The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 (part 3 of 5)

The Monist, Vol. 2, 1891-1892 (part 3 of 5)

Professor Jodl’s thing in itself is not outside of Space and Time (as is Kant’s thing in itself) but it is the overwhelming infinitude of problems to be solved with which we cannot hope to get through even though our life lasted billions of light-years. Let me repeat here what I said in the second edition of “Fundamental Problems,”

“A philosophy which starts from the positive data of experience, and arranges them in the system of a monistic conception of the world, will meet with many great problems and in solving them will again and again be confronted with new problems. It will always grapple with something that is not yet known. The unknown seems to expand before us like an infinite ocean upon which the ship of knowledge advances. But the unknown constantly changes into the known. We shall find no real unknowable wherever we proceed. The idea of the unknowable is like the horizon—an optic illusion. The more we advance, the farther it recedes. The unknowable is no reality; the unknowable can nowhere prevent knowledge nor can the horizon debar a ship in her voyage, from further progress.” (p. 271.)

Man’s knowledge has value as positive information concerning the facts he has to deal with, and the infinitude of the not known, the infinitude of other problems and things which he will never face, is of no consequence whatever. Positivism commences and has to commence with the positive facts of the given experience and not with the infinitude of possibilities which lie beyond our horizon. Compare knowledge to property and suppose a man is to buy a farm. Shall we discourage him with the idea that the whole amount of soil on the surface of the earth and of other planets is infinite, and this infinitude of all existences if divided by his finite little possession can never result in a finite number. Even if it were doubled, if it were multiplied a thousand times, it remains as good as nothing in comparison with the rest of the world which he cannot acquire. However, his possession is something to him, whatever the relation of infinite possibilities may be in proportion to it.

The concept of infinitude serves a good purpose in its place, but we cannot use it for analogies in other fields or bring it in relation to concrete realities. We produce confusion and drop into mysticism as soon as we handle the idea of infinitude as if it were a positive thing. The infinite is a function which is mathematically expressed by 1/0 = ∞, and whenever we bring anything in relation to the infinite, we at once dwarf the greatest number no less than the smallest number into zero.

Clearness of thought is the indispensable method of sound philosophy for constructing a positive world-conception, which in great outlines is a description of the facts of reality. By suffering mysticism as a legitimate conception either in science or in philosophy, we enhance the interests of those who prefer the chiaroscuro of vague notions to clear thought.

V. CLIFFORD’S AND SCHOPENHAUER’S CONCEPTIONS OF THE THING IN ITSELF.

When Clifford speaks of things in themselves he does not mean Kant’s thing in itself, he means neither the object independent of the thinking subject nor the thing independent of space and time. He means the thing as it would be if viewed from the thing itself.

A man appears to other thinking beings as an active body, as an organism that is in motion; but to himself he appears as a feeling being. The subjectivity of things as they appear to the things themselves consists in our own case of states of awareness, and this subjectivity is called by Clifford the thing in itself.

A certain brain motion is in its subjective aspect a feeling. This feeling is according to Clifford the thing in itself of the visible, observable, and measurable motion. The thing in itself of so-called inanimate beings is not feeling, but elements of feeling. In other words, the world-substance is everywhere in itself potentiality of feeling and Clifford therefore calls it “mind-stuff.”

Schopenhauer arrives at his conception of the thing in itself practically in the same way. There is the world as it appears to us, the objective world of motion in space and time. What the kernel of this world may be, we can know from self-observation. The kernel of ourselves, Schopenhauer says, is Will; and the will is also the kernel of things; the will is the thing in itself.

We understand by will the passage into action, i. e. an incipient motion of the organism if accompanied with the psychical element of consciousness, and this consciousness is a state of awareness of the will including its direction and aim. Will, as the term is generally used, is always conscious. Schopenhauer however speaks of the will as being blind, i. e. without knowledge, without awareness of itself and its aim. This indicates that he uses the word not in its original but in a figurative meaning.

The fall of a stone may be characterised as a blind motion without awareness and without the stone’s having a consciousness as to its direction or aim; and in a similar (although not in the same) way Clifford speaks of the elements of feeling as being not rational. We agree with Schopenhauer that that factor in a stone which makes it fall when placed in a certain position is as much a natural process as the act of a man, only of a lower grade and a simpler kind. Schopenhauer calls that which both have in common “will.” Yet in common language we call the objective aspect of that which both processes have in common, “motion.” What then is the subjective aspect of a falling stone? It is not a state of awareness, it is no feeling, but it is the potentiality of a state of awareness, it is potential feeling. There is a subjective aspect, but this subjective aspect is so far as we can judge of no account to the stone.

That something in the stone which corresponds to man’s consciousness, viz. the stone’s subjectivity, is not mind, but it is potential mind. And potential mind is not as Mr. Conybeare expresses it “mind diluted,” potential mind is no mind at all.

The world-substance as it exists in inorganic matter is not mind. But the universe taken as a whole, the All, is for that reason not less than mind. On the contrary, it is infinitely more than mind. The All is not brute force and inert matter only, the universe is a cosmos, and its subjectivity necessarily develops, according to the laws of form which characterise the cosmos throughout, into mind. We disagree with Professor Clifford most emphatically when he describes the mind-stuff of which according to his terminology the world consists, as not rational.

The world it is true is not rational in its elements, but the world as a whole, the entire cosmos with its laws and especially in its formal order, is the prototype of all rationality. Human reason is rational only in so far as it conforms with, as it reflects, as it describes the order of the cosmos. The human mind is a microcosm. We do not call the macrocosm, in whose image the microcosm has been created, a mind, because we understand by the term mind not reality itself but reality pictured in symbols of feeling. We understand by mind the individual conception of the world as it is mapped out in the brain of a sentient being, and not the universe itself, not the all-being. We understand by mind a creature and not the creator, a soul and not God.

The cosmos, the All, God, that which creates the mind, is not dead, not irrational, and not inferior to mentality. It is the source of all life, it is the condition of all order, it is the standard of all morality. All the minds that exist are but parts of it. In it, with it, and through it we live and shall live forever. For although we shall die, our being can never be blotted out. Existence knows no annihilation and life knows no death. What we call death is a dissolution of life in a special part, but the contents of a life, the thoughts, the ideas, and the ideals are preserved and transmitted, they are implanted into other minds; the soul continues to live. And this continuance of the life of the soul is not a mere dissolution in the All, it is not the immortality of force and matter; it is the preservation of its special existence, of its most characteristic and individual features for an immeasurably long period hence, which will last as long as the conditions of life remain favorable upon earth. Yet even if a whole solar system were broken to pieces, life will reappear; mind will be born again to struggle for truth and to aspire to live in conformity with truth.

VI. THINGS AND RELATIONS.

The proposition that things in themselves are unknowable finds a strong argument in the statement that we can know relations only, that all knowledge is relative. It is undoubtedly true that all knowledge is relative and knowledge is a knowledge of relations. But what is a relation? When I once proposed this question, I was answered:

“A relation is the connection between two things; it is that something in which the one stands to the other, in short, it is the betwixtness of things.”

This is exactly what a relation is not. From such a definition of relation agnosticism will necessarily follow. It is a misstatement of the case, and when we come to follow out the idea, we shall be led into inextricable contradictions, and unless we revise the whole argument, we shall have to confess that we are at our wit’s end.

The question, what is a relation? was one of the issues between the two great mediæval schools of philosophy, the Nominalists and the Realists.[45] The Nominalists answered: “A relation is a mere product of the mind,” while the Realists declared that “a relation without which the thing cannot be, is in the thing.”

Both schools relied upon Aristotle’s authority. Aristotle had declared that matter is mere possibility of existence (it is δυνάμει ὄν) and form is that which makes it real, the formal is the real, form is existence or being (οὐσία). The metal of a statue, Aristotle says, is its matter, the idea of the statue is its form, both together make the real statue. The metal having had another form before, did not exist with the inherent purpose of being this metal of the statue. The metal is the mere potentiality of becoming a statue.[46] Hence, says Aristotle, not the matter but the form constitutes the reality of the statue, the form is that which is real, or that which makes actual, ἐνεργείᾳ ὄν, it is the being in completeness or actuality, ἐνετλεχείᾳ ὄν, i. e. that which makes a thing exist in its purpose (ἐν τέλει ἔχειν). If the formal alone is and makes real, relations must be real. This is in favor of the Realists.

Yet Aristotle’s philosophy is not in every respect clearly worked out. In fact there are two Aristotles, the one being a Platonist, the other a naturalist, the one believing in universals, the other investigating concrete things and taking individuals as real beings. But both Aristotles and with them both parties of the schoolmen had no clear conception of the nature of ideas, what they are, and what they purport, and how we can discriminate between their subjective and objective elements. Ideas have a meaning. Is their meaning purely mental or has it an objective value? We say that it has.

The same Aristotle who considered the formal as that which makes real, denied the objective existence of relations. He said that such qualities as greater, or smaller, double or half, indeed all relations (the πρός τι of things) did not belong to the things, but were added to them by the thinking subject. Ergo relations are mere products of the mind, they have no objective value. This was in favor of the Nominalists.

Now it is true that some relations are purely mental in so far as the comparison upon which they rest is purely imaginary. An answer to the question, Who was the greater, Alexander or Cæsar? depends upon the standard of measurement which we create for the special purpose. Some such relations have no objective value, they are not facts but a play of imagination dependent on the recognition of the standard of measurement. But how is it, if we express the relation between the gravity of a stone and the whole mass of the earth as it manifests itself in the stone’s fall? Is that also a mere product of the mind? Certainly Newton’s laws describing gravitation in exact and mathematical formulas are a product of the mind, but this product of the mind has an objective value, it has a meaning, it describes facts, and these facts are certain relations between certain things.

* * * * *

The fault of the modern misconception of relativity lies in the assumption that the two or more things are considered as things in themselves. We are apt to consider the gravity of two masses, of a stone and of the earth, as a relation between two independent things. Here is the stone and there is the earth and the relation is considered as some third item, being the connection in which the one stands to the other.

In reality there are not two things and, in addition to them a betweenness of the two things. The world is not a sum of things, not even a system of things, but a whole indivisible entirety and what we call things are abstractions which serve special purposes in the household of cognition. All things consist as it were of innumerable relations to all other things. When we abstract one special process which takes place in the province of what we are wont to call two things, we have to deal with a relation.

There are no relations of themselves and there are no things of themselves. Relations describe certain features of reality obtaining between what we call two or more things, and in this description all other features of which the real things consist are purposely omitted.

There is no quality of things but it is at the same time a quality of relation. Every quality of a thing characterises it under a certain condition; it appears as an effect upon something and thus it is actual as a relation. Cognition analyses things into bundles of relations and all these relations together make up the things.

The modern idea that we can know relations only and that there are things in themselves which are unknowable is an old error inherited from mediæval scholasticism, and its roots can be traced back to the philosophy of Aristotle. The difficulty disappears as soon as we consider the whole world (ourselves included) as an interacting whole, and that the conceptions “things” and “relations” have been invented for describing certain of its parts and certain of its interactions or interconnections.

If we push the idea of things in themselves to the ultimate extreme we arrive at the atomistic conception of the universe. Atoms are the things in themselves reduced to the point system. If we consider the world as a heap of innumerable atoms, we are at a loss how to explain the interaction among these atoms. The atomist universalises the substance-abstraction and will be disappointed afterwards not to be able to deduce from his universalisation other qualities which are found in reality, such as the relations of things, their interconnections, their spontaneity of motion, the life of organised beings, and the mind of thinking creatures.

Ideas are symbols and symbols have a meaning. The whole realm of mental representations may be viewed in their symbolism or in their significance. Considering their symbolism, ideas of things as well as of relations, are products of the mind, considering their meaning, ideas represent realities; in other words: their contents or that which they signify is real.

It appears that neither Nominalism nor Realism is right; yet if we stretch them only a little, if we are allowed to interpret them in the light of a monistic world-conception, both are right. They cease to be contradictory and become complementary. Universals are real, say the Realists, i. e. the forms and relations of things are actualities. Universals are names, say the Nominalists, i. e. the relations and forms in which we describe the world are mental symbols.

The Realists had the misfortune to defeat the Nominalists entirely, and thus had a chance to insist upon being right in every respect. All opposition having ceased, the errors of Realism grew in extraordinary exuberance. Nominalism in the mean time raised its head in opposition to the recognised authority of the church as well as the schools, slowly yet powerfully and irresistibly. The errors and the tyranny of Realism gave strength to the Nominalistic movement which reached its height in Kant’s philosophy. The Realists had gone to the extreme of declaring that universals were things, real substances, independent of single and concrete objects, and the Nominalists on the other hand, represented by Kant, went so far as to declare that all relations, time and space included were mere products of the mind.

If the relations are mere products of the mind, all knowledge being a knowledge of relations, knowledge becomes impossible. That last consequence was drawn by Kant and is emphatically insisted upon by agnosticism.

There is but one world-conception that can dispense with these conclusions: it is that View which conceives of the All as a whole; and of knowledge as a description of its parts, qualities, and relations, ever mindful on the one hand that the parts are parts, that qualities and relations are certain features only, not entire realities, or isolated entities, and that the symbols thereof frequently overlap each other; on the other hand that there is nothing absolute,[47] and that there are no things in themselves.

The relativity of knowledge, whether we conceive of it as the relativity of the object to the subject in general or as an appreciation of the fact that all knowledge gives and can give information of relations only, does not lead to the conclusion that knowledge is impossible. Relativity is a fundamental feature of knowledge, and we shall understand that it must be so if we consider that reality itself is a great system of relations.

* * * * *

The interconnection of all things with all things appears to be so complete, that if we intended to explain or understand one single fact fully and exhaustively in all its relations, past, present, and future, we should be obliged to give a complete description of the universe. Says Tennyson:

“Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies;— Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower—but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.”

We might address in the same way anything else, an atom of hydrogen, a grain of sand as well as the sun, the action of a tiny speck of irritable protoplasm as well as the soul of man.

VII. IS THE EGO A THING IN ITSELF?

Prof. Lloyd Morgan in his excellent work “Animal Life and Intelligence” uses repeatedly the word “mind” as if it were a thing in itself. Professor Morgan is a monist and he does not intend the word to mean a thing in itself; yet such is the influence of language that we, all of us, unless we are constantly on our guard, will inadvertently slip into dualistic expressions. Professor Morgan says, with reference to certain sensations of animals (p. 309):

‘From these stippled sensations the mind in all cases elaborates a continuum.’

The unity which arises out of stippled sensations and which through their interaction becomes a continuum is called mind. To speak of mind as working out the continuum is mythological language, it is the transformation of the abstract idea “mind” into a real and independent thing whose existence is conceived to be independent of the reality from which it has been abstracted.

Again, Professor Morgan says: “Our constructs are literally our handiwork.” Our constructs, i. e. our mental signs constructed to represent realities, constitute our soul; they are we ourselves.

Professor Morgan, as I understand him, does not believe in a mind behind the psychical facts of mental activity, he does not assume the pre-existence of mind to the continuum elaborated. His view of mind appears to be the same as ours. The more noteworthy, then, is his usage of the term “mind.” It is a remarkable instance of how language naturally inveigles us into a belief in things in themselves. Words seem to denote concrete existences and as soon as we use words in this way we are entangled in dualism.

Prof. F. Max Müller as well as the late Prof. Thomas Hill Green, the founder of the Oxford transcendentalist school, start from this assumption, that man’s mental activity is performed by a something which is quite distinct from it. This something is the thing in itself of the human soul. Prof. F. Max Müller says:

“If mind is the name of the work, what is the name of the worker?... It is what we may call the ego as personating the self; it is what other philosophers call the monon. Let us call therefore the worker who does the work of the mind in its various aspects, the Monon or the Ego.”

This conception which asks for the worker of the work is based upon a materialistic view of the human organism. An organism is not a dead machine which must be set a-going by somebody who attends to it. Organisms are active and not passive, they are living and not dead. Every part of an organism is a worker and so is the whole. And if we speak of its “life” we must bear in mind that “life” is an abstract which denotes a certain inseparable quality of the organism. The work and the worker are two abstracts of one and the same thing. The reality from which these terms have been abstracted is “something working.” This something working does not consist of a worker and his work, but the worker is in every part of his work. The worker of our mental activity is the work itself. Both are identical.

The objection is made: “Whence does the activity come which appears in the realm of organised life.” The answer is: Activity is a universal quality of all existence. There is no such a thing as absolutely inert matter. Every chemical element combines with other elements spontaneously, according to its inherent nature and not through the influence of a worker manipulating its atoms. Spontaneity is a universal feature of reality. Nature is throughout self-working activity. And this its most remarkable character is preserved in its highest efflorescence in the soul of man.

The present number of The Monist contains a lucid presentation of the transcendentalist position by Mr. F. C. Conybeare, an Oxford scholar and a personal disciple of Professor Green, with special reference to the views of Prof. William Kingdon Clifford. Mr. Conybeare, like Prof. F. Max Müller, assumes a Self independent of the reality from which the idea of self has been abstracted, and he attempts to prove the existence of this self as follows:

“In truth there can be no relation of before and after between the two terms except for a self which takes note of the one disappearing and of the other appearing; and whenever we speak of things following one another we tacitly presuppose a self before whom the procession passes.”

The transcendentalist adopts, in the realm of psychology, the error of atomism. If we accept the view that the world consists of isolated atoms, we are at a loss how to bring the atoms into relations; the unity of every group of atoms, every thing and every system of things will become a mystery. And if we look upon feelings as unrelated things in themselves, their connection becomes a deep problem. Mr. Conybeare solves this problem of the connection that obtains among the feelings supposed to be atomical, by postulating a relation-producing entity, called the self. He says:

“No link is left, save a connecting self.”

And this assumed entity of a connecting self or ego is taken to be “the heart and centre of reality.” Reality, that which we have to deal with in real life and what is commonly called reality, appears as a second class of reality in comparison with this assumed thing in itself of our existence. The thing in itself is thus regarded as something realer than real; it is conceived to be a reality of a higher degree.

Mr. Conybeare is very explicit in the explanation of his transcendental “self.” He says:

“Feelings constitute a conscious self when they become the feelings of a conscious self and not before, for except as gathered up in the unity of a self which has [sic!] memory and remains the same throughout its differences, feelings can be neither new, nor repeated, nor joined by links.”

What does “self” mean? What can it mean? What is the “unity of the self”? These are questions which have not been answered to our satisfaction by the transcendentalists. Whenever they speak of the self, they lose themselves in mysticism. Their “self” is an assumed entity which they have carefully divested of everything real and actual. Their self is transcendental and not a being of the world; it is a myth.

Let us describe the simplest possible instance of psychical activity.

An irritation takes place in some sentient substance. This irritation produces an extra-commotion. We must say “extra-commotion” because all sentient substance is in a state of constant activity. This extra-commotion causes the sentient substance to assume a certain form, and while it lasts, a certain and special feeling takes place in some part of the sentient substance. This certain and special feeling ceases, as soon as the extra-commotion, caused through the irritation, abates. There can be no doubt that certain effects of this extra-commotion remain. Its trace is left in the sentient substance and this trace is preserved in the constant whirl of the sentient being’s normal activity. Now, we suppose that an irritation of the same kind takes place in the same sentient substance. This second irritation finds the substance no longer in the same condition. It finds the sentient substance prepared to receive it. The feeling which now appears is no longer a simple feeling. The second irritation causes a commotion as much as the first, and this commotion acts as a stimulant upon the trace left by the first irritation. This trace being again in a state of extra-commotion is revived and the same kind of feeling appears. Thus the second irritation is accompanied by a state of awareness in which two feelings are blended, the revival of the former feeling and the feeling of the present irritation.

The preservation of traces left in sentient substance is the condition of memory. We understand by memory the psychical aspect thereof, and the act of reviving, so that their correspondent feelings will reappear, is called recollection.

“Memory” has been the greatest stumbling-block to our psychologists as well as to our philosophers. Even modern works written from a positive standpoint treat memory frequently as a mysterious faculty of the mind. Mr. Conybeare speaks of the self as having memory, while in fact, memory is one of the features, indeed the most important feature, of mind-activity.

Says Mr. Conybeare:

“Such a feeling [of the togetherness of two feelings] would involve memory and memory involves self-hood.”

Memory does not involve any transcendental self-hood. True self-hood, viz. that which can reasonably be understood by self-hood, is not prior to, not the cause of memory; self-hood, i. e. the personality of a man, the organised unity of the psychical aspect of a human organism, is consequent upon, it is the effect of, memory. Self-hood is the product of memory.[48]

The self is also called the ego. What is the ego?

The ego is a Latin term used in philosophical language to denote the pronoun “I,” and the pronoun “I” is quite a definite nerve-structure situated in quite a definite place of the centre of language. As all words, so also the term “I” is a symbol. Its general meaning is unequivocal; it stands for the name of the speaker. It stands for Mr. Brown, if Mr. Brown speaks of himself, for Mr. Smith, if Mr. Smith speaks of himself, etc.

What does Mr. Brown mean when he says, “I speak, I act, I will, I feel pain, I feel pleasure, I intend,” etc.?

When Mr. Brown speaks, a certain number of word-structures in the centre of language are in a state of commotion, innervating the muscles of speech. Correspondent to this physiological process, a state of consciousness obtains, which is an awareness of the situation. When he adds: “I say this,” it is again a special nerve-structure that is irritated into action and he might just as well say: “Mr. Brown says this.” The idea of Mr. Brown, viz. of his own personality, is just as much an idea as his idea of Mr. Smith. The main difference consists in the fact that the idea of one’s own personality is very much more important than the ideas representing other personalities.

The nervous structure representing the feeling of the idea “I” must be the centre of innumerable nervous tracts connecting it with all those activities which when performed are thought of as done by ourselves. The “I do this” is almost constantly ready to fill the present state of consciousness and to accompany any action performed through the innervation of other brain structures.

Sentient substance is not always actually feeling. It is feeling only when in a state of extra-commotion. Systems of sentient substance are called organisms; all its structures are interconnected and most so those structures in which sentiency as well as motory impulses are differentiated—viz. the nervous structures. The extra-commotions which agitate the different nervous structures, the memories of former sense-perceptions, of sounds, of words, of ideas depend upon the conditions of the moment. Now this and now another structure will represent the summit of commotion and the feeling of the strongest commotion at a given time will under normal conditions appear as the contents of consciousness. It is as it were the focus in which the attention of the whole organism is centralised. That which appears in the focus is clear and distinct, while the other weaker feelings rapidly disappear into the undistinguishable general feeling of the organism as a whole, commonly called cœnæsthesis or Gemeingefühl.

The centre of attention is constantly changing; yet whenever a thinking creature stops to ask himself, who is doing this? Who is willing this? Who is thinking this? the answer is given: “I am doing this; I am willing this; I am thinking this.” The structure of the little pronoun “I” seems to be the most ticklish of all; it is always ready to force itself into the foreground.

The answer, “I am doing this,” proposes the totum pro parte. The whole personality is supposed to do what a part of it is performing. The hands are executing this work; these hands of course are innervated from certain regions of the brain. Some parts of the personality are in a relative rest and have nothing to do with the work presently on hand. A commotion in a certain number of brain-structures represents the physiological aspect of a deliberation, perhaps the planning of some action. Psychologically considered certain ideas appear successively and sometimes simultaneously in the focus of consciousness. The ideas disagree and other ideas replace them until a combination is formed in which the ideas do agree. This state of agreement brings a temporary peace into the tumult of conflicting ideas; the plan is ready; it may pass into action at once, or, perhaps, the ego-structure will appear in consciousness and will quietly think: “I will do it.”

When certain motory nerve-structures are innervated, they cause under normal conditions their respective muscles to contract, they produce motion. Under normal conditions the nervous process accompanying the idea “I will raise my arm” serves as an irritation upon the cortical centre of arm-raising, yet it is not the “I” that in some mystical way raises the arm. The idea “I” has as little and as much to do with this discharge of energy as any other idea. The idea “I” is not the power behind the veil that produces the will.

What is will? As soon as some plan of action is joined with the idea that it should be executed, supposing it be not counteracted by any stronger idea that it should not be done, this combination represents a will. A will accordingly is the psychological aspect of an incipient action, and it is usually, or if it is not it can always be accompanied with the thought “I will it.” But this accompanying thought however is not the energy displayed in the act of willing.

The “I will it,” or “I do it,” or “I perceive it” being always ready to appear together with the strongest idea in the field of consciousness, the term “ego” has acquired a specialised meaning. It means that part of a man’s personality which at the time is the contents of the “I will,” or “I think,” i. e. it is his present state of consciousness. Every organism is a coherent system and thus all the feelings of an organism naturally blend into a unity. The strongest feeling however appears in the normal state of waking in a distinct clearness thus representing a centre of consciousness.

However, whether we use the term “ego” in the sense of the idea “I” meaning the whole personality of the speaker, or in the sense of the present centre of consciousness, it designates in either case a definite reality, the origin and action of which are natural facts and as plain as any other psychological phenomena.

Neither the ego-idea nor the centre of consciousness are transcendental. The former is as little mystical as are the ideas dog, horse, man, etc.; the latter no less miraculous than any other feeling or display of sentiency.

VIII. THE EGO-CENTRIC VIEW ABANDONED.

The contrast between the old and the new psychology appears strongest in their conceptions of the ego. The former believes that the ego is “the thing in itself” of man’s soul and takes it to be the centre of all psychical phenomena, while the latter looks upon the ego-idea as one idea among many other co-ordinated ideas and considers the centre of consciousness as the strongest feeling at a given time, which as such naturally predominates over and eclipses the other feelings of the organism.

The new psychology brings about a change of standpoint similar to that effected by the Copernican system in astronomy. In astronomy the geo-centric, and in psychology the ego-centric standpoint had to be abandoned. And all things seem to be upset to those who are still accustomed to the old conception. To them the physical and moral world-conceptions appear to become impossible. If the new view were correct, so they imagine, the entire universe would break to pieces. All our modes of speech are formed in accord with the old view. We speak of sunset and sunrise, and so in our daily conversation the little pronoun “I” plays a part which makes it seem as if the ego-idea were the centre of all soul-life and as if this “I” were the active agent in all acts of willing and doing.

The advantage of the Copernican system lies in this, that we can think of the motions of the sun and the planets in a systematic and unitary conception without being either involved in contradictions or obliged to invent mysterious qualities in the stars for explaining the velocities, directions, or other phenomena of the celestial bodies. The most important advantage however is the practical applicability of the new theory.

The old theory of the soul necessarily leads to mysticism. Fictitious facts of a transcendent character must be invented in addition to the facts observed, in order to explain the latter. The new theory after abandoning the ego-centric standpoint of the thing in itself of a soul shows the facts of psychic life in an harmonious and unitary conception. All facts agree among themselves and we are not in need of supplementing them with mysterious inventions. It must be emphasised, at the same time, that the new conception throws a new light upon ethics; it shows the error and perversity of all egotism, for it would be a mistake to act as if the ego were really the centre of soul-life.

Here the new psychology comes in contact with religion. What is the practical aim of all the great religions of the world but a surrender of the ego, a renunciation of the self as the centre of our being, and the acceptance of the moral law as the regulative power of our actions? The new psychology gives a justification and a scientific explanation of Christian ethics while the latter from the standpoint of the old psychology necessarily appears as mystical and supernatural.

IX. PERSONALITY AND EVOLUTION.

The ego, i. e. the centre of consciousness, is constantly shifting, while the personality of a man is relatively constant, certain important ideas being stable and thus lending character to the whole system of thoughts and intentions.

The term personality indicating the self-hood of a man is used in several ways. First, we understand by a man’s personality his bodily appearance; secondly the whole system of his mentality, viz. his knowledge, his temperament, his character; thirdly the history of his life, past, present, and future; fourthly his position in life, his possessions, his connections, his influence, or at last we mean by it all these four items together. In all these applications the man and his personality are conceived as a unity. And they are a unity. Wherever the term unity is applicable, it is most certainly applicable here. All the many facts of the history of his life are one continuous process; all the parts of his body are parts of a system, and the world of his ideas also will under normal conditions bear a certain harmonious character. Wherever in any soul the concord among the ideas has been disturbed, a state of unrest will ensue until the peace of soul is restored in one or another way. But with the same necessity as every water surface tends to present a smooth level, so the ideas in one and the same soul tend to come to a state of agreement. As every water surface has its ripples so even that mind which has attained an undisturbed peace of soul is constantly confronted with some problems—be they ever so trifling—producing some slight disturbances in his life.

