The physics of idealism ...

Chapter II." Schelling's Construction of Matter 38

A. Transition to Schelling 38

B. The Metaphysical Point of Departure of the Phi-

losophy of Nature 40

- C. The Problem and Method of the Philosophy of

Nature 40

D. Relation of the Idea of Matter to the Theory of

Perception 52

E. Matter as a Force- Product 50

F. Gravitation as a Systematizing Factor 09

Introduction

In discussing the attitude of idealism towards the metaphysics of natural science one is embarrassed at the outset by the indefiniteness of the term idealism. Systems which are called idealistic differ radically in character, as do those of Leibniz and Berkeley. Many of them exhibit features which are supposed to be characteristic of realism. Yet the distinction between realism and idealism is a time-honored one. and cannot be without significance. It is therefore important to determine with some precision in what this distinction consists.

Two criteria often used to make the distinction appear to the writer to be of very inferior value. According to one, an idealist is a thinker who denies that the external world and the objects of knowledge possess a reality independent of the perception or thought by which they form a part of his consciousness. Their esse is pereipL and in addition to their reality as perception no sort of existence can be ascribed to them. The realist, on the other hand, urges that things exist by themselves, and that afterwards a knowing mind may happen to perceive them — or it may not, the incident being of no great significance.

There is no doubt much excuse for resting the distinction upon the denial of an objective world independent of consciousness. The general contention of idealism, both in England and Germany, has been that the reality of the object consists in nothing else than being perceived. Except as related to consciousness, it is urged, no meaning can be ascribed to objectivity. With Berkeley insisting that the esse of things is nothing but their percipi, and with Fichte striving to show how the Ego constructs the world by its own spontaneity, the foregoing characterization has seemed just and has won wide acceptance.

The extreme subjectivism which this statement of the idealistic position entails is a matter of regret. Wherever it is dominant idealism fights at a marked disadvantage. The suppression of subjectivism has been the perennial struggle of the idealist.

The idealist does not actually mean that the mind of the individual constructs for itself a field of consciousness which is its universe, and that the universe so known carries with it no implication or evidence of an existent reality external to the consciousness of the individual mind. He can no more dispense with such a reality than his opponent can dispense with the material world. It is the principle which makes the world a system, and causes the universe constructed by one mind to harmonize with that constructed by another. From the standpoint of the individual, this may be called an external world. It is not external to the mind, if by external we understand something opposed to the mind and distinct from it. On the contrary, for most forms of idealism this universal principle must be immanent in the mind, and may in this sense be called internal. It is external, however, in the sense that it involves immensely more than the consciousness of the single individual. Its sphere of activity lies largely outside the consciousness of the finite subject, and it is in this extra-mental sphere that we must find the ground and explanation of the cosmic order.

Berkeley eliminates from his philosophy the material world, but he is able to do this only by calling to his assistance the mind of God. The perceptions of objects are aroused in the conscious subject by God. It is clear, therefore, that the existence in my mind of a given perception does involve some evidence of a universe external to myself. It implies the activity of God. When Berkeley urges that its esse is percipi and nothing more, he is impelled by a motive which he does not reallv understand or properly state. His real motive is to deny that subject and object are given in absolute dualism ; to assert that the two are given as differences in a common principle, and in the medium of mind-life. Epistemological necessities led him to accent the mental medium, and even to treat it as the perceptual act; but he did not rigorously and consistently restrict the entire reality of the object known to the perceptual product. Berkeley was concerned, it is true, more with the destructive argument against materialism, and gave only an imperfect development to the positive aspect of his system. Until this aspect is satisfactorily worked out. however. Dr. Johnson's refutation of Berkeleianism is in order, and the distrust with which the ordinary man regards idealism is sound and just.

