A history of English philosophy

Preface

THE purpose of this book is to trace the history of philosophy in Great Britain from the time when it began to be written in the English language until the end of the Victorian era.

There are two ways of writing the history of philosophy. One of them sets out from the standpoint of philosophy as conceived by the writer; the other from that of the philosophers themselves. On the former method the fundamental problems of philosophy will be presented at the outset, and each step taken towards their definition and solution will then be noted ; whatever is irrelevant to the main issue will be left out of sight, however important it may have been in the minds of some of the philosophers. On the latter method the subject will be approached as it appeared to each philosopher in turn, and the presentation of definite concepts and clear issues will emerge gradually as the story progresses. Each of these methods has its own advantages and its own dangers. The former concentrates upon the essential, but it is liable to miss historical proportion by stressing certain features and overlooking others. The latter keeps in close touch with the documents, but care is needed to prevent the meaning of the whole from being obscured by details.

The accounts of English thought contained in the general histories of modern philosophy have, for the most part, followed the former method and the result has often been one-sided and misleading, so that even English readers have been led to misjudge the character of their national philosophy. The other method has been followed in the present treatise. All the leading philosophical writers have been passed under review; they have been studied in their lives and in their books ; and an effort has been made to seize and

V vi Preface

to express what was essential in their contribution to thought.

I am fully aware of the difficulties of the plan, but I have done my best to surmount them. Biographical and bibliographical detail has been introduced, but it has been used to explain and illustrate thought. Minor writers, now seldom read, have been dealt with but only by giving a concise estimate of the contribution which each had to make to the subject; and they have been grouped round the leading representatives of a period or type of thought. These leading writers have been made the central figures in successive chapters of the history. In carrying out this plan the scope of philosophy itself has been understood in the wider sense which most of the writers gave it in their own minds. The boundaries which separate it from theology, economics, and political theory have not been drawn very sharply, or, rather, they have been allowed to become more sharply marked in the course of the history just as they did in the minds of successive thinkers.

By strict economy of phrase it has been found possible to deal with the subject within the compass of a single volume. The great writers have indeed not received all the space that might have been fitly devoted to them; but an effort has at least been made to preserve a due proportion. Yet even this statement is true only on the whole. It seemed more important to recognise the significance of early and now almost forgotten philosophers than to give a full account of the well-known writers who have lent distinction to the philosophical literature of this and the immediately preceding generation. In the case of these latter little more has been done than to convey an impression of the purpose and outcome of their work. Living writers have been rarely mentioned and then only under a sort of intellectual compulsion — lest their omission should convey a false impression of the state of philosophy in the closing years of the nineteenth century.

The book, as it now appears, is based upon a series of

Preface vn chapters contributed to The Cambridge History of English Literature. The proofs have been read by Professor Gibson, of the University College of North Wales, to whom I am indebted for a number of valuable suggestions.

W. R. S.

PAGE

Preface v

CHAPTER I THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY English philosophy in the Middle Ages i

John Scotus Erigena . . . . . . .3

Roger Bacon ......... 5

John Duns Scotus ........ 6

William of Ockham ........ 7

The Renaissance and the Scholastic revival . . . . 8

John Case; John Sanderson ....... 8

Everard Digby 8

William Temple . . . . . . . . .10

Physical Science: William Gilbert 12

CHAPTER II FRANCIS BACON Philosophical writing in English . . . . . .14

Bacon's life and writings . . . . . . 15

The Renewal of the Sciences . . . . . . .21

Bacon's leading general ideas ....... 23

The unity of science . . . . . . . . , 23

The practical aim of knowledge 24

The tendencies to error in the human mind .... 24

The doctrine of forms . . . . . . . .27

The new method ......... 28

Political and moral theory 32

Influence and importance of Bacon 33

ix

CHAPTER III HERBERT OF CHERBURY AND OTHERS Herbert's life and writings

The enquiry into the nature of truth

The activity of mind

The doctrine of common notions The comparative study of religions Platonic and Aristotelian influence

Davies ....

Fotherby; Hakewill

The mysticism of Lord Brooke The doctrine of a law of nature .

The casuists; Jeremy Taylor .

