Truth and error; or, The science of intellection

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. Chuar's Illusion i

II. Essentials of Properties ..... 9

Chapter I Chuar S Illusion

IN the fall of 1880 I was encamped on the Kaibab plateau above the canyon gorge of a little stream. White men and Indians composed the party with me. Our task was to make a trail down this side canyon, which was many hundreds of feet in depth, into the depths of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. While in camp after the day's work was done, both Indians and white men amused themselves by attempting to throw stones across the little canyon. The distance from the brink of the wall on which we were encamped to the brink of the opposite wall seemed not very great, yet no man could throw a stone across the chasm, though Chuar, the Indian chief, could strike the opposite wall very near its brink. The stones thrown by others fell into the depths of the canyon. I discussed these feats with Chuar, leading him to an explanation of gravity. Now Chuar believed that he could throw a stone much farther along the level of the plateau than over the canyon. His first illusion was thus one very common among mountain travelers — an underestimate of the distance of towering and massive rocks when the eye has no intervening objects to divide the space into parts as measures of the whole.

I did not venture to correct Chuar's judgment, but simply sought to discover his method of reasoning. As our conversation proceeded he explained to me that the stone could not go far over the canyon, for it was so deep that it would make the stone fall before reaching the opposite bank ; and he explained to me with great care that the hollow or empty space pulled the stone down. He discoursed on this point at length, and illustrated it in many ways: "If you stand on the edge of the cliff you are likely to fall ; the hollow pulls you down, so that you are compelled to brace yourself against the force and lean back. Any one can make such an experiment and see that the void pulls him down. If you climb a tree the higher you reach the harder the pull; if you are at the very top of a tall pine you must cling with your might lest the void below pull you off."

Thus my dusky philosopher interpreted a subjective fear of falling as an objective force; but more, he reified void and imputed to it the force of pull. I afterward found these ideas common among other wise men of the dusky race, and once held a similar conversation with an Indian of the Wintun on Mount Shasta, the sheen of whose snow-clad summit seems almost to merge into the firmament. On these dizzy heights my Wintun friend expounded the same philosophy of gravity.

Now, in the language of Chuar's people, a wise man is said to be a traveler, for such is the metaphor by which they express great wisdom, as they suppose that a man must learn by journeying much. So in the moonlight of the last evening's sojourn in the chuar's illusion 3

camp on the brink of the canyon, I told Chuar that he was a great traveler, and that I knew of two other great travelers among the seers of the East, one by the name of Hegel, and another by the name of Spencer, and that I should ever remember these three wise men, who spoke like words of wisdom, for it passed through my mind that all three of these philosophers had reified void and founded a philosophy thereon.

Concepts of number, space, motion, time and judgment are developed by all minds, from that of the lowest animal to that of the highest human genius. Through the evolution of animal life, these concepts have been growing as they have been inherited .down the stream of time in the flood of generations. It is thus that an experience has been developed, combined with the experience of all the generations of life for all the time of life, which makes it impossible to expunge from human mind these five concepts. They can never be canceled while sanity remains. Things having something more than number, space, motion, time and judgment cannot even be invented ; it is not possible for the human mind to conceive anything else, but semblances of such ideas may be produced by the mummification of language.

Ideas are expressed in words which are symbols, and the word may be divested of all meaning in terms of number, space, motion, time and judgment and still remain, and it may be claimed that it still means something unknown and unknowable; this is the origin of reification. There are many things unknown at one stage of experience which are known at another, so man comes to believe in the unknown by constant daily experience ; but has by further converse with the universe known things previously unknown, and they invariably become known in terms of number, space, motion, time and judgment, and are found to be only combinations of these things. It is thus that something unknown may be conceived, but something unknowable cannot be conceived.

No man conceives reified substrate, reined essence, reined space, reined force, reified time, reified spirit. Words are blank checks on the bank of thought, to be filled with meaning by the past and future earnings of the intellect. But these words are coin signs of the unknowable and no one can acquire the currency for which they call.

Things little known are named and man speculates about these little-known things, and erroneously imputes properties or attributes to them until he comes to think of them as possessing such unknown and mistaken attributes. At last he discovers the facts ; then all that he discovers is expressed in the terms of number, space, motion, time and judgment. Still the word for the little-known thing may remain to express something unknown and mystical, and by simple and easily understood processes he reifies what is not, and reasons in terms which have no meaning as used by him. Terms thus used without meaning are terms of reification.