Fiehte apparently dispenses not only with the material world but also with the Divine mind, and regards the universe as the free creation of the Ego. As the system develops, however, it becomes evident that Ego is only another name for Spirit, and that the mind of any particular man is but a small part of the Ego which creates the whole universe. The finite Ego is the same in its nature and life as the absolute Ego. but is less extensive. "All individuals are included in che one great unity of pure spirit.'' * This tendency to go beyond the finite Ego to an absolute Ego appears more distinctly in Schilling's early efforts to supplement and perfect the system of Fiehte, but it is apparent in the worts of Fiehte himself. As with Berkeley, so with Fiehte, the spiritual principle to which we are forced to refer the cosmic order is in large measure beyond the consciousness of the finite mind. Of one texture with the finite thinker, it is by no means a mere phenomenon to the human percipient.

It is an inadequate and unfair definition of idealism, then, which makes its essence consist in maintaining that the external world has no reality farther than that of being per-

1 Dignity of Man, Eng. translation by Kroeger, p. 336.

ceived. Some kind of external reality must be admitted if we are to regard the universe as anything more than a disordered series of irrational mental states. Idealism differs from real ism, not by denying the necessity of assuming for the explana tion of perception a principle which transcends the individual mind, but by certain deeper criteria of which this is but an imperfect epistemological expression.

Equally unsatisfactory is the second criterion to be mentioned. Some men would consider any philosophy realism which holds that there are beings distinct from the mind, and that these beings act causally upon the mind to produce perception. On this view the realities might be of the same nature as the mind, so that all existence is spiritual; yet as a truly causal interaction is admitted, any individual musl grant that his perceptions are caused by realities external t<» himself. The monadology of Leibniz becomes realism, then, as soon as we admit that the monads have windows.

Much evidence can be found in the writings of Fichte, Schel ling, and other German idealists, to show that they regarded the explanation of perception by causality as being a criterion distinguishing realism from idealism. Fichte says "The true question in dispute between dogmatic realism and dogmatic idealism is, therefore, in what manner shall we explain representation? Through the conception of causality! asserts realism. Through the conception of substantiality! asserts idealism." 1 By substantiality Fichte means to indicate the view which regards the non-Ego as possessing no reality or efficiency except that which it receives from the Ego.

But a further examination shows that we cannot satisfactorily distinguish the two philosophical tendencies according as they do or do not explain perception by the causality of something external to the percipient mind. For in the first place, upon this basis even Berkeley, the high-priest of idealism, would figure as a realist. With Leibniz, also, ali Fichte. Science of Knowledge Kroeg-er's translation, p. 133.

though our perceptions at any given moment arise by virtue of the spontaneity of the mind, they all trace back ultimately to the causality of God. In the second place, the real import of the change introduced by the post-Kantian idealism consists not in the fact that it has destroyed the conception of a causal relation obtaining between the individual mind and its environing universe, but rather in the fact that it has taken the causal conception up into the higher idea of an organic system. It is true that the relation in which one member of this system stands to another is a teleological one, by virtue of the membership of all individuals in the common plan; and the idealistic theory of knowledge is therefore concerned to show that the cognitive relation is not mechanical simply, out that subject and object mutually imply one another within the teleological unity of an organic Avhole. Could this De successfully denied, I judge that idealism would fail. It is necessary to show that the relation of the mind to its environing universe is not simply mechanical, barely causal, out that it is teleological. As soon, however, as we have taken the causal idea up into this higher thought of systematic relation, we can give it its relative truth. Subject and object, or rather sensation and stimulus, are in relations which are not merely causal, in the pluralistic or mechanical sense; it does not follow, however, that the causal judgment has no applicability to the situation. On the other hand, it may as fairly be applied there as in any other relation. But in any relation it gives only an abstract and superficial rendering of the true connection of individual facts within a universe. "The truth of mechanism is teleology. "

According to the modified view of causality now under discussion, a cause does not act directly upon its effect, but the causal action is mediated through the world-ground. It is by virtue of the immanence of the world-ground in the object, and by its free activity, rather than by the direct transeunt action of the mechanical cause, that an orderlv effect issues.