Political and juridical theory: John Selden

PACE

35 36 37 39 40

41 41 42 42 44 44 45

CHAPTER IV Hobbe's life, writings, and controversies

His scientific idea and the political occasion

Style and thought

His chief works ....

The mechanical theory of reality as a whole

The psychological theory

The natural state of man

The laws of nature

Sovereignty in state and church Characteristics of Leviathan Critics of Hobbes

Harrington and his Oceana

Previous imaginary commonwealths: Bacon's New Atlantis .

Sir Robert Filmer

Clarendon; Bramhall

Tenison; Eachard ....

More's Utopia and

47 52 57 59 61 62

63 64 65 67

CHAPTER V Characteristics of the school -74

Whichcote and his influence 75

Contents xi

PAGE

Henry More 77

Influence: Plato; Descartes; occultism 78

The limits of mechanism 78

The nature of knowledge : innate ideas ..... 80 The nature of spiritual substance . . . . .82

The orders of created spirits 84

Ethical views 85

Ralph Cudworth .87

The spiritual nature of reality, and the method of establishing it

in The True Intellectual System . . . . .87

The theory of knowledge contained in his Eternal and Immutable

Nathanael Culverwel 97

Other contemporary writers

Joseph Glanvill ..99

Parker; Gale; Pordage . . . . . . . .100

Richard Cumberland . . . . . .100

CHAPTER VI The controversy with Stillingfleet

1 06

Origin and problem of his Essay

Ideas as the object of the understanding .

Their origin in sensation or reflection in

The universal element in knowledge

The idea of substance

The reference to reality in knowledge .

The certainty of knowledge

Knowledge of morality

Knowledge of real existence

Theory of the ground and limits of government

Economic views .....

Doctrine of toleration ....

Theological views .....

Educational doctrines ....

Critics and contemporaries of Locke .

John Sergeant

Zachary Mayne (?)

Richard Burthogge ....

John Norris

Xll

CHAPTER VII BERKELEY AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES The influence of Locke

I. Metaphysicians

George Berkeley .....

Life, writings, and missionary enterprise .

The background of his idealism

Ideas as significant or possessing meaning

The ideal theory of nature

Spiritual reality and the "notion" .

Arthur Collier and his immaterialism

II. Deists

Early Deism: Charles Blount

JohnToland ....

Anthony Collins

Matthew Tindal

Woolston; Annet; Chubb; Dodwell

Bolingbroke ....

Other theological writers: Whiston; Middleton; Warburton

III. Moralists

Samuel Clarke

Other intellectualist moralists : Balguy; Wollaston Lord Shaftesbury . . . .

Francis Hutcheson . . . . * Bernard Mandeville . .

Joseph Butler: ethical and theological theories .

PAGE 130

IS©

CHAPTER VIII DAVID HUME His passion for literature, life and writings, and the importance of

his first work . . . . . . . 163

His ''experimental method of reasoning" . . . . .168

Impressions and ideas . . . . . . . .169

The classification of "philosophical relations" . . . .170

Matters of fact and relations of ideas . . . . .172

The analysis of causation 173

The theory of belief 1 74

His explanation of the sceptical result 176

Theory of morality 177

Criticism of theology 178

Political and economic views 180 xm

CHAPTER IX ADAM SMITH AND OTHERS Adam Smith

The two periods of his literary career .

The ethics of sympathy ;

Social and economic philosophy ....

The work of Sir James Steuart Smith's method of economic reasoning The natural effort of the individual and the natural of opulence : economic harmony .

PAGE

II. Other writers

The problem set by Hume . . . . . . .190

David Hartley . ........ 191

Abraham Tucker . . . . . . . .192

Richard Price . ........ 193

Joseph Priestley . . . . . . . .194

William Paley 196

Chapter X Thomas Reid And Others

The Reply to Hume Campbell; Beattie; Oswald Reid's criticism of the ideal theory His natural realism The doctrine of suggestion .

The principles of Common Sense Dugald Stewart Thomas Brown

CHAPTER XI BENTHAM AND THE UTILITARIANS The Utilitarian school 206

Bentham's life and writings . . . . . . .207

The influence of James Mill 209

Bentham's criticism of Blackstone 211

The principle of utility . . 213

Quantitative utilitarianism . 214

The criterion in politics and in ethics . . . . .216

The hedonic calculus . . . . . . . .218

The indirect method . . . . . . . .22a

XIV

The utilitarian sanctions .

