, always leaves to be desired + the knowledge of that which they _have been_ before now, and + through what succession of modifications they have passed in + order to have arrived, in every respect, at their present + state. _Natural History_, which at present we almost entirely + lack, would teach us the changes that have effected the form + of the earth, likewise, the changes in the creatures of the + earth (plants and animals) that they have suffered by natural + transformations and, arising therefrom, the departures from the + prototype of the original species that they have experienced. + It would probably trace a great number of apparently different + varieties back to a species of one and the same kind, and would + convert the present so intricate school-system of Natural + Science into a natural system in conformity with reason.” + +We adduce another passage, no less remarkable in clearness, which proves +that Kant has a very definite idea, not only of the gradual evolution of +man, but also of the survival of the fittest: + + “The cry which a child scarcely born utters, has not the tone + of misery, but of irritation, and violent rage; not the result + of pain, but of vexation about something; probably for the + reason that it wishes to move itself and feels its incapacity, + like a captive when freedom is taken from him. What purpose + can nature have in providing that a child shall come with a + loud cry into the world, which for it and the mother is, in the + _rude natural state_, full of danger? Since a wolf, a pig even, + would in the absence of the mother, or through her feebleness + owing to her delivery, be thus attracted to devour it. But + no animal except man as he now is announces with noise its + new-born existence; which in the wisdom of nature appears to + be arranged _in order that the species shall be preserved_. We + must also assume that in what was an early epoch of nature for + this class of animals (namely in the period of barbarism) this + outcry of the child at its birth did not exist; consequently + only later on a second epoch appeared, after both parents had + arrived at that degree of civilisation which was required for + home-life; yet without knowing how and by what interweaving + causes nature arranges such a development. This remark leads us + far; for example, to the thought whether after the same epoch, + still a third did not follow accompanied by great natural + revolutions, during which an orang-outang or a chimpanzee + perfected the organs which serve for walking, for feeling + objects, and for speech, and thus evolved the limb-structure of + man; in which animals was contained an organ for the exercise + of the function of reason, which by social cultivation was + gradually perfected and developed.” + +Kant’s view concerning the origin of the biped man from quadruped animal +ancestors is most unequivocally stated. + +In a review of Dr. Moscati’s Lecture upon the difference of structure in +animals and in men, Kant says: + + “Dr. Moscati proves that the upright walk of man is constrained + and unnatural; that he is indeed so constructed that he may + be able to maintain and move in this position, but that, + although by needful and constant habit he formed himself thus, + inconvenience and disease arise therefrom, which sufficiently + prove, that he was misled by reason and imitation to deviate + from the first animal arrangement. Man is not constructed + internally different from other animals that go on all fours. + When now he raises himself his intestines, particularly + the embryo of pregnant individuals, come into a pendulous + situation and a half reversed condition, which, if it often + alternates with the lying position or that on all-fours, cannot + precisely produce specially evil consequences, but, by constant + continuance, causes deformities and numerous diseases. Thus, + for example, the heart, because it is compelled to hang free, + elongates the blood vessels to which it is attached, assumes + an oblique position since it is supported by the diaphragm and + slides with its end against the left side—a position wherein + man, especially at full growth, differs from all other animals, + and thereby receives an inevitable inclination to aneurism, + palpitation, asthma, chest-dropsy, etc., etc. With the upright + position of man the mesentery, pulled down by the weight of the + intestines, sinks perpendicularly thereunder, is elongated and + weakened, and prepared for numerous ruptures. In the mesenteric + vein which has no valves, the blood moves slowly and with + greater difficulty (it having to ascend against the course of + gravity) than would happen with the horizontal position of the + trunk....” + + “We could add considerably to the reasons just adduced to + show that our animal nature is really quadrupedal. Among all + four-footed animals there is not a single one that could not + swim if it accidentally fell into the water. Man alone drowns, + except in cases where he has learned to swim. The reason is + because he has laid aside the habit of going on all-fours; for + it is by this motion that he would keep himself up in the water + without the exercise of any art, and by which all four-footed + creatures, who otherwise shun the water, swim....” + + “It will be seen, accordingly, that the first care of nature + was that man should be preserved as animal for _himself and + his species_, and for that end the position best adapted to + his internal structure, to the lay of the fœtus, and to his + preservation in danger, was the quadrupedal position; we see, + moreover, that a germ of reason is placed in him, whereby, + after the development of the same, he is destined for _social + intercourse_, and by the aid of which he assumes the position + which is in every case the most fitted for this, namely, the + bipedal position,—thus gaining upon the one hand infinite + advantages over animals, but also being obliged to put up with + many inconveniences that result from his holding his head so + proudly above his old companions.” + +[[106] In the double-leaded quotation on pages 43 and 44 Kant speaks +about the explanation of organised life from man down to the polyp +“according to mechanical laws like those which work in the production +of crystals,” and he adds, in organised beings the whole technic of +nature is so incomprehensible to us “that we imagine another principle is +necessitated for their explanation.” + +This “other principle” would be the principle of design, or the +teleological explanation of phenomena. In his old age Kant inclined more +to teleology than in his younger years, and it is for this reason that +Professor Ernst Haeckel accuses Kant of inconsistency. + +After having pointed out that “Kant is one of the few philosophers +that combine a well-founded knowledge of the natural sciences with +extraordinary precision and depth of speculation” and further that “he +was the first who taught ‘the principle of the struggle for existence’ +and ‘the theory of selection.’” Haeckel says in his “Natürliche +Schöpfungsgeschichte,” 8th edition, p. 91: + + “Wir würden daher unbedingt in der Geschichte der + Entwickelungslehre unserem gewaltigen Königsberger Philosophen + den ersten Platz einräumen müssen, wenn nicht leider diese + bewundernswürdigen monistischen Ideen des jungen Kant später + durch den überwältigenden Einfluss der dualistisch christlichen + Weltanschauung ganz zurückgedrängt worden wären.” + +This “influence of the dualistic Christian world-conception” is according +to Haeckel, Kant’s recognition of a teleological causation in the realm +of organised life. Haeckel says on the same place: + + “Er behauptet, dass sich im Gebiete der anorganischen Natur + unbedingt sämmtliche Erscheinungen aus mechanischen Ursachen, + aus bewegenden Kräften der Materie selbst, erklären lassen, im + Gebiete der anorganischen Natur dagegen nicht.” + +Haeckel does not stand alone in denouncing the old Kant. Schopenhauer +distinguishes between the author of the first and the author of the +second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” regarding the former +only as the real Kant. These accusations are not without foundation, but +we believe with Max Müller that they have been unduly exaggerated. + +As to teleology for which Kant’s preference appears to be more strongly +marked in his later than in his younger years we should say that it is +a problem that should, in an historical investigation, as to whether or +not Kant was a consistent evolutionist, be treated independently. No one +can deny that there is an adaptation to ends in the domain of organised +life. It is not so much required to deny teleology in the domain of +organised nature as to purify and critically sift our views of teleology. +There is a kind of teleology which does not stand in contradiction to the +causation of efficient causes so called. + +Mr. Spencer’s denunciations of Kant would have some foundation, if he had +reference to the old Kant alone. But everyone who censures Kant for the +errors of his later period is bound to qualify his statement, and indeed +whenever such strictures of Kantism appear I find them expressly stated +as having reference to “the old Kant.” + +That Kant who is a living power even to-day is the young Kant, it is +the author of the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason.” He is +generally called “the young Kant,” although he was not young; he was, +as we say, in his best years. The old Kant who proclaimed that he “must +abolish knowledge in order to make room for faith” is a dead weight +in our colleges and universities. The young Kant is positive, the old +Kant is agnostic. The young Kant was an investigator and naturalist of +the first degree; he gave an impetus to investigation that it had never +before received from philosophy. The old Kant, I should not exactly say +reverted but certainly, neglected the principles of his younger years +and thus became the leader of a reactionary movement from which sprang +two offshoots very unlike each other but children of the same father; +the Oxford transcendentalism as represented by Green and the English +agnosticism as represented by Mr. Spencer. + +It is strange that Mr. Spencer has so little knowledge concerning the +evolution of the views he holds. If he were more familiar with the +history of the idea “that the world-problem is insolvable,” he would show +more reverence toward the old Kant and his mystical inclinations; for +Kant, whatever Mr. Spencer may say against it, is the father of modern +agnosticism.[107]] + + * * * * * + +The history of Mr. Spencer’s philosophical development shows that the +first idea which took possession of his mind and formed the centre of +crystalisation for all his later views was M. Condorcet’s optimism. +Condorcet believed in progress; he was convinced that in spite of all the +tribulations and anxieties of the present, man would at last arrive at +a state of perfection. He saw a millennium in his prophetic mind, which +alas!—if the law of evolution be true—can never be realised. Condorcet +died a martyr to his ideals. He poisoned himself in 1799 to escape death +by the Guillotine. + +The influence of Condorcet’s work _Esquisse d’un tableau historique +des progrès de l’esprit humain_ is traceable not only in Mr. Spencer’s +first book, “Social Statics,” published in 1850, but in all his later +writings. How can a true evolutionist believe in the Utopia of a state +of perfect adaptation? Does not each progress demand new adaptations? +Take as an instance the change from walking on four feet to an upright +gait. Did not this progress itself involve man in new difficulties, to +which he had to adapt himself? Let a labor-saving machine be invented, +how many laborers lose their work and how many others are in demand! The +transition from one state to the other is not easy, and as soon as it is +perfected new wants have arisen which inexorably drive humanity onward on +the infinite path of progress which can never be limited by any state of +perfection. There is a constant readjustment necessary, and if we really +could reach a state of perfect adaptation human life would drop into the +unconsciousness of mere reflex motions. + +Any one who understands the principle of evolution and its universal +applicability, will recognise that there can be no standstill in the +world, no state of perfect adaptation. Our solar system has evolved, as +Kant explained in his “General Cosmogony and Theory of the Heavens,” out +of a nebula, and is going to dissolve again into a nebular state. So our +social development consists in a constant realisation of ideals. We may +think that if we but attain our next and dearest ideal, humanity will be +satisfied forever. But as soon as we have realised that ideal, we quickly +get accustomed to its benefits. It becomes a matter of course and another +ideal higher still than that just realised appears before our mental gaze. + +Herder, in his “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind,” not +unlike Mr. Spencer, was also under the spell of the Utopian ideal, that +humanity will reach at last a state of perfect happiness. Kant, in his +review of Herder’s book, discusses the relativity of happiness and its +insufficiency as a final aim of life. He says: + + “First of all the happiness of an animal, then that of a + child and of a youth, and lastly that of man! In all epochs + of human history, as well as among all classes and conditions + of the same epoch, that happiness has obtained which was in + exact conformity with the individual’s ideas and the degree + of his habituation to the conditions amid which he was + born and raised. Indeed, it is not even possible to form a + comparison of the degree of happiness nor to give precedence + to one class of men or to one generation over another.... + If this shadow-picture of happiness ... were the actual aim + of Providence, every man would have the measure of his own + happiness within him.... Does the author (Herder) think perhaps + that, if the happy inhabitants of Otaheiti had never been + visited by more civilised peoples and were ordained to live + in peaceful indolence for thousands of years to come—that we + could give a satisfactory answer to the question why they + should exist at all, and whether it would not have been just + as well that this island should be occupied by happy sheep and + cattle as that it should be inhabited by men who are happy only + through pure enjoyment?” + + “It involves no contradiction to say that no individual + member of all the offspring of the human race, but that + only the species, fully attains its mission (Bestimmung). + The mathematician may explain the matter in his way. The + philosopher would say: the mission of the human race as a whole + is _unceasing progress_, and the perfection (Vollendung) of + this mission is a mere idea (although in every aspect a very + useful one) of the aim towards which, in conformity with the + design of providence, we are to direct our endeavors.” + +It is indubitable that Kant’s views of evolution agree better with the +present state of scientific investigation, than does Mr. Spencer’s +philosophy, which has never been freed from Condorcet’s ingenuous +optimism. The assumption of a final state of perfection by absolute +adaptation is irreconcilable with the idea of unceasing progress, which +must be true, if evolution is a universal law of nature. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[101] See Mr. Spencer’s article in _Mind_, No. LIX, p. 313. + +[102] The passage in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ on Baer runs as +follows: + +“In his _Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere_, p. 264, he distinctly tells +us that the law of growing individuality is ‘the fundamental thought +which goes through all forms and degrees of animal development and all +single relations. It is the same thought which collected in the cosmic +space solar systems; the same which caused the weather-beaten dust on +the surface of our metallic planet to spring forth living beings.’ Von +Baer thus prepared the way for Mr. Spencer’s generalisation of the law of +organic evolution as the law of all evolution.” + +[103] See Haeckel, _Goethe on Evolution_, No. 131 of _The Open Court_. + +[104] _Præstabilismus_, that is, the theory that the phenomena of nature +are the result of pre-established law. + +[105] The proposition that Kant is no easy reading found an unexpected +and strong opposition. Immediately after the publication of this article, +Sept. 4th, 1890, Mr. Charles S. Peirce made the following incidental +remark in a letter to the author dated Sept. 6th, 1890: “I have heard +too much of Kant’s being hard reading. I think he is one of the easiest +of philosophers; for he generally knows what he wants to say, which is +more than half the battle, and he says it in terms which are very clear. +Of course, it is quite absurd to try to read Kant without preliminary +studies of Leibnizian and English philosophers, as well as of the +terminology of which Kant’s is a modification or transmogrification. But +there is a way of making out what he meant, while such writers as Hume +and J. S. Mill, the more you study them the more they puzzle you.” + +[106] This passage on pages 48, 49, and 50 which is enclosed in brackets +did not appear in _The Open Court_. It has been added since and is +published here for the first time. + +[107] In this connection we call attention to a book, _Kant und Darwin, +ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Entwickelungslehre_, Jena, 1875, by Fritz +Schultze, formerly Privat docent in Jena, now Professor of philosophy at +the Polytechnic Institute in Dresden. This little book is a collection +of the most important passages of Kant’s views concerning evolution, +the struggle for existence, and the theory of selection, and it is +astonishing to find how much Kant had to say on the subject and how +strongly he agrees with and anticipates Darwin. If Kant had not lived +before Darwin one might be tempted to conclude that he was familiar with +his _Origin of Species_ and _The Descent of Man_. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76880 *** diff --git a/76880-h/76880-h.htm b/76880-h/76880-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7feae1 --- /dev/null +++ b/76880-h/76880-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,31091 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Monist, Vol. II | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +a { + text-decoration: none; +} + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +h2.nobreak { + page-break-before: avoid; +} + +h4.book { + text-align: justify; + font-weight: normal; + padding-left: 2em; + text-indent: -2em; + margin-bottom: 0; +} + +hr { + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb { + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + width: 45%; + margin-left: 27.5%; 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II</p> + +<p class="titlepage">CHICAGO:<br> +THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO.<br> +1891-1892</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[ii]</span></p> + +<p class="titlepage smaller smcap">Copyright by<br> +The Open Court Publishing Co.<br> +1891-1892.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[iii]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS_OF_VOLUME_II">CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.</h2> + +</div> + +<table> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="tdc">ARTICLES.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>American Politics. By Thomas B. Preston</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#AMERICAN_POLITICS">41</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Anschauung, What Does —— Mean? Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#WHAT_DOES_ANSCHAUUNG_MEAN">527</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Artificial Selection and the Marriage Problem. By Hiram M. + Stanley</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#ARTIFICIAL_SELECTION_AND_THE_MARRIAGE_PROBLEM">51</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Clifford on the Soul in Nature, Professor. By F. C. Conybeare</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PROFESSOR_CLIFFORD_ON_THE_SOUL_IN_NATURE">209</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Conservation of Spirit and the Origin of Consciousness, The. + By Francis C. Russell</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_CONSERVATION_OF_SPIRIT">357</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Criminal Suggestion, On. By J. Delbœuf</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#ON_CRIMINAL_SUGGESTION">363</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ethnological Jurisprudence. By Albert H. Post</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#ETHNOLOGICAL_JURISPRUDENCE">31</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Evolution, The Continuity of. The Science of Language versus + The Science of Life, as represented by Prof. F. Max Müller and + Prof. G. J. Romanes. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_CONTINUITY_OF_EVOLUTION">70</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Facts and Mental Symbols. By Ernst Mach</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#FACTS_AND_MENTAL_SYMBOLS">198</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Littré, Émile. A Sonnet. By Louis Belrose Jr.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#EMILE_LITTRE">110</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Logical Theory, The Present Position of. By John Dewey</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_PRESENT_POSITION_OF_LOGICAL_THEORY">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Magic Square, The. By Hermann Schubert</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_MAGIC_SQUARE">487</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mechanical Invention, The New Civilisation Depends on. By W. + T. Harris</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#MECHANICAL_INVENTION">178</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mental Evolution. An Old Speculation in a New Light. By C. + Lloyd Morgan</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#MENTAL_EVOLUTION">161</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mind, The Law of. By Charles S. Peirce</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_LAW_OF_MIND">533</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Monism, Our. The Principles of a Consistent, Unitary World-View. + By Ernst Haeckel</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#OUR_MONISM">481</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Necessity, Mr. Charles S. Peirce’s Onslaught on the Doctrine + of. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PEIRCE_ON_NECESSITY">560</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Necessity, The Doctrine of —— Examined. By Charles S. Peirce</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_DOCTRINE_OF_NECESSITY_EXAMINED">321</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Psychical Monism. By Edmund Montgomery</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PSYCHICAL_MONISM">338</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Religion and Progress. Interpreted by the Life and Last work + of Wathen Mark Wilks Call. By Moncure D. Conway</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#RELIGION_AND_PROGRESS">183</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Spencer, Mr., on the Ethics of Kant. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#MR_SPENCER_ON_THE_ETHICS_OF_KANT">512</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Things in themselves, Are There ——? Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#ARE_THERE_THINGS_IN_THEMSELVES">225</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Thought and Language. By George John Romanes</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THOUGHT_AND_LANGUAGE_I">56</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Will and Reason. By B. Bosanquet</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#WILL_AND_REASON">18</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="tdc">LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>France. By Lucien Arréat</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#FRANCE_II">266</a>, <a href="#FRANCE_III">386</a>, + <a href="#FRANCE_IV">583</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>France. The Intellectual Awakening of the Langue D’Oc. By + Theodore Stanton</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#FRANCE_I">95</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Germany. Christian Ufer</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#GERMANY_I">103</a>, <a href="#GERMANY_II">272</a>,<br> + <a href="#GERMANY_III">396</a>, <a href="#GERMANY_IV">593</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="tdc">DIVERSE TOPICS. CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Clergy’s Duty of Allegiance to Dogma and the Struggle between + World-Conceptions. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_CLERGYS_DUTY">278</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Comte and Turgot. Prof. Schaarschmidt</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#COMTE_AND_TURGOT">611</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Evolution and Language, Comment on the Discussion on. By F. + Max Müller</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#A_COMMENT_BY_PROF_F_MAX_MUELLER">286</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Haeckel’s Monism, Professor. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PROFESSOR_HAECKELS_MONISM">598</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>James’s Psychology, Observations on Some Points in. By W. L. + Worcester</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#OBSERVATIONS">417</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Littré, A Defense of. By Louis Belrose Jr.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#A_DEFENSE_OF_LITTRE">403</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Littré’s, Émile, Positivism. A Reply. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#EMILE_LITTRES_POSITIVISM">410</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Logical Theory, The Future Position of. Edward T. Dixon</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_FUTURE_POSITION_OF_LOGICAL_THEORY">606</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mind, The Nature of —— and the Meaning of Reality. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_NATURE_OF_MIND_AND_THE_MEANING_OF_REALITY">434</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Monism and Mechanicalism: Comments upon Prof. Ernst Haeckel’s + Position. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#MONISM_NOT_MECHANICALISM">438</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Peirce, Mr. Charles S., on Necessity. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#MR_CHARLES_S_PEIRCE_ON_NECESSITY">442</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Religion of Science, The. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_RELIGION_OF_SCIENCE">600</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Thought and Language. A letter by G. J. Romanes</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THOUGHT_AND_LANGUAGE_III">402</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Thought-forms, The Origin of. Editor</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THE_ORIGIN_OF_THOUGHT-FORMS">111</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="tdc">BOOK REVIEWS.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Avenarius, Richard. <i>Der menschliche Weltbegriff</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_451">451</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Baldwin, James Mark. <i>Handbook of Psychology</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_467">467</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bernheim. <i>Hypnotisme, Suggestion, Psychotherapie</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_465">465</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cornill, C. H. <i>Einleitung in das alte Testament</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_443">443</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Curtis, Mattoon Monroe. <i>An Outline of Locke’s Ethical + Philosophy</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Delabarre, Edmund Burke. <i>Ueber Bewegungsempfindungen</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Delbœuf, J. <i>Les Fêtes de Montpellier</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dillmann, Edmund. <i>Eine neue Darstellung der Leibnizischen + Monadenlehre auf Grund der Quellen</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_460">460</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dixon, Edward T. <i>The Foundations of Geometry</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Erhardt, Franz. <i>Der Satz vom Grunde als Prinzip des + Schliessens</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_631">631</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gruber, Hermann. <i>Der Positivismus vom Tode August Comte’s + bis auf unsere Tage (1857-1891)</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Holzmann, H. J. <i>Synoptiker. Apostelgeschichte</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hübbe-Schleiden. <i>Das Dasein als Lust, Leid und Liebe</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_468">468</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Husserl, E. G. <i>Philosophie der Arithmetik</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_627">627</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Koenig, Edmund. <i>Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems in der + Philosophie seit Kant</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_457">457</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lasswitz, Kurd. <i>Seifenblasen</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_471">471</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Loeb, Jacques. <i>Untersuchungen zur physiologischen Morphologie + der Thiere</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_468">468</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lombroso, C. L. <i>Nouvelles Recherches de Psychiatrie et + D’Anthropologie Criminelle</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_618">618</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lyons, Daniel. <i>Christianity and Infallibility</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_629">629</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mach, E. <i>Grundriss der Naturlehre für die oberen Classen + der Mittelschulen</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_617">617</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Münsterberg, Hugo. <i>Schriften der Gesellschaft für + psychologische Forschung</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_289">289</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Paszkowski, Wilhelm. <i>Die Bedeutung der theologischen + Vorstellungen für die Ethik</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_453">453</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Pearson, Karl. <i>The Grammar of Science</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_623">623</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Pellegrini, Pietro. <i>Diritto Sociale Tentativo in Bozza</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Roberty, E. de. <i>Agnosticisme</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_631">631</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Roberty, E. de. <i>La Philosophie du Siècle</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Romanes, George John. <i>Darwin and After Darwin</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_612">612</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Schmidkunz, Hans. <i>Psychologie der Suggestion</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_464">464</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Schröder, Ernst. <i>Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_618">618</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Schurmann, Jacob Gould. <i>Belief in God</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Schwarz, Hermann. <i>Das Wahrnehmungsproblem vom Standpunkte + des Physikers, des Physiologen und des Philosophen</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_455">455</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Scripture, E. W. <i>Ueber den associativen Verlauf der + Vorstellungen</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Seth, Andrew. <i>The Present Position of the Philosophical + Sciences</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_450">450</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Toy, Crawford Howell. <i>Judaism and Christianity</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Van Bemmelen, P. <i>Le Nihilisme Scientifique</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_298">298</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Whitney, William Dwight. <i>Max Müller and the Science of + Language</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_469">469</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wise, Isaac M. <i>Pronaos to Holy Writ</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ziehen, Th. <i>Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie in + 14 Vorlesungen</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_461">461</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="tdc">PERIODICALS</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="tdpg"><a href="#PERIODICALS_I">140-160</a>; + <a href="#PERIODICALS_II">303-320</a>; + <a href="#PERIODICALS_III">472-480</a>; <a href="#PERIODICALS_IV">634-640</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="tdc">APPENDIX.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#Appendix">Kant and Spencer.</a> Reprinted articles relative + to Mr. Spencer’s estimate of Kant. (In No. 4 of this volume.)</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="masthead"> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Vol. II.</span> +<span class="smcap spacer">October, 1891.</span> +<span class="smcap">No. 1.</span></p> + +<h2>THE MONIST.</h2> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="THE_PRESENT_POSITION_OF_LOGICAL_THEORY">THE PRESENT POSITION OF LOGICAL THEORY.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>The remarkable fact in the intellectual life of to-day is the contradiction +in which it is entangled. On one hand we have an +enormous development of science, both in specialisation of method +and accumulation of material; its extension and thorough-going application +to all ranges of experience. What we should expect from +such a movement, would seem to be confidence of intelligence in +itself; and a corresponding organisation of knowledge, giving some +guide and support to life. The strange thing is that instead of this +we have, probably, the greatest apparent disorganisation of authority +as to intellectual matters that the world has ever seen; while +the prevalent attitude and creed of scientific men is philosophic agnosticism, +or disbelief in their own method when it comes to fundamental +matters. Such a typical representative of modern science +as Mr. Huxley virtually laughs to scorn the suggestion of Mr. Frederic +Harrison that science should or could become so organised as +to give any support, any authoritative stay, to life.</p> + +<p>Now I do not intend to discuss this apparent contradiction. It +seems to me obvious enough that the contradiction is due to the +fact that science has got far enough along so that its negative attitude +towards previous codes of life is evident, while its own positive +principle of reconstruction is not yet evident. But without urging +this view upon the reader, I wish to ask how and where in the prevailing +confusion logical theory, as a synopsis of the methods and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span>typical forms of intelligence, stands. Logical theory at once reflects +and transforms the existing status of matters intellectual at any +period. It reflects it, for logical theory is only the express, the +overt consciousness on the part of intelligence of its own attitude, +prevailing spirit. It transforms it, because this express consciousness +makes intelligence know where it stands, makes it aware of its +strength and of its weakness, and by defining it to itself forces it to +take up a new and more adequate place.</p> + +<p>It is obvious, then, that as the prevailing influence in the intellectual +world to-day is science, so the prevailing influence in logical +theory must be the endeavor to account for, to justify, or at +least to reckon with this scientific spirit. And yet if there is such +confusion as we have indicated, then there is also manifested some +chaos in logical theory, as to the true nature and method of science. +Were it otherwise, were there at present a logical theory adequate +to the specific and detailed practical results of science, science and +scientific men would be conscious of themselves, and would be confident +in their work and attitude.</p> + +<p>The especial problem of logic, as the theory of scientific method, +is the relation of fact and thought to each other, of reality and +thought. It is, however, differentiated from the metaphysical theory +of knowledge. Logic does not inquire into the ultimate <i>meaning</i> of +fact and thought, nor into their <i>ultimate</i> relations to one another. It +simply takes them from the attitude of science itself, its business +being, not the justification nor refutation of this attitude, but its development +into explicit doctrine. Fact means to logic no more, but +certainly no less, than it means to the special sciences: it is the +subject-matter under investigation, under consideration; it is that +which we are trying to make out. Thought too means to logic +what it means to science: method. It is the attitude and form +which intelligence takes in reference to fact—to its subject-matter, +whether in inquiry, experiment, calculation, or statement.</p> + +<p>Logic, then, would have for its essential problem the consideration +of the various typical methods and guiding principles which +thought assumes in its effort to detect, master, and report fact. It +is presupposed here that there is some sort of fruitful and intrinsic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>connection of fact and thought; that thinking, in short, is nothing +but the fact in its process of translation from brute impression to +lucent meaning.</p> + +<p>But the moment such a presupposition is stated, ninety-nine +persons out of a hundred think that we have plunged, <i>ex abrupto</i>, +from the certainty of science into the cloudland of metaphysic. And +yet just this conception of the relation of thought (method) to fact +(subject-matter) is taken for granted in every scientific investigation +and conclusion. Here, then, we have in outline the present position +of logic. It is that any attempt to state, in general, or to work +out, in detail, the principle of the intrinsic and fruitful relation of +fact and thought which science, without conscious reflection, constantly +employs in practice, seems “metaphysical” or even absurd. +Why is this? The answer to this question will give the filling-up of +the outline just presented.</p> + +<p>The chief cause is that superstition which still holds enthralled +so much of modern thought—I mean formal logic. And if this +seems like applying a hard name to what, at best and at worst, is +only an intellectual gymnastic, I can only say that formal logic +seems to me to be, at present, <i>fons et origo malorum</i> in philosophy. +It is true enough that nobody now takes the technical subject of +formal logic very seriously—unless here and there some belated +“professor.” It is true that it is generally relegated to the position +of a subject which, for some unclear reason, is regarded as “disciplinary” +in a young man’s education; just as certain other branches +are regarded as elegant accomplishments in a young woman’s finishing. +But while the subject itself as a doctrine or science hardly +ranks very high, the conception of thought which is at the bottom +of formal logic still dominates the <i>Zeitgeist</i>, and regulates the doctrine +and the method of all those who draw their inspiration from +the <i>Zeitgeist</i>. Any book of formal logic will tell us what this conception +of thought is: that thought is a faculty or an entity existing +in the mind, apart from facts, and that it has its own fixed forms, +with which facts have nothing to do—except in so far as they pass +under the yoke. Jevons puts it this way: “Just as we thus familiarly +recognise the difference of form and substance in common +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>tangible things, so we may observe in logic, that the form of an argument +is one thing, quite distinct from the various subjects or +matter which may be treated in that form.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>Professor Stock varies the good old tune in this way: “In +every act of thought we may distinguish two things—(1) the object +thought about, (2) the way in which the mind thinks of it. The +first is called the Matter; the second the Form of Thought. Now +formal ... logic is concerned only with the way in which the mind +thinks, and has nothing to do with the particular objects thought +about.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>It is assumed, in fine, that thought has a nature of its own independent +of facts or subject-matter; that this thought, <i>per se</i>, has +certain forms, and that these forms are not forms which the facts +themselves take, varying with the facts, but are rigid frames, into +which the facts are to be set.</p> + +<p>Now all of this conception—the notion that the mind has a faculty +of thought apart from things, the notion that this faculty is +constructed, in and of itself, with a fixed framework, the notion that +thinking is the imposing of this fixed framework on some unyielding +matter called particular objects, or facts—all of this conception appears +to me as highly scholastic, as the last struggle of mediævalism +to hold thought in subjection to authority. Nothing is more surprising +than the fact that while it is fashionable to reject, with great +scorn, all the results and special methods of scholasticism, its foundation-stone +should still be accepted as the corner-stone of the edifice +of modern doctrine. It is still more surprising when we reflect +that the foundation-stone is coherent only with the mediæval superstructure. +The scholastics when they held that the method of +thought was a faculty pursuing its own method apart from the course +of things, were at least consistent. They did not conceive that thought +was free, that intelligence had rights, nor that there was possible +science independent of data authoritatively laid down. Really believing +what they professed,—that thought was something <i>in se</i>,—they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>held that it must be supplied with a fixed body of dogmatic +fact, from tradition, from revelation—from external authority. They +held that thought in its workings is confined to extracting from this +dogmatic body of fact what is already contained in it, and to rearranging +the material and its implications. To examine the <i>material</i>, +to test its truth; to suppose that intelligence could cut loose from +this body of authority and go straight to nature, to history itself, to +find the truth; to build up a free and independent science—to this +point of incoherency mediæval scholasticism never attained. To +proclaim the freedom of thought, the rejection of all external authority, +the right and the power of thought to get at truth for itself, +and yet continue to define thought as a faculty apart from fact, was +reserved for modern enlightenment! And were it not somewhat out +of my present scope, I should like to show that modern culture is +thus a prepared victim for the skilful dialectician of the reactionary +army. If the modern <i>Zeitgeist</i> does not fall a prey to the cohorts of +the army of external authority, it is not because it has any recognised +methods or any recognised criterion by which it can justify +its raising the “banner of the free spirit.” It is simply the obstinate +bulwark of outer fact, built up piecemeal by science, that protects +it.</p> + +<p>The two main forces, which have been at work against the formulæ +of formal logic, are “inductive” or empirical logic on one +side, and the so-called “transcendental” logic, on the other. Of +these two, the influence of inductive logic in sapping in practical +fashion and popular results the authority of syllogistic logic has undoubtedly +been much the greater. I propose, briefly, to give certain +reasons for holding, however, that the inductive logic does not +furnish us with the needed theory of the relation of thought and +fact. To show this adequately would demand the criticism of inductive +logic in the detail of its methods, in order to show where it +comes short. As this is impossible, I shall now confine myself to a +couple of general considerations.</p> + +<p>To begin with, then, the empirical logic virtually continues the +conception of thought as in itself empty and formal which characterizes +scholastic logic. It thus has really no theory which differentiates +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>it, as regards the nature of thought itself, from formal logic. +I cannot see, for example, what quarrel the most stringent upholder +of formal logic can have with Mill as to the latter’s theory of the +syllogism. Mill’s theory is virtually simply a theory regarding the +formation of the major premiss—regarding the process by which we +formulate the statement that All <i>S</i> is <i>P</i>. Now, if we once accept +the syllogistic position, this process lies outside the scope and problem +of formal logic. It is not an affair of what Jevons calls the form +of argument at all, but simply of the matter, the particular facts +which make the filling of the argument. I do not see that it is any +part of the business of formal logic to tell where the major premiss +comes from, nor how it is got. And, on the other hand, when it +comes to the manipulation of the data contained in the premiss, +Mill must fall back upon the syllogistic logic. Mill’s theory, so far +as the thought-element is concerned, presupposes the syllogistic +theory. And if this theory, on its side, does not presuppose something +like Mill’s inductive theory, it is simply because the logician, +as a <i>philosopher</i>, may prefer “intuitionalism” to “empiricism.” He +may hold, that is, that the content of some major premisses is given +by direct “intuition” rather than gathered from experience. But +in either case, this consideration of the source of the content of the +premiss belongs not to formal logic, but to metaphysics.</p> + +<p>If, then, the theory of the syllogism is incorrect in its assumptions +as to the relation of fact and thought, the inductive logic must +be similarly in error. Its great advantage over the old scholastic +logic lies not in its logic as such, but in something back of the +logic—in its account of the derivation of the material of judgment. +Whatever the defects of Locke’s or Mill’s account of experience, +any theory which somehow presupposes a first-hand contact of mind +and fact (though it be only in isolated, atomic sensations) is surely +preferable to a theory which falls back on tradition, or on the delivery +of dogma irresponsible to any intellectual criticism. But in +its account of the derivation of the material of judgment, inductive +logic is still hampered by the scholastic conception of thought. +Thought, being confined to the rigid framework in which the material +is manipulated after being obtained, is excluded from all share in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>the gathering of material. The result is that this material, having +no intrinsic thought-side, shrinks into a more or less accidental association +of more or less shifting and transitory mental states.</p> + +<p>I shall not stop to argue that, on this ground, the “inductive” +logic deprives science of its most distinctive scientific features—the +permanence and objectivity of its truths. I think no one can deny +that there is at least an <i>apparent</i> gap between the actual results of +concrete science and these results as they stand after the touch of +the inductive logic—that the necessity and generality of science +seem rather to have been explained away, than explained. I think +most of the inductive logicians themselves (while endeavoring to +account for this apparent necessity as generated through association) +would admit that something of science <i>seems</i>, at least, to have been +lost, and that the great reason for putting-up with this loss is that +the inductive logic is the sole alternative to a dogmatic intuitionalism +and to arbitrary spinning-out of <i>a priori</i> concepts.</p> + +<p>Certainly as long as thought is conceived after the fashion of +syllogistic logic, as a scheme furnished and fixed in itself, apart +from reality, so long scientific men must protest against allowing +thought any part or lot in scientific procedure. So long some such +<i>modus operandi</i> as that given by Mill must be resorted to in order to +explain scientific methods and results. But, on the other hand, if +the scholastic idea of thought as this something having its character +apart from fact is once given up, the cause which at present cramps +the logic of science into the logic of sensationalism and empiricism +is also given up. And this brings us to the other point in general +regarding the inductive or empirical logic. It is not strictly a logic +at all but a metaphysic. It does not begin with the fact of science, +the fact of the fruitful inquiry into fact by intelligence, at all. It +does not, starting from this fact analyse the various methods and +types which thought must take upon itself in order to maintain this +fruitful inquiry. On the contrary, it begins with sensations, and +endeavors by a theory of knowledge on the basis of sensationalism to +build up the structure of cognition, ordinary and scientific. I am +not concerned here with the truth of sensationalism as a metaphysical +theory of knowledge, nor with the adequacy of the notion of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>sensation advanced by Mill. It is enough from the logical point of +view to point out that such a theory is not logic—that logic does +not deal with something <i>back</i> of the fact of science, but with the +analysis of scientific method as such. And is it forcing matters to +indicate that this retreat from logic to metaphysic is also caused by +the syllogistic notion of thought? Formal thought, with its formulæ +for simply unfolding a given material, is of no use in science. +There is, therefore, the need of some machinery to take the place +of thought. And this is found in sensation and in “experience” +according to the peculiar notion of experience current in the inductive +logic.</p> + +<p>In a word, then (without attempting to show the insufficiency +of inductive logic as the theory of science by reference to its treatment +of specific points) inductive logic does not meet our needs because +it is not a free, unprejudiced inquiry into the special forms +and methods of science, starting from the actual sciences themselves. +It is founded and built up with constant reference to the scholastic +notion of thought. Where it is not affected positively by it, it is +still affected by its reaction from it. Instead of denying once for +all validity or even sense to the notion of thinking as a special, +apart process, and then beginning a free, unhampered examination +with an eye single to the fact of science itself, it retains this conception +of thought as valid in a certain department, and then sets out +to find something to supply the gap in another department. And +thus we have the usual division of inductive and deductive logic, +inductive being interpreted as empirical and particular, deductive +as syllogistic and formal. They are counterpart and correlative +theories, the two sides of the notion of the separateness of fact and +thought; they stand and fall together.</p> + +<p>“Transcendental” logic, while usually conceived as utterly +opposed in spirit and in results to inductive logic, has yet been one +with it in endeavoring to abolish formal logic as the sufficient method +and criterion of scientific truth. I say this although well aware that +inductive logic is usually conceived as specifically “scientific,” +while the transcendental movement is regarded as the especial foe +of science—as a belated attempt to restore an <i>a priori</i> scholasticism, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>and to find a scheme for evolving truth out of pure thought. This +is because when the “transcendental” school talks of thought, of +the synthetic and objective character of thought, of the possibility +of attaining absolute truth through thought, and of the ontological +value of thought, it is understood as meaning thought in the old, +scholastic sense, a process apart and fixed in itself, and yet somehow +evolving truth out of its own inner being, out of its own enclosed +ruminations. But on the contrary, the very meaning of +“transcendentalism” is not only that it is impossible to get valid +truth from the evolution of thought in the scholastic sense, but that +there is no such thought at all. Processes of intelligence which +have their nature fixed in themselves, apart from fact and having to +be externally applied to fact, are pure myths to his school. Types +of thought are simply the various forms which reality progressively +takes as it is progressively mastered as to its meaning,—that is, understood. +Methods of thought are simply the various active attitudes +into which intelligence puts itself in order to detect and grasp +the fact. Instead of rigid moulds, they are flexible adaptations. +Methods of thought fit fact more closely and responsively than a +worn glove fits the hand. They are only the ideal evolution <i>of</i> the +fact,—and by “ideal” is here meant simply the evolution of fact +into meaning.</p> + +<p>If this is a fair description of what the “transcendental” school +means by thought, it is evident that it is a co-worker with the spirit +and intent of “inductive” logic. Its sole attempt is to get hold of +and report the presupposition and rationale of science; its practical +aim is to lay bare and exhibit the method of science so that the true +seat of authority—that is, the authority, the <i>backing</i>, of truth—shall +be forever manifest. It has simply gone a step further than “inductive” +logic, and thrown overboard once for all the scholastic +idea of thought. This has enabled it to start anew, and to form its +theory of thought simply by following the principles of the actual +processes by which man has, thus far in history, discovered and +possessed fact.</p> + +<p>I shall not attempt here any defence of the “transcendental” +logic; I shall not even attempt to show that the interpretation of it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>which I have given above is correct. It must go, for the present, +simply as my individual understanding of the matter. Simply taking +this view of “transcendental” logic for granted, I wish, in order +to complete our notion of the present position of logic, to consider +the reasons which have thus far prevented, say, the Hegelian logic +from getting any popular hold—from getting recognition from scientific +men as, at least in principle, a fair statement of their own basic +presupposition and method.</p> + +<p>The first of these reasons is that the popular comprehension of +the “transcendental” movement is arrested at Kant and has never +gone on to Hegel. Hegel, it is true, overshadowed Kant entirely +for a considerable period. But the Hegelian régime was partly +pyrotechnical rather than scientific in character; and, partly, so far +as it was scientific, it exhausted itself in stimulating various detailed +scientific movements—as in the history of politics, religion, art, etc. +In these lines, if we trust even to those who have no faith in the +Hegelian method or principles, the movement found some practical +excuse for being. But the result of the case was—and its present +status is—that because the principle of Hegel was, for the time, lost +either in display of dialectical fireworks, or in application to specific +subjects, the principle itself has never met with any <i>general</i> investigation. +The immense amount of labor spent on Kant during the +past twenty years has made method and principle familiar, if not +acceptable, to the body of men calling themselves educated. And +thus, so far as its outcome is concerned, the transcendental movement +still halts with Kant.</p> + +<p>Now, at the expense of seeming to plunge myself deeper in absurdity +than I have already gone, I must say that the Kantian principle +is by far more “transcendental” in the usual interpretation of +that term—more <i>a priori</i>, more given to emphasising some special +function of some special thought-power—than the Hegelian. As +against the usual opinion that while some compromise between +science and Kant is possible, the scientific spirit and Hegel are at +antipodes, it appears to me that it is Kant who does violence to +science, while Hegel (I speak of his essential method and not of any +particular result) is the quintessence of the scientific spirit. Let me +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>endeavor to give some reasons for this belief. Kant starts from the +accepted scholastic conception of thought. Kant never dreams, for a +moment, of questioning the existence of a special faculty of thought +with its own peculiar and fixed forms. He states and restates that +thought in itself exists apart from fact and occupies itself with fact +given to it from without. Kant, it is true, gives the death-blow to +scholasticism by pointing out that such a faculty of thought is purely +analytic—that it simply unfolds the material given, whether that +material be true or false, having no method of arriving at truth, and +no test for determining truth. This fact once clearly recognised, +dogmatic rationalism, or the attempt to get truth from the “logical” +analysis of concepts was forever destroyed. The way was opened +for an independent examination of the actual method of science.</p> + +<p>But while Kant revealed once for all the impossibility of getting +truth, of laying hold of reality, by the scholastic method, he still retained +that conception of thought. He denied, not its existence, +but its worth as relates to truth. What was the result? Just this: +when he came to his examination (criticism) of knowledge, it fell +apart at once into two separate factors, an <i>a priori</i> and <i>a posteriori</i>. +For if Kant finds, as against the dogmatic rationalist, that formal +thought cannot give knowledge, he also finds, as against the sceptical +empiricist, that unrelated sensation cannot give knowledge. +Here too, instead of denying, <i>in toto</i>, the existence of unrelated sensation, +he contented himself with denying its functional value for +knowledge. Unrelated sensation and formal thought are simply the +complementary halves of each other. Admit the one, and the other +is its necessary counterpart.</p> + +<p>Kant must now piece together his two separated factors. Sensation, +unrelated manifold of sensation, is <i>there</i>, thought, isolated, +analytic thought, is <i>here</i>. Neither is knowledge in itself. What +more natural than to put them together, and hold that knowledge is +the union of a matter or stuff, of sensations, atomic in themselves, +on one hand, and a form, or regulating principle of thought, empty +in itself, on the other? We have two elements, both existing in +isolation, and yet both useless for all purposes of knowledge. Combine +them, and presto, there is science.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span></p> + +<p>Such a “transcendentalism” as this may well stick in the +crop of scientific men. For consider what is involved in it: an <i>a +priori</i> factor, on one side, and an <i>a posteriori</i>, on the other. Kant, +from one point of view, seems thus to have simply combined the +weaknesses of empiricism and rationalism. He still continues to +talk of experience itself as particular and contingent, and denies +that it gives a basis for any universal laws. Aside from his effort in +the “Kritik der Urtheilskraft” to overcome his original separation, +special scientific laws are to him only more or less extensive generalisations +from experience—as much so to him as to Locke, or +Mill. Scientific men indeed, have accustomed themselves to this +derogation of their own methods and results, and, as “inductive” +logicians, indulge in it quite freely themselves. But an <i>a priori</i> element, +supplied by a thought fixed and separate, scientific men cannot +do away with. Nor do I know any reason why they should.</p> + +<p>It is coming short, in my opinion, of the full stature of science +to treat it as a quantitative and varying generalisation of contingent +particulars, but this, at least, leaves what science there is free and +unhindered. But <i>a priori</i> elements supplied from outside the fact +itself, <i>a priori</i> elements somehow entering into the fact from without +and controlling it—this is to give up the very spirit of science. For +if science means anything, it is that our ideas, our judgments may +in some degree reflect and report the fact itself. Science means, +on one hand, that thought is free to attack and get hold of its subject-matter, +and, on the other, that fact is free to break through +into thought; free to impress itself—or rather to express itself—in +intelligence without vitiation or deflection. Scientific men are true +to the instinct of the scientific spirit in fighting shy of a distinct <i>a +priori</i> factor supplied to fact from the mind. Apriorism of this sort +must seem like an effort to cramp the freedom of intelligence and +of fact, to bring them under the yoke of fixed, external forms.</p> + +<p>Now in Hegel there is no such conception of thought and of <i>a +priori</i>, as is found in Kant. Kant formulated the conception of +thought as objective, but he interpreted this as meaning that thought +subjective in itself <i>becomes</i> objective when synthetic of a given sense-manifold. +When Hegel calls thought objective he means just what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>he says: that there is no special, apart faculty of thought belonging +to and operated by a mind existing separate from the outer world. +What Hegel means by objective thought is the meaning, the significance +of the fact itself; and by methods of thought he understands +simply the processes in which this meaning of fact is evolved.</p> + +<p>There has been, of late, considerable discussion of the place +and function of “relations” in knowledge. This discussion in English +speculation, at least, tends to turn largely about Thomas Hill +Green’s reconstruction of Kantianism. I consider it unfortunate +that this discussion has taken the form of a debate between empiricism +and Kantianism. The question of knowledge has thus come +to be whether or not certain relations are supplied by thought to +sensations in order to make an orderly whole out of the latter, chaotic +in themselves. Now when Hegel talks of relations of thought +(not that he makes much use of just this term) he means no such +separate forms. Relations of thought are, to Hegel, the typical +forms of meaning which the subject-matter takes in its various progressive +stages of being understood. And this is what <i>a priori</i> +means from a Hegelian standpoint. It is not some element <i>in</i> +knowledge; some addition of thought to experience. It is experience +itself in its skeleton, in the main features of its framework.</p> + +<p>“Refutations” of Hegel, then, which attempt to show that +“thought” in itself is empty, that it waits for content from experience, +that it cannot by any manipulation evolve truth out of itself +are, if taken as having relevance to Hegel, simply meaningless. +Hegel begins where these arguers leave off. Accepting all that they +can say, he goes one step further, and denies that there is any such +“thought” at all anywhere in existence. The question of the relations +or “categories of thought” is just the question of the broad +and main aspects of fact as that fact comes to be understood.</p> + +<p>For example, Kant would prove the <i>a priori</i> character and +validity of the principle of causation by showing that without it +science is impossible, that it helps “make experience.” Now, in +terms, Hegel’s justification of this relation would be the same; he +too would show that the fabric of experience implies and demands +the causal relation. But in Kant’s case, the justification of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>principle of causality by reference to the possibility of experience +means that thought must continually inject this principle <i>into</i> experience +to keep it from disappearing: that experience must be +constantly braced and reinforced by the synthetic action of thought +or it will collapse. In short, the need of experience for this principle +of causation means its need for a certain support outside itself. +But Hegel’s demonstration of the validity of the causal +principle is simply pointing out that the whole supports the part, +while the part helps make the whole. That is to say, Hegel’s +reference is not to some outside action of thought in maintaining +fact as an object of knowledge; it is to the entire structure of fact +itself. His contention is simply that the structure of fact itself, of +the subject-matter of knowledge, is such that in one of its phases it +presents necessarily the aspect of causality. And if this word “necessarily” +gives pause, it must be remembered what the source of +this necessity is. It does <i>not</i> lie in the principle of causation <i>per se</i>; it +lies in the whole fact, the whole subject-matter of knowledge. It +is the same sort of necessity as when we say that a complete man +<i>must</i> have an eye; i. e., it is the nature of the human organism to +develop and sustain this organ, while the organ, in turn, contributes +to and thus helps constitute the organism.</p> + +<p>It is then evident that the question upon which the “refutation” +of Hegel turns is not in showing that formal “thought” cannot +give birth to truth except through the fructifying touch of experience. +The question is simply whether fact—the subject-matter +of knowledge—is such as Hegel presents it. Is it, in general, a +connected system as he holds it to be? And, if a system, does it, +in particular, present such phases (such relations, categories) as +Hegel shows forth? These are objective questions pure and simple; +questions identical, in kind, with the question whether the constitution +of glucose is what some chemist claims to have found it.</p> + +<p>This, then, is why I conceive Hegel—entirely apart from the +value of any special results—to represent the quintessence of the +scientific spirit. He denies not only the possibility of getting truth +out of a formal, apart thought, but he denies the existence of any +faculty of thought which is other than the expression of fact itself. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>His contention is not that “thought,” in the scholastic sense, has +ontological validity, but that fact, reality is significant. Even, then, +if it were shown that Hegel is pretty much all wrong as to the special +meanings which he finds to make up the significance of reality, +his main principle would be unimpeached until it were shown that +fact has not a systematic, or interconnected, meaning, but is a mere +hodgepodge of fragments. Whether the scientific spirit would have +any interest in such a hodgepodge may, at least, be questioned.</p> + +<p>Having dealt at such length with the first reason why as yet the +“transcendental” movement has found no overt coalescence with +the scientific, we may deal briefly with the remaining reason.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> In +the second place, then, the rationality of fact had not been sufficiently +realised in detail in the early decades of the century to +admit of the principle of the “transcendental” movement being +otherwise than misunderstood. That is to say, the development +and, more particularly, the application of science to the specific +facts of the world was then comparatively rudimentary. On account +of this lack of scientific discovery and application, the world presented +itself to man’s consciousness as a blank, or at least as only +stuff <i>for</i> meaning, and not as itself significant. The result was that +Hegel must be interpreted subjectively. The difficulties in the way +of conceiving a world, upon which science had not yet expended its +energies in detail, as an organism of significant relations and bearings +were so great, that Hegel’s attempt to point out these significant +types and functions as immanent in reality was inevitably misconstrued +as an attempt, on Hegel’s part, to prove that a system of +purely “subjective” thoughts could somehow be so manipulated as +to give objectively valid results.</p> + +<p>Hegel, in other words, anticipated somewhat the actual outcome +of the scientific movement. However significant fact may be, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>however true it may be that an apart faculty of thought is an absurdity, +however certain it may be that there are no real types or +methods of thought at all excepting those of the object-matter itself +as it comes to be understood, yet to man this objective significance +cannot be real till he has made it <i>out</i> in the details of scientific processes, +and <i>made</i> it applied science in invention. Hegel’s standpoint +was, therefore, of necessity obscure. When the significant +character of fact was not yet opened up in detail, a method which +worked upon the basis that the only possible thought is the reflection +of the significance of fact, had no chance of fair interpretation.. +And thus it was (and largely is) that when Hegel speaks of objective +thought and its relations, he is understood as having the ordinary +conception of thought (that is, of thought as a purely separate +and subjective faculty), and yet as trying to prove that this +apart faculty has some mysterious power of evolving truth.</p> + +<p>The question which now confronts us, therefore, as to the +present place of logic is just this: Has the application of scientific +thought to the world of fact gone far enough so that we can speak, +without seeming strained, of the rationality of fact? When we speak +of the rationality, of the intrinsic meaning of fact, can these terms +be understood in their direct and obvious sense, and not in any remote, +or <i>merely</i> metaphysical sense? Has the theoretical consideration +of nature in its detailed study, has practical invention, as the +manifestation of the rationality of fact, gone far enough so that this +significance has become, or could become with some effort, as real +and objective a material of study as are molecules and vibrations?</p> + +<p>It seems to me that we are already at this stage, or are at the +point of getting to it. Without arguing this question, however, +(which, indeed, can be proved only by acting upon it, only <i>ambulando</i>,) +I would point out that the constant detailed work of science +upon the world in theory and in invention, must in time give that +world an evident meaning in human consciousness. What prevents +scientific men from now realising this fact, is that they are still +afraid of certain “transcendent” entities and forces; afraid that if +they relax their hostility to metaphysic, some one will spring upon +them the old scholastic scheme of external, supernatural unrealities. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>To those who take the prevailing agnosticism not as a thing, +but as a symptom, this agnosticism means just this: The whole set +of external, or non-immanent entities, is now on the point of falling +away, of dissolving. We got just so far, popularly, as holding that +they are unknowable. In other words, they are crowded to the extreme +verge. One push more, and off they go. The popular consciousness +will hold not only that they are unknowable, but that +they are not.</p> + +<p>What then? Science freed from its fear of an external and +dogmatic metaphysic, will lose its fear of metaphysic. Having unquestioned +and free possession of its own domain, that of knowledge +and of fact, it will also be free to build up the intrinsic metaphysic +of this domain. It will be free to ask after the structure of meanings +which makes up the skeleton of this world of knowledge. The +moment this point is reached, the speculative critical logic worked +out in the development of Kantian ideas, and the positive, specific +work of the scientific spirit will be at one. It will be seen that this +logic is no revived, redecked scholasticism, but a complete abandonment +of scholasticism; that it deals simply with the inner anatomy +of the realm of scientific reality, and has simply endeavored, +with however much of anticipation, to dissect and lay bare, at large +and in general, the features of the same subject-matter, which the +positive sciences have been occupying themselves with in particular +and in detail.</p> + +<p>That we are almost at the point of such conflux, a point where +the general, and therefore somewhat abstract lines of critical logic +will run in to the particular, and therefore somewhat isolated, lines +of positive science, is, in my opinion, the present position of logical +theory.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">John Dewey.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Jevons, <i>Elementary Lessons in Logic</i>, p. 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Stock, <i>Deductive Logic</i>, p. 3.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> It should be understood that in the previous discussion so far as it relates to +Kant, I have taken him at his lowest terms—those of logical self-consistency. So +far as Kant does not succeed in freeing himself from his original position—the existence +of a formal, or apart, faculty of thought—so far his emphasis of the <i>a priori</i> +in the sense already attributed to him is inevitable. But that the <i>tendency</i> of Kant +is to make the thought-relations <i>a priori</i> simply in the sense of being fact’s own +anatomy and physiognomy I should not deny.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="WILL_AND_REASON">WILL AND REASON.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>It has always been, I think, the practice in civilised society to +speak of reason or good sense as in some way influencing action. +And of course it must do so, if, as we suppose, it forms the +radical distinction between man and the lower animals. “Be reasonable,” +we say, in reference to action no less than to speculation. +“Wisdom and blood,” says Shakespeare, “combating in so tender +a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory.” +Blood here means passion. How does wisdom or knowledge combat +passion? I do not say that wisdom and knowledge mean the +same thing, but if they do not, we should like to know the difference +between them.</p> + +<p>In this prevalent notion of the conflict between reason and desire, +it may be observed that reason is, as a rule, supposed to be +negative or prohibitive. “Be reasonable” generally means “give +up something you want very much.” According to one account, +the inward monitor of Socrates was always negative, and throughout +moral philosophy, and especially throughout moralising philosophy, +which is not quite the same thing, you find the point of view that reason +conflicts with desire, and has in fact for its function very much to +prevent you doing or caring about whatever you very particularly +want to do or incline to care about. This is what gives rise to the +state of things satirised in the old saying “Any young man would +rather face an imputation on his moral character than an imputation +on his horsemanship.” If moral character means a sort of detachment +from everything, this feeling is both natural and justifiable. +The popular interpretation of Aristotle leans in the direction of this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>idea about reason, in so far as the conception of the reason seems +to be connected with commonplace notions about the evils of excess, +strongly represented in Greek proverbial philosophy. It was +easy to add to these ideas the conception of the evils of defect, +which is little more than a verbal refinement on the other. These +quantitative expressions have not much meaning in morality. Unquestionably, +I think, the popular aspect of the Aristotelian doctrine +is an idea that you ought not to throw yourself very deeply +into anything. Reason is, in short, according to these moralistic +conceptions, though not according to Aristotle’s fundamental view, +a sort of check upon desire and little more.</p> + +<p>This negative character of reason will, I hope, explain itself +away as we proceed. The primary point on which I want to insist +is not why reason is thus treated as negative, but how it comes that +reason can be supposed to conflict with or control desire at all. I +speak for the present of Desire, not of Will, because the meaning +of desire is clearer; whereas it is a doubt, until we have explained +the nature of active reason, what Will is, and whether it is distinguishable +from desire.</p> + +<p>Now, on the other hand, there is a sentence of Aristotle “Intelligence +as such moves nothing,” and this seems to come home to +us quite as naturally as the idea that reason controls action. All +plain or unambiguous instances of reason or reasoning or intelligence, +seem to deal with discovery of fact, couched in a form which +is capable of truth and falsehood. For our purpose we may treat +it as elaborate perception, whether direct or assisted through inference, +such as calculation. Calculation is the old meaning of +reasoning, both in Greek and Latin.</p> + +<p>How do we get across from perception or calculation to anything +that can interfere with desire?</p> + +<p>Of course there is a meeting-point in the idea that attends desire. +Human desire, at least, is not blind. It is desire of something, +which is before the mind as an idea; and in the case of desire +which issues in action this something must be mentally specified +in respect of the particular means needed to bring it about. And +also, the end or purpose which is desired for its own sake, is, in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>connection of cause and effect, itself <i>de facto</i> a means to other results +<i>ad infinitum</i>, more or less of which are foreseen by the person +who acts. Thus the act, as fully presented to the mind in idea, is +a complication of external circumstances, which are ideally distinguished, +supposing the act to be reflected on, as means, realisation +of the purpose, and foreseen consequences both of the means and +of the realisation of the purpose.</p> + +<p>It is, I think, all-important to remember, that these distinctions +are distinctions of relation to the acting subject, drawn very lightly +by the acting subject on the shifting surface of a complicated set of +results presented in idea, and are not at all complete distinctions, +and lend themselves very readily to self-deception. We shall see +the importance of this remark directly.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, here we have one way in which reasonings +about fact do help to modify our actions. If we know distinctly +what we desire, say, a week’s holiday, then it is reasoning about +matters of fact that will tell us what we must do to get it, and, in +part, what the results will be both of our getting it and of what we +do to get it. Now for philosophical purposes we need not consider +the foreseen consequences separately. They must rank, morally, +as means. That is to say, they are something which you have to +take into the bargain in order to get what you want. They come in +with all the other circumstances in determining whether you like +the action or not.</p> + +<p>Now is <i>this</i> connection between action and reason what we have +in mind when we say that a person ought to act reasonably, or that +reason combats desire? Do we understand by acting reasonably, +that assuming some one part of the imagined circumstances to represent +the purpose, the agent has got all the means to it, and the +foreseen consequences of it, and the interdependence of the parts of +the purpose itself, set out in a connection which is truly perceived +or scientifically inferred?</p> + +<p>We do sometimes appear to mean this. We say: it is unreasonable +to ask me to be at the station at nine when the train does +not start till ten. It is unreasonable, you may say, on the ground that +the means demanded of me are not, scientifically speaking, necessary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>to the end agreed upon. Still more we should pronounce it +unreasonable to adopt any means which actually defeats your purpose; +which could only happen, one would think, either from moral +self-deception, or in complicated matters where the means are disputable. +This second case does not matter to us; the first carries +us a little further, because it suggests that what you call the means +may really contain your purpose, or one of your purposes, perhaps +inconsistent with another. The hackneyed example of selfish charity +is as good a case of this unreasonableness as can be found. The +gift, which is professed to be merely a means to the good of another, +is, under all the conditions, a means contrary to that good, +and is given because it gratifies an impulse of the donor. It might +seem, in this case again, a fair explanation to pronounce such conduct +unreasonable merely because the means adopted are scientifically +speaking inconsistent with the end proposed. We might +bear in mind, however, that we seem to have detected here a probable +conflict of ends, not merely of means to an end.</p> + +<p>Admitting, then, for the moment, that we hold conduct to be +unreasonable if the perception, implied in it, of the relation between +means, ends, and consequences is flagrantly false, do we admit conduct +to be reasonable <i>simply</i> because the intellectual perception in +question is clear and true? Taking truth in its ordinary sense, as +truth of simple fact, we must deny this. I may know perfectly well +that so much wine will make me drunk, and may drink it with that +object and with that result, and yet no one will pronounce this a +reasonable action, though my judgment of facts and results was as +true and reasonable as could be. It may be, however, that in a +larger sense true judgment involves reasonable action.</p> + +<p>Thus it does not seem that truth of perception or correctness +of calculation as to the connection of the circumstances which are +presented in the idea of an act are sufficient to make the act reasonable, +although serious blunders in the perception or calculation +seem to make the act which implies them unreasonable. I even +doubt whether the last clause was rightly stated. I was obliged to +say <i>flagrant</i> errors, <i>serious</i> blunders. For it seems doubtful whether +a purely intellectual error, or blunder of perception, does make an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>act “unreasonable,” which owing to such a blunder misses its mark. +I incline to think that the reason why we are forced, in such cases +as I have instanced, to lay stress on the <i>flagrancy</i> of the blunder, is +that it makes us suspect self-deception or moral neglect on the part +of the agent, makes us suspect, in other words, that the inconsistency +between means and ends was not owing to mere intellectual +misjudgment, but was adopted with open or partially open eyes. I +do not think that I <i>should</i> call my friend unreasonable for wanting +to meet at the station an hour before the departure of the train, if +he could show me <i>bona fide</i> grounds which made him imagine that +it was necessary to arrive so early. I might in that case think him +mistaken, but should not venture to call him unreasonable, unless +his mistake seemed so obvious that I thought it was committed on +purpose, that is, was not an intellectual mistake at all. When I +call him unreasonable, perhaps I really suspect he is making a claim +on my time to meet some private convenience of his own—to avoid +a crowd or to make sure of some particular carriage, which I do not +care about—and therefore perhaps it may after all be his <i>purpose</i> +that I think unreasonable.</p> + +<p>But there is one great doctrine of reasonableness which does +reduce it to a question of means and ends, and that is, the doctrine +that everything else is a means to pleasure, whether that of the +agent or that of all sentient beings. I do not want to discuss Hedonism +psychologically just now, I only want to use it as an illustration +of one way in which intelligence may be alleged to control +action. The ultimate theory would then be that this uniform purpose, +pleasure, is a natural or obvious, or, so to speak, a <i>given</i> purpose, +and that all definite action is or has been prescribed by the +intelligence dealing with matter of fact, as a means to the realisation +of this given purpose.</p> + +<p>Then reasonable action would mean what our reasoning and +perceptive powers, dealing with matters of fact, pronounce to make +for pleasure, and unreasonable action would be all that does not. +Here, though I wish to avoid hackneyed criticism, I must note that +there is a certain difficulty in getting across from the idea of one’s +own pleasure to that of other people’s pleasure as a natural purpose, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>and sometimes we find the contention that any person’s pleasure +is a <i>reasonable purpose</i> to any person, which, like several indications +before, takes us out of the connection between reason and the +mere calculation of means to an end.</p> + +<p>Apart from this, I have, for our object, only to refer back to +the suspicion with which we regarded these distinctions between +means, ends, and consequences, in the presented idea of an action. +The burden of proof lies on those who limit the aspects in and for +which activities or results can be or ought to be desired. If we say +that the whole complex of our moral life is a means to a partial +though necessary incident in it, it seems to me that we are putting +the cart before the horse. If you could really say “moral life is +the means, and pleasure is the end” then it would follow that, +should calculation tell you that moral life was not the most effectual +means, you would not prefer it. Now this old argument may be +pronounced unfair on the ground that it puts an impossible case; +just like the counter-question which is asked by the opposite side, +“If morality led only to increased pain, would you prefer it then?” +Still, if these two questions together bring out the fact that pleasure +is an incident of a whole complex of functions and activities which +we cannot suppose to be separated from it, we do get this much result, +that there is no firm ground for distinguishing part of the complex +as the end from the rest as the means. And it seems clear, +also, that we differentiate pleasures <i>in kind</i> according to the activities +which they accompany, just as we have constantly found that +the so-called means differentiates and qualifies the so-called purpose.</p> + +<p>Thus I do not think that it is possible to represent the reasonableness +of action as consisting in its guidance by right calculation +of the means to an end, not even to the alleged simple and universal +end of pleasure. At the same time, this view has one essential element +of truth, that is the recognition that a positive impulse or +claim can only be combated or defeated by a positive impulse or +claim. The view goes so far indeed as to say that one form of a +general impulse can only be combated by another form of that same +impulse through the discrepancy of the alternative means to its attainment. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>However this may be, so much does seem clear, viz. +that reasonableness cannot be, as popular language tends to make +it, something purely negative and prohibitive. Its negative aspect +must be secondary, and according to the suggestions furnished by +the notions we have been examining, must arise out of a discrepancy +between two sets of means to the same acknowledged or accepted +end. This I think is solid ground, so far that we are bound to deduce +the negative side of reasonableness from a positive nature, +whether a general relation to one and the same purpose, or relations +to different purposes. We have learnt, on the other hand, to distrust +the absolute distinction between means and end.</p> + +<p>2. Now I turn for a moment to what I may describe as <i>maxims</i> +of reasonableness. I will not call them “A priori principles,” because +such an expression raises a question about the nature of experience +which does not concern the point before us. But I do +treat them as characteristic of a view which explains reasonableness +rather by rules than by purposes; and it seems to follow from +this that the rule must be alleged to be self-evident, because if they +were derivative, they would most naturally be derivative from purposes. +But in the history of speculation of course the same principle +may be recommended at one time as analogous to an axiom +of the reasoning power, and at another time as involved in the purposes +which are recognised as good. Even the same writer may +combine both views.</p> + +<p>Now if such principles are supported as constituting the reasonableness +of action, either because connected with the predominance +of the speculative intelligence, or because of an analogy between +such principles and any axioms acceptable to the speculative +intelligence, I believe that this support of them is due to a sheer +confusion.</p> + +<p>I take two only, as illustrations, one of each type I have mentioned.</p> + +<p>Plato, it seems to me, constantly fails to distinguish between +the reasonableness of conduct, and the reasonableness of abstract +reasoning, that is, of the scientific intellect. To the moral philosopher, +scientific or theoretical interest and activity are one interest +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>and activity among others; and the reasonableness of activity is not +insured by pursuing an activity of reasonableness. It <i>may</i> be quite +unreasonable, in the moral sense, to pursue abstract reasoning as a +vocation in life. When we say that in every man the reason should +be uppermost, we do not mean that every man should devote himself +to intellectual pursuits. Plato knows this, as, in a sense, he +knows everything; but he uses all arguments for his purpose, and +among others I think he allows it to be supposed that occupation +with intellectual matter is in a moral sense a predominance of the +reason. I may instance his attempt to prove that intellectual +pleasures are the pleasantest, more especially with reference to his +aim in making the attempt, which is, I suppose, to recommend intellectual +occupation as pre-eminently reasonable in the moral +sense. To this I say No; if and in as far as the inference is meant +to rest upon an identification of scientific with moral reasonableness, +I think it a sheer confusion. It is like saying that because a +doctor has to do with the promotion of health, therefore it is a +healthy profession to be a doctor. But Plato’s argument shows +how strongly this idea appealed to him, because he even recommends +intellectual pleasures on the score of their sheer pleasantness, +implying not only that intellectual occupation is reasonableness +in the moral sense, but that intellectual occupation, even when +chosen by way of self-indulgence, is still reasonableness in the moral +sense. Of course the matter is complicated by a substantive connection, +the degree of which is matter of opinion, between the two +things, like that between being a physician and leading a healthy +life. Intellectual exercise and ambition have a definite influence on +certain capacities concerned in the reasonable will. But it cannot +be made out, that a tendency to the more intellectual occupations +is in itself a tendency to moral reasonableness. Moral reasonableness +must be a general characteristic of moral action, not guaranteed +by the special content of any form of activity.</p> + +<p>Next I have to discuss a principle which is advocated as an expression +of the morally reasonable, on the ground of having a +sort of analogy to several maxims or axioms of the intellectual +world. It used to be said that justice is like a square; or that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>rightness of an action consists in its conformity to certain eternal +proportions impressed upon the world by God. I take one more +modern form of these principles as a type of them all. Bentham +said, “One is only to count for one,” and it is a mere amplification +of this when Mr. Sidgwick maintains, if I understand him, that it is +objectively reasonable not to prefer my own interest or pleasure +simply because it is my own, to that of some one else. This principle +seems to me a commendable expression of moral judgment, +and I do not think that it is needless or empty. There is a famous +passage in Middlemarch where the heroine, in a matter which +acutely touches her own feelings, thinks to herself, “Now how +should I act if I could compel my own pain to be silent, and merely +consider what is best for the lives of all the persons concerned in +the situation?” That I suppose is a concrete rendering of what +this principle means.</p> + +<p>But if we look closer, we see its weak side. It is negative, and +consequently abstract. You are not to heed your own feelings unless +they are such that you would heed them if they were some one’s +else in the same circumstances. This amounts to no more than +saying, “We believe there is always, under all circumstances, a +right course.” It is strictly parallel to the theoretical principles of +Uniformity or Causation. “We believe that there is an explanation +for everything; that nothing changes without some reason.” These +are useful maxims if they make us look for the explanation, and so +the other is a useful maxim, if it makes us look for the right course. +But it really falls between two stools. It is not capable, as intellectual +theorems are, of accurate development and application by +measurement and analysis. Yet on the other hand it makes no +special appeal to any special content, or tendency of reasonableness +embodied in definite ends. It is neither theoretically fertile, nor is +it a description of a practical influence.</p> + +<p>It is a well-known phenomenon that those who suggest maxims +or moral axioms of this kind as defining moral reasonableness are +apt to be reduced to assuming a particular impulse, told off to assist +or obey the reason. Such are Plato’s “Spirited” element in the +soul, Kant’s reverence, Mr. Sidgwick’s general desire to do what is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>reasonable. This seems to me to be creating a rule which has no +positive content, and therefore has not the character of a human +purpose, and then imagining an impulse to obey it the nature of +which is not accounted for in reference to any plan of life, but must +simply be propounded as an isolated fact.</p> + +<p>It kept suggesting itself to us above that reasonableness could +not be thoroughly explained on the basis of a distinction between +means and end, because actual ends are not simple and uniform, +but are obviously qualified by the so-called means, or context of +circumstance. We agreed, however, that what is reasonable must +be so in virtue of a positive content, whether as means or perhaps +as end, and that its negative or prohibitive aspect must arise from +the conflict of two such positive contents.</p> + +<p>We have in this section looked at two interpretations of moral +reasonableness apparently suggested by analogies with intellectual +reasonings or principles, and we could not deny that each of them +had a certain appearance of truth, but one seemed to confuse the +content with the form, the other to consist of a form without any +content.</p> + +<p>3. It suggests itself therefore that moral reasonableness must +be a characteristic which we ascribe to purposes of action. Then +we get a variety of positive content, without relying on the distinction +between means and end; while the abstract principles which +we feel to be reasonable fall into their right place as very general +descriptions of a purpose or scheme of life which can be called +reasonable.</p> + +<p>But the idea of a reasonable purpose requires explanation.</p> + +<p>First, it is irreconcilable with abstract Hedonism. You cannot +have any relations within a single and uniform purpose, and reason +always involves relations.</p> + +<p>Secondly, it is not the most intellectual purpose, the purpose +that has most to do with reasoning. I have tried to explain this +above.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, it <i>is</i> such a life or purpose as possesses a self-consistent +relation of the parts to the whole. This is the general characteristic +of any reasonable totality <i>qua</i> reasonable, and it is this which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>forms the general characteristic of reasonable purpose <i>qua</i> reasonable.</p> + +<p>Then what is the meaning of the self-consistent relation of parts +to the whole in the case of a human scheme of life?</p> + +<p>We cannot demand that our specific purposes should be related +consciously to the purpose of the universe; because the universe as +a whole is the object of theoretical knowledge only, and this does +not furnish us with the idea of a concrete purpose at all. It seems +then that the whole, by consistency with which human purpose is +or is not reasonable, must be the whole of existing human purpose, +taken of course as moving in a certain direction, owing to the modification +continually introduced through the progressive realisation +of purposes. I do not see that more than this can be said without +entering upon the analysis of the actual structure of the moral world, +of society and of history. What is important seems to me to be +that we cannot construct the reasonable world of morality from a +theoretical view of men in general and of nature. We have to take +it as it is, and are then perhaps able to show that it is an organised +movement in the direction of self-consistency of purpose.</p> + +<p>Is there not more than one kind or type of self-consistency +possible, as when self-indulgence is restricted simply within the +bounds of health and decency? This is the question whether consistency +demands completeness, i. e. whether mere omission destroys +consistency. It has often been discussed, and I suppose the +general answer is that <i>assuming the unity of the total moral movement</i>, +any elements omitted in any portion of the movement must ultimately +have their revenge by producing disturbance.</p> + +<p>Then if we ask what after all is the relation of the theoretical +reason to the reasonable will or moral reason, the only answer +seems to be that the moral reason, in the individual or in the race, +is the body of intellectual ideas which are in fact predominant as +purposes in either, having become predominant by the power they +have shown of crushing out or adjusting to themselves the active +associations of all other ideas. And the power is what might be +described as logical power; that is to say it depends on the range +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>and depth which enables one idea to include in itself as in a system +a great variety of minor purposes.</p> + +<p>The intellect as such is for morality in the first instance simply +the medium in which the moral world or content of the moral world +exists; and which therefore conveys to that content its own peculiar +character of system and totality. Then, further, in theoretical reflection +on the moral world, I imagine that we notice this predominance +of ideas which have organising power, and we frame to express +this predominance such predicates as important, right, good. +And the whole of these judgments we must call wisdom as opposed +to knowledge. But I cannot myself see how these or any judgments +can be judgments of the moral reason. They seem to me to be, as +judgments, necessarily judgments of the theoretic reason dealing +with the facts of the moral world. But then there is the further +complication that these judgments themselves, forming the content +of intellectual ideas, may, if they have organising power, become +actively predominant, and then again they will form a portion of +the actual moral world as general ideas or clues, inciting to the active +search for concrete ideas which are concordant with them. In +this case they are not acting <i>as</i> judgments, which are true and false, +but only as dominant contents. It is one thing to judge that there +is a right in the moral world, and another thing to be mastered by +the right in one’s own mind.</p> + +<p>If I am asked, what I mean by the predominance of dominant +ideas, which I allege to form the content of the reasonable will, I +start from the position that every idea would produce action if unchecked, +simply by suggestions which through associative reproductions +call up the necessary movement. Desire may, I believe, +or may not intervene, as a state of tension between a pain of want +and a pleasure produced by an idea. All that is essential, it appears +to me, is this idea which can suggest an action.</p> + +<p>In the formed life of a civilised man the organising ideas have +long asserted their predominant power, and in every moment crush +out countless intruders each of which has in itself suggestions quite +capable of leading to action. In childhood or insanity the yielding +to every suggestion is a mark of what is called absence or loss of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>will; that is, not the loss of a <i>general</i> power to check minor suggestions, +but of perfectly <i>definite</i> habitual purposes which check +them as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>This view sounds no doubt like an iron Determinism, and I am +not much concerned to defend it from that imputation. After all, if +we are determined by the content of our own minds, why then I +suppose we determine ourselves. And trivial examples of indifferent +alternatives such as “I can blow out this candle or not as I +please” seem to me very poor representatives of the moral will, +compared with the necessary pressure of an over-mastering idea +which drives the man up to the point of saying, “This is what must +be decisive with one like me, and I have no alternative.” We feel, +as we say, that “we shall have to do it.” Almost all really serious +action, it seems to me, is of this type. And if I have read at all +correctly this lesson of the new psychology which owes its origin +largely to Herbart, it is an instructive meeting of extremes, that +the most analytic of psychologies should more than ever represent +the individual as the incarnation of a progressive order in ideas.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">B. Bosanquet.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="ETHNOLOGICAL_JURISPRUDENCE">ETHNOLOGICAL JURISPRUDENCE.⁠<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></h3> + +</div> + +<p>There is in the history of jurisprudence no more significant +event than the foundation of the historical school by Gustav +Hugo and Carl von Savigny. Jurisprudence, up to that time, was +not a science, at least not a science in the modern acceptation of the +term. It was an art, which the practical lawyer learned and employed +in strict conformity with practical traditions, without reflecting +on the reasons in virtue of which a legal norm or a social institution +existed. The only part of jurisprudence of a scientific tendency +was the philosophy of law. This latter branch had, since +Hugo Grotius, emancipated itself from the church, but it had advanced +no farther than to substitute for the will of God, to which +formerly right and wrong had been traced, the principle of human +nature, and to found upon the social instincts of man a system of +natural law,—an ideal jurisprudential state by reference to which +positive laws were tested in respect of their conformity with the +ideally right and the ideally wrong. This fundamental conception +of the essential character of law was only slightly modified by the +substitution of the human reason for human nature. The rational +systems of jurisprudence also derived the state and the law from the +individuality of man, especially from the social traits of this individuality, +and definite notions and principles were thus enunciated +from which state and law were deductively constructed.</p> + +<p>The historical school first introduced a change in all this. It +afforded the legal practitioner the possibility of seeing that the law +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>which he applied was the slowly ripened product of a course of development +that extended over many centuries, and it afforded the +philosophical juristic inquirer the possibility of understanding, that +the law was not founded on immutable ideas and principles, but +that it was a product of the creative mind of a nation, that this product +was subjected to processes of transformation and development, +and did not admit of regulation by the individual reason of a single +philosophical inquirer. But while the history of law has become a +universally recognised discipline in the science of jurisprudence, the +application of its underlying principles to the philosophy of law has +as yet by no means been universally carried out. On the contrary, +the reason still plays an extensive rôle as foundation and evolutionary +principle; and to a great extent the history of law and the +philosophy of law still pursue their solitary ways as independent +branches of knowledge.</p> + +<p>In recent times, through the influence of ethnology, jurisprudence +has entered on a new epoch. A new branch of the science +of law has arisen in Europe, the so-called ethnological jurisprudence, +and has already found in Germany, Austria, Italy, France, +Belgium, and Holland, enthusiastic supporters. Ethnology, as it +is known, is the science that has for the subject of its investigations +the totality of phenomena of social life of all the peoples of the +earth, and which makes use, in this investigation, of the methods +of inductive inquiry exclusively employed by physical and natural +science. After the science of ethnology had advanced to a certain +point, the extension of ethnological inquiry to the domain of jurisprudence +followed as of course.</p> + +<p>To a certain extent the investigations of the history of law had +prepared the way for ethnological jurisprudence. The inductive +method was common to both. The idea of a history of the development +of law was no longer strange to jurisprudence. Only the +courage was wanting to allow the eye to range over the legal systems +of all the peoples of the globe, instead of, as before, restricting +it to very narrow limits. The historical investigation of law +began in Europe with the history of the Roman law. Thereupon +it was immediately extended to the Germanic laws of Europe, so +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>that now all West-European peoples possess a highly developed +history of law of their own. Recently, also, the history of Slavonic +law has been assiduously treated.</p> + +<p>Whereas in every case here it was a question of the sources of +the laws that stood in immediate historical connection with the prevailing +systems of Europe, jurisprudential investigation was slowly +extended to more remote ethnical fields. The first impulse in this +direction came from comparative philology. This science had succeeded +in tracing the languages of extended groups of peoples back +to common primitive tongues. Among these primitive tongues the +Aryan, the common original language of the Indo-Germanic group +of nations, first occupied the attention of inquirers, and the law of +this group of nations thus became the first object of investigation of +a comparative jurisprudence extending beyond the more restricted +provinces of the history of law. The provinces of Græco-Italic, +Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, Iranic, and Indian law were investigated +with respect to a common origin, and various agreements and various +deviations were discovered. In very recent times the laws of +the Armenians and the Ossetes in the Caucasus have been added +to the laws of the Aryans, and the laws of the Afghans will probably +soon follow these.</p> + +<p>A number of more remote provinces of law have also been entered +upon, in connection with theological, philological, and connate +inquiries. Thus, particularly, in connection with biblical investigation +the Israelitic law, in connection with the study of Arabic the +Islamitic, in connection with the decipherment of the hieroglyphic +writings the Old-Egyptian, in connection with the decipherment of +the cuneiform inscriptions the Soumerian and the Assyrian-Babylonian, +and in connection with sinology the law of China. In very +recent times the Japanese law has also been treated.</p> + +<p>In the laws of all these peoples, by the side of many peculiarities, +were also found many phenomena of frequent and universal +recurrence.</p> + +<p>After the science of law had so far extended its activity in this +direction, it was a final step only that ethnological jurisprudence +took when it declared that the subject of juristic science was the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>investigation of the laws of <i>all</i> the peoples of the earth. And yet this +step was perhaps a more important one than all that had hitherto +been taken. For a considerable group of peoples had up to then +been entirely neglected by the science of law, namely the uncivilised +peoples, the so-called primitive peoples or <i>Naturvölker</i>. And just +the laws of these savages furnished the most remarkable disclosures. +They exhibited everywhere the most singular parallel phenomena, +and made it possible to open up a complete early history of the law, +and to bring to light periods of jural development of which the history +of civilised peoples has preserved but a few unintelligible remains. +Ethnological jurisprudence is thus able to supply complementary +information at a point where the threads of the history of law +are lost in the obscurity of early times.</p> + +<p>The condition of jural life in these primitive periods is very +singular. No juristic philosopher has ever lighted on the idea that +primitive man could exist with such jural conceptions as he actually +does. That which ethnological jurisprudence has brought to light +in this connection is something absolutely new and astonishing, +something that no brooding brain could have ever developed out of +any idea or principle. Indeed, it is so strange that it could not be +conceived at all if we did not have it before our eyes to-day among +savage tribes.</p> + +<p>The collecting of the laws of uncivilised peoples constitutes an +independent task of ethnological jurisprudence. In this way the +latter science will fill up the gaps which historical jurisprudential +inquiry left open in our knowledge of the jural life of man. But +more important than all, perhaps, will ethnological jurisprudence +become for the future development of the philosophy of law. In +this connection it goes hand in hand with the sociological tendency +which dominates our time and has its surest foundation in ethnology.</p> + +<p>The prime significance of ethnological jurisprudence lies in the +fact that it is an ethnological science.</p> + +<p>At first ethnology was a purely empirical science. It gathered +together all the attainable phenomena of ethnic existence, and separately, +at first, among single peoples and tribes. After an extensive +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>store of material had accumulated in this manner, the discovery +was made that in many provinces of ethno-social life, especially in +the provinces of religion, law, and morals, especially also in all +provinces of social custom, phenomena of essentially similar character +presented themselves among a great number of peoples in the +case of whom neither any original tribal relationship nor any infusion +from one nation into the other could be assumed; and, curious +to say, these were frequently the most singular phenomena, of which +one would have thought at first that they had sprung from the individuality +of a determinate people. This discovery of universal +ethnographic parallels was all the more surprising in view of the +fact that historical special inquiry, whose province up to then had +been essentially national life, had placed especial emphasis on outwardly +prominent events occurring in a different form in every nation, +whereas phenomena that appeared uniformly among the different +nations were little noticed. People had therefore grown +accustomed to regard every nation as something existing by itself +and peculiar to itself, and, particularly, had also declared it as inadmissible +to employ phenomena of the life of one nation to explain +corresponding phenomena of the life of another nation.</p> + +<p>The discovery of ethnographical parallels led to wholly different +ideas. It became clear that a great portion of human ethnical existence +was not founded in the peculiar character of particular peoples, +but in the character of the human race, in the universal nature +of man. And it became in addition clear that that which repeated +itself everywhere on the earth, which was therefore an expression +of the universal human, was something entirely different from that +which previous philosophy had declared to be the actual human. It +also became clear, at the same time, that the nations thought quite +differently from what the individual man did. With this, however, +the foundation of the entire previous philosophy was shaken. If +the axiom of modern ethnology is correct, namely that it is not <i>we</i> +that think, but <i>it</i> that <i>thinks in us</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> we shall no longer be able to +explain our nature from our consciousness, from our ego, from our +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>reason, but we shall have to pursue this momentous “It” that +thinks in us, and since we cannot find it <i>in</i> us we shall have to search +for it <i>outside of</i> us in the expressions of the human soul in the life of +the race.</p> + +<p>This is the fundamental idea of modern ethnology. It seeks to +collect all the expressions of the human soul in the life of the species, +and from them to derive its inferences as to the nature of man. It +regards ethnic existence as the precipitate of human psychical existence, +and not merely of that part of it which is conscious, but +also of that part of it which is unconscious, that which is inaccessible +to introspective observation, that which is not thought, but +is merely lived. It enlarges accordingly the domain of psychology, +which was restricted hitherto to the analysis of the human consciousness, +by the incorporation of an additional domain unmeasured in +extent.</p> + +<p>These general conceptions of ethnology are also determinative +for the science of ethnological jurisprudence, and from this results +its peculiarity as contrasted with the other branches of juristic +knowledge.</p> + +<p>Ethnological jurisprudence places the centre of gravity of the +science of law not like the previous juristic philosophy in the individual +jural consciousness, but in the law viewed as a province of +ethnic existence. It regards the laws of the nations as the precipitates +of that which is now active and has been active as jural instinct +in the entire human race. It assumes that when all the phenomena +of law in the life of the nations have been fixed, an infinitely more +valuable material will be drawn therefrom adapted to the disclosure +of the nature of law than could have ever in the world been acquired +by an analysis of the individual jural consciousness. It does +not regard the individual jural consciousness as something innate +in man and exempt from the altering effects of time, but as a product +of the social conditions in which the individual has grown up. +It assumes, therefore, that the individual jural consciousness changes +with a change of the social conditions, so that a man who grows up +under different social conditions possesses a different jural perception. +This assumption, if we compare the expressions of the jural +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>consciousness of races low in the scale of culture with those of civilised +peoples, is one that cannot be escaped. We have only to recall +to mind the irresistible force with which the jural sense of peoples +that live under clan-constitutions demand vengeance of blood, +whereas this species of retaliation no longer exists in our jural consciousness +of to-day. Thus there are hundreds and thousands of +jural instincts and conceptions which are present at certain stages +of civilisation and disappear entirely at others.</p> + +<p>Ethnological jurisprudence therefore assumes, that the juristic +philosopher who lays at the foundation of his system essentially his +own jural consciousness, simply enunciates therewith a system of +law that answers perhaps to the current conceptions of his time and +his people, but which can in no sense lay claim to a value beyond +that.</p> + +<p>Quite different, on the other hand, are matters conditioned +when the inquirer has before him the laws of all the peoples of the +earth from the lowest to the highest. Here he has in his possession +a picture of the jural consciousness of the mind of humanity, which +is no longer subject to alteration, but which, to the extent that the +development of human jural life has advanced, is complete.</p> + +<p>For the execution of its task ethnological jurisprudence first +requires a collection of the laws of all the peoples of the earth. +Each one of these laws is of equal value to ethnological jurisprudence +in so far as the jural consciousness of humanity has found +expression in it in any form. Especially deserving of consideration +are the laws of the so-called savage peoples that have been so much +neglected and contemned hitherto; since they bring to light the jural +consciousness of humanity in its germinal stages, and since higher +formations are invariably best understood when we know their first +beginnings.</p> + +<p>The solidest basis for ethnological jurisprudence would be furnished +by a monographic treatment of the law of every single tribe +and people of the earth. By such monographic treatments the entire +social organisation of a given tribe or people would be exhibited +in all its complicated reciprocal relations, and we should be able to +follow the law in all the thousands of minute ramifications that connect +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>it with the remaining provinces of national life. But such a +monographic treatment of the law of all the nations of the earth is +accompanied with great difficulties, and this part of the task of the +science of law has as yet been undertaken only to a limited extent.</p> + +<p>The condition of affairs is best in this respect where the nations +themselves have collected and compiled their legal customs in books +of laws. But such collections are found only among peoples that +deserve to some extent the appellation of civilised peoples. Among +the great majority of peoples the law is simply practised and handed +down by oral tradition, so that here the legal customs must be collected +by members of foreign civilised nations,—a very difficult +labor and one that can be accomplished only by persons who take +up their abode permanently among the races in question and become +thoroughly familiar with their language and habits of life.</p> + +<p>Collections of this character we possess unfortunately only to a +very limited extent, and our knowledge accordingly of the law of +uncivilised peoples is still very meagre. Even the books of law +possessed by the various peoples have not all been made available +to juristic science. In part they have not yet been printed, and in +part they have not yet been translated into a generally understood +language. Considerable time will yet be required before the existing +material has been made wholly accessible.</p> + +<p>Not before the legal customs of all the peoples of the earth +have been collected will ethnological jurisprudence be in a position +to furnish a successful solution of the task it has set itself,—the task +namely of a causal analysis of all the phenomena of the jural life of +the human race. Yet to a certain extent this task may be undertaken +at present, even with a relatively limited store of material.</p> + +<p>The starting-point for the ethno-juristic investigation of the +phenomena of jural life is furnished by the ethno-juristic parallels, +legal customs that are found uniformly appearing among the nations, +without there being any reason to assume that one nation has received +them from another. Legal customs of this character are in +part so universally diffused over the earth that they may be characterised +as a common possession of mankind; in part they appear +sporadically among unrelated peoples; in part they are restricted +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>to more limited domains. The most important legal customs are +those that have universal dissemination; for here it may be assumed +that they are a necessary emanation of the social side of human +life. Legal customs that occur only sporadically, but appear uniformly +among unrelated peoples, must likewise be regarded as the +products of the universal nature of man, yet only as such that <i>can</i> +arise under definite conditions of existence. Legal customs that +occur only in limited ethnological domains will have to be referred +to the peculiar character of definite peoples and tribes. Legal institutions +of universal character are, for example, the forms of marriage +by capture and purchase of the bride, blood-vengeance, the +right of refuge, the systems of composition, ordeals, oaths, and so +forth. Almost universal are the levirate, and the betrothal of children. +Sporadically among unrelated peoples appear: the seizure +of the corpse of the debtor for debt; execution by fasting, whereby +the creditor brings pressure to bear upon his debtor by having him +fast a definite period of time before his dwelling; the custom of the +chief doing combat with his grown up son, to whom the command +of the tribe passes if he conquers his father; and so forth.⁠<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Frequently +it is the most curious customs that thus recur, among peoples +that are completely separated from each other by oceans and +inaccessible mountain ranges and have unquestionably never been +in communication with each other.</p> + +<p>The explanation of these ethno-juristic parallel phenomena is +in part not very difficult, inasmuch as many of them can be traced +back to fixed forms of social organisation. Thus, for example, a +whole group of universally recurring legal customs is associated +with the peculiar formation of the clan-constitutions and clan-law +which regularly appears among uncivilised peoples and characteristically +differs from the form of political organisation familiar to +the present age. Many legal customs are also based on religious +conceptions and social customs, and their explication in such cases +is frequently very difficult.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span></p> + +<p>A complete explanation of all the legal customs of all the peoples +of the earth with respect to their social causes would exhaust +the work of ethnological jurisprudence as an ethnological discipline. +But in the same way that the acquisitions of ethnology are in their +turn utilisable towards the constitution of a universal philosophy, +to which they will impart perhaps an entirely different character, +so will the results of ethnological jurisprudence be in their turn +utilisable towards the constitution of a universal science of law and +for the philosophy of law, in which probably, through its means +also, a powerful change will be inaugurated. These are the ideas, +traced in their most general characters, that may be regarded as the +fundamental ones in “ethnological jurisprudence.”</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Albert Hermann Post.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Translated from the manuscript of Dr. Albert Hermann Post by Thomas J. +McCormack.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> Bastian.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> The reader will find a brief survey of the ethno-juristic parallels appearing +among the various peoples of the earth, in a treatise of mine entitled <i>Ueber die Aufgaben +einer allgemeinen Rechtswissenschaft</i> (1891), pp. 27 to 72.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="AMERICAN_POLITICS">AMERICAN POLITICS.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>Nothing in this country appears to the stranger more intricate +and inexplicable than our politics. The different parties, +two big ones and several little ones, the various machines, +county, state, and national, the “bosses,” “heelers,” and “workers” +present such a confusion of ideas and a terminology so varied, that it +is only after many years that the foreigner begins to comprehend +our system of government and the principles underlying our political +movements. Indeed, the majority of Americans themselves are no +better off and have no clear perception of the part they are playing +in the administration of affairs or the ethical effects of the ballot which +they cast. Ask the ordinary voter why he supports the candidates +of a certain party and you will find that his reasons are reducible to +a few concrete facts, and are rarely governed by any general principles.</p> + +<p>In the Southern states the vast majority of the whites are democrats +through opposition to the republican party which fought the +war and deprived them of their slaves. The negroes on the other +hand are republicans because it is to that party they owe their freedom, +and from it they expect protection for themselves in the exercise +of their political rights and the blessings of opportunity for +education. The political question there becomes a race question, +utterly regardless of the principles which the two great parties represent. +Let there be a complete change of platforms and the result +would be precisely the same as it has been for the past generation—the +South would still remain democratic, and the votes of their presidential +electors would still be cast for the candidates of that party.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span></p> + +<p>There is a minor race question in the feeling against foreigners, +more especially Irish, Italians, and Germans, influenced to some +extent by the fact that a large number of these foreigners are Roman +Catholics and that there is an uneasy suspicion on the part of some +Americans that the Catholic church is hostile to the spirit of democracy, +a suspicion not entirely unfounded if one should judge +solely by the sayings and doings of some of the prelates of that +church for the past forty years. This “Know-nothing” sentiment +at one time threatened to create a solid foreign vote in opposition. +Germans and Irish united under the protecting wings of Tammany +Hall and, aided by clergymen who hoped to obtain part of the state +educational fund for their private parochial schools, formed a strong +ally to the national democratic party. Happily prejudices of race +and religion are dying out and neither party can now claim a monopoly +of the foreign vote. Strange as it may seem, however, the +Irish and German elements, so recently the objects of proscription +themselves, have in late years become embittered against the +Chinese. To the patient industry of the Mongolian immigrants is +due the building of the Pacific railroads, when it would have been +impossible to obtain white labor, and the cultivation and development +of the Pacific coast states. Congress was terrorised into passing +the law excluding all Chinese laborers. It was more than race +prejudice which contributed to this hatred of the Chinese. The chief +reason for Chinese exclusion was an economic one. Great masses +of laborers feared that the Chinese by immigrating in vast numbers +would deprive them of work by taking their places at lower wages, +and, having the ballot, they dictated to Congress the terms of the +Anti-Chinese Act.</p> + +<p>The alien contract labor law is a measure conceived in the same +spirit and directed against the hiring of laborers abroad by American +contractors, who could thus displace their employés at lower wages +by Hungarians, or Poles, or Russians, ignorant of the language of +this country and whose compensation could be the more easily reduced +to a bare maintenance, and who in sickness or old age could +be turned out on the roads to die without costing the contractor any +contraction of his bank account. There was some excuse for this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>law, or at least for the feeling which prompted it, when the miners +of a whole section could be evicted and they and their families made +to suffer the pangs of slow starvation because the owners of the coal +lands found they could obtain human machines at a less cost from +abroad. It was natural that the laborers should demand a law which +offered some immediate relief even at the risk of meeting wrong with +wrong, rather than that they should attempt to regulate affairs on abstract +principles of justice while their stomachs were empty and their +wives and children were dying for want of sufficient nourishment. +That feeling, however, is also vanishing and American workingmen +are beginning to see that the increase in population, native-born as +well as that imported by contract, is steadily adding to the number +of competitors and lowering the rate of wages. Their attention is +becoming more and more directed to the opening of new opportunities +for work rather than to the restricting of the number of +workers.</p> + +<p>Another class of men, if they vote at all, do so on no general +principle of public welfare, but solely for their own advantage at +the expense of their fellow men. These are to be found among the +rich manufacturers, the coal, and iron, and railway kings, and the +manipulators of the crops of the nation. Rarely casting a ballot in +person, they give notice to their thousands of employés that if the +latter do not support the candidates or the party which they happen +to favor, the employés’ places will be given to more pliant servants. +These men are as non-partisan as the most ardent reformer could +wish. One of them, a few years ago when questioned by an investigating +committee of the New York state legislature, said: “In a +republican district I was a strong republican; in a democratic district +I was democratic; and in doubtful districts I was doubtful, but +in politics I was an Erie railroad man every time.” Another famous +man of the same type said he had no politics; that he found it +cheaper to buy up one set of legislators after they were elected than +to purchase two sets of candidates before election. These corrupt +men, counting their wealth by tens of millions, influencing state +legislatures and the national Congress, and throwing their weight +into Presidential campaigns, constitute the chief “dangerous class” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>in the United States to-day, far more threatening to the permanency +of free institutions than the anarchists who were hanged at Chicago.</p> + +<p>Then there are the illy-paid employés of these men who do their +bidding at the polls, voting for the candidates of their masters. +Promise of office or patronage lures others into the support of one +party or the other. Lastly come the poorest of the poor who live in +the most miserable tenement houses, or when single hive in the big +lodging-houses which are found chiefly in New York and Chicago. +A ton of coal or a barrel of flour is the bribe to the former, frequently +effected through the medium of the poor wretch’s wife who does not +care for politics but sees a very material advantage in the food or +fuel offered by the ward worker. The lodging-house voters, paid by +drinks of whiskey or dollar bills, until recently in New York were +marshalled in squads of twenty or thirty early on the morning of +election day, given their ballots and compelled to hold them aloft +between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand so that the heeler +or paid servant of some political faction might watch them from the +moment they took their place in the line of voters until their ballots +were handed to the election inspectors and dropped in the box. Both +parties wink at such frauds and their henchmen directly countenance +and assist in them but the party that happens to be in the majority +in any locality is usually the one most guilty. The result is that the +minority affects great virtue and loudly denounces the corruption of +its opponents.</p> + +<p>Among those who do vote on principle are the prohibitionists, +the greenbackers, the adherents of ephemeral labor parties and the +socialists. The anarchists generally refrain from voting because +they do not believe in any government by force and say that an enlightened +public opinion will lead the people to dispense with such +things as the army and navy and police and law courts. The socialists +occasionally vote for the men of other parties whom they +think represent the worst measures, in order the sooner, as they +frankly avow, to produce revolutionary conditions, which they expect +would assist them greatly in their propaganda. The prohibitionists, +greenbackers, and labor men each take a partial view of political +economy. The first see the evils and degradation arising from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>intemperance and think that everything else must yield to the one +consideration of the abolition of the liquor traffic. The panacea of +the greenbackers consists in the destruction of the monopoly of the +currency now enjoyed by the national banks. The labor men have +different shibboleths at different times such as the prevention of +child labor in factories, an eight-hour work-day and the like—measures +which might effect some relief but are minor matters compared +with the great social problem of the increase of poverty in the midst +of the greatest productive energies which the world has ever seen, a +problem which is rapidly coming to the front and overshadowing all +others.</p> + +<p>But these minor movements hardly produce a ripple on the surface +of our political waters. There are only two parties worthy of +the name in the United States to-day, as there have been but two +ever since the days of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. +These parties go on forming platforms chiefly on the theory of offending +the least number of voters and phrasing their declarations in +vague terms which may be explained one way in one part of the +country and another way in another part. Such is a cursory view +of the field of American politics to-day.</p> + +<p>It may seem that I have made out a pretty bad indictment of +corruption against our politics and that the view of the cynic is correct +that American politics are desperately wicked and there is no +health in them. But the moral forces which are operating in the +world are fortunately not dependent upon the changeable methods or +the selfish objects of men. It is here in America, perhaps more than +anywhere else, that the natural laws of social development have +fullest play. It is here that the evolution of politics is working itself +out freely, untrammelled by tradition or custom. It is here that the +ultimate ideal of politics will first be reached. When the framers of +the Declaration of Independence formulated their proposition that +governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, +a step in the right direction was taken—a step that was in accordance +with our old Saxon traditions, yet for the first time in the +world’s history made on an extended scale, to base human government +on the principles of natural law. And through all the vicissitudes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>of our country, its struggle for independence, its war for the +liberation of its commerce, its civil conflict which would have dismembered +any other nation, or would have left one section the subjugated +serfs of the other, through a disputed presidential election +which strained the written constitution to its utmost, the great moral +force of natural law has been working, now through one party, now +through another, gathering impetus as it goes and giving promise +always of better times to come.</p> + +<p>It is in this broad view that all the petty thieveries and striving +for place and power sink into utter insignificance. The people do +still rule. They may sleep for a time but are sure, sooner or later, +to assert their rights in accordance with the instincts of the human +mind, which are good and not bad. As long as the suffrage shall +exist it is reasonably certain that this American government, “of the +people, by the people, for the people,” shall not perish from the +earth. If the wealthy monopolists could control the suffrage, the +prospects might be different. The freedom of the voter has been +impaired to a certain extent but the American people with quick instincts +have awakened to the danger. The Australian system of +voting, which secures secrecy and freedom from intimidation and almost +extinguishes bribery is now becoming very popular. Fifteen +of the states have adopted it and the other twenty-nine will, no +doubt, follow their example in a few years. But the introduction of +measures for its establishment presented the curious anomaly of being +opposed by democrats in some localities and by republicans in +others, both for partisan reasons, constitutional and high moral pretexts +being of course advanced. When it becomes the general law, +it will do more than anything else to purify electoral methods.</p> + +<p>Entirely above the question of methods, however, there are certain +principles involved in American politics which it becomes of the +highest importance to comprehend and which furnish the key to the +apparently inexplicable confusion. These principles, it seems to me, +are reducible to two, which may be likened to the centripetal and +centrifugal forces in nature. As both are needed for the stability of +the physical universe, so both the centralising and decentralising +tendencies in politics are necessary for the co-ordination of the state. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>It is in the free play of these forces, each in its proper sphere, that +lies the assurance of the perpetuity of American institutions. But +as the ideal has not yet been reached, the practical result is that one +tendency begins to act, at first legitimately, then from the aggrandisement +of power and the “cohesive force of public plunder” the +administrators of government attempt to stretch it unduly, the opposition +comes to power and the same story is repeated. In each +case the liberal party succeeds the conservative, acts at first wisely, +then corrupted by the subtle temptations of place and power, and +wishing to retain both, it becomes opposed to change and begets a +new conservatism, while new liberals arise on a higher plane of evolution +to continue the never-ending struggle. And it must be recollected +that the conservative party of each generation is far more +liberal than the one which it displaced, thus giving assurance of perpetual +progress.</p> + +<p>This has been the epitome of all American history; each party +government, by whatever name it may have been known, has been +liberal in comparison with its predecessor and conservative as to its +successor. When Washington organised his administration it was +no doubt regarded in Europe as highly revolutionary and anarchistic. +But such a class government, with laws of entail and slavery, and +cruel punishments for petty offences, as existed then, would not be +tolerated for a single year at the present time. Thomas Jefferson +who founded the democratic party, then called the republican, was +a consistent opponent of aristocracy and personally was a man far in +advance of his time, but most of his followers would be horrified if +they should now come back to earth and see the powers possessed +by the general government to-day, necessary, legitimate powers, +without which the affairs of the nation could not be administered for +a single week. The United States soon got rid of laws of entail and +the established churches. The democracy came to power and held +it nearly sixty years. Long continuance in office endeared its possession +to that party while the very growth of the nation, from five +millions to thirty-one millions, demanded changes in internal policy +which were not forthcoming. There were not lacking signs of popular +discontent. In 1840 the democrats met their first defeat, and for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>three or four presidential terms the votes vibrated between the democrats +and the whigs. But the latter were not united on a consistent +policy. They needed a principle. The principle was shaping itself. +Slavery, which had been abolished in the Northern states, was gradually +strengthening in the South. The democrats forgot, or rather +most of them never learned, that true democracy knows no distinction +of color. The abolitionists were denounced by press and pulpit +as socialists, as the disturbers of public order, as blasphemers +against the very law of God contained in Holy Writ. The people, +however, returned to power these same socialists and the institution +of chattel slavery was doomed. That would have been the case in +any event, but the civil war precipitated it, just as many other unjust +wars in history have resulted in disestablishing the very institutions +to perpetuate which the wars were made.</p> + +<p>The republican party grandly and patriotically fulfilled its mission. +By degrees, however, the enormous destruction of wealth +during the war and the heavy debt entailed by it, created a burdensome +system of taxation which substituted self-interest for patriotism. +Duties were laid upon imports from abroad heavier than those +which formed one of the chief causes for the revolt of the colonies +against Great Britain. These duties enabled American manufacturers +to make on American soil the same class of goods that were imported +and charge the same price as the imported goods enhanced by the +duty, of course pocketing for themselves the extra profit which the +tariff aided them to obtain from consumers. The quickest way to +wealth was to start some manufacture, get the government to put a +tax on similar articles imported and pocket the difference, or to get +an internal revenue measure passed taxing a certain line of domestic +goods, pay the tax in the first instance and then charge it to the consumers +with of course a good commission added for patriotic services. +As long as the government had work for every man who could +shoulder a musket, the pernicious effect of the system was not clearly +seen. But when the war was over and one million men returned to +productive avocations, wages began to fall. Then the question of +taxation inevitably came to the front and has now become the living +issue of the hour. The needle of the suffrage is again vibrating, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>republican party has been deprived of power for four years and the +democratic President emphasised the issue by pushing the question +of tariff reform to the foreground. His re-election was defeated, +but the question is debated with more vigor than ever, and all signs +point to absolute free trade as one of the certainties of the future. +Judging from the last Congressional elections, the people have at +last turned their faces in the right direction.</p> + +<p>It will be noticed that two elements, which I have called the +centripetal and the centrifugal, have been predominant in shaping +American politics. They may be termed the socialistic and the anarchistic +forces. Socialism claims the direction of everything by a +strong centralised government. Anarchists say with the democrats, +“That government is best which governs least,” and logically argue +for the abolition of all government. Now, the right or wrong of these +principles depends upon their application. Only the most rabid anarchist +would object to the Post Office, for instance, and few socialists +would claim that the state has a right to regulate a man’s clothing +or his religion. It is on the question as to what subjects these principles +should be applied that all our American parties arise. The early federalists +were socialistic in that they believed in a strong central government +and in relegating as few things as possible to the states. President +Jefferson introduced the anarchistic or centrifugal principle of decentralisation +and individualism. But as the nation grew, it was seen +that this wrought injustice, especially in the matter of slavery which +was a violation of human rights, however the different states might +regard it. Then the socialistic or centripetal principle began to act +and slavery disappeared. Now it seems likely that the individualistic +principle will again become dominant in an attempt to abolish all +fiscal restrictions upon trade. After this may follow the socialistic +principle of state ownership of railways and telegraphs. Perhaps this +will be the work of the new political forces evidently gathering, as +foreshadowed by the Farmers’ Alliance, after the breaking-up of +parties and after the democrats, having given us free trade, will have +resumed their natural position of conservatives. Then, in the remoter +future, may come the anarchistic principle of the removal of the +restrictions against female suffrage. And so it will go on, first one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>principle acting and fulfilling its mission, then the other, each bringing +the nation to a higher plane of progress and uniting it more and +more closely with the grand upward march of the human race.</p> + +<p>What is this, after all? It is not socialism. It is not anarchy. +It is neither democracy nor republicanism. It is EVOLUTION. It +does not depend on the temporary success of party governments for +its action. It does not even solely result from our unique position +or our independence wrested from Great Britain. Back of it lie the +broad principles of British liberty, of common law, of Magna Charta +won from King John on the plains of Runnymede. Back of it is the +great wave of democracy arising out of the darkness of the Middle +Ages. Back of it are the injunctions of Him of Galilee who taught +the natural law as no man ever taught before. Back of it is Roman +jurisprudence and Greek art and culture and the early efforts of the +days when Cadmus brought the alphabet to Europe with his Phœnician +colony. Indeed, back of it lies the primeval impulse of the +first man, God-endowed, ape-descended, who stood upon his feet +and began to think. We may carry our thoughts still further to the +times when the red sunlight first filtered through the thick clouds +upon an uninhabited world, and still further may we go in thought +into the ages of eternity, and assert with fullest confidence that the +principles of progress to-day working themselves out in politics are +but the reflection of the divine ideals founded in the laws of nature.</p> + +<p>Can the course of such progress be turned back? Can we despair +of the future in the light of all the past? Is not the general +movement onward and upward? Will not the sneers at ephemeral +phases of our American politics pass away with the incidents which +they justly condemn, while the principles of progress remain forever?</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Thomas B. Preston.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="ARTIFICIAL_SELECTION_AND_THE_MARRIAGE_PROBLEM">ARTIFICIAL SELECTION AND THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM.⁠<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></h3> + +</div> + +<p>By artificial selection I mean all conscious and purposive arrangements +between men and women which have in view +character of offspring. This is opposed to natural selection which +is merely instinctive unteleological union with one of the opposite +sex as impelled by animal passion or romantic love. All sexual +union among the lower animals is by natural selection; they do not +forecast consequences, and by conforming to known laws determine +consequences. Among the lower races of men natural selection is +the sole or at least dominant factor in marital matters, but as civilisation +advances artificial selection becomes a more and more powerful +element. A truly thoughtful and intelligent man in our day in +view of marriage will most carefully consider his own life history +and that of his parents and ancestors, and also that of his intended +partner and her ancestors, as to physical or mental disease, which +might be handed down to the issue of the proposed union. He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>would not, for instance, marry into a family which has a tendency +to consumption or insanity, for this would be a crime against his +possible descendants. Further, this growth of artificial selection +with the progress of society is manifest not only as regards individual +action but by state regulation. Even in barbarous states it soon +becomes evident to the leaders that if strong healthy men are to be +had to defend and maintain the nation, strict attention must be paid +to the character of those who marry. In Sparta and other ancient +states this principle was recognised, and modern governments seek +in many more or less indirect ways to encourage marriage between +the most fit, so that good citizens and warriors may be raised up to +serve the state. All this regulation of marriage by either individual +or state action which looks to the character of offspring I term +artificial selection.</p> + +<p>In the evolution of man as a rational animal artificial selection +will more and more prevail, and human breeding will become a well +defined art. Man is always artificial,⁠<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> and it is his goal to become +in all his life unnatural and thoroughly artful. There can ultimately +be no <i>laissez-faire</i> policy as to marriage or any other institution. The +history of marriage is the history of the gradual retirement of natural +selection; but art has come in here more slowly than in other +relations of life owing to tremendous conservatism and the power of +human passion. But the time has now come when man must more +than ever before attend by artificial selection—that is, purposed +care—to the perpetuation of the species in the line of its true advancement, +spiritual achievement. I do not now see how the necessity +of artificial selection can be gainsaid by any one who takes a +broad view of the evolution of the race.</p> + +<p>The methods of artificial selection are either negative, which +restrain the unfit from propagating, or positive, which encourage +the fit to propagate. The most radical negative method is mutilation, +and is employed by man with the lower animals and with +slaves, but this plan could hardly be used by civilised society +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>for human breeding. Imprisonment temporarily restrains some +classes of society from perpetuating themselves. Prevention of conception +is at present mostly a voluntary means, but accomplishes +the elimination of both fit and unfit. Celibacy of monk and nun, of +bachelor and maid, works also in both directions. In many indirect +ways society discourages from marriage those whom it supposes to +be unfit as tested by wealth, rank, or birth.</p> + +<p>It is not, however, so much by the extension of any negative +methods, but rather by positive means that artificial selection may +be best employed. I will mention three forms by which human +breeding might be materially advanced.</p> + +<p>By common law and custom the wife surrenders herself physically +to submit and morally to obey the husband. This is not for +the most part harshly and literally carried out in civilised countries; +still there is a vast deal of oppression which is hidden from all eyes, +and which is often passively received by women as her rightful lot. +This again is a subject upon which delicacy—perhaps unwise—forbids +free discussion, but its bearing is manifest. If women have +the choice to bear or not to bear, and she with educated conscience +choose by fitness of offspring, a large and powerful element of artificial +selection may be introduced. Again all governments have +laws concerning marriage which act in general toward encouraging +the fit. Certain conditions as to age, etc., being fulfilled, the state +grants a marriage licence, and public opinion might easily be led to +make the requirements more stringent. As a physician has suggested +to me a certificate of health from an approved medical examiner +might be required of all applicants for legal marriage. This +would certainly be a strong measure of artificial selection, and would +save much misery springing from ignorance and vice. It surely +seems scarcely fitting that those who cannot pass an examination +for life insurance freely contract marriage with view to issue.</p> + +<p>But the plan of artificial selection which seems to me most +feasible at the present time would be voluntary associations of men +and women who bind themselves to learn and apply the laws of heredity +in their marriage relations, to seek for expert guidance, and +in all their life to live not merely purely, but according to reason and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>science. Heredity societies of this stamp which should favor marriages +only between members would ultimately become a rational +aristocracy, and true and good blood would be perpetuated in the +best manner. There is much, indeed, to be done in the science of +heredity, especially as regards laws of transmission of mental and +moral qualities,⁠<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> but still we have even now a sufficient basis of +knowledge to make the experiment well worth trying.</p> + +<p>Many objections can be raised to such schemes. For instance, +it will be said that they might assure us of obtaining men of talent, +but we should forever lose men of genius. If such societies were in, +vogue in the Elizabethan period, we might never have had a Shakespeare. +What likelihood that a scientific expert would advise the +marriage of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden! I answer that we +should have had a dozen Shakespeares instead of one. The law of +the production of geniuses is not beyond human ken. Maud S. is +truly a genius in horseflesh, but she came into the world in no fortuitous +or instinctive way, but by scientific breeding. The applicability +of similar foresight in breeding men would produce geniuses +in abundance. It may not be accomplished in an exactly analogous +manner, an expert leading around eminent men to “make the season,” +but the analogous practical results will nevertheless be obtained.</p> + +<p>Another objection which might be urged is that any such scheme +would seriously diminish population. True; but what thoughtful +man applies the numerical test to the progress of the race! It is +not quantity of citizens but quality, which constitutes the true greatness +of states. The counting of heads instead of what is in heads, +is a mistake into which democracies are peculiarly apt to fall. Were +all men exactly equal a census would be a true test, but considering +the tremendous inequalities in humanity it is sheer folly for a country +to glory in the number of its adherents, or a sect in the number +of its adherents, or a city in the number of its citizens. Civilisations +are weighed down and ultimately crushed by the dead weight of the +masses. The barbarian is not without but within the civilisation. +By recent inquiries in New York and Chicago the slums appear to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>be five times as prolific as the most aristocratic portions; and while +good may come from the lowest born, and bad from the highest +born, still the chances are decidedly in favor of the high born. A +few rise above the level of their birth, a few sink below it, but the +great majority of men remain for their lives on the general level of +society in which they were born. The United States would be a +greater nation with 10,000,000 choice inhabitants than with ten times +10,000,000 of the ill bred and low bred. Athens by the vulgar test +of numbers was but a small and mean city, but in true greatness as +revealed in far reaching spiritual power, she stands in the very forefront.</p> + +<p>Again it will be objected that scientific schemes for human +breeding would inevitably destroy that beautiful flower of Christian +civilisation, the poetry and romance of love. Sentiment and chivalry +would wither, and brutality and cold calculation would supplant all +tender and refined emotion. I should answer that the true refinement +which refuses to obtrude the things of sense, and true purity +which refuses to dwell on them salaciously, are perfectly compatible +with the fullest knowledge and the consequent action. Lubricity +breeds best upon a half knowledge acquired in dubious ways. A +serious practical scientific treatment of this subject will not glorify +the flesh with the fierce gusto of Walt Whitman, nor, with the Zola +school, dwell upon animalism with the morbid detail of a heated +imagination; but it will bring into the clearest light the laws of sex +and the rules for the development of the human race into the perfect +man. These laws of nature, which science reveals, are laws of duty +and laws of God, and when once appropriated as such by Ethics and +Religion, they will become the basis for all that is high in emotion +and chivalrous in action.</p> + +<p>In that most vital of matters, human breeding, man is far behind +his progress in all other spheres of action; but here as elsewhere +Science must enter, not to destroy but to fulfil, to build up +manhood and womanhood into the perfected relations which can +only come from rational action, illuminated by complete knowledge, +and sanctioned by noblest sentiment.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Hiram M. Stanley.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> In an article in <i>The Arena</i> for June, 1890, I endeavored to plainly set forth +the renewal of society from its lowest elements as the greatest disease in our social +life, and to show that the remedy lies in a thorough application of science to human +breeding. Just how this application was to be made I did not state, for I did not +include this in the scope of my discussion. Mr. Stead in his <i>Review of Reviews</i> +for July, 1890, and Mr. Wallace in the September <i>Fortnightly Review</i> and October +<i>Popular Science Monthly</i>, 1890, have drawn inferences on this point which I am not +prepared to allow. Mr. Stead speaks in headlines and in text of “murder, mutilation, +or imprisonment” as the methods which I hint at, and Mr. Wallace remarks +upon my views “that such interference with personal freedom in matters so deeply +affecting individual happiness will never be adopted by the majority of any nation, +or if adopted would never be submitted to by the minority without a life-and-death +struggle.” It seems incumbent then on me to state more clearly what I understand +by artificial selection, and what forms of it are most expedient at the present time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> By artificial I understand not what is unnatural or against nature but that +which is after conscious deliberation more in accord with the laws of nature. It is +a higher degree of the natural.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> See my remarks on this point in <i>Nature</i>, Oct. 31, 1889.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="THOUGHT_AND_LANGUAGE_I">THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>I have read with interest Prof. Max Müller’s paper on the above +subject in the current issue of <i>The Monist</i>, not only because it +is in large part devoted to a consideration of my own work on “Mental +Evolution,” but still more because the explanations which it supplies +touching certain points of disagreement between us appear to +show that I have not misrepresented his statements, even if, as he +alleges, I have misapprehended his meanings.</p> + +<p>The work to which allusion has just been made was published +in 1888, and, as far as I am aware, it is only now that Prof. Max +Müller has sought to meet my views as there expressed. Hence +we may take it that his answer is, at all events, well matured. Furthermore, +we may take it, from the tone in which his answer is conveyed, +that he credits me with having had at least an honest desire +to understand, and accurately to represent, his meaning in all the +places where I have ventured to criticise it. It appears, however, +that at all events in one important respect I have betrayed “a complete +misapprehension” of his meaning—viz. with reference to his +“theory of the origin of roots” (<i>The Monist</i>, p. 582); and it is for +the purpose of correcting this misapprehension that he has published +the latter half of his present paper. My reply, therefore, +must take the form of excusing myself for the complete misapprehensions +which are alleged.</p> + +<p>It is desirable at the outset to emphasise a distinction which I +was careful to draw in my work on “Mental Evolution in Man”—that, +namely, between philology and philosophy. A man may be +an excellent authority on the “Science of Language,” and yet but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>a very indifferent writer on the “Science of Thought.” On the +other hand, a man may know nothing at first hand touching the +special province of a philologist, and nevertheless be fully capable +of criticising what a philologist has published in the way of theoretical +deductions from his facts—especially where these deductions +quit the sphere of philology, and soar into that of Darwinian, or +anti-Darwinian, speculation. This distinction, indeed, between the +particular science of philology and the general scope of philosophy, +Prof. Max Müller himself recognises where he says: “While the +student of language seems to me to have a perfect right to treat +the roots of language as ultimate facts, it is difficult for the philosopher +not to look beyond.” (<i>The Monist</i>, p. 579.) Nevertheless he +complains of me because, while accepting all his philological facts +upon his authority as a philologist (save in so far as they are not +accepted by other philologists), I have been obliged to express dissent +from not a few of his theoretical deductions—especially, as I +have already indicated, where these have reference to the general +doctrine of evolution as applied to the mind of man. But how, I +may ask, could a treatise be written on “Mental Evolution in Man,” +or “The Origin of Human Faculty,” without considering the results +which have been gained by the science of comparative philology? +Or how can it be maintained that, in order to deal with +these results in relation to the general theory of descent, a writer +must first of all himself become an authority in that particular science? +At any rate, I deemed it enough for the only purposes which +I had in view, to read attentively all the leading authorities in this +science, and, after extracting from them the information upon matters +of fact which their researches had established, to show what I +regarded as the bearing of these facts upon the theory of mental +evolution. Nor can I plead guilty to the charge of arrogant presumption, +which the following words appear to convey:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We see in his case how dangerous it is for a man who can claim to speak with +authority on his own special subject, to venture to speak with authority on subjects +not his own. Professor Romanes has, no doubt, read several books on philology +and philosophy, but he is not sufficiently master of his subject to have the slightest +right to speak of men like Noiré, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, to say nothing of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>Hobbes, with an air of superiority. That is entirely out of place.” (<i>The Monist</i>, +p. 383.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Now that any such “air of superiority” occurs in my book, I +must deny—and this is a matter of fact. Noiré is alluded to only +with reference to his theory of the origin of language, which I go +further in accepting than does any “philosopher” or “philologist,” +with the single exception of Prof. Max Müller himself. Huxley is +mentioned in several places as a leading authority on anatomical +matters, where my argument requires an authoritative statement +upon them. Herbert Spencer, curiously enough, is never mentioned +at all; while Hobbes is named only once, and then as sustaining, +by a “shrewd analysis,” an opinion which I am advocating +by quotations from recognised authorities in philosophy. Truly, +therefore, it would be well for my critic “to say nothing of Hobbes”; +and better still if he had looked at my index before condemning my +supposed treatment of Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and Noiré. As it +is, his allusion to these names “is entirely out of place.”</p> + +<p>But even apart from this particularly unfortunate allusion, his +more general charge as to my “venturing to speak authoritatively +on subjects not his [my] own,” is equally out of place. The following +is my introduction to the chapter on Comparative Philology, +and I cannot see that it betokens any “air of superiority”:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In now turning to this important branch of my subject, I may remark, <i>in +limine</i>, that, like all the sciences, philology can be cultivated only by those who devote +themselves specially to the purpose. My function, therefore, will here be that +of merely putting together the main results of philological research, so far as this +has hitherto proceeded, and so far as these results appear to me to have any bearing +upon the ‘origin of human faculty.’ Being thus myself obliged to rely upon +authority, where I find that authorities are in conflict, I will either avoid the points +of disagreement, or else state what has to be said on both sides of the question. +But where I find that all competent authorities are in substantial agreement, I will +not burden my exposition by tautological quotations.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Having thus disposed of a merely personal matter, I may pass +on to my justification of the “complete misapprehension” into +which I have fallen with respect to Prof. Max Müller’s work on the +“Science of Thought.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span></p> + +<p>In the first place he tells us:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“On page 267 Mr. Romanes says that I profess, as a result of more recent researches, +to have reduced the number of Sanskrit roots to 121. I wish I had. But +the number of roots in Sanskrit stands as yet at about 800: the number 121 of which +he speaks is the number of concepts expressed by these roots, many of them conveying +the same, or nearly the same, idea.” (<i>The Monist</i>, p. 583.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Now it is quite true that on page 267 I made the statement +which is here challenged; but as I immediately go on to speak repeatedly +of the “number 121” as being “the number of concepts +expressed by the roots,”—and actually quote at length the whole +121 concepts with Prof. Max Müller’s own heading,—I am not sure +that the point is worth the stress which is now laid upon it. Nevertheless, +I may explain why in this one passage I used the word +“roots,” instead of the word “concepts.” Briefly, the only reason +was because, according to Prof. Max Müller’s theory of the origin +of roots, it seemed to me virtually the same thing, from a psychological +point of view, whether we speak of the reduction in question +as pertaining to roots or to concepts. For, according to the +theory, “every root embodies a concept,” or is the obverse side of +a concept. Consequently, if the Sanskrit language presents some +800 roots, while it is expressive of only 121 concepts, the balance of +the 800 roots must be concerned in conveying the same, or nearly +the same, ideas—as Prof. Max Müller himself expressly asserts in +the above quotation from <i>The Monist</i>. Indeed, the whole object of +his psychological analysis of linguistic roots was to prove that such +is the case; and, therefore, that the 121 roots which serve to convey +the 121 concepts are the only roots required for the purposes of +communication in Sanskrit speech. No doubt it would have been +better if I had stated all this in my book; but even if its omission +led to obscurity, I can scarcely see that on this account there could +have been a “misrepresentation” where there was certainly no +“misapprehension.” For, as already stated, I spoke of “121 roots” +only once, while I alluded to “121 concepts” many times—and +usually, moreover, in inverted commas. Lastly, it may be observed +that, following his theory concerning the “origin of roots,” +Prof. Max Müller himself so far identifies roots with concepts as to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>head one of his lists, in large capitals—ROOTS OR CONCEPTS. +Therefore in saying that he professed to have reduced the psychologically +efficient elements of Sanskrit speech to 121 constituents, +it did not appear to me that I was departing from his own terminology +when in one passage I spoke of these 121 constituents as +roots, while everywhere else I spoke of them as concepts. “Give +us,” he says, “about 800 roots, and we can explain the largest +dictionary; give us about 121 concepts, and we can account for the +800 roots.” (“Science of Thought,” p. 551.) Well, if this is so, +the 800 roots (i. e. phonetically separable elements) have been reduced +to the 121 “concepts or roots” (i. e. psychologically separable +elements). My critic cannot both have his cake and eat it. +Either he must abide by the philological meaning of a root, as the +ultimate result of philological analysis; or else he must abide by his +own philosophical meaning of a root, as the embodiment of a concept. +Under the former definition there will be about 800 roots of +Sanskrit; under the latter definition, and according to his analysis, +there will be only 121.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The next point with regard to which “complete misapprehension” +is alleged may best be presented by my critic’s own words, +thus:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Professor Romanes thinks it necessary to remark that ‘these concepts do not +represent the ideation of primitive man’! I never said they did. I never pretended +to be acquainted with the ideation of primitive man. All I maintained was that, +making allowance for obscure words, every thought, that of the lowest savage as +well as of the most minute philosopher, can be expressed with these 800 roots, and +traced back to these 121 concepts.” (<i>The Monist</i>, p. 584.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Now, it is perhaps needless to say, I am extremely glad to learn +that such was the meaning intended; but I trust that the following +quotations will furnish a sufficient excuse for my misunderstanding +of it:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I hope that those who will carefully examine the results at which I have arrived, +will admit that they prove by overwhelming evidence that the meanings of +roots are really what we expected them to be, and that they express the primitive +social acts of primitive social man, and the states more or less closely associated +with such acts.” (“Science of Thought,” p. 403.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span></p> + +<p>From this it appears that if Prof. Max Müller never professed +to be acquainted with the ideation of <i>primitive</i> man, he did profess +to have proved, by overwhelming evidence, a very large acquaintance, +not only with the ideation, but also with primitive acts of +primitive <i>social</i> man. Possibly his acquaintance with both these +matters is very much more intimate than mine; but as I have always +taken it to be virtually certain that “primitive man” was +“social” in his habits, I should like to learn the reasons which have +induced my critic to believe in a still more “primitive man,” who +was addicted to a solitary mode of life. For, otherwise, the only +distinction on which his criticism appears to rest is a distinction +without a difference.</p> + +<p>Again he says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The Science of Thought assures us that every thought that ever crossed the +mind of man can be traced back to about 121 simple concepts.” (Ibid., p. 418.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And that the word “man” here is not intended tacitly to exclude +“primitive man” (whether “social” or solitary), I gathered +from the fact of the 121 concepts in question being tabulated under +the heading, in large capitals, THE 121 ORIGINAL CONCEPTS. +For, if the word “original” here was intended to mean original +only with reference to the Sanskrit language, why did the writer +follow it up with his statement about the Science of Thought, assuring +us that <i>every</i> thought which had <i>ever</i> crossed the mind of <i>man</i> could +be <i>traced back</i> to these 121 original concepts?</p> + +<p>Lastly, not only by such particular passages was I led to suppose +that the writer was referring to “primitive man” when he was +writing about “primitive social man,” etc.; but still more was I led +to suppose this by the whole drift and tenor of his work. For what +would be the sense of all his disquisitions upon the importance of +linguistic science in its relation to the theory of evolution, if he intended +to restrict his inferences to the <i>semi-civilised</i> condition of man, +which (as he allows) must have been the condition of the speakers +of Sanskrit? Clearly, if this were his intention, there would have +been <i>no</i> sense in all these disquisitions; and therefore, here again, +my critic cannot both preserve his cake and consume it. Either +let him adopt the position which he takes up in <i>The Monist</i>, as a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>philologist pure and simple, who “never pretended to be acquainted +with the ideation of primitive man,” who refuses to go beyond the +“facts” of the “Science of Language,” or to speculate upon their +theoretical relations to the “Science of Thought”: or else let him +do as he does in his published works—superimpose upon his functions +as a “Student of Language” the functions of a “Philosopher,” +freely speculate upon “the origin of roots,” elaborately argue +the whole psychology of “concepts,” and strenuously endeavor to +show that “language is the Rubicon of mind,” which not only now, +but at all times, has separated man from the lower animals, as a +being mysterious in origin, if not unique in kind.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Next we are told:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Professor Romanes dwells on what he calls the interesting feature of all roots +being verbs. This is simply a contradiction in terms. In giving the meaning of +roots scholars generally employ the infinitive or the participle, “to go,” or “going”; +but they have stated again and again that a root ceases to be a root as soon as it is +used in a sentence.” (<i>The Monist</i>, p. 584.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Now, by a “verb” I understand a word that signifies either an +action or a state; and by a “root” I understand—here agreeing +with Prof. Max Müller himself—“an element of human speech,” so +far as this has been hitherto reduced by philological analysis. +Again, I hold—in this also agreeing with him—that “as soon as a +root is used for predication it becomes a word, whether outwardly +it is changed or not.” (“Science of Thought,” p. 440.) Well, if +we are agreed upon these points, I do not see how there can be any +“contradiction in terms” when I stated the fact “of all roots +being verbs.”</p> + +<p>In the first place, if one were to agree with Prof. Max Müller +himself in holding that originally every root was “something real, +something that was actually used in conversation” (Ibid. p. 420), +there can be no contradiction in terms if we translate this into saying +that originally every root was a word—for the mere quibble that +not until it was spoken did the root become a word does not affect +the matter, any more than if we were to say the same of any word +now in use, which has given birth to a progeny of other words. But +even if we disagree with Prof. Max Müller, and suppose that roots +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>are merely “phonetic elements,” or the residual extract of a group +of originally allied words, we should still be correct in saying that +the “concepts” which they “embody” are all concepts which now +admit of being expressed in equivalent words.</p> + +<p>So much for the “contradiction in terms,” which is alleged to +arise if we speak of roots as <i>words</i>. Touching the second point, or +the accuracy of saying that the words which roots express are always +<i>verbs</i>, my defence is sufficiently easy. For to say, as my critic says, +that “in giving the meaning of roots scholars generally employ the +infinitive or the participle,” appears to me a most unphilosophical +observation, since it appears to indicate that in the opinion of its +writer the significance of a verb is but conventionally given to a root +by the verbal form into which it is thrown by scholars. But the fact +is that, even if they tried, scholars could rarely deprive a root of its +significance as a verb, no matter into what verbal form they might +choose to throw it. Take any root at random, such as HA <i>to go</i>. +However much we may ring the changes, as “to go,” “going,” +“goer,” it is impossible to get rid of the fundamental significance +of the root as a verb. And although it is, of course, possible to +select a root which presents a more equivocal interpretation, the +cases in which this can be done are, comparatively speaking, not +numerous, and apparently never such as to exclude the probability +of its having primarily conveyed the force of a verb. For instance, +HUR <i>to fall</i>, may be regarded either as a verb or a noun-substantive; +but we cannot say that there is anything to render more probable +the view of the root having been originally expressive of a fall than +of the act of falling; and inasmuch as there do not appear to be any +roots which <i>can</i> only have originally had the force of nouns or adjectives, +while there are so many which <i>can</i> only have originally +had the force of verbs, we may fairly conclude that in the accidentally +more equivocal cases the roots were likewise originally expressive +of actions or of states. For, if not, why are there not as many +roots which convey such meanings as <i>sky</i>, or <i>blue</i> (which never can +have had equivalents in the forms of verbs), as there are roots like +HA, where we cannot doubt that the meaning from the first must +have been the meaning of a verb?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span></p> + +<p>I am the more surprised at this head of Prof. Max Müller’s criticism, +because it belongs to the very essence of his own theory touching +“the origin of roots,” that they <i>must</i> all originally have conveyed +the meaning of verbs. Therefore from end to end of his own book +he constantly alludes to roots as expressive of “actions”; never as +expressive of objects or qualities. For instance:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“All, or nearly all, the roots of Sanskrit, or rather of the Aryan family in general, +express, as we shall see, acts, and more particularly the commonest acts performed +by members of a primitive society.” (“Science of Thought,” p. 272.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And even in <i>The Monist</i> article itself the same thing is stated +thus:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Let us remember that a most careful psychological analysis had led Noiré to +the conclusion that the germs of all conceptional thought were to be found in the +consciousness of our own repeated acts. And let us place by the side of this, the +well-ascertained fact that the germs of all conceptional language, what we call roots, +express with few exceptions the repeated acts of men.” (<i>The Monist</i>, p. 580.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Again:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We begin with the fact that the great bulk of a language consists of words, +derived, according to the strictest rules, not from cries, but from articulate roots. +No one denies this. We follow this up with a second fact, that nearly all the roots +express acts of men. No one denies that.” (p. 588.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Very well then, I submit that the only real distinction between +Prof. Max Müller’s rendering of this “fact,” and my own rendering +of it, consists in my having added “states” to “acts,” and observing +that then the comparatively few outstanding roots may be included +with the “nearly all” under the one category of “verbs.”</p> + +<p>For the distinction which he draws in <i>The Monist</i> is not a real +distinction: it is merely a verbal distinction.</p> + +<p>Here it is:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If Professor Romanes approves of my saying that roots stood for any part of +speech, just as the monosyllabic expressions of children do, I can only say that, if I +ever said so, I expressed myself incorrectly. A root never stands for any part of +speech, because as soon as it is a part of speech it is no longer a root.” (<i>The Monist</i>, +p. 585.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This, as I have previously observed, is merely a quibble. If +originally every root was “something real, something used in conversation,” +originally all roots were <i>words</i>, in just the same sense +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>as “the monosyllabic expressions of children” are words. And if +“nearly all these roots express the acts of man,” while most (if not +all) the outstanding residuum were apparently expressive of states, +it follows that the roots in question were not only words, but <i>verbs</i>. +And in stating this “fact” I supposed that I was but following Prof. +Max Müller’s statement of it, where he constitutes it the philological +basis of his theory on the “origin of roots”—viz. that all roots +sprang from sounds made by “primitive social man” when engaged +in their “social <i>acts</i>.” But, while accepting this fact, I objected to the +theory raised upon it, because the latter did not consider that roots +which originally had the force of verbs must have been more likely +to have survived, and so to have come down to us, than those which +may originally have had the significance of any other parts of +speech. And it was only in order to supply this further consideration +that I alluded to the “fact” at all.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>We come next to some disparaging remarks upon “babies,” +“parrots,” and the lower animals generally (<i>The Monist</i>, pp. 586-7). +Prof. Max Müller “refuses to argue” with me, “or any other philosopher, +either in the nursery or the menagerie.” So be it. As a +philologist, of course, he is assuredly right; no one would expect +him so to argue. But as a philosopher, who has written a large +book on the “Science of Thought,” he is no less assuredly wrong. +And one may be pardoned for wondering at this intentionally ostrich-like +attitude on the part of a philosopher—who is “going beyond the +origin of roots”—with respect to the fundamental germs of the sign-making +faculty.</p> + +<p>Again, my critic appears to imagine that I am a supporter of +the onomatopoetic theory—to the extent of regarding <i>all</i> human language +as having originated in imitations of natural sounds. (<i>The +Monist</i>, pp. 586-7.) But over and over again I have stated that +this is not my view. I believe, indeed, that there is a very large +amount of truth in this theory; but I deem it on all grounds most +improbable that the principle of imitation has been the <i>only</i> principle +concerned in the origin of speech. I have argued that probably +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>many other principles must have been concerned, including the +“synergastic” principle suggested by Noiré, and enthusiastically +adopted by my critic as alone sufficient to explain the whole problem +of the origin of speech—and this although it is clearly but a particular +branch of the general onomatopoetic theory. Hence, so far +as I am concerned, it does not signify one iota whether any given +root owed its origin to the principle of imitation, or to some other of +the general principles which I believe to have been concerned in +the birth of articulate language. And, if possible, still less does it +signify whether or not in the development of any given word, such +as “thunder,” the original root-sound has been afterwards imitatively +modified, “from a feeling that it should be so.” These matters +are no doubt of importance within the four corners of philology; +but in relation to the “biological theory” of descent they present +no importance at all.</p> + +<p>Yet I am told:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Those who cannot see the difference between a man, or for all that, between +a mocking-bird, saying <i>Cuckoo</i>, and a whole community fixing on the sound of TAN, +as differentiated by various suffixes and prefixes, and expressing the concept of +stretching in such words as <i>tonos</i>, <i>tone</i>, <i>tonitru</i>, <i>thunder</i>, <i>tanu</i>, <i>tenuis</i>, <i>thin</i>, should +not meddle with the Science of Language.” (<i>The Monist</i>, pp. 588-9.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Doubtless. But as no word of this applies to me, I may be permitted +to observe that if any one who has read my book can possibly +suppose that it does, he should not meddle with the Science of +Thought.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In conclusion, if it be the case that I have completely misapprehended +Prof. Max Müller with regard to the points which he has +mentioned,—and all of which I have now considered,—have I not +furnished sufficient justification? Even now I cannot see in what +respects it is possible to amend any subsequent edition of my book, +so as to correct the misapprehensions which are alleged. But +although my “mistakes” are thus far from “clear,” I am glad to +have had this opportunity of publicly discussing them with Prof. +Max Müller, if only for the sake of adding the following remarks.</p> + +<p>Be it observed, in the first place, that whatever may be thought +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>of the foregoing “justification,”—whether it be held that the misapprehensions +are due to ambiguity on the one side or to obtuseness +on the other,—at least it is certain that the misapprehensions +complained of all have reference to points of no importance whatsoever +as regards the general theory of descent, even although some +of them are not altogether without importance as regards the particular +science of philology. Thus it is quite immaterial, so far as +the doctrine of <i>Mental Evolution</i> is concerned, whether we say that +the roots of Sanskrit are 800, philologically speaking, or 121, psychologically +speaking. Again, as soon as it is explained by Prof. +Max Müller that by his “121 original concepts” he means the number +of concepts “original” only as regards the Sanskrit language; +that by “primitive social man” he means only the semi-civilised progenitors +of the Indo-European race; that by “every thought that +ever crossed the mind of man” admitting of being “traced back to +about 121 simple concepts,” he means no more than that such is +the case as regards the recent and highly evolved Aryan branch of +the human species;—when once all this is explained, it becomes +evident that thus far there <i>can</i> be no difference of opinion between +us. For in that case he is not dealing with “the Origin of Human +Faculty,” either in regard to language or to thought: he is considering +merely the higher inflorescence of both. Once more, whether +all, or nearly all, the roots of Sanskrit can properly be called <i>words</i>, +and, if so, whether we must not go still further and call them <i>verbs</i>,—these +are questions of mere terminology. If the roots were originally +“used in conversation,” and if, as thus used, they were, with +but few doubtful exceptions, all expressive of “acts” or “states,” +it becomes mere verbal hair-splitting to challenge the propriety of +saying that the roots were originally verbs. At all events, the matter +has nothing to do with the general question of man’s derivative +origin. Lastly, the same has to be said of the purely philological +question as to how far the principle of imitation has obtained in the +first formation of these archaic “words,” or “roots.” For, archaic +though they be in a philological sense, in a phylological sense they +are things of yesterday, and so can scarcely be said to have any +direct relation at all to “the origin of speech,” or the rise of articulate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>sign-making. This has to be inferred from observations in the +“menagerie,” as distinguished from research in the library; and +the fact that Prof. Max Müller expressly refuses to give me the +pleasure of his company where the best materials for studying the +really “primitive” condition of the sign-making faculty are to be +met with, merely renders more impossible than ever any real collision +between his linguistic studies on the one side, and my “biological +theory” on the other.</p> + +<p>But although it thus appears sufficiently evident that my “misapprehensions” +of his linguistic conclusions are as unimportant in +relation to the theory of descent as they are few—and, I think, also +excusable—in themselves, it is impossible to doubt that far below the +level of Sanskrit roots, and far beyond the range of philological +science, there is a wide difference of opinion between us. For when +he passes from the “Science of Language” to the “Science of +Thought,”—when he quits his sphere as a philologist to enter that +of the philosopher,—he persistently and consistently affirms that +what he calls “the old barrier between man and beast” remains, +and that he is as yet unable to perceive how it can ever be removed. +This barrier of course is predicative language—the obverse side of +conceptional thought; and the firm opinion thus expressed by so +eminent a philologist is not only of weight <i>per se</i>, but is rendered +more so on account of the manifest freedom from prejudice with +which it is associated. It is on this account that I devoted so much +space in my book on “Mental Evolution” to a consideration of his +views; and therefore I am sorry that his present reply has not been +directed to meeting my criticisms on this really important matter of +philosophical doctrine, rather than to indicating “misapprehensions” +with regard to such merely trivial matters of a purely philological +kind as those which I have here been dealing with. But perhaps +at some future time he may give me the benefit of his criticism upon +my work as a whole, or not merely on the fringes of such details as +really have no bearing on the objects of that work.</p> + +<p>And, if he should ever see his way to doing this, I am quite +sure that the discussion would be one of a friendly character. For +the points at issue would all have reference to that large and vague +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>domain of speculative theory touching “the origin of human faculty,” +where it is inevitable—and, in my judgment, even desirable—that +wide differences of opinion should obtain. We are but at the +commencement of a great and obscure problem, which only in our +own generation has been presented by the science of biology to the +contemplation of philosophy. Therefore it would be folly indeed if +any man were to regard his own opinions upon it as other than provisional—and +even more foolish if he were to introduce any “<i>meum</i> +and <i>tuum</i> into these discussions.”</p> + +<p>Thus I invite Prof. Max Müller to state the grounds of his assertion +in <i>The Monist</i>, that “all the facts of real language are +against” me as an advocate of what he calls the biological theory of +the developmental origin of man. This theory, he says, “derives +no support whatever from the Science of Language.” I believe, +on the other hand, that these are wholly unwarranted statements; +and that the Science of Language does support the theory in +question to as high a degree as is possible from the nature of the +case. On account of this great difference of opinion, I felt, when +writing my book, that I should be doing but scant justice to the +matured judgment of so eminent a philologist if I did not carefully +consider all that he had written upon the subject. And so, as I +have said, I devoted more of my book to a consideration of his +views than to those of any other philologist; and while accepting +his scientific facts on his authority as a philologist, I nevertheless +felt it incumbent on me to show why his philosophical deductions, +where they had reference to the theory of descent, appeared to me +by no means of equivalent value. This distinction, as I observed +at the commencement of the present article, is surely a legitimate +distinction; and I should be sorry indeed if anything that I have +ever said can appear inconsistent with the genuine admiration +which is due to Prof. Max Müller as “a student of language,” or +with the no less genuine esteem which I have the best reason for +knowing is due to him as a friend.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">George J. Romanes.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="THE_CONTINUITY_OF_EVOLUTION">THE CONTINUITY OF EVOLUTION.<br> +<span class="smaller">THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE VERSUS THE SCIENCE OF LIFE,<br> +AS REPRESENTED BY PROF. F. MAX MÜLLER AND PROF. GEORGE JOHN ROMANES.</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>All the sciences form, or at least ought to form, one great +system, culminating in the science of sciences. Therefore it +is more than doubtful how any science could exist without being +somehow in contact with other sciences; and all of them must stand +in some relation to philosophy. It is necessary that each science +should develop in relative independence of the other sciences. +We cannot expect to decide, for instance, chemical problems by +physical or purely mechanical laws before we have carefully searched +the nature and conditions of chemical processes. But as soon as +this has been done we can expect that a comparison between the +results of two or more sciences will throw new light upon the subject-matter +on both sides. Solomon says: “To everything there is +a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Thus +the sciences have to grow, each one on its own grounds, and when +they have reached a certain state of maturity, they will coalesce +with each other. And two sciences will by their coalescence fertilise +the one the other so as to produce a new department which may by +and by develop into a special science.</p> + +<p>Now it appears to the uninitiated as if the spiritual world of science +were in every respect different from the world of objective realities +around us. While in the world of bodily realities the struggle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>for existence is fought eternal peace is supposed to reign in the sacred +halls of intellectual aspirations. Says the German poet:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Härt in dem Raume stossen sich die Körper,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Leicht bei einander wohnen die Gedanken.</i>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This is true only in a very limited sense. Ideas are the most +intolerant beings imaginable. The struggle for existence is raging +as fiercely in the intellectual realm as in the world of realities, and +there also the law that the fittest will survive holds good.</p> + +<p>Far be it from us to denounce this state of general warfare, for +although it is hard on those who succumb, it is the means by which +evolution becomes possible; and evolution in the domain of science +means a nearer approach to truth. If in the evolution of thought +two neighboring sciences have developed so far as to meet, a struggle +will ensue. The ideas on the two sides will have to fight before +they coalesce. It is natural that different scientists look at things +from different standpoints. They have developed a terminology +which exactly suits their purpose and thus the representatives of +the different sciences are often like people of a different nationality. +They do not understand each other because they speak different +languages. Moreover they have not unfrequently a different religion; +that means, their ideas about truth and the test of truth appear +to be different and sometimes they regard one another as +no better than heathens. The battle is unavoidable, and considering +all in all, the battle is desirable, it should not be avoided. +The fittest to survive being the truest, the whole progress of science +through the struggle for existence among ideas consists in the approach +to truth.</p> + +<p>It may be objected that there are peacemakers who will reconcile +the contending parties. True. And it is further true that the +aim of every war is peace. But a peacemaker can be successful +only if his mind is broad enough to let the whole battle be fought +out within himself. The battle itself is and will remain unavoidable. +Idea stands against idea, and the mental process of reflection is +nothing but a struggle of conflicting ideas which takes place in one +and the same mind. The aim of all reflection is the settlement of +the conflict, so that all ideas will agree. The two parties disappear +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>in one; errors are given up, and that which is consistent only will +remain. In other words Dualism makes room for Monism.</p> + +<p>It is a good sign of the times that a battle has begun to rage +between the so-called natural sciences and the science of language. +The old Hegelian distinction between the <i>Geisteswissenschaften</i> and +the <i>Naturwissenschaften</i> has been surrendered; and Prof. F. Max +Müller was among the foremost to inculcate the truth that philology +is a natural science. If philology is a natural science it cannot be but +that its subject of investigation is a part of nature and as such it +stands in close relation to other parts of nature. One and the same +thing may be the subject of investigation of different sciences. One +and the same plant may be an object of observation to the physiologist, +to the botanist, to the druggist, to the physician, and to the +chemist. Their standpoints and their purposes being different, they +will bring to light very different results, and if these results are +contradictory among each other the conflict is at hand. It cannot +be shirked but must be decided by an honest and square fight. We +have witnessed of late a conflict between philology and anthropology +concerning the origin of the Aryas and it looks as if this conflict +will contribute much to promote our knowledge of the oldest +history of mankind, although the last word has not as yet been +spoken: <i>adhuc sub judice lis est</i>.</p> + +<p>We are now confronted with a conflict between Philology and +Biology. The first skirmishes have been fought by two men who +are entitled to speak, each one in behalf of his science. Prof. F. +Max Müller stands up for philology and Prof. George John Romanes +for biology.</p> + +<p>Professor Romanes takes it for granted that the rational mind +of man has developed gradually from the lower stage of the brute. +He says in his book “Mental Evolution in Man,” p. 276:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The whole object of these chapters has been to show, that on psychological +grounds it is abundantly intelligible how the conceptual stage of ideation may have +been gradually evolved from the receptual—the power of forming general, or truly +conceptual ideas, from the power of forming particular and generic ideas. But if +it could be shown—or even rendered in any degree presumable—that this distinctly +human power of forming truly general ideas arose <i>de novo</i> with the first birth of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>articulate speech, assuredly my whole analysis would be destroyed: the human +mind would be shown to present a quality different in origin—and, therefore, in +kind—from all the lower orders of intelligence: the law of continuity would be interrupted +at the terminal phase: an impassable gulf would be fixed between the +brute and the man.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And Prof. Max Müller criticises the position of Professor Romanes +in an article on Thought and Language (<i>The Monist</i>, Vol. I. +No. 4, p. 582); he says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“My learned friend, Professor Romanes, labors to show that there is an unbroken +mental evolution from the lowest animal to the highest man. But he sees +very clearly and confesses very honestly that the chief difficulty in this evolution is +language and all that language implies. He tries very hard to remove that barrier +between beast and man.... Professor Romanes is, I believe, a most eminent biologist, +and the mantle of Darwin is said to have fallen on his shoulders. Far be +it from me to venture to criticise his biological facts. But we see in his case how +dangerous it is for a man who can claim to speak with authority on his own special +subject, to venture to speak authoritatively on subjects not his own.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is not at all my intention to appear on the battle-field as a +peacemaker between these two generals, or to settle the problems +that arise from the conflict between philology and biology. That +will be better done by the parties concerned, and I am rather inclined +to speak with Schiller when he thought of the struggle between +the transcendentalist philosopher and the empirical naturalist:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Enmity be between you! Your alliance would not be in time yet.</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Though you may separate now, Truth will be found by your search.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>I look forward with great interest to further discussions which +will bring out with more clearness the positions of both parties, and +it is not impossible that both parties as soon as they have better understood +each other, will agree much better than either of them expected. +But it may be permitted me to make a few comments +upon a proposition that is involved in this conflict, which, however, +properly considered, is neither of a philological nor a biological +nature. This is the idea of the continuity of evolution. Prof. +Max Müller says somewhere that, if a Darwinian means an evolutionist, +he had been a Darwinian long before Darwin. “How a +student of the science of language,” he says, “can be anything but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>an evolutionist is to me utterly unintelligible.” So there is no +doubt about his being an evolutionist as much as Professor Romanes. +But the question is, What means evolutionist? Is he an +evolutionist who believes in a piecemeal evolution interrupted here +and there by acts of special creation? In my conception of the +term, an evolutionist believes in evolution wherever there is life and +this involves the wholesale rejection of special-creation acts as well +as of the idea that any being or organism (the organism of language +included) could ever have made its appearance in full growth and +maturity or that any phenomenon of life could present a break in the +continuity of evolution.</p> + +<p>The Greek myth tells us that the Goddess of Reason, the blue-eyed +Pallas Athene, was not born like other gods and mortals in +the natural way of a slow development. She jumped out of the +head of Zeus full-armed in all her beauty and gifted with the powers +of her unusual accomplishments. Is this myth true after all? Does +the Logos of rational thought present us with an instance in which +the development process has been interrupted? If so, we shall +have to abandon the evolution theory as a theory and return to the +old-fashioned view of special-creation acts. The difference between +these two views is not of degree, but of kind. He who accepts the +principle of evolution as the law of life abandons forever the idea +of special and unconnected beginnings as much as that of special-creation +acts. He cannot with consistency believe in an evolution +with interruptions, for the theory of evolution is serviceable only if +evolution is conceived as continuous. Prof. Max Müller of course +has a right to define and use the word evolutionist as he sees fit, but +if he excludes continuity from the idea of evolution, we declare that +he has taken out the quintessence of its meaning and the core of its +truth.</p> + +<p>Why this is so, we shall now briefly discuss.</p> + +<p>The evolution theory has been gradually developed by empirical +investigations and it owes its all but universal acceptance +to the great mass of <i>a posteriori</i> evidence furnished by the natural +sciences. It rests nevertheless upon a better and safer foundation +than isolated instances of hap-hazard experience. Its foundation is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>quarried out of another and more reliable material. The evolution +theory rests upon the ground of <i>a priori</i> arguments.</p> + +<p>By <i>a priori</i> we do not understand anything mysterious, but simply +such cognition as possesses universality and necessity. That cognition +which is in possession of universality and necessity is also +called formal cognition. The formal sciences (for instance arithmetic, +mathematics, pure logic, and pure mechanics) give us information +about such truths as are applicable, because they are purely +formal, to the formal conditions of anything and everything possible. +Because we know <i>beforehand</i> that the purely formal laws +will hold good under all conditions Kant called their formulated +theorems “a priori.” All the objections to the idea of apriority +made by John Stuart Mill and other empiricists are due to their misinterpretation +of the term.⁠<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>Mr. Mill was mistaken when he thought Kant meant <i>a priori</i> +cognitions were innate ideas which came to man from spheres unknown. +The very first sentence of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” +proves that Kant knew of no other knowledge than that which +begins with experience. Kant says, “That all our knowledge begins +with experience there can be no doubt.” But our knowledge +consists of two elements, viz. the empirical and the formal. The +former bears always the character of the special and incidental, the +latter of the universal and necessary. The former is sensory, being +furnished by the senses, the latter is properly mental originating in +and with the action of the mind in dealing with sense-materials, in +arranging them and bringing them into certain relations.</p> + +<p>Formal knowledge is different in kind from empirical knowledge. +The rule “twice two is four” will hold good for all possible +cases, but the statement “A swan is white” does not hold good for +all possible cases. European swans as a rule are white, but Australian +swans are black, and for all we know, we might find swans +that are blue, or red, or yellow. Empirical knowledge is full of +exceptions, formal knowledge is rigid, there is no exception to any +rule of formal knowledge.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span></p> + +<p>All formal knowledge has developed by degrees. The history +of the sciences, of mathematics, logic, arithmetic, and also of the +natural sciences furnishes sufficient evidence. The formal part of +the natural sciences, by Kant called <i>reine Naturwissenschaft</i>, consists +of such cognitions as the law of cause and effect and the law of the +conservation of matter and energy. The formulation of these laws +has been accomplished after much and careful empirical investigation. +And it could not be otherwise. The latter law was +elaborated in its full clearness long after Kant. The law of causality +and the law of the conservation of matter and energy are purely +formal, they are not sense-impressions and do not contain any sensory +elements. They are general rules of universal applicability +which being rigidly universal and without exceptions are necessary +under all conditions. Before we make any experiment we can know +that they will hold good in the experiment. Indeed all our experimenting +is based upon the supposition that the law of causation +holds good and that there can be neither an increase nor a decrease +of matter and energy.</p> + +<p>The mistake made by the so-called transcendentalists is this, +that they consider formal thought as having an independent existence, +being ready at hand before cognition is possible, while in fact +it is a part of cognition which at least in its germ is present in every +actual experience.</p> + +<p>The theory of evolution is not more and not less a formal principle +than the law of causation and the law of the conservation of +matter and energy. Indeed it is nothing but the same thing applied +to a special case. The theory of evolution is the principle of the +conservation of matter and energy applied to the province of life. +The theory of evolution denies the possibility of special acts of +creation. There cannot come something out of nothing. And the +new creations that actually originate daily before our eyes are not +creations from nothing, they are simply transformations. There +was a time on earth in which no living being existed, neither plant +nor animal. How did life originate? Our answer is, It did not +originate out of nothing, but it evolved. Non-organised matter organised. +That non-organised matter must contain the elementary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>conditions of organised life is a conclusion which we cannot escape +from our point of view; and which is fully and satisfactorily corroborated +by our daily experience that water, earth, and air under the +sun’s influence are changed into wheat; and wheat is manufactured +into the bread which nourishes man and sustains his life. Non-organised +particles of matter are constantly being organised in living +organisms and displace the worn-out materials in their tissues—not +one atom of the latter remaining for good in a healthy living +body.</p> + +<p>The theory of evolution may be called an hypothesis, an assumption, +a presumption. But in that case we must say with Mill +that the rule twice two is four is also a mere assumption. The evidence +for the latter is not stronger than that for the former. Mill +declares that after all twice two might somewhere be five. Exactly +so and not otherwise evolution might be somewhere interrupted, so +that something would originate out of nothing instead of evolving +from other things through transformation.</p> + +<p>Prof. Max Müller speaks very sarcastically about the speechless +man, the <i>homo alalus</i> who is supposed to be the ancestor of the present +man. He says (l. c., p. 585):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Of the <i>Homo alalus</i>, the speechless progenitor of <i>Homo sapiens</i>, with whom +Professor Romanes seems so intimately acquainted, students of human speech naturally +know nothing.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Prof. Max Müller also condemns all efforts of approaching the +problem of the origin of language through observation of children +and animals. The former he calls “nursery philology” the latter +“menagerie psychology.” And it is certainly true that the problem +of the origin of language cannot be solved from observations of +children or animals, because the problem lies in another field. +The problem is not how a ready made language is transferred upon +the growing mind of a baby but how speechless beings developed +into speaking beings. And all the intelligence of clever animals is +still very different from the rational thought of man. This is true, +but it is also true that good observations of animal psychology and +also of nursery philology will throw some light upon the evolution +of rational thought.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span></p> + +<p>Prof. Max Müller says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“How can we attempt to realise what passes within the mind of an animal?... +We can imagine anything we like about what passes in the mind of an animal,—we +can know absolutely nothing.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We are fully aware of the fact that the problem of the origin of +language is quite different from the problems of animal psychology. +A solution of the latter, which are extremely complex and difficult, +would not help us to solve the former. This being conceded we +can nevertheless see no reason why animal psychology should be +condemned and given up as a hopeless task.</p> + +<p>It is not true that “we can know absolutely nothing about what +passes in the mind of an animal.” It is true we cannot see the animals’ +feelings and thoughts, but we can see their actions which reveal +their feelings as much as and sometimes even plainer than the +speech of our brother man reveals his thoughts. Might we not say +with the same reason, “We see only the printed book of a scientist +(which is an expression of his views as much as the behavior of an +animal is of its feelings) but we can know absolutely nothing about +what passes in the mind of that scientist. All we can do is to judge +from analogy”? And should we on that account give up all reading +and studying and also all arguing with others?</p> + +<p>Animal psychology is not only justified as a science, but we can +even hope that correct observations of animal intelligence will assist +us in correctly understanding the higher intelligence of human +thought. And “that some useful hints may be taken from watching +children is not denied” by Prof. Max Müller either, although +this little concession appears only in the shape of a short foot-note. +The <i>homo alalus</i> is by no means a merely mythical figure, for according +to the law of evolution man must have developed out of a +being lower than the present man. His first ancestor must have +been simple life-substance something like that of the amœba. He +must have passed through a long period in which he was not capable +of articulate speech. That we know nothing particular about the +<i>homo alalus</i> is no proof against his existence. Moreover every infant +is an actual real <i>homo alalus</i>, a speechless man, or should we according +to Prof. Max Müller class our babies among the brutes?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span></p> + +<p>Prof. Max Müller says (<i>The Monist</i>, p. 585):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If, like Professor Romanes, we begin with the ‘immense presumption that +there has been no interruption in the developmental process in the course of psychological +history,’ the protest of language counts for nothing; the very fact that no +animal has ever formed a language, is put aside simply as an unfortunate accident.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The theory of evolution rightly understood is no presumption +in the usual sense of the word. It is no more a presumption than +to say that something cannot come from nothing. And what is +“the protest of language” which would disprove the continuity of +evolution? That rational or human thought is something <i>sui generis</i>, +that it is different in kind and not in degree from brute intelligence; +that language is an impassable barrier between man and brute, being +the Rubicon which no other animal has crossed. Very well. We +agree entirely with all these propositions. Human reason is different +in kind from brute intelligence and human reason has developed +such as it is through language only. Nay reason is language. Noiré +is right when he says, Man thinks because he speaks. But the +Rubicon of language was not an absolutely impassable barrier. The +speechless ancestor of man, whether we call him <i>homo alalus</i> or anthropoid, +or even man-ape, <i>has</i> crossed it, and having crossed it he +became the Cæsar of the animal creation.</p> + +<p>Prof. Max Müller’s theory of the identity of language and +thought⁠<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> is so valuable because it bridges the gap between the rational +sphere of man and the not-yet rational sphere of the brute +creation. It explains the origin of reason. The origin of reason in +the world of living beings is explained as soon as the origin of language +is understood, for reason develops with language and rational +thought is nothing but rational speech. If the origin of language +were an unfathomable mystery, Prof. Max Müller’s view of the identity +of language and thought would lose all practical importance.</p> + +<p>The proposition of the identity of language and thought is a +very radical idea; it is the fundamental idea of monism. In a more +general form it was first pronounced by Giordano Bruno, who says +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>somewhere that, if we could put the soul of a man into the organism +of an animal, say of a snake, it would cease to be a human +soul and become the soul of a snake. Speech would be changed +into a hissing, in accordance with the snake’s organs for uttering +sounds. And in the same way all the feelings, all the concepts, all +the desires and inclinations—in short the whole psychical life would +be that of a snake.</p> + +<p>Thought is the soul of language. As there are no ghost-souls, +so there are no ghost-thoughts. And the soul is not something distinct +from the organism, it is the form of the organism. It happens +in fairy-tales that the Prince is transformed into a frog, but if a fairy +could transform a man into a frog, his soul would certainly also become +a frog-soul. Language is the visible organism of the invisible +thought, and as is language, exactly so is thought.</p> + +<p>The problem how language has developed was first answered +by the onomatopoetic theory, “the bow-wow theory” as Max Müller +calls it. Language was conceived as an echo of nature, as a reflex +action that takes place in a living and feeling being. Yet this theory +had to be abandoned, because an historical investigation of language +proved that words with very few exceptions were not imitations of +external sounds. Yet the spirit of investigation was not daunted +by this defeat, and the bow-wow theory reappeared in a modified +form. Language was still considered as a reflex action; however, +it was conceived to be a reflex which re-echoed the impressions of +natural phenomena as they had affected man. This was the exclamation +theory which seeks the origin of language in the “ohs +and ahs,” the sighs and shouts of a feeling mind. Prof. Max Müller +calls this theory “the pooh-pooh theory.” This theory had also to +be discarded because it was in conflict with the actual facts of the evolution +of language. Next Noiré and Prof. Max Müller came with their +theory, called by Noiré “the synergastic theory,” which conceives +language as the expression of common work, also called by Noiré +the Logos theory, the sympathetic theory, and the causality theory. +Prof. Max Müller in order to forestall any deriders of this theory suggests +calling it “the yo-he-ho theory,” yo-he-ho being the sailors’ +song when engaged in some common work as hoisting or hauling.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p> + +<p>This yo-he-ho theory actually explains the origin of language, +and it is, so far as we can see, not in conflict with any historical or +philological facts. But in honor of the inventors of the onomatopoetic +theory it must be recognised that the main idea of the yo-he-ho +theory is the same as that of the bow-wow theory. The main +idea is this: Language did not originate in man’s mind out of itself +in some mysterious way representing a break in the continuity of +evolution, but it is a certain reflex-action of living and feeling beings +taking place in consequence of external stimuli. This reflex-action +however is not direct, but indirect. It is not that of a single being, +it is the reflex-action of a whole society, engaged in common work. +It developed in consequence of their common activity and through +their want of intercommunication.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Prof. Max Müller charges against the evolutionist, that “the +very fact that no animal has ever formed a language is put aside +simply as an unfortunate accident.” Is this a fair reprehension? +Is not the fact that no animal, except man, crossed the Rubicon of +language quite a distinct problem? And accepting Professor Noiré’s +theory of the origin of language which considers speech as the product +of a common activity accompanied by what may be called +<i>clamor concomitans</i>, I see very good reasons why other animals did +not develop language. First, there is no animal, with the sole exception +perhaps of ants and bees, that lives in societies. Some of +them live in herds, but there is a great difference between a herd +and a society. This difference is first a difference of degree, but +gradually it becomes a difference of kind. Secondly, animals have +no organs to work with, while man has his hands, and we may add, +thirdly, that no animal, not even the parrot, has the same power of +articulation.</p> + +<p>Prof. Ludwig Noiré accepts without equivocation the idea that +the speechless ancestor of man became a rational being by developing +language and I was always under the impression that Prof. Max +Müller agreed with his late friend not only concerning the identity +of language and reason, but also concerning the origin of reason. +But if Prof. Max Müller agrees with Noiré, why does he object to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>the continuity of evolution which as he states in a private letter to +us is “only a beautiful postulate”?</p> + +<p>Now there are indeed facts which prove that the Rubicon of reason +is not so impassable to animals as Prof. Max Müller makes us +believe. Let us hear Noiré on the subject. He explains most +logically that man performs his many labors and has become a civilised +being only with the help of language, by naming things and +handling them in his mind. Noiré says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It can be graphically shown, how ideas may represent for man the rôle of +things real; how man has acquired the power of combining in his representative +faculty the most remote objects, and thereby has been able to accomplish the great +miracles of human industry and commerce. But all this would be utterly inconceivable +without concepts, which impart to percepts their unity and self-dependence, +bring about and multiply their rational connection. Hence also, no animal +can ever advance a single step beyond <i>present</i> perceptive representation, can never +escape from the constraint with which Nature circumscribes the narrow sphere of +its wants. Unfortunately, however, in apparent contravention of this rule, ants to +the present day carry on a regular and methodical species of agriculture, keep livestock +and domestics like we! Nay, they have been caught in conversations and +social entertainments of a quarter of an hour’s duration—God save the mark!”⁠<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This passage is full of humor, and the humor is slightly mingled +with a comical anger and self-irony. There is a fine theory +excellent in every respect worked out in all its details by the Professor +and now he finds a few trifles of facts which possess the impudence +not to adapt themselves to the theory. “<i>Gott besser’s</i>,” +sighs Noiré, for it is not his fault that the ants accomplish things +which they ought not to, and the good Lord is called upon to adapt +nature with more rigidity to the Professor’s theories.</p> + +<p>Is there not an obvious reason why ants stand so high in their +performances? Are not ants social beings, more so than any other +animal? We are ignorant still of all their means of communication. +But that they have some means of communication seems +to be an established fact. When ants from different hills but of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>same kind give each other battle, it happens not unfrequently that +a warrior attacks another warrior of the same people most fiercely, +but both let go as soon as they touch each other with their feelers.⁠<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> +I refrain from telling stories about the life of these wonderful creatures +partly because one well-authenticated report is sufficient for +our purpose and partly because I must suppose that most of my +readers are familiar with the facts as presented by Darwin, Lubbock, +Forel, Huber, and many others. I will add only one observation +which is so far as I know undisputed. If ants of a special +kind rob the larvæ of another kind and educate them as their slaves, +the slaves will in case of war or danger stand by their masters +even against their own folks. They evidently speak the language +of the hill in which they have been raised.</p> + +<p>Professor Forel successfully made the experiment, with the assistance +of ant-nurses, of raising together several kinds of ants from +the larvæ of hostile species. The ferocious Amazons and the Sanguineæ +did not show any enmity toward their comrades of the Pratensis +and Rufa. When set at liberty and transferred to a new residence +they remained together and behaved exactly as if they naturally +belonged together. And this experiment may be quoted to corroborate +the proposition of Prof. Max. Müller that “thought is thicker +than blood.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>Now it would be a desperate case for Professor Noiré to maintain +his theory in the face of these facts, if by language we have to +understand vocal signs only. Yet the idea of his and also of Prof. +Max Müller’s theory consists in the truth that thoughts cannot walk +about like ghosts in bodiless nudity: they are a system of notation. +As such they are symbolised in signs and are inseparable from their +signs. These signs are sounds with men, and by words we understand +usually sound-symbols. But there are other systems of notation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>besides vocal signs and they are for that reason not less language +than speech. We have reason to believe that ants are in possession +of symbolical signs and that most of them are communicated +through their feelers.</p> + +<p>Professor Romanes describes the origin of ideas (in the second +chapter of “Mental Evolution in Man,” p. 23) in the following +way:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Just as Mr. Galton’s method of superimposing on the same sensitive plate a +number of individual images gives rise to a blended photograph, wherein each of +the individual constituents is partially and proportionally represented; so in the +sensitive tablet of memory, numerous images of previous perceptions are fused together +into a single conception, which then stands as a composite picture, or class-representation, +of these its constituent images. Moreover, in the case of a sensitive +plate it is only those particular images which present more or less numerous points +of resemblance that admit of being thus blended into a distinct photograph; and so +in the case of the mind, it is only those particular ideas which admit of being run +together in a class that can go to constitute a clear concept.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Professor Romanes calls such a composite picture of sense-impressions +as must be supposed to exist in the animal brain “a recept” +and he distinguishes it from “the concept” of man. He says: +“Reception means a <i>taking again</i>.... The word ‘recept’ is seen to +be appropriate to the class of ideas in question, because in receiving +such ideas the mind is passive.” By “concept” however he understands +“that kind of composite idea which is rendered possible +only by the aid of language or by the process of naming abstractions +as abstractions.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>We agree with Professor Romanes in the main point, viz. that +the process of evolution must be considered as uninterrupted, but +we cannot agree with him on several minor points.⁠<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>We must express our doubt concerning the propriety of calling +the mind passive when receiving impressions. Every single sensation +is an active process, just as much as a reflex motion, and it may +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>be considered as a reaction that takes place in response to the stimulus +of the impression. Conception of course is also an active process, +and concepts, the products of conception, establish a new +department in the mind. “Noiré, quoted by Prof. Max Müller, +says: ‘All trees hitherto seen by me leave in my imagination a +mixed image, a kind of ideal presentation of a tree. Quite different +from this is my concept, which is never an image.’”⁠<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>And this is true.</p> + +<p>We have on another occasion explained that sensations are +sense-impressions which have acquired meaning.⁠<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> Rays of light are +reflected from an object and fall upon the retina of an eye. Here +they produce a disturbance of nervous substance which is transmitted +to the brain where it is felt as the image say of a tree. Now +the ether-waves are not sight, but a certain form of ether-waves corresponds +to a certain form of sight, and the latter comes to stand +for the former. The mental picture of a tree becomes a symbol for +a special object outside of us and it is projected to the place where +experience has taught us to expect that object. In naming objects +we repeat the process of expressing by symbols. Sensations are +symbols, and names are symbols of symbols. The name and concept +tree is not the composite picture of all the trees I have seen, +but it is the symbol of this composite picture of sense-impressions. +Sensations are like the chords of a piano and the concepts are like +the keys. The key is different in kind from the chord which belongs +to it. When I touch the key the chord will sound: when I +pronounce a name the composite sensation of all its analogous +memories will be awakened.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Can there be any question that difference in kind can originate +by degrees? Professor Romanes uses the phrase “different in kind” +as synonymous with “different in origin” and therefore declares +that human reason and animal intelligence are “different in degree” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>only. The word “kind,” it is true, is at least as vague as the word +species and a naturalist may often be doubtful where to draw the +line. Man and monkey are different in kind, and they are also more +different in origin than Carl Vogt assumed, for man is not the descendant +of any of the monkey families now existent. But this does +not disprove that they are of a still remoter common origin or at +least that they originated in the same way in some amœboid form +as simple life-substance.</p> + +<p>New formations which originate through combining are as much +new creations, i. e. things new in kind, as if they were produced +through special-creation acts of God which are said to be creations +out of nothing and not mere transformations.