Perceptions arise in the mind, then, not by the direct causal action of objects, but by the ideal immanence in the mind of the world-ground as absolute Ego. But as this is what all causal action really implies, we are as well justified in saying: that our perceptions are caused by something other than the mind as in saying that physical changes are caused by other physical changes. The refusal of German idealism to explain perception by means of causality, then, amounts to no more than an assertion that all such causal action must take place within the jurisdiction of one all-comprehending world-ground and must be guided and controlled at every turn by the spon taneity of this absolute Spirit.

Having rejected as unsatisfactory criteria of idealism both the denial of an external world and the denial of a causal relation between the finite mind and the universe, it is necessary to go deeper in order to discover its essential marks.

Idealism can best be characterized, I think, by subordinating the purely epistemological standpoint to the metaphysical one. Dropping for the moment the question of the origin of perceptions, we should ask what sort of a world-principle idealism contemplates. The essential divergence from realism, and the grounds for the epistemological theses will then appear in their proper correlation.

Idealism is convinced, in the first place, that the world is t lie production of a unitary principle; a principle, moreover, which in a systematic and orderly way bears upon its bosom a vast multiplicity of detaiL This idea of systematic unity finds its best analogical expression in the conception of an organism. The world is an organic unity, in such wise that the ideal of the whole is immanent in every part. It is true that the analogy of an organism, if taken with utmost strictness, must after a time break down, but it serves to illustrate in some degree the relation which individuals can bear towards an ideal system-founding universal. It is only when we study the deeper implications of the mind-life that we find this relationship displayed in a way which is more than analogical and which does not break doAvn when applied to the Real. The world is a system-bearing unity, then, to which the deeper relations found in the mind-life furnish the key. This monistic bent is both logically and historically involved in idealism as a philosophical tendency. A pluralism which admits no higher unity within the sphere of a Being which is truly one cannot claim to be an idealism. Against such a view we find the idealist arguing that absolutely discrete entities cannot interact, and that therefore no universe can be formed by pluralism. And since they cannot interact, they cannot act causally upon the mind. It follows that even if a multitude of discrete elements existed we could not know it.

The philosophy of Leibniz illustrates the significance of the conception of an immanent totalizing ideal to which the activities of the world forces and the orderliness of nature are referred. For Leibniz, the possibility of interaction between monads depended upon the creating and adjusting power of God. Only because God ordains that two monads shall act in unison do they exhibit the relations which we refer to interaction. In fact, however, no dynamical relations exist between the two. Leibniz holds, it is true, that the apparent interaction has been preestablished for all time, and that the further mediation of God is no longer necessary in the sense in which it was required at the beginning. This point, however, is not essential to the present reflection. The important consideration is that the monads, regarded as independent entities, cannot influence one another, and the possibility of forming them into a universe depends upon the all-including monad, God. The philosophy of Leibniz is therefore, so far as this criterion goes, a true idealism. But the preestablishment at the creation of all causal events proved too vigorous :t doctrine for his successors. Accordingly, they admitted a truly dynamical interaction between the monads, an influence not mediated by Divine assistance. God became, then, a

