Subject and object

Front matter

SUBJECT

and OBJ ECT

REV. J. E.WALTER

CHAPTER II Subject and Object in their Relation 75

Subject and Object discriminated — The two sorts of objects, Subject-Objects and Object- Objects — (1) Relation of subject and subject-object — Subject-objects constitute a distinct internal procession and system — (2) Relation of object-objects to subject and subject-objects — Possible cognition of object-objects — The cognition is inferential — Comparison with

Contents

PAGE

the "window" theory of perception — Projection of sensations and percepts — The immediate materials of both mental science and physical science are the same — Mental science and physical science distinguished — The two worlds, the internal and the external, and their correspondence — Does the knowledge of self require the knowledge of other selves ? — Does the knowledge of physical objects require the knowledge of other persons? — The view that "what science finds in Nature is the mind's own latent wealth" — Dualistic realism since Locke.

CHAPTEE III

Chapter IV

Truth objective and subjective; or truth as fact or reality, and as correspondence of thought to reality — In this essay truth is taken as entirely subjective — The correspondence of thought to its object or to reality — Four sorts of truth or correspondence of thought : ( 1 ) Correspondence to the substantial mind; (2) to other thought; (3) to past events; (4) to external objects — Truth and knowledge compared — Antagonism of idealists to truth defined as correspondence of thought to objects external to mind — The same as Berkeley's main opposition to the doctrine of the representative cognition of external matter — Possibility of correspondence, and known correspondence, of thought to external things — Truth a matter of progression — 1. How far do we make truth? — The "cognitive making" of reality — Reality as determined by our wishes — The making of truth by our thinking and wishing —

CONTENTS

PAGE

The intellect as conditioned in the making of truth by the original and indispensable materials and forms given to it — Nature of the sense-materials supplied to the intellect — Dependence of intellect also upon the action of external objects. — 2. Stability of truth — It results from the constancy of the internal and the external conditions of knowledge — 3. Utility as the criterion of truth — The real as the useful — All things useful to us because of the systematic unity and uniformity of nature — Neither reality nor truth, though inseparable from utility, is identical with it; they are more, they have a primacy — The conception of God considered as beneficial and as a "working hypothesis" — The truth of our knowledge of God.

Chapter I

"To write a chapter for the purpose of showing that nothing is known, or can be known, of the subject which the title of the chapter indicates, will be thought strange." These are the words with which Mr. H. Spencer opens the chapter in his Psychology on the i ' Substance of Mind. ' ' 1 The present discussion has its occasion in the conviction that the human mind is a permanent entity or substance, which can be and is known; and the primary purpose of the discussion is to expound and defend that conception. This statement is made for the convenience of the reader, that at the very beginning he may know clearly and certainly the point of view and aim of the essay; and it is hoped he will not be repelled by the frank avowal.

But this purpose, it must be admitted, goes against what seems to be the main psychological tendency of the time. It is the contention of many that "the explanation of psychic life demands the complete elimination of the concept of substance ' ' ; and that the concept prevails only among ' ' unreflective minds. ' ' Some of the most zealous opponents deride mental substance as an " accursed idol. ' '

i Psychology, I, p. 145.

It might be supposed that, of all realities, the Mind, Soul, Self, Ego, should be the most directly and certainly known ; and that there should be complete agreement among men in all their main tenets and decisions regarding its nature and functions. Bespecting agreement in doctrine, the truth is just the contrary. Hardly a wider variety and opposition of theories are found on any other subject than on what for us, as some would say, is the immediate centre and focus of all reality and knowledge — the Self.

The theory of mind now most prevalent apparently among professional psychologists is, that mind is the stream, flux, process, of our thoughts, feelings or conscious states. The process-mind is conceived to be purely successive, purely temporal. It is the flow of the rapidly rising and perishing thoughts. It has no relation to a real or knowable permanent spiritual subject or substratum, or to one entitled to consideration in psychology. Hume is the most distinguished representative of this hypothesis of mind. He is the chief protagonist for modern times of psychology without a soul.

