Metaphysics, or, the philosophy of consciousness, phenomenal and real

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Contents

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Introduction . . . . I

I. Psychology, or the Philosophy of the Phenomena of Consciousness . . .33

Introduction

MOM the various changes which the language of philosophy has. undergone in the gradual progress of human knowledge, there is none more remarkable than the different significations which, in ancient and modern times, have been assigned to the term Metaphysics — a logical signification and in its actual use. As regards the origin of the name, the most recent discussions appear on the whole to confirm the commonly received opinion, according • to which, the term Metaphysics , though originally employed to designate a treatise of Aristotle*, was probably unknown to that philosopher himself. It is true that the oldest and best of the extant commentators on Aristotle refers the inscription of the treatise to the Stagirite ;* but in the extant writings of Aristotle himself, though the work and its subject are frequently referred to under the titles of term at first sight almost equally indefinite in its etymo-

* Alexander in Arist. Metaph., B. (p. 127, ed. Bonitz). B

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First Philosophy , or Theology , or no autho-

rity is found for the later and more popular appellation. On the whole, the weight of evidence appears to he in favour of the supposition which attributes the inscription ra ptra ra pvfiixd to Andronicus Rhodius, the first editor of Aristotle’s collected works. The title, as given to the writings on the first philosophy, probably indicates only their place in the collection, as coming after the physical treatises of the author, t In this

respect, the term Metaphysics has been aptly compared to that of Postils; both names signifying nothing more than the fact of something else having preceded.:):

The title, thus indefinite in its etymological signification, does not at first sight appear to admit of more precision with reference to its actual application. Mr. Stewart, towards the end of his dissertation on the progress of metaphysical and ethical philosophy, § notices “ the extraordinary change which has gradually and insensibly taken place, since the publication of Locke’s Asclepins, apud Brandis, Scholia , p. 519, b. 19. Bonitz in Arist. Metaph., p. 5.

Ad ordinem librorum banc inscriptionem referri, ut libri de prima philosophia excipere significentur libros physicos, communis fere est ac verissima interpretum Grsecorum sententia.” Bonitz ad Arist. Metaph pp. 3, 5. M. Ravaisson, on the other hand, is of opinion that the name should be referred to Aristotle himself, or to one of his immediate disciples.

§ See Encyclopaedia Britannica , 8th edition, vol. i. p. 227.

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Essay, in the meaning of the word Metaphysics — a word formerly appropriated to the ontology and pneumatology of the schools, but now understood as equally applicable to all those inquiries which have for their object to trace the various branches of human knowledge to their first principles in the constitution of our nature” “This change,” he continues, “can be accounted for only by a change in the philosophical pursuits of Locke’s successors — a change from the idle abstractions and subtleties of the dark ages, to studies subservient to the culture of the understanding ; to the successful exercise of its faculties and powers ; and to a knowledge of the great ends and purposes of our being. It may be regarded, therefore, as a palpable and incontrovertible proof of a corresponding progress of reason in this part of the world.”

This change in the pursuits, and consequently in the language, of philosophy had been noticed shortly before by a philosopher of -another country in a very different spirit. Hegel, in 1816, introduced his lectures on the history of philosophy in the following words : — “ In the other countries of Europe, in which the sciences and the cultivation of the understanding have been prosecuted with zeal and credit, every remembrance and trace of philosophy, the name only excepted, has perished and disappeared. Among the Germans alone, it has maintained itself as a national possession. We have received

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from nature the higher mission to be the preservers of this sacred fire, as the Eumolpidse of Athens were intrusted with the preservation of the Eleusinian mysteries/’* Between these opposite conceptions of Metaphysics or Philosophy (for in the language of Hegel the two terms may he regarded as synonymous), it is not easy for an expositor to select his point of view. A definition of Metaphysics .which would include both would he defective philosophically from its vagueness ; one which would exclude either would he defective historically from its incompleteness. To omit the view indicated by Hegel would he to neglect the whole of the ancient and a great part of the modern history of the science. To omit the view indicated by Stewart would he to overlook almost entirely the important share which the writers of our own country have contributed towards