The unity of a self, it is apparent, is the inevitable consequence of given conditions. It is not something which exists outside the personality and its constituent parts, it is in the personality and it develops together with it. Mr. Conybeare supposes that “the unity of a self remains the same throughout.” This is an error, and this error vitiates Mr. Conybeare’s whole conception of growth and evolution. He says:

“Properly speaking a thing can only be said to grow or develop when it remains the same with itself all through the process and unfolds therein capacities which were anyhow latent in it to start with.”

The truth contained in this proposition may be expressed thus: When a thing develops, some part of it remains the same during the change, so that a continuity is preserved. Yet every change of a part of an organism—such is the intimate interconnection of all its parts—produces an alteration, be it ever so small, of the whole unity. And in the course of evolution the character of the whole thing may be changed. Think of the growth of a caterpillar into a butterfly, or of an egg-cell into a man. However, the changes in the character of an adult man will become slighter and slighter the stronger certain features of his existence preserve their sameness, although the most stable personality will, nevertheless, be subject to, at least, unimportant changes as long as life lasts.

Mr. Conybeare, like his master Professor Green and all the transcendentalists, is still under the influence of a belief in the thing in itself. The unity of an organism which is the product of the co-operation of its parts, is not some independent thing whose business it is to gather up their single activities and bring them into relation with one another. The unity of a self is the combination of all those relations which make of its parts a systematised whole, and this unity is changing together with its constituents; as a matter of fact, we have to state that it does not remain constant or the same with itself. Mark that I do not deny the unity of the soul, nor do I underrate the enormous importance of this unity. But I do deny that this unity exists independent of its parts. It is as much immanent in its parts as is a melody in its notes. There is as little a transcendental self-hood as a melody in itself independent of its sounds.

The assumption of a transcendental unity which throughout the process of evolution remains the same with itself naturally leads to a wrong conception of what Mr. Conybeare calls “latent capacities.” The terms potential existence and latent qualities are fertile and useful ideas but we must beware not to employ them incorrectly. Any heap of iron ore can be called a potential sword. This is a mode of speaking which expresses the possibility that the ore can be changed somehow into a sword. But the sword does not exist at all, not even as a latent quality of the ore. The ore has no latent qualities of that kind. Those qualities of the ore which represent the potential sword are very patent to everybody who knows the art of using them properly and changing them into an actual sword.

We may say that the hen’s egg contains a potential chick; but this is a mere mode of speech devised to say that the egg can be changed into a chick under certain conditions. There is no chick at all contained in the egg and nothing that is like a chick.

Evolution is not, as the name suggests, a process of unfolding; evolution is, as Christian Friedrich Wolff calls it, an “epigenesis,” i. e. the process of the additional growth of new formations. The chick is something different in kind from the egg. The unity of the egg-cell organism in the yolk is radically different from the unity of the full-fledged chick. The former shows traces of irritability but not of consciousness, while the latter exhibits unmistakable symptoms of psychical activity. The formation of the chicken-soul is a new formation as much as the growth of feathers. The feathers of the chick are an additional growth; there are no latent feathers in the egg. We might express ourselves to the effect that the egg contains the potential existence of feathers, but with the same logic we might say the egg contains a potential chicken broth.

It is however true that something remains constant in the process of growth. There is a preservation of form in the constant change of material particles and this is the physiological basis of memory, so that a man of eighty may say “I remember when I was a child,” although not one particle of the substance of which the child consisted is left in him. The continuity produced through this preservation of form makes growth and evolution possible.

The preservation of memory-structures constitutes the possibility of reviving the feelings of the past, it constitutes a preservation of soul. The material parts of the body are thrown out but the form being preserved, the soul remains. And this preservation of the soul is the basis of its additional growth through new and enlarged experience. The soul of the child is not lost in the man, it is preserved. It has lost certain features and at the same time it has gained new features, it has developed, and the unity of the soul has more or less changed with the development.

What is true of the individual is also true of mankind. Mankind as a whole is different in the savage and in civilised society. Nevertheless the latter has developed from the former. Certain traits have been dropped, other radically new features have appeared. That which was valuable in the soul of primitive man is not lost. The better part of his soul still lives in the highest developed man of to-day; the continuity is preserved. And to-day all our moral instruction aims at this, so to live that our souls also will be preserved in the future evolution of humanity. The gist of ethics is to make the soul immortal.[49]

X. PROFESSOR MACH’S POSITION.

The problem, “Are there things in themselves?” is closely connected with the subject of my discussion with Professor Mach. Professor Mach as well as myself are aspiring to arrive at a consistent and harmonious or unitary world-conception. Both of us recognise that things in themselves have no room in a monistic philosophy, both of us recognise that concepts are means only of orientation, they are the mental tools of living beings developed as an assistance in dealing with the surrounding world. They are symbols in which the processes of nature are copied and imitated and which can serve for planning or modeling and thus predetermining the course of nature. So far we agree, but then there appears a difference which it is difficult for me to understand or formulate in precise terms.

Professor Mach objects to the dualism of motion and feeling, which he declares he conceives as a unity not as a duality. But so do I. It appears to me that we must differ somehow in the method of constructing the unity. I see indeed a contrast of physical and of psychical. This contrast, however, in my conception does not belong to the object but to the subject. It is a contrast of our conception of things, but it is not a contrast existing objectively in the real things themselves. The world is not composed of the psychical and the physical, but certain features of the world are called physical, and others psychical. Both terms are abstracts.

Professor Mach said in his first article and repeats it again in the present article that his former standpoint resembles very closely my present standpoint. When reading Professor Mach’s lectures of 1863, I took pains to look for the similarity, and finding many things in which I could agree I dropped the differences taking the agreements as the essential points. In reading, however, Professor Mach’s résumé of his former position as stated in this present article, I find that he attaches prominence to several points which I cannot endorse. I do not accept the theory that atoms feel, that they are endowed with consciousness. I have never spoken of atoms when dealing with psychological problems. The term “atom” is a chemical term invented as a help for thinking the equivalence of the weight of the elements which always combine in definite proportions. The term “atom” has in my opinion no sense if applied to other phenomena. The term “atom” has not been abstracted from psychical phenomena nor has it been invented for describing them. There is accordingly no probability that it can find there any appropriate application. We might as well expect that mathematical terms such as lines, points, circles, etc., are applicable in psychology. The idea of conscious circles or points can not in my mind be more absurd than that of conscious atoms. The rule must be observed that we can use abstractions made for a special purpose for that purpose only; they will not serve any other purpose as well. It is true that they are often employed as analogies, but in such cases, we must bear in mind that we are dealing with mere analogies.

In addition to the impropriety of using the term atoms in psychology, it appears to me erroneous to attribute feeling or anything like feeling to physical processes of any description. Natural processes are so constituted, that under certain conditions, such as take place in animal organisms, they will develop feelings. Clifford speaks in this sense of the elements of feeling. Lloyd Morgan calls it metakinesis, and I find that feelings being simply states of awareness represent the subjectivity of natural processes. We have reasons to suppose that in the processes of unorganised nature this subjectivity is neither feeling nor anything like feeling: but the subjectivity of the natural processes is as it were the stuff out of which our own feelings are formed.

I accept all the arguments of Professor Mach that our ideas are artificial products; and I am also anxious to distinguish in our ideas between that which describes facts and that which has been added to the description of facts in shape of theories or conjectures.

The sense-pictures of objects and ideas also are not things but images and symbols of things created for the purpose of representing things; they are as Prof. Lloyd Morgan says, “constructs.” But these constructs are not mere fancy, they are not air-castles. They are constructed in order to imitate certain realities. Now, in building these constructs as an imitation or a copy of reality, we are often at a loss how to build them. There is for instance in the objective reality observed, a something somewhere high in the air, the basis of which is invisible, and being limited in our means of acquiring information we are ignorant of the real state of things. So in reconstructing or imitating the facts, we build scaffolds to support it, and we are too apt to forget that these scaffolds do not represent objective facts but are artifices to make certain facts, which we know in parts only, thinkable, i. e. representable without breaks in mental constructs.

XI. TRUTH IN MYTHOLOGY.

There is one point which I have emphasised and which it appears to me Professor Mach neglects, namely that our noumenal world of ideas has an objective meaning. The ideal constructs represent realities. They do not consist of scaffolds alone and there is no scaffold which has not been erected to help in building up representations of facts. Let us call the representation of facts positive science or simply truth and the scaffolding the mythology of science, and we shall see that the road to truth leads everywhere through mythology. Certain facts of the surrounding world impress themselves upon a sentient being and these impressions come to represent facts. These facts are not seen at once in their causal connection, they appear unconnected among themselves, and in the attempt to formulate them, to represent them, to construct them in mental images, we fill out the gaps of our knowledge with such inventions as are supplied by analogy.

Mythology is, in religion as well as in science, the indispensable ladder to truth. We cannot build without scaffolds. So we cannot construct truth without mythology. We have to introduce allegorical expressions in order to fill out gaps with analogies.

Mythology becomes fatal to the building up of truth, as soon as we consider it as truth itself. The scaffold is erected simply as an assistance for building and if the building is finished the scaffold should be torn down. The progress of science which is so much helped by mythology has periods of purification in which the mythology is discarded. This is sometimes a difficult task, because the very terms of science are mostly both at the same time truth and mythology, building-stones and scaffold.

Take, for instance, the term atom. The chemist observes that the elements always combine in certain proportions and formulates the law of the equivalence of their atomic weights. In order to think this process, to reconstruct it in mental images, he imagines that matter consists of infinitely small particles of constant weight. This is a fiction useful for its purpose but it may be just as erroneous as the method employed in the infinitesimal calculus of thinking of a continuous curve as consisting of a broken line of infinitely small parts, or of thinking of a certain force as being composed of a parallelogram of forces. The parallelogram of forces is a scaffold helpful for representing in mental symbols the coexistence of different abstractions of the same kind (e. g. motions of a different velocity and direction). But this scaffold is not a mere scaffold, it is not erected without any purpose, its final aim is the description of facts.

The proposition to consider light as rays traveling in straight lines is a scaffold, it is mythology; but this analogy contains a truth, it contains a real building-stone which should not be torn down with the scaffold. This truth is one-sided; it represents one feature of light and disregards other features. It disregards entirely the transversal oscillations of the ether, yet it describes another feature—viz., the transmission and refraction of light for the comprehension of which we need not take into consideration the undulation theory. The physicist calculates with his formula sinα/sinβ = n the angle of refraction. There is certainly neither a sineα nor a sineβ in reality, but there are certain relations of reality which are described in these expressions and the action of the light has a definite quality which can be determined with the assistance of the formula sinα/sinβ = n.

If the scientist succeeds in determining such real qualities of things, even though it be done with the assistance of mythology, he discovers a truth. He has with the help of his scaffolds succeeded in placing a building-stone where it belongs.

Some scaffolds have to be torn down because they hinder further building; other scaffolds must remain because they assist us in modeling, and planning, and predetermining certain processes of nature. They are like staircases which enable us to reach with ease otherwise inaccessible places on towers or domes.

* * * * *

The idea that science is full of mythology appears strange to the non-scientific, and it is often overlooked by scientists themselves. But the idea that religious mythology in spite of its many irrational superstitions and wrong analogies beams with truth is also little heeded by the many. In fact, man’s method of reaching truth is the same in religion as in science.

The religious ideas such as God and soul are mental constructs which copy certain realities; but these very terms, such as they are used, are mythological expressions; they are still surrounded by their scaffolds. Many people know by their own experience the usefulness and indispensability of the scaffold. Without the scaffold they would never have had an inkling of the truth, for the representation of which it was built, and it is natural that they consider the scaffold as the building itself. This is the reason why the narrow-minded orthodox denounce anyone who would lay hand on or tear down any part of the scaffold, which has become a hindrance to the further development of religious ideals.

Positivism, i. e. the representation of facts without any admixture of theory or mythology, is an ideal which in its purity perhaps will never be realised. Nevertheless it is no ignis fatuus, no will-o’-the-wisp that leads us astray. Our science is constantly more and more approaching this ideal and the progress of humanity is intimately connected with it.

Science has not merely a theoretic value, its aim and purpose consist in its application to practical life. Science is throughout ethical. Thus ethics has also its mythological phase. In agreement with Professor Mach (p. 204), we should find it ridiculous if one who presumes to be an ethical teacher of mankind would say:

“Man must not be descended from monkeys,” “The earth shall not rotate,” “Matter ought not everywhere to fill space,” “Energy must be constant,” and so on.

Why is it ridiculous? Because we cannot prescribe a certain deportment to facts. It is however not ridiculous to let a precise and carefully sifted knowledge of facts determine our own deportment.

Science has to teach ethics. But here also we should distinguish between positive facts and mythology. Ethics based upon mere theories, upon our interpretations of nature which we add to facts, is mythological; positive ethics is simply that deportment which is suggested by a comprehension of the facts themselves.

Mythological ethics may be quite correct, just as much so as the application of a mythological theory of science may be within certain limits reliable as a working hypothesis. But it is desirable to understand the nature of mythological ethics in order to distinguish between truth and fiction.

When Professor Mach speaks of sensations as being the elements of the world and of things as being complexes of these elements he apparently does not use the word sensation in its usual sense. It has ceased to be an abstract term which represents one feature only of a process of nature and has become a symbol for an entire reality. And is not such a usage of terms as if they were not abstracts but the things themselves liable to lead to misconceptions?

Professor Mach’s “elements,” it seems to me, are only elements, i. e. ultimate and unanalysable materials, if considered as terms of a psychological view of the world; they are not elements in the domains of other abstractions, such as are made by physiology or physics. Moreover, although this method eliminates the duality of soul and body, mind and matter, feeling and motion, it does not explain the problem.

Professor Mach might answer that the problem as to the duality of mind and matter is a sham problem, just as much as the problem why do we see things upright when the retina picture of the eye shows the things inverted? But a problem is to him who has solved the problem always a sham problem. Every problem disappears as a problem as soon as it is solved. It is true that we see as little with the blind spot of the eye as with the skin of our back. The problem of the blind spot is not why do we not see with the blind spot, (which is simply a matter of fact,) but why do we not notice, when using only one eye, its lack of sight in a spot surrounded with sight-seeing structures? We have to employ artificial means to convince ourselves that we are really blind in that spot!

All problems are merely subjective; they are a conflict between two conceptions and as Professor Mach himself says, the solution of problems consists in the adaptation of thought to facts, i. e. to new facts or new views of facts. By an adaptation of our thought to the enlarged field of vision the problem vanishes; it has ceased to be a problem. In fact it never existed as an objective phenomenon. There are no problems in nature. There are problems only to the investigating mind. But even the formulation of problems is a problem to be solved, and perhaps the most difficult and subtle kind of problems is to discover the flaw in wrongly formulated problems.

The problem of the duality of body and soul, matter and mind, feeling and motion, ceases to be a problem to him who has worked his way through to a monistic conception, but to those who have not as yet succeeded in establishing a unitary view of these ideas, because they take them to be separate and distinct existences, it is a problem of great importance.

XII. THE ONENESS OF SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY.

The world is not rigid being, but activity, not absolute existence but a system of changing relations, not an abstract Sein but a concrete Wirklichkeit—a constant working of cause and effect. There is no dualism in this, for the Wirklichkeit is one and undivided.

Yet every relation admits of two standpoints, just as the line AB, which may serve to represent a certain and definite relation, is determinable from both ends, A as well as B. Let us call A the subject and B the object. Neither A nor B is a reality, a whole complete Wirklichkeit. A thing in order to be real must be active, it must work, it must stand in relation to something else. A is a mere mathematical point, but AB representing a process does something, it performs work, it is real. A thing in itself, if it could exist at all, would be tantamount to non-existence, it would represent a Sein without being Wirklichkeit. When bearing this in mind, it appears natural that the oneness of existence, representable in such relations as is that of AB = -BA will admit of two standpoints, BA representing subjectivity, and AB representing objectivity. We can consider the relation of the world at large to one special point (which latter may in its turn stand for a whole system of relations) or vice versa the relation of this point to the world at large. The former standpoint is that of the microcosm, or the soul, the latter that of the macrocosm or the universe; the former results in awareness, the latter appears as matter in motion. The former is subjectivity, the latter objectivity.

Reality must not be conceived of as being a compound of the elements of feeling and of motion, of subjectivity and objectivity or of kinesis and metakinesis. I do not think there are atoms one-half of which contains the potentiality of sentience while the other half is freighted with energy. I conceive of reality as being one throughout, but, being throughout resolvable in relations, it will as a matter of course have two sides. What these two sides are like can be known through experience only, and experience teaches that under certain conditions the subjective side develops into feeling and consciousness, while the objective side is represented in the feeling of conscious beings as motions.

This view explains the duality of our conception of psycho-physical facts, but it is certainly not dualism. The duality belongs to the scaffold not to the facts themselves. The facts can only be thought of as being one and undivided, and no conception can stand except it be monistic.

Subjectivity and objectivity are terms that express relations and not things in themselves. There are, however, philosophers who show a great grief unless either the subjectivity of being, or the objectivity of being, or the unities in which things or personalities are gathered up, are considered as things in themselves. All those features of reality which appear to their conception unexplainable, such as the relations that obtain among things and especially the thoughts of thinking beings are supposed to be the effects of some transcendental entity, of a thing in itself. And if a philosophy denies the existence of transcendentalistic thought-entities or of any such things in themselves, which serve as cement to combine the disjecta membra of their world-conception, it is generally declared to lead straight on to nihilism—not because the world itself but because their world-system would thereby be annihilated.

All things that exist, if considered as separate things, will pass away; but if considered as parts of the all-existence of reality, they are eternal. In fact things are not separate things, in the sense of isolated, absolute, or abstract beings, although we may speak of them as such for our ephemeral purposes. All things that exist, the human soul included, are and will remain parts of the One and All.

This destroys their individuality as little as a brick ceases to be a brick because it serves its part in the building of a dome. The soul of a man if his life be well spent, is not annihilated in death, his soul has become a living stone in the temple of humanity. It continues to live and marches on in the general progress of the race.

We are parts of a great whole now, and we shall remain parts of the same great whole forever. We have never been and shall never be transcendental selfhoods or metaphysical egos, or any kind of things in themselves. Our personality is real life, it is actual being. As such it is bound up in the universal life of the One and All and no particle of it will be lost. We need not fear death, for the air we breathe is immortality.

EDITOR.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] Italics are ours. Kant affirms the italicised question.

[44] The problem of “The Origin of the Mind” having been the subject of a former paper need not be discussed here. See The Monist, Vol i, No. 1, p. 69-86, and The Soul of Man, pp. 23-46.

[45] It is scarcely necessary to mention that mediæval Realism is different from modern Realism.

[46] Aristotle’s idea of matter being potential existence is a fiction. Fictions of that kind are useful for certain purposes, but we must not forget that they are fictions. We might just as well introduce any other system of fictions. For instance we might with certainly not less propriety look upon the idea in the mind of an artist as potential reality while its appearance in a material shape is conceived to produce actual reality.

[47] The term “absolute” is for that reason neither meaningless nor redundant. It denotes a certain method of viewing things, but is not an objective quality of things.

[48] See the chapter “Soul Life and the Preservation of Form” in The Soul of Man, p. 418.

[49] The abandonment of the ego as a metaphysical being is not, as it appears to many, a surrender of the soul or of its immortality. That the immortality of the soul from the standpoint of modern psychology is preserved, that it appears in a new light, grander and nobler than before, and that this conception of immortality is of an enormous practical importance, have been the main incentives of Mr. E. C. Hegeler in founding The Open Court and The Monist.

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE

I.

FRANCE.

The recent work of M. F. PAULHAN, Le Nouveau Mysticisme, places us in the presence of a feature of modern life, if not extremely important, at least very curious.

We assist at the formation of a new spirit. But what is it? What is its value? A reply to this question would exact a long and minute analysis of all social facts. M. Paulhan does not flatter himself that he has exhausted it, and he offers us only portions, although excellent and instructive, of the required work. He shows us in rapid review, the dissolution of the ancient world, the intellectual and moral anarchy which has to-day reached its highest possible point; he seeks, in the ruins amidst which we tread, the constructive elements of a new order of things, and makes an effort to foresee what it will be.

“The scientific mind,” writes he, “the religious spirit, pity for suffering, the sentiment of justice, social mysticism, the attraction for mysterious perhaps dangerous facts that we begin to have a glimpse of, the kind of new power which the knowledge of them can give us, a general need of universal harmony: such are the principal characters of the spirit which is forming itself.” They are not, he himself says, all new. It is not the presence of these elements which is significant, but rather the singular combination in which they occur, and we could say, the precipitate that they give in the particular chemical solution where they find themselves thrown. In every case, the phenomenon does not affect entirely, it seems to us, the same characters, according to whether we observe it in the philosophic or scientific order, in the practical order, or in that of sentiment, which literature represents. The name of mysticism does not belong to every part of the new spirit equally; or more exactly, the spirit which is produced could well not be truly mysticism, but only a side phenomenon, and the very evident resurrection of the spirit which is disappearing.

M. Paulhan, if I do not deceive myself, sometimes allows himself to be too much influenced by a certain literature, to which I do not allow a very great value, and of which even the sincerity may be suspected. It represents at first, to my mind, individual conditions, and it evidently impeaches some authors of a morbid diathesis. Many of our prophets, as is known in the Quartier Latin, have or affect vices which exclude by themselves all generating power. Then, it is very difficult, in our age, to appreciate exactly the relations of literature to the public mind, seeing the diversity of romantic books, and the correlation of one to the other is perhaps not so strict, so profound as it has been in other junctures of history. In short, the modern romance is a document the relative value of which needs to be established by a most severe critic.

Some facts dominate the question, viewed as a whole. It is necessary to show the work of the scientific mind, which has the result of creating new mental habits. It is necessary to consider also that the disorder, the spirit of evil, so finely analysed by M. Paulhan, corresponds chiefly to the interpretations of ignorance, to the exaggerations of sentiment, and to the dreams, more or less monstrous, of inventive fantasy. It is necessary, finally, if they wish to augur of the future, to endeavor to disengage the laws of construction, still badly defined, of our political fabrics. The thought of M. Paulhan is good at bottom, and the materials with which he constructs the possible future are taken from the positive conditions of our mental and social life: in the practical order, “co-operation” is added to the social systems already existing, although disturbed, such as the family and the nation; in the ideal order, the conception, beyond that of humanity, of a “cosmical whole,” and a “universe,” which, to repeat it after Comte, will be favorable to man, in a certain sense, seeing that he causes it to exist.

We recommend the reading of this book. One’s time is never lost with a thinker of the stamp of M. Paulhan; he has the merit this time of disclosing to us in a few pages a vast horizon, where some points are delineated with clearness. Logicism has caused much evil in our country. Let us now beware of mysticism!

* * * * *

One of the most curious episodes of this new mysticism is assuredly the Buddhist preaching, begun in France by a small group of writers. M. AUGUSTIN CHABOSEAU, one of the representatives of this religious tendency, publishes a work, Essai sur la philosophie boudhique,[50] which it is expedient to mention. M. Chaboseau has thought it would be of interest to sum up in a volume the results of the studies on Buddhism, and to present it “such as science has proved it, that is to say very different from what Christian polemists, worldly amusers, theosophic fanatics, endeavor to disseminate.” He has had the ambition to write this volume, and for my part, I do not refuse him my curiosity.

But that Buddhism truly contains a religious formula capable of attracting to it the souls of our Occident, I have difficulty in believing. This India is very far from us, and its confused philosophy is behind us. I do not think that the nations of to-day will return to a by-gone mode; and then, this doctrine of Sakya-Muni has something against it, that I hesitate to say, as it might seem puerile: its god is too fat. Its god or its sage, as you wish. Yes, that breadth of form, that opulence of flesh, taken as a mark of goodness and power, shocks our artistic taste. Do not forget that every religion which claims our will ought to satisfy our æsthetic sentiment: it is one of the essential factors of the religious sentiment, a compound sentiment where all the emotions of a race ought to find their harmony. The opposition of India to us, so striking in the ideal of the beautiful, still continues in metaphysical speculation. We are too moderate, too sober, for the debauches of imagination in which it delights. Buddhism will be to us only a passing excrescence, and I ask myself if it lives well in the souls where it has sincerely penetrated.

I should have much to do to speak, in the briefest manner, of all the books or treatises, which in a direct or indirect manner relate either to the war of Aryanism against Semitism, and principally against the Christianism in which certain authors see the most disastrous conquest of Semitic genius; or to the reviving of mystic traditions, strange dreams, and monstrous desires; or to a religious restoration, of which the most ordinary prejudice is to assure the immortality of the soul and to reopen the beyond to man. These works are in general of slight value; they are the multiplication of decays, and we are compelled to consider them as social wastes, of which the abundance betrays unquestionably the bad health of the organism, or at least a difficult crisis of its evolution.

* * * * *

But let us return to the works of philosophy properly so-called. What are we to think of that of M. F. RAUH? I deceive myself much if his Essai sur le fondement métaphysique der la morale is considered of much service in his own circles. M. Rauh, who belongs to the philosophic youth, the youth of the age, can be well assured that the partisans of scientific morality will not upbraid him for “the admiration of high metaphysical thoughts” with which he does himself honor, but he can fear lest the metaphysicians accuse him of further compromising metaphysics by the denser obscurities he casts on it. One is stupefied to find again in a modern book a phraseology so made up of abstract words, of substantives with capitals, and logical shadows which affect the posture of realities. Much study, much work, without advancing one step, and still worse, in order to throw us again into the culs-de-sac from whence we have had so much difficulty to disengage ourselves. All the profit one can derive from this dialectic is to contemplate at the end the vague shadow of its own body that is perceived on the wall.

The metaphysicians of a certain school are not only reluctant to have to accept that morality is a natural formation, a social product, an historical fact; they wish further that the existence even of moral society should depend on the intelligence that they have of it, or of the explanation that they give of it. They affirm boldly, and these are the words even of M. Rauh, that “the fate of morality is united to that of metaphysics”—their metaphysics. This is a pretension as exorbitant as would be that of a naturalist who should refer the reality of the animal world to the idea he formed of zoölogical types, or that of a chemist who should subject the value of the positive results of science to a particular hypothesis as to the constitution of bodies.

* * * * *

There are certain difficulties of language to criticise in the work of M. ISIDORE MAUS, barrister in the Court of Appeals at Brussels, De la justice pénale, étude philosophique sur le droit de punir. A curious spectator, he tells us, of the battle waged between the new school of anthropology and the ancient penal jurisprudence, he seeks to divine the issue of it. It will probably end, according to him, in the formation of a medium penal jurisprudence, which will accept limited responsibilities, and which, while protecting society, will do its best “to give to punishment all the advantages it can.”

It would be exaggerated no doubt, I willingly grant it, to take away from repression every mark of moral reparation, all weight of “reformative power”; but I am always shocked to hear partial responsibilities spoken of. From the social point of view, the responsibility remains perfect; it is united, indeed, to the very act of having caused injury, beyond all appreciation. From the point of view of the individual, the word responsibility has the grave inconvenience of implying that the quantity of liberty or free-will attributable to the delinquent is measured. It would be less compromising and more exact, to value simply the quality, the worth of the delinquent, according to the totality of his affective, intellectual, voluntary, and pathological character, according to the nature and the conditions of the act of which he is accused, etc. We should thus escape contradictions of words which easily become contradictions of fact; we should no more stumble at this latent difficulty of free-will, in medium cases—for serious cases are never difficult. Words exercise a tyranny which jurists would do well to distrust.

Is not this, moreover, just about what M. Maus means by his favorite formula—that justice ought “to individualise as much as possible”? It is a pity only that he does not present his conclusions with the requisite clearness. His exposition is not distinct and frank. He has mental habitudes, subtilities of reasoning, which are of value at the Palais, but which it is suitable to rid oneself of when writing a book: his would gain much by being entirely remodeled, made clear and disentangled.