Such terms and such methods of reasoning become very dear to those immersed in thaumaturgy and who love the wonderful and cling to the mysterious, and, in the revelry developed by the hashish of mystery, the pure water of truth is insipid. The dream of intellectual intoxication seems more real and more

CHUARS ILLUSION 5

worthy of the human mind than the simple truths discovered by science. There is a fascination in mystery and there has ever been a school of intellects delighting to revel therein, and yet, in the grand aggregate, there is a spirit of sanity extant among mankind which loves the true and simple.

Often the eloquence of the dreamer has even subverted the sanity of science, and clear-headed, simpleminded scientific men have been willing to affirm that science deals with trivialities, and that only metaphysics deals with the profound and significant things of the universe. In a late great text-book on physics, which is a science of simple certitudes, it is affirmed :

"To us the question, What is matter? — What is, assuming it to have a real existence outside ourselves, the essential basis of the phenomena with which we may as physicists make ourselves acquainted? — appears absolutely insoluble. Even if we become perfectly and certainly acquainted with the intimate structure of what we call Matter, we would but have made a further step in the study of its properties; and as physicists we are forced to say that while somewhat has been learned as to the properties of Matter, its essential nature is quite unknown to us. ' '

As though its properties did not constitute its essential nature.

So, under the spell of metaphysics, the physicist turns from his spectroscope to exclaim that all his researches may be dealing with phantasms.

Science deals with realities. These are bodies with their properties. All the facts embraced in this vast field of research are expressed in terms of number, space, motion, time and judgment; no other terms are needed and no other terms are coined, but by a process well known in philology as a disease of language, sometimes these terms lapse into meanings which connote fallacies. The human intellect is of such a nature that it has notions or ideas which may be certitudes or fallacies. All the processes of reasoning, including sensation and perception, proceed by inference; the inference may be correct or erroneous, and certitudes are reached by verifying opinions. This is the sole and only process of gaining certitudes. The certitudes are truths which property represent noumena, the illusions are errors which misrepresent noumena. All knowledge is the knowledge of noumena, and all illusion is erroneous opinion about noumena. The human mind knows nothing but realities and deals with nothing but realities, but in this dealing with the realities — the noumena of the universe — it reaches some conclusions that are correct and others that are incorrect. The correct conclusions are certitudes about realities; the incorrect conclusions are fallacies about realities. Science is the name which mankind has agreed to call this knowledge of realities, and error is the name which mankind has agreed to give to all fallacies. Thus it is that certitudes are directly founded upon realities ; and fallacies alike all refer to realities. In this sense then it may be stated that all error as well as knowledge testifies to reality, and that all our knowledge is certitude based upon reality, and that fallacies would not be possible were there not realities about which inferences are made. Known realities are those about which mankind has knowledge ; unknown things are those things about

CHUAR S ILLUSION 7

which man has not yet attained knowledge. Scientific research is the endeavor to increase knowledge, and its methods are experience, observation and verification. Fallacies are erroneous inferences in relation to known things. All certitudes are described in terms of number, space, motion, time and judgment; nothing else has yet been discovered and nothing else can be discovered with the faculties with which man is possessed.

In the material world we have no knowledge of something which is not a unity of itself or a unity of a plurality; of something which is not an extension of figure or an extension of figure and structure ; of something which has not motion or a combination of motions as force ; of something which has not duration as persistence or duration with persistence and change.

In the mental world we have no knowledge of something which is not a judgment of consciousness and inference ; of a judgment which is not a judgment of a body with number, space, motion and time. Every notion of something in the material world devoid of one or more of the constituents of matter is an illusion; every notion of something in the spiritual world devoid of the factors of matter and judgment is a fallacy. These are the propositions to be explained and demonstrated.

In the following chapters an attempt will be made to show that we know much about matter, and although we do not know all, all we know is about matter in its essentials of number, space, motion, time and judgment, or that we know of matter in its four essentials and of mind as consciousness exhibited in judgment and concepts, but always this mind is associated with matter. In doing this we shall endeavor to discriminate between the certitudes and fallacies current in human opinion.

