The science of thought : a system of logic

Front matter

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Preface

Ir is the aim of this work to consider thought as a reality, to approach it as any work of true science approaches its material. It first discusses the relations that make up the substance of actual thought. It then analyzes thought into its elements, and follows it into its fundamental divisions. It shows the methods of each of these, the kind of argument, and the degree of certainty of which it admits, its dangers and its safeguards, and how all of these divisions are the parts of a common whole. And, finally, it considers thought in its completeness. It seeks to determine its limits and its scope, and to that end it considers some of the actual problems with which thought has to contend, so far as the possibility of their solution depends upon or illustrates the nature and limits of thought itself. Such is at least the plan of the present work; and without regard to the success or failure of its execution, such, I am confident, must be, in general, the plan of any true system of logic; or, if the true meaning and use of this term should be made a matter of dispute, such must be, in general, the plan and scope of any work that shall treat thought as an object of scientific study.

There was never a period when such a study was more important than it is at present, because there was never a time when thought was so wide-spread and so far-reaching. The mind of the people no longer contents itself

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with foiiowing its old guides. It is feeling its own way. It is seeking, honestly and anxiously, to distinguish the true and the false. Then, too, there was never a time when opposite systems of thought so asserted each its absolute supremacy. Systems of religion, systems of morals, of politics, of philosophy, place themselves over against each other, each denying to the other any ground on which it may stand. Science on the one side, and religion or philosophy on the other, stand thus in antagonism. Nothing is more needed than an attempt to expose the nature and real processes of thought, and while recognizing each of these elements to remand each back to its place as a member of the common whole. Although the survey of this field makes me feel more than ever the imperfection of the present undertaking, it makes me feel, also, that no such attempt, honestly and earnestly made, can be altogether in vain.

To this work I have given a double title. I have called it, ‘* The Science of Thought ; a System of Logic.” The first of these titles expresses the science with which the work has to do; the second gives to this science its technicalname. Ihave made the former of these titles the predominant one throughout, because the word logic, as commonly used, would not convey a true idea of the real nature of the work. Logics in general do not treat of thought as a reality. They discuss some of the preliminaries of thought. It is as if a writer on entomology, should content himself, first, with showing that each insect must consist of three parts, namely, the head, the thorax, and the abdomen, and then with discussing the manner in which these parts should be related. It could be shown how either might be in the middle; but that there could be a true insect only when the thorax was between the head and the abdomen. TI suppose that these matters, and what might be suggested by them, could be

PREFACE. IX discussed through volumes. The stuuent could be trained to draw fancy pictures of possible insects with the thorax properly in the middle. But whether there was ever a real insect like one of these, or what to call a real insect when he saw it, or what are the shapes and habits of the real insect world, of all this he would know nothing.

This is not a caricature, but an illustration of the connection which logic has been supposed to have with thought. It has been claimed by logicians that they had nothing to do with the reality or the reliability of thought. They have undertaken to furnish help neither in regard to the basis of thoughts and arguments, nor in regard to the proof to be sought in their support. If an argument were formally correct, they, as logicians, could seek no further. I would not dispute the importance of this formal training, but I conceive that it is only the threshold to the real topics with which logic has to do; or, if any would restrict the use of this word, it is certainly only the threshold to the science of thought.

But though in the prosecution of this work thought as a reality became the matter of leading interest, my first attraction to it was from the formal side. First in the lectures of Prof. GABLER, a disciple of Hrecerr, at Berlin, and afterwards in the works of Hrecer himself, I found the. rudiments of a system of logic that charmed me by its beauty and simplicity. The logic of Heart is in general very little like anything that we are in the habit of associating with the name. We should rather call it metaphysics than logic. A few pages are, however, given to “‘subjective logic ;” that is, to what we should call logic itself. ‘These pages of course contain only the most abstract statements in regard to the nature and relations of propositions, syllogisms, etc., but these furnish the germ of an entirely fresh treatment and working of the whole field.