* * * * *

M. E. DE LAVELEYE offers to the public a fourth edition, revised and considerably augmented, of his great work, De la propriété et de ses formes primitives. We have not to recall the numerous facts which this work contains and the knowledge of which has become sufficiently general; nor to commend M. de Laveleye, who no longer expects fresh praises for it. I have only to express the regret that he should have retained the theory of property expounded in the last chapter of his book, or rather the metaphysical conception of right with which he connects it. It seems as if he wished to excuse himself from reducing property to the simple value of a fact, modifiable in its forms, by indicating as a fixed point an “order” which shall be the best, which shall be known and wished of God, sought and realised by man.

M. de Laveleye knows it as well as any one. Right is only a rule, an expression of the relations of men among themselves, in a determined geographical and historical medium. Its changes depend, in part on external conditions, in part on the characters of man himself, the state and variable equilibrium of his passions and of his mentality. If certain forms of right establish themselves proportionally, in the course of the life of nations, the fact is explained by the constancy and the universality of certain conditions, either physical or mental; the repetition of social arrangements, which produces ultimately a more stable structure and constitutes a sort of axis of development, is somewhat analogous, if we may be permitted this comparison, to the repetition of the essential elements in all architecture, or of the primitive forms in all the products of the ceramic art. What is the good of enveloping with mystery the ideal we create ourselves, and of rendering obscure a notion that we can positively explain? But let us leave here this little quarrel, for it does not touch the solid groundwork of the book.

Still to signalise are: Premiers principes métaphysiques de la science de la nature, translated from Kant by M. M. CH. ANDLER and ED. CHAVANNES, who have written an interesting introduction On the philosophy of nature in Kant; and L’Année philosophique, Iʳᵉ année 1890, published under the direction of F. PILLON, former manager of La Critique philosophique. There will be found in this last volume two profound studies, one by M. Renouvier on the phenomenist method, the other by M. Pillon on the criticism of the infinite, an excellent article by M. L. Dauriac on philosophy and particularly on the æsthetics of Guyau, finally a bibliography of French works which appeared in 1890. I wish good success to this publication; it will become valuable, and it will be still more so, in my opinion, if M. Pillon, will not recoil before the fatigue, no doubt sufficiently great, of adding to the Bibliography a critical sketch of the review articles published in the course of the year.

LUCIEN ARRÉAT.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] Georges Carré, publisher. The other works mentioned in this article belong to the Librarie Alcan.

II.

RECENT GERMAN WORKS IN PSYCHOLOGY.

A well-known alienist, Professor Pelman of Bonn, in a recently published work, advanced the assertion that the literary taste of the day pointed to a considerable decline of the intellectual health of the present generation. To him who assumes with Pelman some causal foundation of this state of affairs, it is indeed an alarming sight to pass in review the show windows of our great book centres Leipsic and Berlin and to discover the great number of editions that the products of the literature of a certain class are passing through.

Among the books that are at present all the vogue, Tolstoï’s “Kreutzer Sonata” stands in the front rank. Numberless articles in the newspapers and the magazines have already made this wonderful work the subject of discussion, both from the æsthetical and from the moral point of view. Now comes a physician, who discusses the psychological aspect of the story, and discusses it in a manner which must claim our interest and to which in the main points it emphasises we cannot deny our assent.

Dr. H. BECK has published at the house of Rauert and Rocco of Leipsic, a brochure bearing the title Des Grafen Leo Tolstoï Kreutzer Sonate vom Standpunkte des Irrenarztes, and arrives on the basis of a careful analysis at the result that Tosdnischew is a decidedly neuropathical character. Now as Tolstoï, on his own express declaration in his concluding remarks, places his own views in Tosdnischew’s mouth, this judgment respecting the principal character of the story also holds good in great measure of its author. Generally, indeed, Beck is very considerate towards Tolstoï’s person, in the expression of his opinions; but he is nevertheless very plainly outspoken when he says at the conclusion of his little book: “Let us characterise this monstrous product, the ‘Kreutzer Sonata,’ as that which it appears to every person of sound sentiments—as the emanation, namely, of a diseased brain, of a degenerated Psyche.”

The Munich physician Dr. Puschmann, who in the year 1873 in a special treatise represented Richard Wagner, then still alive, as psychically diseased, has thus found, as we see, in a certain sense a successor in Dr. Beck. But while Puschmann’s pamphlet, having been occasioned by certain conditions of affairs in Munich, was written in a hostile spirit, and while the little book of Beck’s makes no secret of its author’s aversion to Tolstoï and his works, a notorious representative of unhealthy “young Germany,” the novelist Wilhelm Walloth, meets at other hands with an uncommonly tender treatment. There is indeed nothing remarkable in this, for if anyone is in need of tender treatment it is a man who is sick. But it is very remarkable that the diseased state of a nervous system should be accredited to the writer Walloth as a great poetic excellence.

G. LUDWIGS, the author of the treatise Wilhelm Walloth, Leipsic, 1891, Verlag von Wilhelm Friedrich, had in so far the advantage of Puschmann and Beck, that he was not placed under the necessity of originally demonstrating what the actual state of the nervous system of his hero was, from his works. This condition had already been established by expert physicians in a much talked of trial before the District Court of Leipsic for circulating obscene publications. Ludwigs was able therefore to proceed immediately with his problem of ascertaining the extent to which a diseased state of the nervous system had effect in Walloth’s novels and poems. His discussion of this last question possesses great interest for the psychologist, although the reader will find considerable difficulty in accommodating his thoughts to Ludwigs’s occasionally very singular style. Setting aside the odd expressions of Ludwigs, we may say that there is exhibited in a pre-eminent degree in the writings of Walloth, first, what the physicians call hyperæsthesia, and by this is meant not only an excessive sensitiveness of the senses but also—a condition that is connected with the last—an extraordinary intensity of the emotional activity. Secondly, are found numberless bold associations of ideas which are much better known to the physician than to the æsthetician.

Unfortunately Walloth is not the only one of the representatives of “young Germany,” in whose works the characters of disease appear in such intensity, and the circumstance that books of this class are bought in such numbers and read in still greater, places the tastes and sentiments of a large portion of the educated German public in a questionable light.

If we turn our glance away from the sensational phenomena of literature to the phenomena of ordinary life, which are not uncommonly enacted in the halls of justice, it is in first rank the incorrigible swindlers and sharpers that excite our attention. We have received on this subject from Dr. ANTON DELBRUECK, a physician of a Swiss insane asylum, an interesting little work bearing the title Die pathologische Lüge und die psychisch abnormen Schwindler, Stuttgart, 1891, Verlag von Ferdinand Enke. In this book the author makes an investigation of the gradual transition of a normal psychological process into processes exhibiting pathological symptoms, and shows, in so doing, by ample material, that in every kind of intentional deception the consciousness of intention can exhibit very different degrees of intensity and can imperceptibly sink in a succession of cases to zero. As a matter of course, Delbrück’s treatise is primarily of interest to medical experts and lawyers, but it will also be of interest in a secondary degree to all circles that devote their attention to psychological studies generally, particularly so to educators who have not infrequently to do with pathological lies, as G. Stanley Hall quite recently pointed out in a very instructive article in The America Journal of Psychology on the lying of children, and as is developed in the work of Dr. Sollier, before mentioned in The Monist, entitled La psychologie de l’idiot et l’imbécile, which is also to be had in a very good German edition, translated by Paul Brie, under the title Der Idiot und der Imbecille, published by Leopold Voss of Hamburg.

In the German edition of Sollier’s book Professor Pelman, whom we have above mentioned, has written an introduction in which he speaks of the work in words of praise similar to those expressed by Lucien Arréat in The Monist. “Sollier,” says he, “has put us into the possession of a psychology of mental imbecility, in a completeness in which hitherto it was not at our disposal.” Then follows another passage which we will also quote, as it forms an important supplement to the remarks of Arréat. It is this: “Imbecility had remained the step-child of the science of psychiatry and has not by any means met with the consideration which in view of its social importance is due to it. If we go through the works, as great in number as they are in voluminousness, which have been published in the style of Lombroso on criminals and their peculiar characteristics, we shall be unable to escape the impression produced in our minds that the characteristics of imbeciles portrayed by Sollier recur point for point in the typical criminal. Here as there, the same insufficiency of all ethical development, the same frivolity, and the same incapacity for being of use in society exist. That which in Sollier’s explanation decides the whole anthropological position of the imbecile—his anti-social, society-hostile attitude—is emphasised by all writers as the characteristic trait common to all criminals, and the description of imbeciles and criminals coincides as completely in this respect as if the same individual had sat for both pictures. The conclusions that follow from this can only enlist new adherents in the ranks of the anthropological school, and this result also I should place to the profit-account of the present book.”

However profitable and necessary employment with the diseased states of the human soul may be, personally at least it is an unpleasant subject for us, and we are glad therefore that we may abandon this domain for the present letter.

The occasion of this is afforded by a valuable gift from Prof. W. PREYER, formerly of Jena, now of Berlin. Professor Preyer has presented us with a rather large volume bearing the title Wissenschaftliche Briefe von Gustav Theodor Fechner und W. Preyer. Nebst einem Briefweschsel zwischen K. von Vierordt und Fechner sewie mehreren Beilagen. Mit dem Bildnisse Fechner’s und vier Holzschnitten. Hamburg und Leipsic, 1890. Verlag von Leopold Voss. The work contains a correspondence extending from the year 1873 to the year 1883, in which the two distinguished scientists discuss (chiefly) myo-physical and psycho-physical questions, and will be of great interest to many readers of The Monist, especially as it makes its appearance simultaneously with the issuing of a new edition of Fechner’s Elemente der Psychophysik by Wilhelm Wundt.

The much fought over and much disputed province of psycho-physics has also been entered on by a younger psychologist, who has already acquired a considerable name,—by Hugo Münsterberg, docent at the university of Freiburg in Baden. In his Beiträge zur experimentellen Psychologie, which are published in parts at indefinite periods by Mohr of Freiburg in Baden—three parts have already been published—Münsterberg raises, in the first place, a vigorous protest against Wundt; repudiating on the basis of the results of independent experiment the apperception hypothesis which has been propounded by the scientist mentioned, and producing proof that all kinds of so-called apperception are reducible to associations of the representative activity. Secondly, he offers us in the third part a new foundation on which to base psycho-physics. It is, of course, impossible, in so difficult a subject, to reproduce briefly yet clearly the developments to which Münsterberg devotes one hundred and twenty-two pages. But we will at least supply a few hints with regard to what this new foundation of psycho-physics is.

In the first place, Münsterberg rejects the notion that prevails with Fechner and his school, that a powerful sensation is a multiple of a weaker one, by which the first can be measured. The stronger sensation is, says he, in comparison with the weaker one something wholly new; for, accurately considered, the intensity of a sensation is also of a qualitative nature. However, we are not by any means at liberty to infer from this that the measurement of psychical quantities is impossible. To appreciate this, it is first requisite that we should get clear ideas with respect to the psychological foundation of our physical measurements. The only foundation of these last is our muscular feeling, to this extent, that all measurement is founded on the measurement of quantities of space, time, and mass, and any estimate of the latter is only possible on the basis of the muscular feeling that enters as a factor in the conceptions involved. All physical measurement rests on the establishment, and therefore reproduction, of like muscular sensations; on exactly the same foundation rests also all measurement of psychical quantities, of intensities of sensation, and since this foundation is the same, for this very reason the same justification is due to the measurement of psychical intensity as is due to physical measurements. This is the foundation on which the psycho-physics of Münsterberg is raised, which for a fuller view must be studied in the third part of the “Beiträge” itself.

CHR. UFER.

Altenburg, November, 1891.

DIVERSE TOPICS.

THE CLERGY’S DUTY OF ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN WORLD-CONCEPTIONS.

A late number of the Gegenwart of Berlin (Vol. xl, No. 30) contained an article by Mr. Eugene Schiffer, a German justice, on the subject “World-Conception and the Office of Judge,” in which attention was called to the fact that the performance of duties, not only in the pulpit but in all the professions, and preëminently in the dispensation of justice through the courts, depends upon and stands in a more or less close connection with some definite world-conception; thus showing that religion of some kind forms and must form the background of the practical life of society. He says:

“The Church demands of its disciples as an indispensable condition of serving her the confession of a certain world-conception; she requires that every one who intends to take upon himself her rights and duties, should in his inmost heart agree with her concerning the contents of her faith, especially concerning the dogmas on eschatology, on God and world, body and soul, the origin and end of things; and this is but a matter of course, for the essential part and also the foundation of her activity lie in these very doctrines and in their propagation. It is a hard and a severe demand. Although on the one hand the morally free fulfilment of her requests contains the germ of an harmonious development of life and promises an extraordinary concentration and elevation of all faculties, it leads on the other hand to serious conflicts, of which the pages of history not less than the experiences of our daily life exhibit innumerable and sad instances. We recollect the terrible spiritual struggles in the souls of those who commenced to doubt, and the outcome is generally a pitiful catastrophe, either submission and hypocrisy with the weak, or tribulation, renunciation, and ruin with those who thought higher of truth than of their worldly emoluments.

“Most of the other professions and trades know nothing of the indispensability of a certain world-conception. The merchant, the mechanic, the lawyer, the soldier, the teacher, the laborer, can upon the whole think concerning these highest problems of life as they please. An inner and ideal conflict between their views and their calling seems definitely excluded. Outer and practical conditions—such as administrative injunctions of a certain kind, the aspiration of progress, the ambition to be better off, etc.—may sometimes produce conflicts.

“Yet this character of indifference concerning a general world-conception which is found in the secular professions and trades does not bear the stamp of permanence. For ultimately the entire doing and achieving of every thinking man, so far as it rises above the mere vegetative functions, is intimately connected with that common world-conception which everywhere influences and guides him. This is unnoticeable so long as the harmony of the connection remains undisturbed, but it manifests itself in consciousness as soon as its harmony is threatened through some important change of any of its parts. Even to-day a deep-going change is preparing itself; even now the struggle about the world-conception is fought more severely and more bitterly than ever and a new doctrine goes far enough to uncover the ultimate roots of our civilisation, of our position in life, of our calling; it attacks and shakes the present world-conception.

“This implies the possibility of a conflict between the old and the new faith even outside the pale of the church, and this conflict may influence the choice of a calling. This possibility has become an imminent probability concerning the office of judge, especially the judge of a criminal court.

“The dispensation of justice rests to a great extent upon the presupposition of guilt and the criminal law of to-day is almost throughout built upon this idea of guilt. It is true that this view has not always been taken. The Greek law and the old Germanic law interfered even in the gravest cases exclusively on account of the objective state of things without taking into consideration the criminal intent of the defendant. But this view was superseded in the former case by the Roman, in the latter by the canonical law, both requiring the conception of a moral and a subjective guilt, and at present the criminal law of every civilised nation (with the sole exception of the Chinese who threaten with capital punishment him who accidentally kills no less than the intentional murderer) rests upon the foundation of a belief in guilt.

“But there is no room for guilt in the materialistic world-conception. Everything that happens, the activity of the human soul included is to be explained according to mechanical principles and thus the view that man’s will is not free is proposed as one of its fundamental doctrines. While in this way there is no possibility left that a man might have acted differently than he actually did, this view takes away his responsibility. And this movement which either cancels or weakens the momentum of guilt, has taken hold of the minds of men far beyond the circle of decided materialists.

“The foundation of our criminal law stands or falls with the idea of guilt. With it stands and falls also the office of the judge, whose duty is the dispensation and utilisation of justice. He who does not believe in the possibility of guilt cannot without inconsistency pronounce any one guilty. He who as a matter of principle or at least within certain not well defined limits denies the freedom of the human will can no longer serve as a judge, certainly not as a criminal judge.”

Justice Eugene Schiffer is a conservative man. He demands that for the protection of the old world-conception the office of judge should be carefully guarded against such intruders as are not in sympathy with the present world-conception. He says:

“Exactly as the church, in order to preserve herself and to guard against her theology being diluted into a watery philosophy of religion, is bound not to separate the conditions of her life from a definite world-conception, so also justice, in order to deserve its name, should oblige its servants to take a definite position toward the ultimate world-problems.... He who does not accept in his conviction the moral foundations of a certain calling, must not choose it, or if he has chosen it, he must renounce it—or he must in his profession act against his conviction—unless he risks being discharged from his office on account of a neglect of duties.”

We agree with Justice Schiffer in one most important point, viz., the intimate connection of religion with practical life and of our world-conception with all our doing and achieving. But we differ from him in another no less important point, viz., in the proposition to prevent the present world-conception from undergoing a further growth and higher evolution. His proposition is nothing less than to make humanity and all its institutions stationary.

Everything that exists has a natural right to defend its existence, and so has the present world-conception. But that which grows and develops out of the conditions of the present existence has also a natural right to attain existence. The ideal world of the “is to be” is not a non-existence, as it might appear to the unknowing, but a germ existence, and if there is no room for both the actual existence of the present state and the germ existence of a new state, a struggle will ensue. There are at present and always have been many spurious world-conceptions which if they overcame the present world-conception would lead humanity backward to the beginning of civilisation. Indeed most propositions of reform are reversals which would undo the results of evolution and reduce mankind to primitive conditions. The fermenting minds of those who still hope to cure all the ills and woes of society by one stroke, have not yet outgrown the idea of the perfection, nobility, and happiness of the so-called original state of nature,

“When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”

Yet among all the plans of reform there is one which is correct, answering the wants of the time; and among all the world-conceptions which struggle to exist there is also one which is the legitimate outcome of the present world-conception. It is the present world-conception enlarged through additional experience and purified of certain errors. And it is an often repeated occurrence in history that the old and the new, father and son, have to fight with each other. The heir apparent either does not know that he is the child of his antagonist, or the latter the defendant of the present state does not know that he fights with his own son. This often repeated fact has found a mythological expression in the old Teutonic song of Hildebrand meeting in combat his son Hadubrand, a legend which in similar versions appears again in other Aryan sagas, the best known of which is the tale of Rustem’s struggle with Sohrab in Firdus’s great Iranian epic.

Can the struggle between the old and the new world-conception be avoided? No, it cannot and should not, for the new has to prove its legitimacy by showing its intrinsic strength; it must show that it has the power to exist. The struggle cannot be avoided, but the bitterness, the severity, the barbarity of the struggle can be avoided. Let Hildebrand and Hadubrand measure swords in a spiritual encounter, let the vanquished ideas yield to the stronger ideas, and they will prepare the gradual change of an evolution instead of the sudden rupture of a revolution.

Freedom of thought is always the best soil for a peaceful evolution but any system that binds the consciences of men and ties their ideas down to the average level of a certain age will be as dangerous as a boiler without a valve. There are periods of instability in history when the strengthening of the conservative spirit by imposing fetters upon the consciences of men appears useful and almost a condition for the development of some kind of a civilisation. This found expression in the historic legends of Lycurgus and Solon, binding their countrymen by oath not to alter the laws of the state. But these periods are after all ephemeral, and we ought to know by this time that we cannot bid the sun stand still or check the spirit of progress and the growth of mankind. There are nations which develop slowly because they rush into innovations, but there are other nations which have gone to the wall because of over-conservatism through which they were induced to suppress the freedom of thought and to deny the right of doubting the absolute validity of the prevailing world-conception.

The proposition of Justice Schiffer to bind the conscience of the judge by an oath of allegiance to that world-conception which is at present recognised as orthodox, is actually a law in the constitution of the church, and conflicts in the consciences of clergymen are of a common occurrence. The opinion that a clergyman who has ceased to believe in certain dogmas of his church has to resign this position is very common among freethinkers as well as orthodox believers. At first sight this seems to be the only choice left to a man of honesty and a lover of truth. I held this opinion myself for a long time. There is nevertheless another view of the subject which caused me to change my opinion entirely, and I am glad to perceive that such a man as Mr. Moncure D. Conway who held himself a position in the church and having grown more and more liberal has retired from active service, declares most emphatically that a clergyman who has grown liberal should not resign but stay in the church and wait till the church forces him to leave his position. This is an honest course, a clergyman has a right to pursue it and he will thereby open the eyes of his fellow-men; he will further the interests of mankind, and people will thus be enabled to judge better whether or not it is just to impose these burdens upon the pastors of the church.

Let us consider the case more closely. First, the oath which a young clergyman gives at his ordination is a promissory oath, and like all promissory oaths it holds good on the supposition that all the main conditions remain the same. If a man promises and binds himself by an oath to start to-morrow morning on a journey he does so on the supposition that it will be possible. So far as he can foresee it is possible, but incidents may happen which will make it impossible to-morrow. A promissory oath will be a weight on the conscience if it has to be broken, but it has no legal force. Thus soldiers swear an oath of allegiance to their king, and under ordinary circumstances there will be no cause for doubt as to the propriety of remaining faithful to the oath. But many cases of great perplexity will appear when a civil war splits a nation in twain so that brother stands against brother and faithfulness to the king may be the most degrading felony toward one’s highest and holiest ideals, perhaps also toward one’s bodily parents and nearest kin. Who does not recollect the sad end of Ludwig II, king of Bavaria. When the mind of the unfortunate monarch was too much deranged to leave him in possession of his royal power, a commission of several authorised men went to the castle where he resided to place him under the care of a physician. The king refused to receive the commission and ordered his faithful guards by whom he was surrounded to seize the commission, gouge out their eyes and treat them otherwise in the most outrageous way. The commission not being protected were for a moment in great danger, but happily the guards perceiving the seriousness of the situation did not execute the king’s orders and we might say,—broke their oath.

Did they really break their oath? No, they did not, for when they were sworn to obey their sovereign master and lord, it was supposed that the king was and would remain in his right mind. He became insane and this changed the situation entirely.

The oath of allegiance which the ministers of a church swear at their ordination is made in the bona fide conviction on both sides,—the church on the one side and the man that takes orders on the other side,—that the dogmas to which he pledges his troth are the truth. The oath holds good so long as a minister believes that the dogmas of the church are the truth; it still holds good so long as he considers it possible that they may be true. But the oath to believe them ceases to bind in the sense in which it was demanded as soon as a minister sees clearly that they are not true and that their truth is an actual impossibility. It ranks in the same category as the oath of allegiance to a sovereign who has become insane.

But the case is more complex still. If promissory oaths have no legal force because in certain cases a man would have to act against the letter of the oath, have these oaths no binding power whatever, as soon as a minister recognises the incongruity of the church belief with truth? I should say that they have a binding power, yet this binding power must be sought not in the letter but in the spirit of the oath.

One of the most prominent of juridical authorities, Prof. Rudolf von Jhering, has written a book entitled “Der Zweck im Recht.” He finds that all laws, all wills, all decrees have a purpose, and this purpose is their spirit. There are laws worded so badly that obedience to the letter of the law would under certain and unforeseen circumstances enforce exactly the contrary of that which the law was made for. Instances of this kind are of not an uncommon occurrence especially with regard to wills; testators and their legal advisors being often unable to formulate their intentions in a logical shape. Jhering maintains that a judge in construing a will, a decree, or a law has to find out the intention and purpose of the testator, the magistrate that gave the decree, or the legislator, and it is this intention or purpose with which his decisions have to agree. Supposing however that this purpose of a will or a law is wrong in itself or nonsensical, a judge has to construe it so that it will have sense. If the purpose is criminal the whole transaction is illegal, if it is irrational or illogical, it has to be interpreted so as to make it rational and logical. If it has reference to antiquated views, customs or institutions it has to be adapted to the corresponding modern views and to existing conditions.

An instance from practical life will explain the last point. There are many institutions in Northern Germany which were founded as cloisters or monasteries. The nuns and monks have been engaged partly in teaching, partly in attending to the sick, and in other useful purposes. The funds of these institutions exist still, and serve now those purposes directly which they have served formerly indirectly through the service of nuns and monks. Most of them are employed for the maintenance of schools, some of them as hospitals, others as homes for unmarried daughters of government officials or for homeless aristocratic ladies without means, etc. These changes have been wrought by history as the natural consequence of new conditions. Many of them were made in actual violation of the letter of the testators’ will; yet they were made bona fide with the intention to remain faithful to its spirit? The question is not what a testator intended his will to be half a millennium ago, but what he would intend it to be in the living present, knowing all the changes which the progress of the times have wrought and having progressed with the times.

Before we answer the question, What is the purpose of the minister’s oath? we should first see clearly, what is the purpose of the church. Is the purpose of the church really to be sought in the propaganda of some absurd dogmas? Or does not rather the preaching of these dogmas itself serve a purpose?

The dogmas of Christianity were some time ago supposed to be the indispensable instruments of ethical instruction. All the churches are educational institutions to inculcate the moral ought on the basis of a popular world-conception. The church of England for instance is a national institute and it is not true that one church party has the right to impose its religious conception upon the rest of the nation. When the church was founded some crude notions were taken to be absolute truths and no man can at the present time be required to believe these crudities. All institutions are conservative but most conservative are the courts of justice and the church. The conservatism of jurisprudence is characterised in the saying which appears to be its leading principle fiat justicia et pereat mundus. Jurisprudence too often forgets that the dispensation of justice serves the purpose of sustaining life, of promoting the general welfare and enhancing the prosperity of the community; it overlooks the spirit and clings to the letter.

Our justices are inclined to believe that if a new world-conception arises, (which by the bye will as we believe not be materialistic nor will it destroy the idea of moral responsibility, although it may change our views about guilt,) their whole system of jurisprudence will break down. They are afraid of a pereat justicia et vivat mundus. Justice Schiffer is not at all anxious to prove the truth of the old world-conception, he is satisfied with proving that the new world-conception is incompatible with the old view of justice. Criminal law means punishment and punishment presupposes the idea of guilt. He argues:

“The question remains whether the conflict between the new and the old world-conception could be avoided by adapting our views of justice to the new world-conception; yet this question is to be denied, for the notions of guilt and punishment belong to each other according to logical, ethical, and moral principles. To punish without assuming guilt is as nonsensical as it is immoral.”

It would lead us too far here to show that moral responsibility still subsists on the supposition of a strict determinism and that the criminal law with its punishments will not be abolished in the future. Yet there is no doubt that our views of punishment will have to be changed; indeed they have changed and how much they have changed, can be learned by a comparison of an execution of to-day with one of a few hundred years ago. The idea of punishment in the sense of inflicting pain as a retribution has gone and it has gone forever. There is no more burning of the criminal with hot irons, or twitching with hot tongs, or tearing out his tongue, or stretching on the wheel. The criminal is executed with as little pain to him as possible. Why this change? Because a new world-conception has entirely altered our views of punishment and it is going to alter them still more. Penology is not to be based upon sentimentality as some so-called philanthropists intend to do; nevertheless it is to and it will become humane because we have abandoned the old conception of guilt which as Justice Schiffer correctly states was a fundamental idea in the old jurisprudence, and this antiquated conception of guilt has partly but not as yet entirely been overcome.

The church is in a position similar to that of the criminal law courts. A change of our world-conception has set in and the church is not as yet adapted to the change. The church having found it necessary for its purpose of preaching ethics to insist on the belief in a world-conception which demonstrates a moral world order, now attempts to perpetuate certain errors of our ancestors’ conception of this moral world-order.

The oath of a clergyman having been asked and given bona fide on the supposition that the dogmas of the church were the truth, holds good still, but it must be construed as in similar cases a judge would have to construe a faulty will or an ill-worded law. It has to be construed in the spirit and not in the letter.

Clergymen who have grown liberal should not leave the church. It is their duty to stay in the church and to make their influence felt to broaden the spirit of the church. If the church removes them from their position, they yield to the authority at present in power, but they should not yield without a struggle, to be conducted on their part modestly but firmly, with reverence toward their authorities, with tact and decency, but fearlessly and bravely, for they are fighting not only for their personal interests but for the progress of mankind, they are fighting for the holiest treasures of the church—for truth.