In the intoxication of illusion facts seem cold and colorless, and the wrapt dreamer imagines that he dwells in a realm above science — in a world which as he thinks absorbs truth as the ocean the shower, and transforms it into a flood of philosophy. Feverish dreams are supposed to be glimpses of the unknown and unknowable, and the highest and dearest aspiration is to be absorbed in this sea of speculation. Nothing is worthy of contemplation but the mysterious. Yet the simple and the true remain. The history of science is the history of the discovery of the simple and the true ; in its progress fallacies are dispelled and certitudes remain.

Chapter II Essentials Of Properties

On the threshold it is necessary to state certain scientific conclusions which I accept. These are the four great doctrines taught by modern science. I accept the atomic theory that the constitution of bodies is explained as a numerical combination of ultimate smaller particles. I accept the modern doctrine of morphology, that forms in different kinds of bodies exhibit homologies that express degrees of relationship. I accept the modern doctrine of the persistence of motion as the proper explanation of the correlation of forces. I accept the modern doctrine of evolution, that higher bodies are derived from lower. In accepting these doctrines I try to embrace them in all their logical results, some of which may seem strange to my readers. I shall propound the hypothesis that consciousness inheres in the ultimate particle, and attempt to show that it harmonizes the principles of psychology.

The four great doctrines of modern science which I have enumerated were originally guesses, but they have largely been accepted by scientific men because they explain the phenomena of the universe to which they relate. The chaos of scientific phenomena collected in vast catalogues of facts are seen to be explained by these laws.

The chemical theory may be denominated the persistence of units; the morphologic theory the persistence of extensions; the dynamic theory the

IO TRUTH AND ERROR

persistence of speeds ; the evolutionary theory the persistence of existence.

There are systems of stars, and every system is a body. The one to which our earth belongs is well known, for the solar system is the theme of the venerable science of astronomy. The earth itself is composed of four grand bodies: an outer envelope of air or atmosphere, a middle envelope of water or hydrosphere, an inner envelope of rock or lithosphere, and the grand central nucleus or centrosphere. Neglecting the two outer envelopes and considering only the stony crust, we find that it is composed of many bodies or formations and these of rocks, while there are many plants and animals, and all again are divided into grains, crystals or cells, and the grains, crystals or cells are divided into molecules, and molecules are composed of other molecules, until at last chemical atoms are reached; so it is discovered that the universe is a hierarchy of bodies.

The universe is a hierarchy of bodies composed of bodies and these again composed of bodies in a vast succession as they are reduced by analysis. When we come to discuss the relations of these bodies to one another it will be convenient and conduce to exact expression if we make a distinction between bodies and particles, and speak of a body when we wish to consider it as a unit and then speak of its particles when we wish to speak of the parts of which it is composed. A body, therefore, is a body of particles which are many in one, the one being a body; the many particles severally may be bodies composed of particles, that is, one composed of many. The solar system is a body of particles, the

ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES II

particles being the stars of which it is composed ; the earth, one of these particles, may be considered as a body, when its particles will be the air, the water, the stony crust and the central nucleus; then the air may be considered as a body composed of many particles, the water may be considered as a body composed of particles, the stony crust as a body composed of particles, and finally the nucleus as a body composed of particles. In this sense it will be understood we sometimes speak of something as a body and again of the same thing as a particle. A body and its particles are reciprocal. When we consider a body as composed of particles we consider internal relations, but when we consider the particles severally their relations to one another are external. Thus a body has internal relations and external relations, and every particle of the body also has internal relations and external relations, if it is composed of parts.

A substance is an aggregation of like particles in one body or a number of bodies. Bodies are composed of substances. For example, the air is a substance which is again composed of substances; the water is a substance, and this water is oxygen and hydrogen and contains in solution many other substances. In the envelope of rock a great variety of substances are discovered; then there are vegetal and animal substances. Thus in the hierarchy of bodies there is discovered to be a hierarchy of substances, extending from elements to protoplasm. The vast multitude of substances have so far been resolved into about seventy seemingly simple substances, but there is reason to believe that they are to be still further resolved into one primordial substance, which is called matter. Matter, then, is the ultimate substance into which all other substances which constitute the bodies of the universe are resolved ; and matter may be of one primordial kind, or it may be of seventy kinds, more or less.