1/ necessity of thought, an Ens rationis, even an Ens realissUnum, "but no longer a concrete postulate to make possible physical change. Banished into the region of abstractions, with the world progressing successfully without him, the very existence of God came into serious question. Thus the transition was made from the idealism of Leibniz to the dogmatic realism which preceded Kant, merely by denying that interaction is mediated by the ideal influence of a monistic world-principle. The same presupposition is essential to the argument of Eichte and Schelling. The explanation of perception by external causation they hold to be impossible. One could admit that the problem of knowledge cannot be solved by reducing cognition to a result of physical stimulation, but it is not so clear that no determinations of perception can be due to the way in which real things might act upon us. Upon careful search, however, we find the explanation of their thought in the repeated recurrence of passages like the following: "But further, these two activities [of the subject and of the object] cannot be absolutely opposed to one another, unless they are activities of one and the same identical subject. They cannot therefore be united in one and the same product, without a third which is the synthesis of the two." x The possibility of bringing together the finite Ego and the non-Ego, and of allowing them to mutually determine one another, rests upon the fact that the two are united within the absolute Ego. And in fact this is nothing more or less than the central doctrine of Kant's Critique of Pure Keason, that all science rests upon synthesis and all synthesis is within the transcendental unity of the constitutive category. All post-Kantian idealism, then, is foreordained to monism. A similar effect is produced in the Greek idealism by the Platonic doctrine of the concept. Berkeleianism is less developed in this respect, and has not thought out deeply the relations in which the individual mind stands to the world-ground. It has therefore failed to catch

1 Schelling-, Sammtliche Werke, Abth. I, Bd. Ill, S. 440.

the genuine logic of constructive idealism. Its argument for the mutual correlation of subject and object has put it upon a course, however, which justifies us in classifying it as idealism, although crude and undeveloped.

Upon the criterion here defended all forms of pluralism, however much they may insist that their plural elements are souls, must be classed as realism. Herbartian metaphysics accepts this designation. Lotze's extension of the Herbartian realism consists in adding to it the very feature which characterizes idealism, and is therefore a radical alteration.

All idealism is monistic, inspired by the conception of a system-founding whole ideally immanent in the parts. It is. not practicable to say, of course, that all monism is idealistic, although it may very well be that all consistently thought out monism which attempts to define the conception of a concrete or system-founding universal will be so. It is therefore necessary, in order to secure a completed definition, to develop the further characteristics of idealism.

Its second important characteristic consists in the fact that for idealism all knowledge, and indeed all forms of apprehension of the Real, rest upon and presuppose idealization. That is, they rest upon the operation wij:tyn the finite consciousness of the ideal of the Universal, the Totality, bringing out the orderliness which is implied within experience. The content of this ideal is not derived by copying from finite sense feeling, but rests upon the autonomy of Mind itself.

It is unnecessary to point out how this element, first introduced into philosophy in articulate form by Plato, has played a prominent part in all constructive idealism. Many forms in which the doctrine has been cast have been defective. Idealism does not need to hold to an a priori rational knowledge apart from experience; it does need to hold, so far as I can see, to the domination of an ideal universal in knowledge. Its theory of knowledge, then, can only be a theory of the way in which experience implies and exhibits the operation of this dominant universal.

It is more important to point ont the connection of this epistemological criterion with the metaphysical one first mentioned. The epistemological doctrine is rendered necessary, if the metaphysical one is to be maintained, because only through the idealism of finite consciousness can any knowledge be gained of a totalizing synthetic Universal, or any meaning be given to the conception. If all cognitive experience testified only of contingent phenomena, of physical facts in time and space, then there would be no evidence of an intelligible unity in the world. Indeed, we should then be forced to say that any unity which might exist in the world must, be unintelligible. But if knowledge involves the treatment of perceptual experience in the light of an ideal of unity and order transcending perception, then all cognitive experience testifies to the existence of spiritual order in the world. Every experience we have, every fact that we know, is so much experiental testimony of mind in the world. Unless we knew God we should not knowing anything. In brief, a dominant universal in the world carries with it a universal operative in knowledge; and the establishment of the universal operative in knowledge is the ground, and the only rational ground, for asserting the dominant universal in the world.

This criterion has an adverse bearing upon any idealism founded upon sensationalism. The essential thing about sensationalism is its conception of thinking as copying sense data. The resulting denial of idealization in knowledge precludes the possibility of a perfected idealistic system on this basis, and drove Berkeley in his later years to Platonism.