Another theory defines mind as the permanent possibility of feeling — of sensation, idea, volition — or as consisting of the present feeling and the permanent possibility of other feelings. Its most distinguished advocate is J. S. Mill, who has expounded it especially in the chapter on the " Psychological Theory of Mind, ,, in his Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy. An important question regarding the theory is as to what we are to understand by a "permanent possibility," or as to what a "permanent possibility" is when yet in its unrealized state or before actualization, or after feeling ceases. Mr. Mill does not furnish a clear

THE SUBJECT OE SOUL 3

answer to this question. He tells us what the permanent possibility is not, rather than what it is. 1 It appears to be an abstract, non-substantial capability or potentiality suspended in the void, having no rest for the soles of its feet. If this be its character, then we must admit the conception is one of the most cunningly devised and elusive ever fabricated by the human intellect. It is scepticism respecting mental substance developed to the limit. We remark further now only on this specific point, namely, that, whatever mind may be as a possibility of feelings, it is, according to this theory, not a pure succession or stream; for permanence is postulated of the ultimate possibility; and identity, time, and memory are thus apparently conceived as supported by permanence, and not only by a pure flow of momentary and perishing experiences. 2

i He says of the permanent possibility of sensation [Matter] : "But though the sensations cease, the possibilities remain in existence; they are independent of our will, our presence, and everything which belongs to us." (Exam. Hamilton, I. p. 241.) The permanent possibilities are not supposed to be, or to be in, a universal mind that embraces or governs the particular finite minds and is the immediate author of all their conscious experiences.

2 Mr. Mill makes some statements respecting memory and the unconscious which are worthy of note. In speaking of "stored-up knowledge," he denies that it is an unconscious state or action of mind. "It is not a mental state, but a capability of being put into a mental state. When I am not thinking of a thing it is not present to mind at all." (Exam. Hamilton, II. p. 7.) He says again of latent memory: "It is not the mental impressions that are latent, but the power of reproducing them. Every one admits, without any apparatus of proof, that we have powers and susceptibilities of which we are not conscious; but these are the capabilities of being affected, not actual affections" (p. 9). He remarks also: "I am myself inclined to agree with Sir W. Hamilton, and to admit his unconscious mental modifications, in the only shape in which I can attach any very distinct meaning to them, namely unconscious modifications of the nerves" (p. 22). Mill here seems to favor the theory that the capabilities or possibilities of memories, and probably of all other mental states, are wholly in the permanent nervous matter. But it will be remembered that matter itself he defines as the permanent possibility of sensation; by which definition,

A third hypothesis declares that mind and body constitute one reality, a psycho -physical organism; and that a mental change and a bodily or nervons change are phases of the same event. There is no interaction between mind and body, because they are one ; but there is an established parallelism between conscious states and nervous motions. The theory of psycho-physical unity and parallelism often ends in giving great supremacy to the physical side of the organism, or in making it the " whole thing.' ' The mental modes are treated as if products or creations of the physical motions. The latter have not a reciprocal like dependence upon the former.

An older and long popular theory holds that mind or soul is a substance distinct from the body, and that the human constitution is a duality of mental and material substances. Mind, in its essence a permanent and identical entity, is the producer of the procession of the various conscious phenomena. It is supposed to be the permanent support or subject of the procession, just as a material body is generally regarded as the permanent subject of its own successive and transient motions. Though mind is substantially distinct from body, it is united with body in a close relation of interdependence and interaction. With this theory is commonly combined the belief that the soul survives in its integrity, with its memories and identity, the dissolution of the body.

It is our purpose now to return to the theory of the process-mind, the mind of the pure temporal series of feelings without substrate, that is, the mind of Hume and his followers, and to subject it to a more full and

with these other statements, we are at length involved in an almost bewildering maze.

particular examination. There is no force in present-day psychology more potent than that of Hume; and some careful consideration of the main principles of his hypothesis of mind will therefore be especially appropriate. It will also serve as a convenient preparation for our own independent treatment of mind which is to follow.

According to Hume's formal definition, mind is a pure abstract collection or succession of perceptions. He says : ' ' What we call a mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions." * Again: "They are the successive perceptions only that constitute the mind" (I 313). Perceptions is Hume's general term for ' ' impressions and ideas ' ' ; and these are the two great classes into which all the phenomena or contents of the mind are divided. He observes: "All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call impressions and ideas" (15). These two kinds of " perceptions ' ' correspond to what are often called in the later psychology presentations and representations. They differ only in "force and liveliness. ' ' Impressions are vivid perceptions; ideas are faint perceptions. All ideas are effects and copies of precedent impressions.

Hume notes three main characteristics of the succession of perceptions which alone constitute mind. The first of these is, that the perceptions rapidly pass and vanish. He says: "All impressions are internal and perishing" (245) ; perceptions have no "continued existence" (265); they "succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity" (312). The two other characteristics Hume repeatedly distinguishes and empha-

i Philosophical Works, 4 vols., Boston, 1854. (Edinburgh 1825.) I. p. 260.

sizes as of the greatest importance. The one is, that the successive and transient perceptions forming mind " exist separately, ' ' are perfectly isolated from one another. The other is, that certain relations are cognizable among the isolated perceptions; namely, the relation of resemblance, relation in space and time, and the relation of canse and effect.

