A theory of reality; an essay in metaphysical system upon the basis of human cognitive experience

Front matter

KVJW.v

AN ESSAY

IX

Preface

The prefatory explanations which I wish to make with respect to the aims and the conclusions of this book are so few and obvious that they may be very briefly dispatched. The problem which it attempts, and the method which it employs, are stated at some length in the first chapter. Its main conclusions — the " Theory of Reality " it advocates — are reiterated and enforced in connection with the critical discussion of each topic ; they are given synthetic treatment and summarized in the concluding portions of the book. The faithfulness of its appeal to recognized facts and to the positive sciences has been emphasized by the frequency with which the conceptions and phrases defining man's " cognitive experience " are employed.

There are, however, two or three considerations to which I should like to call attention in this Preface. The first of these concerns the relation in which this book stands to a work published in 1897 and entitled " Philosophy of Knowledge." That work dealt with the problem of man as a knower ; and this deals with the problem of the. reality known. These two problems, although admitting of a certain amount of relatively independent discussion, are really not unlike two aspects of one and the same all-inclusive object of human critical and reflective thinking. The doctrine of knowledge, then, which was elaborated in the earlier book, is assumed and trusted throughout in the discussions of this book. And, on the other hand, the theory of reality which was discovered

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in germinal form by the earlier book is the conclusion elaborated into a system of metaphysics by the studies which this book contains. While I then felt the need, through lack of predecessors among modern English writers on philosophy in the definite line of epistemological research (as I understood it), of the charitable consideration due to the " pioneer," or struggler with the more primitive obstacles in the path, I now ask that this attempt at a theory of reality should be considered in the light of the positions taken by its predecessor and yet companion volume.

I ask also — and surely the request is reasonable — that this book should be credited with making only such claims as its title and whole construction indicate. It is avowedly speculative ; it puts itself forward only as affording a tenable theory for the solution of those profound problems touching the ultimate Nature of Reality, with which human thought has always contended, and will continue to contend until the end of human existence. It is not necessary here to renew discussion upon the relations in which " theory " — especially of the kind to which systematic metaphysics leads — stands to knowledge, or to faith, or to the life of conduct. I have been chiefly concerned in this book to fulfil the conditions which belong to the establishment of a valid speculative result upon a basis of fact and of science. If obscurities and other faults of style, that are separable from the theoretical handling of such themes, are found abundant here, the author can only say that he has tried to avoid them ; and that no one will welcome more than he all improvements by others, both of method and of result.

There is only one other point to which I wish to call attention. The field of general and systematic metaphysics has been so long and so thoroughly cultivated by the profoundest and keenest thinkers that for any writer now to claim, either expressly or implicitly, a considerable share of originality would be unworthy ; even the attempt at originality

PREFACE ix

would be likely either to depreciate the result or to defeat itself. In my preparatory studies for this book, as for all my previous essays in psychology and philosophy, I have faithfully tried to keep my mind in genial communion with the best both of the past and of the present time. The " Theory of Eeality" here advocated is, of course, not essentially new : on the contrary, its most important features have been drawn, although with varying details, again and again. Xone the less this theory is peculiarly my own ; and this is because I have made it my own by going to the sources of all defensible metaphysics in the cognitive experience of the race — both that which appertains to the ,; plain man's consciousness " and that which has been gathered into the different positive sciences. It is, therefore, a not wholly unwarranted hope that the readers of this book will find in it something fresh and new, as respects the way in which the critical analysis of the categories is conducted, and also as respects the manner of making and expounding its final, speculative synthesis.

The few references made to other works give no indication of my obligations to the great number of workmen who have preceded me in the same attempt at a - Theory of Reality."' Xeither is the fact of reference to any particular author an indication of the extent of my obligations. For some of the names mentioned in the notes are relatively unimportant ; others are among the great personages in the history of philosophy. References in metaphysics have little or no value as authority : and no man need feel wronged because he has held and published opinions in this field identical with those of any other author, and yet has not been quoted in support or elucidation of them. I wish, however, to say that the chapters in this book which come into closest relations with the physical sciences have, in general, been submitted to friends and colleagues who are experts in these sciences ; and that I have been both assisted and reassured by their kindly comments and criticisms. But to mention names here would x PREFACE

create false impressions regarding both their part and that of the author in constructing the views of these chapters.