* j Hegel’s Werice , vol. xiii. p. 4. English philosophy, name and thing, is especially honoured with the contempt of this critic. “ The natural sciences, ’’ he says, “are in England denominated Philosophy. An English Philosophical Journal treats of chemistry, agriculture, and manure, of housekeeping and professional knowledge, and communicates discoveries in these departments. The English call physical instruments, such as the barometer and thermometer, philosophical instruments. Theories, especially in morals and moral sciences, which are derived from the feelings of the human heart or from experience, are called Philosophy, as well as those which contain principles of political economy. Thus the name at least of Philosophy is honoured in England.” Ibid. p. 72. See also vol. vi. p. 13. In the same spirit are dictated his criticisms on Bacon, Locke, and Newton ; the latter of whom, he says, has exhibited in his Optics a perfect specimen of the manner in which experiment and reasoning should not be conducted.

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the solution of the great problem of philosophy. Yet the reader who has perused a few pages of Aristotle’s Metaphysics or the later works of a cognate character, on the one hand, and of Locke’s Essay or Stewart’s Elements , on the other, will probably be at a loss to conjecture what possible common notion can be found to unite together works so utterly distinct in their aim and method. A few preliminary observations on this point may, it is hoped, in some degree assist in throwing light on this obscure and almost imperceptible link of connection.

Speculative Philosophy is divided by Aristotle into three branches — Physics, Mathematics, and Theology. The first investigates the special attributes of this or that body as such : the second considers the properties of bodily figures abstracted from their material accompaniments : the third contemplates pure existence, apart from the sensible accidents of matter or figure* This division, however, is one which could not have been made until after philosophy had attained to some considerable development. In the earlier stages of its history, philosophy in general would naturally be identified with one or other of the above branches only, according as its first cultivators sought to explain the

* Metajoh. v. 1. See also De Anima , i. 1. The distinction may be illustrated by an example. Suppose the object of contemplation to be a wooden square ; the physical philosopher considers it qud wooden ; the mathematician, qud square ; the theologian or metaphysician, qud something which exists.

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principles and causes of things by means of this or that fundamental assumption. Hence it is,*that while the history of Philosophy in its widest sense opens with inquiries identical in their aim with those afterwards pursued by the metaphysician, the history of Metaphysics proper can hardly he said to have commenced until the progress of thought and the failure of previous speculations led men to attempt the solution of the general problem of philosophy in a particular manner.

Philosophy in general may he defined, as nearly as a conception so vague admits of definition, as an inquiry into the principles and causes of things.* Metaphysics has been defined by Aristotle (and the definition may be for the present provisionally accepted), as the science which contemplates being as being, and the attributes which belong to it as such.f The latter definition, while verbally resembling the former, exhibits, in fact, an important modification of it; for it implies that the progress of philosophy had necessitated the division of things in general into beings, or things as they are, and phenomena, or things as they appear. The material principles assumed by the Ionians, and the mathematical relations of the Pythagoreans, were

-f- Metaph. iii. 1. " Etrnv iorie'rrifjw rig n 0icu/)St to ov y ov xa.) to. To-jrcp

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theories of the universe, falling under the general conception of Philosophy ; hut the origin of Metaphysics must rather he dated from the period when the Eleatics denied the reality of the sensible world, and confined the region of truth to the supersensible unity which can be obtained only by contemplation.*

Philosophy becomes synonymous with metaphysics in the view of those philosophers who regard thought alone as the channel by which men can attain to reality and truth — a point of view which predominates in the speculations and language of ancient Greece and of modern Germany. Our own countrymen have for the most part erred in the other extreme, and limited the province of philosophy too exclusively to the investigation of the phenomena of sense. And the result has been that, while in Britain the name of Metaphysics has been.- rescued from contempt only by an abuse of language which identifies it with a branch of inductive science, in Germany it is not unusual to represent the country of Bacon, Newton, and Locke, as one which has produced no philosophy.