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Pethaps the greatest objection to the scholastic logic is not that it undertakes to do so little, but that it does the little that it undertakes so poorly. With its excess of formalism it is destitute of form. You inquire, for instance, how many kinds or figures of syllogism there are, and are told that, according to the arrangement adopted, there should be four, but that really there are but three ; the fourth being needed to complete the plan, but not otherwise. What is this but a confession that the system of classification is a wrong one; that it misses the real nature of the syllogism ; in other words, that it is not natural, but arbitrary. Further, three of these four figures are of comparatively little use except as they may be converted into the first. But in the Hegelian system, there are and can be only three forms or figures of the syllogism. The system of arrangement as well as the facts of the case require this. Moreover, these three are bound together in the closest and most necessary union. Each is needed for the completion of any common argument. Each supports the other, and the three together form a triple cord that cannot be broken. Further, in this system, the syllogism, the proposition, and the term form also the elements of one complete organization ; and one principle is the foundation of all.

It was this beautiful and simple arrangement that first made the word logic an attractive one to me, and in this work this plan has been adopted.

In the union of these two elements, of substance and form, it has been my aim to attain the maximum of form and the minimum of formalism. While one principle of division and arrangement has been followed throughout, whatever is merely formal has been, so far as possible, treated in separate sections ; and the reader has been often left to apply for himself these formal distinctions, and especially the formal terminology to the material that fol-

PREFACE. AI lows. It has further been my aim, so far as possible, to dispense with purely technical words. When these could not be avoided they have been kept, as just intimated, so far as possible in the background. In other words, I have endeavored to follow the plan of nature, by which the form is an internal impulse rather than an outward restraint. In accordance with this principle, while each topic has been treated in correspondence with, and in subjection to, the whole, yet each has been treated, so far as possible, as if it stood alone.

I have already stated that the formal arrangement of syllogisms, etc., is adopted from Hrcrexy. In accordance with this arrangement the relative position of the second and third figure has been reversed. Besides this, an occasional truth or statement has been taken from him. This is especially true of the earlier part of the first book. In the discussion of the logical relations of language, under the head terms, I have been ,very largely indebted to Brecker’s ‘‘Organismus der Sprache,” a work that is most valuable as giving a logical analysis of language, and to which the reader who would pursue this branch of the study is referred. It is a work, however, that any one, not acquainted with the later philological results, should read with great caution, and only with the accompaniment of some such work as Muxier’s “‘ Science of Language,” or Wuirtney’s ‘* Lectures on Language.” I have, in various parts of this work, made frequent reference to SCHOPEN- HAUER, the most brilliant of metaphysicians, the clearest and most satisfactory, for the most part, in his details ; the most unsatisfactory in his grand results ; whose system, with its sad centre of pessimism, is like a rich and tempting fruit, fair without, but rotten at its heart. To this writer I have been indebted perhaps more than to any other, except HEGEL.

The logic of Mr. Mixx forms an exception to the general

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works upon the subject. It regards logic as having to — do with real thought, and not merely with the forms of thought. It is everywhere of value, and in particular in what relates to induction it furnishes material that must be adopted into every discussion of the subject. It is, however, based upon what appears to me a very imperfect system of philosophy, and adopts an unsatisfactory system of logical forms. I make this reference to it here, lest from some incidental allusions to it in the body of the work, where its arguments occurred to me as the best examples of the views I would oppose, I might seem insensible to its great worth.

Introduction

THOUGHT AND LOGIC IN GENERAL.

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THOUGHT AND LOGIC IN GENERAL.

Tue technical name of the science of thought is logic. The word is derived from an adjective formed from the Greek substantive 4éyos. The meaning of this substantive is, on the one side, “reason” or “thought,” and on the other side the “word,” which is the manifestation of thought. Its central meaning would therefore seem to be, “thought in its manifestation.” It is the nature of thought to manifest itself. It is not lifeless like the stone; it is germinant. It cannot be repressed orhidden. Not merely does it develop itself according to the laws of its own nature, that is, as thought; like the sprouting seed, it shows itself above the soil in which it springs. Words and acts are its inevitable expression. Thought runs through all the framework of our outward life, as the nerves run through the body, forming a separate system, yet giving life to all.