How preceding works of mine on psychology and philosophy have led up to this volume, and how it stands in the system of philosophical thoughts with the elaboration of which I am concerned, as an important part of my life-work, I have ventured to explain at some length in the closing chapter.

GEOEGE TEUMBULL LADD.

Yale University, April, 1899.

CHAPTER I Page

ON METAPHYSICS ; ITS NATURE ; ITS METHOD ; AND THE PRO- PRIETY OF IT

The Rights of Metaphysics — Necessary Part of all Philosophy — Agnostic Position untenable — The Objections of Science — and of Literature — or Religion — The Nature of Metaphysics — Relations to Science and to Epistemology — Metaphysics as Interpretation — As a Discussion of the Categories — The Propriety of Metaphysics 1

Chapter II

The Distinction involved — Psychological Origin of the Distinction — Impossibility of mere Appearance — Application to the Nature of the Self — as belonging to all Self-consciousness — Correlation of the two Terms — The Trans-subjective always involved — The Distinction accepted 34

Chapter III

Meaning of the word " Reality " — Its Emotional Effects — Its Wealth of Content — Reality as actual Thing — Not wholly a Product of Thought — Reality as Will — Negative Definitions of the Conception — Positive Definitions of the same Conception 57

Chapter IV Reality As An Actual Harmony Of The Categories

The Relations of all the Categories — They are inseparable in Reality — Analysis of " Being in Space " — All Categories implicate in Each Reality — Yet None analyzable into Any Other — Special Pairs and Groups — The Unity of the Categories — Criticism of different Systems — Proofs of this Unity 84

Xii TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER V Page

The Conception of Substance — Testimony of Sensuous Experience

The Usages of Science — Genesis of the Conception of Substance

— The Logician's View — Idea of Activity involved — Related to the Category of Force — Particular Existence — The Conception

of Quality — The Analogy of the Self Ill

Chapter VI

The View of Heraclitus — Genesis of the Conception of Change — The Conception as realized by the Self — Impossibility of discrediting the Conception — Change as a System of Changes — Necessity for Principles of Becoming — Reality not mere Mechanism of Change 140

Chapter VII

Relation as itself related to other Categories — Kant's Treatment of It

— Origin of, in Cognitive Judgment — The Kinds of Relation — This Category without Limits — Meaning of, as applied to Self — The Absolute not the Unrelated , 160

Chapter VIII Time

Special Character of Time and Space — The Formal Categories — Negative Criticism of these Categories — Psychological Origin of Time — Scientific Conception of Time — Time both Relative and Real — The Conception of the World's Time — The Infinity of Time — Kantian View of Time as a 'priori — Transcendental Reality of this Category — Time and the Absolute .178

Chapter IX

Space as a Principle of Differentiation — Difficulties of the true Conception — Negative Attitude insufficient — The Assumptions involved — Essential Nature of the Space-Function — The Category as an Active Principle — Genesis of Space — Consciousness — Scientific Conception of Space — Motion both Relative and Real

— Witness of Physics, and of Chemistry — Final Metaphysical Problem — The Being of the World " in Space " 214

TABLE OF CONTEXTS. xm

Chapter X

Page The Dynamical View of the World — Force necessary in the Realization of all the Categories — Genesis of the Conception — Psychological Objections answered — Force as Substantial Cause — The Conception of Modern Physics — Substitution of the Conception of Energy — Problem of Actio in Distans — Energy as Potential and Kinetic — Conservation and Correlation of Energy — The World not a mere Sum in Quantity — Qualitative Character of the Atoms — Bearing of the View upon the Nature of Reality . . . 253

Chapter XI

Dependence of Science on these Categories — Implied that Nature is really measurable — Genesis of the Conception of Quantity — Application of the Category to Things — Realitivity of all Measurement — The Conceptions of the Euclidean — and of the Modern Geometry — Nature of Geometrical Axioms — Hints as to the Nature of Reality 294