The isolation of the successive perceptions composing the mind is affirmed by Hume in the most express and decided terms. He says: "All our perceptions are different from each other and from everything else in the universe, they are also distinct and separable, and may be considered as separately existent' ' (290). ' ' Our perceptions are all really different, and separable, and distinguishable from each other, and from everything else which we can imagine; and therefore it is impossible to conceive how they can be the action or abstract mode of any substance' ' (304). " Every distinct perception which enters into the composition of the mind, is a distinct existence, and is different, and distinguishable, and separable from every other perception, either contemporary or successive" (320). "There is no known [real] connection among objects [perceptions] " (278). "All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another, but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined but never connected" (IV 84). Mind, according to these and other like declarations frequently made by Hume, is a collection or succession of perceptions divided from one another by absolutely void intervals. It is like a flock of birds on the wing, or a stream of leaves in the wind, the individuals of which are separated by empty spaces.

In his repeated and vehement assertions that there

THE SUBJECT OE SOUL 7

is no real tie, bond, or connection among the perceptions composing mind, Hume generally has in view, and wishes to oppose, Locke's doctrine of mental substance. Locke held to the existence of mental substance, the " subject' ' or " substratum" in which it is supposed ideas "inhere," "subsist," are "united," to which they "belong," by which they are "supported." But he yet held also that though the mental substance exists, it is unknown. He affirms : ' * The substance of spirits is unknown to us ; and so is the substance of body equally unknown to us." 1 "All our ideas of the several sorts of substances are nothing but collections of simple ideas, with a supposition of something to which they belong, and in which they subsist; though of this supposed something we have no clear distinct idea at all. ' ' 2 Hume takes a very important step beyond Locke and antagonizes him, in asserting that mental substance is not only unknown, but does not exist ; that the mind is a collection of ideas without any supporting subject or substratum whatever, but self-sustained. He says explicitly: Perceptions are distinct and separable "and have no need of anything else to support their existence" (I 290). "We have no idea of a substance. . . . Nothing appears requisite to support the existence of a perception. We have therefore no idea of inhesion" (291). "The understanding never observes any real connection among objects [perceptions] " (330). "Objects exist distinct and independent, without any common simple substance or subject of inhesion" (II 549). It may be remarked that Hume thus exceeds Berkeley, the nearer successor of Locke, by a very distinct advance. Berkeley rejected material, but admitted mental, substance. Hume emphatically rejects both.

But, as above remarked, one of the most frequently and forcibly asserted principles of Hume's psychology is the doctrine that among the collected perceptions composing mind — which are separated from one another and are never connected by a real bond or tie, by a medium or substance — certain significant relations are cognized ; namely, the relations of resemblance, contiguity in space and in time, and cause and effect. He says of these perceivable relations: "To me there appear to be only three principles of connection among ideas, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause or Effect" (IV 23). "The three connecting principles of all ideas, are the relations of resemblance, contiguity, and causation" (29). "We have already observed that nature has established connections among particular ideas, and that no sooner one idea occurs to our thoughts than it introduces its correlative, and carries our attention toward it, by a gentle and insensible movement. These principles of connection or association we have reduced to three, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity, and Causation; which are the only bonds that unite our thoughts together" (58). Hume expressly observes that these relations are not real connections among perceptions, and are not based upon or made possible by real connections; but are only relations which the separate perceptions have in our "thought,' ' "fancy," "imagination." "When we say that one object is connected with another, we mean only that they have acquired a connection in our thought" (86). "The only qualities that can give ideas a union in the imagination are these three relations above mentioned. These are the uniting principles in the ideal world" (I 321). "We only feel a connection or determination of the thought to pass from one object to another" (II 551). "Events . . . seem conjoined, but never connected"; that is, they are conjoined in thought but have no "tie" in reality, no "real bond" or "real connection." Particularly, perceptions are not connected by the being of a unitary owner, subject or substratum.

By a moment's consideration of this doctrine of cognizable relations, it becomes quite obvious that Hume is here introducing a principle that is entirely inconsistent with the character of mind described as a collection of separately existing, and never really connected, perceptions. To a mind so defined the cognition of such relations would evidently be impossible. The separation of the elements of mind carries with it the impracticability of perceiving the relations. What is it that will perceive the relations? Where is there any provision for any combining cognition of the collected perceptions "which constitute a thinking mind"! Hume posits no arch-perception, analogous to the "arch-monad" of Leibnitz, which might supervise the other perceptions and discern their relations. There is no thinking factor in mind other than each of the separately existing perceptions. These are the whole of mind. What imaginable means, then, can there be for any knowledge of the relations of the associated but isolated perceptions? If each perception may know itself, yet its severance from all others clearly makes impossible to it any knowledge of its relations to them. It cannot be supposed to leap the gulfs between itself and the others, and thus ascertain its resemblance to them, and measure the distance of its position from theirs in space and in time. That would require at least that each separate perception should be a soul, a person, capable of visiting his fellows, of coming into immediate real connection with them and embracing them.