Bodies are resolved into more and more simple and homogeneous substances, and it is the theory of some chemists that ultimate analysis will resolve them into one simple kind, so that every particle will be like every other particle in all its properties. Matter, then, is the ultimate kind of particle into which all bodies may be analyzed, and different kinds of matter are different aggregations of the one kind. The different kinds of matter made different by different aggregation are different substances, and the different substances are aggregations of matter by incorporation.

An army is composed of men, but there are platoons, companies, battalions, regiments, divisions, and corps in the army. So it is organized or incorporated into a hierarchy of units. The platoon is one as a platoon, composed of a plurality of men ; the company is one as a company but a plurality of platoons ; the battalion is one as a battalion but a plurality of companies ; the regiment is one as a regiment but a plurality of battalions ; the brigade is one as a brigade but a plurality of regiments ; the division is one as a division but a plurality of brigades; the corps is one as a corps but a plurality of divisions. Now we understand the fundamental property of numbers as many in one. The platoon differs in the property of number from the individual ; the company differs in the property of number from the platoon, and the battalion differs in the property of number

ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES 13

from the company ; and the same is true of all the units in the hierarchy.

These units of different orders have different properties of space ; the platoon occupies more space in the field than the individual soldier; the company occupies more space than the platoon; the battalion more space than the company; and the same is true of the other units in the hierarchy. If we have two armies exactly alike in a hierarchy of units and spaces, then any two corresponding units and spaces in the hierarchy would be similar. In speaking of the bodies of the universe it is necessary sometimes to speak of the corresponding unit in the different bodies, and we call them substances. The oxygen in one molecule of water is the same in all molecules of water, and we call all units a substance. Every body of water is composed of molecules of water, and there are many bodies of water, and we call bodies of water a substance. We thus designate as one substance all like units of matter.

This is very simple. It is merely a statement of the resolution of more compound bodies into simpler bodies and of more compound substances into simpler substances. It is the dissection of bodies in parts and the analysis of substances into elements.

The ultimate particle found in any substance may be still further resolved in consideration. Every body, whether it be a stellar system or an atom of hydrogen, has certain fundamental characteristics found in all. These are number, space, motion and time, and if it be an animate body, judgment. They shall here be known as properties, and to them attention must now be turned.

Let us first consider with what things one inanimate particle is endowed. First, it must have unity. There must be one, or it does not exist. Second, it must have extension, for without extension it does not exist. Third, it must have speed, for it cannot have motion without speed, nor can it have force without motion, and a particle of matter not in motion is unknown. The body lying upon the ground at rest is not without motion, for it has the motion of the earth about its axis and the motion of the earth about the sun ; it also has a motion of its molecules and atoms, which is heat and structural motion. If the body which is lying upon the ground is moved the motions are deflected and it is impossible to discover that any motion as speed is added to them. Rest is only the absence of molar motion. Fourth, the same particle of matter must have persistence, for persistence is necessary to its existence. Here persistence is used to mean continued existence.

I shall attempt to demonstrate the proposition that every particle of matter has consciousness, and hence the fifth property here called judgment, but shall reserve the discussion of the subject to a later part of the work.

One ultimate particle must have essentials that it may exist, but they are all comprehended in one particle. If we consider the essentials separately we call it abstraction ; if we consider them conjointly we call it comprehension, and the terms abstraction and comprehension will be used in these senses only.

These essentials are simple and wholly unlike one another. There is nothing in unity like extension, nothing in extension like speed, nothing in speed like persistence. There is no possible way of

ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES 15

deriving one from another. We cannot derive extension from unity, but extension must be concomitant with unity; extension and unity are concomitant in one particle. We cannot derive speed from extension, but the thing which has speed must have extension. We cannot derive persistence from speed, but that which has persistence must have speed. So we may run through all permutations of these essentials and find them wholly unlike one another and discover no possible way of deriving one from the other. Notwithstanding their total unlikeness, they are never dissociated so that one exists without the other; they may be considered separately but cannot exist separately. They cannot be analyzed and the unity placed in one box, the extension in a second, the speed in a third, the persistence in a fourth; but they may be considered separately, and this is abstraction as distinguished from analysis. Bodies may be dissected, substances may be analyzed, essentials may be abstracted in consideration.