Chapter XII

Nature of the Category of Number — Counting the Essence of all Numbering — Genesis and Development of the Conception — Numerable Construction of Objects — The Metaphysical Truth implied — Criticism of the Kantian View — The Conception of Unity — The World as a Unity 318

Chapter XIII

Universality of these Categories — Reduction to the Conception of " Immanent Ideas " — " Pure Form " and " Pure Law " unmeaning — These Conceptions transcendental — The Analogy of the Self implied — Anthropomorphism of Natural Science — Meaning of the term " Immanent " — Indisputable Nature of this Category — Review of the Meaning of Causality — The Reality of Forms and Laws in the Being of the World 337 xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIV Page

Importance of the Discussion — Difference of Positions — Psychological Origin of the Conception — Application to the Self — Objection as Anthropomorphism — Kant's Treatment of Final Purpose — The Biological View — Illustrations — Objections examined — Relation to Principle of Mechanism — Idea of an " Ultimate Aim " — Unity of the World's Course implied 363

Chapter XV

Results of preceding Analysis — Significance of the Conception jf Selfhood — Can a Self be Absolute? — Answer by the Theory of " Spheres of Reality " — Things as imperfect Selves — History of the Conception of Self — Spirit as Will and Idea — Conclusions as to Reality of an Absolute Self ,.394

Chapter XVI

Nature of this Conception — The Physicist's View examined — Experimental Genesis of the Conception — Matter as Mass — Matter as Substrate for Energy — Necessity of Union of the Two — Matter as having Inertia — Metaphysical Conception of Matter — Chemical Conception of Matter — The Atomic Theory — Mystical Conception of Matter 419

Chapter XVII

Need of the Conception of " Nature " — Personification of Nature — Two-foldness of this Asolute Whole — Nature as the Source of Life — Theory of Evolution examined — Nature as a Life — Nature as Will and Idea 452

Chapter XVIII

Necessity of admitting Ideas — All Reality an Actualization of Ideas — This true of Things — The Self actualizes its own Ideas — The Actualization of Ideals — The Ideal Nature of the Absolute . . 473

TABLE OF CONTENTS XV

CHAPTER XIX Page

Position of Different Metaphysical Systems — General Considerations stated — The Absolute not unrelated — but the Source of all Relations — Relations to the World as Subject to its Object — The Absolute not mere Unity of Force — The Absolute as World- Ground — and as the Principle of all Becoming — Bearing of the Doctrine on Ethics and Religion — The Absolute as the Ground and the Source of Ideals — Ethical Objections to Monism answered

— Theory of Identity denied ' . . 493

Chapter XX Summary And Conclusion

Conclusions of Scientific Psychology — from the Physiological Point of View — and as Descriptive History of Mind — Metaphysical Treatment of the Same Subject — Problems raised as to the Being of the World — Possibility and Postulates of Knowledge Examined

— All Conclusions summarized in a " Theory of Reality " . . .529

INDEX ,553

Chapter I On Metaphysics: Its Nature; Its Method; And The Propriety Of It

The right to attempt a systematic and detailed treatment of metaphysical problems is, at present, undoubtedly among the most difficult both to maintain and to exercise. And yet the reasons given to justify this difficulty are not, as is often assumed, convincing; nor are its true causes altogether obvious. The use, to their fullest extent, of his powers of reflection is conceded to be one of the most inalienable rights and highest privileges of rational man ; there is, indeed, scarcely any other obligation which the thoughtful feel to be so inherently sacred and even imperative. And surely the problems offered by the real existences and actual events known to his common, work-a-day experiences, as well as to the particular sciences, have not the lowest claims to make upon man's powers of reflection. But these are the distinctively metaphysical problems.