The first step towards a definite conception of metaphysics was attained by regarding it as the science of real existence. But this conception, like the wider one

* A-Vist. lletcijpll. V. 1. E< f/\v ouv (Jt.ii I trri ns ova i a. Tuga, <ra;

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of philosophy in general, becomes in its subsequent process developed from different and even contradictory points of view, till the resulting systems appear to have nothing in common but the name. The notion of being , as distinguished from phenomenon , corresponds in its original signification with that which the mind conceives as permanent and unchangeable, in opposition to that which is regarded as transitory and fluctuating. Such an object of inquiry may be approached from two opposite sides. It is the real in itself, and it is contemplated by the mind as such. The problem has thus a twofold aspect, as related to the conditions of being and to the conditions of thought ; and its solution may be attempted from the one or the other starting point. We may commence with abstract principles of being in general, and endeavour to deduce a priori the essential characteristics of existence per se; or we may commence with an examination of the actual constitution of the human mind, and endeavour to ascertain empirically how the conception of reality is formed, and what is its consequent value. And either of these methods of inquiry may be so conducted as in the end to lose sight of the original relation which binds them together ; and each may thus present an aspect of irreconcilable antagonism, in place of the mutual pursuit of a common object. The a priori reasoner may pervert his conception of absolute being into a form which finds no counterpart

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in the human consciousness, and confident in the infallibility of his own process, may condemn as worthless the mirror which refuses to reflect back the distorted image. And the investigator of the facts of consciousness, when his imperfect analysis has failed to discover the hidden element of reality, may proclaim reality itself to be a dream and a delusion, and the mind and all that it contains a mere aggregate of phenomena. Deceived by the apparent parallelism of the distant rays, the opposing theorists forget that those rays must converge somewhere in a common centre : they forget that philosophy itself is but the articulate development of consciousness ; that from consciousness all inquiries set out, and to consciousness they must all return.

And such, history tells us, has been the actual fate of metaphysics. The clue to its distant mazes, lost almost at the outset of the journey, became more and more irrecoverable as the paths diverged more and more from their common centre ; till its latest expositors on both sides were unconscious of its existence. If Aristotle for a moment grasped the important truth, that the laws of things and the laws of thought were alike objects of metaphysical inquiry,* the conviction produced hardly any result in the details of his treatment : his

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psychology allied itself chiefly to physics : his metaphysics, after its introductory chapter, deserted the track of psychology. If Locke laid the foundation of a better method of metaphysical inquiry, when he declared, that f< before we set ourselves on inquiries of this nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were or were not fitted to deal with,” * he prematurely excluded the very question which his method was required to solve, by asserting that we have no ideas of body or spirit as substances, but merely suppose an unknown substratum to our external or internal ideas.')' The barrier thus interposed between the sister streams of thought was widened as each flowed on : the ontological philosophers of modern Germany gloried in being not merely independent of, but even contradictory to, the testimony of consciousness ; while the psychological teachers of France and Britain confined themselves more and more within the charmed circle of phenomena, till D’Alembert declared that the office of metaphysics was to prove that all our ideas come from sensation ; j and Stewart denounced the inquiries of ontology as “ the most idle and absurd speculation that ever employed the human

* Essay , Epistle to the Reader. f Essay , b. ii., cb. 23.

J “ La metaphysique a pour but d’examiner la generation de nos idees, et de prouver qu’elles viennent toutes de nos sensations.” Elem. de Philos ., p. 143 ; Melanges , vol, iv. (quoted in Sir W. Hamilton’s edition of Stewart’s Works, vol. i. p. 404).

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faculties.”* But the principle on which this conclusion logically rests is, as regards the Scottish philosophy, an excrescence rather than an integral portion of the system. We may refuse to admit the unproved dogma which denies to the human mind any conception of substance, and yet avail ourselves of the psychological researches of Reid and Stewart, as a valuable, if an incomplete contribution to the philosophy of consciousness, and, through that, to the solution of those fundamental problems of metaphysics to which consciousness gives rise.