Estimate of Bentham

His political theories and activities .

His views on religion and education Godwin and Malthus Significance of Malthus's work .

Utilitarian economics: David Ricardo The work of James Mill .

Introduction

Period of decline in speculative interest .

Sir William Hamilton and others Hamilton's reputation ....

His new orientation of English philosophy His new analytic of logical forms .

Baynes; Thomson; de Morgan; Boole His philosophy of perception His philosophy of the conditioned .

H. L. Mansel

John Stuart Mill and others Mill's intellectual development His estimates of Bentham and Coleridge Logical theory

Predecessors: Whately; Herschel: Wheweli

Theory of inductive inference Theory of the external world and of mind Ethical theory ....

Social and political doctrines

J. F. Stephen's criticism Economic theory Attitude to ultimate questions Reaction against Mill's views : Jevons Adherents of Mill: G. Grote; Bain; Robertson English positivism: Congreve; Bridges; Harrison

Rational and Religious Philosophers

John Grote

Maurice; Newman; Martineau

234 236

237 238 238

239 242

243 245

246 248

249 250

251 252

253 253 254 254 256

257 258

Herbert Spencer and the Philosophy of Evolution Spencer's life and writings . . * . . 260

His view of philosophy . .261

The unknowable . . . . . . . .262

XV page

The interpretation of life, mind, and society

. 263

His individualism .....

George Henry Lewes .....

. 266

Thomas Henry Huxley ....

Leslie Stephen ......

. 269

The historical method in the social sciences

Maine; Cliff e Leslie; Bagehot

VI. Henry Sidgwick and Shadworth Hodgson

Sidgwick's philosophical and ethical work

Hodgson's analysis of experience

• 274

VII. Idealists

Influence of post-Kantian speculation

• 275

James Frederick Ferrier ....

James Hutchison Stirling ....

• 277

Thomas Hill Green .....

• 279

William Wallace ......

. 281

Edward Caird

. 282

Francis Herbert Bradley ....

VIII. Other Writers

Alexander Campbell Fraser ....

. 284

Simon Somerville Laurie ....

. 286

James Ward ......

. 287

Robert Adamson ......

. 288

Chapter XIII Retrospect

General characteristics of English philosophy

. 290

• 295

• 313

. 367

A History of

CHAPTER I The Beginnings of English Philosophy

FROM the end of the eighth century, when Alcuin of York was summoned to the court of Charles the Great, down to the middle of the fourteenth century, there was an almost constant succession of scholars of British birth among the writers who contributed to the development of philosophy in Europe. The most important names in the succession are John Scotus Erigena, John of Salisbury, Alexander of Hales, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Thomas Bradwardine. They wrote in Latin; and with the Latin language went community of culture, of topics, and of audience. All these they shared with an international commonwealth of scholars. National characteristics are never so strongly marked in science and philosophy as in other branches of literature, and their influence takes longer in making itself felt. The British birth or residence of a mediaeval philosopher is of little more than biographical interest; and the attempt to trace its influence on the ideas or style of his work is apt to be conjectural and arbitrary. His work belongs to a tradition only slightly affected by the differences between nation and nation ; it is a part of the history of philosophy, without being distinctively British. In this place, accordingly, it must suffice to characterise in general terms the movement of which the British schoolmen formed part, and some of the directions in which their ideas exercised an influence on later science and speculation.