If we inquire into the particular objections with which the very proposal to establish a metaphysical system is now customarily met, they appear to be partly inherent in the subject, and partly the effect of our modern environment. The weakness and pettiness, the errors and limitations of the human intellect, have always, since philosophy began, been remarked upon ; what wonder that they are emphasized anew,

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if not exaggerated, in the mind of an age that so eagerly seeks the practical advantages and assured results of the positive sciences ? And do we not all feel, in a manner quite blasd, the weight of those burdens which belong to the very constitution of humanity ? Who of us has not at some time exclaimed over the arrogance of assuming that it is possible to treat the insoluble riddles of existence to a critical analysis and a complete and authoritative synthesis ? Besides, have not certain most distinguished students of philosophy pronounced against the possibility of metaphysics as a system of ontology ? The impossibility of extending human cognition so as to have a valid conception of Reality — not to claim more — was the demonstrated conclusion of the incomparable author of the Critique of Pure Reason. Undoubtedly this agnostic negation of knowledge has been much more widely received by his followers than the ethical and religious faith which Kant hoped to establish by his use of the critical method. Nor can we forget that his immediate predecessor in the same method, the keenly analytic Hume, held so poor an opinion of human nature, when employed in ontological speculation, as to commend to the flames all treatises on " school metaphysics."

One may accept or reject the current depreciation of the human intellect — either wholly or partially, and more or less intelligently — without once noticing several of the most important points at issue. As to the more complete justification of any particular view of the nature and limits of man's cognitive powers, we have little or nothing to say at present. The question of justification is, after all, an epistemological question ; it must be fought to an issue, on grounds of a theory of knowledge. But, if the epistemological problems be set aside for the time being, there are two or three rather remarkable eccentricities of opposition which the attempt at a systematic solution of the metaphysical problems is compelled to encounter. These eccentricities may be brought to the surface by asking — somewhat abruptly — the following question : Granted that the mind of man is finite, weak, liable to error, limited in capacity ; but what of it, in any especial way, so far as the student of systematic metaphysics is concerned ? "Why select the few thinkers whose unhappy destiny impels them to make the effort to bring into more scientific form the results of profound reflection over the problems of existence, and load upon them the entire odium of that restriction of rationality which is the universal lot of humanity ? In many instances they are of all men most keenly sensitive to the inherent and stubborn resistance which metaphysical studies offer to him who pursues them ardently. How limited and relatively helpless the reflecting mind is in the presence of some of the mysteries of Reality, no one else knows so indubitably as he who has done his best to explore these mysteries. Poets and novelists and essayists may speak freely on these problems ; why not avowed metaphysicians " of the school " also ? Must they alone be weighted down into silence and darkness by that " fear of erring " which, as Hegel so sagaciously says, may be the essence of " error itself" ?

The insincerity of that scorn of systematic metaphysics which alleges in its own justification the limitations of human reason is made apparent by two lines of thinking. Both of these lead in pursuit of an explanation for facts of observation. The first of them comes to the conclusion that the rights of philosophizing cannot be admitted and the rights of that branch of philosophy which is properly called metaphysics be denied. In order to show this it is not necessary to repeat here what has been said elsewhere in detail as to the nature of philosophy and of its divisions. Nor is it necessary to pass in review the history of speculative thought, although this entire history illustrates and enforces our contention. Whatever conception one holds of the nature of philosophy, it is not possible to exclude from the sphere of philosophy the critical and svstematic treatment of those concrete realities which are somehow brought to an ideal Unity by all of man's development in knowledge. Let us admit that to philosophize is but to think reflectively — as profoundly and thoroughly as one can. In its more sceptical and critical forms, such thinking subjects to analysis all the assumptions and beliefs, as well as the alleged positive cognitions of ordinary experience and of the particular sciences. As synthetic and constructive, it aims at the harmony of all our particular experiences in some view of the world and of human life that shall be freed from internal contradictions, and that shall interpret and illumine them all. But that we are, and that things are — this is the fundamental fact, or net- work of facts, which, with its beliefs and assumptions, challenges our reflective powers. And what we are, and what things are, what is the being which we and they share in common, — to tell this in a way that is truthful, rich in content, aesthetically inspiring, and morally helpful, is the goal of philosophical synthesis. But this is also the aim of metaphysical system.