The two great principles of Hume's psychology (1) that the mind is a collection of separately existing perceptions, and (2) that there are important relations cognized among the perceptions — the relations of resemblance, coexistence and separation in space, and succession — certainly seem to be, and certainly are, incompatible with one another, even mutually contradictory. In the denned and avowed mind there is no acknowledged knowing factor beside the severed perceptions; there is not the slightest place or provision with them or among them for any sort of knower ; and their separation absolutely forbids the cognizability of the relations. A cognized relation between the constituent perceptions would be possible only on the condition of a real connection. The positive denial of a real connection necessitates the denial of a perceivable relation. Yet, as Hume constantly and confidently affirms the actual cognition of these relations, it becomes interesting and important to consider how he construes in his own mind the feasibility of the cognition.

This he does by blandly supposing and employing, over and above the avowed mind of the separately existing perceptions, what is in reality a second mind possessing a peculiar and remarkable character. This second mind is variously denominated "mind," "thought," "imagination," "we," "I"; and is represented as, like an outside observer, surveying the succession and mass of our perceptions, as moving among them, as combining and commanding them. It is noticeable that Hume makes this assumption with the utmost ease and serenity, without the slightest concern, as if it were a postulate which no one should ever think of questioning or condemning as inconsistent with anyother of his tenets.

In the following passages this surprising conception of an extra mind is made clear and unmistakable. Speaking of "the mind," Hume says: "The qualities ... by which the mind is conveyed from one idea to another are these three, viz., resemblance," etc. (I 26). "The thinking of any object readily transports the mind to what is contiguous" (133). "The relation facilitates the transition of the mind from one object [perception] to another, and renders its passage as smooth as if it contemplated one continued object" (314). "The mind has the command over all its ideas, and can separate, unite, mix, and vary them, as it pleases" (II 544). Similar and the same functions are attributed to "thought" and "imagination": "Our notions of personal identity proceed entirely from the smooth and uninterrupted progress of the thought along a train of connected ideas" (I 321). "A determination of the thought to pass from one object to another" (II 551). "When one idea is present to the imagination, any other united by these relations naturally follows it, and enters with more facility by means of that introduction" (13). "The imagination has the command over all its ideas" (IV 57). "Our imagination runs easily from one idea to any other that resembles it"; and runs "along the parts of space and time in conceiving its objects" (I 26). Ideas have a "union in the imagination" (321). Likewise, in very many instances, "we" and "I" are represented as observing, uniting, controlling, remembering, the separately existing ideas, objects, perceptions. Thus under these different names, and with these various representations, Hume very clearly introduces an extra mind which has no recognition or place whatever in the avowed mind of the collection, bundle, train, succession, of perceptions. But, in view of the fact that Hume defines mind to the last as a collection of loose, unconnected, isolated perceptions, this quiet foisting in of a second mind as the observer, possessor, combiner and master of the perceptions is undeniably one of the most obtuse or, if not that, then one of the most unscrupulous and flagitious surreptions and self-contradictions in the annals of mental philosophy, and on account of it he deserves to be everlastingly chastised.

Hume's interpolation of an extra mind is essentially a bringing back of the spiritual subject of Locke and the substantialists which he had decidedly rejected. Locke had taught, as before remarked, that ' ' our specific ideas of substances are nothing else but a collection of a certain number of simple ideas, considered as united in one thing. ' ' x He variously speaks of this "one thing' ' or substance as something to which ideas belong, in which they inhere, subsist, are united, by which they are supported. But Hume would maintain against Locke that the only mind and all of mind is the collection of ideas ; and that they do not have and do not need anything to support them; that they subsist without any real or substantial connection, upholding themselves in perfect reciprocal isolation in the void; that we cannot form any idea of what a substance or inhesion is. The introduction of a second mind, however, undoes all this; it constitutes a glaring self-con-

i Essay, II. xxiii. 14.