The philosophy of the Middle Ages was, above all things, an attempt at the systematisation of knowledge. The instrument for this synthesis was found in the logical conceptions and method of Aristotle. Its material consisted of the existing records of ancient philosophy and science, what was learned from contemporary experience, and the teachings of the church. In the heterogeneous mass of material thus brought together, a pre-eminent position was assigned to religious doctrine. The claims of theology were based upon revelation, interpreted by ecclesiastical authority. Philosophy, on the other hand, belonged to the province of reason, as distinct from that of faith; but it was essential that its results should be in harmony with theological doctrine. In this way it came to be regarded as ancillary to theology, and this feature became characteristic of the scholastic method and a frequent ground of objection to it in its decline. Connected with it was another and a more favourable feature. In accepting and interpreting theological doctrine the thought of the period recognised the independent value of the facts of the spiritual life. What the Scriptures and the fathers taught was confirmed by inner experience. In the laborious erudition and dialectical subtleties of the schoolmen there is seldom wanting a strain of this deeper thought, which attains its full development in mediaeval mysticism. Thus, in the words of a recent historian, "it dawned upon men that the spiritual world is just as much a reality as the material world, and that in the former is man's true home. The way was prepared for a more thorough investigation of spirit and matter than was possible to antiquity. Above all things, however, a sphere of experience was won for human life which was, in the

John Scotus Erigena 3

strictest sense, its own property, into which no external powers could penetrate. " x

To Erigena may be traced both mediaeval mysticism and some anticipations of the scholastic method. He seems to have been born in Ireland about 810, and to have proceeded to France some thirty years later. Charles the Bald appointed him to the schola palatina at Paris. He appears to have had no further connection with Ireland or with England, and to have died in France about 877. It was probably owing to the protection of the king that he escaped the graver results which usually followed a suspicion of heresy. His works were officially condemned by papal authority in 1050 and 1225. Erigena was the predecessor of scholasticism but not himself one of the schoolmen. His anticipation of them consists not only in his dialectical method, but also in his recognition of the authority of the Bible and of the fathers of the church as final. But this recognition is guarded by the assertion that it is impossible for true authority and true reason really to conflict; and he deals quite freely with the letter of a doctrine, while he interprets its spirit in his own way. On the development of mystical thought he exercised an even greater influence. The fundamental conceptions and final outcome of his great work, De divisione natures, are essentially mystical in tone; and, by his translation of the pseudo-Dionysian writings, he made accessible the storehouse from which mediaeval mystics derived many of their ideas. These writings are first heard of distinctly in the early part of the sixth century; even in that uncritical age they were not received without question; but they soon gained general acceptance as the genuine work of Dionysius the Areopagite who "clave unto" St. Paul after the address on Mars' hill, and who was supposed to have become bishop of Athens. The work attributed to him contains an interpretation of Christian doctrine by means of Neoplatonic ideas. It exercised a strong influence upon Erigena himself and upon subsequent mediaeval thought; and this influence

1 H6ffding, History of Modern Philosophy, Eng. tr. f i., p. 6.

was powerfully reinforced long afterwards by the study of Plato and the Neoplatonists at the time of the revival of learning.

Erigena's work opens with a division of the whole of reality into four classes — that which creates and is not created, that which both is created and creates, that which is created but does not create, and that which neither creates nor is created. The last class is not mere non-existence. In general, it may be said to signify the potential as distinguished from the actual; in ultimate analysis, it is the goal or end towards which all things strive that in it they may find rest. It is therefore God as final cause, just as the first class in the division — the uncreate creator — is God as efficient cause. God is thus at once the beginning and end of all things, from which they proceed and to which they return. From the uncreate creator proceed the prototypes or ideas which contain the immutable reasons or grounds of all that is to be made. The world of ideas is created and yet eternal, and from it follows the creation of individual things. Their primordial causes are contained in the divine Logos (or Son of God), and from these, by the power of the divine Love (or Holy Spirit), is produced the realm of created things that cannot themselves create. God created the world out of nothing, that is to say, out of his ineffable divine nature, which is incomprehensible to men and angels. And the process is eternal : in God vision does not precede operation. Nor can anything subsist outside God: "the creature subsists in God, and God is created in the creature in a wonderful and ineffable manner, manifesting himself, the invisible making himself visible, and the incomprehensible comprehensible, and the hidden plain, and the unknown known. " x Thus, while God, as creator and as final cause, transcends all things, he is also in all things. He is their beginning, middle, and end. And his essence is incomprehensible; nay, "God himself knows not what he is, for he is not a ' what. ' ' :i Hence, all expressions used of God are symbolical only. Strictly

1 De divisione natures, iii., 18, ed. Schluter (1838), p. 238.

Roger Bacon 5

speaking, we cannot even ascribe essence to him : he is superessential; nor goodness: he is beyond good (uxepdsfaOoq).