And, in fact, no one has ever philosophized to any extent, whether in the more technical and scholastic fashion or as the most timid and self-distrustful of laymen, without involving in his own reflections some attempt at a theory of reality. Pure positivism is impossible for any mind that reflects. Scepticism aud criticism that both begin and end in merely being sceptical and critical are intolerable for the human intellect. By this it is not meant simply that they are aesthettically distasteful or ethically unsatisfying; although they are, in fact, both. But the rather is it obvious that positivism puts a strain of self-reservation and distrust upon human reason which cannot be borne for any length of time. Neither is it possible to cultivate epistemology without metaphysics, any more than it is to develop metaphysics without epistemological views or assumptions. We know, indeed, that Kant thought he had proved metaphysics, as ontology, forever impossible. Thus, in his opinion, after the entire task of

METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AXD PROPRIETY 5

Critique was performed, in the three branches of speculative reason, philosophy of conduct, and principles controlling judgments of taste, nothing remained to represent the ancient discipline of ontological philosophy but a collection of those concepts which had survived the critical process. For a vital theory of reality there had been substituted a logical coordination of mere forms of thinking. All the life, the power, the interest, of reflective effort had gone into criticism. For metaphysics there remained only a collection of fossils. The bones, carefully cleansed from all the decay of empiricism, well polished with long continued friction from dialectics, and firmly and skilfully articulated, are put on exhibition by the metaphysical systematizer. But where is the man, with his life-blood, and nervous energy, and entire dynamic outfit — ready for commerce with the wilful and baffling concrete realities of daily experience ?

Kant did not live to complete his scheme for a systematic display of the results reached by the critical method, as he himself conceived of metaphysics, its nature, and its possibility. He evidently regarded this work as light and relatively unimportant after the task of criticism had been thoroughly clone. But if he had accomplished what he, to the last, kept it in mind to do for metaphysical system, his real opinions as to the nature of the transcendental world would not have been a whit clearer or more defensible. For this " school metaphysics" — this classified arrangement of concepts that had been shown to furnish the a priori forms for all objective cognition — ivould not have coincided with his own heartfelt theory of reality. Who that has studied the critical philossophy thoroughly does not know that its whole structure is pervaded with ontological cognitions, beliefs, and opinions ? The private emotional and practical metaphysics of Kant — so to speak — is the very warp of the texture into which he weaves with such astonishing intricacy the woof of his critical tenets. This warp is not a critical doctrine of the categories, but a collection of aesthetical and ethical sentiments, of threads that mark the projections of a noble and strenuous personality into the being of things, and of unanalyzed assumptions or cognitions. Kant's unrecognized or half-concealed tenets as to the real Being of the World are at once more acceptable to reason and better to live and to die by than his completed catalogue of the categories would have been. For the " faith " which Kant made " room for " has no less of defensible knowledge in it than the " knowledge " he aimed to remove had of rational faith.

And what is true of the results of reflection in the case of the founder of modern critical philosophy is true of the results of all human reflection. Hegel may perhaps justly be charged with a certain " arrogance of reason," which, it is assumed, has of late properly fallen into disrepute. But if the charge be just, it does not lie against this thinker simply because he believed in the possibility of metaphysics as a valid theory of reality, or because he made the attempt to realize this possibility in a systematic way. The weaknesses and limitations of human reason in general no more discredit the Logik and the Religionspfiilosophie of Hegel than they discredit the Kritik der reinen Vernunft of Kant, or the reflections of the most prominent advocate of agnosticism at the present time. Mr. Herbert Spencer's philosophy, for example, is ontological from centre to circumference and from beginning to end. It is, indeed, one of the most stupendous and self-confident systems of metaphysics which have ever been evolved.

In a word, we cannot consistently maintain and defend the right of man to think reflectively without including in this also the right to attempt a systematic metaphysics, — that is, some preferred rational and unifying view of the world of real beings and actual events. The mere critic in philosophy, like the mere critic in art or in literature, may be quite as arrogant in self-confidence, and as inconsistent in his distrust of other human faculty than his own, as the most pronounced dogmatist. Indeed, criticism in philosophy without a metaphysical standpoint is impossible. All philosophical scepticism and agnosticism is necessarily ontological. The moment the phenomenalism the positivist, becomes genuinely philosophical, he indulges himself in metaphysics. It would seem, then, that the place for the consistent scorner of all attempts at a theory of reality lies wholly outside the boundaries of philosophy.

