The philosophy of Thomas Hill Green

Prefatory Note

HE substance of the following pages was originally given, in the form of lectures, to students of philosophy at Oxford. It has been entirely recast and rewritten, as well as added to, but my object is the same, viz., a simple, plain exposition of the philosophic teaching of T. H. Green. Such an exposition ought to have a certain value of its own, but my real motive is to help the younger student to " read Green " for himself. In the ordinary course of tutorial work it has been found that, to many men, Green is not easy reading. The sterling honesty which made him so anxiously painstaking in writing his sentences, lest they should express more than seemed to him the exact truth, has, for its effect, that the reader experiences something of the same mental effort. Those who felt his personal influence need no further help or stimulus in reading his books, but men who only know Green through his writings, and perhaps, as yet, scarcely realise the importance vi

PREFATORY NOTE of the questions under discussion, sometimes find his thorough and exhaustive method of treatment a little too difficult for them. The result is too often a superficial and second-hand acquaintance with his supposed views. The loss is incalculable. Opinions may differ as to the value of Green's conclusions, or even the cogency of his reasoning, but no one can question the benefit to be derived from a thorough study of his teaching. His is, perhaps, the only modern philosophy of life which is, at once, complete and consistent — which derives and justifies both moral responsibility in the present, and hope for the future, from a rigorously scientific raetaphysic.

It is solely in the belief that a short, straightforward account of Green's method of working, with the results thereby arrived at, may indirectly help to promote the study of his writings, that these few pages have been written.

Lincoln College, Oxford, January, 1896.

Contents

Introductory . . ... 9

The Results of Metaphysic . . 20

Chapter I. Introductory

IF a phrase be sought with which to sum up Professor Green's general position in regard to life and its problems, it would be difficult to find one more fitting than Aristotle's io-juev evepyeia. Not in wisdom merely, o£ _in potential capacity, but in actually living his life, does Green hold that true well-being for a man is to be found. To discover and to demonstrate in what true human well-being consists is the highest intellectual object for man, and is specially the aim which philosophy should set before itself ; to realise this discovery in civic life is the one practical function of the good citizen. Thus Green's ^primary aim is Moral and Political Philosophy, of which the latter1 is

1 Cf. Works ii. p. 335. " My purpose is to consider the moral function, or object, served by law, or by the system of rights and obligations which the State enforces, and, in so doing, to discover the true ground, or justification, for obedience to law. "

Ibid. p. 334. Nettleship's note. Civil institutions are ''regarded as the external expression of the moral progress of mankind, and as supplying the material through which the idea of perfection must be realised."

only the application to facts of social life, under definite circumstances, of the truths arrived at by the former.

*TuT~T)efore a theory of Ethics is possible, a preliminary task must be fulfilled. It is in vain to answer the_ question, " What ought the good citizen to do ? " until the prior question, " What is^ajcitizen, both in himself and in his environment ? " 1 has been dealt with. " Some conclusion in regard to the relation between man and nature .... must be arrived jit, before we can be sure that any theory of Ethics .... is other than wasted labour," is Green's explanation of the fact that the first book of his Ethical Treatise consists of pure Metaphysics. And Green had a special and^pressing necessity forjthis preliminary inquiry. Current English philosophy seemed to have reduced man to a " being who is simply a result of natural forces," 2 which, as a necessary consequence, involves the reduction of the theoretical part of Moral Philosophy to a natural science, and the abolition of the practical or preceptive part altogether. _ A theory of conduct is unmeaning, if conduct itself is impossible ; and ^equally unmeaning is it to bid a being to conform to certain natural laws, if he is simply a result of their operation. A new " Critical Philosophy " is needed, which shall ask,

1 Proleg. to Ethics, \ $2.

INTRODUCTORY

1 1

" Is man simply a ' natural ' product in this sense ? M Can what we call science, i.e. the experience of connected matters of fact, be explained, if man is nothing but a number of such matters of fact, or their result? Is there not involved in knowledge a principle which is not1 "natural," but "spiritual"? These questions must be first settled if our labour, as moralists, is not to be profitless.