The abolition of these burdens on the consciences of the clergy would be a natural consequence of repeated struggles. Let a pastor be bound to respect his church authorities, to obey them in all matters of administration, let him be bound to revere the ecclesiastical traditions of which he should never speak lightly, but do not prescribe to him a belief of any kind. Pledge him to serve the truth, to speak the truth and to live the truth; and that simple pledge will have more weight than the requirement to believe dogmas which, his superiors know but too well can no longer be believed literally but must be taken cum grano salis.

Christ says concerning the observances insisted upon by the Scribes and Pharisees: “They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne: and lay them upon men’s shoulders.” This passage is applicable also to the present system of ordination. Christ’s saying is read in the churches and it is, as most of his words are, as new to-day as it was at his time, but who thinks of its application to our present system of burdening the consciences of men?

P. C.

A COMMENT BY PROF. F. MAX MÜLLER CONCERNING THE DISCUSSION ON EVOLUTION AND LANGUAGE.

To the Editor of The Monist:

I must thank you and Professor Romanes for the frank and searching criticism to which you have both subjected my article on “Thought and Language,” published in The Monist. You have shown that you care for truth and not for victory, and you have carefully abstained from any personal remarks which are so apt to embitter scientific controversy and in consequence to render its chief object, the discovery of more truth, illusory. We all have the same object, we all want to know what is true—why then should we not all work together, listen to friendly criticism, accept useful advice, confess our mistakes, and work as hard as we can in the special field allotted to each of us.

As soon as I find a little more leisure, I shall not fail to reply fully to both your articles. At present I only write to you to defend myself against an undeserved charge brought against me by Professor Romanes. I had said that Professor Romanes had no right to speak of men like Noiré, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, to say nothing of Hobbes, with an air of superiority. Professor Romanes replies that he never mentioned Mr. Herbert Spencer at all, that it would have been well for me, if, before condemning his supposed treatment of Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and Noiré, I had looked at his Index. This is a serious charge. It would show a want of accuracy unpardonable in a scholar. It is true, Mr. Herbert Spencer’s name does not occur in the Index. But on p. 230 we read: “So here again we meet with additional proof, were any required, of the folly of regarding the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition.” Now it is well known that it is Mr. Herbert Spencer who regards the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition. I have shown that the facts of language are against Mr. Herbert Spencer, but I should not therefore think it right to charge him with folly. This will show that if I wrote without Index, I did not write without book.

Yours truly,

F. MAX MÜLLER.

Oxford, Oct. 28, 1891.

BOOK REVIEWS.

SYNOPTIKER. APOSTELGESCHICHTE. Bearbeitet von Professor H. J. Holzmann. Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Freiburg, i. B.: Akademische Verlagsbuchhandlung von J. C. B. Mohr. 1892.

This book is the first volume of the “Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament” edited by the Professors H. Holtzmann, R. A. Lipsius, P. W. Schmiedel, and H. v. Soden.

No better man could have been selected for the first part of this great work than Prof. H. J. Holtzmann, who is not only a theologian of most comprehensive scholarship but also has devoted his energies to this special subject. He has lectured regularly for a number of years at the university of Strassburg six or eight times weekly on the synoptic gospels and three times weekly on the Acts. The principle of his method has been laid down in a former work of his, viz. “Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in das Neue Testament.” The present book contains an enormously voluminous material condensed into a comparatively small space of 448 pp. large octavo. The author being a theologian his attitude toward his subject is naturally reverent, paying an unreserved homage to the greatness of Jesus. Yet at the same time his investigations are strictly scientific and in accordance with the rules of criticism as employed in any historical investigation. It is no exaggeration to consider Professor Holtzmann’s work as representative in the highest degree; it embraces the most complete knowledge at present attainable and that too in a most concise form as a practical handbook with parallel tables and indexes of reference for students of the New Testament.

The author first formulates “the synoptic problem,” which has been solved after innumerable vain attempts by the so-called “Marcus-Hypothesis,” which is at present considered as satisfactory, because it alone fulfils every condition and explains all the difficulties. Holtzmann regards the figure of Christ as historical. The impression of his powerful personality was a living presence in the first congregation at Jerusalem. But all the interest centred in his words. The words of their Lord were faithfully preserved by oral tradition. Sentences so short and yet so pregnant with meaning as “Blessed are the peacemakers,” or “Ye are the salt of the earth,” “But let your communication be, Yea, yea: Nay, nay, etc.,” are so impressive that whoever has heard them once, will never forget them. The interest in the word was soon complemented by an interest in facts and events which was much later followed by an interest in dogma. The first differences among the Christians originated through the mission among the heathens. The gentile Christian became indifferent concerning the Jewish traditions and clung with all his religious enthusiasm to the Christ as his saviour. Christianity became a cosmic religion while the Jewish Christians still looked upon Christ as the Messiah of the people of Israel. The Jewish view of Christianity is represented by Matthew, the gentile view by Luke. Mark however does not show any development of dogma. According to Papias, the Apostle St. Peter had whenever it became necessary for an explanation of the words of Christ, occasionally told certain events of the life of Jesus; which were afterwards written down by Mark. We find in Mark, Matthew, and Luke the same building stones, but how differently arranged! Mark shows evidence of relating real facts of history, he begins with John the Baptist, tells us how Jesus became baptised, how he preached the kingdom of God; according to Mark, Jesus does not declare himself as the Messiah from the beginning. His activity grows by degrees, his disciples increase, he heals the sick, and it is from the mouth of these that he was first proclaimed as the Messiah. He becomes a power among the people and makes himself offensive to the authorities who consider him as dangerous and attempt to take his life. Jesus forbids those whom he heals to proclaim that he is the Messiah. He sends out his disciples not to preach him as the Messiah, but to proclaim the kingdom. At last in Peter the idea dawns that prompts him to declare: “Thou art the Christ.” Yielding before the persecution of his enemies, Jesus travels North and East and here he accustoms himself to the idea of a suffering son of man. His self-confidence increases and he travels courageously to Jerusalem where, as he could foresee, he would meet his fate. The drama of his life culminates in his word “ἐγώ εἰμι” (1462) in which he reveals his self-consciousness as being the Messiah. Being triumphantly hailed in Jerusalem by people of Galilee and such as believed in him he hastened his doom. It is not likely that Jesus could have publicly been held to be the Messiah for any length of time, for the Roman police was wont to suppress such movements without discrimination. They did not stop to investigate the case as to the character or motive of the movement whether or not it was purely religious or political. They never tolerated any “son of David” or “king of Israel” who held any influence over large masses of the people.

While Mark still preserves the development of Jesus’s messianic consciousness, Luke as well as Matthew have entirely obliterated it. According to Mark, Jesus proclaims the kingdom; Matthew and Luke make him preach his person. They make Jesus proclaim himself as the Messiah from the very beginning and his command not to speak it out openly given to those whom he healed and also to his disciples has no sense here. Matthew has a liking for cabalistic numbers, there are three times seven generations the names of which are not without doing violence to historical facts adjusted to the pattern, there are three temptations, seven parables, etc. Throughout we notice reflection, purposive selection of the material, and artificial adjustment to a plan. The book has a tendency to show that Jesus was the King of Israel predicted by the prophets and in the psalms. Luke on the other hand has also a dogmatic programme. It is the gospel of gentile Christianity as founded by Paul.

The critical school finds adversaries among theologians as well as unchristian thinkers, both of whom are apt to speak of fraud when religious books are written with certain dogmatic tendencies. Professor Holtzmann objects to such a view of the development of Christianity. He says that a religion which did not rouse sufficient enthusiasm to develop a religious poetry would be very poor and lifeless. Even the apocrypha of the New Testament are evidence of the vigor of the new religion, although we must be aware of the fact that the Church showed good judgment when adopting its canon to accept those which were full of moral meaning and to reject those which were mere myth without any deeper significance.

We have given this abstract of one part of Holtzmann’s work with the omission of all the learned by-work for those not familiar with theological investigation. Similar results are obtained by an inquiry into the origin of the Acts. The apostles were the first and living representatives of the Christ. Out of the interest in the apostles’ words grew an interest in their actions and lives, and there are a great many writings of this subject preserved. One only has been received into the canon.

It is impossible to follow Professor Holtzmann into the details of his work, but we can warmly recommend it as the best compendium existing, not only for the student of theology but for everybody who is interested in the results of the scientific criticism of the synoptic gospels and the Acts.[51]

κρς.

SCHRIFTEN DER GESELLSCHAFT FUER PSYCHOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNG. Heft 2. Ueber Aufgaben und Methoden der Psychologie. By Hugo Münsterberg. Leipsic: Ambr. Abel. 1891.

In this monograph Professor Münsterberg prepares the way for greater and more important work. His aim is to define the province of psychology and to investigate the methods which have to be employed. Psychology is not philosophy; accordingly the consideration whether there is a reality of an outside world does not belong here. The psychologist is not bound to wait till this and other metaphysical questions are decided with certainty; the reality of the outside world has simply to be assumed together with its cognisability.

What means ‘to explain’? “To explain means simply to render clear that which is not clear or to reduce the unknown to the known, the complex to the simple (p. 104).... It is an indispensable presupposition of any natural science to consider nature as being capable of explanation (erklärbar), and this presupposition means that natural processes can be perfectly separated into most simple mechanical processes. This presumption can be realised to-day only on the basis of the atom-conception. It is accordingly not an experience, but a postulate of natural science to derive the whole material world-process from the mechanism of atoms. A description becomes an explanation in the measure in which it approaches this aim” (p. 105). The question is, whether in psychology, description can be supplanted by explanation, whether laws can be stated instead of mere rules.

Professor Münsterberg takes that ground in psychology which as it appears to us is the only tenable ground, viz. that feelings are not motions and cannot be explained as converted physical processes. Professor Münsterberg says: “A sensation, a feeling, a will can never fill even the very smallest space. What is extended in space can never itself be a state of consciousness. To the psychologist this distinction is now a matter of course, so much so that it is difficult to call to one’s mind how much trouble it cost to acquire this insight. The object of psychology accordingly can never be an object in space, it can never be a process of motion, accordingly, even brain-irritation can under no circumstances ever become the object of psychology” (p. 97). Psychology has to investigate the psychical phenomena of the individual consciousness (p. 102), it has to separate it into its elements, i. e. those ingredients which are no longer divisible; which being done, psychology searches for the rules for the combinations of these psychical elements and shows us the different complex contents which are formed in this way by the elements up to that totality of single combinations which is given us as the contents of our spiritual personality (p. 103).

“The question is, (1) Are there psychological processes in us, the development of which presents itself with immediate certainty as necessary, and (2) can we reduce all the individual and with them all the spiritual phenomena to such spiritual processes recognised as necessary? The first question can be affirmed, although only in a limited sense, and the second question must be unequivocally denied, thus making an immediate explanation of psychical phenomena impossible” (p. 107). The first question is to be affirmed in a limited sense, because “if certain premises are thought, the conclusion, it appears to us as a necessity, can be thought thus and not otherwise” (p. 108). But this is “a logical and not a psychological necessity.” To actually think the conclusion depends upon the will to think it. The will actually existing, the logical necessity becomes a psychological, for “the connection between the willing and the willed (zwischen Willen und Gewolltem) always appears to us as necessary.... Where there is inner will there is an inner necessity.” Now, in order to make explanations in the physical world, we supplement that which has been actually observed with not-observed connections. But we cannot, according to Münsterberg, in an analogous way supplement in the world of psychical phenomena the conscious states with any other kind of states which are not conscious, thus referring our spiritual life and acts of will to unconscious processes, for “the very nature of psychical states is consciousness, i. e. a state of being conscious. Ihr Sein ist das bewusst-sein.... A state of consciousness, says Münsterberg, which is not conscious, is comparable not to a body which is not perceived, but to one which does not exist. Accordingly unconscious psychical phenomena do not exist. All psychical phenomena are directly given and the reduction of their combinations in a certain way through hypothetical psychological supplements is once for all excluded” (p. 110).

We agree in all the main positions with Professor Münsterberg, but in the last mentioned point we disagree. Professor Münsterberg limits psychical states or feelings to states of consciousness without considering that there are subconscious and even unconscious feelings. By consciousness we understand those feelings alone which are concentrated so as to be connected with the ego, i. e. the present centre of consciousness. We assume that even the spinal ganglions of the brainless frog are feeling if the skin is irritated, but this feeling can never become conscious, it can no more be telegraphed to the central station so as to become co-ordinated with other feelings which are registered in the brain. The objection may be raised, We do not know whether the ganglion is feeling; and I should answer, I call feeling anything that is of the same nature as the elements of which consciousness consists, and we have all reasons to assume that there is such an elementary psychical accompaniment of the ganglionic irritations, and that consciousness rises from many such elements through their co-ordinate combination in the brain. Isolated feelings are never conscious, and consciousness is a co-operative system of feeling. This distinction between consciousness and feeling is a mere matter of terminology. If we find another terminology more practical we are willing to surrender ours. Yet such a distinction between consciousness and feeling seems to be necessary for a proper description of the psychical facts. The assumption of subconscious states and even of unconscious feelings is a great help in explaining the phenomena of consciousness. But unless we are grossly mistaken, our disagreement is merely apparent, for Professor Münsterberg, rejecting the idea of a psychological explanation, believes in the parallelism of psychical and physical phenomena. “The physical acts” (he says on p. 125) “reducible to mechanical axioms can be explained through causation, the psychical acts follow one another without inner necessity. If we connect both, we are enabled to transfer the necessity-connection of the physical upon the psychical and offer thus an explanation where otherwise description only was possible.” But in doing this, have we not supplemented those psychical elements which appear as conscious states by other psychical elements which have not entered into that combination which makes them actually conscious? It is an hypothetical addition for the sake of explanation, a Hilfsconstruction just as much as the supposition of the existence of atoms or electric currents or other physical phenomena which are not directly observed, but indirectly in their effects only.

Supplements are necessary for explanation wherever the immediate facts do not contain all the elements of a certain process. If an observable phenomenon has not its conditions in observable facts we hypothetically assume unobservable facts as its causes. But we may incidentally remark that description and explanation are not different in kind, but in degree. Explanation is an exhaustive description set forth in its greatest possible simplicity. An exhaustive description enumerates all the determinative factors of a process and it drops everything that is of no account, so that information is imparted with the greatest economy as well as completeness. An exhaustive description is a reliable guide to preascertain the outcome of a process, and reveals in this way the identity in the change, the continuity of the process and the conservation of matter and energy in their transformations, or, in other words, it reveals the necessity of the result. There is perhaps no natural science in which the processes can be exhaustively described without hypothetical supplements and so the science of psychology forms no exception to the general rule.

The aim of psychology in its wider sense will be “to separate all the contents of consciousness into their elements, to state their laws of combination, and to seek in an empirical way for the diverse elementary psychical contents, their correspondent physiological irritations, in order to explain in this way mediately from the coexistence and succession of physiological irritations the purely psychological laws of combinations which as such are unexplainable” (p. 127).

Our objection to this view resembles much some of the objections which Professor Münsterberg himself makes when speaking of the availability of the mathematical method so-called. He says: “Measuring and counting of psychological phenomena have been made repeatedly, directly as well as indirectly, and it has been proved that mathematics can be applied to psychology.... Nevertheless it would be a misuse of the word if we named these numerical descriptions an ‘application of the mathematical method.’ If an historian of literature counts the poems and dramas of authors, if he also calculates how long it took them to write their literary products, who would call his work a mathematical history of literature? Even astronomy would be no mathematical science if we counted only the stars in the sky.” If the aim of psychological explanation were as Professor Münsterberg here asserts to be reached through the explanation of physiological states only, we should say, that the physiological method were alone admissible in psychology, a principle to which our author rightly objects. Psychical states sometimes demand a physiological explanation, and we cannot understand psychology without having a certain amount of physiological knowledge. Nevertheless, the explanation of psychical states and the necessity of certain connections must be understood mainly from the psychical elements themselves. Psychical elements, i. e. feelings, as has been explained on other occasions, have acquired and constantly do acquire meaning. This meaning which appears in sensation-symbols and thought-symbols and which is different in the different forms of feeling (correspondent to different forms of nervous action), creates a new domain,—the domain of spirit,—and thus psychical states are changed into spiritual facts. Suppose for instance that a merchant receives his mail; he opens a letter containing some important news which sets at once all his nerves into irritation, makes him neglectful of all other things in order to attend with great haste to one special affair. How can we explain this instance, or any other spiritual act through a consideration of physiological conditions. Is it not the meaning alone which special sense-impressions convey that produces the extraordinary effects? The physiologist would as little be able to detect this meaning through an analysis of the sense-impressions, as an electrician would be to understand the import of a telegram when measuring the strength of the electric current in the telegraph wires. The combinations of the purely psychical states may after all not be quite unexplainable, while their physiological concomitants are in many cases insufficient to account for spiritual interconnections.

In discussing the methods of psychology Professor Münsterberg rejects the speculative and the mathematical methods; he claims a great importance (and we agree with him) for self-observation. But self-observation is no easy task; it requires a high degree of training. “He who does not understand botany cannot make observations of plant-life. The same things which call into play certain associations in the botanist are also seen by the layman, but they remain unobserved. Self-observation is in a similar way ... not without its presuppositions; it is dependent upon a rich store of ready associations” (p. 164).

Psychological investigations under natural conditions are classified by Münsterberg according to their objects, as those of the normal man, the child, the savage, the insane, the animal, etc. In experimental psychology, psychopetal, psychofugal, and psychocentral processes are distinguished. For psycho-physiological investigations we have besides, (1) the immediate experiment in the laboratory, (2) the method of anatomy, (3) of comparative anatomy, (4) and of physiology. Professor Münsterberg concludes with an appeal to institute special professorships of psychology, which is at present a mere branch of philosophy. It takes all the energy of one man to keep abreast with the progress of psychological investigation. “No medical man, no lawyer, no theologian, or educator should enter into practical life without having passed an examination in psychology ... the growing generation of children, the sick, the criminal, and the comfort-seeking souls of mankind have to suffer if teachers, physicians, judges, and preachers are ignoramuses in the matter of human soul-life.... But here also the gods have placed sweat before virtue.”

κρς.

LA PHILOSOPHIE DU SIÈCLE. By E. de Roberty. Paris: Félix Alcan.

The author of the present work, which forms a volume of the Library of Contemporary Philosophy, is one of those disciples of the founder of French positivism who, while following in his footsteps to a certain point, do not hesitate to diverge from the beaten track when they think their leader has gone astray in his philosophic quest. M. de Roberty speaks of Comte with reverence as his first guide and his best master, and he finds in the very contradictions of the Master the germ of his own conception of the general trend of philosophic development.

The fundamental thesis of the present work is that the three contemporaneous philosophic systems, those of Criticism, Positivism, and Evolutionism, are merely varieties of a single species, as strictly parallel manifestations of a common stock of beliefs and general hypotheses. The basic identity of the thought of this century is shown by the ever increasing convergence of the great leading ideas, as exhibited in the prevailing theories of knowledge, by the preponderance of relativism, and of agnosticism. It reveals itself, especially in the similar conceptions formed by the most varied systems, not only of the essential characters of philosophy, its method, and the ends it ought to pursue, but also of the scientific laws which govern its evolution. We cannot follow the author through his discussion of all these points and we must therefore restrict ourselves to the most salient features of his argument.

Modern philosophy is represented by three principal schools: Criticism which originated with Kant, Positivism founded by Comte, and Evolutionism introduced by Spencer. These three systems had a common ancestry, that of sensualism. The critical philosophy is the legitimate heir of sensuous idealism, and the positive philosophy the immediate descendant of sensuous materialism. The evolution philosophy is itself rooted in sensualism, but it is really a conciliator of the two great philosophies which preceded it, Criticism and Positivism. This conclusion, which appears to us just, is supported by various considerations to which reference here is not necessary. M. de Roberty bears testimony to the influence of the philosophy of Kant over the development of the evolutionist conception, which could be applied to society only by giving an apparent universality to the mechanical hypothesis. This was accomplished by Spencer, as it had been done to some extent by Comte. The popularity of the evolution philosophy is explained by the author as due to its admixture of agnosticism with a monism which captivates the masses “by the audacious assertion that it has raised all veils and resolved all enigmas.” Kant, Comte, and Spencer have equally seized this characteristic trait of the genius of our century. They each treat, says M. de Roberty, of the most transcendent problems of metaphysics, and place them carefully under the cover of the experimental method. Let us add that they are each different expressions of that genius, which marks the progress of the mental evolution of mankind.

The second part of M. de Roberty’s work deals in the first place with the conceptions of philosophy, its nature and its end, framed by the three great modern systems. The confusion generally made between philosophy and science is first pointed out, the evil of which arises from the fact that allowance is not made for the progress of scientific knowledge. The author is strongly inclined to favor the idea of the general equivalence of science and philosophy, in the sense that every effect is identified with its cause. But as the effect is always modified with its cause, neither the content not the general conception of philosophy can remain unchangeable. Philosophy becomes thus the co-ordination of the sciences in view of their general and abstract finality—by which is meant simply the last term of an evolution—a conception of the world.

In what do the conceptions of philosophy held by the criticist, the positivist, and the evolutionist, differ from that formulated by M. de Roberty? He affirms that they all entertain certain errors of method derived chiefly from ancient metaphysics. The prototype is found in Kant, who says that philosophy is a system of universal acquirements formed of abstract notions, and that it has for its aim the passage of our understanding from sensible to suprasensible knowledge. The latter is the a priori, the permanent and verifiable hypothesis, for each of them. It is the transcendental element which all modern philosophy has derived from the past, and which forms the bond of alliance between faith and knowledge. Of the three postulates of Spencer, the universal hypothesis is in the first, an Unknowable Force. The other two belong to psychology, proving that the English evolutionist, like Comte, confounds science with philosophy, which to him, as to his predecessors, is a simple theory of knowledge.

Philosophy is a method which conducts to a conception of the world. But, says M. de Roberty, modern philosophies fail in that they deal with hypotheses. Now, although hypothesis is the soul of the special sciences, for philosophy it must always be a purely mental recreation. To render valid the universal hypothesis constructed by philosophers, it would be necessary that the sum of the final truths of science should include the sum of the phenomena which constitute nature.

We cannot follow the author through his ingenious criticisms of Spencer’s great synthetic formula, to which he devotes the twelfth chapter of the present work, and which he characterises as the perfect type of the universal unverifiable hypothesis. Nor can we do more than give a passing glance at his views of the psychology of the three modern systems of philosophy. He affirms that the metaphysical transformation by criticism of psychology into philosophy left hardly anything to the special science. To positivism is due the conception of psychology as forming an integral part of biology, which has led to the important psycho-physical experiments of the present day. But the biological analysis of the individual should be followed by social analysis, the study of mental manifestations in society, in connection with which should be created a special concrete science to embrace the higher psychology, as pointed out by the author in his work “La Sociologie.” Science, art, and industry are a projection into the external world of the thinking, feeling, acting subject, and psychology ought also to be thus projected by fusion with biology, or with biology and sociology, which it is necessary to study if we would discover psychic laws.

In the chapter on the Supremacy of Science, the author affirms that the philosophy which will result from the progress of psychology and sociology will present a striking contrast with all known metaphysical forms, but it will always remain a world-conception, and it will have to submit to the law of correlation which explains the character and destinies of its predecessor. Agnosticism, which invites men to bend before the Deus ignotus of all religions, marks the fatal termination of ancient anthropomorphism, influenced by a progressive knowledge, and thus appears as the final integration of all theology. It also represents, however, the condition of incognisance to which the opposite state will succeed when the cycle of abstract sciences is completed and a really scientific psychology formed. Then hypotheses as to universal causes will receive their psychological solution, and it will remain for philosophy only to confront and co-ordinate them with the general results of other sciences. Having arrived at this point M. de Roberty formulates the conclusion that Philosophy and Science are terms which connote two principle species in the vast genus designated by the single term knowledge. The most marked trait of future philosophy will be the distinction of these two species, as their confusion was the most general character of the philosophy of the past. Philosophy and science will then be perfectly identified, but the identity will be general and not specific. Thus philosophy will not be positive in the sense of Comte, it will never completely identify itself with science.

In his last chapter, entitled “The Intellectual Series,” M. de Roberty continues his criticism of the views of Comte as to the law of the evolution of philosophy. He shows that, so far from this being the most general law of intellectual evolution, and therefore the supreme law of all social phenomena, philosophy is only one of three intermediate terms, the others being art and industry, by the aid of which the evolution of scientific ideas acts on the ensemble of the social evolution. The intellectual evolution is the direct consequence of the social fact, but the social evolution is subject to the laws of intellectual evolution, which embrace four great classes of conceptions, answering to the four well recognised groups of facts known as science, philosophy, art, and industry. We have here the same series of special evolutions as those supposed by Comte, with the important change, however, marked by the inversion of the first two members of the series. In this relation, the author affirms that Comte’s law of the three states is false so far as concerns the evolution of the sciences, and is of very secondary importance as regards the evolution of philosophy and the two succeeding evolutions.

The author concludes his work with a criticism intended to show that the principal defects of Comte’s system arise from the confusion previously insisted on in relation to the first terms of the intellectual series, science and philosophy. That confusion is exhibited in the statement that among the ancients philosophy was developed before science and art. M. de Roberty, moreover, declares Comte’s theory that the industrial development is the point of departure of modern civilisation, leads to a complete subversion of the logical and historical. Instead of the useful or the proper being, as that theory would require, the foundation of the good and this, in its turn, the germ of the true, the true is the foundation of the beautiful, and of the good and the useful. But the true is more complex than supposed by Comte. It possesses at least two aspects, science and philosophy, which may be really distinguished, although the line which separates them is yet undetermined.

We have given a summary of M. de Roberty’s general argument, instead of referring to particular propositions which may be open to criticism, because his work appears to us a very valuable contribution towards the elucidation of the important question as to the position of philosophy in relation to science. We shall look with much interest for the appearance of the author’s two further works which he announces as supplementary to the present one. That on Agnosticism is already in the press. The subject of the other work is Monism, which M. de Roberty characterises as “the chimerical pursuit which has essayed, through the ages, to fix the so-called unity of things, the extra or supralogical identity of phenomena.” This hypothetical monism of philosophy is dealt with incidentally in the present work. The “supralogical identity of phenomena” is a different kind of monism from that of The Monist.

Ω.

UEBER BEWEGUNGSEMPFINDUNGEN. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doctorwürde vorgelegt der hohen philosophischen Facultät der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität zu Freiburg i. B. By Edmund Burke Delabarre of Massachusetts. Freiburg in Baden: Hch. Epstein, 1891.

Dr. Edmund Burke Delabarre introduces himself to the world of science with an excellent monograph on motion-sensations, based upon careful observations which were made in Professor Münsterberg’s psychological laboratory at Freiburg i. B. The subject of the dissertation is of great importance and there is much confusion prevalent at present even among the most prominent authorities. It appears to us that Dr. Delabarre has adopted the right view and he certainly defends it with great ability. Professor Wundt rejects in his Physiological Psychology all the theory of the so-called “muscle-sense” and admits that there is some truth in the three explanations devised as an explanation of our consciousness of performed motions, which thus would be a complex of (1) pressure-sensations, (2) specific muscle-sensations, and (3) innervation-sensations. This third kind of sensations is of a very hypothetical nature. The term signifies that, when muscles are innervated we are supposed to have a direct sensation of the innervation in the central nerve-organs; and this view is objected to by Münsterberg, who says that “a brain irritation which is not accompanied with centripetal effects or central after-effects of former muscular activity has its physiological consequences but excites no conscious states.” Thus, according to Dr. Delabarre, without the motion of the sense-organs, i. e. muscular activity, there is no consciousness; all consciousness derives its data from the periphery. Dr. Delabarre goes over the whole field of the literature of the subject and weighs all pros and cons. He finds that all cases are intelligible without the supposition of central innervation-sensations. He admits that the term muscle-sense is vague, but he believes that the term having been generally introduced may be retained. He defines it as that complex of sensations which results from muscular activity.

The second part of the dissertation contains the reports of the experiments, describing the instruments used and the methods employed.

We are informed that Dr. Delabarre has been appointed to the chair of psychology in Brown University.

κρς.

LE NIHILISME SCIENTIFIQUE. I. Dialogue entre le Doctor Oudèn et L’Etudiant Ti son Neveu. Rapporté par P. Van Bemmelen. Leide: E. J. Brill, 1891.