Erigena was more influenced by Plato than by Aristotle. His acquaintance with the latter's works was restricted to certain of the logical treatises. The greater part of the Aristotelian writings became known to the schoolmen at a later date and mainly by means of Latin translations of Arabic translations of a Syriac version. The new Aristotelian influence began to make itself distinctly felt about three centuries after Erigena 's time. Alexander of Hales is said to have been the first schoolman who knew the whole philosophy of Aristotle and used it in the service of Christian theology. The metaphysical and physical writings of Aristotle were at first viewed with suspicion by the church, but afterwards definitely adopted, and his authority in philosophy became an article of scholastic orthodoxy. The great systems of the thirteenth century — especially the most lasting monument of scholastic thought, the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas— are founded on his teaching

But uniformity of opinion was not maintained completely or for long, and three English schoolmen are to be reckoned among the most (if not as the most) important opponents of St. Thomas. These are Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham.

Roger Bacon, who was born about 12 14 and died in 1294, was the earliest in time of the three named, and also the greatest and the most unfortunate. He lived and wrote under the shadow of an uncongenial system then at the height of its power. He suffered persecution and long imprisonments ; his popular fame was that of an alchemist and a wizard; his works were allowed to lie unprinted for centuries; and only later scholars have been able to appreciate his significance. His learning seems to have been unique; he read Aristotle in Greek, and expressed unmeasured contempt for the Latin translations then in vogue; he was acquainted with the writings of the Arabian men of science, whose views were far in advance of all other contemporary knowledge. He does not appear himself to have made the original scientific discoveries with which he used to be credited, but he had thoroughly mastered the best of the science and philosophy of his day. There is, of course, much in his writings that may be called scholasticism, but his views on the method of science are markedly modern. His doctrine of method has been compared with that of his more famous namesake Francis Bacon. He was as decided as the latter was in rejecting all authority in matters of science ; like him, he took a comprehensive view of knowledge and attempted a classification of the sciences; like him, also, he regarded natural philosophy as the chief of the sciences. The differences between the two are equally remarkable and serve to bring out the merits of the older philosopher. He was a mathematician; and, indeed, he looked upon mathematical proof as the sole type of demonstration. Further, he saw the importance in scientific method of two steps that were inadequately recognised by Francis Bacon — the deductive application of elementary laws to particular cases, followed by the experimental verification of the results. 11 Roger Bacon," it has been said, "has come very near, nearer certainly than any preceding and than any succeeding writer until quite recent times, to a satisfactory theory of scientific method. " x

The work of Duns Scotus (1265 ?-i 308?) disturbed the harmony of faith and reason which had been asserted by St. Thomas, and which was of the essence of orthodox scholasticism. And ' ' Scotism ' ' became the rival of ' ' Thomism ' ' in the schools. Scotus was not himself heretical in religious belief, nor did he assert an antagonism between faith and reason ; but he was critical of all intellectual arguments in the domain of theology. The leading school had not attempted a justification by reason of such specifically Christian doctrines as those of the Trinity or the Incarnation (as Erigena, for instance, had done). These were accepted as mysteries of

1 R. Adamson, Roger Bacon: the Philosophy of Science in the Middle Ages (1876), p. 35.

William of Ockham 7

the faith, known by revelation only. But certain doctrines — such as the being of God, the immortality of the soul, and the creation of the world out of nothing — were held to admit of rational proof, and thus to belong to "natural theology." The arguments for the latter doctrines are subjected to criticism by Scotus. He denied the validity of natural theology — except in so far as he recognised that a certain vision of God may be reached by reason, although it needs to be reinforced by revelation. In restricting the power of intellect, Scotus exalted the significance of will. Faith is a voluntary submission to authority, and its objective ground is the unconditional will of God.