Hence, Green's philosophy begins with Metaphysics, and is based entirely upon Metaphysics. It is to this that its entire consistency is due.

As far as possible, without pre-supposition, he carefully, scientifically, thoroughly, reasons out an answer to the question, "What is the nature of man?" From that he deduces his doctrine of man's epyov — of what man ought to do, and this, again, he uses as a criterion of the moral progress, or condition, of political society at any time, regarding civic and social institutions as the objective expression of moral ideas, and the concrete body with which the Moral Ideal is to be clothed.

Green's Metaphysical, Moral, and Political Philosophy thus form one whole, and offer a theory of life not only complete, in the sense of covering aTl the ground, but consistent with itself throughout. More directly, if not more definitely, than, perhaps, in any other modern writer, the whole

1 Vide note at end of chapter.

work stands, or falls, with the metaphysical basis. The first question to ask, then, is what is this Metaphysic — in its method and in its results?

Note on Green's use of the words " natural " v. " spiritual." The sense in which Green uses the word "Nature," is that common to ordinary men of science, and to empirical teachers in philosophy, viz. : " The object of possible experience ; the connected order of knowable facts or phenomena." This is obviously a very, if not the most, convenient use of a word which, though full of ambiguity, cannot be avoided in philosophic writing. The difference between Green and the Empiricists, and the necessity for employing the word " spiritual," arises as follows : — They use the word " Nature," not only legitimately, as == phenomena of consciousness, but also illegitimately, as = everything revealed to us in science, whether properly described as phenomena or not. Hence one of two unsatisfactory results. Either (i) the very question of Metaphysics is begged, to begin with ; or (2) the word Nature covers both " phenomena," and certain other elements necessary to the existence of phenomena, but very different in kind. The confusion of thought thus arising, is obvious and fatal. Green avoids this confusion by refusing to employ "nature" or " natural " for anything beyond phenomena in the accepted scientific sense. This is what he means by saying (e.g., Proleg. § 52) "Nature implies something other than itself, as the condition of its being what it is." Something "other," that is, from "nature," as Sensationalism uses the term ; not " other " from nature, as Aristotle or Plato would use it. The following quotation from Proleg. § 54, explains his choice of the word

INTRODUCTORY i3

" spiritual " : — " Nature in its reality, or in order to be what it is, implies a principle which is not natural. By calling the principle not natural, we mean that it is neither included among the phenomena which, through its presence to them, form a nature, nor consists in their series, nor is itself determined by any of the

relations which it constitutes among them We are

most safe in calling it spiritual, because .... we are warranted in thinking of it as a self-distinguishing consciousness. In calling it supernatural, we run the risk of misleading, and being misled, for we suggest a relation between it and nature of a kind which has really no place except within nature, as a relation of phenomenon to phenomenon. We convey the notion that it is above or beyond or before nature, that it is a cause of which nature is the effect, a substance of which the changing modes constitute nature ; while, in truth, all the relations so expressed are relations which, indeed, but for the non- natural self-conscious subject, would not exist, but which are not predicable of it." This passage will show, among other things, that in introducing the word "spirit," he is not (as certain critics have said) trying to put us off with "theological mysteries."

Chapter II

TAKING his stand upon the scientific axiom that the ultimate evidence for the presence, or action, of anything, lies in results inexplicable without it, Green argues throughout from Effect to Cause.1 The " effect," or result, investigated in Metaphysics, is " that which exists," and the only " thing which exists" for a man necessanfy^an d' ' certainly to begin with, is that of which he is directly conscious in his individual self. In practical life we assume the existence of much else besides — an objective world, other selves, and so forth — but the only scientific basis we have, strictly speaking, is that of which we are conscious. Hence, " What are the facts of my own individual consciousness ? " and " What is the simplest explanation I can give of the origin of these facts?" are the two primary questions of Metaphysics.