The third characteristic mark of idealism is its conviction that the ultimate import of the ideal operating in the finite consciousness is Beality itself. The ideal is the real, if you first define the ideal with sufficient breadth and depth. The perfect fruition of that intellectual and ethical idealization which autonomously reveals itself in the life of mind gives us our only intelligible interpretation of the category of Being or Reality. Throughout all our intellectual life we are judging some interpretations of experience to be relatively illogical and false, others to be relatively logical and true; and the basis or postulate of this procedure can only be our implicit recognition that Reality must be a coherent whole, such as would be presented in a perfectly organized and totalized experience. By the very meaning of the category, then. Reality is the norm of the mind. This conception of the ontological predicate we are in fact using all the time, and we have no other conception of it which can be analyzed, denned, or freed from contradiction and absurdity. In particular, the meaning of the ontological predicate cannot be found in the sense of pressure or resistance. It is upon this point that the idealistic polemic against mere causality becomes in order.

It is clear that this third thesis also is logically bound up with the fundamental view-point and tendency of idealism. We have said that reality is an organic or mind-] ike unity: that we know it to be so, because in every act of knowledge we are led by an organizing ideal. We require to add that this ideal presents the real ; otherwise our argument fails.

Under this third criterion the philosophy of Leibniz falls -somewhat short of a genuine idealism. It infers from the individual monad to the nature of other monads by analogy, rather than by the recognition of identity of principle. It does not say, Reality is known as the perfected Principle revealed in the idealism of my individual life. It says, Reality is known as like my individual will. It is true that the organic relation of part to whole, upon which the system of Leibniz turns, implies a deeper thought; but so far as thinkers who follow liim fall back upon the analogical inference from the individual to the transcendent they tend to lose this deeper thought.

The three criteria here developed were satisfied by Greek thought, and by those philosophical developments through the ages which have drawn most inspiration from Plato. It is only in the speculation which followed Kant, however, that we can find in modern times a satisfactory and relatively independent development of idealism. It is only in post-Kantian_ speculation, and especially in the systems of Schelling and Hegel that the task of constructing a philosophy of natural science upon idealistic lines is fairly attacked. The success-, attained in this field has not generally gained a high rating. Subsequent thought has made some advance beyond them, but the present state of idealistic Naturphilosophie is not a matter of congratulation. The entire course of thought in this field has been largely determined by Schelling, and it is chiefly to his work, especially so far as it concerns speculative physirs,, that this monograph is devoted.

CHAPTER I. Kant's metaphysic of nature

A. Its Significance for Idealistic Speculative Physics.

A discussion of the problem which idealism has to treat in the philosophy of physics must take into consideration at the beginning the doctrines of Kant as set forth in his work on the Metaphysical Basis of the Natural Sciences. It is true that Kant himself is not a thoroughgoing and consistent idealist. For the metaphysic of nature, at any rate, the reality which lies at the basis of the material world is unknown. The Critical Philosophy is doubtless idealistic in spirit, yet it wants many of the characteristics which mark a genuine idealism. It may seem irrelevant, then, to begin a study of idealistic Naturphilosophie with a discussion of Kant's Metaphysic of Nature.

The reasons which render such a course advisable, however, are cogent. Kant and his idealistic successors found themselves confronted by much the same task. For both the material world, as a world of independent, self-existent realities, had vanished. That which was absolutely real bore no resemblance to the matter which science conceived. The task arose, then, of explaining how the appearance of a material world subordinate to law should be maintained when nothiog analogous to it in reality existed. For the performance of this task the differing materials supplied by the different systems of metaphysics would suggest different methods. Historically, however, the methods adopted were not radically different. The main features of Kant's Metaphysical Basis of the Natural Sciences were adopted with slight change into the N at ur philosophic of Schelling, and through this channel its 2

18 THE PHYSIOS OF IDEALISM.

influence was transmitted to subsequent idealistic speculation on nature. The chief task of Schelling was, not to improve upon the Kantian doctrine, but to work out more clearly its connection with idealistic philosophy. Much was added by Schelling, of course, but the spirit of the whole was determined by Kant. For this reason an examination of the Metaphysical Basis of the Natural Sciences must form the beginning of a critical discussion of the subsequent speculative physics.