As the metaphysical writings of Aristotle and his followers are likely to be but little known to the majority of modern readers, it may be useful to add a brief account of the ancient method of treating the subject, which wdl serve at the same time to exhibit more clearly the chasm which separates the earlier conception of the science from that of the modern disciple of Locke or Stewart. “ There is a certain science,” says Aristotle, “ which contemplates Being in so far as it is Being, and the attributes that belong to it essentially as such. This science is not the same with any of those which are called particular sciences ' for none of these inquires generally concerning Being as Being, but each selects some separate portion of Being, and contemplates the properties of that alone ; as, for example, mathematics. But since we are seeking for the principles and highest

* Philosophical Essays , Preliminary Dissertation, ch. i.

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causes of things, it is clear that these must have somenature to which they properly belong. We must therefore take as the object of our inquiry the first causes of Being as Being” *

A similar conception of the great problem of philosophy had been previously exhibited by Plato in his sketch of the office of Dialectic — a science which, though differing in name and method, is in its purpose and aim identical with the First Philosophy or Theology of Aristotle. In the sciences of geometry and arithmetic, he tells us, certain principles of numbers and figures are assumed by hypothesis as self-evident, but not investigated by any process of reasoning; and from these assumptions the proposed questions are demonstrated. But in dialectic the same hypotheses are employed, not as first principles, but as stepping-stones to some higher truth and absolutely first principle, which is grasped by the intellect without hypothesis, as that on which all other reasoning ultimately depends, f

The problem of Metaphysics, as conceived by both these philosophers, may be perhaps more clearly stated in modern language as follows : — “ To determine the relation that exists between the subjective necessities of thought and the objective necessities of things.” In

* Metaph. iii. 1. The same view is also exhibited more fully in v. 1 , in a passage too long for quotation, f Hepublic, vi. p. 510.

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mathematical demonstration, for example, we start from certain axiomatic principles, of which, as mathematicians, we can give no other account than that they are self-evident ; that is to say, that we are compelled by the constitution of our minds to admit them. But this opens a further question. What is the relation of self-evidence to reality % Is the necessity, of which I am conscious, of thinking in a certain manner, any sure guarantee of a corresponding relation in the objects about which I think \ In other words, are the laws of thought also laws of things ; or, at least, do they furnish evidence by which the laws of things can be ascertained 1 Is thought identical with being, so that every mode of the one is at the same time a mode of the other \ Is thought an exact copy of being, so that every mode of the one is an adequate representative of some corresponding mode of the other % Or, finally, is thought altogether distinct from being, so that we cannot issue from the circle of our ideas, to seize the realities which those ideas are supposed to represent'? Does anything exist beyond the phenomena of our own consciousness % and, if it does exist, what is the path by which it is to he reached 1 The ancient and mediseval metaphysicians adopted almost unanimously the a 'priori method of reasoning downwards from the assumption of abstract principles of Being, — as the modems have laid the foundation of the inverse method of reasoning ‘ upwards from the

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phenomena of Thought. A short analysis of the principal subjects treated of in the Metaphysics of Aristotle will serve to exhibit the details of the former method, as far as our present limits will permit. In the order of the hooks we shall follow the common arrangement, which, though far from unexceptionable, is perhaps not more liable to objection than others which have been proposed in its place.

The first book comprises a psychological account of the nature of science and its origin in the human mind, followed by a history of the researches of previous philosophers into the principles and causes of things. To this is subjoined a kind of appendix (the book known as A minor), containing an argument in favour of the existence of a first principle of things, and consequently of the possibility of attaining to a knowledge of it ; with a caution concerning the method to be pursued, and the necessity of accommodating the mode of reasoning to the nature of the object.