This method of investigation Green uses both positively and negatively ; that is to say, he employs j it directly to obtain all the results achievable from

1 Proleg. cf. § 73.

its legitimate sphere of operation, but refuses to advance one step beyond this sphere. He_trjes to analyse^ by direct introspection, the nature of his own mind. What does this consist of? What operations does it seem to perform? What is the method of these operations? What the material operated upon ? These are the questions first *sked, followed, naturally, by the further question, iYhat is pre-existently necessary in order that hese things can be? and, What is the simplest expression which can be given to it? The necessity a metaphysical, or scientific conception, means lhat without it we cannot explain some fact of mr consciousness, some constituent in what we call ~>ur experience.1 We are entitled to hold as recessarily true whatever is required to explain this experience, and only what is so required. To take kss is to give up our birthright, to demand more 18 to unjustifiably arrogate to ourselves what we h;ive no right to at all. Hence, while asking cmtinually "What" and "How," Green definitely refuses to raise the question "Why." The ultimate explanation of anything, possible to us, can never transcend the "facts as we know them," together ^ith what is logically involved in these facts. One la.w of nature is explained by reference to, or ^solution into, other laws ; one part of nature is, °r may be, explained in terms of other parts, by

1 Proleg. cf. § 14.

means of its relations to other parts — but nature itself, as a whole, cannot be explained. "The old question, Why God made the world, has never been answered, nor will be. We know not why the world should be,; we only know Jiiat there it is."1 Interpretatio Natures is the very kernel of Green's method, which ruthlessly thrusts aside anticipationes in any form. Whatever results upon "the bestc analysis we can make of our experience" must bex loyally accepted ; anything not so justified has nc claim upon us as intelligent beings.

The final outcome of this method of inquiry i the establishment of the three cardinal points — self? cosmos, God; but before passing on to consider the reasoning by which these three factors are proved necessary to the explanation of our experience, p is important to dwell for a moment upon a matte-' cognate to this question of " Method," viz., Greenj's attitude to Evolution.

From the time when men began consciously to distinguish between the growth of anything and i'ts completed state, that is from the time of Aristotle downwards, there has been a tendency to divide into two schools of thought, according to the way in which the relation between "development" and "essential nature" is conceived. In Aristotle tfre question is raised in the simple form — are we {° explain ova- la by yevetrig, or vice versa? In modern

1 Proleg. \ ioo, cf. § 174.

times the question is essentially the same, but deepened in importance by the doctrine of Biological Evolution. Admitting the historical fact of change, of growth, of development, are we to look backward or forward for explanation? Is^msiXL^ p^odnctj^L these historical processes in time, to be e^xplained simply by reference to them, or are these antecedent sta^es__themselves JOLJb£-^£xplaine,d_ as_a^" progress " towards what he is now, or, rather, towards a final ideal not yet realised, but the nature of which is the key to his historical development in time? In language as clear and emphatic as that of Aristotle,1 Green asserts the latter doctrine — yevea-ig exists only for the sake of ova-la, not ova-la for the sake of yevea-is. The history of the world is that of an intelligent progress, not that of a purposeless series of materially-caused changes. The only "explanation " admissible of man must be derived directly from an analysis of what he is now, and no account of his history, which derives him from elements incapable of functions he now is found to be capable of, can be accepted as complete. " If there are reasons for holding that man, in respect of his animal nature, is descended from " mere " animals — animals in whom the functions of life and sense were not organic to the eternal or distinctively human consciousness — this does not affect our conclusion in regard to the consciousness of

1 Cf. Arist. De Part. An. 64^ 18.

B which, as he now is, man is the subject, a conclusion founded on analysis of what he now is and does." 1