Dr. Oudèn’s nephew thus summarises the scientific, or rather “philosophic” views of his uncle: “There is no God, but there is the world. In this world there are neither souls, nor mind, nor life; there is only matter and its elementary forces. Nevertheless these forces do not exist; there is only movement, the sole function of matter, which is inert. In its turn, matter has no reality; it is composed of geometrical points which are susceptible of movement. But as there is neither time nor space, there is no movement.” Nothingness is thus reached, but beyond is illusion, the maja of the Hindoos, which explains all our conceptions of nature including that of our own being. This scientific maja is not the semblance of a real world, but that of a world which does not exist, so that illusion and nothingness are the same thing. From which it follows that there is no illusion and no mind to be deceived! Mr. Van Bemmelen’s opuscule is an ingenious jeu d’esprit, evidently intended to exhibit a certain phase of speculation as a reductio ad absurdum.

Ω.

DIRITTO SOCIALE TENTATIVO IN BOZZA. Dell’Avv. Pietro Pellegrini. Borga a Mozzano. 1891.

There is no denying the activity of the statesmen and scholars of modern Italy in the cause of radical, social reconstruction and, as remarked by a recent traveller in Italy, in the “building up again a Commonwealth, founded on high principles of right and equality.” “Diritto Sociale,” in Italian jurisprudence, of course, relates to municipal and positive law, in its social-economical and social-political aspects. But, in a country with the municipal and political traditions of Italy, this “Diritto Sociale,” even in modern times, exhibits a tendency to crystallise into a kind of concrete, social religion. The Avvocato Signor Pietro Pellegrini, the learned author of this book, appears to feel deeply concerning the present condition of this branch of jurisprudence in Italy.

In his preface the author says, that during the present century legal science has not made any very substantial progress; that the revolution of the last century, while asserting the famous rights of man, forgot the rights of juridic persons, of corporations, and law became an individualista—or, individualiser. On the strength of his juridic personality man thereupon engaged in a struggle for his rights on the vast social field, but he found himself alone—an individual and nothing more. As such, he could not form a juridic, social organism, but he merely sought to adapt himself to an actual, external juridic organisation, differing but slightly from old-time despotism. On this basis the State still continues to create municipal and positive laws, more or less adapts them to the facts of reality, arbitrarily creating juridic persons and administrative bodies, such as the mandamenti, circondarii, provincie of the modern Italian kingdom—all of which are only hybrid administrative entia, that do not in the least satisfy a number of local public needs; and therefore, there is no harmony between individual men and the juridic persons, between the public administrative entia and the State, and there is bloody war among the States themselves.

The ultimate cause of all this conflict is to be ascribed to the individualism of the law, in not recognising organic, juridic relations; and this, moreover, necessarily called forth the reaction of an exaggerated socialism.... Person has a much wider significance than individual; person cannot be isolated, individual, because, juridically, person implies an exchange of relations with others; hence, juridic persons ought to enjoy a greater legal authority than they actually enjoy in our modern jurisprudence. The plasma sociale, or the original social mould, is developed by degrees into a vital, practically real, organism, endowed with a physical body, that needs the material means of nutrition, in order to live, to preserve, and develop itself. These, however, do not exist; because nature furnishes only sufficient means to preserve man in a purely savage, animal condition. But, at least, there exist the sources, or fountain-heads, from which it is possible to derive the desired nutritive materials; on condition of molding or transforming those fountain-heads, and of assuming their efficacious, practical direction. In the individualised or individual system there takes place a struggle among the individuals for the possession of that nourishment, in which case, however, the sources themselves are appropriated rather than the nutritive materials they contain. Such is the exclusive nature of the social means of nutrition, present and future, through which a large number of individuals will be at the mercy of a few, while the notorious “rights of man,” remain powerless....

The rights emanating from the organic concept of personality, together with the physico-economical laws of the fountain-heads of social nourishment, spontaneously furnish the equitable distribution of the nutritive materials to each organic member, so that there is no monopolising of those natural fountain-heads, but a normal nutrition of all the organs, according to their needs, and their actual capacity as juridically displayed....

Those fountain-heads, besides being limited, are scattered through space, because it is impossible to unite or concentrate them on any particular point of the globe. Hence this plasma sociale or social mold is distributed through space according to imperative laws, that result from the combined capacities of the respective juridic, that is, social persons, with the capacities of the respective sources of social nourishment—of different municipal organisations, of cities, townships, and villages. All these are pre-eminently juridic and social persons, each one possessing its peculiar functions, that cannot be exercised by other persons. The present work contains a lengthy but valuable introduction in four chapters, discussing the general concept of law; and thereupon the book is divided into three parts, in which are explained the principles and development of positive law in its respectively civil-social, social-economical, and social-political aspects. This work, throughout, presents a number of equally important and novel points of view, through which the author’s concept of an organic municipal and social law everywhere becomes the surest means of creating unity and harmony, not only within the general department of law, but also within the sphere of practical legislation.

γνλν.

AN OUTLINE OF LOCKE’S ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. By Mattoon Monroe Curtis, M. A. Leipsic: Gustav Fock, 1890.

This excellent study was presented to the University of Leipsic as the Inaugural Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and it is well deserving of publication, if for no other reason than the need of such a work. There appears to have been hitherto no complete account of Locke’s System of Ethics, which does not even find a place in Mackintosh’s “Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy.” The author has not been able to discover any trace of the treatise on Ethics which Locke proposed to write, but his published works “abound in ethical observation and severally took their rise from ethical considerations,” so that there is no deficiency of materials from which to ascertain his ideas on that subject.

Mr. Curtis very justly remarks that it is important to ascertain an author’s views before criticising them, a truism which is not always acted on, as indeed was the case with Locke’s own critics. He does not, however, profess to criticise but, as the title of his work shows, to give an outline of Locke’s Ethical Philosophy. In his Preface he states that his author adopted the Stoic division of Philosophy into Physics, Ethics, and Logic. The object of Ethics, is described by Locke, in his noted “Essay,” as the seeking out of those rules and measures of human actions, which lead to happiness, and the means to practice them. The end of this, is not bare speculation, and the knowledge of truth; but right, and a conduct suitable to it. In the application of its principles Locke may be said to have gone further than any of his predecessors and of most of his successors. As pointed out by Mr. Curtis, he maintains that the institutions of government, religion, and education are, in essence, ethical and that all are parts of a system which must be based upon, and be in harmony with, the fundamental physiological and psychological principles of human nature. This follows from Locke’s principle that the Individual, and not the Family, is the real social unit. Man is a rational, social, religious, and political being, and, therefore, “in the individual is contained, potentially, all institutionalism.”

It must be noticed, however, that to Locke the moral dynamic in human society is the concept of God. He regards this idea “as a natural, formal, necessary and transcendental principle at the root of human nature and institutions, and consistently declares that the denial of it dissolves all,” as it alone gives a sufficient explanation and sanction to the principles of morality. This brings us to the very foundation of ethics. All depends, however, on our conception of God. Locke maintained that duty “cannot be understood without a law, nor a law be known or supposed without a law giver, or without reward or punishment.” His conception of God, therefore, was that of a law-giver, and he believed that the existence of God could be demonstrated not only by teleological argument, but also by psychological proof drawn from the being and nature of man. Locke was so thoroughly convinced of the dependence of morality on the existence of God, that, notwithstanding his general liberality of thought, he excluded atheists from toleration. He writes: “Promises and Covenants, and Oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an Atheist.”

It would be a mistake to suppose that, because Locke believed morality to be founded in our conception of God, he considered the moral law referable simply to the divine will, and therefore to be arbitrary and changeable. So far from this, he regarded the moral law as eternal and immutable, and affirmed that its cardinal principles could be discovered and laid hold of by the light of nature. As says Pfleiderer, when speaking of Locke and Wolff, “Locke also considers a supernatural revelation to be possible, and to have actually taken place in Christianity, but he insists as strongly as Wolff does, and even more logically, that this revelation must not in any way contradict the natural revelation given us by God in our reason.” Locke expressly declares, that the reason is natural revelation, while revelation is natural reason enlarged. The latter he regarded as necessary because, although reason is sufficient for the virtuous, penalties must be relied upon for influencing the multitude; and in revelation the doctrine of immortality with future rewards and punishments is made known. Whether this revelation is true or false, the fear of future punishment has undoubtedly had a restraining influence over the vicious. But reason would not be sufficient for the virtuous without an inclination natural or acquired, to virtue. It is a question of disposition, and this will be virtuous or vicious, according to the conditions under which the individual has come into being and been “educated,” in the fullest sense of this term. Reason forms part of these conditions which, so far as they are not purely objective, are dependent on or referable to human nature; as, indeed, must be the supposed revelation of enlarged natural reason.

In relation to the ethical life, Locke declares that happiness is the only idea which reason takes up out of the sphere of pleasure and pain, and yet that if we aim directly at happiness, we shall miss it. What then has to be done is to seek out “the rules and measures of human actions which lead to happiness.” This is the office of ethics, the end of which is virtue, and thus happiness and virtue are one. With Locke moral actions are only those that depend “upon the choice of an understanding and free agent.” The agent here intended is, as pointed out by Mr. Curtis, the man, and not the will. Locke says that the proper question in connection with freedom, is not “whether the will be free, but whether the man be free.” The will is determined by the mind, and liberty is “a power to act, or not to act, according as the mind directs.” In his “Thoughts concerning Education” Locke affirms that “the result of our judgment, upon examination, is what ultimately determines the man, who could not be free, if his will were determined by anything but his own desire, guided by his own judgment.” The position of Locke is, says the author, that of Plato and Kant: Reason is given as the governor of the will, by its sway to constitute it good. Thence we may rightly conclude, that those who are not governed by reason have not true freedom.

We have not space to consider the views entertained by Locke on Institutional Ethics, beyond referring to his doctrine that property rights are given only by labor, and not by occupation, and that labor is the source of all values. The latter doctrine cannot now be accepted as sound, whatever may be said as to the former, but Locke deservedly holds a high place as a political economist. He seems indeed to have been a kind of universal genius. Mr. Curtis refers to the remark made of him “that no philosopher since Aristotle has made and recorded so many valuable observations, or given so great a stimulus to human thought.” Any fresh light that can be thrown on the opinions entertained by so profound a thinker, especially on the important question of ethics, is of value and hence we welcome the present work as an acceptable addition to philosophic literature.

Ω.

* * * * *

N. B.—Owing to lack of space, reviews of a number of new works have been crowded out of the present number of The Monist; among which the following will appear in No. 3: Die Entwickelung des Causalproblems in der Philosophie seit Kant, by Dr. Edmund Koenig; Spinoza’s Erkenntnisslehre in ihrer Beziehung sur modernen Naturwissenschaft und Philosophie, by Dr. Martin Berendt and Dr. Julius Friedländer; Leitfaden der physiologischen Psychologie, by Dr. Th. Ziehen; Handbook of Psychology, by J. M. Baldwin; An Essay on Reasoning, by Edward T. Dixon; Das Dasein als Lust, Leid und Liebe, by Hübbe-Schleiden; Die Bedeutung der theologischen Vorstellungen für die Ethik, by Wilhelm Paszkowski; and Einleitung in das Alte Testament, by Prof. C. H. Cornill.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] A companion work on the Old Testament has been written by Professor Cornill. We shall review it in our next number.

PERIODICALS.

VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.[52] Vol. II. No. 6. September, 1891.

CONTENTS:

POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY AND THE UNITY OF SCIENCE. By _B. Tchitcherin_.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN THEOCRACY IN THE FIFTH CENTURY. The Cosmic Views of St. Augustine in his Genesis. By Prince E. Trubetzkoi.

ETHICS OF LIFE AND OF THE FREE IDEAL (conclusion). By K. N. Ventzel.

OPINIONS CONCERNING L. N. TOLSTOÏ. By N. Strachoff.

FROM THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. By Vladimir Solovieff.

SPECIAL PART: (1) Fundamental Moments in the Evolution of the New Philosophy. Metaphysical Philosophy: Descartes and Occasionalists. By N. Grote. (2) Measurableness of the Simplest Mental Acts. By E. Tchelpanoff.

CRITICISM AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. Review of Philosophical Periodicals. Book Reviews.

APPENDIX: 1) Recent Publications. 2) Transactions of the Moscow Psychological Society.

Positive Philosophy and the Unity of Science. This article is made up of extracts from a lengthy competitory dissertation presented by the author to the Moscow Psychological Society. The writer points out the fallacy of the “fundamental law” of the Comtist philosophy—the supposed gradual evolution of human thought through three successive phases,—the theological, metaphysical, and positive stage of development. The writer contends, that the so-called “positive stage,” as conceived by Comte, is really neither positive, nor even scientific, if we examine its main foundations. As all the world knows, Comte was not satisfied with the results of the particular sciences, but wished to effect their comprehensive unity. The writer lays stress on the fact that Comte failed to perceive the inward contradiction of his whole system. His followers, in order to overcome this difficulty, were compelled to advance still another step. Despite the teaching of Comte, they recognised in mathematics the whole of a science that derived its principles from experience. This is shown by Littré in his criticism of the system of Comte (Aug. Comte et la Philosophie positive, page 567), where Littré refers himself to the analysis of Stuart Mill in his Logic. The author, in order to reach a definite and satisfactory solution of this important problem, in his next, concluding article, will investigate the nature and alleged solidity of the mathematical principle.

The Philosophy of the Christian Clergy in the Fifth Century. In analysing the whole literary activity of St. Augustine, we observe, in the evolution of his doctrine, three stages, that closely correspond to his own personal struggle against the three heresies of his time—Manicheism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. Yet all of these three stages are characterised by one and the same principle—the ideal unity of the Christian churches. This ideal aspiration reveals itself as a kind of constructive principle of the universe; as the supreme principle of a social organisation of humanity, as the substance and contents of subjective, human freedom. The Bishop of Hippona,—after thus having developed the several aspects of his doctrine against the heresies,—sums up, and concentrates his teaching, in its widest bearings, against the heathen. Here this Christian ideal attains its fullest and final expression, and is formulated as a Civitas Dei, as the unity of a universal, divine Sovereignty.

Ethics of Life and of the Free Ideal. In concluding his exhaustive reflections on the subject of Guyau’s system of ethics, in which the writer frequently has occasion to cite the critical parallel views of A. Fouillé and of other English and Russian philosophers, Mr. Ventzel remarks, that his aim has been, not only to introduce M. Guyau’s system of ethics to his Russian readers, but also and mainly to show the relations of this system of ethics to moral obligation. The writer wishes to say in conclusion a few words about Guyau’s relation to ethical sanction. Guyau rejected any moral sanction, in the strict sense of the word, that was distinguished or detached from social sanctions, as such. In this sense he conceives moral sanction and moral obligation in his Ethics of Life, in his Equisse d’une Morale. If life, of itself, creates an obligation to work, simply, on the strength of our capacity to work, in such case life also will create its own ethical sanction. Even when generously giving itself away, life will without fail, again and again, find itself. No matter how it be cut short, life will preserve a vivid consciousness of its fulness and significance and will reappear in some other place and under other conditions; for, truly, nothing in this world lives and works in vain.

Opinions Concerning Leon N. Tolstoï. Mr. Strachoff’s psychological study would doubtless possess an additional interest to western readers if the writer had really given an exclusively Russian estimate of Tolstoï’s character and intellectual activity. In this respect, however, we must not expect to find any very marked deviation from the well-known current views of the reading public of other nations. “The main cause,” Mr. Strachoff observes, “why people are incensed against Tolstoï, is to be found in the fact, that, of all men, Tolstoï has most widely deviated from universally received ethical notions, and that he antagonises his century, even in certain delicate problems, that will always be the dearest to mankind. You cannot help feeling this, when you listen to the clamour, reproach, and vituperation, that have been raised against him throughout the civilised world. For the rest, it seems rather odd, that, at the close of the nineteenth century, there should have risen such a number of deadly foes against an inoffensive writer and thinker like Tolstoï; and yet, long ago, we had been accustomed to the intemperate utterances of a host of enraged freethinkers, whom we have endured with patience and meekness. Why, accordingly, have we all of a sudden lost our patient tolerance, and why are we almost ready to start a systematic persecution against the thoughts and words of a book like the Vasnaya Polyana (Clear Field)?... It must be admitted, that there is a certain originality in his writings. Every line possesses a freshness and novelty that are entirely his own; and yet his language is tame, and the subjects even more common than in other writers. He frequently describes the birth and death of very plain people. He tells us how these same people amuse themselves, eat, drink, and dance on feast-days, cut the hay, go to church, to confession, and so forth. Occasionally he tells how a jealous husband kills his wife,—a fact, that has been told in so many other literatures. But in anything he relates, he has the art of throwing a strong, clear light upon his subject, so that it seems to us, as if those time-worn scenes were seen and heard for the first time. In this consists the real originality of Tolstoï’s art. And he is the same in his ethical teachings. They strike us by their directness, vigor, sincerity; and for this very reason they powerfully arouse our love and our yearning for those deep, spiritual cravings that invite man to lead a higher life—“to live a god-like life.” Here also, at times, it appears to us, that we hear about those lofty aspirations for the first time; but when you pay close attention, you will find that his doctrine is really based on the ethics of the past, and you meet with traits of that self-same Christian doctrine with which you have been familiar from early childhood.”

From the Philosophy of History. Mr. Solovieff, this time also, has chosen a title that scarcely conveys a definite idea of the aim and contents of his article, which describes the specific relations of the Christian idea to the historical evolution and political ideal of the nations of antiquity. (Moscow, 1891)

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MIND. October, 1891. No. LXIV.

CONTENTS:

BELIEF. By G. F. Stout.

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. (II.) By _H. R. Marshall_.

THE FESTAL ORIGIN OF HUMAN SPEECH. By J. Donovan.

INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. By L. T. Hobhouse.

DISCUSSION: (1) Dr. Münsterberg and Experimental Psychology. By E. B. Titchener. (2) On the Origin of Music. By H. Spencer.

VALEDICTORY.

Under “Belief” Mr. Stout includes every mode and degree of assent or dissent. To disbelieve a proposition is to believe its contradictory. Doubt is belief in a disjunctive judgment. In a former article he dealt with the “Genesis of the Cognition of Physical Reality.” He now treats of the various kinds of real existence; as follows. The Real in Sensation. The real as immediately apprehended in sensation must not be confounded with the percipient mind. Sensation as such is real in so far as it limits and controls the movement of attention, by restricting the range of subjective selection. The Real in Judgments of Comparison. In and through the peculiar movement of attention in endeavoring to keep it fixed on A in the very act of fixing it on B, the points of agreement and difference between A and B gradually emerge into clear consciousness. Objective Attributes of Presentation. Dr. Pikler’s theory of the psychology of Objective Existence fails to distinguish between the phenomena which are merely observed by voluntary attention and those which are actually produced by it. The act of introspection modifies more or less the mental processes which it examines. Their pre-existing strength and mode of operation can be ascertained only by elimination of the peculiar reinforcement or enfeeblement which they acquire by emergence into distinct consciousness. The Objectivity of Space and Spatial Relations. Although we can produce change of place by moving our bodies, according to our will, this freedom of selective selection has rigid limits imposed on it by the very nature of space. This control imposed on our freedom by the nature of the object constitutes its objectivity. The constant possibility of transition from one position to another is apprehended as inherent in the very nature of space independently of our will. Whenever I distinctly attend to the nature of a spatial limit, I must of necessity admit that space is boundless. What has been said about the objectivity of space in general applies mutatis mutandis to the objectivity of space-relations as treated by the geometrician. The psychological conditions of my subjective certitude lie ultimately in the impassable barriers, arising from the very nature of space, which confine the freedom of my constructive movement. Reality in the Association of Ideas. Association is a cause of belief. If certain contents of consciousness have once been copresented in a certain relation to each other, the reproduction of the one tends to bring about the reproduction of the other in the same relation in which they were originally copresented. A comparatively feeble association may command belief merely from the absence of counter-associations. This is the basis of Bain’s doctrine of primitive credulity. Subconscious Conditions of Belief. The presentations which successively emerge into the forms of consciousness are only fragmentary portions of the total mental system. Many, if not most, of our beliefs depend on the operation of subconscious elements which, in massive combination, co-operate to support a certain connection of ideas which appears in consciousness as an object of attention. But such massive support may arise from the connexion of the belief with practical interests or æsthetic enjoyments, or with some powerful organic sensation. Apperception and Belief. Ideal combinations may be separable or inseparable according as this or that apperceptive system happens to be predominant. This is best seen in its pathological exaggeration in the case of suggestible patients. Under normal conditions the necessary alternation of different apperceptive masses produces a corresponding variation in the conditions of belief. The Real in the Products of Constructive Imagination. The work of imagination either imposes an illusion on the mind, or it does not. In both cases there is a certain reference to reality. Illusion is a temporary and often more or less imperfect belief in the product of constructive imagination; a belief which can be indirectly produced or dissipated at will. The Real as Physical Resistance. In the experience of the irregular interruption of otherwise continuous series of muscular sensation, which, apart from this restriction, are producible at will, we apprehend real existence. The reality, however together with that of sensation as such, being communicated to the interpretations which we are constrained to put both upon sensations and their order, gives rise by a very complex process to the presentation of a physical world. Conclusion. The law of conflict is the psychological counterpart of the logical law of contradiction.

In the present paper Mr. Marshall examines in detail his thesis that Pleasure and Pain are determined by the relations between the amount of activity in, and the nutritive conditions of the organ which determines the conscious content (Mind No. 63). He states the psychological conditions for Pleasure to be: “A content which appears normally at regular intervals will tend to be indifferent. If it appear with hypernormal intensity or frequency suddenly in the course of the normal regularity, it will for a relatively short time appear as pleasurable, but this pleasurableness will soon fall away into indifference.” The psychological condition of Pain is said to be: “If a content which has already often appeared in consciousness appear with unusual frequency or exceptional intensity, it will ordinarily be accompanied at first by pleasure, which usually will wane until the content appears indifferent. If the hypernormal stimulus continue (except as after described) the content will become painful, and this pain will increase in amount, and having reached a maximum will decrease gradually until it disappears, but in general with it will also gradually disappear the content itself, not to reappear in consciousness for a considerable time, if ever. In some cases, however, if the content be not over intense, we may look for a gradual decrease of the pain felt at the beginning until a condition of indifference is reached.” Time is an essential factor in the process of organic repair. For each organ there will be a certain time after action has ceased at which recurrent activity will be most effective. Here we have the physical basis of the gratifications obtained through rhythms. There is also a relation of rhythm to pain. The throbbing of acute pain, so far as it is not directly traceable to pressures of blood-supply, is probably indirectly traceable to the rhythm of blood-supply. Turning to Psychology proper, the laws of Pleasure-Pain may be stated in terms of Attention. Pleasure, as involving the use of stored force, implies a continuance of activity in the organ of pleasurable content, and therefore a tendency to continuance of Attention upon that content. Pain, on the other hand, implies a tendency to cessation of activity in the organ of the painful content, and therefore the disappearance of the content. The notion that pleasure is mere absence of pain is denied by this theory, which accounts for the connexion, in a broad way, between Pleasure and Pain and activities respectively advantageous and disadvantageous. In relation to Ethics this theory teaches that the act of will, per se, is pleasurable as the outcome of the conditions of opposition which are anterior to the will-act. Further, action in the direction of the greatest desire is the most pleasant action. But this does not show that the effect of habit may not be such as to lead to action against the strongest desire and away from the greatest pleasure. Further, the object of desire, whilst it may be, is not necessarily the attainment of pleasure.

A scrutiny of the psychological aspect of musical pleasure, says Mr. Donovan, will lead to the conviction that its origin required simpler psychological machinery than the origin of speech, which was possible only through the aid of that machinery. The ear is superior to the eye in respect of their relative contributions toward making up our mental life and activity. The superiority of the ear rests on its functional passivity. This allowed auditory impressions to force themselves into consciousness in season and out of season. The facts of history and ethnology which may be given a new aspect when regarded in the light of the analysis of music cover a very wide field, beginning with the first and rudest vestiges of communal sympathy and tribal glorification, and extending up to the national song or epic. It is peculiar to man to give expression to communal interest in a way which has nothing to do with life-caring instincts. That interest finds its first and rudest expression in bodily play-excitement: (1) bodily play-movements in imitation of actions, (2) rhythmic beating, (3) some approach to song, and (4) some degree of communal interest, display themselves as the most constant elements of all festal celebrations. If we start from the generally-accepted explanations of play-movements in animals, and grasp the ultimate reason why play-excitement became infused with the communal spirit, there will be no difficulty in tracing evidence of this spirit even where they are most hidden by accompanying habits. Success in a common enterprise tends to preserve it. The natural modes of expression of the communal elation follow, i. e. the bodily play-movements in imitation of the successful actions and the rhythmic beating. These movements give to consciousness preservative elements of sensation. Every step of tonal development was made in order to prove the effectiveness of the elements of sensation which could preserve the content of consciousness springing out of play-excitement and communal elation. The attention-drawing power a musical tone possessed was enhanced by the conditions of its production which ensured repetition in a persistent temporal succession. Animals’ excited cries were both before and after the stimulating rhythmic beating—produced tones. The same excitement which impelled to these cries also impelled to rhythmic beating, and thus produced a persistent auditory model for the cries. The philologist says that roots are elements of words which analysis can reduce no further. The psychologist can trace them back to the musical tones which became reproductive agents of the vague presentative elements of actions as they had been repeatedly held together in consciousness by the psychological machinery of nascent musical pleasure.

In a previous article (Mind, No. 62) Mr. Hobhouse aimed at proving that all reasoning involved generalisation from observed facts, and that all such generalisation could be shown to proceed on a definite principle. There are two main ways in which Induction and Deduction may be distinguished. First we may distinguish the assertion of a universal from its application. The application of a universal to a particular case is represented by the syllogism in which the major is a general judgment and the minor a particular judgment of perception. When two judgments are compared they are found to be (1) Tautologous—the same assertion of the same fact. (2) Different statements of the same fact. (3) Assertions of different facts. A judgment expresses a relation between two terms, and hence two judgments may be said to assert the same fact when they assert the same relation between the same terms. But if either of the terms or the relation differs, then they assert different facts. Generalisation involves a universal principle connecting different facts. Syllogism does not. Syllogism appears as simply the opposite side of generalisation. In the latter we assert a universal for the first time, in the former we apply a universal already asserted. But in both we are dealing with the same relation of universal and particular. Whether we assert or apply our universal, the same ultimate logical fact, expressed in the axiom of Induction, is at the bottom of the process. But a different distinction may be drawn between Induction and Deduction. The whole process of bringing particular facts under universals by observation of similar particulars may be called Induction, while the combination of several universals in a chain of reasoning is called Deduction. In the first, Generalisation, we assert a universal on the ground of a particular, or a particular on the ground of a similar particular. In the second, Construction, we assert a relation between two universals on the ground of the relation of each to one or more intermediate relations. Construction involves generalisation at every step, and is a true reasoning process. The nature of the generalisation may be shown by the typical Deductive axiom. If, where two terms are in any way related to a third, a relation between the two is observed, then when any other two terms are similarly related to any third, the relation between these two will be similar to that observed between the first two. The simplest construction on which others rest is that of two relations to the same type, and this axiom applies to relations so understood. The axioms postulated by Reasoning lay down the conditions under which facts not presented may be known to exist, and they are thus distinguished from those principles called the “Laws of Thought.”

Mr. Titchener severely criticises Dr. Münsterberg’s experimental psychology, pointing out various errors, and concludes that “whether the theories of the Beiträge stand or fall, their experimental foundation has very little positive worth.”

In reply to the criticisms in Mind, No. 63, Mr. H. Spencer points out that Dr. Wallaschek has overlooked a passage in which the former recognises rhythm as an essential component of music. He does not coincide with Dr. Wallaschek’s view, however, since it regards music as acquiring its essential character by a trait which it has in common with other things, instead of by a trait which it has apart from other thing. It is from the emotional element of speech that music is evolved—not from its intellectual element.