</p> + +<p>Man builds houses out of bricks and timbers. Is not the house +something different in kind from the trees and the clay from which +the materials have been taken? Is not the boiler of a steam-engine +different in purpose and accordingly also different in kind from a +tea-kettle? Is not every invention something different in kind? +And is not the same true of the products of thought? Is not a triangle +something different in kind from a line? And the origin of +the former is not more miraculous than that of the latter. A triangle +is more complex than a line, but its existence in the mind is not +more of a mystery than the existence of the line. Difference in +kind need not include difference of origin. Harmony is different +in kind from melody. Notes in succession produce melody, while +simultaneous notes produce harmony. In either case it is simply a +matter of combination.</p> + +<p>Professor Romanes when speaking of the passivity of sense-impressions +seems to think of the unconsciousness of the process. +We are not conscious of the transformation of impressions into sensations +while we can become aware of our efforts to change the +sense-material into concepts. Yet the nature of mind is throughout +activity. And no one has perhaps insisted more strongly on the activity +of mind than Prof. Max Müller. But Prof. Max Müller distinguishes +between the activity of the mind and the ego which as he +supposes performs that activity. He says (“Science of Thought,” +p. 63):</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We think of a mind dwelling in a body, and we soon find ourselves in the +midst of psychological mythology. Let it be clearly understood, therefore, that by +Mind I mean nothing but that working which is going on within, embracing sensation, +perception, conception, and naming, as well as the various modes of combining +and separating the results of these processes for the purpose of new discovery.</p> + +<p>“But if Mind is to be the name of the work, what is to be the name of the +worker? It is not yet the Self, for the Self, in the highest sense, is a spectator +only, not a worker; but it is what we may call the Ego, as personating the Self; it +is what other philosophers mean by the Monon, of which, as we shall see, there +are many. Let us call therefore the worker who does the work of the mind in its +various aspects, the Monon or the Ego.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And in another passage (l. c., p. 552) he speaks of the simplicity +of the monon:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If then the process of thought is so simple as we saw, not less simple, at +least, than that of speech, it follows, that the complicated apparatus which had +been postulated by most philosophers for the performance of thought in its various +spheres of manifestation, must make room for much plainer machinery. Instead +of intuition, intellect, understanding, mind, reason, genius, judgment, and all the +rest, we want really nothing but a self-conscious Monon, capable of changing all +that is supplied by the senses into percepts, concepts, and names. These changes +may be represented as something very marvellous, and we may imagine any number +of powers and faculties for the performance of them.”</p> + +<p>“Grant a Monon conscious of itself, and conscious therefore of the impacts +made upon it or the changes produced in it by other Mona which it resists, and we +require little more to explain all that we are accustomed to call Thought.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The continuity of evolution naturally holds good according to +Max Müller for the natural man, but not for the Self.</p> + +<p>How is this? Is the monon perhaps conceived as not-natural +or outside of nature. Hardly. For Prof. Max Müller speaks of the +object also as being a monon.⁠<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> If the objects are as much mona as +the subjects the same laws must hold good for both, and the subject-monon +must be supposed to be an object-monon if considered +in its relation to other object-mona.</p> + +<p>If Prof. Max Müller’s protest against the continuity of evolution +is not based upon the dualism of natural and extra-natural mona, +what can it mean when he says that evolution does not hold good +for the Self?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span></p> + +<p>If the Self is conceived as a monon, i. e. something “alone” +like an atomic unit, it can have no evolution. Evolution is change +of form through the production of new configurations. A monon or +an isolated unit considered by itself cannot evolve. It is as it ever +has been and will be—a monon.</p> + +<p>If this is Prof. Max Müller’s meaning, we must ask, How does +he know that the self is a monon and that objects are mona? Do +they not, if so conceived, become highly mysterious entities? New +mona are constantly born into this World. Whence do they come? +Is every birth of a child the new creation of another monon by the +creator, who so distributes the babes in the world that like babes +are given to like parents thus producing the wrong impression of +heredity as well as of a continuity of evolution? The idea of explaining +all the activities of the mind by the postulate of a conscious +monon is very simple indeed, but the problems which would arise +from this postulate are extremely complex, and it seems to us that +after all the proposition of evolution is by far the simplest solution +of all the difficulties.⁠<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p>Mind as we conceive it is the product of evolution. Mind has +been evolved in a world which (judging from its product) must be +conceived as being freighted not only with energy but also with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>potentiality of feeling. Mind, as we know it in experience, is no +monon, no indivisible unit, but a unitary system of feelings and +thoughts produced through external impressions upon one part of +the world by the rest of the world which surrounds it. Mind is an +abstract term; it does not denote a part of the world, but a certain +quality of a part of the world, viz. the feelings and thoughts of special +kinds of organisms. Mind is produced through external impressions, +but it does not consist merely of external impressions. +Mind, as we have stated before, is not passive; it is active. It consists +of the reactions which take place in response to impressions +and also of the accumulated products of these reactions. Thus +every mind is the concentrated effect of the whole cosmos upon one +special part of the cosmos, not as it takes place in one moment, but +as it has taken place in a definite and continuous period up to date. +The accumulation of these effects makes the mind grow and expand +and the system of the growth constitutes its specific character. We +can as little think of the mind as appearing suddenly by an act of +special creation as we can think that an oak tree can be created out +of nothing or that it can exist without previous growth. The law of +continuity holds good as much in the realm of the human mind as +in the domain of animal and plant-life.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>So far we have borne in mind the philosophical and scientific +aspect only of the continuity of evolution. There is another aspect +however of no less importance, that is the religious view of the subject. +We do not believe that science and religion are two different +spheres of thought and that something may be true in science which +is not true in religion. Since the theory of evolution has revolutionised +almost all our sciences, we ask, what influence must +this change of thought exercise upon religion? Is not the religious +idea of God destroyed and the whole system of religion overturned?</p> + +<p>We think not. An old and very powerful system of theology +which has been considered as orthodox for centuries will become +untenable as soon as the idea of evolution and the continuity of evolution +are recognised in their sweeping importance; but religion itself +will enter into a new phase of evolution and the idea of God +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>will not be cast aside as a mere superstition of the Dark Ages, it +will be purified and appear in a greater and sublimer, in a nobler, +higher, and in a truer conception than ever before.</p> + +<p>The idea of God is an historical heirloom of past ages. The +religious man and the philosopher of all times have tried to put into +it their highest, their best, their grandest, and their purest emotions +as well as thoughts. And these thoughts were not meaningless, they +were not mere fancies. They contained the quintessence of their +conception concerning that feature of reality which has produced us +as living, thinking, and aspiring beings, and which still prompts us +to aspire to higher aims. The world which has produced other +beings and ourselves, cannot be and is not a meaningless congeries +of material particles in motion. It is a living cosmos. It is a grand +harmonious universe pregnant with mind, and nothing in it is suffered +to exist for any length of time but that which conforms to its +laws; and that which conforms to its laws we call moral.</p> + +<p>The idea of God, however, as it is commonly taught in our +schools is full of pagan notions, and the very paganism of the present +God-idea is often supposed to be its deepest and holiest meaning. +No wonder that atheism increases with the progress of science! And +why should not atheism increase, if it is truer than a superstitious +theism? Atheism I believe will increase more and more until theism +is cleansed of its pagan notions. But atheism will not come to stay, +for atheism is a mere negative view and negations have no strength +to live. They have power to criticise and they will serve as a leaven +in the dough. Their purpose is the purification of the positive +views. Negations will pass away as soon as their purpose is fulfilled.</p> + +<p>The old pagan conception (now considered as orthodox) places +God in the dark nooks and crevices of our knowledge. Wherever +science fails and wherever our inquiring mind is entangled in problems +which we cannot hope to solve, wherever the continuity of nature +and of the order of nature is hidden from our intellectual sight, +the so-called orthodox believer comes forth and declares: “This is +a holy place. Here is the finger of God’s special interference!” +Consider what a degrading view of God this is! The place of darkness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>is conceived as an actual break in the order of the world and +this break is supposed to be a special revelation of God! If we +trust in truth, we need not shun the light of science and the God of +science—in contradistinction to the pagan notion of God—reveals +himself in the discoveries of science. God lives not in darkness but +in light, and his existence is proved not through the breaks in nature +(which we can be sure do not exist, and wherever they appear +are due to our ignorance) but through the order of nature, for God +<i>is</i> the order of nature. God is that power through which we exist +as living, thinking, and aspiring beings, and to which we have to +conform in order to live.</p> + +<p>When Darwin speaks of “life as having been originally breathed +into a few forms or into one <i>by the Creator</i>,” he either uses allegorical +language or he means that the beginning of life was an act of +special creation. He apparently means the latter and is in this respect +not a consistent evolutionist. Darwin was great as a reformer +of natural science, but in theology he still stood upon the old standpoint. +He calls God to rescue where science fails. The Creator +did not originally breathe life into the organism, but his breath is +constantly ensouling all living beings. Now suppose there were or +there could be exceptions to the law of causation, to the conservation +of matter and energy, or to the continuity of evolution, would that +not rather be a drawback in nature? Are the patches on a coat +better proof that it was made by a tailor than the whole coat? Any +kind of theology which still recognises special-creation acts, or miracles, +or breaks in evolution, we do not hesitate to say, is not yet +free from paganism, for it still sticks to the religious conception of the +medicine-man that God is a great magician. The God of the medicine-man +lives in the realm of the unknown and he appears in man’s +imagination where the light of science fails. The God of science +however is the God of truth, and evidence of his existence is not +found in the darkness of ignorance but in the light of knowledge. +God’s being is not recognised in the seeming exceptions to natural +laws, but in the natural laws themselves. God’s existence is not +proved by our inability to trace here or there the order of cause +and effect, as if a disorder in the world made it divine; on the contrary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>the only rational ground of a faith in God is the irrefragable +cosmic order of the universe. It is true that we have to give up +the idea of a personal God, but is not a superpersonal God greater +than the idol which we have made unto our own likeness?</p> + +<p>The God of science is perhaps more in agreement with the biblical +God than the God of dogmatic theology. The interpretations +of biblical passages which are at present generally considered as +orthodox are (merely from the standpoint of impartial exegetics) +untenable. The first chapter of Genesis has not one word about +special-creation acts. Neither the Elohim nor the Jahveh-Adonai +account declares that in the beginning there had been Nothing. +Both accounts (Gen. Chap. I. 1 to II. 3, and II. 3 et seqq.) agree +that God “shaped” the world. The word <i>barah</i> (to shape, to form, +to make) is nowhere used in the sense of creating out of nothing. +The Psalmist says, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens +made,” which was so interpreted in the New Testament that it +meant “by the logos,” and the gospel of St. John adds καὶ θεὸς +ἦν ὁ λόγος, i. e. and the word was God. Logos means rational +speech or reason, and the world-reason through which the heavens +were made can mean only the cosmic order of the universe. This +idea of St. John’s thought out to its ultimate conclusions means +monism.</p> + +<p>There is a common error that scientific progress is dangerous +to religion. Scientific progress is dangerous to superstition only. +Religion (i. e. true religion) is not based upon our ignorance, but +upon our knowledge; it is not a child of the darkness but of the +light, and faith far from being a mere belief, i. e. the imperfect knowledge +of an opinion for which no proof is forthcoming, is applied +knowledge, it is knowledge plus the confidence that this knowledge +can be made the basis of ethics and the supreme rule for regulating +our conduct in life. The history of religion has been and is still a constant +purification of our religious ideas, and the crucible in which the +religious ideas are purified is science. We are slowly but constantly +progressing toward a high religious ideal and this ideal is a cosmical +religion free from the pagan notions so severely criticised by Christ +and yet so carefully preserved by the Christian churches. This +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>cosmical religion will be the religion of science. It will not consist +of religious indifference nor of a toleration of any and every opinion +as is so often erroneously proclaimed as the ideal of liberalism. On +the contrary it will be in a certain sense the most orthodox religion, +for its maxim will be to stand on the truth and nothing but the +truth. And the truth is not at all indifferent or tolerant. The truth +is extremely intolerant and suffers no error beside it, although, as a +matter of course, the truth is very tolerant in so far as it sanctions +no violence but employs only the spiritual sword of conviction by +argument and logical proof.</p> + +<p>We have given up the idea of special acts of creation as the +calling forth disconnectedly of something out of nothing. We +conceive the whole world as an orderly cosmos, well regulated by +laws and evolving the forms of life in agreement with its laws. Is +there less divinity in a cosmos than in a half chaotic world in which +God makes exceptions and counteracts his own ordinances? Is the +idea of creation less religious if it ceases to mean an origination of +something out of nothing? Is not man at least just as wonderful +if evolved step by step out of the dust of the earth through innumerable +stages in the long process of evolution as if he were made +directly out of clay? And is there less divinity in his soul, is he +any less shaped unto the image of God because his growth took +place according to natural laws? Natural laws, in the conception +of purified religion, of the religion of science, are nothing but the +ideas of God, eternal and immutable, and formulated by scientists +not on the ground of special revelations but on the ground of the +universal and unchangeable, and throughout consistent revelation +of God in his works.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The science of language and the science of life are two important +highroads to the cognition of truth. That both sciences will be +consistent with each other, that their results will finally be seen to +harmonise perfectly is beyond all doubt and also that their bearing +upon religious ideas will contribute much to their purification. +Prof. F. Max Müller and Prof. George John Romanes are two great +scholars, each one is a leader in his own branch of knowledge, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>where they come in conflict, it appears to us, that they rather complement +than refute each other. Both are strong Monists, although +emphasising different sides of Monistic truth and we feel convinced +that their very differences will help us to elaborate more fully and +clearly and more comprehensively the great truth of Monism—of +that Monism which will more and more be recognised as the corner-stone +of science and also of the religion of science.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Editor.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> Compare the article <i>The Origin of Thought-Forms</i> in the present number, +under the caption “Diverse Topics.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> I should prefer to speak of the oneness or inseparableness of thought and +language, but since Prof. Max Müller has sufficiently explained himself, I use here +his term “identity” in the sense of inseparableness as it is used by Prof. Max Müller.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> <i>The Logos Theory</i>, by Ludwig Noiré. Translated from the German. <i>The Open +Court</i>, iii. p. 2196. English translations of Noiré’s most important articles concerning +the origin of language, have appeared in Nos. 33, 137, 139, 141, 142 of <i>The +Open Court</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> That ants communicate with each other through their antennæ is an undeniable +fact. But Landois believes that they communicate also through sounds. +Some ants possess in their stridulation-organ a kind of a rattle the sound of which, +however, is perceptible to the human ear only in the Ponera ants.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> See <i>Three Lectures on the Science of Language</i>, p. 47. The Open Court Publishing +Co., Chicago.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> Prof. Lloyd Morgan introduces several new terms, which seem well coined. +The mental product which is called the object of sense he calls “construct”; the +most prominent feature in a composite sense-image, he calls the “predominant”; +and if the predominant is named and isolated by abstraction he calls it an “isolate.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> An impartial criticism of Professor Romanes’s position has been made by Prof. +Lloyd Morgan in his recent work <i>Animal Life and Intelligence</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> This quotation is requoted from Prof. Lloyd Morgan, <i>Animal Life and Intelligence</i>, +p. 325.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> <i>The origin of Mind</i>, in <i>The Monist</i>, Vol. I. No. I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> L. c., p. 281. “So much about the subject or the monon. What now about +the objects or the mona?”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> Prof. Max Müller is a great admirer of Kant and so am I. But it appears to +me that we differ greatly in what we accept as the essential teachings of the master; +and I grant willingly that Prof. Max Müller has preserved the doctrines of Kant +more faithfully than I. I have attempted to modernise Kant. If I am called a +Kantian (and I do not object to the name, on the contrary I am proud of it) it is because +I proceed from Kant and I attempt to preserve the spirit of Kant’s philosophy +rather than his doctrines. For the sake of the spirit of Kantian philosophy I have +seen myself urged to surrender the idea of the thing-in-itself as something unknowable. +Prof. Max Müller has preserved in his philosophy (for such is the <i>Science of +Thought</i>) the Ding-an-sich theory. Believing in things-in-themselves he must consistently +believe in a self or monon, for this monon is nothing but the thing-in-itself +of the soul.</p> + +<p>I have limited myself in the present article to the principle of continuity in +evolution as a point of divergence between Prof. Max Müller and the views defended +by <i>The Monist</i>. If I attempted at present to enter into the philosophical problem +of things-in-themselves, I should be obliged to tax too much the patience of my +readers. But as I am convinced that the reason of our difference with Prof. Max +Müller concerning the continuity of evolution lies deeper still, I intend to treat the +subject of things-in-themselves in a future number.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="LITERARY_CORRESPONDENCE_I">LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE</h3> + +</div> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="FRANCE_I">I.<br> +<span class="smaller">FRANCE.—THE INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING OF THE LANGUE D’OC.</span></h4> + +<p>I have never seen mentioned in your periodical publications the +<i>Revue des Pyrénées</i>; and perhaps I should never have heard of +the periodical myself if I had not been in this interesting old city, +and if my eye had not chanced on the title of one of the articles of +a recent number advertised in a local journal. “Un Ariégeois +sénateur des Etats-Unis d’Amérique: Pierre Soulé” was the title +that attracted my attention and caused me to procure a copy, which +I have found interesting in more ways than one.</p> + +<p>The publication is a well-printed quarterly of 150 pages, and +has completed some time since the second year of its existence. Its +full title is as follows: <i>Revue des Pyrénées et de la France meridionale, +Organe de l’Association Pyrénéenne et de l’union des Sociétés Savantes +du Midi</i>. The founders of the periodical are the late <span class="smcap">Julien Sacaze</span>, +a savant much venerated in these parts, and <span class="smcap">Dr. F. Garrigou</span>, its +present editor.</p> + +<p>The Association Pyrénéenne, of which, as we have just seen, +the <i>Revue</i> is the organ, is an active and significant organisation. +Here are some of its aims. While it recognises the greatness of +the Capital, Paris, it advocates decentralisation, by “showing that +workers living in the provinces are as capable as others, though enjoying +less support and funds, to aid in the building up of the great +scientific edifice of France.” The importance and boldness of this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>declaration can scarcely be appreciated by those who have not +breathed for some time the excessively monopolistic atmosphere of +the French capital, which has been so baneful to so many national +interests. The Association would also act as a means of union between +the various learned societies of the South, the Midi, and thus +render it possible to organise an annual Congress “for the discussion +and defense of the grand scientific, industrial, and commercial +questions which concern Southern France.”</p> + +<p>Here we see brought out still more precisely that rivalry between +the South and North, characteristic of most nations, and which presents +such curious aspects in the past and present history of France.</p> + +<p>I never weary of quietly noting, while in the South, the delightful +contempt which the <i>méridionaux</i> show for their Parisian fellow +countrymen. The other day at dinner, for instance, I heard a learned +professor of one of the Southern Universities defending the Southern +accent and preferring it to “the Parisian accent,” as he put it. But +I would need pages of your space to develop this line of thought. +Suffice it to say here that the Association Pyrénéenne and its organ the +<i>Revue des Pyrénées</i> intend to prove, and have succeeded in proving, +if we may judge by this number of the <i>Revue</i> and by the account of +the proceedings of the first Congress of the Association, placed at +the head of the number, that there are creditable savants and sound +learning outside of the walls of Victor Hugo’s “Ville Lumière.”</p> + +<p>Another object of the Association would be dear to Castelar’s +heart. I give it in full: “To remove morally the grand Pyreneean +curtain and to offer the hand of friendship to a nation justly proud +of its past, whose interests touch our own, and which has the right, +because of the illustrious sons of Catalonia, Aragon, and Navarre, +to take part in an intellectual and Pyreneean association based on +science.” This is a paraphrase of Louis XIV’s famous remark concerning +the Pyrenees, when he placed his grandson on the throne +of Spain. Nor can one be surprised at the strong affection which +binds Southern France to the Iberian peninsula. The grand mountains, +the “Pyreneean curtain,” which separate the two countries, +are always in sight, their snow-capped peaks glittering in the sun; +the various <i>patois</i>, especially the dialect of Pau, resemble the Spanish +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>more than they do the French tongue; Spanish money is foisted +on you at the shops, and picturesque Spanish mountaineers lend a +peculiar charm to the country fairs, while the nation is ever on the +eve of a pronunciamento, destined to give to Spain the republican +institutions of France.</p> + +<p>But to return to <span class="smcap">Pierre Soulé</span> who is the cause and starting +point of this letter. Commandant Trespaillé’s eulogistic biographical +sketch is of slight interest to American readers, who can find elsewhere +a fuller and more exact account of the brilliant but rather +disappointing career of the once famous Franco-Louisiana statesman. +M. Trespaillé’s reference to “Old Hickory” as “the immortal +Jackson,” his statement that the American people is full of prejudices +against the French race, his metamorphosing New Hampshire’s +only President into Pierre Francklin, and some other similar slips +can be overlooked, for this essay offers a striking example of the +dominant idea of the <i>Revue</i>, the Association and patriotic Southerners +generally,—the glorification of the great men and great actions +of the sunny South, the “Midi ensoleillé.”</p> + +<p>And I must admit, foreigner though I am, that I share much of +this enthusiasm for persons and things meridional, and especially +for the latter. What a land this is for historical and archæological +study! Take this number of the <i>Revue des Pyrénées</i>, for instance; it +is full of it. Here, for example, are the titles of three of the papers +read at the first Congress of the Association Pyrénéenne, to which +Congress I referred above: “The Domitian Road from Narbonne +to Perpignan,” “The Third Century School of Sculpture in Southern +Gaul,” and “The Roman Road from Narbonne to Carcassonne.” +There are several articles in the <i>Revue</i> about the University of Toulouse, +which is stated to be the oldest in France after that of Paris, +having been founded in 1229, more than two hundred and fifty years +before the discovery of America. The law school even antedates +1229 and its foundation is lost in the obscurity of the early centuries +of the Christian era. Another article begins the publication of a list +of the professors at the law school. The first recorded name dates +from 1251. When one finds such themes as these on every hand, +Rome, Gaul, the Middle Ages, and feudalism become almost living +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>realities. And how inexhaustibly rich Languedoc is in these reminders +of the distant past.</p> + +<p>And the patois or dialects of this part of France are not the least +ancient and interesting subjects for study. Wonder is often expressed +that the English of America differs so slightly from the English of +England, with three thousand miles of ocean separating the two +countries. The wonder increases when you find that here in Languedoc +the same patois differs in some particulars from town to town. +Let me first mention some big differences and then touch upon some +minor ones. If you take the train which leaves Toulouse at about +half past eleven in the morning, you will arrive at Pau at half past +four. During these five hours on a pretty slow train you have passed +from one patois to another. The lower classes of Toulouse cannot +understand the lower classes of Pau. And if you continue in the +same train, at about half past eight you reach Mauléon, in the French +Basque Provinces, where the populace of neither Toulouse nor Pau +could carry on a conversation with the populace of Mauléon. Thus +a nine hours’ ride of about 175 miles on an accommodation train +carries you through a region where French is the vernacular of the +educated classes and is the official language, but where the great +mass of the population is divided into three groups, each speaking +a different dialect.</p> + +<p>The modifications which the same patois undergoes in neighboring +localities is not less curious though of course not so radical. +Roughly speaking it may be said that the same patois is spoken from +Montpellier to Bordeaux and from Toulouse well up into the centre +of France, which embraces the region where prevailed the Langue d’oc +from which the present patois is derived. But, while a peasant +could make himself understood throughout this wide territory, his +ear would often be perplexed by more than one strange word and +phrase. I was once told on the Riviera that the patois of Menton +differed considerably from that of Nice and that this was particularly +the case before the construction of the Corniche road and the railway, +when a denizen of the former place could reach the latter city only +by doubling Cape Martin under sail. I do not know how true this +statement is, but I believe it to be correct, after a superficial study +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>on these same lines which I have just made in the Department of +the Tarn, one of the most isolated portions of Upper Languedoc. +I find that the patois of towns as near together, as are New York, +Newark, Patterson, Nyack and Tarrytown, for example, differs, not, +perhaps, in its construction but in its vocabulary. Let me give some +examples. Thus, potato, which is <i>truffet</i> at Cordes, becomes <i>truffo</i> +at Castres. <i>Patano</i>, the word employed in the South East end of +the Department is also heard at Castres, but never at Cordes, which +is in the North West end of the Department, Castres being about in +the centre. Dog is <i>cagnot</i> and <i>cô</i> at Cordes, and <i>gous</i> at Castres. (At +Montpellier, in a contiguous Department it is <i>tschi</i>, while at Pau they +say <i>can</i>, which approaches very near the Latin.) Pig is <i>pourcel</i> at +Castres and <i>tessou</i> at Cordes. Broom <i>engranicro</i> at Castres and <i>balatso</i> +at Cordes. I have also noted the following difference between +the Tarn patois and that of Pau. The <i>f</i> of the former always becomes +an aspirated <i>h</i> in the latter. Thus, <i>femo</i>, woman (Castres) is +<i>henno</i> at Pau; <i>fourco</i>, pitchfork (Castres) <i>hourco</i> (Pau); <i>foun</i> fountain +(Castres) <i>houn</i> (Pau).</p> + +<p>A comparison of this patois with the French as regards the +spelling of geographical names reveals a fact that would somewhat +dampen the ardor of our friend Colonel Shephard, of New +York, in his effort to force the gazeteers to give geographical names +as they are written in the countries where they are found. One +might have thought that such near neighbors as the Langue d’oil and +the Langue d’oc would have come to some rational understanding on +this point and that the Ile-de-France would have accepted the spelling +of Languedoc. But not so. The towns and rivers of this part +of France look as different in French and patois printed pages and +sound as differently when pronounced by educated and peasant +mouths, as do the towns and rivers of Italy when seen in Italian and +English books or when spoken by Americans and Italians. Thus +Toulouso became Toulouse; Castros, Castres; Dourgnos, Dourgne; +Carcassouno, Carcassonne; Narbouno, Narbonne; Billofranco, Villefranche; +Labaou, Lavaur; Bibiers, Viviers; Boou, Vour; Abrayrou, +Aveyron; Cordos, Cordes, etc.</p> + +<p>These patois, these dialects of the old Langue d’oc, are awakening +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>just now increasing interest in the literary circles of the Midi, for it is +only within recent years that the French has appeared to threaten their +extinction. The spread of the railroad system and especially the +wide development of the primary school since the advent of the Third +Republic, are dealing deadly blows at these popular dialects. But +they are still far from moribund. I have frequently been told that +even to-day one stumbles now and then on old peasants living up in +the isolated Black Mountain, a spur of the Cévennes, and which +divides Upper from Lower Languedoc, who cling to <i>oc</i>, although +<i>obe</i> or <i>ope</i>, or the French <i>oui</i> and <i>si</i>, are the common affirmative particles +of the patois.</p> + +<p>It has often happened to me when taking a constitutional to ask +my way and discover that I am addressing a person who neither understands +nor speaks French, though, as a rule, all peasants understand +French and the vast majority can speak the language too, but +after a rather sorry fashion. A foreigner finds at least one comfort +in all this: in Languedoc he uses the national tongue more correctly +than thousands of native born Frenchmen! Nor is the knowledge of +patois confined to the peasantry or the working classes of the towns. +The <i>bourgeoisie</i>, with exceedingly rare exceptions, are quite at home +in it, and the children of the nobility often prattle with their peasant +nurse more easily in patois than in the polished speech of their parents. +During a political campaign, it is a very common thing for a +would-be deputy to address country voters in their familiar dialect, +thereby gaining the favor not alone of the <i>félibres</i>; while, during +this same period of electoral excitement, the local papers publish almost +daily editorials written in patois. In hundreds of rural churches +the short sermon after early mass is preached in patois, and many a +time I have found myself turning with surprise when I heard French +spoken in the streets of Languedocian towns of considerable size.</p> + +<p>There was a time when the government and the ruling classes +of Languedoc itself strove to eradicate these dialects and to substitute +French for them. The aim was a patriotic one; greater national +unity, it was believed, would thus be secured. But that period has +gone by, and at present there is a strong tendency to preserve from +destruction these linguistic souvenirs of a rapidly fading past. What +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>the enthusiastic <i>félibres</i> would do for Provençal, they and their disciples +and imitators in Languedoc would do for the dialects of South +Western France. At the Congrès d’Etudes Languedociennes, held +recently at Montpellier, one of the members proposed that the French +language should be taught in the primary schools through the medium +of the langue d’oc. The suggestion is not so chimerical as it appears +to be at first blush, for one of the greatest and never-ending +difficulties of the country schoolmaster in this part of France is to +teach his scholars the three R’s by means of the French, which is a +foreign tongue to ninety-nine out of a hundred of them. One is not +surprised, therefore, to find that one of the resolutions passed by +this same Congress takes up the plan proposed in the paper just referred +to, and declares in favor of “the utilisation of the langue d’oc +for teaching French in the primary schools.”</p> + +<p>At a recent sitting of the General Council of the Bordeaux University +a resolution was passed calling for the creation of a chair of +“Southern languages.” In explanation of this term, the <i>Gironde</i>, +the leading Bordeaux newspaper, says: “Besides giving instruction +in Spanish, one of the labors of the professor would be to teach our +South Western dialects in which the most important historical documents +of this part of the country were drawn up during several centuries.” +The editor then goes on to say: “If the State does not +feel able to found this chair, will not some private individual come +forward and imitate the example of James E. Clark, who recently +established at Worcester, Mass., a university endowed with a capital +of $12,500,000?”</p> + +<p>Speaking of primary schools reminds me of a curious fact which +has frequently attracted my attention in Languedoc this winter. In +no other part of France perhaps was it so common for a town to +grow up around a castle; for this region was terribly harried by the +Wars of Religion, and the poor peasants were forced to seek the +protection of some lord. In order to render them more impregnable, +these castles were generally built on some high hill. So now one +sees on every hand decaying hamlets surrounding ruined castles left +almost deserted on the very crown of some pyramidal mount, while +the busy town of to-day has descended to the more accessible base +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>of the hill. But since the advent of the Third Republic and the +grand impetus given to primary instruction, these abandoned castles +have taken a new lease of life, and been converted into school buildings. +The other day during an hour’s drive in Upper Languedoc I +saw two of these old useless feudal piles consecrated to popular +nineteenth century education. What a train of reflections is thus +suggested! Within the very same walls where some proud ignorant +seignior once lorded it over his humble vassals, the descendants of +these serfs, still speaking the tongue of their oppressed ancestors, +but enjoying all the liberties then usurped by their masters, are now +being instructed in branches of knowledge of which the feudal knight +had scarcely an inkling. What a revolution was that of ’89!</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Theodore Stanton.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span></p> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="GERMANY_I">II.<br> +<span class="smaller">GERMANY.—RECENT PUBLICATIONS IN THE DOMAIN OF PATHOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY.</span></h4> + +<p>The science of anthropology claims, as we know, to have discovered, +that the various epochs of history are marked not only by +characteristic religious, political, social, and literary conditions, but +not unfrequently also by particular forms of disease; and it is the +opinion of eminent medical authorities that nervous and mental +diseases constitute the “pathological feature” of modern civilisation. +This, of course, is not to be understood as meaning that +diseases of this character have not appeared in previous epochs, +but simply that they occur with unusual frequency at the present +day and in unusually grave forms.</p> + +<p>A book treating of the affliction of the age ought to count on a +large circle of readers, and it will be all the more deserving of such if +it thoroughly and skilfully fulfils its purpose of holding up the mirror +to the time and of imparting the light and advice required in +this matter. This has been done in an excellent manner by the +work of the Bremen alienist Dr. <span class="smcap">Scholz</span>, entitled <i>Die Diätetik des +Geistes—Ein Führer zu praktischer Lebensweisheit</i>, which has just +appeared in its second and enlarged edition, Leipsic, E. H. Mayer. +This book is distinguished from the majority of similar recent publications +intended for a greater public by its relative thoroughness. +It must be characterised as thorough and comprehensive, also, in +comparison with the older and more celebrated work, which its title +at once suggests, <span class="smcap">Feuchterleben’s</span> <i>Diätetik der Seele</i>. The character +of the book is not “purely psychological,” overlooking the +high importance of the influence of the body, as was the case with +Beneke; nor does it lean towards the moralising of a Heinroth and +Ideler; nor does the author treat his subject from an exclusively +medical point of view: the work, in fact, is anthropological in character. +Its contents possess chiefly in two respects great interest: +(1) from a universal human point of view, in that it affords us a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>glance into the awful abysses of life, in the company of an expert +guide who tells us how these depths are to be avoided, or at least +gives consolation to those whose way leads necessarily through +them; and (2) from a pedagogical point of view, in that it directs +attention to the heredity of the morbid constitutions and abnormalities +that oppose obstacles to education or may become such if improperly +treated.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that morbid mental dispositions must be taken +into account in all work of education and instruction, if we wish to +avoid an egregious violation of the universally recognised requirement +to regard individuality. And from this point of view the book +of Dr. Scholz will awaken in readers who have anything to do at all +with education, the desire to learn more about the nature of morbid +mental life in the young than is presented in this treatise destined +for a large public.</p> + +<p>Such a wish would have had to remain unsatisfied six years ago, +when the <i>Diätetik des Geistes</i> first appeared. It is true, English +physicians particularly, like West, Conolly, Maudsley, and others, +had a long time previously directed attention to the morbid phenomena +of infant psychic life, but their work, like that of their +French and German professional associates, lies buried in medical +magazines and volumes not easily accessible. The first to apply +himself to the work needed in this condition of affairs was Professor +<span class="smcap">Emminghaus</span>, who digested and collected all the material, thus supplied, +in a compendious work bearing the title <i>Die psychischen Störungen +des Kindesalters</i>, Tübingen, Laupp, 1887. The fact indeed +is not to be left unrecognised that the book, in so far as it may be +used by those who have not had a medical training, possesses two defects,—defects, +however, for which the author cannot be censured. +In the first place, it is intended for physicians only, and is therefore, +on account of the many technical terms it uses, at times not uniformly +intelligible. To the serious student, however, who possesses +the previous psychological and physiological knowledge most indispensable, +it presents no difficulties of too great magnitude. The +second defect likewise springs from the purpose of the work. It +consists in the fact that, excepting a few occasional references and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>hints, the pedagogical aspect of the question is not considered. Pedagogists, +here, are confronted with a problem which must be solved, +and of which the solution will certainly not be a thankless task. +The writer of these lines has approached one aspect of this question +in a treatise of his entitled <i>Nervosität and Mädchenerziehung</i>, Wiesbaden, +1890, in the course of which study he has arrived at the +conviction that an important factor is lacking in modern pedagogics +and the training of teachers. This conviction he has put into words +in another treatise, <i>Geistesstörungen in der Schule</i>, Wiesbaden, 1891, +with what success it remains for the future to say.</p> + +<p>Two years after the appearance of Emminghaus’s work a translation +was published in Germany of a French book of a similar +character. <i>Der Irrsin im Kindesalter</i>, by Dr. <span class="smcap">Paul Moreau</span>, +authorised edition by Dr. Demetrio Galatti, Stuttgart, 1889, Ferdinand +Enke, publisher. Unfortunately, Moreau, as his own preface +reveals, did not know, when he wrote his book, of the existence +of the German work,—a circumstance that has not been without regrettable +consequences. Taken in conjunction with the work of +Emminghaus, however, Moreau’s book possesses, on account of the +numerous morbid cases it gives, a high value; although it cannot +bear comparison with the former work in richness of material and +familiarity with the literature of the subject, and much less so in the +psychological treatment of the subject, where Emminghaus is incomparably +subtler and more profound.</p> + +<p>A treatise that is closely related, in point of subject-matter, on +the one hand to the works of Emminghaus and Moreau, and on the +other to the books of Preyer (<i>Die Seele des Kindes</i>) and Pérez (<i>Les +trois premières années de l’enfant</i> and <i>L’enfant de trois à sept ans</i>) on +the development of children, has just been published by a Leipsic +teacher under the title of <i>Die Periodicität in der Entwickelung der +Kindesnatur</i>, <i>Neue Gesichtspunkte für Kinderforschung und Jugenderziehung</i>, +by <span class="smcap">Gustav Siegert</span>, Leipsic, 1891, R. Voigtländer. The +author endeavors, in a very interesting manner we must admit, to +show that, in the development of the child, lasting states in regular +alternate succession occur of mental and physical buoyancy on the +one hand and depression on the other, of moral exaltation, likewise, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>and moral subsidence. The fundamental cause of this periodical +alternation, of the general existence of which numerous proofs are +adduced, is supposed to lie in the alternate strengthening and relaxation +of the individual’s forces of action, brought on by the expenditure +and reproduction of energy; additional determinative +causes, accelerative as well as retardatory, are found in intercourse +with the world and with other human beings. We may call the +former the individual and the latter the social cause of the phenomena +of periodicity. In the application of his results to juvenile +education the author arrives at some far-reaching propositions of +reform, the consideration of which, however, we shall have to leave +to the pedagogical press.</p> + +<p>We shall have to preserve the same attitude with regard to a +new work of the well-known Leipsic professor Dr. <span class="smcap">Strumpell</span>—<i>Die +pädogogische Pathologie oder die Lehre von den Fehlern der Kinder</i>, +Leipsic, 1890, Verlag von Georg Böhme Nachfolger. We must refer +here to this otherwise highly deserving book only in one respect, +where we have occasion for censure. The author does not in his +expositions sufficiently take account of the intimate connection between +physical and mental phenomena, and the consequence of this +is among other things that he excludes pathological mental conditions +(the physical causes of which he is forced to admit) as a matter +of principle from the pedagogic system and consigns them entirely +into the charge of the physician. In our treatise mentioned +we have explained why this is not allowable, as well as, in addition, +what portion of duty devolves on the teacher in the consideration +of these pathological mental conditions. Strumpell’s mistake springs +from the fact that he conceives with Herbart the essential object of +education to be intellectual culture. Allowing that Herbart cannot +be taken to task for entertaining this conception, we may yet demand +of Strumpell the recognition of the results of recent physiological +psychology to the extent at least of perceiving that psychical +and physical phenomena are <i>one</i> if not the <i>same</i>. Even the opponents +of Monism dare not overlook this truth,—a truth moreover +that admits very well of reconciliation with the Herbartian pluralism +to which Strumpell is devoted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span></p> + +<p>We might cite here numerous pathological conditions of mind +that very plainly spring from physical causes and to which the instructor +has to give attention just as much as the physician. Instead, +however, of citing particular cases, we will refer to three little +treatises that are in the highest degree instructive on this point, +not only for teachers exclusively but also for all who have to do +with children. Dr. <span class="smcap">Maximilian Bresgen</span>, specialist in diseases of +the nose and throat at Frankfort on the Main, has published at the +house of Leopold Voss in Hamburg (1890) a brochure entitled +<i>Ueber die Bedeutung behinderter Nasenathmung nebst besonderer Berücksichtigung +der daraus hervorgehenden Gedächtniss- und Geistesschwäche</i>. +A treatise of like character is that of Dr. med. <span class="smcap">Lenzmann</span> +of Duisburg, entitled <i>Ueber den schädlichen Einfluss der behinderten +Nasenathmung auf die körperliche und geistige Entwickelung des +Kindes</i>, Bielefeld, 1890, Anders Verlag. Both treatises contain, +among other things not to be considered here, instructive examples +of the rise and disappearance of that morbid mental condition to +which Hack first directed notice in Germany but which elsewhere +became known through the researches of the Dutch physician Guye +by the name of <i>Aprosesia nasalis</i>. The third treatise is by Dr. med. +<span class="smcap">Ralf Wiechmann</span>, specialist for nervous diseases at Brunswick, and +bears the title <i>Eine sogenannte Veitstanzepidemie in Wildbad</i>, Leipsic, +1890, Verlag von Georg Thieme. By St. Vitus’s dance (Ger. <i>Veitstanz</i>) +we understand the disease of which the well-known symptoms +are involuntary muscular twitchings usually accompanied by severe +or light psychical disturbances, known in medicine by the name of +<i>chorea minor</i> and <i>chorea rhythmica</i>, and sometimes occurring in epidemics. +At the school in Wildbad the number of the afflicted children +rose in the course of time to twenty-six. Wiechmann expatiates +at length in his book on the character of the contagion, and arrives +through an exhaustive use of the existing literature on the subject at +the result, that there was present in the individual children attacked +substantially a physical predisposition, an unstable nervous system. +As the first children attacked were not removed, the convulsive motions +were seen and perceptually taken up by the other children, +who were just approaching the period of puberty and labored under +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>hereditary predispositions. “Once these images had entered perceptually +into the unstable brain, they became competent to operate +as stimuli and to be translated into involuntary muscular motions.”</p> + +<p>The conclusion of my letter may be taken up with the discussion +of a treatise that deserves a somewhat more detailed consideration. +The director of the Royal Würtembergian State Insane Asylum +at Zwiefalten, Dr. F. L. A. Koch, who already possesses eminent +repute in the domain of psychiatry, has just published the first part +of a new work called <i>Die psychopathischen Minderwertigkeiten—Erste; +Abteilung: Einleitung, Die angeborenen andauernden psychopathischen +Minderwertigkeiten</i>, Ravensburg, 1891, Verlag von Otto Maier. In +this work the author extends the development of the ideas he some +time previously outlined in his <i>Rudiments of Psychiatry</i>, second edition, +1889. In the expression “psychopathische Minderwertigkeiten” +(psychopathical secondary factors) Koch embraces all those psychical +irregularities, be they natural or acquired, affecting the life of +the human personality, which though in the severest cases even not +amounting to actual mental disorders, yet in the most favorable instances +so affect the persons afflicted with them that they appear as +lacking the full possession of mental normality and capacity. Primarily, +of course, the treatise is intended for physicians, and the +author counts on the gratitude of this profession in so far as he has +undertaken to put in independent form the separate facts formerly +scattered over the whole domain of psychiatry, to free them from +other neuro- and psycho-pathological subjects, and to unite them +into one special group of pathological states. But the author also +counts on his book being used by the representatives of other professions, +by pastors, tutors, teachers, jurists, sociologists, historians, +and the like, and indeed with perfect justice.</p> + +<p>The savers of souls, if they had mastered to a slight degree +even the comprehension of the psychopathical secondary factors, +would be astonished to see how many people there are in the case +of whom medicine is more effective against “spiritual” vexations +than pastoral advice, and that often such advice, being one-sided +and starting from false assumptions, does harm only. They would +see in the peculiarity of the religious needs and tribulations of many +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>a man a psycho-pathological abnormality; they would come to understand +how the otherwise unintelligible badness of many another +has its source in a pathological basis: they would not regard and +hail as absolutely good, moreover, many “good impulses”;—all +this they would find out if they had learned to note and comprehend +what the import is of such persons being descended from neurotic +ancestors, of their exhibiting palpable indications of degeneration, +and having also perhaps insane, idiotic, whimsical, and epileptical +brothers and sisters. They would furthermore perfectly comprehend, +that in the case of people who are descended from healthy +parents, but who from being in times past happy and joyful Christians +are now struggling with distractions of soul, it were often better +first to inquire after the state of their organs of digestion. And they +would be able to deal quite differently from formerly with many a +soul entrusted to their care, perhaps also more easily to conquer, or +at least to endure, some secret burden of their own lives. The import +of the book for the educator is easily inferrible from the remarks +made. For the jurist, who has to deal with the problems of accountability +and the administering of punishment, its importance is +manifest. Sociology, too, the deeper it enters into its problems, +will not be able to dispense with psychopathology, and in this field +it is precisely the psychopathical secondary factors that eminently +demand attention. In that which concerns its connection with history +we need only mention the names of Lombroso, Emminghaus +(<i>Allgemeine Psychopathologie</i>) and Möbius (<i>Rousseaus Krankheitsgeschichte</i>), +to point out the importance of a work like that before us. +We recommend it without reserve to all whom it touches.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Chr. Ufer.</span></p> + +<p>Altenburg, July, 1891.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="EMILE_LITTRE">ÉMILE LITTRÉ.</h3> + +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Some debts there are that make the debtor proud;</div> + <div class="verse indent4">So ours to him, who could philosophise</div> + <div class="verse indent4">With common-sense, and sweep from starry skies</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The brain-spun webs that darken like a cloud.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">We loved him, for his highest thoughts avowed</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Our own akin and less than ours allies;</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Born of the common soil but born to rise</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And light the labor of the laurel-browed.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Justice he traced to truth; morality,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Back to the brutish primal needs of man;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And stood himself for all the best might be.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent4">He wrought in words, a faithful artisan;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And lived to shame their loutish mockery</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Whose virtue ended where his own began.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Louis Belrose, Jr.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="DIVERSE_TOPICS_I">DIVERSE TOPICS.</h3> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="THE_ORIGIN_OF_THOUGHT-FORMS">THE ORIGIN OF THOUGHT-FORMS.</h4> + +</div> + +<p>Dr. H. Potonié, the editor of the <i>Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift</i>, +Berlin, advances in one of its recent numbers (Vol. vi. 15) the following proposition +concerning the origin of the forms of thought: “All the forms of thought +have originated in the struggle for life not otherwise than the forms of organisms.” +This is further explained in the following sentence: “Those conceptions which are +called <i>a priori</i>, are inherited; they have been necessarily used by the primitive +thinking organisms and are now in their disposition immediately present. Yet they +have been gained by experience. Without any knowledge, for instance, of space +and time, no action is possible; accordingly their conception is perhaps the oldest +and therefore it appears aprioristic.”</p> + +<h5>I. THOUGHT-FORMS AND THE FORMS OF EXISTENCE.</h5> + +<p>We agree with Dr. Potonié that thought-forms grow naturally and that they +grow such as they are, of necessity. In our opinion formal thought, with its so-called +<i>a priori</i> theorems, is derived from the thought-forms by abstraction. (See “Fundamental +Problems” pp. 26-60, the chapter Form and Formal Thought.) If it had +been possible for other thought-forms to have originated together with those which we +possess at present, and it may be parenthetically remarked that we do not consider it +as possible; but <i>if</i> it had been possible, we do not deny that all the other thought-forms +would have gone to the wall, they would have perished in the struggle for +existence and our present thought-forms alone would have survived. In this we agree +with Dr. Potonié, and a naturalist may be satisfied with this statement, because it +suffices for his purposes. The recognition of the objective validity of the laws of +formal thought is all that the specialist wants for this or that branch of science. +But this recognition is not sufficient for the philosopher. He has to understand the +problem why the subjective laws of purely formal thought possess an absolute and +an objective validity for the world of real existences. He must understand not only +how thought-forms originated, but also why and on what ground the laws of formal +thought are considered as necessary and universal truths. The question of their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>origin and growth is of secondary importance compared with the question of their +rigidity and apriority.</p> + +<p>Mr. Herbert Spencer has made the same proposition as Dr. Potonié and his +view briefly expressed is this: “The laws of formal thought are <i>a priori</i> to the individual, +but <i>a posteriori</i> to the race.” In other words apriority must be explained +by heredity. A dog cannot count, because none of his ancestors have ever counted, +but a child has the faculty to learn counting because innumerable ancestors of his +have counted and his brain possesses a predisposition to learn counting easily. Concerning +our apprehension of space-relations which expressed as mathematical theorems +appear to us necessary and are called <i>a priori</i>, Mr. Spencer says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We cannot think otherwise because during that adjustment between the organism and the +environment which evolution has established, the inner relations have been so moulded upon the +outer relations that they cannot by any effort be made not to fit them. Just in the same way that an +infant’s hand, constructed so as to grasp by bending the fingers inwards, implies ancestral hands +which have thus grasped, and implies objects in the environment to be thus grasped by this infantine +hand when it is developed, so the various structures fitting the infant for apprehension of +space-relations, imply such apprehensions in the past by its ancestors and in the future by itself.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Man’s ability to learn counting is inherited, and there may be more or less of +it in different people. Mathematical talent is inherited just as much as musical +talent or other faculties. But the philosophical question concerning the apriority +of mathematical theorems has nothing whatever to do with the origin of mathematical +talent. When Mr. Spencer declares that apriority is but an inherited +aposteriority, this is equivalent and is intended to be equivalent to an actual denial +of all apriority. His very explanation proves that he does not see the real problem, +and in the same way Dr. Potonié overlooks it entirely. The philosophical problem +of the apriority is not an historical problem, it cannot be solved by tracing the +evolution of thought-forms. The philosopher does not ask how did thought-forms +originate, but why do we attribute to the laws of formal thought necessity and universality +and on what ground can we justify our assumption?</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer compares our apprehension of space-relations to our inherited +habit to grasp with our hands and to walk with our feet. This comparison is +misleading and inappropriate. That we grasp with our hands and walk with our +feet is incidental. There are animals who have developed other limbs for the +same purposes. There are monkeys who grasp with their tails and the elephant +grasps with his nose. There is no necessity and no universality in our predisposition +of grasping with our hands. Yet there resides necessity and universality in +the laws of formal thought so that wherever animals develop rational thought we +are sure that to them twice two will always equal four just as much as it does to us. +However they may be different in other respects: they may be winged creatures or +may be somewhat like our ants, they may have developed other bodily structures than +we can dream of, nevertheless their arithmetic, their logic, and their mathematics will +in all essentials be exactly the same as ours. There are animals whose thought-forms +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>are not as highly developed as in man, but there are no animals in whom they are +developed differently. We must consider it as impossible even that on other stars +rational creatures can be found whose reason differs from ours. To them also twice +two will be four.</p> + +<h5>II. THE PROBLEM OF APRIORITY.</h5> + +<p>Kant did not call the formal laws <i>a priori</i> in order to characterise them as innate +ideas, but simply to denote that their validity is necessary and universal. If I +have to walk twice a distance of two miles, I know “beforehand” (i. e. <i>a priori</i>) that I +shall have to walk four miles—even before I have made the actual experience. And +this wonderful quality of giving information beforehand is characteristic of all the +laws of formal thought. It is certain that our ability of applying the laws of formal +thought has been acquired by experience in the race as well as in the individual. +But their necessity has to do with experience in so far only as its recognition is the +indispensable condition of all methodical experience—i. e. of science. The laws of +formal thought and our recognition of their necessity and universality (alias, “apriority”) +are the organ of any and all scientific cognition. The methods of the +sciences are exact measuring and counting based upon the faith that the laws of +measuring and counting are unalterable and unfailingly reliable. We know beforehand +that they will hold good for all possible cases.</p> + +<p>Our experience of millenniums suffices to prove that the laws of formal thought +agree with the laws of actual existence, and Kant’s view to consider them as merely +subjective and not objective appears to me untenable. We may fairly consider +Kant’s subjectivism as a thing of the past. And the agreement of the forms of +objectivity with the forms of subjectivity is easily explained when we bear in mind +that the thinking subject is a part of the objective world. It is but natural that the +forms of existence are impressed upon the thinking subject as forms of thought.</p> + +<p>Yet the question of the necessity and universality of the laws of form remains. +Can we comprehend why the form of objective reality as well as of subjective +thought must be such as they are, and might they not just as well be different? Is +this question legitimate and can it be answered? We say Yes, the question is legitimate +and can be answered.</p> + +<p>All the laws of formal thought are products of thought-operations which are +based on no other principle than that of identity (<i>A</i> = <i>A</i>). As soon as thinking +beings have developed to that degree of thought-ability in which they are able to +deal with the abstract idea of pure form, they can make constructions of pure +forms. So long as these constructions of pure forms are made consistently and +correctly (i. e. in strict agreement with the principle of identity), they will be found +to hold good in reality and we can <i>a priori</i>—before we have made the actual experience—rely +on their applicability.</p> + +<p>The laws of pure forms (forms of thought as well as forms of existence) can +satisfactorily be proved to anyone who acknowledges the principle of identity. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>principle of identity is not an assumption but it is the generalised statement of the +simplest thought-operation, which, if employed with consistency, can serve as a rule +for other and more complex thought-operations. Consistency is the condition of +thought. Consistency produces order, and order is the most characteristic feature of +thought. We create some pure form in some definite way, for instance in counting we +posit a unit (we call it “one”). Now we create in the same definite way again a +pure form, we again posit a unit (we again call it “one”). In so far as these two +“ones” are the product of the same operation they will be the same and we express +this truth in the sentence 1 = 1 or <i>A</i> = <i>A</i>.</p> + +<p>When, for the sake of assistance in the process of abstract thought, we use real +objects to represent our pure forms, similarly as an abacus is employed for assisting +the young mind of a child in learning arithmetic, the dissimilarity of the objects +is of no account. The proposition of their identity has no reference to the material +objects, but to the operation. Two operations being according to some special and +definite method exactly the same, their products are also exactly the same, and the +rest is not to be minded, because we have in our abstraction purposely excluded +everything else.</p> + +<p>Here is not the place to show the palpable advantages of the methods of abstract +thought and especially of the abstract thought-operations with pure forms. +It is sufficient to characterise its main principle of procedure. We may also parenthetically +remark that from our position we are no longer in need of axioms either +in mathematics or in any other formal science. The data of formal sciences are +certain mental operations, viz. positing pure forms, and combining, separating, and +recombining them. The subject matter of formal sciences consists in the products +of these operations. To formulate some of the simplest products in axioms is a +mistake which has been pointed out by Hermann Grassmann in his <i>Ausdehnungslehre</i>.</p> + +<p>We are struck and overawed with the cosmic order of all natural phenomena +which, as science teaches, is produced through the rigidity of the formal laws of +existence. The planetary system with its regularity of motion which in spite of +its many complications has been formulated by Kepler in most simple laws is an +object of wonder to us. This order of nature is the same order as the grand harmony +that prevails in mathematics and all the other formal sciences. The most +complicated laws of both, forms of nature and forms of thought, are nothing but +generalisations of special applications of the principle of identity in some kind of +action that takes place. While the order of the objective world excites our wonder +we can understand the order of the subjective world of thought-forms and +know that, being the product of certain mental operations according to the principle +of identity, it must be a matter of course. Thus the intrinsic necessity of the laws +of our thought-forms gives us a clue to the intrinsic necessity of the laws of nature.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span></p> + +<h5>III. CONSERVATION OF MATTER AND ENERGY, AND CAUSATION.</h5> + +<p>The law of the conservation of matter and energy is nothing but an application +of the principle of identity to nature as a whole. And the law of cause and +effect is again a corollary only of the law of the conservation of matter and energy. +The law of causation is a formula which maintains that there is identity in difference. +Some motion produces a change of form. There is accordingly a different +state after the motion than before. Yet the total amount of matter and energy +remains the same. This is the identity in the change. David Hume and with him +John Stuart Mill and the empiricists misunderstood the problem of causation. Instead +of considering cause and effect as one continuous process that should be analysed, +they considered cause and effect separately and attempted a synthesis. In +addition to this mistake, causes as well as effects were defined to be objects. Hume +says cause and effect are objects following one another. Cause however is a process; +it is a motion, a change that takes place, an event that happens; it is not a +thing. And effect is the product of such a process. Effect is a special form, a +special state of things, a special configuration, but not the material of which this +configuration consists. A certain poison introduced into the stomach of a living being +produces certain motions in the bowels, called cramps, which may finally prove +fatal. One change produces other changes and their product is a new state of things +which is accompanied with pain and ends in death. It is wrong to call strychnine +the cause and a dead mouse the effect. But if we call strychnine the cause and a +dead mouse the effect, we must forever despair of solving the problem of causation +by a reduction to the principle of identity, for strychnine is not at all identical with +a dead mouse. No cause is the same thing as its effect, and we can by no means +identify cause and effect. And yet the principle of identity holds good. The identity +in causation is the conservation of matter and energy in a change of form.</p> + +<p>It has been maintained that the law of cause and effect could never be proved; +it is either an innate idea prior to experience (Schopenhauer and Schopenhauer’s +interpretation of Kant) or it is an assumption derived from experience of which +(since experience is not as yet exhausted) we cannot know whether it will hold +good forever (J. S. Mill). In contradistinction to these views we maintain, that the +law of cause and effect can satisfactorily be proved to anyone who accepts the principle +of identity. So far as the principle of identity is recognised, all the formal +laws are unequivocally determined, or popularly expressed they are as they are, +they will remain so and cannot be otherwise, they are necessary. All the determining +factors and also the procedure of an operation are set forth, no unforeseen events +are possible, for the non-formal elements are excluded, and therefore the result will +be in one case just as it is in any other. Thus it can <i>a priori</i> be stated that formal +laws will always hold good.</p> + +<p>The question has been raised: Whether or not our knowledge of the apriority +of formal laws is independent of experience. We answer: In a certain sense it is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>dependent upon experience, in another it is not. Historically and evolutionarily it +is dependent upon experience. A store of innumerable experiences has to be gained +before a rational creature will be able to make the abstraction of pure forms. As +soon as this stage is attained, man possesses a world in himself. He can now experiment +within himself with mental images, for instance with numbers: he can +calculate. His mental operations with pure form are called “pure thought” and +“pure thought” is now opposed to “experience through the senses.” The word +“experience” accordingly is used in two ways; it has a broad and a narrow meaning. +In its broad sense it means any acquisition of knowledge generally, in its +narrow sense it means knowledge acquired through the sense-activity alone. Our +knowledge of the apriority of formal laws rests upon experience in its broad sense, +but not upon experience in its narrow sense. We can never derive the idea of necessity +from sense-impressions. John Stuart Mill in rejecting innate ideas saw no +other way than to derive the formal laws from experience (taking here experience +in the broad sense). Yet he did not make a distinction between formal thought and +sense-experience. He considered the nature of sense-experience as typical for all +experience. And thus, again, taking experience in the narrow sense of the term, +he was from his premises perfectly justified in rejecting the idea of necessity. If +the process of cause and effect is really a synthesis of two things represented in +two different sense-impressions following each other, then indeed we have no guarantee +that the same sequences will always be observed; and there may be worlds +in which the law of causality does not operate. Mill saw all the consequences of +his mistake, he conceded freely that we are not justified in assuming that twice two +will always be four: many thousands of experiences are in its favor, but we cannot +be at all sure that no case will ever happen in which twice two makes five.</p> + +<p>The ideas of causality and of the conservation of matter and energy are not derived +from experience in the narrow sense of the word, not from sense-experience, +but from experience in the wider sense of the word, i. e. from sense-experience arranged +with the assistance of formal laws. We should not forget that mere sense-experience +exists only in our abstract thought. In reality all sense-experience is +relational, it is inseparable from its form. Form and the laws of form are not +something purely mental which is transferred to the world of reality, form is something +real, it is objective, it is a quality of the facts and the thought-forms of mind +are a part and a product of the formal structure of the universe.</p> + +<p>The ideas of causation and of the conservation of matter and energy are not +prior to experience, they are a part of experience, i. e. experience in the wider sense. +They are not part of the sense-experience, but the results of our experiments with +purely formal thought-operations, and being the vital instrument or organ of cognition +they are the condition of all methodical experience.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span></p> + +<h5>IV. WHY IS MR. MILL’S PROPOSITION UNTENABLE?</h5> + +<p>In practical life we all expect that 2 × 2 will under all circumstances make 4, +and not 5. We reject Mr. Mill’s idea that there may be even a possibility of the +latter. Is our expectancy really due to <i>a posteriori</i> experience which having been +repeated so often in the lives of our ancestors is now so firmly rooted in our minds +that we imagine it to be necessary and <i>a priori</i>? No! certainly not. The experiences +of our race in the struggle for life has produced our ability of thought, but +it has nothing to do with the apriority of the products of formal thought-operations. +A statement of formal thought such as “twice two makes four,” cannot be compared +to statements of sense-experience such as that sugar has a sweet taste. There may +be a moment in which the taste of sugar will be bitter to our tongue. This is quite +possible. But to say that twice two might in the future or in any other world, as +Mr. Mill maintains, make five is nonsensical, and the possibility of this assumption +cannot be placed in one line with the possibilities of extraordinary and exceptional +sense-experiences.</p> + +<p>What does “twice two makes four” mean? Two means 1 + 1, and twice two +means 1 + 1 plus 1 + 1. This sum is called “four”; and what we call five is 4 + 1. +To maintain that the operation 2 × 2 might produce the result 5, is to admit conditions +which have been excluded. Pure forms are not like animals which multiply; they +are and remain such as they have been posited. When we put two amœbas into a +glass and then add two other amœbas, it is quite possible that in the mean time one +of the first set has divided into two. In that case we would have five amœbas. But +the operation 2 × 2 cannot breed any additional units, so as to produce a greater +number than the sum of 1 + 1 + 1 + 1. Nor can we let any of these units disappear +into naught, so as to produce the result 3, without committing some inconsistency +in our thought-operations, for the products of our thought-operations are +rigid and must remain such as they have been posited. They are not animals blessed +with fertility but pure forms and nothing but pure forms.</p> + +<p>How could Mr. John Stuart Mill overlook so palpable a contrast as that between +formal knowledge and sense-experience? He was apparently prejudiced +against the term “a priori,” which as we freely confess is a very poor and inadequate +expression. Mr. Mill himself states the cause of his prejudice in his autobiography. +He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“There is not any idea, feeling, or power, in the human mind, which, in order to account for +it, requires that its origin should be referred to any other source than experience.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Mill was justly exasperated against anything <i>a priori</i>, for in his time, it had +become customary among certain philosophers to classify all pet superstitions which +could not be proved by experience as <i>a priori</i>. Mr. Mill continues:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Whatever may be the practical value of a true philosophy of these matters, it is hardly possible +to exaggerate the mischiefs of a false one. The notion that truths external to the mind may +be known by intuition or consciousness, independently of observation and experience, is, I am +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>persuaded, in these times the great intellectual support of false doctrines and bad institutions. +By the aid of this theory every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, of which the origin is +not remembered, is enabled to dispense with the obligation of justifying itself by reason, and is +erected into its own all-sufficient voucher and justification. There never was such an instrument +devised for consecrating all deep-seated prejudices.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We appreciate the cause of Mr. Mill’s prejudice, but we cannot agree with +him. And Mr. Mill is mistaken when he imagines that a rejection of apriority will +abolish false doctrines and superstitions. On the contrary. The recognition of absolute +necessity based upon the universality of formal thought will alone be a safe +basis of science through which we can reject <i>prima facie</i> the wrong pretensions of +superstitions and pseudo-science. If we assume with Mr. Mill that all formal knowledge +partakes of the nature of sense-experience, that there is no difference between +the two, no general judgment would be allowable and the idea of necessity would be +inadmissible. These consequences are accepted by Mill. In that case science +would lose its value and philosophy would be without foundation. The most absurd +superstition could not be rejected off-hand on the ground of being contrary to +that which through logic and other formal sciences has been found to be necessary +and a condemnation of any superstition on the part of science would be mere arrogance. +Pseudo-science would have the same right with true science.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that without being obliged to consider the apriority of formal +laws as innate, we need not accept the consequence of Mr. Mill’s philosophy. We +can and we do retain the idea of necessity and we consider it as the corner-stone +of all science.</p> + +<h5>V. THE MEANING OF “NECESSARY.”</h5> + +<p>We have to be on our guard lest we introduce some mystical element into the +idea of necessity. There is nothing mystical about necessity. Necessary means +that a certain operation, if it is exactly the same operation as another one, will +produce exactly the same result. When we posit two units twice, we shall have +the same result as when we posit one unit four times; and we call this result four. +We shall reach the same product whenever we repeat the same operation. Knowing +that we shall always reach the same result, we can, <i>a priori</i> (or beforehand) and +with certainty, determine the result of certain operations after we have mentally +gone through the same operations for all possible cases and under any imaginable +conditions. That a perfect apriority with an unfailing certainty is possible only in the +domain of formal thought is natural. The reason is that we know our thought-forms +exhaustively. They contain nothing but that which has been predicated about them. +Our sense-experience however is always piecemeal and never exhaustive.</p> + +<p>Comprehension is actually a tracing of form relations and a formulating them +in concise statements. The scientist’s work is based upon the methods of measuring +and counting (i. e. the methods of formal sciences) and he undertakes to show +that certain phenomena, different in some respects, are the same in other respects, +that their sameness can be stated in a comprehensive and exact formula. In this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>way he marks out their determining factors in terms of formal thought (for instance +in numbers), so that we can compute them and predict them according to their +determining factors, so that we can know, according to their conditions, that they +will be always as they are.</p> + +<p>The importance of formal thought is paramount in science and the problem +about the necessity which attaches to the laws of formal thought is the fundamental +problem of philosophy.</p> + +<p>There are many philosophers, still, troubling themselves to solve the problem +in the fashion of Schopenhauer or of Mill or looking upon the problem as insolvable. +We do not doubt that the solution here presented is the only possible solution +which as soon as it is understood will find a general acceptance.</p> + +<p>Must it be added that the solution of this fundamental problem does not involve +the ready solutions of all other minor problems? Oh no! We all know that +the solution of one problem is only a stepping-stone for attacking other problems. +The possibilities of progress are as unlimited as the scope of cognition. Light on +this general subject gives us hope that we shall succeed in throwing light also upon +other subjects which are still shrouded to the philosophical inquirer in impenetrable +darkness.</p> + +<h5>VI. MODERN LOGIC.</h5> + +<p>The problem of modern logic is at bottom no other problem than that of formal +thought and of the origin of thought-forms. Professor Dewey in the excellent essay +which appears as the leading article of this number says: “Any book of logic will +tell us what this conception of thought is: that thought is a faculty or an entity +existing in the mind apart from facts and that it has its own fixed forms with which +facts have nothing to do—except in so far as they pass under the yoke.” This is +the old conception of thought, rightly criticised by Professor Dewey, for, closely considered, +it turns out to be dualistic. However, as soon as a proposition is recognised +to contain or to rest upon dualism, it becomes a problem. The problem of +modern logic is, How can we arrive at a monistic conception of logic, how can we rid +ourselves of the dualism on the one side of facts not yet rationalised by the method +of thought-forms and on the other side of mind with its empty thought-forms assimilating +facts to its own nature.</p> + +<p>Our solution of the difficulty has been proposed, in the sense outlined by Professor +Dewey, in “Fundamental Problems.” Professor Dewey, according to our +opinion, is right when he says there is no such a thing as transcendental thought, or +pure thought, thought by itself. And there is no such a thing either as fact, crude +irrational chaotic fact. The world of fact, indeed, is a cosmos and no chaos; there +never was a chaos and never will be a chaos, for the laws of form are an essential +and the most characteristic feature of the world.</p> + +<p>Can there be any question how the order found in thought-forms originates in +a world in which the inorganic and unfeeling mineral crystallises in a regular shape +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>according to strict mathematical laws, i. e. the laws of form? A world in which +the plant grows not otherwise than according to strict mathematical laws building +up roots and stem and leaves and petals and stamens and all other organs obedient +to a certain plan which will vary according to circumstances, but throughout consistent +with the principles of formal laws? Can there be any question that in this +world of cosmic harmony thought-forms will develop in feeling beings as a microcosm +exhibiting the same regularity and conformity to law as do in this world all +other things animate and inanimate? Our pure, i. e. merely formal, thought is an +abstraction which serves the purpose of comprehension. And so is the concept +“matter,” being that which produces sense-impressions. There are no such ghosts +as pure matter or pure thoughts in reality.</p> + +<p>Modern logic, so far as we conceive it to be right, is by no means an overthrow +of the old formal Logic, generally called Aristotelian. It is simply an amendment +made in order to exclude an erroneous interpretation. And so is modern mathematics +not so much a revolution as an extension of the old Euclidian system. It +is a revolution only against a certain unclear conception of mathematics according +to which this science is said to rest upon axioms, these axioms representing absolute +truth—unprovable, incomprehensible, and mysterious.⁠<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> + +<p>The main truth of monism is that reality forms one indivisible whole and all +our concepts are mere abstractions representing certain parts or certain features of +the whole. As soon as we try to think of any of them as things in themselves we +become involved in inextricable contradictions. It appears as if the formal sciences +contained some truths which were absolute and independent of actual reality. +But let any one think of any number, of 2 or 3, and he will soon find that conceived +as absolute beings they are meaningless and unthinkable.</p> + +<p>This is not to say that numbers are phantoms, but that conceived as absolute beings +they are phantoms. Numbers and all formal concepts represent something +real, they represent pure forms. And form is as much a part and feature of reality +as is matter and energy.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">P. C.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> Hermann Grassmann, one of the founders of modern mathematics, has called attention to +the fact that Euclid had a clearer conception of the fundamental concepts of mathematics than +his ill-informed translators and interpreters. Grassmann says in his <i>Ausdehnungslehre</i>: “From +the imputation of confounding axioms with assumed concepts Euclid himself, however, is free, +Euclid incorporated the former among his postulates (αἰτήματα) while he separated the latter as +common concepts (κοιναὶ ἐννοιαι)—a proceeding which even on the part of his commentators +was no longer understood, and likewise with modern mathematicians, unfortunately for science, +has met with little imitation. As a matter of fact, the abstract methods of mathematical science +know no axioms at all.”—Quoted from <i>The Open Court</i>, Vol. II. No. 77, <i>A Flaw in the Foundation +of Geometry</i>, by Hermann Grassmann, translated from his <i>Ausdehnungslehre</i> by μκρκ.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_REVIEWS_I">BOOK REVIEWS.</h3> + +</div> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Belief in God.</span> Its Origin, Nature, and Basis. Being the Winkley Lectures of the +Andover Theological Seminary for the Year 1890. By <i>Jacob Gould Schurmann</i>. +New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1890.</h4> + +<p>The learned Sage Professor of Philosophy in Cornell University, after tracing +the historical origin and development of the belief in God, expresses his conviction +that the problem of the modern theist consists in the union of the Aryan and Semitic +modes of interpreting existence. We shall then have “a synthesis of the Father of all +spirits with the ground of all nature.” This is the hypothesis developed in the +course of the lectures delivered by Professor Schurmann last year before the Andover +Theological Seminary on the Winkley foundation, that form the contents of the +present volume. The theism embodied in that hypothesis is called by the author +<i>anthropocosmic</i>, because, while it is based on the facts of the universe and those of +human nature, the universe must be interpreted in the terms of man, and not man +in the terms of the universe. The key to the universe is the self-conscious spirituality +which makes us selves and persons. Hence anthropocosmic theism is the +doctrine of a Supreme Being “who is ground both of nature and of man, but whose +essence is not natural but spiritual.”</p> + +<p>Before considering the evidence for this hypothesis, let us see what the author +has to say with reference to the logical character of the belief in God. He shows +that <i>agnosticism</i>—of which he treats under its three significations as referring to the +method of knowledge, the object of knowledge, and the subject of knowledge—is +not consistent with the insight into nature and the constitution of knowledge gained +by the Newtonian method of hypotheses and verifications. Science, as opposed to +pure phenomenalism, assumes that what has not originated in the percipient subject +is objectively real, and it postulates the universality of law in nature, a postulate +which is the expression of a conviction of “the unity and universal inner connection +of all reality.” The objective world cannot be understood without reference +to our own conscious experience, and as the only reality we know from the inside is +a spiritual <i>ego</i>, self-conscious spirit must be ascribed to the one ultimate reality +whose existence science assumes, as that which will alone satisfy the requirement +of unity in the midst of change.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span></p> + +<p>It might be objected here, that the existence in man of a spiritual <i>ego</i> requires +proof before that of a universal spirit or world-soul can be inferred from it. The +author takes the existence of the <i>ego</i> for granted, a course which is quite allowable +from the theistic standpoint, although, in the face of what is now known as to the +dissolution of the ego under abnormal conditions of the organism, not scientific. +Having made that assumption and inferred the existence of God from that of the +human spirit, the author explains the nature of the one by reference to that of the +other. He tells us, that the finite spirit is identical, within the limits of its range, +with the infinite spirit, because it is an <i>ego</i>, and that in the <i>ego</i> we have, not merely +a mode of the divine activity, but a part of the divine essence. Such being the +case, the author has no difficulty in inferring the attributes of God from the phenomena +exhibited by man. Thus God is a God of righteousness because the moral +capacity in the human spirit must have its ground in the infinite Spirit. Again +universal benevolence or love is the ideal of which human morality is the realisation; +hence we must conceive of the Spirit of the universe as a God of love.</p> + +<p>We do not think the author’s final conclusion, that “the phenomena both of +the universe and of human life require the thinking mind to postulate a Supreme +Ground of things which we are entitled to describe as self-conscious Spirit and loving +Father,” is warranted by his premises. But we can accept the statement that +our knowledge of God must continue to grow with our knowledge of man and nature. +Through these alone can we know Him, but the difficulty is to interpret the +revelation. Let it be admitted also that the end of nature is the production of man, +and that what is referred to by the author as the human spirit is “the organ of that +communication of God which is the end of the universe.” This does not in reality +throw any light on the nature of God. The utmost that can be said is that, as man is +an organism possessing certain functions, the universe, viewed as God, must have +an organic existence with functions <i>corresponding</i> to those exhibited by the human +organism.</p> + +<p>The author’s reasoning in support of the belief in God as cause or ground of +the world, and as realising purpose in the world is very ingenious. He affirms that +the creational form of the argument from causality is insufficient. It satisfies the +devotional needs of a certain class of worshipers, but what the religious, as well +as the scientific, consciousness demands is a God “here in the world, not there outside +of it or making it.” It has not yet been shown that the universe has had a beginning +in time, and the argument in favor of the eternity of matter ends with an +assurance of the eternity of spirit alone. Spirit is the eternal reality, and nature +its eternal manifestation, the latter being no more separable from the former “than +the spoken word from the thought it symbolises.” The causal relation is, however, +absolutely necessary for our apprehension of the facts of the universe, and as it +cannot be interpreted without contradiction as an action between independent +beings, it must be explained as the eternal dependence of the world upon God. +This implies that God must be volitional as well as self-conscious; “for without +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>will there could be no activity, no efficient causation, no material universe.” The +universe is thus the eternal expression of the divine will. But what is the purpose +realised in creation? The activity of the divine will precludes the notion of a blindly +working nature. As creation is the eternal self-revelation of God, the supreme and +preconceived end of all things must be the glory of God. But man is indispensable +for the attainment of God’s glory, and therefore the end of nature as a realised +scheme of divine ideas is the production of man. The volitional and teleological +arguments as thus stated by the author are consistent with the theory of evolution +developed by Darwin, but they may be combatted on other grounds connected with +the conditions of the existence of God as one with Nature. With this observation, +we must leave Professor Schurmann’s very thoughtful book which, although for the +reasons we have stated, not conclusive, presents the theistic argument with great +clearness and in its strongest form.</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Judaism and Christianity.</span> A Sketch of the Progress of Thought from Old Testament +to New Testament. By <i>Crawford Howell Toy</i>. Boston: Little, Brown +& Co. 1890.</h4> + +<p>This work is another contribution to that genuine history which is alone competent +to impart any true instruction. In it the author undertakes to give an account +of the genesis of Christianity as a child of Judaism.</p> + +<p>It seems to be the thesis of the author that those conceptions and beliefs that +characterise any form of religion are rather determined by the social evolution than +that the social progress and its features are determined by the evolution of ideas +among which the religious ideas are specially influential. In his introduction the +author sketches out his view of the general laws of social progress as the same are +related to religious thought. He notices in history the tendency of ethnic religions +to give way to or to develop into universal religions, and argues that Christianity is +destined to overcome all its rivals and prevail universally. This kind of a conclusion +is a natural one to follow from the theory that the character of thought is determined +by social circumstances and progress. But if it be true that the special +course of the evolution of thought and its characteristic form at any epoch is determined +by causes that are uncontrolled by social conditions, that as between +thought and society thought is the masterful factor, then quite another conclusion +may ensue. But the dubitable nature of the main thesis of the work does not much +detract from the great excellence of the work in general. As a history of the evolution +of Jewish religious conceptions and beliefs from the very first until the establishment +of Christianity, it is in the highest degree interesting and instructive.</p> + +<p>After a discussion of the literature of the Jews and the formation of the canon, +the author proceeds to describe in full detail the nature genesis and mutations of +the cardinal religious doctrines as they revealed themselves to the Israelite, Jewish, +and early Christian insight. The entire body of the data are interpreted in consonance +with the modern scientific idea of the organic nature of society. Jesus is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>regarded as the master spirit that created the Christian Church, and Paul whom +many would install as the real author of the same is accordingly given only a second +place. Altogether it may be said that Professor Toy has given us a most valuable contribution +to religious history and to the scientific interpretation of the same.</p> + +<p class="right">ρσλ.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Pronaos to Holy Writ.</span> Establishing, on Documentary Evidence, the Authorship, +Date, Form, and Contents of each of its Books, and the Authenticity of +the Pentateuch. By <i>Isaac M. Wise</i>. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co. 1891.</h4> + +<p>Rabbi Isaac Wise, the president of the Hebrew Union College of Cincinnati +and the Nestor of Orthodox Judaism in America, presents in the “Pronaos to Holy +Writ” a review of the Biblical books with comments as to their authenticity and +the times in which they were written. Having read these “books and every word +thereof in the original for a term of sixty-six years, i. e. from boyhood up to his +seventy-second birthday,” and having “acquainted himself with all the ancient versions +and commentaries and a large portion of the modern translations and commentaries +of the Bible,” the author is entitled to be heard. Rabbi Wise is a stern +monotheist and he declares: “God only did create light out of darkness; man cannot +produce truth out of fiction, unless in his self-delusion problematic truth satisfies +him. All so-called gems of truth buried under the quicksand of fiction and deception +are problematic at best, if not supported by authoritative corroborants.” +This is true. All truth depends upon verification. We cannot make truth, but +must find it, we must be able to corroborate it, and the corroborants of truth are +its authority. Dr. Wise’s idea of a corroborant is different from ours, he says: +“No one can speak conscientiously of Bible truth before he knows that the Bible +is true, and especially in its historical data.” This seems to indicate that we must +have a belief in the truth of the Bible before we investigate it and that moral +truths, the ethics, the philosophy of the Bible depend upon its historical data. We +cannot go so far with the author of the Pronaos. Dr. Wise says: “The science +commonly called Modern Biblical Criticism, actually Negative Criticism which +maintains on the strength of unscientific methods that the Pentateuch is not composed +of original Mosaic material, no Psalms are Davidian, no Proverbs Solomonic, +the historical books are unhistorical, the prophecies were written post festum, there +was no revelation, inspiration, or prophecy, must also maintain that the Bible is +a compendium of pious or even impious frauds, wilful deceptions, unscrupulous +misrepresentations.” Dr. Wise thought it necessary to meet Negative Criticism +with the documentary evidence and for this purpose he wrote his Pronaos, which +is to be an entrance-hall to the Temple of Biblical Truth. We do not side with +the negativism of certain biblical critics, for we believe that historical investigations +have proved large portions of the Pentateuch to be Mosaic, several psalms to be +Davidian, and the historical books to contain as much history as many old historical +books contain. We believe that they have to be judged and searched and commented +just as much and in the same spirit of scientific inquiry as our philologists +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>treat Herodotus or Livy. But the value of the Bible, in our opinion, does not depend +upon the acceptance or rejection of these or those historical data; nor is it +necessary to consider the Hebrew prophets as special revelations of God, in contradistinction +to the divine revelation in nature and the history of mankind in general. +It may be true enough that the orthodox God-idea of Monotheism depends upon the +belief in special revelation and prophecies, and it is also true that most of the Biblical +criticism has been destructive and negative. But there is a way possible between +both standpoints which may be called positive criticism. This positive criticism +attempts to understand the very life and meaning of the old religion, it attempts +to comprehend the belief of the orthodox and construe it in the terms of science—i. e. +of rational and clear thought. Religion is certainly not a mere fraud or a vain +illusion, it is an ideal which developed naturally out of certain needs of man and +the conditions of society. That religious ideas, especially the idea of God as the +cosmic power which represents the moral authority, are no mere fictions, is proved +by their survival, and those who believe in evolution should not be blind to the fact +that there is something good, something true, something well adapted to surroundings +in religion. To find these elements of truth and goodness which constitute the +life of religion is not mere negative criticism, but positive criticism, and it is not at +all necessary for those who aspire in this direction, to believe in any historical +data, or in special revelations, or in prophecies, or in the personality of God, but +simply to trust in truth. Truth is the only way of salvation even though it may +shatter the most sacred idols of a venerable orthodoxy.</p> + +<p>The contents of the book show that the standpoint of the author does not blind +him to the finer traits of the natural development of his religion. So, for instance, +Solomon’s rationalism is excellently contrasted with the spirit which manifested itself +in the Judges as well as the Prophets. The author of the Judges was an outspoken +theocratic democrat. “He literally pours out his abhorrence of the monarchical +anti-theocratic institution in narrating the story of the first usurper Abimelech, +the son of Gideon.... Entirely different are the language and tendency of +the two appendices, evidently written by another author, who evinces his animosity +to the democratic form of government by saying four times: ‘In those days there +was no king in Israel,’ to which he adds twice ‘every man did what seemed right +in his sight’” (p. 46). “The Solomonic ethics is a commentary on the Mosaic +ethics, as by reason understood.... Man’s knowledge of ethical doctrine is identical +with his knowledge of God’s moral attributes, and all moral obligation has its +root in the Mosaic God-idea....” According to Solomon “wisdom based upon +and rooted in the fear of Jehovah with the revealed material before them was all-sufficient, +without any further special oracles of any prophets. This peculiar rationalism +brought upon him the ire of prophets and rabbis” (p. 111).</p> + +<p>Some reviewers of Dr. Wise’s book will probably find fault with him that he +has taken little if any account of the results of modern biblical investigations. And +this is a grievous fault in our times where it seems to be essential for a scholar and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>author to have read the very latest things published on a subject while an acquaintance +with the views of the classical old authorities is considered unnecessary. It +appears that Dr. Wise did not intend to present his views or criticisms of and +his answers to the latest biblical investigations. It may even be that he is not +familiar with many of them. Granting this to be a fault of his book it is, nevertheless, +refreshing to us to find an author who has actually read and is excellently +familiar with all the old sources of the subject he is writing upon.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">The Foundations of Geometry.</span> By <i>Edward T. Dixon</i>. Cambridge (Eng.): +Deighton, Bell & Co. 1891.</h4> + +<p>This work is divided into three parts, the first containing such doctrines of psychology +and logic as the author deems sound and useful for his purposes, the second +exhibiting the author’s “subjective theory of geometry deduced from the two fundamental +concepts <i>position</i> and <i>direction</i>,” and the third “on the applicability of +the foregoing subjective geometry to the geometry of material space.”</p> + +<p>In his preface the author expresses his desire that those who criticise his work +shall “consider categorically” certain questions relating to his theory of definition, +to the definitions and axioms prescribed by him, to his proofs of propositions and to +the “objective applications” of his three axioms.</p> + +<p>Geometry may be studied for two distinct purposes, neither of which necessarily +involves the other. Unless the aim is mainly the discipline of the logical +faculty, it is plainly a poor method of study to pore over the definitions, axioms, +postulates, theorems, problems, and demonstrations of Euclid or any similar text-book. +Practical resources and geometrical information can be acquired much better +and more rapidly by a course of mechanical drawing with here and there a more +or less loose explanation of the grounds and reasons that warrant the geometrical +doctrines, than by means of the Euclidian course. Under such a method of instruction +the student would rarely feel any real doubt as to the truth of his geometrical +knowledge.</p> + +<p>But where the paramount aim is the training of the reason the Euclidian rigor +is all important. Hence the perfection of that method by the discovery and certification +of the ultimate grounds on which, and the principles by which, it may be +unfolded systematically and in necessary and sufficient sequence without presumption +or fallacy, is an object of the most momentous concern to science, to philosophy, +and to culture in general. For it is well known that however good an account elementary +geometry may give of its superstructure the reports given of its foundations +are all very far from satisfactory.</p> + +<p>Repeated and strenuous efforts have been made, and by the most competent of +our race, to discover and certify the true state of the case in respect to the geometrical +foundations, in order that the whole edifice of that science shall display +throughout the same thorough-going necessity and sufficiency that distinguishes it in +general.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span></p> + +<p>The author of the work under review is persuaded that he is now able to perform +this so desirable service. He avers his belief that the system of geometry he +“has set forth in this book is <i>logically sound</i> and that consequently the more it is +discussed and criticised, the more firmly will it become established.” He takes +his stand upon two fundamental concepts, <i>position</i> and <i>direction</i>, which he defines +not explicitly but “implicitly.” This leads us to consider his first question and his +theory of definition.</p> + +<p>The embarrassments that involve the foundations of elementary geometry are +mainly, if not wholly, those which involve the general problems of definition. Now +a definition is the certification of the purport of a name by means of a statement or +a conspiracy of statements necessary and sufficient to that end. But names are +constituents absolutely necessary for the formation of any statement, so that the +above definition of a definition may be restated thus: A definition is the certification +of the purport of one name by means of other names, necessary and sufficient +to certify the purport of the one defined. Evidently then, definition can only lead +us from name to name in unending process, or to some undefinable name, or to +some name that we choose to leave undefined; and the question arises, on what +sort of names shall we take our stand as ultimate grounds?</p> + +<p>Our author answers this question as follows: “The propounder of a scientific +theory is not of course expected to teach his readers to speak, it is only necessary +for him to define the terms peculiar to his science, or those to which he wishes to +attach peculiar meanings. He may therefore assume that the meanings of all +other words are known to his readers.”</p> + +<p>He then propounds that “all that is logically required for a definition is one +or more assertions with regard to the word to be defined or, its attributes,” provided +“they are not demonstrably incompatible with each other.”</p> + +<p>Although our author conceives that logical competence requires no more than +this for a good definition, he yet goes on to remark, that “if the definition is to +form the basis of a deductive science it is further advisable that the assertions +should be independent,” and that “where it is required to define a term whose +denotation is already known, it is further necessary not only that the assertions +should be commonly accepted as true with respect to it, but that they should restrict +the meaning of the term exactly to its accepted denotation, neither more +nor less, and should do so in the simplest manner that can be devised.”</p> + +<p>It is upon this theory of definition that our author requests of his critics a +“categorical” answer to his first question, “Do you accept the requirements I have +laid down for a logical definition? (If not please state which of them you object +to, why you object to it, and what you would propose to substitute for it.)”</p> + +<p>Since it is a “categorical” answer that is requested and since also it is the +matter of definition that is put in issue, we wish that our author had been more +definite and had made his propositions better issuable, for we must protest that we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>regard ourselves obliged to answer to what we can best conceive to be the author’s +true meanings rather than to what he has explicitly said.</p> + +<p>We do not conceive that he regards it as <i>necessary</i> to a definition that the defining +assertions should be expressed “in the simplest manner that can be devised.” +We have also to take his use of the word “restrict” as importing completion as +well as limitation, and his use of the word “requirements” as intending conditions +that together are sufficient as well as necessary.</p> + +<p>If we are right in our understanding of the meanings of our author he contemplates +four cases, first, the definition of a name that has no denotation already +known and that is not to form the basis of a deductive science, second, the definition +of a name that has no denotation already known but which is to form the basis +of a deductive science, third, the definition of a name that has a denotation already +known but which is not to form the basis of a deductive science, and fourth the +definition of a name that has a denotation already known and is to form the basis +of a deductive science.</p> + +<p>In this fourth case our author deems it requisite for a logical definition that +there shall be made one or more assertions about the subject of definition that are +not demonstrably incompatible with one another, that are independent of one another, +that are commonly accepted as true in respect to the subject defined and that +“restrict” the meaning of the name under definition exactly to its accepted denotation.</p> + +<p>It seems to us that this last requirement dispenses with the necessity of all the +rest. If we have provided an assertion or a set of assertions that do in fact complete +and limit the meaning of the subject of definition exactly to its proper denotation +that is a definition in full. It implies that the defining assertions are all consistent +with one another, and in case any assertion is dependent upon one or more +of the rest that is a circumstance wholly immaterial. <i>Utile per inutile non nocetur.</i></p> + +<p>Again, what is it to be commonly accepted as true? Does logical competence +depend on the altering states of our knowledge or on the fluctuations of opinion? +Was a whale logically defined as a fish before we learned that it was a mammal?</p> + +<p>The third case allows of the application of the same comment as that made +upon the fourth. But in the first and second cases the doctrines of the author as +well as his suppositions are very notable. He supposes the anomaly of names without +any known denotation, by which he may mean those which have no application +whatever. In respect to such he propounds that they may be given a logical definition +by making one or various consistent assertions as applicable to them or to +their attributes.</p> + +<p>“The proof of the pudding will be found in the eating,” as our author says. +So let us say that a troft may be perceived whenever our attention is excited, and +that trofts are of multitudinous variety. Do these assertions constitute a logical +definition? It is a prime requisite for a definition that the defining assertion or assertions +shall have a meaning, which is the same as to say that names must be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>employed that are already significant. These significant names must be so used +that the intellectual sensibility shall be excited to perceive in a determinate way +that which is intended to be defined. In other words, sense and not nonsense must +be produced in the mind that considers the definition. Perhaps, however, our +author intends such words as electricity, or spirit, or energy.</p> + +<p>Because of the considerations above indicated and others we cannot accept the +author’s requirements for a logical definition as a whole. Some of them are in +some of his cases unnecessary, while taken together they supply no new means +whereby to solve the several problems of definition.</p> + +<p>The author’s subjective theory of geometry is plainly the outgrowth of his confidence +in the solvent power of the concept of direction as a prime datum of geometry.</p> + +<p>Everything of consequence in his essay depends upon the worth of this concept +as a geometrical foundation. Considering the disparagement that has been +visited upon that concept by numerous writers of good geometrical rank we naturally +look for considerations tending to remove the discredit that has befallen that +notion. Instead however of this we find the most palpable set of circular definitions. +Direction is defined by direction in the most distracting way, thus:</p> + +<p>“(<i>a</i>) A direction may be conceived to be indicated by naming two points as the +direction from one to the other.”</p> + +<p>The inaptitude of the term direction for use in geometry is rooted in its ambiguous +purport. As commonly used it means at least three distinct but closely +associated notions which become confused in thought and expression unless the +most solicitous care is taken to distinguish them. When we speak of the direction +of one point from another or of the direction from one point to another we mean +the straight off-ness or from-ness or to-ness which one bears to the other; in other +words a relation of separation and straight mediation. When again we speak of +the direction of a motion we intend the indefinite straight sense of its procession, +which is not a relation but an attribute of the motion. When still again we speak +of the direction of a line we mean its straight <i>lay</i> as compared or as comparable +with other actual or possible correlates which is again a relation but not necessarily +the same relation as that that obtains between two points.</p> + +<p>In all these meanings the notion of straightness is involved, and could we say +in lieu of straightness first directness and then direction and holding fast in thought +this sense of the word, make a noun of it, so that a direction would intend the +same as a straightness and no more, it might obtain a useful geometric term and +notion.</p> + +<p>To define it we might first define a line thus: A line is a space boundary that +is indefinitely long but not otherwise of any extent. Then, a direction is a line +such that between the points that bound any assigned parcel of it no copy of said +parcel is possible.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span></p> + +<p>But direction purports to our author the second of the meanings above set +forth, namely, the indefinite straight sense of the procession of a motion. Definite +parcels of a direction thus understood are identical with vectors.</p> + +<p>Now the notion of straightness is after the notions of point and line the most +fundamental one of geometry and the one which is altogether the most prominent +and useful. It is the necessary means for any definition of a vector or of the notion +which our author deems so important. As straightness is attributable only +to lines and long things which a line may represent it makes no difference whether +we define straightness or a straight line, but a masterful performance of this definition +is absolutely necessary before the foundations of geometry can be abidingly +certified.</p> + +<p>Our author defines a straight line thus: “A straight line is a continuous series +of points extending from each of them in the same two directions.” What kind +of a thing a continuous series of points may be we are not told but as a point is +defined to be “a portion of matter so small that for the purpose in hand variations +of positions within it may be neglected” we take it that a straight line is a continuous +series of particles of matter. The “purpose in hand” in this case must of +course be the purpose of geometry.</p> + +<p>In defining an angle our author first lays down that “The difference between +two directions is called their <i>inclination</i> to one another” and then “The measure +of an inclination is called an <i>angle</i>.”</p> + +<p>Considering that it is the doctrine of the author that every straight line has two +contrary directions the measure of whose inclination is an angle of one hundred +and eighty degrees, we imagine a northeast southwest line cutting an east west line +and wonder if the right hand upper angle is really two angles according to whether +or not the directions both pass to the left or both pass to the right or pass one to +the left and the other to the right.</p> + +<p>Were this an ordinary work we might regard it as due to the author to notice +the many excellencies which characterise it, in spite of the defects which we notice. +But as our author evidently realises, the eminent dignity of the topic challenges +and its singular importance demands unsparing criticism. He who offers to instruct +the world on the foundations of geometry draws his sword and throws away +the scabbard, and like a doughty champion he will scorn to accept any favor, prizing +only such success as he shall take at the point of an efficacy of treatment that conquers +all competent and candid criticism.</p> + +<p>Stringent as are such terms of contest an author who is a worthy competitor in +the field of geometric research can be well content with them in the perception that +the very same conditions apply in full force to the comments of his critics.</p> + +<p>The author is undoubtedly an able man and a close thinker. He has concentrated +his mind upon a work that is worth the energy of a lifetime. But we must +confess our judgment to be that in spite of his capacity and evident devotion he has +come short of the high result to which he has aspired.</p> + +<p class="right">ρσλ.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span></p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Les Fêtes de Montpellier. Promenade a travers les Choses, les Hommes +et les Idees.</span> By <i>J. Delbœuf</i>. Paris: Félix Alcan.</h4> + +<p>We have here a charming narrative by the well-known Professor at the University +of Liège of his visit to the fêtes of Montpellier, undertaken in great measure +to make the personal acquaintance of M. Dauriac, the critic in the <i>Revue Philosophique</i> +of the author’s work “La matière brute et la matière vivante.” The description +given of the fêtes, which marked the sixth centenary of the University of Montpellier, +is very entertaining, as is the account of the journey through the South of +France; but as M. Delbœuf says that he was more curious to become acquainted +with men than with places, what he tells us about the former will be the more interesting.</p> + +<p>The author, with the companions of his tour, could not pass Nancy without +stopping to see “the masters in the science of hypnotism” there. An account of +what he saw and heard gives the author the opportunity of repeating “That he does +not regard forgetfulness on awaking as characteristic of profound hypnosis, and that +experience is against the efficacity of criminal suggestion unless the subject is criminally +inclined.” The fêtes at Montpellier commenced with a religious service in the +Cathedral, during which the Bishop, M. de Cabrières, preached a sermon so liberal +in tone, that M. Delbœuf thinks the time is arriving when the church will demonstrate +that Moses was the precursor of Darwin. At the University reception which +followed, M. Delbœuf sought out among the professors for his friend M. Dauriac, +whom he had figured when first he heard from him as small, thin and dark, but +now found, in accordance with the usual rule in such cases, that he was tall, robust +and fair. In the course of their subsequent conversations the two Professors made +mutual confidences, M. Dauriac confessing that his true vocation was music, and +that he was preparing a work on the psychology of the musician; while M. Delbœuf +informed his friend that he was about to reply to his criticism of “La matière brute +et la matière vivante,” and that he would throw the greatest light on the origin, +which was still obscure, of life and death. If the genial Liège Professor can do +this, he may be the first to reap the benefit referred to in his own words: “The +discovery of the cause of death could not fail to assure the immortality of its author +and its inspirer, and sooner or later that of humanity at large.” For, according to +a medical adage, if the cause of a disease is known it is already conquered.</p> + +<p>Montpellier was honored during the fêtes with the presence of Helmholtz, to +whom but for national jealousy would have been confided the part of speaking in +the name of the foreign universities. Nevertheless he was the true hero of the occasion, +and when at the official reception, on the President of the Republic shaking +his hand and saying a few gracious words someone feebly hissed, Helmholtz received +in response a perfect ovation of applause. M. Delbœuf met with a congenial spirit +in the Professor of Zoology, M. Sabatier, who has a laboratory at Cette. Their +views on free-will were in sympathy. They agreed in allowing freedom not only to +the superior animals, and to inferior animals and plants, but even to so called inorganic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>matter. M. Sabatier is a Christian and at the same time a convinced transformist; +having arrived at his views from religious considerations. He cited M. +Dauriac as saying, “The reign of determinism is not in the objective world; its +empire extends itself over nature only after having been exercised over thought. +There is no other necessity than that of logic or mathematics.” M. Delbœuf is +evidently an “indeterminist” by nature. He heartily sympathised with the students +in all their demonstrations of freedom, although one of them assumed a somewhat +serious character. Dining in the open air with M. Milhaud the author of an article +in the <i>Revue Philosophique</i> on non-Euclidian geometry, he was prepared to talk +mathematics. The surroundings were too much for him, however, and in recalling +the scene he cries, “To the devil with philosophy and mathematics! I cannot recall +what we said; in my remembrances, I see only blooming faces, I hear only the indistinct +bursts of gaity.” M. Delbœuf’s sympathetic nature is shown in the fact, +which he records, that wild animals in confinement soon become familiar with him.</p> + +<p>One of the principal objects of the author’s journey was to see M. Gabriel +Tarde, “one of the most prolific and original publicists in France, if not in Europe,” +who resides at Sarlat. After quoting passages from an article of M. Tarde on Social +Darwinism, which appeared in the <i>Revue Philosophique</i>, M. Delbœuf remarks +that nothing is more attractive and at the same time more fatiguing than the reading +of his works. M. Tarde is “the locomotive that carries you to the end of your +journey across countries by turns wild, agricultural, industrial, picturesque; but +without giving you time to regard and admire.” Referring to M. Tarde’s acute +criticisms of Lombroso and his theories, the author says, “It is not that he strikes +the pseudo-thinker with formidable blows, but he makes him drop gently to the +ground.” The French publicist sees in <i>imitation</i> the source of social life, and he +has been long engaged in developing the idea, to the great importance of which M. +Delbœuf bears witness; although he objects to the use which M. Tarde makes of +terms taken from mathematics, physics, and biology, to express his sociological +views. On the question of free-will there was no agreement. Although the latter +is a determinist, he believes in penal responsibility, on the ground of personal identity; +the diseased person or the madman is no longer himself, in which they differ +from the criminal.</p> + +<p>We can say nothing of M. Delbœuf’s visit to the canons of the Tarn. Here +was captured a lizard which displayed, when compared with a Spanish lizard in +captivity with it, as much difference in character as could be found between two +men chosen at hazard. The author concludes an amusing description of the habits +of the two captives by recommending their history to the politicians and the historians +of France and Spain, as likely to throw light on that of the peoples themselves. +We leave M. Delbœuf, whose book of seventy-five pages may be said to be as full +of interesting matter as an egg is of meat, with quoting his postscript: “On the day +that these lines appear (March 1891) the Spanish lizard has finally cast off his savage +character and follows in the footsteps of the French. Effect of imitation.”</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Der Positivismus vom Tode August Comte’s bis auf unsere Tage (1857-1891).</span> +By <i>Hermann Gruber</i>, S. J. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder’sche Verlagshandlung. +1891.</h4> + +<p>This pamphlet of 194 pages is the continuation of another pamphlet on August +Comte, the founder of Positivism, which was reviewed in <i>The Open Court</i>, No. 134. +The author is a Jesuit and it is a matter of course that all the facts he relates, all +the doctrines he explains are represented from the standpoint of Roman Catholicism. +The booklet is of great importance in so far as we learn through it what an +erudite Catholic mind thinks of that recent movement of philosophy which has +been called by the collective name Positivism. The method pursued by Hermann +Gruber is most recommendable. He states facts and quotes abundantly so as to let +the various philosophers speak for themselves. He is economical with the salt of +his own opinion, yet he uses it with such a discretion that Roman Catholics can +become thoroughly acquainted with infidel views without suffering in their faith.</p> + +<p>The book consists of two parts: (I) The Positivism of the schools in connection +with Comte and of the Positivistic movement outside of these schools. The +first part begins with a discussion of Littré. Littré, “the voice, the spirit and the +soul of Positivism,” as Bourdon calls him, is characterised as a philological genius. +Although he had chosen the medical profession, which however he abandoned early, +and although he regarded the propaganda of the positive philosophy as his life-work, +all his talents lay in the direction of special investigation in the literary, historical, +and linguistic fields, and the editing of the French dictionary remains his +main achievement.</p> + +<p>Comte had not nominated a successor who should in his place be the <i>Directeur +du positivisme</i>. Littré had forfeited this honor on account of his quarrels with +Comte in which he strongly sided with Madame Comte against her husband. After +Comte’s death P. Lafitte was elected as a temporary director and he has kept this +office ever since, which he conducts with remarkable devotion and unselfishness. +Although without property himself he proposed not to use the positivistic funds +until he had shown himself through his work worthy of using them. He ekes out a +scanty living for himself by giving lessons in mathematics, and devotes all the +rest of his time to the management of and the propaganda for the Positive Church. +His co-workers are Audiffrent, Antoine, Robinet, and others—all of them as the reviewer +thinks strange people, visionary enthusiasts, and, to use an expressive +Americanism, regular cranks. Lack of space prevents us from recapitulating their +ceremonies, their sacraments, festivals, pilgrimages, memorials, and other forms of +service. Their whole behavior proves that they are and will remain infidel Roman +Catholics and it would have been wiser if they had not left the church at all. +The positivistic orthodoxy culminates in the positivistic mystery of Comte’s idea of +a “Virgin-Mother” (<i>Vierge-Mère</i>) which according to Lafitte is destined to elevate +the intercourse between the sexes, while Audiffrent, Lagarrigue, and the Brasilian +Lemos stick closely to Comte’s view “to represent positivism as directly conceived +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>under the Utopia of a virgin-mother.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> + General Lemos goes so far as to say “We +prefer to be looked upon with St. Paul for the sake of our faithfulness toward +Comte as fools than to be praised by the contemporary frivolity as sages.” And +Audiffrent defends against Lafitte the diplomatic action of Comte’s with the General +of the Jesuits concerning an alliance between Positivism and Catholicism. +Positivism, he says, invites all who have ceased to believe in God to become positivists, +but it induces all those who still believe in God to turn Catholics, thus making +an alliance possible of the disciplined against the non-disciplined.</p> + +<p>If the Jesuit General ever has seriously considered the offer, he would perhaps +have accepted it, for there is no doubt that he would have made the better bargain +as all the discipline we should say is on his side.</p> + +<p>The English group of Comtean Positivists consists mainly of Fr. Harrison, +Richard Congreve, George Eliot and James Cotter Morison. The second part of +the book which treats of the positivistic movement outside of the positivistic schools +in England, France, Germany and other countries will be less interesting to English +and American readers partly because the subject is better known to them partly +because our author is apparently more familiar with his French than with his +English sources. The second part begins with John Stuart Mill and Herbert +Spencer. It mentions Bain, Lewes, Clifford, Maudsley, Darwin, Sully, Romanes, +Huxley, Tyndall. Clifford’s view is sketched in sixteen lines but in such a way that +it appears grotesque. As French positivists outside the schools are mentioned +Taine, Ribot, Fouillée, Guyau, Charles Richet, J. Luys, Cl. Bernard, and Roberty. +It is correctly said of Ribot that his doctrine of personality is most characteristic +of his views. The unity of a personality in the ego does not grow from above +downwards but from below upwards, but Gruber is mistaken in saying of Charles +Richet, the editor of the <i>Revue Scientifique</i>, that he represents about the same views +as Th. Ribot. Richet’s publication on telepathic experiments in which he confidently +believes, would never be countenanced by Ribot.</p> + +<p>As the first German positivist is mentioned Eugen Dühring. Riehl, Laas, Lange, +Vaihinger and Avenarius are disposed of together in the next following chapter. +Several pages are devoted to Wundt.</p> + +<p>The little chapter headed <i>Nord-America</i> (p. 171) consisting of two and a half +pages begins with the words: “According to the testimony of G. Stanley Hall philosophy +in the new world is in its swaddling-clothes still (<i>in den Kinderschuhen</i>). Philosophers +over there are as rare as snakes in Ireland (<i>Schlangen in Norwegen</i>).⁠<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> +For scientific instruction in the United States are used as guiding stars Spencer, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>Lewes, Darwin, Huxley, and Haeckel.” As a representative Atheist is named +Ludeking, a man unknown to fame, while Colonel Ingersoll is not mentioned at all. +It is maintained that J. D. Bell, a professor in New York had proclaimed the same +confession of faith as Comte in <i>The Modern Thinker</i>—a journal which we have +never seen nor ever heard of. The societies for ethical culture are characterised as +avowing “a purely natural religion” while in fact natural religion, the religion of +science and philosophy, as a basis of ethics is as rigorously rejected by Professor +Adler as any dogmatic religion, and more than half of the two and a half pages +is filled with a masonic proclamation of the Sovereign Grand Commander, Albert +Pike, of Washington, which preaches the belief in an unknowable God and denounces +Atheism.</p> + +<p>The booklet closes with the following sentences: “The full and true positivism +is embodied in the Catholic Church. The divine revelation which she represents +is that which is truly real ... truly sure ... truly precise ... truly organic +... truly useful. The deepest root, however, and the most essential nature of all +true positivism (this is vouched for by reason as well as by revelation) is not the +relative but the absolute.”</p> + +<p>Here we conclude our review of the book. We have however to add a few +words which concern <i>The Monist</i> as well as all the publications of The Open Court +Publishing Co. Hermann Gruber mentions in his book <i>The Open Court</i> and its +editor together with the societies for ethical culture. We have, ourselves, characterised +our views as positivism and as monism, but we stated at the same time that +our positivism had nothing to do with Comte or with any one of Comte’s disciples.⁠<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> +They have (with the sole exception of Ribot and I should hesitate to call him a +Comtean) contributed little if anything to the formation of our views. The name +Positivism is a good and expressive word and we have adopted it because taken in +its proper meaning it represents the true principle of modern philosophy. However +we cannot agree with any of the fundamental tenets either of Comte or of his +most positivistic and most scientific disciple Littré.⁠<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> Comte as well as Littré are +radical agnostics they repeat again and again that “We can know nothing about +first and final causes. Positive philosophy denies nothing and maintains nothing.” +According to our view of the subject this attitude is rather negativism than positivism. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>But it is not even negativism; it is worse, it is mere scepticism leading to indifferentism. +It sounds very philosophical to speak of the inscrutability of first and +final causes but the very terms “first causes” and “final causes” are most nonsensical +and self-contradictory concepts. (See “Fundamental Problems,” pp. 88-90, +and 101.) Comte and Littré imagine to have conquered metaphysics, but in fact +they are the worst kind of metaphysicians. They believe in the ghosts of metaphysics +as strongly as some mediæval minds believe in devils but are afraid to wrestle with +them, because, as they maintain these metaphysical ghosts cannot be conquered.</p> + +<p>Comtean Positivism, especially as it is represented by Littré, consists mainly if +not exclusively of the doctrine to “let metaphysics alone” (which latter includes the +object of religious worship) and limits science to positive issues. Thus the oneness of +the sciences, a unitary world-conception is lost, for the hierarchy of the sciences +which are to serve as a substitute for philosophy is rather a summing up of the +stock of knowledge than a system of the sciences exhibiting their organic growth. +It is an inventory rather than a plan to guide science in its further evolution. It is +an anatomy rather than a physiology, for the very life and spirit of the sciences is +missing. And outside the pale of the hierarchy of the sciences there is looming +around an awful something quite different in its nature, like an infinite ocean surrounding +a forlorn island, the unknowable first and final causes! That which is +called by former philosophers “metaphysics,” which is at the same time the essence +of religion, is by no means either unknowable or indifferent. It is not something +beyond, something extramundane, it is the very life of the world and our religious +and philosophical opinions are not only of a theoretical interest. They are +the main factors of our lives which in the long run will determine the direction of +our development. That this is so, has not been sufficiently recognised, and we +would suggest in this connection that a history of the United States should be written +to point out that the political liberty of the country and its republicanism are +nothing but the application of its religious principles and of the Puritan conviction +of religious independence. The historic growth of the colonies remained faithful +to this maxim. The religion of a man and of a nation is the most important thing. +In the same way the structure of a seed predetermines the whole plant, and the +angle of crystallisation together with the shape of the crystal-nucleus from which +the process of crystallisation starts, will determine the formation of the whole +crystal.</p> + +<p>His sceptical attitude led Littré to what he and his friends call “tolerance.” +Littré’s wife was a devout Catholic and his daughter was educated in her mother’s +faith. He had intended to explain to her his views of the subject when she had +reached maturity, and leave the choice to her. But when the moment came, he +declared that “the experiment was not worth the tears which it would cause.” Our +view of “tolerance” is radically different. Whatever the truth may be it should +be struggled for, cost it ever so many tears or pains.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span></p> + +<p>We cannot sympathise with Littré’s method of constructing ethics upon the +nutritive and sexual instincts, the former producing egotism, the latter altruism. +Emotions are, says Littré, as much as ideas, the result of brain-processes in consequence +of external impressions and “the struggle between both kinds of emotion +make up the moral life.” Littré rejects the evolution theory and its attempts to +explain ethics. (See Gruber’s book p. 20.) Having explained our views of ethics +on other occasions, it is sufficient here to state that we consider Littré’s attempt +as a failure. We cannot even adopt the so-called “positive method,” of which +Littré says: “Whoever adopts this method is a positivist and whether he acknowledges +the fact or not, also a disciple of Comte. Whoever employs another method +is a metaphysician. It is the surest mark by which a careful mind will discriminate +what belongs to the positive philosophy and what is foreign to it.” What is +this method? Says Littré: “It is an acknowledged principle of positive science +that nothing real can be stated through reasoning (<i>raisonnement</i>). The world cannot +be guessed.” Littré is opposed to so-called <i>a priori</i> arguments. Hermann Gruber +says in the preface: “This positive method is embraced by all the representatives +of the lines of thought here discussed. All of them intend to build up their systems +with the exclusion of scholastic, respectively of Kantian, Hegelian, or any +<i>a priori</i> speculations after purely ‘scientific’ methods upon the foundation of the +facts of experience.” We certainly intend to build our world conception “upon the +facts of experience” but the most important facts among them are their formal relations +and these formal relations when represented in thought are exactly that element +which Kant called <i>a priori</i>. The sense-element affords us the building stones, +but the <i>a priori</i> element represents the mortar without which we could not build. +So much do we oppose this one-sided philosophy which takes its stand upon what +is wrongly called the purely scientific method, that our views have been called the +Philosophy of Form, and justly, for Form is that feature of the world which makes +of it a cosmos and formal thought is the organ of our comprehension.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Ueber den associativen Verlauf der Vorstellungen.</span> Inaugural-Dissertation. +By <i>E. W. Scripture</i>, M. A., Fellow of Clark University. Leipzig: Wilhelm +Engelmann. 1891.</h4> + +<p>This essay of 102 pages characterises most excellently some of the proceedings +and methods of Professor Wundt’s psychological laboratory. The author, a disciple +of Wundt, is a native American who studied in Berlin, Zürich, and Leipzig, +and took his degree of Doctor on the ground of this dissertation. The object of +the treatise is not so much to solve as to formulate the problem of the associative +course of concepts, and the author hopes that in a future treatise he will be able to +propound his theory based upon the facts here related.</p> + +<p>The experiments were made with the assistance of seven friends, among them +German students, a doctor of philosophy, a doctor of medicine, and a teacher. +They were of different nationality, three Germans, one Belgian, one Japanese, one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>Englishman from the Cape, and two Americans, the author included. The apparatus +used was so arranged that the person operated upon sat in the dark, before +him was a plate of ground glass intercepting from a camera an image which was +exposed for four seconds. Pictures of all kinds, colors, and plainly printed words +were used. For other sense-impressions the observer was also seated in the dark. +Several instruments for producing sounds were ready on a table. Tastes were +effected by liquids which the person operated upon had to drink, and the sense of +touch was investigated through handing him cards to which some small objects had +been attached. The author was partly operator, partly observer, i. e. the person +operated upon. The ideas evoked through the sense-impressions produced in this +way, are enumerated in tabular form in the order in which they arose.</p> + +<p>Among the experiments made in this way we find one kind which is of special +interest. Sir William Hamilton made the remark in his Lectures on Metaphysics +that unconscious ideas may serve as connecting links between two ideas otherwise +unassociated. He represented his view in the following way: Let <i>A</i>, <i>B</i>, <i>C</i>, be three +ideas, <i>A</i> does not suggest <i>C</i>, but both are associated with <i>B</i>. It happens that <i>A</i> is +directly followed by <i>C</i> in consciousness. In such a case <i>A</i> may recall <i>B</i> and <i>B</i> may +recall <i>C</i>, but <i>B</i> being a <i>minimum visibile</i> or <i>minimum audibile</i> does not enter consciousness. +Thus the idea of the mount Ben Lomond called into Hamilton’s mind +the system of Prussian education. Subsequent reflection taught him that he had +met on Ben Lomond a German. The recollection of the place was associated +with the ideas—a German, Germany, Prussia. These ideas were too weak to enter +consciousness yet they reawakened another idea which did enter consciousness, the +system of Prussian education.</p> + +<p>This is a mere suggestion of Hamilton’s but Dr. Scripture proved its truth by actual +experiment. He took cards containing some simple words, such as <span class="smcap">Mensch</span>, <span class="smcap">Gehen</span>, +<span class="smcap">Kommen</span>, <span class="smcap">Blume</span>, etc., and also Japanese words in Roman characters <span class="smcap">Hana</span>, <span class="smcap">Hito</span>, +<span class="smcap">Iuku</span>, <span class="smcap">Kuru</span>. To every word was attached another Japanese word in Japanese +characters so that the same character appeared on <span class="smcap">Hana</span> and <span class="smcap">Blume</span>; <span class="smcap">Hito</span> and +<span class="smcap">Mensch</span>; <span class="smcap">Juku</span> and <span class="smcap">Gehen</span>; <span class="smcap">Kuru</span> and <span class="smcap">Kommen</span>. + The words were shown twice so +as to give a stronger impression. The Japanese gentleman was excluded from +these experiments, and indeed, the unknown Japanese characters which were only +dimly or not at all remembered, evoked the corresponding words: <span class="smcap">Hito</span>—<span class="smcap">Mensch</span>; +<span class="smcap">Kuru</span>—<span class="smcap">Kommen</span>; <span class="smcap">Blume</span>—<span class="smcap">Hana</span>, etc. Dr. Scripture adds: “These associations +were involuntary, the observer imagined them to be wrong, and could find no reason +for the involuntary appearance of the words. He had not thought at all of the connecting +links.”</p> + +<p>It appears that the links in a chain of concepts need not be all conscious and +the result of his experiments in this line is formulated by Dr. Scripture as follows: +A concept apperceived can bring another concept into the focus of consciousness although +it was never associated with it, if there are other psychic elements of lower +degrees or even outside of consciousness which are connected with both—provided +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>that there are no other elements stronger than these. The effect of the unconscious +link however is much weaker than that which was conscious.</p> + +<p>Pages 71-101 are devoted to the investigations of the after-effect of concepts. +The phenomena of ideation being extremely complex, we cannot assume that the +process of a so-called reproduced concept is analogous to the original idea. A sensation +changes during its presence with reference to the degree of consciousness of +its parts and even the concepts as a whole may be altered. The process is different +according to circumstances. The renewed concepts differ from their originals, (1) +in the degree of the consciousness of the whole idea, (2) in the degree of the consciousness +of its parts among themselves, (3) in form, color, relations, etc., (4) in +duration. In order to avoid the metaphysical influence of hypothetical theories we +ought to avoid all kinds of terms suggestive of a theory and stick closely to a simple +description of facts. Therefore Dr. Scripture proposes to discard such words as “retention, +reproduction, revival,” etc., and suggests the term “after-effect.” Yet he +adds, quoting from Wundt, “these after-effects themselves are as little ideas as the +effects produced upon nerves and muscles by exercise can be called actions of will.”</p> + +<p>Dr. Scripture avoids explaining what he conceives these after-effects to be. We +see no reason for disagreement and should say that the result of the after-effects is +what generally goes by the name of “disposition.” And a certain disposition is +produced according to the law of the conservation of form in living structures. +(See “The Soul of Man,” pp. 418-424.)</p> + +<p>Dr. Scripture is led by a consideration of his observations to the following statement: +“Each concept is conditioned through the effects of the elements of the +present state of consciousness and the after-effects of many (if not of all) previous +elements of consciousness.”</p> + +<p>This result is not compatible with the theory of reproduction now almost universally +accepted by the association-psychology. Wundt says: “If only certain +single concepts were renewed, we might perhaps explain why in the memory-picture +certain elements of a former reproduction are missing: but we could not explain +why the elements of a concept change so often qualitatively as is indeed the case. +This, it appears, is possible only because a memory-picture and others of a kindred +nature affect each other mutually.”</p> + +<p>This will find explanation in the following experiment. The observer sees a +dog, and thinks of a circus, which he saw a year ago. There is no direct association +between the picture of the dog and the special reminiscence of that circus visited +a year ago. The association was formed at the moment. Former sensations +of dogs had their after-effects and this special reminiscence was localised.</p> + +<p>Dr. Scripture maintains that Höffding’s association theory contains too many +hypothetical elements; it presupposes faculties of the soul to join like with like and +to combine simultaneous or consecutive events.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> ... “A represénter le positivisme comme directement résummé par l’utopie de la Vierge-Mère”—Comte +to Audiffrent, the 8th of St. Paul 69 (May 28, 1857.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> Good philosophers, it is true, are rare in America, perhaps rarer than in Europe. Nevertheless +the interest in philosophy is exceedingly strong here. There are metaphysical and philosophical +clubs all over the country, and the crop of philosophical dilettanti is at least as great +on this side of the Atlantic as in Paris.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> It is a matter of course that we are in strong sympathy with many philosophers and scientists +whom Hermann Gruber classes among the positivists outside of the positivistic schools, not +only Th. Ribot, but also Guyau, Fouillée, Roberty, and others. How much they were influenced +by the Comte-Littré or the Comte-Lafitte Positivism is difficult to say. It is certain that many of +them would have accomplished the same work in the same way with or without Comte. Roberty +was first a fervid disciple of Comte, but he soon combated not only Comte’s law of the three +stages (which latter by the bye was according to Schaarschmidt first pronounced by Turgot) but +also his agnosticism, declaring that Comte was still entangled in metaphysicism, and that the +last bulwark, the idea of the unknowable, had to be conquered also.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> We publish in this number a sonnet by Louis Belrose, Jr. to Émile Littré. Mr. Belrose is a +positivist who attended together with Mr. Fred. Harrison positivistic lectures in France. We +publish Mr. Belrose’s poem as an expression of his gratitude and admiration toward a master +mind but not as an expression of our view of Littré.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="PERIODICALS_I">PERIODICALS.</h3> + +</div> + +<h4>MIND. July, 1891. No. LXIII.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Problem of Psychology.</span> By <i>E. W. Scripture</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Physical Basis of Pleasure and Pain.</span> I. By <i>H. R. Marshall</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Schopenhauer’s Criticism of Kant.</span> By <i>W. Caldwell</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Discussion</span>: On the Origin of Music. (1) By <i>R. Wallaschek</i>; (2) By Prof. +<i>J. McK. Cattell</i>; The Coefficient of External Reality. By Prof. <i>J. Mark +Baldwin</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Critical Notices</span>: James’s “The Principles of Psychology”; Pfleiderer’s “Development +of Theology in Germany”; Keynes’s “Scope and Method of Political +Economy”; Lehmann’s “Die Hypnose und die damit verwandten +normalen Zustände.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>As all sciences treat, to a great extent, of the same objects, they can be separated +only according to <i>how</i> they treat things. On this principle, Mr. Scripture divides +sciences into Special Sciences, General or Philosophical Sciences, and Didactic +Sciences. The Special sciences are, I, the Mathematical Sciences, treating the +<i>forms</i> of all experience; II, the Phenomenal Sciences, treating of the <i>contents</i> of all +experience; the second class is divided into the Physical Sciences, which treat experience +from its objective side, and Mental Sciences, which treat experience from +its subjective side. The group of Mental Sciences is best divided, according to +Wundt’s scheme, into the sciences of mental processes, Psychological Sciences; the +sciences of mental products, Philological Sciences; and the Sciences of mental development, +Historical Sciences. Psychology as a science of mental phenomena has +a two-fold relation to the physical sciences: it is complementary to them, a necessary +auxiliary; they are complementary to it, accessories in psychological investigation. +States of mind always remain states of mind; they cannot be resolved into +motions of particles of matter, and it is a fundamental axiom that <i>mental phenomena +cannot influence or be influenced by material phenomena</i>. But we are justified in +talking about a nervous stimulation becoming a percept, a muscular contraction +following an act of will, as long as we remember that these are only substitutes for +unknown quantities. Physiology investigates nervous changes; Psychology, mental +changes; Physiological Psychology, the relations between the two. Mental +phenomena are of two kinds, mental processes and mental products. Psychology +is the science of mental processes; it seeks the exact description and explanation of +the operations of our inner experience. The relation of Psychology to Philosophy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>is a burning question. Metaphysics, or Philosophy in the narrower sense, seeks +from the agreement of the results of all other sciences to establish a system of the +principles that underlie all existence, i. e. a theory of the universe, material and +mental. After the general principles have been determined by metaphysics, philosophy +has the duty of correcting the special sciences when they set up one-sided +hypotheses, and of helping where they are unable to proceed alone. Psychology +is considered a part of philosophy, but as a special science, treating mental processes +from its own standpoint, it is distinct from psychology as a general science +treating mind, relations of mind and matter, etc., from the standpoint of philosophy. +The latter should be termed Philosophical Psychology. The relation of +Psychology to Logic depends on what the latter is. Logic is a science of thought, +but thought is also a subject of psychology. Psychology treats thoughts as we +think them; Logic, as we ought to think them. Each of the sciences, Epistemology, +the doctrine of knowledge, and Methodology, the doctrine of methods, treats of +thought for its own distinct purpose. The former determines what the truth is; +the latter determines how we ought to think. The didactic sciences are of two +kinds: the sciences of the general principles or ends to be obtained, and the sciences +of the means to attain these ends. Among the former is General Pedagogy, +which determines the ends to be sought for in education. Psychology furnishes +the foundation of fact; the science of general pedagogy judges which of these facts +are desirable, in much the same way as epistemology judges which are true.</p> + +<p>In a former article (<i>Mind</i> No. 56) Mr. Marshall showed that Pleasure and +Pain are primitive qualities which, under proper conditions, <i>may</i> appear with any +psychosis, whatever be its content. He now finds that all the most notable pleasure-pain +theories may in the first instance be placed in four groups, determined by +the emphasis of certain kinds of pleasure or pain. An examination of pleasure-pain +theories shows, <i>first</i> that there is a general agreement, with but few dissenting +voices, that all pleasure is at bottom the same thing, and that all pain in its essence +is a single psychological phenomenon, and further that pleasures and pains +are unifiable; <i>second</i>, that there are certain facts so marked in experience as to +have become the basis of the majority of pleasure-pain theories. Mr. Marshall +proceeds to consider the theory that “the activity of the organ of any content if +efficient is pleasurable, if inefficient is painful.” He concludes that pleasures and +pains are involved with the nutritive conditions of the active organ, and lays down +the principle that “all pleasure-pain phenomena are determined by the action in +the organs concomitant of the conscious state, as related to the nutritive conditions +of the organs at the time of the action.” The difference between the hypernormality +of pain and of pleasure, turns upon the fact that pleasure is obtained where +the organ has been <i>rested</i>. Rest in an organ which is sometimes active means +storage of energy derived from blood supply; and action after rest means the use +of stored energy. But as action of an organ after rest gives a psychic content +which is pleasurable, we have the working hypothesis: “Pleasure is experienced +wherever the physical action which determines the content involves the use of +stored force—the resolution of potential into actual energy; or, in other words, +whenever the energy involved in the reaction to a stimulus is greater in amount +than the energy of the stimulus.” By a similar process of reasoning we obtain +the hypothesis: “Pain is experienced whenever the physical action which determines +the content is so related to the supply of nutriment that the energy involved +in the reaction to the stimulus is less in amount than the energy of the stimulus.” +We may also say in general, “Pleasure and pain are primitive qualities of psychic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>states which are determined by the relation between activity and capacity in the +organs, the activities of which are concomitants of the psychosis.” Mr. Marshall +then supplies the psychological interpretation of the physiological phenomena attendant +on the pleasures of Rest and of Relief, and of the pain of Obstruction or +hindered activity. He concludes the present article with the statement that the +physical concomitants of pleasure-pain phenomena are to be found in general +qualities common to all processes which are at the basis of our conscious life; and +that this is corroborated by introspective analysis of pleasures and pains. Mr. +Marshall’s idea does not appear to us as a happy solution of the problem.</p> + +<p>The object of Mr. Caldwell’s paper is to explain Kantism through Schopenhauer, +who claimed to be Kant’s only true successor in philosophy. Schopenhauer +came to the conclusion that Kant’s only real discovery, given in the “Æsthetic,” +was that Space and Time were known by us <i>a priori</i>. The principle of Causality +is the only element of value he finds in the “Analytic,” and a much simpler account +could have been given of it. The “Dialectic” represents the Negative side +of the Critical Philosophy, which although conclusive, might have been stated +more simply. In Ethics Kant rendered the immortal service of showing, by his +attribution of a noumenal freedom to man, compensating for his phenomenal necessary +determination, “that the kingdom of virtue is not of this world”; although +the <i>K. d. prakt. V.</i> is only an application to ethics of the principles already reached +in the sphere of the Pure Reason. Schopenhauer finds the <i>K. d. Urtheilskraft</i> to +contain the characteristic defect of Kant’s whole Philosophy—the starting from +indirect instead of direct knowledge. Lastly, the criticism of the Teleological +Judgment only shows what the <i>K. d. r. V.</i> already showed, the subjectivity of +what we may call the ontological categories. According to Schopenhauer, the +chief tendency of the Kantian philosophy is to establish “the total diversity of the +real and the ideal.” The Ideal he explains as “the visible, spatial appearance +with the qualities that are perceived on it,” and the Real as the “thing-in-and-for-itself,” +which is the reality underlying and determining the world of experience, +and, as such, a real and not a hypothetical entity. Schopenhauer never speaks of +it in the plural, as Kant does, and so keeps consistently to a monistic point of view. +He says, “The way in which Kant introduced such a thing-in-itself and sought to +reconcile it with his philosophy was faulty.” This concerns Kant’s method, +against which Schopenhauer directs the full force of his criticism. The fundamental +principle of Kant’s method Schopenhauer takes to be the starting from indirect +reflective knowledge: Philosophy is for Kant a science of conceptions, while +for himself it is a science <i>in</i> conceptions; philosophy being a conceptualised or +<i>generalised</i> statement of our knowledge. Schopenhauer sees all Kant’s errors contained +in the following sentence from the <i>K. d. r. V.</i>: “If I take away all thought” +(through the categories), “from empirical knowledge, there remains absolutely no +knowledge of an object, for through mere perceptions nothing at all is thought.” +In endeavoring to construct a philosophy out of pure conceptions Kant failed to +solve the problem, in having the thing-in-itself left on his hands. This proved to +Schopenhauer that the path of abstract reflection was closed as the path of philosophy. +Mr. Caldwell demurs to Schopenhauer’s statement that the “Æsthetic” +is Kant’s only discovery, yet as the “Æsthetic” shows the tendency to conceptual +abstraction, his view of Space and Time is of extreme importance. It is of the +“Logic” of the <i>K. d. r. V.</i> that Schopenhauer’s criticism is materially and formally +most radical. He gives a different account of the functions of the Soul, rejecting +altogether the faculty-distinctions of Kant: he associates Kant’s faculty of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>Understanding more with Sense and the category of Cause with the spatio-temporal +or perceptual construction of the world, and holds the other eleven categories to +be mere blind windows put into a scheme through Kant’s love of symmetry; and, +secondly, he holds Kant’s account of Reason to be utterly false, and substitutes +his own doctrine of the thing-in-itself for Kant’s three Ideas of Reason. By Reason +Schopenhauer means the power the mind has of forming general conceptions +and of knowing by way of conception or idea, the matter for conceptions and ideas +being of course derived from Perception. Reasoned knowledge is an abstraction +from perceived knowledge, and all knowledge, as Schopenhauer says, is originally +and in itself perceptive. The confusion in Kant’s account of the elements entering +into knowledge, is Schopenhauer’s reason for holding that Kant can only have had +the fundamental principle of his method imperfectly present to his mind. His +whole difficulty in relating the elements of knowledge to each other arose from the +fact that he in his thought likened the categories to conceptions through want of +an explicit and persistent recognition of the nature of conception. Schopenhauer +himself classifies the categories according to the planes or stages of experience they +characterise: the perceptual, the mathematical, the logical, and the ethical in order. +The categories are all abstractions, but not conceptions or notions. Conceptions +are a particular kind of abstractions, and so are categories: to conceptions <i>material</i> +entities correspond, but to categories only relations or forms. Knowledge consists +in the detection of relations existing between the different planes or sections of the +perceptual continuum, the difference in perceived things being that some are immediately +and others only mediately perceived. The true reason of Schopenhauer’s +revolt from the method of conceptions is to be found in the difficulties in which he +felt himself involved by the theory of Subjective Idealism. Philosophy, he says, +is a search for the Thing-in-itself, but he tells Kant that from the idea nothing but +the idea follows, and that the path of Reflexion or Knowledge is closed as the path +of philosophy. Had Schopenhauer kept more true to his ruling that knowledge is +originally and in itself perception, he would not have maintained that the world is +my idea. The Thing-in-itself is the shadow cast by the Reflective or Abstracting +Understanding. With both Kant and Schopenhauer it is primarily invented to get +rid of the difficulty bred of a belief in an abstraction or unreality, and as it is a +pure mental fiction, we may safely deny that there is any such thing in reality.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wallaschek finds the origin of music in a rhythmical impulse in man. The +sense of rhythm arises from the general appetite for exercise, which recurs in +rhythmical form owing to sociological as well as psychological conditions. On the +one hand, there is the social character of primitive music, compelling a number of +performers to act in concert. On the other hand, our perception of time-relations +involves a process of intellection, by means of which the mind is able to comprehend +them as a whole. Since music is produced not merely as an auditory impression +and expression, but also in order to evoke reflexion, it must contain the qualities +of time-order and rhythm. Mr. Herbert Spencer’s theory of the origin of the +general appetite for exercise is said to afford the most valid explanation. It is the surplus +vigor in more highly evolved organisms, exceeding what is required for immediate +needs, in which play of all kinds takes its rise. We owe our musical faculty to the +time-sense rather than to our sense of hearing. The perception of particular tones +and tunes plays a very low part, if any, in primitive music. In almost all the examples +furnished by ethnology, we see that music is the expression of emotion, which +is also one of the sources of human language. Mr. Spencer is said to be wrong, however, +in thinking that musical modulation originates in the modulations of speech +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>Music and speech have a reciprocal influence, and primitive human utterance, using +sound-metaphors and onomatopœia, may resemble primitive musical tones. Nevertheless, +an early separation of distinct tones and indistinct sounds seems to have +taken place, not as a transition from the one as prior to the other as succeeding, +but as a divergence from a primitive state which is, strictly speaking, neither of +the two.</p> + +<p>Professor Cattell objects that the theories of Darwin and Spencer on the origin +of music, describe what probably took place, rather than explain why it was necessary +that it should have taken place. As to Spencer’s explanation of harmony, he +affirms that it amounts to saying that harmony gives pleasure because it is pleasant. +After referring to the connection of harmony with the existence of overtones, Prof. +Cattell states that music is not, as commonly supposed, a creation of the imagination, +freer than the other arts from a physical basis, but is rather a discovery and +a development. All the combinations of music are latent in the sounds Of nature, +and the history of music bears witness to the gradual adoption of such as are more +remote. The difference in voices rests on the overtones present, and the immense +emotional effects of music are due to the fact that music expresses the emotion of +the human voice, using and developing those combinations of tones which the voice +uses when moved by sorrow and joy, despair and exultation.</p> + +<p>By the <i>Coefficient</i> of External Reality, Professor Baldwin means the something +which attaches to some presentations in virtue of which we attribute reality to +them; while others, not having the coefficient, are discredited. Diametrically opposed +solutions of this question are held. To one class of writers, the coefficient +of the reality of an image is its independence of the will; to another class, the coefficient +is subjection to the will. If we make a distinction between a memory-coefficient +of reality—that is, the something about a memory which leads us to believe +it represents a real experience—and a sensational coefficient, that is, the criterion +of present sensational reality, we see that those two kinds of reality differ in +their relation to the will. A present sensible reality is not under the control of any +will, but a memory coefficient is subjected to will, in the sense that we are able to +get the image again as a sensation by repeating the series of voluntary muscular +sensations which were associated with it in its first experience. This memory-coefficient +of external reality must be distinguished from the coefficient of memory +itself; the latter being the feeling that an image has been in consciousness before, +i. e. recognition, or sense of familiarity. A true memory is an image which I can +get at will by a train of memory-associates, and which, when got, is further subject +to my will. (London: Williams & Norgate.)</p> + +<h4>INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. July, 1891. Vol. I. NO. 4.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Modern Conception of the Science of Religion.</span> By Prof. <i>Edward +Caird</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Functions of Ethical Theory.</span> By Prof. <i>James H. Hyslop</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Morality of Nations.</span> By Prof. <i>W. R. Sorley</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">J. S. Mill’s Science of Ethology.</span> By <i>James Ward</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Vice and Immorality.</span> By <i>R. W. Black</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Progress of Political Economy since Adam Smith.</span> By <i>Francis W. +Newman</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Programme of School of Applied Ethics.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Discussions</span>: The Moral Aspect of “Tips” and “Gratuities.” By <i>Christine +Ladd Franklin</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Ideas and facts, says Professor Caird, are continually being woven together as +warp and woof, into the web of man’s intellectual life. The idea of the unity of +mankind has within the last century become an almost instinctive presupposition +of all civilised men. It has special application to the history of religion. In a +man’s religion we have expressed his ultimate attitude to the universe. Even atheism +or agnosticism involves a definite attitude towards the ultimate problem of human +life. The modern ideas of the organic unity and the organic evolution of +man inevitably compel us to seek for the one principle of life which is striving +towards the full realisation of itself.</p> + +<p>Professor Hyslop remarks, that two questions may be asked: (1) Why is it +that any disturbance in ethical speculation at once brings men up in arms about +the consequences? (2) Why is there such a tendency even in speculative ethics to +bring its theories into harmony and sympathy with “practical” problems? The +preliminary answer is the distinction between science and art. The aim of science +is to find causes; the aim of art to produce ends by means of these causes. But +art may be divided into productive and practical art. Every consideration of the +scope and aim of ethics shows it to be both a science and an art. As a science it +endeavors to explain something; as an art, to realise something. Its complications +are thus two-fold. Ethics may be a science in two distinct relations. First, it aims +to show the general conception which will reduce the various motives actually +governing human conduct to unity. Secondly, it aims to show the end that ought +ideally to govern conduct, and this is the supreme object of ethics as a science.</p> + +<p>In relation to the Morality of Nations, Professor Sorley says that the relations +of the state, diplomatic or military, with other states may be compared with the +relations of one individual to another, but the two sets of relations are not the +same. A crime is an act punishable by law, and it is absurd therefore to speak as +if the state, acting legally, could commit a crime. But if theft ceased to be a crime +it would be as much an offense against morality as before. Taxation to which the +taxed have not consented and unfair taxation cannot be regarded as theft, as some +suppose. Individual morality becomes mixed with national morality when those +through whom the state acts act for themselves and for their own interests, instead +of for the common good. Within a nation the state is above all individuals, but +there is no corresponding superior power over nations. What remains is a general +obligation upon states to observe justice in their dealings with one another. National +morality differs from individual morality in that a nation’s first duty may be +said to be to itself. There is no selfishness, there is only patriotism, in its recognising +the fact and acting upon it. The intercourse of nations can only reach a +full measure of development under a common moral law, which recognises the +rights of one nation as of equal value with the rights of any other.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ward points out, that Mill, in his exposition of what he called Ethology, +or the Exact Science of Human Nature, repeated in all the issues of his “Logic,” +remarks that Ethology must first proceed deductively. The laws of the formation +of character “are derivative laws, resulting from the general laws of mind, and +are to be obtained by deducing them from those general laws.” There was a want +of clearness in Mill’s conception of an individual. The notion of a Self proved, on +his own admission, “the real stumbling block” to his psychological theory. In +discussing the influence of remarkable men, Mill allows that “whatever depends +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>on the peculiarities of individuals, combined with the accidents of the positions +they hold, is necessarily incapable of being foreseen.” When we attempt to estimate +the influence of circumstances on individuals, we must often know how the +circumstances appear to <i>them</i>,—this personal equation so to say is frequently incalculable.</p> + +<p>In the main, says Mr. Black, sin exists intimately in, or as an inseparable affection +or potentiality of, the person as a whole, and to discourage it is to discourage +the person, and tantamount, therefore, to discouraging his goodness as well. +At this point the division of sin into vice and immorality becomes essential to a rational +solution. Immorality is crime against living moral agents. Vice may be defined +as the spending of the forces of one’s own life to the detriment of its moral capabilities.</p> + +<p>Mr. Francis W. Newman, who began the study of Political Economy seventy +years ago, when he was sixteen, gives in this article his views on the evils of land +tenure in England.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Franklin thinks “the subjective feeling of worth and dignity” which distinguishes +the people of this country will be injured by “giving fees to our inferiors +when they perform some service for which they are (or ought to be) otherwise +well paid.” That the matter is not “absolute ethics” is apparent from the fact that +in Japan a totally different sentiment prevails. The editor, Prof. Josiah Royce +(under the signature of J. R.) in commenting on Mrs. Franklin’s communication +after referring to the evils of the German custom of Trinkgeld as detailed by v. +Ihering, says that if it harms the manhood of our writers to “tip” them the mischief +should be met by organised devices such as v. Ihering proposes, and not by +individual action. (Philadelphia: <i>International Journal of Ethics</i>, 1602 Chestnut +Street.)</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<h4>REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: June, 1891. No. 186.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Les Resultats des Theories Contemporaines sur l’Association des Idees.</span> +By <i>B. Bourdon</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Comment la Sensation devient Idee.</span> By <i>J. Payot</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Notes et Discussions. Qu’est-ce que la Physiologie Generale?</span> By +<i>Durand</i> (<i>de Gros</i>).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: July, 1891. No. 187.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">La Notion de Limite en Mathematiques.</span> By <i>G. Milhaud</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Coup d’oeil sur l’Histoire de la Philosophie en Russie (I).</span> By <i>F. Lannes</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Les Sources de la Philosophie de l’Inde.</span> By <i>P. Regnaud</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>M. Bourdon reviews the modes of association proposed by various psychologists, +and the factors which intervene to give force to associations. Wundt alone; +among psychologists has the great merit of not placing ideas and sensations in actual +opposition. The laws of ideology are almost the same as those of physics; and the +law of association ought to be true not only for ideas, but for sensations and for +objects. M. Bourdon’s conclusion is that the theory of the association of ideas has +hitherto been treated from a too subjective and idealistic point of view. He would +substitute for the theory of <i>association</i> of idea a theory of a <i>society</i> of phenomena, +which conception he thinks better explains the process.</p> + +<p>In a preceding contribution to the <i>Revue Philosophique</i> (May, 1890) M. Payot +showed that sensation is the translation into terms of consciousness of that which, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>considered from the objective point of view, is a reaction of the organism, as a +whole, to an external impression. Sensations are the irreducible element of the +psychic life. They contribute the materials which the mind modifies, combines, +and classes according to their relations, variable or invariable. This is chronologically +posterior to sensation, which has an affective origin. The reactions corresponding +to the most frequent sensations become more and more rapid until consciousness, +“which translates only physiological states of a sufficient duration,” has not time +to appear. Here we have a reflex-act. In an intermediate zone where reactions +take a time sufficient for them to be conscious, the intellectual states, to which the +abstract name of the intellectual faculty has been given, have birth. Differentiation +operates between sensible and intellectual facts, until they seem to belong to two +irreducible faculties; but the intellectual states are grafted on the sensible states, +and although the graft develops so greatly that the sensibility appears like a parasite, +the latter is the primitive trunk and through it the graft exists by a kind of +continued creation. Sensations are convenient abstractions but nothing more. A +sensation never presents itself in the adult consciousness without a crowd of instantaneously +evoked relations. There is never absolute exclusion between perception +and sensation: these are two states which dissolve into each other, which have no +difference in nature, and which are separable only in gross. Properly speaking +there are no sensations, only perceptions more or less complex. In sensation the +state of mind is considered in itself without reference to its relations; in perception +attention is paid chiefly to the relations. But sensation exists only for consciousness, +as it can never enter directly into intellectual constructions, but only through +the state of remembrance. Every sensation so far as we are sensible of it is purely +felt, and we effectuate our mental constructions not with sensations, but with our +remembrances of sensations. But the rôle of sensation is still more restricted. +However rapid its flight across consciousness it instantaneously provokes the remembrance +of numerous sensations of differences and resemblances with anterior +sensations. It is an occasion for this, and nothing more. To be perceived, a sensation +must be followed by sensations different from itself. The mind seizes relations +of resemblance between sensations and resemblances between relations: it +classes them, the chaos unravels and organises itself. The organisation has been +progressive, but at all stages the procedure is alike; it consists in disengaging remembrances +more or less masked by dissimilarities: this is the universal procedure +of the mind and the condition <i>sine qua non</i> of thought.</p> + +<p>In his article on <i>General Physiology</i>, M. Durand (de Gros) in criticism of M. Ch. +Richet’s article on this subject which appeared in the April number of the <i>Revue +Philosophique</i>, points out that Richet in applying the term “general anatomy” to +the anatomy of the tissues, and “special anatomy” to the anatomy of the organs, +overlooked the fact that <i>generality</i> and <i>speciality</i> when used to express the two opposite +sides of a science express relations of abstract, nominal extension and not +real extension. Thus, by general chemistry is intended the consideration of the +higher laws governing the molecular actions of bodies, the one on the other, whatever +that may be, and the modes of composition which result therefrom for each of +them. General physiology should be, therefore, the philosophy of the science of +the functions of life, that is to say, the higher laws embracing all these various particular +functions; special physiology having for its object these particular functions +in what is proper to each of them and distinguishes it from the others. Physiology +has reference, however, to the other animals as well as man, and also to plants, and +hence the term general physiology has been applied to the physiology common to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>all living beings, and special physiology to that which concerns the various animal +and vegetal species taken separately. But this is in reality comparative physiology, +and thus positive physiologists have made a false use of the term general physiology, +and have left the true general physiology unrecognised and unnamed. In conclusion, +M. Durand presents his conception of “organology.”</p> + +<p>In the form of a dialogue M. Milhaud meets the objections made to the notion +of limit in Mathematics. The question whether to have a limit, for anything variable, +is not synonymous with attaining a limit, is considered in connection with +Zeno’s problem of Achilles and the tortoise, the strict solution of which is, not that +Achilles will never overtake the tortoise, but that he will not overtake it on this side +of a spot situated at a distance of 10/9 of a metre from the starting-point, within a +period equal to 10/9 of a second commencing at the instant of starting. To the objection +that by its very nature the limit cannot be attained, as where the limit and +the variable element which indefinitely approaches it are essentially different, it is +replied that when a variable element has a limit, this element is a <i>quantity</i> and the +limit is a quantity of the same kind, quality being neglected. In the proposition: +the length of the circumference is the limit of the perimeters of the inscribed polygons, +the limit is a quantity of the same kind, that of length. It is not necessary to +know whether the definition accords with reality. M. Milhaud then shows by reference +to the properties of an unlimited series of inscribed polygons and the corresponding +circumscribed polygons, that two such series of geometrical lengths satisfying +the required conditions can always be considered as defining a new length, +superior to all the first and inferior to all the others. As to its existence, it can be +said only that a length exists only as determined, as limited; and a state of length, +or a particular length has a right to exist, provided that the properties of quantity +which condition it are not contradictory. The essence of mathematical space, +breadth, length is only the content of their definitions. Mathematics owes its existence +to the condition of creating for itself a world of fictions. There is a divergence +of opinion as to whether incommensurables should be represented by lengths +or by numerical symbols, but the divergence is a last echo of the endless discussions +which the notions of infinity and continuity have raised among mathematicians.</p> + +<p>Philosophic thought, says M. Lannes, presents, in Russia, in its past history, +a very poor condition. Philosophy does not exist, unless that name be given to +such moral precepts, or domestic recommendations as we find in “the instruction” +of a Vladimir Monomaque or in the “Domostroï.” The Russian mind was easily +guarded against the liberties of thought, regarding science and philosophy with contempt +and holy dread. There, as during the Middle Ages in the rest of Europe, +the end to attain, to which all others were subordinated, was the safety of the soul. +It was only with Peter the Great that thought took a freer flight, notwithstanding +the restrictions that it had still to support. The Little Russians were the first to +turn towards western instruction. In order to meet the Jesuits, who appeared in +Russia about the middle of the 16th century, with the arms they used, scholastic +philosophy was introduced into the college of Pierre Mohila, at Kief. Aristotle was +taken as guide and the teaching was in Latin. Under Alexis Mikhaïlovitch, rational, +natural, and moral philosophy began to be taught in a formal manner at the Academy +of Moscow. Peter the Great ordered an important place to be given to rhetoric +and dialectics, and the mention of logic, psychology, and metaphysics in the programme +of the Academy. In 1755 logic, metaphysics, and morality entered into +the teaching of philosophy at the University. In the 18th century two currents of +ideas manifested themselves, of which some are connected with mysticism, others +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>with the influence of French philosophy. The former became associated, through +Novikof and Schwartz, with free-masonry, which was regarded as a means of acquiring +a knowledge of God, of nature, and of man, of becoming a better Christian, +a better citizen, and a better family head. Novikof and Schwartz founded the +“Society of the Friends of Instruction,” and through their zeal a mass of moral +and religious books were published for distribution in places of instruction. The +influence of the French “philosophers” of the 18th century was preponderant in +Russia in the second half of the 18th century. Voltaire enjoyed the greatest favor, +and his renown was universal. Freethought penetrated the middle classes, and +even conservative and religious men denied miracles in the course of history, considered +religion as a political instrument, and attacked the ignorance and cupidity +of the clergy. On the happening of the French revolution Catherine was frightened +and took rigorous measures against those who wished to use freedom of thought.</p> + +<p>Questions of pedagogy held a great place in the thoughts of Catherine. She +confided the care of pedagogic reforms to Betski, who showed that true education is +that which unites the development of the body, of the mind, and of the heart; but +the moral element ought to have the first place. Alexander I. re-established philosophic +liberalism and sought to excite interest in social, economic, and political +questions. The university of Moscow was reorganised, and one of the faculties included +dogmatic and moral theology, theoretical and practical philosophy, natural, +political and popular rights. Philosophy also established itself in the new universities +of Kharkof, Kazan, and Petersburg. But minds were possessed with more +living ideas and various tendencies, political, moral, religious, sceptical, led to the +establishment of numerous secret societies whose starting point was the masonic +alliance. About 1816, Schröder had introduced into the foreign lodges a spirit of +cosmopolitan humanity. Fessler saw in the lodges a means of moral education, the +basis of civic education. In order to be received as a mason, it was necessary to +pass through certain “consecrations,” to obtain certain “degrees of knowledge.” +Among those “consecrated” by Fessler was Spéranski who, notwithstanding his +mysticism, was imbued with the principles of the Revolution. On the reaction under +Prince Galitzyn, the minister of public instruction, science was given a mystical +end, and religion was declared to be the supreme science. The sciences which +could do injury to religion, as geology, were either discarded, or directed to be +taught according to the spirit of Holy Scripture. As to philosophy, the teaching +of moral philosophy, which does not separate morality from the faith, was alone +allowed. The treatises of the Kantian Jacob were forbidden, as containing scandalous +theories. In general, in the universities, during the first year of the nineteenth +century the objects of philosophic study were somewhat vague. The utility +of the sciences, of education, of the individual characters of peoples, enthusiastic +discourses on free will, on the rights of reason, on the spirit and forces of nature. +Fessler and Vellanski introduced the German philosophy and principally that +of Schelling, which became in some sort the lever which put in movement ideas on +the independence and the nationality of civilisation. The most ardent champion +of Schelling’s doctrine was Odoievski, whose external personality marks curiously +the idea entertained of philosophy and philosophers between 1820 and 1845. A +philosopher was represented as a sort of romantic Faust, leading a kind of life different +from common mortals. If he occupied himself with physical sciences, the +philosopher was regarded as the equal of a sorcerer with terrible powers. M. +Lannes concludes his present article with a sketch of the life and philosophy of +Galitch, who on his return to St. Petersburg from a three years tour through +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>Europe wrote a dissertation on philosophy, in which he explained the development +of beings by the double action of <i>activity</i> and <i>passivity</i>, the one being cause, the +other product. In 1819 Galitch taught in the University logic, psychology, and +metaphysics, and later he received authority to teach the history of philosophy, to +which he gave an <i>eclectic</i> character, in accordance with the instructions of his hierarchical +superiors. In his <i>esoteric</i> teaching he initiated his friends into the philosophy +of Schelling. In that year he published a “History of Philosophic Systems,” +the appearance of which was a rare novelty in the Russian Scientific World. He +subsequently published several other works, but the manuscript of one on the +“Philosophy of the History of Humanity,” which cost him much labor was destroyed +by fire. The merit of Galitch is to have wished to establish in Russia philosophy +<i>as science</i>. He assigned to the study of philosophy the whole encyclopedia +of the sciences, but true philosophic knowledge is the knowledge of the unity from +which external phenomena flow. M. Lannes gives an analysis of Galitch’s “Picture +of Man,” where, before M. Renouvier, he says of freedom, “it can itself begin an +entire series of phenomena, which are then linked together in the relations of dependence, +that is to say are the necessary acts of a voluntary principle.” Galitch +deserves to occupy a small place in the general history of the philosophy of humanity. +If there existed before him a science of the relations of the soul and the body, +he was at least one of the first to elaborate a programme of what is called to-day +<i>comparative psychology</i>.</p> + +<p>M. Regnaud finds the sources of the philosophy of India in India itself, as +they appear in all their simplicity and primitive character in the Rig-Veda, the +very ancient collection of liturgical hymns of the Brahmans. The whole doctrine +implied by both the Vedic cult and the text of the hymns is resumed in a verse of +the Rig Veda. “Each day the same liquid rises and descends; the rains vivify the +earth, the fires of the sacrifice vivify the sky.” The libations destined to feed the +fire of sacrifice and which consisted of inflammable liquids, such as the <i>ghrita</i> or +clarified butter, were poured out each time that the sacrifice was celebrated into +the atmosphere (or the sky) whose life they maintained, in like manner as liquid +and solid foods sustain the life of man. The whole religious conception of the Vedic +epoch consists then in the idea of an endless <i>circulus</i>, of a perpetual exchange +of the elements of life, in an immense body which is the universe, whose arterial +centre is the sacrifice, and the fire the motor, the distributer, and so to say the +brain. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<h4>REVUE DE L’HYPNOTISME. April, 1891. No. 10. 5th YEAR.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p>(1) <span class="smcap">Accouchement dans l’hypnotisme.</span> By <i>Dr. Fraipont</i> and <i>M. J. Delbœuf</i>. +(2) <span class="smcap">Accouchement pendant le sommeil hypnotique.</span> By <i>Dr. M. G. Kingsbury</i>. +(3) <span class="smcap">Memoire relatif a certaines radiations perques par lessensitifs.</span> +By <i>Baron de Reichembach</i>. (4) <span class="smcap">Discussions et Polemique</span>: La Nutrition +dans l’hypnotisme. By <i>Gilles de la Tourette</i> and <i>H. Cathelineau</i>. (5) <span class="smcap">Recueil +de Faits</span>: Contribution à l’application de la thérapeutique suggestive. By +<i>Dr. P. Van Velsen</i>. Huit observations d’accouchement sans douleur sous +l’influence de l’hypnotisme. By <i>Dr. Marie Dobrovosky</i>. <span class="smcap">Revue Bibliographique.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Dr. Fraipont terminates his interesting memoir with the remark that save under +very exceptional circumstances, as when the subject is very sensitive or has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>before suffered a sort of trance, hypnotism can scarcely have any practical importance +in accouchment. M. Delbœuf refers in a postscript to the case of a patient +described in his writings by the initial J..., and states that her accouchment +confirms him in his view of the rôle of the brain, which he regards as a moderating +and inhibiting organ, and consequently in the opinion expressed by him in +the <i>Revue Philosophique</i> as to the essence of freedom, which he regards as having +an arresting and not an inciting effect.</p> + +<p>MM. de la Fourette and Cathelineau confirm the conclusion drawn from researches +made by them for Professor Charcot, that nutrition is affected during the +hypnotic sleep, and therefore that hypnotism is a pathological condition. (Paris: +170 Rue Saint-Antoine.)</p> + +<h4>PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVII. Nos. 9 and 10.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Goethes Verhaeltniss zu Spinoza und seine Philosophische Weltanschauung.</span> +By <i>G. Schneege</i>. I.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wilhelm Wundt’s “System der Philosophie.”</span> By <i>Johannes Volkelt</i>. I.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Recensionen</span>: (1) A. Fouillée, L’Avenir de la métaphysique fondée sur l’expérience. +By <i>C. Schaarschmidt</i>. (2) Th. von Varnbüler, Widerlegung der +Kritik der reinen Vernunft. By <i>E. König</i>. (3) Bericht über neuere Erscheinungen +aus dem Gebiete der Geschichte der Æsthetik. By <i>E. Kühnemann</i>. +(4) C. Baeumker, Das Problem der Materie in der griechischen Philosophie. +By <i>P. Natorp</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Litteraturbericht.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Johannes Volkelt continues his review of Wilhelm Wundt’s “System of Philosophy.” +Prof. C. Schaarschmidt criticises Fouillée’s view of a future metaphysics +as based upon experience, from the Kantian standpoint. Dr. E. König explains +with sufficient strength the futility of Varnbüler in his bold attempt of refuting +Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” and Dr. Paul Natorp, the editor, devotes an +article to Prof. Clemens Baeumker’s book “Das Problem der Materie in der +Griechischen Philosophie,” in which the author sets forth that the problem of matter +is not a limited problem, but the sum total of all those questions which have +reference to the existence of some cause of sensory phenomena which in its nature +is different from consciousness. The problems of psycho-physics and of the theory +of cognition are modern and were unknown to the ancients. Their standpoint remained +throughout that of realism. A résumé of the views of Greek philosophers +from Thales down to the New Platonists follows.</p> + +<p>The leading article is devoted to Goethe’s relation to Spinoza and his philosophical +world-conception.</p> + +<p>Goethe’s philosophical and religious opinions are naturally of the greatest interest, +because Goethe, the child of nature in the highest sense of the word, represents a +genius not such as our great contemporary Cesare Lombroso conceives him to be, +i. e. a species of the abnormal man and a kind of insane person, but such as genius +is conceived by the layman, i. e. an abnormally normal man, a man whose excellencies +lie in a rare harmony of highly developed perfections—not in eccentricities. +Goethe’s eccentricities were not worse or more extended than those of average people, +but he had more sense, more humor, more depth, and more spirit. Well, +Goethe as a son of man and as a type of an unusually perfect man was a poet, a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>philosopher, a scientist, an historian, an artist, a man of the world, and a man of +practical life, all in one, and the opinions of this man in the religio-philosophical +field show at least that they accord with man as a child of nature.</p> + +<p>Goethe’s philosophical views were strongly influenced by Spinoza yet not so +as if Spinoza had impressed his view upon Goethe. Goethe happened to read +Spinoza’s “Ethics” while still immature in mind and felt himself powerfully attracted +by the spirit of the book. “What I may have read out of or into that work,” +he writes, “I could give no account. Yet I found a pacification of my passions. +A great and free vista upon the sensual and moral world seemed to open before +my eyes. That strange sentence ‘<i>He who loves God must not demand of God to love +him in return</i>,’ with all its premises and conclusions filled all my thoughts. To be +unselfish in everything and most so in love and friendship was my highest delight, +my maxim, my practice, so that the bold expression of later years ‘If I love thee, +it is none of thy business’ came right from my heart. In addition to this, it must +be recognised that the most intimate combinations result from contraries. The all-pervading +calmness of Spinoza contrasted with my excited aspirations, his mathematical +method was a counterpart of my poetical thoughts and habits.” In Spinoza’s +doctrine of necessity Goethe found comfort concerning man’s dependence upon the +outer world which caused him so much pain. It is probable that the famous sentence +of the liberation from passions through a clear comprehension of them was +very sympathetic to Goethe, for it is a characteristic feature of his poetry that they +were confessions as well as liberations of all that moved and disturbed him. As +soon as Goethe was able to give to himself a clear account concerning that which +had affected his soul and as soon as he could give a poetical form to it so that it +became something independent and outside of him, he gained, in the sense of Spinoza’s +doctrine of liberation from passions, the peace and liberty of his soul. +Yet Spinoza’s doctrine of necessity was a metaphysical conception. Goethe transferred +it into the domains of practical ethics, thus giving rise to his idea of resignation. +Goethe writes in the beginning of the sixteenth book of “Wahrheit und +Dichtung”: “Our physical as well as our social life, customs, habits, worldly wisdom, +philosophy, religion, even many incidental events, everything demands of us +that we should resign ourselves. So many things which most intrinsically belong +to us we are not allowed to develop. That of the outer world which we want as a +complement of our nature is taken away and many things which are foreign to us +and disagreeable are thrown upon us. We are deprived of everything that we have +with difficulty acquired, of everything that is friendly and before we fully comprehend +it we find ourselves obliged <i>to surrender our very personality</i>, first piecemeal +and finally in its entirety.” Professor Schneege says that Goethe’s practice of resignation +gave him solace when he felt low-spirited concerning the limits of human +willing and wishing and hoping, and his resignation was as a matter of principle a +total resignation. A partial resignation leads to the pessimistic outcry “All is +vanity,” yet the total resignation affords an inner peace and produces that “air of +peace,” <i>die Friedensluft</i> as Goethe calls it, which surrounds us when reading Spinoza.</p> + +<p>One of Goethe’s maxims is quite Spinozistic. Goethe says (<i>Max. und Refl. +Abth.</i> v.): “He who declares himself to be free will feel himself at once dependent +but he who dares to declare himself dependent, feels himself free.”</p> + +<p>Goethe rejected the idea of a personal and transcendent Deity which was urged +so strongly upon him by Lavater. Rejecting Lavater’s view, he says (<i>Wahrh. und +Dicht.</i> xiv.): “I assured him in accord with my Realism which is inborn as well +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>as acquired that since it had pleased God and Nature to make me as I am, I must +remain so.” The expression “God and Nature” savors strongly of Spinoza’s “Deus +sive natura.”</p> + +<p>According to Eckermann (<i>Gesp. m. G.</i> ii, p. 169) Holbach’s <i>Systéme de la nature</i> +had also made a strong impression upon Goethe. Nevertheless he was dissatisfied +with the spirit of French materialism. He says: “How empty and hollow is this +sad atheistic twilight, in which the earth with all its forms and the heaven with all +its stars disappear. Matter only is said to exist, being in motion from eternity to +eternity, thus producing to the right and to the left without further ado all the innumerable +phenomena of being.” Goethe’s view of “God and nature,” did not +deny the Deity as such, but identified both in the sense of Spinoza. In this sense +Goethe interpreted the sentence: <i>Qui deum amat conari not potest, ut Deus ipsum +contra amet—si homo id conaretur, cuperet ergo ut Deus quem amat, non esset Deus</i>. +The latter idea, “if a man wished that God should love him in return, he would +wish that God be not God” is a corollary only to the impersonal conception of Spinoza’s +non-anthropomorphised Deity. We cannot and we must not think of God as +a human being who like a monarch makes favorites of those who are faithful not +so much to the divine laws of ethics but to God personally.</p> + +<p>Goethe agreed in his views of Spinoza with Herder, who in a letter to Jacobi +writes: “The πρὼτον ψεῦδος, my dear Jacobi, in all anti-spinozistic systems is that +God is supposed to be the great <i>ens entium</i>, the cause of all phenomena, a cypher, +an abstract idea which we have formulated. However, that is not so according +to Spinoza; God is to him the most real and active unity which says to itself +‘I am that I am, and shall be in all the changes of my phenomena that which I +shall be.’ What you mean, my dear fellows, by an existence outside of the world, +I do not understand. If God does not exist in the world, and indeed, everywhere +unlimited in his totality and entirety, he does not exist at all. The limitation of +personality does not belong to the infinite being, since a person originates with us +by limitation as a kind of <i>modus</i> or as an aggregate of beings whose activity is endowed +with the illusion of unity.” A modification of Spinoza’s view consists in the +recognition of the creative activity which Herder attributes to God. In another +letter to Jacobi, Herder writes: “You wish God in the shape of man like a friend +who thinks of you. Consider that in that case he must think humanly of you. If +he is partial to you he will be partial against others. Explain to me why you need +him to be human. He speaks to you, he affects you through all noble men who +are his organs and most so through his organ of organs, the core of his spiritual +creation, his only begotten. I must confess that this philosophy makes me exceedingly +happy. Goethe has read Spinoza since your departure and it is a test case +to me that he has conceived him exactly as I do.”</p> + +<p>Herder was a clergyman and he held the highest position of his church, being +Superintendent General. Would the protestant state churches of to-day either in +England or in Germany have room for a man like Herder?</p> + +<p>Goethe concurred with Herder, that the idea of an extramundane Deity has no +sense, an outside God is powerless and an immanent God alone is a reality. He puts +in the mouth of Faust the following lines:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The God that in my breast is owned</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Can deeply stir the inner sources.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The God above my powers enthroned</div> + <div class="verse indent2">He cannot change external forces.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><i>Faust I, Scene 4, Tr. Bayard Taylor.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span></p> + +<p>Spinoza makes a difference between <i>natura naturans</i> and <i>natura naturata</i>. A +similar contrast is made by Goethe in the following lines which are found among +the <i>Zahme Xenien</i>, Part vii.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Life dwells in each celestial body</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And on its self-selected roads</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It likes to travel with the others.</div> + <div class="verse indent2">There are in our earth’s deep abodes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The forces, shrouded now in night</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And rising up again to light</div> + <div class="verse indent2">If with eternal repetition</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Some circles infinitely roam,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">If thousand stones in strong construction</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Together build life’s glorious dome,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Then through all things is pleasure thrilling,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The great, the little, both are blessed,</div> + <div class="verse indent2"><i>Yet all this yearning, all this striving</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>In God the Lord, is eternal rest</i>.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>According to Schneege, Goethe was an agnostic. Faust says:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Mysterious even in open day</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Nature retains her veil, despite our clamors.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That which she doth not willingly display,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws and hammers.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><i>I, 1. Tr. Bayard Taylor.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>This quotation however expresses Faust’s despair and not Goethe’s philosophical +view. It is true that Goethe has made a few utterances which savor of agnosticism, +but most of them are expressive of the idea that we can never be through +with our wisdom; every new solution proposes new problems.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Will mich jedoch des Worts nicht schämen:</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Wir tasten ewig an Problemen.</i>”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><i>Zahme Xenien</i>, vii.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Will not be ashamed of the confession:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">We are dealing with problems without intercession.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>How little Goethe was in accord with the view of modern agnosticism or phenomenalism, +that we know the outside of nature only and not her inside, can be +learned from his opposition to Haller’s famous lines:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Nature’s Within from mortal mind</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Must ever lie concealed.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thrice blessed e’en he, to whom she has</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Her outer shell revealed.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In answer to the agnostic sentiment of the famous naturalist, Goethe answered +with the following verses (quoted in the translation given in “Fundamental Problems,” +p. 142):</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Nature’s ‘within’ from mortal mind</i>”</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Philistine, sayest thou,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Must ever lie concealed?</i>”</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To me, my friend, and to my kind</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Repeat this not. We trow</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where’er we are that we</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Within must always be.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Thrice blessed e’en he to whom she has</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Her outer shell revealed?</i>”</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This saying sixty years I heard</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> <div class="verse indent0">Repeated o’er and o’er,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And in my soul I cursed the word,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet secretly I swore.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Some thousand thousand times or more</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Unto myself I witness bore:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Gladly gives Nature all her store,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">She knows not kernel, knows not shell,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For she is all in one.</div> + <div class="verse indent28">But thou,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Examine thou thine own self well</div> + <div class="verse indent0">whether thou art kernel or art shell.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>We ought to bear in mind that Goethe was no philosopher in the strict sense +of the word and did not attempt to have a system that should be free from contradictions. +So we read in one place: “Man is not born to solve the problem of the +world, but to seek for the limit of the incomprehensible and then to remain within +the limits of the comprehensible,” and in another place “Man must hold fast to the +belief that what seems incomprehensible is comprehensible, for otherwise he would +cease to investigate.”</p> + +<p>The idea of evolution was the basis of Goethe’s idea of immortality. Here +also he remains in accord with Herder who had proposed in his “Ideas for a +Philosophy of the History of Mankind” his views of the development of beings by +degrees. Goethe wrote from Rome (See “Herder’s Nachlass,” ed. Düntzer, Frankfort, +1756, i, p. 17.): “How much I enjoy Herder’s ‘Ideas,’ I can scarcely express. +Since I expect no Messiah, this [viz. the prospect of further evolution] is to me +the dearest Gospel.”</p> + +<p>Goethe’s idea of the soul is not clearly worked out in its philosophical aspect. +He speaks of souls as of monads and believes in a migration of the soul. “I am +sure,” Goethe said to Falk, “I have been here some thousand times and expect to +come again some thousand times.”</p> + +<p>Goethe was very decided in practical and ethical respects. Goethe deviated from +Spinoza by introducing a strong trait of individualism into Spinoza’s cosmism.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Zweck sein selbst ist jegliches Thier.</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Every creature has its purpose in itself.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>And man is the last product of constantly higher evolving Nature—<i>das letzte +Product der sich immer steigernden Natur</i>. Nature’s intention according to Goethe’s +view is to produce constantly more perfect creatures. He says: “Imagine Nature +standing as a gamester before the roulette table constantly shouting <i>au double</i>. With +all she has won through all the phases of her activity she continues to play on into infinity. +Stone, plant, animal, everything is risked in such hazarding ventures again +and again, and who can tell whether man himself is not but a venture for a higher +aim.” Death was to Goethe no destruction but a dissolution. A destruction or +annihilation appeared as an impossibility to him. And his idea of immortality was +not one of existence after death but of a continued activity. In the year 1825 +Goethe declared to Chancellor von Müller (“Gespräche m.d. Kanzler von Müller,” +p. 99), that he should not know what to do with an immortality in which he would +not find new tasks to do and new difficulties to conquer. (Heidelberg: Georg Weiss.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span></p> + +<h4>ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II. No. 4.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Zur Psychologie der Komplexionen und Relationen.</span> By <i>E. Meinong</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Wundt’s Antikritik.</span> By <i>C. Stumpf</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber die Unterschiedsempfindlichkeit fuer kleine Zeitgroessen.</span> Eine +vorläufige Mitteilung. By <i>F. Schumann</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Litteraturbericht.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Professor A. Meinong discusses Ch. v. Ehrenfels’s article “Ueber Gestaltqualitäten”⁠<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> +adding the results of his own investigations suggested to him by this +essay. Ehrenfels starts from Professor Mach’s consideration of figure and melody +(see Mach’s <i>Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen</i>) and proposes the question, +What are figure and melody in themselves? Are they merely a combination of +elements or are they something in contradistinction to their elements, something +entirely new? Melodies and figures, says Ehrenfels, can be so transposed that +not any one of their original elements will remain. Thus the similarity of figures +in space as well as of tones is something different from the similarity of their elements; +they must be something different than their mere sum. This is “the figure-quality” +or <i>Gestaltsqualität</i>, and Ehrenfels distinguishes between two kinds, (1) +those of time (2) those of space, which he calls (1) <i>Tongestalten</i> and (2) <i>Raumgestalten</i>. +In addition to these are discussed the figure-qualities of sensations and of inner +apperception. Ehrenfels proposes the psychological question whether these figure-qualities +are immediately given together with their foundations or whether they +must be considered as the product of a special activity, and he decides in favor of +the former possibility. Professor Meinong whose work has been in similar lines, +refers to his article “Phantasievorstellung und Phantasie”⁠<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> and criticises the term +“figure-quality,” proposing in its stead the words <i>fundierend</i> and <i>fundiert</i>, using +the German term <i>Fundament</i> as a correlative expression of “relation.” There is +no relation without complexity and psychological experience has actually to deal +with complex facts only. Melody and figure are names for the totality of the foundations +including their “founded” contents.</p> + +<p>It may be that we are unduly prejudiced in favor of our own terminology, but +it seems to us that the expression “form” will prove to be the most appropriate +word. Form is neither quality nor quantity, but form can produce qualities. Let +the same qualities, say of chemical elements, combine in different forms, and we +shall obtain substances with different qualities. Figure and melody are special +kinds of form. Forms consist in and originate through combination, and the unity +produced through a special form-combination is actually something new, as much +so as if it were a special-creation act. This wonderful power of form makes the +study of form all-important in all branches of science. A neglect of the study of +form will lead either to materialism when matter and motion are conceived as the +only quality-producing factors, or to agnosticism as soon as a deeper inquiry proves +that matter and motion are not sufficient to explain the most essential properties of +the objects of investigation. We cannot judge from the present article how much +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>Ehrenfels and Meinong are in sympathy with our standpoint, but we can see that +their efforts are in the same direction.</p> + +<p>The second article is a rejoinder by Prof. C. Stumpf of Munich to Prof. W. +Wundt’s reply to his critic. Professor Stumpf complains of Wundt that he ignored +the points raised in his criticism and that his “Antikritik” consisted only of “a +chain of distortions and insinuations.”</p> + +<p>F. Schumann publishes his results regarding sensibility for the difference between +smallest quantities of time. He employed a chronograph modified in two +respects from Wundt’s chronograph. First he replaced the expensive chronometer +by a treading-wheel and introduced Pfeil’s time-marker, which, as he thinks, is +handier as well as more precise than Wundt’s time-marker. Schumann’s results +agree with the results of Professor Mach showing a maximum of 0.3-0.4 seconds, +the relation of the perceptible difference to the normal time being in different persons +only 0.022. (Hamburg and Leipsic: L. Voss.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>PHILOSOPHISCHES JAHRBUCH. Vol. IV. No. 3.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Enthaelt die chemisch-physikalische Atomtheorie Widersprueche?</span> By +<i>S. J. Linsmeier</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Noch einmal zu Platon’s Timaeus</span> p. 51 E-p. 52 B. By <i>Clemens Baeumker</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Das Gesetz von der Erhaltung des Lebens.</span> (Zusatz der Redaction.) By +<i>W. Frye</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Die Logischen Gaenge des Denkens.</span> By <i>Dr. G. Grupp</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">W. Wundt’s System der Philosophie.</span> By <i>C. Gutberlet</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Recensionen und Referate.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The publishers and editors of <i>The Monist</i> are not Roman Catholics and we +suppose that the majority of our readers are not either. But all the more it appears +to us necessary to state as a matter of justice that the Roman Catholic publications +(i. e. those which avowedly and confessedly represent Roman Catholic +thought) are far superior to their analogous Protestant contemporaries. The latter +are debating their particular sectarianisms and do not seem to be interested in the +progress of their times. They do not heed the discoveries of science or the views +of philosophers, they live in a world of their own. It is different with Roman +Catholics. The present magazine proves that they have thinkers among them who +keep abreast of the time. It is true that there is more discipline in the camp of +Roman Catholics which shuts their champions out from free enquiry in a certain +direction concerning some fundamental tenets, but with all this discipline goes +along a broad-mindedness in attacking the different problems of modern science and +philosophy and bringing them into harmony with the Roman Catholic faith.</p> + +<p>The <i>Philosophisches Jahrbuch</i> is published by the <i>Görres-Gesellschaft</i> and edited +by Dr. Const. Gutberlet. Jacob Joseph Görres is the well-known champion of +the Catholic Church (1776-1848)—a restless spirit who began his public career as +an enthusiastic defender of the French Revolution for the propagation of which he +published a fanatical journal <i>Das rothe Blatt</i>. With the rise of Napoleon he +despaired of the cause of liberty, but he took courage again in the war of independence +(1813-1815). In his journal <i>Der Rheinische Merkur</i> he denounced bitterly +those Germans who still held to the French; he recommended his countrymen +to have more love for their language, customs, and traditions and exhorted the +princes to stand united against the common foe and re-institute the empire. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>war over he was persecuted by the Prussian government on account of his renewed +interests in revolutionary affairs (he had published in 1820 a pamphlet +“Germany and the Revolution”) and showing a decided inclination to mysticism +(“Emanuel Schwedenborg, his Visions and his Relation to the Church,” 1827) he +joined the Ultramontane party in the conviction that his ideals could be realised in +the Roman Catholic Church. The rest of his life he remained faithful to Rome +and was the most active, the most vigorous, and also the ablest defender of Roman +Catholic views and interests. The present magazine is a Quarterly conducted with +scholarship and tact, although as a matter of course not without that prejudice +which necessarily results from the principle of giving all thoughts into captivity +under a special and foredetermined faith. The last volume (vol. iii) is rich in +interesting articles. Prof. Dr. Hayd, strange enough, defends the liberty of investigating +the authority of faith, which the editor, however, without rejecting the +idea off-hand considers as bold (<i>gewagt</i>). There are articles on the freedom of +will, on the infinite number of possibilities, mongolian cosmology, Pascal’s position +toward scepticism, analogies between cognition of God and cognition of nature +with special reference to Kant’s criticism of the evidences of the existence of God. +The present number of vol. iv contains an article on the chemico-physical theory +of atoms. The question is proposed whether or not this theory contains contradictions. +The author starts from Dalton’s Definition, whom he regards together +with Wallaston as the founder of modern atomism. The four weightiest objections +are considered, but the author arrives at the conclusion that all of them are +based upon misconceptions. He sums up: “Chemists and Physicists do not repudiate +eyes and senses when proposing and defending the atomistic theory. On the +contrary they use for their view and build it upon an exceedingly richer material of +observation than is employed by their antagonists.... This denial of the validity +of the most important objections, however, does not imply that the atomistic theory +is without difficulties, gaps, unexplained details, etc. It is not as yet so certain a +fact as for instance the heliocentric world-conception. It is an hypothesis still and +will have to remain such for quite a long time. Yet we can confidently assert that +the difficulties are by far less than those offered to the acceptance of the Copernican +hypothesis at the time of the first condemnation of Galileo (1616) which were +solved afterward by Galileo in the year 1632. We have further to state that the +atomistic theory has been developed more and more since Dalton, the number and +the importance of the explanations offered in it have constantly increased.”</p> + +<p>Dr. Frye of Jena discusses Preyer’s latest view of “The Self-Gubernation of +Life—<i>Die Selbststeuerung des Lebens</i>” which appeared in a recent number of the +<i>Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift</i> (Berlin). Preyer considers his newly discovered +law as a corollary to the conservation of matter and energy and maintains +that the total amount of life in the world is as much constant as are matter and energy. +Living mass (<i>Mz</i>) plus inanimate mass (<i>Mn</i>) are constant (<i>C</i>); <i>Mz</i> + <i>Mn</i> = <i>C</i>. +So far scientists will agree, but Preyer adds that each separate item is constant +for itself. He declares that “the total amount of protoplasm in the world remains +unchanged in quantity.” It is hardly probable that Preyer’s view will be adopted +by science.</p> + +<p>Dr. Grupp discusses the logical paths of thought, and the editor, Professor Dr. +Gutberlet explains and criticises Wundt’s System of Philosophy.</p> + +<p>One of the most valuable features for Catholic readers must be considered the +book reviews. Here the thoughts of the most advanced thinkers are as it were +digested for the Catholic world. The material is carefully sifted but the exposition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>of heretic opinions is not evaded. The criticisms from the pen of Dr. Gutberlet +are often trenchant and should not be left unheeded by the adversaries of the +Church. (Fulda: Verlag der Fuldaer Aktien-Druckerei.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. July and August, 1891.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">La Scienza dell’Educazione Nelle Scuole e nelle Riviste italiane.</span> By +<i>F. Cicchitti-Suriani</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">La Filosofia di Empedocle.</span> By <i>S. Ferrari</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Scienze filosofiche e sociali: Relazione sul concorso ai premii ministeriali.</span> +By <i>A. Chiappelli</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Alcune considerazioni sull’Eclettismo.</span> By <i>L. Ferri</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Bibliografia, etc.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><i>The Science of Education in Italian Schools and in Italian Reviews.</i> Every nation +is said to possess a peculiar physiognomy of its own, through which it is distinguished +from every other nation; and consequently any nation will adopt a system +of education that is best suited to its own national genius, to its racial, religious, +and historical traditions. This may be true in a purely practical sense; but on +the other hand, education, theoretically, as science or pedagogics, passes the narrow +limits of any state or form of government, and ought to be ruled by principles and +general laws common to the entire human family. Historically, ever since the +16th century, the educational movements in Italy have been directly called forth +by the Catholic revival and reaction during and immediately following the period +of the renaissance. Such was the origin of the <i>Filippini</i>, <i>Ignorantelli</i>, <i>Barnabiti</i>, +<i>Ignaziani</i>, <i>Calasanziadi</i>, <i>Somaschi</i>, and of many other religious teaching-bodies +that have made Italy until recently a bustling arena of ecclesiastical educational +systems.</p> + +<p><i>The Philosophy of Empedocles.</i> This first instalment of Signor Ferrari’s studies +deals with the cosmological ideas of the great Agrigentine poet-philosophers. From +the formation of the first elements to the highest functions of the human soul +throughout, we perceive that everything is governed by the same laws, and that +which is best, all happiness in fact, is only found in unity and harmony, evil and +pain in disagreement and in separation. The law of evolution, in the modern sense +of the word, prevails everywhere in the physical system of Empedocles. Yet his +philosophy did not exclusively consist in mechanical evolution. To his cosmological +doctrines were added moral and religious tenets, which, however, are not evolved +continuously with the former. (Rome. Tipografia delle Terme Diocleziane di G. +Balbi—160 Via Cavour, 162.)</p> + +<p class="right">γνλν.</p> + +<h4>VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII. Vol. II. No. 4. May, 1891.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ethics of Life and of the free Ideal.</span> By <i>K. Ventzel</i>. (In this article the +writer explains and criticises the well-known ethical theories of the late +French thinker M. Guyau.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Pessimist theories of knowledge: Criticism, Positivism.</span> By <i>E. de +Roberti</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Religious Metaphysics of the Moslem Orient.</span> (Conclusion.) By <i>S. +Umanetz</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Letters on Count Tolstoï’s book.</span> “On Life.” (Conclusion.) By <i>A. Kozloff</i>.</p> + +<p>(The writer concludes his letters to Mr. N. N. with remarks to the effect that +count Tolstoï’s philosophy in all its aspects and phases is manifestly characterized +by a principle of <i>dualism</i>. In the development of this general +principle through the different phases of his system and in his theory of +knowledge this dualism might assume the name of rationalism, in metaphysics, +that of idealism, and in ethics the name of ascetical, quietistic +eudemonism.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">On Determinism in connection with mathematical Psychology.</span> By <i>N. +Shishkin</i>. Lecture delivered before the Moscow Psychological Society. +February, 1891.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Domain and Limits of Suggestion.</span> By <i>N. Bajenoff</i>. Lecture delivered +at the annual session of the Moscow Psychological Society. January, +1891.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Anent the Fictions of professed Christianity.</span> By <i>Vladimir Solovieff</i>.