Green does not deny — he fully admits — that man has biologically a history ; but he protests against any explanation, biological or other, which cannot account for the facts, or, worse still, which confuses a function with the organ through which that function realises itself " To say that man in himself is in part an animal, or product of nature, on the ground that the consciousness which distinguishes him is realised through natural processes, is not more true than to say that an animal is in part a machine, because the life which distinguishes it has mechanical structures for its organs The constituent elements of an organism can only be truly and adequately conceived as rendered what they are by the end realised through the organism."2 The " end " in man being that of a self-conscious intelligence, which " mere " animals do not, according to biology, possess, it follows that, " in strict truth, the man who knows, so far from being an animal altogether, is not an animal at all, or even in part." The difference between " change, and the intelligent consciousness or knowledge of change," is "absolute"; and we are thus precluded " from tracing any development of the one into the other, if development implies any identity of principle between the germ and the developed outcome."1 ea-n yap e£ evreXexeia ovrog iravra tol yiyvo/meva.2

On the other hand, it must be carefully noted that Green's method is not " Teleological " in any bad sense. The knowledge of that "end," in reference to which evolution must be explained, is derived solely and rigorously from the " analysis of what man now is and does." Interpretation not Anticipatio, is still the keynote. That all knowledge comes from experience3 is a doctrine Green holds as firmly as any " Empiricist " — that all philosophy, metaphysical or moral, must be based upon the answer to the question, " What is experience ? " is the fundamental assumption of all his teaching.

3 Arist. De Anim. iii. 7.

3 Cf. Works, vol. i. p. 376. "The fact that there is a real external world, of which, through feeling, we have a determinate experience, and that in this experience all our knowledge of nature is implicit, is one which no philosophy disputes. The idealist merely asks for a further analysis of a fact which he finds so far from simple."

Chapter III. The Results Of Metaphysic

§ I. GENERAL STATEMENT

INTEGRATION, as opposed to disintegration, is the striking characteristic of Green's metaphysic. " That which is " is a whole, not an aggregate ; an organic complex of parts, not a mechanical mass. This "whole" is not material, but spiritual — a world of " thought relations." Described in the order of our knowledge, it consists of three main facts — (i) self, (2) cosmos, (3) God.

(1) The self = the individual person — self-conscious, self-reflecting, self-objectifying ; in contact with, but distinguishing itself from, the world, which becomes gradually revealed to it.

(2) The cosmos = the objective world — intelligible, spiritual ; one organic, inter-related whole, of which each part exists, and exists only, in relation to the other parts ; wherein is nothing except the work of the mind ; a world of ISeai, not of material things.

(3) God = the eternal and universal consciousness, for whom this whole exists, of whom it is the objective manifestation, through whom it has come into being, and of whom we are "modes," owing our very existence as rational beings to our partaking in the " divine nature," which uses the animal organism as its "vehicle." In slightly different language, and arranged in the order1 of existence, we may say that the Universe consists of God, who is Spirit, Creator, and Sustainer of all that exists ; the world, which is His ideas made manifest ; ourselves^ who are His children, partakers in His nature, and so capable of understanding the world, which is His handiwork ; capable also of realising in action

1 It is important not to confuse this order with that of our knowledge, mentioned just above. The case for the whole of Green's philosophy stands or falls with the correctness of his theory of the Self or Ego. Hence, the one serious attack upon Green (for which see chap, vii., "Green and his critics") has for its main thesis the supposed unjustifiable and illegitimate use of this conception, Self. It must not be supposed that this "Self" is the keynote, or central principle, of Green's philosophic system as a whole. That lies in his theory_ of Reality, as a spiritual cosmos, implying and manifesting an Eternal Consciousness (God). To this " Whole " we human individuals are not (as far as we know) necessary. It might do equally well without us. But Green's conception of the Self is the foundation upon which the establishment and proof of his whole system rests. The "Self" is the one fact we necessarily start with, the primary fact we have to explain. This Green attempts to do by asking what is logically necessary to the existence of the Self, as its nature reveals itself to us on analysis. Hence our order is Self, Cosmos, God ; but in order of existence (or from the point of view of omniscience) it would be God, Cosmos, Self.