After referring to the fact that harmony, as ordinarily understood and as spoken of by him, is concerned with the fundamental tones and ignores the overtones, Mr. Spencer states that he cannot accept Prof. Cattell’s view that harmony has been developed from melody. To establish the evolution of the one from the other, there must be found some identifiable transitions between the combinations of tones constituting timbre, which do not constitute harmony to our perception, and those combinations of tones which do constitute harmony to our perception.

In his Valedictory on retiring from the Editorship of Mind, Professor Robertson refers to the establishment of the Review in 1876, on the initiative of Professor Bain, by whom it has since been sustained, and he mentions that most of the experimental research has been contributed by the American hands “that have been or are now organising psychological laboratories over all the breadth of their own land.” (London: Williams and Norgate.)

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. October, 1891. Vol. II. No. I.

CONTENTS:

THE UNITY OF THE ETHICS OF ANCIENT GREECE. By Prof. Leopold Schmidt.

THE PROBLEM OF UNSECTARIAN MORAL INSTRUCTION. By Felix Adler, Ph. D.

THE THEORY OF PUNISHMENT. By Rev. Hastings Rashdall.

AN INTERPRETATION OF THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OF OUR TIME. By Prof. Henry C. Adams.

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME. By Dr. Ferdinand Tönnies.

THE ETHICAL TEACHING OF SOPHOKLES. By Prof. Arthur Fairbanks.

THE RIGHT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND. By Prof. J. Platter.

DISCUSSIONS.

Prof. Schmidt’s article is a reply to a criticism of his work on the ethics of the ancient Greeks which had appeared in the International Journal of Ethics.

Dr. Adler’s article is the introductory lecture of his course on Moral Instruction before the School of Applied Ethics at Plymouth. He refers first to the difficulty in the way of combining moral and religious instruction in the public schools arising from the difference in religious belief of the tax payers, and to the devices suggested to circumvent the difficulty. The first of these devices is that Catholics, Dissenters, and Jews, shall formulate a common platform of belief. There are two obvious objections to this proposal. It would leave out of account the party of the agnostics and be a gross injustice to them, and it would never content the really religious minds of any denomination. It would be acceptable only to the comparatively small class of so-called rationalists or theists pure and simple, and they have no right under the specious plea of reconciling the various creeds, in effect, to force their own creed upon the rest of the community. The second device is that religious and moral instruction combined shall be given in the public schools by persons of the several denominations. The high authority of Germany is invoked in favor of that system but Dr. Adler states that the example of Germany cannot be quoted as a precedent owing to the relation between the state and the schools in that country. The system, moreover is not a happy one as, agreeably to Professor Smith’s propositions that scientific instruction must be unsectarian and religious instruction must be sectarian, the latter ought to have no place in state schools, at least in a country where the separation of church and state is complete. To the third arrangement proposed, that each sect should build its own schools, and draw upon the fund supplied by taxation according to the number of children which it educates, there are two objections. Owing to the power of sects and their influence, direct and indirect, the rules and regulations prescribed by the state for the schools to conform to would not be enforced. And secondly, the purpose for which the public school exists would be defeated, as the sectarian schools tend to prevent the growth of that national unit which it is the very business of the public school to create and foster. The correct answer to the question as to the way in which to impart moral instruction so as to satisfy all parties will be the solution of the problem of unsectarian moral education. The answer is: It is the business of the moral instructor in the school to deliver to his pupil the subject matter of morality, but not to deal with the sanctions of it; to give his pupils a clear understanding of what is right and what is wrong, but not to enter into the question why the right should be done and the wrong avoided. The conscience can be enlightened, strengthened, and always without once raising the question why. Professor Adler, it appears to us, overlooks the intimate connection between the two questions of what is wrong, and why is it wrong. With the “why,” which is the moral sanction so-called, he excludes the criterion of right and wrong and confines himself to conventional morality. Professor Adler proposes, that the material for the moral lessons should be “the stock of moral truths accepted by all good men.” This would be a very simple solution of the ethical problem. Mankind need no longer remain in doubt as to what good and bad is. We have only to accept the propositions of “all good men.” But where is the judge that shall decide who are to be considered as good men? Either Professor Adler considers his own views of moral goodness as authoritative and ultimate or his reasoning moves in a vicious circle.

Professor Tönnies and the Rev. Hastings Rashdall discuss punishment as a preventive of crime. Professor Adams finds that the genius of invention established the factory system replacing the old domestic system of industry. The change of a society based upon tools into a society based upon machinery means that the worker has lost control over the conditions of labor which he now tries to regain. Arthur Fairbanks says that according to the ethics of Sophokles, conscience was sense of conformity to an æsthetic ideal. J. Platter of Zürich rejects Henry George’s theory as “nonsense.” (Philadelphia: International Journal of Ethics, 1602 Chestnut Street.)

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RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. September and October, 1891.

CONTENTS:

L’IMMAGINAZIONE NELLE SUE RELAZIONI NORMALI E MORBOSE COLLA SENSIBILITA. By L. Ambrosi.

L’ORIGINE INDIANA DEL PITAGORISMO SECONDO L. VON SCHRÖDER. By P. D’Ercole.

LUIGI VIVES, PEDAGOGISTA DEL RINASCIMENTO. By A. Piazzi.

LA FILOSOFIA DI EMPEDOCLE. By S. Ferrari.

Imagination in its normal and diseased relations to sensibility. The writer calls our attention to the endless variety of different and apparently contradictory things that are usually attributed to the faculty of imagination. To some this faculty of the human mind is the main cause of human errors, and with Montaigne they call it “la folle du logis”; but to others, imagination plays a rather important part in the discovery of great scientific theories. All unanimously admit, that imagination lends fuel to the flames of all kinds of evil passions; but on the other hand it cannot be denied, that imagination sustains the will in every work of great stress, or great sacrifice, by the vivid representation of an expected final success. All human votaries and possessors of this fleeting, inconstant mental faculty are by turns “happy, unhappy, sane, sick, wealthy or poor; it makes us believe, doubt, or deny reason; it makes fools and sages.” (Pascal, Pensées, Art. 3, § 3). Yet how can the psychologist reconcile all this; how can he find the different circumstances, through which one and the same cause produces such an endless variety and discrepancy of facts? Several psychologists, who have tried to follow the flights of imagination throughout all its different manifestations by the sole aid of style and language, have been poets rather than true philosophers. Such was Delille in his poem l’Imagination; and such was even Professor Mantegazza himself, in that chapter of his Physiology of Pleasure, which he has dedicated to the “Gioie della fantasia,” where he describes this faculty with far more enthusiasm than scientific precision. Bonstetten, in his Recherches sur la nature et lois de l’imagination, Genève, 1807, is supposed to have been the first to give a minute and exclusively psychological analysis of imagination; but his investigations seem to prove, that a delicate subject of this kind, like certain volatile essences, evaporates at the moment we wish to analyse it, and cannot be defined by any strict scientific formulas and classifications. And yet, if we really wish to study the psychology of imagination, we must not be frightened by these difficulties, or regard them as insurmountable. We may not be able to reduce all these varied phenomena to very definite and limited categories, but it does not follow from this, that we have only to make a simple, empirical registration of these phenomena. As Michaut observes (L’Imagination, Introduction): “Wherever we find a general element, there also we shall find room for science.” Despite the inconstancy of the phenomena, it remains true, that also in the facts of imagination there is something constant and regular; that they are subject to laws, which might be probably severed from the phenomena, and be reduced to a certain unity and uniformity, without forgetting, at the same time, that this fleeting and delicate subject is not always reducible to absolutely strict classification.

How are we, accordingly, to obtain that harmony and unity of view, that will unite and group all those diversified manifestations? Mind cannot be conceived as a collection of different states, but we have to assume, that within the Psyche there is something substantial; there is unity, constancy in its energy; and that this side of its being is also the principle of its transitory actions. We recognise therefore the existence of two distinct sources of spiritual energy, that will better make us understand the diversity of its products: on the one side, the soul itself, with the formal laws of its simple being, and, on the other side, the power or force of its sensible representations,—of its reactions. This distinction, applied to the present problem, will on the one hand cause us to consider images as the products of an activity of an inferior order, called psyche soul, but we shall behold on the other, that same soul, when it has freed itself from the tyranny of the senses, itself becoming properly what is called mind, its emancipation rising to the higher function of arranging and organising the images produced by the aid of the senses. Hence follows, that the relations of either conflict or harmony which these products of the soul have among each other, and to mind proper, will serve as a criterion of a classification, in which we have to take note: (1) of the reciprocal action between sensations and images; (2) of that between images and images; (in both of which instances the power of the products possesses an advantage over the power of mind;) and (3) of the action of mind upon images. By this road it will be possible to follow all the phases of the evolution of mind from the moment when overcome by obstinate images it is reduced to a life of disorder, incoherency, or, as it were, to death of mind, until the moment when in its own turn mind takes hold of the numerous images by which it is besieged, and by subjecting them to its own laws—to laws of unity and harmony—it creates out of that disorderly chaos of images the wonderful synthesis of science and works of art. From that instant we behold mind rise through a series of intermediate stages, from abject servitude to the loftiest heights of freedom, from a state of humiliating impotency to an unhampered display of its true, inward activity,—from folly to genius. In other words, it is chiefly this psychic activity, in all its different stages of development and power, that must be our guiding criterion in the study of the phases and phenomena of imagination.

The writer, thereupon, seeks to explain the nature of this psychic activity in its application to images. He briefly investigates the origin of images, their immediate derivation from the sensations, and their intimate reciprocal connection, by virtue of which the one cannot be produced without the other; and whence there arise many different relations, that not only explain, but even enable us to classify a large number of facts relating to this mental faculty. The writer concludes with some general remarks on the diseases of imagination.

The Hindu Origin of Pythagorism according to L. von Schroeder. This article was suggested by Dr. L. v. Schroeder’s monograph: Pythagoras und die Inder. Eine Untersuchung über die Herkunft und Abstammung der Pythagorischen Lehren. The discussion about the local origin of Pythagorism began with the ancients themselves, is being continued in our own time, and, from the nature of the subject itself, bids fair to be protracted for an indefinite period still. In recent times this arduous problem has invaded the domain of comparative ethnology, comparative religion, philology, in brief, of all the historical sciences, receiving, doubtless, striking and copious illustrations from all these, yet at the risk of almost losing sight of itself. In Pythagorism, as in certain other products of the human mind, it is difficult to discriminate with absolute historical certainty between “mine” and “thine.” The real solution of the problem may perhaps be found in the original unity of the evolution of the Indo-European mind. The writer, however, views the problem simply as one of comparative religion and the history of philosophy. The ancients advocated the Italic, or Tyrrhenian origin of the Pythagorean system, and among modern Italians, Vico and Gioberti have done the same. The Chinese origin was defended by Gladisch. The third, the Egyptian origin, also dates from antiquity, and in modern times has been ardently defended by Roth. The fourth, the supposed Hellenic origin, has had the greatest number of followers, and has been ably championed by Dr. Edw. Zeller in his work, Die Philosophie der Griechen. As regards the last, the alleged Hindu origin, this was suggested of course by the numerous striking analogies found between Hindu and Pythagorean doctrine. Still, all that has been said on the subject by Schroeder, Max Müller, Weber, and others, has failed to thoroughly convince the writer. In his next article he promises to show, that everything has induced him to believe that the Hindus themselves rather borrowed their doctrine of transmigration from the philosophical system of Pythagoras.

Luigi Vives. A Pedagogist of the Renaissance. The interesting subject of this article is probably to this day but little understood or appreciated by the pedagogists of northern Europe. To this day, many among them seem ignorant of the fact, or, perhaps, are unwilling to frankly admit, that along with the Catholic revival, and the intellectual renaissance of the Latin nations, there was initiated the tradition of really humane pedagogics, founded on the nature of man, and, in its aim and workings, vastly superior to the educational systems of the nations beyond the Alps. It was an earnest, liberal, refining educational system, that professed an affectionate regard for youth. It banished corporal punishment, and addressed itself directly to the heart and the intelligence. The Jesuit maxim: “debetur pueris maxima reverentia,” still recalls the original spirit of this humane system of education. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to maintain, that, in the spirit of the time, it also aimed at the beautiful in education. It was a declared enemy to any thought, speech or action in bad form. To the subject of this article, the Spanish bishop of Valencia, Louis Vives, is due the honor of having been one of the most ardent and successful promoters of this new educational system, and to have been the Jean Jacques Rousseau of his time. Vives was born in the year 1492, and died in the year 1540. He had studied at the University of Paris, and was an intimate friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam. He is moreover the author of a number of valuable educational works. Bishop Vives, however, must also be regarded as a clergyman, who in his practical career would at times find it difficult to reconcile his broad-minded scholastic ideals with the duties of his calling, and with the exaggerated ascetical tendencies by which he was surrounded. As a matter of fact, in a short time the church is seen practically to override all this liberal educational movement of the renaissance. Within the college- and convent-walls, in the Latin countries, the humane paternal pedagogics of the renaissance soon and easily degenerated into oppressive, injurious, personal surveillance, and an odious theocratic tyranny. With all our sincere admiration for the work initiated by men like Louis Vives, we must nevertheless maintain, that all, or nearly all, the ecclesiastic educational systems of the Latin countries during the following centuries, can scarcely lay valid claims to a place within the pale of true pedagogical science.

The Philosophy of Empedocles. In this concluding article the writer exhaustively discusses the religious tenets and ethical precepts of Empedocles, as both appear in the Proëmium, in the third book on Physics, and in the poem of the “καθαρμοί”—or expiatory atonements.

Bibliography. In this department we notice a lengthy review of Prof. E. Dal Pozzo di Mombello’s Lectures on Monism, delivered at the University of Perugia. In this number are also contained the Bollettino Pedagogico Filosofico, Critical Notices, and Recent Publications. (Rome. Tipografia delle Terme Diocleziane. 1891.)

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REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. November, 1891. No. II.

CONTENTS:

LES ORIGINES DE NOTRE STRUCTURE INTELLECTUELLE ET CÉRÉBRALE. I. Le Kantisme. By A. Fouillée.

DU RÔLE DE LA VOLONTÉ DANS LA CROYANCE. By J. J. Gourd.

In discussing the part of the will played in belief, M. J. J. Gourd considers our belief in an ultra-phenomenal reality which he calls “metaphysical belief.” “All thought,” he says, “involves a relation, viz. a relation between subject and object. Every relation presupposes a comparison of its terms and this comparison is not established if the subject and object belong to different worlds. The subject is undoubtedly found in consciousness, the object must be there also. All the ingenious arguments to escape this conclusion are vain. Accordingly, one may well believe in the truth of the metaphysical belief, but this belief is not true.”

M. G. Tarde, the great criminologist and an opponent of Professor Lombroso’s school reviews the penological and criminological literature of recent times in France, Italy, and Belgium.

Alfred Fouillée revises in the article on “the origin of our intellectual and cerebral structure” several solutions of the problem of the nature of thought-forms, especially Kant’s view of the a priori. Strongly influenced by Schopenhauer, he makes of the great pessimist’s will-theory quite an original and peculiar application and finds that the question of “idées-forces” is also at the bottom of the question of the origin of ideas. In comparing the origin of ideas to the origin of solar systems, he says: “Ideas are the condensation of that which exists everywhere in a nebulous state into luminous centres and conscious focuses. Sensation is desire.” And he sums up his view in the sentence: “Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu et voluntate.” (Paris: Félix Alcan.)

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ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II. No. 5.

CONTENTS:

DIE SINNE DER VERBRECHER. By C. Lombroso and S. Ottolenghi. (Mit 4 Figuren.)

UEBER VERGLEICHUNGEN VON TONDISTANZEN. By Gustav Engel.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

Cesare Lombroso and his assistant S. Ottolenghi communicate the results of their investigations of the senses of born criminals in a similar way as the former of the two had done in his “Studies in Criminal Anthropology,” The Monist, Vol. i, No. 2, p. 177 et sqq. Our authors say: “Since the days of the famous Greek sage who said that nothing came into the intellect save through the gateway of the senses, it could be foreseen that a study of the senses would become the gateway to ethics.” And, it is a fact recognised for some time but not as yet proved by exact methods that a lack of moral sense is often accompanied with an obtusity of the sense-organs. Dr. Azam’s famous Felida showed an entire absence of the moral sense when she was in a state of analgesia; Romanes has pointed out that the sensitiveness to pain is greater in tame animals than in wild beasts, this is especially noticeable in the dog. It is noteworthy also that savage peoples are almost insensible to pain while civilisation often increases sensibility till it becomes hyperæsthesia.

Obtusity of the sense-organs in criminals should not be confounded however with the anæsthesia of criminals, because the rarity of laterality, the absence of isolated insensible places, the lack of motory anomalies, etc., exclude the supposition of hysteria.

Our authors found among 15 criminal boys between 10 and 14 years no less than ten cases of absolute analgesia, which proves that this symptom cannot be the effect of alcoholism, syphilis, marasmus, or overwork of a special trade.

Several anecdotes are told about the insensibility to pain. An old thief had his leg amputated with the greatest apathy: the operation done, he took the limb into his hand and joked about it. An inveterate murderer, his penal servitude being ended, was dismissed out of the bagnio of the island S. He asked the warden to be retained, because he did not know how to get food and shelter. His demand being refused, he opened his bowels with the handle of a spoon, went to bed as usual, and died without even a sigh. Mandrin, a criminal, shortly before his execution allowed himself to be cut in eight places without giving a sign of pain; criminal R. flayed the skin of his face with a piece of glass. In the penitentiary at Chatham during the years 1871 and 1872, 841 voluntary wounds and injuries were made. Among them 27 convicts had mutilated some limb, and in 17 cases the limb had to be amputated.

This obtusity of the sensory organs in criminals is supposed to be of a cortical origin and being similar to the phenomena of savage life is interpreted as atavism. Criminals show deficiencies in the senses of touch, smell, taste, and hearing, but not of sight. And this is analogous to the savage in whom the sense of sight is naturally very strong, and no criminal could execute numerous thefts or escape the arm of justice without a high development of the sense of sight.

In the second article on comparisons of tone-distances Gustav Engel, Professor at the Royal High-school of Music in Berlin, takes occasion to explain his views of the subject with reference to the severe criticism of C. Stumpf on Carl Lorenz’s theory. Wilhelm Wundt had taken part in the discussion in favor of Lorenz. The subject of the article lies in the border-land between the physiology of hearing and music; and Professor Engel comes to the conclusion that affinity of tones, i. e. the interval-sense in a melodious succession does not lead to the same accuracy and reliability of hearing as their concord. He objects to the idea of an arithmetical difference as proposed by Lorenz and Wundt, and proves it through the fact that the Pythagorean tierce in the unaccompanied scale makes a less noticeable disturbance than in a concord, while the approximately pure tierce (which is too low only by a small fracture of a comma) is excellent in the concord while it causes a slight disturbance in the melody. Musical intervals are not identical with the geometrical intervals, yet they are based upon them as a selection made among innumerable possibilities for certain purposes. Their acceptance is established only in harmonic music, but this fact too adds some difficulties to the investigations made in this field, for if two tones sound together, we can no longer distinguish them separately, as would be required for the investigation; and if we let the one succeed the other their geometrical relation is no longer discerned with the same precision. (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.)

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VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XV. Nos. 3 and 4.

CONTENTS of No. 3:

PSYCHISCHE UND PHYSISCHE ACTIVITÄT. By H. Höffding.

UEBER SPRACHREFLEX, NATIVISMUS UND ABSICHTLICHE SPRACHBILDUNG. (Achter Artikel.) By A. Marty.

ZUR PHILOSOPHIE DER MATHEMATIK. By Chr. v. Ehrenfels.

DER FOLGERUNGSCALCUL UND DIE INHALTSLOGIK. By E. G. Husserl.

CONTENTS of No. 4:

DIE GESETZMÄSSIGKEIT DER PHYSISCHEN ACTIVITÄT. By H. Höffding.

ETHNOLOGIE UND ÆSTHETIK. By E. Grosse.

UEBER DIE FORTSCHREITENDE ENTWICKLUNG DES MENSCHENGESCHLECHTS. (Erster Artikel.) By F. Rosenberger.

UEBER SPRACHREFLEX, NATIVISMUS UND ABSICHTLICHE SPRACHBILDUNG. (Neunter Artikel). By A. Marty.

UEBER FERNWIRKUNG UND ANORMALE. WAHRNEHMUNGSFÄKHIGKEIT. Methodologische Randglossen. By M. Offner.

Prof. H. Höffding’s article on psychical and physical activity is an answer to a criticism by Professor Kroman. Professor Höffding had proposed, concerning the relation of the psychical to the physical, a theory which he called the “identity hypothesis,” according to which the physical and psychical activities are not different in their nature but only in their phenomenal appearance. K. Kroman, a countryman and colleague of H. Höffding—both are professors at the University of Copenhagen—rejected in his recent work “Logic and Psychology” the identity hypothesis and characterised it as “Duplicism,” a name against which Höffding protests. Kroman’s objections are as follows: a) Natural science knows of no reason to conceive of the relation of the psychical to the material in the way expressed by the identity-hypothesis. b) On the basis of the identity-hypothesis it remains unexplained how we can know anything about the external world. c) It is inexplicable how an identity can obtain of two so different things as are the bodily multiplicity and the psychical unity. Professor Höffding investigates these three objections separately and comes to the conclusion that his identity-hypothesis shows the relation between the psychical and material nature in a clear and simple light. It excludes on the one hand materialism and on the other hand spiritualism. The question whether either phenomenon, spirit or matter, represents the absolute nature of existence, cannot, according to Höffding, be answered. It appears to us that Professor Höffding’s position is sound in all main points and may be considered as that view which is most prevalent among modern psychologists. However, concerning the question whether spirit or matter represents the absolute nature of existence, we refer the reader to the editorial article “Are there Things in Themselves?” section XII, “The Oneness of Subjectivity and Objectivity.” In our opinion the question itself is illegitimate. Neither the subjectivity of spirit, nor the objectivity of matter represents the absolute nature of existence; both together form the nature of existence; and we omit here the word “absolute” purposely. The question as to which abstract, matter or spirit, represents the absolute nature of existence seems to us similar to the question which of the two terms A and B represents in the relation A:B the absolute nature of the relation. The obvious answer is neither.

The eighth article of A. Marty of Prague on Language-reflex is mainly of a controversial nature directed against L. Tobler’s article on the origin of language in the Zeitschrift für Völker-Psychologie. By Nativism, Marty understands the theory that certain involuntary articulate sounds are associated with certain ideas, while the so-called empirical theory attempts to explain the origin of the first words without such innate mechanical relations between sounds and concepts. Marty represents the empirical solution of the problem and objects to the extreme nativism, but he grants that Tobler’s modified nativism approaches very much to his own position.

The longest article of the present number (63 pp.) is an essay full of valuable hints by Chr. v. Ehrenfels on the Philosophy of Mathematics. The epistemological basis of mathematics demands a psychological investigation of its contents. Accordingly the author proposes to present a psychological characterisation of the number-conceptions, from which he derives some conclusions concerning the theory of cognition. He investigates the origin of the unity conception which is generally defined as “positing a unit” or as “conceiving as a unit.” We usually believe that we abstract numbers directly from the objects, when we look for instance at one house with two doors and five windows. But this process of abstraction is not quite so direct as it seems. The number-conception is not taken from external observation, but carried into the same; yet this is done involuntarily and inadvertently so that it appears as if they were eo ipso contained in it.

What is the origin of the concepts “unity” and “multiplicity”? Two methods present themselves: 1) The concentration of attention and (2) the act of bringing into relation. The former produces a unity and, when successively directed to several objects, a series of units. The latter appears to be required by the consideration that the conception of a number is conditioned by acts of distinguishing. The number “two” requires two acts of distinguishing, “three” requires three, “four” requires six and the number n requires n/2(n-1) acts of distinguishing. This explains why we can have clear and direct conceptions only of very low figures. The idea that a combination of both methods will explain the facts is by no means excluded. But there is a third source which may be used to explain the unity conception, viz. inner experience. “The unity of consciousness,” Ehrenfels says, “has been misused in philosophy to demonstrate the substantiality, simplicity, and indestructibility of the soul.” Nevertheless there is some truth in the unity idea, for the present psychical phenomena present themselves in a peculiar amalgamation, which admits of a comparison between two elements while it erects a barrier between the ego and the tu. Our psychical contents will always appear to us as a unit; and on this basis we might declare that the unity conception is derived from this source. [Here Ehrenfels does not see that the concentration of attention is practically the same as the unity of consciousness, for attention means consciousness, and concentration produces unity.]

Number-conceptions originate by counting. We disjoin things; for instance, we throw a number of apples into a basket, or we let the finger slide over the division lines of a measuring stick naming each unit while proceeding in the act. From such processes the function of counting can be abstracted while the details are neglected as unimportant. Most of the higher numbers are never directly but only indirectly realised. So for instance twenty is to many that number which will be reached by counting up to twenty, yet the single units of the number are lost sight of entirely. Such number-conceptions belong to the class of “indirect concepts” which represent objects not through marks belonging to the object itself, but originating through its relation to other objects. The basis of such indirect concepts had been called by Ehrenfels Gestaltsqualitäten, i. e. figure qualities, and by Meinong fundierte Inhalte or founded contents. Thus indirect conceptions are parts contingent upon some such basis.

Number-conceptions are not always clearly thought out and there are some helps to represent higher or more complex numbers. Thus we can think of ten as represented by the outside and inside corners of a pentagram, twelve as the edges of a cube, etc., and common among all nations is the usage of the fingers to represent numbers up to ten. Such helps are quite different from indirect number-conceptions and may be called figurative number-conceptions.

That there are mathematical conceptions of magnitudes which have no objective analogon is quite natural, for there is even in an indirect conception no warrant for its objective reality; and we ought to consider how many word- and idea-combinations are possible without their possessing some analogous reality. Yet the so-called irrational cannot properly be called a number, it is the demand of a number which in fractions can sufficiently for certain purposes but never fully be realised.

Negative numbers always presuppose a contrast and such conditions arise naturally wherever the fundamental ideas imply two opposite directions, for instance past and future in time, credit and debit in business, etc. It is a matter of course that there are in reality as little either positive or negative numbers, as there are positive or negative colors or sounds.

Concerning the necessity idea, Ehrenfels says: “Nobody will consider it as possible that five plus seven will in some cases make any other number than twelve. We are confident that the same addition will under all circumstances yield the same sum.” Ehrenfels grants the psychical certitude of this but not the mathematical, and thinks that on this point there is a difference of opinion allowable. Here we disagree from Ehrenfels and refer the reader to former articles on kindred subjects in The Monist, especially the article on “The Origin of Thought-forms,” Vol. II, p. 111. We must bear in mind that in mathematics we are moving in a realm of pure forms and the statement 7 + 5 = 12 is, as the Germans express it, eindeutig bestimmt, i. e. it is determined exhaustively in one and the only one possible way. The numbers 7 and 5 being rigid, their sum and their product will also be rigid.

This difference of opinion may be contingent upon a difference of the conception of the a priori. Ehrenfels defines as “a priori” such judgments which having come into our possession, are readily accepted without proof. We follow Grassmann in rejecting the acceptance of anything without proof, including the idea of mathematical axioms. The a priori in our terminology becomes identical with that which pertains to formal thought: and it would make no difference whether the instance presented is as simple as 1 + 1 = 2 or extremely complex as are the differential calculus and logarithms. Accordingly we disagree also from Ehrenfels when he finds even in such additions as for instance 825 + 217 = 1042 vestiges of an a posteriori character. The employment of the logarithms accordingly appears to Ehrenfels also aposterioristic because the fruits of other peoples’ labors are utilised!

Concerning John Stuart Mill’s view of the subject, Ehrenfels says that “it is still deeply entangled in the errors of that conception which it so bitterly opposes, viz. in the formalism of the old purely a priori conception. For only he who adheres to the view that all mathematics are deduced from a few axioms can think of attributing to those axioms the highest degree of plausibility which is assumed for them on the ground of comprehensive deduction.” We agree with Ehrenfels’s objection to Mill, but we cannot agree with his view that mathematics derives any elements from a posteriori elements, although we grant that quite new departments are created simply by a different employment of certain functions. Accordingly mathematics cannot be derived from a few axioms only but is the products of certain functions.