</p> + +<p>(This article has appeared in an English translation in <i>The Open Court</i>, Nos. +206 and 208, under the title “Christianity: Its Spirit and its Errors.” It is +a remarkable contribution to the literature of to-day. Professor Nicolas von +Grote of Moscow writes about its author: “Vladimir Solovieff is at present, +besides the Count Tolstoï, our most eminent thinker; he is a distinguished +philosopher as well as theologian.... You Americans should be familiar +with his works on religious and ecclesiastical ‘questions’.” Vladimir Solovieff +is the author of the following works: “The Religious Foundations of +Life,” “The Dogmatic Development of the Church,” “Judaism and the +Christian Question.” (These titles are translated from the Russian.) Other +writings of his are “L’idée russe,” “La Russie et l’église universelle,” “Geschichte +der Theokratie.”)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Special Department.</span> (1) Hegel’s Ontology. A Posthumous Dissertation. By +<i>N. P. H. Platonoff</i>. (2) The Influence of fatigue upon the intuition of special +relations. By <i>Nik. Marün</i>. (3) Fundamental moments in the evolution +of the new philosophy. Main tendencies of the new philosophy. Empiricism +and Naturalism. Bacon and Hobbes. By <i>N. Grote</i>. (Moscow.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="right">γνλν.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> Specially translated for <i>The Monist</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> <i>Metamorphose der Thiere.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> <i>Vierteljahrsschr. f. wissensch. Phil.</i> 1890. 3, p. 249-292.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> <i>Zeitschrift für Phil. n. philos. Kritik.</i> Vol. 95, p. 173. 1889.</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="masthead"> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Vol. II.</span> +<span class="smcap spacer">January, 1892.</span> +<span class="smcap">No. 2.</span></p> + +<h2>THE MONIST.</h2> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="MENTAL_EVOLUTION">MENTAL EVOLUTION.<br> +<span class="smaller">AN OLD SPECULATION IN A NEW LIGHT.</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>The theory of organic evolution, now generally accepted, needs +to be supplemented by a theory of mental evolution. On a +superficial examination of the matter the necessity for such a supplementary +theory does not perhaps strike one as obvious, the mental +seeming naturally to arise out of the organic and to be part of one +continuous development. But closer investigation and a more rigid +and exact treatment bring to light certain important and peculiar +features, and disclose the necessity of some such hypothesis as it is +my purpose to set forth briefly in the following pages.</p> + +<p>By organic evolution I mean the natural development, whether +by “selection” alone or by this in co-operation with other natural +processes, of the organisms which live upon the surface of this earth; +and by mental evolution I mean the natural development of the +mental faculties in at least the higher animals among these organisms. +Now with regard to organic evolution there is no common +and general agreement in respect of the first origin of primitive life +on the earth. Some evolutionists believe that the living was somewhen, +somehow, and somewhere evolved from the not-living. +Others do not feel justified in holding this view, and deem it wiser +to restrict their speculations as to natural genesis within the limits +of the organic. So too at the other end of the developmental curve; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>there is no common and general agreement as to the evolution of +the mental faculties or spiritual being of man. Some evolutionists +believe that both in body and in mind, man is the product of natural +development; others do not feel justified in holding this view, and +retain unshaken the conviction that man in his spiritual essence is +no part nor product of the common elements of nature. Seeing +then that on either side there is want of agreement, on the one hand +as to the origin of life, on the other as to the origin of man, I shall +deal for the most part with that large area concerning which there +is a more unanimous consensus of opinion, and in the main confine +my speculations within the field of mental evolution in animals, ranging, +say, from the amœba to the dog.</p> + +<p>Few will be found to deny or even to question the fact that our +dumb companions and four-footed friends have mental faculties +which enable them accurately to adjust their actions to the varied +circumstances in the midst of which their lives are passed. Even +if we see cause to hesitate, as I myself hesitate, before we ascribe +to them self-consciousness and reason, in the narrower sense in +which this word is used; still we must acknowledge that their instincts +are powerful, their intelligence wonderfully keen and active; +and that they are capable of strong emotional feeling both of affection +and of antipathy. Should we so welcome them as our companions +and friends if we regarded them as unconscious, insentient +automata? But when we turn to the other end of the scale of life, +to the amœba and all the myriad minutiae that swarm in ponds and +stagnant pools, we are wont to speak with less confidence. Their +consciousness, if so we can call it, is of so simple an order, their +sentience of so low a grade, that we can hardly with any accuracy +use the phrase “mental faculties” with reference to organisms so +lowly. We feel uncertain whether in their case unconscious automatism +does not after all pretty accurately express the facts. At +any rate it would trouble us little or not at all if some one proved +their automatism to-morrow. And yet, on the theory of evolution, +out of such lowly beginnings have sprung the sagacity and affectionate +devotion of the dog. But if the amœba and his tribe are +insentient automata, at what stage of the development did consciousness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>creep in? And whence came it? Or put what is fundamentally +the same question in another way. In the common course +of generation the dog is developed from a minute egg-cell, one +hundredth of an inch or less in diameter, with which a yet more +minute sperm has entered into fertile union. Supplied with shelter, +warmth, and nutriment by that maternal self-sacrifice which is a +deeply significant fact of organic progress, this little speck of living +stuff passes, by a process strictly continuous, though profoundly +modified by the catastrophe of birth, into the dog with its wealth +of intelligence and affection. It is surely impossible without extravagance +to speak of the fertilised ovum as conscious. Where +then in the continuous process of development does consciousness +come in? How, and whence? We are not nowadays to be put off +with the ambiguous assertion that consciousness and intelligence +are “potentially” present in the germ. We ask: What is <i>actually</i> +present therein as the basis of this potentiality? Or are we told +that consciousness dawns at or shortly after the catastrophe of birth? +Then again we ask: Whence comes this dawning consciousness, +and by what means does it become associated with the puppy’s +brain? In yet another form does a question of like general implication +suggest itself. Granted that in the ovum there is present +something which we may call the germ of consciousness somehow +associated with the protoplasmic material of which that ovum is +constituted. How comes it that, in the adult dog, consciousness is +associated with the brain? Why is the association of consciousness +concentrated, so to speak, in this one tissue of the many which +arise during the differentiation of development? That the association +is so concentrated or specialised is now generally admitted to +be the fact. We speak indeed of the skin, the palate, the nose, +the eye, the ear, as each in its kind sensitive. But none the less +we believe that the seat of consciousness is the brain or some part +of it. Only when the nerves running inwards from skin, palate, +nose, eye, or ear, have conveyed their appropriate stimuli to the +brain, does that organ tingle with the accompaniment of consciousness. +There and there only does consciousness “emerge”; not in +peripheral sense-organ or ingoing nerve. But why? How comes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>it that there is this peculiar association of consciousness with the +functioning of a particular organ?</p> + +<p>Perhaps we are told that consciousness is the special product of +brain-tissue. But let us note that the word “product” is here used +in an unwonted sense. We are not likely, it is to be hoped, to fall +into the crude and demonstrably false materialism expressed in the +formula, “as the liver secretes bile, so does the brain secrete consciousness.” +Consciousness being immaterial, the second and fourth +terms are incommensurable, and the formula is sheer nonsense. +Nor are we likely (though here there is greater danger) to fall into +the more subtle error of regarding consciousness as a mode of energy. +“Granted,” says Professor Tyndall, “that a definite thought +and a definite molecular action of the brain occur simultaneously; +we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment +of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of +reasoning from the one to the other: the chasm between the two +classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable.” +Consciousness is something <i>sui generis</i>. It is neither matter nor +energy. It may accompany the transformations of energy in the +dog’s brain; but to the category of these transformations of energy +it does not, and, for any clear thinker, can not belong. And if we +are told that the word “product” is used in the sense implied by +Professor Huxley when he speaks of phenomena of consciousness +being “called into existence” by physical processes; then we must +again ask whence they are called into existence. We do not now +speak of matter or energy being called into existence from a shadowy +nowhere. When a cloud is called into existence on a mountain +peak we know that the material particles have only assumed a +new form. When the electrical current is called into existence or +generated as we phrase it, we know that we are dealing with one +of the many transformations of energy. And when phenomena of +consciousness are said to be called into existence, we have a right +to ask: Do you mean, by this phrase, creation <i>ex nihilo</i>? Or do you +mean, origin by transformation? And if the latter, transformation +of what?</p> + +<p>Having thus opened up these several questions, all of like implication, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>let us now endeavor to set forth the answer which seems +most philosophical and most closely in accordance with scientific +analogies. And to this end let us consider the living dog. His +frame is pulsating with life and restless activity, and somehow associated +with the transformations of energy in that brain of his +there is consciousness—or what in the dog is the analogue of that +consciousness with which alone I can claim any acquaintance at +first hand, my own. Were his skin and the walls of his skull as +transparent as glass; did the molecular vibrations of his brain lie +open to the keenest scrutiny of the physical investigator; could we +trace in detail all the varied and orderly transformations of energy +of which that brain is the theatre; the accompanying consciousness +would still be beyond our reach. <i>We</i> might follow the changes of +energy; he alone would feel the states of consciousness. But suppose +that the dog dies. His body lies before us stiff with the <i>rigor +mortis</i>. If we had weighed it previous to death, and if we were to +weigh it again after death, the scales would give us no information +of the departure of anything material. All signs of consciousness, +however, are gone. And could we see through skin and skull into +the brain, which during life was the theatre of so complex and orderly +a sequence of transformations of energy, we should find that it +was still and motionless. It is true that we cannot actually do this. +But we know that, whereas, during life, the functional action of the +brain gives rise to certain material products, at death the production +of these substances ceases. We are therefore justified in saying +that, omitting minor qualifications, the orderly transformations +of energy in the brain and the concomitant consciousness cease together +at death. Closely associated during life, varying together +in health and sickness, ceasing together at death, what is the nature +of their connection?</p> + +<p>On the hypothesis of scientific monism it is believed that they +are different aspects of the same phenomena: that what objectively +to the physical investigator are transformations of energy in the +brain, are subjectively to the dog states of consciousness? Let us +look into this hypothesis. Let us see whither it will lead us; and +if it will in any way help us over some of our difficulties. But first +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>let us pay a moment’s attention to the impatient exclamation which +some may feel inclined to interpose, that this assumption of the ultimate +identity of brain-energy and consciousness, the two being respectively +the objective and subjective aspects of the same occurrences, +does not in the least do away with the mystery of the matter. +That the same two occurrences should have different aspects, +objective and subjective, is, it will be said, just as mysterious as that +two separate existences energy and consciousness should be associated +together. Of course it is. I should be shallow and pretentious +indeed if my object were by any <i>hocus pocus</i> to attempt to hide +the so-called mystery. <i>All</i> ultimate facts are mysterious. The fall +of a stone to the ground is to-day as mysterious as it was in the +days before Newton; the phenomena of life, as mysterious as in the +days before Darwin. Our advances in science and in thought may +do away with minor mysteries, but they leave the great ultimate +facts of nature as mysterious as before. The end of our explanations +is always to bring us face to face with the inexplicable. Not, +therefore, in any hope of doing away with an ultimate mystery do +I suggest that we look into and follow out some implications of this +so called identity hypothesis.</p> + +<p>Let us regard the matter from the objective aspect first, from +the side to which the occurrences present themselves as transformations +of energy. The state of consciousness being <i>ex hypothesi</i> accompanied +or “called into existence” by certain complex and orderly +molecular vibrations in the brain or some part thereof, we +have to note that from the physical point of view these molecular +vibrations constitute an exceeding complex and orderly mode of energy. +It is upon this energy that we must fix our attention; the +material structure of the brain being what we may call the vehicle +of its manifestation. I am anxious that the reader should carefully +follow me here. We are too apt to regard the <i>structure</i> as the essential +thing on which to concentrate our mental gaze, partly no +doubt because, through the invaluable labors of microscopists, we +know so much that is definite about this structure. But a more +penetrating insight enables us to see that the structure is merely +the necessary basis of what is the really important thing—the manifestation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>of energy. The material structure of a steam-engine is +of importance. But why? Because it is the vehicle for the performance +of work. That is the really essential part of the business. +In like manner nerve-structure is of importance. But why? Because +it is the vehicle for what Professor Huxley happily termed +the neurosis, the complex and orderly manifestation of energy. +The essential importance of looking at the <i>going</i> machine, at the +performance of work, at the energy of the matter in motion, not +merely the material structure that is moved—the essential importance, +I say, of fixing our attention on this, being fairly grasped, we +may now proceed to enquire from what the complex and orderly +vibrations of the dog’s brain have been evolved. In the fertilised +ovum from which the dog was developed, (and the same is true of +the amœboid ancestor from which, hypothetically, the race of dogs +has been evolved,) there is certainly nothing approaching the orderly +complexity of these molecular vibrations. But there are simpler +organic modes of motion from which these complex molecular +vibrations have arisen by a continuous process of development. It +is from these simpler modes of energy in the simpler organic substance +of the ovum that the more complex modes of energy which +characterise the workings of the dog’s brain have been evolved. In +the development of the ovum into the embryo, and thence into the +puppy and the dog, we may trace step by step all the stages of the +evolution of those material structures which are the vehicles of these +special manifestations of organic energy. We may watch the further +and further differentiation of the nervous tissue, and the fashioning +of the brain and its parts. It is true that we cannot indicate +the exact moment when, in the increasing complexity of the +tissues, the simpler forms of organic energy pass into the higher +form of brain energy accompanied by consciousness. But that is +just because it is a continuous development, an evolution. That +the passage from the one into the other does actually take place we +are bound, by all the canons of logical reasoning, to admit. It is +only during life, however, that neurosis occurs or is possible. A +great number of modes of organic energy proceed side by side in +the pulsating tissues of the living dog, their orderly continuance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>being what we term <i>life</i>. And only in and through their orderly +continuance is the maintenance of the structure of the tissues rendered +possible. The organic structure is like a spinning top. Only +so long as it spins and manifests its proper energy is its stability +maintained. All around it are forces which tend to make it totter +to its fall. But so long as it spins freely it can resist all minor attempts +to upset its stability. And when the dog dies; what happens +then? The molecular vibrations of the brain in common with +all other forms of organic energy cease. The top no longer spins; +and the structure totters to its fall. Decomposition sets in. The +orderly organic changes which characterise life, give place to the +destructive changes which characterise decay. But according to +the law of the conservation of energy, although there is decomposition +of the tissues of which the body was composed there is no destruction +or annihilation of energy. The particular modes of energy +through which the body was instinct with life pass away; but +only to give rise to their equivalents in other modes of energy. Just +as the puddle in the road disappears, but only to give origin to an +equivalent mass of invisible water-vapor; just as the candle disappears, +but only to give rise to its equivalent mass in the products of +combustion; so throughout life and in death the energy which throbs +in the tissues neither appears nor disappears except at the expense +of, or to the gain of, other modes of energy. Life is like a vortex +in a rapid stream; on surrounding energy it is dependent for its +continued existence; into surrounding energy it melts away. And +this is true not only of individual life but of life in its entirety. +Some believe that the vortex had a natural origin, the organic being +evolved from the inorganic. Others hold that it was through +the direct interposition of the finger of God that the tiny vortex of +primitive life was set a twirling. Be this as it may, once initiated +the vortex of life is dependent on surrounding stores of energy.</p> + +<p>Turning now from the objective aspect to the subjective aspect +we pass from neural processes to states of consciousness. In the +language of the identity hypothesis, here provisionally adopted, the +states of consciousness in the dog’s mind, are the subjective aspect +of what, from the objective aspect, are the molecular vibrations of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>his brain-tissues. And as in considering the matter objectively, so +now in regarding the mental aspect, we must ask from what the +complex and orderly states of consciousness of the dog’s mind have +been evolved. In the fertilised ovum from which the dog is developed, +(and the same is true of the amœboid ancestor from which, +hypothetically, the race of dogs has been evolved,) nothing so complex +as a state of consciousness is to be found. From what then +have the states of consciousness been evolved? Do we not seem +forced by parity of reasoning to answer: From something more +simple than consciousness but of the same order of existence, which +answers subjectively to the simpler organic energy of the fertilised +ovum? Such, at any rate, is the hypothesis which appears to me +the most philosophical and the most logically consistent. It requires, +however, no little effort of thought to conceive the existence +of those elementary states from which consciousness may have had +its origin. We may be aided in doing so, perhaps, if we fix our attention +on the close association of brain-energy and states of consciousness, +regarding them as <i>distinguishable</i> but not <i>separable</i>. Now +the nervous energy of the brain is extraordinarily complex; and +yet we believe that it arises by a process of continuous development +from the much less complex energy of the fertilised ovum. In the +ovum there is no brain-energy; there is only the far simpler germinal +energy from which it is evolved. So too, the consciousness in +the dog’s mind is wonderfully complex; but if it has arisen by a +process of development, it must have been evolved from something +of like nature only indefinitely simpler. May we not fairly suppose, +therefore, that in the fertilised ovum, though there is no consciousness, +there are the germinal states from which consciousness may +be evolved? Or to put the matter tersely, may we not say: As the +complex molecular vibrations of the brain are to the simpler molecular +vibrations of the ovum; so are the complex states of consciousness +associated with the former to the simpler states of infra-consciousness, +if we may so call them, associated with the latter? +It is the association of consciousness and infra-consciousness with +energy—its objective manifestation—that is the distinguishing feature +of the view which I am endeavoring to set forth. Concomitant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>with the evolution of higher modes of organic energy from those +lowly modes which alone obtain in the ovum or the amœba, is the +evolution of consciousness from lowly modes of infra-consciousness.</p> + +<p>It is true that it is only through the exercise of the conceptual +faculty of reason, never through the senses or by direct perception, +that we can reach this suggested infra-consciousness. But this will +hardly be regarded as a valid objection by those who believe in the +existence of the ether, or by those who adopt the atomic theory, +neither of which could be reached by the senses or by perception +alone. Still less will it be regarded as an objection by those who +have grasped the distinction between energy as manifested in the +objective world, and consciousness as inevitably subjective. Of no +consciousness other than our own have we direct and first-hand experience. +And yet certain manifestations of energy as exhibited by +other living beings force upon us the conviction that we are not +alone in possessing the subjective attribute of consciousness. That +not only the dog and the elephant, but the bee also and the spider +are endowed with this attribute and are conscious, though not self-conscious, +few of us doubt for a moment. But their consciousness +is presumably far simpler than ours. Carrying this simplification +yet farther down the scale of animal life, we reach in the jelly-fish, +the sea-anemone, and the sponge, forms of life which can hardly be +said to be conscious at all with a consciousness comparable to our +own. Yet they would seem to be endowed with the dim foreshadowings +of such consciousness. Finally in the amœba and the monad +we have these dim foreshadowings reduced to the lowest terms that +are suggested by the study of organic life. If, then, in the series of +organic forms, down even to the lowest, we admit consciousness or +its foreshadowing, though it lies and must ever lie beyond the reach +of our senses, why should we hesitate to generalise our belief in +logical and scientific form, and hold that all organic modes of energy +are associated with conscious or infra-conscious states?⁠<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> It may +perhaps, be objected that such a view, carried to its logical conclusion +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>involves the supposition that all the tissues of the body are +conscious or at least infra-conscious, whereas it is a well-established +scientific conclusion that consciousness is specially associated with +the nervous tissue of the brain. I see no reason, however, why this +conclusion should not be accepted. If the organic transformations +of energy in the ovum are associated with what for lack of a better +term I have here called infra-consciousness, then there are two +possibilities. Either the accompanying consciousness is <i>entirely</i> concentrated +in association with the molecular vibrations of the brain; +or it merely becomes <i>dominant</i> in the functioning of that tissue and +continues in the dim infra-conscious condition in the other tissues of +the body. Now to judge from our own experience it is only the +dominant molecular vibrations in the brain that are accompanied +by the clear light of consciousness. The sub-dominant neural +changes are indeed accompanied by a dim sub-consciousness. But +there are many molecular changes (even in the cerebral hemispheres +themselves where consciousness is “called into existence”) which +do not rise to the level of consciousness at all or are quite lost in +the glare of that consciousness. Why this should be so I am not +prepared to say. It seems to be a law of our mental being. Certainly +it is convenient that it is so; and it may have been fostered +or established by natural selection. We all know the sense of confusion +that arises when, in certain states of intense nervous excitement, +a host of ideas are crowding up into dominance and jostling +each other for supremacy. An organism so constituted that such a +state of things was normal, would, we may suppose, stand but a +poor chance of survival. Hence perhaps there has arisen that due +subordination of conscious, sub-conscious, and infra-conscious states +which characterises the normal life of conscious beings. Having +regard, then, to the cerebral hemispheres where consciousness +emerges, not all the molecular changes there transpiring rise to the +level of full consciousness. There is not a little of what Dr. Carpenter +used to call unconscious cerebration. We seem forced to +admit the existence of submerged states of consciousness; states +which are infra-conscious, but which may become conscious at any +moment by rising into dominance. And if in the cerebral hemispheres +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>there are infra-conscious states, why should there not be +associated with every molecular thrill of the living body yet lower +states of infra-consciousness too deeply submerged ever in man to +become dominant?</p> + +<p>It is, however, one thing to show that there is no insuperable +objection to accepting the existence of such infra-conscious states, +if such existence be otherwise probable, and another thing to establish +this probability. And this leads us back again to the grounds +on which their existence may fairly be regarded as probable. We +are told that the mental faculties of the dog in common with his +physical or organic frame, have arisen in the course of ages by a +process of development. It is clear that such a statement is intended +to apply to the living dog with active faculties; to a <i>going</i> mechanism, +or rather organism which is also conscious. Well and good. +The material structure has been evolved from lower forms of matter: +the organic modes of energy (in virtue of which he lives), from lower +forms of energy, the mental states (in virtue of which he is conscious), +from—what? I suggest in continuation and conclusion of +this sentence—from lower forms of infra-consciousness; that is to +say, of what is of the same order of existence as consciousness, but +has not yet risen to the level of consciousness. Many people will +no doubt see no necessity for such a conclusion. It is making an +unnecessary bother, they will say, about a very simple matter. At +some undefined stage of organic evolution—perhaps when nervous +tissue had its genesis, perhaps earlier—consciousness began to dawn +and has since developed in clearness and brightness during the evolution +of higher and higher organisms. According to this view, the +ascending curve of evolution is divisible at some undefined point +into two portions: of which one represents organic evolution previous +to the dawn of consciousness; the other organic evolution +subsequent to the dawn of consciousness. But the question at once +suggests itself: From what did consciousness dawn at this undefined +point? In answer to which there are some who do not hesitate to +reply that the consciousness arose out of the physical conditions; +that when the rhythmic dance of organic molecules reached a certain +intensity and intricacy consciousness was developed. There is, indeed, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>a certain class of nerve-physiologists, or of medical men who +write on nerve-physiology, who, if they do not hold that states of +consciousness are generated from the energy which accompanies +the working of the brain-tissues, at any rate write as if this was their +belief. But such a view is quite untenable. If there is one thing +clearly established, both by those who have approached the matter +from the scientific side, and by those who have approached the +matter from the metaphysical side, it is that the distinction between +energy and consciousness is radical and absolute. No conceivable +increase in the orderly complexity of the molecular vibrations of +brain-tissue could give rise to that consciousness which differs <i>toto +cœlo</i> from any manifestation of energy.</p> + +<p>And yet though stated in a form that is philosophically false, +and therefore misleading, the conclusions of these earnest students +of nerve-physiology are practically sound. Grant, for the moment, +that the states of consciousness in the dog’s mind are the subjective +aspect of the molecular energy of his brain. Then the following +diagram (Fig. 1.) will represent the ascending curve of development +which, from the objective aspect, is a development of modes of +energy, and from the subjective aspect is a development of modes +of consciousness.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="evolution-figure-1" style="max-width: 43.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/evolution-figure-1.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p><span class="smcap">Fig. 1.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Now what the nerve-physiologists are sometimes apt to do is, +at some moment of development say <i>a</i>, to change their point of +view, from the subjective aspect which deals with consciousness to +the objective aspect which deals with energy. Their conclusions +are practically sound because they are still dealing with the same developmental +curve. They state these conclusions in language which +is philosophically misleading because they suddenly jump from the +subjective aspect to the objective aspect and ignore the great distinction +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>between the two. When they say that consciousness emerges +from the physical conditions at <i>a</i>, they presumably mean that at +this point we are first justified in speaking of consciousness or the +subjective aspect in anything like a human sense. But is it not +more logical to hold that, just as from the objective standpoint the +complex energy of the dog’s brain has been developed from the +simpler energy of the ovum, so from the subjective standpoint, the +complex consciousness of the dog’s mind has been developed from +the simpler infra-consciousness of the ovum? And if we do not +accept this view, do we not seem committed to the unevolutionary +doctrine that the conscious aspect suddenly makes its appearance, +without those lowly germinal beginnings which it is of the essence +of any theory of development to postulate?</p> + +<p>It will perhaps be said that all this assumes an identity hypothesis, +with its supposed double aspect, which is not accepted by +the majority of men of science. Let us look at the matter, therefore, +from what would seem the only other point of view open to +one who accepts the theory of development as applicable alike to +the dog’s mind and to the dog’s body. If states of consciousness +and the molecular transactions in the brain are not different aspects +of the same occurrences, they are parallel, concomitant, or associated +phenomena. Our diagram will thus become that given below.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="evolution-figure-2" style="max-width: 43.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/evolution-figure-2.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p><span class="smcap">Fig. 2.</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Here the parallel or associated phenomena occur together at +the higher end of the developmental curve, and, at <i>a</i>, the consciousness +is supposed to emerge. On this view there is less justification +for the nerve-physiologists’ assertion that it arises out of physical +processes; for it is not simply another aspect of these processes, +but something wholly different arbitrarily associated with them. +Even on this view it would seem more logical to suppose that since +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>the association of mental states with the dominant neural energy is +of normal occurrence from <i>a</i> onwards, the consciousness there emerging +has been evolved from infra-consciousness parallel and concomitant +with the physical processes in the ovum. If this be not so, +we may once more ask: From what has the parallel line to the right +of the diagram been evolved? We cannot say from the neural conditions +without changing our point of view and ignoring the great +distinction between matter and energy on the one hand and consciousness +on the other. From what then has the consciousness +been evolved, if not from something of like nature only indefinitely +simpler which has here been spoken of as infra consciousness?</p> + +<p>We must now take a further step, one however in which all +evolutionists will not be prepared to follow us. Attention has already +been drawn to the fact that those who accept the theory of +evolution are not agreed in their faith—for it is on either side a matter +rather of belief than of demonstration—with respect to the origin +of life. Some believe that the primitive organic germs were not +produced by natural development nor through any process of evolution. +For such, the hypothesis I am advocating must be submitted +in the following form—when first the life-energy was started by the +direct interposition of the finger of God it was endowed with some +dim form of infra-consciousness which in the course of evolution developed +into consciousness. And presumably those who see in the +amœba and the fertilised ovum some dim foreshadowings of consciousness +may follow me thus far. But for those who believe that +the organic has arisen on this earth by process of natural development +from the inorganic, the hypothesis must be more sweeping in +its range. We must say that all modes of energy of whatever kind +whether organic or inorganic have their conscious or infra-conscious +aspect.⁠<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> Startling as this may sound there is, I believe, no other +logical conclusion possible for the evolutionist <i>pur sang</i>. For where +are we to draw the line? The states of consciousness of the higher +animals have been evolved from lower forms of infra-consciousness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>in the amœba-like or yet more simple protoplasmic germs in the +dawn of life. But if those low forms of organic infra-consciousness +were themselves evolved, from what could they arise if they were +not developed from yet more lowly forms of infra-consciousness similar +in kind but inferior in degree associated with inorganic transformations +of energy? In any case it is here submitted that this +doctrine that infra-consciousness is associated with <i>all</i> forms of energy +is necessarily implied in the phrase mental evolution for all +thinkers who have grasped the distinction between consciousness and +energy. And if this be admitted there is disclosed, by implication, +an answer behind and beyond that ordinarily given to a question +which has again and again been asked—the question:—Is there a +conservation of consciousness analogous to the conservation of energy? +The negative answer generally given to this question results +from the fact that the question itself has always been put in a form +which does not admit of a satisfactory solution. There is not a conservation +of consciousness any more than there is a conservation of +neural energy or a conservation of electricity. There is no conservation +of neural energy because this is only one mode of energy +which may be transformed into other modes. Not until we have +generalised energy so as to include <i>all</i> its modes can we speak of +conservation in reference to it. So too not until we have generalised +that universal form of existence, of which consciousness is only the +highest and most developed mode, so as to include all modes, can +we speak of conservation in reference to it. But so generalised I +submit that there is a conservation of that form of existence which +includes both consciousness and infra-consciousness, co-ordinate +and coextensive with the conservation of energy.⁠<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> Just as the dominant +neural transformations in the dog’s brain are like a special +vortex in the onward-flowing stream of the world’s energy, so are +the states of consciousness in his mind like a special vortex in the +onward flowing stream of that mode of existence which, whether it +have risen to the level of consciousness or not, is still of the conscious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>order. For the believer in scientific monism there is but one +vortex, objectively presented as energy, subjectively felt in consciousness. +For the dualist there are two vortices, (1) an objective vortex +and (2) a subjective vortex associated with the other and “called +into existence” by it. In either case the vortex is dependent for its +continual existence on surrounding stores of that out of which it has +arisen; and in either case the modern tendencies of scientific thought +suggest conservation which is but the antithesis of creation <i>ex nihilo</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p>In conclusion it should be noted that this hypothesis is but a +new presentation of an old speculation. It differs as it here stands +from any theory of “mind-stuff” in that it regards the question +rather from the dynamical than from the statical point of view. Not +“mind-stuff” answering to matter but a universal conscious order +or aspect of existence answering to universal energy is the leading +idea I have sought to develop. In its newer form, again, this hypothesis +differs from the view that “all force is will-power,” or the +view that “all matter is conscious,” or the theory of “intelligent +monads,” in endeavoring, not to carry anything like <i>our</i> consciousness +down into association with the simpler manifestations of energy, +but rather to seek in association with these lower manifestations +the germinal states indefinitely simpler than consciousness, +from which nevertheless consciousness has been developed. Finally +the keynote of this newer presentation is that which is the keynote +of all modern theories of life and of thought—the doctrine of +evolution.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">C. Lloyd Morgan.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> I have elsewhere (<i>Animal Life and Intelligence</i>, p. 467) suggested the term +<i>kinesis</i> for the manifestation of energy, and the term <i>metakinesis</i> for its conscious +or infra-conscious aspect.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> In the phraseology I have elsewhere suggested, there is no kinesis unaccompanied +by its metakinetic aspect.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> That is to say, a conservation of metakinesis co-ordinate and coextensive with +the kinetic conservation of energy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> The bearing of this conservation of consciousness and infra-consciousness +(metakinesis) on Eastern conceptions of immortality and on transmigration would +be an interesting theme to follow out but is beyond the scope of the present paper.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="MECHANICAL_INVENTION">THE NEW CIVILISATION DEPENDS ON MECHANICAL INVENTION.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>By reason of his physical nature man is hampered by three wants—he +needs food, clothing, and shelter. In his first and lowest +stage of civilisation man lives in a state of enthrallment to nature. +He dreads and worships the cruel forces of matter. But by the aid +of science, and invention which flows from science, man attains +domination or control over things and forces and directs them into +the service of humanity for use or for beauty. The soul conquers +nature by science and machinery and then it next desires to see this +conquest over nature reflected in works of art. Hence it creates +architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, all of these fine +arts portraying man’s victory over wants and necessities.</p> + +<p>If the spectacle of pauperism and crime, the savagery that still +lingers in the slums of our cities, sternly reminds us of the yet feeble +hold which our civilisation has obtained even in cities—if the census +of mankind proves that three-fourths are yet counted as below +the line that separates the half-civilised from the civilised—yet we +are wont to console ourselves by the promise and potency which we +can all discern in productive industry aided by the might of science +and invention. This view is always hopeful. We see that there is +a sort of geometric progress in the conquest over things and forces. +The ability of man to create wealth continually accelerates. The +more he obtains the more he can obtain. The more each one gets +the more his neighbor also can get. Even the weakling of society, +the pauper or beggar, the insane, and the criminal all fare better +in the centres of wealth than they do at a distance from them where +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>there is no wealth to beg or steal and no asylums created and sustained +by wealth to shelter and heal their diseased bodies.</p> + +<p>Wealth in the modern sense of the word, far more than in its +ancient sense, is self-productive. It is capital, and capital is wealth +that generates wealth. Capital represents conquered forces and +things—conquered for the supply of human wants. Capital consists +of natural forces yoked and set to work for food, clothing, shelter, +and the facilities of human culture. The three physical wants (food, +clothing, and shelter) are produced by nature—they are the chains +and fetters whereby nature asserts her right to enslave humanity—to +keep man in a state of thralldom.</p> + +<p>But the Promethean cunning of man, realised first in science +and next in useful machines, has succeeded in subduing the powers +of nature and imposing on them the task of supplying and gratifying +the very needs which nature creates in us. Nature had chained +man to the task of daily toil for food, clothing, and shelter. But +man turns back upon nature and compels her to take the place of +human drudgery and produce an abundance of these needed supplies +and bring them wherever they are needed for consumption. This +is accomplished by mechanical combinations that secure the service +of steam, electricity, and various devices of earth, air, fire, and water.</p> + +<p>This self-generating wealth that exists in the shape of capital +is so much on the increase that it fills all classes of our population +with hopes or if not with hopes at least with discontents—and discontent +is certainly the product of hope struggling up from the +depths of the soul. Without the vivid perception of a higher ideal +and without the feeling that it is attainable, there would not be any +such thing as discontent. The average production of man, woman, +and child in the United States increased in the thirty years between +1850 and 1880 from about 25 cents per day to 40 cents per day—an +increase of over 60 per cent. This means the production of far +more substantial improvements for human comfort. Much more +wealth is created that possesses an enduring character and may be +handed down to the next generation. Finer dwellings, better roads +and streets, fences for lands, drainings and levelings, and the processes +necessary to bring wild land under cultivation, artificial supplies +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>of water and gas, the warehouses and elevators, and the appliances +of commerce—and finally the buildings and furnishings of +culture, including churches, schools, libraries, museums, asylums, +and all manner of public buildings. Great Britain, the leading nation +in commerce and manufactures, according to the returns for 1888 +(see Mulhall’s “Dict. Statistics,” new edition) distributed comfortable +incomes of $1000 and upwards to each family of 30 per cent. +of the entire population, and the remaining 70 per cent. averaged +$485 per annum (for each family). France provided incomes of +$1300 per annum for 24 per cent. of its families. This shows what +great capitalists are doing for the creation and distribution of wealth. +Italy showed by its income returns that less than 2 per cent. received +incomes of $1000 and upwards, while 98 per cent. of the families +averaged less than $300 income. Italy makes little use of steam +power and labor saving machines.</p> + +<p>If science progresses and its concomitant, useful invention, +progresses as fast for the next hundred years as it has done for the +past forty years, the vision of Edward Bellamy of comfort for all +will be realised without the necessity of any form of socialism. +There will be comfort and even luxury for all who will labor a moderate +amount of time.</p> + +<p>Science inventories nature and discovers properties and possible +combinations. Invention uses these combinations to meet mechanical +problems. Can any one doubt who looks into the state of science +and its continually improving methods that the conquest of nature +will be more rapid in the coming century than it has been in the +past century?</p> + +<p>But we are challenged by the question: What is the good of +annihilating the necessity for bodily toil? Will not man degenerate +spiritually as he comes to possess luxury at cheaper and cheaper +rates? These material advantages gained by useful invention which +create a steady and permanent supply of food, clothing, and shelter, +are they not mere sumptuary provisions and do they imply progress +in civilisation? To this challenge we reply by pointing out the relation +of invention to the communication of intelligence and the +diffusion of knowledge by newspaper and book.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span></p> + +<p>In the first place it is obvious that the three classes of employments +devoted chiefly to the supply of the physical wants—namely +agriculture, manufactures, and commerce—are undergoing change +by aid of mechanic invention in such a manner as to bring the laborer +everywhere more and more into relation with his fellow men. +In other words commerce increases more and more, and becomes +a part of all employments. In exchanging goods each gets something +that he needed more than what he parted with. But the best +result of the exchange is the acquaintance formed between producer +and consumer. Each has learned something of the other’s ideas, +modes of looking at the world and habits of action. Each one’s life +is enriched by the addition of the knowledge of the life of the other.</p> + +<p>Man as a spiritual being has for his problem the exploration of +the two worlds—the worlds of nature and man. The problem is too +great for the individual and he must avail himself of the work of +others. Each man may inventory a small portion of nature different +from all others. Each one may live a life different from another’s. +But the individual gets a very small glimpse of nature by the aid of +his own senses. He gets a very small arc of the total of human life +in his survey of his own biography.</p> + +<p>But by intercommunication each one may extend and supplement +his own observations of nature and of the experience of life,—he +may avail himself of the aid of the sense-perceptions of others +and still more of the aid of the thoughts and reflections of others.</p> + +<p>We see at once that man is man because he possesses and uses +this means of re-enforcing his individual observations and reflections +by those of the race. Man is an individual endowed with the power +of absorbing the results of the race. We have with this a definition +of civilisation and a standard of measurement by which we may determine +the rate of progress. Advancement means that there are +improved means realised by which each individual can give to the +rest of mankind the results of his living and doing and thinking and +at the same time share in the lives, thoughts, and deeds of others.</p> + +<p>Looked at in the light of this definition we shall be enabled to +claim progress in civilisation on substantial grounds. We shall be +able to see something more hopeful in the material progress promised +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>us in the coming century than the cheap supply of bodily comforts. +We see a progressive increase of intercommunication which +will enable each individual to command the results of the rational +intelligence of all mankind.</p> + +<p>Man is first a speaking animal and next a writing animal. Each +word that he uses expresses a general meaning. Each word therefore +stores up an indefinite amount of experience. All men may +pour into it their experience and by it recognise the experience of +others. The art of writing at once increases infinitely the possibility +of intercommunication because it preserves the experience recorded +for persons widely separated in space and far removed in +time. It renders every <i>where</i> in some sense a <i>here</i> and every <i>when</i> +a <i>now</i>. But mechanic invention comes to the aid of speech and the +elementary arts of writing by printing with movable types. Printing +and gunpowder are two great elementary arts both attributed to +the Germanic race—the two wheels of modern civilisation so to speak. +But the Anglo-Saxon has added the steam engine and the telegraph. +The one makes locomotion possible to an increasing degree and the +other makes instantaneous intercommunication with all places possible.</p> + +<p>Armed with these instrumentalities our modern civilisation +lives in a sort of spiritual border land. It looks across the frontier +and is in a constant process of interaction with all other nations. +The great instrument of this process is the daily newspaper. Our +people are becoming from year to year a travelled people—in a short +time the per cent. of the population that has crossed the ocean has +doubled. The per cent. that has visited the western border land +has quadrupled. But the number of people who live in constant +daily interrelation with all mankind by aid of the daily newspaper +has increased a hundred fold within a single generation.</p> + +<p>The test of a civilisation is its efficiency in re-enforcing the endeavors +of each individual so as to give him access to the labors of +the world. We are approaching a spiritual civilisation as well as an +era of the general distribution of wealth.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">W. T. Harris.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="RELIGION_AND_PROGRESS">RELIGION AND PROGRESS.<br> +<span class="smaller">INTERPRETED BY THE LIFE AND LAST WORK OF WATHEN MARK WILKS CALL.</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>On August 20, 1890, died Wathen Mark Wilks Call, M. A.,—a +spirit finely touched to fine issues. The posthumous work before +me revives the sense of personal bereavement, but soothes it +with the satisfaction of holding another interview with the beloved +scholar on themes that through many years engaged our conversation. +Here is a casket of golden thoughts cast up from the deep where +went down the white-winged ship freighted with such treasures. The +general world is unconscious that it is poorer; its ports and marts +had little welcome for the dainty wares of this unfamiliar bark. Many +an American thinker will through this specimen of the sunken treasures +realise the world’s loss when it is irreparable; and some who +used to hover around the silver sail now vanished, and come ashore +laden with its gifts, have wondered that this writer, valued by Mill, +George Eliot, and the scholarly English circle, should have courted +obscurity rather than fame. He was not indolent, though his published +volumes were few: “Lyra Hellenica” (1842), “Reverberations” +(1849, second edition 1876), “Golden Histories” (1871). +Besides his poems, his contributions in the reviews,—some, like +“The Nero Saga” (<i>Theological Review</i>, July, 1871), equal to volumes,—would +make a substantial and important collection. There is +enough thought and learning in his poems and anonymous articles, +to have earned fame for an ambitious and pushing author. Why +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>then did the world get so much less than it ought to have got from +this fine and active brain, and why is he so little known?</p> + +<p>Many years ago I heard from his own lips the story of his life, +which is partly told in the fifty pages that introduce this book, under +the title “A Chapter from my Autobiography.” It will there be +seen that even so late as thirty-six years ago the finest minds and +hearts that could not accept creed-dogmas might be almost mortally +wounded. From that time he lived and wrote as from a retreat. +The actual case, as he told it me, was that his sister, a widow, left +him executor of her last will and testament, and the guardian of her +children. He was tenderly attached to this sister and to her children. +She knew his opinions and his doubts. When he went into the +court for confirmation of his trust he was confronted by the postscript +of a letter he had written to a supposed friend intimating his +“dissent from the creeds of the churches.” For this mild and vague +heresy he was prevented from acting as the guardian of his sister’s +children, and fulfilling a sacred trust.</p> + +<p>At this time he was a clergyman in the Church of England, +which to-day contains many ministers more unorthodox than Mr. +Call was when he received this crushing legal blow. This public +disgrace of a sensitive scholar, the loss of position, the alienation +of friends, added to the grief of seeing his sister’s children carried +to strangers, parted him from the world. He seemed to have no +place in it. Stunned, lacerated, he had no heart to enter on any +new profession. But from his retreat came the poems, pathetic but +hopeful, entitled “Reverberations,” some of which are sung in the +liberal chapels of England. Deified egotism and vengeance had +brought home to him all their heartlessness: all nature was overcast +with this chilling cloud.</p> + +<p>Silently bearing his grief, he gave himself to the search for +truth in those matters which had been predetermined for him by a +thousand subtle influences and associations. Born in 1817, he had +graduated at Cambridge,—the chief poet of its Magazine,—had +passed through his Shelleyan phase of scepticism, and entered the +church (1845) through one of the many casuistical blind-ways provided +in that old minster for those who hesitate at the main portal. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>Eleven years were occupied in passing from one to another theoretical +cloister or tower of the venerated church before he finally discovered +that it had no place for him. Nor was there any church +which he could honestly enter. He must be the hermit of his truth. +But in that retreat, where the lonely scholar must eat his own heart, +the healing hand of a true divinity found him.</p> + +<p>Love found him. He married (1857) a lady whose beauty was +the expression of her genius. Her father was Dr. Brabant, the friend +of Strauss, and founder of the <i>Westminster Review</i>. In early life +she married C. C. Hennell, author of “An Inquiry into the Origin +of Christianity,”—a work which made a deep impression on Theodore +Parker, who made it the subject of an article in the old <i>Dial</i>. +Miss Brabant, versed in ancient and modern languages, did excellent +work on the <i>Westminster Review</i>, assisted by her friend Marian +Evans, afterwards known as “George Eliot.” These two ladies, +as I have heard, undertook together the translation of Strauss’s +“Leben Jesu,” and were more than half through it when Miss Brabant +married. By a contrivance of Mrs. Hennell the name of Marian +Evans alone, and to her regret, appeared on the title-page. “George +Eliot” thereby gained a reputation helpful to her, though somewhat +embarrassing, implying as it did a knowledge of Hebrew and Greek +which she did not possess.</p> + +<p>Mr. Call’s marriage was most happy. The Calls were regarded +by their circle of kindred spirits as representing the true ideal union. +They had together shared the friendship of the finest intellects, and +had moved abreast in intellectual progress, for more than the life of +a generation when parted by death.</p> + +<p>About seven years ago trouble for the first time entered this +almost sacred household. A formidable consumption of one lung +set in, threatening Mr. Call’s life. I have always believed that this +was the long latent bequest of pious cruelties suffered in earlier life. +Six years ago the case became hopeless, in its normal course, and +the physicians said that the only possibility of recovery lay in a rare +and difficult operation, imperilling the few months of life that might +remain. The patient and his devoted wife resolved to incur this +risk. A tube was inserted through the back; through it the pus +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>was drained from the ulcerated lung; and little by little the tube +was withdrawn, by infinitesimal degrees, as the healing process +went on behind it. It was a painful anxious process of many weeks. +At this time, when he was kept motionless, I marvelled at his cheerful +spirit; though the slightest miscarriage in the wearisome operation +might prove fatal, the patient was always serene. One of his +physicians, by no means sure of the result, approached him on the +subject of religion, and the condition of his soul. Soon after Mr. +Call gave me an account of the conversation. In religious matters +the doctor had dabbled where Call had dived; it ended in the physician’s +being compelled to consider the condition of his own soul, +and why he should be holding the religion of primitive man along +with a science almost able to raise the dead.</p> + +<p>The wonderful operation was perfectly successful. Love had +healed the young man’s broken heart; science had healed the mature +man’s dying frame. The real miracles that supplant fictitious +ones, and fulfil their fables, had been brought home to him. Five +happy years were added to his life, during which he wrote the important +work to be hereafter considered. On a summer evening last +year he passed a pleasant evening at home, ended with a game of +cribbage with his wife. During the night he died painlessly of heart +disease; a <i>post mortem</i> examination proved the lungs quite sound. +My friend’s body and mind and affections were so combined in organic +unity that his very ailments had for me symbolical significance. +The unsuspected failure of the heart, for instance, seems a last sequel +of the spiritual lesion given him by Dogma as a parting blow: its +counterpart is to me visible in the fact that after writing this work +he hardly had heart to publish it. The substance of it was completed +in 1887; it was entirely finished in 1889; it lay in his library +one year. His wife wished him to publish it—so she told me—but +he thought the world would not be interested in his views. So deep +had bigotry been able to send this man into the vale of Humiliation; +and what an intellect was thus discouraged may be partly estimated +by those who shall read this book on “Final Causes” published by +his widow.</p> + +<p>In the last generation many young men, awakened by the song +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>of Byron and Shelley, started out on a new spiritual pilgrimage. +Their path was at first fringed with poetic flowers, and in the distance +shone the city called Beautiful. But the path at length became +flinty, the city became more dim with progress towards it, and +many a pilgrim turned back. Those who pressed on were unique +men, so that they came to parting ways, and each had to advance +on his individual and lonely path, albeit they were travelling in the +same direction. The records of these pilgrimages, wherever found, +are chapters in the scriptures of their generation. There is one thing +common to them all,—the tenacity with which they have clung to +their old faith, and after it to their old church, until beaten off by +bigotry or by conscience. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken +me?” It was no mere cry, but a question reaching far into +the ages, and stirring innumerable crucified hearts that have found +no voice. Men do not forsake their God; their God forsakes them. +They have invested some ancient name with all the pearls of their +heart; they have idealised him as wisdom, justice, love, compassion; +but no sooner do they think an honest thought, or maintain +justice and love against unjust and heartless dogmas, than their +Good Shepherd beats such tender lambs with his crook and sets the +wolves on them. Yet even then, so long as they can, they keep in +the fold, and lift their lacerated hands in prayer. They will even +practice some self-deception that they may continue the old formulas +after the truth has forsaken these.</p> + +<p>Mr. Call’s youthful scepticism,—a spell wrought by Byron and +Shelley,—being chiefly the expression of others’ experiences, and +with but little root in his own, carried him no further than the +study of philosophy and theology. It was not deep enough to prevent +his entering on residence in the University of Cambridge with +a view of becoming a clergyman. The struggle being not yet in the +arena of his own life and heart, but a combat for his soul between +the Humes and the Jeremy Taylors, poetic sentiment easily carried +the day. His nature clamored for a realised ideal, and the Church +captivated him. “The church, as the embodiment of celestial truth, +as the aggregate of noble and beautiful spirits, dead or living, appeared +a sublime conception.” When a youth falls in love does he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>consider whether his beautiful lady’s bloom may not be hectic, or +hereditary cancer be hovering near the fair breast? Our young +scholar weds our Lady of the Litany amid the light of stained windows, +and the white-robed choristers. He presently finds that the +lovely creature insists on his preaching the doctrine that all who do +not yield to her charms are to be burnt at the stake eternally. “Human +philosophy had failed to explain to me the mystery of existence; +Christian philosophy explained it to be the perpetuation of sin and +misery, intensified by omnipotent intervention.” Recoiling from +this the young clergyman went through years of critical investigation; +he mastered the exegesis of the Germans and the French; +and at length found himself a simple believer in the religion of Humanity. +He, a clergyman of the Church of England!</p> + +<p>In the fifty preliminary pages of this posthumous book, comprising +“A Chapter from my Autobiography,” we have a succinct +and useful summary of the crucial criticisms under which biblical +authority and supernaturalism have been relegated to professional +casuistry. This we will not study here—profoundly interesting as +it is—but dwell for a little on the situation in which the scholar +found himself.</p> + +<p>“While I had thus been working my way through darkness +into light—the sober light of sad reality—life had been bringing to +all who belonged to me, as well as to myself, varied experiences of +pain and sorrow. For their sake I had already done violence to my +better nature. Was I now to render the previous sacrifice nugatory? +Was the black shadow of my unbelief to enfold those who had +already more than their share of the burden of life to sustain? +Sympathising friends had early encouraged me to retain my position +in the church. A beneficed clergyman, advanced in years, whose +studies had ended, like my own, in the abandonment of dogmatic +Christianity, had drawn up a statement of the motives which, as he +argued, justified him in the retention of his preferment. This statement +was forwarded to me. A celebrated and venerable German +professor had sent me a message deprecating the abandonment of a +post which, he thought, I might continue to occupy without dishonor +to myself and with profit to others. I had hitherto deferred +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>to the judgment of persons whom I regarded as superior to myself +in knowledge of life and in ability to determine questions of moral +obligation; but the progress of unbelief and enlarged experience +decided me, at last, on the adoption of an independent course of +thought and action. Taking counsel of my own heart, I resolved +to terminate a conflict which had become intolerable. Painful and +singular complications preceded, accompanied, and followed my retirement +from the English Church.”</p> + +<p>Here is the “Robert Elsmere” of real life. Since Mr. Call left the +Church of England, thirty-five years ago, it has become a largely rationalistic +institution. Legal prosecutions of clergymen for heresy have +resulted in proving that the evangelical and orthodox have no more +right to the Church, in Law, than the liberals. They were usurpers +of authority not guaranteed by the constitution, in which there is +nothing requiring a clergyman to believe in hell, or the devil, or +miracles, or the infallibility of the Bible. Many clergymen are now +honestly preaching a simple theistic and humanitarian religion, and +when told they ought to leave the Church need only reply, “If you +think so you have a right to prosecute me.”</p> + +<p>The English charlatan who calls himself “Father Ignatius,” +who could only make himself ridiculous as a heresy-hunter abroad, +seems to have found the Episcopal Church in New York provincial +enough to take him seriously. He would never venture to suggest +the prosecution of a Broad Churchman at home. His ignorant tribe +have too keen a recollection of their severe falls in grappling with +Bishop Colenso, and the authors of “Essays and Reviews.” We +have, however, to deal with America, where the sects, by departure +of some of their best brains, seem falling more and more under control +of their illiberal constituents, though the consecration of Bishop +Phillips Brooks show that reactionists will not have it all their own +way. The passage I have quoted above bears upon a moral problem +which has already become urgent among us, and in the progress of +inquiry must inevitably become of very serious importance to large +numbers of ministers and their families. I therefore introduce here +a little digression on this subject.</p> + +<p>What is the moral duty of a young minister who finds himself +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>occupying the pulpit of a denomination in whose generally accepted +doctrines he has ceased to believe? The New York <i>Evening Post</i> +recently declared this to be a plain moral question. If—thus it argues—a +man has voluntarily entered the ministry of a church, and +afterwards forms opinions which, if known, would have prevented +his admission, he is morally bound to resign. But the question is +much more complex than that. In a majority of cases the minister +has not entered “voluntarily,”—within the genuine moral scope of +that term. His orthodox parents, abetted by their preacher, have +kept light from him, repressed his reason, imprisoned him in Sunday +schools and prayer-meetings; he has been accorded no free +choice; he has been led as a captive, before his intellect was capable +of judgment, artificially terrified about his soul, and the world’s +danger of damnation, and at length found himself in the pulpit. +When the victim finds himself disabused of these fictions, what is +his duty? In my belief it would be immoral for him to resign without +having first secured a public decision of his church on the issue. +His paramount obligations are to the community in which he lives. +He is morally bound to preach the truth as he sees it, openly, honestly, +plainly. He cannot utter the discredited creeds, prayers, or +dogmas. But he has a right,—nay he is bound,—to throw upon the +church which has entrapped him the responsibility of repudiating +his principles and doctrines. He should say to his church: “You +are responsible for the unhappy situation in which I find myself. By +your zealous propaganda you frightened or persuaded my parents, +my friends, myself, into acceptance of dogmas I now find false. The +logical result of taking you seriously was to turn from all worldly +occupations, and devote my life to the work of saving mankind from +a terrible doom. Now, awakened from the nightmare superinduced +by you, I find myself past the opportunities of youth, the time for +preparations in other professions irrecoverably lost, and a family +dependent on me. The situation concerns not only you and me, but +others we have involved. For years I have been laboring with you +to try and persuade other youths into the same situation as my own. +Something is due to them. I have deceived them and must undeceive +them. You say I must be true, but you must be true also. I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>have innocently reached a position which enables me to compel you +to publish to the world exactly where you stand. I will clearly define +my convictions: if you cannot tolerate them in your pulpit the youth +will know the precise limits to their freedom they agree to in entering +your ministry. If you can tolerate them they will know your +liberalism. Therefore I remain here proclaiming my truth, and will +not help you to cover the truth up by a resignation relieving you of +the duty of proclaiming your position with equal clearness. You +have got me here, and if I go now you must turn me out. So shall +the cause of truth be advanced.”</p> + +<p>While this may be affirmed, I think, as a general ethical principle, +it is equally true that each case must be judged by itself. The +above principle depends on the condition that the ministry has been +honestly entered from religious motives, there being no mental reservations +at that time. It will be observed that in the case of Mr. +Call the consideration entered that he had passed through a phase +of Shelleyan scepticism in early youth. This had to be weighed, +and perhaps may have had much to do with his determination to retire +voluntarily from the ministry. He never concealed his views, +however, and it is well known that great efforts are made by older +preachers to beat down the scepticism that often arises in the minds +of young candidates for the ministry. In such case these unwise +advisers assume a large share of responsibility for the event, whether +enough to justify the subsequent heretic in compelling a conflict +must depend on the minister’s conscience. Although, therefore, +Mr. Call decided rightly, in accordance with his moral consciousness, +it were by no means fair to maintain, with the author of +“Robert Elsmere,” that ministers who find themselves more liberal +than the majority of preachers in their church should surrender to +such mere superiority of physical force without testing its legality +and laying on it responsibility for its exercise of power. Robert +Elsmere should, on moral principles, have remained in the church. +By so remaining Colenso, Dean Stanley, Charles Kingsley, Max +Müller, Professor Jowett, Matthew Arnold, and others, have revealed +the fact that, in their church, thought is not delivered up by +law to the despotism of a majority.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p> + +<p>The case, however, is somewhat different again where the new +opinions adopted by a minister amount to an abandonment of the +fundamental doctrines of his church. That may not exonerate him +from demanding a formal and public declaration of the church, but +this being secured, it must affect his relation to the general world. +Should it be proved that he may be legally tolerated, he must then +consider whether it is his legitimate means of influence, or whether +he would be substituting for his own expression the mask of an extinct +faith. The ethical principle above affirmed relates to the first +practical step of the minister whose beliefs have changed. The progressive +and inquiring mind that continues in a church where it is +barely tolerated does so at great peril. Where the swift foot agrees +to march with the halt the pace must be that of the halt. Sceptical +minds occupying pulpits even of liberal denominations are likely to +discover, should such engagements end, that they have been unconsciously +arresting their own development in finding a conciliatory +<i>modus vivendi</i> with the reactionary brethren. There is, indeed, a +class of fine intellects, like the great English Broad Churchmen +already named, whose comparatively advanced views are the result +of larger learning; they have discovered that two and two are four, +and gathered courage to deny that the amount is five. These constitute +the right leaven by which great organisations are raised to +higher standards of knowledge and veracity. But there are original +and philosophic inquirers whose particular power were only buried +in such organisations, without elevating them. These are due to +the corps of pioneers in the direction whither the organisations are +advancing. Their task is original research. These cannot wisely +wear the uniform of any religious or political party.</p> + +<p>Mr. Call was such an original mind, and after he had left the +English church his course was to the maturity represented in this +ripe book on “Final Causes.” But had he not passed eleven of his +best years in the church, out of his true habitat, we should have +more fruit of this fine flavor. It is therefore a voice from his experience +that here reaches us, as from his grave:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Scepticism has been vigorously advancing in the nation—I might say, in +Europe. And not only has it extended its sphere, but it includes within that sphere +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>some of the loftiest and profoundest intellects of the age—men renowned for vast +and exact erudition, for scientific research or critical acumen. Philosophers, poets, +historians, novelists, openly or silently disavow Christianity. In palaces, in lordly +mansions, in college halls, in secluded homesteads, and here and there in rectory or +vicarage, scepticism, if it has not a bold and fearless utterance, at least expresses +itself in a guarded whisper. It becomes doubly a duty, then, when notwithstanding +the general diffusion of avowed or latent unbelief, we trace everywhere the +presence of a conservatism that conceals and hesitates and trembles at the doubts +which it cannot suppress, that individual dissentients should candidly disclose their +theological divergences. Christianity, indeed, which has had its triumphs in the +past, will long conserve a portion of its power, and continue to furnish guidance +not only for the unreasoning multitude, but for thousands of excellent men and +women who cannot abandon the old religious ideal. But there is no final arrest for +the intellectual progress of mankind.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We now turn to Mr. Call’s work on “Final Causes.” In an +introductory chapter of eight pages he compresses the history of the +doctrine of Design in nature from Anaxagoras, B. C. 500, to our own +time, stating its modifications, criticisms, denials. In the second +chapter a brief account is given of “Natural Theology,” whose +modern form is found to rest fundamentally on Newton’s generalisation, +that a body at rest continues at rest unless acted upon by some +external force; and on the geometrical order of planetary revolutions. +Starting anew from this point the human mind has discovered in the +varied realms of nature apparent evidences of a supersensuous Intelligence. +Kant, however, is brought to criticise Newton. “Kant +notes with delight that the ‘harmonical relations which excite the +feelings in a more sublime manner than even the contingent beauties +of nature originate in the properties of space’; and this inevitable +congruity he refers ultimately, indeed, to Divine Wisdom, but directly +to a common dependence on a single sovereign ground, to a +unity of possibilities which it is no more difficult to conceive as self-existent +than it is to conceive an Intelligent Cause as self-existent.” +Matter is not, then, naturally inert, but an aggregate of forms and +forces, and nature a self-adjusting, self-evolving power. In a chapter +on “Order and General Adaptation” it is shown that nature contains +vast realms of Disorder; and alleged “special adaptations” +are shown too as often as otherwise for cruelty and agony. “With +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>what feelings,” asks G. H. Lewes, “can we contemplate the destruction +of such an organism as that of man for the sake of some +microscopic animal made to live upon it? With what feelings can +we think of a human being sacrificed to the growth of cancer-cells? +What is the contrivance and benevolence here?” Particular illustrations +of design on which teleologists have depended,—the eye, +the bee’s cell, the bird’s wing—are examined with critical and scientific +care, and imperfections, gratuitous and cruel if ascribed to omnipotent +wisdom, found everywhere. “To assert that the Creator of +the world is infinitely powerful and infinitely wise were to deny that +he is infinitely good.”</p> + +<p>To escape the dilemma just stated, some theists postulate a +“limited or constitutional deity.” Dr. Martineau’s idea of a “material +datum objective to God” is an effort to relieve the deity of +responsibility for the evils of nature, but Mr. Call declares the selection +of “power” as the limited attribute is arbitrary. We have, he +thinks, no more logical right to limit the deity’s power than his intelligence, +or his benevolence. (This is doubtful, however, and requires +more consideration than is here given it.) “The Evolutionary +God” is next considered, and disproved by the uselessness and +unfitness of some structures in various organisations, the often injurious +character of others, (e.g. the intestinal canal called the vermiform +process,) while the moral sense is still offended by the general +predatory method of natural selection.</p> + +<p>The validity of the Design argument disposed of, Mr. Call leaves +to the theist whatever evidences of a deity he may find in his ideals, +emotions, aspirations, intuitions. He points out that the Designer +thus disproved has never been able to satisfy the intellect or heart, +the like being true of the “Unknowable.” The sole sacred ideal left +us is that of humanity; not of the whole race but of the purer, nobler +constituents of it.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“As Humanity will be the sole Ideal Object to which dutiful obligation and +exalted sentiment will be referred, so the world of Humanity will be the world revealed, +not by divine inspiration or metaphysical intuition, but by Positive Science +The shadowy abstractions of the speculative rationalist, the fanciful conceptions +of the theologian, will gradually pass away. To the Semitic explanation of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>world and of man will succeed that of Laplace and Darwin. The great and majestic +truths of the stellar universe, the mysteries of life, of light, of heat, of sound; +the wonders of natural history, the magic of geologic lore, the epic of man’s progression +in time; the exaltation, the solace, the delight which flow from poetry, +music, painting, sculpture; the interest in the arts, industrial no less than æsthetic; +in the fellowship of work which ameliorates the common lot; in friendships of man +and woman, short of passionate love, and in the happier profounder affection of +wife and husband; in all home charities and patriotic activities, and in the identification +of personal ‘feelings with the entire life of the human race’;—all these incidents +of thought and varieties of emotion and action will possess the intellect and +fill the heart of future generations, in a mode and degree which we can now only +imperfectly realise, and which, in the end, will leave men but little reason to regret +that the raptures of saint or prophet, or the splendours of ancient theocracy, +or the power and glory of the Mediæval Church, or the imposing premise of Hellenic +or of Teutonic speculation, are as the dreams of a night that has passed forever +away.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Have we, in this prophetic conclusion, the afterglow of a faith +sunk beneath the horizon? Why should we suppose that such beautiful +things will come to pass in the future? Such prophecies have +hitherto been inspired by belief in an overruling and omnipotent +Love. But we are now brought by science and philosophy to the +misgiving of Solomon, “We are born at all adventure.” Things, +the sceptic may say, will grow better if man compels them so, otherwise +they can as easily grow worse.</p> + +<p>It appears to me that in the old dogma of Jehovah’s curse on +the world and its redemption by Jesus there is buried, as in a sarcophagus, +a skeleton of human nature, and of moral history, resembling +the man of to-day, and the history we are making. There was an +appeal of the human heart from Jehovah to Jesus,—from the cursing +to the saving deity. The terrible arraignments of nature written by +some of the greatest men since Darwin’s discovery have not found +any one to answer them. The severest indictment of the world, perhaps, +is that by the late Cardinal Newman, who declares, “Either +there is no Creator, or this living society of men is in a true sense +discarded from his presence.... <i>Since</i> there is a God, the human +race is implicated in some terrible aboriginal calamity.” From a +deity who having created his own materials, built up a creation liable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>to such calamity, mankind are once more appealing. The ancient +case was Jesus <i>vs.</i> Jehovah; the present case is Humanity <i>vs.</i> the +Creator of Nature. This rebellion of the moral sentiment and of +compassionateness is not intellectually conscious; it goes on, and for +a long time must go on, with ceremonial respect to the Final Cause +of all the evils humanity tries to heal; but it appears to me certain +that the heart and enthusiasm which once went out to a personal +God are again turning to a crucified humanity. The humanitarian +movements of our time have arisen simultaneously with the overwhelming +evidences of nature’s cruelty and imperfections revealed +by Science. The earlier deists appealed from biblical superstitions +and ecclesiastical cruelties to the God visible in the order and beauty +of the universe. With the existence of evil in external nature they +never grappled. Bishop Butler’s “Analogy” first stated the problem. +He answered deistic objections to the inhumanities of the Bible by +pointing out the like in nature. Instead of answering the deists he +set them on a new departure which has ended in results summed up +in Mr. Call’s book. The omnipotent creator of nature is following +the biblical Jehovah into extinction. But the instincts and aspirations +of the human heart and mind remain the same; the religious +sentiment remains. The stream that is dammed up in one direction +or another does not lose any force thereby; it streams into other +channels if it can find such, or floods field and village if it finds none. +It will beat earthward as strongly as it once beat heavenward; it +will, if channels be not provided, carry away institutions as it has +carried away gods and goddesses.</p> + +<p>It has become therefore of great importance to recognise if possible +the lines of least resistance along the mighty stream of religious +enthusiasm, and provide that its energies shall not be destructive +but conservative of human welfare. At present the most conservative +force in the earth is ignorance: were the suffering masses of +the world to discover, suddenly and universally, that the old creeds +are fictions, their evils not providential, their heavenly hopes vain, +every nation would be filled with convulsions. Fortunately the sun +is not shot up into the heavens. But enlightenment progresses rapidly, +and we have begun none too soon turning the rising flood of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>light and fire into the human channels long obstructed by sanctified +inhumanities.</p> + +<p>Mr. Call’s little book, which I hope will find publication and +wide circulation in America, sums up succinctly and cogently the +present religious situation, and the steps by which it has been +reached. It remains for us all to sweep the new horizon with eye and +telescope, to compare our observations and to catch the first ray of +the star that shall point wise men to the new incarnation. To my +own mind this book is one of the many signs and promises that the +divine will be steadily merged into and identified with the human. +Not with humanity as an objective and historical entity, as Comte +believed, but with the distinctive characteristics of humanity, the +supreme qualities of reason and love: this will become the ideal of +the reasoners and the lovers; it will then become the creating Word, +instructing all; it will finally be made flesh and dwell among us, and +all shall behold in it the glory of the kingdom of Man.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Moncure D. Conway.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="FACTS_AND_MENTAL_SYMBOLS">FACTS AND MENTAL SYMBOLS.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>I perceive from Dr. Carus’s answer to my letter in No. 3 +Vol. I of <i>The Monist</i>, that amid all the agreement of our mutual +endeavors a material difference of opinion exists between us on an +important question of special character. As I was not successful in +rendering my thought clear on this point, I shall endeavor on the +present occasion to explain <i>what</i> it was that forced me to abandon +my old position (1863), which is very near to that of Dr. Carus, and +to assume a new one. The supposition that our difference of opinion +is merely apparent and can be adjusted by a precise agreement +as to the terms employed is a very natural one in philosophical discussions. +It is hardly tenable, though, when the divergent views +in question arise <i>subsequently</i> to one another in the <i>same</i> person.</p> + +<p>I must state, in starting, that I pursued in my youth physical +<i>and</i> philosophical studies, particularly psychology, with equal ardor. +There was hardly the question at that time of an experimental psychology, +of a relation of psychological to physiological research. +No more so did physics at that day think of a psychological analysis +of the notions it was constantly employing. How the notions of +“body,” “matter,” “atom,” etc., were come by, was not investigated. +Objects were given of which physicists never questioned +the inviolability and with which they unconcernedly pursued their +labors.</p> + +<p>The fields of physical and psychological research thus stood <i>unconciliated</i> +the one by the side of the other, each having its own particular +concepts, methods, and theories. No one questioned, indeed, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>that the two departments were connected in some way. <i>The +way</i>, however, appeared an insoluble riddle; as it yet appears to +Dubois-Reymond.</p> + +<p>Now although this condition of things was not such as to satisfy +my mind, it was nevertheless natural that as a student I should +seek to acquire tentatively the prevailing views of both provinces +and put them into consistent connection with one another.</p> + +<p>I thus formed provisorily the view that Nature has two <i>sides</i>—a +physical and a psychological side. If psychical life is to be harmonised +at all with the theories of physics we are obliged, I thought, +to conceive of the atoms as <i>feeling</i> (ensouled). The various dynamic +phenomena of the atoms would then represent the physical processes, +while the internal states <i>connected therewith</i> would be the +phenomena of psychic life. If we accept in faith and seriousness +the atomistic speculations of the physicists and of the early psychologists +(on the unity of the soul), I still see hardly any other course +to arrive at a half-way supportable monistic conception.</p> + +<p>It is unnecessary to set forth at length here what a prominent +place the artificial scaffolding we employ in the construction of +our knowledge assumes in these monadic theories as contradistinguished +from the facts that deserve knowledge, and how poorly such +theories satisfy in the long run a vigorous mind. As a fact, employment +with this cumbrous artifice was in my case the means that +effected very soon the appearance of my better conviction, already +latently present.⁠<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span></p> + +<p>In the further progress of my physical work I soon discovered +that it was very necessary <i>sharply to distinguish</i> between what we <i>see</i> +and what we mentally <i>supply</i>. When, for example, I imagine heat +as a substance (a fluid) that passes from one body into another, I +follow with ease the phenomena of conduction and compensation. +This idea led Black, who established it, to the discovery of specific +heat, of the latent heat of fusion and vaporisation, and so forth. +<i>This same</i> idea of a constant quantity of heat-substance <i>prevented</i> on +the other hand Black’s successors from using their eyes. They no +longer mark the fact which every savage knows, that heat is <i>produced</i> +by friction. By the help of his undulatory theory Huygens follows +with ease the phenomena of the reflexion and refraction of light. +The same theory <i>prevents</i> him, for he thinks solely of the longitudinal +waves with which he was familiar, from marking the fact of +polarisation which he himself discovered, but which Newton on +the other hand, undisturbed by theories, perceives at once. The +conception of fluids acting at a distance on conductors charged with +electricity facilitates our view of the behavior of the objects charged, +but it <i>stood in the way of</i> the discovery of the specific inductive capacity, +which was reserved for the eye of Faraday undimmed by +any traditional theories.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span></p> + +<p>Valuable therefore as the conceptions may be which we mentally +(theoretically) supply in our pursuit of facts, bringing to bear, +as they do, older, richer, more general, and more familiar experiences +on facts that stand alone, thus affording us a broader field of view, +nevertheless, the same conceptions may, as classical examples and +our own experience demonstrate, lead us astray. For a theory, indeed, +always puts in the place of a fact something <i>different</i>, something +more simple, which is qualified to represent it in some <i>certain</i> aspect, +but for the very reason that it is different does <i>not</i> represent it +in other aspects. When in the place of <i>light</i> Huygens mentally put +the familiar phenomenon of <i>sound</i>, light itself appeared to him as a +thing that he knew, but with respect to polarisation, which sound-waves +lack, as a thing with which he was doubly unacquainted. Our +theories are abstractions, which, while they place in relief that which +is important for <i>certain fixed</i> cases, neglect almost necessarily, or +even disguise, what is important for other cases. The law of refraction +looks upon rays of light as homogeneous straight lines, and +that is sufficient for the comprehension of the geometrical aspect of +the matter. But the propositions that relate to refraction will never +lead us to the fact that the rays of light are periodical, that they interfere. +Just the contrary, the favorite and familiar conception of +a ray as a smooth straight line will rather render this discovery difficult.</p> + +<p>Only in rare cases will the resemblance between a fact and its +theoretical conception extend <i>further</i> than we ourselves postulate. +Then the theoretical conception may lead to the discovery of <i>new</i> +facts, of which conical refraction, circular polarisation, and Hertz’s +electric waves furnish examples that stand in opposition to those +given above. But as a general rule we have every reason to distinguish +sharply between our theoretical conceptions of phenomena +and that which we observe. The former must be regarded merely +as auxiliary instruments that have been created for a <i>definite</i> purpose +and which possess permanent value only with respect to that +purpose. No one will seriously imagine for a moment that a real +circle with angles and sines actually performs functions in the refraction +of light. Every one, on the contrary, regards the formula +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>sinα/sinβ = <i>n</i> as a kind of geometrical model that <i>imitates in form</i> +the refraction of light and <i>takes its place</i> in our mind. In this sense, +I take it, all the theoretical conceptions of physics—caloric, electricity, +light-waves, molecules, atoms, and energy—must be regarded +as mere helps or expedients to facilitate our viewing things. Even +within the domain of physics itself the greatest care must be exercised +in transferring theories from one department to another, and +above all more instruction is not to be expected from a theory than +from the facts themselves.</p> + +<p>But instances were not lacking that demonstrated to me, how +much greater the confusion was which was produced by the direct +transference of theories, methods, and inquiries that were legitimate +in physics, into the field of psychology.</p> + +<p>Allow me to illustrate this by a few examples.</p> + +<p>A physicist observes an image on the retina of an excised eye, +notices that it is turned upside down with respect to the objects +imaged, and puts to himself very naturally the question, How +does a luminous point situated <i>at the top</i> come to be reflected on the +retina <i>at the bottom</i>? He answers this question by the aid of dioptrical +studies. If, now, this question, which is perfectly legitimate +in the province of physics, be transferred to the domain of psychology, +only obscurity will be produced. The question why we see +the <i>inverted</i> retina-image <i>upright</i>, has no meaning as a psychological +problem. The light-sensations of the separate spots of the retina +are connected with sensations of locality from the very beginning, +and we <i>name</i> the places that correspond to the parts down, <i>up</i>. +Such a question cannot present itself to the perceiving subject.</p> + +<p>It is the same with the well-known theory of projection. The +problem of the <i>physicist</i> is, to seek the luminous object-point of a +point imaged on the retina of the eye in the backward prolonged +ray passing through the point of intersection of the eye. For the +perceiving subject this <i>problem</i> does not exist, as the light-sensations +of the retinal spots are connected from the beginning with determinate +space-sensations. The entire theory of the psychological +origin of the “external” world by the projection of sensations outwards +is founded in my opinion on a mistaken transference of a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span><i>physically</i> formulated inquiry into the province of <i>psychology</i>. Our +sensations of sight and touch are bound up with, are connected +with, various <i>different</i> sensations of space, that is to say these sensations +have an existence <i>by the side of</i> one another or <i>outside of</i> one +another, exist in other words in a <i>spatial</i> field, in which our body +fills but a part. That table is thus self-evidently <i>outside of</i> my body. +A projection-problem does not present itself, is neither consciously +nor unconsciously solved.</p> + +<p>A physicist (Mariotte) makes the discovery that a certain spot +on the retina is blind. He is accustomed to associating with every +spatial point an imaged point, and with every imaged point a sensation. +Hence the question arises, what do we see at the points +that correspond to the blind spots, and how is the gap in the image +filled out? If the unfounded influence of the physicist’s method of +procedure on the discussion of psychological questions be excluded, +it will be found that no problem exists at all here. We see <i>nothing</i> +at the blind spots, the gap in the image is <i>not</i> filled out. The gap, +moreover, is not felt, for the reason that a defect of light-sensation +at a spot blind from the beginning can no more be perceived as a +gap in the image than the blindness say of the skin of the back can +be so perceived.</p> + +<p>I have chosen intentionally simple and obvious examples, such +as render it clear what unnecessary confusion is caused by the careless +transference of a conception or mode of thought which is valid +and serviceable in one domain, into another.</p> + +<p>In the work of a celebrated German ethnographer I read recently +the following sentence: “This tribe of people deeply degraded +itself by the practise of cannibalism.” By its side lay the +book of an English inquirer who deals with the same subject. The +latter simply puts the <i>question why</i> certain South-Sea islanders eat +human beings, finds out in the course of his inquiries that our own +ancestors also were once cannibals, and comes to understand the +position the Hindus take in the matter—a point of view that occurred +once to my five-year-old boy who while eating a piece of meat +stopped suddenly shocked and cried out, “<i>We</i> are cannibals to the +animals!” “Thou shalt not eat human beings” is a very beautiful +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>maxim; but in the mouth of the ethnographer it sullies the calm +and noble lustre of unprepossession by which we so gladly discover +the true inquirer. But a step further and we will say, “Man <i>must</i> +not be descended from monkeys,” “The earth <i>shall</i> not rotate,” +“Matter <i>ought</i> not everywhere to fill space,” “Energy <i>must</i> be constant,” +and so on. I believe that our procedure differs from that +just characterised only in degree and not in kind, when we transfer +views reached in the province of physics with the dictum of sovereign +validity into the domain of psychology, where they should be +tested anew with respect to their serviceability. In such cases we +are subject to dogma, if not to that which is forced upon us by a +power from without like our scholastic forefathers, yet to that which +we have made ourselves. And what result of research is there that +could not become a dogma by long habit of use, since the very skill +which we have acquired in familiar intellectual situations, deprives +us of the freshness and unprepossession which are so requisite in a +new situation.</p> + +<p>Now that I have set forth in general outlines the position I take, +I may be able perhaps to establish my opposition to the <i>dualism of +feeling and motion</i>. This dualism is to my mind an artificial and an +unnecessary one. The way it has arisen is analogous to that in +which the imaginary solutions of certain mathematical problems +have arisen—by the improper formulation of the questions involved.</p> + +<p>In the investigation of purely physical processes we generally +employ notions so abstract that as a rule we only think cursorily or +not at all of the sensations that lie at and constitute their foundation. +For example, when I establish the fact that an electric current of +1 Ampère develops 10½ cubic centimetres oxyhydrogen gas at 0° C. +and 760 mm mercury pressure in a minute, I am easily disposed to +attribute to the objects defined a reality wholly independent of my +sensations. But I am obliged in order to arrive at what I have determined +to conduct the current through a circular wire having a +definite measured radius, so that the current, the intensity of terrestrial +magnetism being given, shall turn the magnetic needle at its +centre a certain angular distance out of the meridian. The intensity +of terrestrial magnetism must have been disclosed by a definite +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>observed period of vibration of a magnetic needle of measured dimensions, +known weight, and so forth. The determination of the +oxyhydrogen gas is no less intricate. The whole statement, so simple +in its appearance, is based upon an almost unending series of +simple sensory observations (sensations), particularly so when the +observations are added that guarantee the adjustment of the apparatus, +which may have been performed in part long before the actual +experiment. Now it may easily happen to the physicist who does +not study the psychology of his operations, that he does not (to reverse +a well-known saying) see the trees for the woods, and that he +slurs over the sensory elements at the foundation of his work. Now +I maintain, that every physical notion is nothing more than a definite +connection of the sensory <i>elements</i> which I denote by <i>A</i> <i>B</i> <i>C</i> ..., +and that every physical fact rests therefore on such a connection. +These <i>elements</i>—elements in the sense that no further resolution has +for the present been effected of them—are the most ultimate building +stones of the physical world that we have as yet been able to seize.</p> + +<p>Physiological research also may have a purely physical character. +I can follow the course of a physical process as it propagates +itself through a sensitive nerve to the spinal column and brain of an +animal and returns by various paths to the muscles of the animal, +whose contraction produces further events in the environment of the +animal. I need not think, in so doing, of any feeling on the part of +the animal; what I investigate is a purely physical object. Very +much is lacking, it is true, to our complete comprehension of the details +of this process, and the assurance that it is all motion can +neither console me nor deceive me with respect to my ignorance.</p> + +<p>Long before there was any scientific physiology people perceived +that the behavior of an animal confronted by physical influences +is much better viewed, that is understood, by attributing to +the animal <i>sensations</i> like our own. To that which I see, to <i>my</i> sensations, +I have to <i>supply mentally</i> the sensations of the <i>animal</i>, which +are not to be found in the province of my own sensation. This contrariety +appears still more abrupt to the scientific inquirer who is +investigating a nervous process by the aid of colorless abstract notions, +and is required for example to add mentally to that process +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>the sensation green. This last can actually appear as something +entirely novel, and we can ask ourselves how it is that this miraculous +thing is produced from chemical processes, electrical currents, +and the like.⁠<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>Psychological analysis has taught us that this surprise is unjustified, +since the physicist deals with sensations in everything on +which he employs himself. This analysis is also able to render it +clear to us that the mental addition by analogy of sensations and +complexes of sensations which at the time being are not present in +the field of sense or cannot even come into it, is also daily practised +by the physicist, as when for example he imagines the moon an +inert heavy mass although he cannot touch the moon but only see it. +The totally strange character of the intellectual situation above +described is therefore an illusion.</p> + +<p>The illusion disappears when I make observations (psychologically) +on my own person which are limited to the sensory sphere. +Before me lies the leaf of a plant. The green (<i>A</i>) of the leaf is +united with a certain optical sensation of space (<i>B</i>) and sensation of +touch (<i>C</i>), with the visibility of the sun or the lamp (<i>D</i>). If the +yellow (<i>E</i>) of a sodium flame takes the place of the sun, the green +(<i>A</i>) will pass into brown (<i>F</i>). If the chlorophyl granules be removed,—an +operation representable like the preceding one by elements,—the +green (<i>A</i>) will pass into white (<i>G</i>). All these observations +are <i>physical</i> observations. But the green (<i>A</i>) is also united with a +certain process on my retina. There is nothing to prevent me in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>principle from physically investigating this process on my own eye +in exactly the same manner as in the cases previously set forth, and +from reducing it to its elements <i>X</i> <i>Y</i> <i>Z</i>.... If this were not possible +in the case of my own eye, it might be accomplished with that of +another, and the gap filled out by analogy exactly as in physical investigations. +Now in its dependence upon <i>B</i> <i>C</i> <i>D</i> ..., <i>A</i> is a +<i>physical element</i>, in its dependence on <i>X</i> <i>Y</i> <i>Z</i> ... it is a <i>sensation</i>. +The green (<i>A</i>) however is not altered at all <i>in itself</i>, whether we direct +our attention to the one or to the other form of dependence. +<i>I see, therefore, no oppositions of physical and psychical, no duality, but +simply identity.</i> In the sensory sphere of my consciousness everything +is at once physical and psychical.</p> + +<p>The obscurity of this intellectual situation has arisen according +to my conviction solely from the transference of a physical prepossession +into the domain of psychology. The physicist says: I find +everywhere bodies and the motions of bodies only, no sensations; +sensation therefore must be something <i>entirely different</i> from the +physical objects I deal with. The psychologist accepts the second +portion of this declaration: To him, it is true, sensation is <i>given</i>, +but there corresponds to it a mysterious physical something which +conformably to physical prepossession must be <i>different</i> from sensation. +But what is it that is the really mysterious thing? Is it the +Physis or the Psyche? or is it perhaps <i>both</i>? It would almost appear +so, as it is now the one and now the other that is intangible. +Or does the whole reasoning involved rest on a fallacious circle?</p> + +<p>I believe that the latter is the case. For me the elements designated +by <i>A</i> <i>B</i> <i>C</i> ... are immediately and indubitably given, and +for me they can never afterwards be volatilised away by any considerations +which are after all based in every case on their existence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span></p> + +<p>To the department of special research having for its subject the +sensory, physical, and psychical province which is not made superfluous +by this general orientation and Which cannot be forestalled, +the relations of <i>A</i> <i>B</i> <i>C</i> ... only remain to be ascertained. This +may be expressed symbolically by saying that it is the purpose and +end of special research to find equations of the form <i>f(A, B, C</i>, +...) = 0.</p> + +<p>I hope with this to have designated the point in which I am +in opposition to Dr. Carus, with whom I agree so much in other respects. +I am obliged, notwithstanding the latter fact, to regard +this point as essential, inasmuch as my whole mode of thinking and +direction of inquiry have been changed by the view it involves, and +because, moreover, I do not believe that the difference in question +can be dissipated by any verbal explanations however exact.</p> + +<p>This whole train of reasoning has for me simply the significance +of negative orientation for the avoidance of pseudo-problems. I +restrict myself, moreover intentionally here, to the question of sense-perceptions, +for the reason that at the start exact special research +will find here alone a safe basis of operations.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ernst Mach.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> A Greek philosopher to whom change of spatial configuration, pressure, and +percussion were probably the only natural processes of which he had any intimate +knowledge, thought out the atomistic theory. This theory we retain to-day, though +it be in a modified form. And in fact natural phenomena really do exist that act +<i>as if</i> the pressure and impact of very small particles were involved in their production +(the dynamical theory of gases), phenomena that admit therefore by this conception +of being more clearly viewed. However, this conception, like that of caloric, +possesses value only in certain fields. We know to-day that pressure and impact +are by no means simpler phenomena than are for example the phenomena of gravitation. +The contention that in physics everything can be reduced to the motion of +smallest particles is, taken at its best, a more than improper draft on the future. +Utterances of this kind afford no assistance to the solution of burning special questions, +but only confound, and have about the same explanatory value as the utterances +of the late physical philosophy of Oken which prescribe for example with the +greatest ease the course of the creation of the world by a division of zero-quantities +into <i>+a</i> and <i>-a</i> (0 = <i>+a</i> <i>-a</i>).</p> + +<p>The motion of a <i>single</i> body as a totality does indeed appear simpler at first +glance than any other process, and this is the justification of attempts at a <i>physical</i> +monadic theory. The thoughts of a <i>single</i> man are connected together; the thoughts +of two different men are not. How can the processes of the different parts of the +brain of one man be connected? In order to make the connection very intimate, +we collect everything which requires to be psychically connected in <i>a single</i> point, +although the connection is not explained by this procedure. Thus the psychological +monadic theory is created on the basis of a motive and of an illusion similar to that +on which the physical rests.</p> + +<p>Let us assume for a moment the proposition in the text; viz., that the atoms +are endowed with feeling. By the space coördinates <i>x</i>, <i>y</i>, <i>z</i>, <i>x′</i>, <i>y′</i>, <i>z′</i> ... of the +atoms are determined <i>in the atoms</i> internal conditions α, β, γ, α′, β′, γ′ ... and <i>vice +versa</i>. For we feel by our senses our physical environment, and our physical invasions +of our environment are conditioned by our sensations. The idea is then at +hand, α, β, γ ... alone being directly given, to set up by the elimination of <i>x</i>, <i>y</i>, <i>z</i> ... +equations directly between α, β, γ, α′, β′, γ′.... This latter point of view would be +very near to my present one, aside from the fact that the latter wholly rejects metaphysical +considerations.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> The following is a legitimate question: To what kind of nervous processes is +the sensation green to be mentally added. Such questions can be solved only by +special inquiry, and not by a reference in a general way to motion and electric currents. +How disadvantageous our remaining satisfied with such general conceptions +is, can be seen from the fact that inquirers have been repeatedly on the brink of +abandoning the <i>specific energies</i>, one of the greatest acquisitions we have made, +simply because they were unable to discover any difference in the currents of different +sensory nerves. I was impelled as early as 1863 in my lectures on psycho-physics +to call attention to the fact that the <i>most diverse kinds</i> of nervous processes +can conceal themselves in a current. Current is an abstraction and places in relief +but one feature of the process—the passage of energy though a transverse section. +A current in diluted sulphuric acid is something entirely different from a current in +copper. We must therefore also expect that a current in the acoustic nerve is something +entirely different from a current in the optic nerve.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> It is the transitoriness of sense-perceptions that so easily leads us to regard +them as mere appearances as contrasted with permanent bodies. I have repeatedly +pointed out that unconditioned permanent states do not exist in nature, that permanences +of connection only exist. A body is for me the same complex of sight-and-touch-sensations +every time that it is placed in the same circumstances of illumination, +position in space, temperature, and so forth. The supposed constancy of +the body is the constancy of the union of <i>A</i>, <i>B</i>, <i>C</i> ... or the constancy of the <i>equation +f</i>(<i>A</i>, <i>B</i>, <i>C</i> ...) = 0.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="PROFESSOR_CLIFFORD_ON_THE_SOUL_IN_NATURE">PROFESSOR CLIFFORD ON THE SOUL IN NATURE.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>No one can read Clifford’s Lectures and Essays, without feeling +that, if their author is less known and valued as an original +thinker than as a master of mathematical analysis, it is only because +having turned the force of his genius onto mathematics first he had +time to complete some work in that direction, whereas his premature +death in 1879 only allowed him to give us an earnest of the +philosophical work which he had it in him to perform.</p> + +<p>The short biography which Prof. F. Pollock contributed to the +first edition of his lectures and essays gives an interesting sketch of +the phases of opinion through which Clifford passed. It appears +that before he took his degree in 1867 and for a little time after he +was a high churchman; but, says Pollock, “there was an intellectual +and speculative activity about his belief which made it impossible +that he should remain permanently at that stage.” “He never +slackened in the pursuit of scientific knowledge and ideas,” and +conscious of a hiatus between orthodox views and some of the results +of science he yet held that religious beliefs are outside the region of +scientific proof and that there is a special theological faculty or insight, +analogous to the scientific, poetic, and artistic faculties, the +persons in whom this genius is exceptionally developed being the +founders of new religions and religious orders. This is not unlike +the solution of religious doubts which Hume playfully suggested +and which John Henry Newman has seriously adopted, namely that +“divinity, or theology, has a foundation in <i>reason</i> so far as it is supported +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>by experience. But its best and most solid foundation is +<i>faith</i> and divine revelation.” “When or how,” continues his biographer, +“Clifford first came to a clear perception that this position +of quasi-scientific Catholicism was untenable I do not exactly know; +but I know that the discovery cost him an intellectual and moral +struggle, of which traces may be found here and there in his essays. +Most readers of these essays would consider that Clifford is very +unfair to the Christian beliefs which he had abandoned and beyond +doubt he felt a certain grudge against them for having so long duped +him.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> The theories of Mr. Darwin and Herbert Spencer took the +place in Clifford’s mind of the old fashioned creed; Natural selection +was to unriddle the universe, to yield a new system of ethics +and education. We read that Clifford had an extraordinary power +of taking up a theory provisionally, of throwing himself into it, accepting +it, applying it, and of rejecting it in case it was not satisfactory; +and this may account perhaps for his somewhat dogmatic +assertion in many cases of crude views. There is one characteristic +of Clifford however which all may emulate, and that is the candor +and fearlessness of his thinking and speaking. Let me quote a few +words from one of the best and most stirring of these essays:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no +great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have +occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong +towards man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely +that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should +become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; +for then it must sink back into savagery.... If a man, holding a belief which he +was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away +any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books +and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as impious +those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that +man is one long sin against mankind.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span></p> + +<p>The essay on the nature of things in themselves marks the furthest +limit at which Clifford’s speculation arrived. In it Clifford +begins by discarding the ordinary distinction between reality and +ideas, eternal object and eternal subject, of feeling and thing. The +distinction is really between two orders of feeling; there is the subjective +or inner order, in which sorrow succeeds the hearing of bad +news, and the objective or outward in which the feeling of letting +go is followed by sight of falling object. It is with the latter order +that physical science concerns itself, and all the inferences of natural +science are inferences of my real or possible feeling. Since an object +is a set of changes <i>in</i> my consciousness and not anything out of it, +is just my feeling real or possible and therefore part of me, it might +seem as if we were shut up in ourselves and excluded from participation +in any other reality. So we should be, says Clifford, if we +made no other inferences beside those of physical science; but when +I come to the conclusion that <i>you</i> are conscious and that you have +objects in your consciousness similar to those in mine, I am not inferring +any actual or possible feelings of my own, but <i>your</i> feelings, +which are not and can never be objects in my consciousness. To +feelings and consciousness thus inferred to exist in another, Clifford +gives the name of <i>eject</i>, because in the very act of inference they are +<i>thrown out</i> of my consciousness, recognised as outside of it, as <i>not</i> +being a part of me. “The existence of my conception of you in my +consciousness carries with it a belief in the existence of you outside +of my consciousness.... How this inference is justified, how consciousness +can testify to the existence of anything outside of itself I +do not pretend to say; I need not untie a knot which the world has +cut for me long ago.” (Vol. II, p. 73.)</p> + +<p>Thus, <i>objects</i> in the sense of things presented in <i>my</i> consciousness, +my phenomena, are not the sole or chief reality; ejects are +equally real and my conviction of your existence as a conscious +being like myself is coeval and of equal weight with my belief in my +own conscious existence. You and your feelings are strictly speaking +the only things which are real outside of myself and my consciousness. +For though my objects or phenomena are external to +my body they are not outside my consciousness, but part and parcel +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>thereof. Nay, more than this an individual object, i. e. an object +which is mine and mine only, never exists at all, according to Clifford, +in the mind of man; for with each object as it exists in my +mind is bound up the thought of similar objects existing in other +men’s minds. All the objects in fact of which we are ever conscious +are objects of consciousness in general, are in Clifford’s phrase social +objects. “A fixed habit causes an object as it is found in my +mind to be formed as a social object and insensibly embodies in it +a reference to the minds of other men.” This belief in ejects is +moreover the root of all language and all morals:—of language, because +any sound which, becoming a sign to my neighbor, becomes +thereby a mark to myself, must by the nature of the case be a mark +of the social object and not of the individual object: of morals, because +the “first great commandment, evolved in the light of day by +healthy processes wherever men have lived together, is, ‘Put yourself +in his place.’”</p> + +<p>So far there is nothing to distinguish Clifford’s theory from ordinary +Idealism, which denies that the universe is real except as a +phenomenon or appearance before a Self conscious thereof. The +future course of Clifford’s argument turns upon two assumptions. +One of these, borrowed from the current physiology of the brain, is +this: that the changes in my consciousness—ejective facts he calls +them—run parallel with the changes in my brain, which are objective +facts. The parallelism between them is one of complexity, an +analogy of structure. The complex ejective facts are the same sort +of complication of simple ejects as the complex motions of the brain +are of simple molecular movements. Clifford illustrates the points +from the relation of speech to writing, the sentence spoken is the +same function of the elementary sounds as the same sentence written +is of the corresponding letters. In like manner the complex human +mind is the same function of simple feelings as the brain is of primary +atoms.</p> + +<p>The other assumption is based upon the current doctrine of +evolution. Our bodies have been evolved step by step out of inorganic +matter, and we have before our eyes a line of organisms connecting +man with the simplest atom of matter. In this series there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>is no hiatus between one form and another, no breach of morphological +continuity, but one species arises by insensible gradation out +of its predecessors. Now in the case of organisms of a certain complexity +we cannot help inferring consciousness, and as we go back +along the line we not only see the complexity of the organism and of +its nervous system insensibly diminishing, but for the first part of +our course we have reason to think that the complexity of consciousness +insensibly diminishes also.⁠<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> The conclusion is forced upon us +that nature is animate from top to bottom and that the humblest +atom has an elementary feeling or eject of its own as simple in comparison +with the complex intelligence of man as the atom is itself +simple in comparison with his very complex brain. Unless we admit +this we are in a dilemma. The ejective facts which we cannot +help inferring in the case of all animals must extend further down +through vegetables to inorganic phenomena, or else there must be a +point at which we could say: here the object begins to have an inner +or ejective fact corresponding to it as my mind corresponds to +my body. But the series of objective forms presents no sudden +break anywhere, not even between animals and vegetables, such as +to warrant our supposing that ejective facts extend thus far down in +the series and no further.</p> + +<p>Clifford is not quite as explicit about the nature of the elementary +ejects, which answer to moving molecules, as we should like +him to be. Of one thing however he is quite certain; they are elementary +feelings which yet are neither modifications of a consciousness +nor yet imply a consciousness in which alone they can exist. +Every feeling may be part of a consciousness, but it need not be so. +Consciousness is only a derivative and secondary result, following +on the arrangement of feeling in a particular way and it is evolved +at a very late period in the history of the world. In itself a feeling +is an absolute <i>Ding-an-sich</i>, whose existence is not relative to anything +else. <i>Sentitur</i> is all that can be said of it.</p> + +<p>Thus strictly speaking it is not <i>consciousness</i> which extends +throughout the series of objective forms from man down to the molecule. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>It is only feeling. Consciousness proper only belongs to the +later and higher members of the series. “If we make a jump from +man say to the tunicate mollusks, we see no reason there to infer +the existence of consciousness at all.” Therefore the doctrine of +evolution itself forbids us to regard all ejects as being of the <i>same</i> +substant as mind. They are only of like substance ὁμοιούσιον not +ὁμοούσιον, only quasi-mental⁠<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> and not in themselves either rational, +intelligent, or conscious.⁠<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>Besides the evolutionist’s reason that it is absurd to attribute +consciousness and personality to tunicate mollusks there is another +reason drawn from human introspection for asserting elementary +feelings to be absolute and unrelated existence. “A feeling, at the +instance when it <i>exists</i>, exists <i>an und für sich</i> and not as <i>my</i> feeling.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> +The self-perception of the ego, the sense that in all my +various feelings it is <i>I</i> who am conscious, this “unity of apperception” +does not exist in the instantaneous consciousness which it +unites, but only in subsequent reflection upon it. It consists further +in the power of establishing a certain connexion between the memories +of any two feelings which we had at the same instant.</p> + +<p>There is one other point of extreme importance to be noticed +in Clifford’s account of the elementary feelings or ejects. They are +connected together in their sequence and coexistence by counterparts +of the physical laws of matter. Were it not so their correspondence +with motions of matter could not be kept up. That they +should be thus connected with one another militates at first sight +with the characteristic of absoluteness above ascribed to them by +Clifford. We must suppose therefore that when Clifford says that +their existence is not relative to anything else, he means no more +than that they are not ultimately related to a personal consciousness. +We must suppose that it is these laws of the sequence and coexistence +of elementary feelings which, “when molecules are so combined +together as to form the film on the under side of a jelly-fish, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>so combine the elements of mind-stuff which go along with them as +to form the faint beginnings of sentience. The same laws combine +feelings so as to form some kind of consciousness, when the molecules +are so combined as to form the brain and nervous system of a +vertebrate” (p. 85).</p> + +<p>We are now after these preliminary explanations in a position +to appreciate what is the gist and core of Clifford’s speculations. It is +this, that the reality external to our minds which is represented in +our minds as matter is in itself mind-stuff or elementary feelings. +The universe consists entirely of mind-stuff. Some of this is woven +into the complex form of human minds containing imperfect representations +of the mind-stuff outside them and of themselves also, as +a mirror reflects its own image in another mirror, <i>ad infinitum</i>. Such +an imperfect representation is called a material universe. The two +chief points therefore of the doctrine as summed up by Clifford himself +are:</p> + +<p>1) Matter is a mental picture in which mind-stuff is the thing +represented.</p> + +<p>2) Reason, intelligence, and volition are properties of a complex +which is made up of elements themselves not rational, not intelligent, +not conscious.</p> + +<p>We shall do Clifford an injustice if we interpret the foregoing +theory as a dualistic and not as a monistic view, i. e. as a view which +postulates two ultimate principles of reality rather than one. Clifford +however often speaks as if feeling and matter were two coördinate +aspects of reality, irreducible to one another. For example +he allows himself to speak of mind-stuff as going along with the +material object, of laws connecting the elements of mind-stuff +which are only <i>counterparts</i> of the physical laws of matter and not +those laws themselves. Again he writes (p. 78) as follows: “The +distinction between eject and object, forbids us to regard the eject, +another man’s mind, as coming into the world of objects in any way, +or as standing in the relation of cause or effect to any changes in +that world.” Such language reminds us of Spinoza’s doctrine that +body alone can determine body to move and only thought determine +thought to think, but we must not therefore suppose that for Clifford +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>as for Spinoza the two rival kingdoms of thought and extended +matter are irreconcilably severed or nominally united by the figment +of a single substance of which they are attributes: What Clifford +means is that the thing <i>is</i> a feeling so far as it is anything at +all and that, if things coexist or succeed each other according to +laws, they only coexist and follow <i>as</i> feelings and conformably to +laws of feeling. Not only is the elementary feeling a thing itself, +but things-in-themselves are elementary feelings.</p> + +<p>It is incumbent therefore on us to ask if an elementary feeling +is equal to the double burden put upon it by this theory of being +the real universe of things and of creating the human intelligence. +In answering this question we must be careful to divest feelings beforehand +of any characteristics which they only possess as gathered +up into the unity of a self, for at the stage in which we are considering +reality selves have not yet arisen. It is hard to conceive what +is left of feeling after these characteristics have been removed, nor +does introspection help us here, for, as Clifford very truly says, the +fundamental deliverance of consciousness affirms its own complexity +and it seems impossible, as I am at present constituted, to have only +one absolutely simple feeling at a time. Elementary feelings however +could hardly constitute the cosmos without they follow one another, +coexist, and connect themselves together in their groupings +according to certain laws, i. e. by some inherent necessity always +take up the same attitudes toward each other, and this much Clifford +assumes that they do. Yet these assumptions will not bear examination. +Let us examine first the postulate that feelings follow +in a fixed order; call them <i>a</i> <i>b</i> <i>c</i> <i>d</i>, <i>b</i> succeeds <i>a</i> and precedes <i>c</i> and +it makes a difference, which comes after or before the other. Now +being absolute feelings, not only is <i>a</i> past and non-existent before <i>b</i> +begins to be, so <i>b</i> before <i>c</i>, but each is in turn the entire reality and +there is no consciousness before which they pass in procession. The +real would thus fall into disconnected and mutually indifferent moments +<i>a</i> <i>b</i> <i>c</i> <i>d</i>; and as each of these in turn exhausts reality and is +also unconscious of what goes before and after, there would be no +real succession at all. In a real succession it makes a difference +whether <i>b</i> comes before <i>or</i> after <i>a</i>, but in the case we suppose it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>could make no difference. In truth there can be no relation of before +and after between two terms except for a self, which takes note +of the one disappearing and of the other appearing; and whenever +we speak of things following one another we tacitly presuppose a self +before whom the procession passes.</p> + +<p>It is even more difficult to understand how elementary feelings +can be grouped and complicated in a fixed order of coexistence. +Mind has not yet emerged, so we must suppose that the grouping +takes place in space. In that case one feeling must be right or left, +above or below another. The futility of such speculation will come +home to anyone who will try to realise how a feeling of smell can +be above or below one of taste.</p> + +<p>We have next to consider Clifford’s account of the genesis out +of elementary feelings of personal consciousness. The hypothesis of +mind-stuff, we must remember, was framed in order to preserve the +same continuity of ejective facts as we see to exist in the case of +objective facts, to provide, that is, a gradual development of the +human mind out of the simpler feelings of amœbæ and even of atoms. +It must be denied however that the hypothesis is a success if we retain +the usual meanings of the words continuity and development. +Properly speaking a thing can only be said to grow or develop when +it remains the same with itself all through the process and unfolds +therein capacities which were anyhow latent in it to start with. +Thus a tadpole develops into a frog, a grub into a butterfly, and +the child grows into the man. But in the series of ejects which +begins from atoms and after running through amœba and ape finally +culminates in the human intelligence there is no point of identity, +no community between the first and last terms. The eject which +is the molecule is denied by Clifford to be either conscious or rational, +nor has it even will, like the philosophical factotum of Schopenhauer +or Von Hartmann. It is a purely negative conception, +the abstract opposite of that mind into which it is to ultimately develop. +The hiatus between our intelligence and a thing in itself, +which call it feeling, or mind-stuff, or what we will, is merely all +that our intelligence is not, is none the less of a hiatus, because it +is, with the help of apes and amœbæ, spread out thin, so to speak. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>It would be better frankly to avow the chasm that exists than to +gloss over it with words like evolution and development.</p> + +<p>“When a material organism,” writes Clifford, “has reached a +certain complexity of nervous structure, the complex of ejective facts +which goes along with its action reaches that mode of complication +which is called consciousness. When a stream of feelings is so compacted +together that at each instant it consists of (1) new feelings, +(2) fainter repetitions of previous ones, and (3) links connecting +these repetitions, the stream is called a consciousness. Consciousness +is thus a relative thing, a mode of complication of certain elements, +and a property of the complex so produced.” If we look +into this statement we see that it only amounts to this: that feelings +constitute a conscious self when they become the feelings of a conscious +self and not before, for except as gathered up in the unity of +a self which has memory and remains the same throughout its differences +feelings can be neither new nor repeated nor joined by +links.</p> + +<p>1) That a feeling is new means that I attend to it, contrast it +with former ones, and decide that I have not felt it before.</p> + +<p>2) That a feeling is a previous feeling now repeated means that +I recognise it as having already occurred.</p> + +<p>3) If feelings are joined by links of what nature are these links? +Clifford does not say that they also are feelings, so presumably they +are not; in that case no link is left save a connecting self. But +even if the link is a feeling it cannot be less than a feeling of the +togetherness of two other feelings, but such a feeling would involve +memory of those feelings and memory involves self-hood. It is really, +however, an abuse of words to apply the term feeling in such a case. +We might with Hume ask of this feeling which links other feelings +“Is it a taste, a smell, a sound, an impression of sight or touch?”</p> + +<p>Clifford makes a reference to Haeckel’s treatise upon “Zellseelen +und Seelenzellen.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> Haeckel’s view is that every protoplasmic cell +has a soul of its own and that when a number of these are combined +under certain conditions, as in the human brain, they generate as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>their resultant the human soul. He helps out his theory by pointing +to such phrases as national spirit, a nation’s conscience, a people’s +will. Nothing, he contends, could be more real than these +entities, which are yet only resultants of the wills, spirits, and consciences +of the separate individuals who compose the nation.</p> + +<p>This is an interesting speculation, which it would be a pity to +dismiss abruptly merely because it is groundless. No doubt our +bodies and brains may be regarded as colonies of protoplasmic +units of which each has an independent life of its own, of which each +is born, nourishes itself, reproduces itself, and at last breaks up and +dies. The colorless cells especially in our blood are such units and +have as good a claim to be called individuals as the amœba which +we find swimming about by itself in any pond. These units are +certainly alike and must be allowed to have inner states of their +own. It may also be freely conceded that the existence of certain +inward states in these cells of which my brain and nerves are composed +is the condition of certain states of feeling and emotion arising +in me. But all these admissions fail to advance us a step toward +Haeckel’s conclusion. That any number of atoms of protoplasm +have souls and soul-states is not enough <i>per se</i> to produce an +extra soul which is none of them, yet <i>like</i> their souls and possessed +of a life of its own. Even if the molecules of my brain were each +in possession of a self-consciousness as ample as my own, their +mere juxtaposition could not give rise to my self-consciousness. +From first to last their soul-states remain theirs, mine remain mine. +The reasoning employed by Haeckel involves a fallacy of composition:—because +each of a colony of cells <i>a</i>, <i>b</i>, <i>c</i>, <i>d</i>, has a soul of its +own, therefore the colony as a whole has a soul of its own, which is +not the soul of any one of them. Nor do the analogies Haeckel invokes +help him at all, for the life of a nation does not exist at all +except as the lives of the individuals composing that nation, nor do +we expect to find any traits in our so-called national spirit which are +not ultimately contributed by individuals; Haeckel however would +have us believe that the mere composition of the primitive and simple +souls of separate amœbæ results in a <i>human</i> soul with its wealth +of intuitions and interests. The utmost we are entitled to say is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>that given a certain collocation of cells in the brain there may by an +entirely new act of the infinite be generated a human soul. It is +only by playing fast and loose with words that we can deduce this +new soul from an aggregate of other souls either like or unlike itself.</p> + +<p>It is surprising that Clifford should have recognised that the +reality underlying so-called matter is akin to mind and yet have +identified it rather with the quasi-mental facts of an amœba or of +an atom than with the intelligence of man. The argument by which +he arrives at this conclusion is as follows: You as a face, a voice, a +touch, as an object to my senses in short, are a mere phantasm or +appearance in my consciousness, part and parcel of myself and not +distinct from me in any way. But I cannot help inferring an eject, +to wit feelings and a consciousness like my own, behind the sensible +show of your person; and this consciousness of yours which I +address as <i>you</i>, is the truth of the object or appearance, which I +have. <i>You</i> are the reality which I really perceive, so far as I perceive +anything more than my own feelings. Similarly when I watch +an amœba, what I perceive as a somewhat formless mass of protoplasm +is really in itself the struggling life within. Lastly what I +handle and perceive as a crystal or metal is really the eject. If here +we read force or unconscious will instead of eject or mind-stuff, Clifford’s +view would practically coincide with Schopenhauer’s; for force +is truly an eject in Clifford’s sense, not an object or appearance +to me.</p> + +<p>Now the human intelligence arises late in the history of things +and is altogether a secondary and derivative thing. Consequently +the world is not really what it is for my consciousness. My <i>Weltanschauung</i> +is false in proportion as my mind is complex and derivative. +Conversely, the <i>Weltanschauung</i> of each being approximates to +truth and becomes less and less illusive in proportion as the eject +which it in reality is approaches the primitive simplicity of mind-stuff. +I am <i>really</i> very little of what I am <i>consciously</i>. If you want +a truer exponent of the truth of things you must go to the amœba +or lower still. It, as compared with me, is <i>consciously</i> most of what +it is <i>really</i>. The absolutely simple atom is probably the only being +who is quite free from delusions. The conclusion then to which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>Clifford conducts us is this: that the universe is not really such as it +appears to our intelligence, still less, I presume, such as it would +appear to a higher intelligence than ours. It is really such and +such only as it would appear to the being whose eject is the lowest +rung in the ladder of mind-stuff. Our universe spread out in space +and time, with all its splendours and harmonies, is a delusion; nay, +more, the human soul with its æsthetic and moral sensibilities, its +fears and aspirations, is the parent delusion which breeds the delusion +of a cosmos. “We are such stuff as dreams are made of.”</p> + +<p>The loose way in which Clifford used the word feeling, as equivalent +to any form of consciousness, blinded him to the fact that a +qualified thing as such is not given in feeling at all and led him to +suppose that the universe as we know it would continue to stand in +the absence of all complex ejects whatever. Mr. Green has shown +that all theories of the object which ignore the workmanship of +thought manifest therein and identify the <i>esse</i> of things with their +<i>percipi</i> lead straight to nihilism. To such nihilism Clifford’s doctrine, +like Hume’s which it resembles, immediately bring us. But +Hume did not take seriously the demolition of reality involved in +his theory that things are only real as they are felt and that feelings +are “entirely loose and separate” (Treatise I, 559) while the solid +framework of reality is an illusion bred of a propensity of our minds +to feign connections and relations where there are none. Hume +tells us that he regarded his own speculations as “philosophical +melancholy and delirium,” as “clouds to be dispelled” (Treatise I, +501). He writes “I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse +and am merry with my friends; and when, after three or four +hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear +so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find it in my +heart to enter into them any further.” But Clifford, like Huxley, +took Hume <i>au grand serieux</i>, forgetting that feeling as such does +not reveal an object at all. There is a passage in a letter of Clifford’s +written to Professor Pollock in September, 1874, à propos of +Green’s introduction to Hume, which evinces pretty clearly that +Clifford did not discern the true drift of Hume’s speculations in the +way Hume did himself. “I hope,” he writes, “you have seen +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>Sidgwick’s remarks on the introduction; he points out that to prove +Hume insufficient is not to do much at the present day.... Green, +for instance, points out that Hume has no complete theory of the +object;—to find fault with Hume for the omission is like blaming +Newton for not including Maxwell’s electricity in the Principia.” +Here Clifford hardly writes as if he saw that his own theory of the +object as e. g. an unrelated feeling is open to exactly the same +criticisms as Hume’s, as if he understood, what Hume had an inkling +of, that, in proving the ego to be a relative thing instead of the +heart and centre of reality, you dissipate the universe into nothing. +There are several other features in Clifford’s doctrine that call for +criticism. It should for example be pointed out that the entire view +that ejects are the truth of objects is in the first instance a deliverance +of consciousness itself. I only transcend my individual feelings, +says Clifford, so far as I infer a consciousness more or less +like my own to underlie them; and this underlying eject is the sole +reality. “How this inference is justified, how consciousness can +testify to the existence of anything outside of itself, I do not pretend +to say; I need not untie a knot which the world has cut for me +long ago.” (Vol. II, p. 73.) But if consciousness is but the property +of a temporary conjunction of unconscious feelings, what value +shall we attach to its assurances? They are certainly not valid except +for itself; they do not hold good for the atomic feelings of which +the world ultimately consists. But my belief that the real is in the +last resort an atom of feeling is simply an extension of my conviction +that ejects are the truth of my feelings. Prove this conviction +an illusion—and Clifford does prove it to be such, when he declares +consciousness to be a relative thing—and you prove the entire theory +an illusion. Thus the tail of Clifford’s theory is bitten off by the head.</p> + +<p>The hypothesis that feelings can be felt, without being felt as +my feelings, is a very noteworthy one. “A feeling at the instant +when it <i>exists</i>, exists <i>an und für sich</i>, and not as my feeling.” This +is why a Greek said δέδορκα in the sense of I see, because the act +of perception is necessarily over, when we become conscious of it. +“When,” continues Clifford, “I remember the feeling as <i>my</i> feeling, +there comes up not merely a faint repetition of the feeling, but inextricably +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>connected with it a whole set of connections with the +general stream of my consciousness.” This is very truly and acutely +observed but it is an admission that the unrelated feeling is no element +in our experience, that in our cosmos at least there is no ὕλη +whatever, but that every corner of it is illumined by the presence of +a relating self. <i>My</i> consciousness never directly testifies at all to +the existence of an absolute feeling. To be <i>my</i> feeling a feeling +must already be brought by connections of content into the web of +my experience, but what do I know of feelings which are not mine. +Are not “absolute feelings” an inference based on observation of +low organisms like the amœba, which we are convinced have no self +and yet feel? It should be also noticed that this supposition that we +are not directly but only <i>ex post facto</i> conscious of our feelings +ἔξεισιν εις ἄπειρον. Thus Clifford writes: “This memory (of a feeling +which existed <i>an und für sich</i> as <i>my</i> feeling) is, <i>qua</i> memory, +relative to the past feeling, which it partially recalls; but in so far as +it is itself a feeling, <i>it</i> is absolute, <i>Ding an sich</i>.” That is to say, I +am not directly but only <i>ex post facto</i> conscious even of what I remember. +To be conscious of the content of a memory I must <i>remember</i> +that I remember it. Surely this new memory in turn cannot +be known <i>ex post facto</i> and so I must <i>remember</i> that I remember that +I remember <i>et sic ad infinitum</i>, before I become really <i>conscious</i> of +anything at all.</p> + +<p>One other point might be raised. What is the nature and origin +of the laws which govern the sequence and coexistence of feelings. +We have already seen that feelings as such neither follow nor coexist +apart from a self.</p> + +<p>“These laws are counterparts of the laws which govern physical +phenomena.” Clifford in writing thus conducts his speculation +Without prejudice to his common-sense belief in a world of necessarily +and rationally related things. He does not see that with the reduction +of the real to a feeling physical facts disappear and with these +facts the laws to which laws of feeling shall correspond. He is evidently +confusing the laws of feeling with the psychological laws of +association which depend upon the environment of the individual’s +senses by a world already real. He does not see that the problem +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>he really imposes on himself is this: starting from no world at all to +arrive at one, or starting from the world as it may be supposed to +picture itself in the feelings of an amœba to arrive at it as it exists +for the human intelligence. We must not concede to Clifford any +more than to Hume this postulate of a real cosmical order which +shall give the cue to feelings when and how to follow and coexist. +Huxley only allows it to Hume, because not having passed the +threshold of Idealistic philosophy he cannot divest himself of it. If, +however, this postulate be denied, then the doctrine that the <i>esse</i> of +things lies in their <i>percipi</i> will recommend itself to no one.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">F. C. Conybeare.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> On the whole, however, it is probable that in dealing such hard blows as he +did at priests and dogmas he was actuated by sheer love of truth, and those who +knew him best assure us that he was entirely free from bitterness and from the +vanity which sets some people upon beating their grandmother in public by way of +showing that they are grown up in their opinions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> <i>Clifford’s Essays</i>, Vol. ii, p. 83.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> Vol. ii, p. 61.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> Vol. ii, p. 87.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> P. 80.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> <i>Deutsche Rundschau</i>, July, 1878.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="ARE_THERE_THINGS_IN_THEMSELVES">ARE THERE THINGS IN THEMSELVES?</h3> + +</div> + +<p>The proposition that things in themselves cannot be known, has +often, and perhaps justly, been proclaimed as the central idea +of Kant’s philosophy. Kant concludes the first section of his “Transcendentale +Elementarlehre” with this “critical admonition”:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“That in general nothing which is intuited in space is a thing in itself, and that +space is not a form which belongs as a property to things; but that objects are quite +unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects are nothing else but +mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlate, +the thing in itself, is not known by means of these representations, nor ever +can be.” (“Kritik d. r. V.” § 4.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The term “thing in itself” means originally the object as it +is, independent of the thinking subject’s cognition. For instance: +A rainbow appears in the clouds; the rainbow is not a thing in itself, +but the appearance of a thing in itself. The rainbow exists in +man’s sensibility only. The colors of the spectrum, indeed all colors, +the colors of the sky, of the clouds, of trees, of living beings, +are sensations only; they are subjective phenomena, they are certain +kinds of feelings representing objective realities, but they are +not these objective realities themselves. They are perceived in the +brain and are projected to a place outside the organism. The rainbow, +as it is seen, is not a thing, but it is something seen, it is an +appearance only. And this is true of all things seen and heard and +perceived by any one of the senses. The sense-pictures are localised +in space, they are projected outside to a spot where the combined +experience of the senses has taught a sentient being to expect them. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>But all the objects of the objective world as they are perceived are +and remain subjective sense-perceptions. The world of our senses +around us is woven of our sensations. It is mere appearance. This +is not a question concerning which there is any doubt, this is simply +a matter of fact. But the question arises, “Can we know things as +they are independent of sensation? Can we know things in themselves?”</p> + +<p>The physicist and every scientist is engaged with the problem, +What are natural phenomena independent of sensation? Light is a +sensation of vision, but what is the objective process that takes +place when a human eye perceives light? The physicist answers +this problem by eliminating in his mind the sense-element and by +describing the facts of the process in terms of matter and motion. +His answer is that light, objectively considered, is a certain vibration +of the ether. If we can rely upon physical science, the thing in +itself of a rainbow would be a certain refraction of ether-waves. +These vibrations of the ether-waves are transmitted from the sun, +and being broken in the falling raindrops actually take place independent +of cognition, they are real whether we look at them or not.</p> + +<p>The ultimate aim of science is a description of the natural phenomena +not in terms of sense-elements, but in terms of form. That +feature of a thing which we call its matter, constitutes its reality, +but the form of a thing, of a motion, or of a process makes the thing +that which it is; every act of causation is a change of form, and the +forms of things are determined with the assistance of the operations +of purely formal thought, i. e. through measuring or counting. Such +is science, not only as it ought to be, but also as it actually is. All +our scientists, each one in his field, are consciously or unconsciously +working out a solution of this problem. And a solution of this problem +means, in our conception, the objective cognition of the world—i. e., +a description of the natural processes as they are independent +of sensibility.</p> + +<p>Kant knew very well that a description of things and of natural +processes in terms of form was possible. He clung, nevertheless, +to the proposition that things in themselves are unknowable. And +why? A description of things and of natural processes in terms of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>form was in his opinion not as yet a description of things in themselves, +for—and here we are confronted with the original idea and +the fundamental error of Kantian thought—Kant did not consider +the forms of things as an objective quality of theirs, he maintained +that the formal element is purely mental and merely subjective. +The thinking mind, he declared, attributes them to the object. +Space and time, the pure forms of existence, together with all other +forms, such as causation, are, according to Kant, not qualities of the +objective world, but of the thinking subject. The thinking subject +cannot help viewing the world in the form of its own cognition, it +transfers these forms to the objects. Therefore the thing in itself +according to Kant would not be represented in a description of the +thing purely in terms of form, the thing in itself would mean the +thing as it would be, independent of time and space.</p> + +<p>Let us here point out a distinction between the thing in itself and +noumenon. Noumenon means “a thing of thought.” The noumenal +world is the world of thoughts in a thinking being’s mind. The +noumenon must not be identified with the thing in itself. The two +terms are often confounded, but they have to be distinguished. The +idea of reflected ether-vibrations is a “noumenon,” but the reflected +ether-vibrations themselves, the objective process are a thing, i. e. +an objective reality, and in so far as they are a reality, considered as +being independent of sensation, we may call them “a thing in itself.” +Now when Kant denies the objectivity of time and space, he must, +implicitly, also deny the objective validity of a description made +in terms of measuring and counting. The pictorial world of our +sense-perception is subjective, it is built up of sensations, it is not +objective; and the world of thought is the attempt to reduce the +subjective world of sense-imagery to terms of objective validity, i. e. +to terms of form. But this world of thought is according to Kant +purely mental, it is purely noumenal, or, in other words, noumena +do not represent things independent of cognition, they represent +things as our mind thinks them. The sensory world is mere appearance, +it is a subjective phenomenon, but the world of thought, +says Kant, is no less subjective, it is a world of thought which describes +things in terms of purely mental properties and not in properties +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>of the things themselves. This is tantamount to the proposition, +that things in themselves cannot be known.</p> + +<p>The term “thing in itself,” in the sense of a thing as it is independent +of sensibility, would better be called “the objective +thing,” and we shall so call it when we wish to distinguish it from +Kant’s thing in itself. The objective thing is the thing, not expressed +in terms of subjective elements, such as feelings or sensibility, but +in terms of objective elements, i. e. in terms of form. That a description +of things in terms of forms is possible has never been denied +either by Kant or by any Kantian; but they deny that these +descriptions are anything more than mere noumena; Kant and the +orthodox Kantians deny that they represent the things as they are +in themselves. Thus the term thing in itself in the Kantian sense +comes to mean the thing as it is independent of space and time.</p> + +<p>That every noumenon is a mental sign is a matter of course; +the noumenal world is ideal. But we maintain that these mental +signs represent real qualities of the objective world; they have a +meaning; the things represented by them are actual features of reality. +Kant denies this. To him the noumenal world is purely +noumenal. To Kant there is no space outside the space-conception, +and so he declares that space is ideal; it is not an objective quality of +things. However, we maintain, that our space-conception describes, +i. e. depicts, or represents space, our space-conception is ideal, yet +space is not ideal but real; it is an objective quality of the world.</p> + +<p>Kant’s view is dualistic, or at least necessarily leads to dualism, +and it appears to rest on an unpronounced dualistic assumption. +Kant treats “the subject” as something quite distinct and separate +from “the object.” If he had borne in mind that the subject is always +at the same time an object, he would have treated both subject as +well as object as mere abstractions of one and the same reality. +Resting upon this erroneous presupposition, Kant’s most consequential +mistake, in our opinion, was his conception of what he called +“the ideality of time and space.” If time and space were purely +ideal, purely mental, purely subjective, then indeed, the things as +they are would forever remain unknown to us, then indeed the +thinking mind would be as if shut up within a hollow globe out of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>which it could never escape, then indeed the world would be divided +into two parts, the objective world, and the subjective world; and +the gap between both could never be bridged over. The thinking +mind would have within itself a noumenal world built upon the subjective +elements of sense-impressions. This subjective world would +possess no objective value, it would not describe realities, and the +objective world would thus be unknowable, inscrutable, and mystical.</p> + +<p>The idea of a thing in itself found another support in a mistaken +conception of the unity of certain things, especially of organisms. +The unity of a combination of parts is not merely the sum of the +parts, it consists in their peculiar combination which makes an harmonious +co-operation possible. This unity is an additional element; +it is an entirely new creation which exhibits features not contained +in any of its parts. There is no latent watch contained in a heap of +little wheels and cogs, the watch is created through the combination +of these wheels and cogs. The unity of a thing is its form, consisting +in a special arrangement of its parts; and this form although not +material is nevertheless real.</p> + +<p>The materialistic conception overlooks the importance of form; +but the spiritualist and also the transcendentalist materialise it as +some spiritual substance, as entities or independent existences. They +are in this way as much materialistic as the materialist.</p> + +<p>The question has seriously been asked, What is a melody in itself. +The question has sense when we understand by it, What are +those new qualities which appear through a certain combination of +sounds? Those qualities are not nothing, they are something quite +peculiar. We call one of them rhythm, another one is the fixed succession +of notes of a different pitch. The qualities of a melody as a +whole are not qualities of its separate parts; yet therefore the melody +is not a thing in itself. We might just as well speak of a watch +in itself, meaning thereby that peculiar unity of the combination of +its parts which makes of them a watch. But if we thus speak of “the +watch in itself,” we must be aware that this idea has not somewhere +in a transcendental fairy-land an independent existence above space +and time, and outside of its parts. The unity of a certain interacting +group of parts is, on the one hand, no mere addition of the thinking +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>subject, it is not purely noumenal, it is real and objective; on the +other hand it is not a thing in itself, independent of its parts, it is +the product of the relations in which its parts affect one another.</p> + +<p>Is not perhaps the basis of these vagaries a mistaken conception +of language? We call a certain sensory picture a tree and we +say, the tree has roots, a stem, branches, leaves, and fruits. Autumn +sets in and the wind shakes the leaves off the branches. Now we +speak of a leafless tree. We cut the tree down and we speak of a +rootless tree. We burn the trunk and the branches, and the tree as a +phenomenon is gone, all its properties are taken away. What remains? +The tree in itself is left, but the tree in itself does not exist. +If all the property of a person is taken from him, the person himself +is still left. The properties of a tree, however, are not properties +in the same sense; they are qualities. If all the qualities and parts +of a tree are gone, if only the tree in itself is left—then there is left +nothing but the empty word tree, the idea of a tree.</p> + +<h4>II. KANT’S VIEW OF SPACE AND TIME.</h4> + +<p>Let us briefly consider the ground upon which Kant bases his +view of the ideality of space and time. Kant asks:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“What then are time and space? Are they real existences? Or are they merely +relations or determinations of things, such however as would equally belong to +these things in themselves, though they should never become objects of intuition; +or <i>are they such as belong only to the form of intuition, and consequently to the subjective +constitution of the mind</i>, without which these predicates of time and space +could not be attached to any object?”⁠<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> (Kr. d. r. V. § 2; “Meiklejohn,” p. 23.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We should say, to state our opinion briefly, that space and time +are not “real existences,” i. e. they are not concrete objects, but +they are real nevertheless; they are not material things; not thingish +realities, yet they are objective properties of things. They are the +forms of things and processes, and belong to the things whether they +become objects of cognition or not. In this sense, they actually +belong to the things in themselves, viz. to the objective things.</p> + +<p>Kant argues that space and time are not conceptions derived +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>from outward experience; they have not been abstracted from sense-impressions. +They are necessary representations <i>a priori</i>, they are +not discursive ideas or generalisations, for there is but one space +and one time, space being represented as infinite and time as eternal.</p> + +<p>From these arguments Kant draws the conclusions that space +and time do not represent qualities of an object but that they are +the form of all sensory phenomena, space being the form of the external, +time of the internal sense. In other words, space and time +belong to the subjective condition of the sensibility and not to the +objective world.</p> + +<p>We answer that our conceptions of space and time are after all +derived from experience. Space and time are abstractions. There +is no time in itself. There is no space in itself. Space and time +are not directly derived from outward experience, nor are they derived +from the sense-elements of experience. Inner experience, +i. e. reflection to the exclusion of sense-impression, the experimenting +with pure forms, will lead to the construction of the concepts of +space as well as of time. Space and time, magnitudes and numbers +having been constructed in the mind of a thinking subject are applied +to practical experience. When counting three trees we do not +abstract the number “three” from the three trees, but we apply to +them the system of numbers in our possession.</p> + +<p>Says Kant:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We never can imagine or make a representation to ourselves of the non-existence +of space, though we may easily enough think that no objects are found in it. +It must therefore be considered as the condition of the possibility of phenomena +and by no means as a determination dependent upon them and is a representation +<i>a priori</i>, which necessarily supplies the basis for external phenomena.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Space being the generalised concept of extended form, and +time that of motion without reference to any contents, it is naturally +impossible to think the non-existence of space and time. Thinking +is an act, it is a process; and any act, any process, any event, is a +reality which implies or presupposes the existence of the forms of +reality. We can think of matter without reference to form, i. e. we +can have the abstract idea of matter; but we cannot think that there +is any matter void of form. This does by no means prove that form +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>has nothing to do with matter. On the contrary, it proves that form +and matter are inseparable. The form of existence need not therefore +be called “the basis” of existence, it is simply one universal feature +of existence. And the form of existence being bound up with +existence itself, it is necessary that any thinking existence in so far +as it is real, in so far as it is at the same time an object and part of +the objective world should also be in possession of the conditions to +evolve the idea of form out of itself through inner experience.</p> + +<p>This inner experience of experimenting with pure forms is also +a kind of experience. It is not a purely subjective process; it is a +subjective process to the thinking subject, which to other subjects, +however, would appear as an objective process. The laws of pure +form as stated in the sciences of purely formal thought, are not +merely subjective; they possess objective validity. It is true and +from our standpoint a matter of course that the laws of form are +<i>a priori</i>, which means, they hold good for any pure form.</p> + +<p>Modern positivism, such as we defend it, is monistic. We consider +the entire world as one great whole and do not forget that all +noumenal representations of certain features of the world, of matter, +mind, form, even of things and our own souls included, are mere +abstractions. Reality itself remains undivided and indivisible. Abstract +concepts are mental symbols invented to represent certain +features of reality. But although we can in our mind separate these +features and distinguish them from other features, in the world of +reality they cannot be cut out or thought of as things in themselves. +Granting the oneness of reality which dawns upon us instinctively +before consciousness is fully matured, we are inevitably led to the +conception that there is but one form of reality, which implies that +there is but one space and one time.</p> + +<h4>III. FORM NOT IMPORTED BY THE MIND INTO REALITY.</h4> + +<p>Kant says, and in this we agree with Kant, that “all thought +must directly by means of certain signs relate ultimately to <i>Anschauungen</i>.” +The word <i>Anschauung</i> (the “onlooking,” generally +translated by “intuition”) means the immediate presence of sense-perception. +Says Kant: “The effect of an object upon our faculty +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>of representation is called sensation, and that intuition which refers +to an object by means of sensation is called empirical intuition.” +For instance, I see a rose: The image of the rose which I see is the +appearance or the phenomenon. Kant continues:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation I term its <i>matter</i>, +but that which effects that the contents of the phenomenon can be arranged under +certain relations, I call its <i>form</i>.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In other words matter is that which affects the senses and form +is to be expressed in relations. The difference between the formal +and the material is obvious. The formal is of great importance, +nay, it is of paramount importance, but the formal is neither anything +apart from the material nor is it a substance. Both concepts +are disparate, but they have been derived by mental abstraction +from the same reality.</p> + +<p>We fully agree with Kant when he continues:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“That in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are +susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>But we do not agree with Kant when from this proposition he +derives the following conclusion:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It is, then, the <i>matter</i> of all phenomena that is given to us <i>a posteriori</i>; the +<i>form</i> must lie ready <i>a priori</i> for them in the mind, and consequently can be regarded +separately from all sensation.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Here lies the great fallacy of Kant, which rests upon an erroneous +statement and an actual distortion of fact. The phenomenon +of a rose which I see before me is not merely sensory, but also +formal. The phenomenon, i. e. the image of the rose (<i>die Anschauung</i>) +is a sensation of a special form. The term sensation as it is +generally used implies its having a special form. Accordingly the +form does not, at least not from the beginning, lie ready <i>a priori</i> in +the mind; the form is given together with the sensation.</p> + +<p>Kant speaks of “that which is annexed to perception by the +conceptions of understanding,” as if our understanding added the +formal out of the mind to the sensory elements given by experience. +What is the mind? The mind is a product of the world; it is a +system of symbols representing the things of the world and their relations +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>including such possible relations as are worthy of aspiring +for. In short, the mind consists of ideas and ideals.⁠<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></p> + +<p>It has often been said that the mind is the creator of the sensory +and noumenal world. This is incorrectly expressed, for mind <i>is</i> the +sensory and noumenal world itself. The sense-pictures, the thought-symbols, +and the ideals of a man are actual parts of his mind. They +are not products but constituents of his mind. Their organised totality +is his mind itself. The activity which takes place in a mind, +i. e. the combining, the separating, and recombining of memories, +thoughts, and ideals are the actual realities, and if we speak of a +man’s understanding, or reason, or any other so-called faculty, we +have to deal with abstractions. The activity of mentally separating +form and matter might be called by the general term understanding. +However the faculty of understanding is not a distinct mental organ, +it consists in the single acts of understanding, and the word understanding +is a mental symbol representing them all together as if they +were one thing.</p> + +<p>And certainly these acts of understanding as little import the +formal into the world of sensation as the miner carries the metals +into the mines. The formal, the relational, or the <i>a priori</i>, is first extracted +out of the data of experience not otherwise than iron is gained +out of the ores. The ore is not iron but it contains iron, the phenomenon +of a rose is not purely a sense-impression, it is a sense-impression +of a certain form. We are aware of the fact that mind +is an entirely new creation different from the non-mental world, yet +at the same time we maintain that the elements from which mind +develops are the same as the elements of the non-mental world. +Nature furnishes the entire raw material and whatever new creation +the product of a new development is, nothing can be added to the +raw material, of which the formal is the most indispensable part.</p> + +<p>The raw material of sensory phenomena as soon as it is worked +out, and also the activity of working it out are called mind. Mind +accordingly originates with the appearance of sentient substance as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>the organisation of feelings and the memories of feelings—these +memories being conditioned through the preservation of the form +of sentient substance. Mind is not something different from the +world but must be considered as its product and highest efflorescence. +Mind is made of the same substance as the universe and +the mind-forms are the forms of objective existence.</p> + +<p>As soon as a system of forms has developed in a sentient being, +thus constituting its mind, this system can again be referred to the +objective forms of things. In this sense we can say with Kant, that +the understanding imports form into phenomena; and this re-importation, +this referring the objectively formal to the subjective system +of formal thought, is an essential element in cognition.</p> + +<h4>IV. PROFESSOR JODL’S VIEW OF THE THING IN ITSELF.</h4> + +<p>The idea of a thing in itself independent of space and time and +the unknowableness of the thing in itself are the basis of all agnosticism. +And an agnostic tendency is at present predominant even +among positive workers and thinkers. Agnosticism is still the philosophy +of the day even among those who have surrendered its basis +(which is Kant’s transcendental idealism) and accept the monistic +world-conception. Friedrich Jodl, professor at the University of +Prague and author of the well-known “History of Ethics,” in answer +to a letter of mine formulates in concise terms this modernised +view of a thing in itself. He writes:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“You are right. The thing in itself is a dangerous idea,—one that easily leads +astray. But so long as we have no better expression to represent the relation for +which it stands we shall have to use it. You also accept the following three momenta: +(1) Objective existence or reality. (2) Effectiveness of Reality upon consciousness, +i. e. sensation. (3) Effectiveness of sensation upon consciousness and reproduction +of sensation in consciousness, i. e. representation. Nobody, however, can maintain +that in sensation, and still less in representation, the whole of reality will appear +in consciousness. First we learn from history what progress has been made in the +cognition of reality and secondly it is obvious that we are infinitely far from an +actual comprehension of reality. We have strong reasons to suspect that there are +many processes in reality which in no way affect our sensibility and cannot enter +into consciousness, and we know for sure that we do not comprehend—i. e. reconstruct +from them assumed causes—many things, indeed most things, which we observe +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>in their effects. Our cognition of nature, if we begin to construct, always leads us to +some <i>x</i>. It may be doubted whether this <i>x</i> is an unknown or an unknowable. In +my opinion it is both—anyhow we cannot eliminate it.</p> + +<p>“I am convinced that many things which are unknown to-day and appear as unknowable +will be known and knowable in a thousand years. But I doubt whether +the total mass of the Unknowable has been noticeably diminished. For the Unknowable +is infinite and the infinite if divided by any finite number can never produce +a finite number. Every solved problem contains new and greater problems. +What shall we call this? I believe that the term “thing in itself” is after all the best +expression. Whoever wants to turn a mystic on account of it cannot be prevented. +This state of things can be brought out of existence by an act of violence only.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is most certainly true, as Professor Jodl says, that sensations +do not depict the whole of reality. But why should they? Cognition +is possible only by limiting the attention to a special point. +Every sense organ is an organ of abstraction. Every sense depicts +the effects of reality in its own way and in this way alone. It +may freely be granted that there are many processes in reality which +do not affect our sensibility. Yet there is nothing in reality which +does not affect something in some way. If it did not, it could not +be said to exist. The chemical rays of light do not affect our eye, +they are invisible and were for that reason not noticed. But these +rays are not without any effects. If we cannot observe them directly, +we can invent sensitive plates or other instruments for observing +their effects indirectly. Indirect observation makes it possible that the +limitation of our senses does not result in a limitation of knowledge.</p> + +<p>Says Professor Jodl:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Our cognition of nature if we begin to construct always leads us to some <i>x</i>.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This sentence indicates that Professor Jodl’s and our conception +of cognition are different. Cognition is not a reconstruction of +assumed causes; it is a unification of our representative sensations +or ideas. Something is again noticed, it is re-cognised, to be the same +thing. Cognition is adaptation of new facts to our present stock of +knowledge; it is the proper arrangement of new data in our system +of mental representations. Cognition, accordingly, is the reduction +of the unknown to terms of the known. How can it ever lead to an +<i>x</i>? The positive conception of cognition is, as Kirchoff defines, it +“an exhaustive and most simple description of facts.” It is a reconstruction +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>of facts or, as Mach says, <i>Ein Nachbilden der Thatsachen</i>. +Cognition is based upon <i>Anschauungen</i>; it will lead to an ultimate <i>x</i>, +only in case we expect that cognition instead of being a description +of facts will have to give us information about how it happens that +facts exist, how they originated out of nothing.</p> + +<p>Professor Jodl’s thing in itself is not outside of Space and Time +(as is Kant’s thing in itself) but it is the overwhelming infinitude of +problems to be solved with which we cannot hope to get through +even though our life lasted billions of light-years. Let me repeat +here what I said in the second edition of “Fundamental Problems,”</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“A philosophy which starts from the positive data of experience, and arranges +them in the system of a monistic conception of the world, will meet with many +great problems and in solving them will again and again be confronted with new +problems. It will always grapple with something that is not yet known. The unknown +seems to expand before us like an infinite ocean upon which the ship of +knowledge advances. But the unknown constantly changes into the known. We +shall find no real unknowable wherever we proceed. The idea of the unknowable +is like the horizon—an optic illusion. The more we advance, the farther it recedes. +The unknowable is no reality; the unknowable can nowhere prevent knowledge nor +can the horizon debar a ship in her voyage, from further progress.” (p. 271.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Man’s knowledge has value as positive information concerning +the facts he has to deal with, and the infinitude of the not known, +the infinitude of other problems and things which he will never face, +is of no consequence whatever. Positivism commences and has to +commence with the positive facts of the given experience and not +with the infinitude of possibilities which lie beyond our horizon. +Compare knowledge to property and suppose a man is to buy a farm. +Shall we discourage him with the idea that the whole amount of soil +on the surface of the earth and of other planets is infinite, and this +infinitude of all existences if divided by his finite little possession +can never result in a finite number. Even if it were doubled, if it +were multiplied a thousand times, it remains as good as nothing in +comparison with the rest of the world which he cannot acquire. +However, his possession is something to him, whatever the relation +of infinite possibilities may be in proportion to it.</p> + +<p>The concept of infinitude serves a good purpose in its place, +but we cannot use it for analogies in other fields or bring it in relation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>to concrete realities. We produce confusion and drop into +mysticism as soon as we handle the idea of infinitude as if it were a +positive thing. The infinite is a function which is mathematically expressed +by 1/0 = ∞, and whenever we bring anything in relation to the +infinite, we at once dwarf the greatest number no less than the smallest +number into zero.</p> + +<p>Clearness of thought is the indispensable method of sound philosophy +for constructing a positive world-conception, which in great +outlines is a description of the facts of reality. By suffering mysticism +as a legitimate conception either in science or in philosophy, +we enhance the interests of those who prefer the chiaroscuro of vague +notions to clear thought.</p> + +<h4>V. CLIFFORD’S AND SCHOPENHAUER’S CONCEPTIONS OF THE THING IN ITSELF.</h4> + +<p>When Clifford speaks of things in themselves he does not mean +Kant’s thing in itself, he means neither the object independent of +the thinking subject nor the thing independent of space and time. +He means the thing as it would be if viewed from the thing itself.</p> + +<p>A man appears to other thinking beings as an active body, as +an organism that is in motion; but to himself he appears as a feeling +being. The subjectivity of things as they appear to the things +themselves consists in our own case of states of awareness, and this +subjectivity is called by Clifford the thing in itself.</p> + +<p>A certain brain motion is in its subjective aspect a feeling. This +feeling is according to Clifford the thing in itself of the visible, observable, +and measurable motion. The thing in itself of so-called +inanimate beings is not feeling, but elements of feeling. In other +words, the world-substance is everywhere in itself potentiality of +feeling and Clifford therefore calls it “mind-stuff.”</p> + +<p>Schopenhauer arrives at his conception of the thing in itself +practically in the same way. There is the world as it appears to +us, the objective world of motion in space and time. What the +kernel of this world may be, we can know from self-observation. +The kernel of ourselves, Schopenhauer says, is Will; and the will +is also the kernel of things; the will is the thing in itself.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span></p> + +<p>We understand by will the passage into action, i. e. an incipient +motion of the organism if accompanied with the psychical +element of consciousness, and this consciousness is a state of +awareness of the will including its direction and aim. Will, as the +term is generally used, is always conscious. Schopenhauer however +speaks of the will as being blind, i. e. without knowledge, +without awareness of itself and its aim. This indicates that he uses +the word not in its original but in a figurative meaning.</p> + +<p>The fall of a stone may be characterised as a blind motion without +awareness and without the stone’s having a consciousness as to +its direction or aim; and in a similar (although not in the same) way +Clifford speaks of the elements of feeling as being not rational. We +agree with Schopenhauer that that factor in a stone which makes +it fall when placed in a certain position is as much a natural process +as the act of a man, only of a lower grade and a simpler kind. +Schopenhauer calls that which both have in common “will.” +Yet in common language we call the objective aspect of that which +both processes have in common, “motion.” What then is the subjective +aspect of a falling stone? It is not a state of awareness, it is +no feeling, but it is the potentiality of a state of awareness, it is +potential feeling. There <i>is</i> a subjective aspect, but this subjective +aspect is so far as we can judge of no account to the stone.</p> + +<p>That something in the stone which corresponds to man’s consciousness, +viz. the stone’s subjectivity, is not mind, but it is potential +mind. And potential mind is not as Mr. Conybeare expresses +it “mind diluted,” potential mind is no mind at all.</p> + +<p>The world-substance as it exists in inorganic matter is not mind. +But the universe taken as a whole, the All, is for that reason not +less than mind. On the contrary, it is infinitely more than mind. +The All is not brute force and inert matter only, the universe is a +cosmos, and its subjectivity necessarily develops, according to the +laws of form which characterise the cosmos throughout, into mind. +We disagree with Professor Clifford most emphatically when he +describes the mind-stuff of which according to his terminology the +world consists, as not rational.</p> + +<p>The world it is true is not rational in its elements, but the world +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>as a whole, the entire cosmos with its laws and especially in its +formal order, is the prototype of all rationality. Human reason is +rational only in so far as it conforms with, as it reflects, as it describes +the order of the cosmos. The human mind is a microcosm. We do +not call the macrocosm, in whose image the microcosm has been +created, a mind, because we understand by the term mind not reality +itself but reality pictured in symbols of feeling. We understand by +mind the individual conception of the world as it is mapped out in +the brain of a sentient being, and not the universe itself, not the all-being. +We understand by mind a creature and not the creator, a +soul and not God.</p> + +<p>The cosmos, the All, God, that which creates the mind, is not +dead, not irrational, and not inferior to mentality. It is the source +of all life, it is the condition of all order, it is the standard of all +morality. All the minds that exist are but parts of it. In it, with +it, and through it we live and shall live forever. For although we +shall die, our being can never be blotted out. Existence knows no +annihilation and life knows no death. What we call death is a dissolution +of life in a special part, but the contents of a life, the thoughts, +the ideas, and the ideals are preserved and transmitted, they are implanted +into other minds; the soul continues to live. And this continuance +of the life of the soul is not a mere dissolution in the All, it +is not the immortality of force and matter; it is the preservation of its +special existence, of its most characteristic and individual features +for an immeasurably long period hence, which will last as long as +the conditions of life remain favorable upon earth. Yet even if a +whole solar system were broken to pieces, life will reappear; mind +will be born again to struggle for truth and to aspire to live in conformity +with truth.</p> + +<h4>VI. THINGS AND RELATIONS.</h4> + +<p>The proposition that things in themselves are unknowable finds +a strong argument in the statement that we can know relations only, +that all knowledge is relative. It is undoubtedly true that all knowledge +is relative and knowledge is a knowledge of relations. But +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span>what is a relation? When I once proposed this question, I was answered:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“A relation is the connection between two things; it is that something in which +the one stands to the other, in short, it is the betwixtness of things.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This is exactly what a relation is not. From such a definition +of relation agnosticism will necessarily follow. It is a misstatement +of the case, and when we come to follow out the idea, we shall be +led into inextricable contradictions, and unless we revise the whole +argument, we shall have to confess that we are at our wit’s end.</p> + +<p>The question, what is a relation? was one of the issues between +the two great mediæval schools of philosophy, the Nominalists and the +Realists.⁠<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> The Nominalists answered: “A relation is a mere product +of the mind,” while the Realists declared that “a relation without +which the thing cannot be, is in the thing.”</p> + +<p>Both schools relied upon Aristotle’s authority. Aristotle had +declared that matter is mere possibility of existence (it is δυνάμει ὄν) +and form is that which makes it real, the formal is the real, form is +existence or being (οὐσία). The metal of a statue, Aristotle says, is +its matter, the idea of the statue is its form, both together make the +real statue. The metal having had another form before, did not exist +with the inherent purpose of being this metal of the statue. The +metal is the mere potentiality of becoming a statue.⁠<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> Hence, says +Aristotle, not the matter but the form constitutes the reality of the +statue, the form is that which is real, or that which makes actual, +ἐνεργείᾳ ὄν, it is the being in completeness or actuality, ἐνετλεχείᾳ ὄν, +i. e. that which makes a thing exist in its purpose (ἐν τέλει ἔχειν). +If the formal alone is and makes real, relations must be real. This +is in favor of the Realists.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span></p> + +<p>Yet Aristotle’s philosophy is not in every respect clearly worked +out. In fact there are two Aristotles, the one being a Platonist, the +other a naturalist, the one believing in universals, the other investigating +concrete things and taking individuals as real beings. But +both Aristotles and with them both parties of the schoolmen had +no clear conception of the nature of ideas, what they are, and what +they purport, and how we can discriminate between their subjective +and objective elements. Ideas have a meaning. Is their meaning +purely mental or has it an objective value? We say that it has.</p> + +<p>The same Aristotle who considered the formal as that which +makes real, denied the objective existence of relations. He said +that such qualities as greater, or smaller, double or half, indeed all +relations (the πρός τι of things) did not belong to the things, but +were added to them by the thinking subject. Ergo relations are +mere products of the mind, they have no objective value. This was +in favor of the Nominalists.</p> + +<p>Now it is true that some relations are purely mental in so far as +the comparison upon which they rest is purely imaginary. An answer +to the question, Who was the greater, Alexander or Cæsar? +depends upon the standard of measurement which we create for the +special purpose. Some such relations have no objective value, they +are not facts but a play of imagination dependent on the recognition +of the standard of measurement. But how is it, if we express the +relation between the gravity of a stone and the whole mass of the +earth as it manifests itself in the stone’s fall? Is that also a mere +product of the mind? Certainly Newton’s laws describing gravitation +in exact and mathematical formulas are a product of the mind, +but this product of the mind has an objective value, it has a meaning, +it describes facts, and these facts are certain relations between +certain things.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The fault of the modern misconception of relativity lies in the +assumption that the two or more things are considered as things in +themselves. We are apt to consider the gravity of two masses, of +a stone and of the earth, as a relation between two independent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>things. Here is the stone and there is the earth and the relation is +considered as some third item, being the connection in which the +one stands to the other.</p> + +<p>In reality there are not two things and, in addition to them a +betweenness of the two things. The world is not a sum of things, +not even a system of things, but a whole indivisible entirety and +what we call things are abstractions which serve special purposes in +the household of cognition. All things consist as it were of innumerable +relations to all other things. When we abstract one special +process which takes place in the province of what we are wont to +call <i>two</i> things, we have to deal with a relation.</p> + +<p>There are no relations of themselves and there are no things of +themselves. Relations describe certain features of reality obtaining +between what we call two or more things, and in this description all +other features of which the real things consist are purposely omitted.</p> + +<p>There is no quality of things but it is at the same time a quality +of relation. Every quality of a thing characterises it under a certain +condition; it appears as an effect upon something and thus it +is actual as a relation. Cognition analyses things into bundles of +relations and all these relations together make up the things.</p> + +<p>The modern idea that we can know relations only and that there +are things in themselves which are unknowable is an old error inherited +from mediæval scholasticism, and its roots can be traced +back to the philosophy of Aristotle. The difficulty disappears as +soon as we consider the whole world (ourselves included) as an interacting +whole, and that the conceptions “things” and “relations” +have been invented for describing certain of its parts and certain of +its interactions or interconnections.</p> + +<p>If we push the idea of things in themselves to the ultimate extreme +we arrive at the atomistic conception of the universe. <i>Atoms +are the things in themselves reduced to the point system.</i> If we consider +the world as a heap of innumerable atoms, we are at a loss how to +explain the interaction among these atoms. The atomist universalises +the substance-abstraction and will be disappointed afterwards +not to be able to deduce from his universalisation other qualities +which are found in reality, such as the relations of things, their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>interconnections, their spontaneity of motion, the life of organised +beings, and the mind of thinking creatures.</p> + +<p>Ideas are symbols and symbols have a meaning. The whole +realm of mental representations may be viewed in their symbolism +or in their significance. Considering their symbolism, ideas of things +as well as of relations, are products of the mind, considering their +meaning, ideas represent realities; in other words: their contents +or that which they signify is real.</p> + +<p>It appears that neither Nominalism nor Realism is right; yet if +we stretch them only a little, if we are allowed to interpret them in the +light of a monistic world-conception, both are right. They cease to +be contradictory and become complementary. Universals are real, +say the Realists, i. e. the forms and relations of things are actualities. +Universals are names, say the Nominalists, i. e. the relations and +forms in which we describe the world are mental symbols.</p> + +<p>The Realists had the misfortune to defeat the Nominalists entirely, +and thus had a chance to insist upon being right in every +respect. All opposition having ceased, the errors of Realism grew +in extraordinary exuberance. Nominalism in the mean time raised +its head in opposition to the recognised authority of the church +as well as the schools, slowly yet powerfully and irresistibly. The +errors and the tyranny of Realism gave strength to the Nominalistic +movement which reached its height in Kant’s philosophy. The +Realists had gone to the extreme of declaring that universals were +things, real substances, independent of single and concrete objects, +and the Nominalists on the other hand, represented by Kant, went +so far as to declare that all relations, time and space included were +<i>mere</i> products of the mind.</p> + +<p>If the relations are mere products of the mind, all knowledge +being a knowledge of relations, knowledge becomes impossible. That +last consequence was drawn by Kant and is emphatically insisted +upon by agnosticism.</p> + +<p>There is but one world-conception that can dispense with +these conclusions: it is that View which conceives of the All as a +whole; and of knowledge as a description of its parts, qualities, and +relations, ever mindful on the one hand that the parts are parts, that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>qualities and relations are certain features only, not entire realities, +or isolated entities, and that the symbols thereof frequently overlap +each other; on the other hand that there is nothing absolute,⁠<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> and +that there are no things in themselves.</p> + +<p>The relativity of knowledge, whether we conceive of it as the +relativity of the object to the subject in general or as an appreciation +of the fact that all knowledge gives and can give information of relations +only, does not lead to the conclusion that knowledge is impossible. +Relativity is a fundamental feature of knowledge, and we +shall understand that it must be so if we consider that reality itself +is a great system of relations.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The interconnection of all things with all things appears to be +so complete, that if we intended to explain or understand one single +fact fully and exhaustively in all its relations, past, present, and future, +we should be obliged to give a complete description of the +universe. Says Tennyson:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Flower in the crannied wall,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I pluck you out of the crannies;—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Little flower—but if I could understand</div> + <div class="verse indent0">What you are, root and all, and all in all,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I should know what God and man is.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>We might address in the same way anything else, an atom of +hydrogen, a grain of sand as well as the sun, the action of a tiny +speck of irritable protoplasm as well as the soul of man.</p> + +<h4>VII. IS THE EGO A THING IN ITSELF?</h4> + +<p>Prof. Lloyd Morgan in his excellent work “Animal Life and +Intelligence” uses repeatedly the word “mind” as if it were a thing +in itself. Professor Morgan is a monist and he does not intend the +word to mean a thing in itself; yet such is the influence of language +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>that we, all of us, unless we are constantly on our guard, will inadvertently +slip into dualistic expressions. Professor Morgan says, +with reference to certain sensations of animals (p. 309):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>‘From these stippled sensations the mind in all cases elaborates a continuum.’</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The unity which arises out of stippled sensations and which +through their interaction becomes a continuum is called mind. To +speak of mind as working out the continuum is mythological language, +it is the transformation of the abstract idea “mind” into a +real and independent thing whose existence is conceived to be independent +of the reality from which it has been abstracted.</p> + +<p>Again, Professor Morgan says: “Our constructs are literally +our handiwork.” Our constructs, i. e. our mental signs constructed +to represent realities, constitute our soul; they are we ourselves.</p> + +<p>Professor Morgan, as I understand him, does not believe in a +mind behind the psychical facts of mental activity, he does not assume +the pre-existence of mind to the continuum elaborated. His +view of mind appears to be the same as ours. The more noteworthy, +then, is his usage of the term “mind.” It is a remarkable instance of +how language naturally inveigles us into a belief in things in themselves. +Words seem to denote concrete existences and as soon as +we use words in this way we are entangled in dualism.</p> + +<p>Prof. F. Max Müller as well as the late Prof. Thomas Hill +Green, the founder of the Oxford transcendentalist school, start +from this assumption, that man’s mental activity is performed by a +something which is quite distinct from it. This something is the +thing in itself of the human soul. Prof. F. Max Müller says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If mind is the name of the work, what is the name of the worker?... It +is what we may call the ego as personating the self; it is what other philosophers call +the monon. Let us call therefore the worker who does the work of the mind in its +various aspects, the Monon or the Ego.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This conception which asks for the worker of the work is based +upon a materialistic view of the human organism. An organism is +not a dead machine which must be set a-going by somebody who +attends to it. Organisms are active and not passive, they are living +and not dead. Every part of an organism is a worker and so is the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>whole. And if we speak of its “life” we must bear in mind that +“life” is an abstract which denotes a certain inseparable quality of +the organism. The work and the worker are two abstracts of one +and the same thing. The reality from which these terms have been +abstracted is “something working.” This something working does +not consist of a worker and his work, but the worker is in every +part of his work. The worker of our mental activity is the work itself. +Both are identical.</p> + +<p>The objection is made: “Whence does the activity come which +appears in the realm of organised life.” The answer is: Activity is +a universal quality of all existence. There is no such a thing as absolutely +inert matter. Every chemical element combines with other +elements spontaneously, according to its inherent nature and not +through the influence of a worker manipulating its atoms. Spontaneity +is a universal feature of reality. Nature is throughout self-working +activity. And this its most remarkable character is preserved +in its highest efflorescence in the soul of man.</p> + +<p>The present number of <i>The Monist</i> contains a lucid presentation +of the transcendentalist position by Mr. F. C. Conybeare, an +Oxford scholar and a personal disciple of Professor Green, with special +reference to the views of Prof. William Kingdon Clifford. Mr. +Conybeare, like Prof. F. Max Müller, assumes a Self independent +of the reality from which the idea of self has been abstracted, and +he attempts to prove the existence of this self as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In truth there can be no relation of before and after between the two terms +except for a self which takes note of the one disappearing and of the other appearing; +and whenever we speak of things following one another we tacitly presuppose +a self before whom the procession passes.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The transcendentalist adopts, in the realm of psychology, the +error of atomism. If we accept the view that the world consists of isolated +atoms, we are at a loss how to bring the atoms into relations; +the unity of every group of atoms, every thing and every system of +things will become a mystery. And if we look upon feelings as unrelated +things in themselves, their connection becomes a deep problem. +Mr. Conybeare solves this problem of the connection that obtains +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>among the feelings supposed to be atomical, by postulating a +relation-producing entity, called the self. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“No link is left, save a connecting self.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And this assumed entity of a connecting self or ego is taken to +be “the heart and centre of reality.” Reality, that which we have +to deal with in real life and what is commonly called reality, appears +as a second class of reality in comparison with this assumed thing in +itself of our existence. The thing in itself is thus regarded as something +realer than real; it is conceived to be a reality of a higher degree.</p> + +<p>Mr. Conybeare is very explicit in the explanation of his transcendental +“self.” He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Feelings constitute a conscious self when they become the feelings of a conscious +self and not before, for except as gathered up in the unity of a self which has +[sic!] memory and remains the same throughout its differences, feelings can be +neither new, nor repeated, nor joined by links.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>What does “self” mean? What can it mean? What is the +“unity of the self”? These are questions which have not been answered +to our satisfaction by the transcendentalists. Whenever they +speak of the self, they lose themselves in mysticism. Their “self” +is an assumed entity which they have carefully divested of everything +real and actual. Their self is transcendental and not a being +of the world; it is a myth.</p> + +<p>Let us describe the simplest possible instance of psychical activity.</p> + +<p>An irritation takes place in some sentient substance. This irritation +produces an extra-commotion. We must say “extra-commotion” +because all sentient substance is in a state of constant activity. +This extra-commotion causes the sentient substance to assume +a certain form, and while it lasts, a certain and special feeling +takes place in some part of the sentient substance. This certain +and special feeling ceases, as soon as the extra-commotion, caused +through the irritation, abates. There can be no doubt that certain +effects of this extra-commotion remain. Its trace is left in the sentient +substance and this trace is preserved in the constant whirl of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>the sentient being’s normal activity. Now, we suppose that an irritation +of the same kind takes place in the same sentient substance. +This second irritation finds the substance no longer in the same +condition. It finds the sentient substance prepared to receive it. +The feeling which now appears is no longer a simple feeling. The +second irritation causes a commotion as much as the first, and this +commotion acts as a stimulant upon the trace left by the first irritation. +This trace being again in a state of extra-commotion is revived +and the same kind of feeling appears. Thus the second irritation +is accompanied by a state of awareness in which two feelings +are blended, the revival of the former feeling and the feeling of the +present irritation.</p> + +<p>The preservation of traces left in sentient substance is the condition +of memory. We understand by memory the psychical aspect +thereof, and the act of reviving, so that their correspondent feelings +will reappear, is called recollection.</p> + +<p>“Memory” has been the greatest stumbling-block to our psychologists +as well as to our philosophers. Even modern works +written from a positive standpoint treat memory frequently as a +mysterious faculty of the mind. Mr. Conybeare speaks of the self +as <i>having</i> memory, while in fact, memory is one of the features, indeed +the most important feature, of mind-activity.</p> + +<p>Says Mr. Conybeare:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Such a feeling [of the togetherness of two feelings] would involve memory +and memory involves self-hood.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Memory does not involve any transcendental self-hood. True +self-hood, viz. that which can reasonably be understood by self-hood, +is not prior to, not the cause of memory; self-hood, i. e. the personality +of a man, the organised unity of the psychical aspect of a human +organism, is consequent upon, it is the effect of, memory. Self-hood +is the product of memory.⁠<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a></p> + +<p>The self is also called the ego. What is the ego?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span></p> + +<p>The ego is a Latin term used in philosophical language to denote +the pronoun “I,” and the pronoun “I” is quite a definite nerve-structure +situated in quite a definite place of the centre of language. +As all words, so also the term “I” is a symbol. Its general meaning +is unequivocal; it stands for the name of the speaker. It stands +for Mr. Brown, if Mr. Brown speaks of himself, for Mr. Smith, if +Mr. Smith speaks of himself, etc.</p> + +<p>What does Mr. Brown mean when he says, “<i>I</i> speak, <i>I</i> act, <i>I</i> +will, <i>I</i> feel pain, <i>I</i> feel pleasure, <i>I</i> intend,” etc.?</p> + +<p>When Mr. Brown speaks, a certain number of word-structures +in the centre of language are in a state of commotion, innervating +the muscles of speech. Correspondent to this physiological process, +a state of consciousness obtains, which is an awareness of the +situation. When he adds: “I say this,” it is again a special nerve-structure +that is irritated into action and he might just as well say: +“Mr. Brown says this.” The idea of Mr. Brown, viz. of his own +personality, is just as much an idea as his idea of Mr. Smith. The +main difference consists in the fact that the idea of one’s own personality +is very much more important than the ideas representing +other personalities.</p> + +<p>The nervous structure representing the feeling of the idea “I” +must be the centre of innumerable nervous tracts connecting it with +all those activities which when performed are thought of as done by +ourselves. The “I do this” is almost constantly ready to fill the +present state of consciousness and to accompany any action performed +through the innervation of other brain structures.</p> + +<p>Sentient substance is not always actually feeling. It is feeling +only when in a state of extra-commotion. Systems of sentient substance +are called organisms; all its structures are interconnected and +most so those structures in which sentiency as well as motory impulses +are differentiated—viz. the nervous structures. The extra-commotions +which agitate the different nervous structures, the memories of +former sense-perceptions, of sounds, of words, of ideas depend upon +the conditions of the moment. Now this and now another structure +will represent the summit of commotion and the feeling of the +strongest commotion at a given time will under normal conditions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>appear as the contents of consciousness. It is as it were the focus +in which the attention of the whole organism is centralised. That +which appears in the focus is clear and distinct, while the other +weaker feelings rapidly disappear into the undistinguishable general +feeling of the organism as a whole, commonly called cœnæsthesis +or <i>Gemeingefühl</i>.</p> + +<p>The centre of attention is constantly changing; yet whenever a +thinking creature stops to ask himself, who is doing this? Who is +willing this? Who is thinking this? the answer is given: “I am +doing this; I am willing this; I am thinking this.” The structure +of the little pronoun “I” seems to be the most ticklish of all; it is +always ready to force itself into the foreground.</p> + +<p>The answer, “I am doing this,” proposes the <i>totum pro parte</i>. The +whole personality is supposed to do what a part of it is performing. +The hands are executing this work; these hands of course are innervated +from certain regions of the brain. Some parts of the personality +are in a relative rest and have nothing to do with the work +presently on hand. A commotion in a certain number of brain-structures +represents the physiological aspect of a deliberation, perhaps +the planning of some action. Psychologically considered certain +ideas appear successively and sometimes simultaneously in the focus +of consciousness. The ideas disagree and other ideas replace them +until a combination is formed in which the ideas do agree. This state +of agreement brings a temporary peace into the tumult of conflicting +ideas; the plan is ready; it may pass into action at once, or, perhaps, +the ego-structure will appear in consciousness and will quietly think: +“I will do it.”</p> + +<p>When certain motory nerve-structures are innervated, they +cause under normal conditions their respective muscles to contract, +they produce motion. Under normal conditions the nervous process +accompanying the idea “I will raise my arm” serves as an irritation +upon the cortical centre of arm-raising, yet it is not the “I” +that in some mystical way raises the arm. The idea “I” has as little +and as much to do with this discharge of energy as any other idea. +The idea “I” is not the power behind the veil that produces the will.</p> + +<p>What is will? As soon as some plan of action is joined with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>the idea that it should be executed, supposing it be not counteracted +by any stronger idea that it should not be done, this combination +represents a will. A will accordingly is the psychological aspect of +an incipient action, and it is usually, or if it is not it can always be +accompanied with the thought “I will it.” But this accompanying +thought however is not the energy displayed in the act of willing.</p> + +<p>The “I will it,” or “I do it,” or “I perceive it” being always +ready to appear together with the strongest idea in the field of consciousness, +the term “ego” has acquired a specialised meaning. It +means that part of a man’s personality which at the time is the contents +of the “I will,” or “I think,” i. e. it is his present state of consciousness. +Every organism is a coherent system and thus all the +feelings of an organism naturally blend into a unity. The strongest +feeling however appears in the normal state of waking in a distinct +clearness thus representing a centre of consciousness.</p> + +<p>However, whether we use the term “ego” in the sense of the +idea “I” meaning the whole personality of the speaker, or in the +sense of the present centre of consciousness, it designates in either +case a definite reality, the origin and action of which are natural +facts and as plain as any other psychological phenomena.</p> + +<p>Neither the ego-idea nor the centre of consciousness are transcendental. +The former is as little mystical as are the ideas dog, +horse, man, etc.; the latter no less miraculous than any other feeling +or display of sentiency.</p> + +<h4>VIII. THE EGO-CENTRIC VIEW ABANDONED.</h4> + +<p>The contrast between the old and the new psychology appears +strongest in their conceptions of the ego. The former believes that +the ego is “the thing in itself” of man’s soul and takes it to be the +centre of all psychical phenomena, while the latter looks upon the +ego-idea as one idea among many other co-ordinated ideas and considers +the centre of consciousness as the strongest feeling at a given +time, which as such naturally predominates over and eclipses the +other feelings of the organism.</p> + +<p>The new psychology brings about a change of standpoint similar +to that effected by the Copernican system in astronomy. In astronomy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>the geo-centric, and in psychology the ego-centric standpoint +had to be abandoned. And all things seem to be upset to +those who are still accustomed to the old conception. To them the +physical and moral world-conceptions appear to become impossible. +If the new view were correct, so they imagine, the entire universe +would break to pieces. All our modes of speech are formed in accord +with the old view. We speak of sunset and sunrise, and so in +our daily conversation the little pronoun “I” plays a part which +makes it seem as if the ego-idea were the centre of all soul-life and +as if this “I” were the active agent in all acts of willing and doing.</p> + +<p>The advantage of the Copernican system lies in this, that we +can think of the motions of the sun and the planets in a systematic +and unitary conception without being either involved in contradictions +or obliged to invent mysterious qualities in the stars for explaining +the velocities, directions, or other phenomena of the celestial +bodies. The most important advantage however is the practical +applicability of the new theory.</p> + +<p>The old theory of the soul necessarily leads to mysticism. Fictitious +facts of a transcendent character must be invented in addition +to the facts observed, in order to explain the latter. The new +theory after abandoning the ego-centric standpoint of the thing in +itself of a soul shows the facts of psychic life in an harmonious and +unitary conception. All facts agree among themselves and we are +not in need of supplementing them with mysterious inventions. It +must be emphasised, at the same time, that the new conception +throws a new light upon ethics; it shows the error and perversity +of all egotism, for it would be a mistake to act as if the ego were +really the centre of soul-life.</p> + +<p>Here the new psychology comes in contact with religion. What +is the practical aim of all the great religions of the world but a surrender +of the ego, a renunciation of the self as the centre of our being, +and the acceptance of the moral law as the regulative power of +our actions? The new psychology gives a justification and a scientific +explanation of Christian ethics while the latter from the standpoint +of the old psychology necessarily appears as mystical and supernatural.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span></p> + +<h4>IX. PERSONALITY AND EVOLUTION.</h4> + +<p>The ego, i. e. the centre of consciousness, is constantly shifting, +while the personality of a man is relatively constant, certain important +ideas being stable and thus lending character to the whole system +of thoughts and intentions.</p> + +<p>The term personality indicating the self-hood of a man is used +in several ways. First, we understand by a man’s personality his +bodily appearance; secondly the whole system of his mentality, +viz. his knowledge, his temperament, his character; thirdly the history +of his life, past, present, and future; fourthly his position in +life, his possessions, his connections, his influence, or at last we +mean by it all these four items together. In all these applications +the man and his personality are conceived as a unity. And they are +a unity. Wherever the term unity is applicable, it is most certainly +applicable here. All the many facts of the history of his life are one +continuous process; all the parts of his body are parts of a system, +and the world of his ideas also will under normal conditions bear a +certain harmonious character. Wherever in any soul the concord +among the ideas has been disturbed, a state of unrest will ensue until +the peace of soul is restored in one or another way. But with the +same necessity as every water surface tends to present a smooth +level, so the ideas in one and the same soul tend to come to a state +of agreement. As every water surface has its ripples so even that +mind which has attained an undisturbed peace of soul is constantly +confronted with some problems—be they ever so trifling—producing +some slight disturbances in his life.</p> + +<p>The unity of a self, it is apparent, is the inevitable consequence +of given conditions. It is not something which exists outside the +personality and its constituent parts, it is in the personality and it +develops together with it. Mr. Conybeare supposes that “the unity +of a self remains the same throughout.” This is an error, and this +error vitiates Mr. Conybeare’s whole conception of growth and evolution. +He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Properly speaking a thing can only be said to grow or develop when it remains +the same with itself all through the process and unfolds therein capacities +which were anyhow latent in it to start with.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span></p> + +<p>The truth contained in this proposition may be expressed thus: +When a thing develops, some part of it remains the same during the +change, so that a continuity is preserved. Yet every change of a +part of an organism—such is the intimate interconnection of all its +parts—produces an alteration, be it ever so small, of the whole +unity. And in the course of evolution the character of the whole +thing may be changed. Think of the growth of a caterpillar into a +butterfly, or of an egg-cell into a man. However, the changes in +the character of an adult man will become slighter and slighter the +stronger certain features of his existence preserve their sameness, +although the most stable personality will, nevertheless, be subject +to, at least, unimportant changes as long as life lasts.</p> + +<p>Mr. Conybeare, like his master Professor Green and all the transcendentalists, +is still under the influence of a belief in the thing in +itself. The unity of an organism which is the product of the co-operation +of its parts, is not some independent thing whose business +it is to gather up their single activities and bring them into relation +with one another. The unity of a self is the combination of all those +relations which make of its parts a systematised whole, and this unity +is changing together with its constituents; as a matter of fact, we +have to state that it does <i>not</i> remain constant or the same with itself. +Mark that I do not deny the unity of the soul, nor do I underrate the +enormous importance of this unity. But I do deny that this unity +exists independent of its parts. It is as much immanent in its parts +as is a melody in its notes. There is as little a transcendental self-hood +as a melody in itself independent of its sounds.</p> + +<p>The assumption of a transcendental unity which throughout the +process of evolution remains the same with itself naturally leads to +a wrong conception of what Mr. Conybeare calls “latent capacities.” +The terms potential existence and latent qualities are fertile +and useful ideas but we must beware not to employ them incorrectly. +Any heap of iron ore can be called a potential sword. This is a mode +of speaking which expresses the possibility that the ore can be +changed somehow into a sword. But the sword does not exist at +all, not even as a latent quality of the ore. The ore has no latent +qualities of that kind. Those qualities of the ore which represent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>the potential sword are very patent to everybody who knows the art +of using them properly and changing them into an actual sword.</p> + +<p>We may say that the hen’s egg contains a potential chick; but +this is a mere mode of speech devised to say that the egg can be +changed into a chick under certain conditions. There is no chick +at all contained in the egg and nothing that is like a chick.</p> + +<p>Evolution is not, as the name suggests, a process of unfolding; +evolution is, as Christian Friedrich Wolff calls it, an “epigenesis,” +i. e. the process of the additional growth of new formations. The +chick is something different in kind from the egg. The unity of the +egg-cell organism in the yolk is radically different from the unity of +the full-fledged chick. The former shows traces of irritability but not +of consciousness, while the latter exhibits unmistakable symptoms +of psychical activity. The formation of the chicken-soul is a new +formation as much as the growth of feathers. The feathers of the +chick are an additional growth; there are no latent feathers in the +egg. We might express ourselves to the effect that the egg contains +the potential existence of feathers, but with the same logic we might +say the egg contains a potential chicken broth.</p> + +<p>It is however true that something remains constant in the process +of growth. There is a preservation of form in the constant +change of material particles and this is the physiological basis of +memory, so that a man of eighty may say “I remember when I was +a child,” although not one particle of the substance of which the +child consisted is left in him. The continuity produced through +this preservation of form makes growth and evolution possible.</p> + +<p>The preservation of memory-structures constitutes the possibility +of reviving the feelings of the past, it constitutes a preservation +of soul. The material parts of the body are thrown out but the +form being preserved, the soul remains. And this preservation of +the soul is the basis of its additional growth through new and enlarged +experience. The soul of the child is not lost in the man, it +is preserved. It has lost certain features and at the same time it has +gained new features, it has developed, and the unity of the soul has +more or less changed with the development.</p> + +<p>What is true of the individual is also true of mankind. Mankind +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>as a whole is different in the savage and in civilised society. +Nevertheless the latter has developed from the former. Certain +traits have been dropped, other radically new features have appeared. +That which was valuable in the soul of primitive man is not lost. +The better part of his soul still lives in the highest developed man +of to-day; the continuity is preserved. And to-day all our moral +instruction aims at this, so to live that our souls also will be preserved +in the future evolution of humanity. The gist of ethics is to +make the soul immortal.⁠<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></p> + +<h4>X. PROFESSOR MACH’S POSITION.</h4> + +<p>The problem, “Are there things in themselves?” is closely connected +with the subject of my discussion with Professor Mach. Professor +Mach as well as myself are aspiring to arrive at a consistent +and harmonious or unitary world-conception. Both of us recognise +that things in themselves have no room in a monistic philosophy, +both of us recognise that concepts are means only of orientation, +they are the mental tools of living beings developed as an assistance +in dealing with the surrounding world. They are symbols in which the +processes of nature are copied and imitated and which can serve for +planning or modeling and thus predetermining the course of nature. +So far we agree, but then there appears a difference which it is difficult +for me to understand or formulate in precise terms.</p> + +<p>Professor Mach objects to the dualism of motion and feeling, +which he declares he conceives as a unity not as a duality. But so +do I. It appears to me that we must differ somehow in the method +of constructing the unity. I see indeed a contrast of physical and of +psychical. This contrast, however, in my conception does not belong +to the object but to the subject. It is a contrast of our conception of +things, but it is not a contrast existing objectively in the real things +themselves. The world is not composed of the psychical and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>physical, but certain features of the world are called physical, and +others psychical. Both terms are abstracts.</p> + +<p>Professor Mach said in his first article and repeats it again in +the present article that his former standpoint resembles very closely +my present standpoint. When reading Professor Mach’s lectures of +1863, I took pains to look for the similarity, and finding many things +in which I could agree I dropped the differences taking the agreements +as the essential points. In reading, however, Professor Mach’s +résumé of his former position as stated in this present article, I find +that he attaches prominence to several points which I cannot endorse. +I do not accept the theory that atoms feel, that they are endowed +with consciousness. I have never spoken of atoms when +dealing with psychological problems. The term “atom” is a chemical +term invented as a help for thinking the equivalence of the +weight of the elements which always combine in definite proportions. +The term “atom” has in my opinion no sense if applied to other +phenomena. The term “atom” has not been abstracted from psychical +phenomena nor has it been invented for describing them. There +is accordingly no probability that it can find there any appropriate +application. We might as well expect that mathematical terms +such as lines, points, circles, etc., are applicable in psychology. +The idea of conscious circles or points can not in my mind be more +absurd than that of conscious atoms. The rule must be observed +that we can use abstractions made for a special purpose for that purpose +only; they will not serve any other purpose as well. It is true +that they are often employed as analogies, but in such cases, we +must bear in mind that we are dealing with mere analogies.</p> + +<p>In addition to the impropriety of using the term atoms in psychology, +it appears to me erroneous to attribute feeling or anything +like feeling to physical processes of any description. Natural processes +are so constituted, that under certain conditions, such as take +place in animal organisms, they will develop feelings. Clifford +speaks in this sense of the elements of feeling. Lloyd Morgan calls +it metakinesis, and I find that feelings being simply states of awareness +represent the subjectivity of natural processes. We have reasons +to suppose that in the processes of unorganised nature this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>subjectivity is neither feeling nor anything like feeling: but the subjectivity +of the natural processes is as it were the stuff out of which +our own feelings are formed.</p> + +<p>I accept all the arguments of Professor Mach that our ideas are +artificial products; and I am also anxious to distinguish in our ideas +between that which describes facts and that which has been added +to the description of facts in shape of theories or conjectures.