The second book commences with a list of questions, which are to be answered in the course of the treatise, and which may be regarded as furnishing a sort of table of contents to the rest of the work.* They may be briefly summed up as follows : — 1. Do the principles of

* The correspondence, however, is by no means exact. Michelet observes : — “ En general, il faut remarquer ici que remuneration et le developpement des problemes contenus dans ce livre ne repondent

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being and those of demonstration belong to the same or to different sciences, to one science or to many \ 2. Are

there other substances besides objects of sense ; and, if so, of how many kinds \ 3. To what science does it be-

long to take cognisance of identity and difference, similarity and dissimilarity, priority and posteriority, and such like \ 4. Are the principles of things to be sought

in their genera, or in the material elements of individuals, or does there exist a cause or causes other than matter, and separable from it % 5. Are there the same

principles of things perishable and imperishable, and are all principles themselves imperishable7? 6. Are being and unity the essence of all things, or must other elements be added \ 7. Are the principles of things uni-

versal or individual, potential or actual, active or passive \ 8. Are numbers, lines, figures, and points

substances or not ; and, if substances, do they exist separate from the objects of sense % A further development of the difficulties involved in these questions occupies the remainder of this book.

pas exactement a leurs solutions donnees dans les autres livres. Car beaucoup de problemes sont transposes ; quelques-uns n’y sont qu’effleures ; plusieurs y sont reunis, a cause de l’affinite qu’il y a entre eux ; d’autres enfin sont traites en differents endroits.” (j Exam. Critique , p. 131.) The division of the questions themselves admits of considerable variety. Michelet and Eavaigson enumerate as many as seventeen. Mr. Maurice {Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy , p. 183) reduces them to six.

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The third book is occupied with the sketch of a Science of Being as such, which has for its object both the principles of things and the laws of reasoning. In it the philosopher maintains the truth of the logical principles of contradiction and excluded middle, against the objections of Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and others, and establishes the distinction between being and appearance, and consequently between truth and error.

The fourth book is an explanation of the various significations of several philosophical terms. The terms defined are, — principle, cause, element, nature, necessity, unity, being, substance, identity, distinctness and diversity, similarity and dissimilarity, opposition and contrariety, priority and posteriority, power, quantity, quality, relation, perfection, limitation, in respect of and in itself (zaP o and avro), disposition, habit, passion, privation, possession, derivation, part, whole, imperfection, genus, falsehood, accident.

The fifth book continues the sketch of a Science of Being which was commenced in the third. This science (called by Aristotle Theology , and afterwards known as Metaphysics) is distinguished from Physics and Mathematics. Being per se, the proper object of metaphysics, is distinguished from other senses of the term, — such as accidental existence, which is not an object of science, and truth in judgments, which belongs to thought and not to things.

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The sixth hook is a continuation of the same subject. Being, in the highest sense of the term, is identified with Substance, to the exclusion of the other categories. But substance, again, is .a term used in various senses ; sometimes for the essence of a thing, sometimes for its universal attributes, sometimes for the genus, sometimes for the subject of attributes, or the individual. A discussion of these different senses, and of the philosophical theories connected with them, occupies the remainder of the book.

The seventh book continues the discussion of substance. The essence of sensible things may be considered in two points of view, — as regards the matter or potential essence, and as regards the form or actual essence, corresponding to the genus and difference in a definition. The unity of such objects must be sought for in the principle which unites these two. Intelligible objects, which have no matter, are one by virtue of their form.

In the eighth book the distinction between matter and form, or potential and actual existence, is further discussed. The distinction between the potential and the actual is defended against objections. The actual is prior to the potential in the order of nature and of reason, and, in one sense, in that of time also. It is prior in the order of reason ; for power has no meaning but in relation to performance. It is prior, too, in the

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order of time in the species, though not in the individual ; for the powers of anything are produced by its efficient cause, and the cause, as such, is in action. Hence it follows, that the distinction between the potential and the actual exists only in relation to things perishable ; for that which is eternal cannot have become what it is, and therefore can never he potentially that which it is not actually. In other words, there is a cause of change which itself acts unchangeably, and which is prior to all change. The chief good and highest principle is thus ever active, and there is no eternal principle of evil ; for actual evil is a corruption posterior to the possibility of evil. The hook concludes with a discussion of the nature of truth and falsehood ; the latter of which can have no place in relation to first principles, which must either be absolutely known or absolutely unknown.