B. Outline of the Metaphysic of Nature.

The Critique of Pure Reason had shown that the world of experience is constituted for us by the synthetic activity of the transcendental unity of apperception, as it combines the manifold which is given through the forms of space and time. The material world, then, must depend entirely upon the application of the categories of the understanding to the manifold given through the form of the external sense, that is, in space. We are led to expect, therefore, that a metaphysic of nature should bring the phenomena of the external world into connection with the categories of the understanding, showing specifically what part each category plays in the construction of nature, and proving that on this hypothesis the material world would be constituted such as science knows it.

It is doubtful if this task is successfully accomplished. Kant does attempt, however, to bring the phenomena into connection with the categories of the understanding. This is accomplished by an artificial systematization of the mode of treatment. Matter is considered from four points of view, corresponding to the four classes of categories, quantity, quality, relation, and modality. Under each of these headings three distinctions are made, which are identified with the three categories of the corresponding class. Now, since the understanding leads all other predicates pertaining to the nature of matter back to the one predicate of motion, which is the only one capable of affecting the senses, natural science is throughout a doctrine of motion. Therefore the first of the four divisions, phoronomy, treats of motion as a mere quantum; the second, dynamics, treats of it as an original moving force belonging to the quality of matter; the third, dynamics, deals with this quality as by its own reciprocal motion in relation; the fourth, phenomenology, considers matter with its motion as phenomenon of the external sense, or in reference to modality. In considering these it seems better to neglect Kant's order of treatment, and to deal at once with the second division, dynamics, which forms the core of the whole doctrine.

Matter, for dynamics, is the movable so far as it fills space. To fill space means to resist everything movable which endeavors to press into the space in question. This involves the capacity of offering resistance, a capacity which is related to the act as cause to effect. Now, what is this property upon which depends the capacity of matter to offer resistance? Some hold that it is the solidity of an existent substance, and that the very conception of such solidity carries with it that of resistance. This, however, is not the case. Only when there is attributed to that which occupies space a power of repelling that which approaches it does one comprehend how it involves a contradiction that one thing should penetrate into the space occupied by another. The penetration into space is a motion. It is diminished or destroyed by resistance. Nothing can diminish or destroy motion but another motion of the same movable in the opposite direction. This is proved in the phoronomy. Matter fills space, then, by causing another motion of the invading movable in the opposite direction. Now the cause of motion is a moving force. Not. therefore, by its mere existence, but by a special moving force, does matter occupy space.

Only two moving forces in matter can be conceived. That by means of which a body may be the cause of the approach of others to itself is attractive force; that by means of which

ZU THE PHYSICS OF IDEALISM.

it may be the cause of repelling others from itself is repulsive force. This latter is a force of expansion, and it is by the repulsive force of all its parts that matter fills space. This repulsive force must have a definite degree, beyond which smaller or larger degrees can be conceived to infinity. As expansive force is elasticity, all matter is originally and essentially elastic. Now matter can be compressed to infinity, because a force able to overcome its expansion can always be conceived; but, however great the compressing force, it can never be penetrated, that is, the space of its extension can never be entirely abolished, since that would require an infinite compressing force, an impossibility. The expansive force here described increases in proportion to the degree of compression, and the impenetrability resulting may be called relative impenetrability resting upon the dynamical filling of space. The mathematical conception of impenetrability, according to which matter is really capable of no compression at all, would involve absolute impenetrability. The latter is nothing more than an occult quality. If we ask why one body cannot be penetrated by another, the only answer which this view gives is, because it was impenetrable. Repulsive force, however, does afford an explanation, since it gives a. conception of an actual cause, in accordance with which the effect, resistance in space, may be accurately estimated.