something of the creative energy of Him who is what we may become}

This doctrine, stated baldly thus, seems a startling result to obtain from an " analysis of the facts of my consciousness"; but it cannot be too strongly emphasised that Green rests his case solely on evidence so obtained. If this doctrine be true, he holds, we can explain man as we find him ; without it we cannot. In his own words (spoken more particularly with reference to the relation of the human self to God) " Proof of such a doctrine, in the ordinary sense of the word, from the nature of the case, there cannot be. It is not a truth deducible from other established or conceded truths. It is not a statement of an event or matter of fact, that can be the object of experiment or observation. It represents a conception to which no perceivable or imaginable object can possibly correspond, but one that affords the only means by which, reflecting on our moral and intellectual experience conjointly, taking the world and ourselves into account, we can put the whole thing together, and understand how (not zvhy, but how) we are and do, what we consciously are and do. Given this conception, and not without it, we can at any rate express that which, it cannot be denied, demands expression — the nature of man's reason and man's will, of human progress and human shortcoming ; of the effort after

1 Cf. Proleg. § 187.

good, and the failure to gain it ; of virtue and vice, in their connection and in their distinction, in their essential opposition, and in their no less essential unity."1

Before considering the three parts of this doctrine separately, it will be convenient to state, in baldest outline, the chain of reasoning by which it is supported.

(1) Self - reflection shows us that the simplest elements — those of sense perception — into which we can analyse our experience are such that they presuppose the work of the mind ; they are vorira, spiritual or mental elements, not elements of feeling. They exist, further, not in isolation, separately, but in relation; having, in fact, no reality except what they possess in reference to each other and to the self, which is conscious of them. The very meaning of a " fact of consciousness " involves inter-relation — a multiplicity in unity.

(2) This characteristic of the "content" of knowledge implies that the object of knowledge, as it exists before any given individual mind comes to know it, must be of the same spiritual nature, otherwise it would not be knowable or intelligible — would not be an "object of knowledge" at all. In other words, we are driven to the conception that Reality = not only the self of which I am directly conscious, but also an intelligible universe.

(3) This latter fact, the intelligible universe — seeing that obviously I did not make it, but was born into it — implies in its turn a Creator, who is a Self-conscious Intelligence in the same sense that I am a self-conscious intelligence. In Him the " idea of the human spirit is completely realised," but free from human limitations. He is Eternal,, Universal, Omniscient.1

These three cardinal features of Green's metaphysical doctrine must now be considered separately.

§ 2. THE SELF

Man has a Self, and is conscious of it. This is the point of departure for all idealist philosophy, the one explicit assumption 2 which Kantism — whether new or old — makes. The primary and fundamental characteristic of man is Self-consciousness, and the question, "What is the Self?" or "What is man in himself?" must refer, in the first instance, to this special characteristic. In an

3 It is sometimes urged that Neo-Kantism, at any rate, assumes something further, viz. : That a "hopeless dualism" (as, e.g., the belief in the ultimate reality of both mind and matter) is self-contradictory and untenable. The charge, even if true, cannot be limited to Neo-Kantians, but in no case is it worth serious refutation, for upon it no scientific or philosophic doctrine has ever been based. It is little more than a pious opinion, which gives encouragement to the inquirer after that "explanation which must exist somewhere," even if out of present reach.

important passage in the Prolegomena to Ethics, Green states his position clearly, as follows : — 1

" The question whether a man himself, or in himself, is a natural or animal being, can only mean whether he is so in respect of that which renders him conscious of himself. There is no sense in asking what anything in itself is, if it has no self at all. That which is made what it is wholly by relations to other things, neither being anything but their joint result, nor distinguishing itself from them, has no self to be enquired about. Such is the case with all things in inorganic nature. Of them, at any rate, the saying, Natur hat weder Kern noch Schale, is true, without qualification. The distinction between inner and outer, between what they are in themselves and what they are in relation to other things, has no application to them. In an organism, on the other hand, the distinction between its relations and itself does appear. The life, of a living1 body is not, like the motion of a moving body, simply the joint result of its relations to other things. It modifies those relations, and modifies them through a nature not reducible to them, not constituted by their combination. Their bearing on it is different from what it would be if it did not live ; and there is so far a meaning in saying that the organism ig_ something in itself other than what its relations make it — that, while it is related to other things according to mechanical and chemical laws, .it has itself a nature which is not mechanical or chemical. There is a significance, accordingly, in the enquiry what this nature in itself is, which there is not in the same enquiry as applied toanything that does not live. But the living body does not, as such, present its nature to itself in consciousness. It does not consciously distinguish itself from its relations. Man, on the other hand, does so distinguish himself, and his doing so is his special distinction. The enquiry, therefore, what he in himself is, must refer, not merely to a character which he has as more, and other, than a joint result of relations to other things — such a character he has as simply living — but to the character which he has as consciously distinguishing himself from all that happens to him." This "character" excludes, at once, all theories which attempt to explain the Ego as a series of states of consciousness.