The ninth book is a digression, treating of the opposition between the one and the many. The various senses of unity enumerated in the fourth book are now reduced to four, — the continuous, the whole, the individual, and the universal. Unity is identified with existence, and declared, in opposition to the Pythagoreans and Platonists, to be not a substance, but an universal notion predicable of every kind of subject in the several categories. The opposition between unity and plurality is shown to be not one of contrariety, but of relation. The book

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concludes with a further digression on some points connected with the opposition of contraries.

In the tenth book, as well as in the ninth, the connection of the argument is somewhat interrupted. This book, in fact, contains little more than a recapitulation of matters treated of in some of the earlier books. The concluding chapters of this book are an abridgment of a portion of the Physics of Aristotle, and appear altogether out of place in their present position.

The eleventh book is the most important of all ; and though apparently incomplete in itself and in its connection with its predecessors, may be regarded as containing an outline of Aristotle’s views on the profoundest problems of metaphysical philosophy. In this book, after some preliminary remarks on the nature of substance, change, and causation, the philosopher resumes his inquiry into the nature of the first cause — the unchanging principle of all change and motion. Sensible substances, the objects of physical science, are subject to change ; and all change implies a progress of the same subject from one of two opposite states to the other ; from not being to being, or the reverse. Hence change implies three elements : the form, the privation, and the matter potentially susceptible of both. But change itself must take place in consequence of some cause ; we must, therefore, add a fourth principle to the three elements. We are thus led to the notion of a substance

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which is the efficient cause of change, and this substance must be eternal ; for even change and time are conceived as imperishable, and these depend upon a substance. The cause of change must therefore be a being eternally acting, and which, consequently, cannot be conceived as having a power to act prior to the exercise of that power. In other words, the first cause (as was said before in the eighth book) can never be potentially that which it is not actually. The first cause is thus active without being passive ; it moves all things without being itself moved. The action of an unmoved cause of motion may be regarded as analogous to that of an object of desire on the appetite, or of an object of contemplation on the intellect ; for these expite to action without being themselves acted upon. Thus the principle of change may be conceived both as first cause and as final cause or chief good, which all things desire, and by the desire of which they are moved.* This first cause is God, who, as the highest object of intellectual contemplation, must himself be conceived as Intellect, as ever active, as living (for the activity of intellect is life), as immaterial, having neither finite nor infinite extension, and consequently no parts, as impassive and unchangeable. To this sublime theology are appended some curious astronomical speculations, apparently intended to reconcile the unity of the

* KmT u$ \(>u[/.tvov. Metaph. xi. 7.

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Divine Mover with the seeming variety in the celestial motions. To these speculations, which are chiefly derived from previously existing astronomical theories, the philosopher himself does not appear to attach much importance. Resuming the theological argument, he maintains that the Deity, as an ever active and unchanging Intellect, must have an unchanging object of contemplation, and as there is no other such object, he must contemplate himself. The book concludes with a criticism of previous philosophers, whose opinions, as he considers, are irreconcilable with the existence of one supreme Ruler of the Universe.

The two last books must be considered either as an introduction to the eleventh, which most modern commentators regard as the conclusion of the whole treatise, or as a controversial appendix, intended to fortify the positions which that book had established. The controversy is chiefly directed against the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophies, which sought the eternal principle of the universe, the one in the theory of numbers and geometrical magnitudes, the other in that of ideas. The details of this controversy, part of which is little more than a repetition of the arguments of the first book, are chiefly valuable in a historical point of view, as throwing light on the Pythagorean and Platonic doctrines ; but they contribute little to the elucidation of Aristotle’s own conception of Metaphysics.