We may perhaps better understand the meaning of the word logic, by remembering that the termination which marks the names of many of the separate sciences is derived from the same root as itself. -We | speak of theology, of geology, and of so many other “ologies.” The word logic is the ogy without the limiting or determining prefix. It is the pure science abstracted from the different sciences. It is thus the science of sciences. If the science of stones, of animals, and the like, is important and interesting, what place shall we assign to that science which is the science of thought itself? Any particular science is the reducing or elevating the objects of which it treats to the relations of thought. It changes the hard material into the subtle essence of thought. We can only see the stones by the wayside. By the help of mineralogy we think them. All objects must indeed be transmuted to some extent into thought, before we can take cognizance of them. It is most of all important, then, that we should comprehend the laws of thought, that is, the laws of the inner world in which we live, and from which we can never escape.

If the science of sciences is thus important, it should be absolutely perfect. It should surpass all other sciences, in the completeness of its order, in the harmony of its parts, and in the complete development of its fundamental principles. It should surpass them, as the model should surpass the copy. If, while other sciences have been gaining in perfection, the science of sciences has remained an incoherent jumble, this is not its necessity, but its disgrace. It is not, like other sciences, dependent upon outward circumstances. It has to wait for no accumulation of foreign material. It has its material within itself. Logic, when Aristotle left it, was in advance, as it should always be, of all other sciences. If now, in the shape in which he left it, it is behind all others, it is because, while in the others students have pressed.

LOGIC IN GENERAL. 5 on with discovery after discovery, the logicians, with few exceptions, have been content to stand where Aristotle left them, repeating his words, or adding. only tasteless and paltry modifications. Hegel is the first, since Aristotle, who is worthy to be called his successor in the science of logic. He, by a few brief touches, rather suggested than accomplished a system of logic worthy of the name. Yet in these few touches, he sketclied the outline, of which all logical studies will long continue to be only the filling out. The science of logic includes the basis or starting-point, the laws and the limits of thought. It has to follow the findamental divisions of thought itself. It has thus to analyze the fundamental ideas from which thought springs, and the special methods that belong to the different divisions of thought. We say, for instance, “Such a picture is beautiful;” ‘Such plants are poisonous ;” “ Such an act is noble.” Logic should not only furnish the means of determining whether such statements are formally correct, it should also furnish means of determining whether they are actually true; that is, it should have such classifications of thought, that one could tell to which class any one statement belongs, and what is the sort of proof of which that class is susceptible. These divisions, as all other logical forms, should be seen to spring from the very nature of thought itself. These forms should not be “ Spanish boots” to torture thought, they should be the very body and.limbs of it. There should be one pulse-beat through the whole. Such is the high standard which the present work spts before itself. If it falls short, this will none the less continue to be the true plan and. scope of logic.

The science of sciences does not include of course all sciences and philosophy, but it contains the principle out of which these spring. This is the trunk, they are the branches. At least the knots must mark where the leading divisions of our thought begin.

While logic stands in this relation to the other sciences and to philosophy, it stands in an intermediate relation to psychology. Psychology is like the rest, a science springing from thought, a special application of the laws of thought; but thought is also one faculty of the soul, and thus the science of thought is a part of psychology. ‘The division in all these - cases must be a little arbitrary, like all divisions. Who shall say just where the branch of a tree ceases to be the trunk, or how much of crystallography should be included in any general treatise on chemistry? For all practical purposes, however, the lines are sufficiently defined. Individual judgment must determine how far to go in any direction, for the sake of completeness or illustration.

If logic contains the formulas and the fundamental principles of all the sciences, it must also contain those of the facts and objects to which the sciences refer. A science is true only as it hits upon and follows out the actual relations of the materials which come within its cognizance. The principles of the | science, if it be true, must be one with the principles of its material. The two must cover each other. The artificial system of botany was imperfect, because its divisions did not fall in with the divisions of nature.

The natural system claims to follow and to cover the actual divisions in the outer world. What is true of the principles of any science must be true of the principles of thought. The principles of thought must be the principles of that which is the object of thought. Logic unites the inner subjective world with the outer world of objects. It is the boundary line between the two; that being so, it belongs equally to both, and its fundamental categories must be those of being as well as of thought.