</p> + +<p>The sense-pictures of objects and ideas also are not things but +images and symbols of things created for the purpose of representing +things; they are as Prof. Lloyd Morgan says, “constructs.” +But these constructs are not mere fancy, they are not air-castles. +They are constructed in order to imitate certain realities. Now, in +building these constructs as an imitation or a copy of reality, we +are often at a loss how to build them. There is for instance in the +objective reality observed, a something somewhere high in the air, +the basis of which is invisible, and being limited in our means of acquiring +information we are ignorant of the real state of things. So +in reconstructing or imitating the facts, we build scaffolds to support +it, and we are too apt to forget that these scaffolds do not represent +objective facts but are artifices to make certain facts, which we +know in parts only, thinkable, i. e. representable without breaks in +mental constructs.</p> + +<h4>XI. TRUTH IN MYTHOLOGY.</h4> + +<p>There is one point which I have emphasised and which it appears +to me Professor Mach neglects, namely that our noumenal +world of ideas has an objective meaning. The ideal constructs represent +realities. They do not consist of scaffolds alone and there is no +scaffold which has not been erected to help in building up representations +of facts. Let us call the representation of facts positive +science or simply truth and the scaffolding the mythology of science, +and we shall see that the road to truth leads everywhere through +mythology. Certain facts of the surrounding world impress themselves +upon a sentient being and these impressions come to represent +facts. These facts are not seen at once in their causal connection, +they appear unconnected among themselves, and in the attempt +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>to formulate them, to represent them, to construct them in mental +images, we fill out the gaps of our knowledge with such inventions +as are supplied by analogy.</p> + +<p>Mythology is, in religion as well as in science, the indispensable +ladder to truth. We cannot build without scaffolds. So we cannot +construct truth without mythology. We have to introduce allegorical +expressions in order to fill out gaps with analogies.</p> + +<p>Mythology becomes fatal to the building up of truth, as soon +as we consider it as truth itself. The scaffold is erected simply as +an assistance for building and if the building is finished the scaffold +should be torn down. The progress of science which is so much helped +by mythology has periods of purification in which the mythology is +discarded. This is sometimes a difficult task, because the very +terms of science are mostly both at the same time truth and mythology, +building-stones and scaffold.</p> + +<p>Take, for instance, the term atom. The chemist observes that +the elements always combine in certain proportions and formulates +the law of the equivalence of their atomic weights. In order to +think this process, to reconstruct it in mental images, he imagines +that matter consists of infinitely small particles of constant weight. +This is a fiction useful for its purpose but it may be just as erroneous +as the method employed in the infinitesimal calculus of thinking of +a continuous curve as consisting of a broken line of infinitely small +parts, or of thinking of a certain force as being composed of a parallelogram +of forces. The parallelogram of forces is a scaffold helpful +for representing in mental symbols the coexistence of different +abstractions of the same kind (e. g. motions of a different velocity +and direction). But this scaffold is not a mere scaffold, it is not +erected without any purpose, its final aim is the description of facts.</p> + +<p>The proposition to consider light as rays traveling in straight +lines is a scaffold, it is mythology; but this analogy contains a truth, +it contains a real building-stone which should not be torn down with +the scaffold. This truth is one-sided; it represents one feature of +light and disregards other features. It disregards entirely the transversal +oscillations of the ether, yet it describes another feature—viz., +the transmission and refraction of light for the comprehension of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>which we need not take into consideration the undulation theory. +The physicist calculates with his formula sinα/sinβ = <i>n</i> the angle of +refraction. There is certainly neither a sineα nor a sineβ in reality, +but there are certain relations of reality which are described in these +expressions and the action of the light has a definite quality which +can be determined with the assistance of the formula sinα/sinβ = <i>n</i>.</p> + +<p>If the scientist succeeds in determining such real qualities of +things, even though it be done with the assistance of mythology, he +discovers a truth. He has with the help of his scaffolds succeeded +in placing a building-stone where it belongs.</p> + +<p>Some scaffolds have to be torn down because they hinder further +building; other scaffolds must remain because they assist us in +modeling, and planning, and predetermining certain processes of +nature. They are like staircases which enable us to reach with ease +otherwise inaccessible places on towers or domes.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The idea that science is full of mythology appears strange to the +non-scientific, and it is often overlooked by scientists themselves. +But the idea that religious mythology in spite of its many irrational +superstitions and wrong analogies beams with truth is also little +heeded by the many. In fact, man’s method of reaching truth is the +same in religion as in science.</p> + +<p>The religious ideas such as God and soul are mental constructs +which copy certain realities; but these very terms, such as they are +used, are mythological expressions; they are still surrounded by +their scaffolds. Many people know by their own experience the usefulness +and indispensability of the scaffold. Without the scaffold +they would never have had an inkling of the truth, for the representation +of which it was built, and it is natural that they consider the +scaffold as the building itself. This is the reason why the narrow-minded +orthodox denounce anyone who would lay hand on or tear +down any part of the scaffold, which has become a hindrance to the +further development of religious ideals.</p> + +<p>Positivism, i. e. the representation of facts without any admixture +of theory or mythology, is an ideal which in its purity perhaps +will never be realised. Nevertheless it is no <i>ignis fatuus</i>, no will-o’-the-wisp +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>that leads us astray. Our science is constantly more +and more approaching this ideal and the progress of humanity is +intimately connected with it.</p> + +<p>Science has not merely a theoretic value, its aim and purpose +consist in its application to practical life. Science is throughout +ethical. Thus ethics has also its mythological phase. In agreement +with Professor Mach (p. 204), we should find it ridiculous if one +who presumes to be an ethical teacher of mankind would say:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Man <i>must</i> not be descended from monkeys,” “The earth <i>shall</i> not rotate,” +“Matter <i>ought</i> not everywhere to fill space,” “Energy <i>must</i> be constant,” and so on.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Why is it ridiculous? Because we cannot prescribe a certain +deportment to facts. It is however not ridiculous to let a precise and +carefully sifted knowledge of facts determine our own deportment.</p> + +<p>Science has to teach ethics. But here also we should distinguish +between positive facts and mythology. Ethics based upon +mere theories, upon our interpretations of nature which we add to +facts, is mythological; positive ethics is simply that deportment +which is suggested by a comprehension of the facts themselves.</p> + +<p>Mythological ethics may be quite correct, just as much so as +the application of a mythological theory of science may be within +certain limits reliable as a working hypothesis. But it is desirable +to understand the nature of mythological ethics in order to distinguish +between truth and fiction.</p> + +<p>When Professor Mach speaks of sensations as being the elements +of the world and of things as being complexes of these elements +he apparently does not use the word sensation in its usual sense. +It has ceased to be an abstract term which represents one feature +only of a process of nature and has become a symbol for an entire +reality. And is not such a usage of terms as if they were not abstracts +but the things themselves liable to lead to misconceptions?</p> + +<p>Professor Mach’s “elements,” it seems to me, are only elements, +i. e. ultimate and unanalysable materials, if considered as terms of +a psychological view of the world; they are not elements in the domains +of other abstractions, such as are made by physiology or +physics. Moreover, although this method eliminates the duality of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>soul and body, mind and matter, feeling and motion, it does not explain +the problem.</p> + +<p>Professor Mach might answer that the problem as to the duality +of mind and matter is a sham problem, just as much as the problem +why do we see things upright when the retina picture of the +eye shows the things inverted? But a problem is to him who has +solved the problem always a sham problem. Every problem disappears +as a problem as soon as it is solved. It is true that we see as +little with the blind spot of the eye as with the skin of our back. +The problem of the blind spot is not why do we not see with the +blind spot, (which is simply a matter of fact,) but why do we not +notice, when using only one eye, its lack of sight in a spot surrounded +with sight-seeing structures? We have to employ artificial +means to convince ourselves that we are really blind in that spot!</p> + +<p>All problems are merely subjective; they are a conflict between +two conceptions and as Professor Mach himself says, the solution of +problems consists in the adaptation of thought to facts, i. e. to new +facts or new views of facts. By an adaptation of our thought to the +enlarged field of vision the problem vanishes; it has ceased to be a +problem. In fact it never existed as an objective phenomenon. +There are no problems in nature. There are problems only to the investigating +mind. But even the formulation of problems is a problem +to be solved, and perhaps the most difficult and subtle kind of problems +is to discover the flaw in wrongly formulated problems.</p> + +<p>The problem of the duality of body and soul, matter and mind, +feeling and motion, ceases to be a problem to him who has worked +his way through to a monistic conception, but to those who have +not as yet succeeded in establishing a unitary view of these ideas, because +they take them to be separate and distinct existences, it is a +problem of great importance.</p> + +<h4>XII. THE ONENESS OF SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY.</h4> + +<p>The world is not rigid being, but activity, not absolute existence +but a system of changing relations, not an abstract <i>Sein</i> but a +concrete <i>Wirklichkeit</i>—a constant working of cause and effect. There +is no dualism in this, for the <i>Wirklichkeit</i> is one and undivided.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span></p> + +<p>Yet every relation admits of two standpoints, just as the line +<i>AB</i>, which may serve to represent a certain and definite relation, is +determinable from both ends, <i>A</i> as well as <i>B</i>. Let us call <i>A</i> the +subject and <i>B</i> the object. Neither <i>A</i> nor <i>B</i> is a reality, a whole +complete <i>Wirklichkeit</i>. A thing in order to be real must be active, +it must work, it must stand in relation to something else. <i>A</i> is a +mere mathematical point, but <i>AB</i> representing a process does something, +it performs work, it is real. A thing in itself, if it could exist +at all, would be tantamount to non-existence, it would represent a +<i>Sein</i> without being <i>Wirklichkeit</i>. When bearing this in mind, it +appears natural that the oneness of existence, representable in such +relations as is that of <i>AB</i> = -<i>BA</i> will admit of two standpoints, +<i>BA</i> representing subjectivity, and <i>AB</i> representing objectivity. We +can consider the relation of the world at large to one special point +(which latter may in its turn stand for a whole system of relations) +or vice versa the relation of this point to the world at large. The +former standpoint is that of the microcosm, or the soul, the latter +that of the macrocosm or the universe; the former results in awareness, +the latter appears as matter in motion. The former is subjectivity, +the latter objectivity.</p> + +<p>Reality must not be conceived of as being a compound of the +elements of feeling and of motion, of subjectivity and objectivity or +of kinesis and metakinesis. I do not think there are atoms one-half +of which contains the potentiality of sentience while the other half +is freighted with energy. I conceive of reality as being one throughout, +but, being throughout resolvable in relations, it will as a matter +of course have two sides. What these two sides are like can be +known through experience only, and experience teaches that under +certain conditions the subjective side develops into feeling and consciousness, +while the objective side is represented in the feeling of +conscious beings as motions.</p> + +<p>This view explains the duality of our conception of psycho-physical +facts, but it is certainly not dualism. The duality belongs +to the scaffold not to the facts themselves. The facts can only be +thought of as being one and undivided, and no conception can stand +except it be monistic.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span></p> + +<p>Subjectivity and objectivity are terms that express relations and +not things in themselves. There are, however, philosophers who +show a great grief unless either the subjectivity of being, or the objectivity +of being, or the unities in which things or personalities are +gathered up, are considered as things in themselves. All those +features of reality which appear to their conception unexplainable, +such as the relations that obtain among things and especially the +thoughts of thinking beings are supposed to be the effects of some +transcendental entity, of a thing in itself. And if a philosophy denies +the existence of transcendentalistic thought-entities or of any such +things in themselves, which serve as cement to combine the <i>disjecta +membra</i> of their world-conception, it is generally declared to lead +straight on to nihilism—not because the world itself but because +their world-system would thereby be annihilated.</p> + +<p>All things that exist, if considered as separate things, will pass +away; but if considered as parts of the all-existence of reality, they +are eternal. In fact things are not separate things, in the sense +of isolated, absolute, or abstract beings, although we may speak of +them as such for our ephemeral purposes. All things that exist, +the human soul included, are and will remain parts of the One and +All.</p> + +<p>This destroys their individuality as little as a brick ceases +to be a brick because it serves its part in the building of a dome. +The soul of a man if his life be well spent, is not annihilated in +death, his soul has become a living stone in the temple of humanity. +It continues to live and marches on in the general progress of +the race.</p> + +<p>We are parts of a great whole now, and we shall remain parts +of the same great whole forever. We have never been and shall +never be transcendental selfhoods or metaphysical egos, or any kind +of things in themselves. Our personality is real life, it is actual +being. As such it is bound up in the universal life of the One and +All and no particle of it will be lost. We need not fear death, for +the air we breathe is immortality.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Editor.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> Italics are ours. Kant affirms the italicised question.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> The problem of “The Origin of the Mind” having been the subject of a former +paper need not be discussed here. See <i>The Monist</i>, Vol i, No. 1, p. 69-86, and +<i>The Soul of Man</i>, pp. 23-46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> It is scarcely necessary to mention that mediæval Realism is different from +modern Realism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> Aristotle’s idea of matter being potential existence is a fiction. Fictions of +that kind are useful for certain purposes, but we must not forget that they are fictions. +We might just as well introduce any other system of fictions. For instance +we might with certainly not less propriety look upon the idea in the mind of an +artist as potential reality while its appearance in a material shape is conceived to +produce actual reality.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> The term “absolute” is for that reason neither meaningless nor redundant. +It denotes a certain method of viewing things, but is not an objective quality of +things.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> See the chapter “Soul Life and the Preservation of Form” in <i>The Soul of +Man</i>, p. 418.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> The abandonment of the ego as a metaphysical being is not, as it appears to +many, a surrender of the soul or of its immortality. That the immortality of the +soul from the standpoint of modern psychology is preserved, that it appears in a +new light, grander and nobler than before, and that this conception of immortality +is of an enormous practical importance, have been the main incentives of Mr. E. C. +Hegeler in founding <i>The Open Court</i> and <i>The Monist</i>.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="LITERARY_CORRESPONDENCE_II">LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE</h3> + +</div> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="FRANCE_II">I.<br> +<span class="smaller">FRANCE.</span></h4> + +<p>The recent work of <span class="smcap">M. F. Paulhan</span>, <i>Le Nouveau Mysticisme</i>, +places us in the presence of a feature of modern life, if not +extremely important, at least very curious.</p> + +<p>We assist at the formation of a new spirit. But what is it? +What is its value? A reply to this question would exact a long and +minute analysis of all social facts. M. Paulhan does not flatter himself +that he has exhausted it, and he offers us only portions, although +excellent and instructive, of the required work. He shows us in +rapid review, the dissolution of the ancient world, the intellectual +and moral anarchy which has to-day reached its highest possible +point; he seeks, in the ruins amidst which we tread, the constructive +elements of a new order of things, and makes an effort to foresee +what it will be.</p> + +<p>“The scientific mind,” writes he, “the religious spirit, pity for +suffering, the sentiment of justice, social mysticism, the attraction +for mysterious perhaps dangerous facts that we begin to have a +glimpse of, the kind of new power which the knowledge of them can +give us, a general need of universal harmony: such are the principal +characters of the spirit which is forming itself.” They are not, +he himself says, all new. It is not the presence of these elements +which is significant, but rather the singular combination in which +they occur, and we could say, the precipitate that they give in the +particular chemical solution where they find themselves thrown. In +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>every case, the phenomenon does not affect entirely, it seems to us, +the same characters, according to whether we observe it in the philosophic +or scientific order, in the practical order, or in that of sentiment, +which literature represents. The name of mysticism does +not belong to every part of the new spirit equally; or more exactly, +the spirit which is produced could well not be truly mysticism, but +only a side phenomenon, and the very evident resurrection of the +spirit which is disappearing.</p> + +<p>M. Paulhan, if I do not deceive myself, sometimes allows himself +to be too much influenced by a certain literature, to which I do +not allow a very great value, and of which even the sincerity +may be suspected. It represents at first, to my mind, individual +conditions, and it evidently impeaches some authors of a morbid +diathesis. Many of our prophets, as is known in the <i>Quartier Latin</i>, +have or affect vices which exclude by themselves all generating +power. Then, it is very difficult, in our age, to appreciate exactly +the relations of literature to the public mind, seeing the diversity of +romantic books, and the correlation of one to the other is perhaps +not so strict, so profound as it has been in other junctures of history. +In short, the modern romance is a document the relative value of +which needs to be established by a most severe critic.</p> + +<p>Some facts dominate the question, viewed as a whole. It is +necessary to show the work of the scientific mind, which has the result +of creating new mental habits. It is necessary to consider also +that the disorder, <i>the spirit of evil</i>, so finely analysed by M. Paulhan, +corresponds chiefly to the interpretations of ignorance, to the +exaggerations of sentiment, and to the dreams, more or less monstrous, +of inventive fantasy. It is necessary, finally, if they wish to +augur of the future, to endeavor to disengage the laws of construction, +still badly defined, of our political fabrics. The thought of +M. Paulhan is good at bottom, and the materials with which he +constructs the <i>possible future</i> are taken from the positive conditions +of our mental and social life: in the practical order, “co-operation” +is added to the social systems already existing, although disturbed, +such as the family and the nation; in the ideal order, the conception, +beyond that of humanity, of a “cosmical whole,” and a “universe,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span>which, to repeat it after Comte, will be favorable to man, in +a certain sense, seeing that he causes it to exist.</p> + +<p>We recommend the reading of this book. One’s time is never +lost with a thinker of the stamp of M. Paulhan; he has the merit +this time of disclosing to us in a few pages a vast horizon, where +some points are delineated with clearness. Logicism has caused +much evil in our country. Let us now beware of mysticism!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>One of the most curious episodes of this new mysticism is assuredly +the Buddhist preaching, begun in France by a small group +of writers. <span class="smcap">M. Augustin Chaboseau</span>, one of the representatives +of this religious tendency, publishes a work, <i>Essai sur la philosophie +boudhique</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> which it is expedient to mention. M. Chaboseau has +thought it would be of interest to sum up in a volume the results of +the studies on Buddhism, and to present it “such as science has +proved it, that is to say very different from what Christian polemists, +worldly amusers, theosophic fanatics, endeavor to disseminate.” He +has had the ambition to write this volume, and for my part, I do +not refuse him my curiosity.</p> + +<p>But that Buddhism truly contains a religious formula capable +of attracting to it the souls of our Occident, I have difficulty in believing. +This India is very far from us, and its confused philosophy +is behind us. I do not think that the nations of to-day will return +to a by-gone mode; and then, this doctrine of Sakya-Muni has something +against it, that I hesitate to say, as it might seem puerile: its +god is too fat. Its god or its sage, as you wish. Yes, that breadth +of form, that opulence of flesh, taken as a mark of goodness and +power, shocks our artistic taste. Do not forget that every religion +which claims our will ought to satisfy our æsthetic sentiment: it is +one of the essential factors of the religious sentiment, a compound +sentiment where all the emotions of a race ought to find their harmony. +The opposition of India to us, so striking in the ideal of the +beautiful, still continues in metaphysical speculation. We are too +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>moderate, too sober, for the debauches of imagination in which it +delights. Buddhism will be to us only a passing excrescence, and +I ask myself if it lives well in the souls where it has sincerely penetrated.</p> + +<p>I should have much to do to speak, in the briefest manner, of +all the books or treatises, which in a direct or indirect manner +relate either to the war of Aryanism against Semitism, and principally +against the Christianism in which certain authors see the most +disastrous conquest of Semitic genius; or to the reviving of mystic +traditions, strange dreams, and monstrous desires; or to a religious +restoration, of which the most ordinary prejudice is to assure the +immortality of the soul and to reopen the beyond to man. These +works are in general of slight value; they are the multiplication of +decays, and we are compelled to consider them as social wastes, of +which the abundance betrays unquestionably the bad health of the +organism, or at least a difficult crisis of its evolution.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>But let us return to the works of philosophy properly so-called. +What are we to think of that of <span class="smcap">M. F. Rauh</span>? I deceive myself +much if his <i>Essai sur le fondement métaphysique der la morale</i> is considered +of much service in his own circles. M. Rauh, who belongs +to the philosophic youth, the youth of the age, can be well assured +that the partisans of scientific morality will not upbraid him for “the +admiration of high metaphysical thoughts” with which he does himself +honor, but he can fear lest the metaphysicians accuse him of +further compromising metaphysics by the denser obscurities he casts +on it. One is stupefied to find again in a modern book a phraseology +so made up of abstract words, of substantives with capitals, and +logical shadows which affect the posture of realities. Much study, +much work, without advancing one step, and still worse, in order to +throw us again into the <i>culs-de-sac</i> from whence we have had so +much difficulty to disengage ourselves. All the profit one can derive +from this dialectic is to contemplate at the end the vague shadow +of its own body that is perceived on the wall.</p> + +<p>The metaphysicians of a certain school are not only reluctant +to have to accept that morality is a natural formation, a social product, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>an historical fact; they wish further that the existence even of +moral society should depend on the intelligence that they have of +it, or of the explanation that they give of it. They affirm boldly, +and these are the words even of M. Rauh, that “the fate of morality +is united to that of metaphysics”—their metaphysics. This is a +pretension as exorbitant as would be that of a naturalist who should +refer the reality of the animal world to the idea he formed of zoölogical +types, or that of a chemist who should subject the value of +the positive results of science to a particular hypothesis as to the +constitution of bodies.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>There are certain difficulties of language to criticise in the work +of <span class="smcap">M. Isidore Maus</span>, barrister in the Court of Appeals at Brussels, +<i>De la justice pénale, étude philosophique sur le droit de punir</i>. A curious +spectator, he tells us, of the battle waged between the new school +of anthropology and the ancient penal jurisprudence, he seeks to divine +the issue of it. It will probably end, according to him, in the +formation of a medium penal jurisprudence, which will accept limited +responsibilities, and which, while protecting society, will do its +best “to give to punishment all the advantages it can.”</p> + +<p>It would be exaggerated no doubt, I willingly grant it, to take +away from repression every mark of moral reparation, all weight of +“reformative power”; but I am always shocked to hear partial responsibilities +spoken of. From the social point of view, the responsibility +remains perfect; it is united, indeed, to the very act of +having caused injury, beyond all appreciation. From the point of +view of the individual, the word responsibility has the grave inconvenience +of implying that the quantity of liberty or free-will attributable +to the delinquent is measured. It would be less compromising +and more exact, to value simply the quality, the worth of the delinquent, +according to the totality of his affective, intellectual, voluntary, +and pathological character, according to the nature and the +conditions of the act of which he is accused, etc. We should thus +escape contradictions of words which easily become contradictions +of fact; we should no more stumble at this latent difficulty of free-will, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>in medium cases—for <i>serious cases</i> are never difficult. Words +exercise a tyranny which jurists would do well to distrust.</p> + +<p>Is not this, moreover, just about what M. Maus means by his +favorite formula—that justice ought “to individualise as much as +possible”? It is a pity only that he does not present his conclusions +with the requisite clearness. His exposition is not distinct and +frank. He has mental habitudes, subtilities of reasoning, which +are of value at the Palais, but which it is suitable to rid oneself of +when writing a book: his would gain much by being entirely remodeled, +made clear and disentangled.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p><span class="smcap">M. E. de Laveleye</span> offers to the public a fourth edition, revised +and considerably augmented, of his great work, <i>De la propriété +et de ses formes primitives</i>. We have not to recall the numerous facts +which this work contains and the knowledge of which has +become sufficiently general; nor to commend M. de Laveleye, who +no longer expects fresh praises for it. I have only to express the +regret that he should have retained the theory of property expounded +in the last chapter of his book, or rather the metaphysical conception +of right with which he connects it. It seems as if he wished to +excuse himself from reducing property to the simple value of a fact, +modifiable in its forms, by indicating as a fixed point an “order” +which shall be the best, which shall be <i>known</i> and <i>wished</i> of God, +<i>sought</i> and <i>realised</i> by man.</p> + +<p>M. de Laveleye knows it as well as any one. Right is only a +rule, an expression of the relations of men among themselves, in a +determined geographical and historical medium. Its changes depend, +in part on external conditions, in part on the characters of +man himself, the state and variable equilibrium of his passions and +of his mentality. If certain forms of right establish themselves proportionally, +in the course of the life of nations, the fact is explained +by the constancy and the universality of certain conditions, either +physical or mental; the repetition of social arrangements, which +produces ultimately a more stable structure and constitutes a sort of +axis of development, is somewhat analogous, if we may be permitted +this comparison, to the repetition of the essential elements in all architecture, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span>or of the primitive forms in all the products of the ceramic +art. What is the good of enveloping with mystery the ideal we +create ourselves, and of rendering obscure a notion that we can positively +explain? But let us leave here this little quarrel, for it does +not touch the solid groundwork of the book.</p> + +<p>Still to signalise are: <i>Premiers principes métaphysiques de la science +de la nature</i>, translated from Kant by <span class="smcap">M. M. Ch. Andler</span> and <span class="smcap">Ed. +Chavannes</span>, who have written an interesting introduction <i>On the +philosophy of nature in Kant</i>; and <i>L’Année philosophique, Iʳᵉ année</i> +1890, published under the direction of <span class="smcap">F. Pillon</span>, former manager +of <i>La Critique philosophique</i>. There will be found in this last volume +two profound studies, one by M. Renouvier on the phenomenist +method, the other by M. Pillon on the criticism of the infinite, an +excellent article by M. L. Dauriac on philosophy and particularly on +the æsthetics of Guyau, finally a bibliography of French works +which appeared in 1890. I wish good success to this publication; +it will become valuable, and it will be still more so, in my opinion, +if M. Pillon, will not recoil before the fatigue, no doubt sufficiently +great, of adding to the Bibliography a critical sketch of the review +articles published in the course of the year.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lucien Arréat.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> Georges Carré, publisher. The other works mentioned in this article belong +to the <i>Librarie Alcan</i>.</p></div> + +</div> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="GERMANY_II">II.<br> +<span class="smaller">RECENT GERMAN WORKS IN PSYCHOLOGY.</span></h4> + +<p>A well-known alienist, Professor Pelman of Bonn, in a recently +published work, advanced the assertion that the literary taste of the +day pointed to a considerable decline of the intellectual health of +the present generation. To him who assumes with Pelman some +causal foundation of this state of affairs, it is indeed an alarming +sight to pass in review the show windows of our great book centres +Leipsic and Berlin and to discover the great number of editions +that the products of the literature of a certain class are passing +through.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span></p> + +<p>Among the books that are at present all the vogue, Tolstoï’s +“Kreutzer Sonata” stands in the front rank. Numberless articles +in the newspapers and the magazines have already made this wonderful +work the subject of discussion, both from the æsthetical and +from the moral point of view. Now comes a physician, who discusses +the psychological aspect of the story, and discusses it in a +manner which must claim our interest and to which in the main +points it emphasises we cannot deny our assent.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">H. Beck</span> has published at the house of Rauert and Rocco +of Leipsic, a brochure bearing the title <i>Des Grafen Leo Tolstoï +Kreutzer Sonate vom Standpunkte des Irrenarztes</i>, and arrives on the +basis of a careful analysis at the result that Tosdnischew is a decidedly +neuropathical character. Now as Tolstoï, on his own express +declaration in his concluding remarks, places his own views +in Tosdnischew’s mouth, this judgment respecting the principal +character of the story also holds good in great measure of its author. +Generally, indeed, Beck is very considerate towards Tolstoï’s person, +in the expression of his opinions; but he is nevertheless very +plainly outspoken when he says at the conclusion of his little book: +“Let us characterise this monstrous product, the ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ +as that which it appears to every person of sound sentiments—as the +emanation, namely, of a diseased brain, of a degenerated Psyche.”</p> + +<p>The Munich physician Dr. Puschmann, who in the year 1873 +in a special treatise represented Richard Wagner, then still alive, as +psychically diseased, has thus found, as we see, in a certain sense a +successor in Dr. Beck. But while Puschmann’s pamphlet, having +been occasioned by certain conditions of affairs in Munich, was +written in a hostile spirit, and while the little book of Beck’s makes +no secret of its author’s aversion to Tolstoï and his works, a notorious +representative of unhealthy “young Germany,” the novelist +Wilhelm Walloth, meets at other hands with an uncommonly tender +treatment. There is indeed nothing remarkable in this, for if anyone +is in need of tender treatment it is a man who is sick. But it +is very remarkable that the diseased state of a nervous system should +be accredited to the writer Walloth as a great poetic excellence.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">G. Ludwigs</span>, the author of the treatise <i>Wilhelm Walloth</i>, Leipsic, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span>1891, Verlag von Wilhelm Friedrich, had in so far the advantage +of Puschmann and Beck, that he was not placed under the necessity +of originally demonstrating what the actual state of the nervous +system of his hero was, from his works. This condition had already +been established by expert physicians in a much talked of trial before +the District Court of Leipsic for circulating obscene publications. +Ludwigs was able therefore to proceed immediately with his +problem of ascertaining the extent to which a diseased state of the +nervous system had effect in Walloth’s novels and poems. His discussion +of this last question possesses great interest for the psychologist, +although the reader will find considerable difficulty in accommodating +his thoughts to Ludwigs’s occasionally very singular style. +Setting aside the odd expressions of Ludwigs, we may say that there +is exhibited in a pre-eminent degree in the writings of Walloth, +first, what the physicians call hyperæsthesia, and by this is meant +not only an excessive sensitiveness of the senses but also—a condition +that is connected with the last—an extraordinary intensity of +the emotional activity. Secondly, are found numberless bold associations +of ideas which are much better known to the physician than +to the æsthetician.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately Walloth is not the only one of the representatives +of “young Germany,” in whose works the characters of disease appear +in such intensity, and the circumstance that books of this class +are bought in such numbers and read in still greater, places the +tastes and sentiments of a large portion of the educated German +public in a questionable light.</p> + +<p>If we turn our glance away from the sensational phenomena of +literature to the phenomena of ordinary life, which are not uncommonly +enacted in the halls of justice, it is in first rank the incorrigible +swindlers and sharpers that excite our attention. We have received +on this subject from Dr. <span class="smcap">Anton Delbrueck</span>, a physician of a +Swiss insane asylum, an interesting little work bearing the title <i>Die +pathologische Lüge und die psychisch abnormen Schwindler</i>, Stuttgart, +1891, Verlag von Ferdinand Enke. In this book the author makes +an investigation of the gradual transition of a normal psychological +process into processes exhibiting pathological symptoms, and shows, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>in so doing, by ample material, that in every kind of intentional deception +the consciousness of intention can exhibit very different degrees +of intensity and can imperceptibly sink in a succession of cases +to zero. As a matter of course, Delbrück’s treatise is primarily of +interest to medical experts and lawyers, but it will also be of interest +in a secondary degree to all circles that devote their attention to +psychological studies generally, particularly so to educators who +have not infrequently to do with pathological lies, as G. Stanley +Hall quite recently pointed out in a very instructive article in <i>The +America Journal of Psychology</i> on the lying of children, and as is +developed in the work of Dr. Sollier, before mentioned in <i>The Monist</i>, +entitled <i>La psychologie de l’idiot et l’imbécile</i>, which is also to be had +in a very good German edition, translated by Paul Brie, under the +title <i>Der Idiot und der Imbecille</i>, published by Leopold Voss of +Hamburg.</p> + +<p>In the German edition of Sollier’s book Professor Pelman, +whom we have above mentioned, has written an introduction in +which he speaks of the work in words of praise similar to those expressed +by Lucien Arréat in <i>The Monist</i>. “Sollier,” says he, “has +put us into the possession of a psychology of mental imbecility, in +a completeness in which hitherto it was not at our disposal.” Then +follows another passage which we will also quote, as it forms an +important supplement to the remarks of Arréat. It is this: “Imbecility +had remained the step-child of the science of psychiatry and +has not by any means met with the consideration which in view of +its social importance is due to it. If we go through the works, as +great in number as they are in voluminousness, which have been +published in the style of Lombroso on criminals and their peculiar +characteristics, we shall be unable to escape the impression produced +in our minds that the characteristics of imbeciles portrayed +by Sollier recur point for point in the typical criminal. Here as +there, the same insufficiency of all ethical development, the same +frivolity, and the same incapacity for being of use in society exist. +That which in Sollier’s explanation decides the whole anthropological +position of the imbecile—his anti-social, society-hostile attitude—is +emphasised by all writers as the characteristic trait common +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span>to all criminals, and the description of imbeciles and criminals coincides +as completely in this respect as if the same individual had sat +for both pictures. The conclusions that follow from this can only +enlist new adherents in the ranks of the anthropological school, and +this result also I should place to the profit-account of the present +book.”</p> + +<p>However profitable and necessary employment with the diseased +states of the human soul may be, personally at least it is an +unpleasant subject for us, and we are glad therefore that we may +abandon this domain for the present letter.</p> + +<p>The occasion of this is afforded by a valuable gift from Prof. +<span class="smcap">W. Preyer</span>, formerly of Jena, now of Berlin. Professor Preyer has +presented us with a rather large volume bearing the title <i>Wissenschaftliche +Briefe von Gustav Theodor Fechner und W. Preyer. Nebst +einem Briefweschsel zwischen K. von Vierordt und Fechner sewie mehreren +Beilagen. Mit dem Bildnisse Fechner’s und vier Holzschnitten</i>. +Hamburg und Leipsic, 1890. Verlag von Leopold Voss. The work +contains a correspondence extending from the year 1873 to the year +1883, in which the two distinguished scientists discuss (chiefly) myo-physical +and psycho-physical questions, and will be of great interest +to many readers of <i>The Monist</i>, especially as it makes its appearance +simultaneously with the issuing of a new edition of Fechner’s <i>Elemente +der Psychophysik</i> by Wilhelm Wundt.</p> + +<p>The much fought over and much disputed province of psycho-physics +has also been entered on by a younger psychologist, who +has already acquired a considerable name,—by Hugo Münsterberg, +docent at the university of Freiburg in Baden. In his <i>Beiträge zur +experimentellen Psychologie</i>, which are published in parts at indefinite +periods by Mohr of Freiburg in Baden—three parts have already +been published—Münsterberg raises, in the first place, a vigorous +protest against Wundt; repudiating on the basis of the results +of independent experiment the apperception hypothesis which +has been propounded by the scientist mentioned, and producing +proof that all kinds of so-called apperception are reducible to associations +of the representative activity. Secondly, he offers us in +the third part a new foundation on which to base psycho-physics. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span>It is, of course, impossible, in so difficult a subject, to reproduce +briefly yet clearly the developments to which Münsterberg devotes +one hundred and twenty-two pages. But we will at least supply a +few hints with regard to what this new foundation of psycho-physics is.</p> + +<p>In the first place, Münsterberg rejects the notion that prevails +with Fechner and his school, that a powerful sensation is a multiple +of a weaker one, by which the first can be measured. The stronger +sensation is, says he, in comparison with the weaker one something +wholly new; for, accurately considered, the intensity of a sensation +is also of a qualitative nature. However, we are not by any means +at liberty to infer from this that the measurement of psychical quantities +is impossible. To appreciate this, it is first requisite that we +should get clear ideas with respect to the psychological foundation +of our physical measurements. The only foundation of these last +is our muscular feeling, to this extent, that all measurement is +founded on the measurement of quantities of space, time, and mass, +and any estimate of the latter is only possible on the basis of the +muscular feeling that enters as a factor in the conceptions involved. +All physical measurement rests on the establishment, and therefore +reproduction, of <i>like</i> muscular sensations; on exactly the same foundation +rests also all measurement of psychical quantities, of intensities +of sensation, and since this foundation is the same, for this very +reason the same justification is due to the measurement of psychical +intensity as is due to physical measurements. This is the foundation +on which the psycho-physics of Münsterberg is raised, which +for a fuller view must be studied in the third part of the “Beiträge” +itself.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Chr. Ufer.</span></p> + +<p>Altenburg, November, 1891.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="DIVERSE_TOPICS_II">DIVERSE TOPICS.</h3> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="THE_CLERGYS_DUTY">THE CLERGY’S DUTY OF ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN WORLD-CONCEPTIONS.</h4> + +</div> + +<p>A late number of the <i>Gegenwart</i> of Berlin (Vol. xl, No. 30) contained an article +by Mr. Eugene Schiffer, a German justice, on the subject “World-Conception +and the Office of Judge,” in which attention was called to the fact that the +performance of duties, not only in the pulpit but in all the professions, and preëminently +in the dispensation of justice through the courts, depends upon and stands in +a more or less close connection with some definite world-conception; thus showing +that religion of some kind forms and must form the background of the practical +life of society. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The Church demands of its disciples as an indispensable condition of serving +her the confession of a certain world-conception; she requires that every one +who intends to take upon himself her rights and duties, should in his inmost heart +agree with her concerning the contents of her faith, especially concerning the +dogmas on eschatology, on God and world, body and soul, the origin and end of +things; and this is but a matter of course, for the essential part and also the foundation +of her activity lie in these very doctrines and in their propagation. It is a +hard and a severe demand. Although on the one hand the morally free fulfilment +of her requests contains the germ of an harmonious development of life and promises +an extraordinary concentration and elevation of all faculties, it leads on the +other hand to serious conflicts, of which the pages of history not less than the experiences +of our daily life exhibit innumerable and sad instances. We recollect +the terrible spiritual struggles in the souls of those who commenced to doubt, and +the outcome is generally a pitiful catastrophe, either submission and hypocrisy +with the weak, or tribulation, renunciation, and ruin with those who thought higher +of truth than of their worldly emoluments.</p> + +<p>“Most of the other professions and trades know nothing of the indispensability +of a certain world-conception. The merchant, the mechanic, the lawyer, the +soldier, the teacher, the laborer, can upon the whole think concerning these highest +problems of life as they please. An inner and ideal conflict between their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>views and their calling seems definitely excluded. Outer and practical conditions—such +as administrative injunctions of a certain kind, the aspiration of progress, +the ambition to be better off, etc.—may sometimes produce conflicts.</p> + +<p>“Yet this character of indifference concerning a general world-conception which +is found in the secular professions and trades does not bear the stamp of permanence. +For ultimately the entire doing and achieving of every thinking man, so +far as it rises above the mere vegetative functions, is intimately connected with +that common world-conception which everywhere influences and guides him. This +is unnoticeable so long as the harmony of the connection remains undisturbed, +but it manifests itself in consciousness as soon as its harmony is threatened through +some important change of any of its parts. Even to-day a deep-going change +is preparing itself; even now the struggle about the world-conception is fought +more severely and more bitterly than ever and a new doctrine goes far enough to +uncover the ultimate roots of our civilisation, of our position in life, of our calling; +it attacks and shakes the present world-conception.</p> + +<p>“This implies the possibility of a conflict between the old and the new faith +even outside the pale of the church, and this conflict may influence the choice of +a calling. This possibility has become an imminent probability concerning the +office of judge, especially the judge of a criminal court.</p> + +<p>“The dispensation of justice rests to a great extent upon the presupposition of +guilt and the criminal law of to-day is almost throughout built upon this idea of +guilt. It is true that this view has not always been taken. The Greek law and +the old Germanic law interfered even in the gravest cases exclusively on account +of the objective state of things without taking into consideration the criminal intent +of the defendant. But this view was superseded in the former case by the +Roman, in the latter by the canonical law, both requiring the conception of a +moral and a subjective guilt, and at present the criminal law of every civilised +nation (with the sole exception of the Chinese who threaten with capital punishment +him who accidentally kills no less than the intentional murderer) rests upon +the foundation of a belief in guilt.</p> + +<p>“But there is no room for guilt in the materialistic world-conception. Everything +that happens, the activity of the human soul included is to be explained according +to mechanical principles and thus the view that man’s will is not free is +proposed as one of its fundamental doctrines. While in this way there is no possibility +left that a man might have acted differently than he actually did, this view +takes away his responsibility. And this movement which either cancels or weakens +the momentum of guilt, has taken hold of the minds of men far beyond the +circle of decided materialists.</p> + +<p>“The foundation of our criminal law stands or falls with the idea of guilt. +With it stands and falls also the office of the judge, whose duty is the dispensation +and utilisation of justice. He who does not believe in the possibility of guilt cannot +without inconsistency pronounce any one guilty. He who as a matter of principle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span>or at least within certain not well defined limits denies the freedom of the +human will can no longer serve as a judge, certainly not as a criminal judge.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Justice Eugene Schiffer is a conservative man. He demands that for the protection +of the old world-conception the office of judge should be carefully guarded +against such intruders as are not in sympathy with the present world-conception. +He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Exactly as the church, in order to preserve herself and to guard against her theology +being diluted into a watery philosophy of religion, is bound not to separate +the conditions of her life from a definite world-conception, so also justice, in order +to deserve its name, should oblige its servants to take a definite position toward +the ultimate world-problems.... He who does not accept in his conviction the +moral foundations of a certain calling, must not choose it, or if he has chosen it, +he must renounce it—or he must in his profession act against his conviction—unless +he risks being discharged from his office on account of a neglect of duties.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We agree with Justice Schiffer in one most important point, viz., the intimate +connection of religion with practical life and of our world-conception with all our +doing and achieving. But we differ from him in another no less important point, +viz., in the proposition to prevent the present world-conception from undergoing a +further growth and higher evolution. His proposition is nothing less than to make +humanity and all its institutions stationary.</p> + +<p>Everything that exists has a natural right to defend its existence, and so has +the present world-conception. But that which grows and develops out of the conditions +of the present existence has also a natural right to attain existence. The +ideal world of the “is to be” is not a non-existence, as it might appear to the unknowing, +but a germ existence, and if there is no room for both the actual existence +of the present state and the germ existence of a new state, a struggle will ensue. +There are at present and always have been many spurious world-conceptions which +if they overcame the present world-conception would lead humanity backward to +the beginning of civilisation. Indeed most propositions of reform are reversals +which would undo the results of evolution and reduce mankind to primitive conditions. +The fermenting minds of those who still hope to cure all the ills and woes +of society by one stroke, have not yet outgrown the idea of the perfection, nobility, +and happiness of the so-called original state of nature,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Yet among all the plans of reform there is one which is correct, answering +the wants of the time; and among all the world-conceptions which struggle to exist +there is also one which is the legitimate outcome of the present world-conception. +It is the present world-conception enlarged through additional experience and purified +of certain errors. And it is an often repeated occurrence in history that the +old and the new, father and son, have to fight with each other. The heir apparent +either does not know that he is the child of his antagonist, or the latter the defendant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>of the present state does not know that he fights with his own son. This often +repeated fact has found a mythological expression in the old Teutonic song of Hildebrand +meeting in combat his son Hadubrand, a legend which in similar versions +appears again in other Aryan sagas, the best known of which is the tale of Rustem’s +struggle with Sohrab in Firdus’s great Iranian epic.</p> + +<p>Can the struggle between the old and the new world-conception be avoided? +No, it cannot and should not, for the new has to prove its legitimacy by showing +its intrinsic strength; it must show that it has the power to exist. The struggle +cannot be avoided, but the bitterness, the severity, the barbarity of the struggle +can be avoided. Let Hildebrand and Hadubrand measure swords in a spiritual +encounter, let the vanquished ideas yield to the stronger ideas, and they will prepare +the gradual change of an evolution instead of the sudden rupture of a revolution.</p> + +<p>Freedom of thought is always the best soil for a peaceful evolution but any +system that binds the consciences of men and ties their ideas down to the average +level of a certain age will be as dangerous as a boiler without a valve. There are +periods of instability in history when the strengthening of the conservative spirit +by imposing fetters upon the consciences of men appears useful and almost a condition +for the development of some kind of a civilisation. This found expression in +the historic legends of Lycurgus and Solon, binding their countrymen by oath not +to alter the laws of the state. But these periods are after all ephemeral, and we +ought to know by this time that we cannot bid the sun stand still or check the spirit +of progress and the growth of mankind. There are nations which develop slowly +because they rush into innovations, but there are other nations which have gone to +the wall because of over-conservatism through which they were induced to suppress +the freedom of thought and to deny the right of doubting the absolute validity of +the prevailing world-conception.</p> + +<p>The proposition of Justice Schiffer to bind the conscience of the judge by an +oath of allegiance to that world-conception which is at present recognised as orthodox, +is actually a law in the constitution of the church, and conflicts in the +consciences of clergymen are of a common occurrence. The opinion that a clergyman +who has ceased to believe in certain dogmas of his church has to resign +this position is very common among freethinkers as well as orthodox believers. +At first sight this seems to be the only choice left to a man of honesty and a lover +of truth. I held this opinion myself for a long time. There is nevertheless +another view of the subject which caused me to change my opinion entirely, and I +am glad to perceive that such a man as Mr. Moncure D. Conway who held himself +a position in the church and having grown more and more liberal has retired from +active service, declares most emphatically that a clergyman who has grown liberal +should not resign but stay in the church and wait till the church forces him to leave +his position. This is an honest course, a clergyman has a right to pursue it and he +will thereby open the eyes of his fellow-men; he will further the interests of mankind, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>and people will thus be enabled to judge better whether or not it is just to impose +these burdens upon the pastors of the church.</p> + +<p>Let us consider the case more closely. First, the oath which a young clergyman +gives at his ordination is a promissory oath, and like all promissory oaths it +holds good on the supposition that all the main conditions remain the same. If a man +promises and binds himself by an oath to start to-morrow morning on a journey +he does so on the supposition that it will be possible. So far as he can foresee it is +possible, but incidents may happen which will make it impossible to-morrow. A +promissory oath will be a weight on the conscience if it has to be broken, but it +has no legal force. Thus soldiers swear an oath of allegiance to their king, and +under ordinary circumstances there will be no cause for doubt as to the propriety of +remaining faithful to the oath. But many cases of great perplexity will appear when +a civil war splits a nation in twain so that brother stands against brother and faithfulness +to the king may be the most degrading felony toward one’s highest and holiest +ideals, perhaps also toward one’s bodily parents and nearest kin. Who does +not recollect the sad end of Ludwig II, king of Bavaria. When the mind of the unfortunate +monarch was too much deranged to leave him in possession of his royal +power, a commission of several authorised men went to the castle where he resided +to place him under the care of a physician. The king refused to receive the commission +and ordered his faithful guards by whom he was surrounded to seize the commission, +gouge out their eyes and treat them otherwise in the most outrageous way. +The commission not being protected were for a moment in great danger, but happily +the guards perceiving the seriousness of the situation did not execute the king’s +orders and we might say,—broke their oath.</p> + +<p>Did they really break their oath? No, they did not, for when they were sworn +to obey their sovereign master and lord, it was supposed that the king was and +would remain in his right mind. He became insane and this changed the situation +entirely.</p> + +<p>The oath of allegiance which the ministers of a church swear at their ordination +is made in the bona fide conviction on both sides,—the church on the one side +and the man that takes orders on the other side,—that the dogmas to which he +pledges his troth are the truth. The oath holds good so long as a minister believes +that the dogmas of the church are the truth; it still holds good so long as he considers +it possible that they may be true. But the oath to believe them ceases to +bind in the sense in which it was demanded as soon as a minister sees clearly that +they are not true and that their truth is an actual impossibility. It ranks in the +same category as the oath of allegiance to a sovereign who has become insane.</p> + +<p>But the case is more complex still. If promissory oaths have no legal force because +in certain cases a man would have to act against the letter of the oath, have +these oaths no binding power whatever, as soon as a minister recognises the incongruity +of the church belief with truth? I should say that they have a binding power, +yet this binding power must be sought not in the letter but in the spirit of the oath.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span></p> + +<p>One of the most prominent of juridical authorities, Prof. Rudolf von Jhering, has +written a book entitled “Der Zweck im Recht.” He finds that all laws, all wills, +all decrees have a purpose, and this purpose is their spirit. There are laws worded +so badly that obedience to the letter of the law would under certain and unforeseen +circumstances enforce exactly the contrary of that which the law was made for. +Instances of this kind are of not an uncommon occurrence especially with regard to +wills; testators and their legal advisors being often unable to formulate their intentions +in a logical shape. Jhering maintains that a judge in construing a will, a decree, +or a law has to find out the intention and purpose of the testator, the magistrate +that gave the decree, or the legislator, and it is this intention or purpose with +which his decisions have to agree. Supposing however that this purpose of a will +or a law is wrong in itself or nonsensical, a judge has to construe it so that it will +have sense. If the purpose is criminal the whole transaction is illegal, if it is irrational +or illogical, it has to be interpreted so as to make it rational and logical. If +it has reference to antiquated views, customs or institutions it has to be adapted to +the corresponding modern views and to existing conditions.</p> + +<p>An instance from practical life will explain the last point. There are many institutions +in Northern Germany which were founded as cloisters or monasteries. +The nuns and monks have been engaged partly in teaching, partly in attending to the +sick, and in other useful purposes. The funds of these institutions exist still, and serve +now those purposes directly which they have served formerly indirectly through the +service of nuns and monks. Most of them are employed for the maintenance of +schools, some of them as hospitals, others as homes for unmarried daughters of +government officials or for homeless aristocratic ladies without means, etc. These +changes have been wrought by history as the natural consequence of new conditions. +Many of them were made in actual violation of the letter of the testators’ will; yet +they were made bona fide with the intention to remain faithful to its spirit? The +question is not what a testator intended his will to be half a millennium ago, but +what he would intend it to be in the living present, knowing all the changes which +the progress of the times have wrought and having progressed with the times.</p> + +<p>Before we answer the question, What is the purpose of the minister’s oath? +we should first see clearly, what is the purpose of the church. Is the purpose of +the church really to be sought in the propaganda of some absurd dogmas? Or does +not rather the preaching of these dogmas itself serve a purpose?</p> + +<p>The dogmas of Christianity were some time ago supposed to be the indispensable +instruments of ethical instruction. All the churches are educational institutions +to inculcate the moral ought on the basis of a popular world-conception. The +church of England for instance is a national institute and it is not true that one +church party has the right to impose its religious conception upon the rest of the +nation. When the church was founded some crude notions were taken to be absolute +truths and no man can at the present time be required to believe these crudities. +All institutions are conservative but most conservative are the courts of justice +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span>and the church. The conservatism of jurisprudence is characterised in the +saying which appears to be its leading principle <i>fiat justicia et pereat mundus</i>. Jurisprudence +too often forgets that the dispensation of justice serves the purpose of +sustaining life, of promoting the general welfare and enhancing the prosperity of +the community; it overlooks the spirit and clings to the letter.</p> + +<p>Our justices are inclined to believe that if a new world-conception arises, +(which by the bye will as we believe not be materialistic nor will it destroy the idea +of moral responsibility, although it may change our views about guilt,) their whole +system of jurisprudence will break down. They are afraid of a <i>pereat justicia et +vivat mundus</i>. Justice Schiffer is not at all anxious to prove the truth of the old +world-conception, he is satisfied with proving that the new world-conception is incompatible +with the old view of justice. Criminal law means punishment and punishment +presupposes the idea of guilt. He argues:</p> + +<p>“The question remains whether the conflict between the new and the old world-conception +could be avoided by adapting our views of justice to the new world-conception; +yet this question is to be denied, for the notions of guilt and punishment +belong to each other according to logical, ethical, and moral principles. To +punish without assuming guilt is as nonsensical as it is immoral.”</p> + +<p>It would lead us too far here to show that moral responsibility still subsists on +the supposition of a strict determinism and that the criminal law with its punishments +will not be abolished in the future. Yet there is no doubt that our views of +punishment will have to be changed; indeed they have changed and how much they +have changed, can be learned by a comparison of an execution of to-day with one +of a few hundred years ago. The idea of punishment in the sense of inflicting pain +as a retribution has gone and it has gone forever. There is no more burning of the +criminal with hot irons, or twitching with hot tongs, or tearing out his tongue, or +stretching on the wheel. The criminal is executed with as little pain to him as +possible. Why this change? Because a new world-conception has entirely altered +our views of punishment and it is going to alter them still more. Penology is not +to be based upon sentimentality as some so-called philanthropists intend to do; nevertheless +it is to and it will become humane because we have abandoned the old +conception of guilt which as Justice Schiffer correctly states was a fundamental idea +in the old jurisprudence, and this antiquated conception of guilt has partly but not +as yet entirely been overcome.</p> + +<p>The church is in a position similar to that of the criminal law courts. A change +of our world-conception has set in and the church is not as yet adapted to the +change. The church having found it necessary for its purpose of preaching ethics +to insist on the belief in a world-conception which demonstrates a moral world order, +now attempts to perpetuate certain errors of our ancestors’ conception of this +moral world-order.</p> + +<p>The oath of a clergyman having been asked and given bona fide on the supposition +that the dogmas of the church were the truth, holds good still, but it must be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>construed as in similar cases a judge would have to construe a faulty will or an ill-worded +law. It has to be construed in the spirit and not in the letter.</p> + +<p>Clergymen who have grown liberal should not leave the church. It is their +duty to stay in the church and to make their influence felt to broaden the spirit of +the church. If the church removes them from their position, they yield to the authority +at present in power, but they should not yield without a struggle, to be conducted +on their part modestly but firmly, with reverence toward their authorities, +with tact and decency, but fearlessly and bravely, for they are fighting not only for +their personal interests but for the progress of mankind, they are fighting for the +holiest treasures of the church—for truth.</p> + +<p>The abolition of these burdens on the consciences of the clergy would be a +natural consequence of repeated struggles. Let a pastor be bound to respect his +church authorities, to obey them in all matters of administration, let him be bound +to revere the ecclesiastical traditions of which he should never speak lightly, but do +not prescribe to him a belief of any kind. Pledge him to serve the truth, to speak +the truth and to live the truth; and that simple pledge will have more weight than +the requirement to believe dogmas which, his superiors know but too well can no +longer be believed literally but must be taken <i>cum grano salis</i>.</p> + +<p>Christ says concerning the observances insisted upon by the Scribes and Pharisees: +“They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne: and lay them upon +men’s shoulders.” This passage is applicable also to the present system of ordination. +Christ’s saying is read in the churches and it is, as most of his words are, as +new to-day as it was at his time, but who thinks of its application to our present +system of burdening the consciences of men?</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">P. C.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span></p> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="A_COMMENT_BY_PROF_F_MAX_MUELLER">A COMMENT BY PROF. F. MAX MÜLLER CONCERNING THE DISCUSSION ON EVOLUTION AND LANGUAGE.</h4> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"><i>To the Editor of The Monist:</i></p> + +<p>I must thank you and Professor Romanes for the frank and searching criticism +to which you have both subjected my article on “Thought and Language,” published +in <i>The Monist</i>. You have shown that you care for truth and not for victory, +and you have carefully abstained from any personal remarks which are so apt to +embitter scientific controversy and in consequence to render its chief object, the +discovery of more truth, illusory. We all have the same object, we all want to know +what is true—why then should we not all work together, listen to friendly criticism, +accept useful advice, confess our mistakes, and work as hard as we can in the special +field allotted to each of us.</p> + +<p>As soon as I find a little more leisure, I shall not fail to reply fully to both your +articles. At present I only write to you to defend myself against an undeserved +charge brought against me by Professor Romanes. I had said that Professor Romanes +had no right to speak of men like Noiré, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, to say +nothing of Hobbes, with an air of superiority. Professor Romanes replies that he +never mentioned Mr. Herbert Spencer at all, that it would have been well for me, +if, before condemning his supposed treatment of Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and +Noiré, I had looked at his Index. This is a serious charge. It would show a want +of accuracy unpardonable in a scholar. It is true, Mr. Herbert Spencer’s name +does not occur in the Index. But on p. 230 we read: “So here again we meet with +additional proof, were any required, of the folly of regarding the copula as an +essential ingredient of a proposition.” Now it is well known that it is Mr. Herbert +Spencer who regards the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition. I have +shown that the facts of language are against Mr. Herbert Spencer, but I should not +therefore think it right to charge him with folly. This will show that if I wrote +without Index, I did not write without book.</p> + +<p class="center">Yours truly,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">F. Max Müller</span>.</p> + +<p>Oxford, Oct. 28, 1891.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_REVIEWS_II">BOOK REVIEWS.</h3> + +</div> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Synoptiker. Apostelgeschichte.</span> Bearbeitet von Professor <i>H. J. Holzmann</i>. +Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Freiburg, i. B.: Akademische +Verlagsbuchhandlung von J. C. B. Mohr. 1892.</h4> + +<p>This book is the first volume of the “Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament” +edited by the Professors H. Holtzmann, R. A. Lipsius, P. W. Schmiedel, +and H. v. Soden.</p> + +<p>No better man could have been selected for the first part of this great work +than Prof. H. J. Holtzmann, who is not only a theologian of most comprehensive +scholarship but also has devoted his energies to this special subject. He has lectured +regularly for a number of years at the university of Strassburg six or eight times +weekly on the synoptic gospels and three times weekly on the Acts. The principle +of his method has been laid down in a former work of his, viz. “Lehrbuch der +historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament.” The present book contains +an enormously voluminous material condensed into a comparatively small +space of 448 pp. large octavo. The author being a theologian his attitude toward +his subject is naturally reverent, paying an unreserved homage to the greatness of +Jesus. Yet at the same time his investigations are strictly scientific and in accordance +with the rules of criticism as employed in any historical investigation. It is +no exaggeration to consider Professor Holtzmann’s work as representative in the +highest degree; it embraces the most complete knowledge at present attainable and +that too in a most concise form as a practical handbook with parallel tables and indexes +of reference for students of the New Testament.</p> + +<p>The author first formulates “the synoptic problem,” which has been solved +after innumerable vain attempts by the so-called “Marcus-Hypothesis,” which is +at present considered as satisfactory, because it alone fulfils every condition and explains +all the difficulties. Holtzmann regards the figure of Christ as historical. The +impression of his powerful personality was a living presence in the first congregation +at Jerusalem. But all the interest centred in his words. The words of their +Lord were faithfully preserved by oral tradition. Sentences so short and yet so pregnant +with meaning as “Blessed are the peacemakers,” or “Ye are the salt of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>earth,” “But let your communication be, Yea, yea: Nay, nay, etc.,” are so impressive +that whoever has heard them once, will never forget them. The interest in +the word was soon complemented by an interest in facts and events which was +much later followed by an interest in dogma. The first differences among the +Christians originated through the mission among the heathens. The gentile Christian +became indifferent concerning the Jewish traditions and clung with all his religious +enthusiasm to the Christ as his saviour. Christianity became a cosmic religion +while the Jewish Christians still looked upon Christ as the Messiah of the people of +Israel. The Jewish view of Christianity is represented by Matthew, the gentile +view by Luke. Mark however does not show any development of dogma. According +to Papias, the Apostle St. Peter had whenever it became necessary for an explanation +of the words of Christ, occasionally told certain events of the life of Jesus; +which were afterwards written down by Mark. We find in Mark, Matthew, and +Luke the same building stones, but how differently arranged! Mark shows evidence +of relating real facts of history, he begins with John the Baptist, tells us how +Jesus became baptised, how he preached the kingdom of God; according to Mark, +Jesus does not declare himself as the Messiah from the beginning. His activity +grows by degrees, his disciples increase, he heals the sick, and it is from the mouth +of these that he was first proclaimed as the Messiah. He becomes a power among +the people and makes himself offensive to the authorities who consider him as dangerous +and attempt to take his life. Jesus forbids those whom he heals to proclaim +that he is the Messiah. He sends out his disciples not to preach him as the Messiah, +but to proclaim the kingdom. At last in Peter the idea dawns that prompts +him to declare: “Thou art the Christ.” Yielding before the persecution of his +enemies, Jesus travels North and East and here he accustoms himself to the idea +of a suffering son of man. His self-confidence increases and he travels courageously +to Jerusalem where, as he could foresee, he would meet his fate. The drama of +his life culminates in his word “ἐγώ εἰμι” (1462) in which he reveals his self-consciousness +as being the Messiah. Being triumphantly hailed in Jerusalem by people +of Galilee and such as believed in him he hastened his doom. It is not likely that +Jesus could have publicly been held to be the Messiah for any length of time, for +the Roman police was wont to suppress such movements without discrimination. +They did not stop to investigate the case as to the character or motive of the movement +whether or not it was purely religious or political. They never tolerated any +“son of David” or “king of Israel” who held any influence over large masses of +the people.</p> + +<p>While Mark still preserves the development of Jesus’s messianic consciousness, +Luke as well as Matthew have entirely obliterated it. According to Mark, Jesus +proclaims the kingdom; Matthew and Luke make him preach his person. They +make Jesus proclaim himself as the Messiah from the very beginning and his command +not to speak it out openly given to those whom he healed and also to his disciples +has no sense here. Matthew has a liking for cabalistic numbers, there are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>three times seven generations the names of which are not without doing violence to +historical facts adjusted to the pattern, there are three temptations, seven parables, +etc. Throughout we notice reflection, purposive selection of the material, and artificial +adjustment to a plan. The book has a tendency to show that Jesus was the +King of Israel predicted by the prophets and in the psalms. Luke on the other hand +has also a dogmatic programme. It is the gospel of gentile Christianity as founded +by Paul.</p> + +<p>The critical school finds adversaries among theologians as well as unchristian +thinkers, both of whom are apt to speak of fraud when religious books are written +with certain dogmatic tendencies. Professor Holtzmann objects to such a view of +the development of Christianity. He says that a religion which did not rouse sufficient +enthusiasm to develop a religious poetry would be very poor and lifeless. +Even the apocrypha of the New Testament are evidence of the vigor of the new religion, +although we must be aware of the fact that the Church showed good judgment +when adopting its canon to accept those which were full of moral meaning +and to reject those which were mere myth without any deeper significance.</p> + +<p>We have given this abstract of one part of Holtzmann’s work with the omission +of all the learned by-work for those not familiar with theological investigation. +Similar results are obtained by an inquiry into the origin of the Acts. The apostles +were the first and living representatives of the Christ. Out of the interest in the +apostles’ words grew an interest in their actions and lives, and there are a great +many writings of this subject preserved. One only has been received into the +canon.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to follow Professor Holtzmann into the details of his work, but +we can warmly recommend it as the best compendium existing, not only for the +student of theology but for everybody who is interested in the results of the scientific +criticism of the synoptic gospels and the Acts.⁠<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Schriften der Gesellschaft fuer Psychologische Forschung.</span> Heft 2. Ueber +Aufgaben und Methoden der Psychologie. By <i>Hugo Münsterberg</i>. Leipsic: +Ambr. Abel. 1891.</h4> + +<p>In this monograph Professor Münsterberg prepares the way for greater and +more important work. His aim is to define the province of psychology and to investigate +the methods which have to be employed. Psychology is not philosophy; +accordingly the consideration whether there is a reality of an outside world does not +belong here. The psychologist is not bound to wait till this and other metaphysical +questions are decided with certainty; the reality of the outside world has simply to +be assumed together with its cognisability.</p> + +<p>What means ‘to explain’? “To explain means simply to render clear that which +is not clear or to reduce the unknown to the known, the complex to the simple (p. 104).... +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>It is an indispensable presupposition of any natural science to consider nature +as being capable of explanation (<i>erklärbar</i>), and this presupposition means that natural +processes can be perfectly separated into most simple mechanical processes. +This presumption can be realised to-day only on the basis of the atom-conception. +It is accordingly not an experience, but a postulate of natural science to derive the +whole material world-process from the mechanism of atoms. A description becomes +an explanation in the measure in which it approaches this aim” (p. 105). The +question is, whether in psychology, description can be supplanted by explanation, +whether laws can be stated instead of mere rules.</p> + +<p>Professor Münsterberg takes that ground in psychology which as it appears to +us is the only tenable ground, viz. that feelings are not motions and cannot be explained +as converted physical processes. Professor Münsterberg says: “A sensation, +a feeling, a will can never fill even the very smallest space. What is extended +in space can never itself be a state of consciousness. To the psychologist this distinction +is now a matter of course, so much so that it is difficult to call to one’s +mind how much trouble it cost to acquire this insight. The object of psychology +accordingly can never be an object in space, it can never be a process of motion, +accordingly, even brain-irritation can under no circumstances ever become the object +of psychology” (p. 97). Psychology has to investigate the psychical phenomena +of the individual consciousness (p. 102), it has to separate it into its elements, i. e. +those ingredients which are no longer divisible; which being done, psychology +searches for the rules for the combinations of these psychical elements and shows +us the different complex contents which are formed in this way by the elements up +to that totality of single combinations which is given us as the contents of our spiritual +personality (p. 103).</p> + +<p>“The question is, (1) Are there psychological processes in us, the development +of which presents itself with immediate certainty as necessary, and (2) can we reduce +all the individual and with them all the spiritual phenomena to such spiritual processes +recognised as necessary? The first question can be affirmed, although only +in a limited sense, and the second question must be unequivocally denied, thus making +an immediate explanation of psychical phenomena impossible” (p. 107). The +first question is to be affirmed in a limited sense, because “if certain premises are +thought, the conclusion, it appears to us as a necessity, can be thought thus and not +otherwise” (p. 108). But this is “a logical and not a psychological necessity.” To +actually think the conclusion depends upon the will to think it. The will actually +existing, the logical necessity becomes a psychological, for “the connection between +the willing and the willed (<i>zwischen Willen und Gewolltem</i>) always appears to us as +necessary.... Where there is inner will there is an inner necessity.” Now, in order +to make explanations in the physical world, we supplement that which has been +actually observed with not-observed connections. But we cannot, according to +Münsterberg, in an analogous way supplement in the world of psychical phenomena +the conscious states with any other kind of states which are not conscious, thus referring +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span>our spiritual life and acts of will to unconscious processes, for “the very +nature of psychical states is consciousness, i. e. a state of being conscious. <i>Ihr +Sein ist das bewusst-sein....</i> A state of consciousness, says Münsterberg, which is +not conscious, is comparable not to a body which is not perceived, but to one which +does not exist. Accordingly unconscious psychical phenomena do not exist. All +psychical phenomena are directly given and the reduction of their combinations in +a certain way through hypothetical psychological supplements is once for all excluded” +(p. 110).</p> + +<p>We agree in all the main positions with Professor Münsterberg, but in the last +mentioned point we disagree. Professor Münsterberg limits psychical states or +feelings to states of consciousness without considering that there are subconscious +and even unconscious feelings. By consciousness we understand those feelings +alone which are concentrated so as to be connected with the ego, i. e. the present +centre of consciousness. We assume that even the spinal ganglions of the brainless +frog are feeling if the skin is irritated, but this feeling can never become conscious, +it can no more be telegraphed to the central station so as to become co-ordinated +with other feelings which are registered in the brain. The objection +may be raised, We do not know whether the ganglion is feeling; and I should answer, +I call feeling anything that is of the same nature as the elements of which +consciousness consists, and we have all reasons to assume that there is such an elementary +psychical accompaniment of the ganglionic irritations, and that consciousness +rises from many such elements through their co-ordinate combination in the +brain. Isolated feelings are never conscious, and consciousness is a co-operative +system of feeling. This distinction between consciousness and feeling is a mere +matter of terminology. If we find another terminology more practical we are willing +to surrender ours. Yet such a distinction between consciousness and feeling +seems to be necessary for a proper description of the psychical facts. The assumption +of subconscious states and even of unconscious feelings is a great help in explaining +the phenomena of consciousness. But unless we are grossly mistaken, +our disagreement is merely apparent, for Professor Münsterberg, rejecting the +idea of a psychological explanation, believes in the parallelism of psychical and +physical phenomena. “The physical acts” (he says on p. 125) “reducible to mechanical +axioms can be explained through causation, the psychical acts follow one +another without inner necessity. If we connect both, we are enabled to transfer +the necessity-connection of the physical upon the psychical and offer thus an explanation +where otherwise description only was possible.” But in doing this, have +we not supplemented those psychical elements which appear as conscious states by +other psychical elements which have not entered into that combination which makes +them actually conscious? It is an hypothetical addition for the sake of explanation, +a <i>Hilfsconstruction</i> just as much as the supposition of the existence of atoms or +electric currents or other physical phenomena which are not directly observed, but +indirectly in their effects only.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span></p> + +<p>Supplements are necessary for explanation wherever the immediate facts do +not contain all the elements of a certain process. If an observable phenomenon +has not its conditions in observable facts we hypothetically assume unobservable +facts as its causes. But we may incidentally remark that description and explanation +are not different in kind, but in degree. Explanation is an exhaustive description +set forth in its greatest possible simplicity. An exhaustive description enumerates +all the determinative factors of a process and it drops everything that is of +no account, so that information is imparted with the greatest economy as well as +completeness. An exhaustive description is a reliable guide to preascertain the +outcome of a process, and reveals in this way the identity in the change, the continuity +of the process and the conservation of matter and energy in their transformations, +or, in other words, it reveals the necessity of the result. There is perhaps no +natural science in which the processes can be exhaustively described without hypothetical +supplements and so the science of psychology forms no exception to the +general rule.</p> + +<p>The aim of psychology in its wider sense will be “to separate all the contents +of consciousness into their elements, to state their laws of combination, and to seek +in an empirical way for the diverse elementary psychical contents, their correspondent +physiological irritations, in order to explain in this way mediately from +the coexistence and succession of physiological irritations the purely psychological +laws of combinations which as such are unexplainable” (p. 127).</p> + +<p>Our objection to this view resembles much some of the objections which Professor +Münsterberg himself makes when speaking of the availability of the mathematical +method so-called. He says: “Measuring and counting of psychological +phenomena have been made repeatedly, directly as well as indirectly, and it has +been proved that mathematics can be applied to psychology.... Nevertheless it +would be a misuse of the word if we named these numerical descriptions an ‘application +of the mathematical method.’ If an historian of literature counts the poems +and dramas of authors, if he also calculates how long it took them to write their +literary products, who would call his work a mathematical history of literature? +Even astronomy would be no mathematical science if we counted only the stars in +the sky.” If the aim of psychological explanation were as Professor Münsterberg +here asserts to be reached through the explanation of physiological states only, we +should say, that the physiological method were alone admissible in psychology, a +principle to which our author rightly objects. Psychical states sometimes demand +a physiological explanation, and we cannot understand psychology without having +a certain amount of physiological knowledge. Nevertheless, the explanation of +psychical states and the necessity of certain connections must be understood mainly +from the psychical elements themselves. Psychical elements, i. e. feelings, as has +been explained on other occasions, have acquired and constantly do acquire meaning. +This meaning which appears in sensation-symbols and thought-symbols and +which is different in the different forms of feeling (correspondent to different forms +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span>of nervous action), creates a new domain,—the domain of spirit,—and thus psychical +states are changed into spiritual facts. Suppose for instance that a merchant +receives his mail; he opens a letter containing some important news which sets at +once all his nerves into irritation, makes him neglectful of all other things in order +to attend with great haste to one special affair. How can we explain this instance, +or any other spiritual act through a consideration of physiological conditions. Is +it not the meaning alone which special sense-impressions convey that produces the +extraordinary effects? The physiologist would as little be able to detect this meaning +through an analysis of the sense-impressions, as an electrician would be to understand +the import of a telegram when measuring the strength of the electric current +in the telegraph wires. The combinations of the purely psychical states may +after all not be quite unexplainable, while their physiological concomitants are in +many cases insufficient to account for spiritual interconnections.</p> + +<p>In discussing the methods of psychology Professor Münsterberg rejects the +speculative and the mathematical methods; he claims a great importance (and we +agree with him) for self-observation. But self-observation is no easy task; it requires +a high degree of training. “He who does not understand botany cannot +make observations of plant-life. The same things which call into play certain associations +in the botanist are also seen by the layman, but they remain unobserved. +Self-observation is in a similar way ... not without its presuppositions; it is dependent +upon a rich store of ready associations” (p. 164).</p> + +<p>Psychological investigations under natural conditions are classified by Münsterberg +according to their objects, as those of the normal man, the child, the savage, +the insane, the animal, etc. In experimental psychology, psychopetal, psychofugal, +and psychocentral processes are distinguished. For psycho-physiological investigations +we have besides, (1) the immediate experiment in the laboratory, (2) the method +of anatomy, (3) of comparative anatomy, (4) and of physiology. Professor Münsterberg +concludes with an appeal to institute special professorships of psychology, +which is at present a mere branch of philosophy. It takes all the energy of one +man to keep abreast with the progress of psychological investigation. “No medical +man, no lawyer, no theologian, or educator should enter into practical life +without having passed an examination in psychology ... the growing generation +of children, the sick, the criminal, and the comfort-seeking souls of mankind have +to suffer if teachers, physicians, judges, and preachers are ignoramuses in the +matter of human soul-life.... But here also the gods have placed sweat before +virtue.”</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">La Philosophie du Siècle.</span> By <i>E. de Roberty</i>. Paris: Félix Alcan.</h4> + +<p>The author of the present work, which forms a volume of the Library of Contemporary +Philosophy, is one of those disciples of the founder of French positivism +who, while following in his footsteps to a certain point, do not hesitate to diverge +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>from the beaten track when they think their leader has gone astray in his philosophic +quest. M. de Roberty speaks of Comte with reverence as his first guide and his +best master, and he finds in the very contradictions of the Master the germ of his +own conception of the general trend of philosophic development.</p> + +<p>The fundamental thesis of the present work is that the three contemporaneous +philosophic systems, those of Criticism, Positivism, and Evolutionism, are +merely varieties of a single species, as strictly parallel manifestations of a common +stock of beliefs and general hypotheses. The basic identity of the thought of this +century is shown by the ever increasing convergence of the great leading ideas, as +exhibited in the prevailing theories of knowledge, by the preponderance of relativism, +and of agnosticism. It reveals itself, especially in the similar conceptions +formed by the most varied systems, not only of the essential characters of philosophy, +its method, and the ends it ought to pursue, but also of the scientific laws which +govern its evolution. We cannot follow the author through his discussion of all +these points and we must therefore restrict ourselves to the most salient features of +his argument.</p> + +<p>Modern philosophy is represented by three principal schools: Criticism which +originated with Kant, Positivism founded by Comte, and Evolutionism introduced +by Spencer. These three systems had a common ancestry, that of sensualism. The +critical philosophy is the legitimate heir of sensuous idealism, and the positive philosophy +the immediate descendant of sensuous materialism. The evolution philosophy +is itself rooted in sensualism, but it is really a conciliator of the two great +philosophies which preceded it, Criticism and Positivism. This conclusion, which +appears to us just, is supported by various considerations to which reference here +is not necessary. M. de Roberty bears testimony to the influence of the philosophy +of Kant over the development of the evolutionist conception, which could be applied +to society only by giving an apparent universality to the mechanical hypothesis. +This was accomplished by Spencer, as it had been done to some extent by Comte. +The popularity of the evolution philosophy is explained by the author as due to its +admixture of agnosticism with a monism which captivates the masses “by the audacious +assertion that it has raised all veils and resolved all enigmas.” Kant, Comte, +and Spencer have equally seized this characteristic trait of the genius of our century. +They each treat, says M. de Roberty, of the most transcendent problems of +metaphysics, and place them carefully under the cover of the experimental method. +Let us add that they are each different expressions of that genius, which marks the +progress of the mental evolution of mankind.</p> + +<p>The second part of M. de Roberty’s work deals in the first place with the conceptions +of philosophy, its nature and its end, framed by the three great modern +systems. The confusion generally made between philosophy and science is first +pointed out, the evil of which arises from the fact that allowance is not made for +the progress of scientific knowledge. The author is strongly inclined to favor the +idea of the general equivalence of science and philosophy, in the sense that every +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span>effect is identified with its cause. But as the effect is always modified with its cause, +neither the content not the general conception of philosophy can remain unchangeable. +Philosophy becomes thus the co-ordination of the sciences in view of their +general and abstract finality—by which is meant simply the last term of an evolution—a +conception of the world.</p> + +<p>In what do the conceptions of philosophy held by the criticist, the positivist, +and the evolutionist, differ from that formulated by M. de Roberty? He affirms +that they all entertain certain errors of method derived chiefly from ancient metaphysics. +The prototype is found in Kant, who says that philosophy is a system of +universal acquirements formed of abstract notions, and that it has for its aim the +passage of our understanding from sensible to suprasensible knowledge. The latter +is the <i>a priori</i>, the permanent and verifiable hypothesis, for each of them. It is the +transcendental element which all modern philosophy has derived from the past, and +which forms the bond of alliance between faith and knowledge. Of the three postulates +of Spencer, the universal hypothesis is in the first, an Unknowable Force. +The other two belong to psychology, proving that the English evolutionist, like +Comte, confounds science with philosophy, which to him, as to his predecessors, is +a simple theory of knowledge.</p> + +<p>Philosophy is a method which conducts to a conception of the world. But, says +M. de Roberty, modern philosophies fail in that they deal with hypotheses. Now, +although hypothesis is the soul of the special sciences, for philosophy it must always +be a purely mental recreation. To render valid the universal hypothesis constructed +by philosophers, it would be necessary that the sum of the final truths of science +should include the sum of the phenomena which constitute nature.</p> + +<p>We cannot follow the author through his ingenious criticisms of Spencer’s great +synthetic formula, to which he devotes the twelfth chapter of the present work, and +which he characterises as the perfect type of the universal unverifiable hypothesis. +Nor can we do more than give a passing glance at his views of the psychology of +the three modern systems of philosophy. He affirms that the metaphysical transformation +by criticism of psychology into philosophy left hardly anything to the +special science. To positivism is due the conception of psychology as forming an +integral part of biology, which has led to the important psycho-physical experiments +of the present day. But the biological analysis of the individual should be followed +by social analysis, the study of mental manifestations in society, in connection with +which should be created a special concrete science to embrace the higher psychology, +as pointed out by the author in his work “La Sociologie.” Science, art, and +industry are a projection into the external world of the thinking, feeling, acting +subject, and psychology ought also to be thus projected by fusion with biology, or +with biology and sociology, which it is necessary to study if we would discover psychic +laws.</p> + +<p>In the chapter on the Supremacy of Science, the author affirms that the philosophy +which will result from the progress of psychology and sociology will present +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span>a striking contrast with all known metaphysical forms, but it will always remain a +world-conception, and it will have to submit to the law of correlation which explains +the character and destinies of its predecessor. Agnosticism, which invites men to bend +before the <i>Deus ignotus</i> of all religions, marks the fatal termination of ancient anthropomorphism, +influenced by a progressive knowledge, and thus appears as the final +integration of all theology. It also represents, however, the condition of incognisance +to which the opposite state will succeed when the cycle of abstract sciences is completed +and a really scientific psychology formed. Then hypotheses as to universal +causes will receive their psychological solution, and it will remain for philosophy +only to confront and co-ordinate them with the general results of other sciences. +Having arrived at this point M. de Roberty formulates the conclusion that Philosophy +and Science are terms which connote two principle <i>species</i> in the vast <i>genus</i> +designated by the single term <i>knowledge</i>. The most marked trait of future philosophy +will be the distinction of these two species, as their confusion was the most general +character of the philosophy of the past. Philosophy and science will then be perfectly +identified, but the identity will be general and not specific. Thus philosophy +will not be positive in the sense of Comte, it will never <i>completely</i> identify itself +with science.</p> + +<p>In his last chapter, entitled “The Intellectual Series,” M. de Roberty continues +his criticism of the views of Comte as to the law of the evolution of philosophy. He +shows that, so far from this being the most general law of intellectual evolution, +and therefore the supreme law of all social phenomena, philosophy is only one of +three intermediate terms, the others being art and industry, by the aid of which +the evolution of scientific ideas acts on the ensemble of the social evolution. The +intellectual evolution is the direct consequence of the social fact, but the social evolution +is subject to the laws of intellectual evolution, which embrace four great +classes of conceptions, answering to the four well recognised groups of facts known +as science, philosophy, art, and industry. We have here the same series of special +evolutions as those supposed by Comte, with the important change, however, marked +by the inversion of the first two members of the series. In this relation, the author +affirms that Comte’s law of the three states is false so far as concerns the evolution +of the sciences, and is of very secondary importance as regards the evolution of +philosophy and the two succeeding evolutions.</p> + +<p>The author concludes his work with a criticism intended to show that the principal +defects of Comte’s system arise from the confusion previously insisted on in +relation to the first terms of the intellectual series, science and philosophy. That +confusion is exhibited in the statement that among the ancients philosophy was developed +before science and art. M. de Roberty, moreover, declares Comte’s theory +that the industrial development is the point of departure of modern civilisation, +leads to a complete subversion of the logical and historical. Instead of the useful +or the proper being, as that theory would require, the foundation of the good and +this, in its turn, the germ of the true, the true is the foundation of the beautiful, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>and of the good and the useful. But the true is more complex than supposed by +Comte. It possesses at least two aspects, science and philosophy, which may be +really distinguished, although the line which separates them is yet undetermined.</p> + +<p>We have given a summary of M. de Roberty’s general argument, instead of referring +to particular propositions which may be open to criticism, because his work +appears to us a very valuable contribution towards the elucidation of the important +question as to the position of philosophy in relation to science. We shall look with +much interest for the appearance of the author’s two further works which he announces +as supplementary to the present one. That on Agnosticism is already in +the press. The subject of the other work is Monism, which M. de Roberty characterises +as “the chimerical pursuit which has essayed, through the ages, to fix the +so-called unity of things, the extra or supralogical identity of phenomena.” This +hypothetical monism of philosophy is dealt with incidentally in the present work. +The “supralogical identity of phenomena” is a different kind of monism from that +of <i>The Monist</i>.</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Ueber Bewegungsempfindungen.</span> Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der +Doctorwürde vorgelegt der hohen philosophischen Facultät der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität +zu Freiburg i. B. By <i>Edmund Burke Delabarre</i> of +Massachusetts. Freiburg in Baden: Hch. Epstein, 1891.</h4> + +<p>Dr. Edmund Burke Delabarre introduces himself to the world of science with +an excellent monograph on motion-sensations, based upon careful observations +which were made in Professor Münsterberg’s psychological laboratory at Freiburg +i. B. The subject of the dissertation is of great importance and there is much confusion +prevalent at present even among the most prominent authorities. It appears +to us that Dr. Delabarre has adopted the right view and he certainly defends +it with great ability. Professor Wundt rejects in his Physiological Psychology all the +theory of the so-called “muscle-sense” and admits that there is some truth in the +three explanations devised as an explanation of our consciousness of performed motions, +which thus would be a complex of (1) pressure-sensations, (2) specific muscle-sensations, +and (3) innervation-sensations. This third kind of sensations is of a +very hypothetical nature. The term signifies that, when muscles are innervated we +are supposed to have a direct sensation of the innervation in the central nerve-organs; +and this view is objected to by Münsterberg, who says that “a brain irritation +which is not accompanied with centripetal effects or central after-effects of +former muscular activity has its physiological consequences but excites no conscious +states.” Thus, according to Dr. Delabarre, without the motion of the sense-organs, +i. e. muscular activity, there is no consciousness; all consciousness derives its data +from the periphery. Dr. Delabarre goes over the whole field of the literature of the +subject and weighs all pros and cons. He finds that all cases are intelligible without +the supposition of central innervation-sensations. He admits that the term +muscle-sense is vague, but he believes that the term having been generally introduced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span>may be retained. He defines it as that complex of sensations which results +from muscular activity.</p> + +<p>The second part of the dissertation contains the reports of the experiments, +describing the instruments used and the methods employed.</p> + +<p>We are informed that Dr. Delabarre has been appointed to the chair of psychology +in Brown University.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Le Nihilisme Scientifique.</span> I. Dialogue entre le Doctor Oudèn et L’Etudiant Ti +son Neveu. Rapporté par <i>P. Van Bemmelen</i>. Leide: E. J. Brill, 1891.</h4> + +<p>Dr. Oudèn’s nephew thus summarises the scientific, or rather “philosophic” +views of his uncle: “There is no God, but there is the world. In this world +there are neither souls, nor mind, nor life; there is only matter and its elementary +forces. Nevertheless these forces do not exist; there is only movement, the +sole function of matter, which is inert. In its turn, matter has no reality; it is +composed of geometrical points which are susceptible of movement. But as there +is neither time nor space, there is no movement.” Nothingness is thus reached, +but beyond is illusion, the <i>maja</i> of the Hindoos, which explains all our conceptions +of nature including that of our own being. This scientific <i>maja</i> is not the semblance +of a real world, but that of a world which does not exist, so that illusion and nothingness +are the same thing. From which it follows that there is no illusion and no +mind to be deceived! Mr. Van Bemmelen’s opuscule is an ingenious <i>jeu d’esprit</i>, +evidently intended to exhibit a certain phase of speculation as a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>.</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Diritto Sociale Tentativo in Bozza.</span> Dell’Avv. <i>Pietro Pellegrini</i>. Borga a +Mozzano. 1891.</h4> + +<p>There is no denying the activity of the statesmen and scholars of modern Italy +in the cause of radical, social reconstruction and, as remarked by a recent traveller +in Italy, in the “building up again a Commonwealth, founded on high principles +of right and equality.” “Diritto Sociale,” in Italian jurisprudence, of course, relates +to municipal and positive law, in its social-economical and social-political +aspects. But, in a country with the municipal and political traditions of Italy, this +“Diritto Sociale,” even in modern times, exhibits a tendency to crystallise into a +kind of concrete, social religion. The Avvocato Signor Pietro Pellegrini, the +learned author of this book, appears to feel deeply concerning the present condition +of this branch of jurisprudence in Italy.</p> + +<p>In his preface the author says, that during the present century legal science +has not made any very substantial progress; that the revolution of the last century, +while asserting the famous rights of man, forgot the rights of juridic persons, of +corporations, and law became an <i>individualista</i>—or, individualiser. On the strength +of his juridic personality man thereupon engaged in a struggle for his rights on the +vast social field, but he found himself alone—an individual and nothing more. As +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span>such, he could not form a juridic, social organism, but he merely sought to adapt +himself to an actual, external juridic organisation, differing but slightly from old-time +despotism. On this basis the State still continues to create municipal and +positive laws, more or less adapts them to the facts of reality, arbitrarily creating +juridic persons and administrative bodies, such as the <i>mandamenti</i>, <i>circondarii</i>, <i>provincie</i> +of the modern Italian kingdom—all of which are only hybrid administrative +<i>entia</i>, that do not in the least satisfy a number of local public needs; and therefore, +there is no harmony between individual men and the juridic persons, between the +public administrative entia and the State, and there is bloody war among the States +themselves.</p> + +<p>The ultimate cause of all this conflict is to be ascribed to the individualism of +the law, in not recognising organic, juridic relations; and this, moreover, necessarily +called forth the reaction of an exaggerated socialism.... Person has a much +wider significance than individual; person cannot be isolated, individual, because, +juridically, person implies an exchange of relations with others; hence, juridic persons +ought to enjoy a greater legal authority than they actually enjoy in our modern +jurisprudence. The <i>plasma sociale</i>, or the original social mould, is developed by +degrees into a vital, practically real, organism, endowed with a physical body, that +needs the material means of nutrition, in order to live, to preserve, and develop itself. +These, however, do not exist; because nature furnishes only sufficient means +to preserve man in a purely savage, animal condition. But, at least, there exist +the sources, or fountain-heads, from which it is possible to derive the desired nutritive +materials; on condition of molding or transforming those fountain-heads, and +of assuming their efficacious, practical direction. In the individualised or individual +system there takes place a struggle among the individuals for the possession of that +nourishment, in which case, however, the sources themselves are appropriated +rather than the nutritive materials they contain. Such is the exclusive nature of +the social means of nutrition, present and future, through which a large number of +individuals will be at the mercy of a few, while the notorious “rights of man,” remain +powerless....</p> + +<p>The rights emanating from the organic concept of personality, together with +the physico-economical laws of the fountain-heads of social nourishment, spontaneously +furnish the equitable distribution of the nutritive materials to each organic +member, so that there is no monopolising of those natural fountain-heads, but a +normal nutrition of all the organs, according to their needs, and their actual capacity +as juridically displayed....</p> + +<p>Those fountain-heads, besides being limited, are scattered through space, because +it is impossible to unite or concentrate them on any particular point of the +globe. Hence this <i>plasma sociale</i> or social mold is distributed through space according +to imperative laws, that result from the combined capacities of the respective +juridic, that is, social persons, with the capacities of the respective sources of +social nourishment—of different municipal organisations, of cities, townships, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span>villages. All these are pre-eminently juridic and social persons, each one possessing +its peculiar functions, that cannot be exercised by other persons. The present +work contains a lengthy but valuable introduction in four chapters, discussing the +general concept of law; and thereupon the book is divided into three parts, in which +are explained the principles and development of positive law in its respectively +civil-social, social-economical, and social-political aspects. This work, throughout, +presents a number of equally important and novel points of view, through which +the author’s concept of an organic municipal and social law everywhere becomes +the surest means of creating unity and harmony, not only within the general department +of law, but also within the sphere of practical legislation.</p> + +<p class="right">γνλν.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">An Outline of Locke’s Ethical Philosophy.</span> By <i>Mattoon Monroe Curtis</i>, M. A. +Leipsic: Gustav Fock, 1890.</h4> + +<p>This excellent study was presented to the University of Leipsic as the Inaugural +Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and it is well deserving of +publication, if for no other reason than the need of such a work. There appears to +have been hitherto no complete account of Locke’s System of Ethics, which does +not even find a place in Mackintosh’s “Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy.” The +author has not been able to discover any trace of the treatise on Ethics which +Locke proposed to write, but his published works “abound in ethical observation +and severally took their rise from ethical considerations,” so that there is no deficiency +of materials from which to ascertain his ideas on that subject.</p> + +<p>Mr. Curtis very justly remarks that it is important to ascertain an author’s +views before criticising them, a truism which is not always acted on, as indeed was +the case with Locke’s own critics. He does not, however, profess to criticise but, +as the title of his work shows, to give an outline of Locke’s Ethical Philosophy. In +his Preface he states that his author adopted the Stoic division of Philosophy into +Physics, Ethics, and Logic. The object of Ethics, is described by Locke, in his +noted “Essay,” as the seeking out of those rules and measures of human actions, +which lead to happiness, and the means to practice them. The end of this, is not +bare speculation, and the knowledge of truth; but <i>right</i>, and a conduct suitable to +it. In the application of its principles Locke may be said to have gone further than +any of his predecessors and of most of his successors. As pointed out by Mr. Curtis, +he maintains that the institutions of government, religion, and education are, in essence, +ethical and that all are parts of a system which must be based upon, and be +in harmony with, the fundamental physiological and psychological principles of +human nature. This follows from Locke’s principle that the Individual, and not +the Family, is the real social unit. Man is a rational, social, religious, and political +being, and, therefore, “in the individual is contained, potentially, all institutionalism.”</p> + +<p>It must be noticed, however, that to Locke the moral dynamic in human society +is the concept of God. He regards this idea “as a natural, formal, necessary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span>and transcendental principle at the root of human nature and institutions, and consistently +declares that the denial of it dissolves all,” as it alone gives a sufficient explanation +and sanction to the principles of morality. This brings us to the very +foundation of ethics. All depends, however, on our conception of God. Locke +maintained that duty “cannot be understood without a law, nor a law be known or +supposed without a law giver, or without reward or punishment.” His conception +of God, therefore, was that of a law-giver, and he believed that the existence of God +could be demonstrated not only by teleological argument, but also by psychological +proof drawn from the being and nature of man. Locke was so thoroughly convinced +of the dependence of morality on the existence of God, that, notwithstanding +his general liberality of thought, he excluded atheists from toleration. He writes: +“Promises and Covenants, and Oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can +have no hold upon an Atheist.”</p> + +<p>It would be a mistake to suppose that, because Locke believed morality to be +founded in our conception of God, he considered the moral law referable simply to +the divine will, and therefore to be arbitrary and changeable. So far from this, he +regarded the moral law as eternal and immutable, and affirmed that its cardinal +principles could be discovered and laid hold of by the light of nature. As says +Pfleiderer, when speaking of Locke and Wolff, “Locke also considers a supernatural +revelation to be possible, and to have actually taken place in Christianity, but +he insists as strongly as Wolff does, and even more logically, that this revelation +must not in any way contradict the natural revelation given us by God in our reason.” +Locke expressly declares, that the reason <i>is</i> natural revelation, while revelation +is natural reason enlarged. The latter he regarded as necessary because, +although reason is sufficient for the virtuous, penalties must be relied upon for influencing +the multitude; and in revelation the doctrine of immortality with future +rewards and punishments is made known. Whether this revelation is true or false, +the fear of future punishment has undoubtedly had a restraining influence over the +vicious. But reason would not be sufficient for the virtuous without an inclination +natural or acquired, to virtue. It is a question of disposition, and this will be virtuous +or vicious, according to the conditions under which the individual has come +into being and been “educated,” in the fullest sense of this term. Reason forms +part of these conditions which, so far as they are not purely objective, are dependent +on or referable to human nature; as, indeed, must be the supposed revelation +of enlarged natural reason.</p> + +<p>In relation to the ethical life, Locke declares that happiness is the only idea +which reason takes up out of the sphere of pleasure and pain, and yet that if we +aim directly at happiness, we shall miss it. What then has to be done is to seek +out “the rules and measures of human actions which lead to happiness.” This is +the office of ethics, the end of which is virtue, and thus happiness and virtue are +one. With Locke moral actions are only those that depend “upon the choice of an +understanding and free agent.” The agent here intended is, as pointed out by Mr. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span>Curtis, the man, and not the will. Locke says that the proper question in connection +with freedom, is not “whether the will be free, but whether the man be free.” +The will is determined by the mind, and liberty is “a power to act, or not to act, +according as the mind directs.” In his “Thoughts concerning Education” Locke +affirms that “the result of our judgment, upon examination, is what ultimately determines +the man, who could not be free, if his will were determined by anything +but his own desire, guided by his own judgment.” The position of Locke is, says +the author, that of Plato and Kant: Reason is given as the governor of the will, by +its sway to constitute it good. Thence we may rightly conclude, that those who are +not governed by reason have not true freedom.</p> + +<p>We have not space to consider the views entertained by Locke on Institutional +Ethics, beyond referring to his doctrine that property rights are given only by labor, +and not by occupation, and that labor is the source of all values. The latter +doctrine cannot now be accepted as sound, whatever may be said as to the former, +but Locke deservedly holds a high place as a political economist. He seems indeed +to have been a kind of universal genius. Mr. Curtis refers to the remark made of +him “that no philosopher since Aristotle has made and recorded so many valuable +observations, or given so great a stimulus to human thought.” Any fresh light that +can be thrown on the opinions entertained by so profound a thinker, especially on +the important question of ethics, is of value and hence we welcome the present +work as an acceptable addition to philosophic literature.</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>N. B.—Owing to lack of space, reviews of a number of new works have been +crowded out of the present number of <i>The Monist</i>; among which the following will +appear in No. 3: <i>Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems in der Philosophie seit Kant</i>, +by Dr. Edmund Koenig; <i>Spinoza’s Erkenntnisslehre in ihrer Beziehung sur modernen +Naturwissenschaft und Philosophie</i>, by Dr. Martin Berendt and Dr. Julius +Friedländer; <i>Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie</i>, by Dr. Th. Ziehen; <i>Handbook +of Psychology</i>, by J. M. Baldwin; <i>An Essay on Reasoning</i>, by Edward T. +Dixon; <i>Das Dasein als Lust, Leid und Liebe</i>, by Hübbe-Schleiden; <i>Die Bedeutung der +theologischen Vorstellungen für die Ethik</i>, by Wilhelm Paszkowski; and <i>Einleitung +in das Alte Testament</i>, by Prof. C. H. Cornill.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> A companion work on the Old Testament has been written by Professor Cornill. We shall +review it in our next number.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="PERIODICALS_II">PERIODICALS.</h3> + +</div> + +<h4>VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.⁠<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> Vol. II. No. 6. September, 1891.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Positive Philosophy and the Unity of Science.</span> By <i>B. Tchitcherin</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Philosophy of the Christian Theocracy in the Fifth Century.</span> The Cosmic +Views of St. Augustine in his Genesis. By <i>Prince E. Trubetzkoi</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ethics of Life and of the Free Ideal</span> (conclusion). By <i>K. N. Ventzel</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Opinions Concerning L. N. Tolstoï.</span> By <i>N. Strachoff</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">From the Philosophy of History.</span> By <i>Vladimir Solovieff</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Special Part</span>: (1) Fundamental Moments in the Evolution of the New Philosophy. +Metaphysical Philosophy: Descartes and Occasionalists. By <i>N. +Grote</i>. (2) Measurableness of the Simplest Mental Acts. By <i>E. Tchelpanoff</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Criticism and Bibliography.</span> Review of Philosophical Periodicals. Book +Reviews.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Appendix</span>: 1) Recent Publications. 2) Transactions of the Moscow Psychological +Society.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><i>Positive Philosophy and the Unity of Science.</i> This article is made up of extracts +from a lengthy competitory dissertation presented by the author to the Moscow +Psychological Society. The writer points out the fallacy of the “fundamental +law” of the Comtist philosophy—the supposed gradual evolution of human thought +through three successive phases,—the theological, metaphysical, and positive stage +of development. The writer contends, that the so-called “positive stage,” as conceived +by Comte, is really neither positive, nor even scientific, if we examine its +main foundations. As all the world knows, Comte was not satisfied with the results +of the particular sciences, but wished to effect their comprehensive unity. The +writer lays stress on the fact that Comte failed to perceive the inward contradiction +of his whole system. His followers, in order to overcome this difficulty, were compelled +to advance still another step. Despite the teaching of Comte, they recognised +in mathematics the whole of a science that derived its principles from experience. +This is shown by Littré in his criticism of the system of Comte (<i>Aug. +Comte et la Philosophie positive</i>, page 567), where Littré refers himself to the +analysis of Stuart Mill in his Logic. The author, in order to reach a definite and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span>satisfactory solution of this important problem, in his next, concluding article, will +investigate the nature and alleged solidity of the mathematical principle.</p> + +<p><i>The Philosophy of the Christian Clergy in the Fifth Century.</i> In analysing the +whole literary activity of St. Augustine, we observe, in the evolution of his doctrine, +three stages, that closely correspond to his own personal struggle against the three +heresies of his time—Manicheism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. Yet all of these +three stages are characterised by one and the same principle—the ideal unity of the +Christian churches. This ideal aspiration reveals itself as a kind of constructive +principle of the universe; as the supreme principle of a social organisation of humanity, +as the substance and contents of subjective, human freedom. The Bishop +of Hippona,—after thus having developed the several aspects of his doctrine against +the heresies,—sums up, and concentrates his teaching, in its widest bearings, against +the heathen. Here this Christian ideal attains its fullest and final expression, and +is formulated as a <i>Civitas Dei</i>, as the unity of a universal, divine Sovereignty.</p> + +<p><i>Ethics of Life and of the Free Ideal.</i> In concluding his exhaustive reflections +on the subject of Guyau’s system of ethics, in which the writer frequently has occasion +to cite the critical parallel views of A. Fouillé and of other English and Russian +philosophers, Mr. Ventzel remarks, that his aim has been, not only to introduce +M. Guyau’s system of ethics to his Russian readers, but also and mainly to +show the relations of this system of ethics to moral obligation. The writer wishes +to say in conclusion a few words about Guyau’s relation to ethical sanction. Guyau +rejected any moral sanction, in the strict sense of the word, that was distinguished +or detached from social sanctions, as such. In this sense he conceives moral sanction +and moral obligation in his Ethics of Life, in his <i>Equisse d’une Morale</i>. If +life, of itself, creates an obligation to work, simply, on the strength of our capacity +to work, in such case life also will create its own ethical sanction. Even when +generously giving itself away, life will without fail, again and again, find itself. No +matter how it be cut short, life will preserve a vivid consciousness of its fulness and +significance and will reappear in some other place and under other conditions; +for, truly, nothing in this world lives and works in vain.</p> + +<p><i>Opinions Concerning Leon N. Tolstoï.</i> Mr. Strachoff’s psychological study +would doubtless possess an additional interest to western readers if the writer had +really given an exclusively Russian estimate of Tolstoï’s character and intellectual +activity. In this respect, however, we must not expect to find any very marked +deviation from the well-known current views of the reading public of other nations. +“The main cause,” Mr. Strachoff observes, “why people are incensed against Tolstoï, +is to be found in the fact, that, of all men, Tolstoï has most widely deviated +from universally received ethical notions, and that he antagonises his century, even +in certain delicate problems, that will always be the dearest to mankind. You cannot +help feeling this, when you listen to the clamour, reproach, and vituperation, +that have been raised against him throughout the civilised world. For the rest, it +seems rather odd, that, at the close of the nineteenth century, there should have risen +such a number of deadly foes against an inoffensive writer and thinker like Tolstoï; +and yet, long ago, we had been accustomed to the intemperate utterances of a host +of enraged freethinkers, whom we have endured with patience and meekness. Why, +accordingly, have we all of a sudden lost our patient tolerance, and why are we +almost ready to start a systematic persecution against the thoughts and words of a +book like the <i>Vasnaya Polyana</i> (Clear Field)?... It must be admitted, that there +is a certain originality in his writings. Every line possesses a freshness and novelty +that are entirely his own; and yet his language is tame, and the subjects even more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span>common than in other writers. He frequently describes the birth and death of +very plain people. He tells us how these same people amuse themselves, eat, drink, +and dance on feast-days, cut the hay, go to church, to confession, and so forth. +Occasionally he tells how a jealous husband kills his wife,—a fact, that has been +told in so many other literatures. But in anything he relates, he has the art of +throwing a strong, clear light upon his subject, so that it seems to us, as if those +time-worn scenes were seen and heard for the first time. In this consists the real +originality of Tolstoï’s art. And he is the same in his ethical teachings. They +strike us by their directness, vigor, sincerity; and for this very reason they powerfully +arouse our love and our yearning for those deep, spiritual cravings that invite +man to lead a higher life—“to live a god-like life.” Here also, at times, it appears +to us, that we hear about those lofty aspirations for the first time; but when you +pay close attention, you will find that his doctrine is really based on the ethics of +the past, and you meet with traits of that self-same Christian doctrine with which +you have been familiar from early childhood.”</p> + +<p><i>From the Philosophy of History.</i> Mr. Solovieff, this time also, has chosen a +title that scarcely conveys a definite idea of the aim and contents of his article, +which describes the specific relations of the Christian idea to the historical evolution +and political ideal of the nations of antiquity. (Moscow, 1891)</p> + +<p class="right">γνλν.</p> + +<h4>MIND. October, 1891. No. LXIV.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Belief.</span> By <i>G. F. Stout</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Physical Basis of Pleasure and Pain.</span> (II.) By <i>H. R. Marshall</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Festal Origin of Human Speech.</span> By <i>J. Donovan</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Induction and Deduction.</span> By <i>L. T. Hobhouse</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Discussion</span>: (1) Dr. Münsterberg and Experimental Psychology. By <i>E. B. +Titchener</i>. (2) On the Origin of Music. By <i>H. Spencer</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Valedictory.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Under “Belief” Mr. Stout includes every mode and degree of assent or dissent. +To disbelieve a proposition is to believe its contradictory. Doubt is belief in a disjunctive +judgment. In a former article he dealt with the “Genesis of the Cognition +of Physical Reality.” He now treats of the various kinds of real existence; as +follows. <i>The Real in Sensation.</i> The real as immediately apprehended in sensation +must not be confounded with the percipient mind. Sensation as such is real +in so far as it limits and controls the movement of attention, by restricting the +range of subjective selection. <i>The Real in Judgments of Comparison.</i> In and through +the peculiar movement of attention in endeavoring to keep it fixed on <i>A</i> in the very +act of fixing it on <i>B</i>, the points of agreement and difference between <i>A</i> and <i>B</i> gradually +emerge into clear consciousness. <i>Objective Attributes of Presentation.</i> Dr. +Pikler’s theory of the psychology of Objective Existence fails to distinguish between +the phenomena which are merely observed by voluntary attention and those which +are actually produced by it. The act of introspection modifies more or less the +mental processes which it examines. Their pre-existing strength and mode of +operation can be ascertained only by elimination of the peculiar reinforcement or +enfeeblement which they acquire by emergence into distinct consciousness. <i>The +Objectivity of Space and Spatial Relations.</i> Although we can produce change of +place by moving our bodies, according to our will, this freedom of selective selection +has rigid limits imposed on it by the very nature of space. This control imposed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span>on our freedom by the nature of the object constitutes its objectivity. The +constant possibility of transition from one position to another is apprehended as +inherent in the very nature of space independently of our will. Whenever I distinctly +attend to the nature of a spatial limit, I must of necessity admit that space +is boundless. What has been said about the objectivity of space in general applies +<i>mutatis mutandis</i> to the objectivity of space-relations as treated by the geometrician. +The psychological conditions of my subjective certitude lie ultimately in the impassable +barriers, arising from the very nature of space, which confine the freedom +of my constructive movement. <i>Reality in the Association of Ideas.</i> Association is +a cause of belief. If certain contents of consciousness have once been copresented +in a certain relation to each other, the reproduction of the one tends to bring about +the reproduction of the other in the same relation in which they were originally +copresented. A comparatively feeble association may command belief merely from +the absence of counter-associations. This is the basis of Bain’s doctrine of primitive +credulity. <i>Subconscious Conditions of Belief.</i> The presentations which successively +emerge into the forms of consciousness are only fragmentary portions of +the total mental system. Many, if not most, of our beliefs depend on the operation +of subconscious elements which, in massive combination, co-operate to support +a certain connection of ideas which appears in consciousness as an object of +attention. But such massive support may arise from the connexion of the belief +with practical interests or æsthetic enjoyments, or with some powerful organic sensation. +<i>Apperception and Belief.</i> Ideal combinations may be separable or inseparable +according as this or that apperceptive system happens to be predominant. This +is best seen in its pathological exaggeration in the case of suggestible patients. Under +normal conditions the necessary alternation of different apperceptive masses +produces a corresponding variation in the conditions of belief. <i>The Real in the +Products of Constructive Imagination.</i> The work of imagination either imposes an +illusion on the mind, or it does not. In both cases there is a certain reference to +reality. Illusion is a temporary and often more or less imperfect belief in the product +of constructive imagination; a belief which can be indirectly produced or dissipated +at will. <i>The Real as Physical Resistance.</i> In the experience of the irregular +interruption of otherwise continuous series of muscular sensation, which, apart from +this restriction, are producible at will, we apprehend real existence. The reality, +however together with that of sensation as such, being communicated to the interpretations +which we are constrained to put both upon sensations and their order, +gives rise by a very complex process to the presentation of a physical world. <i>Conclusion.</i> +The law of conflict is the psychological counterpart of the logical law of +contradiction.</p> + +<p>In the present paper Mr. Marshall examines in detail his thesis that Pleasure +and Pain are determined by the relations between the amount of activity in, and +the nutritive conditions of the organ which determines the conscious content (<i>Mind</i> +No. 63). He states the psychological conditions for Pleasure to be: “A content +which appears normally at regular intervals will tend to be indifferent. If it appear +with hypernormal intensity or frequency suddenly in the course of the normal +regularity, it will for a relatively short time appear as pleasurable, but this pleasurableness +will soon fall away into indifference.” The psychological condition of +Pain is said to be: “If a content which has already often appeared in consciousness +appear with unusual frequency or exceptional intensity, it will ordinarily be +accompanied at first by pleasure, which usually will wane until the content appears +indifferent. If the hypernormal stimulus continue (except as after described) the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span>content will become painful, and this pain will increase in amount, and having +reached a maximum will decrease gradually until it disappears, but in general with it +will also gradually disappear the content itself, not to reappear in consciousness for a +considerable time, if ever. In some cases, however, if the content be not over intense, +we may look for a gradual decrease of the pain felt at the beginning until a condition +of indifference is reached.” Time is an essential factor in the process of organic +repair. For each organ there will be a certain time after action has ceased at which +recurrent activity will be most effective. Here we have the physical basis of the +gratifications obtained through rhythms. There is also a relation of rhythm to +pain. The throbbing of acute pain, so far as it is not directly traceable to <i>pressures</i> +of blood-supply, is probably indirectly traceable to the <i>rhythm</i> of blood-supply. Turning +to Psychology proper, the laws of Pleasure-Pain may be stated in terms of Attention. +Pleasure, as involving the use of stored force, implies a continuance of +activity in the organ of pleasurable content, and therefore a tendency to continuance +of Attention upon that content. Pain, on the other hand, implies a tendency to +cessation of activity in the organ of the painful content, and therefore the disappearance +of the content. The notion that pleasure is mere absence of pain is denied +by this theory, which accounts for the connexion, in a broad way, between +Pleasure and Pain and activities respectively advantageous and disadvantageous. In +relation to Ethics this theory teaches that the <i>act</i> of will, <i>per se</i>, is pleasurable as the +outcome of the conditions of opposition which are anterior to the will-act. Further, +action in the direction of the greatest desire is the most pleasant action. But this +does not show that the effect of habit may not be such as to lead to action against +the strongest desire and away from the greatest pleasure. Further, the object of +desire, whilst it may be, is not necessarily the attainment of pleasure.</p> + +<p>A scrutiny of the psychological aspect of musical pleasure, says Mr. Donovan, +will lead to the conviction that its origin required simpler psychological machinery +than the origin of speech, which was possible only through the aid of that machinery. +The ear is superior to the eye in respect of their relative contributions toward +making up our mental life and activity. The superiority of the ear rests on its +functional passivity. This allowed auditory impressions to force themselves into +consciousness in season and out of season. The facts of history and ethnology +which may be given a new aspect when regarded in the light of the analysis of music +cover a very wide field, beginning with the first and rudest vestiges of communal +sympathy and tribal glorification, and extending up to the national song or epic. It +is peculiar to man to give expression to communal interest in a way which has +nothing to do with life-caring instincts. That interest finds its first and rudest expression +in bodily play-excitement: (1) bodily play-movements in imitation of actions, +(2) rhythmic beating, (3) some approach to song, and (4) some degree of communal +interest, display themselves as the most constant elements of all festal celebrations. +If we start from the generally-accepted explanations of play-movements +in animals, and grasp the ultimate reason why play-excitement became infused with +the communal spirit, there will be no difficulty in tracing evidence of this spirit +even where they are most hidden by accompanying habits. Success in a common +enterprise tends to preserve it. The natural modes of expression of the communal +elation follow, i. e. the bodily play-movements in imitation of the successful +actions and the rhythmic beating. These movements give to consciousness preservative +elements of sensation. Every step of tonal development was made in +order to prove the effectiveness of the elements of sensation which could preserve +the content of consciousness springing out of play-excitement and communal elation. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span>The attention-drawing power a musical tone possessed was enhanced by the conditions +of its production which ensured repetition in a persistent temporal succession. +Animals’ excited cries were both before and after the stimulating rhythmic beating—produced +tones. The same excitement which impelled to these cries also impelled +to rhythmic beating, and thus produced a persistent auditory model for the +cries. The philologist says that roots are elements of words which analysis can reduce +no further. The psychologist can trace them back to the musical tones which +became reproductive agents of the vague presentative elements of actions as they +had been repeatedly held together in consciousness by the psychological machinery +of nascent musical pleasure.</p> + +<p>In a previous article (<i>Mind</i>, No. 62) Mr. Hobhouse aimed at proving that all +reasoning involved generalisation from observed facts, and that all such generalisation +could be shown to proceed on a definite principle. There are two main ways +in which Induction and Deduction may be distinguished. First we may distinguish +the assertion of a universal from its application. The application of a universal to +a particular case is represented by the syllogism in which the major is a general +judgment and the minor a particular judgment of perception. When two judgments +are compared they are found to be (1) Tautologous—the same assertion of the same +fact. (2) Different statements of the same fact. (3) Assertions of different facts. +A judgment expresses a relation between two terms, and hence two judgments may +be said to assert the same fact when they assert the same relation between the same +terms. But if either of the terms or the relation differs, then they assert different +facts. Generalisation involves a universal principle connecting different facts. +Syllogism does not. Syllogism appears as simply the opposite side of generalisation. +In the latter we assert a universal for the first time, in the former we apply +a universal already asserted. But in both we are dealing with the same relation of +universal and particular. Whether we assert or apply our universal, the same ultimate +logical fact, expressed in the axiom of Induction, is at the bottom of the +process. But a different distinction may be drawn between Induction and Deduction. +The whole process of bringing particular facts under universals by observation +of similar particulars may be called Induction, while the combination of several +universals in a chain of reasoning is called Deduction. In the first, Generalisation, +we assert a universal on the ground of a particular, or a particular on the +ground of a similar particular. In the second, Construction, we assert a relation +between two universals on the ground of the relation of each to one or more intermediate +relations. Construction involves generalisation at every step, and is a +true reasoning process. The nature of the generalisation may be shown by the +typical Deductive axiom. If, where two terms are in any way related to a third, a +relation between the two is observed, then when any other two terms are similarly +related to any third, the relation between these two will be similar to that observed +between the first two. The simplest construction on which others rest is that of +two relations to the same type, and this axiom applies to relations so understood. +The axioms postulated by Reasoning lay down the conditions under which facts not +presented may be known to exist, and they are thus distinguished from those principles +called the “Laws of Thought.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Titchener severely criticises Dr. Münsterberg’s experimental psychology, +pointing out various errors, and concludes that “whether the theories of the <i>Beiträge</i> +stand or fall, their experimental foundation has very little positive worth.”</p> + +<p>In reply to the criticisms in <i>Mind</i>, No. 63, Mr. H. Spencer points out that Dr. +Wallaschek has overlooked a passage in which the former recognises rhythm as an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span>essential component of music. He does not coincide with Dr. Wallaschek’s view, +however, since it regards music as acquiring its essential character by a trait which +it has in common with other things, instead of by a trait which it has apart from +other thing. It is from the emotional element of speech that music is evolved—not +from its intellectual element.</p> + +<p>After referring to the fact that harmony, as ordinarily understood and as +spoken of by him, is concerned with the fundamental tones and ignores the overtones, +Mr. Spencer states that he cannot accept Prof. Cattell’s view that harmony +has been developed from melody. To establish the evolution of the one from the +other, there must be found some identifiable transitions between the combinations +of tones constituting <i>timbre</i>, which do not constitute harmony to our perception, +and those combinations of tones which do constitute harmony to our perception.</p> + +<p>In his Valedictory on retiring from the Editorship of <i>Mind</i>, Professor Robertson +refers to the establishment of the <i>Review</i> in 1876, on the initiative of Professor +Bain, by whom it has since been sustained, and he mentions that most of the experimental +research has been contributed by the American hands “that have been +or are now organising psychological laboratories over all the breadth of their own +land.” (London: Williams and Norgate.)</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<h4>INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. October, 1891. Vol. II. No. I.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Unity of the Ethics of Ancient Greece.</span> By Prof. <i>Leopold Schmidt</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Problem of Unsectarian Moral Instruction.</span> By <i>Felix Adler</i>, Ph. D.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Theory of Punishment.</span> By Rev. <i>Hastings Rashdall</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">An Interpretation of the Social Movements of our Time.</span> By Prof. +<i>Henry C. Adams</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Prevention of Crime.</span> By Dr. <i>Ferdinand Tönnies</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Ethical Teaching of Sophokles.</span> By Prof. <i>Arthur Fairbanks</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Right of Private Property in Land.</span> By Prof. <i>J. Platter</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Discussions.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Prof. Schmidt’s article is a reply to a criticism of his work on the ethics of the +ancient Greeks which had appeared in the <i>International Journal of Ethics</i>.</p> + +<p>Dr. Adler’s article is the introductory lecture of his course on Moral Instruction +before the School of Applied Ethics at Plymouth. He refers first to the difficulty +in the way of combining moral and religious instruction in the public schools +arising from the difference in religious belief of the tax payers, and to the devices +suggested to circumvent the difficulty. The first of these devices is that Catholics, +Dissenters, and Jews, shall formulate a common platform of belief. There are two +obvious objections to this proposal. It would leave out of account the party of the +agnostics and be a gross injustice to them, and it would never content the really religious +minds of any denomination. It would be acceptable only to the comparatively +small class of so-called rationalists or theists pure and simple, and they have +no right under the specious plea of reconciling the various creeds, in effect, to force +their own creed upon the rest of the community. The second device is that religious +and moral instruction combined shall be given in the public schools by persons +of the several denominations. The high authority of Germany is invoked in +favor of that system but Dr. Adler states that the example of Germany cannot be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span>quoted as a precedent owing to the relation between the state and the schools in that +country. The system, moreover is not a happy one as, agreeably to Professor +Smith’s propositions that scientific instruction must be unsectarian and religious instruction +must be sectarian, the latter ought to have no place in state schools, at +least in a country where the separation of church and state is complete. To the +third arrangement proposed, that each sect should build its own schools, and draw +upon the fund supplied by taxation according to the number of children which it +educates, there are two objections. Owing to the power of sects and their influence, +direct and indirect, the rules and regulations prescribed by the state for the +schools to conform to would not be enforced. And secondly, the purpose for which +the public school exists would be defeated, as the sectarian schools tend to prevent +the growth of that national unit which it is the very business of the public school +to create and foster. The correct answer to the question as to the way in which to +impart moral instruction so as to satisfy all parties will be the solution of the problem +of unsectarian moral education. The answer is: It is the business of the moral +instructor in the school to deliver to his pupil the subject matter of morality, but +not to deal with the sanctions of it; to give his pupils a clear understanding of what +is right and what is wrong, but not to enter into the question why the right should +be done and the wrong avoided. The conscience can be enlightened, strengthened, +and always without once raising the question why. Professor Adler, it appears to +us, overlooks the intimate connection between the two questions of what is wrong, +and why is it wrong. With the “why,” which is the moral sanction so-called, he +excludes the criterion of right and wrong and confines himself to conventional morality. +Professor Adler proposes, that the material for the moral lessons should be +“the stock of moral truths accepted by all good men.” This would be a very simple +solution of the ethical problem. Mankind need no longer remain in doubt as to +what good and bad is. We have only to accept the propositions of “all good men.” +But where is the judge that shall decide who are to be considered as good men? +Either Professor Adler considers his own views of moral goodness as authoritative +and ultimate or his reasoning moves in a vicious circle.</p> + +<p>Professor Tönnies and the Rev. Hastings Rashdall discuss punishment as a preventive +of crime. Professor Adams finds that the genius of invention established +the factory system replacing the old domestic system of industry. The change of +a society based upon tools into a society based upon machinery means that the +worker has lost control over the conditions of labor which he now tries to regain. +Arthur Fairbanks says that according to the ethics of Sophokles, conscience was +sense of conformity to an æsthetic ideal. J. Platter of Zürich rejects Henry George’s +theory as “nonsense.” (Philadelphia: <i>International Journal of Ethics</i>, 1602 +Chestnut Street.)</p> + +<p class="right">ωκ.</p> + +<h4>RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. September and October, 1891.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">L’immaginazione nelle sue relazioni normali e morbose colla sensibilita.</span> +By <i>L. Ambrosi</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">L’origine indiana del pitagorismo secondo L. von Schröder.</span> By <i>P. D’Ercole</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Luigi Vives, pedagogista del rinascimento.</span> By <i>A. Piazzi</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">La filosofia di Empedocle.</span> By <i>S. Ferrari</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><i>Imagination in its normal and diseased relations to sensibility.</i> The writer calls +our attention to the endless variety of different and apparently contradictory things +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span>that are usually attributed to the faculty of imagination. To some this faculty of +the human mind is the main cause of human errors, and with Montaigne they call +it “la folle du logis”; but to others, imagination plays a rather important part in +the discovery of great scientific theories. All unanimously admit, that imagination +lends fuel to the flames of all kinds of evil passions; but on the other hand it cannot +be denied, that imagination sustains the will in every work of great stress, or +great sacrifice, by the vivid representation of an expected final success. All human +votaries and possessors of this fleeting, inconstant mental faculty are by turns +“happy, unhappy, sane, sick, wealthy or poor; it makes us believe, doubt, or deny +reason; it makes fools and sages.” (Pascal, <i>Pensées</i>, Art. 3, § 3). Yet how can the +psychologist reconcile all this; how can he find the different circumstances, through +which one and the same cause produces such an endless variety and discrepancy of +facts? Several psychologists, who have tried to follow the flights of imagination +throughout all its different manifestations by the sole aid of style and language, +have been poets rather than true philosophers. Such was Delille in his poem +<i>l’Imagination</i>; and such was even Professor Mantegazza himself, in that chapter +of his <i>Physiology of Pleasure</i>, which he has dedicated to the “Gioie della fantasia,” +where he describes this faculty with far more enthusiasm than scientific precision. +Bonstetten, in his <i>Recherches sur la nature et lois de l’imagination</i>, Genève, 1807, is +supposed to have been the first to give a minute and exclusively psychological analysis +of imagination; but his investigations seem to prove, that a delicate subject of +this kind, like certain volatile essences, evaporates at the moment we wish to analyse +it, and cannot be defined by any strict scientific formulas and classifications. +And yet, if we really wish to study the psychology of imagination, we must not be +frightened by these difficulties, or regard them as insurmountable. We may not +be able to reduce all these varied phenomena to very definite and limited categories, +but it does not follow from this, that we have only to make a simple, empirical +registration of these phenomena. As Michaut observes (<i>L’Imagination</i>, Introduction): +“Wherever we find a general element, there also we shall find room for science.” +Despite the inconstancy of the phenomena, it remains true, that also in the +facts of imagination there is something constant and regular; that they are subject +to laws, which might be probably severed from the phenomena, and be reduced to +a certain unity and uniformity, without forgetting, at the same time, that this fleeting +and delicate subject is not always reducible to absolutely strict classification.</p> + +<p>How are we, accordingly, to obtain that harmony and unity of view, that will +unite and group all those diversified manifestations? Mind cannot be conceived as +a collection of different states, but we have to assume, that within the Psyche there +is something substantial; there is unity, constancy in its energy; and that this side +of its being is also the principle of its transitory actions. We recognise therefore +the existence of two distinct sources of spiritual energy, that will better make us +understand the diversity of its products: on the one side, the soul itself, with the +formal laws of its simple being, and, on the other side, the power or force of its +sensible representations,—of its reactions. This distinction, applied to the present +problem, will on the one hand cause us to consider images as the products of an +activity of an inferior order, called psyche soul, but we shall behold on the other, +that same soul, when it has freed itself from the tyranny of the senses, itself becoming +properly what is called mind, its emancipation rising to the higher function +of arranging and organising the images produced by the aid of the senses. Hence +follows, that the relations of either conflict or harmony which these products of the +soul have among each other, and to mind proper, will serve as a criterion of a classification, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span>in which we have to take note: (1) of the reciprocal action between sensations +and images; (2) of that between images and images; (in both of which instances +the power of the products possesses an advantage over the power of mind;) +and (3) of the action of mind upon images. By this road it will be possible to follow +all the phases of the evolution of mind from the moment when overcome by obstinate +images it is reduced to a life of disorder, incoherency, or, as it were, to death +of mind, until the moment when in its own turn mind takes hold of the numerous +images by which it is besieged, and by subjecting them to its own laws—to laws of +unity and harmony—it creates out of that disorderly chaos of images the wonderful +synthesis of science and works of art. From that instant we behold mind rise +through a series of intermediate stages, from abject servitude to the loftiest heights +of freedom, from a state of humiliating impotency to an unhampered display of its +true, inward activity,—from folly to genius. In other words, it is chiefly this psychic +activity, in all its different stages of development and power, that must be our +guiding criterion in the study of the phases and phenomena of imagination.</p> + +<p>The writer, thereupon, seeks to explain the nature of this psychic activity in +its application to images. He briefly investigates the origin of images, their immediate +derivation from the sensations, and their intimate reciprocal connection, by +virtue of which the one cannot be produced without the other; and whence there +arise many different relations, that not only explain, but even enable us to classify +a large number of facts relating to this mental faculty. The writer concludes with +some general remarks on the diseases of imagination.</p> + +<p><i>The Hindu Origin of Pythagorism according to L. von Schroeder.</i> This article +was suggested by Dr. L. v. Schroeder’s monograph: <i>Pythagoras und die Inder. +Eine Untersuchung über die Herkunft und Abstammung der Pythagorischen Lehren</i>. +The discussion about the local origin of Pythagorism began with the ancients themselves, +is being continued in our own time, and, from the nature of the subject itself, +bids fair to be protracted for an indefinite period still. In recent times this +arduous problem has invaded the domain of comparative ethnology, comparative +religion, philology, in brief, of all the historical sciences, receiving, doubtless, +striking and copious illustrations from all these, yet at the risk of almost losing sight +of itself. In Pythagorism, as in certain other products of the human mind, it is +difficult to discriminate with absolute historical certainty between “mine” and +“thine.” The real solution of the problem may perhaps be found in the original +unity of the evolution of the Indo-European mind. The writer, however, views the +problem simply as one of comparative religion and the history of philosophy. The +ancients advocated the Italic, or Tyrrhenian origin of the Pythagorean system, and +among modern Italians, Vico and Gioberti have done the same. The Chinese +origin was defended by Gladisch. The third, the Egyptian origin, also dates from +antiquity, and in modern times has been ardently defended by Roth. The fourth, +the supposed Hellenic origin, has had the greatest number of followers, and has +been ably championed by Dr. Edw. Zeller in his work, <i>Die Philosophie der Griechen</i>. +As regards the last, the alleged Hindu origin, this was suggested of course by the +numerous striking analogies found between Hindu and Pythagorean doctrine. +Still, all that has been said on the subject by Schroeder, Max Müller, Weber, and +others, has failed to thoroughly convince the writer. In his next article he promises +to show, that everything has induced him to believe that the Hindus themselves +rather borrowed their doctrine of transmigration from the philosophical system of +Pythagoras.</p> + +<p><i>Luigi Vives. A Pedagogist of the Renaissance.</i> The interesting subject of this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span>article is probably to this day but little understood or appreciated by the pedagogists +of northern Europe. To this day, many among them seem ignorant of the fact, or, +perhaps, are unwilling to frankly admit, that along with the Catholic revival, and +the intellectual renaissance of the Latin nations, there was initiated the tradition of +really humane pedagogics, founded on the nature of man, and, in its aim and workings, +vastly superior to the educational systems of the nations beyond the Alps. It +was an earnest, liberal, refining educational system, that professed an affectionate +regard for youth. It banished corporal punishment, and addressed itself directly +to the heart and the intelligence. The Jesuit maxim: “debetur pueris maxima +reverentia,” still recalls the original spirit of this humane system of education. It +is perhaps not an exaggeration to maintain, that, in the spirit of the time, it also +aimed at the <i>beautiful</i> in education. It was a declared enemy to any thought, speech +or action in <i>bad form</i>. To the subject of this article, the Spanish bishop of Valencia, +Louis Vives, is due the honor of having been one of the most ardent and successful +promoters of this new educational system, and to have been the Jean Jacques Rousseau +of his time. Vives was born in the year 1492, and died in the year 1540. He +had studied at the University of Paris, and was an intimate friend of Erasmus of +Rotterdam. He is moreover the author of a number of valuable educational works. +Bishop Vives, however, must also be regarded as a clergyman, who in his practical +career would at times find it difficult to reconcile his broad-minded scholastic ideals +with the duties of his calling, and with the exaggerated ascetical tendencies by +which he was surrounded. As a matter of fact, in a short time the church is seen +practically to override all this liberal educational movement of the renaissance. +Within the college- and convent-walls, in the Latin countries, the humane paternal +pedagogics of the renaissance soon and easily degenerated into oppressive, injurious, +personal surveillance, and an odious theocratic tyranny. With all our sincere +admiration for the work initiated by men like Louis Vives, we must nevertheless +maintain, that all, or nearly all, the ecclesiastic educational systems of the Latin +countries during the following centuries, can scarcely lay valid claims to a place +within the pale of true pedagogical science.</p> + +<p><i>The Philosophy of Empedocles.</i> In this concluding article the writer exhaustively +discusses the religious tenets and ethical precepts of Empedocles, as both +appear in the Proëmium, in the third book on Physics, and in the poem of the +“καθαρμοί”—or expiatory atonements.</p> + +<p><i>Bibliography.</i> In this department we notice a lengthy review of Prof. E. Dal +Pozzo di Mombello’s <i>Lectures on Monism</i>, delivered at the University of Perugia. +In this number are also contained the <i>Bollettino Pedagogico Filosofico</i>, +<i>Critical Notices</i>, and <i>Recent Publications</i>. (Rome. Tipografia delle Terme Diocleziane. +1891.)</p> + +<p class="right">γνλν.</p> + +<h4>REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. November, 1891. No. II.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Les origines de notre structure intellectuelle et cérébrale.</span> I. Le +Kantisme. By <i>A. Fouillée</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Du rôle de la volonté dans la croyance.</span> By <i>J. J. Gourd</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In discussing the part of the will played in belief, M. J. J. Gourd considers +our belief in an ultra-phenomenal reality which he calls “metaphysical belief.” +“All thought,” he says, “involves a relation, viz. a relation between subject and +object. Every relation presupposes a comparison of its terms and this comparison +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span>is not established if the subject and object belong to different worlds. The subject +is undoubtedly found in consciousness, the object must be there also. All the ingenious +arguments to escape this conclusion are vain. Accordingly, one may well +believe in the truth of the metaphysical belief, but this belief is not true.”</p> + +<p>M. G. Tarde, the great criminologist and an opponent of Professor Lombroso’s +school reviews the penological and criminological literature of recent times in +France, Italy, and Belgium.</p> + +<p>Alfred Fouillée revises in the article on “the origin of our intellectual and +cerebral structure” several solutions of the problem of the nature of thought-forms, +especially Kant’s view of the <i>a priori</i>. Strongly influenced by Schopenhauer, he +makes of the great pessimist’s will-theory quite an original and peculiar application +and finds that the question of “<i>idées-forces</i>” is also at the bottom of the question +of the origin of ideas. In comparing the origin of ideas to the origin of solar systems, +he says: “Ideas are the condensation of that which exists everywhere in a +nebulous state into luminous centres and conscious focuses. Sensation is desire.” +And he sums up his view in the sentence: “Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius +fuerit in sensu et voluntate.” (Paris: Félix Alcan.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II. No. 5.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Die Sinne der Verbrecher.</span> By <i>C. Lombroso</i> and <i>S. Ottolenghi</i>. (Mit 4 Figuren.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber Vergleichungen von Tondistanzen.</span> By <i>Gustav Engel</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Litteraturbericht.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Cesare Lombroso and his assistant S. Ottolenghi communicate the results of +their investigations of the senses of born criminals in a similar way as the former of +the two had done in his “Studies in Criminal Anthropology,” <i>The Monist</i>, Vol. i, +No. 2, p. 177 et sqq. Our authors say: “Since the days of the famous Greek sage +who said that nothing came into the intellect save through the gateway of the senses, +it could be foreseen that a study of the senses would become the gateway to ethics.” +And, it is a fact recognised for some time but not as yet proved by exact methods +that a lack of moral sense is often accompanied with an obtusity of the sense-organs. +Dr. Azam’s famous Felida showed an entire absence of the moral sense when she +was in a state of analgesia; Romanes has pointed out that the sensitiveness to pain +is greater in tame animals than in wild beasts, this is especially noticeable in the +dog. It is noteworthy also that savage peoples are almost insensible to pain while +civilisation often increases sensibility till it becomes hyperæsthesia.</p> + +<p>Obtusity of the sense-organs in criminals should not be confounded however +with the anæsthesia of criminals, because the rarity of laterality, the absence of +isolated insensible places, the lack of motory anomalies, etc., exclude the supposition +of hysteria.</p> + +<p>Our authors found among 15 criminal boys between 10 and 14 years no less +than ten cases of absolute analgesia, which proves that this symptom cannot be the +effect of alcoholism, syphilis, marasmus, or overwork of a special trade.</p> + +<p>Several anecdotes are told about the insensibility to pain. An old thief had his +leg amputated with the greatest apathy: the operation done, he took the limb into +his hand and joked about it. An inveterate murderer, his penal servitude being +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span>ended, was dismissed out of the bagnio of the island S. He asked the warden to be +retained, because he did not know how to get food and shelter. His demand being +refused, he opened his bowels with the handle of a spoon, went to bed as usual, +and died without even a sigh. Mandrin, a criminal, shortly before his execution +allowed himself to be cut in eight places without giving a sign of pain; criminal R. +flayed the skin of his face with a piece of glass. In the penitentiary at Chatham +during the years 1871 and 1872, 841 voluntary wounds and injuries were made. +Among them 27 convicts had mutilated some limb, and in 17 cases the limb had to +be amputated.</p> + +<p>This obtusity of the sensory organs in criminals is supposed to be of a cortical +origin and being similar to the phenomena of savage life is interpreted as atavism. +Criminals show deficiencies in the senses of touch, smell, taste, and hearing, but +not of sight. And this is analogous to the savage in whom the sense of sight is +naturally very strong, and no criminal could execute numerous thefts or escape the +arm of justice without a high development of the sense of sight.</p> + +<p>In the second article on comparisons of tone-distances Gustav Engel, Professor +at the Royal High-school of Music in Berlin, takes occasion to explain his views of +the subject with reference to the severe criticism of C. Stumpf on Carl Lorenz’s +theory. Wilhelm Wundt had taken part in the discussion in favor of Lorenz. The +subject of the article lies in the border-land between the physiology of hearing and +music; and Professor Engel comes to the conclusion that affinity of tones, i. e. the +interval-sense in a melodious succession does not lead to the same accuracy and reliability +of hearing as their concord. He objects to the idea of an arithmetical +difference as proposed by Lorenz and Wundt, and proves it through the fact that +the Pythagorean tierce in the unaccompanied scale makes a less noticeable disturbance +than in a concord, while the approximately pure tierce (which is too low only +by a small fracture of a comma) is excellent in the concord while it causes a slight +disturbance in the melody. Musical intervals are not identical with the geometrical +intervals, yet they are based upon them as a selection made among innumerable +possibilities for certain purposes. Their acceptance is established only in harmonic +music, but this fact too adds some difficulties to the investigations made in this +field, for if two tones sound together, we can no longer distinguish them separately, +as would be required for the investigation; and if we let the one succeed the other +their geometrical relation is no longer discerned with the same precision. (Hamburg +and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XV. Nos. 3 and 4.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS of No. 3:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Psychische und physische Activität.</span> By <i>H. Höffding</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber Sprachreflex, Nativismus und absichtliche Sprachbildung.</span> (Achter +Artikel.) By <i>A. Marty</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Zur Philosophie der Mathematik.</span> By <i>Chr. v. Ehrenfels</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Der Folgerungscalcul und die Inhaltslogik.</span> By <i>E. G. Husserl</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS of No. 4:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Die Gesetzmässigkeit der physischen Activität.</span> By <i>H. Höffding</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ethnologie und Æsthetik.</span> By <i>E. Grosse</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber die fortschreitende Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts.</span> +(Erster Artikel.) By <i>F. Rosenberger</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber Sprachreflex, Nativismus und absichtliche Sprachbildung.</span> (Neunter +Artikel). By <i>A. Marty</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber Fernwirkung und anormale. Wahrnehmungsfäkhigkeit.</span> Methodologische +Randglossen. By <i>M. Offner</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Prof. H. Höffding’s article on psychical and physical activity is an answer to a +criticism by Professor Kroman. Professor Höffding had proposed, concerning the +relation of the psychical to the physical, a theory which he called the “identity +hypothesis,” according to which the physical and psychical activities are not different +in their nature but only in their phenomenal appearance. K. Kroman, a +countryman and colleague of H. Höffding—both are professors at the University of +Copenhagen—rejected in his recent work “Logic and Psychology” the identity +hypothesis and characterised it as “Duplicism,” a name against which Höffding +protests. Kroman’s objections are as follows: <i>a</i>) Natural science knows of no reason +to conceive of the relation of the psychical to the material in the way expressed +by the identity-hypothesis. <i>b</i>) On the basis of the identity-hypothesis it +remains unexplained how we can know anything about the external world. <i>c</i>) It is +inexplicable how an identity can obtain of two so different things as are the bodily +multiplicity and the psychical unity. Professor Höffding investigates these three +objections separately and comes to the conclusion that his identity-hypothesis shows +the relation between the psychical and material nature in a clear and simple light. +It excludes on the one hand materialism and on the other hand spiritualism. The +question whether either phenomenon, spirit or matter, represents the absolute nature +of existence, cannot, according to Höffding, be answered. It appears to us that +Professor Höffding’s position is sound in all main points and may be considered as +that view which is most prevalent among modern psychologists. However, concerning +the question whether spirit or matter represents the absolute nature of existence, +we refer the reader to the editorial article “Are there Things in Themselves?” +section XII, “The Oneness of Subjectivity and Objectivity.” In our opinion +the question itself is illegitimate. Neither the subjectivity of spirit, nor the objectivity +of matter represents the absolute nature of existence; both together form +the nature of existence; and we omit here the word “absolute” purposely. The +question as to which abstract, matter or spirit, represents the absolute nature of existence +seems to us similar to the question which of the two terms <i>A</i> and <i>B</i> represents +in the relation <i>A:B</i> the absolute nature of the relation. The obvious answer +is neither.</p> + +<p>The eighth article of A. Marty of Prague on Language-reflex is mainly of a controversial +nature directed against L. Tobler’s article on the origin of language in +the <i>Zeitschrift für Völker-Psychologie</i>. By Nativism, Marty understands the theory +that certain involuntary articulate sounds are associated with certain ideas, while +the so-called empirical theory attempts to explain the origin of the first words without +such innate mechanical relations between sounds and concepts. Marty represents +the empirical solution of the problem and objects to the extreme nativism, but +he grants that Tobler’s modified nativism approaches very much to his own position.</p> + +<p>The longest article of the present number (63 pp.) is an essay full of valuable +hints by Chr. v. Ehrenfels on the Philosophy of Mathematics. The epistemological +basis of mathematics demands a psychological investigation of its contents. +Accordingly the author proposes to present a psychological characterisation of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span>number-conceptions, from which he derives some conclusions concerning the theory +of cognition. He investigates the origin of the unity conception which is generally +defined as “positing a unit” or as “conceiving as a unit.” We usually believe that we +abstract numbers directly from the objects, when we look for instance at one house +with two doors and five windows. But this process of abstraction is not quite so +direct as it seems. The number-conception is not taken from external observation, +but carried into the same; yet this is done involuntarily and inadvertently so that +it appears as if they were <i>eo ipso</i> contained in it.</p> + +<p>What is the origin of the concepts “unity” and “multiplicity”? Two methods +present themselves: 1) The concentration of attention and (2) the act of bringing +into relation. The former produces a unity and, when successively directed to +several objects, a series of units. The latter appears to be required by the consideration +that the conception of a number is conditioned by acts of distinguishing. The +number “two” requires two acts of distinguishing, “three” requires three, “four” +requires six and the number <i>n</i> requires <i>n</i>/2(<i>n</i>-1) acts of distinguishing. This explains +why we can have clear and direct conceptions only of very low figures. The +idea that a combination of both methods will explain the facts is by no means excluded. +But there is a third source which may be used to explain the unity conception, +viz. inner experience. “The unity of consciousness,” Ehrenfels says, “has +been misused in philosophy to demonstrate the substantiality, simplicity, and indestructibility +of the soul.” Nevertheless there is some truth in the unity idea, for +the present psychical phenomena present themselves in a peculiar amalgamation, +which admits of a comparison between two elements while it erects a barrier between +the <i>ego</i> and the <i>tu</i>. Our psychical contents will always appear to us as a +unit; and on this basis we might declare that the unity conception is derived from +this source. [Here Ehrenfels does not see that the concentration of attention is +practically the same as the unity of consciousness, for attention means consciousness, +and concentration produces unity.]</p> + +<p>Number-conceptions originate by counting. We disjoin things; for instance, +we throw a number of apples into a basket, or we let the finger slide over the division +lines of a measuring stick naming each unit while proceeding in the act. From +such processes the function of counting can be abstracted while the details are +neglected as unimportant. Most of the higher numbers are never directly but only +indirectly realised. So for instance twenty is to many that number which will +be reached by counting up to twenty, yet the single units of the number are lost +sight of entirely. Such number-conceptions belong to the class of “indirect concepts” +which represent objects not through marks belonging to the object itself, but +originating through its relation to other objects. The basis of such indirect concepts +had been called by Ehrenfels <i>Gestaltsqualitäten</i>, i. e. figure qualities, and by +Meinong <i>fundierte Inhalte</i> or founded contents. Thus indirect conceptions are parts +contingent upon some such basis.</p> + +<p>Number-conceptions are not always clearly thought out and there are some +helps to represent higher or more complex numbers. Thus we can think of ten as +represented by the outside and inside corners of a pentagram, twelve as the edges +of a cube, etc., and common among all nations is the usage of the fingers to represent +numbers up to ten. Such helps are quite different from indirect number-conceptions +and may be called figurative number-conceptions.</p> + +<p>That there are mathematical conceptions of magnitudes which have no objective +analogon is quite natural, for there is even in an indirect conception no warrant for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>its objective reality; and we ought to consider how many word- and idea-combinations +are possible without their possessing some analogous reality. Yet the so-called +irrational cannot properly be called a number, it is the demand of a number which +in fractions can sufficiently for certain purposes but never fully be realised.</p> + +<p>Negative numbers always presuppose a contrast and such conditions arise +naturally wherever the fundamental ideas imply two opposite directions, for instance +past and future in time, credit and debit in business, etc. It is a matter of course +that there are in reality as little either positive or negative numbers, as there are +positive or negative colors or sounds.</p> + +<p>Concerning the necessity idea, Ehrenfels says: “Nobody will consider it as +possible that five plus seven will in some cases make any other number than twelve. +We are confident that the same addition will under all circumstances yield the same +sum.” Ehrenfels grants the psychical certitude of this but not the mathematical, +and thinks that on this point there is a difference of opinion allowable. Here we +disagree from Ehrenfels and refer the reader to former articles on kindred subjects +in <i>The Monist</i>, especially the article on “The Origin of Thought-forms,” Vol. II, p. +111. We must bear in mind that in mathematics we are moving in a realm of pure +forms and the statement 7 + 5 = 12 is, as the Germans express it, <i>eindeutig bestimmt</i>, +i. e. it is determined exhaustively in one and the only one possible way. The numbers +7 and 5 being rigid, their sum and their product will also be rigid.</p> + +<p>This difference of opinion may be contingent upon a difference of the conception +of the <i>a priori</i>. Ehrenfels defines as “a priori” such judgments which having +come into our possession, are readily accepted without proof. We follow Grassmann +in rejecting the acceptance of anything without proof, including the idea of mathematical +axioms. The <i>a priori</i> in our terminology becomes identical with that +which pertains to formal thought: and it would make no difference whether the instance +presented is as simple as 1 + 1 = 2 or extremely complex as are the differential +calculus and logarithms. Accordingly we disagree also from Ehrenfels when +he finds even in such additions as for instance 825 + 217 = 1042 vestiges of an +<i>a posteriori</i> character. The employment of the logarithms accordingly appears to +Ehrenfels also <i>aposterioristic</i> because the fruits of other peoples’ labors are utilised!</p> + +<p>Concerning John Stuart Mill’s view of the subject, Ehrenfels says that “it is +still deeply entangled in the errors of that conception which it so bitterly opposes, +viz. in the formalism of the old purely <i>a priori</i> conception. For only he who adheres +to the view that all mathematics are deduced from a few axioms can think of +attributing to those axioms the highest degree of plausibility which is assumed for +them on the ground of comprehensive deduction.” We agree with Ehrenfels’s objection +to Mill, but we cannot agree with his view that mathematics derives any +elements from <i>a posteriori</i> elements, although we grant that quite new departments +are created simply by a different employment of certain functions. Accordingly +mathematics cannot be derived from a few axioms only but is the products of certain +functions.</p> + +<p>Ehrenfels calls attention to the fact that the mathematician operating with +symbols often forgets entirely what he has to think of in connection with these symbols. +“This is not strange,” he adds, “for thoughtless word-combinations present +analogous instances, yet it is strange that the result almost without exception comes +out right; <i>es stimmt!</i>” We object here; operations with mathematical symbols +are not thoughtless combinations, at least, they are not meaningless. They are +operations not with things, but with symbols representing certain relations among +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span>things. When gamblers play with chips representing real money, they need not +think during the game of the value represented by a chip, and yet when the account +is made, the result attained with the assistance of the chips will come out right. +There is no reason to wonder at it. Chips like mathematical symbols might in a +certain sense be called thoughtless, for certainly they do not think; but they are not +thoughtless in the sense that they are meaningless, that nothing is thought by +them.</p> + +<p>Ehrenfels apparently sees a problem where there is none and this is closely +connected with another point. He looks upon the mathematician’s inability of +thinking out in every respect the objective meaning of mathematical symbols as a +shortcoming of man’s intellect. While it appears that we cannot think anything by +many mathematical symbols (for instance by <i>a⁰ = 1</i>) except the symbol itself, the +enormous success of mathematical thought is evidence that they must have some +definite meaning although it is to be excogitated only by those beings who will transgress +the average intelligence of to-day, the first germs of whose existence are the +mathematical geniuses of the present generation. It appears to us that undoubtedly +every mathematical symbol has a definite meaning, representing the result of some +function. That the result will sometimes be unattainable or unrealisable, that especially +all operations with zero make the whole calculation indefinite (which naturally +arises from the nature of zero) does not alter the truth of this proposition in the +least.</p> + +<p>We have to make one additional remark. The peculiarity of mathematics that +we do not throughout our operations think out the meaning of the symbols is not +a shortcoming of our intelligence, but the strength of mathematical science. The +advantage of all the formal sciences and especially of mathematics consists in this +that we <i>need not</i> think out every detail, but that we can, through the assistance of +mathematical symbols, perform the most intricate operations with machine-like exactness. +The economy of thought produced in this way is not a deficiency of man’s +mind, but a virtue.</p> + +<p>Prof. H. Höffding (in No. 4) insists upon the causal law as being indispensable +in psychology. There are some people and among others his colleague Professor +Kroman who regard moral motives as an exception. “Yet,” says Professor Höffding, +“should the decisive moment of a decision not be determined by the causal +law, the will could never be determined through a reflection on the possible effects +of the action and thus every reason would be missing to attribute to man any responsibility.”</p> + +<p>E. Grosse expatiates on the proposition to apply the comparative method of +ethnology to æsthetics. Ferd. Rosenberger proposes the following programme: +“Knowledge is power; activity based upon such power is the cause of happiness. +Therefore with the increase of knowledge, there is an increase of happiness, successful +activity however is impossible without virtue. Therefore we conclude that +an increase of happiness will be accompanied with an increase of virtue.” A. Marty +in this his ninth article blames Steinthal for having misrepresented the eighteenth +century theories of the origin of language.</p> + +<p>M. Offner reviews Dr. Charles Richet’s reports of his telepathic experiments, +but the reviewer cannot assent to Richet’s opinion “that these facts possess a +strange coincidence and that they are, probably, the result of a relation and not of +pure chance.” (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span></p> + +<h4>PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVIII. Nos. 1 and 2.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Zum Begriff der unbewussten Vorstellung.</span> By <i>E. v. Hartmann</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber das Gebet. Ein religionsphilosophisches Fragment.</span> Sendschreiben +an Herrn E. Renan in Paris. By <i>M. J. Monrad</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Werke zur Philosophie des socialen Lebens und der Geschichte.</span> Erster +Artikel (H. Spencer, Sociologie, Bd. III). By <i>F. Tönnies</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Recensionen</span>: H. Münsterberg, Beiträge zur experimentellen Psychologie +No. 3. Neue Grundlegung der Psychophysik. By <i>Th. Ziehen</i>. W. Enoch +Der Begriff der Wahrnehmung. By <i>P. Natorp</i>. Ch. Bénard. L’esthétique +d’Aristote et de ses successeurs. By <i>A. Döring</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Litteraturbericht.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The well-known philosopher Edward von Hartmann defines his position with +reference to the idea of an unconscious representation. Granting that there are no +unconscious sensations, perceptions, conceptions or memories, because feeling +either is conscious or not at all, he introduces the idea of unconscious representations +again as the most adequate determination. He says, “Either we must renounce +all speaking and thinking of non-sensual objects or we must be satisfied +with using figurative expressions.”</p> + +<p>M. J. Monrad, a Norwegian, argues, in the second article against M. E. Renan’s +theory of prayer, whom he had visited some years ago in Paris, that prayer +has after all an effect upon the objective world and it is not limited to a merely +subjective and psychological influence. Monrad presupposes a belief in God, prayer +bringing the individual in unison with God, changes the will of the individual into +a co-ordinate willing of God and thus renders the individual a co-worker of God. +This, however, should not be conceived to take place by magic and in contradiction +to nature, but through nature, man using the laws of nature.</p> + +<p>F. Tönnies of Kiel gives an exposition of Mr. Spencer’s social views which are, +briefly expressed, “the final victory of society over the state.” Professor Tönnies +answers that “we all want a higher civilisation, but the development of a higher +civilisation is not conditioned by the final victory of society over the state. On the +contrary, it may be said that it depends upon a victory of the state over society in +so far as public rights will supersede private rights.... The truth is that state and +society are contingent, the one upon the other and also limiting each other.” +(Berlin: Dr. R. Salinger.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> <i>Questions of Philosophy and Psychology.</i> In the Russian language.</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="masthead"> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Vol. II.</span> +<span class="smcap spacer">April, 1892.</span> +<span class="smcap">No. 3.</span></p> + +<h2>THE MONIST.</h2> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="THE_DOCTRINE_OF_NECESSITY_EXAMINED">THE DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY EXAMINED.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>In <i>The Monist</i> for January, 1891, I endeavored to show what elementary +ideas ought to enter into our view of the universe. I +may mention that on those considerations I had already grounded a +cosmical theory, and from it had deduced a considerable number of +consequences capable of being compared with experience. This +Comparison is now in progress, but under existing circumstances +must occupy many years.</p> + +<p>I propose here to examine the common belief that every single +fact in the universe is precisely determined by law. It must not be +supposed that this is a doctrine accepted everywhere and at all +times by all rational men. Its first advocate appears to have been +Democritus the atomist, who was led to it, as we are informed, by +reflecting upon the “impenetrability, translation, and impact of +matter (ἀντιτυπία καὶ φορὰ καὶ πληγὴ τῆς ὕλης).” That is to +say, having restricted his attention to a field where no influence +other than mechanical constraint could possibly come before his notice, +he straightway jumped to the conclusion that throughout the +universe that was the sole principle of action,—a style of reasoning +so usual in our day with men not unreflecting as to be more than +excusable in the infancy of thought. But Epicurus, in revising the +atomic doctrine and repairing its defences, found himself obliged to +suppose that atoms swerve from their courses by spontaneous +chance; and thereby he conferred upon the theory life and entelechy. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span>For we now see clearly that the peculiar function of the molecular +hypothesis in physics is to open an entry for the calculus of probabilities. +Already, the prince of philosophers had repeatedly and +emphatically condemned the dictum of Democritus (especially in +the “Physics,” Book II, chapters iv, v, vi), holding that events +come to pass in three ways, namely, (1) by external compulsion, or +the action of efficient causes, (2) by virtue of an inward nature, or +the influence of final causes, and (3) irregularly without definite +cause, but just by absolute chance; and this doctrine is of the inmost +essence of Aristotelianism. It affords, at any rate, a valuable +enumeration of the possible ways in which anything can be supposed +to have come about. The freedom of the will, too, was admitted +both by Aristotle and by Epicurus. But the Stoa, which in +every department seized upon the most tangible, hard, and lifeless +element, and blindly denied the existence of every other, which, for +example, impugned the validity of the inductive method and wished +to fill its place with the <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>, very naturally became +the one school of ancient philosophy to stand by a strict necessitarianism, +thus returning to the single principle of Democritus that Epicurus +had been unable to swallow. Necessitarianism and materialism +with the Stoics went hand in hand, as by affinity they should. At +the revival of learning, Stoicism met with considerable favor, partly +because it departed just enough from Aristotle to give it the spice +of novelty, and partly because its superficialities well adapted it for +acceptance by students of literature and art who wanted their philosophy +drawn mild. Afterwards, the great discoveries in mechanics +inspired the hope that mechanical principles might suffice to explain +the universe; and though without logical justification, this hope has +since been continually stimulated by subsequent advances in physics. +Nevertheless, the doctrine was in too evident conflict with the freedom +of the will and with miracles to be generally acceptable, at +first. But meantime there arose that most widely spread of philosophical +blunders, the notion that associationalism belongs intrinsically +to the materialistic family of doctrines; and thus was evolved +the theory of motives; and libertarianism became weakened. At +present, historical criticism has almost exploded the miracles, great +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span>and small; so that the doctrine of necessity has never been in so +great vogue as now.</p> + +<p>The proposition in question is that the state of things existing +at any time, together with certain immutable laws, completely determine +the state of things at every other time (for a limitation to +<i>future</i> time is indefensible). Thus, given the state of the universe +in the original nebula, and given the laws of mechanics, a sufficiently +powerful mind could deduce from these data the precise form of +every curlicue of every letter I am now writing.</p> + +<p>Whoever holds that every act of the will as well as every idea +of the mind is under the rigid governance of a necessity co-ordinated +with that of the physical world, will logically be carried to the proposition +that minds are part of the physical world in such a sense that +the laws of mechanics determine everything that happens according +to immutable attractions and repulsions. In that case, that instantaneous +state of things from which every other state of things is calculable +consists in the positions and velocities of all the particles at +any instant. This, the usual and most logical form of necessitarianism, +is called the mechanical philosophy.</p> + +<p>When I have asked thinking men what reason they had to believe +that every fact in the universe is precisely determined by law, +the first answer has usually been that the proposition is a “presupposition” +or postulate of scientific reasoning. Well, if that is +the best that can be said for it, the belief is doomed. Suppose it +be “postulated”: that does not make it true, nor so much as afford +the slightest rational motive for yielding it any credence. It is as +if a man should come to borrow money, and when asked for his security, +should reply he “postulated” the loan. To “postulate” a +proposition is no more than to hope it is true. There are, indeed, +practical emergencies in which we act upon assumptions of certain +propositions as true, because if they are not so, it can make no difference +how we act. But all such propositions I take to be hypotheses +of individual facts. For it is manifest that no universal principle +can in its universality be compromised in a special case or can +be requisite for the validity of any ordinary inference. To say, for +instance, that the demonstration by Archimedes of the property of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span>the lever would fall to the ground if men were endowed with free-will, +is extravagant; yet this is implied by those who make a proposition +incompatible with the freedom of the will the postulate of all +inference. Considering, too, that the conclusions of science make +no pretence to being more than probable, and considering that a +probable inference can at most only suppose something to be most +frequently, or otherwise approximately, true, but never that anything +is precisely true without exception throughout the universe, +we see how far this proposition in truth is from being so postulated.</p> + +<p>But the whole notion of a postulate being involved in reasoning +appertains to a by-gone and false conception of logic. Non-deductive, +or ampliative inference is of three kinds: induction, hypothesis, +and analogy. If there be any other modes, they must be extremely +unusual and highly complicated, and may be assumed with +little doubt to be of the same nature as those enumerated. For induction, +hypothesis, and analogy, as far as their ampliative character +goes, that is, so far as they conclude something not implied in the +premises, depend upon one principle and involve the same procedure. +All are essentially inferences from sampling. Suppose a +ship arrives in Liverpool laden with wheat in bulk. Suppose that +by some machinery the whole cargo be stirred up with great thoroughness. +Suppose that twenty-seven thimblefuls be taken equally from +the forward, midships, and aft parts, from the starboard, centre, +and larboard parts, and from the top, half depth, and lower parts +of her hold, and that these being mixed and the grains counted, four +fifths of the latter are found to be of quality <i>A</i>. Then we infer, experientially +and provisionally, that approximately four fifths of all +the grain in the cargo is of the same quality. I say we infer this +<i>experimentally</i> and <i>provisionally</i>. By saying that we infer it <i>experientially</i>, +I mean that our conclusion makes no pretension to knowledge +of wheat-in-itself, our ἀλήθεια, as the derivation of that word implies, +has nothing to do with <i>latent</i> wheat. We are dealing only +with the matter of possible experience,—experience in the full acceptation +of the term as something not merely affecting the senses +but also as the subject of thought. If there be any wheat hidden +on the ship, so that it can neither turn up in the sample nor be heard +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span>of subsequently from purchasers,—or if it be half-hidden, so that it +may, indeed, turn up, but is less likely to do so than the rest,—or +if it can affect our senses and our pockets, but from some strange +cause or causelessness cannot be reasoned about,—all such wheat +is to be excluded (or have only its proportional weight) in calculating +that true proportion of quality <i>A</i>, to which our inference seeks +to approximate. By saying that we draw the inference <i>provisionally</i>, +I mean that we do not hold that we have reached any assigned degree +of approximation as yet, but only hold that if our experience +be indefinitely extended, and if every fact of whatever nature, as +fast as it presents itself, be duly applied, according to the inductive +method, in correcting the inferred ratio, then our approximation +will become indefinitely close in the long run; that is to say, close +to the experience <i>to come</i> (not merely close by the exhaustion of a +finite collection) so that if experience in general is to fluctuate irregularly +to and fro, in a manner to deprive the ratio sought of all +definite value, we shall be able to find out approximately within +what limits it fluctuates, and if, after having one definite value, it +changes and assumes another, we shall be able to find that out, and +in short, whatever may be the variations of this ratio in experience, +experience indefinitely extended will enable us to detect them, so as +to predict rightly, at last, what its ultimate value may be, if it have +any ultimate value, or what the ultimate law of succession of values +may be, if there be any such ultimate law, or that it ultimately fluctuates +irregularly within certain limits, if it do so ultimately fluctuate. +Now our inference, claiming to be no more than thus experiential +and provisional, manifestly involves no postulate whatever.</p> + +<p>For what is a postulate? It is the formulation of a material fact +which we are not entitled to assume as a premise, but the truth of +which is requisite to the validity of an inference. Any fact, then, +which might be supposed postulated, must either be such that it +would ultimately present itself in experience, or not. If it will present +itself, we need not postulate it now in our provisional inference, +since we shall ultimately be entitled to use it as a premise. But if it +never would present itself in experience, our conclusion is valid but +for the possibility of this fact being otherwise than assumed, that is, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span>it is valid as far as possible experience goes, and that is all that we +claim. Thus, every postulate is cut off, either by the provisionality or +by the experientiality of our inference. For instance, it has been said +that induction postulates that, if an indefinite succession of samples +be drawn, examined, and thrown back each before the next is +drawn, then in the long run every grain will be drawn as often as +any other, that is to say postulates that the ratio of the numbers of +times in which any two are drawn will indefinitely approximate to +unity. But no such postulate is made; for if, on the one hand, we +are to have no other experience of the wheat than from such drawings, +it is the ratio that presents itself in those drawings and not the +ratio which belongs to the wheat in its latent existence that we are +endeavoring to determine; while if, on the other hand, there is +some other mode by which the wheat is to come under our knowledge, +equivalent to another kind of sampling, so that after all our +care in stirring up the wheat, some experiential grains will present +themselves in the first sampling operation more often than others in +the long run, this very singular fact will be sure to get discovered +by the inductive method, which must avail itself of every sort of +experience; and our inference, which was only provisional, corrects +itself at last. Again, it has been said, that induction postulates that +under like circumstances like events will happen, and that this postulate +is at bottom the same as the principle of universal causation. +But this is a blunder, or <i>bevue</i>, due to thinking exclusively of inductions +where the concluded ratio is either 1 or 0. If any such proposition +were postulated, it would be that under like circumstances (the +circumstances of drawing the different samples) different events occur +in the same proportions in all the different sets,—a proposition which +is false and even absurd. But in truth no such thing is postulated, +the experiential character of the inference reducing the condition of +validity to this, that if a certain result does not occur, the opposite +result will be manifested, a condition assured by the provisionality +of the inference. But it may be asked whether it is not conceivable +that every instance of a certain class destined to be ever employed +as a datum of induction should have one character, while every instance +destined not to be so employed should have the opposite +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span>character. The answer is that in that case, the instances excluded +from being subjects of reasoning would not be experienced in the +full sense of the word, but would be among these <i>latent</i> individuals +of which our conclusion does not pretend to speak.</p> + +<p>To this account of the rationale of induction I know of but one +objection worth mention: it is that I thus fail to deduce the full degree +of force which this mode of inference in fact possesses; that +according to my view, no matter how thorough and elaborate the +stirring and mixing process had been, the examination of a single +handful of grain would not give me any assurance, sufficient to risk +money upon, that the next handful would not greatly modify the +concluded value of the ratio under inquiry, while, in fact, the assurance +would be very high that this ratio was not greatly in error. If +the true ratio of grains of quality <i>A</i> were 0.80 and the handful contained +a thousand grains, nine such handfuls out of every ten would +contain from 780 to 820 grains of quality <i>A</i>. The answer to this is +that the calculation given is correct when we know that the units of +this handful and the quality inquired into have the normal independence +of one another, if for instance the stirring has been complete +and the character sampled for has been settled upon in advance +of the examination of the sample. But in so far as these conditions +are not known to be complied with, the above figures cease +to be applicable. Random sampling and predesignation of the +character sampled for should always be striven after in inductive +reasoning, but when they cannot be attained, so long as it is conducted +honestly, the inference retains some value. When we cannot +ascertain how the sampling has been done or the sample-character +selected, induction still has the essential validity which my +present account of it shows it to have.</p> + +<p>I do not think a man who combines a willingness to be convinced +with a power of appreciating an argument upon a difficult +subject can resist the reasons which have been given to show that +the principle of universal necessity cannot be defended as being a +postulate of reasoning. But then the question immediately arises +whether it is not proved to be true, or at least rendered highly probable, +by observation of nature.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span></p> + +<p>Still, this question ought not long to arrest a person accustomed +to reflect upon the force of scientific reasoning. For the +essence of the necessitarian position is that certain continuous quantities +have certain exact values. Now, how can observation determine +the value of such a quantity with a probable error absolutely +<i>nil</i>? To one who is behind the scenes, and knows that the most +refined comparisons of masses, lengths, and angles, far surpassing +in precision all other measurements, yet fall behind the accuracy of +bank-accounts, and that the ordinary determinations of physical +constants, such as appear from month to month in the journals, are +about on a par with an upholsterer’s measurements of carpets and +curtains, the idea of mathematical exactitude being demonstrated +in the laboratory will appear simply ridiculous. There is a recognised +method of estimating the probable magnitudes of errors in +physics,—the method of least squares. It is universally admitted +that this method makes the errors smaller than they really are; yet +even according to that theory an error indefinitely small is indefinitely +improbable; so that any statement to the effect that a certain +continuous quantity has a certain exact value, if well-founded at all, +must be founded on something other than observation.</p> + +<p>Still, I am obliged to admit that this rule is subject to a certain +qualification. Namely, it only applies to continuous⁠<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> quantity. Now, +certain kinds of continuous quantity are discontinuous at one or at +two limits, and for such limits the rule must be modified. Thus, +the length of a line cannot be less than zero. Suppose, then, the +question arises how long a line a certain person had drawn from a +marked point on a piece of paper. If no line at all can be seen, the +observed length is zero; and the only conclusion this observation +warrants is that the length of the line is less than the smallest length +visible with the optical power employed. But indirect observations,—for +example, that the person supposed to have drawn the +line was never within fifty feet of the paper,—may make it probable +that no line at all was made, so that the concluded length will be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span>strictly zero. In like manner, experience no doubt would warrant +the conclusion that there is absolutely <i>no</i> indigo in a given ear of +wheat, and absolutely <i>no</i> attar in a given lichen. But such inferences +can only be rendered valid by positive experiential evidence, +direct or remote, and cannot rest upon a mere inability to detect the +quantity in question. We have reason to think there is no indigo +in the wheat, because we have remarked that wherever indigo is +produced it is produced in considerable quantities, to mention only +one argument. We have reason to think there is no attar in the +lichen, because essential oils seem to be in general peculiar to single +species, if the question had been whether there was iron in the +wheat or the lichen, though chemical analysis should fail to detect +its presence, we should think some of it probably was there, since iron +is almost everywhere. Without any such information, one way or +the other, we could only abstain from any opinion as to the presence +of the substance in question. It cannot, I conceive, be maintained +that we are in any <i>better</i> position than this in regard to the presence of +the element of chance or spontaneous departures from law in nature.</p> + +<p>Those observations which are generally adduced in favor of +mechanical causation simply prove that there is an element of regularity +in nature, and have no bearing whatever upon the question +of whether such regularity is exact and universal, or not. Nay, in +regard to this <i>exactitude</i>, all observation is directly <i>opposed</i> to it; and +the most that can be said is that a good deal of this observation can +be explained away. Try to verify any law of nature, and you will +find that the more precise your observations, the more certain they +will be to show irregular departures from the law. We are accustomed +to ascribe these, and I do not say wrongly, to errors of observation; +yet we cannot usually account for such errors in any antecedently +probable way. Trace their causes back far enough, and +you will be forced to admit they are always due to arbitrary determination, +or chance.</p> + +<p>But it may be asked whether if there were an element of real +chance in the universe it must not occasionally be productive of signal +effects such as could not pass unobserved. In answer to this +question, without stopping to point out that there is an abundance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span>of great events which one might be tempted to suppose were of that +nature, it will be simplest to remark that physicists hold that the +particles of gases are moving about irregularly, substantially as if +by real chance, and that by the principles of probabilities there must +occasionally happen to be concentrations of heat in the gases contrary +to the second law of thermodynamics, and these concentrations, +occurring in explosive mixtures, must sometimes have tremendous +effects. Here, then, is in substance the very situation +supposed; yet no phenomena ever have resulted which we are forced +to attribute to such chance concentration of heat, or which anybody, +wise or foolish, has ever dreamed of accounting for in that manner.</p> + +<p>In view of all these considerations, I do not believe that anybody, +not in a state of case-hardened ignorance respecting the logic +of science, can maintain that the precise and universal conformity +of facts to law is clearly proved, or even rendered particularly probable, +by any observations hitherto made. In this way, the determined +advocate of exact regularity will soon find himself driven to +<i>a priori</i> reasons to support his thesis. These received such a sockdologer +from Stuart Mill in his Examination of Hamilton, that holding +to them now seems to me to denote a high degree of imperviousness +to reason; so that I shall pass them by with little notice.</p> + +<p>To say that we cannot help believing a given proposition is no +argument, but it is a conclusive fact if it be true; and with the substitution +of “I” for “we,” it is true in the mouths of several classes +of minds, the blindly passionate, the unreflecting and ignorant, and +the person who has overwhelming evidence before his eyes. But +that which has been inconceivable to-day has often turned out indisputable +on the morrow. Inability to conceive is only a stage +through which every man must pass in regard to a number of beliefs,—unless +endowed with extraordinary obstinacy and obtuseness. +His understanding is enslaved to some blind compulsion which a +vigorous mind is pretty sure soon to cast off.</p> + +<p>Some seek to back up the <i>a priori</i> position with empirical arguments. +They say that the exact regularity of the world is a natural +belief, and that natural beliefs have generally been confirmed by +experience. There is some reason in this. Natural beliefs, however, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span>if they generally have a foundation of truth, also require correction +and purification from natural illusions. The principles of +mechanics are undoubtedly natural beliefs; but, for all that, the +early formulations of them were exceedingly erroneous. The general +approximation to truth in natural beliefs is, in fact, a case of +the general adaptation of genetic products to recognisable utilities +or ends. Now, the adaptations of nature, beautiful and often marvellous +as they verily are, are never found to be quite perfect; so +that the argument is quite <i>against</i> the absolute exactitude of any +natural belief, including that of the principle of causation.</p> + +<p>Another argument, or convenient commonplace, is that absolute +chance is <i>inconceivable</i>. This word has eight current significations. +The Century Dictionary enumerates six. Those who talk +like this will hardly be persuaded to say in what sense they mean +that chance is inconceivable. Should they do so, it would easily be +shown either that they have no sufficient reason for the statement or +that the inconceivability is of a kind which does not prove that +chance is non-existent.</p> + +<p>Another <i>a priori</i> argument is that chance is unintelligible; that +is to say, while it may perhaps be conceivable, it does not disclose +to the eye of reason the how or why of things; and since a hypothesis +can only be justified so far as it renders some phenomenon +intelligible, we never can have any right to suppose absolute chance +to enter into the production of anything in nature. This argument +may be considered in connection with two others. Namely, instead +of going so far as to say that the supposition of chance can <i>never</i> +properly be used to explain any observed fact, it may be alleged +merely that no facts are known which such a supposition could in +any way help in explaining. Or again, the allegation being still +further weakened, it may be said that since departures from law are +not unmistakably observed, chance is not a <i>vera causa</i>, and ought +not unnecessarily to be introduced into a hypothesis.</p> + +<p>These are no mean arguments, and require us to examine the +matter a little more closely. Come, my superior opponent, let me +learn from your wisdom. It seems to me that every throw of sixes +with a pair of dice is a manifest instance of chance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span></p> + +<p>“While you would hold a throw of deuce-ace to be brought +about by necessity?” [The opponent’s supposed remarks are placed +in quotation marks.]</p> + +<p>Clearly one throw is as much chance as another.</p> + +<p>“Do you think throws of dice are of a different nature from +other events?”</p> + +<p>I see that I must say that <i>all</i> the diversity and specificalness of +events is attributable to chance.</p> + +<p>“Would you, then, deny that there is any regularity in the +world?”</p> + +<p>That is clearly undeniable. I must acknowledge there is an +approximate regularity, and that every event is influenced by it. +But the diversification, specificalness, and irregularity of things I +suppose is chance. A throw of sixes appears to me a case in which +this element is particularly obtrusive.</p> + +<p>“If you reflect more deeply, you will come to see that <i>chance</i> +is only a name for a cause that is unknown to us.”</p> + +<p>Do you mean that we have no idea whatever what kind of causes +could bring about a throw of sixes?</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, each die moves under the influence of precise +mechanical laws.”</p> + +<p>But it appears to me that it is not these <i>laws</i> which made the +die turn up sixes; for these laws act just the same when other +throws come up. The chance lies in the diversity of throws; and +this diversity cannot be due to laws which are immutable.</p> + +<p>“The diversity is due to the diverse circumstances under which +the laws act. The dice lie differently in the box, and the motion +given to the box is different. These are the unknown causes which +produce the throws, and to which we give the name of chance; not +the mechanical law which regulates the operation of these causes. +You see you are already beginning to think more clearly about this +subject.”</p> + +<p>Does the operation of mechanical law not increase the diversity?</p> + +<p>“Properly not. You must know that the instantaneous state +of a system of particles is defined by six times as many numbers as +there are particles, three for the co-ordinates of each particle’s position, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span>and three more for the components of its velocity. This number +of numbers, which expresses the amount of diversity in the system, +remains the same at all times. There may be, to be sure, some +kind of relation between the co-ordinates and component velocities +of the different particles, by means of which the state of the system +might be expressed by a smaller number of numbers. But, if this +is the case, a precisely corresponding relationship must exist between +the co-ordinates and component velocities at any other time, +though it may doubtless be a relation less obvious to us. Thus, the +intrinsic complexity of the system is the same at all times.”</p> + +<p>Very well, my obliging opponent, we have now reached an issue. +You think all the arbitrary specifications of the universe were +introduced in one dose, in the beginning, if there was a beginning, +and that the variety and complication of nature has always been +just as much as it is now. But I, for my part, think that the diversification, +the specification, has been continually taking place. Should +you condescend to ask me why I so think, I should give my reasons +as follows:</p> + +<p>1) Question any science which deals with the course of time. +Consider the life of an individual animal or plant, or of a mind. +Glance at the history of states, of institutions, of language, of ideas. +Examine the successions of forms shown by paleontology, the history +of the globe as set forth in geology, of what the astronomer is +able to make out concerning the changes of stellar systems. Everywhere +the main fact is growth and increasing complexity. Death +and corruption are mere accidents or secondary phenomena. Among +some of the lower organisms, it is a moot point with biologists +whether there be anything which ought to be called death. Races, +at any rate, do not die out except under unfavorable circumstances. +From these broad and ubiquitous facts we may fairly infer, by the +most unexceptionable logic, that there is probably in nature some +agency by which the complexity and diversity of things can be increased; +and that consequently the rule of mechanical necessity +meets in some way with interference.</p> + +<p>2) By thus admitting pure spontaneity or life as a character +of the universe, acting always and everywhere though restrained +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span>within narrow bounds by law, producing infinitesimal departures +from law continually, and great ones with infinite infrequency, I account +for all the variety and diversity of the universe, in the only +sense in which the really <i>sui generis</i> and new can be said to be accounted +for. The ordinary view has to admit the inexhaustible +multitudinous variety of the world, has to admit that its mechanical +law cannot account for this in the least, that variety can spring only +from spontaneity, and yet denies without any evidence or reason +the existence of this spontaneity, or else shoves it back to the beginning +of time and supposes it dead ever since. The superior logic +of my view appears to me not easily controverted.</p> + +<p>3) When I ask the necessitarian how he would explain the diversity +and irregularity of the universe, he replies to me out of the +treasury of his wisdom that irregularity is something which from the +nature of things we must not seek to explain. Abashed at this, I +seek to cover my confusion by asking how he would explain the +uniformity and regularity of the universe, whereupon he tells me +that the laws of nature are immutable and ultimate facts, and no +account is to be given of them. But my hypothesis of spontaneity +does explain irregularity, in a certain sense; that is, it explains the +general fact of irregularity, though not, of course, what each lawless +event is to be. At the same time, by thus loosening the bond of +necessity, it gives room for the influence of another kind of causation, +such as seems to be operative in the mind in the formation of +associations, and enables us to understand how the uniformity of +nature could have been brought about. That single events should +be hard and unintelligible, logic will permit without difficulty: we +do not expect to make the shock of a personally experienced earthquake +appear natural and reasonable by any amount of cogitation. +But logic does expect things <i>general</i> to be understandable. To say +that there is a universal law, and that it is a hard, ultimate, unintelligible +fact, the why and wherefore of which can never be inquired +into, at this a sound logic will revolt; and will pass over at once to +a method of philosophising which does not thus barricade the road +of discovery.</p> + +<p>4) Necessitarianism cannot logically stop short of making the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span>whole action of the mind a part of the physical universe. Our notion +that we decide what we are going to do, if as the necessitarian says, +it has been calculable since the earliest times, is reduced to illusion. +Indeed, consciousness in general thus becomes a mere illusory aspect +of a material system. What we call red, green, and violet are in +reality only different rates of vibration. The sole reality is the distribution +of qualities of matter in space and time. Brain-matter is +protoplasm in a certain degree and kind of complication,—a certain +arrangement of mechanical particles. Its feeling is but an inward +aspect, a phantom. For, from the positions and velocities of the +particles at any one instant, and the knowledge of the immutable +forces, the positions at all other times are calculable; so that the +universe of space, time, and matter is a rounded system uninterfered +with from elsewhere. But from the state of feeling at any instant, +there is no reason to suppose the states of feeling at all other instants +are thus exactly calculable; so that feeling is, as I said, a +mere fragmentary and illusive aspect of the universe. This is the +way, then, that necessitarianism has to make up its accounts. It +enters consciousness under the head of sundries, as a forgotten trifle; +its scheme of the universe would be more satisfactory if this little +fact could be dropped out of sight. On the other hand, by supposing +the rigid exactitude of causation to yield, I care not how little,—be +it but by a strictly infinitesimal amount,—we gain room to insert +mind into our scheme, and to put it into the place where it is +needed, into the position which, as the sole self-intelligible thing, it +is entitled to occupy, that of the fountain of existence; and in so +doing we resolve the problem of the connection of soul and body.</p> + +<p>5) But I must leave undeveloped the chief of my reasons, and +can only adumbrate it. The hypothesis of chance-spontaneity is one +whose inevitable consequences are capable of being traced out with +mathematical precision into considerable detail. Much of this I +have done and find the consequences to agree with observed facts to +an extent which seems to me remarkable. But the matter and +methods of reasoning are novel, and I have no right to promise that +other mathematicians shall find my deductions as satisfactory as I +myself do, so that the strongest reason for my belief must for the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span>present remain a private reason of my own, and cannot influence +others. I mention it to explain my own position; and partly to indicate +to future mathematical speculators a veritable goldmine, +should time and circumstances and the abridger of all joys prevent +my opening it to the world.</p> + +<p>If now I, in my turn, inquire of the necessitarian why he prefers +to suppose that all specification goes back to the beginning of +things, he will answer me with one of those last three arguments +which I left unanswered.</p> + +<p>First, he may say that chance is a thing absolutely unintelligible, +and therefore that we never can be entitled to make such a +supposition. But does not this objection smack of naïve impudence? +It is not mine, it is his own conception of the universe +which leads abruptly up to hard, ultimate, inexplicable, immutable +law, on the one hand, and to inexplicable specification and diversification +of circumstances on the other. My view, on the contrary, +hypothetises nothing at all, unless it be hypothesis to say that all +specification came about in some sense, and is not to be accepted +as unaccountable. To undertake to account for anything by saying +boldly that it is due to chance would, indeed, be futile. But this I +do not do. I make use of chance chiefly to make room for a principle +of generalisation, or tendency to form habits, which I hold has +produced all regularities. The mechanical philosopher leaves the +whole specification of the world utterly unaccounted for, which is +pretty nearly as bad as to boldly attribute it to chance. I attribute +it altogether to chance, it is true, but to chance in the form of a +spontaneity which is to some degree regular. It seems to me clear +at any rate that one of these two positions must be taken, or else +specification must be supposed due to a spontaneity which develops +itself in a certain and not in a chance way, by an objective logic +like that of Hegel. This last way I leave as an open possibility, +for the present; for it is as much opposed to the necessitarian scheme +of existence as my own theory is.</p> + +<p>Secondly the necessitarian may say there are, at any rate, no +observed phenomena which the hypothesis of chance could aid in +explaining. In reply, I point first to the phenomenon of growth and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span>developing complexity, which appears to be universal, and which +though it may possibly be an affair of mechanism perhaps, certainly +presents all the appearance of increasing diversification. Then, +there is variety itself, beyond comparison the most obtrusive character +of the universe: no mechanism can account for this. Then, +there is the very fact the necessitarian most insists upon, the regularity +of the universe which for him serves only to block the road of +inquiry. Then, there are the regular relationships between the laws +of nature,—similarities and comparative characters, which appeal to +our intelligence as its cousins, and call upon us for a reason. Finally, +there is consciousness, feeling, a patent fact enough, but a +very inconvenient one to the mechanical philosopher.