The essentials are indissoluble in every particle. Where there is no unit there is no extension, no speed and no persistence. Where there is no speed there is no unit, no extension, no persistence. Where there is no persistence there is no unit, no extension and no speed. If any of the essentials of a particle of inanimate matter be taken away, the matter disappears. A particle is the essentials of which it is composed, and it has no other substrate. It exists in its essentials, and its essentials exist in it, and neither existence is separate. The notion of a particle of matter as a substrate of essentials, or as something to which the essentials adhere or inhere and from which they may be taken away, leaving behind the particle, which is not a unit, an extension, a speed and a persistence, is a pseud-idea, the result of mythologizing, where the word is taken to represent more than the sum of the essentials of the object to which it is applied. A unit is a unit of an extension, a speed and a persistence. An extension is an extension of a unit, a speed and a persistence. A speed is a speed of a unit, an extension and a persistence. A persistence is a persistence of a unit, an extension and a speed.

Think of properties as number, space, motion and time ; then consider the things which must exist if these properties exist and you have the essentials, as the term is here used. Thus think not of number, but of unity; think not of space, but r>f extension; think not of motion, but of speed ; think not of time, but of persistence, and you have the essentials themselves.

This chapter is designed to define the essentials of an inanimate particle, and to show in what sense the terms for the essentials are used. The mathematician might say that A stands for unity, B for extension, C for speed, D for persistence, E for consciousness, and you would not find fault. Should he formulate an equation you would not quarrel with him about his symbols, because he uses A for apples, B for bushels, C for cents, D for division, and E for equality to show the equity of a transaction represented by F. Let me use my symbols in my manner, if ) r ou would understand my demonstration. Unity means one, extension means exclusive occupancy of space, speed means change of position, persistence means continuance in time.

ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES I 7

The statement might be left to stand by itself, yet I think it best to explain why I use these terms. About the term unity no one will cavil.

For extension the term impenetrability has been used, but it has a negative connotation which I wish to avoid. I once thought of using dimension, but I soon found that I must use it in another sense in discussing measure. Then I thought of space. Now, space has a metaphysical use in which it is synonymous with vacuum or void and from which I wish to rescue it. So I concluded to use the term extension to signify exclusive occupancy of space, and to use space itself for the extension of positions of extensions, which also includes the extension of the medium which makes up the space. Let this be made clear. As the terms are here used the particles of the walls of this box have extension, and the particles of air which it contains have extensions, and the particles of ether within the air have extensions, but the space of the box includes the extensions of the box, the extensions of the air, and also the extension of the ether. I may speak of the space of the box and refer only to the position of the particles of the box and I may then speak of the space of the box as the sum of the extensions of the walls, air, and ether. It may be that the walls of the box have minute apertures in which air exists, so that all the air is not excluded from the wood, and it is certain that the ether is not excluded from the wood. And it may be that there are interspaces between the particles of wood, air and ether. Therefore even the wood of the box must be described in terms of space, not in terms of extension. When we come to discuss extension itself, we find ourselves considering mass, so that mass and extension are here nearly synonymous; but mass is used as the measure of extensions, while space is the dimensions of related positions. Mass is the measure of the numbers of particles of extension, but units of space are measured with units of length.

I use the term speed because in modern physics it has exactly the meaning which I desire. The popular meaning of velocity is just what I need, but in physics velocity means rate of speed and also rate of deflection and the term is needed for that purpose.

I use the term persistence because the term time or the term duration means persistence and change or they may mean the measure of states separated by change, while the term persistence is free from these implications.

If the terms are understood we are ready to proceed to another stage of exposition.

Essentials are comprehended in the same particle, and we shall call them concomitants. We shall not say that one essential is related to another in the same particle, but they are concomitant with one another, though the essential of one particle may be related to the essential of another particle. A unit may be related to another unit, an extension may be related to another extension ; but the unit and the extension in the same particle are not related to each other but concomitant with each other, and these same distinctions must be observed with all the essentials. The task before us in this chapter is the exhibition of the concomitants of particles and relations of essentials, concomitants inhering in every particle, the relations arising by reason of the relation of particles to particles.

ESSENTIALS OF PROPERTIES 19

The student who follows my argument must first become accustomed to the discrimination between concomitancy and relativity. Relativity is the relation of one particle or body to another; concomitancy is the coexistence of one property with another in the same particle or body.