We may go a step further. It has already been said that outer objects must be transmuted into thought before we can comprehend them. What change is this which they undergo? If the thought is something utterly foreign to them, then we might as well have any other thought, or no thought about them. In that case our thought is idle and useless. If, however, the thought is true, then it cannot be foreign to the object of thought. The thought must be what the object is in itself. If this is so, the object in itself must be thought. This statement may seem a little startling at first sight. If we say the outer world is objective thought, while what we call thought is only subjective thought, and thus the two are at heart one, a person who hears this for the first time may be confused. Yet we have just seen, that, obviously, if our thought be worth anything, the thought and the object must be at heart one. The phrase objective thought is not after all so difficult as it may at first appear. Erwin von Steinbach thought out a cathedral. The builders of Cologne embodied

\is thought in stone. What, then, is the cathedral at

Cologne, but the thought of Erwin von Steinbach made outer or objective to himself? We may approach this structure simply as objective thought. When we strive to comprehend it, we strive after the thought, which is its reality. When we do comprehend it, we have got hold of its place and object ; that is, of the thought which is its reality. We might apply the same course of reasoning to the steam engine, or to any other work of human skill. Each is an objective thought. We look at it, and study to get hold of the thought that is in it. The same process we apply also to the objects of the natural world. We find these, also, when we approach them aright, unfolding themselves, and becoming thought. We may illustrate this by saying that the world is the thought of God made objective. When 'we study and analyze the world, we trace the unfolding of this thought.

But it may be very properly urged that this illustration goes only a very little way. The world may be, or may be supposed to be, the thought of God; but whose thought can we suppose God himself to be? To this may be answered that if God is omniscient he must know, that is, must think, bis own being. His own being must be absolutely an object of | thought, that is, this also must be objective thought. f

When, then, it is said that all being is simply objective thought, it is meant that all being exists to the infinite mind as thought, and that all being may exist to any mind as thought, so far as this mind is developed enough to grasp it; the limit in every case being not the nature of the outward object, but the capacity of the mind itself.

It may be further remarked that this discussion does not enter into the metaphysics of thought itself. If thought and will are, as I may here assume them to be, the two poles of being, they must, through this polarity, be in essence one.

The common thought of man assumes this correspondence, or identity, between thought and being. If a common man have the notion of cause and effect, if he cannot think without assuming this notion to be true, he does not hesitate to take it for granted that cause and effect are in reality what he thinks them to be. ‘To doubt in such a case would be to give up all reality to thought. We might as well dream as think. The man of culture, on the other hand, finds often a gulf separating the world of thought from the world _of being. His thought seems to him unreal, and he cannot get hold of true being. He makes perhaps some concession ; he says, “These thoughts come and go without any will of mine; they form in themselves an organic system, which I cannot disarrange or remodel; they are, then, in a sense, objective to myself. They must have some cause external tomy own mind. What this is I do not and cannot know. Whether it has, or not, any resemblance to my thought of it, isa | question that can never be answered. ‘True being I ean never find.” But the difficulty is one the thinker himself has originated. He cannot find true being? What, then, is his thought itself? Is not that real? Whatever else is, or is not, that is. His thought forms a world in itself. It is the only world he knows anything about. Whether anything else has or has not being is a question that is. grasped entirely out of the air. He has no conception of anything else. When he has such a conception, he may discuss its reality.

But then that conception.will be itself a thought. A single example may show the result which springs from this simple and commonsense affirmation of the reality of our thought. Metaphysicians have discussed the question whether time, that is, the succession which gives rise to the conception of time, has any real existence. Yet our thoughts are real. They succeed one another according to the relations of time, and thus these relations are real. But, it is urged, the thing in itself must be something very different from our thought of it. The thing in itself is a cold and shadowy ghost, that haunted the philosophy of Kant, as it has haunted so many others. The fact is, we have a real world without it. It isa phantom standing outside of the great forces of the world, or, rather, thought incorporates it into our world. We may go further, and say that there is no such thing as the thing in itself. Everything exists in the relations in which it stands to the things about it. Existence is no lifeless abstraction; it is the throb of action and reaction. Apart from this, a thing is annihilated. And it is these relations which are the objects of thought, and which resolve themselves into the relations of thought. It may be urged still further that after all that is thought has been extracted from the outer world, there must be a residuum that is not, and cannot be, thought ; that is the material that forms the basis of the world of objective thought. In a word, matter - must always be the antithesis of thought. But what is more truly an object of thought, or what is more truly the creation of thought, than the abstraction that we call matter?