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, the necessitarian may say that chance is not a <i>vera +causa</i>, that we cannot know positively there is any such element in +the universe. But the doctrine of the <i>vera causa</i> has nothing to do +with elementary conceptions. Pushed to that extreme, it at once +cuts off belief in the existence of a material universe; and without +that necessitarianism could hardly maintain its ground. Besides, +variety is a fact which must be admitted; and the theory of chance +merely consists in supposing this diversification does not antedate +all time. Moreover, the avoidance of hypotheses involving causes +nowhere positively known to act—is only a recommendation of +logic, not a positive command. It cannot be formulated in any precise +terms without at once betraying its untenable character,—I +mean as rigid rule, for as a recommendation it is wholesome enough.</p> + +<p>I believe I have thus subjected to fair examination all the important +reasons for adhering to the theory of universal necessity, and +have shown their nullity. I earnestly beg that whoever may detect +any flaw in my reasoning will point it out to me, either privately or +publicly; for if I am wrong, it much concerns me to be set right +speedily. If my argument remains unrefuted, it will be time, I +think, to doubt the absolute truth of the principle of universal law; +and when once such a doubt has obtained a living root in any man’s +mind, my cause with him, I am persuaded, is gained.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">C. S. Peirce.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> <i>Continuous</i> is not exactly the right word, but I let it go to avoid a long and +irrelevant discussion.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="PSYCHICAL_MONISM">PSYCHICAL MONISM.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>In modern thought, ever since Descartes introduced into the conception +of all-comprising nature that perplexing distinction +between thinking and extended substance, the problem of reconciling +so radical a dualism has formed the main task of those who +have busied themselves with philosophical interpretation.</p> + +<p>In the light of the Cartesian system there seemed to exist two +entirely disparate, independent worlds; the one in individual consciousness, +the other outside of it; the one made of mental, the +other of material stuff.</p> + +<p>How to conceive these two antithetical worlds, as interdependent +constituents of one and the same unitary nature is, after many discarded +attempts, still the principal endeavor of systematic thinking.</p> + +<p>Every student of philosophy knows how Descartes himself ascribed +the evident concordance and intercommunication of the two +worlds to the miraculous decree and intervention of the Deity; how +Spinoza sought to overcome the distracting dilemma by proving that +the two substances are but attributes of one single absolute substance; +how Leibnitz made both realms, that of inwardness and +that of outwardness, form a consistent universe and keep consonant +time by means of a divinely pre-established harmony; and how numbers +of less illustrious devices likewise failed to gain general acceptance.</p> + +<p>A more important part in the development of modern thought +was played by those other attempts, which strove to reach a monistic +interpretation by showing that nature in all its manifestations is +constituted, either solely by mind and its original endowments; or, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span>on the contrary, solely by matter and its original endowments. +Thinkers versed in physical science felt inclined to look upon the +material world as the matrix of all natural occurrences; while those +versed in psychical science were apt to conceive the mental world as +containing within itself all there is of nature.</p> + +<p>The physical hypothesis has proved its eminent efficiency by +leading to a vastly more correct and faithful knowledge of the perceptible +universe than had ever been previously attained.</p> + +<p>Still, from the psychical standpoint it became nevertheless evident +beyond contention, that all so-called qualities of matter, all that +in any way enters into our perception of it, is composed of nothing +but mental constituents. And this means simply, that, whatever we +are actually conscious of, must of necessity form part of our own +consciousness, and not of anything outside of it.</p> + +<p>As to the truth of this fundamental psychological conception +there is no longer any dispute among philosophers. But there remains +to be solved the all-important question, whether or not +there exists outside this consciousness of ours, either beyond its +peripheral, perceptual range, or beyond its central, conceptual +sphere, another world which it merely symbolically reveals. And +in case such another extra-conscious world is found actually to exist, +how it comes to constitute, together with the world of consciousness, +that unitary system of being of which we mentally and bodily +seem to form part.</p> + +<p>Professor Dewey in a series of articles in <i>Mind</i> (Nos. 41, 42, +49, 57) and in one recently published in this journal (Vol. II, No. +1) advocates—more profoundly and consistently than has been done +before by any Neo-Kantian or Neo-Hegelian—the view, that consciousness +itself intuits all phenomena of nature by force of its own +intrinsic activity, imparting to them their significance as knowledge +by discriminating their specific position and value within its own +all-comprising organic totality of being. He believes thus in no +other world than that of self-consciousness; asserting that neither +its perceptual nor its conceptual content are significative of any reality +beyond.</p> + +<p>The editor, though an ardent defender of cosmic Monism, is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span>by no means a convert to such purely psychical monism. He maintains, +on the contrary, in the same issue of <i>The Monist</i> (p. 85), that, +“The mental picture of a tree becomes a symbol for a special object +outside of us, and is projected to the place where experience +has taught us to expect that object.” Consequently, the mental +picture refers as knowledge to something outside of us, to something +not forming part of our consciousness.</p> + +<p>The present writer believes likewise, that the perceptual tree +is merely a mental symbol signalising an extra-mental, sense-stimulating +existent; and that the value of this symbol as knowledge consists +altogether in its implication of the existence of an entity subsisting +outside our own being and its consciousness, and having +power to affect our sensibility in definite more or less recognised +ways.</p> + +<p>The editor and the present writer assert then, that the content +of perceptual consciousness forms merely a symbolical representation +of a corresponding reality subsisting outside consciousness; +while Professor Dewey acknowledges as really existent only self-consciousness, +and nothing outside of it, either peripherically stimulating +the senses, or centrally imparting universality to individual +intelligence.</p> + +<p>The former view frankly admits duality in nature, so far as conscious +and extra-conscious existence are concerned. And in order +to overcome this dualism of <i>ordo idearum</i> and <i>ordo rerum</i>—essentially +the same dualism as bequeathed to us by Descartes—it has to +show how the world within consciousness with its “mental picture,” +and the world “outside of us” containing the existent symbolically +represented; how these totally disparate worlds come to constitute +a unitary nature, whose divers modes of existence are throughout +interdependently connected.</p> + +<p>It is clear that the reality symbolised by the “mental picture”—if +any such reality actually exists—can be known to us solely as +thus mentally symbolised, and not known to us in any way as it +subsists extra-mentally “outside of us,” as it subsists in itself when +not thus symbolically represented by our casual and intermittent +perception of it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span></p> + +<p>The mental picture being a mere representative symbol must +needs differ <i>toto genere</i> from the non-mental existent symbolised +thereby. We know only what as mental representation is forming +part of our consciousness. We cannot possibly know anything we +are not conscious of. The entity “outside of us,” the “thing in +itself”—if it at all exists—is therefore as such of necessity unknown +to us. This confession of ontological ignorance is unavoidably involved +in the acceptance of a symbolised reality “outside of us.”</p> + +<p>The complex and prodigious difficulties in the way of a monistic +interpretation, when we start with the dualistic presupposition of a +conscious and an extra-conscious world, are all effectively circumvented, +as soon as with Professor Dewey we deny altogether the +existence of a world of “things-in-themselves” or sense-affecting +existents, and roundly assert that consciousness as such constitutes, +comprises, and has direct knowledge of ultimate reality; that it is +in fact itself the absolute all-sufficient and all-efficient entity.</p> + +<p>To understand the philosophical strength and influence of a position +so strangely at variance with that of current common sense, +which holds as self-evident the existence of body as well as mind, +we have somewhat to probe its deep-laid foundations in the history +of modern thought.</p> + +<p>It was rendered plausible through Descartes’s, Locke’s, Berkeley’s, +and Hume’s philosophical argumentation, that what we are +consciously aware of, what is actually present to us as perception +or “idea,” and therewith as the world at large, is altogether made +up of a more or less complex combination of our own actual and +remembered sensations.</p> + +<p>The conscious content itself was thus necessarily held to constitute +the exclusive object of philosophical research. And by starting +with sensations as its primordial elements, and taking all “ideas,” +or facts of memory, to be but faint reproductions of such elements, +it became the task of investigators “of the human mind” to analyse +the given content of consciousness into these its assumed elements, +and to discover the “laws” or general ways of their combination.</p> + +<p>Proud of its purely experiential method, concerned about nothing +but what is actually found present in consciousness, this mode +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span>of philosophising disclaimed, in consequence, all knowledge of any +“power” giving rise from without to sensorial “impressions” and +their order of conscious emergence. And it ignored likewise the +existence of any “power” combining and systematising them from +within; and, moreover, of any entity for whom the sensorially constituted +experience had intelligent significance.</p> + +<p>Such nominalistic, sensorial idealism has until lately reigned +supreme in English philosophy. Previous to the new departure introduced +by it philosophical interpretation had always followed the +method of conceptual evolution, carried on according to the rules of +formal or deductive logic. It took some widely inclusive, ready-made +concepts as its starting points or major premises, and extracted +therefrom all knowledge that seemed to be implicitly contained +in them.</p> + +<p>Even Kant in his younger days had no idea that valid knowledge +or truth could possibly be attained in any other way than by +logically deducing it from ready-made premises. At a later period he +learned from Hume to distinguish between what he termed analytical +and synthetical propositions, and what had been called by the former +thinker connection between vivid impressions or matter of fact on +the one side, and connection between their faint copies or the so-called +ideas on the other side.</p> + +<p>The discovery on the part of Kant, that our knowledge of the +actual connection of matters of facts has in every instance to be +learned from direct experience and cannot be ratiocinatively deduced +from ready-made general notions, was a complete revelation to him. +It changed his entire way of thinking, and became the starting-point +of his system of critical or transcendental philosophy. He saw +clearly, that, if all instructive cognition is gained, and has always +been gained, solely by means of actual experience, if it has been +synthetically built up bit by bit as directly given to us, without our +being able to construct a valid system of knowledge transcending +in any way actual experience; that reason then as a knowledge-constituting +faculty is impotent, and that metaphysics, as the science +of a realm of intelligible existence, must be ever more rejected as a +pure illusion.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span></p> + +<p>Kant’s thought, like that of most of our own rationalistic thinkers, +was however predominantly swayed by the belief in an intelligible +world, the veritable home of man’s spiritual being, where it +eternally abideth in close communion with a supreme creative intelligence. +After a brief attack of Humian scepticism, the theologically +trained, though rationally wide-awake and profound thinker, +set out to examine the faculties of reason with a view to discover a +philosophically legitimate ingress into that cherished realm of intelligible +subsistence. Hitherto reason had been effectively used in +philosophy only as an analytic instrument. Real knowledge being, +however, as proved by Hume, a matter of synthesis, it would evidently +be making proper way toward a rationally conceived intelligible +world, if it could be proved that reason is itself in possession +of synthetical powers.</p> + +<p>After many years of profound meditation in this direction, Kant +gave its results to the philosophical world. He had become convinced +that mathematical truth, instead of being analytically derived +as hitherto believed, is on the contrary built up synthetically by intelligence +itself, and this without the aid of externally imparted experience; +that intelligence is therefore efficient to form synthetical +propositions <i>a priori</i>. It followed, as a matter of course, that time +and space in which mathematical figurations take shape, are not +conditions of existence outside of us, but original forms of our own +perceptive faculty, and that intelligence by dint of its synthetical +powers constructs mathematical figurations within these perceptual +forms. And finally the conclusion was reached that time and space, +the empty forms of perception, being themselves wholly deficient +of any kind of activity, it must be intelligence alone which possesses +synthetical efficiency, which exercises in fact whatever activity is +operative in the conscious world.</p> + +<p>But though Kant enthroned intelligence as the creator of pure +mathematics, and endowed it with the exclusive gift of synthetical +efficiency, he did not see his way to constitute it also the creator of +the sense-given material that comes experientially to fill the empty +and passive forms of perception. Against all denunciations of his +system as purely idealistic, he insisted that there exists outside our +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span>being and its consciousness a world of things-in-themselves, having +power to affect our sensibility, so that time and space, its receptive +forms, become filled with experiential, though wholly unsynthetised +material.</p> + +<p>Reluctantly, though in faithful adherence to the unbiassed results +of his investigation, he was at last led to declare that intelligence +or reason as an instrument of knowledge—called by him +theoretical reason in contradistinction to practical reason, conceived +as the leading principle of moral conduct;—that such theoretical +reason has power only over sensorially given material, and is incapable +of attaining knowledge of the intelligible sphere.</p> + +<p>Still Kant regarded his so-called categories or synthetical functions +of reason as modes of activity, belonging not only to individual +reason, but to reason in general. And on the strength of this realistic +generalisation he attributed to them the power of imparting +necessity to synthetical propositions, such propositions—otherwise +merely subjective or empirical—being rendered thereby objective +or universally valid. He showed, moreover, that the relation of +every kind of knowledge to a common centre of all-inclusive awareness,—that +this “synthetic unity of apperception” as he called it,—presupposes +an intelligible ego, whose veritable nature becomes +however nowise manifest within our time-and-space-conditioned experience. +And he taught that an all-comprehending intelligible +being had to be hypostatised in order to complete the totality of rational +knowledge.</p> + +<p>Thus, instead of giving us a monistic philosophy, Kant’s theoretical +speculations disclosed, on the contrary, a tripartite world. +At the centre the non-manifest intelligible ego in communion with a +supernatural sphere, and conceived as the veritable bearer of the +synthetical reason. In the median and only known region the synthetical +reason itself, constructing and cognising nature, by synthetically +elaborating the chaotic manifold in time and space. And +at the periphery, beyond our own being and its perception, an unknowable +realm of things-in-themselves affecting our sensibility.</p> + +<p>So complex an appearance did existence assume under Kant’s +critical inspection. Contemplative man, however, never ceases to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span>hanker after a monistic world-conception. Though individualised, +he feels himself one with universal being, and strenuously strives to +understand how those bonds of union are established, and what part +he in verity is playing in this stupendous drama of being and becoming.</p> + +<p>To most philosophers, before Kant, knowledge seemed to be +given to us ready-made, first conceptually as innate ideas or universal +notions; and then perceptually as the finished image of an +outside world.</p> + +<p>Kant has exerted, and still exerts, a controlling influence over +thinkers by having systematically demonstrated, that not only knowledge, +but nature itself as we know it, is constructed by powers inherent +in our own being. He taught that we ourselves, by force of +our combining and ordering intellectual organisation, fashion out of +meaningless sense-material the wondrous world we know. And, +moreover, that by force of our intelligible being we have power to +bend the otherwise rigorously mechanical course of nature in compliance +with moral injunctions.</p> + +<p>No wonder that so inspiriting a philosophy electrified to new +vigor and valiant self-reliance the dogmatically slumbering life of +German thought. And it was Fichte, above all other followers of +Kant, who by his fervent exposition kindled in crowds of hearers +the vivifying spark of this “new philosophy” of all-efficient intelligence.</p> + +<p>Fichte is the real father of such psychical monism as has recently +found so proficient an expounder in Professor Dewey. Fichte +understood, what Kant failed to see, that the “dynamical idealism” +of nature-constituting reason involves, not merely the <i>elaboration</i> of +sense-given material, but the <i>out and out production</i> within consciousness +of the entire world of perception. For perception undeniably +takes place within our own being, and must therefore be, as regards +matter as well as form, the outcome of powers inherent in ourselves. +Between a consistent dream and the apperception of reality the difference +lies merely in our feeling, in the latter instance, compelled +in a peculiar manner to perceive what we perceive. But this feeling +of compulsion is likewise a constituent of our own consciousness, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span>and, moreover, under the influence of hallucinations even this +test of reality fails us.</p> + +<p>According to Fichte’s matured thought, our being consists altogether +in intellectual activity, an activity rendering explicit by +means of self-consciousness what it already implicitly contains. +And it is universal being that becomes thus self-conscious in us. +Infinite reason, constituting a system of ideas, a spiritual organisation, +is the fount and origin of all existence, its own self-revelation +becoming manifest in finite beings.</p> + +<p>Thus, by force of logical consistency, was eliminated from +Kantian transcendentalism the world of things-in-themselves as +superfluous to all-constituting intelligence. And the unification of +individual self-consciousness with universal intelligence was established +by considering individual self-consciousness as partaking in +the self-revealing activity of universal intelligence.</p> + +<p>Hegel elaborated systematically the psychical or idealistic +monism thus foreshadowed in Fichte’s later writings. Philosophical +interpretation turns principally upon the source and import of +consciousness. And from the recognition of the fact, that all constituents +of perception form part of this consciousness of ours, it +obviously follows that objects, and indeed the entire objective world +realised in perception and solely as perception; that the realisation +of this entire world of perceptual objects is in verity realisation of a +world contained in our own being or subject. Subject and object +are therefore, from this point of view, at bottom identical; the objective +world—our human bodies included—being a self-revelation +of our all-comprehending subject. Mind as well as matter, that +which we call mental and that which we call material, are thus mere +abstract terms denoting the subjective and objective sides of one +and the same reality.</p> + +<p>This reality transcendental idealism declares to be “intellectual +activity.” It is intellectual activity which—from its point of +view—is revealing itself in the conscious content, becoming thus +self-conscious. This process of recognition of one’s self as subject-object, +as the unitary essence and completion of both, is what Hegel +calls the “Idea.” And with him theoretical or logical self-recognition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span>and practical or ethical self-realization coincide as “Absolute +Idea.” For to think absolute truth and to will its realisation are but +two sides of one and the same activity. Thought, intelligence, reason, +knowing itself as in every sense veritable being is thus the absolute +One and All.</p> + +<p>Such out and out psychical monism is the legitimate outcome +of a conception which takes the content of consciousness to be ultimate +reality, signifying nothing beyond itself; and which then constitutes +a spiritually conceived entity, called thought, intelligence, +or reason, as the originator and bearer of such consciousness.</p> + +<p>After a period of glorious triumph the Hegelian philosophy of +self-evolving intelligence became a general laughing-stock at home +and abroad. This ignominious fate overtook it, first in consequence +of its fawning prostitution by the master himself to the reactionary +service of Church and State; and then also in consequence of the +ridiculous “pyrotechnical” abuse of its dialectical method by the +“Young-Hegelians.”</p> + +<p>However, by “going back to Kant,” the teachings of transcendental +idealism have in our time once more gained the ascendency, +and have succeeded not only in conquering materialism, but also in +invading and almost supplanting English experientialism.</p> + +<p>In Germany, after a season of complete estrangement between +science and philosophy, a re-approachment was effected by the Neo-Kantian +movement. It originated principally in the recognition on +the part of science, that sense-perception is above all a psychical +and not a purely physiological process, a mental not a material fact; +that therefore the effort to arrive at a correct “theory of knowledge” +is by no means a vain endeavor, and that psychics as well as physics +deserves a place in the hierarchy of sciences.</p> + +<p>In England and America the Neo-Kantian movement owed, on +the other hand, its success, above all, to such theistic rationalism +as found popular expression in “Robert Elsmere.” In Professor +Caird’s words it is said to afford a means for the “vindication of the +religious consciousness.” And this it accomplishes “by an objective +or absolute synthesis,” which establishes “the indivisible unity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[348]</span>of the intelligence and the intelligible world,” “the unity of man as +spiritual with an absolute spirit.”</p> + +<p>Dr. Hutchison Sterling’s “Secret of Hegel” gave the first effective +impulse to this transcendental mode of thinking among university +men of a speculative turn. The late Thomas Hill Green of +Oxford and Prof. Edward Caird of Glasgow became its foremost exponents, +and made numerous converts. The former by elaborately +disclosing, by force of Kant’s principle of synthetical reason, the insufficiency +of the sensorial experientialism generally accepted in +England since Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” +The latter by consistently developing the idealistic and transcendental +implications of this same principle of synthetical reason.</p> + +<p>As repeatedly noticed, and never to be lost sight of, transcendental +idealism derives its convincing force from the undeniable +truth, that whatever we are directly aware of forms part of our own +consciousness. This involves the indivisible unity of such fact as +we are directly conscious of and the faculty through which we are +conscious of it. This unity of the realising self and the realised +world, of object and subject as content of consciousness; or rather +the unity of the objective and subjective factors of it, this subject-object +oneness of conscious states and occurrences is an irrefutable +truth, from which one has to start, whatever direction one may take. +You assert, then, that that which exists thus interblended as consciousness +is itself ultimate reality, and you will encounter but little +difficulty in deducing therefrom a pretty plausible psychical monism. +For the power through which and as which this ultimate reality exists +is then immanent in us individually. And when this power is +conceived as intelligence or spirit, and the world at large as existing +solely as content of this spirit’s consciousness, or indeed as such +consciousness itself, it is clear that our own self-and-world-awareness +must be—according to this view—identical in essence with the +spiritual power which is ultimate and universal Reality.</p> + +<p>In self-consciousness, when regarded as a totality of all actual +and potential awareness, our feelings as well as the perceptual objects +composed of them constitute an organically completed order. +They all stand in definite and interdependent relations to our unitary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[349]</span>being. This all-comprising being has time and space as modes of +gradual self-realisation, but is not—according to transcendentalism—itself +in time and space. And this is undeniably true, so far at least +as the being that combines all transient events of experience into a +unitary system of permanent knowledge cannot possibly itself form +part of the ephemeral flux of conscious states experienced by it.</p> + +<p>Still the multifold individuations of the ultimate reality into separate +personal self-consciousnesses and deciduous bodily organisms +forms the great, if not insuperable, obstacle in the way of psychical +monism. If, on the one hand, we take with Green and Professor +Caird individual self-consciousness as a “reproduction,” and not as +a mere phase of universal consciousness; and on the other hand +admit a natural and gradual development “of man as an animal +organism,” instead of proving such natural development to be a +misconception of our time and space bound recognition, we are far +from having as yet succeeded in establishing a consistent psychical +monism on Kantian lines. His tripartite world remains ununified.</p> + +<p>To achieve its unification is, however, after a profound study +and appreciation of the difficulties to be encountered, the arduous +task Professor Dewey has courageously undertaken. To accomplish +his purpose he has to show how individual consciousness proves itself +to be ultimate reality, and as such identical with universal consciousness; +how man, appearing among other perceptible objects +in multifold individuated specimens as a gradually developed organism, +is nevertheless in reality a complete, all-comprising entity, +not essentially subject to time, space, or numerical limitations. And +he has to make clear how all conscious content, including the external +world as well as the feeling and thinking subject, has no other +existence and significance than in and for consciousness.</p> + +<p>Professor Dewey maintains that individual consciousness is in +reality one with universal consciousness, because it comprehends +within itself subject-and-object-consciousness; the abiding consciousness +of oneself as an ever-changing individual, and that of the +world at large, though figured in transient groups of sensations. +This being so, that which is thus the bearer and realiser of all being +and becoming in nature, cannot itself form part of this becoming, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[350]</span>but must—according to Professor Dewey’s view—be eternal and +absolute. The all-comprehending consciousness—and there is no +existence outside of it—is thus identical with universal intelligence, +identical with that eternally active intelligence which is everlastingly +creating the organic synthesis of all being and becoming.</p> + +<p>“Consciousness the ultimate fact reveals itself as reason.” Sensations +have no self-existence, no meaning in themselves. They +exist only as intellectually apprehended and for intelligence alone. +It is from intellectual interpretation that they receive their entire +significance. On solicitation of sensations the ideal content of universal +intelligence becomes partially and interruptedly revealed to +individual consciousness. The sole office of sensations is to give +in us occasion to this self-realisation of the eternal content of intelligence.</p> + +<p>Professor Dewey establishes his psychical monism by discovering +self-consciousness as the Absolute, the One and All. Individual +idealism or so-called solipsism, such as expounded by Fichte in his +earlier writings from the side of intellect, and in the writings of +English experientialists from the side of sensation, this individual +idealism presents itself likewise as a psychical monism, but as an +absurdly narrow one. Professor Dewey points out how it fails to understand +that by constituting mind, as such, the ego or subject for +which all experience exists, it artificially divides our unitary consciousness +into two separate constituents, and takes the subjective +constituent to be the bearer and realiser of the objective constituent; +while in reality both constituents are but elements of consciousness +in general; are in fact completely unified in eternal and absolute +consciousness.</p> + +<p>Now it is perfectly true, that during conscious awareness object +and subject-consciousness are inextricably interblended so as to +constitute a unified experience. It is true also, that the veritable +subject that thus consciously experiences, and that furthermore imparts +intelligent meaning to such experience, cannot itself form part +of these its own fragmentary and transient moments of awareness. +Comprehending them all, it must evidently be an enduring, at least +a relatively persistent being. It is undoubtedly to such a persistent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[351]</span>being or subject that experience gradually accrues, and in whom it +is all retained and organised into more or less systematic order.</p> + +<p>But is there the least warrant for assuming that this persistent +subject, weaving thus intelligent experience out of its transient conscious +states, is itself “consciousness” or “intelligence”?</p> + +<p>Intelligent consciousness is very obviously only one of the functions +of the persistent subject, and by no means its being or essence. +And the experience accruing to it, that at least of the external world, +bears nowise the characteristics of Platonic reminiscence, does nowise +consist in self-revelation, in the becoming explicitly aware of +what already implicitly existed within itself. We may indeed say, +that our emotions, when aroused, constitute such self-revelation. +But, for instance, yonder visual figuration, consisting of nothing but +colored forms, though intelligently interpreted as a landscape with +plains, woods, and creeks; interpreted thus by the aid of no end of +former experience; this landscape now perceived by me for the first +time was certainly not implicitly immanent in my consciousness +previous to all my individual experience. Its conscious realisation +does assuredly not render explicit as objective experience what for +ever has been an organic member of my self-consciousness. What +is immanent in my being—not in my consciousness—is the sensorial +faculty of symbolically picturing whatever sense-affecting agent is +placed before me. The conscious picture itself is an evanescent +phenomenon, having no steadfast existence or reality.</p> + +<p>To assert—as is usually done by transcendentalists and by Professor +Dewey among them—that our individual experience, when—as +mostly occurs—not actually conscious to ourselves, exists then +nevertheless as conscious content of a universal being; to venture +such an utterly gratuitous assertion, even when merely hypothetically +advanced, transcends all legitimate inference from given facts. +When declared to be positively justified by given facts, it all too +obviously betrays the theological bias by which it is inspired, the +set purpose of vindicating the religious consciousness which has +faith in “the unity of man as spiritual with an absolute spirit.”</p> + +<p>Through consciousness we indeed become aware of the divers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[352]</span>faculties of our being, together with their functionally accruing experience. +All this, however, rises into conscious awareness only at +times, when casually awakened. To give to the vast system of consciously +latent being and experience the name of “consciousness,” +to call that “consciousness” whose principal distinction is to constitute +a persistent subject with an organised system of experience +abiding for the most part in extra-conscious latency; to do this only +because all this extra-conscious existence may and does at times become +more or less conscious; this is surely committing the fatal +error of denoting a state of things by its outright opposite.</p> + +<p>There is no denying that most of the content of our being is +usually not present in consciousness. Consequently, abiding thus +outside consciousness, it cannot possibly form part of consciousness +either individual or universal.</p> + +<p>Nothing could be more to the point than Professor Dewey’s +statement, that “only a living actual fact (let us say existent instead +of fact) can preserve within its unity that organic system of +differences in virtue of which it lives and moves and has its being.” +There is not the least doubt that the subject, who at times is conscious +of more or less of his experience, is exactly such an existent +as here described. But consciousness, though the medium in which +and through which everything is realised, is itself but an intermittent +function of that living actual subject which preserves within +its unity the organic system of differences in virtue of which it lives +and moves and has its being. The consciousness of the subject +conveys information to it only interruptedly and in broken bits. +These become organically unified into a more or less consistent totality +of experience. But this process of unification takes place, +not in the dream like stuff which makes up consciousness, but in +the persistent, extra-conscious matrix whence our ever lapsing, ever +renewed moment of conscious awareness emerges ready-made.</p> + +<p>The subject capable of thought and feeling becomes thinkingly +and feelingly manifest to <i>itself</i>, when its functions through which +consciousness arises are in operation; becomes manifest as bodily +active to <i>other sentient beings also</i>, when its functions through which +such activity arises are in operation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[353]</span></p> + +<p>But if the real nature of the experiencing subject is not self-consciousness +or intelligence, what then can it be?</p> + +<p>Idealists, and with them Professor Dewey, become such by believing +that the perceptually realised objects are themselves veritable +reality, and not mere symbols of extra-conscious reality. Now +can they in all sincerity bring themselves to believe that a baby—to +use one of Professor Dewey’s illustrations—which experiences a +sensation, say a pain caused by the prick of a pin, that this pain-experiencing +baby is no other than that colored form within the +perceptual consciousness of may be half a dozen spectators; and +that it is the perceptual pin within the consciousness of each of them +that has pricked the baby and caused the pain?</p> + +<p>Does the pain-experiencing baby derive its existence from the +fact that the intellect of the spectator interprets the perceptual form +within his consciousness to signify a baby, which has forever implicitly +formed part of the organic content of his own self-consciousness?</p> + +<p>Surely the pain experienced by the baby is not experienced by +the perceptually realised baby, not by the baby existing as interpreted +perception in the consciousness of him who perceives it. +The pain experienced by the baby does nowise form part of the consciousness +of the perceiver. Consequently and incontestably, the +subject that experiences the sensation, that experiences in fact any +kind of feeling or thought, is itself an extra-conscious being, a being +only casually and symbolically realised in consciousness.</p> + +<p>And if the perceptual baby is merely a conscious symbol signalising +an extra-conscious existent, then all perceptual existence, all +that constitutes what we perceptually realise as nature, symbolises +likewise an extra-conscious reality, a reality that has power so to affect +our sensibility as to arouse in us perceptual representations of +itself and its characteristics.</p> + +<p>The matter stands then exactly as denied by Professor Dewey. +It is indeed the “baby thing-in-itself which is affected,” and it is +“a world thing-in-itself which calls forth the sensation.” It is not, +as maintained by Professor Dewey the baby known to him as his +own perception which experiences the sensation by having been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[354]</span>pricked within the beholder’s consciousness by a perceptually constituted +pin.</p> + +<p>But if the entity, which affects the beholder’s sensibility and +awakens in him the percept of a baby, exists in verity outside his, +the beholder’s, consciousness, and is known to him only as thus +symbolically pictured by his own percept; such sense-affecting entity +is, on the other hand, nowise to be construed as the unknowable +“First Cause,” nowise as that protean Persistent Force, which Mr. +Spencer imagines capable of assuming every kind of mental or material +appearance.</p> + +<p>The so-called material or physical modes which constitute in +the beholder the perceptually realised baby, and the so-called immaterial +or mental modes which are experienced by the baby as his +sensations and emotions; these material and mental modes are in +no sense the manifestation of an “Absolute Force” or “inscrutable +Power,” as our Spencerians would lead us religiously, and almost +theologically to believe.⁠<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p> + +<p>The material modes that constitute the perceptually realised +baby are awakened in the beholder by a definite sense-affecting existent, +which is thus revealing not only its bare presence, but most +vividly and minutely also its perceptible and distinguishing characteristics. +And in the same manner it makes also known that it is +interdependently connected with the vast system of sense-affecting +entities, that constitutes nature in general.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[355]</span></p> + +<p>All reality is interdependently conditioned. The “Unconditioned +Reality” of the Hamiltons, Mansels, and Spencers, has nowhere +any existence, either in consciousness or outside of it. It is +altogether a fictitious, superfluous, and most misleading conception.</p> + +<p>As regards the mental modes experienced by the baby, they are +evidently exclusively his own affections as a highly and most specifically +organised being, and not by any means are they modes of +appearance of that most empty abstraction “The Unknowable,” +that has with so many believers usurped the throne of their former +anthropomorphic Deity.</p> + +<p>This coiled up thing over there, is it a rope or a snake? I see +it move, and my intellect interprets it to be a snake. Surely the +significance of the interpretation does not consist in my realising +what was already implicitly contained in my consciousness, but in +knowing that in contact with the being out there, which forms no +part whatever of myself though perceptually realised by me, I shall +become affected in certain additional ways taught by former experience.</p> + +<p>Will any unbiassed and competent judge assert that the far-fetched +idealistic interpretation is more in accordance with what we +really experience, than the very simple one here given?</p> + +<p>No doubt the immediate object of physical observation is not +the thing-in-itself, but its perceptual realisation. It is such, however, +only as symbolical representation of something subsisting outside +consciousness, only as a conscious affection awakened with compulsory +force in the observer from without. The observer offers his +diversely differentiated and delicately attuned sensibilities to the outside +world and carefully notices its specific modes of reaction upon +definite modes of stimulation. This in truth is the method of scientific +observation, from which all conclusions regarding the characteristics +of nature are drawn.</p> + +<p>The conscious subject phylogenetically evolved in constant interaction +with the medium in which he lives and moves and has his +being, possesses realising faculties so adjusted as to correctly subserve +his needs in relation to such a medium. He then furthermore +uses these faculties in order to gain a fuller and more accurate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[356]</span>knowledge of further perceptible characteristics of this same medium.</p> + +<p>A monistic interpretation of nature cannot possibly be reached +by assuming consciousness or intelligence to be ultimate reality, and +as such the One and All. It can be reached only by recognising +that consciousness is a function of subjects that stand in definite relations +to the rest of nature, and have power along with the other +constituents of nature so to affect the sensibility of other sentient +beings as to cause to arise therein the symbolical representation of +themselves.</p> + +<p>Systematised experience consists in the organised totality of +such symbolical representations. And this organised totality of experience +exists as potential possession of the subject in extra-conscious +latency, in what we figuratively call memory. Emerging on +occasion into consciousness it reproduces more or less faithfully the +order and connection of the manifold that constitutes the sense-affecting +universe.</p> + +<p>In highly developed sentient subjects self-realisation or the +“inner life,” which arises from the activity of their emotional and +above all their social nature, gains predominant influence over their +sensual and perceptual experience, urging them so to transform the +given aspect of the outer world as to render it subservient to the aspirations +of that inner life.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Edmund Montgomery.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> Mr. Spencer grapples with the problem of ultimate reality from three different +and widely divergent standpoints. First, by assuming that our out and out conditioned +nature and knowledge presupposes the existence of an “Unconditioned +Reality,” he arrives at the conception of an “Absolute Cause.” Second, by attributing—in +keeping with the principle of the Conservation of Energy, all physical +and psychical activity to the interconvertible play of modes of force, he arrives at +the conception of an “Absolute Force,” whence all these manifest modes proceed; +hinting, moreover, that, as our experience of force-manifestation is of a psychical +nature, the “Absolute Force” may rather be conceived as psychical than as physical. +Third, besides explaining at times that the psychical and physical modes, +instead of being interconvertible, are only two different aspects of one and the same +reality—and contrary to his assumption of the interconvertibility of psychical and +physical modes proceeding from an Absolute Force, he advocates in his <i>Transfigured +Realism</i> the view, that our perceptual consciousness figures representatively +the corresponding characteristics of a world of things-in-themselves. No wonder +that Spencerians are getting somewhat mixed, as the saying is.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[357]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="THE_CONSERVATION_OF_SPIRIT">THE CONSERVATION OF SPIRIT AND THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>The consideration of the relation that subsists between body and +mind is a topic that has led to several theories, one of which +has found favor with many on account of its supposed monistic implications. +Dr. Carus in his work “The Soul of Man” seems to +adopt that theory, and his method of explaining the matter is one +of notable superiority. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Matter and mind (the elements of feeling) are to be considered as one—not +the same, but one. They are as inseparable as are the two sides of a sheet of paper. +If we look at it from the mind side its activity represents itself as elements of +feeling and all kinds and degrees of actual feelings. If we look at it from the matter +side its activity represents itself as motions or as all kinds of potential and kinetic +energy.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This doctrine of a double-faced unity has no doubt been favored +because it has seemed the best and perhaps the only refuge available +against the various forms of dualism. Still this same doctrine is +very far from inducing that final pacification of mind which we +rightly expect from a competent theory. It is open to the charge of +being arbitrary, and it brings no access of insight.</p> + +<p>The expressions of those whom we must suppose to be well +affected towards any doctrine that gives promise of a monistic issue +show this to be the case. Thus Tyndall says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I do not think that he (i. e. the materialist) is entitled to say that his molecular +groupings and his molecular motions explain everything. In reality they explain +nothing. The utmost that he can affirm is the association of two classes of +phenomena of whose real bond of union he is in absolute ignorance. <i>The problem +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[358]</span>of the connection of body and soul is as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the +prehistoric ages.</i>”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And Huxley protests that,</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“How anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a +result of irritating nervous tissue is <i>just as unaccountable</i> as the appearance of the +Djinn when Alladin rubbed his lamp.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In truth those who might be expected to speak with considerable +reserve in regard to the inabilities of human attainment have +emphasised without due sobriety the insuperable aspects of the +problem. The past history of culture should have counseled caution, +especially in view of the certainty that consciousness is <i>somehow</i> +dependent upon nerve action.</p> + +<p>It is submitted that the recent progress of science should induce +a hopeful temper of mind on this question. Not only have physiology +and psychology brought to light more results in the last decades +than in centuries past, but in positive monism and formal +thought philosophy has also attained to a clearness of method which +will prove beneficial to all special investigations. A clear and concise +statement of the new positivism is found in the chapter Form +and Formal Thought of “Fundamental Problems” by Dr. Carus. +Any one who has watched the development of the algebra of thought +and the philosophy of logic, will naturally expect signal aid towards +the solution of the world-questions from a proper consideration of +form and the laws of form. In Dr. Carus’s book and especially in +the above mentioned chapter will be found a most popular exposition +of that subject.</p> + +<p>Those who hold that form and formal thought is the very constituted +means by which our information with respect to real existence +may be improved, ought to regard it a decided step towards the solution +of any hitherto apparently inexplicable problem, if we only +but find ourselves able to <i>formulate</i> an idea or process that mediates +between the known and the unknown, and represents to our insight +how it is possible to think of a phenomenon in accordance with notions +that yield perceptible imagery.</p> + +<p>Riemann in what has been well characterised as his “stupendous” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[359]</span>essay on “The hypotheses that lie at the basis of geometry” +remarks:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We are quite at liberty to suppose that the metric relations of space in the infinitely +small do not conform to the hypotheses of geometry; <i>and we ought in fact to +suppose it if we can thereby obtain a simpler explanation of phenomena</i>.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>So also Jevons in his “Principles of Science” commenting on +“The Character of the Experimentalist” refers to the audacity of +speculation that characterised Faraday and that was the leading of +his efforts towards some of his most brilliant discoveries. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We have only to notice the profound conviction in the unity of natural laws, +the active powers of inference and imagination, <i>the unbounded license of theorising</i>.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Theory must precede experiment. We must formulate before +we can verify. The words of Faraday: “Let us encourage ourselves +by a little more imagination prior to experiment,” shows us the +method he followed.</p> + +<p>Recent developments in connection with the study of electricity +supply us with at least an analogy that may instruct us as to how +we may <i>suppose</i> the appearance of consciousness as a result of nerve +action.</p> + +<p>The nature of electricity has long been an unformulated thesis. +That it may be produced by the motion of matter is proved by +every dynamo in operation: indeed the oldest experiments in static +electricity are to the same effect.</p> + +<p>At the present time it seems to be an acceptable doctrine or at +least a good working hypothesis that electricity and magnetism are +manifestations of that once hypothetical medium called <i>the ether</i>.</p> + +<p>Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald in his opening address before Section +A of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1888 +made these very important remarks:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In a presidential address on the borderlands of the known, delivered from +this chair, the great Clerk Maxwell spoke of it as an undecided question whether +electro-magnetic phenomena are due to direct action at a distance or are due to the +action of an intervening medium. The year 1888 will ever be memorable as the +year in which this great question has been experimentally <i>settled</i> by Hertz in Germany. +Henceforth I hope no learner will fail to be impressed with the theory—<i>hypothesis +no longer</i>—that electro-magnetic actions are due to a medium pervading +all known space.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[360]</span></p> + +<p>That the ether really exists: that it is a proved fact and that it +is the substantial basis out of which electricity and magnetism arises, +are pretensions too momentous to remain unchallenged if they lacked +good evidence in their favor. Yet instead of awakening dissent +among the critical hosts of science, these utterances of Professor +Fitzgerald have not only been received as voicing the convictions of +the scientific world but they are confirmed from time to time by the +sometimes tacit and sometimes express assent of all who discourse +upon the matters involved.</p> + +<p>Prof. Oliver Lodge, one of the leading scientific men of England +and an acknowledged authority upon the subject has recently +published a work entitled “Modern Views of Electricity.” In his +preface he says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Few things in physical science appear to me more certain than that what has +so long been called electricity is a form or rather a mode of manifestation of the +ether.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>He supposes the ether as a compound of two constituents corresponding +to positive and negative electricity. Each of these constituents +has affinities, cohesions, or entanglements with the various +kinds of matter, which affinities, cohesions, or entanglements are +greater or less according to the kind of matter involved, so that by +the motions of certain sorts of matter under proper conditions the +two constituents of the ether are torn apart or separated, or in the +language of dynamics, strained. But at the same time these constituents +also tend with unceasing persistence to reunite and saturate +one another into a state of absolute neutrality. Separate, these +constituents show an existence and an energy towards one another. +United neither of them shows any existence at all nor any efficacy +whatever. They are as though they did not exist.</p> + +<p>It is of small moment to the present purpose whether or not +this electrical theory is well grounded. In either case its very formulation +supplies us with a suggestion as to how it is possible to +think of consciousness as a product of nerve action.</p> + +<p>Just as the ether is supposed as the substantial basis out of +which in consequence of the motion of matter electricity and magnetism +becomes manifest, so may we suppose an analogous (perhaps +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[361]</span>the same) basis surrounding and permeating all things, and +out of which in consequence of nerve action, consciousness becomes +manifest.</p> + +<p>Why may we not suppose this consciousness basis, (which suppose +we name spirit,) to be the ultimate substance which being +variously modified by energy manifests in one case the phenomena +of mind, in another the phenomena of electricity, magnetism, etc., +and then again in a third case that phenomenon, mass, or inertia, +which is the essential attribute of matter?</p> + +<p>As with the ether in the absence of any cause that separates it +so that electricity and magnetism become manifest, so spirit may be +supposed to be utterly without manifestation and neutral until nerve +action modifies its condition, when like electricity in the one case, +so here, consciousness becomes manifest.</p> + +<p>Why may we not imagine spirit as composed of two constituents +corresponding to feeling and volition which united saturate one another +into neutrality, but which separated by nerve action manifest +feeling that tends to pass into volition, or volition that tends to +pass into feeling? This would be in accordance with the phenomena if +of reflex action which is supposed to be the elementary type of mentality.</p> + +<p>This is in harmony with the views of the author of “The Soul +of Man,” for he, although for other reasons, also explains the origin +of consciousness from tension. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Consciousness is an intensified state of feeling caused through tension. It +lies between a want and its satisfaction. Satisfaction not being immediately attainable, +feelings are no longer in a state of equilibrium, and it is this tension which +concentrates and intensifies feeling into consciousness.</p> + +<p>“It appears that consciousness never arises without a certain tension. Days +spent in an idyllic life flow away almost unconsciously; there is little friction, there +are no problems to be solved; there are no unsatisfied wants, or if there are any, +they are quickly and easily attended to. There is no need of consciousness, there +is not much tension to call it into play, so life passes dreamlike as a tale that is told. +The more life is burdened with problems that demand a man’s full care and deliberation, +and the stronger are his attempts to solve the problems of his situation, +the more intense will his consciousness be.</p> + +<p>“It appears to me very doubtful whether conscious beings could exist in a +world—if such a world were possible at all—where the struggle for existence was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[362]</span>unknown; for it is the struggle for existence that presents the first and most imperative +problems to living and feeling beings.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Spirit or the elementary basis of consciousness considered as +a quantity, would on this supposition remain the same, but the +forms of its manifestations would change. There would be more or +less straining of spirit and accordingly more or less manifestation +of consciousness. Or to formulate it in one sentence, we would have +to postulate <i>the conservation of spirit</i>.</p> + +<p>Such a supposition or some similar supposition if tolerable +would bring our ideas into some sort of accord with scientific customs +of explanation, and would extricate our minds from that state +of utter stultification into which they are cast whenever they are confronted +with the relations of body and mind.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Francis C. Russell.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[363]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="ON_CRIMINAL_SUGGESTION">ON CRIMINAL SUGGESTION.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>A widely known criminal trial has brought before thoughtful +minds, on both sides of the water, this question, viz.: +Whether a subject in a hypnotic condition possesses any free will, +and whether in such a state, it is possible to transform him into a +criminal or at least, for the time being into becoming an accomplice +in crime! It is not the first time that this question has been agitated; +indeed at the very beginning of Mesmerism, as it was then +called, this idea was brought forward.</p> + +<p>It was clearly formulated by Dr. Charpignon, whose own opinion +nevertheless is, that it was “much easier to restore moral rectitude +to a somnambulist who had fallen therefrom, than to pervert +the integrity of character of a woman of high moral standing.” In +1866 Dr. Liébeault, in his work on, “Sleep and Kindred States of +Being,” of which at that time there were but six copies sold, coincides +entirely with this opinion. The passage is too noticeable, not +to be quoted in its entirety. (P. 524.)</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We may postulate, as a first principle, that a subject during the state of magnetic +sleep, is at the mercy of the hypnotiser. I have made experiments that have +confirmed me in this opinion; I have many a time, removed the hats of such persons, +searched their pockets, drawn off the rings from their fingers, untied their +shoes, etc., ... without their having noticed the action at all, or having made the +least resistance, the isolation into which I had thrown them, being the cause of +this absence of all consciousness....</p> + +<p>“How very grave, the possibilities, are which may ensue from this state of +being, we may readily conceive! What I have advanced here, is the result of certain +experiments which I made upon a young girl, who, while being very intelligent +in her natural waking condition, became during hypnotic sleep the most cross-grained +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[364]</span>and wilful person I had ever had to deal with. Nevertheless I always ended +by mastering her will. I was able to excite in her mind the most criminal resolves; +I roused her passions to a high degree. I was able to cause her to fall into a +violent rage with a person, to fly out upon her with a knife in her hand; having +displaced in her mind the sentiment of friendship, still armed with that instrument, +I sent her to stab her best friend, whom I told her she saw in front of her; +she obeyed, the knife burying itself in the wall opposite. I almost prevailed upon +another young girl, who was however less under the influence, to kill her own +mother, and though she wept, she actually prepared to do the deed.</p> + +<p>“After all, it has been known for a fact, that a man, who, up to that moment, +was of sound mind, hearing a voice continually repeating: ‘Kill your wife. Kill +your children’—has obeyed this command, incited thereto by an irresistible impulse; +and shall the hypnotic subject already predisposed to hallucination, escape +this same involuntary impulse? I am firmly convinced, after having made many +other experiments, that a subject to whom is suggested the commission of any bad +action, will carry out the crime after his awakening, by reason of what has now become +in him a fixed idea. The most moral will become vitiated, the highest-minded +perverted.</p> + +<p>“If it has already been found possible to reform a woman of loose morals and +bring her to abandon entirely her evil courses, why cannot the reverse be effected +and by the same means? It would be in the power of the magnetiser to suggest to +his subject, not only to become a tale-bearer, a calumniator, a thief, dissolute, etc., +at some period subsequent to the magnetic sleep, but, he might use him, for example, +as the instrument of his personal vengeance and the poor dreamer, unmindful +of the primary incitement to the criminal action, would commit on another’s +account, instead of on his own, the evil deed, prompted and forced on thereto, by +the irresistible suggestion and will, imposed upon him by another person. And +when the crime shall have been consummated, where shall he find the medical +jurist, who can hold up to Justice, the torch which is to throw the Light of Truth +upon the act, and challenge the innocency of a man, who, up to the moment of the +crime never exhibited the slightest sign of insanity, had shown every mark of a +sound mind and yet, when convicted of the dreadful deed, states with every apparent +sign of good faith, that he has committed it of his own accord? And who can +tell whether such cases have not already taken place.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>These momentous words passed unnoticed. At that time, the +world did not believe in Hypnotism. M. M. Richot and Charcot +restored it to a place of honor. The School of the Salpêtrière made +its advent, and saw in Hypnotism a pathological condition. Simultaneously +with this school of thought, there arose the rival one +at Nancy, which following its leader, Dr. Liébeault, saw in hypnotism, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[365]</span>only a psychological phenomenon. One of the masters in this +school, M. Liégeois, Professor of the Faculty of Law, in 1884, in his +pamphlet on “Hypnotic Suggestion, in relation to Civil and Criminal +Law” also propounded to the public this idea of criminal suggestion.</p> + +<p>M. Liégeois, like M. Liébeault, did not confine himself merely +to theory. He went on to demonstrate and prove his thesis by conclusive +experiments.</p> + +<p>Strange to say, the Salpêtrière took issue on this point, adopting +and defending the opposite opinion.</p> + +<p>I would now ask permission to raise my own voice in this debate, +and I am the more emboldened so to do, inasmuch as my +own personal observations and the study which I have brought to +bear on this matter, have caused me to pass, so to speak, from one +rival camp to the other. The thesis upheld by the School at Nancy, +while it found in me at first an adherent, finds me to-day an adversary.</p> + +<p>Just a word about myself to the readers of <i>The Monist</i>.</p> + +<p>I have always been a believer in Magnetism. At the outset, and +until towards 1875, merely on the faith of books, later, because I had +been present at one or two more or less public exhibitions. And +it appears singular enough, that though thus imperfectly trained in +the knowledge of it, I should have explained, as I did in 1869, +the ecstasies and the stigmata of the celebrated Louise Lateau, as +coming simply from auto-suggestion; and that even to-day, there +should be neither jot nor tittle to subtract from what I then wrote, +regarding it.</p> + +<p>I only began practising magnetism at the commencement of +1886. I was returning from a visit to the Salpêtrière whither I had +been attracted by my doubts on this very transference of thought +and from which I returned with my doubts intensified. I have already +recounted, in a series of articles, that appeared in less than +a year in the <i>Revue Philosophique</i> (“Upon Memory in Hypnotic Subjects”; +“On the influence of Imitation and Education in Somnambulism, +as exhibited in the so-called hypnotic sleep”; etc.) my experiences, +observations, and inductions. Not to speak of my contributions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[366]</span>to the Magazines, and notably to the <i>Revue de l’Hypnotisme</i>, I +introduced hypnotism into the science course of the Royal Academy +of Belgium by means of two works. One, on the “Origin,” the other +on the “Extent of the Curative Effects of Hypnotism” (1887-1890). +Besides many other polemical writings in favor of the liberty of holding +public exhibitions (“Letters to M. Chiriar, Representative,” 1888. +“Magnetisers and Physicians,” 1890). I related at length what M. +Charcot and his pupils had shown me in Paris, as well as what M. +M. Liébeault, Bernheim, and Liégeois, had let me witness at Nancy +(“A Visit to the Salpêtrière,” 1886—“A Visit to the School at +Nancy,” 1889).</p> + +<p>At the time then, that I took upon myself to hypnotise, I firmly +believed that the subject became the property of the magnetiser; +passing over, as of no importance, the manifest resistances that I +met with at every point and in every form on the part of subjects, +who, in all other respects I found perfectly adapted to such experiments; +as for instance, one who permitted his tongue to be pierced +with a large darning needle by my sceptical colleague, Dr. Masius; +and to be burned several times, both with a red hot iron and by +thermocautery, by my colleague, the surgeon Von Winiwarter, both +these experiments having reference to the curative effects of hypnotism. +Thus, adhering entirely to the belief of M. M. Liébeault and +Beaunis, at the close of 1886 (“A Visit to the Salpêtrière”) I wrote +these words:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“M. Beaunis’s statement is perfectly exact. The somnambulist, in the hands +of the hypnotiser, is less than the <i>corpse</i>, which the perfect disciple of Loyola +should resemble. He is a slave, with no will other than that of his ruler, and in +order to fulfil the commands laid upon him, he will push precaution, prudence, +cunning, dissimulation and falsehood, to their extremest limits. He will open and +shut doors noiselessly, walk in his stockings; will listen and watch, with what keen +sight, what acute hearing! He will remember anything and everything you want +him to, will forget all you desire him to forget. He will, in good faith, accuse a +perfectly innocent man before a Court of justice. He will have seen everything, +that in reality he has never seen, if you command him so to do; he will have heard, +what he never could have heard and done everything that he never could have +done. He will swear by his Household Gods, that he has acted throughout, of his +own free will, without any external pressure, will invent motives if need be, and will +completely protect and cover his hypnotiser.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[367]</span></p> + +<p>“Theoretically, such a power is the most dangerous thing on the face of the +earth! I believe though, that practically, with the exception of what might relate +to physical or moral abuses or tampering with testamentary wills, there is actually +little or no danger. It appears to me the fear of this has been unduly exaggerated.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In a foot-note of mine, while mentioning with highest praise +the memoir of M. Liégeois, I added further: “I do not express +any alarm that I cannot show a good reason for.” Among other +reasons, I pondered on the difficulty, say rather, the impossibility +there is, of obtaining from the subject an absolute abnegation of will-power, +whilst at the same time we allow him to retain the necessary +free will to cope with any unforeseen accidents which might occur to +compromise the fulfilment of the thought and action suggested.</p> + +<p>Two or three months later I should not have expressed myself +thus; and hence the remarks that accompany the experiments related +in my articles on Hypnotic Consciousness, <i>Revue Philosophique</i>, +Feb., March, 1887, experiments which took place about a year +previous to this (see the note to the contributed articles, Feb. 1887, +p. 119). It may there be noticed that my assent is tempered by +certain marked reservations. I was even then opposing practice to +theory, i. e. I narrowed down these apprehensions of danger to two +legitimate causes of alarm, viz. attempts against morals, and tampering +with testamentary wills.</p> + +<p>Upon these two points I am still of the same opinion, with this +exception, that what I then feared probable, I now regard as exceedingly +problematic. I mean to say, that a villain who was contemplating +the perpetration of a crime, would not easily find an accomplice +in a subject of good moral standing. And in any case, +I still think as I thought then, that such an accomplice would not +only be inapt, but compromising. It is this latter point, I wish to +demonstrate to you, by the following criticism upon an experiment +never before published.</p> + +<p>At the end of May, of last year, I was passing through Nancy +with some friends, among whom was Dr. L. Frédéricq, Professor +of Physiology at the University of Liège. We were spending the +evening at M. Beaunis’s house together with M. M. Liébeault, Bernheim, +and Liégeois. Naturally this question of Criminal Suggestion +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[368]</span>came upon the <i>tapis</i> and was discussed in all its phases, without +advancing one step towards its solution. We made an engagement +to meet at the hospital on the following day, where M. Bernheim +invited me to be present at an experiment, which he maintained +would convince me. I will relate at length the occurrence, for in +such cases, the slightest details may acquire very great importance.</p> + +<p>M. Bernheim threw into the magnetic sleep a great, tall fellow, +quite easily influenced, and whose illness did not prevent him from +walking about in the ward.</p> + +<p>“Presently, when you have waked up, you will go and steal an +orange from the patient that you see over there, in that bed opposite. +Remember that what you are going to do is very wrong; +it is strictly forbidden by honesty and by the law, and you will run +the risk of being punished.” The man is waked. He appears to +be collecting his thoughts. He rubs his forehead, he is visibly +meditating something.</p> + +<p>“What is the matter with you? What are you thinking about?” +I ask him.</p> + +<p>“Nothing.”</p> + +<p>“You seem preoccupied.”</p> + +<p>“Well, yes, I have to do something.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“I am not obliged to render you an account of my actions.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! one would almost say you were meditating some mischief, +where are you going?”</p> + +<p>“That’s no business of yours.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! very well then, I shall watch you and follow you.”</p> + +<p>I follow him; he walks towards his companion’s bed, glances +at the orange, then leaning up against the window, he calls me to +admire some cherries growing on a potted plant. He keeps quite +still. Why? Simply because I had told him that I intended to +watch him, <i>otherwise my presence would not have troubled him in the +least</i>. During this time, M. Bernheim had acquainted the other +patient with the intended proceeding, he nevertheless having heard +the whole transaction. “I do not think he will do it,” said he to the +Doctor, “he is one of my mates and he wouldn’t steal from me.” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[369]</span>I walk away and join the group of persons present. I say to M. +Beaunis, that this experiment will prove nothing, he answers me by +a gesture of surprise. The subject, as soon as he sees me go away +and <i>thinks that I am not watching him any more</i>, stretches out his +hand, seizes the orange that is behind his mate’s pillow, <i>the latter +meanwhile looking full at him</i>. A score for M. Bernheim, but one +also for M. Delbœuf! I should need twenty pages at least of commentary +on this experiment. But I shall only allow myself to point +out the essential points.</p> + +<p>This hypnotised subject then, or to speak more correctly, +this man to whom a thought has been suggested, after I had warned +him that I was watching him, and from whom I never took my eye, +goes with the unerringness, so to speak, “of the falling stone,” to +carry out the suggested action, not however without a certain distrust +of me, and this only, because he had been forewarned. And +moreover in his dim consciousness, it is I alone, whom he is watching +in that clumsy fashion, in order to seize upon some momentary forgetfulness +on my part. He has never noticed at all, that his mate is +intently watching him and following his every movement with open +eyes; so he steals the orange from under his very nose! Let us +not forget that it was M. Bernheim the house physician, who suggested +to him to take the orange. But M. Frédéricq himself would +equally well have fulfilled that command, even preceded as it was +by the little homily, recorded above. Why should he have disobliged +M. Bernheim? But indeed, the logic of my opponents is +very weak. If, say they, a somnambulist resists criminal suggestion, +it is because he is not a susceptible subject, or, that the experiment +has been ill conducted, or, that the suggestion has not +been strong enough. At that rate, it is useless to continue experimenting, +if failure is always to be explained away. On my side, I +might with equal reason, argue, that they had been dealing with +some licentious mind, as yet all unknowing its inner self, or with a +born criminal or a latent thief; and though I object to this kind of +argument, it would often prove to be more legitimate reasoning than +theirs. Who among us is absolutely virtuous? How many actions +which the law calls criminal have we committed, or might we commit, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[370]</span>under the pressure of circumstances, without a shadow of remorse? +But let us further examine this experiment.</p> + +<p>Our subject then put the orange in his trousers’ pocket which +stuck out very noticeably. This man might be a criminal, but he +was not a dissembler. Looking him straight in the face I said: +“What have you been doing?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing, I have just done my errand.”</p> + +<p>“You have stolen!”</p> + +<p>“What nonsense!”</p> + +<p>“What have you got in your pocket?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing” (notice the absurdity of this reply).</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing!”</p> + +<p>“What do you call that?”</p> + +<p>“Why! it’s an orange! it’s a very fine orange! <i>Ma foi!</i> I can’t +imagine how it came there!”</p> + +<p>M. Bernheim intervenes: “You took it from a fellow-patient, +from a comrade! That was very wrong.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s so, but I wanted it. Look! did you ever see such +a fine orange? I took a fancy to it and I determined to have it. +Besides, <i>he hadn’t seen it</i>(!) It’s not stealing when it isn’t missed.”</p> + +<p>Then I asked: “What is that you said?”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes, it is not stealing to take what nobody misses,” +answers he, with a scarce perceptible cunning and significant wink.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later, after we had ceased noticing him, he came +up to M. Frédéricq of his own accord laughingly told him that he +was in the habit of abstracting tobacco from his companions on this +same ground, that if they never missed it, it was not stealing. “It +is all in fun, you know!”</p> + +<p>I conclude therefore, that this subject had in him latent tendencies +to theft, or if you prefer it, to pilfering. And dare any of us, +honestly confess to himself that we have not, deep down in ourselves, +the germs of any such vices? Who among the most upright of us, +does not consider himself perfectly entitled to defraud the government, +or to get the better of a Railway Company, or quietly to appropriate +an object which he may casually find?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[371]</span></p> + +<p>M. Liégeois will very likely say to me: “We will grant that +this experiment has not fulfilled the desired requirements; the subject +has not very high moral qualities, and he juggled a little. But +here now, are some experiments absolutely unimpeachable.” Thereupon +M. Liégeois relates the histories of Miss E..., of N..., of +Mme. G..., and of Mme. C... Here are the facts as collated +by him in the Gouffe trial.</p> + +<p><i>First narrative.</i> M. Liégeois believed that he had produced in +Miss E... such absolute automatism, so complete an annihilation +of moral sense and of all liberty of action, that he caused her, without +moving a muscle, to place the muzzle of a revolver close to her +mother and fire upon her. The youthful criminal appeared completely +awake and far calmer than were the witnesses of this scene. +(Take notice of this.) Her mother, immediately reproaching her +and telling her that she might have killed her, Miss E... answers +smiling, with a great deal of common sense: “I have not killed you, +since you are speaking to me now.”—“Is any one likely to believe +that this is merely pretence and acting,” adds M. Liégeois, “that a +daughter will amuse herself by firing at her mother with a revolver, +<i>which she does not know is not loaded</i>, simply to deceive the public?”</p> + +<p>Well, shall I say it? The hypothesis of simulation, the simulation +which is practised in the hypnotic state appears to me to be +the only plausible explanation. The calm, smiling attitude of Miss +E... is an unanswerable proof of this. I have no doubt that if in +a dream she had seen herself firing at her mother, she would have +suffered as in a terrible nightmare.</p> + +<p>Lately, it was in the beginning of January, I dreamed I was +present at a sale of paintings. Among others exposed for sale, there +was a long picture, nineteen or twenty feet high and less than three +feet wide, representing the assumption of some saint. Hardly had +the auctioneer mentioned the price, 6,000 francs, than I made a +sign of assent. It is knocked down to me. I start for home with my +purchase, but on the way I am seized with remorse. Where shall +I hang the religious picture? And even if I find a place for it on +the staircase what will it look like in my house, with its old black +frame and its extraordinary dimensions? And what a price to have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[372]</span>paid, at such a moment when the house bills are pouring in! In the +midst of these reflections, I woke up, my heart was beating tumultuously +and during the remainder of the night I continued under the +most disagreeable impressions. In spite of my knowing that I was +awake and reasoning with myself, congratulating myself that it was +nothing but a dream, the enormity of my absurd action weighed +upon my mind and I kept continually dreading the reproaches of +my family, when they should learn the stupid bargain I had made. +How widely different is this mental distress from the placid, smiling +condition of Miss E... and how naturally one is brought to suppose +that during the hypnotic state the subject is not even under the +sway of the ordinary illusions of dreamland.</p> + +<p>M. Liégeois affirms that Miss E... <i>was not aware that the +pistol was not loaded</i>. I do not believe it. Upon what grounds are +we to infer that a somnambulist is an imbecile? You and I, and +everybody would easily surmise that M. Liégeois’s revolver was not +loaded! Then why should not Miss E... surmise the same? Is it +not for the very reason that he handed it to her, to fire at her mother, +that she would opine as much? Might she not have gathered this +from the attitude of the spectators, full of expectancy unmixed by +any apprehension? and might she not have wished to astonish them +by her docility and <i>sang-froid</i>? All sorts of suppositions are both rational +and possible. Besides all this, somnambulists who are absorbed +in the work in hand, generally speaking, show a quicker and +surer perspicuity; their sensibilities are finer, their quickness, their +memory, overstep the ordinary limits as exhibited in their normal +state. Do we not hear of scholars, who in the hypnotic sleep, learn +their lessons in a very short time and write their essays admirably? +I have recorded in the <i>Revue Philosophique</i>, August, 1886, some facts +about a subject, upon whom I experimented before one of my classes.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The experiment I am about to give an account of might serve very well as +the explanation of many a miracle. B.⁠<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> is in the hypnotic sleep. We wish to give +him some peculiar order, which he shall execute, after he is awake, at a special +signal. The signal is to be a knock given by me on the desk; the action, to carry a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[373]</span>glass of water (a carafe of water and glass being on a chair) to the student Eucher. He +does not know any of the fifteen students present, nor has he yet heard their names. +The pupils take their places, without any special order, some standing, some sitting. +B. is awakened. We chat a little. I give the signal. B. rises, fills a glass, and <i>without +the slightest sign of hesitation</i>, carries it to the student mentioned before, who was +sitting on one of the back benches, beside a fellow student. We looked at each +other with stupefaction. The intention of the experiment had been, to see how he +would obey an obscure command. There were in my audience, certain persons, +with leanings toward belief in second-sight. This result seemed to overthrow all +my convictions. I again throw him into the sleep, and I command him to carry a +glass of water to the student Gérard; we are all standing, awaiting with impatient curiosity +what will take place. B. fills the glass and this time sends a questioning look +over all the spectators, presents the glass first to one, then to another, and finally I +had to point out the student Gérard, to whom he brought the water and made him +drink it. I again put him to sleep, and asked him to whom he carried the first glass of +water. To M. Eucher—Did you know him? No—How did you recognise him?—By +his attitude, he looked as if he wanted to hide away.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And this is how the mystery was solved. We had unconsciously +prepared the scene, and it was this preparation which betrayed us. +But it is none the less a remarkable example of the perspicuity +shown by somnambulists. This goes to prove that hypnosis, instead +of dulling the understanding, sharpens it.</p> + +<p>The second of M. Liégeois’s experiments appears to me quite +as open to suspicion, and exactly for the same reasons.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I offered N. a white powder, of the nature of which he is ignorant; I said to him: +‘Pay great attention to what I am about to tell you. This paper contains arsenic. +You will go presently to such a street to your Aunt’s Mme. M. <i>who is here now</i>. You +will take a glass of water, carefully dissolve the arsenic in it and then you will offer +it to your Aunt.’ ‘Yes Sir’—That evening I received the following note from Mme. M.: +‘Mme. M. begs leave to inform M. Liégeois that the experiment succeeded perfectly. +Her nephew offered her the poison.’ The criminal remembered nothing about it, +and it was very difficult to persuade him that he had indeed wished to poison an Aunt +for whom he had a deep affection. The automatism had been complete.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I cannot help seeing here an erroneous line of reasoning. They +conclude, from the absence of all remembrance, that the somnambulist +is an automaton, and from this they go on to deduce that he +swallows everything that is said to him. But, since he listens to the +voice of his hypnotiser; since he knows that to accomplish the behest, +he must do things that have not been expressly pointed out, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[374]</span>though they are understood in the execution of the deed:—such as +to get the water from a well or pump—why do they not allow that +he is able also to reflect upon the nature of the deed which he is told +to do? Why is it that N..., who is aware that he is being used in +an experiment, cannot say to himself during his hypnotic state, that +this is only an experiment, that the paper does not contain arsenic, +that M. Liégeois never would really want him to poison his aunt, +<i>his aunt who is present at the time, and who hears every word</i>?</p> + +<p>I repeat again, a hypnotic subject is not an idiot—quite the +reverse. All the precaution which M. Liégeois takes to render the +experiments reliable and conclusive, turns against the proof desired. +Can you imagine the poisoner, Dr. Castaing, saying to his servant +before Hypolite Ballet, whom he intended to kill, “Here is some +poisoned wine, you will presently give it to the sick man, whom +you see over there in that bed.” If he had done this, he would not +have been condemned to lose his head, but they would simply have +shut him up in a lunatic asylum. And, as far as that goes, the servant +might easily, without any suspicion being attached to the action, have +given the poison to Hypolite Ballet, and the latter have drunk it.</p> + +<p>But we have dallied long enough over these absurd suppositions. +Let us pass on now to the third narrative:</p> + +<p>M. Liégeois caused Mme. G... to fire at M. P..., an ex-magistrate. +In order to show clearly that the revolver was loaded, M. +Liégeois fired a shot in the garden and came in, showing a piece of +card-board, through which the ball had passed. “With absolute +unconsciousness and perfect docility Mme. G... advances to M. +P... and fires. Being questioned on the spot by the Chief Magistrate +(who was present at the <i>séance</i>) she avows the crime with entire +indifference. She has killed M. P... <i>because he was not pleasing +to her</i>(!) They can arrest her; she knows quite well what awaits +her. If they take away her life, she will pass into the other world like +her victim, whom she sees stretched out, and bathed in his own blood. +They ask her whether it was not I who suggested to her the idea of +the murder. She denies it, and says she did it spontaneously; that +she alone is guilty; she is resigned to her fate, she will accept without +complaint the consequences of her deed.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[375]</span></p> + +<p>The more I meditate to-day upon these experiments, the less +they appear to me to prove what it is desired they should. This +perfect tranquillity of Mme. G..., her generosity in not inculpating +M. Liégeois; her resignation to the fate that awaits her, establish +entirely the fact that she is present in mind and knowledge of events; +and just because of this very attitude, that she possesses her full presence +of mind. She never dreamed for an instant that she would +really kill M. P.... She plays her part conscientiously, she faithfully +recites a lesson which she has learned by heart and with which +she intermingles side play of her own, childish tricks, as for instance, +saying that <i>her victim had displeased her</i>. Let us recall to mind +the patient who stole an orange, <i>because it was a fine one</i>. That +Mme. G.... sees M. P.... bathed in his own blood, is more than +doubtful. I can produce numberless proofs of facts that go to prove +that fictitious somnambulists are not dupes of the illusions suggested +to them; their calmness proves this. That it is possible to make +them commit an action dangerous to themselves or to others, I am +not prepared to deny. I will explain myself later upon this point. +But from this state, to that of criminal participation, there is an incalculable +distance.</p> + +<p>That the somnambulist repeats a lesson that he has learned, is +shown forth by M. Liégeois’s fourth narrative.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Mme. C.... was to give some arsenic in a liquid to M. D.... who was thirsty. +But M. D.... asked a question that I had not foreseen; he asked what was in the +glass. With a frankness that precluded all idea of simulation Mme. C.... answered +‘Arsenic.’</p> + +<p>“I was then obliged to amend my suggestion, and I said: ‘If you are asked +what is in the glass, say it is sweetened water.’</p> + +<p>“Mme. C.... answered the question the second time, ‘Sweetened water.’</p> + +<p>“Very courageously M. D.... swallowed the supposed poison. Questioned by +the Chief Magistrate Mme. C. remembers nothing; she had seen nothing, done +nothing, given no drink to any one. She does not know what they are talking about.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Again all this is proof to me, that Mme. C. feels that she is being +told to perform an innocent action. It would have been interesting +to have awakened her in the middle of the act, to see whether she +would have remembered her thoughts, just at the moment when she +was giving the drink to M. D.... I am not sure but that she would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[376]</span>have answered like Miss E... that she had no doubt the poison +was imaginary, and the scene prearranged.</p> + +<p>We have seen M. D... ask an unforeseen question, which upset +the carrying out of the crime. We have witnessed M. Bernheim’s +patient steal an orange under the nose of its proprietor, who +was looking at him. Admitting, therefore, that all had been foreseen, +that M. Liégeois had warned Mme. C... of all the possible +questions that might be put to her; that M. Bernheim had strongly +recommended his subject to commit his theft secretly, and that every +possible detail had been perfectly carried out—should we have even +then a faithful transcript of a crime? Can we have the unerring +certitude from these occurrences, that a subject in the hypnotic +sleep, a bona fide somnambulist will allow himself to be used as an +accomplice by a veritable criminal?</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In the preceding paragraphs, I carefully analysed the slightest +details invalidating experiments, in which the hypnotic subject acts +the part of a criminal, in a fictitious crime. I was able to show, +that in all these tests, there had been certain suspicious traits suggesting +doubt as to the complete illusion of the actor therein, and I +finally added: Supposing that everything had worked smoothly, +i. e. that everything had been foreseen and that the subject had +not been tripped up anywhere, are we authorised in maintaining that +a subject thus far unimpeachable as regards a fictitious crime, would +accomplish this same deed in reality? I answer, No.</p> + +<p>In order to justify this denial, it will be necessary for us to enter +into the Psychology of Hypnosis.</p> + +<p>A person in the hypnotic sleep, as well as in the natural sleep, +is not so absolutely withdrawn from the real world about him as is +generally supposed. The hypnotic subject even less so, than the +sleeper, for the former remains in intelligent communication with +his magnetiser. If the latter tells him to take a book from a table +upon which is an inkstand, some boxes, a statuette, he will pick up +the book and not any of the other objects. If he is enjoined to +walk straight before him in a room encumbered with chairs he will +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[377]</span>manage to avoid them, and even if the illusion is pushed further he +may knock up against them, but the action will be done quite cautiously. +And this is why, in public séances, he never hurts himself, +in spite of the wildness and apparent excitement of his movements. +This is also the reason, that in experiments intended to demonstrate +this absolute automatism, the preparation for the proposed crime, +the attitude of the spectators, while the subject is carrying out his +part, the integrity of the person who is suggesting the action, the +calmness of the intended victim; all these things, render the suggestion +less illusive than even an ordinary dream would be.</p> + +<p>M. Liégeois asks this question at the conclusion of his first +narrative: “Where is the spectator, who could believe that this +scene was only a melodrama with clever acting; and that a daughter +for her amusement, and solely to deceive an audience, would fire an +unloaded revolver at her mother?” To this I answer: And why +should she not play her part in this melodrama, when she sees M. +Liégeois devise it, her mother lend her co-operation, and the audience +watch it with curiosity and interest?</p> + +<p>Here again we find the same fallacy in the argument: Because +a subject does not reveal what is going on within himself, and only +puts into visible speech what is suggested to him, it is taken for +granted that he is going through a mental process identical with that +of his magnetiser. But allow me to ask in my turn: Will it be easily +credited, that a daughter, would, deliberately and without a trace +of feeling, shoot at her mother, unless, she fully believed the action +would have no serious consequences, and that the person who had +suggested this impious deed, was only requiring her to act a part?</p> + +<p>Hypnotic subjects do not take long to realise that they are being +used as tests in experiments. Some are always gracious in responding +to them, many end by refusing to lend themselves to be +used in such fashion, especially in public séances. All these details +go far to prove that in hypnosis, the subjects retain, at least a +partial independence.</p> + +<p>If a sleeper, who dreamed he was murdering his mother, should +behold her terrified, beseeching, invoking the pity of her son, calling +for help to the horrified spectators, he would feel that he was induced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[378]</span>to commit this deed by some sort of motive, which, absurd or +unlikely though it might be, would still be the controlling power; in +a word, the dream would be in reality a kind of incoherent and unreal +drama, though composed of very real elements, in which horror +would play a very present part. But if he should see his ostensible +victim smiling and conversing with him amidst a company animated +only by a sentiment of curiosity, he might well suspect, even in his +sleep, that what he sees and what he is doing, is a pure delusion. +And this is exactly what he would say to himself, should it come into +his head to fire upon a <i>magistrate</i>, and for the reason <i>that his looks +displeased him</i>.</p> + +<p>These prearranged scenes fail in verisimilitude and no more +deceive the actors in them, than they do the spectators or the author.</p> + +<p>To this you may object: But, if the pistol had been loaded, Miss +E. would have shot her mother! This rests upon the supposition that +the mother and the spectators, still believed it to be unloaded, otherwise, +their terror alone, would have been quite sufficient to call back +the subject to the reality. And even with this assumption, this +murder-test would have borne a greater resemblance to a simple +homicide from imprudence. By this I mean to say, that so far as +the spectators, the victim, and the assassin were concerned, the act +would not have been changed in its character, simply because the +magnetiser, had by mistake, given a loaded instead of an unloaded +pistol to the subject. I need hardly remark that a real crime would +never be perpetrated in this manner.</p> + +<p>Thoroughly convinced though I was, of the impossibility of +making experiments that would entirely fathom this question, circumstances +nevertheless, allowed me once more to make a test +which is well adapted to show that it is not as easy as some may +think, to transform an hypnotic subject into a murderous automaton.</p> + +<p>J... is that excellent somnambulist to whom my experiments +have given a certain notoriety. It is she together with her sister, +whom I made use of in my studies on “Memory in Hypnosis,” on +“Imitation,” and “Hypnotic Consciousness.” She it is, who three +several times allowed herself to be experimented upon by blistering +on corresponding parts of the body; and notably in one case where +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[379]</span>in accordance with suggestion no inflammation took place.⁠<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> She is +tall, robust, intelligent, industrious, healthy. She is now married +and has had a child. The <i>accouchement</i> took place in the hypnotic +sleep. The case being in the hands of M. Fraipont, Professor of +Obstetrics in the University of Liège; and never was the power of +hypnotism more remarkably exhibited.⁠<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> In the case of this patient +there remained no trace of remembrance whatever, after awakening.</p> + +<p>I have gone into these details merely to show the reader that +no better subject could have been found for my purpose. I have in +another place (see <i>Revue Philosophique</i>, article on “Hypnotic Consciousness”) +pointed out certain traits in her case, which at my +<i>début</i>, were strongly calculated to make me a believer in the absolute +servility of the hypnotic subject; traits which I shall subsequently +recall to your attention and comment upon.</p> + +<p>To judge more fairly of the value of the experiment, I must +further state, that J. is both resolute and courageous. During several +summers she remained in the country in the environs of Seraing +in attendance upon my wife who was in ill-health, and in whose +room she slept. After the summer vacation it often happened that +she spent the whole night alone with her. At the head of the bed +hung a six-barrelled revolver, loaded; a precaution that we had +taken on account of the well-known strikes which took place in 1886, +amongst the workmen of the numerous factories in our neighborhood.</p> + +<p>In the summer of 1887 I happened to be absent. A man came +one night, prowling round the garden and fumbling at the lock of +the door, which he even tried to force. The barking of the dogs +wakened J., she opened the window, perceived the man, took the +revolver and went down into the hall watching for the moment in +which to fire at the nocturnal visitor. The man hearing the noise +slipped away with celerity. And the same year that this occurrence +took place, J. slept on the first floor with her loaded revolver hanging +on a nail beside her bed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[380]</span></p> + +<p>The 24th Feb. 1888, without communicating my intentions to +anybody except to my daughter, and that only at the very moment +of beginning the experiment, I discharged the revolver. It was six +o’clock in the evening. A young lady, (herself an hypnotic subject,) +and my daughter, were seated at a table, cutting out articles from +a newspaper, which they afterwards tied up in bundles. I called J. +and at the moment she opened the door, I hypnotised her by a motion. +I said to her in an agitated tone—“Here are some thieves, +who are carrying off papers.”—J. came quickly forward and turning +towards me said: “No sir, they are playing with them—Why sure +enough they are taking them.” Then she walked resolutely up to +them and tore the papers out of their hands, put them on the table +in front of her and in an imperious tone said: “Don’t you touch +them any more.”</p> + +<p>I—“You are never going to let those knaves remain in the house—run +and fetch the revolver” (it was in the adjoining room). J. ran +without hesitation. She returned holding the weapon in her hand +and stood on the threshold. “Fire,” cried I.</p> + +<p>“Sir, we must not kill them.”</p> + +<p>“Thieves? Why certainly!”</p> + +<p>“No sir! I will not kill them.”</p> + +<p>“You must.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t do it.” And she walked backwards still holding the +revolver, I following her and energetically reiterating my command. +“I won’t. I won’t do it. I will not murder.” She then placed the +revolver on the floor but <i>cautiously</i>. She continued to go backwards, +I, meanwhile insisting and following her. “I will not do it.”—Having +come to a dead stand in the corner of the room, she repulsed +me violently and I thought it prudent to awaken her, upon which +she came to herself smiling in her usual pleasant manner. She remembered, +however, nothing whatever, although at the sight of the +revolver lying on the floor, she seemed to have a kind of vague recollection. +She did not seem at all discomposed in manner. If this +scene had taken place in a dream, she would certainly have exhibited +more excitement.</p> + +<p>This is what we may term conclusive evidence, that is to say if +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[381]</span>ever negative evidence can be called so. Let us comment now upon +these facts.</p> + +<p>It will be noticed that J. is not the dupe of the hallucination to +which she has been subjected. She does not take either of the young +ladies for thieves, nor the newspapers for valuable papers. Her first +answer is very significant—“No sir, they are playing with them.” +Besides which her expression, her attitude, the manner in which she +looked at the two reputed thieves, and tore the newspapers out of +their hands, had something so keenly observant, so prepared, so +theatrical, that both my witnesses and myself could not possibly believe +her actions ingenuous. I have often questioned her about the +illusions that I suggested to her. I asked her for example, if, when +I appeared to her under another aspect, for instance under the appearance +of a young man, with clustering locks and a black beard, +she ever perceived anything of my real resemblance. She invariably +answered, that she saw my actual person, as it were in a cloud, behind +the figure which I had called up before her mental vision. It +is very probable that she recognised my daughter and her friend in +the persons whom I pointed out as the robbers. I might have assured +myself of this by causing her to recall her thoughts at the +time. I am aware that the opponents of this opinion challenge, and +not unreasonably, tests made in this manner because they have +doubts about the suggestion.</p> + +<p>If then the facts were such as are related, J. was playing a rôle +not perhaps strictly in accordance with the rules of ordinary acting, +knowing that she was reciting a part, but feeling nevertheless that +she had a certain part to play and must enter into the spirit of it.</p> + +<p>It is incontrovertible that the hypnotic subject really does play +his part in precisely this fashion. When, for example, you extend +his arm and defy him to put it down he seems to make an effort to +lower it, but in reality he does not bring the required muscles into +play at all. If you bid him keep his hand open, he never dreams of +using the flexor muscles. Again, if the spectators try to change +the position of either hand or arm, they meet with energetic resistance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[382]</span></p> + +<p>You will ask me how it was that J. did not carry out her acting +all through? Why, after she had gone for the revolver with such +deliberation, she did not fire it? It was because, the action being +so rapid in its development, she had no time for reflection; she +must have thought and she actually did believe, that the revolver +was loaded as it always was. This is proved by the precaution with +which she handled it and put it on the floor. It is evident that she +thought it was a dangerous game. If I had known how the affair +would terminate, I would have taken the pistol and told her that I +would fire myself, in order to see what her thought and action would +have been. But notwithstanding all this, supposing she had fired +could we have concluded from this, that she really had latent murderous +tendencies? We could not have drawn any legitimate conclusions +even yet. For if, as we have just stated, J. was not entirely +withdrawn from her actual surroundings, she might naturally suppose +that I was only joking, and that I should never make her fire +on my own child, and on this account she need not feel any anxiety +in fulfilling the order that I had given her.</p> + +<p>The problem is a serious one. It is also a psychological problem. +I have already partially disclosed the solution which I myself +am led to give to it, and I can best translate my thoughts by these +words and in the following formula: Persons in hypnosis will only +execute acts similar to those they would naturally perform in dreams. +I have asked a number of persons, among others, those connected +with the law, whether they had ever dreamt they committed murders +or robberies, and up to the present time all have answered in the +negative. And yet, lawyers interrogate criminals, and it would be +quite within the realm of possibility through one of those duplications +of personality which I pointed out in my work on “Sleep and +Dreams,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> that they should take up for an instant the rôle of an +assassin. This is not an impossible supposition. Does it ever happen +that the novelist or the actor, in portraying or impersonating an +infamous character, the creation of his imagination, does so identify +himself for the nonce, with his own invention, that even in sleep, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[383]</span>for a brief space, he incorporates himself, so to speak, into the fictitious +personage he has evoked. There are some very curious +investigations to make on this subject. But even if any positive +facts could be gathered from this, we should still be left in doubt, +as to whether by post-hypnotic suggestion the subject would continue +to carry out the same rôle.</p> + +<p>Doubtless, an anatomist may dream that he is dissecting a body, +but could we produce an hypnotic condition such as to make him +use the knife as freely upon a living body? Can I make a butcher +believe that a child is a sheep? I consider the thing to be perfectly +feasible, yet my thesis is not at all weakened by this concession. +We will take it for granted that, animated by evil designs you proceed +to hypnotise beforehand, the anatomist and the butcher, and +then bring them at a given moment to the victim! And let us further +imagine that the combination succeeds perfectly. How will +you manage to veil in deepest secrecy all your previous manœuvres +and cast a semblance of likelihood over the culpability of your accomplices?</p> + +<p>Will not the old adage, <i>Cui bono</i>, be quoted against you? In +order to insure perfect impunity, you would have to overcome such +an accumulation of material <i>impedimenta</i>, the lightest of which would +suffice to dissipate all apprehensions in the minds of those in whom +chimerical fears have not entirely obliterated their common sense. +It is therefore evident that in so far as we know now, from experiments +intended to test this theory and these possibilities of Criminal +Suggestion, no positive results can be obtained. These criminal +actions, so appositely named—Laboratory Crimes—bear no resemblance +to actual ones.</p> + +<p>If this debate is ever to be closed it can only be before a +Criminal Court when a Troppman, a Pranzini, or an Eyraud, shall +have been the operator, and it shall have been clearly shown, +what interest the assassin had in making use of a so-called, unconscious +and automatic accomplice. Then only, shall we be able to +appreciate to what degree hypnotism may become a dangerous +enemy to society at large. And even then, we shall have to remind +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[384]</span>ourselves that all our medicines are poisons and that they have the +power of destroying even more surely, than that of healing.</p> + +<p>Thus the problem is still unsolved.</p> + +<p>Here is a story told me by Dr. Liébeault. He, or perhaps it +was M. Bernheim, or both together, hypnotised a workman and told +him to steal a couple of little plaster figures, that were used as ornaments +on the mantel-piece in a house where he was working. He +did so. The affair had been forgotten for some time because the +suggestion had not been carried out on the spot. About three +months after the occurrence, this same workman was arrested for +stealing a pair of trousers from the front of a shop. Upon which +the previous hypnotic suggestion was remembered.</p> + +<p>My opinion is that the workman—and how many there are of +the same calibre—had a very slight regard for <i>meum and tuum</i>. This +reminds us of that hospital patient, whom we saw pilfering the tobacco +from his comrades, and I do not think it was at all necessary +to have thrown the workman into the hypnotic sleep in order to +make him steal the statuettes. But from another point of view, this +experiment, which did not prove anything, might give rise to party +arguments from those who deem it desirable to maintain that it was +the initiatory suggestion that first gave this man the taste for stealing.</p> + +<p>To sum up in a few words this portion of my investigation; the +result of my experiments and of my analyses is this: that the experiments +of my opponents prove nothing.</p> + +<p>For the present I shall confine myself to this purely negative +conclusion.</p> + +<p>But there are other grounds besides experiments on which we +may examine this question. We can do so by careful observation +and minute analysis of the actions of hypnotised persons.</p> + +<p>I have said before that the degree of morality observable in the +dreams of the subject, gives the measure of what may be expected +from him during hypnosis.</p> + +<p>According to my opinion, hypnotism is less powerful in inciting +to actions of grave moral import, than the corrupting influence of +word or example, the love of gold, or the excitement of the passions.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[385]</span></p> + +<p>All truly scientific experiments have brought into prominence +the analogy between physiological and incited dreams, and to-day +we may say that this is the doctrine of the future. Thus if an hypnotic +subject admits without opposition that he is made of sugar, or +of glass, that he feels he is melting in the rain, or being broken to +atoms by the awkwardness of the bystanders; if he thinks he is a +lamp, or allows himself to be trundled along like a wheelbarrow; +if such a subject, I repeat, refuses to steal a purse, or to receive an +embrace, the conclusion forces itself upon one that the hypnotic +subject has more power over himself than some persons would wish +us to believe; in spite of his docility, there are some things he absolutely +refuses to do.</p> + +<p>If then, reasoning by analogy has ever been legitimate, it is +surely so in this case, when the inference can be drawn that the man +who refuses to give a blow will refuse to use a knife; and that the +woman who refuses to give a token of affection will certainly refuse +to allow of serious tampering with morals.</p> + +<p>Let us then pay close attention to what observation may +teach us.</p> + +<p>I shall hope to be able to demonstrate by actual facts, that persons +in an hypnotic condition, preserve at least a sufficient portion of +their intelligence, their reason, together with freedom of action, to +prevent them from committing deeds that neither their conscience +nor their habits approve of.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">J. Delbœuf.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> A lad of about 15, very bright. Has been one of Donato’s subjects. Very susceptible +and having been hypnotised in a great many public séances.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> See my pamphlet on <i>The Origin of Curative Effects in Hypnotism</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> See <i>Revue de L’Hypnotisme</i>. April, 1891.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> <i>Sleep and Dreams</i>, p. 24 et seqq. (Paris: Félix Alcan).</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[386]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="LITERARY_CORRESPONDENCE_III">LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE</h3> + +</div> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="FRANCE_III">I.<br> +<span class="smaller">FRANCE.</span></h4> + +<p>When, some ten years ago, M. de Roberty published in the +<i>Review of Positive Philosophy</i> a series of articles, under the +title of the “New and the Old Philosophy,” I was much impressed +by the work. The conception of the three types; the idealistic, +the materialistic, and the sensualistic, under which nomenclature he +ranged the various philosophic systems, seemed to bring order into +the history of philosophy. He also proceeded to treat, after the +same manner and in a very happy way, the “law of the three states” +of Auguste Comte, by this means rectifying and justifying the +latter. The law of the three states, wrote M. de Roberty, corresponds +with the present state of philosophy, which is again explained +by science, so that to whatever measure knowledge may attain to, it +will be equalled by philosophy, which borrows its types and its +characteristics from the sequence of facts, at the point where it +leaves the sphere of explanatory hypotheses.</p> + +<p>Since then <span class="smcap">M. de Roberty</span> has completed by a new study, his +first work on this subject. In the “Unknown” he has laid his finger +on one of the weak points of modern positivism; perhaps by +dint of searching into details, he has shown himself a little too severe +on Comte in the book about which I am going to speak to-day, +<i>The Philosophy of the Century</i> (<i>La Philosophie du Siècle.</i>).</p> + +<p>This book contains a thoughtful criticism of the three doctrines +that occupy contemporaneous thought; and which are: criticism, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[387]</span>positivism, and evolutionism. He considers these in conformance to +his <i>criterium</i>, as simply the varieties of one single species and the absolutely +identical manifestation of a common fund of beliefs and hypotheses +held generally by all. According to him critical philosophy +derives its direct origin from idealism. Positive philosophy, from +materialism; and the philosophy of evolution from sensualism. +Going further still, he considers critical philosophy as the legitimate +outcome of sensualistic idealism; and positive philosophy, similarly, +as the product of sensualistic materialism. Sensualism is thus +the common ancestor; the three systems inter-penetrating each +other. But the promoters of these systems must be judged with +equity, put back into their proper places, and ranged according to +their epochs. In my opinion, a philosophical doctrine is valuable, +not so much by the clear solutions it affords us, as by its methods of +procedure, may I say, even by the coloring it gives to thoughtful +minds.</p> + +<p>I do not hesitate to recognise in Kant, the strong, rough-handed +workman of modern philosophy; in Comte, the most utilitarian; in +Spencer the subtlest as well as the most successful. Kant possesses +the greatest speculative vigor; Comte, the clearest scientific turn +of mind; Spencer, the keenest conception of, and insight into, psychological +subjects. Taking these philosophers as a whole, Spencer, +in spite of his merits, appears to me the least original, the least remarkable +of the three. His universal metaphysics has feet of clay. +The classification of the sciences that he wished to substitute for +that of Comte is obscure, devoid of general utility; in short the +influence of Comte on succeeding generations will be more considerable +than Spencer’s, if indeed there are any philosophers who will +be bold enough to avow themselves deliberately as Comtists.</p> + +<p>This contradiction should not surprise us. It not seldom happens +that the influence of a master continues even when his doctrines +have suffered shipwreck. We notice this in the great schools +of thought of the present day. We may say with truth, that the +criticists are inclined to dialectics; the positivists, to methods and +systems; the evolutionists to facts. The first excel in the analysis +of ideas, but they expose themselves to be lost in abstractions. The +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[388]</span>second endeavor to reduce to a system all scientific matter, but they +run the risk of being either rigorists or becoming too elementary. +The last while making rapid strides in the genesis of the subtler +phenomena of life, incur the danger of accepting arbitrary <i>liaisons</i>, +or of remaining in an inchoate condition. Each one possesses most +valuable qualities, which it would be desirable indeed to meet with +in the same mind. Each has rendered services which it is but just +to recognise and which it would be unwise to disregard.</p> + +<p>The main thing is always to be able to understand one another +upon the question of what philosophy means and its relation to +science. What M. de Roberty cares most for, in all his writings, +is the elucidation of this problem. We must concede, that it is one +which is worth striving after. And it is surely not asking too much +if we demand of every philosopher, that he shall know, more or +less, what is meant by philosophising.</p> + +<p>Philosophy will be, in the future, very much what it has always +been in the past, a general <i>conception of the world</i>. This is a fixed +fact for M. de Roberty. Is it true that philosophy preceded science, +or, that on the contrary it has always been and will continue to be +subsidiary to it? Many are, we know, partisans of the first opinion; +it has seemed to them that the sciences have separated little by little +from the hazy and indistinct conglomerate which bore the name of +theology, metaphysics, in a word, of philosophy. M. de Roberty +does not hesitate to adopt the contrary opinion. Philosophy, according +to him, has always sprung from science, it has always been +the equal of science. But though he proclaims this equality as existing +between science and philosophy, this does not in the least +oblige him to recognise any equality in their manifestations “in +history.” The knowledge of a given science, implies a certain <i>conception +of the world</i>; this is the supreme law of philosophical evolution. +Philosophy is an abstract science of general interest, having +for its end, the integration of the documentary evidence furnished +by the various sciences. Comte was strongly imbued with this +truth. Spencer made it his own, but he makes a more serious mistake +than his predecessor, when he asserts that philosophy is able +to “play an active part” in scientific discovery. In the opinion of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[389]</span>M. de Roberty, it is neither the antecedent of science, nor is it even +to be called an art. Must it then be called a science? Or is it to +be comprehended in science? Neither the one, nor the other. He +prefers rather to regard it as a link (“<i>un trait d’union</i>”) between +these two different kinds of intellectual activity, science and art. +The mental faculties may, he tells us, aim at subjugating nature, +either in a direct manner, the result of which will be called science; +or in an indirect way, in which case we name it art; or they may +have still a third intention, taking a kind of middle course between +the utility of <i>science</i> and the indirect utility of art, which while actively +participating in both, facilitates as well the transition from +one to the other, from which springs <i>philosophy</i>. “Most unmistakably +identical,” says he finally, “are the elements which produce a +particular combination, in the one, they are called science, in the +other philosophy.”</p> + +<p>But we must not confound the two propositions. “If a house +is to be built of brick, does that mean that we are not to distinguish +between the materials required in its erection?—that we are to apply +to its construction, the ingredients and the procedures used in +the making and firing of bricks? We never should build a house if +we acted thus.”</p> + +<p>Let us not misunderstand this comparison! The house here +spoken of is entirely figurative. The hypothesis which underlies it +is universally accepted, but its primal condition is always wanting—i. +e. universal knowledge. It would be presumptuous indeed, to +draw, to-day, the plans and define the style of architecture which +shall be used in our future philosophical habitation, since we do not +yet possess even the materials wherewith to build it. We can only +hope to erect such a temporary shelter, a fort, that may be swept +away in a few hours, whenever the enemy shall have discovered an +explosive powerful enough to blow it into atoms. I do not care +very much, I confess, for the distinction spoken of “between a direct +and an indirect utility” and the idea of philosophy forming a +link between art and science. This way of representing the facts +of the case, seems to me both cumbersome and incomplete. I will +not stop here to discuss it. The thoughtful study of M. de Roberty +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[390]</span>is not compromised by such a small detail, and I would rather remember +the positive teaching which is given in the very striking +book that I have just been criticising.</p> + +<p>“Philosophy and science,” writes the author, “are terms which +define two principal <i>species</i> of the vast <i>genus</i> designated under the +one name,—knowledge.” The most marked trait of the philosophy +of the future, will be the <i>distinction</i> between the two species, as <i>confusion</i> +was the predominant characteristic of the philosophy of the +past.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The work of M. de Roberty gave us a methodic history of philosophy. +That of <span class="smcap">M. F. Picavet</span>, <i>The Ideologists—An Essay on the +Scientific, Philosophic, Religious, etc., ideas and theories in France +since 1789</i>, stretches over a very vast area of descriptive history. His +book conducts us from Condorcet to Destutt de Tracy, and +Cabanis; from these to Degérando and Laromiguière; it embraces +thus nearly the whole of the philosophy of the eighteenth century, +which it carries back to the seventeenth, from thence following the +thread of its history, through the intervening years, down to our +own times. The name “Ideologist” is vague, as are all the rest of +the battle-cries which are used by the leaders of parties, or that +their adversaries may make use of against them. Ideology, in the +sense used by Destutt de Tracy, signifies, that philosophers must +confine themselves to psychological research, more particularly to +that which concerns the origin and the formation of ideas, an immense +field, embracing philology, ethnology, etc. With regard to +the wrong sense which Napoleon attached to this word, it was justified +in a certain measure by the pretensions of the philosophers in +governing life, politics, and law, by doubtful hypotheses, which did +not often accord with practice. It cannot be denied that since the +time of Rousseau, we pass much too easily from theory to action, +and that we fall back too readily on our imagination, to supplement +our actual experience. We find in M. Picavet’s book, new and +valuable information about all the men who have contributed to the +intellectual life of the French nation, during and since the time of +the Revolution. We can trace there the origin of certain doctrines, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[391]</span>which have appeared to spring up suddenly before our eyes, and +shall often be extremely surprised by what we shall read there. It +is a most valuable and important work, showing an enormous +amount of erudition, fine critical acumen, and a rare descriptive +talent. It is quite voluminous (more than 600 pp. 8vo.), and some +might indeed consider that it could have been more condensed. +But it is primarily a book of reference, in whose pages we shall +surely not complain of finding a large amount of information, when +we refer to it.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>With the book of <span class="smcap">M. Bernard Pérez</span>, <i>Le Caractère, de l’enfant +à l’homme</i>, (Character, from Childhood to Manhood), we leave the +domain of philosophy and history to enter into that of psychology. +M. Pérez modestly disclaims all pretension to founding a science +of character. Nevertheless, that which he has given us and produced +here, bears the stamp of originality in a subject in which authors +have hitherto only repeated one another. His work is composed +of two parts, of which the second forms the completion of, or rather +a commentary on, the first. We find here, to start with, a classification +of characters, illustrated by portraits which render the developments +more tangible; secondly, a study on the common combinations +of the principle traits of personality.</p> + +<p>The classification of M. Pérez is founded on movements, that +is to say it is displayed in sufficiently complete groups connected +with some distinct mode of expression, such as rapidity, slowness, +and energy of movements. It offers the practical advantage of substituting +for the four or six temperaments of the old schools, which +are frequently hard to distinguish, classes more flexible and distinguished +by visible gestures which betray, more or less clearly, their +physiological foundation. M. Pérez has provisorily established six +of these classes. He distinguishes the vivacious, the vivacious-ardent, +the ardent, the sluggish, the sluggish-ardent, and lastly the +balanced type. The last category is in my judgment a sort of utility-box, +apparently designed to receive specimens which we are at a +loss where else to put. For one of two things is certainly true, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[392]</span>either this balance is an insignificant trait or it is one that is dominant +in the person, and it is absolutely necessary to state which.</p> + +<p>Many will undoubtedly question this doctrine that the movements +of a person express all his character and that consequently +they are competent to reveal it to us. We might maintain, indeed, +that if the movements supply us with the labels of each class, it is +not always to be distinctly seen how the different traits of character +and of intelligence (the author does not separate the two, and gives +his reasons for so doing) subordinate themselves to one another and +vary with the motor sign chosen to express them. There can be no +question, however, that rapidity, energy, or slowness of movement, +do not have certain actual and profound connections with our visceral +and cerebral functions, and that the motor sign is easy to be made +use of, although it does not reach all the facts which it is employed +to describe, and although the explanation of these facts still remains +to be sought in the physiological substratum.</p> + +<p>M. Pérez has secondly attempted a systematisation of character-traits, +by successively studying the relations of gaiety and sadness, +irascibility and gentleness, courage and fear, kindness and +malevolence, self-love and will, with the principal emotional intellectual +and volitional traits of character. He has perceived, instinctively +as it were, that the pointing out of generic, specific, and +individual marks does not possess its entire worth except on the condition +that we also point out <i>the subordination</i> of the same, and he +has given this factor much prominence in the last chapters of his +book. This portion of the work is replete with subtle observations, +and ingenious and profound reflections, but it is fragmentary in +character, a half-way production, I might say, between the disconnected +literature of the moralist and a reasoned and methodical description +such as ethology ought to furnish later on, after the manner, +if possible, of the natural sciences.</p> + +<p>The desiderata which I here briefly refer to, are not set forth to +diminish the value of the work of M. Pérez. It will in its present +form render great services, and I should not be at all surprised if +the terminology which he has invented should pass into the language +of the day, as it is convenient and easily lends itself to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[393]</span>description of character-portraits. Even readers who shall find here +much to criticise, will not refuse to accord to it real and solid merit.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>After the work of M. Pérez, a study of my own naturally ranges +itself—<i>La Psychologie du peintre</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a>—concerning which I ask permission +to offer a few remarks. I have set myself the problem, in this +work, of determining a professional type, and I have chosen one of +those which are certainly the most distinctly defined. If other authors +could give us the psychology of the musician, of the lawyer, +of the physician, and of the geometer, such a task would not be an +indifferent performance in what concerns our knowledge of <i>character</i>, +and we should arrive at the construction of a natural history of society +from a different point of view and by different methods from +those at the disposal of the novelist. We should accomplish, unquestionably, +the passage from general and <i>abstract</i> psychology, to +<i>concrete</i> psychology.</p> + +<p>Do professional types really exist? and if they exist, what are +they composed of? The question as I view it, is not bereft of interest +for the psychologist. We do, no doubt, find among painters, +vivacious, sluggish, and ardent individuals, and we may indeed, in +studying this or that particular painter, discover in him some one +or other of the combinations described by M. Pérez. But that does +not stand in the way of the growth and constitution of social types, +and individuals may find a natural place in the different categories +of a general classification without ceasing to belong to their professional +category in consequence of a natural self-grouping of their +intellectual faculties, and a definite tendency of the traits of their +emotional nature. It would be justifiable to say, at the same time +simplifying and enlarging a little the facts, that originally our viscera +form our character but our cerebral organism forms our profession; +and if it is true furthermore that a certain physiological state brings +with it a definite intellectual mode of operation, it is none the less +true that the same culture of the mind and the long-continued habits +of a profession are apt to impose upon one’s personality a definite +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[394]</span>discipline and mean equilibrium of tendencies and sentiments; and +it is in this sense that it has seemed to me we are at liberty to speak +of a professional type without equivocation or violence.</p> + +<p>Those who will not accept this manner of looking at this subject +will find, I hope, some additional interest in my work on the score of +the special questions which are treated of there: the heredity of genius, +memory, the classification of the sentiments (implied rather +than formulated), the relations of the will to the design considered +as writing, the evolution of art in its connection with visual analysis, +and so forth. There is here a sufficiently abundant supply of materials +capable of being wrought up in social psychology and the +criticism of art. But it does not become me to bestow praises on my +own work, and it would be too easy for me to subject it to criticism. +My readers will find in it themselves the weak portions, without my +pointing them out to them; and it would be a source of great pleasure +to me to have the same assurance that they will discover in +it qualities which I do not perceive there.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>There remains still to be mentioned <i>La Première partie d’une +étude sur la théorie du droit musulman</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a> by <span class="smcap">Savvas Pacha</span>, one time governor +and governor general, one time minister of public works and +foreign secretary of Turkey. Savvas Pacha—a Christian of Greek +descent—has held high positions in the Ottoman Empire and is esteemed +as one of the most learned men in Islamic law who have +ever lived. His book therefore demands the greatest consideration; +it will not possess less interest for philosophers than for statesmen +and jurists. In my opinion, works of this class should be consulted +by psychologists as much as by sociologists; we are too much inclined +nowadays to neglect certain social studies which offer us valuable +information respecting the genius of races and the conditions of +their moral existence.</p> + +<p>The work of Savvas Pacha will undoubtedly contribute much +toward the elucidation of some mooted points of very first importance; +I should like to mention—the history of creation, and the exposition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[395]</span>of the principles of a law which rules more than a million +human beings and is intimately interwoven with their political life; +a more exact knowledge of the Semitic genius; an estimate of the +relations which have existed between the juridical metaphysics of +the Semitic peoples and that of the schools of Greece, between the +Mohammedan law and the Roman law in provinces once Romanised +but afterwards subjected to the empire of the Caliphs.</p> + +<p>It does not seem at all doubtful that the ontology of Aristotle in +particular has exercised an influence on the philosophy of the Arabian +jurisconsults. A second truly remarkable fact, too, is not the +new ontology which they have produced, but the use they have +made of it in their legislative fabrics. It is impossible to enter into +details here; I limit myself to the mere pointing out of the facts.</p> + +<p>With respect to the originality of the institutions that belong to +the period of the first Abbassids, the same has been contested by a +number of historians. M. Renan, among others has maintained +that they are the work of the Iranian genius. Savvas Pacha refutes +this opinion in a peremptory manner, and we shall no longer be able +to deny, after having read him, that the Mohammedan civilisation, +with the <i>corpus juris</i> which stands for its most perfect production, +has really proceeded from the genius of the races that bore the banner +of Islam from the confines of China to the Straits of Gibraltar.</p> + +<p>Shall I add that we may deduce from this work, so learned and +so suggestive, the elements of an instructive comparison between +two grand divisions of human history whose evolution seems still to +be pursued on lines wholly apart—that which we call Christianity +and that which has sprung from the teachings of Mohammed?</p> + +<p>I fervently hope that Savvas Pacha will not delay the publication +of the other works which he has promised. When they appear he +will have furnished us with the most considerable work which we +possess on the institutions of a great division of humanity, still too +little known to us.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lucien Arréat.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> All the works so far mentioned are published by F. Alcan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> Published by Marchal et Billard, Paris.</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[396]</span></p> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="GERMANY_III">II.<br> +<span class="smaller">GERMANY.</span></h4> + +<p>Productions of a literary-historical character are under certain +circumstances also entitled to mention in a philosophical magazine, +especially if they present to us the intellectual development and +physiognomy of an individual or of a community in a scientific manner, +as is done in the <i>Essays</i> of <span class="smcap">Karl Weigand</span> which have just been +published by Merhoff, of Munich. Of the larger essays contained +in this book we will especially mention those on Voltaire, Rousseau, +Baudelaire, and Taine, to which in psychological respects a high +value is to be accorded, and which although not exactly easy are +nevertheless pleasant reading.</p> + +<p>Viewed from this standpoint the <i>History of North American Literature</i> +by <span class="smcap">Karl Knortz</span> (Berlin, 1891, Lustenöder) hardly admits +of consideration; not even Edgar Allen Poe, who in the psychological +point of view is of unexceptionally great importance, is in any +respect profoundly treated. The work is made up of a series of +well written articles which first no doubt were published in newspapers +and magazines for the public at large. We deem it proper, +however, to mention the work in this place, because it contains a +chapter on the philosophical literature of North America, in which, +we must admit, philosophy does not appear to the best advantage. +The representatives of philosophy in North America, the author says, +are in the main doctors of divinity and securely installed university +professors, and this department of study has therefore no dangerous +connections; the gentlemen calmly wend their way along the ancient +and well-trodden path of the aprioristic philosophers and proscribe +without any ado all modern innovations, Darwinism in particular.</p> + +<p>As they have not as yet consigned the belief in God and immortality +and the freedom of the will to the lumber-room of traditional +opinions, and as they are as a rule only superficially acquainted with +the results of the exact sciences, despite the fact that many assure +us of the contrary, they accordingly fancy that they are easily able +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[397]</span>to solve the imagined chief problem of philosophy, the reconciliation +of religion and science.</p> + +<p>This judgment may contain much that is true, but from the little +that we personally know of things in North America, is to be decidedly +restricted. Moreover, we by no means share the low opinion +which the author entertains of all attempts to reconcile religion +and science. Religion is a phenomenon of too great antiquity and +its influence in the life of nations is too thoroughly established to +entitle us, on the ground of science with which it is still involved in +violent conflict, summarily to disregard it; and consequently every +attempt at reconciliation is worthy of the best efforts of the noblest. +It is of course a question whether we shall ever arrive at the point +where we will completely understand <i>all</i> religious things, but we +certainly must with time arrive at a point where religion shall no +longer contain inconsistencies, contain nothing, that is, of which +the absurdities are patent.</p> + +<p>There was indeed, in Germany also, a time when the belief was +very widely spread that religion as compared with science might +be ignored completely; it was the time when Ludwig Büchner and +Karl Vogt were so much read, when the magazine <i>Gartenlaube</i> +counted its greatest number of readers. But this time is long since +past, and just as since that time employment with philosophy, especially +with ethics, has become more comprehensive, so also the +interest in religio-philosophical questions, which aim at a reconcilement +of the two hostile powers, has been considerably augmented. +Aside from the German productions which have been written in a +conciliatory tone, like the book, to give an example, of Moriz Carrière +on Christianity and the Modern World Conception, foreign +works of this same class have also been much read, particularly +Drummond’s <i>Natural Law in the Spiritual World</i>, to which indeed +in our judgment no particular value is attributable, as it does not +help us to any real knowledge but contents itself with analogies +which scientifically are absolutely worthless.</p> + +<p>Recently the little treatise <i>Ernste Gedanken</i> of the Saxon officer +<span class="smcap">Von Egidy</span> (Leipsic, 1891, Wilh. Wigand) has been much talked +about. The reformatory effect of this brochure has, indeed, hitherto +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[398]</span>been very slight and will hardly become more extensive in the +future, but the response that it has met with in the widest circles of +the German public, proves that many ardent friends of religion anxiously +desire that the dogmatic shackles and integuments shall be +stripped from the body of the Christian beliefs, and that it shall appear, +in the clearest and purest light, that which it is, the religion of +love.</p> + +<p>Theological criticism has not taken an exactly favorable attitude +towards the little book of Lieut. Egidy, and even the liberals, +who pay the fullest credit to the good intentions of the author call +attention to the fact that the greater part of what Egidy advances +has been said before and said better, and that there is an almost +absolute lack of positive proposals to be adopted. The Egidy movement +will thus probably have, they conclude, no lasting effects.</p> + +<p>We cannot indeed absolutely say that these critics are wrong, +if we are at all conversant with the development of protestant theology. +A very instructive and opportune work in this respect is a +book of the well-known Berlin professor <span class="smcap">Otto Pfleiderer</span>, who, as +his religio-philosophical treatises evidence, himself belongs to the +reconcilers of Christianity and the modern world-conceptions. In +the year 1889, at the instigation of the editor of the Library of Philosophy +issued by Swan, Sonnenschein, & Co. of London, he published +in the English language a work on <i>The Development of Protestant +Theology since Kant and in Great Britain since 1825</i>, and this +same work has now just appeared in German (published by Mohr +of Freiburg) in a somewhat more extended form. As its title proclaims, +and as its belonging to the Library of Philosophy would +signify, the work is chiefly concerned with the influence which philosophy +has exercised on theological thought. To make this influence +plain, the author presents at the start, in the form of an introduction, +a concise but extremely lucid exposition of the philosophical +doctrines that especially demand consideration in this direction. Of +German philosophers, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, and of +English, Herbert Spencer are treated of at length.</p> + +<p>In view of the great respect which Hegel still enjoys in America, +it will perhaps interest many of the readers of <i>The Monist</i> if I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[399]</span>give here an utterance of Pfleiderer, which in the point of view of +the history of religion is also deserving of consideration, at least on +the part of those who are recognised adherents of evolutionism.</p> + +<p>“No other branch of inquiry,” says Pfleiderer, “owes so much +to Hegel as History; the arbitrary construction of details from the +philosophical concept which had crept in by Hegel and his immediate +followers, has of course been discarded by exact historical inquirers, +but there has remained that profounder conception of historical +life generally as a development of the common mind of all +ages and nations, conformable to law, dominated by ideas, and aiming +at necessary general purposes; there has remained that profounder +insight into the intricate play of phenomena, into the kernel +of things and men, into the dominating ideas that lie as guiding +impulses at the foundation of even the apparent disharmony of individual +passions; there has remained that unprepossessed understanding +for the necessity of even the contrarieties and struggles, for +the errors and passions of men, for conflict is the father of all things, +as Hegel says with Heraclitus, and as it is only through the struggle +of partial rights and one-sided truths that the whole truth of the +idea can force its way into existence; there has remained finally +that intelligent respect for the heroic figures of history in which the +genius of a people and of an age have been incarnated, which as +the instruments of a higher power have awakened the thought that +slumbered in all souls, given it clear expression, and infused in it +life by their mighty deeds. Neither a Leopold Ranke, nor a Thomas +Carlyle, nor a Ferdinand Christian Bauer would be conceivable +without Hegel’s philosophy of history.”</p> + +<p>Pfleiderer expresses himself here very cautiously concerning +Hegel, and in other passages his caution is extended further still. +Nevertheless, it will seem to many as if that philosopher has been +too highly estimated by Pfleiderer. Especially will the followers of +Herbart be dissatisfied, who was involved in violent combat with +Schelling and Hegel. It is not the place here to enter minutely into +this subject; but it is to be mentioned that the name of Herbart +does not occur once in this large book. Perhaps Pfleiderer is of +Edward Zeller’s opinion who says in his “History of Modern Philosophy,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[400]</span>that the philosophy of Herbart has proved itself unfruitful. +It must be confessed, indeed, that the philosophy of Hegel has +proved itself for religious doctrine very fruitful; but whether we +should be satisfied with its results is quite a different question. Be +that however as it may; still, after Schoel has presented Herbart’s +ideas concerning religion in a special work, since men like Drobisch, +Thilo, and Strumpell have further elaborated these ideas; since +particularly Ziller in his Ethics has also profoundly treated religious +problems in the sense of Herbart, it is no longer allowable to omit +the name of Herbart when we treat of the modern philosophy of religion.</p> + +<p>In other respects also we are not always in full accord with the +author. So, for example, in Hausrath’s <i>Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte</i>, +a work to which we ourselves are very much indebted, the +perfection of the form of the presentment is justly praised, as is also +the merit of having inserted into the greater setting of universal +history the development of early Christianity; but it is not mentioned +that Hausrath has often allowed himself to be misguided into +combinations whose flimsiness cannot escape the notice even of the +lay student.</p> + +<p>But these are only slight deficiencies of a work that is otherwise +excellent and full of matter, closing with the words: “This much is +certain, that the labors of the best and wisest of all the theologians +of our century, who have here been passed in review before the eyes +of the reader, however different the paths may be which individually +they have entered upon, have yet been all directed to the one end +that Christianity shall strip itself of its dogmatic coverings and fetters +and evince its world-conquering power in the ethical idealism +of a love that unites us with God and joins together the hands of +humanity into the federation of brotherhood.”</p> + +<p>If this aim were universal, that is if it were also recognised by +the theologians, a not inconsiderable portion of the dispute between +religion and science would be done away with, and the sole question +would then turn on the contrariety of theological and philosophical +ethics. But even respecting this point a settlement would be much +sooner brought about, if those concerned would evince the same +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[401]</span>spirit of reconciliation as <span class="smcap">Hans Gallwitz</span>, city pastor of Sigmaringen, +has recently done in his book <i>Das Problem der Ethik in der Gegenwart</i> +(Göttingen, 1891, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht). The author, +it is true, deals critically not only with the philosophical ethics of a +Paulsen and a Wundt, but also with the theological ethics of a +Hermann and a Kaftan; still the settlement of things with the philosophers +forms the bulk of this rather extensive work, the contents +of which we cannot of course give here. Gallwitz also speaks in +considerable detail of Kant, whom he opposes in respect of the psychological +questions here involved, wholly rejecting anything like a +transcendental will. If we must agree with him in this respect, we +can nevertheless not follow him in his assumption of a special ethical +constitution of the soul.</p> + +<p>In conclusion let me note the titles of two works to which I +shall revert in a subsequent letter. On <i>The Psychology in Kant’s +Ethics</i> Dr. <span class="smcap">Alfred Hegler</span> of Tübingen presents a meritorious and +compendious treatise of 300 pages (Freiburg, 1891, Mohr), and Professor +<span class="smcap">Hostinsky</span> of Prague publishes an exposition and interpretation, +based on the sources, of <i>Herbart’s Æsthetics</i>, in which, as is +well known, ethics and æsthetics in the restricted sense are wholly +severed from psychology.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Chr. Ufer.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[402]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="CRITICISMS_AND_DISCUSSIONS">CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.</h3> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="THOUGHT_AND_LANGUAGE_III">THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE.</h4> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"><i>To the Editor of The Monist</i>:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>—I am glad to hear that Prof. Max Müller intends to answer our double-barrelled +criticism of his article on the above subject. Meanwhile, however, I +should like to say a few words with regard to the point which he selects for immediate +response (see <i>The Monist</i>, Jan. 1892, p. 286). And my object in saying these +few words is to remove from his mind the idea that with regard to the point in +question I had the smallest intention of bringing against him “a serious charge of +want of accuracy, unpardonable in a scholar.” On the contrary, as regards this +point I was simply defending myself from <i>his</i> charge against <i>me</i>—to wit, the charge +of arrogance.</p> + +<p>In his article on “Thought and Language” he observed, “Professor Romanes +has no right to speak of men like Noiré, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, to say nothing +of Hobbes, with an air of superiority.” In answer to this charge I stated the bare +facts of the case,—viz. that in my book I had alluded to Noiré merely for the sake +of stating his theory as to the origin of speech, and of expressing my large measure +of agreement therewith; that I had quoted Huxley only in places where my argument +needed authoritative opinions on matters of comparative anatomy; that I had +only once mentioned Hobbes, and then in order to back by his authority a philosophical +doctrine for which I was contending; and, lastly, that I had never mentioned +Herbert Spencer at all. Now, if my critic feels that a mere statement of +these facts amounts to a serious charge against him as a scholar, I can only express +my regret that he should have imposed on me the necessity of stating them.</p> + +<p>But what now is his reply to this simple statement of facts? Briefly, he drops +his own “serious charge” as regards Noiré, Huxley, and Hobbes, and takes his +stand upon the case of Herbert Spencer. “It is true,” he says, “Mr. Spencer’s +name does not occur in the index. But on p. 230 we read: ‘So here again we meet +with additional proof, were any required, of the folly of regarding the copula as an +essential ingredient of a proposition.’ Now it is well known that it is Herbert Spencer +who regards the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition.” As if it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[403]</span>were one man alone who takes this view, and that man Herbert Spencer! Or as if +Herbert Spencer’s name were so specially identified with it, that in calling it a +philosophically foolish view I expected my readers to understand a disrespectful +allusion to him! Surely my critic knows as well as I do that this question touching +the function of the copula is one which has been debated for centuries; and therefore +that with much more show of reason he might accuse me of making an attack +on the President of the United States, on the ground that I had expressed a decided +opinion in favor of free trade.</p> + +<p>But more than this. So far is it from being “well known that it is Herbert Spencer +who regards the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition,” that I am +under the necessity of asking Prof. Max Müller for references in proof of such a +statement. Chapters X and XI of the “Principles of Psychology” (Vol. II) are +those which, as far as I am aware, most nearly approach the subject. Yet the +word “copula” does not once occur in them. Moreover, with all that Mr. Spencer +has there said upon the nature and structure of propositions I am, and always have +been, in full agreement.</p> + +<p class="center">Yours faithfully,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">George J. Romanes</span>.</p> + +<p>Oxford, Feb. 12.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="A_DEFENSE_OF_LITTRE">A DEFENSE OF LITTRÉ.</h4> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"><i>To the Editor of The Monist.</i></p> + +<p>If all the readers of <i>The Monist</i> for October were acquainted with the life +and writings of Littré I should not have to defend him against your criticism, as +everyone could see that there is more truth than poetry in my sonnet. But I fear +that “the voice, the spirit, and the soul of Positivism” is not so well known as he +deserves to be, and I venture to ask for space to reply.</p> + +<p>Proceeding in order, I should like to correct the impression left by the following +passage: “Comte had not nominated a successor who should in his place be +the <i>Directeur du positivisme</i>. Littré had forfeited this honor on account of his +quarrels with Comte in which he strongly sided with Madame Comte against her +husband.” The misunderstanding between the two men had a more serious origin +than these family squabbles and arose from the fact that Littré would not follow +Comte through the mystic vagaries of the <i>Politique Positive</i>. He admits that being +under his intellectual ascendency he went too far on the new way, but he soon found +that the master was violating his own method and, having to choose between them, +he held to the method. Littré’s refusal to join Comte in his adhesion to the régime +of the coup d’état of 1851 was the immediate cause of the rupture. His “excessive +tolerance” did not extend to the Bonapartes, whom he detested cordially. It is +characteristic of the man that he continued his yearly subscription to the fund that +he had created for his friend’s support notwithstanding this break in their relations.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">[404]</span></p> + +<p>As to his tolerance, I think with you that he carried it a little too far in his own +family. Greater firmness might have spared us the vision of priests bedeviling him +in his agony and dragging his body in triumph to holy ground. But the case that +you take as an example does not seem to me conclusive. It was not necessary to +possess his knowledge of history in order to appreciate the difficulties attendant +upon interference with his catholic wife in the education of their daughter, and as +success was impossible he wisely limited his endeavor to fields unobstructed by the +“eternal feminine.”</p> + +<p>Seriously, we admit that Littré was tolerant to excess, but not that the attitude +of his philosophy is, as you say, “mere scepticism leading to indifferentism.” In +the words of M. Wyrouboff, who aided him for many years in editing the magazine +called <i>La Philosophie Positive</i>, “men, no matter how superior they may be, are +never abstract formulas interpreting with equal facility all the parts of a mental +conception; they always represent a mixture of strength and weakness in variable +proportions.... It seemed as if intellectual activity had absorbed all the living +forces of his (Littré’s) being, leaving in the place of physical activity only the faculty +of passive resistance to the will of others.” This refers to the man in his old +age but in youth he was an athlete of remarkable strength. Renan said of him: +“While his temperament was calm his mind was revolutionary, and therefore he +never gave way. In July 1830, he was in the first line of those who broke into the +place du Carrousel and George Farcy was shot through by his side.” I am tempted +to quote a little more from this master of words. “So great was his love of truth +that, perhaps alone in our century, he could retract without lessening himself. +Truth led him like a child.... It is not well to be too perfect.... His apparent +negations were only the extreme reserve of a mind that dreads hazardous appreciations. +He was so much afraid of going beyond what he saw clearly that he often +stopped short of it. Hesitation that implies a thousand times more delicate worship +of the eternal ideal than the rash solutions that satisfy superficial minds.”</p> + +<p>Even in old age there were no signs of “indifferentism” in his conduct. In the +words of Pasteur, “At the Mesnil he was consulting physician for the whole village +(always gratuitously). Continuing his labors till three o’clock in the morning, +the light of his lamp shone afar during the night like a beacon that reassured the +sick. It was known that at the first call, M. Littré would leave his work and go +wherever his aid was needed.”</p> + +<p>These are the words of men that knew him, but my first-hand opinion of him +was formed solely from his writings and his public acts as senator, etc.; fancy such +a man in <i>our</i> senate!</p> + +<p>The note in which you say that I attended positivistic lectures (Comte’s?) in +France together with Mr. Frederic Harrison is a flattering anachronism.</p> + +<p>Littré’s father received a sword of honor while in the navy for beating off an +English ship of superior force, and the son’s philosophy prompts not only to action +but to action, if necessary, in the good old fashioned positive way.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[405]</span></p> + +<p>My second objection refers to the line where you say that your positivism “has +nothing to do with Comte or with any of Comte’s disciples,” and, leaving Comte +aside, I hope to show that you and Littré are much better friends than you imagine. +A view noted by him on p. 27, Vol. 1, of his magazine, <i>La Philosophie Positive</i>, +ought to assure this happy result.</p> + +<p>In the preface of your valuable work entitled “Fundamental Problems” you +draw particular attention to the part that treats of “Form and Formal Thought,” +which, you say, discusses a subject of fundamental importance. “A correct conception +of form and the laws of form will clear away many mysteries; it will afford +a satisfactory explanation of causality and shed a new light on all the other problems +of philosophy.”</p> + +<p>The part referred to begins thus: “In the introduction to his ‘Critique of Pure +Reason,’ Immanuel Kant proposes the question: How are synthetical Judgments +<i>a priori</i> possible? on the solution of this problem the whole structure of his philosophy +rests, which he characterises as <i>Transcendental Idealism</i>.” (“A priori, as +used in the limited sense by Kant, is purely formal knowledge, while a posteriori is +identical with experience.”)</p> + +<p>Further on I read, “Our own views grew out of a study of Kant’s Transcendentalism”; +and the first words of your “Conclusion” are these: “Although +Kant’s Transcendental Idealism cannot be considered as a final solution of the basic +problem of philosophy, it nevertheless pursues the right method and has thus actually +led us to a solution which, we hope, will in time be recognised as final.”</p> + +<p>In looking for the difference between the two solutions to find the part in yours +that belongs to you alone, I see on p. 50 of “Fundamental Problems” that “Kant +thinks it is a strange and wonderful fact that our formal thought (the rules of arithmetic, +mathematics, logic, etc., which are <i>a priori</i>) agrees so precisely with the +highest (i. e. the most general) laws of nature, which can be ascertained and verified +by experience. Kant sees only two ways of solution. Either the laws of pure +reason, he says, have been gathered by experience from nature, or, on the contrary, +the laws of nature have been deduced from our <i>a priori</i> rules. The former solution +is impossible, since the formal sciences are proven to have been formulated with +the exclusion of all sensory experience. ‘Therefore,’ says Kant, ‘the second solution +only remains. Reason dictates its laws to nature’; i. e. ... the sensory impressions +are the raw material only from which the well-ordered whole of nature, +as an object of science, is created by the synthetic faculty of reason.... Kant has +taken into consideration two ways only. He overlooks the third and most obvious +explanation.... The third possibility is that which has been propounded in the +foregoing pages. According to our explanation, the formal (the highest or most +general) laws of nature and the formal laws of thought are identical. Their agreement +is not wonderful but inevitable as both are expressions of the forms of existence +in general.”</p> + +<p>This then is your “solution of the basic problem of philosophy.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[406]</span></p> + +<p>Turning back to page 34, I find under the title “The Origin of the A Priori”: +“Kant answers the question ‘How are synthetic judgments <i>a priori</i> possible?’ by +showing that such synthetic judgments undoubtedly exist.” “He might have ventured +a step further by proposing another question: ‘What is the origin of the +<i>a priori</i>?’ Only by answering this question could he have shown <i>how</i> synthetic +judgments <i>a priori</i> are possible. This he did not do, and the omission has produced +great confusion among German, French, and English thinkers.” On the next page, +36, I find “According to our view, form is a property of reality as well as of our +cognition. Formless matter does not exist. Form and matter as they exist in reality, +are inseparable.... Knowledge also in its primitive shape, when it is, so to +say, natural and crude, is an intimate combination of sense-perceptions and formal +cognition. The sense-perceptions are the real substance of knowledge, while formal +cognition is the principle which arranges and systematises sense-experiences.” ... +“Logic does not create order and system in our brain, but it makes us conscious of +the order that naturally grew in our mind.”</p> + +<p>In the division entitled “The Order of Nature” you say that “Formal thought +represents the mere laws of thought in their abstractness, and has been acquired +by abstraction. The mere forms of thought exhibit a wonderful regularity.... +This regularity of formal thought, which is expressed in all logical laws, arithmetical +calculations, and in all mathematical conceptions, has naturally grown in our +mind as the psychical expression of a physical regularity in the arrangement of the +various brain-structures and their combinations. The arrangement of brain-structures +in certain regular forms has been effected in accordance with the same laws +that govern the development of forms generally.”</p> + +<p>This answer to the question, “What is the origin of the <i>a priori</i>” is what you +call the corner-stone of your positivism, which, you say, “it is to be hoped, will +prove the only true Monism.”</p> + +<p>Now I give my translation of Littré’s view, which he published in 1867, in an +article entitled “The Three Philosophies.”</p> + +<p>“The effective certainty that the mathematical laws of number, of figure and of +motion are at the base of physical phenomena, and the inductive belief that they +are equally at the base of chemical and of biological phenomena induce me to note +here a view upon the relation that must be found between subjective phenomena +and objective phenomena, that is to say upon the relation that causes the subject to +draw from the object a science and laws. The nervous substance, which is the +organ of all intelligence, is made up of material elements which arrive with their +conditions; and when this substance becomes capable of thinking, it passes under +the conditions proper to the elements that form it; which results in (<i>se traduit par</i>) +a science and its laws. The material work that takes place in the brain while it +fulfils its office, is, as is known, a work of nutrition, which consists of a chemical +exchange of molecules. Every chemical action is, in turn, equivalent to a certain +quantity of heat; and again, this heat is equivalent to a certain quantity of motion. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">[407]</span>Thus thought, no matter how we represent to ourselves the relation to nervous substance, +is connected with mathematical modes of which it becomes conscious when +it becomes luminous. Not that I would in any way have it understood that thought +is but an equivalent of heat or of motion. Far from that, equivalence is not identity; +and whenever we change from one degree to another in the natural and scientific +order we meet a new unknown which is the characteristic of this degree. The +induction that leads us to connect thought with mathematical conditions, leads us +also to connect it with physical, chemical, and biological conditions, of which it is +necessarily participant. Finally, when, at the highest point, it arrives face to face +with itself, it studies itself experimentally like the rest, and forms its own doctrine. +If it attempts to go out metaphysically into space, it is reduced to combining subjectively +its own elements, turns in a circle without issue and falls back upon itself. +If, on the contrary, it makes the same attempt towards nature from which it emanates, +then the ways open, science is established, and positive philosophy appears. +The material constitution of the nervous substance is the point of junction between +the human mind and laws or general facts. If I had been younger, I should have +made a work of this view, not a paragraph; but old age must hasten.”</p> + +<p>I have translated more than was necessary so as to give the “view” as a whole. +Does it not contain the answer to your question, “What is the origin of the <i>a priori</i>”?</p> + +<p>Though Littré solved your “basic problem of philosophy” he did not attach so +much importance to this solution as you do because his philosophy is based upon a +generalisation from all facts and not upon any one fact, however important it may be.</p> + +<p>“Positive Philosophy is the conception of the world that results from the systematised +ensemble of the positive sciences” and does not depend upon the solution +of any psychological problem, although it recognises the importance of all psychological +facts.</p> + +<p>Your originality lies in your application of Littré’s discovery.</p> + +<p>The reader has his choice between Littré’s positivism and your neo-Kantism, +but if he side with you he must at least thank Littré for the solution on which your +philosophy is based.</p> + +<p>You say that “Comtean Positivism, especially as it is represented by Littré, +consists mainly if not exclusively of the doctrine to ‘let metaphysics alone.’” Is +this fair to the man that solved your “basic problem of philosophy” in a paragraph?</p> + +<p>Positivism as represented by Littré gives due importance to the subjective +element. He recognised that three essentials were necessary to the completion of +Comte’s philosophy: a political economy, a cerebral theory, and what, for want of +a better name he termed the subjective theory of humanity. This last comprised +ethics, æsthetics, and psychology. Speaking of a confusion that obscures the whole +discussion relative to psychology, he says: “<i>Cerebral theory</i>, <i>mental</i> or <i>psychological +theory</i> are taken in two very different senses, which are never distinguished. +These terms signify sometimes the organic conditions under which intelligence +manifests itself, sometimes the formal conditions under which the intellect operates. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">[408]</span>As soon as these two significations are separated we perceive the means of settling +the debate as to the place of psychology; for to the question: Where should these +two orders be studied? it will be answered that the first should be studied in anatomy, +physiology, zoölogy, the evolution of ages, pathology, it belongs therefore +without contest to biology; but it will be answered that the second should be +studied in the total development of history and in the application to all the modes +of cognition; it belongs incontestably to philosophy. Thus there are two psychologies, +one biological, the other philosophical, one relating to the individual man, +the other to the collective man, one furnishing what is necessary in order to pass +from biology to sociology, the other examining the subjective instrument by the +light of all positive knowledge. But this complement of philosophy I do not call +psychology, I call it the <i>subject-theory</i> of <i>humanity</i>; because while including psychology, +it includes much more.” That is to say; ethics and æsthetics.... “In +the order of the positive method it is at first by means of the object that human +knowledge is built up, and we end with the subject.” “The theory of the subject +is the indispensable complement of the theory of the object.”</p> + +<p>Of positive philosophy Littré says: “While it constructs the series of the partial +philosophies and thus embraces all objective knowledge, it constructs at the +same time the series of effective methods and thus embraces all logical power. I +borrow this expression from M. Comte, who so happily named these effective +methods the logical powers of the human mind. When it has terminated its first +series it is found to have also terminated the second. Thus the ensemble of the +methods represents the function of the subject; the ensemble of the partial philosophies, +the function of the object.”</p> + +<p>Is this what you call a “one-sided philosophy”?</p> + +<p>You say that Littré is the worst kind of a metaphysician because he maintains +that we can know nothing about first and final causes; I quote him to show his position: +“Positive philosophy is at the same time a system that comprises all that is +known of the world, of man and of society, and a general method including all the +ways by which things have been learned. What is beyond, either, materially, the +depths (fond) of boundless space, or, intellectually, the endless enchainment of +causes, is absolutely inaccessible to the human mind. But inaccessible does not +mean null or non-existent. Immensity, both material and intellectual, holds by a +narrow tie to what we know and becomes by this alliance a positive idea of the +same order; I mean to say that by touching and bordering it, this immensity appears +in its double character, reality and inaccessibility. It is an ocean that washes +our shore, and for which we have neither bark nor sail, but whose clear vision is +as salutary as it is formidable.” <i>Aug. Comte et la Phil. Pos.</i>, 2d Ed., p. 519.</p> + +<p>As Littré had found this shore encumbered with the wrecks of expeditions +that had started out in search of first causes and final causes, it is no wonder that +he was a little timid. His metaphor needs explanation in the light of other passages, +otherwise it might seem to discourage pursuit of the unknown. He did not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">[409]</span>discountenance hypotheses but he was very much afraid of our inclination to take +guesses for truth; and this, by the way, is the reason why he is not appreciated in +this country, where we are so fond of guessing. What he really did was to discourage +those navigators who would go in search of the Jumping-off-place, for the +best that can befall them is to come back to where they started. The men that +know the earth is round are the only men that find new worlds.</p> + +<p>In answer to your statement that Littré’s philosophy “is an inventory rather +than a plan to guide science in its further evolution” I will only repeat in his +words, what he has shown so well, that “positive philosophy is the ensemble of +human knowledge, disposed according to a certain order which enables us to grasp +its connections and its unity, and to draw from it the general directions for each +part and for the whole.”</p> + +<p>You say that “Littré rejects the evolution theory and its attempts to explain +ethics.” I quote him from <i>La Philosophie Positive</i>, March, 1880: “Positive philosophy +does not deny the evolution of ethics; far from doing so, it maintained +and inculcated this evolution long before the utilitarian doctrine made it its ethical +pivot.”.... “General morality, born of the gradual culture of the sentimental +basis of the human soul under the social protection of progressive centres, is entirely +disinterested, and this is what makes its purity and its force.”</p> + +<p>In your philosophy you have a god and a religion, in his we have the same +things, but as they are so different from what is generally understood by these +terms, we use others. Here are some of the <i>Paroles de Philosophie Positive</i>: “In +the eyes of history, there are no false religions, there are only incomplete religions +which make their way through time and perfect themselves.... The definition of +religion is taken from its office, which is: to put education, and consequently moral +life, en rapport with the conception of the world at each phase of humanity. Whoever +examines this definition will find that it satisfies all the conditions of religion, +either in the past, the present, or the future. It will be perceived that theology is +not inherent in the religious idea. It was not always there in the past; for we cannot +give the name of theology to primordial fetichism, which addressed its worship +to neighboring objects, nor to the religions that adore natural agents, such as air, +wind, night, dawn; it is with polytheism that theology begins. As for the future, +general science, conceiving the world differently from the way in which it was conceived +during the reigns of the successive religions, takes an office equivalent to the +religious office, and must in its turn place education and moral life in accord with +the universe as it appears to us.”.... “We do not outrage the old doctrine, whose +past is glorious and venerable; but there is a public for which it is a dead letter; +and it is to this public that we address ourselves and for this public that we labor.”</p> + +<p>Is this not aspiration to be in unison with “the order of the world,” which you +call God? And when Littré traces this aspiration back to its organic origin is he +not explaining what you affirm?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[410]</span></p> + +<p>Our philosophies are not perfect, but we must apply them, such as they are, to +the needs of the day. The most pressing of all these needs, in my opinion, is unity +of action among those who are animated with the new spirit.</p> + +<p>Let us pull together.</p> + +<p class="center">Very truly yours,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Louis Belrose, Jr.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="EMILE_LITTRES_POSITIVISM">ÉMILE LITTRÉ’S POSITIVISM.</h4> + +</div> + +<p>An editor cannot make it a rule to accept criticisms of considerable length +which have reference to a remark incidentally made in a book review. The present +case, however, although it belongs in this category, is of a peculiar nature. First, +the remark on Littré was made by the editor himself, and accordingly he feels personally +responsible for it; secondly, it contains a brief delineation of Littré’s character +as a man and as a philosopher in the way in which he is usually regarded by the +most prominent historians of philosophy. Mr. Belrose presents Littré in quite a +new light and quotes passages in corroboration of his conception of Littré which are +perhaps not generally known, for they are buried in articles of the positivistic +journal <i>La Philosophie Positive</i>, and this journal enjoyed neither a long life nor a +large circulation; nor is it to be had in any of the libraries accessible to me. +Seventeen editorial articles were republished in bookform, (<i>La Science. Au point +de vue philosophique, par</i> <span class="smcap">É. Littré</span>. Paris, 1873), but the article “The Three Philosophies” +is not among them.</p> + +<p>If Mr. Belrose’s conception of Littré proves to be true, I shall not only gladly +correct my own wrong view of Littré, but I wish also to call attention to the fact +that he has been misrepresented by almost all and certainly by the best and most +painstaking philosophical historians.</p> + +<p>I cannot however in the main points accede to Mr. Belrose’s view and will have +to sustain my former opinion that M. Littré was an agnostic. He made it a matter +of principle to suspend his opinion on some of the most fundamental philosophical +problems, which he considered as inaccessible. His positivism, accordingly, +differs <i>toto cœlo</i> from the positivism presented in <i>The Monist</i>. His philosophy, +like that of Comte, is so far as I understand it, a policy of let-metaphysics-alone. +It gives up the struggle with metaphysics as a hopeless undertaking. Therefore, I +should say, Littré’s positivism has not conquered metaphysics, and although it lets +metaphysics alone, metaphysics plays an important part in it. Littré is an agnostic +and like every agnostic that believes in the unknowable, a metaphysician without +knowing it.</p> + +<p>The doctrine of the three stages of knowledge, viz., the theological, metaphysical, +and positive stages, appears to me of less importance. The doctrine of the three +stages is at the same time not properly a Comtean idea; Comte adopted it from +Turgot, the great statesman and one of the greatest men as a thinker and also as a +character that ever lived and who is too little appreciated as such.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[411]</span></p> + +<p>The main doctrine of Comte’s positivism is the doctrine that first and final +causes cannot be known, and we must abandon our search for them; that human +knowledge is limited to the middle, while the two ends are inaccessible. These insoluble +questions, he declares, have made no progress from the beginning. Mr. +Lewes in his book “Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences” expresses this agnosticism +in the following words (p. 31): “Our province is to study her [nature’s] laws, to +trace her processes, and, thankful that we can so far penetrate the divine significance +of the universe, be content—as Locke wisely and modestly says—to sit down +in quiet ignorance of all <i>transcendent</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> subjects.”</p> + +<p>This idea has so far as I am aware never been given up by Littré; it remained +the basis of his belief in the unknowable and his works abound in expressions that +concerning the main problems of life, “the positive philosophy will neither assert nor +deny anything.”</p> + +<p>Littré concludes the last article of his volume “La Science” with the following +words:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Le domaine ultérieur est celui des choses qui ne peuvent pas être connues. +La science positive professe de n’y rien nier, de n’y rien affirmer; en un mot, elle +ne connaît pas l’inconnaissable, mais elle en constate l’existence. Là est la philosophie +suprême; aller plus loin est chimérique, aller moin loin est déserter notre +destinée.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This quotation alone, I think, settles the first main point at issue.</p> + +<p>Now I maintain that Comte’s view of causation where he refers to first and final +causes is fundamentally wrong; causation is transformation and causality is the +formula under which we comprehend the changes of matter and energy that take +place. The expressions first and final causes are misnomers (see “Fundamental +Problems,” the chapter The Problem of Causality). First cause is either the starting +point of a series of some longer chain of causes and effects, or as the term is +generally applied or rather misapplied, stands for the last ground or reason, i. e. the +answer given to the ultimate question why?, which is the most general <i>raison d’être</i> +that would explain and contain all the other and less general <i>raisons d’être</i> regarding +the nature of existence. The term final cause, again, means either the last cause in a +series of causes or (and so it is generally used) it is a misnomer for purpose; and +the final cause supposed to be inaccessible to human comprehension is the purpose +of the existence of the world at large. I object to there being three kinds of causes. +There is one kind of causality only, and the causes of this causality in all the causal +processes with which we are confronted are perfectly intelligible.</p> + +<p>The problem of the first cause of the origin of our world, viz. the solar system +and the milky way, was attacked first by Kant and later by Laplace, and the +latter, without knowing of Kant’s solution, solved it in the main in the same way. +All recent investigations stand upon this Kant-Laplace hypothesis so called, having +added corrections only as to details. Shall we declare that these labors are vain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[412]</span>and gratuitous efforts of vague speculations? Littré says, with reference to such +speculations, concerning the past and future states of the world (le monde):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“La dissémination primordiale de la matière qui devait le composer, la dissémination +future de la matière qui le compose, dépassant toute expérience, dépassent +toute conjecture.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>If I misunderstand Littré, it appears to me a pardonable mistake.</p> + +<p>Yet is not the problem as to the origin of the world at large, why matter and +energy exist at all, insolvable? Littré says that the positive cosmogonies, such as +the doctrine of evolution do not touch the absolute; they have nothing to do with +first and final causes. He says: “Les cosmogonies positives la [i. e. la place des +cosmogonies religieuses] remplissent, non pas qu’elles aient la prétention ni le pouvoir +de pénétrer dans l’absolu et d’embrasser, les causes premières et finales.”—l. +c., p. 560.</p> + +<p>That kind of causality which is sometimes called “ontological,” having reference +to the existence, not of single things as transformations from other things, but +of the world at large and formulated in such questions as how did the universe itself, +the world as a whole, originate, is properly speaking no causality, it is not a question +concerning a cause, but concerning a <i>raison d’être</i>. However without haggling +about the words cause and <i>raison d’être</i>, this ontological causality so called is by no +means beyond human comprehension. The ontological question has found a very +definite answer in the formulation of the law of the conservation of matter and +energy; which declares that existence at large did not originate, the total amount +of matter as well as of energy existed always and will exist always. It has not been +created; it is uncreatable and indestructible; it is eternal.</p> + +<p>Littré is quite explicit in declaring that the positive philosophy lets alone all +theological and metaphysical problems. It is neither atheistic nor theistic, and does +not side with either materialism or spiritualism. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Ni spiritualiste, ni matérialiste, la philosophie positive écarte de la science +générale les débats que la science particulière a depuis long temps et à son grand +profit rejetés.”—Preface d’un disciple in Comte’s “Course de Phil. pos.” p. xxvii.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Littré characterises as the main object of the positive philosophy, “to give to +philosophy the positive method of the sciences, to the sciences the idea of the unity +of philosophy.” He says: “Ainsi fut accompli ce qu’on doit appeler l’œuvre +philosophique du dix-neuvième siècle, donner à la philosophie la méthode positive +des sciences, aux sciences l’idée d’ensemble de la philosophie.” Preface, p. viii.</p> + +<p>I am in perfect agreement with Littré that this is the object of positivism; but, +if I understand Littré correctly, I disagree from his conception of the positive +method. He limits the positive method to what he calls “experience,” and excludes +every notion of the <i>a priori</i>. Littré apparently misunderstood the proper +meaning of Kant’s idea of the <i>a priori</i>, for he used as a matter of course the <i>a priori</i> +method wherever it was indispensable, so for instance in mathematics and in the +application of mathematics.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">[413]</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Belrose says:</p> + +<p>[Littré] “solved your basic problem of philosophy [i. e. what is the origin of +the <i>a priori</i>] in a paragraph.”</p> + +<p>The problem of the <i>a priori</i> reasoning is the question “Why can we know certain +things before we have tested them by experiment? Man has not arrived by experience +but by pure reasoning at the conclusion that the sum of the angles of every plane +triangle has 180 degrees. How is he justified in declaring <i>a priori</i> that the angles of +a certain plane triangle make up 180 degrees, although he has not measured them?” +This problem is the fundamental problem of the scientific or positive method; it is +the same problem which Mr. Charles S. Peirce discusses in his article (see pp. +321 et seqq. of the present number of <i>The Monist</i>), for the problem of apriority is +identical with the question of necessity.</p> + +<p>Littré has, so far as I know, never discussed the problem of apriority and necessity. +He has simply rejected the idea of the <i>a priori</i> as the method of a false +metaphysics, which is incompatible with the <i>a posteriori</i> method of positive science. +The passage quoted by Mr. Belrose most certainly does <i>not</i> contain a solution of +the problem. Littré declares therein that every chemical action is equivalent to a +certain quantity of heat; and again this heat is equivalent to a certain quantity of +motion. Thus, he says, thought is connected with mathematical modes of which it +becomes conscious. Thought, he adds, is not an equivalent of heat or motion, for +equivalence is not identity, but it is connected with mathematical conditions. +This means that that kind of brain-action which represents conscious thought, depends +upon definite proportions. But what in all the world has this idea to do with +the problem of apriority? The phrase “mathematical modes” (which is misleading +in this passage) is an unfortunate expression for “proportions” and we +must add that Littré is mistaken when he says that the nervous substance when it +becomes luminous, becomes conscious of these mathematical modes with which it +is connected. Aside from “luminous” being simply an allegorical expression for +conscious, it is wrong to say that the nervous substance becomes conscious of the +mathematical modes of heat as they are proportioned in the brain. A sentient being +knows through sensation nothing about the mechanism or the mechanical proportions +of its own sentient structure. Sensation is the act of a becoming conscious +not of the sentient structure itself but of the meaning which this sentient structure +has acquired, and a consciousness of the mathematical modes which according to +Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences ought to be the beginning of knowledge develops +at a very late period. Any explanation of the origin of <i>a priori</i>, be it ever so brief, +would lead us too far away from the points of our controversy. It is sufficient here +to point out that the passage quoted by Mr. Belrose, contains no solution of the +problem of our knowledge and certitude of mathematical, arithmetical, and +other purely formal laws. On the contrary, this very passage is replete with error; +it is a misstatement of facts and does not even bring to light the difficulties of the +problem.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">[414]</span></p> + +<p>Littré was prejudiced against the <i>a priori</i>, and his prejudice induced him to +underrate its importance. I read in one of Littré’s passages quoted by Mr. Belrose:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If it [thought] attempts to go out metaphysically into space, it is reduced to +combining subjectively its own elements, turns in a circle without issue and falls +back upon itself.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The <i>a priori</i> method of thought subjectively combining its own elements, is +by no means a turning in a circle without issue so that in the end it will fall back +upon itself. The <i>a priori</i> method of thought subjectively combining its own elements +is employed by arithmetic, mathematics, and logic, and we are confronted +with the astonishing fact that rules, or formulas, or calculations which were made +by pure thought subjectively combining its own elements, are applicable and hold +good as reliable guides in our experiments. If there were no <i>a priori</i>, how could +we foretell or, what is more still, how could we predetermine the course of nature? +The <i>a priori</i> has been wrongly employed by the so-called metaphysical philosophers +to give us information about the substance and essence of the world. But +the misapplication of the <i>a priori</i> is no reason for denouncing it as radically wrong.</p> + +<p>The existence of the <i>a priori</i> is an undeniable fact. Kant was right in recognising +it in its sweeping importance, yet he was wrong in his interpretation of the +<i>a priori</i>, which according to his transcendentalism was based exclusively upon a +peculiarity of the mind and not upon the nature of things. The positivists in +France did not only object to the wrong interpretation of the transcendentalists +but also denied the existence of the <i>a priori</i>. Accepting the principle that every +knowledge must ultimately be a statement of facts, the question How is the <i>a priori</i> +to be based upon facts? became in my conception of philosophy the burning +problem which was next in order as a conciliation between Kant and Comte.</p> + +<p>The French positivists, foremost among them Comte and Littré, have not given +us an explanation of what is true and false in the theological and metaphysical +notions of first and final causes, of the <i>a priori</i> of God, of substance, of force, etc.; +they have simply abandoned the investigation of these ideas which are after all the +most important tools in the household of the human mind for scientific and ethical +purposes; and thus they have, in spite of their positivism in questions of detail, retained +the metaphysical method of <i>a priori</i> reasoning which is quite legitimate in +the formal science but out of place concerning facts. Take for instance the following +argument concerning the materiality of things:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Là, c’est à dire dans les sciences positives, on ne connaît aucune propriété +sans matière, non point parce que, <i>a priori</i>, on y a l’idée préconçue qu’il n’existe +aucune substance spirituelle indépendante, mais parce que, <i>a posteriori</i>, on n’a +jamais rencontré la gravitation sans corps pesant, la chaleur sans corps chaud, +l’électricité sans corps électrique, l’affinité sans substances de combinaison, la vie, +la sensibilité, la pensée, sans être vivant, sentant et pensant.”—<i>La Science</i>, p. 307.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I do not mean to say that there are immaterial or spiritual substances, but I +should say that any purely <i>a posteriori</i> argument in favor of their non-existence is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_415">[415]</span>insufficient. Would Littré mean that a Zulu should declare that ice cannot exist +because he has never seen water frozen as hard as a stone? Any amount of experience, +i. e. all <i>a posteriori</i> evidence, is in parts and will out of itself never acquire +universal validity.</p> + +<p>How strongly Littré is still implicated in the metaphysical method of applying +<i>a priori</i> ideas to <i>a posteriori</i> experiences can be learned from the following statement:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Le monde est constitué par la matière et par les forces de la matière: la +matière dont l’origine et l’essence nous sont inaccessible; les forces qui sont immanentes +à la matière. Au delà de ces deux termes, matière et force, la science +positive ne connaît rien.” Preface, p. ix.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The metaphysical ideas, matter and force, are <i>a priori</i> notions of mystical +entities or things in themselves, and thus it appears natural that experience should +know nothing of them. But real matter and actual force are not unknowable existences. +They can be known. We know something of them and positive science is +engaged in broadening and deepening this knowledge. Says Littré:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Les propriétés physiques sont manifestes en toute substance, dans quelque +état qu’elle soit, isolée ou non isolée, et s’exercent sur les masses; les propriétés, +n’apparaissent qu’entre deux substances, ont besoin de la binarité et s’exercent sur +les molécules; enfin les propriétés vitales dépassant la binarité, ne sont compatibles +qu’avec un état moléculaire plus composé.” Preface, p. x.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>One of the fundamental principles of positivism, as I conceive it, is the definition +of knowledge as a description of facts or of their properties. We call certain +properties of the facts (i. e. the objects of our experience) matter and others force. +When we say that we do or do not know a certain phenomenon we mean that we +have or have not as yet succeeded in placing them properly in that system of thought-symbols +of which our mind consists. Yet there is no sense in speaking of matter +and force as being unknowable while the properties of matter and force are said to +be manifest and appearing under certain conditions.</p> + +<p>I have presented the main reasons why I still hold that there is a radical difference +between Littré’s view of positivism and my own. Littré is an agnostic and +he was an agnostic before that name had been invented. His objection to metaphysicism +consists in the doctrine not that the object of metaphysics is a chimerical +non-existence, but that the object of metaphysics exists yet it cannot be known. +Thus Littré is as much a metaphysician as those philosophers whom he censures +for their metaphysical views. He does not censure them for believing that the +metaphysical exists, but for believing that it is knowable and attempting to investigate +its nature.</p> + +<p>As to the hierarchy of the sciences I shall simply quote a few extracts from +Eugen Dühring’s criticism of Comte. Dühring says (<i>Krit. Gesch. der Phil.</i>, p. 486):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If Comte’s <i>positivism</i> were nothing more than what we have here laid down, +its main contents would, strange enough, consist in <i>negativity</i>. The criticism of a +certain kind of metaphysics, viz. of an ontology phantastical to a greater or lesser +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">[416]</span>extent, would form its most significant character. The other element which consists +in presenting a hierarchy and unitary conjunction of some of the sciences which +are called positive in the usual sense of the term, cannot pretend to be philosophy +in the higher sense of the word or even to be useful for science. A general view of +knowledge, whether it consists of six or sixty volumes, does not add the least iota to +the contents of our knowledge.... We cannot expect that a specialist should be +pleased with a hierarchical sketch of his science, especially if the delineations are +filled out with details of which he would be a better judge.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is true, and I concur in this with the French positivists, that a positive +philosophy must be a systematic arrangement of knowledge. But I conceive it to be +the philosopher’s work, not to take an inventory of the sciences, but to define the +fundamental concepts of scientific enquiry and to elucidate the methods of cognition. +Such fundamental concepts are the ideas, truth and criterion of truth, cause +and effect, mind, thought, knowledge, ethics, etc. Concepts are the tools of thought +and the practice of using them correctly has to be learned.</p> + +<p>Positivism is not the original invention of a world-system, but the systematising +of statements of facts so as to produce a world-system. The old philosophers gave +us first a world-system, from which and in accord with which they defined their +views of truth, cognition, cause, etc. They began to build their philosophy from +the top down. Positivism begins from the bottom and is building up to the top +with the assistance of the special sciences. A positive philosophy is inseparable +from, but it cannot be replaced by, the sciences. The field of philosophy is to +superintend the method and the plan of building, so as to compare the details and +bear in mind the unity of the whole. In this sense Dühring says in criticising +Comte (p. 486):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“However, concerning the form of the connections of methodical reflections, +something can be done. Yet it must be possible to separate everything of such a +kind and also new insights, so as to constitute a special branch of knowledge. +Otherwise they will escape the specialists’ attention.... Not only Comte but all +philosophers given to the idea of systematisation and construction of particular +knowledge have made attempts in this direction which at most may range as sketches +or popular presentations in a higher sense.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Concerning Littré’s view of Comte’s religious vagaries Dühring says (p. 483):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“His [Comte’s] biographer, the Academician Littré of Paris, and also Stuart +Mill are right in considering ‘The Course of Positive Philosophy’ as the main and +fundamental work which is decisive as a contribution of his and a source of instruction +to the world. However, they are very one-sided when they overlook that +the philosopher even in his vagaries exhibited a universality of mind which remains +superior to the standpoint of either Littré or Mill.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I agree with Mr. Belrose that Comte’s religion as he conceived it consists of +vagaries, but the main idea of developing the religions of the past which, as Littré +says, are not false but only incomplete religions, into a religion that shall be in +accord with the science of our day is no vagary, but a great and an important ideal.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">[417]</span></p> + +<p>Far be it from me to belittle Littré because I disagree from him in some fundamental +questions. He was in his time, he is still, and will remain for ever a star +of first magnitude in our philosophical galaxy. That which I consider as his errors +does not detract from his greatness. Were not Kant’s mistakes in a similar way +closely interwoven with his greatest merits? It is flattering to me that Mr. Belrose +finds an agreement between his master’s and my views concerning the basic +problem of philosophy, but I cannot discover it. Yet I gladly acknowledge that +there exists an agreement of aim, and this agreement of aim which finds its truest +expression in the word “positivistic” is perhaps of greater importance than the +agreement of views.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">P. C.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> Italics are not mine.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="OBSERVATIONS">OBSERVATIONS ON SOME POINTS IN JAMES’S PSYCHOLOGY.⁠<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></h4> + +</div> + +<p>In calling attention to some objections to the views advanced by Professor +James on the subjects of Belief, Emotion, and Will, it is only justice to myself to +express the admiration I feel for his work as a whole. The thoroughly scientific +spirit which pervades it, the author’s candor in admitting and his skill in surmounting +difficulties, his learning and his originality, his aptness in illustration, and the +energy and vivacity of his style combine to make it full of interest as well as instruction. +It is because it should be, and doubtless will be widely influential, that +it is important that any doubtful positions assumed in it should be subjected to a +careful examination.</p> + +<p>I shall endeavor to avoid any misrepresentation of the views which I combat, +but space will not allow me to do full justice to the arguments by which they are +supported, if such a thing is possible for an antagonist. For this, I must refer the +interested reader to the original book. If what I have to say should have the effect +of increasing the number of its readers, I shall not have written altogether in vain, +whether I succeed or fail in setting the truth in a clearer light.</p> + +<h5>I. BELIEF.</h5> + +<p>Professor James entitles the chapter devoted to this subject “The Perception +of Reality,” and defines belief to be “the mental state or function of cognising +reality.” He explains that, “As used in the following pages, ‘Belief’ will mean +every degree of assurance, including the highest possible certainty and conviction” +(Vol. II, p. 283).</p> + +<p>According to this definition, erroneous beliefs, such, for instance, as the belief +that the earth is flat, stationary, and the centre of the universe, or the delusion of +an insane man that he is Jesus Christ, are cognitions of reality. Professor James +would probably say that they are realities to the mind entertaining them, and it is +true that the feeling of belief is the same, whether the thing believed be true or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">[418]</span>false. I think, however, that it is more customary to use the verb which he employs +in connection with beliefs which agree with the objective facts, and that the +“feeling” or “sense” of reality would be a better term than “perception” or +“cognition.”</p> + +<p>This, however, is not, to my mind, the most serious objection to the definition. +Although Professor James does not use the word “knowledge” in this connection, +it seems evident, from the passage quoted above, and from what he says elsewhere, +that he considers all kinds, as well as all degrees of certainty to be beliefs. It +seems to me evident, on the other hand, that many of our cognitions of reality are +not properly called beliefs. As an instance, I will quote the illustration with which +he opens the discussion of “The Various Orders of Reality” (p. 287).</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Suppose a new-born mind, entirely blank and waiting for experience to begin. +Suppose that it begins in the form of a visual impression (whether faint or vivid is +immaterial) of a lighted candle against a dark background, and nothing else, so that +whilst this image lasts it constitutes the entire universe to the mind in question. +Suppose, moreover (to simplify the hypothesis), that the candle is only imaginary, +and that no ‘original’ of it is recognised by us psychologists outside. Will this +hallucinatory candle be believed in, will it have a real existence for the mind?</p> + +<p>“What possible sense (for that mind) would a suspicion have that the candle +is not real? What would doubt or disbelief of it imply? When <i>we</i>, the onlooking +psychologists, say the candle is unreal, we mean something quite definite, viz. that +there is a world known to <i>us</i> which <i>is</i> real, and to which we perceive that the candle +does not belong; it belongs exclusively to that individual mind, has no status anywhere +else, etc. It exists, to be sure, in a fashion, for it forms the content of that +mind’s hallucination; but the hallucination itself, though unquestionably it is a +sort of existing fact, has no knowledge of <i>other</i> facts; and since those <i>other</i> facts +are the realities <i>par excellence</i> for us, and the only things we believe in, the candle +is simply outside of our reality and belief altogether.</p> + +<p>“By the hypothesis, however, the mind which sees the candle can spin no such +considerations as these about it, for of other facts, actual or possible, it has no inkling +whatever. That candle is its all, its absolute. Its entire faculty of attention +is absorbed by it. It <i>is</i>, it is <i>that</i>; it is <i>there</i>; no other possible candle, or quality +of this candle, no other possible place, or possible object in the place, no alternative, +in short, suggests itself as even conceivable; so how can the mind help believing +the candle real? The supposition that it might possibly not do so is, under +the supposed conditions, unintelligible.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I readily grant that it is, under the supposed circumstances, unintelligible that +the candle should be thought to be unreal, but it seems to me equally so that it +should be believed to be real. What does Professor James mean by a belief in the +reality of the candle under such conditions? Nothing more than that the mind is +conscious of a sensation which we know, but it does not, is like that produced by +the sight of a candle. This sensation is certainly a reality, and the only possible +reality to that mind. Professor James must, then, be understood as maintaining +that a sensation, pure and simple, is a belief in an object exciting the sensation. +If, for instance, the first consciousness of the supposed mind were the odor of a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_419">[419]</span>rose, or the whistle of a locomotive, he must admit that the mind would believe in +the rose or the locomotive. If I have a headache, or am hungry or tired, I not +only have beliefs about these sensations, but the headache, the hunger, the weariness, +are themselves beliefs. Now I submit that this is contrary to all ordinary use +of language. It is, perhaps, impossible for an adult, with his mind full of memories +of past experiences, to have a sensation without some sort of a belief about it, +but although the sensation and the belief may be inseparable, they are not indistinguishable, +and, as a matter of fact, every one does distinguish between his sensations +and his beliefs about them. I do not think it would be quite correct to say +even of an adult who had never seen or heard of a candle, that, on seeing one for +the first time, he would believe in the reality of the candle, although doubtless he +would believe he saw something real—a real flame, for instance.</p> + +<p>If it be admitted that sensations are entitled to be called beliefs, it seems impossible +to stop short of the conclusion that all states of consciousness are beliefs.</p> + +<p>Emotions and volitions are as much realities as sensations, and are known as such +by the mind that experiences them. That memory and imagination involve belief, +is too evident to need discussion. But if this be the case, the chapter on belief +could have been very greatly abbreviated—need not in fact, contain more than +four words. To say that all consciousness is belief would perhaps simplify matters, +but it would not advance our knowledge very much, nor would it accord with the +ordinary use of the word, which has reference to a particular kind of consciousness, +which every one knows, however hard he may find its definition.</p> + +<p>It seems to me, therefore, that Professor James’s definition of belief is defective +in two ways. There are beliefs which are not cognitions of reality, and there are +cognitions of reality which are not beliefs. Especially in regard to the latter class, +I think that the definition confuses a distinction that is real and important, between +different kinds of knowledge. We know our sensations, emotions and volitions in a +way which differs not only in degree but in kind from any usual, or, I think, legitimate +sense of the word “Belief.”</p> + +<p>Perhaps it would be the safer course to rest content with pointing out the objections +to the author’s definition without laying myself open to retaliation by attempting +one of my own, but it does not seem to me impossible to give one which +will include all that is understood by the term and nothing more. I should say that +belief is the sense or feeling of relation between mental objects. That we have belief +whenever we have this feeling, seems to me too plain to require argument, and +I am unable, after a good deal of reflection, to call to mind any belief that is not +included in the definition. If I see, or imagine that I see a lighted candle, it may +excite in my mind a great variety of beliefs, as, that the flame is hot, that the light +and heat are caused by the chemical union of oxygen with carbon and hydrogen, +that the material of which the candle is composed is wax, paraffine or tallow, that +it has a cotton wick, that it is of a certain size, weight, and color, and so on indefinitely. +All of these are evidently ideas of relation. To say “flame,” or “hot” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_420">[420]</span>does not express a belief, unless something else is understood, but to say “flame is +hot” does so. If I say that the color red is equal to the square of the hypothenuse +of a right-angled triangle, I fail to express a belief because the mind perceives no +relation between the objects, and the answer to such a statement would be, not that +it is or is not true, but that it has no meaning. The only cases which occur to me +in which it might be plausibly argued that a belief did not involve the feeling of relation +are such impersonal expressions as “it rains,” or, “it is cold.” The exception, +however, is only apparent, arising from the erroneous idea that everything +which is implied in language must be expressed. When we say, “it rains,” we +mean, “rain is falling.” In either form of language, the thought conveyed is that +of the relation of the drops of water and their motion. The stock-broker, with his +prearranged code, may communicate the ideas of a long sentence in a single word, +or the Freemason may do the same to the initiated by a gesture. In such a case, +it would be absurd to contend that no relation is felt or communicated because +there is no formal subject or predicate.</p> + +<p>Whatever may be thought of the sufficiency of my definition, I risk the assertion +that it includes all beliefs that can be affirmed, denied or doubted. We never +question our sensations, emotions or volitions—we have them, are aware of them, +and that is the end of the matter. It is the relations of our sensations to each other, +and to our pleasures and pains, our choices and rejections, that involve us in all +sorts of perplexities. The whole question of the grounds of belief in general, and +the truth or falsehood of particular beliefs is a question of relations. It is, then, in +the sense indicated above that I shall use the word hereafter.</p> + +<p>Having settled the definition, it may be worth while to consider for a moment +whether this feeling of relation, which can only be known by experience, is enough +like any other mental states to be classed with them. On this point Professor +James says: “<i>In its inner nature, belief, or the sense of reality, is a sort of feeling +more allied to the emotions than to anything else.</i> Mr. Bagehot distinctly calls it +the ‘emotion’ of conviction. I just now spoke of it as acquiescence. It resembles +more than anything else what in the psychology of volition we know as consent. +Consent is recognised by all to be a manifestation of our active nature. It would +naturally be described by such terms as ‘willingness’ or the ‘turning of our disposition.’ +What characterises both consent and belief is the cessation of theoretic +agitation through the advent of an idea which is inwardly stable, and fills the mind +solidly to the exclusion of contradictory ideas. When this is the case, motor effects +are apt to follow. Hence the states of consent and belief, characterised by repose +on the purely intellectual side, are both intimately connected with subsequent +practical activity. This inward stability of the mind’s content is as characteristic +of disbelief as of belief. But we shall presently see that we never disbelieve anything +except for the reason that we believe something else that contradicts the first +thing. Disbelief is thus an incidental complication to belief, and need not be considered +by itself.” (P. 283).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_421">[421]</span></p> + +<p>I am unable to satisfy myself whether, in the above passage, Professor James +has in mind the feeling of belief or other feelings which often accompany it. The +“cessation of theoretic agitation,” “willingness,” “turning of our disposition,” are +accompanied by feelings which I should say are not only like, but identical with +emotion. In the case of old, confirmed beliefs, however, theoretic agitation ceased, +and the turning of the disposition occurred, if at all, long ago, and I am unable to +recognise anything resembling emotion in my belief that two and two make four, +that cows eat grass, that iron is a metal, and many others that might be mentioned. +Nor do these beliefs, at the present time, give rise to motor effects, which, so far as +I am able to see, only result from such beliefs as are, directly or indirectly, associated +with emotion. If such beliefs as I have mentioned are not purely intellectual, +as distinguished from emotional phenomena, I should be at a loss to know where +the distinction is to be made between “the head” and “the heart.” The sense of +relation seems to me to be the most purely intellectual of all the mental functions, +and, although it may give rise to all sorts of emotions, the more settled, undisturbed +and unquestioning the belief, the less likely is it to give rise to any but the +feeling of calm, which seems to me to be the antithesis of emotion. I should say +that belief is a feeling <i>sui generis</i>, without enough analogy with any other to justify +classing them together.</p> + +<p>I have already quoted the illustration with which Professor James opens the +discussion of the subject of Reality. After quoting from Spinoza, to the same +effect, the supposed case of a horse with wings imagined to be real in the absence +of any contradictory thought, he goes on to say: “The sense that anything we +think of is unreal can only come, then, when that thing is contradicted by some +other thing of which we think. <i>Any object which remains uncontradicted is ipso +facto believed and posited as absolute reality.</i>” (P. 288). Elsewhere he says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“... <i>all propositions, whether attributive or existential, are believed through +the very fact of being conceived, unless they clash with other propositions believed at +the same time, by affirming that their terms are the same as the terms of those other +propositions.</i>” (P. 290).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This, I think, is stated too strongly, at least, in the latter quotation. A proposition +that is uncontradicted will be believed, but it is not necessary that the contradictory +proposition should be believed in order that the first may fail of belief. +I believe nothing, at present, contradictory of the proposition that it is now raining +in Boston. I think it not improbable that such may be the case, but at the same +time the contrary proposition is present to my mind, that it may not be raining in +Boston, and the result is the state of mind which Professor James very properly +regards as the opposite of belief—doubt. But supposing that a proposition is presented +to the mind, which, being for the time uncontradicted, is believed, and that +subsequently another, contrary proposition is presented, is it certain that the latter +will be disbelieved? May not a state of doubt replace belief in this case also? Or +supposing that two propositions, which have been believed independently, are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_422">[422]</span>brought into juxtaposition in such a way as to show that they are inconsistent, how +are we to determine which if either, shall be believed? Professor James seems to +teach that it is a matter of choice.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“That we can at any moment think of the same thing which at any former +moment we thought of is the ultimate law of our intellectual constitution. But +when we now think of it incompatibly with our other ways of thinking of it, then +we must choose which way to stand by, for we cannot continue to think of it in two +contradictory ways at once. <i>The whole distinction of real and unreal, the whole +psychology of belief, disbelief and doubt, is thus grounded on two mental facts—first, +that we are liable to think differently of the same; and second, that when we have +done so, we can choose which way of thinking to adhere to and which to disregard.</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> +The subjects adhered to become real subjects, the attributes adhered to real attributes, +the existence adhered to real existence; while the subjects disregarded become +imaginary subjects, the attributes disregarded erroneous attributes, and the +existence disregarded an existence in no man’s land, in the limbo ‘where footless +fancies dwell.’” (P. 290).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The doctrine that belief is, in the last analysis, a matter of choice is a prominent +feature of Professor James’s teaching, to which I shall have occasion to refer +again. It seems to me to involve him in some inconsistencies. For the present, it +should be noted that he admits the reality of every mental object in its proper relations.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If I merely dream of a horse with wings, my horse interferes with nothing +else and has not to be contradicted. That horse, its wings, and its place are all +equally real. That horse exists no otherwise than as winged, and is moreover +really there, for that place exists no otherwise than as the place of that horse, and +claims as yet no connection with the other places of the world. But if with this +horse I make an inroad into the <i>world otherwise known</i>, and say, for example, +‘That is my old mare Maggie, having grown a pair of wings where she stands in +her stall,’ the whole case is altered; for now the horse and place are identified with +a horse and place otherwise known, and <i>what</i> is known of the latter objects is incompatible +with what is perceived of the former. ‘Maggie in her stall with wings! +Never!’ The wings are unreal, then, visionary. I have dreamed a lie about +Maggie in her stall.” (P. 289).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Here, the dream is a reality, and the winged horse is as really a part of it as +the mare Maggie is of the outside world. The reality of the winged horse in the +one case, and his unreality in the other, depend on his relations to other mental objects. +So, for instance, if any one should say that a mermaid was a creature with +the portion of a man from the waist up united to the body and limbs of a horse, I +should be justified in contradicting him, and saying that it was not a mermaid but +a centaur that he had in mind. It would not be a valid answer to say that there +were really no such things as mermaids and centaurs. In mythology, a centaur has +as definite a structure as a giraffe has in zoölogy, and it is as inexcusable to confound +the one as the other with anything else. This point is amplified by the author +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_423">[423]</span>in a section on “The Many Worlds,” in which the various objects of thought +are found in their proper relations, and out of which each one selects a world of +practical realities, according to his dominant habits of attention. <i>In the relative +sense</i>, in which we contrast reality with unreality, or consider one object more real +than another,</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“<i>Reality means simply relation to our emotional and active life</i> ... in this +sense, whatever excites and stimulates our interest is real.” (P. 295).</p> + +<p>“<i>Whatever things have intimate and continuous connection with my life are +things of whose reality I cannot doubt.</i>” (P. 298).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This power of exciting and stimulating our interest, Professor James finds to be +possessed in a pre-eminent degree by sensations, which thus become, directly or +indirectly, our tests of reality, and among which those which are pleasurable or +painful hold the first rank. Next to them, if not of equal power, are emotions.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The greatest proof that a man is <i>sui compos</i> is his ability to suspend belief in +the presence of an emotionally exciting idea. To give this power is the highest result +of education. In untutored minds the power does not exist. Every exciting +thought in the natural man carries credence with it. To conceive with passion is +<i>eo ipso</i> to affirm.” (P. 308).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Professor James’s account of the grounds of belief seems to me inadequate in +that it fails to show the connection between our sensations and emotions and other +mental states and our beliefs. Why is it that the sight of the heavenly bodies, for +instance, awakens in different minds such diverse beliefs as the Ptolemaic and the +Copernican systems of astronomy? What does a man who is frightened believe? +What belief would necessarily result from a colic? It is not enough to say that +sensations and emotions are connected with belief; we want to know how they are +connected.</p> + +<p>Bearing in mind the definition of belief as the sense of relation between objects, +the question resolves itself into the origin of feelings of relation. As relations +are of various kinds, they may be suggested to the mind by different circumstances. +They may, I think, be divided into three classes:</p> + +<p>1) Relations of likeness and unlikeness. These result from the comparison +and discrimination of objects. All the beliefs involved in the recognition and classification +of objects arise in this way. When, on seeing a certain object, I say that +it is a bay horse, and will weigh about eleven hundred pounds, I give expression +to relations of comparison. The comparison may be immediate, between objects +simultaneously present to the senses, or alike present only to memory or imagination, +or between a present object and a remembered one, or mediate, by comparison +of two or more objects with some other. All mathematical truths are of this +kind.</p> + +<p>2) Relations of cause and effect, of substance and quality, of whole and component +parts, of order in time and space, are due to association. When I say of +the horse that his movements are caused by muscular contractions, that he is of a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_424">[424]</span>gentle disposition, that he has a bony skeleton and red blood, that he is five years +old and is harnessed to a carriage, I express relations of association. In his chapter +on Association Professor James says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“<i>Belief</i> in anything <i>not</i> present to sense is the very lively, strong, and steadfast +association of the image of that thing with some present sensation, so that as +long as the sensation persists the image cannot be excluded from the mind.” (Vol. +I, p. 598).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I do not think it is a fact that the image of the thing believed in need be associated +with any present sensation. I am not aware, for instance, that there is, at +present, any such association in my belief in the existence of the city of Constantinople, +or that Queen Victoria is reigning in England. The associations in these +and similar cases are with objects of memory and not with present sensations. On +the other hand, what we mean by belief in a present object always involves memory +of the past. When we say that we believe in anything, we either mean that it is +like other things of the same sort of which we have had experience, or that it stands +in some other relation to them. Complete loss of memory would not only destroy +all our past beliefs, but, if it were permanent, would prevent our ever forming any +new ones. The universe, in such a case, would be a mere chaos of sensations.</p> + +<p>In order that things may be associated, they must first be discriminated, otherwise, +as Professor James has shown, in his chapter on Discrimination and Comparison, +they are thought of, not as associated things, but as one thing. In like +manner, when discriminated things have once been associated, the tendency is, in +the absence of contrary experience, to think of them as belonging together. A +child, attracted by the brightness of the teapot, touches it and burns his fingers. +He naturally expects the teapot to be hot the next time he sees it. He is told that +his Christmas gifts were brought down the chimney by Santa Claus. Until the +statement is contradicted, he believes it. Why should he not? Or the association +of things in the mind may come about without any external suggestion. I remember +that the first time that I ever heard a person snore, the thought came into my mind +that the strange noise was made by a bear, and I lay awake most of the night, in +fear of being devoured. The tendency is to think of things as related in the way +in which they are first presented to the mind, until they come up in some different +relation. This seems to be the explanation of the tendency to “believe as much +as we can,” to “affirm immediately the reality of all that is conceived,” of which +Professor James speaks. With increased experience, we find that there is a difference +in the uniformity of associations, and accordingly the coincidence of two or +more things is associated with the doubt whether or not the association is a constant +one.</p> + +<p>3) In addition to the relations considered above, there are some which, although +expressed in terms of association and comparison, seem to me to have a different +origin. That the whole is greater than any of its parts is a relation of comparison; +that a thing cannot be in two different places at the same time, that every event +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_425">[425]</span>has a cause, that there is an external world, are relations of association. Although +they do not arise independently of experience, they contain more than is given in +experience, and the uniformity and firmness with which they are believed can, it +seems to me, only be accounted for by the assumption of an innate propensity to +look upon things as related in these ways.</p> + +<p>So far as I am able to judge, beliefs always arise in one or another of these +three ways. But a still more interesting question, from the practical point of view, +than that of the origin of beliefs, is that of the comparative validity of the various +grounds of belief. Are they all of equal worth, and if not, is there any way of determining +which are to be given the preference, or is belief, like taste, a matter +about which “<i>non disputandum</i>”?</p> + +<p>Professor James does not go very deeply into the discussion of this question. +As we have seen, he assigns to sensation the greatest efficacy in producing belief, +and discusses the comparative power of various sorts of sensations in this respect. +Emotion he makes a close second. But the question which gives us the more reliable +information, in cases in which they conflict, he does not discuss at all. As a +matter of fact, there is no doubt that a man under the influence of strong emotion +often draws different conclusions from the evidence of his senses from those at +which he would arrive in its absence. Is he warranted in doing so? Would any +degree of personal interest warrant a man in believing or disbelieving the doctrine +of transubstantiation, the Newtonian theory of gravitation, the Mosaic or the Darwinian +view of the origin of species? There is no doubt that belief on such subjects +as these is influenced by our interest, real or supposed, in one or the other +view, and perhaps Professor James would say that he deals with the working of +minds as they are, not as we imagine that they ought to be, but the general knowledge +that a class of considerations is reliable or the reverse is another thing that +not only ought to, but actually does affect our beliefs, and the question of the +method to be pursued in ascertaining the actual relations of things, of forming true +beliefs instead of false ones, is one which hardly ought to be ignored in a discussion +of the subject.</p> + +<p>Referring to the three classes of relations already considered, it is, I think, +evident that there are differences in the way in which they affect our belief. In +comparison, the essential thing is the accuracy of the observation. One who has +once fully comprehended the proof that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal +to two right angles, is as sure of it as he could be after any amount of experience. +In comparing sensible objects, we may, it is true, and our belief confirmed by +repetition, but this is only in case that we doubt whether the comparison was rightly +made in the first place. That red does not look like blue, nor sweet taste like sour, +we are as certain on one trial as a hundred. If we apply a foot measure to an object +eight inches long, nothing can add to our certainty that they are not of the +same length. In matters of association, on the other hand, a great deal depends +on the uniformity of the association—the number of times that we have experienced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_426">[426]</span>it without contrary experience. When I hear a crow, for instance, I believe that +it is black, because all the crows that I have ever seen have been so. A sheep I +assume to be white, but with a less degree of confidence, because black sheep are +more numerous than white crows. In the case of a horse, I have no belief in regard +to the color within a certain range, unless I have some means of knowing about the +particular animal in question. If I were told that my friend had bought a horse, I +should have no idea whether it was bay, or black, or white, or some mixture of +these colors. If, however, I were told that the natural color of my friend’s horse +was green, I should be much more confident that the statement was false than if +the same person should tell me he had seen a white crow, for, the same reason that +I should more readily believe in a black sheep than in the latter. In the customary +use of the word, I might say I <i>knew</i> it was not so. In the case of intuitive judgments +experience has little or nothing to do with the strength of belief. The adult +man is no more firmly convinced of the existence of something external to himself +than the child, and, although he may come to doubt it on speculative grounds, he +no more fails than the child to show by his actions that he has a practical faith +in it.