At the hands of Ockham (d. 1349?), who was a pupil of Duns Scotus, the separation between theology and philosophy, faith and reason, was made complete. He admitted that there are probable arguments for the existence of God, but maintained the general thesis that whatever transcends experience belongs to faith. In this way, he broke with Scotism as well as with Thomism on a fundamental question. He denied the real existence of ideas or universals and reverted to the doctrine known as nominalism, of which he became the greatest exponent. Entities are not to be postulated without necessity shown. The universal exists only as a conception in the individual mind : though it signifies, without change of meaning, any one of a number of things. The only reality is the individual, and all knowledge is derived from experience. Ockham is equally remarkable for his political writings, in which he defended the independent power of the temporal sovereign against the claims of the pope. His philosophical doctrines had many followers and opponents : but he is the last of the great scholastics, for his criticisms struck at the root of the scholastic presuppositions.

For more than two centuries after Ockham 's death, only one writer of importance can be reckoned among English philosophers. That writer was John Wyclif (d. 1384), in whose case a period of philosophical authorship — on scholastic lines — preceded his theological and religious activity.

After him comes a blank of long duration. The leaders of the Renaissance, both in philosophy and in science, belonged to the continent; and, although their ideas affected English scholarship and English literature, philosophical writings were slow to follow. And the theological controversies of the Reformation led to no new enquiry into the grounds of knowledge and belief. On the universities the teaching of Aristotle retained its hold, at least as regards logic, even after the introduction of the new " humanistic" studies.

In the latter part of the sixteenth century Aristotelianism experienced an academic revival, though its supporters, in all cases, were suspected of papistical leanings. John Case of St. John's College, Oxford (B.A. 1568), gave up his fellowship on this ground (it is said), married, and was allowed by the university to give lectures on logic and philosophy in his house. In 1589 he took the M.D. degree and, in the same year, became a canon of Salisbury. He died in 1600. Between 1584 and 1599 he published seven books — text -books of Aristotelianism — dealing with logic, ethics, politics, and economics. His Speculum moralium guestionum in universam ethicen Aristotelis (1585) was the first book printed at Oxford at the new press presented by the Earl of Leicester, chancellor of the university. John Sanderson, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A. 1558), was appointed logic reader in the university in 1562, but, in the same year, was expelled from his fellowship for suspicious doctrine. He became a student at Douay in 1570, was ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church, and was appointed divinity professor in the English college at Rheims. He died in 1602. The only work of his that is known is Institutionum Dialecticarum libri quatuor, printed at Antwerp in 1589 and at Oxford in 1594.

About the year 1580 a vigorous controversy regarding the merits of the old logic and the new was carried on between two fellows of Cambridge colleges, Everard Digby and William Temple. They were both younger in academic standing than Sanderson or Case, but they published earlier. Digby took his B.A. degree in the beginning of 1 571, and

Everard Digby 9

became fellow of St. John's early in 1573, shortly before Francis Bacon entered Trinity College as an undergraduate. He began to give public lectures on logic soon after this date. It is possible — we have no evidence on the point — that Bacon attended these lectures. If he did, they may have been the means of arousing his interest in the question of method, and they may also, at the same time, have awakened the spirit of criticism in him and led to that discontent with the philosophy of Aristotle which, according to his own account, he first acquired at Cambridge.

Digby's career was chequered. He was suspected of " corrupt religion, " and he made enemies in his own society by his contempt for the authorities. In the end of December, 1587, on the nominal ground of an irregularity in his payments for commons, he was deprived of his fellowship by Whitaker, master of the college and a stern puritan. But Digby seems to have had friends in high place. He appealed to Burghley the chancellor and to Archbishop Whitgift. By their order a commission was appointed to enquire into the grounds of his dismissal and as a result, Digby was restored 28 May, 1588. But, by the end of the same year he seems to have been got rid of — how, we do not know. * Probably, the real ground of objection to him — his lukewarm protestantism — made it prudent for him to leave the university. Digby was famous in his day for his eloquence as a lecturer, his skill in the disputations of the schools, and his learning. His learning, however, is much less than appears from the mere array of authorities which he cites. These are often taken from Reuchlin's De arte cabbalistica (15 17), the fictitious personages of this work being sometimes referred to as actual authors. Digby wrote in the true scholastic spirit ; for him Aristotle's doctrines were authoritative, and to disagree with them was heresy. At the same time, his own Aristotelianism was coloured by a mystical theology for

1 All the ascertainable facts were for the first time brought together by R. F. Scott in The Eagle (St. John's College magazine), October term, 1906. pp. 1-24.