But the statement of the identity of the subjective and the objective world becomes false if we take it too literally.

There is a sense in which water, ice, and vapor are the same; yet they are very different. Water is not ice, neither is it vapor, though it is potentially both. The abstract chemical formula is the same for all. Water, ice, and vapor is each HO. So it is with thought and the outer reality in their relations to one another. Neither is the other, yet each is at heart what the other is, and the formula for one is the formula for the other. This formula, common.to both, it is the business of logic to express.

All that has been said above is simply an elaboration of what is contained in the simple faith in which we think. [If it is not true, all thought is simply an escape from the tedium of vacuity. Objections to the ground taken may be brought from two sources. One of the sources is thought itself; the other is the imagination. When thought begins to plead against the reliability of thought, we may be pardoned if we give it little attention. All that has been said has - been based on the reliability of thought. Suppose thought prove thought to be false, what remains? Thought. For my thought to question the reliability of thought in general is to set the individual against the universal, from which it springs.

The other source from which objec >> spring is the imagination. In. the stein. thought and the outer world are at heari Jue, ee seems nothing for the imagination to lay holdof. It has not been used to represent thought to itself, otherwise than as the thought of some particular person, my thought or yours. Against the objection of the imagination the only reply is, that the imagination has here nothing to do. When we discuss the absolute relations of being, the imagination must remain silent, content only with such fragments as the reason may be able to throw to it. Much of our false conception and false reasoning results from the feeling that the imagination must be consulted and satisfied. The mathematician has had the courage to banish it or reduce it to quiet. He follows the course of his symbols, treading -airy heights where the imagination would become dizzy, and from which she would hold him back. The philosopher has to tread far more dizzy heights than those of the mathematician. He, however, too often takes the imagination as his companion. She, appalled and dizzy with the wastes about

-». and beneath them, conjures up many-colored and fantastic clouds. Among these the reason wanders confusedly, studying them and sketching them as if they were realities. Thus has it so often wandered in vain, if it has not indeed lost itself and perished. The position which we have taken is thus free from the possibility of assault. From it result two conclusions, each of the utmost value to the student of thought. The first is, that the categories of thought and of being, of the inner and the outer world, are

THOUGHT IN GENERAL. le the same. ‘The second is, that there is no absolute limit to thought, but that for it the unattainable is the untrue. of

It need hardly be remarked, that all this is true, not of my thought or yours, but of thought itself. The special problem for each individual is to make his thought fall in with, and express, so far as it goes, the absolute thought. We will pass then, now, from the general to the individual stand-point.

_ The line where the individual comes into direct contact with the outer world is that of the senses. What has been said in regard to the reliability of thought does not necessarily involve that of the senses, in their simple and crude reports. ‘The apprehension of the unthinking is, that things exist exactly as they appear to do; that the table actually stands as they see it before them, with its crimson cloth ; that the flowers are many-colored and fragrant ; that the lamp actually emits light; that sounds are actually produced from the piano. A slight analysis, however, shows that all these colors and scents and sounds are mere sensations, and can be reproduced separately without the aid of the corresponding outward object. Thus the sensation of color is often produced by mechanical pressure upon the eye. If you look earnestly at one bright color, and then turn away from it, or close the eye, an entirely different color will be seen. The sensation of light may be produced by a blow. ‘The school-boy can testify of the stars that he sees when the back of his head comes in contact with the ice. Perfect figures may appear before the mind when there is no outward object answering to them. Such are the visions which present themselves to us in our dreams, or as the result of disordered sensational action. The sensation of sound may also be excited without external cause. One may have a ringing in his cars, when there is no ringing to be heard by any one else in his neighborhood.

This analysis need not be continued further. From it, it would appear that the world flashes into beauty when our glance falls upon it; that the brook begins its rippling song and the cataract takes up its mighty music when we approach them; but that without the presence of the eye and the ear nature is blank and voiceless. If one, pressed by such reasoning, affirms that he knows that the world exists as he sees it, because of the resistance which he feels when he comes in contact with any part of it, as when he strikes his hand against a wall, the answer is, that what we call the hand, like everything else, may be analyzed into sensations. It and the wall stand in the same relation, and each has equal need of verification.