</p> + +<p>In many, if not most of our beliefs, all of these elements are present. If I see +an orange, for instance, I have the intuition of externality, the comparison with +other oranges that I have already seen, and associations of internal structure, taste, +smell, and the like. All of these, and very possibly some emotion, as, for instance, +a desire to eat it, may arise, simultaneously or so nearly so as not to be distinguished +in time, as parts of a single mental state.</p> + +<p>There is one kind of association, of importance enough to deserve mention, of +which Professor James makes no mention. The beliefs, or alleged beliefs of other +people have an influence on our minds which is, I think, not inferior to that of +emotion. The man who can, without misgiving, maintain an opinion which contradicts +all that he learned in childhood and all that is held by those whose good +opinion he most values is, I fancy, quite as rare as he who can suspend judgment +in the presence of an emotionally exciting idea. Most of us take our religious, political, +scientific, and practical beliefs at second hand, from the friends with whom +we associate or the books and papers we read. Take a young man out of his home +and put him, for instance, in college, and it will probably work a change in his +moral standards, not necessarily for the better. At home, if he knew of a theft, or +an assault, he would very probably be ready to bring the offender to justice, but if +the offender is his classmate, and the sufferer a member of the succeeding class, he +will very probably think it a more shameful thing to report the wrong than to do +it. At the same time, he doubtless considers it utterly reprehensible that ignorant +Italian peasants should feel in the same way about betraying their neighbors who +are guilty of robbery or murder.</p> + +<p>Coming now to the influence of emotion on belief, it will not, I presume, be +disputed that it comes about by way of association. Professor James, as we have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_427">[427]</span>seen, holds that “every emotionally exciting thought, in the natural man, carries +credence with it.” I suspect that this is true only in the sense that, in the absence +of experience, not only every exciting thought, but every thought is believed. However +this may be, in respect to the natural man, I think it is pretty certain that, in +the case of such artificial beings as those who reflect on the causes of their emotions +and beliefs, it will be found that in order for an idea to excite our emotions, +a certain degree of belief is necessary. Professor James illustrates his position by +the fact that a man can walk along a curbstone without any apprehension of falling, +because the thought of falling awakens no emotion of dread, while on the edge of a +precipice the emotion caused by the thought of the consequences of a mis-step may +quite overcome his belief in his ability to keep his balance. But a chamois-hunter +or an acrobat will pass along the same place without the slightest apprehension, +not because he does not think of what would happen if he should fall, nor because +he has more liking than any one else for being dashed to pieces, but because he has +what the inexperienced man lacks, entire confidence in his ability to avoid the +danger.</p> + +<p>Since I began writing the last paragraph, a number of thoughts have passed +through my mind, any one of which would be sufficiently exciting if I believed in +them, as, that I may die within the next half hour; that I may fall heir to a fortune, +and the like, none of which have produced any emotional disturbance, because +I do not believe that there is any probability of their being true. Why was +it that not only the medical profession but the public in general became so much +interested, recently, in the announcement that Dr. Koch had discovered a substance +that promised to be a cure for tuberculosis? Partly on account of the interests involved, +but at least equally because his reputation was such as to inspire confidence +in what he said. There are plenty of medicines advertised in the newspapers for +which greater claims are made than Dr. Koch made for his discovery, which fail to +arouse any such general interest. These examples are probably enough for illustration +of the familiar fact that belief is the most common cause of emotion, and +that a thought that is not believed is apt to leave us unmoved.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it is a notorious fact that emotion has a great deal to do with determining +the sort and degree of evidence which is satisfactory to us. Love and +hate, respect and contempt, affect our beliefs in regard to the character of their objects +in matters entirely independent of the qualities which originally inspired the +feelings. We find it an easy matter to believe that a man whose religious or political +opinions we think pernicious is a bad man in matters which have nothing to +do with his opinions, and may find it almost incredible that one whom we like personally +should think differently from ourselves on matters in which we are deeply +interested. But what particular evil we shall believe of the person whom we dislike, +or good of the one whom we like, depends entirely on circumstances. A man, +for instance takes a dislike to a stranger on account of some lack of good manners. +Whether he shall suspect him of being a clergyman or an infidel, a drinker or a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_428">[428]</span>prohibitionist, a Sunday-school teacher or a gambler, or both, is likely to depend +very largely on his own tastes and principles in regard to such matters. So, on +the other hand, his views in regard to religion, temperance and gambling, are +probably due in great measure to the practice of the people whom he likes. A +woman who has been brought up with a horror of drunkenness hears that a man +with whom she is violently in love is a drinker. She will probably disbelieve it at +first, but if she becomes convinced of the truth of the report, she will very likely +come to think that a drunkard need not be such a bad fellow after all. If there is +any one thing that more affects our beliefs than what the people we like say, it is +what they do.</p> + +<p>In like manner, emotional states without any definite object, such as we call +moods if they are transient, and disposition or temperament if they are habitual, color +our belief, not by originating any definite propositions, but by making us receptive to +those that tend to confirm them. It is not when a man is broken in spirit by repeated +calamities that he is most ready to believe that “where there’s a will there’s +a way,” nor in the flush of youth, health and triumph that the doctrine that “all +is vanity,” comes home to his heart. In whatever way such states of mind come +about, whether as a result of original constitution, or of experience, or of disease, +they make the mind inhospitable to whatever does not harmonise with them. In +the case of insanity, this disposition may outweigh the plainest evidence of the +senses, so that a man may believe that he is rolling in wealth and luxury when he +is destitute of the ordinary comforts of life, or that his wife and children are dead +when they are present before his eyes. In a lower degree, most of us probably +have experience of something of the sort in “fits of the blues,” but while the general +character of the belief may be decided by the emotional tone of the mind, its +precise form is determined by the man’s interests. Low spirits would not be +likely, for instance, to effect a man’s opinion as to the probable course of the stock +market, unless he were in some way interested in stocks, and the view favored by +his emotional condition would depend on the side of the market on which his interest +lay. Beliefs which, in our ordinary state of mind, are not associated with +any strong feeling, such as mathematical truths and the physical and chemical laws +of matter, remain unaffected in all kinds and degrees of emotional disturbance.</p> + +<p>It seems clear, then, that, as a matter of fact, emotions affect our beliefs +through association. It is not difficult to see how this comes about. Emotions +tend to perpetuate themselves. A man who is in high spirits will laugh at vexations +which, if he were in an irritable frame of mind would seem intolerable. We +allow liberties to our friends which would offend us in persons to whom we are indifferent. +The same inertia of the mind which is shown in these cases offers a resistance +to any thought that tends to disturb it. If I like a man and hate dishonesty, +evidence that the man is dishonest calls up at the same time two contrary +emotional states, which cannot subsist together. One of three things must happen; +either the association of the feeling of liking with the person of the man, or of that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_429">[429]</span>of repugnance with dishonesty, or of the quality of dishonesty with the man must +be given up, or at least impaired. But the feeling of affection for my friend and +that of hatred for the alleged fault are old established associations, while that of +dishonesty with his personality is a new one, which, in order to find lodgement, +must expel the original inhabitant. Although I may have formed no definite association +of honesty with him, the difficulty is of precisely the same sort as if I had. +In either case it is the breaking up of an habitual association.</p> + +<p>Such being the way in which emotion affects belief, its value as a ground of +belief must be determined in the same way as in other cases of association. If any +emotion is so exclusively connected with some definite object that the one is never +present without the other, we are warranted in inferring the existence of the object +from the presence of the emotion, as Robinson Crusoe inferred from the human +footprints on the sand that men had been there. As a matter of fact, there is comparatively +little uniformity in associations of this kind. The same things affect +different persons differently, and the same persons differently at different times. +Our hopes and fears are sometimes realised and sometimes disappointed, and people +to whom, on slight acquaintance, we feel attracted, often develop qualities of +a different kind from what we expected as we come to know them better. If I am +fond of money, and also of idleness, or of friendship, and also of having my own +way at all times, it does not follow that taking my ease is the way to get rich, nor +that always insisting on my own way is the course to make friends. The most, I +think, that can be said in favor of emotion as a ground of belief is, that its existence +presupposes the existence of some object adapted to excite it. Avarice may +be said, in a sense, to prove the existence of wealth—if there were no wealth there +would doubtless be no avarice—but not that a particular avaricious man will be +wealthy. Fear implies the existence of harm, but not necessarily that harm is +coming upon the one that fears. These are matters in which we can apply the test +of experience to our beliefs, and it seems evident that emotion adds nothing to our +knowledge. We know the things independently of the emotions they excite, and +every one recognises that to expect a thing merely because we either desire or fear +it is, in matters which we can test by experience, utterly fallacious.</p> + +<p>But there are matters lying outside the range of our experience in regard to +which it is often confidently asserted that our desires and fears are sufficient proof +of their reality—a view in which I cannot agree. If it could be shown that we long +for something of an entirely different kind from anything we have known, that +might perhaps be an argument in favor of its existence, but such is not the case. +The wish for immortality, for instance, is nothing more than the wish for life. +Probably there are but few who would not rather have immortality without death +than after it, but experience has at last convinced the most hopeful that this is not +to be expected, and the search for fountains of youth and elixirs of life has few devotees. +We want life, and we have life; we want happiness, and we know happiness, +whether we ourselves have it or not, but to say that the fact that we want +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_430">[430]</span>more than we get of both is a reason for supposing that we shall ever have all that +we want of either is to reason in a way which we should all see to be fallacious if +applied to things of every-day life. I conclude, then, that the emotions which a +belief excites are utterly valueless as a test of its truth, and that we may expect +that, both with individuals and the race, emotion will play a smaller and smaller +part in belief as true knowledge and culture increase. This is not saying that, in +cases of doubt, it is unreasonable to hope that things may turn out as we wish.</p> + +<p>As to innate beliefs, it is enough to say that we cannot altogether rid our minds +of them, and that they answer perfectly the purpose of working hypotheses. A +man may question the reality of an external world to his heart’s content, but if he +runs his head against a wall, or drops a brick on his toe, it will hurt him just as +much as the most thorough-going materialist. The consequence is that such a +doubt does not affect our conduct. Abstractly, these beliefs do not all impress us +with the same degree of certainty. That the same thing cannot be in two different +places at once, is, I think, felt to be more absolutely and necessarily true than that +there is such a necessity in the order of events as is implied in the idea of causation, +but for all practical purposes we are as sure of the one as of the other.</p> + +<p>I have already quoted Professor James’s assertion of our ability to choose which +among different ways of thinking of the same we shall adhere to and which disregard. +Perhaps the most prominent feature of his teaching on the subject of belief +is that it is an active, not a passive state of the mind—a choice, not a necessity. +One or two more quotations on this point will make this plain.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“As bare logical thinkers, without emotional reaction, we give reality to whatever +objects we think of, for they are really phenomena, or objects of our passing +thought, if nothing more. But, <i>as thinkers with emotional reaction, we give what seems +to us a higher degree of reality to whatever things we select and emphasise and turn to +<span class="smcap">with a will</span></i>. These are our <i>living</i> realities, and not only these, but all things +that are intimately connected with these (p. 297).</p> + +<p>“Now the important thing to notice is that the difference between the objects +of belief and will is entirely immaterial, as far as the relation of the mind to them +goes. All that the mind does is in both cases the same; it looks at the object and +consents to its existence, espouses it, says ‘it shall be my reality.’ It turns to it, +in short, in the interested emotional way” (p. 320).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Although the doctrine is stated, in these and other passages, without qualification, +it is hard to reconcile it with some other statements. He devotes a chapter +to “Necessary Truths,” and says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We <i>must</i> attach the predicate ‘equal’ to the subject ‘opposite sides of a parallelogram’ +if we think those terms together at all” (p. 617).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I do not know that it makes much difference whether we say that, in a case +like this, we cannot think differently of the same, or that, having thought so, we +cannot choose which way of thinking to adhere to and which to disregard. The +proposition that a horse is a vertebrate animal cannot be called a necessary, <i>a priori</i> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_431">[431]</span>truth, but I find it as impossible to think of a horse that is not a vertebrate animal +as of a parallelogram with the opposite sides unequal. A figure with the opposite +sides unequal would not be a parallelogram, and anything that was not animal and +vertebrate would not be a horse. Whether the difficulty in the two cases is the +same or not, it is clear that, by Professor James’s admission, here is a restriction of +our choice as to what we will believe.</p> + +<p>Again, he speaks of pleasurable and painful sensations as “belief-compelling.” +Compulsion, so far as it exists, excludes choice, and if this expression is justified it +implies another limitation on the freedom of belief.</p> + +<p>With regard to painful sensations, it seems to me that the fact is that they, +and their associations, force themselves on our attention, rather than that we “select, +and emphasise and turn to them with a will.” If I have a toothache, I may +believe that if I retain the tooth it will keep me in pain for a long time, and if I +have it extracted, that will also be a painful process. It does not seem to me that +the expressions quoted above accurately describe my state of mind in regard to +either of these beliefs.</p> + +<p>According to Professor James, when a man becomes convinced that he is financially +bankrupt, or that he has lost his good name, or that he is suffering from an +incurable and fatal disease, it is because he “espouses” this view of the matter, +“consents to its existence,” says “it shall be my reality.” This notwithstanding +that such a belief may drive him to determine that, so far as in him lies, all existence, +all reality shall cease; to consent to death and espouse the grave. Would +not the criminal who hears his death-sentence pronounced prefer, if he could, to +disbelieve his eyes and ears, and to feel that it was all a bad dream? So far as I +can judge with regard to many unwelcome beliefs, they are not like the highwayman +who offers the alternative of “your money or your life,” but like him who +throws you down, binds and robs you without offering any choice.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most striking example of the view under consideration is found in +a foot-note on p. 318, in which, after quoting, with approval, a statement of Royce +that “The ultimate motive with men of every-day life is the will to have an external +world,” he goes on to say:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“This immixture of the will appears most flagrantly in the fact that although +external matter is doubted often enough, minds external to our own are never +doubted. We need them too much, are too intensely social to dispense with them. +Semblances of matter may suffice to react upon, but not semblances of communing +souls. A psychic solipsism is too hideous a mockery of our wants, and, so far as I +know, has never been seriously entertained.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Leaving aside the question whether any one who really disbelieved that there +was any reality, outside of his own mind, in objects of sense, could believe in the +existence of that which he only infers from the conduct of those objects, it seems +to be distinctly stated that the reason of these beliefs is, not that we cannot help +believing so, but that we choose to believe so, and not otherwise, and that we are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_432">[432]</span>able, having so chosen, to believe as we wish. That there may be no doubt as to the +sense in which the term “Will” is used, I will quote the explanation with which +he opens his chapter on that subject:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We desire to feel, to have, to do, all sorts of things which at the moment are +not felt, had, or done. If with the desire there goes a sense that attainment is not +possible, we simply <i>wish</i>; but if we believe that the end is in our power, we <i>will</i> +that the desired feeling, having or doing shall be real; and real it presently becomes, +either immediately upon the willing or after certain preliminaries have been +fulfilled” (p. 486).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Now each one must judge for himself whether this, or anything like this is the +way in which he came to believe in an external world. Judging from my own experience, +I should say that the reason we originally have such a belief is that it +arises spontaneously in our minds, and that, for a long time, it never occurs to us +that it can be otherwise. However that may be, I am certain that when the contrary +possibility was presented to my mind, it struck me as strange, rather than +dreadful, and that I firmly believe many things that seem to me far more hideous +than the doctrine that I am the universe. So far as society is concerned, if I can +<i>be</i> Shakespeare and Milton and Goethe, Plato and Bacon, Newton and Darwin, +Luther and Columbus and Washington, as well as all the people of my acquaintance, +it strikes me that I can be pretty good company for myself. To use the +universality of the belief as a proof of its voluntary nature seems to me very much +such an argument as to say that because all bodies attract each other in the ratio +of their mass and inversely as the square of the distance, the falling of a stone +must be a purely voluntary matter. I do not see what stronger argument, in a case +like this, could be made for the necessity of a belief than the alleged fact that no +one, under any circumstances, is free from it.</p> + +<p>Now, if we substitute the term “Propensity” for “Will” in the passage +quoted above, it would seem to me an entirely accurate description of the facts, +and I can only understand how the authors quoted could take the ground they do +except on the assumption that all propensities, or at least all which prevail, are +choices or volitions. That such is not the case seems to me clear enough in regard +to belief from some of the instances which I have already mentioned, but it will +perhaps be still more evident from cases in which belief is not in question. The +propensity to remember and constantly think of painful and distressing things, +which we would gladly banish from our thoughts, or such things as silly rhymes +and trifling tunes; to tremble and lose our presence of mind in danger, when we +have most need of the full use of all our faculties; to express our emotions by +muscular movements when we wish to conceal them, and many others that might +be mentioned, are examples of the fact that an invincible propensity may be quite +the reverse of a choice.</p> + +<p>That belief is an activity of the mind may be freely admitted. The mind—whatever +the substratum of our states of consciousness may be—is not a receptacle, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_433">[433]</span>to hold indifferently whatever may be poured into it nor a sheet of blank paper, on +which this or that may be written by circumstances; it has a character of its own, +and reacts to its environment. What the reaction shall be depends both on the +character of the mind and what is presented to it, but it seems incorrect to assume +that all the dispositions of the mind are of the nature of desires or aversions. In +the last analysis of which we are capable, our character is probably due to our +physical constitution, original and acquired, and our beliefs may be profoundly +affected by a few glasses of whiskey or an attack of fever. Whether the reactions +of the matter of which our brains are formed are as invariable as those of inorganic +matter need not be discussed here; the present point is that while belief is a sense +of the relations of things as they are, the essence of will is the desire to have them +otherwise than as they are. To make belief a matter of choice is the same as to +say that I may at the same time choose that things shall be as they are and otherwise.</p> + +<p>Professor James closes the chapter with a practical observation:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If belief consists in an emotional reaction of the entire man on an object, +how <i>can</i> we believe at will? We cannot control our emotions. Truly enough, a +man cannot believe at will abruptly. Nature sometimes, and indeed not very infrequently, +produces instantaneous conversions for us. She suddenly puts us in +an active connection with objects to which she had till then left us cold. ‘I realise +for the first time,’ we then say, ‘what that means!’ This happens often with moral +propositions. We have often heard them; but now they shoot into our lives; they +move us; we feel their living force. Such instantaneous beliefs are truly enough +not to be achieved by will. But <i>gradually</i> our will can lead us to the same results +by a very simple method; <i>we need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question +were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and it will infallibly end by growing +into such a connection with our life that it will become real</i>. It will become so knit +with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterise belief. +Those to whom God and Duty are now mere names can make them much +more than that, if they make a little sacrifice to them every day. But all this is so +well known in moral and religious education that I need say no more” (p. 321).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The above passage seems to me to illustrate at the same time the force of Professor +James’s rhetoric and an occasional tendency on his part to be carried away +by it into statements that are altogether too sweeping. In an immense proportion +of cases, the method that he recommends is precisely the surest way to convince +ourselves that the thing in question is <i>not</i> real. It is the method which the small +boy takes to convince himself that the gun is not loaded; the drunkard and spendthrift +to satisfy themselves that their vices will not bring them into poverty and disgrace. +A man may sit all day at the fork of the road, and believe that the broad +way does not lead to destruction, but when he puts his belief in practice he discovers +the truth. So far as practical matters, capable of being brought to the test of +experience, are concerned, it can only be said that <i>if they are real</i>, we shall convince +ourselves that such is the case by acting as if they were real. Doubtless Professor +James had not such prosaic things as these in mind when he wrote the passage, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_434">[434]</span>but a method that will not serve us in regard to such questions as whether +water will wet us or fire burn us, can hardly be called infallible. But even in regard +to questions that must always remain matters of opinion it is not true in the +unqualified sense in which Professor James puts it. Probably many men, brought +up in the belief that it was their duty to observe the first day of the week by religious +worship because the Hebrews were required to abstain from labor on the +seventh day, have come to modify their belief without any material change in their +practice, and even the belief in regard to the nature and attributes of God may be +affected in advance of a change in the conduct based upon it.</p> + +<p>The law of association in this regard is subject to the same limitations as we +have already found to hold in respect to other matters. Associations of action with +belief have a tendency to strengthen it, but, as in the case of emotion, they may be +overcome by other considerations, and it is entirely possible for a man to go on for +the better part of a lifetime in punctilious conformity to usages which in his heart +he despises, and break out in open rebellion at last. From the ethical point of +view, the advice which seems to be implied, of deliberately choosing a way of setting +doubts at rest which is as efficacious on the side of error as of truth, of vice as +of virtue, seems to me, to say the least, of doubtful tendency. We must often act +in doubtful cases, and take the risk, amongst others, of thus confirming ourselves +in error, but certainly there can be no more solemn motive for weighing well our +beliefs before committing ourselves to them by action than the fact that we may, +by habit, pervert our moral sense, blind our judgment and stifle our conscience.</p> + +<p>To the man who believes that there is a universe, of which he forms an infinitesimal +part, and that all his interests depend on his attitude toward the power that +works in it, it is of infinitely more interest to know how he can know the truth than +how he can convince himself of this or that. Shall truth be our master, to be followed +and obeyed, though he command us to give up all else that we hold dear, or +our servant, to be employed as suits our passion or caprice, and dismissed when he +will no longer serve our purpose?</p> + +<p>This is perhaps the most momentous question that we are called on to decide. +The man who makes the wrong choice may or may not attain what he seeks, but +though he gain the whole world, he will lose his own soul.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">W. L. Worcester.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> <i>The Principles of Psychology</i>, by William James, Professor of Psychology in Harvard University. +In two volumes. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1890.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> The italics, in this and my other quotations, are the author’s.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="THE_NATURE_OF_MIND_AND_THE_MEANING_OF_REALITY">THE NATURE OF MIND AND THE MEANING OF REALITY.⁠<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></h4> + +</div> + +<p>Professor William James’s supposition of “an hallucinatory candle” seen by a +“new born mind entirely blank and waiting for experience to begin” is an impossible +and self-contradictory figment. We might as well speak of the dry Niagara +falls employed in the manufacture of some material goods out of nothing. For, first, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_435">[435]</span>a mind entirely blank is no mind and, secondly, a blank mind if it could exist at +all, would have no hallucinations. An hallucinatory candle can be produced only +out of the memories or the combination of memories of former candle-sensations. +A blind man sees in his dream no colors, and a deaf man hears no symphonies.</p> + +<p>A new-born babe is already in possession of many inherited memories. Thus +the first sense-impressions after the babe’s birth find the organism, especially its +skin, nerves and muscles predisposed for their reception. The babe’s organism accordingly +presents an instance of a relative but not of an absolute blank; an absolute +blank of a something that is to develop into mind can mean only a lump of sentient +matter at the moment of formation. As soon as it is formed it is exposed in every +second of its existence to innumerable impressions which fill the blank with contents +and these contents are the mind that is developing.</p> + +<p>Sentient substance is not at rest, but like a flame it is possessed of an incessant +activity. The form of this activity is both extraordinarily plastic and stable. It is +plastic, for every impression together with the reaction of the impression modifies it +and leaves a trace: it is stable for the traces of all the impressions and reactions are +preserved.</p> + +<p>The first sense-impression of a lump of sentient substance produces an irritation +which objectively considered is a commotion of the sentient substance and subjectively +considered a feeling, the substance being sentient <i>ex hypothesi</i>. This first +and primitive feeling is meaningless, for it has not, and cannot have, any reference +to any other feeling, memory or mind, and meaning is created through the interaction +of feelings with memories of feelings.</p> + +<p>Some later sense-impression of the same kind will not only produce the same +irritation but also serve as an irritation to awaken the memory-trace left by the +former sense-impression. The new feeling will melt into one with the reawakened +memory of the former feeling. In the long run many traces of the same kind which +are, as it were, deposited in the same place will constitute an organ predisposed to +receive the correspondent impressions; and now a sense-impression received by +such an organ may be called a sensation. A sensation is not merely a feeling, it is +a feeling of a special kind and it is felt to be of a special kind. In other words, a +sensation is a feeling that has acquired meaning; and this meaning is the product of +the interaction and coöperation of feelings and memories. Sensations have become +symbols representing the cause of the sense-impression which produced the sensation, +and ideas are symbols of a higher order representing either whole classes of a +certain kind of causes of sense-impressions or certain features thereof, or certain +relations among them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_436">[436]</span></p> + +<p>Thus every mind is a system of sentient symbols. These symbols being as it +were pictures intended somehow to represent or allegorically speaking to portray +things are called “ideas,” while the things symbolised are in their totality called +objective existence or “reality.”</p> + +<p>Considering the nature of mind, it is obvious that there cannot be an entirely +blank mind. We might as well speak of an entirely blank picture. But an entirely +blank picture is a canvas and no picture at all. That a mind which is not as yet a +mind can have neither sensations nor hallucinations is almost self-evident. Similarly +there is no sense in saying that a picture that consists of an utter blank and +thus is properly speaking no picture at all but an empty canvas, either does or +does not correctly represent a certain object.</p> + +<p>The word “real” is used in two senses (1) as a name for everything that exists +and (2) to signify that kind of existence which is the object of our sensory and mental +experience, i. e. the objective world so-called. The former of these two definitions +is more comprehensive; for it includes the realm of mentality, the ideal world +of subjectivity. The latter is used in contrast to the subjective world of mental life +and thus expressly excludes the ideal realm of the mind and of mental symbols.</p> + +<p>The questions as to What is reality? and Is there anything real at all? must +not be formulated as they are by Professor James, in terms of belief but in a statement +of facts and by defining certain facts as real.</p> + +<p>An hallucination is real in the first sense of the word; it is an actual existence; +it is a feeling taking place in the mind of some organism. It is also real in the second +sense of the word in so far as it is a vibration of a brain structure. However +an hallucination is not real in the second sense of the word in so far as its meaning +has not its correspondent analogue.</p> + +<p>Let the meaning of a certain mental symbol be a candle, under which name we +comprise a certain group of experiences, and let the cerebral structure of this mental +symbol be awakened by another stimulus than that which is generally called a candle. +Those experiences which as a group are called a candle are of a certain kind. +If a piece of paper approaches the lighted candle, it will burn. An hallucinatory +candle will leave the paper intact, although the person who has the hallucination +may see the paper burn. Thus the ideas or images of objects are built up of experiences +which have taught us that under certain conditions certain events happen; +in consequence of certain actions there are constantly certain reactions taking +place. Reality consists of such facts; it is the sum total of all reactions; reality +is the nature of objects which react somehow.</p> + +<p>Those who jump at the conclusion that our subjective sensations, such as +colors, tastes, sounds, etc., must be regarded as objective properties of things, are +grossly mistaken. Our sensations are not qualities of things but subjective phenomena: +they do not inform us about the nature of things, but reveal to us how things +affect our senses. Those however who deny or doubt objective existence are no less +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_437">[437]</span>mistaken. The world is not a subjective phenomenon of sensations, but an objective +existence symbolised in sensations.</p> + +<p>The question is not “Does reality exist?” but “What is Reality?” or “What +is the meaning of ‘real’?” When we say “Objects are real,” we mean that they +resist, they react, their presence produces somehow some effect. When we say, +We ourselves are real, we mean that we react upon the objects with which we come +in contact, we mean, that in our bodily existence we are objects in an objective +world.</p> + +<p>Actions and reactions are taking place. This is a fact. He who denies it is +like the man who declares that he is not at home; he contradicts himself: for the +denial of a question is a reaction upon an action. The term reality is the symbol +of the nature of actions and reactions in their efficacy, it denotes the essence of facts +and thus the question “Does reality exist?” has no sense. We denote that which +exists, that which acts and reacts, that which is a fact, or howsoever we may express +it, by the word “reality.” We might deny that the reactions of the objective +world are constant, or that a certain idea of a certain reaction is erroneous, +viz. that the reaction if put to the test would prove to be different from what it was +expected—but all these denials and doubts which are of daily occurrence in the +domain of science presuppose that there are reactions taking place and reality or objective +existence is only a collective name for these reactions and their nature. The +name object still preserves the idea of reaction, for object is that which reacts upon +touch, which resists, which is objected.</p> + +<p>We shall lose ourselves in inextricable confusion by making a matter of doubt +and belief what is really a statement of facts. To speak of a doubt or belief in the +reality of things in general is tantamount to speaking of a belief in our experiences +which, whatever their particular nature may be, are facts. And to doubt our experiences, +not the correctness of a particular experience, but experience in general, +i. e. the very existence of experience is tantamount to doubting our own being.</p> + +<p>A consideration of what we mean by an hallucination can best make clear what +we mean, and rationally can only mean, by reality. A real candle is a mental symbol +of something which will under certain conditions react in a certain way. An +hallucinatory candle is also a mental symbol, but the thing which it purports to +mean, does not exist; i. e. there is nothing that will react. The symbol is there, +but not that something the existence of which the symbol of the idea “candle” +would indicate.</p> + +<p>This method of dealing with the problem of the old naïve realism and the +pseudo-critical idealism of former times is not based upon the assumption of the +reality of things (which means, of the reality of reality); it is simply a careful formulation +of the problem to prevent our being entangled all about with contradictions; +it is the method of rendering clear the basic principle of positivism, that all knowledge +is a description of facts, which description of facts is made for the purpose of, +dealing with facts.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">P. C.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> This article was suggested by Dr. W. L. Worcester’s criticism on Professor James’s Psychology. +When Dr. Worcester discusses Professor James’s supposition of an hallucination in a +blank mind, saying that it would be “the only possible reality of that mind,” he almost seems to +adopt Professor James’s views of the subject himself. Clearness about such fundamental terms +as mind and reality, are so much needed that the following remarks may not be out of place as a +further explanation of the subject. Exactness in fundamental and general terms will save much +labor in detail work.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_438">[438]</span></p> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="MONISM_NOT_MECHANICALISM">MONISM NOT MECHANICALISM.<br> +<span class="smaller">COMMENTS UPON PROF. ERNST HAECKEL’S POSITION.</span></h4> + +</div> + +<p>Prof. Ernst Haeckel’s Anthropogeny, the fourth edition of which appeared of +late,⁠<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> brings again into prominence that conception of monism which identifies the +monistic view with mechanicalism.</p> + +<p>A review of this book has appeared already in <i>The Open Court</i>, No. 231, in +which we called attention to the great merits of a work which has become a household +book, not only for the scientist, but for every educated reader who is interested +in man and the origin of man. Our knowledge in Anthropogeny, certainly, will influence +not only our general world-conception, but through our general world-conception +it will extend its influence not only over every branch of science but also +into the broader fields of man’s daily life and his practical morality.</p> + +<p>Professor Haeckel is the most popular naturalist of to-day and there is no one, +perhaps, who has made a more effective propaganda for the monistic world-conception +than he. So it is almost a matter of course that his definition of monism is +generally accepted as the standard. We have formulated our view of monism in a +way which in principle and general outlines concurs with the commonly accepted +usage of the term, yet it deviates from it in some important points which are perhaps +not merely matters of detail. It will be difficult to say how far we agree and how +far we disagree with Professor Haeckel’s monism because those subjects in which +we disagree, have never been elaborated by him, and we are inclined to believe +that he would modify some of his expressions, if he devoted a quiet hour’s thought +to the objections we have to make to his definitions.</p> + +<p>Professor Haeckel’s monism being mechanicalism savors strongly of materialism. +He says in the latest edition of his “Anthropogenie” which is now before +us, Vol. II, p. 851:</p> + +<p>“There can be no doubt that a thorough consideration and unprejudiced deliberation +of these facts will lead to a decisive victory of that philosophical conception +which with one word we call monistic or mechanical in opposition to the +dualistic and teleological. Upon the latter are based most of the philosophical systems +of antiquity, of the mediæval times, and also of the present time. The mechanical +or monistic philosophy declares that certain and immutable laws obtain +everywhere in the phenomena of human life as much as in nature generally, that +a necessary causal connexus obtains everywhere in phenomena and, accordingly, +that the knowable world forms throughout a unitary whole, a monon. Monism +moreover maintains that all phenomena are produced alone through mechanical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_439">[439]</span>causes (<i>causæ efficientes</i>) not through premeditated purposive causes (<i>causæ +finales</i>).”</p> + +<p>And in the first lecture “The History of Evolution and Philosophy,” (p. 15) he +says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We shall clearly recognise in the following investigations how the most wonderful +enigmas of human and animal organisations, heretofore considered as inaccessible, +have become accessible to a natural solution through Darwin’s reform +in the doctrine of evolution by a mechanical explanation of purposeless +efficient causes.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In agreement with these views, Professor Haeckel regards the terms necessity and +mechanicalism as equivalent terms. He rejects any kind of teleology, any kind of +final causes, and also the freedom of the will. He opposes the so-called moral world-order +as contradictory to the idea that the world is regulated by mechanical law and +he adopts the latter to the exclusion of the former. All these points come out very +strongly and clearly in Professor Haeckel’s letter to the editor of <i>The Open Court</i>, +where his view of monism is graphically presented in a concise tabular form.</p> + +<p>We here reproduce this table from No. 212 of <i>The Open Court</i>, for the convenience +of our readers:</p> + +<table id="Haeckel"> + <tr> + <th><span class="smcap">Monism.</span></th> + <th><span class="smcap">Fundamental Concepts.</span></th> + <th><span class="smcap">Dualism.</span></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Inseparable.</td> + <td>Matter and force.<br>God and world.<br>Soul and body.</td> + <td>As a matter of principle distinct entities.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mechanicalism.<br>Necessary evolution.</td> + <td>Life.</td> + <td>Vitalism.<br>Teleological creation.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Universal (conservation of energy).<br>Determinism.</td> + <td>Immortality.<br>Freedom of will.</td> + <td>Individual.<br>A person’s will being absolutely free.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Causæ efficientes. (Efficient causes.)</td> + <td>Causation.</td> + <td>Causæ finales. (Final causes.)</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Regulated by mechanical law.</td> + <td>World-order.</td> + <td>So-called “Moral.”</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Inseparable and subject to the same laws.</td> + <td>Inorganic and organic nature.</td> + <td>As a matter of principle distinct and subject to different laws.</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>Now we agree with Professor Haeckel in one main point, viz. “that certain +and immutable laws obtain everywhere in the phenomena of human life as much +as in nature generally, and that the knowable world forms throughout a unitary +whole, a monon.” But we cannot agree to his proposition that “the wonderful +enigmas of organised life are accessible to a natural solution by a mechanical explanation +of purposeless efficient causes.” We grant willingly that mechanical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_440">[440]</span>explanations will serve for all motions that take place in the world; even the +motions of the brain take place in strict obedience to the laws of molar and molecular +mechanics. But a mechanical explanation is not applicable to that which +is not motion. If it were applicable it would not be desirable, for it would be of no +avail. Mechanical explanations are to be limited to mechanical phenomena. Feeling +however is not a mechanical phenomenon, and an idea, being a special and a +very complex kind of a feeling, or rather and more accurately expressed, being the +special meaning of a very complex feeling, is not a mechanical phenomenon either. +It is true that when a feeling takes place and when an idea is thought in the brain of +an organised being, that a certain nervous action takes place. The nervous action +is a motion and this motion represents a definite amount of energy. There is no +theoretical difficulty, although there are almost insurmountable practical difficulties, +in measuring the definite amount of potential energy that is changed into kinetic +energy when a man thinks. Yet the brain-motion is not the idea and by a mechanical +explanation of the brain-motion we have not even touched the problem of what +the nature of the idea is, why ideas originate and how they act.</p> + +<p>We know that Professor Haeckel when he so vigorously insists on mechanicalism, +opposes those philosophers who believe that there are motions which cannot be +explained by mechanical laws. We side with Professor Haeckel against any one +who maintains that some motions are mechanical (molar or molecular) and others +are exceptions to the laws of mechanics, representing a kind of hypermechanics. +But we cannot admit the explanation by mechanical laws of non-mechanical phenomena.</p> + +<p>Professor Haeckel speaks of purposeless efficient causes—<i>zwecklos thätige +Ursachen</i>. He speaks of efficient causes, as excluding final causes. He is right in +his objection to final causes as the term is commonly used. But while there are +causes that are <i>zwecklos</i>, there are no causes that are <i>ziellos</i>. Every process of +causation takes a definite course, it has a certain and definable direction. The end +of this direction need not be a conscious aim, but it is an aim whatever it be, it is a +<i>Ziel</i>. In this sense every efficient cause is at the same time a final cause. The +gravitating stone has no purpose, yet it has an aim. So the evolution of organised +life is a natural process having a very definite aim. And this aim of the evolution of +organised life is determined by factors of a very complex nature. One of these factors +is almost imperceptible at the beginning, but it is of a constantly and rapidly growing +importance; and this factor is the psychical element that appears with organised +life. This factor is nothing supra-natural, nothing extra-natural, and yet it is not +something material or mechanical. It is this factor which in its highest efflorescence +changes aims into purposes, and with this change it creates again a new factor of +evolution which is the purposive aspiration to conform to the world-order and thus +to advance the further progress of mankind. This aspiration is in one word called +morality.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_441">[441]</span></p> + +<p>When we speak of a moral world-order we mean that such moral behests as +were formulated in prescripts by Confucius, by Buddha, by Moses, by Jesus, and +other moral teachers of mankind have an objective and immutable foundation in the +nature of things. The mechanical law in the province of motions, the logical law in +the realm of thought, geometrical proportions in mathematics, the regularity of natural +laws, etc., form in our world-conception a part of this moral world-order. The +laws of social life are not opposed to them but correlative.</p> + +<p>The purpose of a man’s action reveals his character, and the character of the +man is his innermost nature. In an analogous way the aim of evolution and especially +the aim of the evolution of organised beings reveals the character, the innermost +nature of the universe. Psychic life is absent so far as we can see in the primordial +world substance as it appears in the form of a nebula; it is absent still in +the primordial state of planets. It appears with the subjective states of awareness +that rise into existence in organised life. The subjectivity of unorganised matter is, +in comparison with man’s subjectivity, to be considered as a blank; i. e., if there is +in it a state of awareness, which we have reasons to doubt, it is apparently without +meaning; it does not symbolise external objects; it is no mind; it is, as it were, +blind. Yet the aim of evolution being the development of psychical life, shows that +the subjectivity of unorganised matter is spiritual in its innermost nature. And the +aim of psychical life being the development of moral ideals, we are very well justified +in speaking of the world-order as moral. When speaking of the world-order as +moral we mean that the moral prescripts of the great ethical teachers of mankind +are founded in and derived from the world-order of nature.</p> + +<p>There is one objection to calling the world-order moral, and we therefore dislike +to use the phrase. It is this: Morality means conformity to a certain standard. +The standard is not moral, but those who do or do not conform to it are moral or +immoral. Therefore if there is any truth in the idea of God it is this that there is a +standard for human conduct to conform to, there is an authority which has to be +obeyed and this authority is God. To speak of God as moral or immoral is anthropomorphism. +If “God” means anything, it means that power of the world-order +obedience to which is called morality. If we say God is moral, God ceases to be +God, the moral authority above him to which he has to conform would be the really +true God. Thus logically the personal conception of God leads to a superpersonal +conception of God.</p> + +<p>These are in brief our objections to Professor Haeckel’s definition of monism as +being identical with mechanicalism and perhaps also with materialism. My opinion +that Professor Haeckel may after all accede to our view of monism is based upon an +interesting and friendly conversation which I enjoyed with him several years ago in +Jena. Professor Haeckel is not the one-sided naturalist that he is often represented +to be by orthodox clergymen. He does not see the workings of the natural laws only, +he sees also the moral aspect to which a consideration of the natural laws leads. That +his books emphasise the former without entering into the problems of the latter is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_442">[442]</span>natural for a scientist, but he personally is certainly even broader than are his books, +and I should say that his very opposition to certain errors which have been foisted by +an antiquated dogmatism upon our religious institutions, show the deeply religious +spirit of his character.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">P. C.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> <i>Anthropogenie oder Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen.</i> Keimes-und Stammesgeschichte. +By Ernst Haeckel. Mit 20 Tafeln, 440 Holzschnitten und 25 genetischen Tabellen. Vierte, +umgearbeitete und vermehrte Auflage. Leipzig: Engelmann.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="MR_CHARLES_S_PEIRCE_ON_NECESSITY">MR. CHARLES S. PEIRCE ON NECESSITY.</h4> + +</div> + +<p>Mr. Charles S. Peirce is one of those thinkers who in the investigation of a +subject go right down to the bottom of the problem. This appears to me the more +conspicuously so, as the result to which his investigations lead stand in a strong +contrast to my own views. Yet I cannot help admiring the boldness of his trenchant +critique which finds the difficulties at the point where really the main difficulty of all +philosophical inquiry lies buried. It lies buried, i. e. it does not appear on the surface +of things. If it lay on the surface, our most superficial thinkers would naturally +light on it; but most of them walk their way in peace, unmolested by the +question, Is there any truth in the idea of necessity. An editorial treatment of +this problem may be expected in a forthcoming number of <i>The Monist</i>.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">P. C.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_443">[443]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_REVIEWS_III">BOOK REVIEWS.</h3> + +</div> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Einleitung in das alte Testament.</span> By <i>C. H. Cornill</i>, Professor at the University +at Königsberg.</h4> + +<p>When Darwin and his followers first gave to the world the astonishing results +of their studies, few were those who at once recognised the importance of the new +theories and still fewer those who readily accepted them. But within the last thirty +years, gradually but steadily the number of those who have adopted as virtually +true the hypotheses of the new school, has been increasing until to-day those are +in the minority who teach a view different from Darwin on the origin and evolution +of the universe. The history and fate of the new studies in Biblical criticism bear +a striking analogy to the reception accorded to Darwinian researches. At first they +were met with well nigh universal opposition. They were declared to be subversive +of the holiest interests of religion. They were held to rob the Bible of its glory. +But by slow degrees the first passion yielded to wiser counsel. Curiosity led to the +examination of the new positions; and in consequence in ever widening circles the +conviction gained ground that far from taking away from the dignity of the old +Hebrew literature, these new investigations and the method upon which they footed, +lent new lustre to the collection of ancient writings. And to-day the battle has +been won by the school of Wellhausen and Kuenen. Few are those who to-day +urge the old views on the authorship date and historical succession of the several +parts composing what is called the O. T. or even on the canonisation of the whole +collection.</p> + +<p>The startling assumptions of Wellhausen, Graf, and their Dutch colleagues +had their forerunners, as had Darwin and Wallace. But when George and Vatke in +the fourth decade of our century and Reuss, in his first academic lectures, virtually +anticipated the lines of research of their later successors, the world was too busy +with other matters to give their labors much attention. (Cfr. this work, p. 8.) For all +this, primitive orthodoxy had only few representatives in this domain, at least in +Germany. While Hävernick and Keil and Hengstenberg, are ranged on the extreme +right of the line defending with all the resources of a vast erudition the traditional +views, the middle ground is occupied by such men as Ewald, and Hitzig, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_444">[444]</span>and the teacher of these De-Wette, a school of critics that to-day yet counts among +its protagonists such men as Dillmann and Schrader and Kittel. With Graf, a new +era may be said to have begun for Biblical criticism. Notwithstanding the violent +opposition encountered, the school has won the day. Its greatest triumph was +perhaps the acquiescence in its positions shortly before his death by that master of +Biblical science, Professor Delitzsch of Leipzig. What the cardinal point of contention +is between the warring camps, is well known. It is the relative age and +position of what is technically designated as the Priestly code, in the Hexateuch. +According to the new school this portion is the capping stone of the edifice, as it +were. For Dillmann it is pre-exilic; for Wellhausen post-exilic.</p> + +<p>The book before us places itself without equivocation on the standpoint of this +latest criticism. It is thus another leaf in the laurel wreath crowning the men of +the new dispensation. For the name of the author is guarantee of the scholarly +character of the work; and views which have the endorsement of a man of the renown +and the scholarship of Professor Cornill carry the presumption of having +truth on their side. Professor Cornill is however, a new-comer in this special field. +His life work, as he himself says, lies in another province of the vast realm of Biblical +critical studies. His fame is associated with his critical edition of the text of Ezekiel, +a work which will forever stand as the best guide for all who would venture on the +dangerous ground of conjectural textual emendations. For Cornill was the first to +lay down the method which above all must be followed in so venturesome a task +and his new version is the classic illustration of the correctness of his method of +proceeding. That a man who has established for himself the reputation of being +methodic and painstaking almost to a fault, a man who is dowered with critical +acumen of the highest order, should after going anew over the whole ground cast +the weight of his scholarly authority in favor of the views of the new critical school +is a fact the significance of which cannot be blinked. We are indeed glad that the +publishers entrusted this number of their intended series of manuals for theological +students, to a scholar who had hitherto not written <i>ex cathedra</i> on this particular +subject. Thus was ensured a new and impartial examination of all the points involved.</p> + +<p>The ends which this series of manuals is to serve, decided of course the style +and scope of this work. Of introductions (<i>Einleitungen</i>) to the O. T. there was +no scarcity; but (see preface) they were either too bulky and too full and thus did +not answer the requirements of the student, not yet a scholar; or they were too +brief, mere “ponies” as we here in America would say, intended to be learnt by +heart for the purpose of passing a good examination. The difficulty thus consisted +in combining thoroughness with the necessary brevity without sacrificing lucidity. +No mere results on the other hand were to be stated. The student was to be initiated +into the course of the investigations, the reasons for the conclusions and thus +his interest was to be awakened and the way prepared for independent research on +his own part. That the author has succeeded in carrying out this his programme, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_445">[445]</span>every section of the book confirms. His fear that the full analysis in paragraph +12, of the priestly code will be found to be out of place in an “outline of this kind” +is groundless. We do not hesitate that this very section is the gem of the whole +work full as it is of numerous passages which cannot but stir to profitable reflection +the student. None can lay this book aside without confessing that he has gained a +“Gesammtanschauung,” an insight into the unity and coherence of the new views, +apt to convince all earnest and unbiased minds of the truth that in this science +(<i>Wissenschaft</i>) criticism is standing on firm ground. In the selection of the books +named at the head of each chapter, or in the course of the discussion, the Professor +has displayed most consummate skill. There is scarce one important work which +with profit may be consulted but is mentioned; and what is more in the right connection. +This feature is not the least valuable in the whole work; the student thus +has at ready command a bibliography which excludes the chaff and stores the wheat.</p> + +<p>But let us dwell a little more specifically on the plan and execution and the +contents of this book. Two plans may suggest themselves to the writer of an “introduction” +of this kind. He may attempt to give a picture of the rise of literature +among the ancient Hebrews and treat of the different writings which have come +down to us, often the fragments of larger works, in the order of their composition +and at the same time connect with this discussion the reasons for departing from the +traditional views as to their dates and so forth and for assigning them to a new age. +This would be virtually writing a history of the literature. It is this plan which +Reuss adopted. But according to our Professor, investigation has not proceeded far +enough to make such a history possible. He even doubts whether it ever will (p. 2). +Perhaps his verdict is justified. At all events he is right when he urges that in such +a sequence much which belongs to the branch which he is to teach, will scarcely +find its proper or organic place. And therefore it was a wise conclusion of his to +adhere to the second plan, the traditional, for such <i>Einleitungen</i> which treats of the +different books in the order of the Hebrew canon and finally takes up the discussion +of such questions as the collection of the canon, the condition of the text, the different +ancient versions and their value for the reconstruction, if possible, of the true +original. But what is an <i>Einleitung</i>? It is that theological “discipline” which +concerns itself about holy scripture as a book. It is its business to fix the time +when and the manner how the several writings were composed, which now collectively +form the holy scriptures, again it is one of its main objects to understand at +what period and under what conditions the several writings were collected and also the +manner of the tradition of this collection down to us. The method of this inquiry +can be none other but the historic critical. To this definition of the character of +this discipline, to retain this German name, none will take exception. It is both +succinct and complete. The second paragraph gives a full survey of the history of +the studies in this field. It covers within the brief space of ten pages the results of +scholarly labors extending over a period of over fourteen hundred years. It is not +a dry enumeration of names and book titles. Under each scholar, the salient element +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_446">[446]</span>of his contribution is emphasised. The living principle of these studies is thus +illustrated in its growth and successive development. Take for instance this description +of Wellhausen’s method, and in a similar manner that of all other predecessors +or co-laborers is brought out: “At the hand of the history of the cultus and +that of tradition, he shows how these two lines of development run parallel to each +other, how the religious process of evolution at every halt and turn finds its expression +and at the same time its corroboration in the productions of literature: Israel +and Judaism are two concepts radically different from each other; it is the canon +that differentiates Judaism from old Israel.” Paragraph three states the author’s +reasons for treating the single books first before taking up the discussion of their +collection into a canon, and also why the apocrypha are excluded. These not being +in the canon, are foreign to the purposes of an introduction into the canon books. +None will deny that the Professor’s arguments on these points are irrefutable. His +inquiry into the age of the art of writing among the Hebrews concludes this general +preliminary. He is of the opinion that as far back as the memory of the Hebrews +goes, they were acquainted with this art as nowhere there is a sign that among them +there was a dim recollection of an analphabetic period. Recent finds have made it +plain that during the reign of the Pharaoh of the exodus a lively correspondence +was kept up between Palestine and Egypt, while for the reign of David the names +of his court officials is documentary proof that there were writers at his court. The +use of the pen must have been pretty general among the people as is shown by +Judges viii, a chapter which belongs to the oldest layer of historical compositions.</p> + +<p>Our space is too limited to abstract every chapter of this remarkable book. +Much as we should like to do this, and especially as in this manner alone we can hope +to do justice to its merits, we must confine ourselves, now that we come to the “special +introduction” to a few selections taken from the discussion of the main points in +reference to books which have been the centre of critical study. The Pentateuch as +is natural receives the lion’s share of the author’s attention. We have no hesitancy +in saying that his is the best exposition of the modern views which has yet come +under our notice. The Pentateuch cannot be the work of Moses; internal evidence, +as already pointed out by Aben Esra, Hobbes, Peyrerius, and Spinoza, render the +traditional assumption of Mosaic authorship untenable. But the Pentateuch cannot +be the work of one author. The critical labors of one and a half century, sketched +most skillfully, has made it plain that the Pentateuch has been “worked together” +from four independent original writings, (<i>Quellenschriften</i>) a yahwistic work, J. an +elohistic, E. a Deuteronomistic D. and a priestly which after Kuenen is denoted as +P. On this general division the scholars are agreed, the relative age of the separate +parts alone is yet under controversy. In paragraph seven an analysis is given of +the first four books as assigned to the three sources. Deuteronomy occupies a position +of its own. It is characteristically different in language and thought from the +others; it is something essentially new and is in itself homogeneous. In the main +Deuteronomy is the book of the covenant mentioned in II. Kings xxiii; this original +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_447">[447]</span>D. is now incorporated in chapters xii, xiii, xiv-xvii, where however certain verses +and even parts of verses must be eliminated. Perhaps xxviii, or as Professor Cornill +argues, something more succinct but of the same general nature, a curse, may have +belonged to the original D. This must have been the book published under such +extraordinary circumstances in 621. Who is its author? It presents itself as the +work of Moses. But this is characteristic of the tendency of the age to take a great +man as the father of a new literary production, a tendency which was perfectly well +understood and was far above the level of a literary deception. Its early manifestation +in D. is merely proof that even then Moses was among the people the law-giver +<i>par excellence</i>. The author of D. must be looked for in the circle of the pious +who in consequence of Manasse’s retrogression were bound all the more closely unto +each other. In other words among the men of the prophetic party, who must have +had influence also over certain priestly orders, for D. is a compromise and an alliance +between the prophets and the priests. Besides these components of original D. the +book contains in its present form additions and duplicates which partly are historical +and hence are denoted by D.h, partly parenetic, hence D.p; but again in these +are many later interpolations. For the particulars in this regard, we must refer to +the work of Cornill itself. His analysis displays a keen eye and will on the whole +be sure to be accepted as final. The date of D. being 621, what is the time of the +other great sources of the present Pentateuch. It is clear that D. is acquainted with +the “book of the covenant” Ex. xx, 23.-xxiii, 33. and with both Decalogues (?). +Thus it was acquainted with JE. P. on the other hand is totally unknown. The +historical portions of D. confirm this deduction from the legislative pieces. JE is +clearly known to D. while of a knowledge of P. there is not the least trace. How +far back of 621 may we go to fix the date of both J. and E.? The period of the first +kings seem to be the limit, or more particularly the reign of David. But which of +the two is the elder, J. or E.? There can be no question that J. is. For he is more +naïve as appears from a comparison among others of chapters Gen. xx, 1-17, xxi +22-32 which belong to E., with chapter Gen. xxvi. 1-33 which is J.’s. E. appears +to be a theological recasting of J. E. is the work of the Northern kingdom. Joseph +always appears as the leader of his brothers and other features confirm this impression. +The year 722, when in the Northern realm national consciousness was at its +high water mark may then be supposed to be the <i>terminus ad quem</i>. But is E. as +we have it a literary unit? Kuenen has proven that it is not. A century after its +original composition a second edition so to speak must have been made with a view +to meet the requirements and prejudices of the Judaic population of the South. Ex. +chapters 32-33, are of great decisive importance in this connection. They are a rebuke +for the golden calf worship at Dan and Bethel. Thus E. is divided again into +two E.1 and E.2, to which come yet other later amplifications f. i. Num. xxi, 32-35. +E.1 then belongs to the reign of Jeroboam II (750); and E.2 is the work of a later +author living in Judah and under the influence of prophetic ideas. The locality of +J. is a point of controversy. Cornill sides with those who maintain that his home is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_448">[448]</span>the Southern kingdom of Judah. The incidents in the Patriarchal biographies which +seem to weaken such an assumption are explained as original traits of tradition +which J. had no interest to change. J. again is not a literary unit; it compromises +J.1, J.2, and even J.3. The reasons for these subdivisions are clearly given in the +book. J. must have been composed in its different parts between 850-625. The +priestly code occupies a whole paragraph, the signal merit of which we have noticed +above. This is indeed the master-piece of a great critical master. The many points +which are involved in the discussion of this mooted problem are treated with a +clearness and a calmness which carry conviction to the most sceptical. P. presents +a spiritual unity but not a literary. P. is the offspring of P.1 an old priestly record +and P.2 a narrative and legislative composition which is as it were the substance +and skeleton of P. around which younger accretions have gathered at different times +for which Cornill in order to simplify his symbols proposes the designation of P.x. +J. S. Vater as early as 1805 has proven that in the so-called Mosaism, of the influence +in literary and legislative respect of our P. there is no evidence before the +captivity. Wellhausen and Kayser and Kuenen have demonstrated what for Vatke +was a dim suspicion. Dillmann, Kittel, and Delitzsch as little as Baudissin have +succeeded in saving the pre-exilic character of P. Certain it is that before Esra 458 +(444), this code had no official recognition. From Nehemiah we have the proof that +our P. corresponds to the “Book of the Law of Moses” which was read at the great +assembly in October 444. On the other hand the book of Chronicles is based on P. +as it details history, as it would have been, if P. had been the law regulating life +and liturgy and temple service. Had P. been known before D. what reason should +the priest have had who promulgated it to substitute for it another code less advantageous +for his own order? P. is clearly a development of D. D. presents itself as +something new in all of its demands, in its insistence on centralisation, in one sanctuary +and in one priestly order on the legitimacy of the tribe of Levi exclusively. +Of the tabernacle there is not one syllable in the whole of the pre-exile literature. +It is a clear projection into antiquity of the Deuteronomic Central sanctuary. The +relations of P. to Ezekiel make this still plainer. This prophet is the link of transition +between D. and P. The omissions in the festal cycle of E. can only be explained +that this prophet-priest was unacquainted with P. The captivity is thus +the time for the composition of P. in the main. Its emphasis on circumcision as the +sign of the covenant which decides the connection with the chosen seed and nation, +is proof of this. And the chronology finally corroborates all previous inferences as +the chronology of Genesis which is so important a part of P. is unmistakably a reconstruction +after certain principles of the Babylonian history of the beginnings. +(Oppert.) P. was written during the century from Ezekiel to Esra (570-458). It +was not merely P.2 that Esra read before the assembled people. P.1 and P.2 seem +thus to have been united even at this time. But it is not to be assumed that under +Esra P. was already a part of the other portions of our Pentateuch. P. itself contains +parts which are later than Esra. P.x is undoubtedly later and these additions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_449">[449]</span>are easily explained on the very assumption of the official introduction of P. P. is +not the work of an individual; it is that of a whole school, a school which naturally +formed in the captivity. Besides these “source-writings,” the Pentateuch contains +smaller pieces of great antiquity mostly of a poetic character which had for a long +time an independent existence. Such is Gen. xlix, Exodus xv, and others. Exodus +xxi-xxiii, the so-called book of the covenant, requires also a treatment by itself. It +is characteristic of this book that it ignores totally the Decalogue. Kuenen has +solved the difficulties in which this collection of judicial precedents is involved by +pointing out that it is the predecessor of D. D. is merely the substitute for this. As +it is older than E. and is the precipitate of the unwritten law of the earlier kingly +period, we place its date in the ninth century. Lev. xvii-xxvi while betraying in +many regards affinity with P. is still distinct from it. It stands between Ezekiel and +P.; it is one of the many priestly Thoroth which undoubtedly were current among the +class whom they concerned. How now did these component parts finally combine? +This is elucidated in paragraph fourteen. First J. and E. were put together, by an +editor of Jehovistic leanings, whom Wellhausen has styled Rj. (R. standing for German +Redacteur, Editor). This Rj. worked over, and that often decidedly, his materials +in keeping with his own convictions. This Rj. probably lived about 650. His position +is pre-deuteronomic. A second editor combined the work of Rj. with D. He +is designated as Rd. His was the placing of the old book of the covenant near Sinai +in order to gain room for Deuteronomy. He thus became the cause of much confusion. +He lived during the second half of the Babylonian captivity. JED. was +finally combined with P. by a third editor (Rp.) who is characterised by considerable +reverence for the old documents. He omitted much to guard against repetition +but at the same time where the relations differed he preserved them most faithfully +and endeavored to place them into their proper position and connection. Rp. was +thus virtually the author of our Pentateuch. But living after Esra even with him +the Pentateuch was not yet closed. Many younger hands had a share in its final +shaping. Glosses were added or crept into the text, as is shown by comparison with +the lxx. The book of Joshuah is a necessary continuation and complement of the +Pentateuch.</p> + +<p>But here we must stop quoting in detail. Much as we should desire to reproduce +Cornill’s own words relating to other Biblical books, want of space precludes +even the attempt. Suffice it to say that as in his treatment of the Pentateuch, so +every question bearing on Biblical criticism is handled with the skill of the master. +At whatever turn we ask information of this book we receive it most abundantly. +This is indeed a students book. It stimulates while it instructs. It leads while it +describes the road passed over. In the discussion of the critical problems on the +Psalms, the prophets Isaiah and Zechariah, on the final collection of the canon, the +translation of the Bible and the relation of the different recensions to each other, +the historical books as distinct from Chronicles, and Esra, and so forth, every point +is treated with a lucidity of style and a fulness of material which is the rare gift of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_450">[450]</span>a man who is saturated with his science and loves it for its own sake. This book is +destined to rank among the classics. Its earnest study and repeated consultation +can therefore be recommended to all who wish to inform themselves about the +method and the achievements of the critical schools. The kindred book by Driver, +recently published will not make a translation into English of Cornill’s manual less +desirable. We take leave from the author with a feeling of great gratitude for the +pleasure and the profit we derived from his contribution to the literature of Biblical +scholarship. The book is well printed and singularly free from typographical errors.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dr. E. G. Hirsch.</span></p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">The Present Position of the Philosophical Sciences.</span> An Inaugural Lecture. +By <i>Andrew Seth</i>, M. A. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and +Sons. 1891.</h4> + +<p>As stated by the author, this lecture deals, not with the circle of the philosophical +sciences, but only with the subjects traditionally associated with a Chair of +Logic and Metaphysics in Scotland. These subjects belong to the three-fold classification +of logical, psychological, and metaphysical, or philosophical in the strict +sense. They therefore embrace the study of the conditions to which valid reasoning +must conform, the investigation, introspectively and otherwise, of the phenomena +of consciousness, and the study of the two-fold question of knowing and being, +which as epistemology and metaphysics are included under the designation of Philosophy. +These three lines of learning are cognate, and the first two are in a +measure introductory to the third, or at least, says Professor Seth, if we go beneath +the surface they lead us into the very heart of philosophical difficulties. The lecturer +refers in his sketch of the present outlook in these three departments of science +to the marvellous activity displayed in the department of psychology. All the influences +at work may be said to meet and come to fruition in Mr. Ward’s “masterly +treatise” in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” and “the rich and stimulating +volumes” of Professor James, of Harvard. Experimental psychology is now widely +spread in Germany and has been enthusiastically taken up in America, “where +every well-equipped college aims at the establishment of a psychological or psycho-physical +laboratory.” Professor Seth thinks, however, that the experimental psychologists +magnify their office overmuch. The field of experiment is necessarily +limited to the facts of sensation, the phenomena of movement, and the time occupied +by the simpler mental processes. The results are often so contradictory as to leave +everything in doubt, and where definite results are obtainable, their value is often +not apparent. Moreover, many of the results are of a purely physiological nature, +and are only by courtesy included in psychological science. We would remark on +this, that without the experiments the results would not have been obtained and +that their value will become apparent when the methods of experiment are perfected. +After referring to the critical function of philosophy as a doctrine of knowledge, +Professor Seth states that as constructive it should lay special stress on a <i>teleological</i> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_451">[451]</span>view of the universe. By this is meant, that philosophical teleology should +concentrate itself upon the proof that there is an end of evolution, “that there is an +organic unity or purpose binding the whole process into one and making it intelligible—in +one word, that there <i>is</i> evolution and not merely aimless change,” such as +is supposed in a purely mechanical view of the universe. As to the nature of the +end, although the lecturer accepts Hegel’s view that all things are relative to man +as rational, he cannot accept “the abstraction of the race in place of the living +children of men.”</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Der menschliche Weltbegriff.</span> By Dr. <i>Richard Avenarius</i>, Ord. Professor der +Philosophie an der Universität Zürich. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland. 1891.</h4> + +<p>This monograph is as it were a self-confession. The author endeavors to attain +clearness in his own philosophical standpoint. He looked back upon the path he has +traveled and feels that “the solution of the problem-attained is fundamentally a +personal self-liberation” (Preface, ix). This book is most commendable reading +to all idealists and agnostics. It is an interesting and instructive little work, tracing +with a keen psychological criticism the vagaries of certain philosophical conceptions, +through which not alone the author but the thinkers of mankind in general have +strayed. The philosopher begins with what Avenarius calls the “natural world-conception.” +But this natural world-conception leads to contradictions and the +evil spirit of speculation leads us in a circle through the barren fields of idealism. +Avenarius asks: “Is the world really of such a nature that it appears unitary and +consistent only to the superficial thinker, while it leads every one astray who attempts +to grasp it more precisely in its entirety—the more so the more consistently +the thinker proceeds?” (p. xiii.)</p> + +<p>The author proposes the question: “In what consists the inevitableness of the +contradiction to which every general world-conception seems to have led? Or, +if the world really be unitary what is the evil spirit that leads those astray who +hunger and thirst after a true cognition of the world?”</p> + +<p>The author has entirely abandoned the idealistic standpoint, an inclination to +which he showed in his first publication, “Philosophie als Denken der Welt gemäss +dem Princip des kleinsten Kraftmasses.” He says: “Doubt of the correctness of +my way heretofore pursued was induced through the barrenness of theoretical +idealism in the field of psychology; and yet cognition and experience should +belong to this science as psychological ideas.”</p> + +<p>The author in explaining the development of thought as it takes place in man +proceeds in a personal way, so much so that every idealist ought to be satisfied. There +are whole pages which teem with <i>ME</i>’s and <i>I</i>’s. The method of notation is what +might be called American. Europeans often complain about our abbreviations, the +Y. M. C. A., the S. A. S., the C. B. & Q. Ry., etc., which are great puzzles to the +uninitiated new-comer. In a similar way Avenarius introduces such algebraic signs +as <i>R</i> and <i>E</i>, which means reality and the sensations which our fellow-men are supposed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_452">[452]</span>to have. <i>M</i> is Man, <i>T</i> is fellow-man. <i>T₁</i> is the bodily appearance of <i>T</i>, it +is <i>R</i>; while <i>T₂</i> is the <i>E</i> of <i>T</i>, i. e. his soul or spirit. <i>C</i> is the nervous central organ, +etc. Thus Avenarius says (p. 18):</p> + +<p>“I can in a relative consideration assume <i>R</i> to be the condition of changes in +the <i>E</i> values, supposed to exist in <i>M</i>, only if <i>M</i> and in <i>M</i> the system <i>C</i> are parts +of my supposition,” and in a note (p. 117) he adds:</p> + +<p>“The skeleton in Goethe’s poem, ‘The Dead’s Dance,’ scents without an organ +of smell, sees without eyes, thinks without a brain; it also moves without muscles. +To consider such acts as true is now universally declared to be superstition. The +time will come when the assumption of psychical phenomena without the coördination +of the system <i>C</i> will universally be considered in the same way.”</p> + +<p>The first three chapters remind us very much of W. K. Clifford’s article “On the +Nature of Things in Themselves.” But the article is nowhere mentioned and it is +most probable that it is unknown to the author. If Avenarius had known Clifford’s +view, he might have presented his ideas with more economy of space. But if he +did not know Clifford’s article, the coincidences of procedure and to a great extent +also of the result attained are the more remarkable. What Avenarius calls the <i>E</i> +values are termed by Clifford “ejects,” and the formation of ejects is called by +Avenarius “introjection.”</p> + +<p>On page 52 we read the following sentence on the three phases of the cognition +of the data of experience:</p> + +<p>“The first phase alone, that of ingenuous empiricism, cognises, i. e. explains +the totality of these facts without the assistance of a non-sensible ... the second +that of ingenuous realism conceives the non-sensible as supersensible, and the +third, that of ingenuous criticism, as the pre-sensible. The epithet ingenuous has +reference to the foundation, not to the doctrinary system built upon it. That +which makes the said realism and criticism ingenuous is a survival of the ingenuous +empiricism.”</p> + +<p>The theory which conceives the external cause of an experience as an object, +effecting <i>in</i> the subject sensations, passes successively through the following views. +The object is said to be (1) not within the range of experience, (2) not within the +range of cognition, (3) not-existing. Thus it reaches <i>via</i> agnosticism its climax in +idealism and “pure experience becomes a something that is never truly experienced, +it becomes the totality of mere or pure sensations” (p. 62).</p> + +<p>The third part of the pamphlet is devoted to “the restitution of the natural +world-idea.” Here the author comes, at least in some expressions, very close to the +solution editorially upheld in <i>The Monist</i>. Avenarius says: “The task is ... to +<i>describe</i> the what of my experience so as to make a practical application of it in my +dealings with my fellow-men” (p. 79).</p> + +<p>Professor Avenarius sums up his conclusions in the term “empirio-critical +principal-coördination” which he defines as the inseparability of the ego-experience +from the surrounding experience. “The ego and the surrounding belong in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_453">[453]</span>the same sense to every experience. It is a co-ordination peculiar to all experience” +(p. 83). If we understand Avenarius correctly he means to say, to express it in our +terms, that there is no object but there is a subjective aspect of it, no subject but +it appears objectively. Thus there is no subjectivity in itself and there is no objectivity +in itself. This is exactly our position, which we call Monism.</p> + +<p>The “introjection” was according to Avenarius the evil spirit that led speculation +astray. To get rid of this evil spirit the proposition is made to discard “introjection” +and replace it by the empirio-critical principal-coördination. But closely +considered the latter is only an improved modification of the former, and this plan +would better be characterised as discarding the error implied in that kind of introjection +theory which assumes that sensations alone are given. The data of experience +are not mere feelings, not mere subjectivity, as is maintained by the idealist; +nor are they mere objectivity, as is maintained by the ingenuous realist; the data +of experience are states of subject-objectness, they are feelings of a certain kind +possessing objective significance, and the ideas subject as well as object are abstractions +made in a late stage of mental development from this one inseparable whole +of subject-objectness (see <i>The Monist</i> I, No. 1, pp. 78-79).</p> + +<p>Avenarius says in a note (p. 132), “The question should not be ‘Why do we +believe in the reality of an external world?’ but ‘Why did we not believe that the +external world is real?’” We should say that neither question is admissible. We +should first ask: What do we mean by real? Reality is the sum total of our experiences, +including the meaning of sensations and ideas, and finds its special application +in their reliability. The question, Is the candle I see real? means, Does it +react in special ways? Every name of a special object signifies a certain group of +actions or reactions observable by the subject. This is what we <i>call</i> real and the +idealist would have to deny the existence of his own experience to deny the reality +of objects in this sense.</p> + +<p>Avenarius’s books are not easy reading to the English and American student, +for his style is sometimes heavy and his constructions are involved. So are his +thoughts. But his thoughts show the earnest thinker; the evolution of his views +goes in the right direction and his works deserve the attention of his co-workers in +the philosophical field.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Die Bedeutung der theologischen Vorstellungen für die Ethik.</span> By Dr. +<i>Wilhelm Paszkowski</i>. Berlin: Mayer & Müller. 1891.</h4> + +<p>Religion originates everywhere, according to the author, in the self-consciousness +of man who feels himself an acting and willing being limited by and dependent upon +greater and higher powers. The religious relation consists in the regulation of his +actions as well as his will with reference to the ordinances of these powers. Dr. +Paszkowski lets all the best known religions pass in review before our eyes, tracing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_454">[454]</span>in all of them the connection between the properly religious elements and morality +and singling out those religious factors which are most effective in determining man’s +will in a moral way. In the second part of the little volume he endeavors to show +in how far the ecclesiastical organisation of religion in dogma and cult have strengthened +and in how far they have weakened this result.</p> + +<p>Concerning the most important dogma, which is the belief in immortality, Paszkowski +declares that it had its undoubted effects favorable and unfavorable upon the +social and moral life of mankind. It has prevented some crimes while it has enhanced +others. The question is, he says, whether an individual immortality such +as the religions usually picture it, is tenable or not. Modern science and anthropology +seem to have proved it an illusion. Yet, as Paulsen says, the belief in immortality +is not a mere imagination. Every reality and so also man’s life is eternal. It is +nonsensical to think of death as a finality. That which has been alive is a necessary, +an eternal and inexpugnable part of reality and can never again be blotted +out. Through death the continuance of a man’s life is cut off, but the contents of +his life can never again be annihilated. The real is in its very nature eternal. Paszkowski +adds to Paulsen’s remarks that man should find the norm of moral action in +his relation to his fellow-men and posterity, so that morality need not depend upon +any religious views. He will also have to act morally after he has resigned the +belief in the reality of the beautiful immortality-dream as it is presented by enthusiastic +religiosity.</p> + +<p>It appears to us that if the usual conception of immortality is scientifically untenable +it devolves upon the moral teacher to present an immortality conception that +is tenable. The true immortality conception will never enhance crimes, it will +always have a favorable effect upon the morality of mankind. Furthermore man’s +relation to mankind and also to the universe is of a religious nature. The social +order to which man has to conform is one part of those powers a recognition of +which constitute religion. If these powers are conceived to be outside the world we +have a supernatural deity, if they are the highest, best, and greatest of, and in the +world itself, we have an immanent deity and ethics still remains intimately connected +with and dependent upon religion.</p> + +<p>This it appears must be after all the author’s meaning, for he says in prominent +print, p. 89: “So long as there are men religion will not cease, for it is one of the +constitutional elements of human nature.” “In the same measure as religion becomes +spiritual, the moral conceptions also will be purified, the mere ceremonial +and the cult-element will lose their importance in religion” (p. 92). “To divide +the ethical factor from the religious, as a matter of principle, will be seen to be +impossible. We can only conciliate the one with the other, both having originated +out of the same source of emotions” (p. 90).</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_455">[455]</span></p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Das Wahrnehmungsproblem vom Standpunkte des Physikers, des Physiologen +und des Philosophen.</span> Beiträge zur Erkenntnisstheorie und empirischen +<span class="smcap">Psychologie</span>. By Dr. <i>Hermann Schwarz</i>. Leipsic: Duncker & Humbolt +1892.</h4> + +<p>Dr. Hermann Schwarz treats the most fundamental problem of philosophy—viz. +that of perception. He says in the preface: “There is a triple state of facts +to which obvious yet strange as it appears to thought, the attention of the naturalist +and the philosopher is drawn: the physical, the physiological, the psychical.” The +physical is the empire of mechanical motion that can be observed with great accuracy +to take place everywhere. The physiological is the fact that when certain impressions +produce mechanical effects upon the nerves, the result consists in certain +sense-data; nervous action is accompanied with sensation. The psychical state of +things exhibits the fact that whether or not we want it to be so, colors, sounds, odors, +tastes, and touches are always referred to external things, never to the own internal +states of the mind. Every one of these facts is strange in itself, for every one represents +the contrary of what might be expected <i>a priori</i>. Who would expect that +the machine-like world of jostling atoms and the glorious world of colors and sounds +should have anything in common? And the sense-organs appear to the physiologist +as mere physical apparatuses modifying the ether-vibrations somehow. We do not +see on the one hand how consciousness can acquire information concerning the external +world and on the other hand, how motions can develop something so heterogeneous +as is consciousness. If we were confronted with one set of facts only, everything +would be plain, but this triple set of facts produces a problem, it makes an +explanation necessary and to this explanation Dr. Schwarz has devoted a careful investigation +of some four hundred and odd pages.</p> + +<p>Schwarz distinguishes two elements in what he calls “ingenuous realism,” (1) +its methodology and (2) its metaphysics. The methodology of physical science consists +in arranging the sense-data, while the metaphysics assume that the objectivity +of the sense-data is correctly represented as “things, qualities, and effects.” Natural +science arrived at a scepsis of the usual metaphysics of naïve realism by a correction +of the ingenuous-realistic method, and Kant by critically investigating the background +or frame of its theory of cognition. The question is, What is altered by +physical science in the conception of ingenuous realism, what by physiology, what +by philosophy and why?</p> + +<p>In the consciousness of an ingenuous realist the data of touch receive a preference +over those of the other senses, which is due to their greater stability. The color +of an object disappears, the sounds cease, while the objects remain comparatively +the same things to the sense of touch. Thus they are considered as the real objects +having certain qualities which produce the phenomena of the other senses. This view +is called by Schwarz the first methodological dogma of ingenuous realism. The +second dogma is the conception that sense-data are considered as relatively permanent. +So colors are conceived to exist objectively in the dark, an error which has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_456">[456]</span>been sufficiently explained by Helmholtz in his “Physiological Optics,” § 26. The +third dogma completes the second; it is the view that the relative permanence or +disappearance of the qualities of objects depends upon causes. Fire is said to be +the cause which makes a wire red-hot. The ingenuous realist knows no reciprocal +causation, no action and reaction, no <i>Wechselwirkung</i>. He assumes in addition to +the objects certain force-beings which are regarded as the causes of all change. The +sun is said to produce light.</p> + +<p>Schwarz explains very well how this view of ingenuous realism naturally arises +and also how in the progress of thought it naturally corrects itself. Suppose there +were thinking beings with whom smell took the place of touch and sight, would not +their world-conception be based upon the data of the sense of smell as is ours upon +the data of mechanical motions? If the females of a certain butterfly (<i>Frostspanner</i>) +are caught in the country and placed at a great distance in some house of the city, +the males will be seen on the next morning in great numbers fluttering before the +window of the room in which the females are kept. What a perfection of the sense +of smell while the senses of touch and sight are very poorly developed! The dog +owes his intelligence mainly to the development of the sense of smell. Would not +beings whose intelligence is mainly due to the sense of hearing rather attempt to +hear the world than to grasp or comprehend it,—to <i>behorchen</i> rather than to <i>begreifen</i>?</p> + +<p>Ingenuous realism is not consistent, and its methodology leads to alterations of +its metaphysics. We shall have to attribute either to all the sense-data objective +reality or to none of them. The data of touch cannot be treated as exceptions and +thus we have the alternative either to return from our scepsis to realism, not to the +ingenuous but to a critically modified view of it, or to adopt the extremest form of +idealism, be it that of Berkeley or the subjectivism of Fichte.</p> + +<p>The author (not unlike Professor Avenarius in his book “Der menschliche +Weltbegriff”) takes the former view. He says in the concluding chapter (<i>Die +Mängel der Ding-an-sich-Hypothese</i>): “This view, viz. that of ingenuous realism, +will in the end of our inquiry be seen to be not only the most natural, and practically +considered the most useful metaphysical theory, but also that conception +which is freest from all theoretical obscurities” (p. 381).</p> + +<p>We believe that the book which contains much valuable material, would have +been more useful than it actually is, if a chapter had been added containing a summary +of the whole inquiry and delineating in great outlines the critically modified +form of realism whose most appropriate name we should say is monism—not materialism +or mechanicalism which allows all facts to be swallowed up by the conception +that the world consists only of matter in motion, but that monism which is a unitary +view of the whole, mindful of the fact that the sense-data as well as our concepts are +one-sided aspects only of the one and all. If we bear this truth in mind we shall avoid +from the beginning the three dogmas (alias errors) of ingenuous materialism.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_457">[457]</span></p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems in der Philosophie seit Kant.</span> Studien +zur Orientirung über die Aufgaben der Metaphysik und Erkenntnisslehre. +(Part II.) By Dr. <i>Edmund Koenig</i>. Leipsic: Otto Wigand.</h4> + +<p>The present work forms the conclusion of a volume published by Dr. Koenig +in 1888, entitled <i>Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems von Cartesius bis Kant</i>. This +same subject is here pursued in the history of modern philosophy since Kant.</p> + +<p>The problem of causality, according to Dr. Koenig, has two aspects, an epistemological +and a metaphysical. The pre-Kantian efforts dealt chiefly with the +latter, the post-Kantian more principally with the former. The latter, the metaphysical +question, is, How do things in the world of reality produce effects in one +another? The former, or that which relates to the theory of knowledge, is, (1) +What is the logical foundation of the idea of causality, what do we imply when we +set up two objects as cause and effect, and (2) By what right and to what extent are +we justified in imputing to the axiom of causality an objective validity? With respect +to the latter, the epistemological, point of view, Hume and Kant believed they +had established indisputably that experience as given does not furnish sufficient +grounds either for the idea or the axiom of causality. On the other hand, others, +like Maine de Biran, Schopenhauer, and Trendelenburg, hold, that causality is +given us in experience, that we apprehend the causal relation subsisting between +things, together with the things. Herbart maintains that the idea of the causal relation +has been reached by the logical elaboration of experience in conformity with +the general laws of logical thought. Mill and Spencer see in this idea an element +that goes beyond experience, but justify it only psychologically, not logically. According +to Lotze, Riehl, Wundt, v. Hartmann, Volkelt, the idea is either wholly or +partly of intellectual origin. Finally, Comte and a few modern scientists look upon +the idea of causality as logically valueless and scientifically superfluous.</p> + +<p>This is, in brief, the opinions of the greatest thinkers whom Koenig treats of, +respecting the logical composition of the idea of causality. But another question, +that namely as to the character of the relation in which in the causal judgment the +notions of the concrete causes and their effects exist, is one closely allied with this. +Some hold, (Trendelenburg, Goering, Herbart, Hamilton, Spencer,) that the relation +is one of identity; others that it is synthetical. This aspect is also developed +in connection with the last-named thinkers.</p> + +<p>With respect to the axiom of causality, we find diametrically opposed to each +other the doctrines of empiricism and apriorism; but a number of intermediate +opinions have also established themselves. Of the first, Schopenhauer, Lotze, and +Volkelt are representatives, but only the theory of the first-named is developed at +length. The empiricism of Mill and Goering meets with exhaustive treatment, as +does the opposed view of Laas, Riehl, and Wundt and the conciliatory view of +Spencer.</p> + +<p>With respect to the metaphysical aspect of the question, above-mentioned, we +find the modes of conception of phenomenalism and realism opposed. The latter +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_458">[458]</span>only is, in the nature of its doctrine, required to explain ontologically the coming +about of the causal relation in reality; the former does not recognise Being in itself, +and hence there can be no causal connection of such. Schopenhauer’s attempt +(the view of the forces of nature as the emanation of a Universal Will), and the +splendid ontological theories of Herbart and Lotze are regarded by Dr. Koenig as +being no more a solution of the problem than were the efforts of their famous predecessors +Spinoza, Malebranche, and Leibnitz. These dogmatic realists, as Koenig +calls them, proceed from the assumption of the knowableness of the absolute; opposed +to them, in this regard, are Spencer, Von Hartmann, and Volkelt, the critical +realists, the first of whom gives an ontology that is a vague and metaphysical rendering +of the principle of the conservation of energy, the two last of whom impute +a transcendental ontological significance to the idea of causality.</p> + +<p>The connection, Dr. Koenig concludes, is thus apparent and definite between +the metaphysical and epistemological divisions of the question. The ontologist, +unless he proceed dogmatically, must prove, that the notion of causality in the +form in which critical analysis has established it as a valid and indispensable empirical +idea, calls inevitably for the notion of an absolute reality and of a state of +things in that reality corresponding to the forms of the connection given. Therefore, +the logical analysis of the idea of causality is in any philosophy, pre-eminently +determinative of its whole position and bearing.</p> + +<p>On the whole, then, in the treatment of the problem forming the subject of +this work, four comparatively independent views are found opposed to one another +and considered in this opposition; viz., Sensualism and Intellectualism, Positivism +and Rationalism, Empiricism and Apriorism, Realism and Phenomenalism. The +author views the result of his researches to be, the proof of the untenability of Sensualism, +Rationalism, Empiricism, and Realism, so far as this, by an historico-critical +analysis, is possible.</p> + +<p>This is but a brief sketch of the treatment pursued by the author. The author’s +own view has been barely hinted at. He is a Kantian. He calls himself a +“transcendental idealist.” Dr. Koenig’s developments, appreciative, acute and +pointed as they are, are too detailed and exhaustive to be separately taken into discussion +here; but we may illustrate his point of view by a summary of a few remarks +of his on the ontological problem as solved by physics. They are as follows.</p> + +<p>The <i>natural</i> modes of thought cling irresistibly to the notion of a constant substratum; +this being so, how does process, how does change spring from an invariability +of existence? Physical science answers, by <i>force</i>; which exists as a constant +potentiality of the substratum, is now active, now latent. Dr. Koenig maintains +that in this physical science accomplishes nothing towards the solution of the +present problem; it does not by its notion of force make intelligible the <i>acting</i> of +bodies on each other, for when it comes to define the mode of action of force it involves +itself in hopeless difficulties. What is the consequence then, of this dilemma +of science, where it can neither render plain the “nature” of the material substratum, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_459">[459]</span>nor the nature of “force,” which is, so to speak, the source of the activity +of the substratum? It is either agnosticism, which places limits to our knowledge, +and which Dr. Koenig rejects as unbecoming true thought, or it is that theory +which regards the phenomena alone as real and views the concepts of theoretical +physics as the mere shifts and helps of thought whereby we bring the phenomena +into connection with one another. This latter view also Dr. Koenig cannot accept. +His express contention is, that we can interpret, <i>ontologically</i>, the phenomena of +reality by the notions of substance, force, etc.; he holds that the position of transcendental +idealism is the correct theory here, the position namely that matter and +force conceived as transcendent, independent entities cannot be <i>thought away</i>, because +substantiality and causality are <i>forms</i> of transcendental apperception, which +alone can make nature an object of cognition; matter and force must, for purposes of +empiric observation, of necessity possess the same reality as phenomena themselves.</p> + +<p>In connection with this subject Dr. Koenig contests Mach’s doctrine, that +natural laws are simple economical descriptions of phenomena; he contends that +“law” is the foundation of natural science, and particularly so the law of causality.</p> + +<p>This, however, does not say much. For the formal laws <i>in themselves</i> are +empty. The law, the axiom of causality may, <i>a priori</i>, be without exception; but +this circumstance, the <i>conviction</i> we may call it, offers us no hold on nature. When +we investigate nature we have to perceive <i>definite facts</i>; about which we formulate +particular laws or statements. The law of causality, however, does not help us to +<i>discern</i> the determinative facts or features of any phenomenon. It simply says that +<i>if</i> we have hit upon the determinative facts and formulated a law describing them, +that law holds good throughout all nature. But what is to tell us <i>what</i> the characteristic +and determinative features of a given event are and when we have lighted +on them? The law of causality? Surely not. The law of causality cannot tell +us that for falling bodies <i>v</i> = <i>gt</i>, i. e. that <i>t</i> is decisive. It simply says that when +once this fact has been <i>discerned</i> it holds universally good. But it would have asserted +the same thing with regard to Galileo’s first (false) assumption, namely that +<i>v</i> = <i>Cs</i>. If, then, the law of causality cannot tell us what those features are between +which the causal connection is assumed to exist, what is to tell us? Our observation +simply, which must be tested by experience. But our observation has no +limits placed to it except this, that it shall select some fact that <i>represents</i> the phenomenon +and best and most easily enables <i>us</i> to represent it. And there is nothing +that requires that there should be only <i>one</i> feature or <i>one</i> aspect of an event by +which it is representable; there may be several, as the development of science +proves. Accordingly, what selection we make may depend on arbitrary and historical +circumstances. And this, as we take it, is Prof. Mach’s contention. If it is +true, Dr. Koenig’s criticism of Mach’s view does not hold in its whole extent.</p> + +<p>Dr. Koenig’s treatment of the separate representative thinkers is exhaustive +and in an eminent degree scientific. His work is distinguished by accuracy and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_460">[460]</span>pointedness of characterisation, and by special knowledge of great range. It is a +valuable contribution which he has given us, to the study of the theory of knowledge +and metaphysics, and he has been true to his promise, as we judge, critically +to discuss and not summarily to dispose of the opinions of others.</p> + +<p class="right">μκρκ.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Eine neue Darstellung der Leibnizischen Monadenlehre auf Grund der +Quellen.</span> By <i>Eduard Dillmann</i>. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland, 1891.</h4> + +<p>The author is an admirer of Leibnitz’s monadology which he considers as “the +most beautiful, most perfect fruit of philosophic thought and the most glorious system +to be found in the history of philosophy.” This enthusiasm however is not +shown in panegyrics but in a careful investigation of the great master’s work and +we should scarcely know the attitude of the author toward the philosopher whose +thoughts he discusses, if he did not give vent to his feelings in a few sentences of +the concluding chapter. The rest of the book consists of purely critical and historical +studies by a sober and cool-headed scholar. Leibnitz’s system as it is represented +in our histories of philosophy and as it is currently conceived lacks a unitary and +leading idea, so that many of its most fundamental propositions appear to be at variance. +Mr. Dillmann maintains that Leibnitz’s philosophy as it really is does not +lack this unity; he has made an extensive and most diligent study of Leibnitz’s works +and proves with great plausibility through the assistance of many pertinent quotations +the justice of his cause.</p> + +<p>Leibnitz’s monadology is according to Dillmann essentially a conciliatory system. +It attempts to reconcile the world-conceptions of his time. The mechanical +explanation of nature as it was proposed in modern times and according to which all +processes should be conceived as motions of bodies is harmonised with the formalistic +views of classical antiquity and of the schoolmen which seeks for the causes of all +phenomena in substantial forms. In aiming at such a combination, he had to show +that all single phenomena of bodies and also their qualities had some ground and +that the principle of the body itself consisted in a substantial form. This led him +to conceive of bodies and of all things not as phenomena of an external world but +as representations in the mind, and thus an entirely new standpoint was gained (p. +511). Representations are the inner states of Monads (p. 318). Monads are substances +because representations are units; for representations are the many expressed +in a unity (p. 319). Every monad is a concentration of the universe (p. 313). It is +as if God had multiplied the universe as often as there are souls (p. 314). Every +substance is a little world in itself, expressing the great world of the universe. The +substance imitates in its little world what God does in the universe (p. 313).</p> + +<p>Leibnitz’s God-idea has suffered most from a misconception of the fundamental +idea of his system. Dillmann declares that the traditional view, especially Fischer’s, +is in conflict with the philosopher’s own words. While Fischer says that Leibnitz’s +God has created the substances and arbitrarily endowed them with their natures, +Dillmann maintains on the ground of ample quotations that Leibnitz considers the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_461">[461]</span>forms of all possible existences as given: not even God can alter them. God however +can and did compare all possible worlds, and then created that which his wisdom +found to be the best world. “God,” says Leibnitz, “does not select a general +Adam, but such a one,” i. e. an individual Adam, “whose perfect representation is +found among all the possible beings which exist in the ideas of God. The nature +of every creature is determined by eternal truths which are in the understanding of +God independent of his will.” “God’s decree consists alone in the decision arrived +at after having compared all possible worlds and having admitted into existence that +one which is the best of all.”</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie in 14 Vorlesungen.</span> By Dr. <i>Th. +Ziehen</i>, Docent in Jena. Mit 21 Abbildungen im Text. Jena: Gustav Fischer. +1891.</h4> + +<p>The merits of these 14 lectures on physiological psychology are thoroughness, +lucidity, and conciseness; the whole book is a pamphlet of 174 pp. only. The +method of presentation is in all its detail work positive, stating the facts as they have +been found to be by experience and as they are corroborated by experiment. Upon +the whole it is a good résumé of the present state of knowledge. A translation would +be very desirable and it is to be hoped that some of our psychologists will undertake +the work.</p> + +<p>The contents are briefly as follows: I. Contents and scope of psychology. +II. Sensation, association, action. III. Stimulus, sensation. IV. Taste, smell, +touch. V. Hearing. VI. Vision. VII. Affective aspect of sensation (pleasure and +pain). VIII. Sensation, memory, concept. IX. Association of ideas. X. Judgment +and syllogism. XI. Attention, voluntary thought, the ego (Ziehen says: “psychologically +considered the simple ego is a theoretical fiction,” p. 139). XII. Diseased +thinking, sleep, hypnosis. XIII. Action, expressive motions, language. XIV. +Will, general conclusions.</p> + +<p>Although Dr. Ziehen’s pamphlet is upon the whole an excellent treatise, we +cannot agree with the author in several questions which are of great importance in +their consequences.</p> + +<p>Dr. Ziehen acknowledges that the specifically nervous processes, a sensible +stimulus and a reaction, which latter is a motory effect, cannot be explained from +physical laws alone (p. 4). Yet at the same time he denies that the fact that the reflexes +are adapted to a purpose (<i>Zweckmässigkeit</i>) proves the presence of a psychical parallelism. +“Pflüger,” he says, “was wrong in attributing for this reason to the spinal +cord a spinal-cord-soul.” The <i>Zweckmässigkeit</i> of reflexes (i. e. their being adapted +to a purpose) has originated not otherwise than the <i>Zweckmässigkeit</i> of the color of +the bird’s plumage, i. e. through natural selection and inheritance. This argument +might be admissible, if we had not to account for the gradual origin of consciousness +also. There was a time when our personal consciousness did not exist, and there +was also a time when no conscious being lived upon the earth. Unless we assume +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_462">[462]</span>that consciousness suddenly appeared, creating out of its own subjectivity alone the +objective world which appears to us as what we call matter in motion, we shall have +to adopt some monistic view of the subject. To consider the psychical states as +known and the objectivity of existence as utterly unknown is no monism.</p> + +<p>Dr. Ziehen is opposed to the idea of psychical parallelism which he conceives +to be dualism, but he proposes a spiritual monism in its stead, the difficulties of +which he does not explain. It is to be regretted that Dr. Ziehen has not understood +the main idea of the parallelism doctrine. He says in a foot-note (p. 6): “In the +most extreme way, but with quite insufficient reasons Lewes has maintained the +omnipresence of consciousness.” This is a misstatement of Lewes’s view, which by +the bye is held by the reviewer also, although he confesses that the term parallelism +is inappropriate and leads to misunderstandings. The theory of parallelism, (at least +as the reviewer holds it) is not dualistic but monistic. It implies that the subjectivity +and objectivity of existence are two different abstractions of one and the same reality. +Its parallelism is a parallelism of these two sets of abstraction, while the reality +from which they have been derived is one throughout. There exist no subjects that +are not objects to other subjects, and every object admits of a subjective aspect. +There is a something supposed to be present throughout nature which under certain +conditions appears as consciousness. This certain something is called by Clifford +elements of feeling, by Lloyd Morgan metakinesis, it has been characterised in the +editorials of <i>The Monist</i> as the subjectivity of existence, and the presence of this +something in the spinal cord was called by Pflüger <i>Rückenmarksseele</i>.</p> + +<p>It appears to me that if we could explain the well adapted reaction of nervous +substance without assuming a psychical element in it, we could explain the whole +process of evolution and the historical development of mankind, without the assumption +of consciousness. Yet it is obvious that even the explanation of the color of the +bird’s plumage by the theory of natural selection and heredity presupposes the +presence of psychical elements somewhere. Either the bird and his mates show a +color sense, or his enemies do, whose persecution he escapes, or the animals upon +whom he preys do. Man’s entire existence, physical and psychical, including his +feelings of pleasure and pain, can be explained by the theory of natural selection +and heredity; yet this is no proof that psychical elements do not exist in him.</p> + +<p>It has become customary at present to define “psychical” as that only which +appears in states of consciousness, and to exclude subconscious and unconscious +states. Dr. Ziehen says: “Everything given in consciousness and that alone is +conscious” (p. 3). Yet he introduces after all the expression “psychically latent,” +“latent memory pictures,” and similar expressions. Dr. Ziehen says, “We cannot +even have a conception of that which an unconscious idea can be”; yet what is a +latent memory-picture but an unconscious idea?</p> + +<p>There are two kinds of unconscious ideas: (1) Latent ideas. Every man’s brain +is full of latent ideas, i. e. of memory-pictures which are at present unconscious but +can become conscious at once if their activity is roused by an appropriate stimulus. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_463">[463]</span>(2) Ideas unrelated to the centre of consciousness. Those active ideas which, although +at present in a state of activity, are unrelated to the centre of consciousness +that constitutes the ego of the man, remain unconscious. Unconscious cerebration +(which takes place in dreams, in diseased brains and also in certain phases of healthy +brains being, as it were, a by-play of their conscious activity) need not be destitute of +feeling. Any pain may be lessened when our attention is called away from it. The +nervous disorder remains the same, the feeling substance of the nervous structures +in which the pain was perceived also remains the same, its activity and throbbing +pulsations do not cease. Yet if we succeed in separating its immediate relation to +the centre of consciousness it sinks down into subconsciousness. There is no reason +for assuming that the feeling, no longer perceived, is wiped out entirely.</p> + +<p>While Dr. Ziehen’s pamphlet is a presentation of the results of positive science, +we were astonished to find in the first chapter the following statement: “Later on +we shall have to investigate whether there are for all psychical phenomena such +material parallel processes in the central nervous system, and our answer will be decidedly +in the negative.” And again we find in the schedule of psychology a distinction +between (<i>a</i>) psychical processes <i>not</i> contingent upon cerebral functions +(transcendental psychology), and (<i>b</i>) psychical processes contingent upon cerebral +functions (physiological psychology). These statements are the more perplexing as +the author joins the opposition made by Münsterberg against Professor Wundt’s +idea of apperception, which is rejected as metaphysical, mystical, and even animistic. +While we cannot in all points agree with Professor Wundt’s theory of apperception, +which received a critical examination by Professor Delabarre (see <i>The Monist</i> II, +No. 2, p. 297), we can most positively say that Dr. Ziehen in so far as he classes +Wundt’s view among the dualistic theories, misunderstands Wundt’s position. +Wundt’s physico-psychical parallelism cannot be identified with the metaphysical +fiction of a subject, be this subject called ego or soul.⁠<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> Wundt says in a late publication +of his: “Psychology of to-day, since Kant has shown the way, seeks the nature +of the soul again, as did Aristotle of yore, in the facts of the spiritual life themselves +and not in an unknowable ‘thing in itself’....” <i>Deutsche Rundschau</i> of 1891, +p. 203. Wundt’s “apperception” is no metaphysical being, but simply means the +focus of perception, the centre of consciousness. Wundt is certainly not infallible +and we are inclined to believe that in some details he is mistaken. He is nevertheless +one of the very greatest leaders among the investigators of the soul and his monism +as well as his antimetaphysical tendencies cannot be doubted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_464">[464]</span></p> + +<p>Ziehen reaches his monism by considering objective existence, as it appears to +us and which we call matter, as “something utterly unknowable.” He says, “The +psychical series alone is given.... Thus the psycho-physical dualism or parallelism +is apparent only. Considering that the psychical series alone is given, we shall +understand, that we had repeatedly to face in our investigations such factors in +which the material foundations are missing. I here remind you of the projection +of our sensations into space and time, for which we could not find a psycho-physical +explanation.”</p> + +<p>We hope that Dr. Ziehen will soon find occasion to explain his philosophical +views. Such an explanation may throw light on his psychological theory. We do +not as yet see how he can solve without inconsistency the many difficulties in which +his philosophical standpoint will involve his psychology.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Psychologie der Suggestion.</span> By <i>Dr. Hans Schmidkunz</i>. Stuttgart, 1892,—pp. +425. Large 8vo.</h4> + +<p>The rapidly increasing devotion to the study of Hypnotism has yielded many +valuable results, both practical and theoretical. Its application to the cure of disease—psychotherapeutics—has +been most extensively introduced and bids fair to +become the representative in scientific form of the germ of truth buried amongst the +vast rubbish-heap of suspicious practices and pseudo-scientific “isms.” New light +has been thrown on the questions of responsibility and the legal aspects of slightly +abnormal states. Education and ethics, it has been more than hinted, are to find +practical aids in hypnotism; while in the light of modern scientifically recognised +phenomena, many of the events influential in the development of religions find a rationalistic +interpretation. But the science which more than all others, the study of +hypnotism is destined to enrich, is that of Experimental Psychology; and it is this +phase of the subject to which Dr. Schmidkunz has devoted his volume.</p> + +<p>The central core of the whole subject is the fact of suggestion,—a fact so comprehensive +that it is almost easier to say what it is not than what it is. If we make +allowance for that portion of our conduct that is based upon individual acquisitions +and proceeds by logically reasoned steps, all the rest is more or less the result of +suggestions, of one kind or another. To appreciate the psychology of this process +it is necessary to appreciate its varieties and universality. We receive suggestions +from things and deeds; the sight of food makes us hungry; the sight of our neighbor +consulting his watch induces a strong desire to know what time it is. Words are +powerful implements of suggestion; we accept those doctrines that we hear about us +and are influenced much more frequently than we are convinced. The personal +factor in suggestion is important; to some we feel attracted and accept as leaders, +while others excite repulsion and antagonism. The indirectness of the process of +suggestion is to be noted; in most cases we are quite unconscious of the influences +exerted upon us and by which our conduct is guided, and this ignorance of the motives +of our acts, Spinoza tells us, is the cause of the illusion of free will. Sympathy, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_465">[465]</span>imitation, the contagion of masses, the action of the mind upon the body, the +formation of public sentiment,—all exemplify the process of suggestion and add their +testimony to its power and domain.</p> + +<p>We must recognise, too, that our suggestibility is a variable phenomenon; at +some moments we are self-assertive and determined, at others passive and readily +following another’s lead. Sometimes we take the reins in our own hands, and again +allow the vehicle to find its way as it will. Every night we pass into a condition in +which conscious control is abandoned and logic gives way to suggestion. A trifling +illness, a dose of medicine may increase our suggestibility, and place us in a position +allied to that of the hypnotic subject. All this prepares the way for recognising as +the distinctive characteristic of the hypnotic condition, an exaggerated suggestibility. +Not alone is there a ready yielding to every suggestion of the operator, but functions +normally not under volitional control may be appealed to and utilised by the slighter +and subtler processes of hypnotic suggestion. The variable threshold between the +voluntary and the involuntary is shifted to a surprising extent. That complex interrelation +of centres with which the sense of personality is intimately connected yields +to the same influences and makes possible an experimental study of this vexed +problem.</p> + +<p>This, then, is the Psychology of Suggestion, the contribution that Hypnotism +makes to Psychology. It lays stress upon the great rôle this process plays in every +day mental life and thus asks us to see in hypnotism a condition closely allied to +the normal, and simply illustrating in an unusually striking way, one great factor in +our mental composition. It rearranges the hierarchy of mental faculties and finds +a more important place for suggestion than has been before accorded to it. From a +somewhat obscure and sporadic phenomenon occasionally entering into mental states, +it is raised to the dignity of one of the most frequent, most important, most fertile +generalisations of scientific psychology. Whether one fully agrees with this position +or not, it is certainly a service to have it so comprehensively, even if at times prolixly +stated, and to be assured that the study of Psychology is deriving as much benefit +from the researches in hypnotism as are the more practical sciences.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">J. J.</span></p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Hypnotisme, Suggestion, Psychotheropie.</span> Études Nouvelles par le <i>Dr. Bernheim</i>, +Professeur à la Faculté de médécine de Nancy. Paris: 1891. Octave +Doin, pp. 518.</h4> + +<p>The literature of the new science of Hypnotism continues to increase with unabated +pace; most of the contributions consist of studies of a few cases or a brief exposition +of a single point, in most cases of points relative to the application of hypnotism +to disease. The present volume, however, is of special importance not alone +because of the authority that Dr. Bernheim’s name brings with it,—but because of +the comprehensiveness and the skill and interest of the exposition. It is supplementary +to Dr. Bernheim’s former volume, “Suggestive Psychotherapeutics,” +(1886-87, English translation, 1889) and reflects the progress that has resulted from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_466">[466]</span>continued and systematic observation. The therapeutic interest in it naturally finds +most complete representation and about half the volume is devoted to the description +of cases cured or benefited by suggestive treatment. Although nervous complaints +predominate in these well arranged and well described cases, yet the method is +shown applicable to all the ills that flesh is heir to. While this portion of the volume +will be of greatest interest to the medical world, the psychologist will find most +food for reflection in the first and more theoretical half of the book. He will find +there an interesting historical sketch illustrating how processes similar to those now +studied as hypnotism have been in use from ancient times; how all the various +healers, and the various processes and agencies used by them, involve different +modes of application of the one principle of suggestion. “It is the human imagination +that works miracles.”</p> + +<p>Suggestion is defined as the act by which an idea is introduced in the brain and +accepted by it, and thus many of the means by which one person influences another +under every day, normal circumstances would be included in the term. Hypnotism +is simply one of the most important and efficient methods of producing a state of increased +suggestibility. In every day life we have abundant evidence of the tendency +of ideas to be realised in actions; with every change in thought and emotion there +is associated some motor expression, too subtle perhaps for analysis and description, +but still present and significant. Under excitement and nervous strain these motor +accompaniments of thought are increased and serve as the basis of the muscle +reader’s skill. Again the possibility of disbelief and of recognising the illusory character +of a sensation involve the control of higher directing powers; the accumulated +experience of the past passes sentence upon the new candidate. If we imagine a +condition in which this form of control is abolished, we should have a subject accepting +as real almost any idea or sensation that is suggested to him, and expressing +freely and unreservedly his acceptance of the same. And this it is that hypnotism +does. It builds upon the natural credulity which it is the difficult task of reason +to shape and control, and brings into prominence the automatic, subconscious +phases of mental action. It does not endow subjects with new faculties or deprive +them of their individuality, but shows in a strangely perverted perspective the +various faculties and processes that go to build the endlessly complex elements of a +personality. This “suggestion” view of hypnotism is the contribution of the Nancy +School, and is fast becoming the recognised view of science; one will nowhere find a +clearer and more convincing exposition of it than in Dr. Bernheim’s pages.</p> + +<p>It is clearly impossible to summarise the various details that make up the body +of the volume; but all the important topics are discussed and result in conclusions +unusually free as well from vagueness as from narrowness. The processes inducing +the state, the proportion of susceptible individuals, the various kinds and stages of +hypnotism, its relation to sleep and other normal states, the rôle of memory in hypnotism, +the interesting post-hypnotic, negative and retroactive hallucinations, its relation +to hysteria, its possible use in crime,—these are some of the chief topics +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_467">[467]</span>treated. The volume is a valuable contribution to the literature of the subject, reflects +its most recent acquisitions, and would well merit a presentation in an English +translation.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">J. J.</span></p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Handbook of Psychology.</span> In two volumes; Senses and Intellect, and, Feeling and +Will. By <i>James Mark Baldwin</i>, M. A., Ph. D., Professor in the University +of Toronto. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1891.</h4> + +<p>These are two books diligently worked out, the former of 343, the latter of 397 +pp. They cover almost the entire field of psychology excluding however the treatment +of such abnormal states as are Mental Pathology and Hypnotism. The author +is a disciple of Dr. McCosh, and is strongly influenced by Wundt, of Leipzig, +and Rabier, of Paris; yet he has developed an independent view of the nature of +the soul which perhaps comes nearest to that of Prof. William James, of Harvard. +The two books are actually two parts of one work, the one complementing the other. +The former however is not, as the name suggests, an exposition of the nature of the +senses in their relation to or as the basis of the intellect; it is an inquisition into +consciousness, sensation, perception, association, imagination, rational thought, and +kindred subjects. The latter, after an introduction of 50 pp., characterising the +mechanism of the nervous system, treats of feeling as sensation, as pleasure and +pain, as interest and belief, as emotion, and passes over to the subject of a motor +consciousness, or will, ending in a chapter on volition.</p> + +<p>Professor Baldwin states that “after we enter consciousness we find a principle +of apperception to which there is no analogy in physiological integration,” adding +in a foot-note: “Since the section of the ‘Unity of Composition’ theory was written, +Professor James has published an acute criticism in substantial agreement with it, +and the passage quoted makes reference to the sixth chapter of Professor James’s +Psychology in which he rejects the so-called ‘mind-stuff,’ theory, declaring a self-compounding +of mental facts to be inadmissible and proposes at last what he calls +‘soul-theory.’” Professor James in this chapter commits the mistake indicated in +the editorial of the last number of <i>The Monist</i> (p. 248) that he considers things as +things in themselves and then looks for a relation producing principle. He says:</p> + +<p>“In the parallelogram of forces, the ‘forces’ themselves do not combine into +the diagonal resultant; a <i>body</i> is needed on which they may impinge, to exhibit +their resultant effect.”</p> + +<p>“Take a sentence of a dozen words, and take twelve men and tell to each one +word. Then stand the men in a row or jam them in a bunch, and let each think +of his word as intently as he will; nowhere will there be a consciousness of the +whole sentence.”</p> + +<p>Thus Professor W. James is in need of what he calls a “medium.” He says:</p> + +<p>“<i>All the ‘combinations’ which we actually know are <span class="smcap">effects</span>, wrought by the +units said to be ‘combined,’ <span class="smcap">upon some entity other than themselves</span>.</i> Without +this feature of a medium or vehicle, the notion of combination has no sense.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_468">[468]</span></p> + +<p>We observe that feelings which originate through the impressions of the outer +world upon some sentient organism, enter into relations to each other, as naturally +as things are in relations, or under certain circumstances will enter more closely into +relations with each other. The “soul” accordingly is postulated by Professor James +as a medium to combine the effects of the manifold brain processes in order to +“escape the absurdity of supposing feelings which exist separately and then ‘fuse +together’ by themselves. The separateness is in the brain-world, on this theory, +and the unity in the soul world, and the only trouble that remains to haunt us is +the metaphysical one of understanding how one sort of world or existent thing can +affect or influence another at all.” This is dualism and we suppose that Professor +James is conscious of it.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Untersuchungen zur physiologischen Morphologie der Thiere. II. Organbildung +und Wachsthum.</span> By Dr. <i>Jacques Loeb</i>. Mit 2 Tafeln in Lithographie +und 9 Figuren im Text. Würzburg: Georg Hertz. 1892.</h4> + +<p>Dr. Jacques Loeb formerly of Zürich and lately returned from the Zoological +station at Naples has been appointed Professor at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. +Former publications of his were reviewed in <i>The Monist</i> I, No. 2, p. 300. The +present pamphlet is a continuance of his investigations in physiological morphology. +Some of his experiments are made with <i>Antennularia antennina</i> (a hydroid polyp) +and the author describes how without mutilation, simply by giving the creature a +fixed position he succeeded in making it develop certain organs in certain places, thus +proving gravitation to be an important factor in determining the growth of certain +limbs. Dr. Loeb adds a few articles on the dependence of the longitudinal growth +and also of the regeneration of Tubularia upon the concentration of the salt-water. +His experiments with <i>Ciona intestinalis</i> (a solitary ascidia) prove that (1) a section +in the side of the oral orifice as well as of the anus will cause the formation of +ocelli on the margin of the section, (2) after an extirpation of the central nervous +system the reflexes continue although with a higher threshold of the stimulus, and +(3) the ciona is capable of developing the central nervous system again.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Das Dasein als Lust, Leid, und Liebe.</span> Die altindische Weltanschauung in +neuzeitlicher Darstellung. Ein Beitrag zum Darwinismus. Mit 2 Tondrucken, +24 Zeichnungen und 10 Tabellen. By Dr. <i>Hübbe-Schleiden</i>. Braunschweig: +C. A. Schwetschke & Sohn, 1891.</h4> + +<p>The author of this book is Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden, editor of <i>The Sphinx</i>, a +monthly magazine published in Germany which professes to “lay down historically +and experimentally the supersensible World-Conception upon a monistic basis.” +Love of Mysticism is the main feature of <i>The Sphinx</i> as well as Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden’s +book. <i>The Sphinx</i> contains reports of cases of telepathy and is quite +serious in investigating the spook of a haunted house. The present book contains +the author’s confession of faith. The symbols by which he depicts his world-conception +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_469">[469]</span>reveal a cabalistic taste, and we believe that the illustrations will be rather +repugnant to the man of science, as they give the impression of fantasticism. The +main idea of the book is to modernise the old Hindoo view that “Kama” desire or +<i>Lust</i> is the ground of all being, as is said in the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad +(IV, 4, 5): “Man consists entirely of desire (<i>Kama</i>); as is his desire, so is his will +(<i>Kratu</i>); as is his will, so is his life (<i>Karma</i>, i. e., activity); as is his life, so is his +fate.”</p> + +<p>Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden rejects the Hindoo view of a migration of soul in so far as +it suggests the idea of something personal; he prefers to speak of a transformation of +soul. This, he says, has been and it may be called “metaphysical Darwinism”, and +we must confess that the nucleus of the idea touches the most vital point of all the +problems of life. We cannot explain ethics and the ethical instinct of man without +taking into consideration that man lives and aspires for something that will outlast +his individual existence. The author says: “Why do you strive for something +higher, for perfection, for completion or whatever your aim may be called? Why +all that, if you imagine that your individuality has only this one life upon earth and +you can realise only a very small part of what you strive for? Why all your trouble, +if the main thing is in vain?” We agree with the author that our moral instinct, our +ideals and aspirations which are most powerful realities in life point to a life beyond +the grave, they indicate that death is no finality and evolution teaches us that our +souls actually continue to exist. Our souls in their individual features are parts only +of the whole evolution of our race and these very individual features of our souls +can be and will be preserved in the future generations.</p> + +<p>Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden’s book is characteristic of a strange tendency of our time +to combine the results of modern science with the old notions of occultism. There +is in it a psychological and ethical truth overgrown with a fanciful imagination.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Max Müller and the Science of Language.</span> A Criticism. By <i>William Dwight +Whitney</i>, Professor in Yale University. New York: D. Appleton and Company. +1892.</h4> + +<p>The Professors W. D. Whitney and F. Max Müller are not on good terms. +They do not only disagree on several fundamental and many minor points, concerning +the science of language, but their warfare, as is well known, is at the same time +of a personal nature. The present little volume is a criticism of the new edition of +Max Müller’s “Science of Language.” The great Yale philologist recognising that +this work of his antagonistic Oxford colleague “is still the principal and most +authoritative text-book of that study,” and noting that “its author has gained no +new light from the criticisms that have been made upon his work,” feels called +upon to warn the reader that “it may not be trusted where it is untrustworthy and +so do harm to the science which it was intended to help.” The title of the book, +according to Professor Whitney, ought to be “Facts and Fancies in Regard to +Language and Other Related Subjects.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_470">[470]</span></p> + +<p>Schleicher says: “Languages are natural organisms which, without being determinable +by the will of man, grew and developed themselves in accordance with +fixed laws.... Its method is on the whole and in general the same with that of +the other natural sciences.” Professor Whitney censures Max Müller for calling +the first part of Schleicher’s proposition “sheer mythology,” and then adopting the +inference made therefrom considering the science of language as a physical science. +Now it is true that the expression “organism” must not be taken literally; languages +are not animals or plants, but they have some quality that is comparable to +animals and plants. Their life and the development of their life is in many respects +analogous to the life of organisms. Professor Whitney regards language as “a body +of conventional signs for ideas” and protests against Prof. Max Müller’s usage of +the word “conventional” as if it implied “a convention of people gathered to discuss +and decide on the words and forms by which conceptions should be represented.” +In contradistinction to Max Müller who holds that philology is a physical +science, Professor Whitney regards it as an historical science. “Physical science,” +says Max Müller, “deals with the works of God, historical science with the +works of man.” Thus optics is a physical science, painting an historical science. +Whitney declares that individuals initiate changes and the community either accepts +and uses them, making them language by its use or rejects and annuls them +by refusing to use them. In one word Max Müller says language is φύσει, a product +of nature, and Whitney says it is θέσει, an institution of man. We believe that +Professor Whitney stands almost alone in his conception of language.</p> + +<p>Another no less important point is Professor Whitney’s objection to Prof. Max +Müller’s proposition of the Identity of Language and Thought. Here Professor +Whitney will find many supporters for his case; but we must add that Prof. Max +Müller does not exactly mean what he says. He means by identity inseparableness. +It is not so much Max Müller’s position that should be attacked as his misleading +terminology. Concerning the origin of language Professor Whitney finds an instructive +parallel in the beginnings of writing which were mutually intelligible signs, +or in the written language of mathematics. “So we do no longer see,” he says, +“the two and three strokes in our figures 2 and 3, although they are really there +disguised from view.” This is a good simile, and undoubtedly <i>cum grano salis</i> true. +But it is rather strange that Professor Whitney should find Noiré’s theory of the +origin of language “utterly fantastic.”</p> + +<p>These are fundamental differences. There are some more, less important points +such as the etymology of king being the Sanskrit <i>janaka</i>. Max Müller proposes a +very improbable reason for the change of meaning in the Lat. <i>fagus</i>, O. Germ. <i>boka</i> +(beech), Greek <i>phegos</i>, Lat. <i>quercus</i>, and Germ. <i>foraha</i> (fir). Professor Whitney +might have mentioned that a more probable reason for this change has been proposed +of late by those who seek the home of the Aryans in Europe. A migrating +people would naturally have called in their old home the beech, in their new the +oak “a tree with edible fruit.” The same method is applicable to explain the change +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_471">[471]</span>of meaning in <i>forah-a-quercus</i> which means in northern countries a fir and in Italy +an oak.</p> + +<p>Professor Whitney sums up his case as follows (p. 77): he finds “language +study ... declared on transparently false grounds, to be a physical science, and +language an existence which man had no part in making and changing; dialectic +growth misunderstood, families of language regarded as exceptional, and a ‘Turanian’ +barathrum arranged to catch all little-known varieties of speech; antecedent +unity of dialect taught in one case and denied in another; a word held to be +killed by the least mispronunciation; <i>conventional</i> explained to mean ‘voted by a +convention’; thought and its expression viewed as inseparable, and even identical; +the origin of language seemingly ascribed to an instinctive ding-dong of the tongue—and +so on; to complete the list would be almost to give a table of principal contents +of the two volumes—and a style of discussion used throughout which indicated +that the author was playing with his subject rather than investigating it +seriously.... The book is not science, but literature. Taken as literature, it is +of high rank, as the admiration of the public sufficiently testifies; its author has +a special gift for interesting statement and illustration, for lending a charm to the +subjects he discusses; and he carries captive the judgments of his hearers and of +many of his readers. He is a born <i>littérateur</i>.”</p> + +<p>Professor Whitney concludes: “Now as heretofore, I rest my defense on not +the just intent alone, but the real substantial justice of my criticisms; if they are +unfounded, I deserve reprehension for making them; if they are right, then there +is nothing, either in the degree of importance of the subjects to which they relate, +or in the personality against whom they are directed, to call for their condemnation.”</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Seifenblasen.</span> Moderne Märchen. By <i>Kurd Lasswitz</i>. Hamburg and Leipsic: +Leopold Voss. 1890.</h4> + +<p>“Märchen,” in the province of science, we are inclined to believe are a prize +problem for our modern poets. Who will solve it? Kurd Lasswitz has made an +attempt and considering the great difficulty of the problem, we are not inclined to +criticise him. The author, who has worked in scientific fields and has proved his +ability as a close student, exhibits in these “soap-bubbles” a fertile imagination and +poetic invention. Most of his sketches fall short of the ideal märchen of science +as we conceive it, but their reading is suggestive and deserves the attention of those +whose disposition favors the creation of a middle ground between science and poetry.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a> Ziehen declares (p. 129) that the problem of physiological psychology consists in reducing +the different forms of thinking up to the most complex argumentation to simple associations of +ideas and its laws. Wundt says, that there are many psychical idea-combinations which cannot +be explained simply by association of ideas. So, Ziehen continues (p. 130), Wundt assumes above +idea associations a special faculty of the soul called apperception, which serves now as attention, +now as will, but is in either case a metaphysical faculty of the soul, the active subject which +independent of mechanical causality is said to be the cause of these phenomena.—I do not think +that anyone who knows Wundt will accept this as a fair representation of his views.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_472">[472]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="PERIODICALS_III">PERIODICALS.</h3> + +</div> + +<h4>REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: December, 1891. No. 192</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Un problème d’acoustique psychologique.</span> By <i>L. Dauriac</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Les origines de notre structure intellectuelle et cérébrale. II. L’évolutionnisme.</span> +By <i>A. Fouillée</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Léonard de Vinci artiste et savant.</span> By <i>G. Séailles</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sur les dessins d’enfants.</span> By <i>J. Passy</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Sur un cas d’inhibition psychique.</span> By <i>A. Binet</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: January, 1892. No. 193.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Le problème de la vie.</span> By <i>Dunan</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">La maladie du pessimisme.</span> By <i>B. Pérez</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Philosophes espagnols de Cuba: F. Varela, J. de la Luz.</span> By <i>J.-M. +Guardia</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Variétés: Le Problème d’Achille.</span> By <i>J. Mouret</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: February, 1892. No. 194.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Les mouvements de manège chez les insectes.</span> By <i>A. Binet</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Le problème de la vie</span> (2nd article). By <i>Dunan</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Philosophes espagnols de Cuba</span> (concluded). <i>J.-M. Guardia</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Revue générale: Justice et socialisme, d’après les publications récentes.</span> +By <i>Belot</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>One of the problems of the unique and great work of Carl Stumpf’s “Tonpsychologie” +is the subject of L. Dauriac’s essay. The question is when several +sounds enter the ear at the same time, the plurality of which is not directly known, +do you have your information through an inner sense? Does every unit of the irritation +correspond to a distinct unit of sensation? Is there in consciousness a simultaneousness +of sensations similarly as outside of consciousness there is a simultaneousness +of vibrations? M. Dauriac maintains that Stumpf’s question can be answered +only on the ground of metaphysical postulates, and if preconceived solutions +are to be excluded, it must be considered as insoluble.</p> + +<p>Alfred Fouillée, in his second article on the origin of our intellectual and cerebral +structure, which treats on evolutionism, comes to the conclusion that the hypothesis +which in the most simple way explains the agreement of thoughts and objects +is the doctrine of a radical unity generally called Monism.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_473">[473]</span></p> + +<p>J. Passy notes certain characteristic and psychologically interesting features of +the drawings of children.</p> + +<p>M. A. Binet presents two physiognomical pictures of the same face, one representing +disgust or scorn, the other a good-humored and happy smile. The upper +parts of both faces are exactly alike and yet the eyes of the former look disdainful +while the very same eyes of the latter are full of jest and merriment. This is the +fact. M. Binet psychologically interprets the fact as a phenomenon of automatic +inhibition. The fact is interesting, but its interpretation seems doubtful.</p> + +<p>Charles Dunan discusses the metaphysical aspect of the problem of life.</p> + +<p>B. Pérez’s article is a contribution to pathological psychology with special +reference to M. Magalhâes’s work on the subject. Pessimism, M. Pérez says, is a +disease only if exaggerated, yet he believes that medico-psychological studies which +consider the relation between the physical system and morality are very helpful +even if carried too far.</p> + +<p>M. J.-M. Guardia’s article will have a special interest for Americans. Three +men arose in Spain of late, Valentin Almirall, M. L. Mallada, and J.-M. Escudor, +who spoke bold and hard words of truth to their country. Cuba is the hen that +lays golden eggs for Spain, but the Cubans are treated with great contempt in Spain; +and yet the Spaniards are by no means their intellectual superiors, for while Spain +is poor in philosophy, Cuba is the only country of Latin America where philosophy +has taken root. M. Guardia sketches in the first article the history and philosophy +of Don Félix Varélay y Moralès who is the harbinger of the other Spanish-Cuban +philosopher, José de la Luz. The second article in the February number treats of +the latter (1800-1862) whom Guardia calls the master.</p> + +<p>George Mouret with reference to Frontera’s book on Zeno’s argument against +motion makes a few remarks concerning the Eleatic sophism about Achilles and the +tortoise.</p> + +<p>An injury of a thalamus opticus produces in horses and other animals the effect +of their making rotatory movements when intending to walk straight on. Forel +proved that a similar effect is produced in ants by a lesion of one of their lobes. +M. Binet publishes in the present essay his experiments on certain water-beetles, +exhibiting diagrams of their normal and abnormal walk. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>ZEITSCHRIFT FUR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vols. II and III.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: November, 1891. No. 6.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber Brückes Theorie des Körperlichen Sehens.</span> By Dr. <i>C. du Bois-Reymond</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mein Schlusswort gegen Wundt.</span> By <i>C. Stumpf</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Erwiderung.</span> By <i>O. Flügel</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Litteraturbericht.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: December, 1891. No. 1.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Versuch, das psychophysische Gesetz auf die Farbenunterschiede trichromatischer +Augen anzuwenden.</span> By <i>H. v. Helmholtz</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Untersuchungen über binokulares Sehen mit Anwendung des Heringschen +Fallversuchs.</span> By Dr. <i>Richard Greeff</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_474">[474]</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Bemerkungen zu dem Aufsatze von Dr. Sommer “zur Psychologie der +Sprache.”</span> By Prof. <i>A. Pick</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Litteraturbericht.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Dr. C. du Bois-Reymond believes that corporeal vision is either produced by +one eye running in succession over several places or two eyes viewing two aspects +of the object. Mach’s theory of the influence of shade upon the production of the +third dimension in vision which affords quite a new and a better explanation of the +phenomenon is not mentioned. Stumpf closes his controversy with Wundt with a +few remarks in answer to Wundt’s reply (in <i>Philos. Studien</i> VII, pp. 298-327); and +Flügel objects to Professor Rehmke’s proposition made in a criticism of Flügel’s +book “Die Seelenfrage,” that Herbart’s psychology, being atomism, is at bottom +materialism.</p> + +<p>Dr. Richard Greeff describes Hering’s apparatus for investigating the cause of +binocular vision. Wheatstone believes that the perspective of the two retina pictures +produces the effect of corporeality while Brücke declares that it is mainly due +to muscle-sensations. Hering sides with Wheatstone, and the experiments as described +by Greeff prove that the third dimension is unfailingly perceived whenever +the ocular axes diverge, while in other cases the same result is not attained.</p> + +<p>Dr. Sommer had presented in a former article the facts of an interesting case +of aphasia, (see <i>The Monist</i>, Vol. I, No. 4, p. 629) where the patient, his name is +Voit, could remember and pronounce words only when writing them. Prof. A. +Pick objects to Dr. Sommer’s regarding the case as contrary to our present experience +and following two French authorities Ballet and Bernard, adduces cases of +Aphasia by right-sided hemiphlegia where patients could read only when they were +able to write or represent to themselves the writing motions of their hand. Thus +one patient of Charcot could only read print, and not written words “because,” as +he said, “it was easier for him to reproduce in his mind the written letter.” This reminds +one of the case a deaf-mute who said: “I feel whenever I think of the motions +of my fingers although they are perfectly at rest. I see internally an image of my +moving fingers.” Professor Pick concludes that the case Voit is a good argument +against Max Müller’s proposition of the identity of language and thought. Max +Müller however includes in his conception of word any symbol of an idea. The +finger motion of a deaf-mute is a word, and the writing motion of Voit is also a +word, according to Professor Max Müller’s theory.</p> + +<p>Prof. H. v. Helmholtz publishes the tables of his experiments in applying the +psycho-physical law upon color differences of trichromatic eyes, and presents the +three fundamental colors diagrammatically in an equilateral triangle in the centre +of which lies white. A curve winding round this centre shows the relation of the +rainbow spectrum in the system of three fundamental colors. The results do not +as yet agree with the investigations of A. König and C. Diterici who make similar +inquiries with bichromatic eyes. (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XVI. No. 1.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Beiträge zur Logik.</span> (Erster Artikel.) By <i>A. Riehl</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Die Dimensionen der Wahrscheinlichkeit und die Evidenz der Ungewissheit.</span> +By <i>Ad. Nitsche</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_475">[475]</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber die fortschreitende Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts.</span> II. +By <i>F. Rosenberger</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernst Platner’s wissenschaftliche Stellung zu Kant in Erkenntnisstheorie +und Moralphilosophie.</span> I. By <i>B. Seligkowitz</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber Sprachreflex, Nativismus und absichtliche Sprachbildung.</span> X. By +<i>A. Marty</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Prof. A. Riehl begins in this number a series of articles on logic. The first two +chapters are (1) concepts and definitions. Riehl distinguishes between a definition +and a predicating sentence (<i>Aussage</i>), for instance, “Space has three dimensions,” +is a mere definition, but “Space is the form of our intuition,” is an <i>Aussage</i>. (2) +Conceptual sentences and judgments. The former are merely representative and +cannot as the latter be said to combine or separate ideas.</p> + +<p>Ad. Nitsche criticises Johannes v. Kries’s idea that the calculus of probabilities +is admissible only if the chances are equivalent. Equivalent Chances (<i>gleiche +Spielräume</i>), he objects, are apparently impossible, yet he admits that upon the +degree of a knowledge of the conditions will depend the reliability of the probability.</p> + +<p>The Object of B. Seligkowitz’s article is to rescue from oblivion a philosopher +who especially as a critic of Kant deserves to be better known than he is, Ernst +Platner (1744-1818.)</p> + +<p>The tenth and concluding article of A. Marty on the origin of language reviews +Paul Regnaud’s work <i>Origine et philosophie du langage</i>. (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. December, 1891. Vol. IV. No. 2.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Sketch of the History of Psychology Among the Greeks.</span> By <i>Charles +A. Strong</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Studies from the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology of the University +of Wisconsin.</span> By Prof. <i>Joseph Jastrow</i>, Ph. D.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Size of Several Cranial Nerves in Man as Indicated by the Areas +of Their Cross-sections.</span> By <i>Henry H. Donaldson</i>, Ph. D.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Visualisation as a Chief Source of the Psychology of Hobbes, Locke, +Berkeley, and Hume.</span> By <i>Alexander Fraser</i>, B. A.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Anatomical Observations on the Brain and Several Sense-Organs of the +Blind Deaf-mute, Laura Dewey Bridgman.</span> II. By <i>Henry H. Donaldson</i>, +Ph. D.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Psychological Literature.</span> I. Nervous System. By Prof. <i>H. H. Donaldson</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Laboratory Course in Physiological Psychology.</span> II. By <i>E. C. Sanford</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Psychiatry. Psychoses Following Acute Surgical and Mental Affections +and in Multiple Neuritis.</span> By <i>William Noyes</i>, M. D.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The post mortem examination of Laura Bridgman shows a brain in which the +olfactory bulbs and nerves, the optic nerves, the auditory nerves, and possibly the +glossopharyngeal, had all been more or less destroyed at their peripheral ends. +This destruction caused a degeneration—most marked in the optic nerves—which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_476">[476]</span>extended towards the centres and involved them indirectly.... This case represents +a maximum loss in these defective senses with a minimum amount of central +disturbance, thus offering the very best sort of opportunity for education by way +of the surviving senses.... Mental association was for Laura Bridgman limited to +various phases of the dermal sensations and the minor and imperfect senses of +taste and smell.... The motor centre there had lost some, but not all its associative +connections. (Clark University, Worcester, Mass.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. January, 1892. Vol. II. NO. 2.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Ethical Aspects of the Papal Encyclical.</span> By <i>Brother Azarias</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Three Religions.</span> By <i>J. S. Mackenzie</i>, M. A.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Ethics of Hegel.</span> By <i>Rev. J. Macbride Sterrett</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Palm of Peace from German Soil.</span> By <i>Fanny Hertz</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Authority in the Sphere of Conduct and Intellect.</span> By <i>Prof. H. Nettleship</i>, +Oxford.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Discussions and Reviews.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Brother Azarias paraphrases and praises the ethics of the Papal Encyclical. +J. S. Mackenzie starts from Kant’s famous remarks that two things fill our minds +with reverence, the starry, heavens above and the moral law within. The worship +of these two separately and the worship of them in combination are set forth as the +three great religions of the world. Fanny Hertz pleads for the abolishment of war. +She quotes largely from Bertha Suttner’s novel, “Die Waffen nieder,” and from +Friederich’s letters. Authority, according to Professor Nettleship, is “the power +which in the sphere of conduct, in the long run determines our practice and in the +sphere of intellect in the long run determines our assent.” There are roughly speaking +four kinds of authority: (1) the authority of law, (2) the authority of religious +bodies, (3) the authority of society or public opinion and (4) the authority of great +men. Where is the seat of authority? “For each individual,” Professor Nettleship +maintains, “the absolute guide can, in the long run be no other than his +own conscience.” The origin of conscience and the criterion whether the voice of +conscience be true or not are not explained. (Philadelphia: <i>International Journal +of Ethics</i>, 118 S. Twelfth Street.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>MIND. New Series. No. 1. January, 1892.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Prefatory Remarks.</span> <i>The Editor.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Logical Calculus.</span> (1) General Principles. By <i>W. E. Johnson</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Idea of Value.</span> By <i>S. Alexander</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Changes of Method in Hegel’s Dialectic.</span> (1) By <i>J. Ellis McTaggart</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Law of Psychogenesis.</span> By <i>Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Discussions</span>: The Feeling-Tone of Desire and Aversion. By <i>Prof. H. Sidgwick</i>. +Sur la Distinction entre les Lois ou Axiomes et les Notions. By <i>George +Mouret</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Critical Notices.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>W. E. Johnson says: “As a material machine is an instrument for economising +the exertion of force, so a symbolic calculus is an instrument for economising +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_477">[477]</span>the exertion of intelligence. And, employing the same analogy, the more perfect +the calculus, the smaller would be the amount of intelligence applied as compared +with the results produced.” He continues:</p> + +<p>“But as the exertion of <i>some</i> force is necessary for working the machine, so +the exertion of <i>some</i> intelligence is necessary for working the calculus.”</p> + +<p>Here we feel inclined to stop our author. That which makes of a certain +amount of metal, brass, and wood a machine, is the form in which they are composed, +and this form is instrumental in using a certain amount of energy for doing +a certain kind of work. Intelligence is not analogous to force but to the form of +force. Not intelligence is necessary to run the instrument of intelligence, but some +power, some force, some energy, and this power needed for running the instrument +of intelligence, as it exists in man, is generally called will. So we are at variance +with Mr. W. S. Johnson from the outset. Mr. Johnson from his standpoint considers +it “important to examine the kind and degree of intelligence that are demanded +in the employment of any symbolic calculus. It will appear that the +<i>logical</i> calculus stands in a unique relation to intelligence; for it aims at exhibiting, +in a non-intelligent form, those same intelligent principles that are actually +required for working it.”</p> + +<p>We abstain here from discussing the details of this highly suggestive article +which contains much that is of interest to logicians. The author claims especially +with regard to his interpretation of the universal and particular that his results exactly +correspond with the interpretation given by Dr. Venn and Mr. Peirce, and +worked out by Dr. Keynes.</p> + +<p>The Germans distinguish between <i>Urtheil</i> and <i>Beurtheilung</i>, the first being +judgment in general, the latter a judgment that declares something to possess +value from the view of truth, beauty or goodness. In this sense Mr. S. Alexander +deals with the idea of value. He states two main principles. (1) That value is “the +efficiency of a conscious agent to promote the efficiency of society” and this, the +author says, was maintained indirectly in opposition to the view that value was determined +by pleasure. (2) That value is itself no something separable from other +mental facts by a wide gulf, but was itself a fact of a purely natural order. “Sollen” +is one kind of “Sein.”</p> + +<p>Mr. J. Ellis McTaggart in discussing the changes of method in Hegel’s Dialectic +arrives at a conclusion which according to the author must be admitted to be +quite un-Hegelian. Hegel apparently regarded the procession of the categories with +its advance through oppositions and reconciliations as presenting absolute truth. +From this the author dissents, “for,” he says: “the true process of thought is one +in which each category springs out of the one before it, and not by contradicting +it, but as the expression of its deepest nature, while it, in its turn, is seen to have +its deepest reality in again passing on to the one after it. There is no contradiction +no opposition, and consequently no reconciliation. There is only development, +the rendering explicit what was implicit, the growth of the seed to the +plant. In the actual course of the dialectic this is never attained. It is an ideal +which is never quite realised, and from the nature of the case never can be quite +realised. In the dialectic there is always opposition, and therefore always reconciliation. +We do not go straight onward, but more or less from side to side. It +seems inevitable, therefore, to conclude that the dialectic does not completely and +perfectly express the nature of thought.”</p> + +<p>Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan starting from the proposition that “the business of consciousness +is the control of action” shows that “we identify ourselves rather with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_478">[478]</span>the action of our control centres than with our lower animal instincts. Through +experience we learn, and habits being formed by individual repetition become innate.” +Professor Morgan reviews use-inheritance natural selection, sexual selection, +the law of beauty, and conduct and verification with regard to psychogenesis. +“Our nature,” he says, “is intellectual, æsthetic, moral, and sensitive”:</p> + +<p>“The false is rejected as incongruous to our nature as intellectual; the ugly is +avoided as incongruous to our nature as æsthetic; the wrong is shunned as incongruous +to our nature as moral; so is the painful, so far as possible, avoided as +incongruous to our nature as sensitive.... The guidance of pleasure and pain is +of great importance—so great that some are found to argue that in moral matters +we are influenced solely by considerations of happiness.... Only by extending +the meaning of the words pleasure and pain so as to be coextensive with what I +have here termed congruous and incongruous can it be said that our actions and +our thoughts are determined by pleasure and pain.” (London: Williams & Norgate.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. Vol. I, No. 1. January, 1892.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS of No. 1.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Prefatory Note.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Critical Philosophy and Idealism.</span> By Prof. <i>John Watson</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Psychology as So-called “Natural Science.”</span> By Prof. <i>George T. Ladd</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">On Some Psychological Aspects of the Chinese Musical System.</span> By +<i>Benj. Ives Gilman</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Reviews of Books and Summaries of Articles.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS of No. 2:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Psychology, Epistemology, and Metaphysics.</span> By Prof. <i>Andrew Seth</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Plea for Psychology as a “Natural Science.”</span> By Prof. <i>William James</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">On Some Psychological Aspects of the Chinese Musical System.</span> II. +By <i>Benj. Ives Gilman</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Discussions</span>: Dr. Münsterberg’s Theory of Mind and Body and its Consequences. +By <i>Charles A. Strong</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Reviews of Books and Summaries of Articles.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This is a new magazine which will be an additional proof that the philosophical +interest in America is by no means so poor as the inhabitants of the old world +generally suppose it to be. The character of the journal, it is to be expected, will +be in harmony with the publications of its scholarly editor, Prof. J. G. Schurmann, +whose position is clearly set forth in a little volume of his “Belief in God,” in +which he conceives God in three ways (1) as the cause or ground of the world (2) +as the realising purpose of the world, and (3) as the father of spirits.</p> + +<p>Professor Watson reviews in an elaborate article Edward Caird’s work “The +Critical Philosophy of Emanuel Kant.” “The philosophy of Kant,” says Watson, +“was accepted at first by submissive disciples, but it had afterwards to submit to a +severe process of criticism which culminated in the Absolute Idealism of Hegel. +The synthesis of Kant, as based upon an untenable opposition of the phenomenal +and the real, was weighed and found wanting.... We must be grateful to any one +who helps us, not merely to see Kant, but to see beyond him. This is the task +which Professor Caird, in his exhaustive work on the Critical Philosophy, has set +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_479">[479]</span>himself to perform,” and adds Watson, “he has done it in a way that leaves nothing +to be desired.”</p> + +<p>Professor Ladd criticises Professor James’s Psychology as so-called natural +science.</p> + +<p>“What we wish to have in the name of cerebral psychology, is a description, +in terms of a comprehensible theory of molecular physics; and, also, a statement of +the formulæ which define the relations between the molecular changes and the +‘corresponding’ orders of mental phenomena. But this is precisely what Professor +James avoids doing, even to the extent which so-called ‘nerve-physiology’ +makes possible. And, nothing worthy of the name ‘science’ <i>is</i> possible for any +one in this branch of cerebral psycho-physics.”</p> + +<p>Professor James replies to the criticism in the second number of <i>The Philosophical +Review</i>. He says:</p> + +<p>“Psychology is to-day hardly more than what physics was before Galileo, what +chemistry was before Lavoisier. It is a mass of phenomenal description, gossip, +and myth, including, however, real material enough to justify one in the hope that +its study may become worthy of the name of natural science at no very distant day. +I wished, by treating Psychology <i>like</i> a natural science, to help her to become one.”</p> + +<p>Professor Ladd is a transcendentalist and Professor James has great expectations +of the work inaugurated by the Society for Psychical Research.</p> + +<p>Theoretically they stand much nearer than practically, as well indicated by +Professor James’s remark:</p> + +<p>“In Professor Ladd’s own book on ‘Physiological Psychology,’ that ‘real +being, proceeding to unfold powers that are <i>sui generis</i>, according to laws of its +own,’ for whose recognition he contends, plays no organic part in the work, and +has proved a mere stumbling block to his biological reviewers.”</p> + +<p>He adds in a foot-note:</p> + +<p>“I mean that such a being is quite barren of particular consequences. Its +character is only known by its reactions on the signals which the nervous system +gives, and these must be gathered by observation after the fact. If only it were +subject to successive reincarnations, as the theosophists say it is, so that we might +guess what sort of a body it would unite with next, or what sort of persons it had +helped to constitute previously, those would be great points gained. But even those +gains are denied us; and the real being is, for practical purposes, an entire superfluity, +which a <i>practical</i> psychology can perfectly well do without.”</p> + +<p>Andrew Seth, the well-known coryphæus of philosophy and psychology at +Edinburgh, presses the importance of distinguishing the different standpoints of +psychology, epistemology, and metaphysics. Locke, Berkeley, Hume and other +English as well as Continental thinkers “speak sometimes from one point of view, +sometimes from the other without being aware that the two points of view are different.”</p> + +<p>“Psychology, assuming the existence of a subject or medium of consciousness, +seeks to explain, mainly by the help of association or processes practically similar, +how out of the come-and-go of conscious states, there are evolved such subjective +facts as perceptions, the belief in an independent real world, and the idea of the +Ego or subject himself.... Metaphysics has to do with the ultimate nature of the +reality which reveals itself alike in the consciousness which knows and the world +which is known.... The epistemological thing-in-itself to be identified with the +metaphysical essence.... The problem of knowledge and the Real, is the question +which Epistemology has to face.” (Boston, New York, Chicago: Ginn & Co.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_480">[480]</span></p> + +<h4>VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.⁠<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> Vol. III. No. 11. January, 1892.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Positive Philosophy and the Unity of Science.</span> Part V. Sociology. By +<i>B. Tchitcherin</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Count Giacomo Leopardi and his Pessimism.</span> Part IV. Continued from No. +10 of this review. (Conclusion.) By <i>V. Stein</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">An Historical Sketch of the Conceptions of Nature.</span> (Conclusion.) By <i>M. +Menzhir</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">J. V. Kiryebskii and the Origin of Muscovite Slavophilism.</span> Public lecture +delivered November 20, 1891, for the benefit of the rural districts suffering +from the bad harvests. By <i>Paul Vinogradoff</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Fouillé and the Metaphysics of the Future.</span> Part III. General estimate +of Fouillé’s views. Continued from No. 10 of this review. (Conclusion) +By <i>Aleksei Vnedenskii</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Telepathy.</span> To be concluded in the next number. By <i>M. Petrovo-Solovo</i>. +[This is a review of the publications of and the work done by the Society +for Psychical Research in England.]</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Special Part</span>: (1) Wundt’s System of Philosophy. By <i>K. Ventzel</i>. (2) Hegel’s +Ontology. By <i>N. P. Hilyaroff-Platonoff</i>. New Researches on Plato. By +<i>A. Kozloff</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Criticism and Bibliography.</span> Review of Russian and Foreign Periodicals. +Book Reviews. Bibliographical Index of recent Philosophical works. Answer +to an anonymous letter received by N. Strachoff on the subject of his +article: “Opinions concerning L. N. Tolstoï.” By <i>N. Strachoff</i>. Transactions +of the Moscow Psychological Society. (Moscow, 1892.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> <i>Questions of Philosophy and Psychology.</i></p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_481">[481]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="masthead"> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Vol. II.</span> +<span class="smcap spacer">July, 1892.</span> +<span class="smcap">No. 4.</span></p> + +<h2>THE MONIST.</h2> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="OUR_MONISM">OUR MONISM.<br> +<span class="smaller">THE PRINCIPLES OF A CONSISTENT, UNITARY WORLD-VIEW.</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>The question, What are the essential features of Monism? was +brought home to me when I read in the last number of <i>The +Monist</i> the critical remarks made with reference to the new edition +of my “Anthropogeny.” I shall here endeavor briefly to draw +up the outlines of my conception of the world in a manner which +will indicate the most characteristic features of my views. Thus +both the agreements with and the divergences from the position +editorially upheld in <i>The Monist</i> will plainly appear.</p> + +<p>As is the case with the majority of philosophical differences, so +also in the present instance I find that the divergences which exhibit +themselves in our respective unitary conceptions of the world +are in part only apparent and in part occasioned by the divergent +significances of our fundamental ideas. But this will, perhaps, be +made clearer by the following methodically arranged eight theses.</p> + +<h4>I. MONISM.</h4> + +<p>Like all general concepts of fundamental scope, that of monism +also is liable to different definitions and divergent modifications,—the +natural result of individual differences of subjective +conception. In the determinate sense in which monism is at +present employed by the majority of philosophers and physical inquirers, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_482">[482]</span>the sense which I believe I was the first to establish in 1866 +in my “General Morphology” (Vol. I, p. 105), it denotes a unitary +or <i>natural</i> conception of the world, in opposition to a <i>supernatural</i> +or mystical one, that is, in opposition to <i>dualism</i>. For us, accordingly, +there exists (in the sense of Goethe) <i>no</i> opposition whatsoever +between nature and mind, between World and God. Mental existences, +“spirits,” outside nature, or in opposition to nature, do +not exist. What are commonly termed the “mental sciences,”—for +example, philology, history, and philosophy,—are in reality simply a +part of <i>physical philosophy</i>, of <i>Natur-philosophie</i>. The latter discipline +embraces, in our opinion, the entire body of human knowledge; it +is based upon <i>empiricism</i>, on the experiences, the observations, and +the experiments of physical inquiry; but it does not become <i>philosophy</i> +until it has brought together and united its empiric products, +abstracted general laws from its isolated experiential facts, and <i>synthetised</i> +the isolated results which <i>analysis</i> has empirically ascertained.</p> + +<h4>II. MECHANICALISM.</h4> + +<p>Since an early date, this important fundamental concept has +frequently been used in three different and divergent senses, namely:</p> + +<p><i>A.</i> In its widest sense, as synonymous with <i>monism</i>; wherein +mechanical causes (<i>causæ efficientes</i>), in the sense of Kant, are assumed +as the sole effective causes and are placed in opposition to +the teleological causes (<i>causæ finales</i>) in the sense of dualism. +“Mechanical conception of the world” is in this sense synonymous +with “monistic conception of the world.”</p> + +<p><i>B.</i> In its more restricted sense, as a universal <i>motion</i>-principle +of physics, so that, for example, the postulated ether-vibrations of +optics, of electricity, and so forth, as well as the grosser material +oscillations of acoustics, heat, and so forth, are designated as mechanical +processes subject to definite laws. “Mechanical natural +philosophy,” in this sense, is identical with <i>physics</i>.</p> + +<p><i>C.</i> In its narrowest sense, as that <i>branch</i> of physics which deals +with the grosser and visible processes of <i>motion</i>; as gravitation, +locomotion, and the phoronomy of organisms. Mechanics, in this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_483">[483]</span>the most restricted sense, is viewed as opposed to optics, acoustics, +etc., as the usages of the schools indicate.</p> + +<p>Since, now, the phrases “mechanical laws” and “mechanical +explanation,” at the present day even, are frequently understood in +these three distinct senses, no end of misunderstandings arise. Such +misunderstandings may be best avoided, perhaps, by retaining the +notion of mechanics in its narrowest (<i>C</i>) sense, and by substituting +<i>physics</i> for the next narrower sense (<i>B</i>) and <i>monism</i> for its most extended +sense (<i>A</i>).</p> + +<h4>III. PSYCHISM.</h4> + +<p>In exactly the same way as the idea of mechanicalism, so also +that of psychism is employed in a three-fold divergent sense. As in +the former case <i>motion</i>, so here <i>feeling</i> is conceived, now as a universal +world-principle, now simply as a vital activity of all organisms, now +simply as the particular mental activity of man.</p> + +<p><i>A.</i> In its widest sense: <i>Panpsychism</i>. All matter is ensouled, +because all natural bodies known to us possess determinate chemical +properties, that is to say react uniformly and by law when subjected +to the determinate chemical (i. e. molecular-mechanical) influences +of other bodies: <i>chemical affinity</i>. Simplest example: sulphur and +quicksilver rubbed together form cinnabar, a new body of entirely +different properties. This is possible only on the supposition that +the molecules (or atoms) of the two elements if brought within the +proper distance, mutually <i>feel</i> each other, by attraction move towards +each other; on the decomposition of a simple chemical compound +the contrary takes place: repulsion. (Empedocles’s doctrine +of the “love and hatred of atoms.”)</p> + +<p><i>B.</i> In its more restricted sense: <i>Biopsychism</i>. The <i>organisms</i> +alone are regarded as “ensouled,” because here the chemical processes +are more complicated and more striking (producing motions +in cyclically repeated succession) than in the case of the so-called +“dead matter” of the inorganic bodies. In particular does +organic “irritability” appear here as a higher form of the physical +reaction called “<i>Auslösung</i>” [the setting free, disengagement], +and “soul-activity” (reflexes) again as a higher form of irritability. +However, all the phenomena of organic life ultimately admit of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_484">[484]</span>being reduced to “mechanical” (or “physico-chemical”) processes +that differ from the processes of the inorganic world only in point +of degree or quantitatively, not qualitatively. (“General Morphology,” +I, Chap. V; VII, pp. 109-238. “Natural Creation,” VIII, +First Edition, Lecture XV.)</p> + +<p><i>C.</i> In its narrowest sense: <i>Zoopsychism</i>. Irritability, or universal +organic soul-activity, such as is the attribute of all organisms, +(identical with “life,”) reaches a higher stage through abstraction, +through the formation of <i>ideas</i>. <i>Feeling</i> and <i>will</i> become more distinctly +separated. This real soul-life, which is the attribute only of +the higher animals, passes through a long succession of different +stages of development, the most perfect of which is the soul of man. +The so-called “freedom of the will” is apparent only, as each single +volitional action is determined by a chain of precedent actions +which ultimately rest either upon <i>heredity</i> (propagation) or upon +<i>adaptation</i> (nutrition). As these last are (“mechanically”) reducible +to molecular motions, the same also holds true of the former.</p> + +<h4>IV. THEISM.</h4> + +<p>The idea of god that alone appears to be logically compatible +with monism, is pantheism (or “cosmotheism”) in the sense of +Goethe and Spinoza. God according to this view is identical with +the sum-total of the force of the universe, which is inseparable from +the sum-total of the matter of the universe. In opposition to this +view stands <i>anthropotheism</i>. This is the outcome of dualism, which +places God as a personal being in opposition to the “world” created +by him, and consequently is always forced in its reasonings to resort +to anthropomorphic expedients.</p> + +<h4>V. MATERIALISM.</h4> + +<p>The most important differences of form in which this much +misunderstood and variously interpreted movement of philosophy +has presented itself, may be classed as follows:</p> + +<p><i>A.</i> In its most extended sense: as synonymous with <i>monism</i> (or +with mechanicalism). All the phenomena of the world are founded +upon material processes, upon <i>motions</i> (mechanicalism) or upon +<i>feelings</i> (psychism), both of which, as fundamental qualities, are inseparable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_485">[485]</span>from matter. Immaterial forces or immaterial “spirits” +(minds) are unknown to us. As Goethe once said, “Mind can +never exist and act without matter, matter never without mind.”</p> + +<p><i>B.</i> In its more restricted sense: originally matter alone exists +and creates <i>secondarily</i> force (or “mind”). The fallacy of this view +lies in its regarding the two things “matter and force” as disjoint +and separate. According to our view the two are inseparably connected,—united +in each atom from the very first.</p> + +<h4>VI. SPIRITUALISM.</h4> + +<p>This phase also of the world-conception has been the subject of +the same misunderstandings and perverted conceptions as its apparent +opposite, materialism.</p> + +<p><i>A.</i> In its most extended sense, spiritualism is susceptible of +identification with <i>psychism</i>—consequently also with monism. For +<i>feeling</i> (pleasure and pain) is just as much a thoroughly universal +and fundamental property of matter (of each atom!) as is <i>motion</i> +(attraction and repulsion). Every single “spirit” is inseparably +united with some “matter.”</p> + +<p><i>B.</i> In its more restricted sense: originally force alone exists and +creates <i>secondarily</i> matter. This view, which is very old and very +widely spread (“creation of the world”), is just as false and as one-sided +as its contrary (5 <i>B</i>).</p> + +<h4>VII. IMMORTALISM.</h4> + +<p>The “belief in immortality” is scientifically (<i>critically</i>) tenable +only as a <i>general</i> proposition, and is in this case identical with the +most universal law of physics, the <i>conservation of energy</i> (coincidently, +of course, the conservation of matter). On the other hand, +the widely disseminated <i>dogmatic</i> belief in a <i>personal</i> immortality, +a belief supported by the mass of the ecclesiastical religions, and of +utmost importance as the consciously or unconsciously assumed +<i>base</i>-axiom of a great number of philosophical systems, is, <i>scientifically</i>, +absolutely untenable. The “human soul” (i. e. the sum-total +of the individual life-activity: feeling, motion,—will,—and idea) is +simply a transient developmentary phenomenon—a very highly developed +“vertebrate-soul.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_486">[486]</span></p> + +<h4>VIII. COSMISM.</h4> + +<p>The determinate, and, as I believe, logical, form of the conception +of the world, the principles of which I have advocated for +thirty years, and whose most important aspects have been briefly +outlined in the preceding paragraphs, may also be designated <i>cosmism</i>, +to the extent that it proceeds from the fundamental idea that +<i>cosmogeny</i> or the “world-process,” as world-<i>development</i>, is, within +certain limits, (within the limits namely of a reduction to the basic +notions: matter and its two inseparable fundamental qualities motion +and feeling,) a <i>knowable</i> natural process. Cosmism is opposed, +thus, to <i>agnosticism</i>.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>One highly important principle of my monism seems to me to +be, that I regard <i>all</i> matter as <i>ensouled</i>, that is to say as endowed with +<i>feeling</i> (pleasure and pain) and with <i>motion</i>, or, better, with the +power of motion. As elementary (atomistic) attraction and repulsion +these powers are asserted in every simplest chemical process, +and on them is based also every other phenomenon, consequently also +the highest-developed soul-activity of man. For the comprehension +of this <i>graduated</i> psychical development of matter perhaps my three +stages will be useful: III <i>A.</i> (Panpsychism), III <i>B.</i> (Biopsychism), +III <i>C.</i> (Zoopsychism). So too consciousness, as the highest psychical +action and the one most difficult to be explained, is in my views imply +a higher stage of brain-activity, based upon the association, the abstraction, +and centralisation of groups of ideas. Perhaps I have +expressed myself poorly in these expositions, as I am little accustomed +to dealing with philosophical axioms abstractly, and am too +exclusively engaged in the concrete activity of my own special department. +I cherish the hope, however, of being able within two +or three years to devote more of my time to purely philosophical +labors; when my work with the Challenger material, which has now +absorbed twelve years of unremitting toil, is ended, my special zoological +activity will have been completed; and I shall then find the +opportunity of contributing more frequently to your highly valued +magazines <i>The Monist</i> and <i>The Open Court</i>.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ernst Haeckel.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_487">[487]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="THE_MAGIC_SQUARE">THE MAGIC SQUARE.</h3> + +</div> + +<h4>I.<br> +INTRODUCTORY.</h4> + +<p>Among the philosophies of modern times there is no other +which emphasises so much the importance of form and formal +thought as the monism of <i>The Monist</i>. An expression thereof is +found in the following passages:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The order that prevails among the facts of reality is due to the laws of form. +Upon the order of the world depends its cognisability.</p> + +<p>“... The laws of form are no less eternal than are matter and energy and +‘Verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no +wise pass from the law!’</p> + +<p>“The laws of form and their origin have been a puzzle to all philosophers. +‘Ay, there’s the rub!’ The difficulties of Hume’s problem of causation, of Kant’s +<i>a priori</i>, of Plato’s ideas, of Mill’s method of deduction, etc., etc., all arise from a +one-sided view of form and the laws of form and formal thought.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Considering the great results which engineering and other applied +sciences accomplish through the assistance of mathematics, +we must confess that the forms of thought are wonderful indeed, +and it is not at all astonishing that the primitive thinkers of mankind +when the importance of the laws of formal thought in some +way or another first dawned on their minds, attributed magic powers +to numbers and geometrical figures.</p> + +<p>We shall devote the following pages to a brief review of +magic squares, the consideration of which has made many a man +believe in mysticism. And yet there is no mysticism about them +unless we either consider everything mystical, even that twice two +is four, or join the sceptic in his exclamation that we can truly not +know whether twice two might not be five in other spheres of the +universe.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_488">[488]</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp48" id="durer" style="max-width: 28.125em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/durer.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>ALBERT DÜRER’S ENGRAVING</p> + <p>MELANCHOLY<br><span class="smcap">or the<br>Genius of the + Industrial Science of Mechanics</span></p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_489">[489]</span></p> + +<p>The author of the short article on “Magic Squares” in the English +Cyclopædia (Vol. III, p. 415), presumably Prof. DeMorgan, +says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Though the question of magic squares be in itself of no use, yet it belongs to +a class of problems which call into action a beneficial species of investigation. Without +laying down any rules for their construction, we shall content ourselves with +destroying their magic quality, and showing that the non-existence of such squares +would be much more surprising than their existence.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This is the point. There obtains a symphonic harmony in +mathematics which is the more startling the more obvious and self-evident +it appears to him who understands the laws that produce this +symphonic harmony.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>On the wood-cut named “Melancholia”⁠<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> of the famous Nuremberg +painter, Albrecht Dürer, is found among a number of other +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_490">[490]</span>emblems, which the reader will notice in our reproduction of the cut, +the subjoined square. This arrangement of the sixteen natural numbers +from 1 to 16 possesses the remarkable property that the same +sum 34 will always be obtained whether we add together the four +figures of any of the horizontal rows or the four of any vertical row +or the four which lie in either of the two diagonals. Such an arrangement +of numbers is termed a magic square, and the square +which we have reproduced above is <i>the first magic square which is +met with in the Christian Occident</i>.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-01" style="max-width: 15.625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-01.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 1.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Like chess and many of the problems founded on the figure of +the chess-board, the problem of constructing a magic square also +probably traces its origin to Indian soil. From there the problem +found its way among the Arabs, and by them it was brought to the +Roman Orient. Finally, since Albrecht Dürer’s time, the scholars of +Western Europe also have occupied themselves with methods for +the construction of squares of this character.</p> + +<p>The oldest and the simplest magic square consists of the quadratic +arrangement of the nine numbers from 1 to 9 in such a manner +that the sum of each horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row, always +remains the same, namely 15. This square is the adjoined.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-02" style="max-width: 10.9375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-02.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 2.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="noindent">Here, we will find, 15 always comes out whether we add 2 and 7 and +6, or 9 and 5 and 1, or 4 and 3 and 8, or 2 and 9 and 4, or 7 and 5 +and 3, or 6 and 1 and 8, or 2 and 5 and 8, or 6 and 5 and 4.</p> + +<p>The question naturally presents itself, whether this condition +of the constant equality of the added sum also remains fulfilled when +the numbers are assigned different places. It may be easily shown +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_491">[491]</span>however that 5 necessarily must occupy the middle place, and that +the even numbers must stand in the corners. This being so, there +are but 7 additional arrangements possible, which differ from the +arrangement above given and from one another only in the respect +that the rows at the top, at the left, at the bottom, and at the right, +exchange places with one another and that in addition a mirror be +imagined present with each arrangement. So too from Dürer’s +square of 4 times 4 places, by transpositions, a whole set of new +correct squares may be formed. A magic square of the 4 times 4 +numbers from 1 to 16 is formed in the simplest manner as follows. +We inscribe the numbers from 1 to 16 in their natural order in the +squares, thus:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-03" style="max-width: 15.625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-03.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 3.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="noindent">We then leave the numbers in the four corner-squares, viz. 1, 4, 13, +16, as well also as the numbers in the four middle-squares, viz. 6, +7, 10, 11, in their original places; and in the place of the remaining +eight numbers, we write the complements of the same with respect +to 17: thus 15 instead of 2, 14 instead of 3, 12 instead of 5, 9 instead +of 8, 8 instead of 9, 5 instead of 12, 3 instead of 14, and 2 instead +of 15. We obtain thus the magic square</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp87" id="squares-figure-04" style="max-width: 21.875em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-04.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 4.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="noindent">from which the same sum 34 always results. It is an interesting +property of this square that any four numbers which form a rectangle +or square about the centre also always give the same sum 34; for +example, 1, 4, 13, 16, or 6, 7, 10, 11, or 15, 14, 3, 2, or 12, 9, 5, 8, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_492">[492]</span>or 15, 8, 2, 9, or 14, 12, 3, 5. We may easily convince ourselves +that this square is obtainable from the square of Dürer by interchanging +with one another the two middle vertical rows.</p> + +<h4>II.<br> +EARLY METHODS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF ODD-NUMBERED SQUARES.</h4> + +<p>Since early times rules have also been known for the construction +of magic squares of more than 3 times 3, or 4 times 4 spaces. +In the first place, it is easy to calculate the sum which in the case +of any given number of cells must result from the addition of each +row. We take the determinate number of cells in each side of the +square which we have to fill, multiply that number by itself, add 1, +again multiply the number thus obtained by the number of the cells +in each side, and, finally, divide the product by 2. Thus, with 4 +times 4 cells or squares, we get: 4 times 4 are 16, 16 and 1 are 17, +and one half of 17 times 4 is 34. Similarly, with 5 times 5 squares, +we get: 5 times 5 are 25, and 1 makes 26, and the half of 26 times +5 is 65. Analogously, for 6 times 6 squares the summation 111 is +obtained, for 7 times 7 squares 175, for 8 times 8 squares 260, for 9 +times 9 squares 369, for 10 times 10 squares 505, and so on. The +Hindu rule for the construction of magic squares whose roots are +odd, may be enunciated as follows: To start with, write 1 in the +centre of the topmost row, then write 2 in the lowest space of the +vertical column next adjacent to the right, and then so inscribe the +remaining numbers in their natural order in the squares diagonally +upwards towards the right, that on reaching the right-hand margin +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_493">[493]</span>the inscription shall be continued from the left-hand margin in the +row just above, and on reaching the upper margin shall be continued +from the lower margin in the column next adjacent to the right, +noting that whenever we are arrested in our progress by a square +already occupied we are to fill out the square next beneath the one +we have last filled. In this manner, for example, the last preceding +square of 7 times 7 cells is formed, in which the reader is requested +to follow the numbers in their natural sequence (Fig. 5).</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp82" id="squares-figure-05" style="max-width: 32.8125em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-05.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 5.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>For the next further advancements of the theory of magic +squares and of the methods for their construction we are indebted +to the Byzantian Greek, Moschopulus, who lived in the fourteenth +century; also, after Albrecht Dürer who lived about the year 1500, +to the celebrated arithmetician Adam Riese, and to the mathematician +Michael Stifel, which two last lived about 1550. In the seventeenth +century Bachet de Méziriac, and Athanasius Kircher employed +themselves on magic squares. About 1700, finally, the +French mathematicians De la Hire and Sauveur made considerable +contributions to the theory. In recent times mathematicians have +concerned themselves much less about magic squares, as they have +indeed about mathematical recreations generally. But quite recently +the Brunswick mathematician Scheffler has put forth his own and +other’s studies on this subject in an elegant form.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-06" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-06.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 6.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_494">[494]</span></p> + +<p>The best known of the various methods of constructing magic +squares of an odd number of cells is the following. First write the +numbers in diagonal succession as in the preceding diagram (Fig. 6). +After 25 cells of the square of 49 cells which we have to fill out, +have thus been occupied, transfer the six figures found outside each +side of the square, without changing their configuration, into the +empty cells of the side directly opposite. By this method, which +we owe to Bachet de Méziriac, we obtain the following magic square +of the numbers from 1 to 49:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-07" style="max-width: 23.4375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-07.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 7.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<h4>III.<br> +MODERN MODES OF CONSTRUCTION OF ODD-NUMBERED SQUARES.</h4> + +<p>The reader will justly ask whether there do not exist other correct +magic squares which are constructed after a different method +from that just given, and whether there do not exist modes of construction +which will lead to all the imaginable and possible magic +squares of a definite number of cells. A general mode of construction +of this character was first given for odd-numbered squares by +De la Hire, and recently perfected by Professor Scheffler.</p> + +<p>To acquaint ourselves with this general method, let us select +as our example a square of 5. First we form two auxiliary squares. +In the first we write the numbers from 1 to 5 five times; and in the +second, five times, the following multiples of five, viz.: 0, 5, 10, 15, +20. It is clear now that by adding each of the numbers of the series +from 1 to 5 with each of the numbers 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, we shall get +all the 25 numerals from 1 to 25. All that additionally remains to +be done therefore, is, so to inscribe the numbers that by the addition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_495">[495]</span>of the two numbers in any two corresponding cells each combination +shall come out once and only once; and further that in each +horizontal, vertical, and diagonal row in each auxiliary square each +number shall once appear. Then the required sum of 65 must +necessarily result in every case, because the numbers from 1 to 5 +added together make 15, and the numbers 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 make 50.</p> + +<p>We effect the required method of inscription by imagining the +numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (or 0, 5, 10, 15, 20) arranged in cyclical succession, +that is 1 immediately following upon 5, and, starting from +any number whatsoever, by skipping each time either none or one +or two or three etc. figures. Cycles are thus obtained of the first, the +second, the third etc. orders; for example 3 4 5 1 2 is a cycle of the +first order, 2 4 1 3 5 is a cycle of the second order, 1 5 4 3 2 is a +cycle of the fourth order, etc. The only thing then to be looked out +for in the two auxiliary squares is, that the same “cycle” order be +horizontally preserved in all the rows, that the same also happens for +the vertical rows, but that the cycle order in the horizontal and vertical +rows is different. Finally we have only additionally to take +care that to the same numbers of the one auxiliary square not like +numbers but <i>different</i> numbers correspond in the other auxiliary +square, that is lie in similarly situated cells. The following auxiliary +squares are, for example, thus possible:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-08" style="max-width: 18.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-08.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 8.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="noindent">and</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-09" style="max-width: 18.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-09.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 9.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Adding in pairs the numbers which occupy similarly situated +cells, we obtain the following correct magic square:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-10" style="max-width: 18.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-10.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 10.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_496">[496]</span></p> + +<p>It will be seen that we are able thus to construct a very large +number of magic squares of 5 times 5 spaces by varying in every +possible manner the numbers in the two auxiliary squares. Furthermore, +the squares thus formed possess the additional peculiarity, +that every 5 numbers which fill out two rows that are parallel to a +diagonal and lie on different sides of the diagonal also give the constant +sum of 65. For example: 3 and 7, 11, 20, 24; or 10, 14 and 18, +22, 1. Altogether then the sum 65 is produced out of 20 rows or +pairs of rows. On this peculiarity is dependent the fact that if we +imagine an unlimited number of such squares placed by the side of, +above, or beneath an initial one, we shall be able to obtain as many +quadratic cells as we choose, so arranged that the square composed +of any 25 of these cells will form a correct magic square, as the following +figure will show:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp65" id="squares-figure-11" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-11.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 11.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Every square of every 25 of these numbers, as for example the +two dark-bordered ones, possesses the property that the addition of +the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal rows gives each the same +sum, 65.</p> + +<p>As an example of a higher number of cells we will append here +a magic square of 11 times 11 spaces formed by the general method +of De la Hire from the two auxiliary squares of Figs. 12 and 13. +From these two auxiliary squares we obtain by the addition of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_497">[497]</span>two numbers of every two similarly situated cells, the magic +square, exhibited in Diagram 14, in which each row gives the same +sum 671.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-12" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-12.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 12.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-13" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-13.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 13.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-14" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-14.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 14.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<h4>IV.<br> +EVEN-NUMBERED SQUARES.</h4> + +<p>Of magic squares having an even number of places we have +hitherto had to deal only with the square of 4. To construct squares +of this description having a higher even number of places, different +and more complicated methods must be employed than for +squares of odd numbers of places. However, in this case also, as +in dealing with the square of 4, we start with the natural sequence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_498">[498]</span>of the numbers and must then find the complements of the numbers +with respect to some other certain number (as 17 in the square of +4) and also effect certain exchanges of the numbers with one another. +To form, for example, a magic square of 6 times 6 places, +we inscribe in the 12 diagonal cells the numbers that in the natural +sequence of inscription fall into these places, then in the remaining +cells the complements of the numbers that belong therein with respect +to 37, and finally effect the following six exchanges, viz. of +the numbers 33 and 3, 25 and 7, 20 and 14, 18 and 13, 10 and 9, +and 5 and 2. In this way the following magic square is obtained.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-15" style="max-width: 18.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-15.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 15.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>This square may also be constructed by the method of De la +Hire, from two auxiliary squares with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 +and 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 respectively. In this case, however, the +vertical rows of the one square and the horizontal rows of the other +must each so contain two same numbers thrice repeated that the +summation shall always remain 21 and 90 respectively. In this +manner we get the magic square last given above from the two following +auxiliary squares:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-16" style="max-width: 18.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-16.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 16.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="noindent">and</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-17" style="max-width: 18.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-17.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 17.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>It is to be noted in connection with this example that here also +as in the case of odd-numbered squares, it is possible so to inscribe +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_499">[499]</span>six times the numbers from 1 to 6 that each number shall appear once +and only once in each horizontal, vertical, and diagonal row; for +example, in the following manner:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-18" style="max-width: 18.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-18.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 18.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="noindent">But if we attempt so to insert, in a like manner, the other set of +numbers 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 in a second auxiliary square, that each +number of the first auxiliary square shall stand once and once only +in a corresponding cell with each number of the second square, all +the attempts we may make to fulfil coincidently the last named condition +will result in failure. It is therefore necessary to select auxiliary +squares like the two given above. It is noteworthy, that the +fulfilment of the second condition is impossible only in the case of +the square of 6, but that in the case of the square of 4 or of the +square of 8, for example, two auxiliary squares, such as the method +of De la Hire requires, are possible. Thus, taking the square of 4 +we get</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-19" style="max-width: 15.625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-19.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 19.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="noindent">and</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-20" style="max-width: 15.625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-20.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 20.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The reader may form for himself the magic square which these +give.</p> + +<p>The existence of these two auxiliary squares furnishes a key to +the solution of a pretty problem at cards. If we replace, namely, +the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 by the Ace, the King, the Queen, and the +Knave, and the numbers 0, 4, 8, 12 by the four suits, clubs, spades, +hearts, and diamonds, we shall at once perceive that it is possible, +and must be so necessarily, quadratically to arrange in such a manner +the four Aces, the four Kings, the Four Queens, and the four +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_500">[500]</span>Knaves, that in each horizontal, vertical, and diagonal row, each +one of the four suits and each one of the four denominations shall +appear once and once only. The auxiliary squares above given furnish +the appended solution of this problem:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-21" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-21.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 21.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>To fix the solution of the problem in the memory, observe that, +starting from the several corners, each suit and each denomination +must be placed in the spots of the move of a Knight. If we fix the +positions of the four cards of any one row, there will be only two +possibilities left of so placing the other cards that the required condition +of having each suit and each denomination once and only +once in each row shall be fulfilled.</p> + +<p>Of magic squares of an even number of places we have up to +this point examined only the squares of 4 and of 6. For the sake of +completeness we append here one of 8 and one of 10 places. The +mode of construction of these squares is similar to the method above +discussed for the lower even numbers.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-22" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-22.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 22.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_501">[501]</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-23" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-23.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 23.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The magic squares of even numbers thus constructed are not +the only possible ones. On the contrary, there are very many others +possible, which obey different laws of formation. It has been calculated, +for example, that with the square of 4 it is possible to construct +880, and with the square of 6, <i>several million</i>, different magic +squares. The number of odd-numbered magic squares constructible +by the method of De la Hire is also very great. With the square of +7, the possible constructions amount to 363,916,800. With the +squares of higher numbers the multitude of the possibilities increases +in the same enormous ratio.</p> + +<h4>V.<br> +MAGIC SQUARES WHOSE SUMMATION GIVES THE NUMBER OF A YEAR.</h4> + +<p>The magic squares which we have so far considered contain +only the natural numbers from 1 upwards. It is possible, however, +easily to deduce from a correct magic square other squares in which +a different law controls the sequence of the numbers to be inscribed. +Of the squares obtained in this manner, we shall devote our attention +here only to such in which, although formed by the inscription +of successive numbers, the sum obtained from the addition of the +rows is a determinate number which we have fixed upon beforehand, +as <i>the number of a year</i>. In such a case we have simply to add to +the numbers of the original square a determinate number so to be +calculated, that the required sum shall each time appear. If this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_502">[502]</span>sum is divisible by 3, magic squares will always be obtainable with +3 times 3 spaces which shall give this sum. In such a case we divide +the sum required by 3 and subtract 5 from the result in order +to obtain the number which we have to add to each number of the +original square. If the sum desired is even but not divisible by 4, +we must then subtract from it 34 and take one fourth of the result, +to obtain the number which in this case is to be added in each +place. If, for example, we wish to obtain the number of the year +1890 as the resulting sum of each row, we shall have to add to each +of the numbers of an ordinary magic square of 4 times 4 spaces the +number 464; in other words, instead of the numbers from 1 to 16 we +have to insert in the squares the numbers from 465 to 480. As the +number of the present year 1892 is divisible by 11, it must be possible +to deduce from the magic square constructed by us at the conclusion +of Section III a second magic square in which each row of +11 cells will give the number of the year 1892. To do this, we subtract +from 1892 the sum of the original square, namely 671, and divide +the remainder by 11, whereby we get 111 and thus perceive +that the numbers from 112 to 232 are to be inscribed in the cells of +the square required. We get in this way the preceding square, from +which <i>one and the same sum, namely 1892, can be obtained 44 times</i>, +first from each of the 11 horizontal rows, secondly from each of the +11 vertical rows, thirdly from each of the two diagonal rows, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_503">[503]</span>fourthly twenty additional times from each and every pair of any two +rows that lie parallel to a diagonal, have together 11 cells, and lie +on different sides of the diagonal, as for example, 196, 122, 158, 205, +131, 167, 214, 140, 187, 223, 149.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="squares-figure-24" style="max-width: 34.375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-24.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 24.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<h4>VI.<br> +CONCENTRIC MAGIC SQUARES.</h4> + +<p>The acuteness of the mathematicians has also discovered magic +squares which possess the peculiar property that if one row after another +be taken away from each side, the smaller inner squares remaining +will still be magical squares, that is to say, all their rows +when added will give the same sum. It will be sufficient to give +two examples here of such squares, (the laws for their construction +being somewhat more complicated,) of which the first has 7 times 7 +and the second 8 times 8 places. The numbers within each of the +dark-bordered frames form with respect to the centre smaller squares +which in their own turn are magical.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-25" style="max-width: 18.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-25.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 25.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-26" style="max-width: 20.3125em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-26.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 26.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="noindent">In the first of these two squares the internal square of 3 times 3 +places contains the numbers from 21 to 29 in such a manner that +each row gives when added the sum of 75. This square lies within +a larger one of 5 times 5 spaces, which contains the numbers from +13 to 37 in such a manner that each row gives the sum of 125. +Finally, this last square forms part of a square of 7 times 7 places +which contains the numbers from 1 to 49 so that each row gives the +sum of 175.</p> + +<p>In the second square the inner central square of 4 times 4 places +contains the numbers from 25 to 40 in such a manner that each row +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_504">[504]</span>gives the sum of 130. This square is the middle of a square of 6 +times 6 places which so contains the numbers from 15 to 50 that +each row gives the sum 165. Finally, this last square is again the +middle of an ordinary magic square composed of the numbers from +1 to 64.</p> + +<h4>VII.<br> +MAGICAL SQUARES WITH MAGICAL PARTS.</h4> + +<p>If we divide a square of 8 times 8 places by means of the two +middle lines parallel to its sides into 4 parts containing each 4 times +4 spaces, we may propound the problem of so inserting the numbers +from 1 to 64 in these spaces that not only the whole shall form a +magic square, but also that each of the 4 parts individually shall be +magical, that is to say, give the same sum for each row. This problem +also has been successfully solved, as the following diagram will +show.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-27" style="max-width: 25.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-27.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 27.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="noindent">The 4 numbers in each row of any one of the sub-squares here, gives +130; so that the sum of each one of the rows of the large square +will be 260.</p> + +<p>Finally, in further illustration of this idea, we will submit to +the consideration of our readers a very remarkable square of the +numbers from 1 to 81. This square, which will be found on the +following page (Fig. 28), is divided by parallel lines into 9 parts, of +which each contains 9 consecutive numbers that severally make up +a magic square by themselves.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_505">[505]</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-28" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-28.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 28.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Wonderful as the properties of this square may appear, the law +by which the author constructed it is equally simple. We have +simply to regard the 9 parts as the 9 cells of a magic square of the +numbers from I to IX and then to inscribe by the magic prescript +in the square designated as I the numbers from 1 to 9, in the square +designated as II the numbers from 10 to 18, and so on. In this +way the square above given is obtained from the following base-square:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-29" style="max-width: 9.375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-29.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 29.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<h4>VIII.<br> +MAGIC SQUARES THAT INVOLVE THE MOVE OF THE CHESS-KNIGHT.</h4> + +<p>What one of our readers does not know the problems contained +in the recreation columns of our magazines, the requirements of +which are to compose into a verse 8 times 8 quadratically arranged +syllables, of which every two successive syllables stand on spots so +situated with respect to each other that a chess-knight can move +from the one to the other? If we replace in such an arrangement +the 64 successive syllables by the 64 numbers from 1 to 64, we shall +obtain a knight-problem made up of numbers. Methods also exist +indeed for the construction of such dispositions of numbers, which +then form the foundation of the construction of the problems in the +newspapers. But the majority of knight-problems of this class +are the outcome of experiment rather than the product of methodical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_506">[506]</span>creation. If however it is a severe test of patience to form a +knight-problem by experiment, it stands to reason that it is a still +severer trial to effect at the same time the additional result that the +64 numbers which form the knight-problem shall also form a magic +square.</p> + +<p>This trial of endurance was undertaken several decades ago, by +a pensioned Moravian officer named Wenzelides, who was spending +the last days of his life in the country. After a series of trials which +lasted years he finally succeeded in so inscribing in the 64 squares +of the chess-board the numbers from 1 to 64 that successive numbers, +as well also as the numbers 64 and 1, were always removed +from one another in distance and direction by the move of a knight, +and that in addition thereto the summation of the horizontal and the +vertical rows always gave the same sum 260. Ultimately he discovered +several squares of this description, which were published in +the <i>Berlin Chess Journal</i>. One of these is here appended:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-30" style="max-width: 25.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-30.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 30.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>The move of the knight and the equality of the summation of +the horizontal and vertical rows, therefore, are the facts to be noted +here. The diagonal rows do <i>not</i> give the sum 260. Perhaps some +one among our readers who possesses the time and patience will be +tempted to outdo Wenzelides, and to devise a numeral knight-problem +of this kind which will give 260 not only in the horizontal and +vertical but also in the two diagonal rows.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_507">[507]</span></p> + +<h4>IX.<br> +MAGICAL POLYGONS.