But now the second class of those eccentricities of behavior which characterize certain deniers of the rights of metaphysics becomes apparent. For there are many facts of observation which lead to the following somewhat startling conclusion: voluntarily to abandon philosophy and openly to renounce all the rights of reflective thinking does not relieve one from a certain inescapable obligation to be metaphysical. And here it seems most strange that the real intent and the valid conclusion — if we accept it at all — of the Kantian criticism has been so lost out of the regard of the modern objector to systematic metaphysics. This intent was not to enhance the objections to a rational faith in God and in the freedom and immortality of the human soul. It was, the rather, to render these objections permanently hors du combat in the battle that is forever being waged between certain kinds of Idealism, or Supernaturalism, and a common-sense or scientific Naturalism. All the way through the Critique of Pure Reason Kant's sceptical and agnostic positions bear most heavily against the ontological metaphysics of natural science and of the man whose horizon is confined to the things of sense. It is not the believer in God, freedom, and immortality, but the hard-headed denier of these realities on grounds of confidence in his theoretical construction of a system of mere things, whose vitals are pierced with the sword of the Kantian criticism.

It is just here that an unprejudiced survey of the facts becomes especially instructive. For the " plain man's " consciousness is always and inevitably metaphysical ; it is generally not sceptical and agnostic. Besides the merit of suggesting a point in the psychological theory of vision, which has already been transcended, this was the only contribution made to human thinking by the Berkeley an idealism ; it insisted upon the truth that, for the ordinary consciousness, the concrete reality is just this sensuously envisaged object, and no " thing-in-itself " that must be reached by some process of inference, or by intermediation of some idea. The later Scottish realism did not improve upon, but rather travestied, the view of Berkeley when it began to identify this known reality of the object with the excited sensorium. Nor did Kant better matters on this point when he covered up the whole inquiry by taking " data " of sense for granted, and obscurely referring to some dumb and unmeaning " thing-in-itself " as the giver of these data. For, twist the facts as psychology without metaphysics may, it cannot get rid of the truth : there is a ivhole system of ontological doctrine concealed in every maris work-a-day experience with things. Experience itself is transcendent of the subject of experience, — truly ontological. To tell how such experience is possible, this was the problem of the Critique of Pure Reason. But because its answer laid all the emphasis on the analysis of the subject, the knower, and did not share the undying confidence of men that the object, that which is known, belongs in all its complicated structure to the world of reality, this Critique failed to satisfy the demands of consciousness.

That our experience with ourselves and with things is complexly ontological, and cannot even be described, much less explained, in terms of subjective idealism, we have shown elsewhere 1 both from the psychological and the epistemological points of view. The more detailed description and speculative treatment of experience as thus ontological constitutes the very warp and woof of any system of metaphysics. What, however, it is now desirable to insist upon is this : in the

1 In " The Philosophy of Knowledge," passim.

very having of cognitive experience, the knower is consciously metaphysical. The knower envisages, or infers, or helieves in, his little sphere of realities. It is for him somewhat of a genuine cosmos, an orderly whole. The " World " man knows is made up of real things and real minds that stand in actual relations, that change these relations, that come to be, and continue in being, in space and time ; and these present realities constantly influence each other, and they pass away to give place to other realities. To reflect upon all this, or upon any part of it, is to indulge in ontological speculation. For the trans- subjective does not lie in the invisible and the unknown, where Kant placed it ; nor is experience with concrete realities to be resolved into a series of appearances, as Mr. Bradley would seem to have us believe. To understand, as fully as man's powers may, the things of human work-a-day experience, the realities cognized by the plain man's consciousness, — this is the endeavor of systematic metaphysics. What strange inconsistency, then, is involved in the enforced acceptance of a half-developed ontological consciousness when it denies the right to attempt the free expansion and more harmonious development of the same ontological consciousness !