Between change and the consciousness of change, there is an absolute difference. Man's self-consciousness is his punctum stans through which he is conscious of becoming, of a personal history, of an order of time, and which, consequently, cannot be identified with a moment, or series of moments, in that order. It is in Aristotle's language ajuLiyrjs.1 What then, exactly, is this "Self," and what are its functions?

To answer this question it is necessary to go beyond, not only the negative quality the Self possesses of being distinct from a series of states of consciousness, but also the more positive character it has as a point of reference in knowledge. The Kantian description of the Ego as the " unity of apperception " — the logical headcentre, so to speak, to which each successive state of consciousness is referred — leaves it, after all, without any definite quality or content. But we cannot treat it so, as if it were a mere logical necessity. We must examine the Self in its daily operations. We must ask what is meant byjmch phrases as: I feel — I think — I know. This opens up a lengthy vista of psychological investigation, but fortunately the enquiry is, for Green, much simplified by two facts in the history of philosophy, viz : That, by universal consensus, mental faculties or functions have been classified as "higher" and " lower," and, secondly, that all modern (at least) materialistic or - empirical attacks upon idealism, turn upon the assumption that the "higher" (the specially human) faculties are derivable, step by step, through the "lower," from elementary forms of unconscious organic life, and can be explained as developments of these by natural laws — can

1 Cf. De An, iii. 4.

be satisfactorily treated, in fact, as natural results of natural operations. If we take, then, man as he now is, and ask, What are the constituent elements of the " lowest " human faculty he possesses,, as such, we gain a great double advantage. We confine the controversy to the analysis of an act which "no one doubts he can perform," and we are in a position to say that whatever is found to be true of this " lowest " function, is d fortiori true of the higher.

The act which Green takes as one "which it is not doubted that we perform,"1 is the act of sense perception. What are the constituents necessarily involved in a simple act of sense presentation? It is very commonly supposed that such an act is merely a change produced in " our sensibility" by some external object. Perceptions are regarded as separate, particular, mental phenomena— a series of states of our consciousness produced by objects which exist quite otherwise than in and for consciousness. But a "change in our consciousness," as a psychical fact, must not be confused with " that which we perceive " as an apprehended fact. It is true that perception is necessarily connected with a sense stimulus — a sensation — that there can be no perception without (in Locke's words) "actual present sensation," and this truth has led to the common confusion of the "exciting cause of sensation and the perceived object ; which again leads to an extrusion of the perceived object from the consciousness in which perception consists, and to the view of it as an external something to which perception is related, as an occurrence to its cause."1 But take, as a concrete illustration, anything ordinarily described as a perceived object — this flower, this dog — what are the constituent elements? Let an accepted representative (Mr. Lewes) of the empirical psychologists answer, "Our perception of an animal, or a flower, is the synthesis of all the sensations we have had of the object in relation to our several senses." This synthesis is that of a self-conscious subject, which distinguishes itself at the moment, both from the feelings of which it is conscious, and from their occurrence, as a fact, at the time. It is not a synthesis of feelings caused by the action of external irritants on the nervous system. It is, of course, necessary to a perception of colour, that there should be "a stimulus of the optic nerve by a particular vibration of ether," but "that vibration is not the object perceived in the perception of the colour." If we try to analyse a perception into "data of feeling," and show how a complex sensation is made up of these data, we are not analysing an " act of perception " at all.