</h4> + +<p>So far we have only considered such extensions of the idea underlying +the construction of the magic square in which the figure of +the square was retained. We may however contrive extensions of +the idea in which instead of a square, a rectangle, a triangle, or a +pentagon, and the like, appear. Without entering into the consideration +of the methods for the construction of such figures, we +will give here of magical polygons simply a few examples, all supplied +by Professor Scheffler:</p> + +<p>1) The numbers from 1 to 32 admit of being written in a rectangle +of 4 × 8 in such a manner that the long horizontal rows give +the sum of 132 and the short vertical rows the sum of 66; thus:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="squares-figure-31" style="max-width: 25.0em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-31.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 31.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>2) The numbers from 1 to 27 admit of being so arranged in three +regular triangles about a point which forms a common centre, that +each side of the outermost triangle will present 6 numbers of the +total summation 96 and each side of the middle triangle 4 numbers +whose sum is 61; as the following figure shows:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp88" id="squares-figure-32" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-32.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 32.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_508">[508]</span></p> + +<p>3) The numbers from 1 to 80 admit of being formed about a +point as common centre into 4 pentagons, such that each side of +the first pentagon from within contains two numbers, each side of +the second pentagon four numbers, each of the third six numbers, +and each side of the fourth, outermost pentagon eight numbers. +The sum of the numbers of each side of the second pentagon is 122, +the sum of those of each side of the third pentagon is 248, and that +of those of each side of the fourth pentagon 254. Furthermore, the +sum of any four corner numbers lying in the same straight line with +the centre, is also the same; namely, 92.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="squares-figure-33" style="max-width: 37.5em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-33.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 33.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>4) The numbers from 1 to 73 admit of being arranged about a +centre, in which the number 37 is written, into three hexagons which +contain respectively 3, 5, and 7 numbers in each side and possess +the following pretty properties. Each hexagon always gives the +same sum, not only when the summation is made along its six sides, +but also when it is made along the six diameters that join its corners +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_509">[509]</span>and along the six that are constructed at right angles to its sides; +this sum, for the first hexagon from within, is 111, for the second +185, and for the third 259.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp82" id="squares-figure-34" style="max-width: 34.375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/squares-figure-34.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Fig. 34.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<h4>X.<br> +MAGIC CUBES.</h4> + +<p>Several inquirers, particularly Kochansky (1686), Sauveur +(1710), Hugel (1859), and Scheffler (1882), have extended the principle +of the magic squares of the plane to three-dimensioned space. +Imagine a cube divided by planes parallel to its sides and equidistant +from one another, into cubical compartments. The problem is then, +so to insert in these compartments the successive natural numbers +that every row from the right to the left, every row from the front +to the back, every row from the top to the bottom, every diagonal +of a square, and every principal diagonal passing through the centre +of the cube shall contain numbers whose sum is always the same. +For 3 times 3 times 3 compartments, a magic cube of this description +is not constructible. For 4 times, 4 times 4 compartments a +cube is constructible such that any row parallel to an edge of the +cube and every principal diagonal give the sum of 130. To obtain +a magic cube of 64 compartments, imagine the numbers which belong +in the compartments written on the upper surface of the same +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_510">[510]</span>and the numbers then taken off in layers of 16 from the top downwards. +We obtain thus 4 squares of 16 cells each, which together +make up the magic cube; as the following diagrams will show:</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="cubes1" style="max-width: 43.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/cubes1.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p>The same sum 130 here comes out not less than 52 times; viz. +in the first place from the 16 rows from left to right, secondly from +the 16 rows from the front to the back, thirdly from the 16 rows +counting from the top to the bottom, and lastly from the 4 rows +which join each two opposite corners of the cube, namely from the +rows: 1, 43, 22, 64; 49, 27, 38, 16; 13, 39, 26, 52; 61, 23, 42, 4.</p> + +<p>For a cube with 5 compartments in each edge the arrangement +of the figures can so be made that all the 75 rows parallel to any and +every edge, all the 30 rows lying in any diagonal of a square, and +all the 4 rows forming any principal diagonal shall have one and the +same summation, 315.</p> + +<p>Just as the magic squares of an odd number of cells could be +formed with the aid of <i>two</i> auxiliary squares, so also odd-numbered +magic cubes can be constructed with the help of <i>three</i> auxiliary cubes.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="cubes2" style="max-width: 43.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/cubes2.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_511">[511]</span></p> + +<p>In this manner the preceding magic cube of 5 times 5 times 5 +compartments is formed, in which, it may be additionally noticed, +the middle number between 1 and 125, namely 63, is placed in the +central compartment; by which arrangement the attainment of the +sum of 315 is assured in the four principal diagonals and the 30 sub-diagonals. +The condition attained in the magic squares, that the +diagonal-pairs parallel to the sub-diagonals also shall give the sum +315 is not attainable in this case but is so in the case of higher numbers +of compartments.</p> + +<h4>CONCLUSION.</h4> + +<p>Musing on such problems as are the magic squares is fascinating +to thinkers of a mathematical turn of mind. We take delight +in discovering a harmony that abides as an intrinsic quality in +the forms of our thought. The problems of the magic squares are +playful puzzles, invented as it seems for mere pastime and sport. +But there is a deeper problem underlying all these little riddles, and +this deeper problem is of a sweeping significance. It is the philosophical +problem of the world-order.</p> + +<p>The formal sciences are creations of the mind. We build the +sciences of mathematics, geometry, and algebra with our conception +of pure forms which are abstract ideas. And the same order that +prevails in these mental constructions permeates the universe, so that +an old philosopher, overwhelmed with the grandeur of law, imagined +he heard its rhythm in a cosmic harmony of the spheres.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">H. Schubert.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> The term melancholy meant in Dürer’s time, as it did also in Shakespeare’s +and Milton’s, “thought or thoughtfulness.” Says Milton in <i>Il Penseroso</i>:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Hail, thou Goddess, sage and holy,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hail divinest melancholy</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Whose saintly visage is too bright</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To hit the sense of human sight,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And therefore to our weaker view</div> + <div class="verse indent0">O’erlaid with black, staid Wisdom’s hue.”—I, 12.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Thought that does not lead to action produces a gloomy state of mind. Thoughtfulness +which cannot find a way out of itself is that melancholy which engenders +weakness,—a truth which is illustrated in Hamlet. Shakespeare still uses the words +thought and melancholy as synonyms, saying:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent18">“The native hue of resolution</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Dürer’s melancholy does not represent the gloominess of thought, but the power +of invention. Soberness and even a certain sadness are considered only as an element +of this melancholy, but on the whole the genius of thought appears bright, +self-possessed, and strong.</p> + +<p>Dürer represents the Science of Mechanical Invention as a winged female figure +musing over some problem. Scattered on the floor around her lie some of the simple +tools used in the sixteenth century. A ladder leans against the house, that assists +in climbing otherwise inaccessible heights. A scale, an hour-glass, a bell, and +the magic square are hanging on the wall behind her.</p> + +<p>At a distance a bat-like creature, being the gloom of melancholy, hovers in the +air like a dark cloud, but the sun rises above the horizon, and at the happy middle +between these two extremes stands the rainbow of serene hope and cheerful confidence.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_512">[512]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="MR_SPENCER_ON_THE_ETHICS_OF_KANT">MR. SPENCER ON THE ETHICS OF KANT.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>Mr. Herbert Spencer published in the <i>Fortnightly Review</i> +for July 1888 and in the <i>Popular Science Monthly</i> for +August of the same year an article on “The Ethics of Kant” in +which he so strangely misrepresents Kant’s position that Kant to any +uninitiated reader must appear not only as superficial and shallow, +but even as palpably nonsensical.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer’s article on “The Ethics of Kant” is a severe +criticism mainly of the nonsensical idea, erroneously imputed to +Kant, of a will that has no end. At the same time Mr. Spencer reproaches +Kant with assuming the simplicity of conscience and believing +in a non-evolutionary origin of the minds of living beings.</p> + +<p>In reply to Mr. Spencer an editorial article appeared in <i>The +Open Court</i> under the caption “Herbert Spencer on the Ethics of +Kant” (Nos. 51 and 52), which was supplemented by another article +entitled “Kant on Evolution” (No. 158), the latter being elicited +by a renewed attack of Mr. Spencer upon Kant’s views (which appeared +in <i>Mind</i>, No. LIX, p. 313).</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer has republished his article “The Ethics of Kant” +together with many other older articles in a work of three volumes +entitled “Essays Scientific, Political, and Speculative,” 1891, in +which he repeats the following sentence:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Thus the basis of the argument by which Kant attempts to justify his assumption +that there exists a good will apart from a good end, disappears utterly; +and leaves his dogma in all its naked unthinkableness.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>To this sentence he adds the following foot-note as a reply to +my criticisms:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_513">[513]</span></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I find that in the above three paragraphs I have done Kant less than justice +and more than justice—less, in assuming that his evolutionary view was limited to +the genesis of our sidereal system, and more, in assuming that he had not contradicted +himself. My knowledge of Kant’s writings is extremely limited. In 1844 a +translation of his ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ (then I think lately published) fell into +my hands, and I read the first few pages enunciating his doctrine of Time and +Space: my peremptory rejection of which caused me to lay the book down. Twice +since then the same thing has happened; for, being an impatient reader, when I +disagree with the cardinal propositions of a work I can go no further. One other +thing I knew. By indirect references I was made aware that Kant had propounded +the idea that celestial bodies have been formed by the aggregation of diffused matter. +Beyond this my knowledge of his conceptions did not extend; and my supposition +that his evolutionary conception had stopped short with the genesis of sun, +stars, and planets, was due to the fact that his doctrine of Time and Space, as forms +of thought anteceding experience, implied a supernatural origin inconsistent with +the hypothesis of natural genesis. Dr. Paul Carus, who, shortly after the publication +of this article in the <i>Fortnightly Review</i> for July, 1888, undertook to defend +the Kantian ethics in the American journal which he edits, <i>The Open Court</i>, has +now (Sept. 4, 1890), in another defensive article, translated sundry passages from +Kant’s ‘Critique of Judgment,’ his ‘Presumable Origin of Humanity,’ and his work +‘Upon the different Races of Mankind,’ showing that Kant was, if not fully, yet +partially, an evolutionist in his speculations about living beings. There is, perhaps, +some reason for doubting the correctness of Dr. Carus’s rendering of these passages +into English. When, as in the first of the articles just named, he failed to distinguish +between consciousness and conscientiousness, and when, as in this last article, +he blames the English for mistranslating Kant, since they have said ‘Kant maintained +that Space and Time are intuitions,’ which is quite untrue, for they have +everywhere described him as maintaining that Space and Time are <i>forms</i> of intuition, +one may be excused for thinking that possibly Dr. Carus has read into some +of Kant’s expressions, meanings which they do not rightly bear. Still, the general +drift of the passages quoted makes it tolerably clear that Kant must have believed +in the operation of natural causes as largely, though not entirely, instrumental in +producing organic forms: extending this belief (which he says ‘can be named a +daring venture of reason’) in some measure to the origin of Man himself. He does +not, however extend the theory of natural genesis to the exclusion of the theory of +supernatural genesis. When he speaks of an organic habit ‘which in the wisdom +of nature appears to be thus arranged in order that the species shall be preserved’; +and when, further, he says ‘we see, moreover, that a germ of reason is placed in +him, whereby, after the development of the same, he is destined for social intercourse,’ +he implies divine intervention. And this shows that I was justified in +ascribing to him the belief that Space and Time, as forms of thought, are supernatural +endowments. Had he conceived of organic evolution in a consistent manner, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_514">[514]</span>he would necessarily have regarded Space and Time as subjective forms generated +by converse with objective realities.</p> + +<p>“Beyond showing that Kant had a partial, if not a complete, belief in organic +evolution (though with no idea of its causes), the passages translated by Dr. Carus +show that he entertained an implied belief which it here specially concerns me to +notice as bearing on his theory of ‘a good will.’ He quotes approvingly Dr. Moscati’s +lecture showing ‘that the upright walk of man is constrained and unnatural,’ +and showing the imperfect visceral arrangements and consequent diseases which result: +not only adopting, but further illustrating, Dr. Moscati’s argument. If here, +then, there is a distinct admission, or rather assertion, that various human organs +are imperfectly adjusted to their functions, what becomes of the postulate above +quoted ‘that no organ for any purpose will be found in it but what is also the fittest +and best adapted for that purpose’? And what becomes of the argument which +sets out with this postulate? Clearly, I am indebted to Dr. Carus for enabling me +to prove that Kant’s defence of his theory of ‘a good will’ is, by his own showing, +baseless.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Spencer’s reply to my criticisms is surprising in more than +one respect.</p> + +<p>First, without even mentioning the objections I make he discredits +my arguments by throwing doubt upon the correctness of +the translations of the quoted passages.</p> + +<p>Secondly, he alleges, with a view of justifying his doubt, that in +the first of my articles I “failed to distinguish between consciousness +and conscientiousness.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<p>Thirdly, Mr. Spencer declares that I had “read into some of +Kant’s expressions, meanings which they do not rightly bear.”</p> + +<p>Fourthly, Mr. Spencer bases this opinion upon a double mistake: +he blames me for not distinguishing between the Kantian +phrases that “Space and Time are intuitions” and that they are +“forms of intuition.”</p> + +<p>Fifthly, acknowledging after all that Kant had at least “a partial +belief in organic evolution,” Mr. Spencer accuses him of inconsistency.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_515">[515]</span></p> + +<p>Sixthly, several statements concerning Kant’s views are made +not because Kant held them but because Mr. Spencer assumes for +trivial reasons that he is “justified in ascribing them to him.”</p> + +<p>Seventhly, these statements so vigorously set forth are accompanied +by Mr. Spencer’s remarkably frank confession of unfamiliarity +with the subject under discussion.</p> + +<p>It may be added that Mr. Spencer calls my criticisms “defensive +articles.” He says that “I undertook to defend the Kantian +ethics”; while, in fact, my articles are aggressive. Kant needs no +defense for being misunderstood, and it would not be my business +to defend him, for I am not a Kantian in the sense that I adopt any +of the main doctrines of Kant. On the contrary I dissent from +him on almost all fundamental questions. In ethics I object to +Kant’s views in so far as they can be considered as pure formalism.⁠<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> +I am a Kantian only in the sense that I respect Kant as one of the +most eminent philosophers, that I revere him as that teacher of +mine whose influence upon me was greatest, and I consider the study +of Kant’s works as an indispensable requisite for understanding +the problems of the philosophy of our time. Far from defending +Kant’s position, I only undertook to inform Mr. Spencer of what +Kant had really maintained, so that instead of denouncing absurdities +which Kant had never thought of, he might criticise the real +Kant.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>I shall now take up the details of Mr. Spencer’s reply:</p> + +<h4>I.</h4> + +<p>I am sorry to see that Mr. Spencer, instead of frankly acknowledging +his errors, has taken refuge in discrediting the translations, +which might very easily have been examined either by himself or by +friends of his; especially as the German original of the most important +passages, wherever any doubt might arise, and also of those +expressions on the misconception of which Mr. Spencer bases his +unfavorable opinion of Kant, were added in foot-notes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_516">[516]</span></p> + +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>But Mr. Spencer adduces, as if it were a fact, an instance of my +grave mistakes. He says that I failed to distinguish between “consciousness” +and “conscientiousness.” Mr. Spencer makes much +of a small matter, which, if it were as he assumes, would have to be +considered as a misprint.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer’s statement is so positive that it must make on +any reader the impression of being indubitably true. However, in +the whole first article of mine, and indeed in both articles, “conscientiousness” +is nowhere mentioned and it would be wrong to replace +the word “consciousness” in any of the passages in which it +occurs by “conscientiousness.”</p> + +<p>I should be glad if Mr. Spencer would kindly point out to me +the passage which he had in mind when making his statement, for +since there is not even so much as an occasion for confounding consciousness +and conscientiousness, I stand here before a psychological +problem. Mr. Spencer’s statement is a perfect riddle to me. Either +I have a negative hallucination, as psychologists call it, so that I do +not see what is really there, or Mr. Spencer must have had a positive +hallucination. That which Mr. Spencer has read into my article, +was never written and it is not there. The alleged fact to which he +refers, does not exist.</p> + +<p>This kind of erroneous reference into which Mr. Spencer has +inadvertently fallen is a very grievous mistake. It appears more +serious than a simple slip of the pen, when we consider that Mr. +Spencer uses the statement for the purpose of incrimination. He +justifies upon this exceedingly slender basis his doubt concerning the +correctness of the translations of the quoted passages, and Mr. +Spencer’s doubt concerning the correctness of these translations is +his main argument for rejecting my criticisms <i>in toto</i>.</p> + +<p>It is not impossible, indeed it is probable, that Mr. Spencer +meant “conscience” instead of “conscientiousness.” There is one +passage in which a superficial reader might have expected “conscience” +in place of “consciousness.” However that does not occur +in any of the translations, but in a paragraph where I speak on my +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_517">[517]</span>own account. This passage appears in the appended reprint on +page 23, line 14. Whatever anybody might have expected in that +passage, I certainly intended to say “consciousness,” and only a +hasty reader, only he who might merely read the first line of the +paragraph, would consider the word “consciousness” a mistake.</p> + +<p>To avoid any equivocation, however, even to hasty readers, and +to guard against a misconstruction such as Mr. Spencer possibly has +given to the sentence, I propose to alter the passage by adding a few +words as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It is quite true that <i>not only conscience, but</i> every state of consciousness is a +feeling,” etc.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The italicised words are inserted, simply to show that here I +mean “consciousness,” and <i>not</i> “conscience.” For the rest, they +do not alter in the least the sense of the sentence. In this passage +as throughout the whole article the terms “consciousness,” and +“conscience” have been used properly.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Observing that Mr. Spencer appears to have committed the +same mistake for which he erroneously blames me, I do not mean +to say that he “failed to distinguish between” conscientiousness +and conscience. I should rather regard it as trifling on my part +if I drew this inference from what is either a slip of the pen or an +oversight in proof-reading. But it strikes me that that knavish rogue +among the fairies whom Shakespeare calls Puck and scientists define +as chance or coincidence played in a fit of anger and perhaps +from a sentiment of pardonable irony a humorous trick upon Mr. +Spencer. The moral of it is that when an author censures his fellow +authors with undue severity for things that might be mere misprints, +he should keep a close eye on his own printer’s devil.</p> + +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>Mr. Spencer discredits my knowledge of Kant. He says of me:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“One may be excused for thinking that possibly Dr. Carus has read into some +of Kant’s expressions, meanings which they do not rightly bear.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I did not give Mr. Spencer any occasion for making this personal +reflection. I do not boast of any extraordinary familiarity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_518">[518]</span>with Kant’s writings. There are innumerable German and also English +and American scholars and philosophers who know Kant almost +by heart. But the question at issue is not what I conceive Kant’s +ideas to be, but what Kant has really said, and I was very careful in +letting Kant speak for himself.</p> + +<p>My criticism of Mr. Spencer’s conception of Kant consisted almost +exclusively in collating and contrasting Mr. Spencer’s views of +Kant with quotations from Kant’s works. How can I read anything +into some of Kant’s expressions, if I present translations of the expressions +themselves, adding thereto in foot-notes the original whenever +doubts could arise? And the general drift of the quotations +alone suffices to overthrow Mr. Spencer’s conception of Kant.</p> + +<p>The truth is that Mr. Spencer committed the mistake himself, +for which he censures me unjustly. “Mr. Spencer has read into some +of Kant’s expressions meanings which they do not rightly bear.”</p> + +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>But Mr. Spencer adduces a fact, which, if it were as Mr. +Spencer represents it, would show an inability on my part of making +important distinctions. He says of me:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“He blames the English for mistranslating Kant, since they have said ‘Kant +maintained that Space and Time are intuitions,’ which is quite untrue, for they +have everywhere described him as maintaining that Space and Time are <i>forms</i> of +intuition.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This is a double mistake: (1) Kant and his translators did +not make the distinction of which Mr. Spencer speaks, and (2) the +quotation Mr. Spencer makes from my article is represented to mean +something different from what it actually means in the context.</p> + +<p>Before I speak for myself as to what I actually said, let us state +the facts concerning Kant’s usage of the terms “intuitions” and +“forms of intuition.”</p> + +<p>Kant defines in § 1 of his “Critique of Pure Reason” what he +understands by “Transcendental Æsthetic.” He distinguishes between +“empirical intuition” (<i>empirische Anschauung</i>) and “pure intuition” +(<i>reine Anschauung</i>). He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation, is +called an empirical intuition.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_519">[519]</span></p> + +<p>Representations contain besides that which belongs to sensation +some other elements. Kant says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“That which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under +certain relations, I call its <i>form</i>.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And later on he continues:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“This pure form of sensibility I shall call pure intuition.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>These are Kant’s phrases in J. M. D. Meiklejohn’s well known +translation. The term “pure intuition” is repeated again and +again, and we find frequently added by way of explanation the +phrases “as a mere form of sensibility,” “the mere form of phenomena,” +“forms of sensuous intuition,” and also (as Mr. Spencer +emphasises as the only correct way) “forms of intuition.”</p> + +<p>Kant says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>1) “<i>Diese reine Form der Sinnlichkeit wird auch selber reine Anschauung +heissen.</i> § 1.</p> + +<p>2) “<i>Zweitens worden wir von dieser (der empirischen Anschauung) noch alles abtrennen, +damit nichts als reine Anschauung und die blosse Form der Erscheinungen +übrig bleibe.</i> § 1.</p> + +<p>3) “<i>Raum ... muss ursprünglich Anschauung sein.</i> § 3.</p> + +<p>4) “<i>Der Raum ist nichts anderes als nur die Form aller Erscheinungen äusserer +Sinne.</i> § 3.</p> + +<p>5) “<i>Der Raum aber betrifft nur die reine Form der Anschauung.</i> (This passage +appears in the first edition only, the paragraph containing it is omitted in the second +edition.) § 3.</p> + +<p>6) “<i>Die Zeit ist ... eine reine Form der sinnlichen Anschauung....</i> § 4.</p> + +<p>7) “<i>Es muss ihr⁠<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> unmittelbare Anschauung zum Grunde liegen.</i> § 4.</p> + +<p>8) “<i>Die Zeit ist nichts anderes als die Form des inneren Sinnes.</i> § 6.</p> + +<p>9) “<i>... dass die Vorstellung der Zeit selbst Anschauung sei.</i> § 6.</p> + +<p>10) “<i>Wir haben nun ... reine Anschauung a priori, Raum und Zeit.</i> § 10. +<i>Beschluss der transcendentalen Æsthetik.</i>”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>These quotations do not pretend to be exhaustive, nor is that +necessary for the present purpose.</p> + +<p>Kant, as we learn from these quotations, makes no distinction +between <i>reine Anschauung</i> and <i>Form der Anschauung</i>. He uses most +frequently the term <i>reine Anschauung</i> and designates in several places +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_520">[520]</span>Space and Time simply as <i>Anschauung</i>. (See the quotations 3, 7, +and 9.) So far as I can gather from a renewed perusal, the expression +proposed by Mr. Spencer, “form of intuition,” <i>Form der Anschauung</i>, +occurs only once and that too in a passage omitted in the +second edition.</p> + +<p>It is almost redundant to add that the English translators and +interpreters of Kant follow the original pretty closely. Accordingly it +is actually incorrect “that they have everywhere(!) described Kant +as maintaining that Space and Time are <i>forms</i> of intuition.” In addition +to the quotations from Meiklejohn, I call Mr. Spencer’s attention +to William Flemming’s “Vocabulary of Philosophy” (4th ed., +edited by Henry Calderwood) which reads <i>sub voce</i> “Intuition,” +p. 228 with reference to Kant’s view:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Space and time are <i>intuitions</i> of sense.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>To say “Time and Space are forms of intuition” is quite correct +according to Kantian terminology. No objection can be made +to Mr. Spencer on that ground. But to say “Time and Space are +intuitions” is also quite correct, and Mr. Spencer is wrong in censuring +the expression.</p> + +<p>Why does Mr. Spencer rebuke me so severely on a point which +is of no consequence? He appears confident that I have betrayed +an unpardonable misconception of Kant’s philosophy. But having +pointed out by quotations from Kant that this is not so, I shall now +proceed to explain why the quotation which Mr. Spencer makes from +my article, although the eight words in quotation marks are literally +quoted, is a misquotation. It is torn out of its context. I did not +blame the English translators of Kant at all, but I blamed his interpreters, +among whom the English interpreters (not all English interpreters, +but certainly some of them) are the worst, for “mutilating +Kant’s best thoughts, so that this hero of progress appears as a +stronghold of antiquated views”; and as an instance I called attention +to the misconception of Kant’s term <i>Anschauung</i>, saying:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“How different is Kant’s philosophy, for instance, if his position with reference +to time and space is mistaken! ‘Time and Space are our <i>Anschauung</i>,’ Kant says. +But his English translators declare ‘Kant maintained that space and time are intuitions.’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_521">[521]</span>What a difference it makes if intuition is interpreted in the sense applied +to it by the English intuitionalist school instead of its being taken in the original +meaning of the word <i>Anschauung</i>.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The word “intuition” implies something mysterious; the word +<i>Anschauung</i> denotes that which is immediately perceived, simply, as +it were, by looking at it. So especially the sense-perceptions of the +things before us are <i>Anschauungen</i>.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer, believing that he had caught me in making unawares +a blunder, tears the passage out of its context, ignores its +purport, makes a point of an antithesis which had nothing in the +world to do with the topic under discussion, only to throw on me +the opprobrium of incompetence. Even if Mr. Spencer’s antithesis +of “intuition” and “forms of intuition” were of any consequence +(as, unfortunately for Mr. Spencer, it is not), it would count for +nothing against me because I did not speak of “forms” in the passage +referred to, I simply alluded to one misinterpretation of the term +<i>Anschauung</i>, which is quite common among English Kantians. It +was not required by the purpose I had in view, to enter into any details +as to what kind of <i>Anschauung</i> I meant, and an allusion to +“form” or to any other subject would have served only to confound +the idea which I intended to set forth in the paragraph from which +Mr. Spencer quotes.</p> + +<p>Misquotation of this kind, into which Mr. Spencer was inveigled +by a hasty reading, should be avoided with utmost care, for it involves +an insinuation. It leads away from the main point under +discussion to side issues, and it misrepresents the author from whom +the quotation is made. It insinuates a meaning which the passage +does not bear and which was not even thought of in the context out +of which it is torn.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer quotes the passage as if I had preferred the term +“intuition” to the term “form of intuition,” or at least, as if I had +no idea that Kant conceives Time and Space as “forms.” Yet Mr. +Spencer in trying to make out a point against me betrays his own +lack of information. Kant insisted most emphatically on calling the +forms of our sensibility (i. e. space and time) “<i>Anschauungen</i>.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_522">[522]</span></p> + +<p>But Mr. Spencer’s case is worse still. While he insists upon +the statement that according to the translators of Kant space and +time are “forms of intuition,” which is at least correct, he uses +twice in the very same paragraph the expression that according to +Kant “space and time are forms of thought,” which is incorrect. +The forms of thought according to Kantian terminology are not +space and time but the domain of the transcendental logic. Anyone +who confounds the two terms “forms of intuition” and “forms of +thought” proves himself unable to form a correct opinion on Kant’s +philosophy. That is just characteristic of Kant that he regards time +and space not as thought, nor as forms of thought, but as <i>Anschauungen</i> +and in contradistinction to sense-intuitions (i. e. sensations) +he calls them <i>reine Anschauungen</i> or <i>Formen der Anschauung</i>.</p> + +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>Mr. Spencer commenting upon his criticism of Kant’s idea of a +Good Will, says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I find that in the above three paragraphs I have done Kant less than justice +and more than justice—less, in assuming that his evolutionary view was limited to +the genesis of our sidereal system, and more, in assuming that he had not contradicted +himself.</p> + +<p>“Clearly, I am indebted to Dr. Carus for enabling me to prove that Kant’s defence +of his theory of ‘a good will’ is, by his own showing, baseless.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant’s idea of a good will has nothing to do with evolution, +and we can abstain here from discussing whether or not Kant was +an evolutionist. Whether evolution is true or not, what difference +does it make to the proposition, that a good will is the only thing +which can be called good without further qualification (<i>ohne Einschränkung</i>)? +Pleasure is good, but it is not absolutely good, there +are cases in which pleasure is a very bad thing. We must qualify +our statement and limit it to special cases. A good will, however, +says Kant, is in itself good under all circumstances.</p> + +<p>Did Mr. Spencer prove the baselessness of Kant’s proposition +by proving evolution? Is it inconsistent to believe in evolution and +at the same time to regard a good will as absolutely good, as good +without reserve or limitation? I think not!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_523">[523]</span></p> + +<h4>VI.</h4> + +<p>Mr. Spencer in admitting that “the general drift of the passages +quoted makes it tolerably clear that Kant must have believed in the +operation of natural causes ... in producing organic forms,” adds:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“He does not, however, extend the theory of natural genesis to the exclusion +of the theory of supernatural genesis.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>How does Mr. Spencer prove his statement? Does he quote a +passage from Kant which expresses his belief in supernaturalism? +No, Mr. Spencer does not quote Kant, and it would be difficult to +find a passage to suit that purpose. Mr. Spencer adduces a few +unmeaning phrases gleaned at random and torn out of their context, +and from these phrases he concludes that Kant believed in the +supernatural. Kant spoke somewhere of “the wisdom of nature” +who has things so arranged that the species might be preserved. If +the wisdom of nature in preserving the species is to be taken literally, +the phrase might prove that Kant believed nature to be a wise +old woman. Kant spoke further of “the germ of reason placed in +man whereby he is destined to social intercourse.” Does the usage +of the word “destined” really “imply divine intervention,” as Mr. +Spencer says? Mr. Spencer adds:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“And this [viz. Kant’s usage of these phrases] shows that I was justified in +ascribing to him the belief that Space and Time, as forms of thought [sic!], are +supernatural endowments.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>What might we not prove by this kind of loose argumentation!</p> + +<p>Kant did not introduce any supernatural explanations; on the +contrary, he proposed to exclude “supernatural genesis.” He says +e. g. in a passage of the “Critique of Judgment” quoted on page 41 +of the appendix:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If we assume occasionalism for the production of organised beings, nature is +thereby wholly discarded ... therefore it cannot be supposed that this system is +accepted by anyone who has had to do with philosophy.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And furthermore Kant rejects the partial admission of the supernatural, +saying:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“As though it were not the same to make the required forms arise in a supernatural +manner at the beginning of the world as during its progress.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_524">[524]</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer charges Kant with inconsistency. We do not intend +to say that Kant was in all the phases of his development consistent +with himself. But we do say that the charge of Mr. Spencer +against Kant consists in this: the real Kant has said things which +are incompatible with Mr. Spencer’s view of Kant.</p> + +<p>This settles the sixth point.</p> + +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>Mr. Spencer’s reply to my criticism is a very strange piece of +controversy and I have actually been at a loss, how to account for it.</p> + +<p>The situation can be explained only by assuming that Mr. Spencer, +being an impatient reader, when finding out that he disagreed +with my propositions, could go no further and wrote his reply to me +without having read my articles. This is very hard on a critic who, +carefully avoiding everything that might look like fault-finding, is +painstakingly careful in giving to the author criticised every means of +investigating the truth himself and helps him in a friendly way to +correct his errors.</p> + +<p>There is only one consolation for me, which is, that I am in +good company. The great thinker of Koenigsberg is very severely +censured in almost all of Mr. Spencer’s writings for ideas which he +never held. And now Mr. Spencer confesses openly and with ingenuous +sincerity, that his knowledge of Kant’s writings is extremely +limited. But why he condemns a man of whom he knows +so little Mr. Spencer does not tell us.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“My knowledge of Kant’s writings is extremely limited. In 1844 a translation +of his “Critique of Pure Reason” (then I think lately published) fell into my hands, +and I read the first few pages enunciating his doctrine of Time and Space: my peremptory +rejection of which caused me to lay the book down.</p> + +<p>“Twice since then the same thing has happened; for, being an impatient +reader, when I disagree with the cardinal propositions of a work I can go no further.</p> + +<p>“One other thing I knew. By indirect references I was made aware that Kant +had propounded the idea that celestial bodies have been formed by the aggregation +of diffused matter. Beyond this my knowledge of his conceptions did not extend; +and my supposition that his evolutionary conception had stopped short with the +genesis of sun, stars, and planets was due to the fact that his doctrine of Time and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_525">[525]</span>Space, as forms of thought [sic] anteceding experience, implied a supernatural +origin inconsistent with the hypothesis of natural genesis.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant has been a leader in thought for the last century. It is +very important to criticise his ideas wherever they are wrong, but +his errors cannot be conquered by <i>ex cathedra</i> denunciations.</p> + +<p>Darwin’s habits in investigating and weighing the pro and con +of a question were very different from Mr. Spencer’s, and Darwin’s +success is in no small degree due to the sternness with which he adhered +to certain rules of reading and studying. We find in his +“Autobiography” certain reminiscences labeled “important” from +which the following is most instructive:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I had also, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever +a published fact, a new observation or a thought, came across me, which was +opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail, for I had +found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from +the memory than favorable ones.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Experience teaches that we can learn most from those authors +with whom we do not agree. The ethics of reading and studying +demand other habits than laying a book down when we disagree +with its cardinal propositions. Such habits prevent progress and +create prejudices.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Mr. Spencer has not answered my criticism at all. Mr. Spencer +did not even take into consideration the passages quoted from +Kant. He republished all the false statements of Kant’s views, so +inconsiderately made, together with all the perverse opinions based +upon them. The assurance with which Mr. Spencer makes statements +which have no foundation whatever is really perplexing even +to a man who is well informed on the subject, and it will go far to +convince the unwary reader. What, however, shall become of the +general tenor of philosophical criticism and controversy if a man of +Mr. Spencer’s reputation is so indifferent about being informed concerning +the exact views of his adversary, if he is so careless in presenting +them, if he makes positively erroneous statements on confessedly +mere “supposition,” and finally, if in consequence thereof +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_526">[526]</span>he is flagrantly unjust in censuring errors which arise only from his +own too prolific imagination?</p> + +<p>We feel confident that Mr. Spencer will explain his side of the +question satisfactorily. His mistakes being undeniable, we do not believe +that he will seek to deny them. Yet we trust that Mr. Spencer +as soon as he finds himself at fault, will not even make an attempt +at palliation, that he will not blink the frank acknowledgment of +his misstatements and also of having treated Kant with injustice. A +man who has devoted his life to the search for truth will not suffer +any blot to remain on his escutcheon.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Editor.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a> This article “Herbert Spencer on the Ethics of Kant” was electrotyped at the +time it appeared in <i>The Open Court</i>. It is appended to this number of <i>The Monist</i> +as documentary evidence of the fact, that there is not even so much as an occasion +in the article for confounding “consciousness” and “conscientiousness.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> See <i>Fundamental Problems</i>, pp. 197-206; and <i>The Ethical Problem</i>, p. 32, +seq., especially p. 33, lines 18-20.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> Second edition reads “<i>ihnen</i>” in place of “<i>ihr</i>,” viz. <i>der Zeit</i>. The word +“<i>ihnen</i>” refers to <i>Theilvorstellungen der Zeit</i>.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_527">[527]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="WHAT_DOES_ANSCHAUUNG_MEAN">WHAT DOES ANSCHAUUNG MEAN?</h3> + +</div> + +<p>Mr. Spencer’s erroneous statement that Kant conceives +space and time as forms of thought instead of forms of intuition +induces me to make a few explanatory remarks concerning the +term <i>Anschauung</i>.</p> + +<p>Kant means that space and time are immediately given in experience +and not inferences drawn from the data of experience; +they are not thoughts, but objects of direct perception.</p> + +<p>Sense-impressions are data, they are prior to ideas, the latter +being constructions made out of sense-impressions. Sense-impressions +are facts, but ideas are of an inferential nature; they are (to +use Lloyd Morgan’s excellent term) constructs. Now Kant claims +that space and time are in the same predicament: they also are immediately +given, they also are <i>Anschauungen</i>. Kant did not trouble +himself much to prove that they are forms; he seems to have taken +that for granted. But he was very careful to show that they are not +ideas, not thoughts, not abstractions, not generalisations, but that +they are as direct data as are sense-impressions and he calls the +knowledge which man has by directly facing the object of knowledge +“<i>Anschauung</i>.”</p> + +<p>The conclusion which Kant draws from this may be characterised +as follows:</p> + +<p>Sensations are not things but appearances; they are subjective, +not objective, they are not the objects themselves but what our sensibility +makes of objects. Space and time being <i>Anschauungen</i>, Kant +argues that they are of the same kind as the sense-data of knowledge, +that they are inherent in our nature. Thus Kant maintains: +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_528">[528]</span>“Sensations are the products of our sensibility, and space and time +are the forms of our sensibility.”</p> + +<p>The word <i>Anschauung</i> has been a <i>crux interpretum</i> since translations +have been made from Kant, and it is quite true that no adequate +word to express it, exists in English. I enjoyed of late a discussion +on the subject with Mr. Francis C. Russell who called my +attention to several notes in <i>The Journal of Speculative Philosophy</i>. +The following is from the pen of Dr. W. T. Harris (Vol. II, p. 191):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Through a singular chance, the present number of the journal contains two +notes from two contributors on the proper translation of the German word <i>Anschauung</i>. +Mr. Kroeger holds that the word <i>Anschauung</i>, as used by Fichte and +also by Kant, denotes an act of the Ego which the English word <i>Intuition</i> does not +at all express, but for which the English word ‘contemplation’ is an exact equivalent. +Mr. Peirce suggests that no person whose native tongue is English will translate +<i>Anschauung</i> by another word than <i>Intuition</i>. Whether there is a failure to understand +English on the one hand or German on the other, the Editor does not care +to inquire. It is certain that while intuition has been adopted generally as an +equivalent for the word under consideration both by English and French translators, +yet it was a wide departure from the ordinary English use of the term. Besides +this, we have no English verb <i>intuite</i> (at least in the Dictionaries), and the reader +will find that the verb used by Meiklejohn (in the translation of Kant’s <i>Kritik</i>) for +it, is <i>contemplate</i>, and the same rendering is given by Smith in his excellent translation +of Fichte’s Popular Works (London, 1849).”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Charles S. Peirce says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“No person whose native tongue is English will need to be informed that contemplation +is essentially (1) protracted (2) voluntary, and (3) an action, and that it +is never used for that which is set forth to the mind in this act. A foreigner can +convince himself of this by the proper study of English writers. Thus, Locke (Essay +concerning Human Understanding, Book II., chap. 19, § 1) says, ‘If it [an +idea] be held there [in view] long under attentive consideration, ’tis <i>contemplation</i>”; +and again, (<i>Ibid.</i>, Book II., chap. 10, § 1) ‘Keeping the <i>Idea</i>, which is brought into +it [the mind] for some time actually in view, which is called <i>Contemplation</i>.’ This +term is therefore unfitted to translate <i>Anschauung</i>; for this latter does not imply an +act which is necessarily protracted or voluntary, and denotes most usually a mental +presentation, sometimes a faculty, less often the reception of an impression in the +mind, and seldom, if ever, an action.</p> + +<p>“To the translation of <i>Anschauung</i> by intuition, there is, at least, no such insufferable +objection. Etymologically the two words precisely correspond. The +original philosophical meaning of intuition was a cognition of the present manifold +in that character; and it is now commonly used, as a modern writer says, ‘to include +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_529">[529]</span>all the products of the perceptive (external or internal) and imaginative faculties; +every act of consciousness, in short, of which the immediate object is an <i>individual</i>, +thing, act, or state of mind, presented under the condition of distinct existence +in space and time.’ Finally, we have the authority of Kant’s own example for +translating his <i>Anschauung</i> by <i>Intuitus</i>; and, indeed, this is the common usage of +Germans writing Latin. Moreover, <i>intuitiv</i> frequently replaces <i>anschauend</i> or <i>anschaulich</i>. +If this constitutes a misunderstanding of Kant, it is one which is shared +by himself and nearly all his countrymen” (<i>ibid.</i> p. 152 et seqq.).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Peirce adds the following explanation concerning the term +intuition in another note (<i>ibid.</i> p. 103):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The word <i>intuitus</i> first occurs as a technical term in St. Anselm’s Monologium. +He wished to distinguish between our knowledge of God and our knowledge of finite +things (and, in the next world, of God, also); and thinking of the saying of St. Paul, +<i>Videmus nunc per speculum in œnigmate: tunc autem facie ad faciem</i>, he called the +former <i>speculation</i> and the latter <i>intuition</i>. This use of ‘speculation’ did not take +root, because that word already had another exact and widely different meaning.</p> + +<p>“In the middle ages, the term ‘intuitive cognition’ had two principal senses, +1st, as opposed to abstractive cognition, it meant the knowledge of the present as +present, and this is its meaning in Anselm; but 2d, as no intuitive cognition was allowed +to be determined by a previous cognition, it came to be used as the opposite +of discursive cognition (see Scotus, In sentent. lib. 2, dist. 3, qu. 9), and this is +nearly the sense in which I employ it. This is also nearly the sense in which Kant +uses it, the former distinction being expressed by his <i>sensuous</i> and <i>non-sensuous</i>. +(See Werke, herausg. Rosenkrantz, Thl. 2, S. 713, 31, 41, 100, u. s. w.)</p> + +<p>“An enumeration of six meanings of intuition may be found in Hamilton’s Reid +p. 759.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>If we have to choose between the two translations “intuition” +and “contemplation,” we should with Mr. Peirce decidedly prefer +the word “intuition.” The word contemplation corresponds to the +German <i>Betrachtung</i> and all that Mr. Peirce says against it holds +good. But we must confess that the term intuition (as Mr. Peirce +himself seems to grant) is not a very good translation either. The +term intuition has other meanings which interfere with the correct +meaning of <i>Anschauung</i> and was actually productive of much confusion.</p> + +<p>The English term intuition is strongly tinged with the same +meaning that is attached to the German word <i>Intuition</i>. It means +an inexplicable kind of direct information from some supernatural +sources, which mystics claim to possess as the means of their revelations. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_530">[530]</span>In this sense Goethe characterises it satirically in Faust +(Scene XIV). Mephistopheles describes the process as follows:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A blessing drawn from supernatural fountain!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In night and dew to lie upon the mountains;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All Heaven and Earth in rapture penetrating;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thyself to Godhood haughtily inflating;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To grub with yearning force through Earth’s dark marrow,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Compress the six days’ work within thy bosom narrow,—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To taste, I know not what, in haughty power,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thine own ecstatic life on all things shower,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thine earthly self behind thee cast,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And then the lofty intuition [with a gesture] at last.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The satire is good on <i>Intuition</i> but it would not apply to <i>Anschauung</i>, +for the latter word excludes rigidly any mysticism or supernaturalism +which the former essentially involves. To employ +the term “intuition” for both ideas must necessarily weaken the +meaning of <i>Anschauung</i>.</p> + +<p>Besides we should bear in mind that the German <i>Anschauung</i> is +vernacular and should find a correspondent Saxon word. Such +Latin words as intuition convey in English as much as in German +the impression of being terms denoting something very abstract. +Vernacular terms much more strongly indicate the immediateness +and directness which is implied in <i>Anschauung</i>. In my conversation +with Mr. Russell, we tried to coin a new word that should cover the +meaning of <i>Anschauung</i> as an act of “atlooking” and the word +“atsight” readily suggested itself.</p> + +<p>The word “atsight” is an exact English equivalent of the +German <i>Anschauung</i>. It describes the looking at an object in its +immediate presence. At the same time the word is readily understood, +while philologically considered, its formation is fully justified +by the existence of the words “insight and foresight.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>One of the most important of Kant’s doctrines is the proposition +that all thought must ultimately have reference to <i>Anschauung</i>, +i. e. to atsight. Through atsight only the objects of experience can +be given us. All speculations not founded upon this bottom rock of +knowledge are mere dreams. This is the maxim of positivism and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_531">[531]</span>it is the basis of all sound philosophy. Says Kant in the “Anhang” +to his Prolegomena (in reply to a critic who had misunderstood his +idealism) as a summary statement of his views:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“<i>Der Satz aller echten Idealisten, von der eleatischen Schule an bis zum Bischof +Berkley, ist in dieser Formel enthalten: ‘alle Erkenntnis durch Sinne und Erfahrung +ist nichts als lauter Schein, und nur in den Ideen des reinen Verstandes und +Vernunft ist Wahrheit.’</i></p> + +<p>“<i>Der Grundsatz, der meinen Idealismus durchgängig regiert und bestimmt, ist +dagegen: ‘Alles Erkenntnis von Dingen, aus blossem reinen Verstande oder reiner +Vernunft, ist nichts als lauter Schein, und nur in der Erfahrung ist Wahrheit.’</i>”</p> + +<p>“The doctrine of all genuine idealists from the Eleatic School down to Bishop +Berkeley is contained in this formula: All cognition through the senses and experience +is nothing but illusion; and in the ideas of the pure understanding and reason +alone is truth.</p> + +<p>“The principle, however, that rules and determines my idealism throughout is +this: All cognition out of pure understanding or pure reason is nothing but mere +illusion and in experience alone is truth.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant then proposes in order to avoid equivocation to call his +views “formal or critical idealism,” adding that his idealism made +any other idealism impossible. Criticism truly is the beginning of +philosophy as an objective science. It gives the <i>coup de grace</i> to +those worthless declamations which still pass among many as philosophy. +Says Kant:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“<i>So viel ist gewiss: wer einmal Kritik gekostet hat, den ekelt auf immer alles +dogmatische Gewäsche.</i>”</p> + +<p>“That much is certain: He who has once tasted critique will be forever disgusted +with all dogmatic twaddle.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is strange that in spite of Kant’s explicit declaration, which +leaves no doubt about the positive spirit that pervades the principles +of his philosophy, he is still misunderstood by his opponents +no less than by those who profess to be his disciples.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>There is no occasion now to treat the subject exhaustively, but +it may be permitted to add a few remarks on Kant’s proposition that +space and time are atsights.</p> + +<p>We must distinguish three things:</p> + +<p>1) Objective space.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_532">[532]</span></p> + +<p>2) Space as atsight, and</p> + +<p>3) Space-conception.</p> + +<p>Space as atsight is the datum. It is the immediate presence of +relations among the sensory impressions. This, however, is not as +yet that something which we generally call space. That which generally +goes by the name of space is a construction built out of the +relational data that obtain in experience and we propose to call it +space-conception. Our space-conception, accordingly, (and here I +include the mathematician’s space-conception) is based upon space +as atsight, but it is more than atsight. It is an inference made +therefrom, it is the product of experience. Space-conception, however, +is as are all legitimate noumena, no mere subjective illusion, +it possesses objective validity; it describes some real existence and +this real existence represented in space-conception is what may be +called objective space.</p> + +<p>Objective space is the form of reality. Space as atsight is the +form of sensibility. Space as space-conception is a construct of an +abstract nature and serves as a description or plan of the form of +reality.</p> + +<p>The same is true of Time. Time as atsight is the relation of +succession obtaining in the changes of experience. Time as time-conception +is the noumenon constructed out of these data to represent +that feature of reality which may for lack of a better term be +called objective time.</p> + +<p>Briefly: Space and Time are not things, not essences, not entities, +but certain features of existence. They are the forms of reality. +When existence finds a representation in the feelings of a +sentient being, time and space appear as their forms, and these forms +furnish the material out of which are built the conceptions of Space +and Time.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Editor.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_533">[533]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="THE_LAW_OF_MIND">THE LAW OF MIND.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>In an article published in <i>The Monist</i> for January 1891, I endeavored +to show what ideas ought to form the warp of a system of +philosophy, and particularly emphasised that of absolute chance. In +the number of April 1892, I argued further in favor of that way of +thinking, which it will be convenient to christen <i>tychism</i> (from τύχη, +chance). A serious student of philosophy will be in no haste to accept +or reject this doctrine; but he will see in it one of the chief +attitudes which speculative thought may take, feeling that it is not +for an individual, nor for an age, to pronounce upon a fundamental +question of philosophy. That is a task for a whole era to work out. +I have begun by showing that <i>tychism</i> must give birth to an evolutionary +cosmology, in which all the regularities of nature and of +mind are regarded as products of growth, and to a Schelling-fashioned +idealism which holds matter to be mere specialised and partially +deadened mind. I may mention, for the benefit of those who are +curious in studying mental biographies, that I was born and reared +in the neighborhood of Concord,—I mean in Cambridge,—at the +time when Emerson, Hedge, and their friends were disseminating +the ideas that they had caught from Schelling, and Schelling from +Plotinus, from Boehm, or from God knows what minds stricken with +the monstrous mysticism of the East. But the atmosphere of Cambridge +held many an antiseptic against Concord transcendentalism; +and I am not conscious of having contracted any of that virus. +Nevertheless, it is probable that some cultured bacilli, some benignant +form of the disease was implanted in my soul, unawares, and +that now, after long incubation, it comes to the surface, modified by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_534">[534]</span>mathematical conceptions and by training in physical investigations.</p> + +<p>The next step in the study of cosmology must be to examine +the general law of mental action. In doing this, I shall for the time +drop my tychism out of view, in order to allow a free and independent +expansion to another conception signalised in my first <i>Monist</i>-paper +as one of the most indispensable to philosophy, though it was +not there dwelt upon; I mean the idea of continuity. The tendency +to regard continuity, in the sense in which I shall define it, as an +idea of prime importance in philosophy may conveniently be termed +<i>synechism</i>. The present paper is intended chiefly to show what +synechism is, and what it leads to. I attempted, a good many years +ago, to develop this doctrine in the <i>Journal of Speculative Philosophy</i> +(Vol. III.); but I am able now to improve upon that exposition, in +which I was a little blinded by nominalistic prepossessions. I refer +to it, because students may possibly find that some points not sufficiently +explained in the present paper are cleared up in those earlier +ones.</p> + +<h4>WHAT THE LAW IS.</h4> + +<p>Logical analysis applied to mental phenomena shows that there +is but one law of mind, namely, that ideas tend to spread continuously +and to affect certain others which stand to them in a peculiar +relation of affectibility. In this spreading they lose intensity, and +especially the power of affecting others, but gain generality and become +welded with other ideas.</p> + +<p>I set down this formula at the beginning, for convenience; and +now proceed to comment upon it.</p> + +<h4>INDIVIDUALITY OF IDEAS.</h4> + +<p>We are accustomed to speak of ideas as reproduced, as passed +from mind to mind, as similar or dissimilar to one another, and, in +short, as if they were substantial things; nor can any reasonable +objection be raised to such expressions. But taking the word “idea” +in the sense of an event in an individual consciousness, it is clear +that an idea once past is gone forever, and any supposed recurrence +of it is another idea. These two ideas are not present in the same +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_535">[535]</span>state of consciousness, and therefore cannot possibly be compared. +To say, therefore, that they are similar can only mean that an occult +power from the depths of the soul forces us to connect them in our +thoughts after they are both no more. We may note, here, in passing +that of the two generally recognised principles of association, +contiguity and similarity, the former is a connection due to a power +without, the latter a connection due to a power within.</p> + +<p>But what can it mean to say that ideas wholly past are thought +of at all, any longer? They are utterly unknowable. What distinct +meaning can attach to saying that an idea in the past in any way +affects an idea in the future, from which it is completely detached? +A phrase between the assertion and the denial of which there can in +no case be any sensible difference is mere gibberish.</p> + +<p>I will not dwell further upon this point, because it is a commonplace +of philosophy.</p> + +<h4>CONTINUITY OF IDEAS.</h4> + +<p>We have here before us a question of difficulty, analogous to +the question of nominalism and realism. But when once it has been +clearly formulated, logic leaves room for one answer only. How can +a past idea be present? Can it be present vicariously? To a certain +extent, perhaps; but not merely so; for then the question +would arise how the past idea can be related to its vicarious representation. +The relation, being between ideas, can only exist in some +consciousness: now that past idea was in no consciousness but that +past consciousness that alone contained it; and that did not embrace +the vicarious idea.</p> + +<p>Some minds will here jump to the conclusion that a past idea +cannot in any sense be present. But that is hasty and illogical. +How extravagant, too, to pronounce our whole knowledge of the +past to be mere delusion! Yet it would seem that the past is as +completely beyond the bonds of possible experience as a Kantian +thing-in-itself.</p> + +<p>How can a past idea be present? Not vicariously. Then, only +by direct perception. In other words, to be present, it must be <i>ipso +facto</i> present. That is, it cannot be wholly past; it can only be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_536">[536]</span>going, infinitesimally past, less past than any assignable past date. +We are thus brought to the conclusion that the present is connected +with the past by a series of real infinitesimal steps.</p> + +<p>It has already been suggested by psychologists that consciousness +necessarily embraces an interval of time. But if a finite time +be meant, the opinion is not tenable. If the sensation that precedes +the present by half a second were still immediately before me, then, +on the same principle the sensation preceding that would be immediately +present, and so on <i>ad infinitum</i>. Now, since there is a time, +say a year, at the end of which an idea is no longer <i>ipso facto</i> present, +it follows that this is true of any finite interval, however short.</p> + +<p>But yet consciousness must essentially cover an interval of +time; for if it did not, we could gain no knowledge of time, and not +merely no veracious cognition of it, but no conception whatever. +We are, therefore, forced to say that we are immediately conscious +through an infinitesimal interval of time.</p> + +<p>This is all that is requisite. For, in this infinitesimal interval, +not only is consciousness continuous in a subjective sense, that is, +considered as a subject or substance having the attribute of duration; +but also, because it is immediate consciousness, its object is +<i>ipso facto</i> continuous. In fact, this infinitesimally spread-out consciousness +is a direct feeling of its contents as spread out. This +will be further elucidated below. In an infinitesimal interval we directly +perceive the temporal sequence of its beginning, middle, and +end,—not, of course, in the way of recognition, for recognition is +only of the past, but in the way of immediate feeling. Now upon +this interval follows another, whose beginning is the middle of the +former, and whose middle is the end of the former. Here, we have +an immediate perception of the temporal sequence of its beginning, +middle, and end, or say of the second, third, and fourth instants. +From these two immediate perceptions, we gain a mediate, or inferential, +perception of the relation of all four instants. This mediate +perception is objectively, or as to the object represented, +spread over the four instants; but subjectively, or as itself the subject +of duration, it is completely embraced in the second moment. +[The reader will observe that I use the word <i>instant</i> to mean a point +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_537">[537]</span>of time, and <i>moment</i> to mean an infinitesimal duration.] If it is objected +that, upon the theory proposed, we must have more than a +mediate perception of the succession of the four instants, I grant it; +for the sum of the two infinitesimal intervals is itself infinitesimal, +so that it is immediately perceived. It is immediately perceived in +the whole interval, but only mediately perceived in the last two +thirds of the interval. Now, let there be an indefinite succession of +these inferential acts of comparative perception; and it is plain that +the last moment will contain objectively the whole series. Let there +be, not merely an indefinite succession, but a continuous flow of inference +through a finite time; and the result will be a mediate objective +consciousness of the whole time in the last moment. In +this last moment, the whole series will be recognised, or known as +known before, except only the last moment, which of course will be +absolutely unrecognisable to itself. Indeed, even this last moment +will be recognised like the rest, or, at least be just beginning to be +so. There is a little <i>elenchus</i>, or appearance of contradiction, here, +which the ordinary logic of reflection quite suffices to resolve.</p> + +<h4>INFINITY AND CONTINUITY, IN GENERAL.</h4> + +<p>Most of the mathematicians who during the last two generations +have treated the differential calculus have been of the opinion +that an infinitesimal quantity is an absurdity; although, with their +habitual caution, they have often added “or, at any rate, the conception +of an infinitesimal is so difficult, that we practically cannot +reason about it with confidence and security.” Accordingly, the +doctrine of limits has been invented to evade the difficulty, or, as +some say, to explain the signification of the word “infinitesimal.” +This doctrine, in one form or another, is taught in all the text-books, +though in some of them only as an alternative view of the matter; +it answers well enough the purposes of calculation, though even in +that application it has its difficulties.</p> + +<p>The illumination of the subject by a strict notation for the logic +of relatives had shown me clearly and evidently that the idea of an +infinitesimal involves no contradiction, before I became acquainted +with the writings of Dr. Georg Cantor (though many of these had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_538">[538]</span>already appeared in the <i>Mathematische Annalen</i> and in <i>Borchardt’s +Journal</i>, if not yet in the <i>Acta Mathematica</i>, all mathematical journals +of the first distinction), in which the same view is defended with +extraordinary genius and penetrating logic.</p> + +<p>The prevalent opinion is that finite numbers are the only ones +that we can reason about, at least, in any ordinary mode of reasoning, +or, as some authors express it, they are the only numbers that +can be reasoned about mathematically. But this is an irrational +prejudice. I long ago showed that finite collections are distinguished +from infinite ones only by one circumstance and its consequences, +namely, that to them is applicable a peculiar and unusual +mode of reasoning called by its discoverer, DeMorgan, the “syllogism +of transposed quantity.”</p> + +<p>Balzac, in the introduction of his <i>Physiologie du mariage</i>, remarks +that every young Frenchman boasts of having seduced some +Frenchwoman. Now, as a woman can only be seduced once, and +there are no more Frenchwomen than Frenchmen, it follows, if +these boasts are true, that no French women escape seduction. If +their number be finite, the reasoning holds. But since the population +is continually increasing, and the seduced are on the average +younger than the seducers, the conclusion need not be true. In +like manner, DeMorgan, as an actuary, might have argued that if +an insurance company pays to its insured on an average more than +they have ever paid it, including interest, it must lose money. But +every modern actuary would see a fallacy in that, since the business +is continually on the increase. But should war, or other cataclysm, +cause the class of insured to be a finite one, the conclusion would +turn out painfully correct, after all. The above two reasonings are +examples of the syllogism of transposed quantity.</p> + +<p>The proposition that finite and infinite collections are distinguished +by the applicability to the former of the syllogism of transposed +quantity ought to be regarded as the basal one of scientific +arithmetic.</p> + +<p>If a person does not know how to reason logically, and I must +say that a great many fairly good mathematicians,—yea, distinguished +ones,—fall under this category, but simply uses a rule of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_539">[539]</span>thumb in blindly drawing inferences like other inferences that have +turned out well, he will, of course, be continually falling into error +about infinite numbers. The truth is such people do not reason, at +all. But for the few who do reason, reasoning about infinite numbers +is easier than about finite numbers, because the complicated +syllogism of transposed quantity is not called for. For example, +that the whole is greater than its part is not an axiom, as that eminently +bad reasoner, Euclid, made it to be. It is a theorem readily +proved by means of a syllogism of transposed quantity, but not +otherwise. Of finite collections it is true, of infinite collections +false. Thus, a part of the whole numbers are even numbers. Yet +the even numbers are no fewer than all the numbers; an evident +proposition since if every number in the whole series of whole numbers +be doubled, the result will be the series of even numbers.</p> + +<p class="center">1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.<br> +2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc.</p> + +<p class="noindent">So for every number there is a distinct even number. In fact, there +are as many distinct doubles of numbers as there are of distinct +numbers. But the doubles of numbers are all even numbers.</p> + +<p>In truth, of infinite collections there are but two grades of magnitude, +the <i>endless</i> and the <i>innumerable</i>. Just as a finite collection +is distinguished from an infinite one by the applicability to it of a +special mode of reasoning, the syllogism of transposed quantity, so, +as I showed in the paper last referred to, a numerable collection is +distinguished from an innumerable one by the applicability to it of +a certain mode of reasoning, the Fermatian inference, or, as it is +sometimes improperly termed, “mathematical induction.”</p> + +<p>As an example of this reasoning, Euler’s demonstration of the +binomial theorem for integral powers may be given. The theorem +is that <i>(x+y)ⁿ</i>, where <i>n</i> is a whole number, may be expanded into +the sum of a series of terms of which the first is <i>xⁿy⁰</i> and each of +the others is derived from the next preceding by diminishing the +exponent of <i>x</i> by 1 and multiplying by that exponent and at the +same time increasing the exponent of <i>y</i> by 1 and dividing by that +increased exponent. Now, suppose this proposition to be true for +a certain exponent, <i>n</i> = <i>M</i>, then it must also be true for <i>n</i> = <i>M</i> + 1. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_540">[540]</span>For let one of the terms in the expansion of <i>(x+y)ᴹ</i> be written +A<i>xᵖy𐞥</i>. Then, this term with the two following will be</p> + +<div class="transnote"> +<p><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b> Unicode has no subscript q character, so the Greek +subscript phi character ᵩ is used in these formulæ to represent it.</p> +</div> + +<p class="center">A<i>xᵖy𐞥</i> + A(<i>ᵖ</i>⁄<i>ᵩ</i>₊₁)<i>xᵖ</i>⁻¹<i>y𐞥</i>⁺¹ + A(<i>ᵖ</i>⁄<i>ᵩ</i>₊₁)(<i>ᵖ</i>⁻¹⁄<i>ᵩ</i>₊₂)<i>xᵖ</i>⁻²<i>y𐞥</i>⁺²</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="formula1" style="max-width: 43.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/formula1.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p>Now, when <i>(x+y)ᴹ</i> is multiplied by <i>x+y</i> to give <i>(x+y)ᴹ⁺¹</i>, we +multiply first by <i>x</i> and then by <i>y</i> instead of by <i>x</i> and add the two +results. When we multiply by <i>x</i>, the second of the above three +terms will be the only one giving a term involving <i>xᵖy𐞥⁺¹</i> and the +third will be the only one giving a term in <i>xᵖ⁻¹y𐞥⁺²</i>; and when we +multiply by <i>y</i> the first will be the only term giving a term in <i>xᵖy𐞥⁺¹</i>, +and the second will be the only term giving a term in <i>xᵖ⁻¹y𐞥⁺²</i>. +Hence, adding like terms, we find that the coefficient of <i>xᵖy𐞥⁺¹</i>in +the expansion of <i>(x+y)ᴹ⁺¹</i> will be the sum of the coefficients of +the first two of the above three terms, and that the coefficient of +<i>xᵖ⁻¹y𐞥⁺²</i> will be the sum of the coefficients of the last two terms. +Hence, two successive terms in the expansion of <i>(x+y)ᴹ⁺¹</i> will be</p> + +<p class="center">A[1+(<i>ᵖ</i>⁄<i>ᵩ</i>₋₁)]<i>xᵖy𐞥</i>⁺¹ + A(<i>ᵖ</i>⁄<i>ᵩ</i>₊₁)[1+(<i>ᵖ</i>⁻¹⁄<i>ᵩ</i>₋₂)]<i>xᵖ</i>⁻¹<i>y𐞥</i>⁺²<br> += A(<i>ᵖ</i>⁺<i>𐞥</i>⁺¹⁄<i>ᵩ</i>₊₁)<i>xᵖy𐞥</i>⁺¹ + A(<i>ᵖ</i>⁺<i>𐞥</i>⁺¹⁄<i>ᵩ</i>₊₁). (<i>ᵖ</i>⁄<i>ᵩ</i>₊₂)<i>xᵖ</i>⁻¹<i>y𐞥</i>⁺².</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="formula2" style="max-width: 43.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/formula2.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p>It is, thus, seen that the succession of terms follows the rule. Thus +if any integral power follows the rule, so also does the next higher +power. But the first power obviously follows the rule. Hence, all +powers do so.</p> + +<p>Such reasoning holds good of any collection of objects capable +of being ranged in a series which though it may be endless, can be +numbered so that each member of it receives a definite integral number. +For instance, all the whole numbers constitute such a numerable +collection. Again, all numbers resulting from operating according +to any definite rule with any finite number of whole numbers +form such a collection. For they may be arranged in a series thus. +Let F be the symbol of operation. First operate on 1, giving F(1) +Then, operate on a second 1, giving F(1,1). Next, introduce 2, +giving 3rd, F(2); 4th, F(2,1); 5th, F(1,2); 6th, F(2,2). Next use +a third variable giving 7th, F(1,1,1); 8th, F(2,1,1); 9th, F(1,2,1); +10th, F(2,2,1); 11th, F(1,1,2); 12th, F(2,1,2); 13th, F(1,2,2); +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_541">[541]</span>14th, F(2,2,2). Next introduce 3, and so on, alternately introducing +new variables and new figures; and in this way it is plain that every +arrangement of integral values of the variables will receive a numbered +place in the series.⁠<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p> + +<p>The class of endless but numerable collections (so called because +they can be so ranged that to each one corresponds a distinct +whole number) is very large. But there are collections which are +certainly innumerable. Such is the collection of all numbers to which +endless series of decimals are capable of approximating. It has +been recognised since the time of Euclid that certain numbers are +surd or incommensurable, and are not exactly expressible by any +finite series of decimals, nor by a circulating decimal. Such is the +ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, which we know +is nearly 3.1415926. The calculation of this number has been carried +to over 700 figures without the slightest appearance of regularity +in their sequence. The demonstrations that this and many other +numbers are incommensurable are perfect. That the entire collection +of incommensurable numbers is innumerable has been clearly +proved by Cantor. I omit the demonstration; but it is easy to see +that to discriminate one from some other would, in general, require +the use of an endless series of numbers. Now if they cannot be exactly +expressed and discriminated, clearly they cannot be ranged in +a linear series.</p> + +<p>It is evident that there are as many points on a line or in an +interval of time as there are of real numbers in all. These are, +therefore, innumerable collections. Many mathematicians have incautiously +assumed that the points on a surface or in a solid are +more than those on a line. But this has been refuted by Cantor. +Indeed, it is obvious that for every set of values of coördinates there +is a single distinct number. Suppose, for instance, the values of +the coördinates all lie between 0 and + 1. Then if we compose a +number by putting in the first decimal place the first figure of the +first coördinate, in the second the first figure of the second coördinate, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_542">[542]</span>and so on, and when the first figures are all dealt out go on to +the second figures in like manner, it is plain that the values of the +coördinates can be read off from the single resulting number, so that +a triad or tetrad of numbers, each having innumerable values, has no +more values than a single incommensurable number.</p> + +<p>Were the number of dimensions infinite, this would fail; and +the collection of infinite sets of numbers having each innumerable +variations, might, therefore, be greater than the simple innumerable +collection, and might be called <i>endlessly infinite</i>. The single individuals +of such a collection could not, however, be designated, even +approximately, so that this is indeed a magnitude concerning which +it would be possible to reason only in the most general way, if at all.</p> + +<p>Although there are but two grades of magnitudes of infinite +collections, yet when certain conditions are imposed upon the order +in which individuals are taken, distinctions of magnitude arise from +that cause. Thus, if a simply endless series be doubled by separating +each unit into two parts, the successive first parts and also the +second parts being taken in the same order as the units from which +they are derived, this double endless series will, so long as it is +taken in that order, appear as twice as large as the original series. +In like manner the product of two innumerable collections, that is, +the collection of possible pairs composed of one individual of each, +if the order of continuity is to be maintained, is, by virtue of that +order, infinitely greater than either of the component collections.</p> + +<p>We now come to the difficult question, What is continuity? +Kant confounds it with infinite divisibility, saying that the essential +character of a continuous series is that between any two members +of it a third can always be found. This is an analysis beautifully +clear and definite; but unfortunately, it breaks down under the first +test. For according to this, the entire series of rational fractions arranged +in the order of their magnitude, would be an infinite series, +although the rational fractions are numerable, while the points of a +line are innumerable. Nay, worse yet, if from that series of fractions +any two with all that lie between them be excised, and any +number of such finite gaps he made, Kant’s definition is still true of +the series, though it has lost all appearance of continuity.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_543">[543]</span></p> + +<p>Cantor defines a continuous series as one which is <i>concatenated</i> +and <i>perfect</i>. By a concatenated series, he means such a one that if +any two points are given in it, and any finite distance, however +small, it is possible to proceed from the first point to the second +through a succession of points of the series each at a distance from +the preceding one less than the given distance. This is true of the +series of rational fractions ranged in the order of their magnitude. +By a perfect series, he means one which contains every point such +that there is no distance so small that this point has not an infinity +of points of the series within that distance of it. This is true of the +series of numbers between 0 and 1 capable of being expressed by +decimals in which only the digits 0 and 1 occur.</p> + +<p>It must be granted that Cantor’s definition includes every series +that is continuous; nor can it be objected that it includes any important +or indubitable case of a series not continuous. Nevertheless, +it has some serious defects. In the first place, it turns upon metrical +considerations; while the distinction between a continuous and +a discontinuous series is manifestly non-metrical. In the next place, +a perfect series is defined as one containing “every point” of a certain +description. But no positive idea is conveyed of what all the +points are: that is definition by negation, and cannot be admitted. +If that sort of thing were allowed, it would be very easy to say, at +once, that the continuous linear series of points is one which contains +every point of the line between its extremities. Finally, Cantor’s +definition does not convey a distinct notion of what the components +of the conception of continuity are. It ingeniously wraps +up its properties in two separate parcels, but does not display them +to our intelligence.</p> + +<p>Kant’s definition expresses one simple property of a continuum; +but it allows of gaps in the series. To mend the definition, it is only +necessary to notice how these gaps can occur. Let us suppose, +then, a linear series of points extending from a point, <i>A</i>, to a point, +<i>B</i>, having a gap from <i>B</i> to a third point, <i>C</i>, and thence extending +to a final limit, <i>D</i>; and let us suppose this series conforms to Kant’s +definition. Then, of the two points, <i>B</i> and <i>C</i>, one or both must be +excluded from the series; for otherwise, by the definition, there +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_544">[544]</span>would be points between them. That is, if the series contains <i>C</i>, +though it contains all the points up to <i>B</i>, it cannot contain <i>B</i>. What +is required, therefore, is to state in non-metrical terms that if a series +of points up to a limit is included in a continuum the limit is +included. It may be remarked that this is the property of a continuum +to which Aristotle’s attention seems to have been directed +when he defines a continuum as something whose parts have a common +limit. The property may be exactly stated as follows: If a +linear series of points is continuous between two points, <i>A</i> and <i>D</i>, +and if an endless series of points be taken, the first of them between +<i>A</i> and <i>D</i> and each of the others between the last preceding one and +<i>D</i>, then there is a point of the continuous series between all that +endless series of points and <i>D</i>, and such that every other point of +which this is true lies between this point and <i>D</i>. For example, +take any number between 0 and 1, as 0.1; then, any number between +0.1 and 1, as 0.11; then any number between 0.11 and 1, as +0.111; and so on, without end. Then, because the series of real +numbers between 0 and 1 is continuous, there must be a <i>least</i> real +number, greater than every number of that endless series. This +property, which may be called the Aristotelicity of the series, together +with Kant’s property, or its Kanticity, completes the definition +of a continuous series.</p> + +<p>The property of Aristotelicity may be roughly stated thus: a +continuum contains the end point belonging to every endless series +of points which it contains. An obvious corollary is that every continuum +contains its limits. But in using this principle it is necessary +to observe that a series may be continuous except in this, that it +omits one or both of the limits.</p> + +<p>Our ideas will find expression more conveniently if, instead of +points upon a line, we speak of real numbers. Every real number +is, in one sense, the limit of a series, for it can be indefinitely approximated +to. Whether every real number is a limit of a <i>regular</i> +series may perhaps be open to doubt. But the series referred to in +the definition of Aristotelicity must be understood as including all +series whether regular or not. Consequently, it is implied that between +any two points an innumerable series of points can be taken.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_545">[545]</span></p> + +<p>Every number whose expression in decimals requires but a finite +number of places of decimals is commensurable. Therefore, incommensurable +numbers suppose an infinitieth place of decimals. +The word infinitesimal is simply the Latin form of infinitieth; that +is, it is an ordinal formed from <i>infinitum</i>, as centesimal from <i>centum</i>. +Thus, continuity supposes infinitesimal quantities. There is nothing +contradictory about the idea of such quantities. In adding and +multiplying them the continuity must not be broken up, and consequently +they are precisely like any other quantities, except that +neither the syllogism of transposed quantity, nor the Fermatian inference +applies to them.</p> + +<p>If A is a finite quantity and <i>i</i> an infinitesimal, then in a certain +sense we may write A + <i>i</i> = A. That is to say, this is so for all +purposes of measurement. But this principle must not be applied +except to get rid of <i>all</i> the terms in the highest order of infinitesimals +present. As a mathematician, I prefer the method of infinitesimals +to that of limits, as far easier and less infested with snares. +Indeed, the latter, as stated in some books, involves propositions +that are false; but this is not the case with the forms of the method +used by Cauchy, Duhamel, and others. As they understand the +doctrine of limits, it involves the notion of continuity, and therefore +contains in another shape the very same ideas as the doctrine of +infinitesimals.</p> + +<p>Let us now consider an aspect of the Aristotelical principle +which is particularly important in philosophy. Suppose a surface +to be part red and part blue; so that every point on it is either red +or blue, and, of course, no part can be both red and blue. What, then, +is the color of the boundary line between the red and the blue? The +answer is that red or blue, to exist at all, must be spread over a +surface; and the color of the surface is the color of the surface in +the immediate neighborhood of the point. I purposely use a vague +form of expression. Now, as the parts of the surface in the immediate +neighborhood of any ordinary point upon a curved boundary +are half of them red and half blue, it follows that the boundary +is half red and half blue. In like manner, we find it necessary to +hold that consciousness essentially occupies time; and what is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_546">[546]</span>present to the mind at any ordinary instant, is what is present during +a moment in which that instant occurs. Thus, the present is +half past and half to come. Again, the color of the parts of a surface +at any finite distance from a point, has nothing to do with its +color just at that point; and, in the parallel, the feeling at any finite +interval from the present has nothing to do with the present feeling, +except vicariously. Take another case: the velocity of a particle at +any instant of time is its mean velocity during an infinitesimal instant +in which that time is contained. Just so my immediate feeling +is my feeling through an infinitesimal duration containing the +present instant.</p> + +<h4>ANALYSIS OF TIME.</h4> + +<p>One of the most marked features about the law of mind is that +it makes time to have a definite direction of flow from past to future. +The relation of past to future is, in reference to the law of mind, +different from the relation of future to past. This makes one of the +great contrasts between the law of mind and the law of physical +force, where there is no more distinction between the two opposite +directions in time than between moving northward and moving +southward.</p> + +<p>In order, therefore, to analyse the law of mind, we must begin +by asking what the flow of time consists in. Now, we find that in +reference to any individual state of feeling, all others are of two +classes, those which affect this one (or have a tendency to affect it, +and what this means we shall inquire shortly), and those which do +not. The present is affectible by the past but not by the future.</p> + +<p>Moreover, if state <i>A</i> is affected by state <i>B</i>, and state <i>B</i> by state +<i>C</i>, then <i>A</i> is affected by state <i>C</i>, though not so much so. It follows, +that if <i>A</i> is affectible by <i>B</i>, <i>B</i> is not affectible by <i>A</i>.</p> + +<p>If, of two states, each is absolutely unaffectible by the other, +they are to be regarded as parts of the same state. They are contemporaneous.</p> + +<p>To say that a state is <i>between</i> two states means that it affects +one and is affected by the other. Between any two states in this +sense lies an innumerable series of states affecting one another; and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_547">[547]</span>if a state lies between a given state and any other state which can +be reached by inserting states between this state and any third state, +these inserted states not immediately affecting or being affected by +either, then the second state mentioned immediately affects or is +affected by the first, in the sense that in the one the other is <i>ipso +facto</i> present in a reduced degree.</p> + +<p>These propositions involve a definition of time and of its flow. +Over and above this definition they involve a doctrine, namely, that +every state of feeling is affectible by every earlier state.</p> + +<h4>THAT FEELINGS HAVE INTENSIVE CONTINUITY.</h4> + +<p>Time with its continuity logically involves some other kind of +continuity than its own. Time, as the universal form of change, +cannot exist unless there is something to undergo change, and to +undergo a change continuous in time, there must be a continuity of +changeable qualities. Of the continuity of intrinsic qualities of feeling +we can now form but a feeble conception. The development of +the human mind has practically extinguished all feelings, except a +few sporadic kinds, sound, colors, smells, warmth, etc., which now +appear to be disconnected and disparate. In the case of colors, +there is a tridimensional spread of feelings. Originally, all feelings +may have been connected in the same way, and the presumption is +that the number of dimensions was endless. For development essentially +involves a limitation of possibilities. But given a number +of dimensions of feeling, all possible varieties are obtainable by varying +the intensities of the different elements. Accordingly, time +logically supposes a continuous range of intensity in feeling. It +follows, then, from the definition of continuity, that when any particular +kind of feeling is present, an infinitesimal continuum of all +feelings differing infinitesimally from that is present.</p> + +<h4>THAT FEELINGS HAVE SPATIAL EXTENSION.</h4> + +<p>Consider a gob of protoplasm, say an amœba or a slime-mould. +It does not differ in any radical way from the contents of a nerve-cell, +though its functions may be less specialised. There is no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_548">[548]</span>doubt that this slime-mould, or this amœba, or at any rate some +similar mass of protoplasm feels. That is to say, it feels when it is +in its excited condition. But note how it behaves. When the whole +is quiescent and rigid, a place upon it is irritated. Just at this point, +an active motion is set up, and this gradually spreads to other +parts. In this action, no unity nor relation to a nucleus, or other +unitary organ can be discerned. It is a mere amorphous continuum +of protoplasm, with feeling passing from one part to another. +Nor is there anything like a wave-motion. The activity does not +advance to new parts, just as fast as it leaves old parts. Rather, in +the beginning, it dies out at a slower rate than that at which it +spreads. And while the process is going on, by exciting the mass +at another point, a second quite independent state of excitation will +be set up. In some places, neither excitation will exist, in others +each separately, in still other places, both effects will be added together. +Whatever there is in the whole phenomenon to make us +think there is feeling in such a mass of protoplasm,—<i>feeling</i>, but +plainly no <i>personality</i>,—goes logically to show that that feeling has +a subjective, or substantial, spatial extension, as the excited state +has. This is, no doubt, a difficult idea to seize, for the reason that +it is a subjective, not an objective, extension. It is not that we have +a feeling of bigness; though Professor James, perhaps rightly, +teaches that we have. It is that the feeling, as a subject of inhesion, +is big. Moreover, our own feelings are focused in attention +to such a degree that we are not aware that ideas are not brought +to an absolute unity; just as nobody not instructed by special experiment +has any idea how very, very little of the field of vision is +distinct. Still, we all know how the attention wanders about among +our feelings; and this fact shows that those feelings that are not co-ordinated +in attention have a reciprocal externality, although they +are present at the same time. But we must not tax introspection +to make a phenomenon manifest which essentially involves externality.</p> + +<p>Since space is continuous, it follows that there must be an +immediate community of feeling between parts of mind infinitesimally +near together. Without this, I believe it would have been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_549">[549]</span>impossible for minds external to one another, ever to become coördinated, +and equally impossible for any coördination to be established +in the action of the nerve-matter of one brain.</p> + +<h4>AFFECTIONS OF IDEAS.</h4> + +<p>But we are met by the question what is meant by saying that +one idea affects another. The unravelment of this problem requires +us to trace out phenomena a little further.</p> + +<p>Three elements go to make up an idea. The first is its intrinsic +quality as a feeling. The second is the energy with which it affects +other ideas, an energy which is infinite in the here-and-nowness of +immediate sensation, finite and relative in the recency of the past. +The third element is the tendency of an idea to bring along other +ideas with it.</p> + +<p>As an idea spreads, its power of affecting other ideas gets rapidly +reduced; but its intrinsic quality remains nearly unchanged. +It is long years now since I last saw a cardinal in his robes; and +my memory of their color has become much dimmed. The color +itself, however, is not remembered as dim. I have no inclination +to call it a dull red. Thus, the intrinsic quality remains little +changed; yet more accurate observation will show a slight reduction +of it. The third element, on the other hand, has increased. +As well as I can recollect, it seems to me the cardinals I used to +see wore robes more scarlet than vermilion is, and highly luminous. +Still, I know the color commonly called cardinal is on the crimson +side of vermilion and of quite moderate luminosity, and the original +idea calls up so many other hues with it, and asserts itself so feebly, +that I am unable any longer to isolate it.</p> + +<p>A finite interval of time generally contains an innumerable +series of feelings; and when these become welded together in association, +the result is a general idea. For we have just seen how by +continuous spreading an idea becomes generalised.</p> + +<p>The first character of a general idea so resulting is that it is living +feeling. A continuum of this feeling, infinitesimal in duration, +but still embracing innumerable parts, and also, though infinitesimal, +entirely unlimited, is immediately present. And in its absence of +boundedness a vague possibility of more than is present is directly felt.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_550">[550]</span></p> + +<p>Second, in the presence of this continuity of feeling, nominalistic +maxims appear futile. There is no doubt about one idea +affecting another, when we can directly perceive the one gradually +modified and shaping itself into the other. Nor can there any longer +be any difficulty about one idea resembling another, when we can +pass along the continuous field of quality from one to the other and +back again to the point which we had marked.</p> + +<p>Third, consider the insistency of an idea. The insistency of a +past idea with reference to the present is a quantity which is less the +further back that past idea is, and rises to infinity as the past idea +is brought up into coincidence with the present. Here we must +make one of those inductive applications of the law of continuity +which have produced such great results in all the positive sciences. +We must extend the law of insistency into the future. Plainly, the +insistency of a future idea with reference to the present is a quantity +affected by the minus sign; for it is the present that affects the future, +if there be any effect, not the future that affects the present. +Accordingly, the curve of insistency is a sort of equilateral hyperbola. +[See the figure.] Such a conception is none the less mathematical, +that its quantification cannot now be exactly specified.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="law-of-mind-figure" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/law-of-mind-figure.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_551">[551]</span></p> + +<p>Now consider the induction which we have here been led into. +This curve says that feeling which has not yet emerged into immediate +consciousness is already affectible and already affected. In +fact, this is habit, by virtue of which an idea is brought up into +present consciousness by a bond that had already been established +between it, and another idea while it was still <i>in futuro</i>.</p> + +<p>We can now see what the affection of one idea by another consists +in. It is that the affected idea is attached as a logical predicate +to the affecting idea as subject. So when a feeling emerges +into immediate consciousness, it always appears as a modification +of a more or less general object already in the mind. The word +suggestion is well adapted to expressing this relation. The future is +suggested by, or rather is influenced by the suggestions of, the past.</p> + +<h4>IDEAS CANNOT BE CONNECTED EXCEPT BY CONTINUITY.</h4> + +<p>That ideas can nowise be connected without continuity is sufficiently +evident to one who reflects upon the matter. But still the +opinion may be entertained that after continuity has once made the +connection of ideas possible, then they may get to be connected in +other modes than through continuity. Certainly, I cannot see how +anyone can deny that the infinite diversity of the universe, which +we call chance, may bring ideas into proximity which are not associated +in one general idea. It may do this many times. But then +the law of continuous spreading will produce a mental association; +and this I suppose is an abridged statement of the way the universe +has been evolved. But if I am asked whether a blind ἀνάγκη cannot +bring ideas together, first I point out that it would not remain +blind. There being a continuous connection between the ideas, they +would infallibly become associated in a living, feeling, and perceiving +general idea. Next, I cannot see what the mustness or +necessity of this ἀνάγκη would consist in. In the absolute uniformity +of the phenomenon, says the nominalist. Absolute is well +put in; for if it merely happened so three times in succession, or +three million times in succession, in the absence of any reason, the +coincidence could only be attributed to chance. But absolute uniformity +must extend over the whole infinite future; and it is idle to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_552">[552]</span>talk of that except as an idea. No; I think we can only hold that +wherever ideas come together they tend to weld into general ideas; +and wherever they are generally connected, general ideas govern +the connection; and these general ideas are living feelings spread out.</p> + +<h4>MENTAL LAW FOLLOWS THE FORMS OF LOGIC.</h4> + +<p>The three main classes of logical inference are Deduction, Induction, +and Hypothesis. These correspond to three chief modes +of action of the human soul. In deduction the mind is under the +dominion of a habit or association by virtue of which a general idea +suggests in each case a corresponding reaction. But a certain sensation +is seen to involve that idea. Consequently, that sensation is +followed by that reaction. That is the way the hind legs of a frog, +separated from the rest of the body, reason, when you pinch them. +It is the lowest form of psychical manifestation.</p> + +<p>By induction, a habit becomes established. Certain sensations, +all involving one general idea, are followed each by the same reaction; +and an association becomes established, whereby that general +idea gets to be followed uniformly by that reaction.</p> + +<p>Habit is that specialisation of the law of mind whereby a general +idea gains the power of exciting reactions. But in order that +the general idea should attain all its functionality, it is necessary, +also, that it should become suggestible by sensations. That is accomplished +by a psychical process having the form of hypothetic inference. +By hypothetic inference, I mean, as I have explained in +other writings, an induction from qualities. For example, I know +that the kind of man known and classed as a “mugwump” has certain +characteristics. He has a high self-respect and places great +value upon social distinction. He laments the great part that rowdyism +and unrefined good-fellowship play in the dealings of American +politicians with their constituency. He thinks that the reform which +would follow from the abandonment of the system by which the distribution +of offices is made to strengthen party organisations and a +return to the original and essential conception of office-filling would +be found an unmixed good. He holds that monetary considerations +should usually be the decisive ones in questions of public policy. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_553">[553]</span>He respects the principle of individualism and of <i>laisser-faire</i> as the +greatest agency of civilisation. These views, among others, I know +to be obtrusive marks of a “mugwump.” Now, suppose I casually +meet a man in a railway-train, and falling into conversation find that +he holds opinions of this sort; I am naturally led to suppose that +he is a “mugwump.” That is hypothetic inference. That is to say, +a number of readily verifiable marks of a mugwump being selected, +I find this man has these, and infer that he has all the other characters +which go to make a thinker of that stripe. Or let us suppose +that I meet a man of a semi-clerical appearance and a sub-pharisaical +sniff, who appears to look at things from the point of view of a +rather wooden dualism. He cites several texts of scripture and always +with particular attention to their logical implications; and he +exhibits a sternness, almost amounting to vindictiveness, toward evildoers, +in general. I readily conclude that he is a minister of a certain +denomination. Now the mind acts in a way similar to this, every time +we acquire a power of coördinating reactions in a peculiar way, as +in performing any act requiring skill. Thus, most persons have a +difficulty in moving the two hands simultaneously and in opposite +directions through two parallel circles nearly in the medial plane of +the body. To learn to do this, it is necessary to attend, first, to the +different actions in different parts of the motion, when suddenly a +general conception of the action springs up and it becomes perfectly +easy. We think the motion we are trying to do involves this action, +and this, and this. Then, the general idea comes which unites all +those actions, and thereupon the desire to perform the motion calls +up the general idea. The same mental process is many times employed +whenever we are learning to speak a language or are acquiring +any sort of skill.</p> + +<p>Thus, by induction, a number of sensations followed by one reaction +become united under one general idea followed by the same +reaction; while by the hypothetic process, a number of reactions +called for by one occasion get united in a general idea which is +called out by the same occasion. By deduction, the habit fulfils +its function of calling out certain reactions on certain occasions.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_554">[554]</span></p> + +<h4>UNCERTAINTY OF MENTAL ACTION.</h4> + +<p>The inductive and hypothetic forms of inference are essentially +probable inferences, not necessary; while deduction may be either +necessary or probable.</p> + +<p>But no mental action seems to be necessary or invariable in its +character. In whatever manner the mind has reacted under a given +sensation, in that manner it is the more likely to react again; were +this, however, an absolute necessity, habits would become wooden +and ineradicable, and no room being left for the formation of new +habits, intellectual life would come to a speedy close. Thus, the +uncertainty of the mental law is no mere defect of it, but is on the +contrary of its essence. The truth is, the mind is not subject to +“law,” in the same rigid sense that matter is. It only experiences +gentle forces which merely render it more likely to act in a given +way than it otherwise would be. There always remains a certain +amount of arbitrary spontaneity in its action, without which it would +be dead.</p> + +<p>Some psychologists think to reconcile the uncertainty of reactions +with the principle of necessary causation by means of the law +of fatigue. Truly for a <i>law</i>, this law of fatigue is a little lawless. I +think it is merely a case of the general principle that an idea in +spreading loses its insistency. Put me tarragon into my salad, +when I have not tasted it for years, and I exclaim “What nectar is +this!” But add it to every dish I taste for week after week, and a +habit of expectation has been created; and in thus spreading into +habit, the sensation makes hardly any more impression upon me; +or, if it be noticed, it is on a new side from which it appears as rather +a bore. The doctrine that fatigue is one of the primordial phenomena +of mind I am much disposed to doubt. It seems a somewhat little +thing to be allowed as an exception to the great principle of mental +uniformisation. For this reason, I prefer to explain it in the manner +here indicated, as a special case of that great principle. To consider +it as something distinct in its nature, certainly somewhat strengthens +the necessitarian position; but even if it be distinct, the hypothesis +that all the variety and apparent arbitrariness of mental action ought +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_555">[555]</span>to be explained away in favor of absolute determinism does not +seem to me to recommend itself to a sober and sound judgment, +which seeks the guidance of observed facts and not that of prepossessions.</p> + +<h4>RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW.</h4> + +<p>Let me now try to gather up all these odds and ends of commentary +and restate the law of mind, in a unitary way.</p> + +<p>First, then, we find that when we regard ideas from a nominalistic, +individualistic, sensualistic way, the simplest facts of mind +become utterly meaningless. That one idea should resemble another +or influence another, or that one state of mind should so much as be +thought of in another is, from that standpoint, sheer nonsense.</p> + +<p>Second, by this and other means we are driven to perceive, +what is quite evident of itself, that instantaneous feelings flow together +into a continuum of feeling, which has in a modified degree +the peculiar vivacity of feeling and has gained generality. And in +reference to such general ideas, or continua of feeling, the difficulties +about resemblance and suggestion and reference to the external, +cease to have any force.</p> + +<p>Third, these general ideas are not mere words, nor do they consist +in this, that certain concrete facts will every time happen under +certain descriptions of conditions; but they are just as much, or +rather far more, living realities than the feelings themselves out of +which they are concreted. And to say that mental phenomena are +governed by law does not mean merely that they are describable by +a general formula; but that there is a living idea, a conscious continuum +of feeling, which pervades them, and to which they are +docile.</p> + +<p>Fourth, this supreme law, which is the celestial and living harmony, +does not so much as demand that the special ideas shall surrender +their peculiar arbitrariness and caprice entirely; for that +would be self-destructive. It only requires that they shall influence +and be influenced by one another.</p> + +<p>Fifth, in what measure this unification acts, seems to be regulated +only by special rules; or, at least, we cannot in our present +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_556">[556]</span>knowledge say how far it goes. But it may be said that, judging +by appearances, the amount of arbitrariness in the phenomena of human +minds is neither altogether trifling nor very prominent.</p> + +<h4>PERSONALITY.</h4> + +<p>Having thus endeavored to state the law of mind, in general, I +descend to the consideration of a particular phenomenon which is +remarkably prominent in our own consciousnesses, that of personality. +A strong light is thrown upon this subject by recent observations +of double and multiple personality. The theory which at one +time seemed plausible that two persons in one body corresponded +to the two halves of the brain will, I take it, now be universally acknowledged +to be insufficient. But that which these cases make +quite manifest is that personality is some kind of coördination or +connection of ideas. Not much to say, this, perhaps. Yet when +we consider that, according to the principle which we are tracing +out, a connection between ideas is itself a general idea, and that a +general idea is a living feeling, it is plain that we have at least taken +an appreciable step toward the understanding of personality. This +personality, like any general idea, is not a thing to be apprehended +in an instant. It has to be lived in time; nor can any finite time +embrace it in all its fulness. Yet in each infinitesimal interval it is +present and living, though specially colored by the immediate feelings +of that moment. Personality, so far as it is apprehended in a +moment, is immediate self-consciousness.</p> + +<p>But the word coördination implies somewhat more than this; +it implies a teleological harmony in ideas, and in the case of personality +this teleology is more than a mere purposive pursuit of a +predeterminate end; it is a developmental teleology. This is personal +character. A general idea, living and conscious now, it is +already determinative of acts in the future to an extent to which it +is not now conscious.</p> + +<p>This reference to the future is an essential element of personality. +Were the ends of a person already explicit, there would be +no room for development, for growth, for life; and consequently +there would be no personality. The mere carrying out of predetermined +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_557">[557]</span>purposes is mechanical. This remark has an application +to the philosophy of religion. It is that a genuine evolutionary philosophy, +that is, one that makes the principle of growth a primordial +element of the universe, is so far from being antagonistic to the idea +of a personal creator, that it is really inseparable from that idea; +while a necessitarian religion is in an altogether false position and +is destined to become disintegrated. But a pseudo-evolutionism +which enthrones mechanical law above the principle of growth, is +at once scientifically unsatisfactory, as giving no possible hint of +how the universe has come about, and hostile to all hopes of personal +relations to God.</p> + +<h4>COMMUNICATION.</h4> + +<p>Consistently with the doctrine laid down in the beginning of +this paper, I am bound to maintain that an idea can only be affected +by an idea in continuous connection with it. By anything but an +idea, it cannot be affected at all. This obliges me to say, as I do +say, on other grounds, that what we call matter is not completely +dead, but is merely mind hide-bound with habits. It still retains +the element of diversification; and in that diversification there is +life. When an idea is conveyed from one mind to another, it is by +forms of combination of the diverse elements of nature, say by some +curious symmetry, or by some union of a tender color with a refined +odor. To such forms the law of mechanical energy has no application. +If they are eternal, it is in the spirit they embody; and +their origin cannot be accounted for by any mechanical necessity. +They are embodied ideas; and so only can they convey ideas. +Precisely how primary sensations, as colors and tones, are excited, +we cannot tell, in the present state of psychology. But in our ignorance, +I think that we are at liberty to suppose that they arise in +essentially the same manner as the other feelings, called secondary. +As far as sight and hearing are in question, we know that they are +only excited by vibrations of inconceivable complexity; and the +chemical senses are probably not more simple. Even the least +psychical of peripheral sensations, that of pressure, has in its excitation +conditions which, though apparently simple, are seen to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_558">[558]</span>complicated enough when we consider the molecules and their +attractions. The principle with which I set out requires me to +maintain that these feelings are communicated to the nerves by +continuity, so that there must be something like them in the excitants +themselves. If this seems extravagant, it is to be remembered +that it is the sole possible way of reaching any explanation of sensation, +which otherwise must be pronounced a general fact absolutely +inexplicable and ultimate. Now absolute inexplicability is a hypothesis +which sound logic refuses under any circumstances to justify.</p> + +<p>I may be asked whether my theory would be favorable or otherwise +to telepathy. I have no decided answer to give to this. At +first sight, it seems unfavorable. Yet there may be other modes of +continuous connection between minds other than those of time and +space.</p> + +<p>The recognition by one person of another’s personality takes +place by means to some extent identical with the means by which +he is conscious of his own personality. The idea of the second personality, +which is as much as to say that second personality itself, +enters within the field of direct consciousness of the first person, and +is as immediately perceived as his ego, though less strongly. At +the same time, the opposition between the two persons is perceived, +so that the externality of the second is recognised.</p> + +<p>The psychological phenomena of intercommunication between +two minds have been unfortunately little studied. So that it is impossible +to say, for certain, whether they are favorable to this theory +or not. But the very extraordinary insight which some persons are +able to gain of others from indications so slight that it is difficult to +ascertain what they are, is certainly rendered more comprehensible +by the view here taken.</p> + +<p>A difficulty which confronts the synechistic philosophy is this. +In considering personality, that philosophy is forced to accept the +doctrine of a personal God; but in considering communication, it +cannot but admit that if there is a personal God, we must have a +direct perception of that person and indeed be in personal communication +with him. Now, if that be the case, the question arises how +it is possible that the existence of this being should ever have been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_559">[559]</span>doubted by anybody. The only answer that I can at present make +is that facts that stand before our face and eyes and stare us in the +face are far from being, in all cases, the ones most easily discerned. +That has been remarked from time immemorial.</p> + +<h4>CONCLUSION.</h4> + +<p>I have thus developed as well as I could in a little space the +<i>synechistic</i> philosophy, as applied to mind. I think that I have succeeded +in making it clear that this doctrine gives room for explanations +of many facts which without it are absolutely and hopelessly +inexplicable; and further that it carries along with it the following +doctrines: 1st, a logical realism of the most pronounced type; 2nd, +objective idealism; 3rd, tychism, with its consequent thorough-going +evolutionism. We also notice that the doctrine presents no hindrances +to spiritual influences, such as some philosophies are felt +to do.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">C. S. Peirce.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> This proposition is substantially the same as a theorem of Cantor, though it +is enunciated in a much more general form.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_560">[560]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="PEIRCE_ON_NECESSITY">MR. CHARLES S. PEIRCE’S ONSLAUGHT ON THE DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY.</h3> + +</div> + +<p>The problem of necessity lurks at the bottom of all problems, +and according as we accept or reject the idea of necessity we +shall be led to two entirely different world-conceptions.</p> + +<p>The conception of indeterminism generally offers itself first to +the doubting mind; and it is apparently a pleasant idea. It promises +freedom, it leaves room for the imagination, it makes the world +and its possibilities wide, much wider than it could be on the plan +of determinism. Determinism is at first sight an oppressive notion +and we naturally shrink from it. It seems to destroy the freedom +of the will and all moral responsibility. From infinite possibilities +it narrows the world down to one single actuality; and thus it seems +to destroy all the charms of life.</p> + +<p>The former view may be represented as conceiving the all-power +of the whole in which and through which we live as a well meaning +and yielding ruler or a kind-hearted parent who if strongly plied +with prayer, will for a trifle in order to please an importune favorite +change his decisions. The dispensations of his government will be +full of exceptions, of private cabinet decrees, of counter orders and +irregularities. The latter view, however, would represent the entirety +of the All as an inexorable and uncompromising sovereign, +or as a severe educator, a stern father who unfalteringly clings to +his principles. He leaves full independence to his children, he does +not prevent their mistakes, yet rigidly lets them bear the consequences +of their actions. He never answers prayers except that the +prayer itself has its educating effects upon him who prays; but he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_561">[561]</span>never alters objective facts for the sake of him who requests his interference, +and he never makes exceptions either in favor or disfavor +of anybody. In brief; the God of him who accepts the former view, +will be Chance, while the God of him who accepts the latter view +will be Law.</p> + +<p>The choice between the two views seems to remind us of the +choice left to the heroes of our fairy tales. He who chooses that +which appears pleasant will be led into inextricable confusion, he +who chooses that which appears rigid and oppressive will be led on +a path where in spite of many difficulties he will be able to make +firm and certain steps and will arrive at clearness as well as moral +freedom. It is not the golden casket that contains Portia’s picture.</p> + +<p>Science constantly operates on the basis of the maxim that there +is no chance, that everything that happens, happens as it does with +necessity. The question is, Is this maxim a mere assumption, a non-verifiable +working hypothesis; or is there any reliable evidence in +its favor? Is it true, and if it is, how can it be proved?</p> + +<h4>I.<br> +DAVID HUME REDIVIVUS.</h4> + +<p>Mr. Charles S. Peirce’s article entitled “The Doctrine of Necessity +Examined,” which appeared in the last number of <i>The Monist</i>, +must have been a surprise to many thinking readers. It must have +affected them in a somewhat similar manner as Hume’s “Treatise +of Human Nature” affected Kant. It roused him from his dogmatic +slumber: He abandoned dogmatism but nevertheless did not accept +Hume’s skepticism; he remained positive; yet he propounded a +better positive view than was the old dogmatism; he established in +philosophy the method of critique.</p> + +<p>The parallelism between David Hume, who doubted the validity +of our conception of causation, and Mr. Charles S. Peirce +who denies the universality of the doctrine of necessity, is very +marked in more than one respect. It is, in spite of many differences, +a case of close analogy, and the answer which we shall have to give +to either, will in many respects be suited to both. Both shake the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_562">[562]</span>ultimate ground of scientific research at its very root. Both call in +question the most fundamental concept upon which all our methods +of investigation and philosophy rest. Both challenge the reliability +of an idea of which few would hesitate to say that it is all but +universally accepted. In fact the ideas “causation” and “necessity” +are more than kin. If analysed, many of their elements will +be found to be actually identical. Thus the one cannot be either +established or doubted without establishing or doubting the other. +Accordingly Mr. Peirce, in some respect, repeats David Hume’s +onslaught upon the current conception of the basis of human knowledge +with the more formidable weapons which a century of close +thought and scientific investigation have furnished him.</p> + +<p>If Kant’s answer to Hume had been satisfactory, Mr. Peirce +probably would not have renewed the attack or he would have had +to modify it considerably. Kant, however, whom we both, Mr. +Peirce as much as I myself, admire as a master of philosophic +thought, did not solve the question satisfactorily. Yet Kant pointed +out the way of solving it, which was the middle way between dogmatism +and scepticism, called by him and his followers “Criticism,” +and it is this way on which we trust is safest travelling.</p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce is right that the doctrine of necessity cannot be +“postulated,” for “to postulate a proposition is no more than to +hope it will be true.” The doctrine of necessity is, indeed, usually +treated as a postulate, and Mr. Peirce’s attack appears formidable +because he shows the weakness of the arguments which are commonly +brought forward in its favor and which we grant to be insufficient.</p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce says (<i>The Monist</i>, II, 3, p. 330):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In view of all these considerations, I do not believe that anybody, not in a +state of case-hardened ignorance respecting the logic of science, can maintain that +the precise and universal conformity of facts to law is clearly proved, or even rendered +particularly probable, by any observations hitherto made. In this way, the +determined advocate of exact regularity will soon find himself driven to <i>a priori</i> +reasons to support his thesis. These received such a sockdologer from Stuart Mill +in his Examination of Hamilton, that holding to them now seems to me to denote +a high degree of imperviousness to reason; so that I shall pass them by with little +notice.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_563">[563]</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce is right when saying that necessitarianism must be +founded on something other than observation. Observation is +<i>a posteriori</i>; it has reference only to single facts, to particulars; yet +the doctrine of necessity, if there is anything in it at all, is of universal +application. The doctrine of necessity, let us not be afraid to +pronounce it clearly, is of an <i>a priori</i> nature. The scientist assumes +<i>a priori</i>, i. e. even before he makes his observations or experiments, +as a general law applicable to every process which takes place, that, +whatever happens, happens of necessity in consequence of a cause +and in conformity to law, so that the same cause under the same +circumstances will produce the same effects. If all the <i>a priori</i> reasons, +as Mr. Peirce maintains, received a sockdologer from Stuart +Mill, then indeed we shall have to abandon the idea of necessity +as the superstition of a past and erroneous philosophy and we shall +have to start the world of science over again.</p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce denies the strict regularity of natural law and introduces +an element of chance. He says (ibid. p. 336):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“To undertake to account for anything by saying boldly that it is due to chance +would, indeed, be futile. But this I do not do. <i>I make use of chance chiefly to +make room for a principle of generalization, or tendency to form habits, which I hold +has produced all regularities.</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> The mechanical philosopher leaves the whole specification +of the world utterly unaccounted for, which is pretty nearly as bad as to +boldly attribute it to chance. I attribute it altogether to chance, it is true, but to +chance in the form of a spontaneity which is to some degree regular.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Peirce is the pathfinder of a new and as yet untried road. +He strikes out boldly into the tumultuous ocean of chance, hoping +to find in his journey the connection between the East and the West, +between contrasts that seem to him otherwise unconnectible. The +confidence of the bold discoverer is set forth in the warnings he gives +to all seafaring people. He attempts to frighten the ill-informed minds +who might innocently venture out in other directions; and he will +thus naturally prevent many from falling either into the Charybdis +of doubting the propriety of applying the logic of probabilities to +the problem of necessity and causation in general, or, worse still, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_564">[564]</span>into the Scylla of the <i>a priori</i>. The former, he tells us denotes “a +state of case-hardened ignorance respecting the logic of science,” +the latter “a high degree of imperviousness to reason.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce is well known as one of the keenest logicians now +living. Considering this fact I am slow to take up arms against him +in defending a case which he so strongly brands beforehand. I must +from the beginning plead guilty to a belief in necessity, and having +critically revised my view once more I cannot help upholding it. I +am fully conscious of the fact that hundreds, thousands, and millions +of single experiences (which in Kantian terminology are called <i>a +posteriori</i> arguments) cannot establish a solid belief in necessity, nor +can any imaginable number of sequences prove the rigidity of causation, +and I confess freely that I support my thesis with <i>a priori</i> reasons. +Yet at the same time attention must be called to the fact that +neither Mr. Hamilton nor Mr. Mill had any adequate conception of +the <i>a priori</i>, and Mr. Mill’s sockdologer does not disturb in the least +the assurance of my view; for the <i>a priori</i> can, in my opinion, be +based upon the firm ground of experience.</p> + +<p>All the many sense-experiences at our command, if considered +singly, cannot constitute knowledge. In order to weave the woof +of the <i>a posteriori</i> into coherent cloth we want the warp of the <i>a priori</i>, +and I do not see how we can do without it. But the <i>a priori</i> is not +that mystical hocus-pocus of absolute truth with its impertinent assumptions +such as it is presented by pseudo-Kantians and justly denounced +by Mill; it is not as Mr. Peirce brands it an “I cannot help +believing,” it is not a “natural belief,” nor is it as others conceive +it an innate idea. It is, briefly described, simply and solely formal +knowledge, such as 2 × 2 = 4, to which we attribute universality and +necessity and with the assistance of which we are enabled to predict +and predetermine certain results beforehand (i. e. <i>a priori</i>). We +might invent a new name for the <i>a priori</i>, the latter having become +odious through the denunciations of its enemies and worse still, having +been distorted beyond recognition through the misuse to which it was +put by its defenders and suppositional friends. Yet that would be +another question, and the idea of the <i>a priori</i>, i. e. of formal knowledge +involving universality and necessity would remain the same.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_565">[565]</span></p> + +<p>The universality and necessity of formal knowledge are as a +rule taken for granted by scientists. But philosophy can take nothing +for granted, and the problem rises: How is the belief in the universality +and necessity of formal knowledge to be justified? Mr. +Peirce’s onslaught on the doctrine of necessity is a challenge to answer +this question.</p> + +<h4>II.<br> +CAUSATION NOT MERE SEQUENCE.</h4> + +<p>Mr. John Venn published some twenty-five or six years ago an +excellent treatise called “The Logic of Chance.” This work opened +the eyes of many to the great importance of the calculus of probabilities +as a method of science which was of much wider application +than had before been suspected. This admirable work we may +boldly say marks a new epoch in the study of logic, it opened new +vistas, and many expectations created by it have since been realised. +Yet it is to be regretted that the author adopts Hume’s erroneous conception +of causality and thus implicitly paves the way which Mr. +Peirce has actually followed and which leads to a denial of the doctrine +of necessity. Concerning “the doctrine of universal causation” +Mr. Venn says, in Chapter XIV:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We will employ the word simply in the sense which is becoming almost universally +adopted by scientific men, viz. that of invariable unconditional sequence.</p> + +<p>“It is in this sense that the word <i>cause</i> is used by Mr. Mill....</p> + +<p>“This meaning of the term is rapidly becoming the popular, or rather, the +popular scientific one.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This idea of “sequence” however was exactly Hume’s mistake, +adopted by Mr. Mill and through Mr. Mill popularised among English +thinkers. If the nature of cause and effect were really constituted +by invariable sequence, then the night might be called the +effect of the day because night is invariably consequent upon day.</p> + +<p>Hume, taking the ground that cause and effect constitute a +sequence, attempted a synthesis of both; he searched for a proof of +their identity and failed. And it was natural that he failed, for cause +and effect are so radically different that we cannot bring them into +the formula of an equation as “cause = effect.” There is no cause +that is equal to its effect.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_566">[566]</span></p> + +<p>Hume should have considered causation as one single process, +and instead of attempting a synthesis, he should have made an +analysis. The analysis would have shown that cause and effect are +two abstract and correlative terms of one whole and inseparable +event. Cause is not identical with effect, but the whole event is +identical with itself.</p> + +<p>If my finger touches a key of the piano, a chord is struck; the +chord swings and produces certain air-vibrations. In this process +from the beginning to the end all the energy employed and the mass +of the material particles remain in amount the same, yet there is a +change of form taking place. Causation is not mere sequence, but +a sequence of quite a special kind. It is a sequence of two states +which belong together as an initial and a final aspect of one and the +same event.</p> + +<p>So long as we know of two events simply that they follow one +another, although the sequence may in every case be invariable and +unexceptional, we are not justified in calling them cause and effect. +No amount of experience is sufficient to constitute causation by a +mere synthesis of sequences, and to have appreciated this truth is +the immortal merit of the great Scotchman who boldly took the consequence +of the argument and acquiesced in scepticism.</p> + +<p>The problem, however, is not so desperate as Hume thought. +If Hume could have considered his argument in the light which the +law of the conservation of matter and energy sheds upon it, he would +most likely have abandoned his scepticism; for causality is perfectly +intelligible if conceived not as a synthesis of two radically different +events, but as a process of transformation, of which the prior state is +called cause and the final one effect.</p> + +<p>That two radically different events, which are not thought of +as transformation, invariably follow each other without our being +able to discover any connection between them, will naturally appear +as a mystery; but that two forms are radically different things, although +they may be forms of the same amount of matter and energy, +is no mystery. The effect is, or may be, something entirely new.</p> + +<p>The configuration of things as it appears in the effect, did not exist +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_567">[567]</span>before. But for that reason, it is no creation out of nothing, it is +not an incomprehensible event, it is no miracle.</p> + +<p>It is a very wonderful thing that two congruent regular tetrahedrons, +when put together, will form a hexahedron, but the laws of +form do perfectly and satisfactorily explain it. Supposing we had +no idea of the laws of form or only an incoherent and fragmentary +knowledge of them, should we not look upon the result of this combination +as a strange and incomprehensible mystery. Two heaps +of flour one poured upon the other will give one heap of the same +kind and shape but of a larger size. However, the combination of +the two four-sided bodies does not produce another four-sided body +doubly as large as any of the two four-sided bodies. Nor does it +produce an eight-sided body. It produces a six-sided body, which +is something quite new. The result is not contained in the conditions +singly, for no one can say that six-sidedness is a quality implicitly +contained in four-sided bodies.</p> + +<p>The process of combining hydrogen with oxygen into water +(H₂O) is an immensely more complex case, and the qualities resulting +from a difference of density as well as configuration are entirely +unknown to us. There is nevertheless no reason whatever to consider +the process as different in principle; it is a case of transformation +in which the amount of matter and energy remains the same.</p> + +<p>Whatever the value of the logic of chance may be for scientific +reasoning in establishing gradations of certainty and formulating +the reliability of a certain belief, we deny most positively its applicability +to the principle of causation in general. If we ask what the +chance is of a combination of two congruent tetrahedrons becoming +a hexahedron, we must answer that the probability is exactly 1, +which means certainty, and certainty is but another name for necessity.</p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce does not object to necessity in certain cases, he objects +to necessity being a universal feature of the world. He objects +to the rigidity of causation in so far only as to allow a trifle of +chance to enter into nature.</p> + +<p>One or two cases or even a hundred, and a thousand, nay millions +of millions of cases in which causation is explicable as transformation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_568">[568]</span>is no proof that this must always be so. Mr. Peirce may grant +and most likely he does grant that causation in a definite set of experiences +is transformation, yet what guarantee do we have for saying +that it is the only kind of causation. Might there not be room in this +world for another causation which for lack of a full comprehension +of its nature, we may call the causation of chance?</p> + +<p>We answer that form is a quality of this world, not of some +samples of it, but throughout, so far as we know of existence even +in the most superficial way, and thus we know beforehand or <i>a priori</i> +that the laws of form hold good so far as our telescopes sweep +through space. We are ignorant as to the qualities dependent upon +special forms of matter or energy, and we can acquire any knowledge +thereof only through experience; but that is no reason to doubt the +validity of causation in general, or to surmise the probability of +there being somewhere a different arrangement of nature.</p> + +<p>Thus we come to the conclusion that the calculus of probabilities +is not applicable to the order of the world as to whether it may +or may not be universal. And in corroboration of this our position we +quote the following passage from a high authority in the science of +logic, who is no less than Mr. Charles S. Peirce himself. “Illustrations +of the Logic of Science,” (<i>Popular Science Monthly</i>, 1877, +p. 714):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The relative probability of this or that arrangement of Nature is something +which we should have a right to talk about if universes were as plenty as blackberries, +if we could put a quantity of them in a bag, shake them well up, draw out +a sample, and examine them to see what proportion of them had one arrangement +and what proportion another. But, even in that case, a higher universe would contain +us, in regard to whose arrangements the conception of probability could have +no applicability.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Peirce is still more emphatic in another passage which +reads (ib. 1878, p. 205):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If any one has ever maintained that the universe is a pure throw of the dice, +the theologians have abundantly refuted him. ‘How often,’ says Archbishop Tillotson, +‘might a man, after he had jumbled a set of letters in a bag, fling them out +upon the ground before they would fall into an exact poem, yea, or so much as +make a good discourse in prose! And may not a little book be as easily made by +chance as this great volume of the world?’ The chance world here shown to be so +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_569">[569]</span>different from that in which we live would be one in which there were no laws, the +characters of different things being entirely independent; so that, should a sample +of any kind of objects ever show a prevalent character, it could only be by accident, +and no general proposition could ever be established. Whatever further conclusions +we may come to in regard to the order of the universe, thus much may be regarded +as solidly established, that the world is not a mere chance-medley.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Here follows a close reasoning of several pages which ends (on +p. 207) with a paragraph beginning with the words:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“This shows that a contradiction is involved in the very idea of a chance world.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And a long paragraph on p. 208 winds up with these sentences:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The actual world is almost a chance-medley to the mind of a polyp. The interest +which the uniformities of Nature have for an animal measures his place in +the scale of intelligence.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This is exactly the position which I defend. If universes were +as plenty as blackberries we might talk about the order of other +universes. They might be four- or five- or <i>n</i>-dimensional. Yet even +in all these cases they would not be void of form. The four-dimensional +universe would have another arrangement, but its laws would +be none the less orderly, none the less regular, and a higher universe +would contain them all. Supposing there were four- or five-dimensional +space somewhere, we could state with absolute precision +all the formal laws by which bodies of so many dimensions were +governed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a></p> + +<p>The order of form and the rigidity of formal laws is as universal +and omnipresent as God. They encompass our path and our +lying down, they have beset our behind and before. If we ascend up +into heaven they are there, if we make our beds in hell, behold they +are there. If we take the wings of the morning and dwell in the +uttermost parts of the sea, even there they shall lead us and hold us.</p> + +<h4>III.<br> +MR. PEIRCE’S LOGIC OF SCIENCE.</h4> + +<p>In spite of the fundamental difference that obtains between Mr. +Peirce’s and our own world-conception, we must state that there are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_570">[570]</span>many most important points of agreement. Mr. Peirce says in his +article “Illustrations of the Logic of Science,” (ibid. p. 3 and 7):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of what we already +know, something else which we do not know....</p> + +<p>“The settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>There are according to Peirce several methods of settling opinion, +which swayed humanity in an historic succession: (1) The +method of tenacity. Doubt being an uneasy and dissatisfied state, +we cling tenaciously not merely to believing, but to believing just +what we do believe. (2) The method of authority, which is that of +the Roman Church and of all great political and religious institutions +of the past. (3) The <i>a priori</i> method, by which Mr. Peirce +understands the fixing of belief agreeably to reason, i. e. to the subjective +conviction of the individual thinker. All these methods have +their merits, says Mr. Peirce (ibid. p. 13):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The <i>a priori</i> method is distinguished for its comfortable conclusions. It is +the nature of the process to adopt whatever belief we are inclined to, and there are +certain flatteries to the vanity of man which we all believe by nature, until we are +awakened from our pleasing dream by some rough facts. The method of authority +will always govern the mass of mankind.... But most of all I admire the method +of tenacity for its strength, simplicity, and directness.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is apparent that the merit of the <i>a priori</i> method so called is +really a vice. The <i>a priori</i> method so called is the basis of agnosticism. +If according to my reason this, and according to your reason +that, may be the truth, where does truth remain? If truth is purely +subjective, truth becomes impossible. The method of settling belief +agreeably to our individual tempers is the death of objective truth, +of science and philosophy.</p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce fully recognises the practical importance of thought. +He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The production of belief is the sole function of thought” (ibid. p. 289).</p> + +<p>“Our beliefs guide our desires and shape our actions” (ibid. p. 5).</p> + +<p>“What is belief? First, it is something that we are aware of; second, it appeases +the irritation of doubt; and third, it involves the establishment in our nature +of a rule of action, or, say for short, a <i>habit</i>” (ibid. p. 291).</p> + +<p>“Thus, we come down to what is tangible and practical, as the root of every +real distinction of thought, no matter how subtile it may be; and there is no distinction +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_571">[571]</span>of meaning so fine as to consist in anything but a possible difference of +practice” (ibid. p. 293).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Peirce is very far from considering philosophy as a mere +matter of speculation or theory without practical importance. He +says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“What sort of a conception we ought to have of the universe, how to think of +the <i>ensemble</i> of things, is a fundamental problem in the theory of reasoning.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The <i>a priori</i> method, so called by Mr. Peirce, translated into +practical life is not only the death of truth but also of morality. The +objective criterion of truth is gone, and with it goes the objective +standard of right and wrong. If that is true which seems so to my +individual reason, then that is right which pleases me best. What +is right to me might be wrong to you. Thus this method leads either +to moral indifference, or to basing ethics upon the greatest amount +of pleasure attainable, (Hedonism, as represented by Mr. H. Spencer, +Prof. Harald Höffding, Professor Gizycki, and others,) or to relying +upon the individual conscience as an absolute and ultimate +authority.⁠<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></p> + +<p>The method of settling opinion agreeably to individual reason +is at present the most fashionable and widely spread conception, +and it shows its influence in the almost universal acceptation of agnosticism +to-day. Is that the final decision with which we have to +rest satisfied? If it were, we would better return to the method of +authority or tenacity. No, it is not the sum of all wisdom. The +<i>a priori</i> method so called represents a period of transition, which, if +persistently pursued, will lead to the bankruptcy of thought, the desperate +appearance of which is well disguised in the big sounding +and modesty-parading term agnosticism. And here we return to +the exposition of Mr. Peirce’s views. Mr. Peirce does not accept +the <i>a priori</i> method, he believes in “the logic of science.” Mr. +Peirce says:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_572">[572]</span></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“To satisfy our doubts, therefore, it is necessary that a method should be +found by which our beliefs may be caused by nothing human, but by some external +permanency—by something upon which our thinking has no effect.... The method +must be such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the same. Such +is the method of science” (ibid. p. 11.)</p> + +<p>“That whose characters are independent of how you or I think is an external +reality” (ibid. p. 298).</p> + +<p>“All the followers of science are fully persuaded that the processes of investigation, +if only pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to every question +to which they can be applied.... They may at first obtain different results, but, as +each perfects his method and his processes, the results will move steadily together +toward a destined centre.... The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to +by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented +in this opinion is the real” (ibid. pp. 299-300).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The word “fated” must be understood as Mr. Peirce understands +it. He adds in a foot-note:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Fate means merely that which is sure to come true, and cannot be avoided.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<h4>IV.<br> +NECESSITY IN THOUGHT PRESUPPOSES NECESSITY IN FACTS.</h4> + +<p>I have thus outlined Mr. Peirce’s views, not only because his +line of reasoning⁠<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> is admirable and deserves to be universally known +and recognised, but also because it seems to me to have some bearing +upon the question at issue.</p> + +<p>If the ultimate conclusion of every man concerning reality shall +be the same, there must be some truth in the idea of necessity. If +there is an opinion “fated to be ultimately agreed to,” we are +confronted in our representation of reality with something that is +inevitable. Shall there be necessity in thought but not in that of +which all our ideas are but images and symbols? We can conceive +of the necessity in the ideal realm of thought only as a reflection of +that necessity which pervades the original and prototype of our +thought, which lives in reality.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_573">[573]</span></p> + +<h4>V.<br> +MR. PEIRCE’S EVOLUTIONISM.</h4> + +<p>I have tried to find an explanation of Mr. Peirce’s position +which appears to me self-contradictory and I believe I have found +the key that will explain it.</p> + +<p>I read somewhere a stray remark of Mr. Peirce’s in which he +demanded that evolutionism should be thorough-going. The conception +of evolution in vogue at present, he said, stops short at a +certain point, and substitutes for an explanation the unknowable. +Mr. Peirce says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Does not space call for some explanation? Is not that a half-way philosophy +which in these our days does not explain, or at least hold out some promise of explaining, +why space is continuous, why it has such a wonderful uniformity in all its +parts, why there are neither more nor less than three dimensions everywhere, why +every closed curve can, by a continuous change of position, size, and form, be +brought into coincidence with every other, and why the three angles of a triangle +make exactly one hundred and eighty degrees, or at least so very closely so that we +cannot tell whether they make more or less?”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Peirce does not intend to halt before these problems, but +to explain them and carries the principle of evolution to its ultimate +conclusions, so as to explain from it not only the forms of living +organisms but also the laws of nature including the laws of space. +Mr. Peirce declares in his article “The Architecture of Theories” +(<i>The Monist</i>, Vol. I, No. 2, p. 165):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for.... +Law is <i>par excellence</i> the thing that wants a reason.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And what he means by it is further elucidated in his article +“The Doctrine of Necessity Examined” (<i>The Monist</i>, Vol. II, No. +3, p. 334):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“That single events should be hard and unintelligible, logic will permit without +difficulty: we do not expect to make the shock of a personally experienced +earthquake appear natural and reasonable by any amount of cogitation. But logic +does expect things <i>general</i> to be understandable. To say that there is a universal +law, and that it is a hard, ultimate, unintelligible fact, the why and wherefore of +which can never be inquired into, at this a sound logic will revolt; and will pass +over at once to a method of philosophising which does not thus barricade the road +of discovery.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_574">[574]</span></p> + +<p>It is perfectly true that “law is <i>par excellence</i> the thing that +wants a reason,” and any explanation that explains it by the assumption +of an unknowable is unphilosophical. I agree with Mr. Peirce +that we must not halt here; but I have no confidence in his method +of explanation. Mr. Peirce’s original idea, then, and I should add, +his main mistake, is that he proposes to explain the origin of natural +law by evolution.</p> + +<p>In his legitimate anxiety to explain law, Mr. Peirce declares +chance to be exempt therefrom. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“That a pitched coin should sometimes turn up heads and sometimes tails calls +for no particular explanation.” (<i>The Monist</i>, Vol. I, No. 2, p. 165.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>But chance in our opinion needs exactly as much explanation as +anything else. Mr. Peirce very improperly identifies “that which +cannot be accounted for” with “that which need not be accounted +for.” Absolute chance, if it existed, would <i>not</i> so much <i>not</i> call for +a particular explanation as actually be unexplainable, and being +incapable of explanation, it would have to be considered as an unintelligible +fact, as inscrutable, incomprehensible, and mystical. On +the assumption that chance need not be accounted for, Mr. Peirce +builds the architecture of his theory. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Chance is first, law is second, the tendency of habits is third.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The application of this general statement is set forth in the +following passage:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In psychology Feeling is First, Sense of reaction Second, General conception +Third, or mediation. In biology, the idea of arbitrary sporting is first, heredity is +second, the process whereby the accidental characters become fixed is third.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>How little after all we can escape the determinism of law as +being a feature of the world will be seen from the fact, that the explanation +for the evolution of law is presented by Mr. Peirce as +being itself a law, i. e. a formula describing a regularity supposed +to obtain in facts. Does not Mr. Peirce’s formula, supposing it to +be true, deserve the same reproach which he casts upon natural +law in general, viz., that it is “a hard, ultimate, unintelligible fact, +the why and wherefore of which can never be inquired into”?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_575">[575]</span></p> + +<h4>VI.<br> +WORLD-CONSTRUCTIONS.</h4> + +<p>There are two methods of philosophising, one starts with ideas +which are supposed not to need any explanation, the other starts +from facts and uses facts as data. The former is the method of the +constructionist or ontologist, the latter that of the positivist. The +constructionist attempts to beget a world-theory in the same way that +God was supposed to have created the world; he attempts to bring +it into being either out of a real nothing or out of something like +nothing. He constructs a world-theory out of the self-evident, out +of the absolute, out of the indubitable, or out of that the contrary of +which is inconceivable. The positivist, however, employs facts as +the given material, which he works out into a consistent and systematic +whole. The former view is synthetic and constructive, the +latter is analytic and descriptive. The former view is the method +of Hegel, Oken, and also of Mr. Spencer, the latter is the method +of all scientists and the ideal of the positive philosophy.</p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce although very positivistic in his logic of science, +must in philosophy still be counted among the constructionists.</p> + +<p>Chance is to Mr. Peirce as much absolute as was to Hegel the +idea of “abstract being,” which as such, Hegel said, is equivalent to +“non-being.” Non-being need not be accounted for. So Hegel starts +with this idea, and finding that “becoming” is the oscillation between +being and non-being launches his abstract thought upon the +terra firma of reality.</p> + +<p>In the same way and with similar ingenious ingenuity Oken +starts the world with zero. Zero or non-being need not be accounted +for. Its existence calls for no particular reasons. What +is zero? We can conceive it as “0 = 1 - 1.” Thus we have “+1” +and “-1,” two units. The whole world, according to Oken, is +only a disintegration of Nothing, an equation of enormous complexity +but always equal to zero. And that explains the world!</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer, adopts “the principle of setting out with propositions +of which the negations are unconceivable,” without being +aware that any inveterate belief or prejudice can be defended from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_576">[576]</span>that standpoint. The principle is purely subjective. It does not +admit of any objective verification and limits knowledge to individual +conception. If Mr. Spencer’s principle were admissible, we +could not refute the adversaries of the Copernican system, when +they declare that the rotation of the earth up on which we stand is inconceivable. +The maxim that that proposition is most certain the +negation of which is inconceivable might after all, and it actually +did very often, come into conflict with facts. Many propositions are +now confidently accepted which were formerly declared to be positively +inconceivable.</p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce, I say, starts the world with an abstract idea of a +something of which he assumes we need not give any account, as did +the great ontologists of former times. He constructs, agreeably to his +reason, a theory of the way in which the world might have originated, +and thus he falls into the mistake criticised by himself as the <i>a priori</i> +method. Yet the weakest point of Mr. Peirce’s system is that his +“absolute chance” begets order; irregularity becomes law by practice, +as if by a sufficiently prolonged shaking the dice would by and +by acquire the habit of turning up the same faces each time.</p> + +<p>The present world-conception of the scientist regards natural +laws as eternal. The order that prevails in these laws constitutes +the principle of evolution and changes the chaos of a nebula into a +well-arranged planetary system. Thus the original chaos is properly +speaking no chaos. It is in all its parts regulated by law and only +appears chaotic in comparison with more advanced stages of evolution.</p> + +<p>Desirous to account for the regularities of nature Mr. Peirce +proposes the idea that nature in the beginning was a real, true chaos, +without order, without laws, the single actions of reality taking +place irregularly and in a sportive manner. Absolute chance prevailed. +Everything was undetermined, exactly as much so as a man +is undetermined in his action before his belief is settled. Yet a man, +by and by, forms a belief and acts accordingly, not once or twice, +but often, until a habit is formed. Thus Mr. Peirce assumes, Nature’s +actions are first undetermined, they may be of this kind or of +another kind. The same particle of reality may under the same conditions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_577">[577]</span>act in different ways, yet it acts somehow; it acts again, +and repeats a certain kind of action more frequently than others, +thus forming habits. Laws according to Mr. Peirce are the habits +acquired by nature.</p> + +<p>The proposition of Mr. Peirce’s logic of science points out another +method of constructing a world-conception. The recognition +of reality in the sense as he conceives it, admonishes us that our +world-conception should be a picturing, a mirroring, an imitation of +the objective world of facts. It should not be the architecture of a +theory, but first an analysis and then a reconstruction of experience; +it should be a description of facts, methodically arranged.</p> + +<h4>VII.<br> +FACTS AND LAWS.</h4> + +<p>That which we call natural law is not the description of a certain +special and concrete form of existence which is now or then and here +or there, but of some general quality of facts which is everywhere +and always. The former, i. e. every special and concrete form of +existence, can be explained by evolution, the latter, i. e. natural law, +cannot. The former has to be accounted for by the law of causation, +the latter by the principle of sufficient reason. And it is this distinction +between cause and reason which Mr. Peirce does not seem to +have regarded.</p> + +<p>Every special form of existence must, at least theoretically, be +traceable as the effect of some cause and every law of nature must +be explainable by showing its connection with other natural laws. +The only thing in the world of which we cannot and need not give +account is the existence of facts itself, or being in general, which is +the stubborn presence of reality in us ourselves and also outside of us, +objected to our own being as an independent power to which we +have to adapt our conduct. We need not prove its existence, for it +exists. If anything is ultimate, facts are ultimate; and cognition is +nothing but the reconstruction of facts for the purpose of orientation +among them, it is a methodical description of reality in the +symbols of the feelings that exist in sentient beings.</p> + +<p>A scientist having observed a special process of nature, describes +it, if possible, in such a way that it is recognised as a transformation. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_578">[578]</span>A description of this kind is called an explanation. It +renders the process intelligible to us; it is complete and exhaustive. +In order to make such a description available for comprehending +other cases of the same or similar kind, we have to introduce another +principle, which is that of economy. We must single out those +features which are common to a certain class and remove all diversity +and specificalness. All specificalness and diversity are transient +features due to special conditions; they disappear with these +special conditions. Thus the notion of natural law involves as an +essential characteristic and fundamental quality the absence of the +incidental and the temporal.</p> + +<p>Natural laws describe the facts of nature <i>sub specie aeternitatis</i>. +They cease to be natural laws in the proper sense of the word as soon +as they are conceived, like legal laws, as products of evolutions, which +have appeared in time and may disappear again. Eternity is the +characteristic feature of a natural law, it is its backbone, the essence +of its being, its <i>conditio sine qua non</i>.</p> + +<p>Thus in considering a natural phenomenon we are led to distinguish +between its cause and its reason: Its cause is something special, +it is an individual event, happening in time, and accordingly being +transient; it is an occurrence of some kind, it is a single and definite +fact. However its reason is not anything special, it is something +general; it is not a single and definite fact, but it is a law of universal +application; it is not transient, but a conception of things in +which the incidental and temporal are eliminated. A reason is applicable +to all cases of the same kind and also to all cases of any time. +A cause, i. e. a fact, if it truly exists, is real (not true); a law, i. e. a +reason, if it really obtains in nature, is true (not real), and any attempt +at explaining natural laws as a product of evolution, being +based upon the view that regards them as causes not as reasons, as +real not as true, as a description of temporal existences, not as viewing +facts <i>sub specie aeternitatis</i>, must from the outset be a failure.⁠<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_579">[579]</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce attempts to explain natural laws as if they were +single and concrete facts. Where we have to look for reasons he +evidently employs the method of searching for causes. He treats +that which in its very nature is eternal, as if it were temporal. He +regards the everlasting, the imperishable, the immutable as if it had +originated, as if it were transient, as if it were the product of a development.</p> + +<h4>VIII.<br> +LAWS NOT INEXPLICABLE.</h4> + +<p>But is not Mr. Peirce justified in declaring that law remains unexplained? +Is law really as he says “hard, ultimate, inexplicable, immutable”? +Law is to be regarded as immutable but not as ultimate or +inexplicable, and thus Mr. Peirce’s denunciation of natural law is not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_580">[580]</span>justified. All natural laws must be conceived as forming one system +ascending from the lower to the higher, from the more special to +the more general. And the more comprehensive law represents in +each case the reason for the less comprehensive law which is comprised +in it. Thus we must finally reach the most general or all-comprehensive +law, which is a description of that which is a universal +quality of existence.</p> + +<p>There is wrong notion prevalent among many thinkers that +the most comprehensive description (law or reason) of a certain +kind should, as in a nutshell, contain and immediately explain all +that which it embraces, so that if once in its possession, we should +be omniscient as to all the rest. The most universal law is looked +upon as the centre of existence—<i>das Innerste der Welt</i>. If we could +but get there, we should solve all the world-problems by mere intuition. +This is the old error of the students of magic, whose hope is +expressed by Faust when he says:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“<i>Dass ich erkenne, was die Welt</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Im Innersten zusammenhält.</i>”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">That I may detect the inmost force</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which binds the world and shapes its course.</div> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Bayard Taylor.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Comprehension is not attained simply by finding out and stating +the most general feature of a certain class of facts; comprehension +does not alone consist of generalisation but also of discrimination. +The differences among less general laws must be recognised +as results of special conditions. And any knowledge of a general +law reveals nothing about the special conditions under the influence +of which the same law will work differently.</p> + +<p>It is but too often overlooked that the more general a statement +is, the less it will contain, the vaguer it will appear, the emptier it +must be. There is no royal road to cognition and mere generalisation +is of no avail. We shall have to investigate the details of every +case and view it in its relation to the general law. The general law +must be viewed under those conditions which will invariably produce +the same special modifications.</p> + +<p>But do not the most general reasons remain uncomprehended? +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_581">[581]</span>Do we not at last arrive at an ultimate law which, then, must be +hard and inexplicable?</p> + +<p>Those laws which appear in every respect to be universal are +the formal laws of mathematics, arithmetic, and their kindred sciences. +And all these formal sciences are not only <i>not</i> mystical, unintelligible, +and inexplicable, but they are the most perspicuous, +most reliable, and most certain knowledge we possess. All their +theorems admit of the most rigid demonstration, and the last shadow +of mysticism has been removed by Hermann Grassmann. Owing to +his searching investigations we are no longer in need of axioms which +were formerly supposed to be the indispensable basis of mathematics.</p> + +<p>There is however a basis of formal thought left which we cannot +dispense with; that is the idea of sameness, generally formulated +as the law of identity. Is perhaps the law of identity by which +all the regularities of nature are to be accounted for, inexplicable? +Hardly! The idea of sameness has a solid basis in the facts of +experience.⁠<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a></p> + +<h4>IX.<br> +CONCLUSION.</h4> + +<p>The contrast between Determinism and Indeterminism is old, +yet Mr. Peirce has worked out quite a new aspect of Indeterminism +and places it upon a basis that appears to be a more solid foundation +than it ever before possessed. At the same time he succeeds +in making some of its consequences so plausible, that in this new +garb it will appeal more strongly than before to scientifically trained +minds. With all deference to the logical acuteness of Mr. Peirce +and with all admiration for the originality and depth of his thought, +we cannot, however, accede to the new philosophy which he proposes.</p> + +<p>Mr. Peirce’s propositions go to the core of all problems, they +upset everything that has heretofore been considered as firm ground, +they question the most fundamental concepts of the world-conception +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_582">[582]</span>upon which all scientific reasoning and the methods of the positive +philosophy rest. Thus they set us a-thinking and will help us +to attain greater clearness on points which are to all of us of greater +concern than may at first sight appear. For the fundamental problems +of philosophy have a deep practical importance. Their importance +is less noticeable, less obvious, but at the same time more +sweeping the more fundamental they are.</p> + +<p>Let us here in concluding this article consider only one, but the +most striking one, of the consequences to which both views lead.</p> + +<p>Indeterminism leads to a conception of God which although we +may call it “mind” and place it at the beginning of the world, is pure +chance or the indeterminateness of an arbitrary sporting. Determinism +on the other hand leads to a recognition of God as that +something in nature that is as it is, that has been and will be. Science, +whose method of cognising the truth is and can only be to +know in parts, attempts to describe the partial qualities of this +something in natural laws.</p> + +<p>It is of great consequence in practical life whether God is what +the name Jahveh intends to convey, eternal and unalterable being, +immutable sameness in the perpetual flux, irrefragable law in the +changes of evolution, or whether it is the Τυχή of the pagans, i. e. +indeterminable and absolute chance, unaccountable, irregular, capricious, +and uncertain.</p> + +<p>The God-idea is the basis of ethics. It matters little whether +we use or avoid the name God, for the atheist has also a God-idea +in his conception of that existence in which he lives and moves and +has his being. This God-idea is always the ground from which we +derive our rules of conduct; and whenever we change, not our terminology +but our idea of God, we shall as a matter of consistency +have to change our views of ethics also.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Editor.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> Italics are ours.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> See <i>Fundamental Problems</i>, p. 55.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> This is the position of the Societies for Ethical Culture which are not confessedly +but practically agnostics. Professor Adler’s position is characterised in <i>The +Monist</i>, Vol. I, No. 4, p. 567, 599, and <i>The Open Court</i> Nos. 225 and 234. Mr. +Salter bases ethics upon “the immovable rock of conscience.” (See his <i>Ethical Religion</i>, +p. 295.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> Ernst Schroeder in his great work <i>Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik</i> +adopts in the main the results of Peirce. A sketch of Mr. Peirce’s line of thought, +(his <i>Gedankengang</i>, as Schroeder calls it,) is found in the <i>Einleitung</i>, pp. 107-118.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> I laid down my views on the subject in a short monograph of only 82 pages, +entitled <i>Ursache, Grund und Zweck, eine philosophische Abhandlung zur Klärung +der Begriffe</i> (Dresden: R. von Grumbkow, Hof. Verlag, 1883). In all main points +I maintain the same standpoint still. See also <i>Fundamental Problems</i>, the chapter +on Causality, pp. 79-91 and 96-109.</p> + +<p>Since the publication of my German pamphlet my confidence that we can, (not +only in the special sciences such as chemistry, mineralogy, botany, etc., but also +in philosophy) arrive at truth, has rather been confirmed than shaken. We can +create a common ground on which all philosophers agree, as much as mathematicians +agree concerning the Pythagorean theorem. But in order to achieve this +ideal, philosophers must abandon all attempts at originality. The hankering after +originality is an inherited evil in the family of philosophers. The first philosophers +were poets, priests, and prophets; later on in the natural evolution of human culture, +a differentiation of their combined functions took place. Originality is a virtue +in the poet but a vice in his brother, the philosopher. The philosopher’s ideal +must be to free himself of all individualism, subjectivity, and original conceptions; +he must become strictly objective. He must renounce his personal likes and dislikes, +and make his soul a mirror of nature, faithfully and correctly to represent +the facts and nothing but the facts. This is the ethics of philosophical inquiry, +and the philosophy that takes its stand on this principle we call positivism.</p> + +<p>Almost all divergencies of importance in the different philosophical systems can +be traced to different conceptions or rather misconceptions of causation.</p> + +<p>This last century since Kant has been the most fertile age of original world-theories, +all different in style and manner of construction, but all alike in so far as +the author of each system had strained his utmost efforts to be original. Thus all +these world-theories were so many beautiful poems on ontology, they were so many +grand air-castles produced by the magic wand of a fairy-tale causation. The philosopher’s +aspiration must not be to present original ideas but to reach that one solution +which any other unbiassed thinker must find, to express that truth which in the +end will have to be recognised universally, to formulate facts in objective exactness. +The degree of originality in philosophic thought marks the degree of aberration +from the common aim of the one sole solution, and the greatest source of original +ideas is the confusion of cause and reason, of <i>Ursache</i> and <i>Grund</i>, of event and +law, of fact and truth.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> I expect to discuss the problems of sameness, of chance, of mechanicalism, +and the freedom of will in the next number of <i>The Monist</i> under the caption <i>The +Doctrine of Necessity: Its Basis and its Scope</i>.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_583">[583]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="LITERARY_CORRESPONDENCE_IV">LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE</h3> + +</div> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="FRANCE_IV">I.<br> +<span class="smaller">FRANCE.</span></h4> + +<p>Professor Lombroso is unremitting in bringing up new +facts in support of his doctrines. His <i>Nouvelles Recherches de +Psychiatrie et d’Anthropologie criminelle</i> (New Researches in Psychiatry +and Criminal Anthropology) comprise a good many, gathered +from the latest works relating to criminality. In adding psychiatry to +anthropology in the title to this volume, writes the learned author, +“I return to my starting point and to the true source of these studies, +which is only a clinical demonstration, but a more perfect one, +of what is called in old psychiatry, moral insanity and masked epilepsy.” +Lombroso may be reproached with a certain exaggeration, +a certain haste, in his views respecting criminal man: yet can we +conceive of an opinionated inquirer who would not have faith in his +work, and who could resist the desire to generalise from the facts +already obtained? But I have little doubt that the works of his +school will end in producing a precise conception, which will force +itself on the attention of legislators and jurists. I say <i>precise</i>, because +one has a glimpse of the truth in criticising the evidence offered to +us in such variety, though what one perceives sometimes vanishes.</p> + +<p>How can we conceive of the criminal type? This is a prime +question on which it is not useless to insist. Crime, as M. Tarde +tells us, has become a real profession in our modern societies. Although +there is some truth in it, we must not allow ourselves to be +deceived by the subtle form of this paradox. There is no want of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_584">[584]</span>delinquents carrying on a business; the army of crime recruits itself +from all classes, it includes peasants and workmen, chemists and +physicians, lawyers and merchants, soldiers and poets, that is to say, +subjects possessing some one at least of the aptitudes which form a +calling. We have here, then, on the one side, wretches destitute +of all aptitude for a trade, and on the other men who do not adhere +to the exercise of their profession, although capable of making use of +it. The delinquent appears to us, in short, as stricken with some +degree of professional incapacity, and if crime has become a profession +in some sort, the criminals of every category first represent, if +I may thus say, a professional or social waste. The study of the +causes and the signs of this waste is just what has been undertaken.</p> + +<p>The social causes of crime have often been put in prominence. +They are numerous, and persons unacquainted with these questions +are inclined to attribute the largest proportion of crimes and offences +to distress and misery. But, according to the inquiries of Morrison, +for example—and by the confession also of M. Troal, of whom I +shall speak immediately—misery rarely produces crime, and if we +examine carefully, one after the other, the social causes of crime, we +shall soon be convinced that poverty, drunkenness, etc., feed criminality +by producing degeneracy of the race, rather than that they +directly arouse the criminal.⁠<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> We are compelled then to seek the +immediate reason for a crime in the criminal himself, and to learn +to distinguish the delinquent by means of the methods fixed upon +by anthropologists and physicians.</p> + +<p>At first, as we know, Lombroso recognised only one criminal +type. He has since found that there are many. The distinction +between the thief and the murderer is classical. Benedikt has described +the born vagabond; Brouardel, the feminine type. It is always +necessary in describing a type to resort to the methods of natural +history, to pass in review the emotional and intellectual characters, +the physiological or functional characters, the anatomical or +morphological characters, and endeavor to seize certain constant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_585">[585]</span>correlations between the signs one has been successful in observing. +The delinquent may be described as abnormal from the emotional +standpoint, and as deficient or perverted from the intellectual point +of view. We could then begin by describing exactly certain intellectual +and emotional types, and it is no exaggeration to say that +experienced magistrates in their way have done so, those even who, +with M. Proal, we shall see to be the most hostile to anthropological +theories. But they are reluctant to admit any relations between +the moral agent and physical nature, whereas the new school, on +the contrary, makes every effort to discover and determine them.</p> + +<p>How far is it successful? That is the question.</p> + +<p>If we take the ensemble of the emotional and intellectual characters, +we shall affirm with Professor Pelman (whose opinion +Mr. Christian Ufer has made known in <i>The Monist</i>) that the portrait +of the imbecile traced by Sollier corresponds strongly to that of the +born criminal of Lombroso. We shall aver also that this portrait +does not answer equally well for all kinds of delinquents, and that +we pass gradually from the malignant imbecile to the average or +mediocre man. The same observation applies when we study the +physiognomical characters of which the little book of Lombroso +furnishes a great variety. We shall have evidently to consider, with +respect to physiognomical characters and physical marks, a strong +type (certainly inborn), a weak type, and, I would add, an <i>acquired</i> +type.</p> + +<p>If we take functional anomalies—those of touch, sight, etc.—we +shall be struck with their number as well as with their importance, +and, I may say in passing, the alienist physicians who continue +to be the adversaries of Lombroso discover every day fresh +examples of them, which could give to the conception of the type, +the reality they still deny it to possess. The latest discovery, and +certainly one of the most striking, is that which Ottolenghi has just +made, in the clinic of Lombroso himself, respecting the visual field +of epileptics and of the morally insane. According to the researches +of Ottolenghi, the visual field will be remarkably limited, both with +epileptics not in paroxysms, and with born delinquents, but more +often with the latter. They present a partial hemiopia, vertical and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_586">[586]</span>heteronymous; the periphery of the field is sinuous and irregular. +This discovery tends, then, to confirm the analogy of epilepsy with +criminal tendencies; it will furnish a sign of the first order for a +well marked category of delinquents.</p> + +<p>Let us pass on to morphological characters. The abundance of +evidence is truly extraordinary, and one cannot abstain from remarking, +in this relation, that a certain number of the anomalies designated +ought to be found, and indeed are found, in morally healthy subjects, +and that therefore they do not alone suffice to furnish a ground +of distinction from the medium normal type. As certain functional +anomalies are not wanting either in many subjects whose morality +remains perfect, it would be necessary to aim, it seems to me, at establishing +an approximate <i>quantum</i> for the criminal type, or rather +for the <i>kinds</i> which ought to lead, by sensible gradations, from the +most pronounced type to that which is the least so. Some scattered +elements of this work will be found in the book of Lombroso; the +studies of Clouston on the palate (deformation of the palate existed +in 19 per cent. of the general population, 61 per cent. of imbeciles, +35 per cent. of criminals, and 33 per cent. of madmen); the monographs +of Ottolenghi and Roncoroni on the pathological anomalies +of 100 criminals, with an indication of the number and the nature of +the anomalies, etc.</p> + +<p>In short, it cannot be questioned that the new school holds its +ground well, since it circumscribes and makes more and more precise +the object of its researches. In my humble opinion, it is of importance +for it to get rid of hazardous or useless explanations, for +it to tell us as little as possible of remote atavism—for if heredity is +constant, it is not possible to trace it link by link as far as the deluge!—and +finally for pure anthropologists and psychiatrists to beware +of themselves drawing practical conclusions from their doctrines. +The applications concern jurists, and constitute a question +of another kind, into which other considerations also enter.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In the juridical domain, a French magistrate, <span class="smcap">M. Louis Proal</span>, +has just published a considerable work, <i>Le Crime et la Peine</i> (Crime +and Punishment) which is truly the performance of an adversary, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_587">[587]</span>but not of such an adversary as M. Tarde. M. Proal is an irreconcilable, +and all his dialectic—charged a little too much with citations +of which many are useless or prove nothing—turns on the absolute +affirmation of free-will. He flatters himself to have demonstrated +freedom, in which he is wrong. It is a matter of faith, as criticists +have very well perceived. Human science can know only determinism; +it proves only what it finds.⁠<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p> + +<p>M. Proal claims then to found on free-will the two principles +of the moral responsibility of the delinquent, and the moral character +of punishment, in opposition to the purely social point of view +in which the new criminalists place themselves. The physical +anomaly of the criminal seems to him a chimera, and he goes so far +as to deny, or falls little short of it, the relations of frenzied impulsion +with degeneracy. Willingly, perhaps, he would accept as truly +mad and irresponsible only the insane, those who are shut up forever +in the asylums!</p> + +<p>Certainly, M. Proal possesses the experience of the magistrate, +he has erudition and triumphs easily, in details, by the defects and +deficiencies of the doctrine he combats. His objections, nevertheless, +do not touch the general conception which connects crime, in +a great number of cases, with the disorders of the living machine. +He is not willing for the criminal to differ from the honest man +otherwise than by his inclinations and will, as though will and inclinations +had no dependence on the state of our organs, and as +though heredity entered for nothing into the “personal factor” of +character! He is not averse to saying that moral and physical decadence +is always the effect of criminality, as though it was never its +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_588">[588]</span>cause! He allows with that attenuations of moral responsibility, resulting +from physiological and physical influences, as though a +weakened responsibility was a true moral responsibility in the sense +he understands, and as though the judge had the means of deciding +at what moment morbid evolution involves irresponsibility!</p> + +<p>These absolute principles once established, he defines an offense +“the violation of a social duty,” and he grants that the judge +“ought to take account of the importance of the social evil resulting +from the crime.” It is sufficient for him that the <i>intention</i> and +the <i>responsibility</i> is appreciated, in order to attach the penalty to +morality. In default of which, writes he, there would be no more +justice. It is a noble solicitude, that of wishing to justify punishment +in the eyes of the guilty person himself, and to inflict it on +him as an expiation of the evil he has committed. But here an error +is fallen into, which is, in my opinion, to suppose that the law punishes +“morally.” The law has not the power to inflict moral +chastisement. It strikes the delinquent materially, in his goods, in +his person; the rest depends not on the judge who applies the law, +but on the judge who is in ourselves, the avenger more or less severe +according to the complex incidences of education and heredity. +Moral chastisement can exist only in the conscience of the delinquent, +and, if this conscience is wanting, or nearly so, all the +affirmations of the judge cannot cause the punishment to have the +quality of moral expiation for the guilty. The criminal will submit +to it through force, and the magistrate will apply it by necessity.</p> + +<p>Such is, I think, the true situation. The new school of criminology +will introduce reforms in the practice of the tribunals and in +the administration of the penal laws; it will not change justice and +could not compromise morality. And now pardon me for adding +to these some further remarks, in connection with the books of +which I have still to speak.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The interests and the passions of men, habits too long acquired +to alter, can be considered as the immediate and constant motives +of societies, the <i>vis à tergo</i> of their evolution. Political theories +work on a pre-existing social matter, and more or less in the direction +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_589">[589]</span>of the tendencies which have produced the state of things that +they aspire to reform or overturn. In a general manner, they possess +then neither the power necessary to create, attributed to them +by utopists, nor the power to destroy, which makes them appear so +formidable to conservatives. Without denying all efficiency to the +intellectual ideal, it is permissible to say that its action has a bearing +purely conditional, and that the revolutions of growth of social +organisms never absolutely depend on the theorist who establishes +its diagnosis, and endeavors to regulate its march. We behold, in +a word, history making itself, rather than that we make it ourselves +and according to our inclination. It is hardly possible for us to foresee +the remote effects of our inventions, of our discoveries. In sociology +as well as in physics, man remains the servant and the interpreter +of nature.</p> + +<p>There is in this, if I am not deceived, a reason for reassuring +ourselves concerning certain alarming predictions as to the future of +our civilisation. In his book <i>La Civilisation et la Croyance</i> (Civilisation +and Belief), the second edition of which has just appeared, <span class="smcap">M. +Charles Secrétan</span> estimates that our societies will sink down, at +least that they will neither return to a purified Christianity—a Christianity +that has never yet been practised—nor restore the great +principles of the free soul and of God. M. Secrétan is a brilliant +writer and has a noble heart, and his book contains at least one +truth of the first order, always good to repeat, which is that nothing +durable is founded on hatred. He dare not flatter himself, however, +that his warnings will be listened to, his lessons observed. Perhaps +he exaggerates the real dangers which menace us, because he enlarges, +unknown to himself, the rôle of philosophic doctrines, and +attributes to the mind a kind of discretionary power over the sentiments +and the interests of mankind.</p> + +<p>Here we have the intellectualist mistake. It appears chiefly in +the revolutionist propaganda which agitates our Europe, and of +which <span class="smcap">M. J. Bourdeau</span> makes known the ideas and the progress, in +a clear and interesting manner, in his work <i>Le Socialisme allemand +et le Nihilisme russe</i> (German Socialism and Russian Nihilism). +It is a fact well worthy of remark, that the genial promoter of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_590">[590]</span>theories of Fourier, St. Simon, and others—I refer to J. J. Rousseau—had +had the conjecture of a social physiology: fragments of his +that have been published show well that he did not regard the age +of gold as one of savagery, and that he foresaw the part that human +nature had to do in our calculations of government. What is found +just in his writings could even well be intimately connected with +this naturalist point of view. But he lived in the century <i>par excellence</i> +of rationalism, where such ideas could be neither developed +nor understood; he constructed the political world according to +reasoning, and I shall not be far wrong in thinking that socialism +represents in its turn, definitively, at least in its essential features, +a last offshoot from this rational school which has already, a hundred +years ago, made us the villainous present of Jacobinism.</p> + +<p>Absolute communism has no chance of ever realising itself. +Neither Karl Marx, nor Engels, has ventured even to indicate the +possible form of the society of which they dream. The action of +the socialists, in turn, could have as its result the substitution for +our régime of excessive individualism and of disordered democracy, +a régime of corporations and of more regular co-operation, by one of +those reversions to institutions anciently delineated that history presents +to us, and which respond to a sort of “law of oscillation” of +social phenomena. There is no occasion, however, to give it long +consideration to establish that these returns do not exclude novelty, +for the apparent form of social arrangements is of less moment than +the nature of the ideas and of the relations which sustain them, and +here is what I would readily call a “law of progressive repetition.” +As to the exact sense of the evolution which there manifests itself, +the great task of disengaging it falls to the sociologists. But the +school of Marx has wished to see things only from one side, and his +theory, which is too simple, does not embrace the complexity of +the phenomena.⁠<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p> + +<p>Without any pretension to renew the face of the world and to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_591">[591]</span>interpret economic phenomena in favor of an arbitrary thesis, <span class="smcap">M. +Ad. Costa</span>, in his opuscule <i>Alcoholisme ou Épargne</i> (Alcoholism or +Thrift) places before us the truly immediate question of socialism, +in the presence of this “social dilemma” which reformers willingly +mask in their discourses: on one side, alcoholism, life from +day to day, the unreasonable and momentary illusion that one imbibes +with stimulants, the wasting of daily resources, finally the pauperism +which leads to social servitude; on the other side, thrift +under all its forms, a provident life ordered with intelligence, abstention +from dangerous stimulants, progressive comfort and increasing +happiness, more and more freedom. Yes, here are the +two issues between which the workers have to choose. Those who +read this little book can learn there, both what milliards of salaries +alcohol has devoured, and what misery both physical and moral it +engenders, and the degradation that it brings to those who give +themselves up to it. To many this may be only the small side of a +great problem. Without thrift and the qualities which render it +possible, there is neither family nor morality. How can a man pretend +to possess instruments of labor when he deteriorates the chief +of all, his own living machine? How can a social class have the +illusion to believe that a revolution ever profits him who is neither +able nor capable of preparing and conducting it?</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The last work of <span class="smcap">M. E. de Laveleye</span>, <i>Le Gouvernement dans +la Démocratie</i> (Democratic Government),⁠<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> published a few months +before his death, treats chiefly of the organisation of public powers. +This question has importance to-day, writes the learned author, +only in relation to the great questions which will agitate the world +of to-morrow, the social question and the religious question. Conservatives +make use of government as a brake; revolutionists seek +to seize hold of it as a lever. The fact is that our Europe marches +towards democracy. But will democracy give us freedom? On what +conditions can it form an acceptable régime and one compatible +with high culture?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_592">[592]</span></p> + +<p>It is not necessary for me to explain here the reasonings and +conclusions of M. de Laveleye. His book, to speak the truth, is +less a book than a collection of Review articles and historical +sketches. The politics of action will find in it too much theory, and +philosophers will regret the absence of master-ideas. It is well to +read this work for its practical advice and the rich details that it +contains; we must not look there for a real historical or social conception.</p> + +<p>The sentiment which is dominant, finally, in all the writings of +which I have just spoken is inquietude, and unfortunately it is only +too well justified. We see, in our Occident, alcoholism increasing +with salaries, the hatred of classes with wealth, immorality with enfranchisement, +public burdens with political progress, the aggregation +of individuals with great industry, criminality even with education. +The wealth acquired is compensated for by new evils; it +seems that all our conquests have the result of putting social order +in peril, and that the civilisation of which we are so proud is bound, +in a short time, to become bankrupt.</p> + +<p>We have, nevertheless, a weighty capital with which to restore +ourselves, and it is only right to say that it is beginning to be applied. +But we must give up some errors as to which it is good time +to open one’s eyes. One of the gravest, certainly, is always to place +instruction before education, and the mind before the heart. We +have allowed to drop, at the same time with religion, the difficult task +of forming moral habits. Let us understand in a word that, in a +society, the most valuable thing is neither the steam engine, nor +the bank note, but the man himself, and that in the man even it is +not ability or special knowledge but <i>character</i>.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Lucien Arréat.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> I reserve, as well understood, the question of education, in order to simplify +matters here.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> A ground of mutual understanding would be supplied by accepting the distinction +proposed by P. Carus between <i>constraint</i>, which alone excludes freedom, +and <i>necessity</i>, which leaves our will free within the limits of our character. +Already Plotinus had written: “How can it be said of this being (he who obeys his +nature) that he obeys, if he is not constrained to follow something external?” (6th +<i>Enn.</i> lib. viii.)—I recommend to the curious on these questions the book of <span class="smcap">M. +Bertauld</span>, <i>Méthode Spiritualiste, Esprit et Liberté</i>. M. Bertauld places freedom +in <i>autonomy</i>, which is perfectly reconcilable with psychological determinism; there +is on the contrary, he declares, no radical contradiction between determinism and +free-will, and indeterminism is an absurd conception. The work is well written, +and I do not intend to belittle it by mentioning it in a simple note.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a> In this relation, I will particularly refer to the great work, in course of publication, +of <span class="smcap">M. B. Malon</span>, <i>Le Socialisme intégral</i>, and I recommend at the same +time the article <i>Justice and Socialism</i> of M. Belot, which has been much spoken of, +in the number for February last of the <i>Revue Philosophique</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> All the works mentioned in this article are published by F. Alcan.</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_593">[593]</span></p> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="GERMANY_IV">II.<br> +<span class="smaller">GERMANY.</span></h4> + +<p>In the January number of <i>The Monist</i> I mentioned a treatise +written by G. Ludwigs, in which the novels of Wilhelm Walloth were +criticised, and expressed my surprise that in the work discussed a +personality unquestionably diseased was stamped as a poet of almost +the first order. Much that then struck me as strange and was unclear +to me, was later rendered plain and intelligible; and the explanation +was not long in forthcoming.</p> + +<p>As the newspapers shortly afterwards announced, Ludwigs was +simply the pseudonym of a sixteen year old gymnasium student of +Darmstadt, who had already attracted the attention of wider circles +by the poems he had written. It happens at times that individualities +of this description bear out in the advanced years of their life +the promise of their youth. Extraordinary things were to be expected, +though I cannot say <i>hoped</i>, of Ludwigs; but the expectation +was not fulfilled. He, an instance of real decadence, yet a boy in +years, voluntarily took his own life, deeply mourned by his literary +associates, the “Young Germans,” in whose magazine <i>Die Gesellschaft</i> +a brother of the deceased is now publishing biographical +notes and literary remains—novels and poems—all more of a psychological +than literary interest. The biographical notes plainly +mark out a personality smitten with psychosis and suffering in a +marked degree with hyperæsthesia, and the literary remains reflect +this mental condition; light-sensations especially playing an important +rôle. His nervous system was too weak to assert itself permanently +against the outer world. This pressure, which objectively +considered was not at all a powerful one, did not admit of the rise +of a powerful sense of life; and especially oppressive to the precocious +youth was the life of the school in the most varied ways, and +in an unexpected moment the flame of his life went out.</p> + +<p>As psychologists, we should find considerable interest in the +study of this phenomenon of Ludwigs. We must admire his abilities +and his capacity for work, which not only enabled him to perform +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_594">[594]</span>his duties as a student of the gymnasium, but also left him +time enough, in addition to his literary work, to employ himself with +the psychological writings of Wundt and Münsterberg, which he +desired to turn to account in the field of poetry. We must mourn +too his sad fate. But we have no reason to <i>glorify</i> such a diseased +personality, as is done on many sides in the April number of <i>Die +Gesellschaft</i>.</p> + +<p>But this is a peculiar characteristic of the Young-German writers +and their confrères abroad, that they make the diseased take the +place of the sound, and the ugly of the beautiful, and thus help +greatly to undermine the health of the common mind. There are +it is true a goodly number of trusting souls who believe that we may +regard with security and composure, the endeavors and tendencies +of the naturalistic apostles, as our taste in literature and art—a few +cases excepted—can surely not be reversed into its opposite. On +this point, perhaps, those who so think are not wrong. But the +stage may easily be reached where literary taste no longer remains +determinative, and the place of the æsthetical interest in things is +taken by the scientific, before whose judgment-seat no difference of +the beautiful and the hideous exists.</p> + +<p>This view is the direct outcome of philosophical materialism. +The latter doctrine may at present, it is true, be regarded in all its +main points as definitively overthrown, so far as philosophy is concerned; +but in the domain of <i>belles lettres</i>—a term not quite allowable +here—the wave which it has created still sweeps mightily onward. +Two new works seek to break its force, which have been published +in the series <i>Gegen den Materialismus</i> edited by Dr. Schmidkunz +(Stuttgart: Krabbe). The first treatise bears the title <i>Materialismus +und Æsthetik</i> and has no less a person as author than <span class="smcap">Moriz Carrière</span>; +the second treats of <i>Materialism in Literature</i> and is the production +of the northerner <span class="smcap">Ola Hansson</span>. I am unable to say that +these two treatises have especially satisfied me. Both authors look +at the subject too one-sidedly from the point of view of æsthetics, +and have not by far given a sufficient recognition to the psychological +aspect of the subject. I recognise indeed with Carrière, in spite +of all the apparent mutability of taste, a normative æsthetics; but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_595">[595]</span>that man bears within him an ideal of life, as the seed does the plant +with its blossom and its fruit, I am unable for psychological reasons +to concede. I grant that I find with Ola Hansson psychology is so +far poorly represented in the naturalistic literature as the growth +and evolution of character is made to appear a much too simple +process; and I concede furthermore that the evolution of character +in the individual case is very far removed from anything like resemblance +to an example in mathematics, inasmuch as quantities +may be lacking us in such a case which are absolutely necessary to +be taken account of for a correct solution of the problem; but these +missing quantities need not for that reason be at all matters of mystery, +in their true nature wholly unknown to us.</p> + +<p>To what limits the domain of mystery has shrunk and to how +great an extent its expressions may be made intelligible and to a +certain degree even may be “regulated,” provided, equipped with +thorough knowledge, we courageously look the things in the face, is +exemplified in a marked degree by a voluminous work of the above +mentioned Dr. Schmidkunz. The so-called Suggestion passed for +a long time as something wonderful and had to rest its defence in +the hands of the representatives of a psycho-physical mysticism as +opposed to a “surface”-psychology which in the words of Du Prels +occupied itself exclusively with surface work without penetrating to +the depths. <span class="smcap">Schmidkunz</span> now points out in his <i>Psychologie der Suggestion</i> +(Stuttgart, 1892: Ferdinand Enke) in a very comprehensive +manner what others had very plainly hinted at before him, namely, +that in the case of a very great number of phenomena we have, exactly +viewed, to deal only with some very simple and quite explainable +things which unite in the composition of what is commonly +called suggestion. The contents of the work, however, are not exhausted +with this; under the influence of a tremendous scope of +reading, the author treats the whole domain of suggestion, and if he +understood more perfectly the art of good writing, he would have +earned a much greater gratitude than that which in any event is his +due.</p> + +<p>Schmidkunz touches repeatedly in his work upon a domain which +still belongs to the most obscure of the history of civilisation, namely +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_596">[596]</span>witchcraft and the trials of witches. This topic, likewise viewed +from a psychological point of view, forms the subject of a special +treatise by <span class="smcap">Snell</span>, entitled <i>Hexenprocesse und Geistesstörung</i> (Munich, +1891: J. F. Lehmann). In this book no rôle is ascribed to suggestion, +but as the title indicates the treatment centres about the question +of what significance mental disorders generally may have possessed +in the trials of witches. The author concedes that demented +persons became the victims of the trials for witchcraft either because +they had rendered themselves by their character open to the suspicion +of a compact with the devil, or because they had by self-obtrusion +directly drawn upon themselves this persecution, but asserts +nevertheless, that the number of demented persons that fell victims +to the trials for witchcraft, was comparatively very small. Mental +disorder however played in so far a great rôle in the trials for witchcraft +as demented persons, especially such as suffered from hysteria, +became false witnesses and brought sound and healthy people into +the hands of the persecuting judges.</p> + +<p>As I am now treading the province of psychiatry, I will mention, +that <span class="smcap">Wilhelm Griesinger’s</span> celebrated work <i>Pathologie und Therapie +der psychischen Krankheiten</i> has just been published in its fifth edition +under the direction of Dr. Levinstein-Schlegel, the director of +the Maison de Santé in Schöneberg (Berlin: August Hirschwald). +I do not of course specify this work solely for the sake of the physicians +who may be readers of <i>The Monist</i>, but am rather impelled to +the act by a universal psychological consideration, for Griesinger in +the first edition of the work also made a name for himself as a psychologist. +It appeared originally in 1845, and possessed a compass +of 396 pages; the fifth edition numbers 1100 pages and has increased +considerably in size as compared with the fourth. Whether the +augmentations have added anything to the value of the work is a +question which must first be submitted for answer to our physicians. +In psychological respects its value has in so far been very much increased +as the experiential data have assumed much greater proportions: +the psychological analysis however has been somewhat +neglected.</p> + +<p>Psychological analysis in fact is not the strong side of the majority +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_597">[597]</span>of our psychiatrists. What Griesinger and still more so Spielmann +sought after in this direction, has been greatly forced in the +background. As a general rule our inquirers content themselves +with a description of symptoms and the construction of a more than +copious nomenclature, in the midst of which the connections are +Very easy to be overlooked. Among the commendable exceptions +is to be named in this respect the well-known Vienna professor +<span class="smcap">Theodor Meynert</span>. In addition to his extensive psychiatrical works +he has also published a considerable number of lectures and discourses +partly in magazines and partly in separate brochures. These +discourses are now presented in collected form in a book entitled +<i>Sammlung von populärwissenschaftlichen Vorträgen über den Bau una +die Leistungen des Gehirns</i> (Vienna, 1892, Wilhelm Braumüller). +The most noticeable discourses are the following: The Significance +of the Brain for the World of our Ideas; The Mechanics of the +Cerebral Structure; On the Feelings; On Illusion; On the Significance +of the Development of the Forehead; The Mechanics of Physiognomy; +Brain and Culture; The Co-operation of the Parts of the +Brain; On Artificial Disturbances of the Psychic Equilibrium. No +words need be wasted in the recommendation of the book of Meynert.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Chr. Ufer.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_598">[598]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="DIVERSE_TOPICS_IV">DIVERSE TOPICS.</h3> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="PROFESSOR_HAECKELS_MONISM">PROFESSOR HAECKEL’S MONISM.</h4> + +</div> + +<p>There are two Latin proverbs which are both good rules for controversialists +who seek for the truth on different roads. The one reads: <i>In verbis simus faciles +dummodo conveniamus in re</i>, the other reads: <i>In verbis simus difficiles ut conveniamus +in re</i>. A difference of terms often prevents two thinkers from noticing that +they actually agree. Therefore let us be lenient in terms and never lose sight of +their meaning and purport. On the other hand terms are not indifferent, and the +selection of terms should not be regarded as arbitrary. In order to arrive at a solid +and permanent agreement, permanent because it is based upon objectively demonstrable +truth, we have to be scrupulously careful with our terminology; and we +must not allow the arbitrary employment of terms where they are inappropriate. +An inappropriate usage of terms will lead us astray and involve us in confusion and +error.</p> + +<p>Says Professor Haeckel:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The divergences which exhibit themselves in our respective unitary conceptions +of the world are in part only apparent and in part occasioned by the divergent +significances of our fundamental ideas.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This seems to me very true and, indeed, I have very good evidence that it is +true. Professor Haeckel writes in his letter to me:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I have marked in <i>red</i> those passages of your kind review of my ‘Anthropogeny’ +in which I agree with you and in <i>blue</i> those in which I differ.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Now I find all those passages where I should have anticipated an objection on +Professor Haeckel’s part marked red, while a blue mark appears where in my +opinion there is only a difference of terminology. It is the following sentence on +page 441:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Psychic life is absent so far as we can see in the primordial world-substance +as it appears in the form of a nebula; it is absent still in the primordial state of +planets. It appears with the subjective states of awareness that rise into existence +in organised life. The subjectivity of unorganised matter is, in comparison with +man’s subjectivity, to be considered as a blank; i. e., if there is in it a state of +awareness, which we have reasons to doubt, it is apparently without meaning; it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_599">[599]</span>does not symbolise external objects; it is no mind; it is, as it were, blind. Yet the +aim of evolution being the development of psychical life, shows that the subjectivity +of unorganised matter is spiritual in its innermost nature.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This difference is probably a difference of terminology only, for I insist most +strongly on the doctrine that all nature is alive. However, I make a difference between +“life” and “soul.” Nature is alive throughout, but it is not ensouled; the +action of chemical elements and of the falling stone are no psychical actions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a></p> + +<p>Another blue stroke appears at the following passage:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We grant willingly that mechanical explanations will serve for all motions +that take place in the world; even the motions of the brain take place in strict +obedience to the laws of molar and molecular mechanics. But a mechanical explanation +is not applicable to that which is not motion. If it were applicable it +would not be desirable, for it would be of no avail. Mechanical explanations are +to be limited to mechanical phenomena. Feeling however is not a mechanical +phenomenon, and an idea, being a special and a very complex kind of a feeling, or +rather and more accurately expressed, being the special meaning of a very complex +feeling, is not a mechanical phenomenon either.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The subsequent sentences are again approved by Professor Haeckel; they are +marked red:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It is true that when a feeling takes place and when an idea is thought in the +brain of an organised being, that a certain nervous action takes place. The nervous +action is a motion and this motion represents a definite amount of energy. There is +no theoretical difficulty, although there are almost insurmountable practical difficulties, +in measuring the definite amount of potential energy that is changed into +kinetic energy when a man thinks. Yet the brain-motion is not the idea and by a +mechanical explanation of the brain-motion we have not even touched the problem +of what the nature of the idea is, why ideas originate and how they act.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We do not understand how Professor Haeckel can object to the view that ideas +and feelings are no motions. We fully grant that the nervous action that takes +place when an idea is thought is a motion, and that, considered as a brain-action, +it is mechanically explainable. But by feeling we understand not the brain-action +but a state of awareness, and states of awareness are not objective phenomena, they +are subjective phenomena; whereby we do not at all deny that there are no feelings +which must not in their objective existence at the same time be supposed to be +brain-motions.</p> + +<p>Feelings are not motions but ideas are still less motions. Ideas are the meanings +which certain feelings that are representative of certain sets of experiences have +acquired. Is the meaning of a word a motion? Can the significance of words be +mechanically explained? The meaning of ideas, the significance of words, the representativeness +of feelings are phenomena which have nothing to do with motions +but constitute a domain of their own.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_600">[600]</span></p> + +<p>Professor Haeckel in our opinion can mean only that there are no feelings in +themselves, but all our feelings are at the same time brain-motions, and as such +they are mechanical phenomena. We have to add, however, that an explanation +of the mechanism of brain-action does not as yet explain the significance of mental +operations.</p> + +<p>Professor Haeckel insists so strongly upon his view of monism as being mechanicalism +that this seems to mark a difference in our conceptions which might be +of consequence.</p> + +<p>I was very glad to notice the long strokes of red along the passages which contain +my proposition that “the evolution of organised life is a natural process having +a definite aim”; further, along the paragraphs concerning the world-order as being +moral in so far as the world-order is the basis of morality, and also those which +represent God as being that power of the world-order obedience to which is called +morality.</p> + +<p>Professor Haeckel’s agreement with these passages indicates that those expressions +of his to which we should take exception, and which he employs again in his +article of the present number, might not be regarded as divergences.</p> + +<p>Professor Haeckel’s definition of God appears to us insufficient, and also his +definition of immortality.</p> + +<p>God is not only the sum-total of matter and force, God is also that quality of +the world which the naturalist describes in natural laws. God is the life of the +world, he is that feature of existence which makes mind and knowledge possible. +In addition he is that which men call progress, the ideal of the future that lives in +our souls and the principle of evolution in nature.</p> + +<p>There is a deeper truth too in the doctrine of immortality. There is a conservation +of matter and energy, but there is also a preservation of soul. Says Professor +Haeckel, “the human soul is a very highly developed vertebral soul.” If that is so, +the soul of our fossil ancestors continues to live in us. This soul has been altered, +it is true, but the alterations are not so much a loss as a gain. The alterations +consist in the additional growth of new powers and represent a higher development. +All that which was worth preserving has been preserved.</p> + +<p>And as it has been in the past, so we can confidently expect that it will be in +the future. All that is worth preserving of our souls will be preserved in the ages +to come. Our souls will live and develop to higher possibilities. They will be transmitted +from generation to generation, advancing on the unlimited path of evolutionary +progress.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">P. C.</span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h5>FOOTNOTES:</h5> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> We intend to express our views more fully in a special article to be published in a subsequent +number of <i>The Monist</i>.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="THE_RELIGION_OF_SCIENCE">THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE.</h4> + +</div> + +<p>There was during the last winter great excitement in Germany, concerning a +new school-bill proposed by the chancellor Caprivi, and the late Prussian minister +of cultus, Zedlitz-Trützschler. This school-bill proposed to take the direction +of the public schools out of the hands of scientific men and transfer it to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_601">[601]</span>clergy. The idea of the Emperor was to let the education of the young be guided +in a religious spirit. He intended to wage a war against atheism.</p> + +<p>Among the pamphlets which were written during the crisis, is especially noteworthy +the monograph of the late minister of cultus, Herr von Gosler, whom we +should count among the most conservative of Prussian officials. His opposition, +accordingly, is the more remarkable, and his objections had much weight with the +Emperor.</p> + +<p>The Emperor has withdrawn the bill. Nevertheless, the spirit of ultra-conservatism, +which shows itself in an outspoken hostility against science, still remains +strong enough, and new onslaughts upon the progressive policy in school and church, +may be expected in the future. The question is timely still and will remain timely +until there be a common agreement concerning the principles of education, so that +our school politics may no longer be decided by and subjected to partisan strife.</p> + +<p>Attacks that are made upon the very spirit of the institution of our civilisation +and the political crises following thereupon are beneficial in one respect. They +make people pause; they make them reconsider the principles by which they allow +their conduct to be regulated. They make men conscious of the maxims that ought +to underlie their lives and which generally are accepted by the majority without +much reflection. The Prussian school-bill has indeed exercised a wholesome influence, +for it called attention to the importance of principles and roused the German +nation from religious indifference. During the conflict many scientists and +professors of universities, who as a rule interfere little with politics, have raised +their voice in warning, and many valuable ideas were expressed that found a strong +echo in the heart of the people.</p> + +<p>There are two articles written by German professors which have commanded +very wide attention inside and outside of Germany. The one article was written +by Professor Haeckel of Jena, in the <i>Freie Bühne</i>, the most important passages of +which appeared at the time in <i>The Open Court</i>, No. 243. The other article was +written by Friedrich Jodl, of Prague. It appeared first in the Augsburger <i>Allgemeine +Zeitung</i>, and was republished in pamphlet form by Cotta, in Stuttgart. The +former is an enthusiastic appeal to let science, which is the basis of our civilisation, +remain the basis of our educational maxims in schools and universities. The +latter discusses the philosophical principles of the conflict.</p> + +<p>We are greatly in sympathy with the spirit in which Professor Jodl has treated +his subject. Nay, more, we substantially agree with him concerning all main facts, +and also concerning the sense in which our future development should be directed. +Nevertheless there are points of disagreement, which we consider of sufficient importance +to point out and explain.</p> + +<p>The ultra-conservative party stands upon the platform that there can be no +morality without religion, and no religion without dogmatism. For this reason +dogmatism should rule supreme in the schools, and science should be subservient +to religious creed. That this means curtailment of the freedom of investigation, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_602">[602]</span>and the suppression of the liberty of science, is understood by all the parties concerned. +The liberals so apprehend it, and the ultra-conservatives do not deny it. +In the face of this situation Professor Jodl proposes the question, “Is there a humanitarian +morality possible?” (p. 8 of the pamphlet “Moral, Religion, und +Schule.”) He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“A mere glance into the numerous anthologies of the moral wisdom of all +times and centuries, shows that the agreement concerning moral ideas and norms +is much greater, and it recedes much more into the dim past than is usually +assumed. The writings of Laotse and Confutse, the popular literature of Buddhism, +the fragments of old Egyptian law, the didactic poetry of Islam, contain +a great wealth of moral wisdom, and treasures of the noblest ethical sentiment +which the Christian Occident likes to regard as its own exclusive property. Especially +the ancients, whose civilisation, in spite of much opposition, is still the basis +of our civilisation, furnish us with a series of the most beautiful moral types and +ideals, and there we find, beside many valuable features of Christian ethics, other +no less valuable gems which we seek for in vain in the old Christian morality, and +which were not recognised until Christianity came into contact with the Teutonic +nations of northern Europe. Our ultra-conservatives argue that without catechisms +humanity would stand helpless before the question of what is right and wrong, and +what the growing generation should be taught in order to make them useful and +honorable members of society.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In opposition to these views Professor Jodl urges that</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If society of to-day can at all tolerate that such doctrines as Christian morality +are taught in our schools as the foundation of practical conduct of life, this is possible +only because the ethics of the old biblical Christianity has, in the course of centuries, +grown to be something quite different from what it was in the beginning. The +throughout communistic, labor-abhorring, world-hating, miracle-infatuated morality +of original Christianity, constantly dreaming of the collapse of the world near at +hand, and suited only to the demands of the paupers of the time, could only be +changed and adapted to the conditions of later periods of radically different conditions, +with great difficulty. The Catholic church has done much to accomplish this +purpose, and in a still higher degree Protestantism has made many concessions to +humanitarian ethics and practical reason. These concessions, however, must appear +from the historical standpoint, as adulterations of the Christian ideas. Exactly +in the degree that Christian morality in modern times has remained a living power, +it has ceased to remain Christian in the historical sense.... The tendency of +the whole development of the modern world is to conceive the moral norms as natural +conditions of human society, and to understand them in their connection of the +individual with the whole. This thought and sentiment must become in the child +a living power, and morality cannot expect in this respect help from religion. Religion +knows only the relation of the individual to God, as it is expressed in the +mystical ideas of sin and mercy. Religion knows no duties and goals for humanity, +but only for the egotistic desire of salvation for the individual. Religion knows +no progress, no evolution, but only eternal life or eternal damnation. The civilised +nations of Europe had to go through with many hard struggles in order to arrive at +the idea that there is a humanitarian, and a natural, morality, in comparison with +which all religious dogmatism must be considered as indifferent additions. Only +on the basis of this conviction is it possible that there exist to-day so many religious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_603">[603]</span>confessions of faith, and among them also those who are religious without having +any special confession. Here lies the great duty of our time for enlightened legislation, +for our schools, to take care that the universal Christian be developed from +the narrow dogmatism, and, further, the universal human ideal, from the universal +Christian. To expect this of the clergy of the different religious societies, would be +a mistake.... The theological spirit and the principle of free investigation, +are irreconcilable adversaries. Every religion, of whatever denomination it may +be, is stable in its very nature. It pretends to be eternal truth, and whenever it +compromises with the idea of progress, it does so reluctantly, and in the form of +concessions.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We agree with Professor Jodl in his opinion that our present dogmatic religions +are entirely unfit to understand the demands of the present. And it is true that the +humanitarian ideas of morality have been slowly developed from the crude and immature +notions of the apostolic times. The aim of our moral development must be +humanitarian ethics. But we disagree with professor Jodl that we cannot expect a +further evolution of our moral ideas from the clergy.</p> + +<p>It seems to me that here lies the important difference between the old and the +new world. Conditions favor religious progress in America, while the conditions +in Europe cut off all hope and produce an ominous stagnancy.