tradiction; it is a complete recantation; it is a clear recall of the repudiated and excluded substance. In these many instances in which Hume declares of the second mind that it possesses, combines, commands, ideas and perceptions, it is evidently made essentially identical with Locke 's uniting, owning, supporting subject, Locke's connecting of ideas in one thing Hume emphatically rejected ; but here he freely accepts what amounts to the same connecting. Locke's doctrine of the inhesion or subsistence of ideas in a common subject he held to be unintelligible; but here he treats a nearly or quite identical inherence or subsistence as if it were perfectly intelligible. There is obvious in this procedure the singular turn in Hume's speculation, that the extra mind which he tacitly foists in comes to hold the chief place and to be the supreme mind; and that the separately existing perceptions, which by themselves, with nothing else whatever, compose the expressly avowed and denned mind, are made objects which it observes, unites, controls. Further, the interpolated mind is made to give all plausibility to the often asserted cognition of the relations, among the isolated perceptions, of resemblance, space and time.

This interjection of a second mind by Hume must be denounced as an inconsistency and self-contradiction of the most flagrant sort. But it had more causes than Hume's love of paradox and dilemma, or delight in acting the sceptic. It is in part a demonstration of how an important fact, which has been arbitrarily excluded from the theory of mind and ignored and denied, will at times force itself forward into recognition, compel respect, and accuse and retaliate its unjust exclusion. There was more in Hume 's experience of mind than was embraced in his theory ; and his full experience therefore spontaneously and necessarily came into conflict with his theory.

As illustrating and tending to confirm some of the main points that have just been dwelt on, we shall yet produce a familiar declaration of Hume, which has often been quoted as being a particularly clear and compact statement of what is most distinctive in his psychology. Its main doctrine has been by many regarded as embodying very important truth, and dominates much of the psychology of our time. "For my part," says Hume, "when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hate, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. ' ' He soon adds, that men ' ' are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement" (I 312). In here saying that he never can observe anything but the perceptions, or flux of different isolated perceptions, he means especially that he cannot observe, in addition to the perceptions, any connecting substance among them, any single, permanent, identical, subject or support for them.

This passage then is a very plain and direct affirmation of psychology without a soul, in opposition to the substantialists. It is also a further clear exhibition of the profound self-contradiction within Hume 's hypothesis of the nature and cognition of mind. No one will wish to question in the least the truth of Hume's asseveration, that when entering into the most intimate examination of himself he always stumbled upon some particular perception or perceptions; for it is undeniable that, universally, mind is known or knows itself only in its conscious modes; but Hume is chargeable with a gross self-contradiction in asserting that he observed nothing more than the perceptions. He observed something more in the very act of denying it. The something more is in this "I," this "self," this permanent, identical, unitary, remembering being, which, as he says, always " stumbles,' ' etc., never " observes,' ' etc.; and must therefore be something more than the inconceivably rapid flow of the perishing isolated perceptions ; must be something which stores up memories of perceptions that it experienced in the past, holding thus in the unity of knowledge both the present and the past, and certainly being capable of doing this only because it did not perish with the past perceptions but survives in its sameness to the present. Hume's theory of mind as a flux of unconnected perceptions involves the indubitable corollary that if, in his closest self -inspection, he never observed aught but the isolated perceptions, then he never observed even the perceptions. He must catch more than the perceptions, or there is no possibility of catching even them, or catching any one of them in any relation to others.

We have been dwelling upon the two fundamental, but inconsistent and contradictory, principles of Hume 's psychology : first, that the mind is a succession of severed perceptions, without a single subject or anything to connect and support them ; and, secondly, that the relations of resemblance, space, time, and causation, are constantly perceived among the severed perceptions. We have considered also his flagrant surreption of an extra mind which is supposed to survey the isolated perceptions, to observe the relations among them, to possess, unite and command them. It will reward us if we now turn back to consider further and attentively what Hume's original mind, denned as a succession of separately existing perceptions, is in and by itself, or what it is capable and incapable of knowing by itself, expelling entirely from the view the interjected second mind. We should note especially what the successive mind can know of time, personal identity and causation, or of the alleged primary relations of its swiftly passing constituent terms.

First, it is obvious that the successive mind cannot know succession, cannot know its own succession. A succession of separately existing perceptions evidently does not implicate in itself alone the knowledge of succession. The succession's knowledge of its own succession is impossible, because, owing to the mutual isolation of the perceptions by void intervals, not one of them can know itself as the predecessor or successor of another. A perception cannot know its position in the succession, and therefore cannot even be cognizant that it belongs to a succession or that there is a succession. This manifest impossibility of the abstract mental succession's being aware of itself as a succession and of any succession at all, should have convinced Hume, and forced him to the open and honest acknowledgment, that the mind must be something more than a train of isolated terms ; that the idea of succession imperatively requires a more adequate reason, a far more competent cause and support.