Ehrenfels calls attention to the fact that the mathematician operating with symbols often forgets entirely what he has to think of in connection with these symbols. “This is not strange,” he adds, “for thoughtless word-combinations present analogous instances, yet it is strange that the result almost without exception comes out right; es stimmt!” We object here; operations with mathematical symbols are not thoughtless combinations, at least, they are not meaningless. They are operations not with things, but with symbols representing certain relations among things. When gamblers play with chips representing real money, they need not think during the game of the value represented by a chip, and yet when the account is made, the result attained with the assistance of the chips will come out right. There is no reason to wonder at it. Chips like mathematical symbols might in a certain sense be called thoughtless, for certainly they do not think; but they are not thoughtless in the sense that they are meaningless, that nothing is thought by them.

Ehrenfels apparently sees a problem where there is none and this is closely connected with another point. He looks upon the mathematician’s inability of thinking out in every respect the objective meaning of mathematical symbols as a shortcoming of man’s intellect. While it appears that we cannot think anything by many mathematical symbols (for instance by a⁰ = 1) except the symbol itself, the enormous success of mathematical thought is evidence that they must have some definite meaning although it is to be excogitated only by those beings who will transgress the average intelligence of to-day, the first germs of whose existence are the mathematical geniuses of the present generation. It appears to us that undoubtedly every mathematical symbol has a definite meaning, representing the result of some function. That the result will sometimes be unattainable or unrealisable, that especially all operations with zero make the whole calculation indefinite (which naturally arises from the nature of zero) does not alter the truth of this proposition in the least.

We have to make one additional remark. The peculiarity of mathematics that we do not throughout our operations think out the meaning of the symbols is not a shortcoming of our intelligence, but the strength of mathematical science. The advantage of all the formal sciences and especially of mathematics consists in this that we need not think out every detail, but that we can, through the assistance of mathematical symbols, perform the most intricate operations with machine-like exactness. The economy of thought produced in this way is not a deficiency of man’s mind, but a virtue.

Prof. H. Höffding (in No. 4) insists upon the causal law as being indispensable in psychology. There are some people and among others his colleague Professor Kroman who regard moral motives as an exception. “Yet,” says Professor Höffding, “should the decisive moment of a decision not be determined by the causal law, the will could never be determined through a reflection on the possible effects of the action and thus every reason would be missing to attribute to man any responsibility.”

E. Grosse expatiates on the proposition to apply the comparative method of ethnology to æsthetics. Ferd. Rosenberger proposes the following programme: “Knowledge is power; activity based upon such power is the cause of happiness. Therefore with the increase of knowledge, there is an increase of happiness, successful activity however is impossible without virtue. Therefore we conclude that an increase of happiness will be accompanied with an increase of virtue.” A. Marty in this his ninth article blames Steinthal for having misrepresented the eighteenth century theories of the origin of language.

M. Offner reviews Dr. Charles Richet’s reports of his telepathic experiments, but the reviewer cannot assent to Richet’s opinion “that these facts possess a strange coincidence and that they are, probably, the result of a relation and not of pure chance.” (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)

κρς.

PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVIII. Nos. 1 and 2.

CONTENTS:

ZUM BEGRIFF DER UNBEWUSSTEN VORSTELLUNG. By E. v. Hartmann.

UEBER DAS GEBET. EIN RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHISCHES FRAGMENT. Sendschreiben an Herrn E. Renan in Paris. By M. J. Monrad.

WERKE ZUR PHILOSOPHIE DES SOCIALEN LEBENS UND DER GESCHICHTE. Erster Artikel (H. Spencer, Sociologie, Bd. III). By _F. Tönnies_.

RECENSIONEN: H. Münsterberg, Beiträge zur experimentellen Psychologie No. 3. Neue Grundlegung der Psychophysik. By _Th. Ziehen_. W. Enoch Der Begriff der Wahrnehmung. By P. Natorp. Ch. Bénard. L’esthétique d’Aristote et de ses successeurs. By A. Döring.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

The well-known philosopher Edward von Hartmann defines his position with reference to the idea of an unconscious representation. Granting that there are no unconscious sensations, perceptions, conceptions or memories, because feeling either is conscious or not at all, he introduces the idea of unconscious representations again as the most adequate determination. He says, “Either we must renounce all speaking and thinking of non-sensual objects or we must be satisfied with using figurative expressions.”

M. J. Monrad, a Norwegian, argues, in the second article against M. E. Renan’s theory of prayer, whom he had visited some years ago in Paris, that prayer has after all an effect upon the objective world and it is not limited to a merely subjective and psychological influence. Monrad presupposes a belief in God, prayer bringing the individual in unison with God, changes the will of the individual into a co-ordinate willing of God and thus renders the individual a co-worker of God. This, however, should not be conceived to take place by magic and in contradiction to nature, but through nature, man using the laws of nature.

F. Tönnies of Kiel gives an exposition of Mr. Spencer’s social views which are, briefly expressed, “the final victory of society over the state.” Professor Tönnies answers that “we all want a higher civilisation, but the development of a higher civilisation is not conditioned by the final victory of society over the state. On the contrary, it may be said that it depends upon a victory of the state over society in so far as public rights will supersede private rights.... The truth is that state and society are contingent, the one upon the other and also limiting each other.” (Berlin: Dr. R. Salinger.)

κρς.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] Questions of Philosophy and Psychology. In the Russian language.

VOL. II. APRIL, 1892. NO. 3.

THE MONIST.

THE DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY EXAMINED.

In The Monist for January, 1891, I endeavored to show what elementary ideas ought to enter into our view of the universe. I may mention that on those considerations I had already grounded a cosmical theory, and from it had deduced a considerable number of consequences capable of being compared with experience. This Comparison is now in progress, but under existing circumstances must occupy many years.

I propose here to examine the common belief that every single fact in the universe is precisely determined by law. It must not be supposed that this is a doctrine accepted everywhere and at all times by all rational men. Its first advocate appears to have been Democritus the atomist, who was led to it, as we are informed, by reflecting upon the “impenetrability, translation, and impact of matter (ἀντιτυπία καὶ φορὰ καὶ πληγὴ τῆς ὕλης).” That is to say, having restricted his attention to a field where no influence other than mechanical constraint could possibly come before his notice, he straightway jumped to the conclusion that throughout the universe that was the sole principle of action,—a style of reasoning so usual in our day with men not unreflecting as to be more than excusable in the infancy of thought. But Epicurus, in revising the atomic doctrine and repairing its defences, found himself obliged to suppose that atoms swerve from their courses by spontaneous chance; and thereby he conferred upon the theory life and entelechy. For we now see clearly that the peculiar function of the molecular hypothesis in physics is to open an entry for the calculus of probabilities. Already, the prince of philosophers had repeatedly and emphatically condemned the dictum of Democritus (especially in the “Physics,” Book II, chapters iv, v, vi), holding that events come to pass in three ways, namely, (1) by external compulsion, or the action of efficient causes, (2) by virtue of an inward nature, or the influence of final causes, and (3) irregularly without definite cause, but just by absolute chance; and this doctrine is of the inmost essence of Aristotelianism. It affords, at any rate, a valuable enumeration of the possible ways in which anything can be supposed to have come about. The freedom of the will, too, was admitted both by Aristotle and by Epicurus. But the Stoa, which in every department seized upon the most tangible, hard, and lifeless element, and blindly denied the existence of every other, which, for example, impugned the validity of the inductive method and wished to fill its place with the reductio ad absurdum, very naturally became the one school of ancient philosophy to stand by a strict necessitarianism, thus returning to the single principle of Democritus that Epicurus had been unable to swallow. Necessitarianism and materialism with the Stoics went hand in hand, as by affinity they should. At the revival of learning, Stoicism met with considerable favor, partly because it departed just enough from Aristotle to give it the spice of novelty, and partly because its superficialities well adapted it for acceptance by students of literature and art who wanted their philosophy drawn mild. Afterwards, the great discoveries in mechanics inspired the hope that mechanical principles might suffice to explain the universe; and though without logical justification, this hope has since been continually stimulated by subsequent advances in physics. Nevertheless, the doctrine was in too evident conflict with the freedom of the will and with miracles to be generally acceptable, at first. But meantime there arose that most widely spread of philosophical blunders, the notion that associationalism belongs intrinsically to the materialistic family of doctrines; and thus was evolved the theory of motives; and libertarianism became weakened. At present, historical criticism has almost exploded the miracles, great and small; so that the doctrine of necessity has never been in so great vogue as now.

The proposition in question is that the state of things existing at any time, together with certain immutable laws, completely determine the state of things at every other time (for a limitation to future time is indefensible). Thus, given the state of the universe in the original nebula, and given the laws of mechanics, a sufficiently powerful mind could deduce from these data the precise form of every curlicue of every letter I am now writing.

Whoever holds that every act of the will as well as every idea of the mind is under the rigid governance of a necessity co-ordinated with that of the physical world, will logically be carried to the proposition that minds are part of the physical world in such a sense that the laws of mechanics determine everything that happens according to immutable attractions and repulsions. In that case, that instantaneous state of things from which every other state of things is calculable consists in the positions and velocities of all the particles at any instant. This, the usual and most logical form of necessitarianism, is called the mechanical philosophy.

When I have asked thinking men what reason they had to believe that every fact in the universe is precisely determined by law, the first answer has usually been that the proposition is a “presupposition” or postulate of scientific reasoning. Well, if that is the best that can be said for it, the belief is doomed. Suppose it be “postulated”: that does not make it true, nor so much as afford the slightest rational motive for yielding it any credence. It is as if a man should come to borrow money, and when asked for his security, should reply he “postulated” the loan. To “postulate” a proposition is no more than to hope it is true. There are, indeed, practical emergencies in which we act upon assumptions of certain propositions as true, because if they are not so, it can make no difference how we act. But all such propositions I take to be hypotheses of individual facts. For it is manifest that no universal principle can in its universality be compromised in a special case or can be requisite for the validity of any ordinary inference. To say, for instance, that the demonstration by Archimedes of the property of the lever would fall to the ground if men were endowed with free-will, is extravagant; yet this is implied by those who make a proposition incompatible with the freedom of the will the postulate of all inference. Considering, too, that the conclusions of science make no pretence to being more than probable, and considering that a probable inference can at most only suppose something to be most frequently, or otherwise approximately, true, but never that anything is precisely true without exception throughout the universe, we see how far this proposition in truth is from being so postulated.

But the whole notion of a postulate being involved in reasoning appertains to a by-gone and false conception of logic. Non-deductive, or ampliative inference is of three kinds: induction, hypothesis, and analogy. If there be any other modes, they must be extremely unusual and highly complicated, and may be assumed with little doubt to be of the same nature as those enumerated. For induction, hypothesis, and analogy, as far as their ampliative character goes, that is, so far as they conclude something not implied in the premises, depend upon one principle and involve the same procedure. All are essentially inferences from sampling. Suppose a ship arrives in Liverpool laden with wheat in bulk. Suppose that by some machinery the whole cargo be stirred up with great thoroughness. Suppose that twenty-seven thimblefuls be taken equally from the forward, midships, and aft parts, from the starboard, centre, and larboard parts, and from the top, half depth, and lower parts of her hold, and that these being mixed and the grains counted, four fifths of the latter are found to be of quality A. Then we infer, experientially and provisionally, that approximately four fifths of all the grain in the cargo is of the same quality. I say we infer this experimentally and provisionally. By saying that we infer it experientially, I mean that our conclusion makes no pretension to knowledge of wheat-in-itself, our ἀλήθεια, as the derivation of that word implies, has nothing to do with latent wheat. We are dealing only with the matter of possible experience,—experience in the full acceptation of the term as something not merely affecting the senses but also as the subject of thought. If there be any wheat hidden on the ship, so that it can neither turn up in the sample nor be heard of subsequently from purchasers,—or if it be half-hidden, so that it may, indeed, turn up, but is less likely to do so than the rest,—or if it can affect our senses and our pockets, but from some strange cause or causelessness cannot be reasoned about,—all such wheat is to be excluded (or have only its proportional weight) in calculating that true proportion of quality A, to which our inference seeks to approximate. By saying that we draw the inference provisionally, I mean that we do not hold that we have reached any assigned degree of approximation as yet, but only hold that if our experience be indefinitely extended, and if every fact of whatever nature, as fast as it presents itself, be duly applied, according to the inductive method, in correcting the inferred ratio, then our approximation will become indefinitely close in the long run; that is to say, close to the experience to come (not merely close by the exhaustion of a finite collection) so that if experience in general is to fluctuate irregularly to and fro, in a manner to deprive the ratio sought of all definite value, we shall be able to find out approximately within what limits it fluctuates, and if, after having one definite value, it changes and assumes another, we shall be able to find that out, and in short, whatever may be the variations of this ratio in experience, experience indefinitely extended will enable us to detect them, so as to predict rightly, at last, what its ultimate value may be, if it have any ultimate value, or what the ultimate law of succession of values may be, if there be any such ultimate law, or that it ultimately fluctuates irregularly within certain limits, if it do so ultimately fluctuate. Now our inference, claiming to be no more than thus experiential and provisional, manifestly involves no postulate whatever.

For what is a postulate? It is the formulation of a material fact which we are not entitled to assume as a premise, but the truth of which is requisite to the validity of an inference. Any fact, then, which might be supposed postulated, must either be such that it would ultimately present itself in experience, or not. If it will present itself, we need not postulate it now in our provisional inference, since we shall ultimately be entitled to use it as a premise. But if it never would present itself in experience, our conclusion is valid but for the possibility of this fact being otherwise than assumed, that is, it is valid as far as possible experience goes, and that is all that we claim. Thus, every postulate is cut off, either by the provisionality or by the experientiality of our inference. For instance, it has been said that induction postulates that, if an indefinite succession of samples be drawn, examined, and thrown back each before the next is drawn, then in the long run every grain will be drawn as often as any other, that is to say postulates that the ratio of the numbers of times in which any two are drawn will indefinitely approximate to unity. But no such postulate is made; for if, on the one hand, we are to have no other experience of the wheat than from such drawings, it is the ratio that presents itself in those drawings and not the ratio which belongs to the wheat in its latent existence that we are endeavoring to determine; while if, on the other hand, there is some other mode by which the wheat is to come under our knowledge, equivalent to another kind of sampling, so that after all our care in stirring up the wheat, some experiential grains will present themselves in the first sampling operation more often than others in the long run, this very singular fact will be sure to get discovered by the inductive method, which must avail itself of every sort of experience; and our inference, which was only provisional, corrects itself at last. Again, it has been said, that induction postulates that under like circumstances like events will happen, and that this postulate is at bottom the same as the principle of universal causation. But this is a blunder, or bevue, due to thinking exclusively of inductions where the concluded ratio is either 1 or 0. If any such proposition were postulated, it would be that under like circumstances (the circumstances of drawing the different samples) different events occur in the same proportions in all the different sets,—a proposition which is false and even absurd. But in truth no such thing is postulated, the experiential character of the inference reducing the condition of validity to this, that if a certain result does not occur, the opposite result will be manifested, a condition assured by the provisionality of the inference. But it may be asked whether it is not conceivable that every instance of a certain class destined to be ever employed as a datum of induction should have one character, while every instance destined not to be so employed should have the opposite character. The answer is that in that case, the instances excluded from being subjects of reasoning would not be experienced in the full sense of the word, but would be among these latent individuals of which our conclusion does not pretend to speak.

To this account of the rationale of induction I know of but one objection worth mention: it is that I thus fail to deduce the full degree of force which this mode of inference in fact possesses; that according to my view, no matter how thorough and elaborate the stirring and mixing process had been, the examination of a single handful of grain would not give me any assurance, sufficient to risk money upon, that the next handful would not greatly modify the concluded value of the ratio under inquiry, while, in fact, the assurance would be very high that this ratio was not greatly in error. If the true ratio of grains of quality A were 0.80 and the handful contained a thousand grains, nine such handfuls out of every ten would contain from 780 to 820 grains of quality A. The answer to this is that the calculation given is correct when we know that the units of this handful and the quality inquired into have the normal independence of one another, if for instance the stirring has been complete and the character sampled for has been settled upon in advance of the examination of the sample. But in so far as these conditions are not known to be complied with, the above figures cease to be applicable. Random sampling and predesignation of the character sampled for should always be striven after in inductive reasoning, but when they cannot be attained, so long as it is conducted honestly, the inference retains some value. When we cannot ascertain how the sampling has been done or the sample-character selected, induction still has the essential validity which my present account of it shows it to have.

I do not think a man who combines a willingness to be convinced with a power of appreciating an argument upon a difficult subject can resist the reasons which have been given to show that the principle of universal necessity cannot be defended as being a postulate of reasoning. But then the question immediately arises whether it is not proved to be true, or at least rendered highly probable, by observation of nature.

Still, this question ought not long to arrest a person accustomed to reflect upon the force of scientific reasoning. For the essence of the necessitarian position is that certain continuous quantities have certain exact values. Now, how can observation determine the value of such a quantity with a probable error absolutely nil? To one who is behind the scenes, and knows that the most refined comparisons of masses, lengths, and angles, far surpassing in precision all other measurements, yet fall behind the accuracy of bank-accounts, and that the ordinary determinations of physical constants, such as appear from month to month in the journals, are about on a par with an upholsterer’s measurements of carpets and curtains, the idea of mathematical exactitude being demonstrated in the laboratory will appear simply ridiculous. There is a recognised method of estimating the probable magnitudes of errors in physics,—the method of least squares. It is universally admitted that this method makes the errors smaller than they really are; yet even according to that theory an error indefinitely small is indefinitely improbable; so that any statement to the effect that a certain continuous quantity has a certain exact value, if well-founded at all, must be founded on something other than observation.

Still, I am obliged to admit that this rule is subject to a certain qualification. Namely, it only applies to continuous[53] quantity. Now, certain kinds of continuous quantity are discontinuous at one or at two limits, and for such limits the rule must be modified. Thus, the length of a line cannot be less than zero. Suppose, then, the question arises how long a line a certain person had drawn from a marked point on a piece of paper. If no line at all can be seen, the observed length is zero; and the only conclusion this observation warrants is that the length of the line is less than the smallest length visible with the optical power employed. But indirect observations,—for example, that the person supposed to have drawn the line was never within fifty feet of the paper,—may make it probable that no line at all was made, so that the concluded length will be strictly zero. In like manner, experience no doubt would warrant the conclusion that there is absolutely no indigo in a given ear of wheat, and absolutely no attar in a given lichen. But such inferences can only be rendered valid by positive experiential evidence, direct or remote, and cannot rest upon a mere inability to detect the quantity in question. We have reason to think there is no indigo in the wheat, because we have remarked that wherever indigo is produced it is produced in considerable quantities, to mention only one argument. We have reason to think there is no attar in the lichen, because essential oils seem to be in general peculiar to single species, if the question had been whether there was iron in the wheat or the lichen, though chemical analysis should fail to detect its presence, we should think some of it probably was there, since iron is almost everywhere. Without any such information, one way or the other, we could only abstain from any opinion as to the presence of the substance in question. It cannot, I conceive, be maintained that we are in any better position than this in regard to the presence of the element of chance or spontaneous departures from law in nature.

Those observations which are generally adduced in favor of mechanical causation simply prove that there is an element of regularity in nature, and have no bearing whatever upon the question of whether such regularity is exact and universal, or not. Nay, in regard to this exactitude, all observation is directly opposed to it; and the most that can be said is that a good deal of this observation can be explained away. Try to verify any law of nature, and you will find that the more precise your observations, the more certain they will be to show irregular departures from the law. We are accustomed to ascribe these, and I do not say wrongly, to errors of observation; yet we cannot usually account for such errors in any antecedently probable way. Trace their causes back far enough, and you will be forced to admit they are always due to arbitrary determination, or chance.

But it may be asked whether if there were an element of real chance in the universe it must not occasionally be productive of signal effects such as could not pass unobserved. In answer to this question, without stopping to point out that there is an abundance of great events which one might be tempted to suppose were of that nature, it will be simplest to remark that physicists hold that the particles of gases are moving about irregularly, substantially as if by real chance, and that by the principles of probabilities there must occasionally happen to be concentrations of heat in the gases contrary to the second law of thermodynamics, and these concentrations, occurring in explosive mixtures, must sometimes have tremendous effects. Here, then, is in substance the very situation supposed; yet no phenomena ever have resulted which we are forced to attribute to such chance concentration of heat, or which anybody, wise or foolish, has ever dreamed of accounting for in that manner.

In view of all these considerations, I do not believe that anybody, not in a state of case-hardened ignorance respecting the logic of science, can maintain that the precise and universal conformity of facts to law is clearly proved, or even rendered particularly probable, by any observations hitherto made. In this way, the determined advocate of exact regularity will soon find himself driven to a priori reasons to support his thesis. These received such a sockdologer from Stuart Mill in his Examination of Hamilton, that holding to them now seems to me to denote a high degree of imperviousness to reason; so that I shall pass them by with little notice.

To say that we cannot help believing a given proposition is no argument, but it is a conclusive fact if it be true; and with the substitution of “I” for “we,” it is true in the mouths of several classes of minds, the blindly passionate, the unreflecting and ignorant, and the person who has overwhelming evidence before his eyes. But that which has been inconceivable to-day has often turned out indisputable on the morrow. Inability to conceive is only a stage through which every man must pass in regard to a number of beliefs,—unless endowed with extraordinary obstinacy and obtuseness. His understanding is enslaved to some blind compulsion which a vigorous mind is pretty sure soon to cast off.

Some seek to back up the a priori position with empirical arguments. They say that the exact regularity of the world is a natural belief, and that natural beliefs have generally been confirmed by experience. There is some reason in this. Natural beliefs, however, if they generally have a foundation of truth, also require correction and purification from natural illusions. The principles of mechanics are undoubtedly natural beliefs; but, for all that, the early formulations of them were exceedingly erroneous. The general approximation to truth in natural beliefs is, in fact, a case of the general adaptation of genetic products to recognisable utilities or ends. Now, the adaptations of nature, beautiful and often marvellous as they verily are, are never found to be quite perfect; so that the argument is quite against the absolute exactitude of any natural belief, including that of the principle of causation.

Another argument, or convenient commonplace, is that absolute chance is inconceivable. This word has eight current significations. The Century Dictionary enumerates six. Those who talk like this will hardly be persuaded to say in what sense they mean that chance is inconceivable. Should they do so, it would easily be shown either that they have no sufficient reason for the statement or that the inconceivability is of a kind which does not prove that chance is non-existent.

Another a priori argument is that chance is unintelligible; that is to say, while it may perhaps be conceivable, it does not disclose to the eye of reason the how or why of things; and since a hypothesis can only be justified so far as it renders some phenomenon intelligible, we never can have any right to suppose absolute chance to enter into the production of anything in nature. This argument may be considered in connection with two others. Namely, instead of going so far as to say that the supposition of chance can never properly be used to explain any observed fact, it may be alleged merely that no facts are known which such a supposition could in any way help in explaining. Or again, the allegation being still further weakened, it may be said that since departures from law are not unmistakably observed, chance is not a vera causa, and ought not unnecessarily to be introduced into a hypothesis.

These are no mean arguments, and require us to examine the matter a little more closely. Come, my superior opponent, let me learn from your wisdom. It seems to me that every throw of sixes with a pair of dice is a manifest instance of chance.

“While you would hold a throw of deuce-ace to be brought about by necessity?” [The opponent’s supposed remarks are placed in quotation marks.]

Clearly one throw is as much chance as another.

“Do you think throws of dice are of a different nature from other events?”

I see that I must say that all the diversity and specificalness of events is attributable to chance.

“Would you, then, deny that there is any regularity in the world?”

That is clearly undeniable. I must acknowledge there is an approximate regularity, and that every event is influenced by it. But the diversification, specificalness, and irregularity of things I suppose is chance. A throw of sixes appears to me a case in which this element is particularly obtrusive.

“If you reflect more deeply, you will come to see that chance is only a name for a cause that is unknown to us.”

Do you mean that we have no idea whatever what kind of causes could bring about a throw of sixes?

“On the contrary, each die moves under the influence of precise mechanical laws.”

But it appears to me that it is not these laws which made the die turn up sixes; for these laws act just the same when other throws come up. The chance lies in the diversity of throws; and this diversity cannot be due to laws which are immutable.

“The diversity is due to the diverse circumstances under which the laws act. The dice lie differently in the box, and the motion given to the box is different. These are the unknown causes which produce the throws, and to which we give the name of chance; not the mechanical law which regulates the operation of these causes. You see you are already beginning to think more clearly about this subject.”

Does the operation of mechanical law not increase the diversity?

“Properly not. You must know that the instantaneous state of a system of particles is defined by six times as many numbers as there are particles, three for the co-ordinates of each particle’s position, and three more for the components of its velocity. This number of numbers, which expresses the amount of diversity in the system, remains the same at all times. There may be, to be sure, some kind of relation between the co-ordinates and component velocities of the different particles, by means of which the state of the system might be expressed by a smaller number of numbers. But, if this is the case, a precisely corresponding relationship must exist between the co-ordinates and component velocities at any other time, though it may doubtless be a relation less obvious to us. Thus, the intrinsic complexity of the system is the same at all times.”

Very well, my obliging opponent, we have now reached an issue. You think all the arbitrary specifications of the universe were introduced in one dose, in the beginning, if there was a beginning, and that the variety and complication of nature has always been just as much as it is now. But I, for my part, think that the diversification, the specification, has been continually taking place. Should you condescend to ask me why I so think, I should give my reasons as follows:

1) Question any science which deals with the course of time. Consider the life of an individual animal or plant, or of a mind. Glance at the history of states, of institutions, of language, of ideas. Examine the successions of forms shown by paleontology, the history of the globe as set forth in geology, of what the astronomer is able to make out concerning the changes of stellar systems. Everywhere the main fact is growth and increasing complexity. Death and corruption are mere accidents or secondary phenomena. Among some of the lower organisms, it is a moot point with biologists whether there be anything which ought to be called death. Races, at any rate, do not die out except under unfavorable circumstances. From these broad and ubiquitous facts we may fairly infer, by the most unexceptionable logic, that there is probably in nature some agency by which the complexity and diversity of things can be increased; and that consequently the rule of mechanical necessity meets in some way with interference.

2) By thus admitting pure spontaneity or life as a character of the universe, acting always and everywhere though restrained within narrow bounds by law, producing infinitesimal departures from law continually, and great ones with infinite infrequency, I account for all the variety and diversity of the universe, in the only sense in which the really sui generis and new can be said to be accounted for. The ordinary view has to admit the inexhaustible multitudinous variety of the world, has to admit that its mechanical law cannot account for this in the least, that variety can spring only from spontaneity, and yet denies without any evidence or reason the existence of this spontaneity, or else shoves it back to the beginning of time and supposes it dead ever since. The superior logic of my view appears to me not easily controverted.

3) When I ask the necessitarian how he would explain the diversity and irregularity of the universe, he replies to me out of the treasury of his wisdom that irregularity is something which from the nature of things we must not seek to explain. Abashed at this, I seek to cover my confusion by asking how he would explain the uniformity and regularity of the universe, whereupon he tells me that the laws of nature are immutable and ultimate facts, and no account is to be given of them. But my hypothesis of spontaneity does explain irregularity, in a certain sense; that is, it explains the general fact of irregularity, though not, of course, what each lawless event is to be. At the same time, by thus loosening the bond of necessity, it gives room for the influence of another kind of causation, such as seems to be operative in the mind in the formation of associations, and enables us to understand how the uniformity of nature could have been brought about. That single events should be hard and unintelligible, logic will permit without difficulty: we do not expect to make the shock of a personally experienced earthquake appear natural and reasonable by any amount of cogitation. But logic does expect things general to be understandable. To say that there is a universal law, and that it is a hard, ultimate, unintelligible fact, the why and wherefore of which can never be inquired into, at this a sound logic will revolt; and will pass over at once to a method of philosophising which does not thus barricade the road of discovery.