</p> + +<p>The clergy of the old world, in Germany as well as in England, and in all +Catholic countries, are appointed only on the condition of being ultra-conservative +in religious matters, as well as otherwise. No young man whose enthusiasm would +carry him so far as to suggest reforms on broader humanitarian principles, would +be admitted in the church as ministers. And if he had been admitted by mistake, +he would meet with a fate similar to that of the Abbé Lamennais, whose experiences +are admirably described by George Julian Harney, in No. 213 of <i>The Open Court</i>.</p> + +<p>The situation is greatly different in America. Our clergymen, our congregations, +our churches, are perhaps more orthodox in many respects, and especially in +their belief, than those of Europe. Nevertheless, they are more liberal in principles, +and they are less obstinate concerning dogma. Most of our churches here +do not even possess dogmatic creeds, or confessions of faith. The clergy of the +Baptists, the Congregationalists, the Unitarians, are not bound by oath before taking +orders; to believe in sundry articles and to preach certain doctrines which are +supposed to be absolute truth. The Baptists, it is true, are as a rule very orthodox +and very dogmatic, but they are liberal in spite of it, open to conviction, and not +averse to going onward with the times. This attitude of the American clergy must +appear inconsistent to Europeans who can, in ecclesiastical affairs, only judge from +their own experiences. And it may be that their position is as much inconsistent +as was for instance that of Newton, who considered the trash he wrote on some theological +questions concerning the apocalypse as infinitely superior to his mathematical +and astronomical works and did not see that the recognition of the law of gravitation +would go far toward freeing humanity from many of those nonsensical ideas +which he cherished so highly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_604">[604]</span></p> + +<p>In former times I was inclined to blame the clergy for the lack of progressiveness +in the churches, but I have come to the conclusion that not the clergy are to +be blamed for retarding the broadening of the religious spirit, but the lay-members +of the churches. I am personally acquainted with several clergymen of different denominations, +Christian as well as Jewish, who conceive it their duty to point out the +way of progress and to further the spirit of a scientific world-conception in religious +matters. They advance exactly as quickly and exactly as far as they can in working +out of the narrow dogmatism of the religious views of their flock the ideas of a +broad humanitarianism.</p> + +<p>It has often happened that clergymen, encouraged by their congregations, have +grown too broad in the opinion of their narrower brethren, and it was customary, +in former years, to cast them out according to the old fashion of dealing with heretics, +which is still customary in European churches. The churches have become +more careful here, for, whenever such a case happened, these liberal clergymen +were, as a rule, not deserted by their congregations. Thus every act of removing +a clergyman usually led to a schism, and it seems that, at least to some extent, the +churches have of late given up their policy of removing heretics within their ranks.</p> + +<p>This much is certain, that many among the American clergy are ready to progress +with the times, and to accept the truth wherever they find it. In Europe religion +is dictated to the people from above by government and church authority. +The clergymen are servants of these authorities. Their consciences are not bound, +as they ought to be, to teach the truth and nothing but the truth, but to teach the +doctrines which their employers bid them teach. And this policy is still considered +right and natural, even among liberal minded people.</p> + +<p>In America the clergy are exponents of the views of their congregations. In +Europe the congregations are separated from their pastors by a deep gap: there is +no gap between the congregation and the clergy in America. Both are in the +closest contact. Our congregations are more orthodox than European congregations; +therefore our clergy is more sincerely orthodox, and more honestly narrow, +than the European clergy. The European clergy are more scholarly, yet at the +same time there may be more hypocrites among them in Europe who know better +than they preach. But there is no doubt that with a further development of intellectuality +and scientific insight, our congregations will become broader and more +liberal and more humanitarian, and, with the congregations, our clergy are bound +to develop in the same lines.</p> + +<p>European theology is much superior to American theology in scholarly critique, +in historical investigation, and in philosophical depth. Nevertheless, we must not +hope from European theologians that they will undertake the great work of reform +that is so much needed in our churches, which is nothing less than to reconcile religion +with science; to let religion develop into a religion of science, preaching +boldly and unreservedly those humanitarian ethics which stand upon the principles +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_605">[605]</span>of truth; that is, of scientifically proved truth, which finds the sanction of the +moral “ought” in the facts of experience.</p> + +<p>Professor Jodl says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The main objection of the supporters of dogmatism in school politics is this: +They propose it is not so much religion that is needed in education; not the contents +of ecclesiastical doctrines, but to give to morality a foundation; to give it +what science calls the sanction of ethical rules.... From this standpoint, every attempt +that is liable to weaken the ethics of religious sanction must appear equivalent +to the attempt of abolishing criminal law and penal institutes, and to deliver +the peaceful citizens into the hands of murderers and robbers.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Professor Jodl continues:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The nature of religious sanction consists in this: that the moral rules are +conceived as the behests of an all-powerful, omniscient being, that promises to immortal +man for their fulfilment, eternal rewards, and for their non-fulfilment eternal +punishment in the life beyond.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In opposition to this view Professor Jodl maintains that</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Man’s morality, on the one hand, has never been preserved from error by an +outlook into the beyond of heaven and hell, and, on the other hand, there have +never been missing those impulses that originate in the depths of human nature +working in the line of moral ideas.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>These impulses are, according to Professor Jodl, the purely moral sanction of +conscience. And conscience is represented as, and in another place called, “the +natural sanction of morality.”</p> + +<p>This view of regarding conscience as the natural sanction of morality does not +appear to us as a happy expression, and it seems to us that Professor Jodl did not +intend it as it might be understood. For Professor Jodl speaks in another passage +of “the natural impulses of morality as having their sanction in <i>experience</i>.”</p> + +<p>If that be so, conscience would not be the ultimate authority, but conscience +would have to be regulated and corrected by a rationalised experience.</p> + +<p>If “the natural impulses of morality have their sanction in experience,” the +ultimate authority would be the facts represented in experience; and the facts +of experience, in their totality, are nothing more or less than the whole universe +with its natural laws and conceived in its cosmical order. The universe, the All, +nature, or whatever you call it, is indeed an omnipotent reality which man cannot +resist, and in which he can live only by adapting himself to its laws. If +this ultimate authority of the natural laws be called by the religious term “God,” +we shall see at once that the old dogmatic religions express a very deep truth in +mythological language. The ultimate sanction of morality is not our conscience, +but that omnipotent power which resides in the objective world of realities, in the +cosmical order of the universe.</p> + +<p>We might as well say that everybody shall regard his watch as the ultimate +standard of time as to make his conscience the criterion of morality. May everybody +use his watch wisely and regulate it well. And so may everybody revise his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_606">[606]</span>conscience and investigate diligently whether it agrees with the laws of that all-power +of which we are a small part and through which alone we exist.</p> + +<p>Professor Jodl praises very highly the French institution of a so-called purely +moral instruction in the public schools. Father H. Gruber, however, points out +some serious shortcomings in this system of moral education, resulting from a lack +of principle. (See <i>Stimmen aus Maria-Laach</i>, Freiburg i. B., 1892, No. 4.)</p> + +<p>It is apparent that moral commands cannot be based upon purely subjective +notions or ideals, they must be based upon some objective authority which is a +power that enforces obedience. Such a power exists. It is the world in which we +live. It is that All-being of which we are a part. And that feature of nature which +enforces that conduct which we call moral is named God in the terminology of religious +language.</p> + +<p>A consideration like this points out the way to a reconciliation between science +and religion. There is a truth in the old religions, and this truth need only be +purified from the errors that cluster about it, hiding its grandeur, beauty, and importance. +Let the church and its authorities recognise science and the principle of +free investigation; let them be ready to accept the scientific methods of research; +let them be willing to accept truth as it can be proved by arguments and verified +by experience as well as by experiments; and we need no longer worry about dogmatism +and the narrowness of their sectarian doctrines. All these accidental features +of religion will, then, pass away, and we shall have a religion which the scientist +and the philosopher can embrace.</p> + +<p>This is what we call the Religion of Science; and the Religion of Science is +bound to be the religion of the future. The Religion of Science will not abolish +the religions of the past, but it will develop them, broaden them, perfect them, into +the cosmical religion of humanitarianism.</p> + +<p>To teach an ethics that either has no sanction, or whose sanction is built upon +the diverging opinions of individuals, will not do. Ethics must be based upon the +sanction of some objective authority, and the recognition of an objective authority, +of a power which enforces a certain kind of conduct, being religion, we say +that no ethics can be without a religious basis.</p> + +<p>The problem at present is not how to teach irreligious ethics—all such attempts +are failures at the start; but to change the mythology of the old religions into a +clear, scientific conception of the natural conditions which demand of man that he +should observe those rules which we are wont to call moral.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">P. C.</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="THE_FUTURE_POSITION_OF_LOGICAL_THEORY">THE FUTURE POSITION OF LOGICAL THEORY.</h4> + +</div> + +<p>In last October’s number of <i>The Monist</i>, Professor John Dewey gives a sketch +of what in his view is “the present position of logical theory.” According to this +the basis of the position seems to be that “the only possible thought is the reflection +of the significance of fact,” and that therefore logic, which is the science of the +laws of thought, rests in reality on an objective basis. He supports Hegel in denying +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_607">[607]</span>“the existence of any faculty of thought which is other than the expression +of fact itself.” Now it is doubtless the case that this is the position at present taken +up by a large number of logicians, but as this position seems to me to be fundamentally +erroneous I should like to put before your readers what I hope will be +“the future position of logical theory.” I have elsewhere worked out in some detail +a theory of reasoning which differs from that commonly accepted chiefly in +this, that it recognises not two, but three kinds of reasoning, which I call Objective, +Subjective, and Symbolic. Reasoning is commonly divided into two branches, denoted +by various pairs of terms, such as Objective and Subjective, Inductive and +Deductive, Empirical and Formal. The lines of division indicated by these various +pairs of terms are not quite identical; but they none of them indicate what seems +to me the most important distinction of all, namely that between real, and symbolic +argument. There <i>does</i> exist (I will not say a “faculty of thought,” but) a method +of argument which “is other than the expression of fact itself,” whether of objective +or of subjective fact. The term “formal reasoning” is indeed often used to +denote this kind of argument, but this is a bad name to give it, since it seems to imply, +and frequently is held to imply, that it deals with the <i>forms</i> of objective or +subjective facts, whereas in reality it deals only with symbols, which are arbitrarily +defined, and which do not necessarily correspond to any things whatever, whether +objective or subjective. That this kind of argument not only exists, but flourishes +is evident as soon as it is grasped that pure mathematics is nothing but a branch of +symbolic logic. It may be that there exists somewhere a fact of which any conceivable +mathematical formula might be regarded as the reflexion, but it must +surely be evident that it was not to the reflexion of such facts that mathematical +formulæ in general owe their existence or validity. It may perhaps be true “that +fact, reality is significant,” and even that thoughts are themselves such significant +realities, but it is the thoughts that are given to us first, or rather sensations which +are the elements of thoughts, and we can only infer the realities from them, and not +<i>vice versa</i>.</p> + +<p>The essence of my theory of logic may be briefly stated thus. The meaning +of a logical term contains two parts, its denotation and its connotation. Either of +these parts may be laid down arbitrarily as its <i>definition</i>, leaving the other part +which I call its <i>import</i> to be found out by experience. To understand both parts of +the meaning of any term is therefore to possess real knowledge. Pure symbolic +reasoning deals only with the definitions of terms, and is not therefore founded on +real knowledge, nor can it alone ever lead to real knowledge. Thus if in any proposition +the definitions of the terms are deducible from one another, the proposition +may be proved symbolically and is what I call a truism: it gives no real information. +But if the definitions of the terms are independent of each other, and yet not +inconsistent, the proposition can only be intended to assert the identity of the imports +of the terms; it therefore ascribes import to the terms and gives real information, +whether true or false. If any terms in a symbolic argument are however +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_608">[608]</span>known to have real import, it may be ascribed to them in real propositions, and +any conclusions of the argument which contain only such terms will <i>ipso facto</i> be +made to yield real information, which may be new in the sense that it was not before +recognised, though it was of course implied in the real assertion or assertions +which ascribed import to the terms of the symbolic argument.</p> + +<p>It is in this way possible to separate any science into two branches, one of +which consists purely of symbolic argument founded on definitions alone, while the +other may be expressed in a series of propositions, the definitions of whose terms +are independent of each other, and which ascribe real import (whether objective or +subjective) to the terms of the symbolic science, or some of them.</p> + +<p>This is as far as pure logic can go. The question how the truth of any real +propositions comes to be known is not, in my opinion, any part of logical theory, +but belongs to metaphysics. However that is no reason for not discussing it here, +especially as it is the chief question discussed in Professor Dewey’s paper.</p> + +<p>“Truth” means some sort of consistency in a proposition. We may compare +a symbolic argument to a game with counters, the rules of which are laid down +arbitrarily, and to say that a given conclusion of such an argument is true only +means that the game has been “played fair.” But the truth of a real proposition +does not depend on any arbitrary rules. It expresses a consistency between two +real facts, either that two named groups of things possess certain common attributes, +or that certain of the things possessing named groups of attributes are identical. +The essential element of all real knowledge is then a connecting link between +a thing and an attribute, such as is afforded by a well-understood word.</p> + +<p>Now the only “things” which we can apprehend directly are our subjective +sensations and conceptions. We can compare two or more sensations or conceptions, +and recognise in them common attributes. Thus I can say of my own knowledge +that the sensations I denote by “the taste of sugar” and “the taste of lead +acetate” have a common attribute, which I call “sweetness.” This is a real assertion, +for its truth is not deducible from the definitions of its terms, and yet I +know, by direct apprehension, that it is true. But it is only a subjective truth. +The corresponding objective assertion would be sugar and acetate of lead both produce, +when tasted, the sensation of sweetness. And I have no direct apprehension +of this fact. That the tastes referred to in the former proposition were produced +by objective things denoted by the terms sugar and acetate of lead, can only be inferred +by the process called induction, which can never lead to a positive or necessary +truth.</p> + +<p>Thus we may from a pure symbolic science proceed one step further, to a subjective +science, by the aid of direct apprehension, and the results of such a subjective +science may in certain cases attain the position of absolute, or necessary truths. +But on the other hand, all objective sciences must rest on induction. Now the +true nature of induction is, I am persuaded, commonly misapprehended, because it +is not realised sufficiently clearly that the prime data of induction are not themselves +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_609">[609]</span>objective, but subjective facts. An “objective fact” is really only an hypothesis, +postulated to account for certain of our subjective sensations. The only +justification for making such an hypothesis is that it actually does explain certain +sensations, and the measure of its probability (for we can never assert it as a necessary +certainty) is the number and complexity of the sensations which it accounts +for. The first of all such objective hypotheses is that we have an objective environment +to whose action our sensations, or some of them, are due. This suggests +at once a more general hypothesis, commonly known as the law of causation, +namely that the conditions obtaining in the objective universe at any one moment +are the effective causes of those obtaining at the next, and so at any subsequent moment. +These two hypotheses, together with certain subsidiary ones, do suffice to +account for an enormous number, if not all, of our sensations, and so we are justified +in entertaining them. But to leave out the notion of <i>effective</i> causation, and to +substitute a mere rule of sequence, is to remove the only justification we have for +assuming the hypothesis of causation at all. It is perhaps conceivable that the hypothesis +may be false, that our sensations are not “caused by” an objective environment +but if so what reason remains for believing in that environment at all? I +can never know anything whatever about an objective universe, unless some of my +sensations about which alone I know anything directly, are caused by that universe. +It is perhaps thinkable that there should be an objective universe in which events +occur which in no sense <i>cause</i> my subjective sensations, but to which those sensations +nevertheless happen to correspond; but if this is so the sensations afford me +no ground whatever for believing in the occurrence of the events, or the objectivity +of the universe.</p> + +<p>Well then, the essence of induction is the assumption of an hypothesis to account +for observed facts—first of all of directly observed sensations, and then of +facts assumed to be objective in virtue of the primary hypothesis. That this account +of induction is the true one is I think particularly enforced by the consideration +of those cases to which at first sight it does not seem to apply. A common example +of induction is afforded by our belief that the sun will rise to-morrow. That it has +risen every morning for the last four thousand years or more is no reason whatever +for believing that it will rise to-morrow, unless it is held to point to some explanatory +hypothesis. Such an hypothesis has actually been framed by astronomers, and +no one would now pretend to found his belief in the sun’s rising to-morrow on the +mere fact that it has often risen before, but would go on to explain that it must rise +unless the earth were to stop revolving, etc. If at Monte Carlo the red turned up +ten times running, would that be any reason for expecting it to turn up again, the +eleventh time? No, it would not unless the succession of reds seemed to point to +some explanatory hypothesis, such as a defect in the roulette. Again, the fact that +in the last fifty years the death rate in London has been about twenty-eight per +thousand would be no reason for believing that it will be about that figure this year +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_610">[610]</span>except on the assumption that the constancy of the death rate indicated certain constant +causes, which we have no reason to believe have been altered this year.</p> + +<p>Having once assumed that our environment is objective, and as a corollary the +hypothesis of causation, the whole of physical science follows, step by step. Subsidiary +hypotheses are introduced at each stage and justified by the way they account +for observed results. To show how a single hypothesis is capable of explaining +a large number of observed results, the full meaning of the hypothesis is elucidated +by symbolic reasoning. By such reasoning it is for example shown that the +same hypothesis, of universal gravitation, is capable of accounting, not only for the +movements of the stars, but for the tides, the flow of rivers, the falling of unsupported +bodies, the rising of balloons, the movements of the balance in Cavendish’s +experiment, and so on. That such wide extensions of an hypothesis are possible +tends greatly to confirm, not only the hypothesis itself, but the fundamental hypotheses +of objectivity and causation also. But it does not prove either the one or the +others. We cannot know anything about the objective universe with absolute certainty, +but we may reasonably believe a certain hypothesis about it with any degree +of conviction we think suitable; that is we may (and of course we actually do) act +on all occasions <i>as if</i> we knew absolutely that they were true.</p> + +<p>We may then believe, and I for one do believe, not only in the objectivity of +the universe, but that even my own subjective sensations are mere bye-products of +that universe. I <i>believe</i> that objective facts are, if I may so express it, more real +than subjective sensations; that in fact the objective universe might have existed, +and might exist again without any subjective element in it anywhere. But I cannot +<i>know</i> this, it is with me a matter of faith. Thus I cannot agree with Hegel, that +“all possible thought is the reflexion of the significance of fact” (except perhaps in +the sense that thought is the reflexion of the significance of certain changes in the +grey matter of the brain) for this would seem to imply that stupid or contradictory +thoughts reflected stupid or contradictory significance in certain facts. But I believe +that men of science are gradually evolving a system of thought which will +more and more faithfully reflect the significance of fact, and that thus science is +actually building up truth. But all science must begin with, and be founded upon, +subjective knowledge, and therefore any theory of positivism contradicts itself +for it must be founded on faith. Science is thus founded on faith, faith in things +not directly apprehended, just as truly as religion is. It is only because we unconsciously +acquire this faith in our infancy, and that it is in most cases amply justified +by subsequent experience, that we do not even recognise the fact that it is faith, in +exactly the same sense that belief in God is. But just as men have sometimes lost +their faith in God, so it may happen to a man to loose his faith in reality, and logic +is quite as incapable of shaking a man out of the one position as out of the other.</p> + +<p>This I take it is the key to the agnosticism of such men of science as Mr. +Huxley. I do not for a moment suppose that Mr. Huxley believes less than most +men; he probably has good grounds for believing a great deal more. Only he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_611">[611]</span>rightly refuses to say that he <i>knows</i> facts of which he can have had no direct apprehension +and which he can only infer more or less probably, to be true. Hypotheses +which as we push our investigations are shown to be capable of explaining +more and more facts, that is, ultimately, more and more sensations, will in the end +come to be believed in without doubt or hesitation. If a man says he <i>knows</i> the +law of gravitation to be true, he commits a logical blunder; but there is nothing to +prevent a scientific man from believing in any miracle or prodigy, so long as the +account he gives of it does not contradict itself. Not only may two equally reasonable +men form very different estimates of the probability of the same event, even +with the same evidence before them, but one man may put his faith to a proposition +with admittedly much lower degree of probability than would be required to +convince another. Only, a scientific man will always distinguish between what he +knows and what he believes, and will admit that though he has made up his mind +to act <i>as if</i> he knew to be true the propositions he only believes to be so, yet another +man may reasonably take a different view of any one of them.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Edward T. Dixon.</span></p> + +<p>Trin. Coll., Cambridge, Jan. 8, 1892.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4 class="nobreak" id="COMTE_AND_TURGOT">COMTE AND TURGOT.</h4> + +</div> + +<p>On page 410 of the last number of <i>The Monist</i>, it was stated that the doctrine +of the three stages of knowledge was not properly a Comtean idea but belonged to +Turgot. The following letter from Professor Schaarschmidt of Bonn informs us +of the passages in Turgot where the statement of the doctrine is found:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="noindent"><i>To the Editor of The Monist</i>:</p> + +<p>To your note of inquiry of the 22d of last month I have the honor to reply, +that the Comtean theory of the <i>trois états</i> may be traced back to utterances of Turgot +made by him in his <i>Second discours sur les progrès successifs de l’esprit humain +prononcé le 2me décembre 1750</i>—namely in the Sorbonne. You will find the discourse +referred to in the edition of the works of Turgot which I now have before +me, namely that of Guillaumin, Paris, 1844, in Vol. II, at pages 597 et seqq. The +passage in question is found at p. 600-601. However, it is highly probable that the +so-called <i>loi des trois états</i> was <i>directly</i> transmitted to Comte by St. Simon, who +reproduced the idea of Turgot in his <i>Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du +XIXme Siècle</i>, at pages 62-63. For Comte was dependent in many respects on St. +Simon, while it is probable that he had never studied Turgot. To St. Simon, in +fact, is due the expression “philosophie positive,” as well as the germ-notion of +the division of the Sciences, which Comte further elaborated.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Schaarschmidt.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_612">[612]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_REVIEWS_IV">BOOK REVIEWS.</h3> + +</div> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Darwin and after Darwin. I. The Darwinian Theory.</span> By <i>George John Romanes</i>, +M. A., LL. D., F. R. S. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Chicago: +The Open Court Publishing Co. 1892.</h4> + +<p>In the present work by Professor Romanes, who may be regarded as the special +exponent of Darwin’s theory of organic evolution, we have a complete and systematic +presentation of “Darwinism according to Darwin.” It is the outcome of a +course of lectures delivered by the author in 1889 before the Royal Institution, +London, and forms only part of a much more extensive treatise on the Darwinian +theory, embracing the early history of biology, and a discussion of the further developments +of the theory subsequent to the death of the great naturalist who gave +it birth. The present part is limited to what is distinctly Darwinian, dealing with +it and with the main objections raised against the general theory of organic evolution +it enforces.</p> + +<p>The subject naturally divides into two parts, and Professor Romanes accordingly +deals with it in two sections, in the first of which he considers organic evolution +as a fact, stating the main evidences in support of the doctrine, while in the +second section he furnishes “the evidences which thus far have been brought to +light touching the causes of organic evolution considered as a process.” The author +points out in his introductory remarks, that in order to establish a theory of a continuous +transmutation of species, which is what is meant by organic evolution, it is +not necessary to furnish proof of <i>all</i> the natural causes which have been at work. +The issue is between the theory of a supernatural cause, as operating immediately +in numberless acts of special creation, and the theory of “natural causes as a whole +whether these happen, or do not happen, to have been hitherto discovered.” Moreover, +the discussion is concerned only with the origin of species, and not with that +of life, as to which the author says with truth, “although in the opinion of most biologists +it is a question which we may well hope will some day fall within the range +of science to answer, at present, it must be confessed, science is not in a position to +furnish so much as any suggestion upon the subject; and therefore our wisdom as +men of science is frankly to acknowledge that such is the case.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_613">[613]</span></p> + +<p>The idea of evolution implies continuity, and the author refers to the fact that +the uniformity of nature’s method in the production of phenomena to which continuity +is due, recognised in other fields of science, strongly recommended the theory +of organic evolution for acceptance on merely antecedent grounds. There is another +important fact, from the antecedent point of view, to which Professor Romanes +draws attention. He states it in the words of Mr. Wallace, who lays down +as a general law that “every species has come into existence coincident both in +space and time with a pre-existing and closely allied species.” This is a necessary +consequence of natural evolution, but no reason can be assigned for it on the theory +of special creation, and the existence of such a correlation may be regarded as a +test-question between the two theories.</p> + +<p>The direct evidence in favor of organic evolution brought together in the first +section of the present work is considered under the several heads of classification, +Morphology, Embryology, Palæontology, and Geographical Distribution. As to the +first of these subjects, the object of classification has been the arranging of organisms +in accordance with their natural affinities. Organisms have been compared +for the purpose of ascertaining which of the constituent organs are of the most invariable +occurrence, and therefore of the most typical significance, and the author +shows that “all the general principles and particular facts appertaining to the natural +classification of plants and animals, are precisely what they ought to be according +to the theory of genetic descent; while no one of them is such as might be—and +indeed, used, to be—expected upon the theory of special creation.” In connection +with the important subject of Morphology, the author, after showing that +the theory of descent with continued adaptive modification fully explains all the +known cases of divergence from the typical structure which an organism presents, +devotes himself especially to the argument from rudimentary structures. These +are of such general occurrence that they are found in every species, and such obsolescent +or vestigial structures, as the author terms them, are of great value as evidence +for the theory of evolution, particularly those found in adult man. To human +vestigial structures the author pays particular attention, his observations being +accompanied by excellent illustrations from nature. It is noteworthy that he abandons +the flattening of the tibia in man, and the disposition of valves in human +veins, as arguments in support of man’s natural origin, which is abundantly supported, +however, by reference to other rudimentary organs.</p> + +<p>The science of Embryology is of special importance, on account of the history +it affords of the <i>process</i> of evolution, and thus supplying evidence of the fact, although +the author remarks, “the foreshortening of developmental history which +takes place in the individual lifetime may be expected often to take place, not only +in the way of condensation, but also in the way of excision.” To understand the +argument from embryology it is necessary to trace the first beginning of individual +life in the ovum, and for this purpose to consider the phenomena of reproduction +in their most simple form. In connection with this subject, Professor Romanes, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_614">[614]</span>after examining the features in which the cell-division of protozoa differs from that +of metazoa, and after considering the grounds on which it may be concluded that +there is a physiological continuity between growth and sexual reproduction, points +out that the constructive argument in favor of evolution derived from embryology +commences with the fertilisation of the metazoal ovum. As this first stage has not +been adequately treated by any other writer, the author deals with it at considerable +length. The later stages of individual development, including that of the vertebrata, +on the lines of Haeckel’s ideal primitive vertebrate, are more concisely +treated. The science of embryology, covers the whole field of animal life, and it is +not surprising therefore that it is considered by the author and other evolutionists +as furnishing the strongest support to the theory of evolution.</p> + +<p>As to the palæontological evidence, Professor Romanes does not ascribe to it +the paramount importance which it has in popular judgment. Nevertheless he asserts +that, not only is no positive proof against the theory of descent to be drawn +from a study of palæontology, but it proves two very important general facts in favor +of it. These are that from the earliest to the latest times there has been a constant +and progressive increase in the diversity of types both of animals and plants, +and that “through all these branching lines of ever-multiplying types, from the +first appearance of each of them to their latest known conditions, there is overwhelming +evidence of one great law of organic nature—the law of gradual advance +from the general to the special, from the low to the high, from the simple to the +complex.” These general facts are supported by detailed consideration of fossil +horns, bones, teeth and shells, which supply four special lines of evidence. The +evolution of mammalian limbs with particular reference to the hoofed animals is +treated with a fulness its importance requires.</p> + +<p>As the geological argument is concerned with the distribution of species in +time, so that based on the present geographical distribution of animal and plant +species is concerned with their distribution in space. This, although not regarded +by the author as a crucial test between the rival theories of creation and evolution, +is declared to be one of the strongest lines of evidence in favor of the latter. The +general facts relied on are, the discontinuity of distribution of certain species, the +absence of any <i>constant</i> correlation between habitats and animals or plants suited +to live upon them, and the presence in every biological region of species related to +other species in genera, and usually also genera related to other genera in families; +this correlation between a geographically restricted habitat and the affinities of its +fauna and flora being repeated over and over again throughout the earth’s surface. +But further, the correlation between habitats and their animals and plants is not +limited to the now existing species, that is, the dead and living species are allied, +showing that the latter are modified descendants of the former. Moreover, where +the areas of distribution are not restricted, through species wandering away from +their native homes, the course of their wanderings is marked by the origination <i>en +route</i> of new species. Another important consideration is that a double correlation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_615">[615]</span>exists in the geographical distribution of organic types. That between the geographical +restriction and natural affinity among inhabitants of the same areas has +already been mentioned. The second is the correlation between <i>degrees</i> of geographical +restriction and <i>degrees</i> of natural affinity. This is consonant with the theory +of descent with modification, as “the more distant the affinity, and therefore, <i>ex +hypothesi</i>, the larger and the older the original group of organisms, the greater must +be the chance of dispersal.” These general considerations are supported by detailed +illustrations drawn from the distribution of aquatic and terrestrial organisms. The +author shows that an examination of the faunas and floras of oceanic islands establishes +the general law “that <i>wherever</i> there is evidence of land-areas having been +for a long time separated from other land-areas, there we meet with a more or less +extraordinary profusion of unique species, often running up into unique genera.” +There is, moreover, a constant correlation between the <i>degree</i> of this peculiarity, +and the time during which the fauna and flora have been isolated. The author +concludes this part of his argument by the forcible observation that “if the doctrine +of special creation is taken to be true, then it must be further taken that the one +and only principle which has been consistently followed in the geographical disposition +of species, is that of so depositing them as to make it everywhere appear that +they were not thus deposited at all, but came into existence where they now occur +by way of genetic descent with perpetual migration and correlative modification.”</p> + +<p>The second part of this work, that which treats of selection, under the two +heads of Natural Selection and Sexual Selection, although in some respects the most +important, does not need to be noticed so fully as that which deals with the facts of +natural evolution. After stating the theory of natural selection, the author notices +various fallacies connected with it which are largely prevalent among the adherents +of Darwinianism, although nowhere fallen into by Darwin himself, and the still +greater fallacies found in the writings of his opponents. In the two following chapters +Professor Romanes, after stating the main arguments in favor of the theory of +natural selection, reviews the main objections which have been urged against it. +The first argument is that, as a matter of observation, “the struggle for existence +in nature does lead to the extermination of forms less fitted for the struggle, and +thus makes room for forms more fitted.” The second argument, which the author +considers of overwhelming significance, is that there is not a single instance, in +either the vegetable or the animal kingdom, of a structure or an instinct which is +developed for the exclusive benefit of another species. Its importance may be +judged by the fact that Darwin considered that a single instance to the contrary +would invalidate the whole theory of natural selection. The third argument is based +on the facts connected with the variation of animals and plants under domestication. +Ocular evidence of the value of this argument is furnished by a series of drawings +prepared for the present work representing varieties of pigeons, and of eight +other animals. As special illustrations of natural selection the author considers the +subjects of protective colouring, warning colours, and mimicry. In referring to his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_616">[616]</span>treatment of the criticisms of the natural selection theory, in the course of which he +deals with the main objections, we cannot do more than mention that based on the +possession by the skate of an electric organ, which, owing to the weakness of its +discharges, cannot apparently be of any use to the animal. This difficulty seems to +be unexplainable according to the principles of natural selection, and Professor Romanes, +in admitting the fact, remarks that it is of a magnitude and importance “altogether +unequalled by that of any other single case—or any series of cases—which +has hitherto been encountered by the theory.”</p> + +<p>The last chapter of the work is devoted to the consideration of the theory of +Sexual Selection, which was suggested by Mr. Darwin to furnish a scientific explanation +of the wide generality of beauty in organic structures. It is an observed +fact that sexual selection does take place among the higher animals, and it is inferred +that, the selection has reference to an æsthetic taste on the part of the animals +themselves; and that this cause is adequate to explain the phenomena of beauty +presented by such animals. After stating the evidence in favor of these conclusions, +the author considers at length Mr. Wallace’s views on the subject. These constitute +the objections urged against the theory of sexual selection, of the truth of which, +however, Darwin shortly before his death expressed himself as remaining firmly +convinced.</p> + +<p>Professor Romanes concludes his present volume with a few general remarks +on the philosophical relations of Darwinism to the facts of adaptation on the one +hand and to those of beauty on the other. In none of these, says the author, do +we meet with any independent evidence of supernatural design, although there is +abundant evidence throughout organic nature of natural causation. And yet natural +causation furnishes no disproof of the existence of a Supreme Being. The whole +of organic and inorganic nature is made subject to one rule of government, but “the +ulterior and ultimate question touching the nature of this government as mental or +non-mental, personal or impersonal, remains exactly where it was.” Moreover, if +there be an intelligent First Cause, of whose Will all secondary causes are the expression, +their operation must be uniform, so far as the Will is consistent, and +therefore it must appear as what we call mechanical. Thus according to the pure +logic of the matter, “the proof of organic evolution amounts to nothing more than +the proof of a natural process.”</p> + +<p>In an appendix to Chapter V, Professor Romanes offers suggestions as to the imperfection +of the geological record, and meets various objections against the theory +of organic evolution on that ground. But we must now leave this excellent work, +which will undoubtedly answer the expectation with which it was prepared, of being +“a compendium, or handbook, adapted to the requirements of a general reader or +biological student, as distinguished from those of a professed naturalist.”</p> + +<p>It is enriched by a very good portrait of Darwin, in whose footsteps the author +has sought to tread by “avoiding dogmatism on the one hand, and undue timidity +as regards general reasoning on the other.” In his introductory observations he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_617">[617]</span>dwells on the remarkable influence exercised by Darwin over the method of investigation +of organic nature, by treating the discovery or accumulation of facts, not as +an end, but as a means for generalisation, thus bringing natural history into a line +with other inductive sciences.</p> + +<p>The value of the work is materially increased by the addition of numerous well +executed original illustrations, besides various plates derived from Haeckel’s works +and other sources, some of them American. It has also a good Index which will +add much to its usefulness.</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Grundriss der Naturlehre für die oberen Classen der Mittelschulen.</span> Von +Dr. <i>E. Mach</i>. Ausgabe für Gymnasien. Mit 358 Abbildungen. 315 pp. +Vienna and Prague: F. Tempsky. Leipsic: G. Freytag.</h4> + +<p>The principles that have guided Professor Mach in the preparation of these outlines +of Physics, are in the main as follows:</p> + +<p>The concepts and notions of physical science should not be set forth dogmatically, +but should be presented as much as possible under the influence of the actual +natural facts that lead to them. Hypotheses and theories should be employed only +when actually necessary. Long mathematical developments and pages of formulæ +only impede the scholar’s total view of his subject and afford of themselves no insight. +<i>Logical</i> finish should not be sought after in elementary presentations; the +method of the inculcation of truths should, so to speak, be <i>psychological</i>: the method +of their acquisition.</p> + +<p>From the brief statement of these guiding principles, the reader will observe +that Professor Mach’s conception of the proper form of an elementary text-book, +differs greatly from that usually entertained. The method of presentation is not +the dogmatic, the “logical,” which sets forth a science as a ready-made and perfected, +mystically created, product; but the genetic, the historical, the natural. We +are constantly made aware, in the study of this book, of what knowledge really +means and what it does not. We are not treated, in its introductory chapter, as we +are in most of the text-books of Physics, to disquisitions on the insolubility of the +questions What is Matter, What is Energy, What is Force, and to like professions +of metaphysical ignorance, which make us wonder how people can request us to +read hundreds of pages about things it is impossible to have knowledge of; but we +are presented throughout with a simple statement and description, in terms of facts, +of what our fundamental, as well as our derived, notions <i>are</i>, and what their import. +It is unnecessary to say that the need of such a book is very great. And it is pleasant, +constantly to discover how well its idea has been executed. Concise, unburdened +by unnecessary and self-evident developments, it is in our judgment a model +of elementary exposition.</p> + +<p>With characteristic modesty, Professor Mach disclaims all pretension to having +fully realised his conception, and views his performance simply as an attempt. The +book was submitted, before publication, to a number of competent educators, whose +advice in regard to alterations was frequently acted upon.</p> + +<p class="right">μκρκ.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_618">[618]</span></p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Nouvelles Recherches de Psychiatrie et D’Anthropologie Criminelle.</span> By +<i>C. Lombroso</i>. Paris: Félix Alcan. 1892.</h4> + +<p>Prof. C. Lombroso’s activity reaches a climax that is almost superhuman. He +contributed to the Italian Archives of Psychiatry two articles, one of which proves +that, at least in Italy, the sense of touch is weaker in women than in men; it is still +weaker and more irregular in criminal women than in normal women. (Archiv. di. +Psichiatr. Sc. pen. ed. Antrop. Vol. XII, 1891, p. 1-6). The other article (l. c. p. +58-108) is an inquiry concerning thought-transmission, which contains besides a +critical review of the usual rubbish of so-called telepathic phenomena two strange +observations. The first is the case of a low-bred hysterical lad who does not possess +the faculty claimed by him to understand telepathically the intentions of whosoever +employs him, but strange enough, if sufficiently charged with whiskey, is able to +read any writing through the envelope with closed eyes. The other case is a somnambulistic +compositor, who sets type correctly in the state of somnambulism. +Blindfolded he draws the figures drawn behind his back upon a slate, and hypnotised +he guesses the numbers which the experimenter thinks. Lombroso is one of +our greatest psychologists, but these experiments perhaps with the same subjects +should be repeated by other psychologists so as to make sure of their correctness. +Lombroso concludes that there seems to be some foundation in thought-transmission.</p> + +<p>The present little volume of new researches applies Lombroso’s theories concerning +morphological abnormalities of the criminal type in the anthropological field. +It appears natural that the criminal type should show abnormal features, but sometimes +Lombroso’s eagerness to discover abnormal features, even in political criminals +such as Charlotte Corday, is exaggerated. At least we must confess that many +abnormalities appear very frequently among peaceful and law-abiding citizens. +The Corday skull, although a trifle platycephalic, is beautifully rounded and normal. +M. Topinard finds no abnormal features but Lombroso maintains that its platycephaly +is doubly abnormal and he adds: “The capacity of the skull is 1.360 cubic +centimeters while those of Parisian women is 1.337. Must we not conclude that its +capacity exceeds the average?” We read on p. 124 and sq.: “The more our +women will be forced to enter the economical struggle for existence, the more +will they become criminals.... The result (of letting them enter public life) will +be to lower the nature of women.”</p> + +<p>The booklet is very instructive even to those who disagree with the professor, +for it is full of facts and valuable observations.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik.</span> (Exakte Logik.) By Dr. <i>Ernst +Schröder</i>. Erster Band mit viel Figuren im Texte. Leipsic: B. G. Teubner. +1890.</h4> + +<p>Professor Mach says, “The essence of science is economy of thought.” If that +is so, there is no discipline more imbued with the spirit of science than algebra. +When operating with algebraic symbols we cease to think out the whole calculation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_619">[619]</span>at every stage, and we are enabled to keep track of the different factors, and of their +mutual relations during the operation from the beginning to the end. In common +arithmetic these factors are lost like rivers in an ocean of homogeneous numbers +which increase and decrease without betraying the way by which they were reached. +Algebraic symbols generalise calculation, and thus we have the advantage of calculating +from the resultant formula any particular example with machine-like exactness +and without the trouble of going over the whole operation again. The ease with +which we can operate with symbols brings it about that we sometimes out-run our +thought and the correct result may be obtained by an operator who only partially +understands the operation, just as an engineer is able to run a machine the mechanism +of which he but partially understands.</p> + +<p>Mathematics having gained so great advantages through the introduction of +algebraic symbols, the question suggests itself whether the same method might not +with some advantage be introduced into the other provinces of formal science, especially +in the domain of logic. The first logicians who borrowed signs from algebra +and introduced them into logic by generalising their meanings, were two Germans, +Gottfried Ploucquet and Johann Heinrich Lambert. Ploucquet wrote “Principia +de substantiis et phaenomenis, accedit methodus calculandi in logicis ab ipso inventa, +cui praemittitur commentatio de arte characteristica universali,” Frankfort +and Leipsic, 1753, ed. II. 1764.⁠<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> Lambert’s investigations on the subject are found +in his “Logische Abhandlungen.” Prof. Venn, in his “Symbolic Logic,” p. xxxii, +says of Lambert, “He fully recognised that the four algebraic operations of addition, +subtraction, multiplication, and division, have each an analogue in Logic; +that they may here be respectively termed aggregation, separation, determination, +abstraction, and be symbolised by +, -, ×, :. He also perceived the <i>inverse</i> nature +of the second and fourth as compared with the first and third; and no one +could state more clearly that we must not confound the mathematical with the +logical signification.”</p> + +<p>The algebra of logic which through the work of these ingenious men, had received +so favorable a start, was very soon neglected; yet it was revived after some +time in England by Boole, DeMorgan, and Jevons. It remained for quite a while +the almost exclusive property of the English where at the present time Prof. +Venn may be considered as the greatest English authority on the subject. Venn’s +works were rivalled by an American scholar, Mr. Charles S. Peirce, the same who +has contributed several articles to <i>The Monist</i>. The algebra of logic which had been +so long neglected in Germany, is now reviving in the country of its first birth. +The author of the work, the first volume of which lies now before us for review, is +Professor of Mathematics at the Polytechnicum of Karlsruhe in Baden. The second +volume is not yet worked out in detail, but its publication may be expected in one or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_620">[620]</span>two years. The whole work, when completed, will be the most comprehensive +treatise on the algebra of logic that has as yet appeared. The plan and treatment +of Professor Schröder’s “Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik” exhibit that +uncommon thoroughness and exhaustiveness, for which German scholars are justly +famous. The book, in one word, will be the standard work on the algebra of logic +for a long time to come.</p> + +<p>It would lead us here too far to review or to sketch the main contents of Professor +Schröder’s work, which, it seems to us, is difficult to explain without entering +into the details and thus going beyond the scope of mere review. But we shall +briefly set forth the chief foundations upon which Schröder builds his algebra of +logic. Professor Schröder has inscribed two mottos on the title page of his book, +but we confess that we suspect at least one of them is intended to be ironical; it +certainly seems to have been selected when the author was in a mood of humor. +Being conscious of the great value of theoretical speculation, he quotes from Goethe +the following Mephistophelian sentiment:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“I say to thee, a speculative wight</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is like a beast on moorlands lean,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Led circling there by some malicious sprite</div> + <div class="verse indent0">While all around lie pastures fair and green.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>There are two kinds of speculation: first, that which attempts to find out by +pure thought a substantial extension of knowledge; and secondly, that which investigates +the methods of inquiry. The former is futile, the latter is fruitful. The +former is that which Goethe censures. To censure the latter would be a grave mistake. +The man who would try to forge bread out of iron must meet with disappointment, +but the smith who invented and shaped the plow did more for the production +of bread than many thousand farmers taken together, although it may be +he did not raise a blade of wheat. Speculation that attempts to find out things by +mere brooding is <i>prima facie</i> wrong; but speculation that constructs the methods of +investigation is the basis of all progress in science.</p> + +<p>The other motto of Schröder’s book is Goethe’s saying: “Man is not born to +solve the problem of the world, but to seek for the point where the problem begins +and then to keep within the limits of the comprehensible.” It would be well to +compare this saying of Goethe’s with another one by the same author which is +“Man should hold fast to the belief that that which seems incomprehensible, is +comprehensible. Otherwise, he would not investigate.” Schröder follows rather +the spirit of the second than that of the first quotation. He says on p. 105 of the +recent volume, with reference to some critical remarks made by the late Professor +Lotze of Göttingen, who was more brilliant and ingenious than exact in his philosophical +views and who showed an undisguised dislike for any severe method that +has recourse to numbers, figures, schedules, or classifications, as does the algebra +of logic: “If Lotze concludes his logic with the wish that German philosophy should +rise to the attempt at comprehending the course of the world instead of merely +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_621">[621]</span>calculating it, we should answer, Could we first calculate it, then we should certainly +comprehend it so far as comprehension on earth is possible.” But how is +it possible? Simply by properly limiting and defining the field of investigation; and +here we can see that the first saying of Goethe’s should not be construed in such a +way as to appear contradictory to the second.</p> + +<p>Every thinker starts with certain limits of comprehension, but he extends them +so that the stock of knowledge increases in every generation, and there is no +probability that we shall ever reach the limits of an absolutely incomprehensible. +There is no solid progress to be made by making wild raids in the domain of the +unknown, a method which is pursued only by dreamers and metaphysicians. We +must start from the boundary of the present stock of knowledge, and let our progress +be confined to single well defined and limited problems. How a solution of +the world-problem is possible in this sense, is explained by Schröder on p. 103: +“The answer is given in the old parable of the bundle of arrows, which resists all +attempts at breaking it. As a whole it withstood, but it yielded to him who untied +the bundle and broke the arrows singly. The difficulties which present themselves +to the progress of knowledge can also only be overcome singly, and in their +one-sidedness. In the division of labor thus produced, lies exactly the advantage +and the strength of the diverse disciplines,—<i>qui trop embrasse, mal étreint</i>.”</p> + +<p>Professor Schröder advertises his book with the following words:</p> + +<p>“From the title the reader will observe that here the deductive or formal logic +alone is treated. The calculative treatment of the deductive logic, through +which this discipline is redeemed from the fetters by which through the power of +habit, word-language has bound the human mind, should deserve, more than anything +else the name ‘Exact Logic’! This method alone can give to the laws of +valid inference, their most pregnant, concise, and clear expression, and is thus enabled +to reveal numerous and important gaps,—why not mistakes,—in the older +presentations of the subject.”</p> + +<p>“Since the appearance of the author’s ‘Operationskreis des Logikkalkuls,’ +this method of treatment has made progress of highest importance, especially +through the works of the Americans, Mr. Charles S. Peirce and his school. To +Mr. Peirce, more than to anybody else, is due the merit of having built a bridge +from the older and purely verbal treatment of our discipline to the new calculative +method; a bridge which the professional philosophers rightly found lacking +and to which lack is well to be ascribed the fact that the new method received only +a partial and bewildered attention. Through Mr. Peirce’s works, upon which +also the author has had some influence, the theory is now so far developed and +perfected that for the first and main part of its whole system, a final presentation +and arrangement may be obtained.”</p> + +<p>“Endeavoring to offer so far as possible such a final and comprehensive presentation, +the author desires to offer at the same time and in a systematic way a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_622">[622]</span>handbook of the most valuable materials of the literature of the subject which +especially in the English language, is quite considerable.”</p> + +<p>The book addresses two kinds of readers which are of a greatly different turn +of mind, and it will go far in reconciling the methods of both, the mathematicians +and the philosophers.</p> + +<p>In the preface Schröder says, “In consideration of the formulæ which appear +in the book, it may be wise to state, that no mathematical training or any +specific knowledge is presupposed to be known by the reader. We might repeat +the words of Dedekind, prefixed to one of his books: ‘Everybody can understand +this work who is in possession of what is generally called, common-sense.’ +But we may add another saying from another author: ‘The beaux esprits +certainly, who are not accustomed to the severe demands of thought, will very +soon turn away from it.’”</p> + +<p>The introduction is comparatively long, comprising no less than 125 pages. +But, considering that it is more than an introduction, that it explains the foundation +on which the whole work rests, it is not too long, for it forms an essential and +indeed the most important part of the book. Schröder discusses in it the character +and the limitation of his problem. He explains induction, deduction, contradiction +and valid inference. He considers the nature of signs and names. He says, +on p. 38: “Humanity, it appears, does not rise above the absolute zero of civilisation +and the level of animal life, until it develops the activity of denotation and +symbolising. And there is indeed nothing to which the human mind owes so +much for its progress as to the signs of things.</p> + +<p>“The sign which speaks in attitude and gesture to emotion, speaks in word and +sentence to the intellect. And it possesses, in accordance with the laws of the association +of ideas, the power of producing in the person addressed certain ideas.</p> + +<p>“While the sign coalesces with the idea, it reacts upon thought itself. Through +signs the ideas which otherwise would remain confused and vague, are analysed +and they become as separate elements, a permanent possession over which the +thinking mind has forthwith free control. Through the sign we distinguish, we +fix differences and make them ready for new peculiar combinations. The sign, +is as it were, the handle by which we take hold of the objects of thought. Through +the sign only, the idea is liberated from the elements of sense, which are attached +to it, and is enabled to rise into the sphere of generalisation. Thus thinking is on +the one hand liberated, on the other determined by the sign.</p> + +<p>“Further, through the sign alone which makes it possible that the same idea +the same purpose can live in many, there is <i>one</i> will, <i>one</i> soul, and a community +of human aspirations exists upon which is based the life of mankind as a life of +individuals in society. And this again is the basis of our morality and civilisation.</p> + +<p>“The efficacy of the sign spoken is considerably increased by the invention of +writing.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_623">[623]</span></p> + +<p>Professor Schröder discusses those two methods of logic which are known by +the names: the Logic of Intension and the Logic of Extension. (<i>Logik des Inhaltes</i>, +and <i>Logik des Umfangs</i>.) This leads to a discussion of definition, the categories, +and conceptual writing which would find its ideal in a system of pasigraphy, +or universal language, for the perfection of which an algebra of logic would be indispensable.</p> + +<p>The symbols employed by Schröder are borrowed to a great extent from Peirce, +but they are considerably improved and it is probable that Schröder’s innovations +will be universally accepted.</p> + +<p>We purposely refrain here from discussing the particulars of Schröder’s work, +stating only in a general way that his proposition of a new symbol for subsumption, +(he proposes to replace the old symbol <img class="inline" src="images/symbol1.jpg" alt="[symbol]"> +by <img class="inline" src="images/symbol2.jpg" alt="[symbol]"> to signify “equal to or subsumed +under”), his treatment of the symbols 0 and 1, the former representing an absence +of certain marks, or as it has been called their “incompossibility,” as being excluded +by the presence of other marks; the other the universe of the whole subject under +discussion, and all the other problems which he separately treats in his lectures are +admirably presented and command almost throughout the reader’s consent. We now +conclude our review with the quotation of the last paragraph of Schröder’s introduction +on p. 125. Having declared that “logical inquiry should not be judged from +the short-sighted or narrow-minded, not to say <i>borné</i>, utilitarian standpoint,” he +points out the great practical importance of his science, saying:</p> + +<p>“Similarly, as with other sciences, so logic also may be expected to realise and +produce undreamed of results, which may incidentally bring about, in a most surprising +way, incalculable advantages. Let me only point out one thing. Since +the impulse which this science has of late received, there have been already constructed +three logical machines which although we grant, scarcely deserve their +name, because their efficacy remains still very rudimentary, may be compared to +Papin’s pot that in a more advanced state became the steam-engine. Indeed, +nobody can presage whether after all a thinking machine might not be constructed, +which would be analogous to, but more perfect than the calculating machines. +The latter have relieved man of a considerable portion of much fatiguing thought-work, +just as the steam-engine has been successful in relieving him from physical +labor.</p> + +<p>“To be sure we must not expect to reap while we are still sowing, and least so +in such a case as this where the harvest is to be expected from trees.”</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">The Grammar of Science.</span> By <i>Karl Pearson</i>, M. A. With 25 figures in the text. +London: Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane. Imported by Charles Scribner’s +Sons, New York.</h4> + +<p>We are greatly in sympathy with the methods and principles of Professor +Karl Pearson’s “Grammar of Science.” The work is a comparatively popular and +also brief exposition of the modern ideal of scientific inquiry. “The goal of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_624">[624]</span>science is clear—it is nothing short of the complete interpretation of the universe. +But that goal,” adds the author, “is an ideal one—it marks the <i>direction</i> in +which we move and strive.”</p> + +<p>The best part of the book is in our opinion the introductory chapter which sets +forth “the scope and method of science” and shows the need of a “Grammar of +Science.” Says the author in the summary of this chapter:</p> + +<p>“The scope of science is to ascertain truth in every possible branch of knowledge. +There is no sphere of inquiry which lies outside the legitimate field of +science. To draw a distinction between the scientific and philosophical methods +is obscurantism.”</p> + +<p>The present generation is in a state of fermentation. While one man finds a +restlessness, a distrust of all authority, a questioning of the basis of all social institutions +and long established methods, another pictures for us a golden age in the +near future. One teacher propounds what is flatly contradicted by a second. We +require some guide in the determination of our actions, and not for our own private +but also our public duties. “Every citizen is thrust into an appalling maze of social +and educational problems; and if his tribal conscience has any stuff in it, he +feels that these problems ought not to be settled, so far as he has the power of +settling them, by his own personal interests, by his individual prospects of profit +or loss. He is called upon to form a judgment apart from his own feelings and +emotions if it possibly may be—a judgment in what he conceives to be the interests +of society at large.</p> + +<p>“How is such a judgment to be formed?” The answer is by science. Such +a judgment can only be based on a clear knowledge of facts, on an appreciation of +their sequence and relative significance. The judgment based upon them ought to +be independent of the individual mind which examines them, and this frame of +mind which is that of the scientist is an essential of good citizenship. Not as if the +scientist were <i>eo ipso</i> a good citizen, but society has an interest in the propagation +of the methods of modern science. Sound citizenship will be promoted by training +the mind to an exact and impartial analysis of facts.</p> + +<p>How much a grammar of science is needed can be learned from the confusion +that prevails concerning the fundamental concepts of science. Says Pearson:</p> + +<p>“Anything more hopelessly <i>illogical</i> than the statements with regard to force +and matter current in elementary text-books of science, it is difficult to imagine; +and the author, as a result of some ten years’ teaching and examining, has been +forced to the conclusion that these works possess little, if any, <i>educational</i> value; +they do not encourage the growth of <i>logical</i> clearness or form any exercise in scientific +method.</p> + +<p>“The views expressed in this <i>Grammar</i> on the fundamental concepts of science, +especially on those of force and matter, have formed part of the author’s +teaching since he was first called upon to think how the elements of dynamical +science could be presented free from <i>metaphysics</i> to young students.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_625">[625]</span></p> + +<p>Professor Pearson calls attention to the danger that arises from two modes of +thought, viz. that of the metaphysician and that of the agnostic. He says:</p> + +<p>“The poet is a valued member of the community, for he is known to be a +poet; his value will increase as he grows to recognise the deeper insight into nature +with which modern science provides him. The metaphysician is a poet, +often a very great one, but fortunately he is not known to be a poet, because he +clothes his poetry in the language of apparent reason, and hence it follows that +he is liable to be a dangerous member of the community. The danger at the +present time that metaphysical dogmas may check scientific research is, perhaps, +not very great.”</p> + +<p>Fortunately the danger that arises from metaphysicism is past. “For,” adds +Pearson, “The day has gone by when the Hegelian philosophy threatened to +strangle infant science in Germany;—that it begins to languish at Oxford is a +proof that it is practically dead in the country of its birth. The day has gone by +when philosophical or theological dogmas of any kind can throw back, even for +generations, the progress of scientific investigation.”</p> + +<p>The scientist will, it is true, often have to confess: “There I am ignorant.” +But it would be absurd to restrict science to the limited field of thought which it +occupies to-day. Professor Pearson continues:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It is true that this view is not held by several leading scientists, both in this +country and Germany. They are not content with saying, ‘We <i>are</i> ignorant,’ but +they add, with regard to certain classes of facts, ‘Mankind must <i>always</i> be ignorant.’ +Thus in England Professor Huxley has invented the term <i>Agnostic</i>, not +so much for those who are ignorant as for those who limit the possibility of +knowledge in certain fields. In Germany Professor E. du Bois-Reymond has +raised the cry: ‘<i>Ignorabimus</i>’—‘We shall be ignorant,’ and both his brother and +he have undertaken the difficult task of demonstrating that with regard to certain +problems human knowledge is impossible. We must, however, note that in these +cases we are not concerned with the limitation of the scientific method, but with +the denial of the possibility that any method whatever can lead to knowledge. +Now I venture to think that there is great danger in this cry: ‘We <i>shall</i> be ignorant.’ +To cry ‘We are ignorant,’ is safe and healthy, but the attempt to demonstrate +an endless futurity of ignorance appears a modesty which approaches +despair. Conscious of the past great achievements and the present restless activity +of science, may we not do better to accept as our watchword that of Galilei: +‘Who is willing to set limits to the human intellect?’—interpreting it by +what evolution has taught us of the continual growth of man’s intellectual powers.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The introductory chapter presents the general plan of Professor Pearson’s +book. The following chapters contain the detailed work of the plan. The headings +of these chapters are: II, The Facts of Science; III, The Scientific Law; IV, +Cause and Effect—Probability; V, Space and Time; VI, The Geometry of Motion; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_626">[626]</span>VII, Matter; VIII, The Laws of Motion; IX, Life; X, The Classification of the +Sciences.</p> + +<p>Professor Pearson follows Professor Ernst Mach in his expositions (especially +in Chap. II) very closely, and especially refers to the latter’s contributions to <i>The +Monist</i>. Pearson emphasises with Mach the distinction between the conceptual +and perceptual, between ideas or noumena and sensations. He rejects, as does +Professor Mach, the assumption of unknowables beyond our groups of sense-impressions, +saying: “It is idle to postulate shadowy unknowables behind that real +world of sense-impression in which we live” (p. 88), and yet he says in another +passage on p. 134: “There is mystery enough in the chaos of sensations and in its +capacity for containing those little corners of consciousness which project their +own products, of order and law and reason, <i>into an unknown and unknowable +world</i>.”</p> + +<p>It appears to us that the deeper reason of this apparent inconsistency can be +traced to the author’s conception of the import of knowledge. He follows Kirchhoff +in the acceptance of the theory that scientific law is a brief description of facts in +mental shorthand. But at the same time he follows Clifford and Mach too closely; +the former in the respect that we can know the “how” only and not the “why,” +and the latter in overlooking the fact that concepts are symbols which stand for +something and have a meaning. Pearson says on p. 145, “Science describes how +they [motions] take place, but the <i>why</i> remains a mystery.” But should we not, +we ask, rather supplant the old and metaphysical conception of the “why” (the +sense of it as here implied) by a better and more correct conception? The metaphysical +“why” is not so much a mystery as it is the incorporation of an illegitimate +problem. The “why” of positive science demands as answer an exhaustive +description of those conditions which as the outcome of a definite transformation +inevitably produce a certain phenomenon.</p> + +<p>But here we must criticise Professor Pearson’s view of “description,” as well +also as his view of causation. Cause and effect are to him, as they were to Mill, +mere sequences; necessity belongs exclusively to the conceptual realm, and is “illogically +transferred to the world of perceptions.”</p> + +<p>An exhaustive description will trace the process of causation, and whenever we +succeed in this we have answered the question “why” in the only sensible meaning +it possesses. Sense-impressions do <i>not</i>, as Professor Pearson expresses it, “shut us +in,” so that the beyond remains a mystery to us. Sense-impressions represent the +beyond of reality and they represent it in such a way as to enable us to deal with it +properly. This representation is knowledge and thus the world is <i>not</i> unknowable. +The world is full of mystery, but knowledge itself is not mysterious. Having sense-impressions +and interpreting them in our conceptual inferences we know something +of the world.</p> + +<p>We are not prepared to accept Professor Pearson’s views that “change is perceptual, +motion conceptual,” and also that “we are not compelled to postulate a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_627">[627]</span>space outside of self for phenomena” (p. 196). We should say that our concepts, +the concepts motion and space included, represent certain features of reality. We +might give a special name to those features of reality which are represented by the +terms motion and space, but we could not deny their objective reality without at +the same time denying the validity of the concepts.</p> + +<p>Says Professor Pearson, “All things move—but only in conception” (p. 385). +“What moves in conception is a geometrical ideal, and it moves because we conceive +it to move.” These propositions have no meaning if pronounced from our +standpoint. Observe also that Professor Pearson inculcates the conceptuality of +motion by unnecessarily repeating the word in the formula on page 341 which begins +as follows: “Every corpuscle in the <i>conceptual</i> model of the universe must be +<i>conceived</i> as moving....” When we conceive something as moving we mean that +not only in the conceptual model, but also in reality there is an action taking place +which we represent by the concept motion. To say that we have knowledge only +of changes but that we do not know whether those changes which we describe as +mechanical are really motions, appears to us idle subtlety. The point is whether +this method of describing those events enables us to deal with them properly. If it +does it answers the purpose.</p> + +<p>In spite of all our disagreements we feel ourselves in close contact with the +author of “The Grammar of Science,” for we agree with respect to the principles +of science and we certainly can leave the settlement of our differences to a common +test on the basis of these principles. Moreover, the attitude of the author seems to +us very much like that which we take ourselves. We quote from a former publication +of his, the following passage⁠<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a>:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I set out from the standpoint that the mission of Freethought is no longer to +batter down old faiths; that has been long ago effectively accomplished, and I, +for one, am ready to put a railing round the ruins, that they may be preserved +from desecration and serve as a landmark. Indeed I confess to have yawned over +a recent vigorous inditement of Christianity, and I promptly disposed of my copy +to a young gentleman who was anxious that I should read a work entitled: <i>Natural +Law in the Spiritual World</i>, which he told me had given quite a new width +to the faith of his childhood.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Philosophie der Arithmetik.</span> Psychologische und logische Untersuchungen. +By Dr. <i>E. G. Husserl</i>. Erster Band. Halle-Saale: C. E. M. Pfeffer. 1891.</h4> + +<p>The present volume does not pretend to be a complete system of the philosophy +of arithmetic, but it attempts to prepare, in a series of psychological and logical +investigations, the scientific foundation for a future construction of this discipline, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_628">[628]</span>which would be of equal value to the mathematician and philosopher. The +first volume which is now before us analyses in its first part the ideas plurality, +unity, and number, so far as they are directly given us and not in their indirect +symbolisation. The second part considers the symbolical representations of plurality +and number, and the author attempts to show that the fact of our being almost +throughout limited to symbolical ideas of number determines the meaning +and the purpose of that view which the author calls “Anzahlenarithmetik.”</p> + +<p>The author criticises several theories which in different ways explain the origin +of plurality and unity. There is one theory which explains the origin of the unit +from the unity of consciousness; there is another one which explains the origin of +number from a succession in time. F. A. Lange bases his theory of number upon +space-conception and Bauman declares there is something mathematical in the +external world which corresponds to the mathematical in us. The theory of difference +held by Jevons, Schuppe, and Sigwart, is declared to be superior to all +others, but even that is rejected by the author. Jevons says, “Number is but another +name for diversity. Exact identity is unity, and with difference rises plurality.... +Abstract number then, is the empty form of difference.” Dr. Husserl objects: +if numbers are all empty forms of difference, what makes the difference between +two, three, four, etc.? The contents of these numbers are very different. The inability +of defining this difference shows the imperfection of the theory of difference. +Dr. Husserl proposes what he calls “collection” as a special method of combination +by which unities are formed.</p> + +<p>Although the book contains many valuable suggestions, it is very hard reading. +The author’s views are not at all clearly set forth. Neither is the table of contents +so systematically arranged as to give us a clue to the plan of the book, nor is there +any index that might give us assistance in finding out the most characteristic passages. +The reader is supposed to read the book right through, in order to understand +detached chapters or even sentences. And even then we are not sure whether +or not we have understood the author’s propositions the consistency of which is not +as apparent as it might be expected. For, after having criticised so many attempts +at explaining and analysing the ideas, plurality, unity and number, and after having +proposed definitions, explanations, and analyses of his own, we find on p. 130 +a passage where these ideas are incidentally declared to be incapable of definition. +Speaking of Frege’s theory, Dr. Husserl says, “As soon as we come down to elementary +concepts, all definition has an end. Such concepts as quality, intensity, +place, time, etc., cannot be defined. The same is true of elementary relations, +and of those concepts upon which they are founded. Equality, similarity, gradation, +whole and part, plurality and unity, etc., are concepts which are utterly incapable +of a formal-logical definition. All we can do in such cases is to produce +the concrete phenomena from which they have been abstracted, and to explain +the method of this process of abstraction. One can, where it is necessary, exactly +fence in (umgrenzen) by diverse circumscriptions, the concepts in question, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_629">[629]</span>and thus prevent confusion with kindred concepts.” We must confess that we do +not understand the author’s idea; what is an act of defining if not an “umgrenzen,” +a fencing in of the concept? The book contains many similar passages, which, it +seems to us, are not properly thought out by the author. But the subject is a difficult +one, and, as the author says in the preface, “A work of this kind should, +with regard to the difficulties of the problem it treats, be judged with leniency.”</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Christianity and Infallibility.</span> Both or Neither. By the Rev. <i>Daniel Lyons</i>. +New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1891. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co.</h4> + +<p>This little book of Dr. Lyons’s is got up in a much more substantial and prepossessing +form than the majority of the works that come from Catholic quarters. +It contains 284 pages and is supplied with the <i>Nihil obstat</i> of a Catholic “censor +deputatus” and with the <i>Imprimatur</i> of the Bishop of Denver. In this book, therefore, +the reader may be sure that he possesses a correct exposition of Catholic +doctrine.</p> + +<p>The purpose of Dr. Lyons is to establish the thesis,—a thesis always insisted +upon by the Catholic church,—“that Christianity, to maintain its rightful hold on +the reason and conscience of men, needs a living, infallible Witness to its truths +and principles; a living, infallible Guardian of its purity and integrity, and a living, +infallible Interpreter of its meaning.” By Christianity Dr. Lyons means +“that body of sacred truths which the Almighty revealed through the <i>ministry</i> of +Christ and His Apostles.”</p> + +<p>We italicise the word “ministry,” for on this word hinges in our judgment the +main and unmistakable argument of Dr. Lyons’s advocacy. If the results of modern +Biblical criticism are at all true, the “Church,” so-called, must have existed +before the New Testament. And in establishing the authority of the church, the +Catholic theologians regard and use the Bible merely as an “historical narrative, +whose trustworthiness (at least in the parts quoted) can be proved in the same way +as that of any other history, sacred or profane.” They take their argument “for +the institution, mission, and authority of the Church from the Bible as a mere +human record of the sayings and doings of our Divine Lord and His Apostles.” +What is the mission of the church? “<i>And he said unto them. Go ye into all the +world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised +shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.</i>” These are awful powers, +and awful are the sanctions placed by the same Divine letter-patent in the hands of +the institution that dispenses them. And in the face of the great complexity and +peculiar nature of the Holy writings, in view of their recognised liability to manifold +and multifarious interpretation, does not such a great and fearful commission of +power as this necessarily and logically imply a concession of Infallibility—of infallibility, +let us add, as <i>technically</i> understood. “Who can suppose that God would +formally commission anybody to teach in his name and command all to hear and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_630">[630]</span>accept His teaching under the severest of penalties, and at the same time not secure +that teacher against the possibility of teaching error for truth? Suppose the +Church thus commissioned by God did actually teach error, even then would not +all (there is no exception made), by reason of the divine command, be bound to +believe? And in that case would not God Himself be accountable for the erroneous +belief? I conclude, therefore, that the formal commission to teach the Gospel +in God’s name, and by His authority, joined to the express command to believe +carries with it a pledge of the divine assistance of Infallibility as a guarantee +to all men that in yielding the obedience of faith, they are perfectly secure against +all danger of error.” This inference is incorporated in a dogma, a “Catholic +dogma,” of infallibility, which is this: “that the Pope, by virtue of a special supernatural +assistance of the Holy Spirit of Truth promised to him, in and through +St. Peter, is exempt from all liability to err when, in the discharge of his Apostolic +Office of Supreme Teacher of the Universal Church, he defines or declares, in +matters of or appertaining to Christian faith or morals, what is to be believed and +held, or what is to be rejected and condemned by the faithful throughout the +world. This definition substantially embodies the whole Catholic teaching on the +subject of Infallibility.”</p> + +<p>Dr. Lyons’s arguments are well put and well reasoned out. He sees clearly +where the vulnerable point of the present condition of the Christian churches lies,—which +the majority of Protestant theologians do not see. He sees clearly, though he +does not say it, that the rococo superstructure of neo-Christian dogmatism was long +and long ago undermined by science and that it is now toppling in the minds of the +unscientific generally; and he justly advises all who have set their hearts on the +preservation of the subtle and irrelevant externalities of religion, to forsake their +ancient dwelling-place and seek a safe and easy abode in the grandly simple and +grandly spacious, Roman temple of Papal infallibility. That edifice is safe against +the artillery of science. It has by one simple act placed itself beyond the reach of +all scientific attacks. For science, or rather the <i>method of science</i>, directly owes its +origin to the consciousness of our individual liability to error and the consequent +aspiration of man to establish an <i>objective</i> criterion of truth. If it attempted to demolish +doctrines of infallibility of any kind, it would simply seek to justify its own +foundations, which it has long ago done. In so far as the doctrine of infallibility is +the only logical outcome of a dilemma in which the Christian church has, discreetly +or indiscreetly, implicated itself, science has no objection to it; or for that matter to +any other conclusion that logically results from premisses it does not grant. The +question really most worthy of the attention of the “thoughtful,” “truth-seeking,” +and “religious” mind, as Dr. Lyons styles it, is not the doctrine of infallibility, +but the questions, What is religion, What is God, etc., etc.; and such questions the +<i>truth</i>-seeking mind will find it impossible to answer arbitrarily: it must, perforce, +answer them in conformity with that objective criterion of truth called science. And +such subjects are as much the object of science as are motion and matter.</p> + +<p class="right">μκρκ.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_631">[631]</span></p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Der Satz vom Grunde als Prinzip des Schliessens.</span> By Dr. <i>Franz Erhardt</i>. +Halle a. S.: C. E. M. Pfeffer. 1891.</h4> + +<p>This little pamphlet of fifty-six pages, written and published to acquire for the +author the <i>venia legendi</i> at the philosophical faculty of the University of Jena, +treats the several figures of the syllogism from the standpoint that the middle term +of the premisses is, logically considered, the consequence (<i>Folge</i>) of the subject and +the reason (<i>Grund</i>) of the predicate in the conclusion. A few remarks are added +on induction and analogy, without, however, entering into the problem as to the +rôle which the method of induction plays in the evolution of the method of deduction.</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4 class="book"><span class="smcap">Agnosticisme.</span> Essai sur quelques Théories pessimistes de la Connaissance. By +<i>E. de Roberty</i>. Paris: Félix Alcan.</h4> + +<p>By the publication of this little book M. de Roberty redeems a promise made in +his larger work, on the philosophy of the present century, already reviewed in <i>The +Monist</i> (January, 1892). The pessimist theories of knowledge of which he treats +are the three systems, those of Criticism, Positivism, and Evolutionism, to which +he reduces contemporaneous philosophy. As these systems are regarded as parallel +manifestations of a common stock of beliefs and general hypotheses, they must +equally adopt the doctrine of Agnosticism. It is the aim of the present work to +point out the several forms assumed by this doctrine and to show its falsity by an +examination of the principles on which it is based. The author properly insists on +the importance of distinguishing between the affirmation of the unknown and that +of the unknowable. The recognition of the former is essential to all progress in +knowledge, but the latter is “the direct negation of all possibility whatever of utilising +the deficiencies of knowledge,” and leads infallibly to the worship of ignorance. +The best definition of the mental phenomenon of agnosticism, says M. de Roberty +is the <i>pessimism</i> of the theory of knowledge, and it is not for nothing therefore that +Kant preceded Schopenhauer in the development of idealism.</p> + +<p>Modern agnosticism is based on the old notion of the separation of the phenomenon +from the noumenon, and it was Kant who cleared it from its early theological +and metaphysical conceptions. He affirmed the reality of the “thing in itself” +as a fundamental postulate, and then declared that we can know nothing of +things considered in themselves. Among the conceptions formed by the human +mind through the exercise of its imaginative faculty are three which exhaust the +entire content of the Unknowable. Thus it may be reduced to the idea of a reality +other than that of which we are sensible; to the idea of a subject which perceives +in a different manner from the real subject; and finally to the idea that our cerebral +organisation reveals the world to us under delusive colors, all of which M. de +Roberty declares to be simple fiction. His own ideas on the subject will appear +later on.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_632">[632]</span></p> + +<p>Positivism stands towards materialism in the same relation as criticism stands +towards idealism, whose noumenon becomes the unknowable thing in itself; as the +simple matter of materialism becomes the unknown existence about which positivism +says we can neither affirm nor deny anything. Modern agnosticism may be +regarded thus as representing the long sought synthesis of the purest materialism +and the most transcendent spiritualism, and it offers a striking demonstration of the +fundamental equivalence of the hypotheses hitherto formulated as to the origin and +essence of things. It proves also, says M. de Roberty, that the great law of the +identity of contraries is applicable directly to all our very general conceptions. +Contradictory as they seem to be, universal postulates must, by virtue of that law, +be fundamentally identical. This introduces a discussion of the antinomies, developed +but not invented by modern criticism, which found in them ample justification +for its conclusion of the reality of the unknowable.</p> + +<p>The double antinomy of time and space is regarded by the author as always +presenting itself under the aspect of a long chain of contradictions which are manifestly +merely verbal. The opposition between finite and infinite may be resolved +into the distinction between concrete and abstract, between particular and general, +if infinity is taken as synonymous with, or the perfect substitute for, general and +abstract quantity, the universal attribute of things isolated from the things themselves. +As to the problems connected with the ideas of a vacuum, matter, force +and motion, M. de Roberty supposes them to have a purely psychological solution. +Such ideas go beyond the “conceptive” capacity of mechanics and belong to psychology +considered, not as a branch of philosophy, or as philosophy itself, but as a +science of abstract concepts.</p> + +<p>The philosophy of evolution, although monistic in the sense that it recognises +the law of the identity of opposites, shows itself not to be so in reality by its doctrine +of the unknowable. In this monism and agnosticism contradict each other, +as it is contrary to reason “to affirm at the same time the identity of every phenomenon +and their unknowability. The first marks the supreme term of the second. +Identity in general serves to define knowableness. So that, if we remain on +the elevated summits of pure abstraction too long, we run the danger anticipated +by the law of identity of contraries. We fall directly into the error of taking the +apparent negation of identity or of pure knowledge, the unknowable, for something +really distinct, really separated from the knowable.” This is the illusion of Spencer +and of all the philosophers who have undertaken the difficult task of applying monism +as a corrective of agnosticism.</p> + +<p>M. de Roberty concludes the present work with a discussion of the relation between +idea and reality, the thought and the object thought of, in which he gives us +his opinion on that disputed point. He says that what philosophy calls “the object” +is composed essentially of external nature, in which is included our own organism. +Very complicated systems of motions are transmitted to the grey nuclei +or opto-striated bodies of the central regions of the brain. Here these motions determine +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_633">[633]</span>new motions of which the totality is described in psycho-physics by the term +“unconscious ideation.” But this internal motion, continually tending to become +again an initial or external motion, gives rise to unconscious reflex activity. The motion +passes by the white nerve-fibres to the cortical periphery of the brain which +becomes “the seat of a phenomenon, an excitation, a motion which prolongs or +repeats the immediately preceding phenomenon, excitation, or motion, while giving +it a shorter and more steady action.” The sensations and the reflex-actions derived +from them traverse the opto-striated nuclei without retardation and without giving +rise to any system of ideas; while consciousness resides in the systemisation or +union of the same sensations and reflex-actions. The notion of the ego results from +the union or memory of certain ideas, sensations, and actions, which before their +union and preservation by the cerebral cortex were unconscious. But before becoming +unconscious ideas, those “intellectual virtualities” were in every other +part of the organism, and in all the media which surround it, as, “manifestations +of energy or of motion, it may be objective phenomena.” Thus, says M. de +Roberty, if the universe is composed of two parts, the ego and the non-ego, it can +be affirmed that they form an uninterrupted circuit. He supposes that when the +cosmical energy has produced the phenomena of unconscious mentality in the +brain-centres, it is divided into two currents, one of which returns to its source and +becomes directly cosmic energy again, and this will be the fate of the other current +also when the life of the organism ceases.</p> + +<p>This view the author supports by a consideration of the morphological and +functional difference supposed to exist between the facts which constitute the notion +of the “ego” and the primordial facts of unconsciousness comprised under the +generic denomination of the “non-ego.” He regards conscious ideas as the telegraphic +alphabet, the stenographic writing of the cosmos. Consciousness serves to +coördinate the incoherent crowd of events which at each instant invades the normal +brain. In these we may see effects of the cause called “universe,” and therefore +its representatives and substitutes, which they could not be unless there was identity +between the two. Thus the “ego” could be defined as the final synthesis of the +“symbolic abridgments,” of the micrographical abbreviations, of the “non-ego.” +Thus the ego serves only for the purpose of concentrating or condensing, so to say +the non-ego, which it represents in a manner more or less durable and efficient.</p> + +<p>This monistic theory gets rid of the unknowable and therefore is a great improvement +on that of the materialist or of the idealist. Nevertheless it requires +further elaboration. There is no difficulty in understanding that cosmic motion +may become transformed within the organism into a feeling. This still, however, +leaves unaccounted for the existence of the organism itself. A true monism will, +therefore, require that the organism must be in some way identifiable with the cosmos. +This is the true problem that has to be solved, and its solution will be greatly +aided by the overthrow of agnosticism, against which M. de Roberty has made so +vigorous and successful an attack in the present volume.</p> + +<p class="right">Ω.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> See Aug. Friedr. Böck. <i>Sammlung von Schriften, welche den logischen Calcul des Prof. Pl. +betreffen</i>, Frankfort and Leipsic, 1766.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> The book from which we quote, namely <i>The Ethic of Freethought</i>, like the book here under +discussion, contains much detail matter in which we differ most emphatically from the author; +(he is, for instance, in our opinion very unjust to Martin Luther;) but it seems to us that he pursues +an aim that we have in common with him.</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_634">[634]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="PERIODICALS_IV">PERIODICALS.</h3> + +</div> + +<h4>ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. III. Nos. 2 and 3.</h4> + +<blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber die Empfindlichkeit des grünblinden und des normalen Auges +gegen Farbenänderung im Spektrum.</span> By <i>E. Brodhun</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Kürzeste Linien im Farbensystem.</span> By <i>H. v. Helmholtz</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Die Raumanschauungen und die Augenbewegungen.</span> By <i>Th. Lipps</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Eine Beobachtung über das indirekte Sehen.</span> By <i>Th. Wertheim</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber einige Eigentümlichkeiten des Tastsinns.</span> By <i>G. Sergi</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Beiträge zur vergleichenden Psychologie.</span> I. Das Verhalten wirbelloser +Tiere auf der Drehscheibe. By <i>K. L. Schaefer</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Gegenantwort auf die Erwiderung von O. Flügel.</span> By <i>J. Rehmke</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Litteraturbericht.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The value of the first article on the sensitiveness of the green-blind and the +normal eye in perceiving color-variations in the spectrum consists mainly in the +three diagrams that exhibit the results obtained in the author’s experiments.</p> + +<p>Professor H. v. Helmholtz published in a former number his attempt at propounding +“a formula which should play the same part in the province of color-sensations +as the formula of the length of the linear element plays in geometry.”... +As geometry begins with the concept of a shortest line between two points, so our +fundamental formula in this subject shall enable us to find that series of transitions +between two given colors for which the sum of the perceptible differences is a minimum. +Helmholtz proposes to call them “shortest color-lines” and comes to the +conclusion that the whole domain of these apparently irregular phenomena are +easily subsumed under a generalised formulation of Fechner’s law.</p> + +<p>Professor Th. Lipps criticises Wundt with regard to the latter’s theory of +measuring the visual field by ocular motion. Wundt’s theory, he declares, is in +need of several auxiliary hypotheses, such as the assumption that certain ocular +motions are supposed to be more difficult than others: the visual field is said to possess +the form of a spherical surface, etc. The author maintains that ocular motions +do contribute to the construction of our space-conception, but in a different +way than Wundt assumes. The most interesting part of the article appears to be +the discussion of the genesis of the third dimension which is not given in the data +of sensation but added to them as a judgment concerning these data. It is an interpretation +of the data. There are still psychologists who regard the third dimension +as immediately given. Professor Lipps refers as an instance to Prof. William +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_635">[635]</span>James’s article “The Perception of Space” in (<i>Mind</i>, Vol. XII), where the latter +declares that “no arguments in the world can prove a feeling which actually exists, +to be impossible.” While Wundt says that to the resting eye the form of the visual +field is spherical because the sky appears to us as spherical; Lipps declares that we +might just as well say that the visual field of the resting eye is a plane, because the +earth appears to us as a level surface. We attribute to the visual field the form +which certain reasons prompt us to. Certain convergences of the eyes induce us +to place certain points at certain distances. We read, as it were, the distances out +of the convergences of the ocular axes. Accordingly, when we cease to feel any +difference in our feeling of convergency we cannot help attributing the same +“depth” throughout to all the things with respect to which such feeling is wanting, +and we place all objects beyond a certain range upon a spherical surface. Thus +Lipps interprets the spherical form of the firmament as the result of our using both +eyes, which use from habit has become the form of monocular vision also, and not +as Wundt does from the spherical form of each visual field, which by habit has been +transferred to binocular vision. There is a strange fact that distances on the left +side are overestimated in comparison with those on the right side; and this fact is +also claimed by Professor Lipps to be incompatible with Professor Wundt’s theory, +but in favor of his own views.</p> + +<p>Th. Wertheim has made an observation which tends to prove that positive as +well as negative fluctuations of light-intensity, cause the disappearance of objects +indirectly seen.</p> + +<p>G. Sergi publishes the results of his investigations concerning the sense of +touch made in the Institute for Anthropology and Experimental Psychology at the +University of Rome.</p> + +<p>Karl L. Schaefer’s results of experiments with invertebrate animals upon the +rotatory table show that in the beginning a counter-rotation takes place, but not in +all animals. It does not take place in some caterpillars; it does take place in black +beetles, ants, flies, earwigs, provided they are at the time in actual motion. There +is no after-affect from the rotation and thus they are not subject to vertigo as are +the vertebrates. (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XVI. No. 2.</h4> + +<blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Beiträge zur Logik.</span> (Zweiter Artikel. Schluss.) By <i>A. Riehl</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ernst Platner’s Wissenschaftliche Stellung zu Kant in Erkenntnisstheorie +und Moralphilosophie.</span> (Zweiter Artikel. Schluss.) By <i>B. Seligkowitz</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber Begriff und Gegenstand.</span> By <i>G. Frege</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Bemerkungen zu Richard Avenarius’s “Kritik der reinen Erfahrung.”</span> +By <i>R. Willy</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>A. Riehl discusses in the second instalment of his “Contributions to Logic” +the forms of judgment and the different kinds of conclusion. B. Seligkowitz concludes +his article on Ernst Platner’s relation to Kant, setting forth the former’s +criticism of the latter’s views of synthetic judgments <i>a priori</i>, his moral theology, +his psychological ideas, and moral philosophy. G. Frege explains his view of +“concept and object” with reference to the idea of Benno Kerry, who does not +recognise between the two any absolute difference. (Leipsic: Reisland.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_636">[636]</span></p> + +<h4>PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVIII. Nos. 3 and 4.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: April, 1892. No. 3.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Die Wirklichkeit als Phänomen des Geistes.</span> By <i>A. Rosinski</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Recensionen.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Litteraturbericht.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: May, 1892. No. 4.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Ueber das absolute Gehör.</span> By <i>J. v. Kries</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Die zweiten Purkinjeschen Bilder im schematischen und im wirklichen +Auge.</span> By <i>L. Matthiessen</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Besprechungen.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Litteraturbericht.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Adolf Rosinski describes reality as a phenomenon of the mind and, following +Quäbicker, he regards “the real as belonging to that complex which is given us in +appearance. Being (<i>Wesen</i>) is not behind or beyond appearance; Being, being +that which exists, existence is appearance. Appearance shows nothing but that +which is in Being, and there is in Being nothing which is not manifested.” (Berlin: +Dr. R. Salinger.)</p> + +<p>There are but few musicians who are able to recognise directly and without +reference to another note, the pitch of a sound. This ability is called by musicians +“absolutes Gehör.” Professor Kries investigates in a long article, the conditions of +this absolute musical ear so called, exhibiting the difficulties of an explanation without +arriving at a definite result, which, however, may be expected from further investigations +of the subject. Mr. Matthiessen’s article on the second Perkinje-pictures, +in the ideal and the real eye, consists exclusively of measurements and calculations +of the curvature of the lens. The same number contains an appreciative +and long (37 pp.) review of Prof. W. James’s “Principles of Psychology.” (Hamburg +and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. April, 1892. Vol. IV. No. 3.</h4> + +<blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">On Certain Peculiarities of the Knee-Jerk in Sleep in a Case of Terminal +Dementia.</span> By <i>William Noyes</i>, M. D.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Growth of Memory in School Children.</span> By <i>T. L. Bolton</i>, A. B.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Studies from the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology of the University +of Wisconsin.</span> By Prof. <i>Joseph Jastrow</i>, Ph. D.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Psychological Foundation of Realism.</span> By <i>Alexander Fraser</i>, A. B.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Psychological Literature</span>: I. Nervous System. By Prof. <i>H. H. Donaldson</i>, +Clark University; II. Association, Reaction. By Prof. <i>J. McK. Cattell</i>, +Columbia College; III. Hypnotism and Suggestion. By Prof. <i>Joseph Jastrow</i>, +University of Wisconsin; IV. Sight.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Letters and Notes.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Dr. Noyes’s investigations seem to corroborate the theory that not only the +lower but also “the higher activities of the brain are also subject to a rhythmic rise +and fall synchronous with vascular dilatation and contraction.” Mr. Bolton publishes +the results of his examination of the span of memory in the Grammar Schools of Worcester, +Mass. The memory span measuring the power of concentrated and prolonged +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_637">[637]</span>attention, increases with age rather than with the growth of intelligence. +The girls have better memories than the boys. Memory can be increased by practice. +The tests made before and after school do not show that the pupils suffer +fatigue from the day’s work. Memory-images before they are completely lost first +suffer a confusion of order, then a loss of certain of its elements which are often replaced +by similar elements. Previous ideas being one of the factors of confusion. +Professor Jastrow’s article presents a description of a series of experiments made in +his psychological laboratory. He reproduces the Zöllner figures, briefly summarising +their different interpretations by Zöllner, Hering, Aubert, Classen, Lipps, +Hoppe, Wundt, Pisco, and Helmholtz. He further presents a study of involuntary +movements of the hand on the glass plate apparatus, and describes the experiments +of time measurement in classifying ideas, and in finding a given object within a +given field. Mr. Fraser defends the Natural Realism of the Scotch school, making +the tactumotor sense the ultimate test of reality. (Worcester, Mass.: Clark University.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.</h4> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: April, 1892. No. 196.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Les processus nerveux dans l’attention et la volition.</span> By <i>Charlton +Bastian</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">La responsabilité.</span> By <i>F. Paulhan</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Revue générale: Le spiritisme contemporain.</span> By <i>Janet</i> (<i>Pierre</i>).</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Analyses et comptes rendus</span>: Der Positivismus vom Tode August Comte’s +bis auf unsere Tage. By <i>H. Gruber</i>. Die Psychologie der Suggestion. By +<i>H. Schmidkunz</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Travaux du laboratoire de psychologie physiologique</span>: Etude expérimentale +sur deux cas d’audition colorée. By <i>Beaunis and Binet</i>. Etude sur +un nouveau cas d’audition colorée. By <i>Binet and Philippe</i>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="center">CONTENTS: May, 1892. No. 197.</p> + +<blockquote class="contents"> + +<p><span class="smcap">Du sens de l’inégalité.</span> By <i>G. Mauret</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">La responsabilité</span> (concluded). By <i>F. Paulhan</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Le problème de la vie</span> (third and last article). By <i>Dunan</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Analyses et comptes rendus</span>: Leçons cliniques sur l’hystérie et l’hypnotisme +By <i>Pitres</i>. Corps et âme. Essais sur la philosophie de St. Thomas. By <i>J. +Gardair</i>. Agnosticisme. By <i>E. de Roberty</i>. La physique de Straton de +Lampsaque. By <i>Rodier</i>. Das Wahrnehmungsproblem vom Standpunkte +des Physikers, des Physiologen und des Philosophen. By <i>H. Schwarz</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Revue des périodiques étrangers</span>: Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche +Philosophie.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Correspondance et informations.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The processes of attention and volition lie at the basis of all our mental and +physical activities. Mr. Charlton Bastian discusses their nervous condition and +comes to the conclusion <i>Voluntas et intellectus unum et idem sunt</i>. M. Paulhan +treats the problem of responsibility under healthy and morbid conditions, in two +consecutive articles. M. Mouret, whose former articles on relations will be reviewed +in a future number by Mr. F. C. Russell, treats in a long article of the sense of inequality. +M. Ch. Dunan concludes his essay on the problem of life, viewing the +subject from a rather metaphysical standpoint. M. Pierre Janet presents us with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_638">[638]</span>a very accurate review of the importance of the contemporary spiritism and spiritualism. +He calls attention to the fact that modern psychology owes to the researches +of the spiritualists, many new, startling, and interesting facts. He does not share +their standpoint, yet his review is kind and sympathetic. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.⁠<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> Vol. III. No. 12. March, 1892.</h4> + +<blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Positive Philosophy and the Unity of Science.</span> (Continuation). By <i>B. +N. Tchitcherin</i>. Article crowned by the Psychological Society of Moscow.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">How does the Ministration to the General Good of All Relate to the +Care for the Salvation of Our Own Soul?</span> A letter to the Editor. By +the <i>Archimandrite Antonii</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Huxley as Representative of the Modern Scientific Theory of the +World.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Telepathy.</span> (Concluded.) By <i>Petrovo-Solovo</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Basis of Ethical Obligation.</span> By <i>N. Grote</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Special Department.</span> About Ethical Fragments from Democritus. By <i>J. +Radloff</i>. One of the Possible Cosmic Theories. A Study. By <i>A. Wilkins</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Criticism and Bibliography.</span> I. Review of Periodicals. II. Review of Recent +Publications. Transactions of the Moscow Psychological Society. (Moscow, +1892.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<h4>MIND. New Series. No. 2. April, 1892.</h4> + +<blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pleasure and Pain.</span> By <i>A. Bain</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Changes of Method in Hegel’s Dialectic.</span> II. By <i>J. Ellis McTaggart</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Leipsic School of Experimental Psychology.</span> By <i>E. Bradford Titchener</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Logical Calculus.</span> II. By <i>W. E. Johnson</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Discussions</span>: Dr. Münsterberg and his Critics. By <i>S. Alexander</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Critical Notices.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Prof. A. Bain criticises Mr. H. R. Marshall’s theory of pleasure and pain as +being determined by the relation between the energy given out and the energy received, +saying that it leaves a very large region untouched and inexplicable. J. +Ellis McTaggart defends the Hegelian dialectic system which, he declares, “is not +so wonderful or mystic as it has been represented to be. It makes no attempt,” +he says, “to deduce existence from essence; it does not even attempt to eliminate +the element of immediacy, in experience, and to produce a self-sufficient and self-mediating +thought.” E. Bradford Titchener gives a general survey of the researches +carried out in Wundt’s Institute, and of the other psychological contents of the +<i>Philosophische Studien</i>, from the date of Professor Cattell’s paper on “The Psychological +Laboratory at Leipsic” to the present time. W. E. Johnson, in his paper +on “The Logical Calculus,” brings out some of the underlying principles and +assumptions which belong equally to the ordinary Formal Logic, to Symbolic Logic, +and to the so-called Logic of Relatives. Prof. S. Alexander takes issue with Mr. +Titchener’s criticism of Professor Münsterberg’s psychological investigations. Mr. +Titchener’s article which appeared in the October number of <i>Mind</i>, 1891, leaves the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_639">[639]</span>impression that the whole of the work under review is valueless. “Many of his +objections,” however, says Professor Alexander, “refer to unimportant points, and +the graver theoretical ones are really groundless,” and thus the critic “has contrived +to give a one-sided judgment by neglecting the other considerations which +give Dr. Münsterberg’s work its value and significance.” (London: Williams & +Norgate.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<h4>THREE AMERICAN MAGAZINES.</h4> + +<h5>INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. April, 1892. Vol. II. No. 3.</h5> + +<blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Economic Reform Short of Socialism.</span> By <i>E. Benj. Andrews</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pleasure and Pain in Education.</span> By <i>Miss M. S. Gilliland</i>, London.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Essentials of Buddhist Doctrine and Ethics.</span> By Prof. <i>Maurice +Bloomfield</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Three Religions.</span> (Concluded.) By <i>J. S. Mackenzie</i>, M. A.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Discussions and Reviews.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The School of Applied Ethics.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<h5>THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. Vol. I. No. 3. May, 1892.</h5> + +<blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">Herbert Spencer’s Animal Ethics.</span> By Prof. <i>Henry Calderwood</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Ultimate Ground of Authority.</span> By Prof. <i>J. Macbride Sterrett</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">What is Reality?</span> By <i>David G. Ritchie</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Natural Science and the Philosophy of Nature.</span> By Dr. <i>B. C. Burt</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A Mathematical View of Free Will.</span> By Prof. <i>J. E. Oliver</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Discussions</span>: Professor Ladd’s Criticism of James’s Psychology. By Prof. <i>J. +P. Gordy</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Reviews of Books and Summaries of Articles.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<h5>THE NEW WORLD. Vol. I. No. 1. March, 1892.</h5> + +<blockquote> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Evolution of Christianity.</span> By <i>Lyman Abbott</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Historic and the Ideal Christ.</span> By <i>Charles Carroll Everett</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Future of Liberal Religion in America.</span> By <i>J. G. Schurmann</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Common, the Commonplace and the Romantic.</span> By <i>William Rounseville +Alger</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Abraham Kuenen.</span> By <i>Crawford Howell Toy</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The Theistic Evolution of Buddhism.</span> By <i>J. Estlin Carpenter</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">“Between the Testaments.”</span> By <i>Thomas R. Slicer</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The New Orthodoxy.</span> By <i>Edward H. Hall</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Theological Aspects of the Philosophy of Thomas Hill Green.</span> By +<i>Charles B. Upton</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Introductory Note.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Book Reviews.</span></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>There have sprung up within the last two years not less than four American +magazines of progressive thought, which now compete in the proposition of their +religious and philosophical conceptions to the world. These four magazines are, in +the chronological order in which they were founded, <i>The Monist</i>, <i>The International +Journal of Ethics</i>, <i>The Philosophical Review</i>, and <i>The New World</i>. <i>The Monist</i> +represents that world-conception which takes its stand upon facts and systematises +facts into a unitary view. Thus it recognises the methods of science as the methods +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_640">[640]</span>of all knowledge, to the exclusion of supernatural revelation, or intuitionalism, or +any kind of mysticism. But <i>The Monist</i> does not rest satisfied with this. <i>The +Monist</i> preaches a religion; and the prophets of this religion are not only the great +ethical teachers of mankind, but everybody who reveals truth, Kant and Comte, +Kepler, Copernicus, Darwin, and all living representatives of scientific inquiry. +Thus <i>The Monist</i> is a magazine that points out the religious import of science and +philosophy.</p> + +<p><i>The International Journal of Ethics</i> follows in the same line in so far only as +it has nothing to say to the old orthodox conceptions of religion. It tries to teach +a higher morality, but in establishing ethics it pursues quite another course. It is +the organ of the Ethical Societies and the leaders of the Ethical Societies are confident +that they can have ethics not only without theology but also without religion, +science, or philosophy. They consider the world-conception of a man as something +indifferent, or unessential, in ethics, and by proposing a non-committal policy with +respect to religious and philosophical views, they expect to be the better fitted to +preach good conduct. (Philadelphia: <i>International Journal of Ethics</i>, 118 S. Twelfth +Street.)</p> + +<p><i>The Philosophical Review</i> represents a philosophical conception which has still +a strong hold upon the Universities on this side of the Atlantic. Transcendentalism, +metaphysicism, and that theological philosophy which still operates with supernatural +quantities, or at least has not discarded the dualistic features of supernaturalism, +are represented in its columns. Certainly they are well represented and +by their best upholders of the present time, and authors of more modern and positivistic +views are not excluded. Exactly so in <i>The Monist</i>, the representatives of +metaphysicism and those who still believe in the dual existence of man, in his self, +or ego, and his transcendental existence are welcome; but there is nevertheless a +fundamental difference in the world-conception of the two magazines. (Boston, +New York, Chicago: Ginn & Co.)</p> + +<p><i>The New World</i> is the latest new-comer in the field of magazine literature, and +we welcome its appearance most cordially. There are strongly marked differences +between <i>The New World</i> and <i>The Monist</i>, for the former is a theological magazine +that deepens religion with the assistance of philosophy while the latter, rather the +reverse, is a philosophical magazine that widens philosophy and applies it to practical +life so as to become a religion. But for that very reason <i>The New World</i> +seems to meet <i>The Monist</i> half way. <i>The New World</i> is an offshoot of modern +theology. Its contributors come largely from the ranks of the maturest unitarian +thinkers. They practically accept the principles of criticism and scientific inquiry +and thus they are approaching rapidly that common goal of human thought, which +<i>The Monist</i> propounds as the leading maxim of philosophy and religion, namely, to +regard nature as the only revelation and experience as our guide in life; to base religion +upon and to derive ethics from a critically-sifted statement of facts. (Boston: +Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)</p> + +<p class="right">κρς.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> <i>Questions of Philosophy and Psychology.</i></p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_1">[1]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak smaller" id="Appendix"><span class="smcap">Appendix to The Monist, Vol. II, No. 4</span></h2> + +</div> + +<p class="titlepage larger">KANT AND SPENCER</p> + +<p class="titlepage">TWO ARTICLES REPRINTED FROM NOS. 51, 52, AND 158<br> +OF THE OPEN COURT</p> + +<p class="titlepage">1. THE ETHICS OF KANT<br> +2. KANT ON EVOLUTION</p> + +<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br> +DR. PAUL CARUS</p> + +<p class="titlepage smaller">CHICAGO:<br> +THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_2">[2]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_3">[3]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="THE_ETHICS_OF_KANT">THE ETHICS OF KANT.<br> +<span class="smaller">IN CRITICISM OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S PRESENTATION OF KANTISM.</span></h3> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_4">[4]</span></p> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_5">[5]</span></p> + +<p>Mr. Herbert Spencer has published in <i>The Popular +Science Monthly</i> for August, an essay on the Ethics +of Kant; a translation of this article had appeared in +the July Number of the <i>Revue Philosophique</i>, and it +cannot fail to have been widely noticed. It is to be +regretted that unfamiliarity with the German language +and perhaps also with Kant’s terminology has +led Mr. Spencer into errors to which attention is called +in the following discussion.⁠<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If, before Kant uttered that often-quoted saying in which, +with the stars of Heaven he coupled the conscience of Man, as +being the two things that excited his awe, he had known more of +Man than he did, he would probably have expressed himself somewhat +otherwise.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant, in his famous dictum that two things excited +his admiration, the starry heaven above him and the +conscience within him, contrasted two kinds of sublimity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> +The grandeur of the Universe is that of size +and extension, while the conscience of man commands +respect for its moral dignity. The universe is wonderful +in its expanse and in its order of mechanical +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_6">[6]</span>regularity; the conscience of man is grand, being intelligent +volition that aspires to be in harmony with +universal laws.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer continues:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Not, indeed, that the conscience of Man is not wonderful +enough, whatever be its supposed genesis; but the wonderfulness +of it is of a different kind according as we assume it to have been +supernaturally given or infer that it has been naturally evolved. +The knowledge of Man in that large sense which Anthropology +expresses, had made, in Kant’s day, but small advances. The +books of travel were relatively few, and the facts which they contained +concerning the human mind as existing in different races, +had not been gathered together and generalized. In our days, the +conscience of Man as inductively known has none of that universality +of presence and unity of nature which Kant’s saying tacitly +assumes.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Spencer apparently supposes that Kant believed +in a supernatural origin of the human conscience. +This, however, is erroneous.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer’s error is excusable in consideration +of the fact that some disciples of Kant have fallen into +a similar error. Professor Adler, of New York, who attempts +in the Societies for Ethical Culture to carry +into effect the ethics of Pure Reason, maintains that +the commandments of the <i>ought</i> and “the light that +shines through them come from beyond, but its beams +are broken as they pass through our terrestrial medium, +and the full light in all its glory we can never +see.”</p> + +<p>Ethics based on an unknowable power, is mysticism; +and mysticism does not essentially differ from +dualism and supernaturalism.</p> + +<p>Kant’s reasoning is far from mysticism and +from supernaturalism. He was fully convinced that +civilized man with his moral and intellectual abilities +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_7">[7]</span>had naturally evolved from the lower state of an +animal existence. We read in his essay, “Presumable +Origin of the History of Mankind” (Muthmasslicher +Anfang der Menschengeschichte. Editio Hartenstein, +Vol. IV, p. 321):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“From this conception of the primitive history of mankind it follows +that the departure of man from the paradise represented +to him by his reason as the earliest place of sojourn of his +race, has been nothing else than the transition from the rude +condition of a purely animal existence to the condition of a +human being; a transition from the leading-strings of instinct +to direction by reason, in a word, from the protectorate of nature +to a status of freedom.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The view that the conscience of man is innate, in +the sense of a non-natural, of a mysterious, or even of +a supernatural origin, is untenable. Those disciples +of Kant who entertain such views have certainly misinterpreted +their great master, and the passages adduced +by Mr. Spencer from so many sources are sufficient +evidence of the fact that “there are widely different +degrees” [we should rather say kinds] “of conscience +in the different races.” Mr. Spencer continues:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Had Kant had these and kindred facts before him, his conception +of the human mind, and consequently his ethical conception, +would scarcely have been what they were. Believing, +as he did, that one object of his awe—the stellar Universe—has +been evolved,⁠<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> he might by evidence like the foregoing have +been led to suspect that the other object of his awe—the human +conscience—has been evolved; and has consequently a real +nature unlike its apparent nature.” ... “If, instead of assuming +that conscience is simple because it seems simple to careless introspection +he had entertained the hypothesis that it is perhaps +complex—a consolidated product of multitudinous experiences +received mainly by ancestors and added to by self—he +might have arrived at a consistent system of Ethics.” ...</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_8">[8]</span></p> + +<p>“In brief, as already implied, had Kant, instead of his incongruous +beliefs that the celestial bodies have had an evolutionary +origin, but that the minds of living beings on them, or at least on +one of them, have had a non-evolutionary origin, entertained the +belief that both have arisen by Evolution, he would have been +saved from the impossibilities of his Metaphysics, and the untenabilities +of his Ethics.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Spencer believes that Kant had assumed conscience +to be “simple, because it seems simple to +careless introspection.” But there is no evidence in +Kant’s works for this assumption. On the contrary, +Kant reversed the old view of so-called “rational psychology” +which considered conscience as innate and +which was based on the error that consciousness is +simple. Des Cartes’s syllogism <i>cogito ergo sum</i> is +based on this idea, which at the same time served as +a philosophical evidence for the indestructibility and +immortality of the <i>ego</i>. The simplicity of consciousness +had been considered as an axiom, until Kant +came and showed that it was a fallacy, a paralogism of +pure reason. Dr. Noah Porter has written, from an +apparently dualistic standpoint, a sketch entitled “The +Ethics of Kant,” in which he says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The skepticism and denials of Kant’s speculative theory in +respect to noumena, both material and psychical, had unfortunately +cut him off from the possibility of recognizing the personal <i>ego</i> as +anything more than a logical fiction.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant says in his “Critique of Pure Reason”:⁠<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In the internal intuition there is nothing permanent, for the <i>Ego</i> +is but the consciousness of my thought.... From all +this it is evident that rational psychology has its origin in a +mere misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which lies +at the basis of the categories, is considered to be an intuition +of the subject as an object; and the category of substance is +applied to the intuition. But this unity is nothing more than +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_9">[9]</span>the unity in <i>thought</i>, by which no object is given; to which +therefore the category of substance cannot be applied.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Concerning the statement that Kant had believed +in the non-evolutionary origin of living beings, we +quote from his essay on <i>The Different Races of Men</i>, +Chap. III, where Kant speaks of “the immediate +causes of the origin of these different races.” He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The conditions (<i>Gründe</i>) which, inhering in the constitution of an +organic body, determine a certain evolutionary process (<i>Auswickelung</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a>) +are called, if this process is concerned with particular +parts, <i>germs</i>; if, on the other hand, it touches only the +size or the relation of the parts to one another, I call it +<i>natural capabilities</i> (<i>natürliche Anlagen</i>).”⁠<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>And in a foot-note Kant makes the following remark:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Ordinarily we accept the terms natural science (<i>Naturbeschreibung</i>) +and natural history in one and the same sense. But it +is evident that the knowledge of natural phenomena, as they +<i>now are</i>, always leaves to be desired the knowledge of that +which they <i>have been</i> before now and through what succession +of modifications they have passed in order to have arrived, +in every respect, to their present state. <i>Natural History</i>, +which at present we almost entirely lack, would teach us the +changes that have affected the form of the earth, likewise, +the changes in the creatures of the earth (plants and animals), +that they have suffered by natural transformations +and, arising therefrom, the departures from the prototype of +the original species, that they have experienced. It would +probably trace a great number of apparently different varieties +back to species of one and the same kind and would +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_10">[10]</span>convert the present so intricate school-system of Natural +Science into a natural system in conformity with reason.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant has nowhere, so far as we know, made any +objection to the idea of evolution. But he opposed +the theory that all life should have originated from <i>one +single</i> kind. In reviewing and epitomizing Joh. Gottfr. +Herder’s work, “<i>Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit</i>,” +Kant says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>... “Book II, treats of organized matter on the earth.... +The beginnings of vegetation.... The changes suffered +by man and beast through climatic influences.... In +them all we find one prevailing form and a similar osseous +structure.... These transitional links render it not at all +impossible that in marine animals, in plants, and, indeed, +possibly in so-called inanimate substances, one and the same +fundamental principle of organization may prevail, although +infinitely cruder and more complex in operation. In the sight +of eternal being, which beholds all things in one connection, +it is possible that the structure of the ice-particle, while receiving +form, and of the snowflake, while being crystallized, +bears an analogous relation to the formation of the +embryo in a mother’s womb.... The third book compares +the structure of animals and plants with the organization +of man.... It was not because man was ordained to +be a rational creature that upright stature was given him for +using his limbs according to reason; on the contrary he acquired +his reason as a consequence of his upright stature.... +From stone to crystals, from crystals to metals, from metals +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_11">[11]</span>to plant-creation, from thence to the animal, and ultimately to +man, we have seen the form of organization advancing, and +with it the faculties and instincts of creatures becoming more +diversified, until at last they all became united in the human +form, in so far as the latter could comprise them.... +As the body increases by food, so does the mind by ideas; indeed, +we notice here the same laws of assimilation, of growth, +and of generation. In a word, an inner spiritual man is being +formed within us, which has a nature of its own and +which employs the body as an instrument merely.... +Our humanity is merely a preliminary training, the bud of a +blossom to come. Step by step does nature cast off the ignoble +and the base, while it builds and adds to the spiritual +and continues to fashion the pure and refined with increasing +niceness; thus are we in a position to hope from the artist-hand +of nature that in that other existence our bud of humanity +will also appear in its real and true form of divine +manhood.” ...</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>[Herder’s idea of evolution would stand on the +whole if his conception of “the spiritual” did not imply +a preternatural agent.]</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The present state of man is probably the link of junction between +two worlds.... Yet man is not to investigate +himself in this future state; he is to believe himself into it.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant makes no objection whatever to the evolutionary +ideas of Herder. But Herder was not free +from supernaturalism and from fantastic ideas in +reference to the future development of man. He had +not yet dropped the dualistic conception of the +‘duplicity’ of man and believed in the immortality of +a distinct spiritual individual within his body. Kant’s +objection, therefore, is two-fold; 1) against Herder’s +supernaturalism which leads him beyond this world; +and, 2) against the descent of <i>all</i> species from <i>one and +the same genus</i>. He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In the gradation between the different species and individuals +of a natural kingdom, nature shows us nothing else +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_12">[12]</span>than the fact that it abandons individuals to total destruction +and preserves the species alone.... As concerns that +<i>invisible</i> kingdom of active and independent forces, we fail to +see why the author, after having believed he could confidently +infer from organized beings, the existence of the rational principle +in man did not rather attribute this principle directly to +him merely as spiritual nature, instead of lifting it out of +chaos through the structural form of organised matter.... +As to the gradation of organized beings, our author +is not to be too severely reproached, if the scheme has not met +the requirements of his conception, which extends so far beyond +the limits of this world; for its application even to the +natural kingdoms here on earth leads to nothing. The slight +differences exhibited when species are compared with reference +to their common points of resemblance, are, where there +is such great multiplicity, a necessary consequence of just this +multiplicity. The assumption of common kinship between +them, inasmuch as one kind would have to spring from another +and all from one original and primitive species, or from one +and the same creative source (Mutterschoss)—the assumption +of such a common kinship would lead to ideas so strange that +reason shrinks from them, and we cannot attribute this idea +to the author without doing him injustice. Concerning his +suggestions in comparative anatomy through all species +down to plants, the workers in natural science must judge for +themselves whether the hints given for new observations, +will be useful and whether they are justified.... +It is desirable that our ingenious author who in the continuation +of his work will find more <i>terra firma</i>, may somewhat +restrain his bright genius, and that philosophy (which consists +rather in pruning than in fostering luxuriant growth) may +lead him to the perfection of his labors not through hints but +through definite conceptions, not by imagination but by observation, +not by a metaphysical or emotional phantasy but +by reason, broad in its plan but careful in its work.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant rejected certain conceptions of evolution, but +he did not at all show himself averse to the idea in +general. He touched upon the subject only incidentally +and it is certain that he did not especially favor +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_13">[13]</span>or entertain the belief in a non-evolutionary origin of +living beings.</p> + +<p>Before proceeding to the main points of his criticism, +Mr. Spencer calls attention to what he designates +as Kant’s <i>abnormal</i> reasoning. Mr. Spencer says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Something must be said concerning abnormal reasoning as +compared with normal reasoning.” ...</p> + +<p>“Instead of setting out with a proposition of which the negation +is inconceivable, it sets out with a proposition of which the +affirmation is inconceivable, and therefrom proceeds to draw conclusions” +...</p> + +<p>“The first sentence in Kant’s first chapter runs thus: ‘Nothing +can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, +which can be called good without qualification, except a Good +Will.’” ...</p> + +<p>“Most fallacies result from the habit of using words without +fully rendering them into thoughts—passing them by with recognitions +of their meanings as ordinarily used, without stopping to +consider whether these meanings admit of being given to them in +the cases named. Let us not rest satisfied with thinking vaguely +of what is understood by ‘a Good Will,’ but let us interpret the +words definitely. Will implies the consciousness of some end to +be achieved. Exclude from it every idea of purpose, and the conception +of Will disappears. An end of some kind being necessarily +implied by the conception of Will, the quality of the Will is +determined by the quality of the end contemplated. Will itself, +considered apart from any distinguishing epithet, is not cognizable +by Morality at all. It becomes cognizable by Morality only when +it gains its character as good or bad by virtue of its contemplated +end as good or bad.” ...</p> + +<p>“Kant tells us that a good will is one that is good in and for +itself without reference to ends.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is unfortunate that Mr. Spencer misunderstood +the first sentence of Kant’s book (<i>Grundlegung zur +Metaphysik der Sitten</i>). Kant does not speak of “a +good will without qualification,” nor does the expression +“without qualification” refer to “a will without +reference to ends.” Kant speaks of good will in +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_14">[14]</span>opposition to other good things. Nothing, he says, +can without qualification (<i>ohne Einschränkung</i>) be +called good, except a good will.⁠<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> Dr. Porter sums up +the first page of Kant’s essay in the following words:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The first section of the treatise opens with the memorable +and often-quoted utterance, that ‘nothing can be possibly conceived +in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good +without qualification, except a good will.’ If character is compared +with gifts of nature, as intelligence, courage, and gifts of +fortune, as riches, health, or contentment, all these are defective, +‘if there is not a good will to correct their possible perversion and +to rectify the whole principle of acting, and <i>adapt it to its end</i>.’⁠<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> +A man who is endowed with every other good can never give +pleasure to an impartial, rational spectator unless he possesses a +good will. ‘Thus a good will appears to constitute the indispensable +condition of being worthy of happiness.’ ... ‘Moreover, +a good will is good not for what it effects but for what it intends, +even when it fails to accomplish its purposes, ... as when +the man wills the good of another and is impotent to promote it, +or actually effects just the opposite of what he proposes or wills.’”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In the passages quoted by Dr. Porter, Kant speaks +of “the <i>end</i> to which good will adapts other goods”; +and in another passage of the same book, Kant directly +declares that “it is the <i>end</i> that serves the will +as the objective ground of its self-determination.” Mr. +Spencer must have overlooked these sentences. Kant +says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The will is conceived as a power of determining itself to action in +accordance with the conception of certain laws. And such a +power can only be met with in rational beings. <i>Now it is the +END that serves the will as the objective ground of its self-determination</i>, +and this end, if fixed by reason alone, must hold +equally good for all rational creatures.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Mr. Spencer interrupts his essay on the Ethics of +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_15">[15]</span>Kant by a digression on Kant’s conception of time +and space. It would lead us too far at present +if we would follow Mr. Spencer on this ground also. +A comparison of Spencer’s remarks on the subject +with Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” will show that +Kant’s view of space and time is radically different +from that view which Mr. Spencer represents as the +Kantian conception of time and space.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Kant rejects the idea that happiness is the end and +purpose of life and at the same time he declares that +ethics must be based not on the pursuit of happiness +but on the categorical imperative or more popularly +expressed on our sense of duty.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer argues:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“One of the propositions contained in Kant’s first chapter is +that ‘we find that the more a cultivated reason applies itself with +deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life and happiness, so +much the more does the man fail of true satisfaction.’” ...</p> + +<p>“That which Kant should have said is that the <i>exclusive</i> pursuit +of what are distinguished as pleasures and amusements is disappointing.” +...</p> + +<p>“It is not, as Kant says, guidance by ‘a cultivated reason,’ +which leads to disappointment, but guidance by an uncultivated +reason.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The passage quoted by Mr. Spencer from Kant, +reads in its context as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In the physical constitution of an organized being we take it for +granted⁠<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> that no organ for any purpose will be found in it but +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_16">[16]</span>such as is also the fittest and best adapted for that purpose. +If in a being possessing reason and will, the preservation, +the prosperity, in a word, the happiness of that being, constituted +the actual purpose of nature, nature had certainly +adopted an extremely unwise expedient to this end, had it +made the reason of that being the executive agent of its purposes +in this matter. For all actions that it had to perform +with this end in view, and the whole rule of its conduct, would +have been far more exactly prescribed by <i>instinct</i>, and this +end would have been far more safely attained by this means +than can ever take place through the instrumentality of +<i>reason</i>.” ...</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact we find that the more a cultivated reason occupies +itself with the purpose of enjoying life and happiness, the +farther does the person possessing it recede from the state of +true contentment; and hence there arises in the case of many, +and pre-eminently in the case of those most experienced in the +exercise of reason, if they are only frank enough to confess +it, a certain degree of misology or hate of reason; for after +weighing every advantage that they derive, I will not say from +the invention of all arts facilitating ordinary luxury, but even +from the sciences, (which after all are in their eyes a luxury +of the intellect,) they still discover that virtually they +have burdened themselves more with toil and trouble than +they have gained in point of happiness, and thus, in the end, +they are more apt to envy than contemn the commoner type +of men who are more immediately subject to the guidance of +natural instinct alone, and who do not suffer their reason +to influence in any great degree their acts and omissions.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant uses the expression “cultivated reason” not +in opposition to “uncultivated reason,” but to “instinct” +as that inherited faculty which teaches a being +to live in accordance with nature and its natural conditions, +without the interference of thought and reflection.</p> + +<p>That uncultivated reason would lead to disappointment, +Kant never would have denied. He would have +added: “It does more, it leads to a speedy ruin.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_17">[17]</span></p> + +<p>But if reason does not produce happiness, what +then is the use of reason? Kant answers, reason produces +in man the good will.</p> + +<p>It is reason which enables man to form abstractions, +to think in generalizations and to conceive the +import of universal laws. When his will deliberately +and consciously conforms to universal laws, it is good. +Kant says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Thus will (viz. the good will) can not be the sole and whole +Good, but it must still be the highest Good and the condition +necessary to everything else, even to all desire of happiness.” +...</p> + +<p>“To know what I have to do in order that my volition be good, +requires on my part no far-reaching sagacity. Unexperienced +in respect of the course of nature, unable to be prepared for +all the occurrences transpiring therein, I simply ask myself: +Can’st thou so will, that the maxim of thy conduct may become +a universal law? Where it can not become a universal law, +there the maxim of thy conduct is reprehensible, and that, +too, not by reason of any disadvantage consequent thereupon +to thee or even others, but because it is not fit to enter as +a principle into a possible enactment of universal laws.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>If a maxim of conduct is fit to enter as a principle +into a possible enactment of universal laws, it will be +found in harmony with the cosmical laws; if not, it +must come in conflict with the order of things in the +universe. It then cannot stand, and will, if persistently +adhered to, lead (perhaps slowly but inevitably) +to certain ruin.</p> + +<p>Concerning the proposition that happiness may +be regarded as the purpose of life Kant in his review +of Herder’s “Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte +der Menschheit” (Ed. H. IV, p. 190), speaks of the +relativity of happiness and its insufficiency as a final +aim of life:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_18">[18]</span></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>... “First of all the happiness of an animal, then that of a +child and of a youth, and lastly that of man! In all epochs of +human history, as well as among all classes and conditions of +the same epoch, that happiness has obtained which was in +exact conformity with the individual’s ideas and the degree of +his habituation to the conditions amid which he was born and +raised. Indeed, it is not even possible to form a comparison +of the degree of happiness nor to give precedence to one class +of men or to one generation over another.... If this +shadow-picture of happiness ... were the actual aim of Providence, +every man would have the measure of his own happiness +within him.... Does the author (Herder) think +perhaps that, if the happy inhabitants of Otaheite had never +been visited by more civilized peoples and were ordained to +live in peaceful indolence for thousands of years to come—that +we could give a satisfactory answer to the question why +they should exist at all and whether it would not have been +just as well that this island should be occupied by happy sheep +and cattle as that it should be inhabited by men who are happy +only through pure enjoyment?”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Concerning the mission or purpose of humanity +and its ultimate realization, Kant interprets Herder’s +views as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It involves no contradiction to say that no individual member of +all the offspring of the human race, but that only the species, +fully attains its mission (Bestimmung). The mathematician +may explain the matter in his way. The philosopher would +say: the mission of the human race as a whole is <i>unceasing +progress</i>, and the perfection (Vollendung) of this mission is a +mere idea (although in every aspect a quite useful one) of the +aim towards which, in conformity with the design of providence, +we are to direct our endeavors.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We learn from the passages quoted from Kant +that his idea of good will is neither mystical and supernatural, +nor is it vague. It is a conception as logically +and definitely defined as any mathematical definition. +Good will in the sense in which Kant defines +it, is only possible in a reasonable being by the power +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_19">[19]</span>of its reason. The good will is the intention of conforming +to universal principles and thus of being in +harmony with the All. This good will is the corner-stone +of Kant’s ethics; it appears as the categoric imperative +of duty, so to act that the maxim of one’s +conduct may be fit to become a universal law. It is +formulated in another passage: “Act so as if the maxim +of thy conduct by thy volition were to become a natural +law.”</p> + +<p>It is easily seen that, in Kant’s conception, the +<i>ought</i> of morals (viz. of the categoric imperative) does +not stand in contradiction to the <i>must</i> of natural laws. +Kant’s conception is monistic, not dualistic. Kant +says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The moral <i>ought</i> is man’s <i>inner</i>, <i>necessary</i> volition as being +a member of an intelligible world and is <i>conceived</i> by him as an +ought only in so far as he considers himself also as a member of +the sensory world.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Our way of explaining it would be: Man <i>feels</i> in +his activity the categoric imperative as an ought. +So the snow crystal, if it were possessed of sensation, +would <i>feel</i> its formation as an “ought.” But both +are, and to an outside observer will appear, as a “must.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>In the Spencerian system of ethics, which is utilitarianism, +the moral maxim or the idea of duty is not +distinguished from the feeling of pleasure or pain +that accompanies ethical thoughts and acts, and +their consequences. This lack of distinction induces +Mr. Spencer to consider man’s pursuit of happiness as +the basis of ethics. Accordingly the aim of ethics, he +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_20">[20]</span>maintains, is not the performance of duty, not the realization +of the good; to the utilitarian this is only the +means. The end of ethics is the greatest happiness of +the greatest number.</p> + +<p>It is strange that Mr. Spencer’s essay contains a +passage which, although intended as a point of objection +to Kant, is a corroboration of Kant’s ethics, and +a refutation of Mr. Spencer’s own views. While denying +the statement that “a cultivated reason, if applied +with deliberate purpose to the enjoyment of life +and happiness, will fail to produce true satisfaction,” +Mr. Spencer says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I assert that it is untrue on the strength of personal experiences. +In the course of my life there have occurred many intervals, +averaging a month each, in which the pursuit of happiness +was the sole object, and in which happiness was successfully +pursued. How successfully may be judged from the fact +that I would gladly live over again each of those periods +without change, an assertion which I certainly cannot make of +any portions of my life spent in the daily discharge of duties.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This statement, if it proves anything, proves that +happiness is one thing and duty is another; it proves +that Kant’s theory of ethics, which is based on the +discharge of duty and not on the pursuit of happiness, +is correct, and that Mr. Spencer’s theory which identifies +duty with the pursuit of happiness, is wrong.</p> + +<p>However, we must in this place express our opinion +that Mr. Spencer’s statement <i>cannot</i> be quite +correct. The discharge of duty, unpleasant though +the drudgery part of it may have been, was undoubtedly +accompanied and followed by a certain satisfaction, +which perhaps was less in quantity, but certainly +higher in quality than the pleasure derived from +the mere pursuit of happiness. And in the valuation +of the intrinsic and of the moral worth of pleasures, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_21">[21]</span>quality alone should be taken into consideration, not +the quantity. In this sense only can an ethical hedonism +or utilitarianism be acceptable. The man whose +pleasures and pains are of a higher kind, of a nobler +form, and of a better quality, is morally and generally +the more evolved man. And then, the basis of ethics +would be, not so much pleasure or happiness as the +quality of pleasure or happiness; it would be an aspiration +to evolve toward a higher plane of life, to +shape our lives in nobler forms, and to enjoy nobler, +greater, and more spiritual pleasures, or, as Kant says, +“unceasing progress.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer’s assertion, if taken in the sense in +which it stands, is a contradiction of his ethical theory. +But even if Mr. Spencer had declared that the discharge +of duty affords a kind of happiness or satisfaction, +as it truly does, there would still remain a deep gap +between his and Kant’s ethics. Mr. Spencer reduces +ethics to mere worldly prudence; he says that we +must do the good in order to be happy, and for the +sake of its utility, and Kant says we must act so as to be +in agreement with universal law. Mr. Spencer says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“But now, supposing we accept Kant’s statement in full, +what is its implication? That happiness is the thing to be +desired, and, in one way or another, the thing to be +achieved.” ...</p> + +<p>“An illustration will best show how the matter stands. To a +tyro in archery the instructor says: ‘Sir, you must not point +your arrow directly at the target; if you do, you will inevitably +miss it; you must aim high above the target, and you may then +possibly pierce the bull’s-eye.’ What now is implied by the +warning and the advice? Clearly that the purpose is to hit the +target. Otherwise there is no sense in the remark that it will +be missed if directly aimed at; and no sense in the remark that +to be hit, something higher must be aimed at. Similarly with +happiness. There is no sense in the remark that happiness will +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_22">[22]</span>not be found if it is directly sought, unless happiness is a thing +to be somehow or other obtained.” ...</p> + +<p>“So that in this professed repudiation of happiness as an end, +there lies the inavoidable implication that it <i>is</i> the end.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The pursuit of happiness is by no means repudiated +by Kant as wrong or immoral; it is only maintained +to be insufficient as a foundation of ethics. +Kant’s remark that happiness will not be found if it is +directly sought has no reference to his own ethics. +Kant, speaking from the standpoint of one who takes +the view of utilitarianism, says that if a cultivated +reason applies itself to the sole purpose of enjoying life +and happiness, it will meet with a failure.⁠<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p> + +<p>Any other explanation of the moral <i>ought</i> than that +from the Good Will, Kant declares to be <i>heteronomy</i>. +Will would no longer be itself, and the principle of +action would lie in something foreign to the will. +Kant says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Will in such a case would not be a law to itself; but the object +by its relation to the will would impose the law upon the +will.... This would admit of hypothetical imperatives +only: ‘I ought to do a certain thing, because I want something +else.’ The moral and therefore categorical imperative, +on the contrary, says: ‘I ought to act so or so, even if I had +nothing else in view.’ For instance: the hypothetical imperative +of heteronomy says: ‘I ought not to lie, if I ever wish to +preserve my honor.’ The categorical imperative says: ‘I ought +not to lie even if it would not in the least bring me to shame.’”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Spencer quotes the following passage from +Kant:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I omit here all actions which are already recognized as inconsistent +with duty, although they may be useful for this or that +purpose, for with these the question whether they are done +<i>from duty</i> can not arise at all, since they even conflict with +it. I also set aside those actions which really conform to duty, +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_23">[23]</span>but to which men have <i>no</i> direct <i>inclination</i>, performing them +because they are impelled thereto by some other inclination. +For in this case we can readily distinguish whether the action +which agrees with duty is done <i>from duty</i>, or from a selfish +view. It is much harder to make this distinction when the +action accords with duty, and the subject has besides a <i>direct</i> +inclination to it. For example, it is always a matter of duty +that a dealer should not overcharge an inexperienced purchaser, +and wherever there is much commerce the prudent +tradesman does not overcharge, but keeps a fixed price for +every one, so that a child buys of him as well as any other. +Men are thus <i>honestly</i> served; but this is not enough to make +us believe that the tradesman has so acted from duty and +from principles of honesty: his own advantage required it; +it is out of the question in this case to suppose that he might +besides have a direct inclination in favor of the buyers, so that, +as it were, from love he should give no advantage to one over +another[!]. Accordingly the action was done neither from +duty nor from direct inclination, but merely with a selfish view.</p> + +<p>“On the other hand, it is a duty to maintain one’s life, and, in +addition, every one has also a direct inclination to do so. +But on this account the often anxious care which most men +take for it has no intrinsic worth, and their maxim has no +moral import. They preserve their life <i>as duty requires</i>, no +doubt, but not <i>because duty requires</i>. On the other hand, if +adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away +the relish for life; if the unfortunate one, strong in mind, indignant +at his fate rather than desponding or dejected, wishes +for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it—not +from inclination or fear, but from duty—then his maxim has +a moral worth.</p> + +<p>“To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there +are many minds so sympathetically constituted that without +any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure +in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in +the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But +I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however +proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no +true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations.” +(pp. 17-19)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_24">[24]</span></p> + +<p>Kant’s metaphysics of ethics is to practical ethics +what pure mathematics is to applied mathematics, or +what logic is to grammar. Kant’s method of reasoning +<i>in abstracto</i> everywhere shows the mathematical +bent of his mind. In a foot-note (Editio Hartenstein, +IV), p. 258, he says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“As pure mathematics is distinguished from applied mathematics +and pure logic from applied logic, so may the pure philosophy +(the metaphysics) of ethics be distinguished from the applied +philosophy of ethics, that is, as applied to human nature. By +this distinction of terms it at once appears that ethical principles +are not based upon the peculiarities of human nature but +that they must be existent by themselves <i>a priori</i>,—whence, +for human nature, just as well as for <i>any</i> rational nature, +practical rules can be derived.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Schleiermacher says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“A good is any agreement (“unity”) of definite sides [certain +aspects] of reason and nature.... The end of ethical +praxis is the highest good, <i>i. e.</i>, the sum of all unions of nature +and reason.... The moral law may be compared to the +algebraic formula which (in analytical geometry) determines the +course [path] of a curve; the highest good may be compared to +the curve itself, and virtue, or moral power, to an instrument arranged +for the purpose of constructing the curve according to +the formula.” (Quoted from a translation of Ueberweg.)</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant declares in other passages that in examples +taken from practical life, it will be difficult to separate +clearly and unmistakably the sense of duty as the real +moral motive from other motives, inclinations, habits, +etc. But such a distinction must be made, if the moral +value of motives is to be considered <i>in abstracto</i>. +This is necessary for a clear conception of the essential +features of morality. Mr. Spencer has on other +occasions highly praised the power of generalization, +which indeed is fundamentally the same faculty, as +thinking <i>in abstracto</i>; here, however, he does not follow +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_25">[25]</span>Kant’s argument, but declares “that the assumed distinction +between sense of duty and inclination is untenable.” +He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The very expression <i>sense</i> of duty implies that the mental +state signified is a feeling; and if a feeling it must, like other feelings, +be gratified by acts of one kind and offended by acts of an +opposite kind. If we take the name conscience, which is equivalent +to sense of duty, we see the same thing. The common expressions +‘a tender conscience,’ ‘a seared conscience,’ indicate the +perception that conscience is a feeling—a feeling which has its +satisfactions and dissatisfactions, and which <i>inclines</i> a man to acts +which yield the one and avoid the other—produces an <i>inclination</i>,” +(p. 476).</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is quite true that every state of consciousness +is a feeling, but we can and must discriminate between +consciousness or feeling and the idea or thought which +becomes conscious, in which the feeling appears, and +which is, so to speak, the special form of a certain +feeling. The consciousness and its special form, the +feeling and the mental object of feeling, are in reality +one and the same. Yet they are different and must +<i>in abstracto</i> be well distinguished. Mr. Spencer’s +method is that of generalization, but generalizing can +lead to no satisfactory results, if it is not constantly +accompanied by discrimination. We must generalize +and discriminate.</p> + +<p>If a certain group of states of consciousness takes the +form of a logical syllogism, it must not be expected that +logic will find its explanation in feeling, although it +cannot be denied that all the states of consciousness +are feelings. Not the feeling in this case is to be explained, +but logic. In our generalizations we must +discriminate <i>in abstracto</i> between the feeling and the +idea which feels. We must positively abstract from +feeling and cannot consider whether the feeling of logical +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_26">[26]</span>arguments is pleasant or unpleasant. Mr. Spencer’s +method of explaining ethics, if applied to logic, would +be as follows: “Man’s logical sense is a very complex +feeling and has developed from simple percepts such +as can be observed in the lowest animals; percepts +are a higher evolved form of reactions against irritations +such as take place in protoplasm. The old +method of explaining logic is that of deduction, modern +logic will be inductive. Formerly pure logic was +considered as a science <i>a priori</i>; but the evolution-philosophy +shows that logic is developed by steps, +it appears <i>a priori</i> to the individual now, but it is in +reality a consolidated product of multitudinous experiences +received mainly by ancestors and added to by +self. Logical sense accordingly finds its explanation in +most simple feelings. Our conceptions of logically +incorrect feelings will be more and more avoided because +they will ultimately be found to be unpleasant; +logical correctness is striven for because of the feeling +of satisfaction that accompanies the conception of a +logically correct conclusion.”</p> + +<p>Sense is feeling, there can be no doubt. Logical +sense and mathematical sense are feelings and if a +person thinks a mathematical axiom or a logical syllogism +or an ethical maxim, he has a feeling. Logical +sense of reason is the product of evolution, and it +cannot be denied either that one man has a more logical +or mathematical or moral sense than another. But it +does not follow that an explanation of mathematics, +or logic, or ethics, must be derived from feeling +pleasure and pain, or happiness. On the contrary we +must abstract from feeling altogether and concern +ourselves with the object of feeling only, which is the +idea or the special form in which and as which feeling +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_27">[27]</span>appears. States of consciousness (never mind whether +they are painful or pleasurable) must be considered as +moral if their mental object, <i>i. e.</i>, the idea, the thought, +the motive, the form in which feeling becomes manifest, +is in harmony with the universal order of things.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Mr. Spencer declares that the world would be +intolerable “if Kant’s conception of moral worth +were displayed universally in men’s acts.” And it +must be acknowledged that Kant’s ethics in their logical +and irrefutable rigidity not only impressed the literary +world of his time with the grandeur and sublimity +of ethics; Kant’s ethics also astounded, and +overwhelmed his readers with awe. Virtue no longer +appeared to be the fervid enthusiasm of sentiments; +it congealed into the cold idea of duty which can +be fixed in abstract rules and will operate like the correctly +calculated gear of a machine. Objections have +been raised by some of Kant’s own disciples; but it +must be known that the Kantian view of ethics does +not suppress feelings, emotions and inclinations, it excludes +them only from an estimation of the moral +worth of actions. Kant gave the <i>coup de grace</i> to all +sentimentality which had taken the lead in ethical +questions too long. Mr. Spencer says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If those acts only have moral worth which are done from +a sense of duty ... we must say that a man’s moral +worth is greater in proportion as the strength of his sense of +duty is such that he does the right thing not only apart from +inclination but against inclination. According to Kant, then, +the most moral man is the man ... who says of another +that which is true though he would like to injure him by a falsehood; +who lends money to his brother though he would prefer to +see him in distress.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Schiller, although an admirer of Kant, makes in +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_28">[28]</span>his Xenions a similar objection to this corollary of the +ethics of pure reason. He says:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Willingly serve I my friends; but ’tis pity, I do it with pleasure.</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And I am really vexed, that there’s no virtue in me!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>And he answers in a second distich:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“There is no other advice than that you try to despise friends,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And, with disgust, you will do what such a duty demands.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The difficulty is removed under the following consideration: +A man with good inclinations is less exposed +to temptation than a man with bad inclinations. +If both act morally under conditions otherwise the +same, the latter has shown greater strength of moral +purpose than the former. The former’s character (viz., +his inherited inclinations and habits which represent +the sum total of the moral energies of his ancestors,) +is more moral than that of the latter. But the latter +deserves more credit than the former for overcoming +the temptation; he has in this special act shown +more moral strength of will than his more fortunate +and morally higher advanced fellow-man. To those +who have accepted the Kantian view, Mr. Spencer’s +and Schiller’s objection can serve as a warning, not to +lose sight of emotions altogether. Man is not only a +reasonable being, he is at the same time a feeling +creature. The instinctive faculties of man, the so-called +subconscious states, are the basis of his consciousness. +They form the roots of his soul from +which spring the clear conceptions of his reason. The +more man’s habits and inclinations agree with morals, +the more strength of purpose is left for further ethical +advancement and moral progress.</p> + +<p>Similar objections have also been made to Kant’s +mechanical explanation of the origin of the planetary +systems and milky ways. It seemed as if the divinity +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_29">[29]</span>of nature were replaced by the rigid law of gravity. +In his poem “The God’s of Greece,” Schiller +complains:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Fühllos selbst für ihres Künstlers Ehre,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Gleich dem todten Schlag der Pendeluhr,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dient sie knechtisch dem Gesetz der Schwere,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Die entgötterte Natur.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Dead even to her Master’s praise,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Like lifeless pendulum’s vibration,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lo, godless Nature now obeys,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Slave-like, the law of gravitation.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Such objections are always raised when a scientific +explanation destroys the mystic view that a spirit or +at least something unexplainable is the supposed +cause of certain phenomena. Our sentiments are so +closely connected and intimately interwoven with our +errors that truth appears hostile to sentiment, and it +becomes difficult to part with errors sanctified by +emotion. Sentimentality always complains that clear +thought is an enemy of romanticism, and romanticism +is the only possible poetry to the taste of the sentimental.</p> + +<p>Now it cannot be denied that a one-sided +knowledge not only appears rigid, it truly <i>is</i> so, and will +be destructive of such emotions as reverence, awe, +æsthetic taste, religion and art. Criticism is a most +essential feature of science and philosophy, and how +negative, how desolate and melancholy appear the +results of criticism! But the pruning process of criticism +is very wholesome, and true science will only +profit by discarding the vagueness of indistinct conceptions. +Alpine lakes that are really deep can only gain +by lucidity. Thus the clearness of genuine science +and broad philosophy will only show the depth of +truth into which by all its lucidity our emotions can +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_30">[30]</span>plunge without ever finding it shallow or fathoming +it in all its profundity.</p> + +<p>Kant’s doctrine of ethics is a truth that can stand +the severest test.</p> + +<p>Ethics, in the sense of the word as used by Kant, +can be found in man only, in so far as he is a reasonable +being. A truly reasonable being does not allow +himself to be guided by impulses but is led by maxims. +Inclinations and habits are remnants of instinct. Not +he who in instinctive good-naturedness acts morally, +is the ethical man, but he who deliberately and consciously +considers himself a representative of the general +order of things. The man, who adopts such +maxims as can become universal principles, identifies +his will with the laws of the universe. Man’s moral +dignity must not be sought in vague feelings or in instinctive +inspirations; it is based upon his reason and +is developed in so far only as he makes use of his +reason.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> Quotations from Mr. Spencer’s essay will be distinguished by quotation-marks, +while those from Kant will appear in hanging indentations.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> Kant distinguishes two kinds of sublimity: 1) the mathematical, and 2) the +dynamical. His definitions are: 1) sublime is that in comparison with which +everything else is small; and 2) sublime is that the mere ability to conceive +which shows a power of emotion (Gemüth), the latter transcending any measurement +by the senses. [1) Erhaben ist, mit welchem im Vergleich alles andere +klein ist. 2) Erhaben ist, was auch nur denken zu können ein Vermögen des +Gemüths beweist, das jeden Maasstab der Sinne übertrifft. Editio Hartenstein, +Vol. V, pp. 257, 258.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> The stellar Universe, of course, has not been evolved; Mr. Spencer means +that according to Kant’s mechanical explanation the planetary systems and +milky ways of the stellar Universe are in a state of constant evolution.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> Translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, pp. 244, 249.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> Compare also Kant’s “Prol. zu jeder künftigen Metaphysik,” § 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> We call attention to Kant’s peculiar expression, in this passage, of <i>Auswickelung</i> +which has now yielded to the term <i>Entwickelung</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a> Die in der Natur eines organischen Körpers (Gewächses oder Thieres) liegenden +Gründe einer bestimmten Auswickelung heissen, wenn diese Auswickelung +besondere Theile betrifft, <i>Keime</i>; betrifft sie aber nur die Grösse +oder das Verhältniss der Theile unter einander, so nenne ich sie <i>natürliche +Anlagen</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> Wir nehmen die Benennungen <i>Naturbeschreibung</i> und <i>Naturgeschichte</i> +gemeiniglich in einerlei Sinne. Allein es ist klar, dass die Kenntniss der Naturdinge, +wie sie <i>jetzt sind</i>, immer noch die Erkenntniss von demjenigen wünschen +lasse, was sie ehedem <i>gewesen</i> sind und durch welche Reihe von Veränderungen +sie durchgegangen, um an jedem Ort in ihren gegenwärtigen Zustand +zu gelangen. Die <i>Naturgeschichte</i>, woran es uns noch fast gänzlich fehlt, würde +uns die Veränderung der Erdgestalt, imgleichen die der Erdgeschöpfe (Pflanzen +und Thiere), die sie durch natürliche Wanderungen (sic! I take it as a +misprint for <i>Wandelungen</i>) erlitten haben, und ihre daraus entsprungenen +Abartungen von dem Urbilde der Stammgattung lehren. Sie würde vermuthlich +eine grosse Menge scheinbar verschiedener Arten zu Racen ebenderselben +Gattung zurückführen, und das jetzt so weitläuftigte Schulsystem +der Naturbeschreibung in ein physisches System für den Verstand verwandeln.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a> The original of the first sentence reads: “Es ist überall nichts in der +Welt, ja überhaupt auch ausser derselben zu denken möglich, was ohne Einschränkung +für gut könnte gehalten werden, als allein ein guter Wille.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> <i>Italics are ours.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> The phrase “we take it for granted” (in the original “nehmen wir es als +Grundsatz an)” reads in the translation quoted by Mr. Spencer: “we take it as +a fundamental principle.” Mr. Spencer objects to the passage declaring that +there <i>are</i> many organs (such as rudimentary organs) in the construction of +organized beings which serve <i>no</i> purpose. This however does not stand in +contradiction to Kant’s assumption that organs of organized beings serve a +special purpose. The rudimentary organs have under other conditions served +a purpose for which they then were fit and well adapted and are disappearing +now because no longer used.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a> Das moralische Sollen ist also ein eigenes nothwendiges Wollen als +Gliedes einer intelligiblen Welt, und wird nur sofern von ihm als Sollen gedacht, +als er sich zugleich wie ein Glied der Sinnenwelt betrachtet. Ed. Hartenstein +vol. IV. p. 303.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> The passage referred to is quoted in full on page 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a> Slightly altered from <span class="smcap">B. W. Ball’s</span> + translation in <span class="smcap">The Open Court</span>, p. 83.</p></div> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_31">[31]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_32">[32]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="KANT_ON_EVOLUTION">KANT ON EVOLUTION.<br> +<span class="smaller">IN CRITICISM OF MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S PRESENTATION OF KANTISM.</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_33">[33]</span></p> + +<p>It is very strange that Mr. Herbert Spencer will again +and again attack the philosophy and ethics of +Kant for views which Kant never held.⁠<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> It is possible +that there are disciples of Kant who deny the +theory of evolution. Yet it is certain that Kant himself +is not guilty of this mistake. Thinkers who reject +the theory of evolution are in this respect as little +entitled to call themselves disciples of Kant as, for +instance, the Sadducees were to call themselves followers +of Christ. Kantian philosophy was foremost in the +recognition of the need of evolution, and that at a time +when public interest was not as yet centered upon it.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer’s merits in the propagation of the theory +of evolution are undeniable, and he deserves our warmest +respect and thanks for the indefatigable zeal he has +shown in the performance of this great work, for the +labors he has undergone, and the sacrifices he has made +for it. Yet recognising all that Mr. Spencer has done, +we should not be blind to the fact that Kant’s conception +of evolution is even at the present day more in +conformity with the facts of natural science than Mr. +Spencer’s philosophy, although the latter commonly +goes by the name of the philosophy of evolution.</p> + +<p>It is painful to note that in many places where Mr. +Spencer refers to Kant’s philosophy, he does it slightingly, +as though Kant were one of the most irrational +of thinkers. Kant’s reasoning is denounced as “abnormal” +and “vicious.” I find such phrases as, “It +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_34">[34]</span>is a vice of Kant’s philosophy ...,” “If Kant had +known more of Man than he did ...,” etc. Mr. +Spencer characterises Kant’s method as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Instead of setting out with a proposition of which the negative +is inconceivable, it sets out with a proposition of which the +affirmation is inconceivable, and proceeds to draw conclusions +therefrom.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>These attacks of Mr. Spencer on Kant are not justifiable. +Kant is not guilty of the faults for which he +is arraigned by Mr. Spencer.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It is, however, fair to state that these misunderstandings +appear excusable if the difficulties are borne +in mind with which the English student of Kant is +confronted. First, Kant cannot be understood without +taking into consideration the historical development +of his philosophy, and, secondly, most translations of +the fundamental terms, he employs, are so misleading +that errors can scarcely be avoided.</p> + +<p>Kant’s philosophy is by no means a perfected system; +it rather represents (as perhaps necessarily all +philosophies do) the development of a thinker’s mind. +The “Critique of Pure Reason” especially shows traces +of the state of Kant’s mind at different periods, and +thus it is that we discover passages which closely +considered will be found to be contradictory. When +reading this remarkable work we feel like travelers +walking over the petrified relics of a powerful eruption. +There are strata of ideas of the oldest formation close +to the thoughts of a recent date. There are also vestiges +of intermediate phases. Here they stand in the +petrification of printed words, peacefully side by side, +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_35">[35]</span>as memorials of a great revolution in the development +of human thought. It is this state of things which +more than anything else makes of Kant’s writings such +difficult reading. At the same time it is obvious that +we cannot simply take the results of Kant’s philosophy; +we must follow him in the paths by which he arrived +at any given proposition.</p> + +<p>There is no philosopher that has been worse misinterpreted +than Kant; and the English interpreters of +Kant have succeeded in mutilating his best thoughts so +that this hero of progress appears as a stronghold of +antiquated views. Mistranslations or misconceptions +of his terms are to a great extent the cause of this +singular fate. As an instance we mention the errors +that attach to Kant’s term <i>Anschauung</i>. <i>Anschauung</i> +is the present object of our senses; it is the impression +a man has from looking at a thing and might have +been translated by “perception” or perhaps “sensation.” +It is usually translated by “intuition.” The +<i>Anschauung</i> of objects comprises the data of knowledge, +and they are previous to our reflection upon +them. An intuition in the sense of the English Intuitionalists +is defined as “a presentation which can +be given previously to all thought,” yet this presentation +is supposed to be a kind of revelation, a knowledge +that comes to us without our contemplation, a cognition +the character of which is immediate as well as +mysterious; in short something that is supernatural.</p> + +<p>How different is Kant’s philosophy, for instance, if +his position with reference to time and space is mistaken! +“Time and Space are our <i>Anschauung</i>,” Kant +says. But his English translators declare: “Kant +maintained that space and time are intuitions.” What +a difference it makes if intuition is interpreted in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_36">[36]</span>sense applied to it by the English Intuitionalist School +instead of its being taken in the original meaning of +the word <i>Anschauung</i>.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Any one who knows Kant through Mr. Spencer’s +representations only, must look upon him as having +the most perverse mind that could possibly exist; and +yet it is Kant from whom Spencer has indirectly derived +the most characteristic feature of his philosophy. +What is Mr. Spencer’s agnosticism but a popularisation +of Kant’s view that things in themselves are unknowable?</p> + +<p>We conclude from the animosity which Mr. Spencer +shows toward Kant that he does not know how +much in this respect he agrees with Kant, how much +he has unconsciously imbibed from the <i>Zeitgeist</i> which +in part was formed under the influence of this huge +error of the great philosopher.</p> + +<p>I feel confident that any clear thinker who studies +Kant and arrives along with him at the “thing in +itself” will soon free himself from this error of Kantian +thought. Kant himself suggests to us the method +by which we are to find the way out of agnosticism. +As a proof I quote the views of two independent thinkers; +both influenced by Kant’s criticism but neither a +blind follower. Professor Mach says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I have always felt it as a special good fortune, that early in +my life, at about the age of fifteen, I happened to find in the library +of my father Kant’s ‘Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic.’ +The book made at that time a powerful, ineffaceable impression +upon me that I never afterwards experienced to the same degree +in any of my philosophical reading. Some two or three years +later I suddenly discovered the superfluous rôle that ‘the thing in +itself’ plays.” <i>The Monist</i>, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 65 and 66.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_37">[37]</span></p> + +<p>And Schiller guided by similar considerations says +in one of his Xenions:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Since Metaphysics, of late, without heirs to her fathers was gathered:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Under the hammer are now ‘things in themselves’ to be sold.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The latest attack of Mr. Spencer upon Kantism is +in the article “Our Space-Consciousness,” in <i>Mind</i>, +written in reply to Professor Watson. Mr. Spencer +there repeats his misconception of Kantism, so that I +feel urged to utter a few words of protest against his +gross misrepresentation of Kant’s views. I shall confine +myself mainly to quotations from Kant’s works—and +the passages quoted will speak for themselves. +Should there indeed be any disciples of Kant who are, as +Mr. Spencer says, “profoundly averse to that evolutionary +view which contemplates mind as having had +a genesis conforming to laws like those conformed to +by the genesis of the body,” these quotations will suffice +to prove that they have misconstrued the views +of their master. Philosophers hostile to the theory of +evolution had better select another patron for their +ideas. Kant is too radical a mind to protect those men +who in the domains of thought give the signal for retreat.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer adopted the evolution theory as it was +presented by Von Baer, who explains “<i>Entwickelung</i>” +as a progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.</p> + +<p>Baer’s “Developmental History of Animals” was +published in 1828. Mr. Spencer adopted the theory in +1854. But the history of the theory of evolution is +older than Von Baer’s book. Professor Baer concludes +his work with a few corollaries among which near the +end we find the following passage:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If we survey the contents of the whole Scholia, there follows +from them a general result. We found that the effect of generation +continues to advance from a part to a whole [Schol. 2.]; that +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_38">[38]</span>in development, self-dependence increases in correspondence with +its environment [Schol. 2.], as well as the determinateness of its +structure [Schol. 1.]; that in the internal development special +parts shape themselves forth from the more general, and their differentiation +increases [Schol. 3.]; that the individual, as the possessor +of a fixed organic form, changes by degrees from more general +forms into more special [Schol. 5.].</p> + +<p>“The general result of our inquiry and consideration can now +well be declared as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“That the developmental history of the individual is the +history of increasing individuality in every relation; that is, +Individualisation.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>“This general conclusion is, indeed, so plain, that it needs no +proof from observation, but seems evident <i>a priori</i>. But we believe +that this evidentness is merely the stamp of truth, and therefore +is its guarantee. Had the history of development from the +outset been perceived as just expressed, it could and should have +been inferred, that the individual of a determinate animal type +attains to this by changing from a general into a special form. +But experience teaches everywhere, that deductions are always +safer if their results are discovered beforehand by observation. +Mankind would have obtained a still greater intellectual possession +than it really has, had this been otherwise.</p> + +<p>“But if this general conclusion has truth and contents, it is +<i>one fundamental idea</i> which runs through all forms and degrees of +animal development, and governs every single relation. It is the +same idea that collected in space the distributed particles into +spheres and united them in solar systems; which caused the disintegrated +dust on the surface of our metallic planet to grow up +into living forms; but this idea is nothing else than life itself, and +the words and syllables in which it expresses itself, are the different +forms of life.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>These corollaries were not inserted by Baer because +he intended to proclaim a new truth, but simply +to excite a popular interest in a strictly scientific work, +in order to extend the circle of its readers. Baer says +in the preface:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“So much about the first part. In order to procure for the +work readers and buyers, I have added a second part in which I +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_39">[39]</span>make some general remarks under the title of Scholia and Corollaries. +They are intended to be sketches of the confession of my +scientific faith concerning the development of animals, as it was +formed from the observation of the chick and by other investigations.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The “Encyclopædia Britannica” says of Baer that +he “prepared the way for Mr. Spencer’s generalisation +of the law of organic evolution as the law of all evolution.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p> + +<p>Baer declares that individualisation is “the one +fundamental idea that goes through <i>all</i> the forms of +cosmic and animal development.” The generality of +the law of evolution is clearer in the language employed +by Baer, in the full context of the Scholia than +appears from the short statement of the “Encyclopædia +Britannica.” Nevertheless it is clear enough in the +quoted passage that Baer made a statement of universal +application. How can such a universal statement +be made more general?</p> + +<p>We must add here that Mr. Spencer and his disciples +overvalue the importance of generalisation. It +is not the power of generalisation that makes the +philosopher and the scientist but the power of discrimination. +The habit of generalising whatever comes +under our observation is very common among the +uneducated and uncivilised, and almost nine tenths of +human errors arise from unwarranted generalisations.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_40">[40]</span></p> + +<p>In Kant’s time the interest in the theory of evolution +was confined to a few minds. It is well known +that Goethe was one of its most enthusiastic supporters.⁠<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> +In the middle of the eighteenth century there +were three views proposed to explain the origin and the +development of organised beings: (1) Occasionalism, +(2) the theory of Evolution, and (3) the theory of Epigenesis. +Occasionalism maintained that God created +on each new occasion a new animal. The word evolution +was used in a different sense from that in which +it is now understood: evolutionism, as maintained by +Bonnet, Haller, and others, was the view that the +sperma contained a very small specimen of the animal +that was to grow from it. The hen’s egg was supposed +to contain an excessively minute but complete +chicken. The theory of epigenesis, however, propounded +in 1759 by Caspar Friedrich Wolff in his +“Theoria Generationis,” explained development by +additional growth, and it is this theory of epigenesis +which later on, after the total defeat of the old evolutionism, +was called (but improperly) the evolution +theory. The word “evolution” has thus again admitted +the erroneous idea of an unfolding.</p> + +<p>In Kant’s time the battle between the occasionalists, +the evolutionists, and the adherents of the epigenesis +theory was hot indeed; and Kant unquestionably gave +preference to the epigenesis theory. The most important +passage on the subject appears in his “Critique +of Judgment.” It is as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“If now the teleological principle of the generation of organised +beings be accepted, as it would be, we can account for their internally +adapted form either by <i>Occasionalism</i> or by <i>Prestabilism</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_41">[41]</span>According to the first, the supreme world-cause would, in agreement +with its idea, on the occasion of every coition directly give the +proper organic form to the material thereby blended; according to +the second, it would have implanted into the original products of +its designing wisdom merely the power by means of which an organic +being produces its like and the species itself is constantly +maintained and likewise the death of individuals is continually replaced +by their own nature, which is operating at the same time +for their destruction.</p> + +<p>“If we assume occasionalism for the production of organised +beings, nature is thereby wholly discarded, and with it the use of +reasoning in determining the possibility of such kinds of products; +therefore, it cannot be supposed that this system is accepted by any +one who has had to do with philosophy.”</p> + +<p>“As to <i>Prestabilism</i>, it can proceed in a two-fold manner, +namely, it considers every organic being produced by its like, either +as the <i>educt</i> or as the <i>product</i> of the first. The system which considers +generated beings as mere <i>educts</i> is called that of <i>individual +preformation</i>, or also the <i>theory of evolution</i>; that which makes +generated beings <i>products</i> is named the system of <i>epigenesis</i>. The +latter can also be called a system of <i>generic preformation</i>, because +the productive power of those generating was virtually preformed +to agree with the internal adapted arrangements that fell to the lot +of their race. The opposing theory to this view should be named +that of individual preformation, or still better, the <i>theory of evolution</i>.”</p> + +<p>“The defenders of the theory of evolution, who exempt each +individual from the formative power of nature, in order to derive +the same directly from the hand of the Creator, would not dare to +permit this to happen in accordance with the hypothesis of occasionalism, +so that coition would be a mere formality, a supreme +national world-cause having decided to form every particular fœtus +by direct interference, and to resign to the mother only its development +and nourishment. They declared themselves in favor of preformation, +<i>as though it were not the same to make the required forms +arise in a supernatural manner at the beginning of the world, as +during its progress</i>; and as if a great multitude of supernatural arrangements +would not rather be dispensed with through occasional +creation which were necessary in order that the embryo formed at +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_42">[42]</span>the beginning of the world should, throughout the long period up +to its development, not suffer from the destructive forces of nature, +but endure and maintain itself intact; moreover, an immensely +greater number of such preformed beings would be made than ever +would be developed, and with them as many creations be thus rendered +unnecessary and purposeless. They still, however, resign at +least something to nature, in order not to fall in with complete hyperphysics, +which can dispense with explanation from nature. They +still held fast indeed, to their hyperphysics; even finding in monsters +(which it must be impossible to regard as designs of nature) +cases of adaptation which call for admiration, although the only +purpose of that adaptedness might be to make an anatomist take +offence at it as a purposeless adaptedness, and have a sense of melancholy +admiration. Yet they could not well fit the generation of +hybrids into the system of preformation, but were obliged still further +to endow the sperm of male creatures with a designedly acting +power, whereas they had otherwise accorded it nothing except mechanical +force to serve as the first means of nourishment of the +embryo; yet this designedly acting force, in the case of the products +of generation between two creatures of the same kind, they would +grant to neither of them.</p> + +<p>“If on the contrary the great advantage was not at once recognised +which the theory of epigenesis possessed over the former +in view of the experimental foundation on which the proof of it +rested; yet reason would be especially favorably predisposed from +the outset for this mode, of explanation, inasmuch as it regards nature—with +reference to the things which originally can be conceived +as possible only in accordance with the theory of causality and design, +at least so far as propagation is concerned—as self-producing +and not merely as developing, and thus with the least possible employment +of the supernatural, leaves all that comes afterwards, +from the very beginning on, to nature: without concerning itself +with the original beginning, with regard to the explanation of +which physics in general miscarries, try with what chain of causes +it may.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant recognises neither the stability of species nor +any fixed limits between them. And this one maxim +alone suffices to prove that he was of the same opinion +as the great biologist who wrote the “Origin of Species.” +Kant says (Ed. Hart. III. p. 444):</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_43">[43]</span></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“<i>Non datur vacuum formarum</i>, that is, there are not different +original and primitive species, which were, so to say, isolated and +separated by an empty space from one another, but all the manifold +species are only divisions of a single, chief, and general +species; and from this principle results again this immediate inference: +<i>datur continuum formarum</i>, that is, all differences of +species border on each other, and allow no transition to one another +by a leap, but only through very small degrees of difference, +by which we can arrive at one from another; in one word, there +are no species or sub-species which, according to reason, would be +<i>next</i> each other in affinity, but intermediate species are always possible, +whose difference from the first and second is less than their +difference from one another.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In Kant’s “Critique of Judgment” (§. 80) we find +the following passage:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The agreement of so many species of animals, with reference +to a definite, common scheme, which appears not only to be +at the foundation of their bony structure, but also of the arrangement +of their other parts, in which, by abridgment of one and +prolongation of another, by envelopment of this and unfolding of +that, a wonderful simplicity of plan has been able to produce so +great a diversity of species—this agreement casts a ray of hope, +although a weak one, in the mind, that here, indeed, something +might be accomplished with the principle of the mechanism of nature, +without which in general there can be no physical science.</p> + +<p>“This analogy of forms, so far as they appear, notwithstanding +all their diversity, to be produced after the model of a common +prototype, strengthens the conjecture of a real relationship between +the same by generation from a common ancestral source, +through the gradual approach of one animal species to another, +from man, in whom the principle of design appears to be best +proved, to the polyp, from this to the moss and lichen, and finally +to the lowest stage of nature perceptible to us, to crude matter, +from which and its forces, according to mechanical laws (like those +which work in the production of crystals), the whole technic of nature +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_44">[44]</span>(which is so incomprehensible to us in organised beings that +we imagine another principle is necessitated for their explanation) +appears to be derived.⁠<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></p> + +<p>“The Archæologist of nature is now free to make that great +family of beings (for such we must conceive it, if the uninterrupted +relationship is to have a foundation) arise out of the extant vestiges +of the oldest revolutions, following every mechanism known +to him or which he can suppose.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant adds in a foot-note:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“An hypothesis of such a kind can be named a daring venture +of reason, and there may be few of the most sagacious naturalists, +through whose minds it has not sometimes passed. For it is not +absurd, as the <i>generatio equivoca</i>, by which is understood the production +of an organised being through the mechanical action of +crude unorganised matter. But it would still be <i>generatio univoca</i> +in the common understanding of the word, in so far only as something +organic was produced out of another organic body, although +specifically distinguished from it; for instance, if certain aquatic +animals by and by formed into amphibia, and from these after +some generations into land animals. <i>A priori</i> this does not contradict +the judgment of pure reason. Only experience shows no example +thereof; according to it, rather, all generation which we +know is <i>generatio homonyma</i> (not mere <i>univoca</i> in opposition to production +out of unorganised material), that is, the bringing forth of +a product homogeneous in organisation, with the generator; and +<i>generatio heteronyma</i>, so far as our actual experience of nature +goes is nowhere met with.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_45">[45]</span></p> + +<p>The treatise “Presumable Origin of Humanity,” +Kant sums up in the following sentence:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“From this representation of the earliest human history it results, +that the departure of man from what, as the first abode of +his kind, his judgment represented as Paradise, was no other than +the transition of mere animal creatures out of barbarism into man, +out of the leading-strings of instinct into the guidance of reason, +in a word, out of the guardianship of nature into the state of freedom.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In his work “Upon the Different Races of Mankind,” +Kant discusses the origin of the species of man +in a way which would do honor to a follower of Darwin. +It is written in a spirit which recognises the +difference of conditions as the causes that produce +different species. We select a few passages from this +work.</p> + +<p>In a foot-note we read:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Ordinarily we accept the terms natural science (<i>Naturbeschreibung</i>) +and natural history in one and the same sense. But it +is evident that the knowledge of natural phenomena, as they <i>now +are</i>, always leaves to be desired the knowledge of that which they +<i>have been</i> before now, and through what succession of modifications +they have passed in order to have arrived, in every respect, at +their present state. <i>Natural History</i>, which at present we almost +entirely lack, would teach us the changes that have effected the +form of the earth, likewise, the changes in the creatures of the +earth (plants and animals) that they have suffered by natural +transformations and, arising therefrom, the departures from the +prototype of the original species that they have experienced. It +would probably trace a great number of apparently different varieties +back to a species of one and the same kind, and would convert +the present so intricate school-system of Natural Science into +a natural system in conformity with reason.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We adduce another passage, no less remarkable in +clearness, which proves that Kant has a very definite +idea, not only of the gradual evolution of man, but also +of the survival of the fittest:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_46">[46]</span></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The cry which a child scarcely born utters, has not the tone +of misery, but of irritation, and violent rage; not the result of +pain, but of vexation about something; probably for the reason +that it wishes to move itself and feels its incapacity, like a captive +when freedom is taken from him. What purpose can nature +have in providing that a child shall come with a loud cry into the +world, which for it and the mother is, in the <i>rude natural state</i>, +full of danger? Since a wolf, a pig even, would in the absence of +the mother, or through her feebleness owing to her delivery, be +thus attracted to devour it. But no animal except man as he now +is announces with noise its new-born existence; which in the wisdom +of nature appears to be arranged <i>in order that the species shall +be preserved</i>. We must also assume that in what was an early +epoch of nature for this class of animals (namely in the period of +barbarism) this outcry of the child at its birth did not exist; consequently +only later on a second epoch appeared, after both parents +had arrived at that degree of civilisation which was required +for home-life; yet without knowing how and by what interweaving +causes nature arranges such a development. This remark leads us +far; for example, to the thought whether after the same epoch, +still a third did not follow accompanied by great natural revolutions, +during which an orang-outang or a chimpanzee perfected +the organs which serve for walking, for feeling objects, and for +speech, and thus evolved the limb-structure of man; in which animals +was contained an organ for the exercise of the function of +reason, which by social cultivation was gradually perfected and +developed.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Kant’s view concerning the origin of the biped man +from quadruped animal ancestors is most unequivocally +stated.</p> + +<p>In a review of Dr. Moscati’s Lecture upon the difference +of structure in animals and in men, Kant says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Dr. Moscati proves that the upright walk of man is constrained +and unnatural; that he is indeed so constructed that he may +be able to maintain and move in this position, but that, although by +needful and constant habit he formed himself thus, inconvenience +and disease arise therefrom, which sufficiently prove, that he was +misled by reason and imitation to deviate from the first animal arrangement. +Man is not constructed internally different from other +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_47">[47]</span>animals that go on all fours. When now he raises himself his intestines, +particularly the embryo of pregnant individuals, come into +a pendulous situation and a half reversed condition, which, if it +often alternates with the lying position or that on all-fours, cannot +precisely produce specially evil consequences, but, by constant +continuance, causes deformities and numerous diseases. Thus, for +example, the heart, because it is compelled to hang free, elongates +the blood vessels to which it is attached, assumes an oblique position +since it is supported by the diaphragm and slides with its end +against the left side—a position wherein man, especially at full +growth, differs from all other animals, and thereby receives an inevitable +inclination to aneurism, palpitation, asthma, chest-dropsy, +etc., etc. With the upright position of man the mesentery, pulled +down by the weight of the intestines, sinks perpendicularly thereunder, +is elongated and weakened, and prepared for numerous ruptures. +In the mesenteric vein which has no valves, the blood moves +slowly and with greater difficulty (it having to ascend against the +course of gravity) than would happen with the horizontal position +of the trunk....”</p> + +<p>“We could add considerably to the reasons just adduced to +show that our animal nature is really quadrupedal. Among all four-footed +animals there is not a single one that could not swim if it +accidentally fell into the water. Man alone drowns, except in +cases where he has learned to swim. The reason is because he +has laid aside the habit of going on all-fours; for it is by this motion +that he would keep himself up in the water without the exercise +of any art, and by which all four-footed creatures, who otherwise +shun the water, swim....”</p> + +<p>“It will be seen, accordingly, that the first care of nature was +that man should be preserved as animal for <i>himself and his species</i>, +and for that end the position best adapted to his internal structure, +to the lay of the fœtus, and to his preservation in danger, +was the quadrupedal position; we see, moreover, that a germ of +reason is placed in him, whereby, after the development of the +same, he is destined for <i>social intercourse</i>, and by the aid of which +he assumes the position which is in every case the most fitted for +this, namely, the bipedal position,—thus gaining upon the one +hand infinite advantages over animals, but also being obliged to +put up with many inconveniences that result from his holding his +head so proudly above his old companions.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_48">[48]</span></p> + +<p>[⁠<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> In the double-leaded quotation on pages 43 and 44 +Kant speaks about the explanation of organised life from +man down to the polyp “according to mechanical laws +like those which work in the production of crystals,” +and he adds, in organised beings the whole technic of +nature is so incomprehensible to us “that we imagine +another principle is necessitated for their explanation.”</p> + +<p>This “other principle” would be the principle of +design, or the teleological explanation of phenomena. +In his old age Kant inclined more to teleology than in +his younger years, and it is for this reason that Professor +Ernst Haeckel accuses Kant of inconsistency.</p> + +<p>After having pointed out that “Kant is one of the +few philosophers that combine a well-founded knowledge +of the natural sciences with extraordinary precision +and depth of speculation” and further that “he +was the first who taught ‘the principle of the struggle +for existence’ and ‘the theory of selection.’” Haeckel +says in his “Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte,” 8th +edition, p. 91:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Wir würden daher unbedingt in der Geschichte der Entwickelungslehre +unserem gewaltigen Königsberger Philosophen den +ersten Platz einräumen müssen, wenn nicht leider diese bewundernswürdigen +monistischen Ideen des jungen Kant später durch den +überwältigenden Einfluss der dualistisch christlichen Weltanschauung +ganz zurückgedrängt worden wären.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This “influence of the dualistic Christian world-conception” +is according to Haeckel, Kant’s recognition +of a teleological causation in the realm of organised +life. Haeckel says on the same place:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Er behauptet, dass sich im Gebiete der anorganischen Natur +unbedingt sämmtliche Erscheinungen aus mechanischen Ursachen, +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_49">[49]</span>aus bewegenden Kräften der Materie selbst, erklären lassen, im Gebiete +der anorganischen Natur dagegen nicht.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Haeckel does not stand alone in denouncing the old +Kant. Schopenhauer distinguishes between the author +of the first and the author of the second edition +of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” regarding the former +only as the real Kant. These accusations are not without +foundation, but we believe with Max Müller that +they have been unduly exaggerated.</p> + +<p>As to teleology for which Kant’s preference appears +to be more strongly marked in his later than in his +younger years we should say that it is a problem that +should, in an historical investigation, as to whether or +not Kant was a consistent evolutionist, be treated independently. +No one can deny that there is an adaptation +to ends in the domain of organised life. It is not so +much required to deny teleology in the domain of organised +nature as to purify and critically sift our views +of teleology. There is a kind of teleology which does +not stand in contradiction to the causation of efficient +causes so called.</p> + +<p>Mr. Spencer’s denunciations of Kant would have +some foundation, if he had reference to the old Kant +alone. But everyone who censures Kant for the errors +of his later period is bound to qualify his statement, +and indeed whenever such strictures of Kantism appear +I find them expressly stated as having reference +to “the old Kant.”</p> + +<p>That Kant who is a living power even to-day is the +young Kant, it is the author of the first edition of the +“Critique of Pure Reason.” He is generally called +“the young Kant,” although he was not young; he +was, as we say, in his best years. The old Kant who +proclaimed that he “must abolish knowledge in order +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_50">[50]</span>to make room for faith” is a dead weight in our colleges +and universities. The young Kant is positive, the +old Kant is agnostic. The young Kant was an investigator +and naturalist of the first degree; he gave an impetus +to investigation that it had never before received +from philosophy. The old Kant, I should not exactly +say reverted but certainly, neglected the principles of +his younger years and thus became the leader of a reactionary +movement from which sprang two offshoots +very unlike each other but children of the same father; +the Oxford transcendentalism as represented by Green +and the English agnosticism as represented by Mr. +Spencer.</p> + +<p>It is strange that Mr. Spencer has so little knowledge +concerning the evolution of the views he holds. +If he were more familiar with the history of the idea +“that the world-problem is insolvable,” he would show +more reverence toward the old Kant and his mystical +inclinations; for Kant, whatever Mr. Spencer may say +against it, is the father of modern agnosticism.⁠<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a>]</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The history of Mr. Spencer’s philosophical development +shows that the first idea which took possession +of his mind and formed the centre of crystalisation +for all his later views was M. Condorcet’s optimism. +Condorcet believed in progress; he was convinced +that in spite of all the tribulations and anxieties +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_51">[51]</span>of the present, man would at last arrive at a state +of perfection. He saw a millennium in his prophetic +mind, which alas!—if the law of evolution be true—can +never be realised. Condorcet died a martyr to his +ideals. He poisoned himself in 1799 to escape death +by the Guillotine.</p> + +<p>The influence of Condorcet’s work <i>Esquisse d’un +tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain</i> is traceable +not only in Mr. Spencer’s first book, “Social +Statics,” published in 1850, but in all his later writings. +How can a true evolutionist believe in the +Utopia of a state of perfect adaptation? Does not +each progress demand new adaptations? Take as an +instance the change from walking on four feet to an +upright gait. Did not this progress itself involve man +in new difficulties, to which he had to adapt himself? +Let a labor-saving machine be invented, how many +laborers lose their work and how many others are in +demand! The transition from one state to the other is +not easy, and as soon as it is perfected new wants have +arisen which inexorably drive humanity onward on +the infinite path of progress which can never be limited +by any state of perfection. There is a constant +readjustment necessary, and if we really could reach a +state of perfect adaptation human life would drop into +the unconsciousness of mere reflex motions.</p> + +<p>Any one who understands the principle of evolution +and its universal applicability, will recognise +that there can be no standstill in the world, no state +of perfect adaptation. Our solar system has evolved, +as Kant explained in his “General Cosmogony and +Theory of the Heavens,” out of a nebula, and is going +to dissolve again into a nebular state. So our social +development consists in a constant realisation of ideals. +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_52">[52]</span>We may think that if we but attain our next and dearest +ideal, humanity will be satisfied forever. But as +soon as we have realised that ideal, we quickly get accustomed +to its benefits. It becomes a matter of +course and another ideal higher still than that just +realised appears before our mental gaze.</p> + +<p>Herder, in his “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History +of Mankind,” not unlike Mr. Spencer, was also +under the spell of the Utopian ideal, that humanity +will reach at last a state of perfect happiness. Kant, +in his review of Herder’s book, discusses the relativity +of happiness and its insufficiency as a final aim of life. +He says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“First of all the happiness of an animal, then that of a child +and of a youth, and lastly that of man! In all epochs of human +history, as well as among all classes and conditions of the same +epoch, that happiness has obtained which was in exact conformity +with the individual’s ideas and the degree of his habituation to +the conditions amid which he was born and raised. Indeed, it is +not even possible to form a comparison of the degree of happiness +nor to give precedence to one class of men or to one generation +over another.... If this shadow-picture of happiness ... were +the actual aim of Providence, every man would have the measure +of his own happiness within him.... Does the author (Herder) +think perhaps that, if the happy inhabitants of Otaheiti had never +been visited by more civilised peoples and were ordained to live +in peaceful indolence for thousands of years to come—that we +could give a satisfactory answer to the question why they should +exist at all, and whether it would not have been just as well that +this island should be occupied by happy sheep and cattle as that +it should be inhabited by men who are happy only through pure +enjoyment?”</p> + +<p>“It involves no contradiction to say that no individual member +of all the offspring of the human race, but that only the species, +fully attains its mission (Bestimmung). The mathematician +may explain the matter in his way. The philosopher would say: +the mission of the human race as a whole is <i>unceasing progress</i>, +and the perfection (Vollendung) of this mission is a mere idea (although +<span class="pagenum" id="Appendix_Page_53">[53]</span>in every aspect a very useful one) of the aim towards which, +in conformity with the design of providence, we are to direct our +endeavors.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is indubitable that Kant’s views of evolution +agree better with the present state of scientific investigation, +than does Mr. Spencer’s philosophy, which +has never been freed from Condorcet’s ingenuous optimism. +The assumption of a final state of perfection +by absolute adaptation is irreconcilable with the idea +of unceasing progress, which must be true, if evolution +is a universal law of nature.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> See Mr. Spencer’s article in <i>Mind</i>, No. LIX, p. 313.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> The passage in the <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i> on Baer runs as follows:</p> + +<p>“In his <i>Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere</i>, p. 264, he distinctly tells us +that the law of growing individuality is ‘the fundamental thought which goes +through all forms and degrees of animal development and all single relations. +It is the same thought which collected in the cosmic space solar systems; the +same which caused the weather-beaten dust on the surface of our metallic +planet to spring forth living beings.’ Von Baer thus prepared the way for +Mr. Spencer’s generalisation of the law of organic evolution as the law of all +evolution.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">[103]</a> See Haeckel, <i>Goethe on Evolution</i>, No. 131 of <i>The Open Court</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">[104]</a> <i>Præstabilismus</i>, that is, the theory that the phenomena of nature are the +result of pre-established law.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">[105]</a> The proposition that Kant is no easy reading found an unexpected and +strong opposition. Immediately after the publication of this article, Sept. 4th, +1890, Mr. Charles S. Peirce made the following incidental remark in a letter +to the author dated Sept. 6th, 1890: “I have heard too much of Kant’s being +hard reading. I think he is one of the easiest of philosophers; for he generally +knows what he wants to say, which is more than half the battle, and +he says it in terms which are very clear. Of course, it is quite absurd to try +to read Kant without preliminary studies of Leibnizian and English philosophers, +as well as of the terminology of which Kant’s is a modification or transmogrification. +But there is a way of making out what he meant, while such +writers as Hume and J. S. Mill, the more you study them the more they puzzle +you.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">[106]</a> This passage on pages 48, 49, and 50 which is enclosed in brackets did not +appear in <i>The Open Court</i>. It has been added since and is published here +for the first time.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">[107]</a> In this connection we call attention to a book, <i>Kant und Darwin, ein +Beitrag zur Geschichte der Entwickelungslehre</i>, Jena, 1875, by Fritz Schultze, +formerly Privat docent in Jena, now Professor of philosophy at the Polytechnic +Institute in Dresden. This little book is a collection of the most important +passages of Kant’s views concerning evolution, the struggle for existence, and +the theory of selection, and it is astonishing to find how much Kant had to +say on the subject and how strongly he agrees with and anticipates Darwin. +If Kant had not lived before Darwin one might be tempted to conclude that +he was familiar with his <i>Origin of Species</i> and <i>The Descent of Man</i>.</p></div> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76880 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/76880-h/images/cover.jpg b/76880-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..52adaee --- /dev/null +++ b/76880-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/76880-h/images/cubes1.jpg b/76880-h/images/cubes1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a249c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/76880-h/images/cubes1.jpg diff --git a/76880-h/images/cubes2.jpg b/76880-h/images/cubes2.jpg Binary 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