4) Necessitarianism cannot logically stop short of making the whole action of the mind a part of the physical universe. Our notion that we decide what we are going to do, if as the necessitarian says, it has been calculable since the earliest times, is reduced to illusion. Indeed, consciousness in general thus becomes a mere illusory aspect of a material system. What we call red, green, and violet are in reality only different rates of vibration. The sole reality is the distribution of qualities of matter in space and time. Brain-matter is protoplasm in a certain degree and kind of complication,—a certain arrangement of mechanical particles. Its feeling is but an inward aspect, a phantom. For, from the positions and velocities of the particles at any one instant, and the knowledge of the immutable forces, the positions at all other times are calculable; so that the universe of space, time, and matter is a rounded system uninterfered with from elsewhere. But from the state of feeling at any instant, there is no reason to suppose the states of feeling at all other instants are thus exactly calculable; so that feeling is, as I said, a mere fragmentary and illusive aspect of the universe. This is the way, then, that necessitarianism has to make up its accounts. It enters consciousness under the head of sundries, as a forgotten trifle; its scheme of the universe would be more satisfactory if this little fact could be dropped out of sight. On the other hand, by supposing the rigid exactitude of causation to yield, I care not how little,—be it but by a strictly infinitesimal amount,—we gain room to insert mind into our scheme, and to put it into the place where it is needed, into the position which, as the sole self-intelligible thing, it is entitled to occupy, that of the fountain of existence; and in so doing we resolve the problem of the connection of soul and body.

5) But I must leave undeveloped the chief of my reasons, and can only adumbrate it. The hypothesis of chance-spontaneity is one whose inevitable consequences are capable of being traced out with mathematical precision into considerable detail. Much of this I have done and find the consequences to agree with observed facts to an extent which seems to me remarkable. But the matter and methods of reasoning are novel, and I have no right to promise that other mathematicians shall find my deductions as satisfactory as I myself do, so that the strongest reason for my belief must for the present remain a private reason of my own, and cannot influence others. I mention it to explain my own position; and partly to indicate to future mathematical speculators a veritable goldmine, should time and circumstances and the abridger of all joys prevent my opening it to the world.

If now I, in my turn, inquire of the necessitarian why he prefers to suppose that all specification goes back to the beginning of things, he will answer me with one of those last three arguments which I left unanswered.

First, he may say that chance is a thing absolutely unintelligible, and therefore that we never can be entitled to make such a supposition. But does not this objection smack of naïve impudence? It is not mine, it is his own conception of the universe which leads abruptly up to hard, ultimate, inexplicable, immutable law, on the one hand, and to inexplicable specification and diversification of circumstances on the other. My view, on the contrary, hypothetises nothing at all, unless it be hypothesis to say that all specification came about in some sense, and is not to be accepted as unaccountable. To undertake to account for anything by saying boldly that it is due to chance would, indeed, be futile. But this I do not do. I make use of chance chiefly to make room for a principle of generalisation, or tendency to form habits, which I hold has produced all regularities. The mechanical philosopher leaves the whole specification of the world utterly unaccounted for, which is pretty nearly as bad as to boldly attribute it to chance. I attribute it altogether to chance, it is true, but to chance in the form of a spontaneity which is to some degree regular. It seems to me clear at any rate that one of these two positions must be taken, or else specification must be supposed due to a spontaneity which develops itself in a certain and not in a chance way, by an objective logic like that of Hegel. This last way I leave as an open possibility, for the present; for it is as much opposed to the necessitarian scheme of existence as my own theory is.

Secondly the necessitarian may say there are, at any rate, no observed phenomena which the hypothesis of chance could aid in explaining. In reply, I point first to the phenomenon of growth and developing complexity, which appears to be universal, and which though it may possibly be an affair of mechanism perhaps, certainly presents all the appearance of increasing diversification. Then, there is variety itself, beyond comparison the most obtrusive character of the universe: no mechanism can account for this. Then, there is the very fact the necessitarian most insists upon, the regularity of the universe which for him serves only to block the road of inquiry. Then, there are the regular relationships between the laws of nature,—similarities and comparative characters, which appeal to our intelligence as its cousins, and call upon us for a reason. Finally, there is consciousness, feeling, a patent fact enough, but a very inconvenient one to the mechanical philosopher.

Thirdly, the necessitarian may say that chance is not a vera causa, that we cannot know positively there is any such element in the universe. But the doctrine of the vera causa has nothing to do with elementary conceptions. Pushed to that extreme, it at once cuts off belief in the existence of a material universe; and without that necessitarianism could hardly maintain its ground. Besides, variety is a fact which must be admitted; and the theory of chance merely consists in supposing this diversification does not antedate all time. Moreover, the avoidance of hypotheses involving causes nowhere positively known to act—is only a recommendation of logic, not a positive command. It cannot be formulated in any precise terms without at once betraying its untenable character,—I mean as rigid rule, for as a recommendation it is wholesome enough.

I believe I have thus subjected to fair examination all the important reasons for adhering to the theory of universal necessity, and have shown their nullity. I earnestly beg that whoever may detect any flaw in my reasoning will point it out to me, either privately or publicly; for if I am wrong, it much concerns me to be set right speedily. If my argument remains unrefuted, it will be time, I think, to doubt the absolute truth of the principle of universal law; and when once such a doubt has obtained a living root in any man’s mind, my cause with him, I am persuaded, is gained.

C. S. PEIRCE.

FOOTNOTES:

[53] Continuous is not exactly the right word, but I let it go to avoid a long and irrelevant discussion.

PSYCHICAL MONISM.

In modern thought, ever since Descartes introduced into the conception of all-comprising nature that perplexing distinction between thinking and extended substance, the problem of reconciling so radical a dualism has formed the main task of those who have busied themselves with philosophical interpretation.

In the light of the Cartesian system there seemed to exist two entirely disparate, independent worlds; the one in individual consciousness, the other outside of it; the one made of mental, the other of material stuff.

How to conceive these two antithetical worlds, as interdependent constituents of one and the same unitary nature is, after many discarded attempts, still the principal endeavor of systematic thinking.

Every student of philosophy knows how Descartes himself ascribed the evident concordance and intercommunication of the two worlds to the miraculous decree and intervention of the Deity; how Spinoza sought to overcome the distracting dilemma by proving that the two substances are but attributes of one single absolute substance; how Leibnitz made both realms, that of inwardness and that of outwardness, form a consistent universe and keep consonant time by means of a divinely pre-established harmony; and how numbers of less illustrious devices likewise failed to gain general acceptance.

A more important part in the development of modern thought was played by those other attempts, which strove to reach a monistic interpretation by showing that nature in all its manifestations is constituted, either solely by mind and its original endowments; or, on the contrary, solely by matter and its original endowments. Thinkers versed in physical science felt inclined to look upon the material world as the matrix of all natural occurrences; while those versed in psychical science were apt to conceive the mental world as containing within itself all there is of nature.

The physical hypothesis has proved its eminent efficiency by leading to a vastly more correct and faithful knowledge of the perceptible universe than had ever been previously attained.

Still, from the psychical standpoint it became nevertheless evident beyond contention, that all so-called qualities of matter, all that in any way enters into our perception of it, is composed of nothing but mental constituents. And this means simply, that, whatever we are actually conscious of, must of necessity form part of our own consciousness, and not of anything outside of it.

As to the truth of this fundamental psychological conception there is no longer any dispute among philosophers. But there remains to be solved the all-important question, whether or not there exists outside this consciousness of ours, either beyond its peripheral, perceptual range, or beyond its central, conceptual sphere, another world which it merely symbolically reveals. And in case such another extra-conscious world is found actually to exist, how it comes to constitute, together with the world of consciousness, that unitary system of being of which we mentally and bodily seem to form part.

Professor Dewey in a series of articles in Mind (Nos. 41, 42, 49, 57) and in one recently published in this journal (Vol. II, No. 1) advocates—more profoundly and consistently than has been done before by any Neo-Kantian or Neo-Hegelian—the view, that consciousness itself intuits all phenomena of nature by force of its own intrinsic activity, imparting to them their significance as knowledge by discriminating their specific position and value within its own all-comprising organic totality of being. He believes thus in no other world than that of self-consciousness; asserting that neither its perceptual nor its conceptual content are significative of any reality beyond.

The editor, though an ardent defender of cosmic Monism, is by no means a convert to such purely psychical monism. He maintains, on the contrary, in the same issue of The Monist (p. 85), that, “The mental picture of a tree becomes a symbol for a special object outside of us, and is projected to the place where experience has taught us to expect that object.” Consequently, the mental picture refers as knowledge to something outside of us, to something not forming part of our consciousness.

The present writer believes likewise, that the perceptual tree is merely a mental symbol signalising an extra-mental, sense-stimulating existent; and that the value of this symbol as knowledge consists altogether in its implication of the existence of an entity subsisting outside our own being and its consciousness, and having power to affect our sensibility in definite more or less recognised ways.

The editor and the present writer assert then, that the content of perceptual consciousness forms merely a symbolical representation of a corresponding reality subsisting outside consciousness; while Professor Dewey acknowledges as really existent only self-consciousness, and nothing outside of it, either peripherically stimulating the senses, or centrally imparting universality to individual intelligence.

The former view frankly admits duality in nature, so far as conscious and extra-conscious existence are concerned. And in order to overcome this dualism of ordo idearum and ordo rerum—essentially the same dualism as bequeathed to us by Descartes—it has to show how the world within consciousness with its “mental picture,” and the world “outside of us” containing the existent symbolically represented; how these totally disparate worlds come to constitute a unitary nature, whose divers modes of existence are throughout interdependently connected.

It is clear that the reality symbolised by the “mental picture”—if any such reality actually exists—can be known to us solely as thus mentally symbolised, and not known to us in any way as it subsists extra-mentally “outside of us,” as it subsists in itself when not thus symbolically represented by our casual and intermittent perception of it.

The mental picture being a mere representative symbol must needs differ toto genere from the non-mental existent symbolised thereby. We know only what as mental representation is forming part of our consciousness. We cannot possibly know anything we are not conscious of. The entity “outside of us,” the “thing in itself”—if it at all exists—is therefore as such of necessity unknown to us. This confession of ontological ignorance is unavoidably involved in the acceptance of a symbolised reality “outside of us.”

The complex and prodigious difficulties in the way of a monistic interpretation, when we start with the dualistic presupposition of a conscious and an extra-conscious world, are all effectively circumvented, as soon as with Professor Dewey we deny altogether the existence of a world of “things-in-themselves” or sense-affecting existents, and roundly assert that consciousness as such constitutes, comprises, and has direct knowledge of ultimate reality; that it is in fact itself the absolute all-sufficient and all-efficient entity.

To understand the philosophical strength and influence of a position so strangely at variance with that of current common sense, which holds as self-evident the existence of body as well as mind, we have somewhat to probe its deep-laid foundations in the history of modern thought.

It was rendered plausible through Descartes’s, Locke’s, Berkeley’s, and Hume’s philosophical argumentation, that what we are consciously aware of, what is actually present to us as perception or “idea,” and therewith as the world at large, is altogether made up of a more or less complex combination of our own actual and remembered sensations.

The conscious content itself was thus necessarily held to constitute the exclusive object of philosophical research. And by starting with sensations as its primordial elements, and taking all “ideas,” or facts of memory, to be but faint reproductions of such elements, it became the task of investigators “of the human mind” to analyse the given content of consciousness into these its assumed elements, and to discover the “laws” or general ways of their combination.

Proud of its purely experiential method, concerned about nothing but what is actually found present in consciousness, this mode of philosophising disclaimed, in consequence, all knowledge of any “power” giving rise from without to sensorial “impressions” and their order of conscious emergence. And it ignored likewise the existence of any “power” combining and systematising them from within; and, moreover, of any entity for whom the sensorially constituted experience had intelligent significance.

Such nominalistic, sensorial idealism has until lately reigned supreme in English philosophy. Previous to the new departure introduced by it philosophical interpretation had always followed the method of conceptual evolution, carried on according to the rules of formal or deductive logic. It took some widely inclusive, ready-made concepts as its starting points or major premises, and extracted therefrom all knowledge that seemed to be implicitly contained in them.

Even Kant in his younger days had no idea that valid knowledge or truth could possibly be attained in any other way than by logically deducing it from ready-made premises. At a later period he learned from Hume to distinguish between what he termed analytical and synthetical propositions, and what had been called by the former thinker connection between vivid impressions or matter of fact on the one side, and connection between their faint copies or the so-called ideas on the other side.

The discovery on the part of Kant, that our knowledge of the actual connection of matters of facts has in every instance to be learned from direct experience and cannot be ratiocinatively deduced from ready-made general notions, was a complete revelation to him. It changed his entire way of thinking, and became the starting-point of his system of critical or transcendental philosophy. He saw clearly, that, if all instructive cognition is gained, and has always been gained, solely by means of actual experience, if it has been synthetically built up bit by bit as directly given to us, without our being able to construct a valid system of knowledge transcending in any way actual experience; that reason then as a knowledge-constituting faculty is impotent, and that metaphysics, as the science of a realm of intelligible existence, must be ever more rejected as a pure illusion.

Kant’s thought, like that of most of our own rationalistic thinkers, was however predominantly swayed by the belief in an intelligible world, the veritable home of man’s spiritual being, where it eternally abideth in close communion with a supreme creative intelligence. After a brief attack of Humian scepticism, the theologically trained, though rationally wide-awake and profound thinker, set out to examine the faculties of reason with a view to discover a philosophically legitimate ingress into that cherished realm of intelligible subsistence. Hitherto reason had been effectively used in philosophy only as an analytic instrument. Real knowledge being, however, as proved by Hume, a matter of synthesis, it would evidently be making proper way toward a rationally conceived intelligible world, if it could be proved that reason is itself in possession of synthetical powers.

After many years of profound meditation in this direction, Kant gave its results to the philosophical world. He had become convinced that mathematical truth, instead of being analytically derived as hitherto believed, is on the contrary built up synthetically by intelligence itself, and this without the aid of externally imparted experience; that intelligence is therefore efficient to form synthetical propositions a priori. It followed, as a matter of course, that time and space in which mathematical figurations take shape, are not conditions of existence outside of us, but original forms of our own perceptive faculty, and that intelligence by dint of its synthetical powers constructs mathematical figurations within these perceptual forms. And finally the conclusion was reached that time and space, the empty forms of perception, being themselves wholly deficient of any kind of activity, it must be intelligence alone which possesses synthetical efficiency, which exercises in fact whatever activity is operative in the conscious world.

But though Kant enthroned intelligence as the creator of pure mathematics, and endowed it with the exclusive gift of synthetical efficiency, he did not see his way to constitute it also the creator of the sense-given material that comes experientially to fill the empty and passive forms of perception. Against all denunciations of his system as purely idealistic, he insisted that there exists outside our being and its consciousness a world of things-in-themselves, having power to affect our sensibility, so that time and space, its receptive forms, become filled with experiential, though wholly unsynthetised material.

Reluctantly, though in faithful adherence to the unbiassed results of his investigation, he was at last led to declare that intelligence or reason as an instrument of knowledge—called by him theoretical reason in contradistinction to practical reason, conceived as the leading principle of moral conduct;—that such theoretical reason has power only over sensorially given material, and is incapable of attaining knowledge of the intelligible sphere.

Still Kant regarded his so-called categories or synthetical functions of reason as modes of activity, belonging not only to individual reason, but to reason in general. And on the strength of this realistic generalisation he attributed to them the power of imparting necessity to synthetical propositions, such propositions—otherwise merely subjective or empirical—being rendered thereby objective or universally valid. He showed, moreover, that the relation of every kind of knowledge to a common centre of all-inclusive awareness,—that this “synthetic unity of apperception” as he called it,—presupposes an intelligible ego, whose veritable nature becomes however nowise manifest within our time-and-space-conditioned experience. And he taught that an all-comprehending intelligible being had to be hypostatised in order to complete the totality of rational knowledge.

Thus, instead of giving us a monistic philosophy, Kant’s theoretical speculations disclosed, on the contrary, a tripartite world. At the centre the non-manifest intelligible ego in communion with a supernatural sphere, and conceived as the veritable bearer of the synthetical reason. In the median and only known region the synthetical reason itself, constructing and cognising nature, by synthetically elaborating the chaotic manifold in time and space. And at the periphery, beyond our own being and its perception, an unknowable realm of things-in-themselves affecting our sensibility.

So complex an appearance did existence assume under Kant’s critical inspection. Contemplative man, however, never ceases to hanker after a monistic world-conception. Though individualised, he feels himself one with universal being, and strenuously strives to understand how those bonds of union are established, and what part he in verity is playing in this stupendous drama of being and becoming.

To most philosophers, before Kant, knowledge seemed to be given to us ready-made, first conceptually as innate ideas or universal notions; and then perceptually as the finished image of an outside world.

Kant has exerted, and still exerts, a controlling influence over thinkers by having systematically demonstrated, that not only knowledge, but nature itself as we know it, is constructed by powers inherent in our own being. He taught that we ourselves, by force of our combining and ordering intellectual organisation, fashion out of meaningless sense-material the wondrous world we know. And, moreover, that by force of our intelligible being we have power to bend the otherwise rigorously mechanical course of nature in compliance with moral injunctions.

No wonder that so inspiriting a philosophy electrified to new vigor and valiant self-reliance the dogmatically slumbering life of German thought. And it was Fichte, above all other followers of Kant, who by his fervent exposition kindled in crowds of hearers the vivifying spark of this “new philosophy” of all-efficient intelligence.

Fichte is the real father of such psychical monism as has recently found so proficient an expounder in Professor Dewey. Fichte understood, what Kant failed to see, that the “dynamical idealism” of nature-constituting reason involves, not merely the elaboration of sense-given material, but the out and out production within consciousness of the entire world of perception. For perception undeniably takes place within our own being, and must therefore be, as regards matter as well as form, the outcome of powers inherent in ourselves. Between a consistent dream and the apperception of reality the difference lies merely in our feeling, in the latter instance, compelled in a peculiar manner to perceive what we perceive. But this feeling of compulsion is likewise a constituent of our own consciousness, and, moreover, under the influence of hallucinations even this test of reality fails us.

According to Fichte’s matured thought, our being consists altogether in intellectual activity, an activity rendering explicit by means of self-consciousness what it already implicitly contains. And it is universal being that becomes thus self-conscious in us. Infinite reason, constituting a system of ideas, a spiritual organisation, is the fount and origin of all existence, its own self-revelation becoming manifest in finite beings.

Thus, by force of logical consistency, was eliminated from Kantian transcendentalism the world of things-in-themselves as superfluous to all-constituting intelligence. And the unification of individual self-consciousness with universal intelligence was established by considering individual self-consciousness as partaking in the self-revealing activity of universal intelligence.

Hegel elaborated systematically the psychical or idealistic monism thus foreshadowed in Fichte’s later writings. Philosophical interpretation turns principally upon the source and import of consciousness. And from the recognition of the fact, that all constituents of perception form part of this consciousness of ours, it obviously follows that objects, and indeed the entire objective world realised in perception and solely as perception; that the realisation of this entire world of perceptual objects is in verity realisation of a world contained in our own being or subject. Subject and object are therefore, from this point of view, at bottom identical; the objective world—our human bodies included—being a self-revelation of our all-comprehending subject. Mind as well as matter, that which we call mental and that which we call material, are thus mere abstract terms denoting the subjective and objective sides of one and the same reality.

This reality transcendental idealism declares to be “intellectual activity.” It is intellectual activity which—from its point of view—is revealing itself in the conscious content, becoming thus self-conscious. This process of recognition of one’s self as subject-object, as the unitary essence and completion of both, is what Hegel calls the “Idea.” And with him theoretical or logical self-recognition and practical or ethical self-realization coincide as “Absolute Idea.” For to think absolute truth and to will its realisation are but two sides of one and the same activity. Thought, intelligence, reason, knowing itself as in every sense veritable being is thus the absolute One and All.

Such out and out psychical monism is the legitimate outcome of a conception which takes the content of consciousness to be ultimate reality, signifying nothing beyond itself; and which then constitutes a spiritually conceived entity, called thought, intelligence, or reason, as the originator and bearer of such consciousness.

After a period of glorious triumph the Hegelian philosophy of self-evolving intelligence became a general laughing-stock at home and abroad. This ignominious fate overtook it, first in consequence of its fawning prostitution by the master himself to the reactionary service of Church and State; and then also in consequence of the ridiculous “pyrotechnical” abuse of its dialectical method by the “Young-Hegelians.”

However, by “going back to Kant,” the teachings of transcendental idealism have in our time once more gained the ascendency, and have succeeded not only in conquering materialism, but also in invading and almost supplanting English experientialism.

In Germany, after a season of complete estrangement between science and philosophy, a re-approachment was effected by the Neo-Kantian movement. It originated principally in the recognition on the part of science, that sense-perception is above all a psychical and not a purely physiological process, a mental not a material fact; that therefore the effort to arrive at a correct “theory of knowledge” is by no means a vain endeavor, and that psychics as well as physics deserves a place in the hierarchy of sciences.

In England and America the Neo-Kantian movement owed, on the other hand, its success, above all, to such theistic rationalism as found popular expression in “Robert Elsmere.” In Professor Caird’s words it is said to afford a means for the “vindication of the religious consciousness.” And this it accomplishes “by an objective or absolute synthesis,” which establishes “the indivisible unity of the intelligence and the intelligible world,” “the unity of man as spiritual with an absolute spirit.”

Dr. Hutchison Sterling’s “Secret of Hegel” gave the first effective impulse to this transcendental mode of thinking among university men of a speculative turn. The late Thomas Hill Green of Oxford and Prof. Edward Caird of Glasgow became its foremost exponents, and made numerous converts. The former by elaborately disclosing, by force of Kant’s principle of synthetical reason, the insufficiency of the sensorial experientialism generally accepted in England since Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” The latter by consistently developing the idealistic and transcendental implications of this same principle of synthetical reason.

As repeatedly noticed, and never to be lost sight of, transcendental idealism derives its convincing force from the undeniable truth, that whatever we are directly aware of forms part of our own consciousness. This involves the indivisible unity of such fact as we are directly conscious of and the faculty through which we are conscious of it. This unity of the realising self and the realised world, of object and subject as content of consciousness; or rather the unity of the objective and subjective factors of it, this subject-object oneness of conscious states and occurrences is an irrefutable truth, from which one has to start, whatever direction one may take. You assert, then, that that which exists thus interblended as consciousness is itself ultimate reality, and you will encounter but little difficulty in deducing therefrom a pretty plausible psychical monism. For the power through which and as which this ultimate reality exists is then immanent in us individually. And when this power is conceived as intelligence or spirit, and the world at large as existing solely as content of this spirit’s consciousness, or indeed as such consciousness itself, it is clear that our own self-and-world-awareness must be—according to this view—identical in essence with the spiritual power which is ultimate and universal Reality.

In self-consciousness, when regarded as a totality of all actual and potential awareness, our feelings as well as the perceptual objects composed of them constitute an organically completed order. They all stand in definite and interdependent relations to our unitary being. This all-comprising being has time and space as modes of gradual self-realisation, but is not—according to transcendentalism—itself in time and space. And this is undeniably true, so far at least as the being that combines all transient events of experience into a unitary system of permanent knowledge cannot possibly itself form part of the ephemeral flux of conscious states experienced by it.

Still the multifold individuations of the ultimate reality into separate personal self-consciousnesses and deciduous bodily organisms forms the great, if not insuperable, obstacle in the way of psychical monism. If, on the one hand, we take with Green and Professor Caird individual self-consciousness as a “reproduction,” and not as a mere phase of universal consciousness; and on the other hand admit a natural and gradual development “of man as an animal organism,” instead of proving such natural development to be a misconception of our time and space bound recognition, we are far from having as yet succeeded in establishing a consistent psychical monism on Kantian lines. His tripartite world remains ununified.

To achieve its unification is, however, after a profound study and appreciation of the difficulties to be encountered, the arduous task Professor Dewey has courageously undertaken. To accomplish his purpose he has to show how individual consciousness proves itself to be ultimate reality, and as such identical with universal consciousness; how man, appearing among other perceptible objects in multifold individuated specimens as a gradually developed organism, is nevertheless in reality a complete, all-comprising entity, not essentially subject to time, space, or numerical limitations. And he has to make clear how all conscious content, including the external world as well as the feeling and thinking subject, has no other existence and significance than in and for consciousness.

Professor Dewey maintains that individual consciousness is in reality one with universal consciousness, because it comprehends within itself subject-and-object-consciousness; the abiding consciousness of oneself as an ever-changing individual, and that of the world at large, though figured in transient groups of sensations. This being so, that which is thus the bearer and realiser of all being and becoming in nature, cannot itself form part of this becoming, but must—according to Professor Dewey’s view—be eternal and absolute. The all-comprehending consciousness—and there is no existence outside of it—is thus identical with universal intelligence, identical with that eternally active intelligence which is everlastingly creating the organic synthesis of all being and becoming.

“Consciousness the ultimate fact reveals itself as reason.” Sensations have no self-existence, no meaning in themselves. They exist only as intellectually apprehended and for intelligence alone. It is from intellectual interpretation that they receive their entire significance. On solicitation of sensations the ideal content of universal intelligence becomes partially and interruptedly revealed to individual consciousness. The sole office of sensations is to give in us occasion to this self-realisation of the eternal content of intelligence.

Professor Dewey establishes his psychical monism by discovering self-consciousness as the Absolute, the One and All. Individual idealism or so-called solipsism, such as expounded by Fichte in his earlier writings from the side of intellect, and in the writings of English experientialists from the side of sensation, this individual idealism presents itself likewise as a psychical monism, but as an absurdly narrow one. Professor Dewey points out how it fails to understand that by constituting mind, as such, the ego or subject for which all experience exists, it artificially divides our unitary consciousness into two separate constituents, and takes the subjective constituent to be the bearer and realiser of the objective constituent; while in reality both constituents are but elements of consciousness in general; are in fact completely unified in eternal and absolute consciousness.

Now it is perfectly true, that during conscious awareness object and subject-consciousness are inextricably interblended so as to constitute a unified experience. It is true also, that the veritable subject that thus consciously experiences, and that furthermore imparts intelligent meaning to such experience, cannot itself form part of these its own fragmentary and transient moments of awareness. Comprehending them all, it must evidently be an enduring, at least a relatively persistent being. It is undoubtedly to such a persistent being or subject that experience gradually accrues, and in whom it is all retained and organised into more or less systematic order.

But is there the least warrant for assuming that this persistent subject, weaving thus intelligent experience out of its transient conscious states, is itself “consciousness” or “intelligence”?

Intelligent consciousness is very obviously only one of the functions of the persistent subject, and by no means its being or essence. And the experience accruing to it, that at least of the external world, bears nowise the characteristics of Platonic reminiscence, does nowise consist in self-revelation, in the becoming explicitly aware of what already implicitly existed within itself. We may indeed say, that our emotions, when aroused, constitute such self-revelation. But, for instance, yonder visual figuration, consisting of nothing but colored forms, though intelligently interpreted as a landscape with plains, woods, and creeks; interpreted thus by the aid of no end of former experience; this landscape now perceived by me for the first time was certainly not implicitly immanent in my consciousness previous to all my individual experience. Its conscious realisation does assuredly not render explicit as objective experience what for ever has been an organic member of my self-consciousness. What is immanent in my being—not in my consciousness—is the sensorial faculty of symbolically picturing whatever sense-affecting agent is placed before me. The conscious picture itself is an evanescent phenomenon, having no steadfast existence or reality.

To assert—as is usually done by transcendentalists and by Professor Dewey among them—that our individual experience, when—as mostly occurs—not actually conscious to ourselves, exists then nevertheless as conscious content of a universal being; to venture such an utterly gratuitous assertion, even when merely hypothetically advanced, transcends all legitimate inference from given facts. When declared to be positively justified by given facts, it all too obviously betrays the theological bias by which it is inspired, the set purpose of vindicating the religious consciousness which has faith in “the unity of man as spiritual with an absolute spirit.”

Through consciousness we indeed become aware of the divers faculties of our being, together with their functionally accruing experience. All this, however, rises into conscious awareness only at times, when casually awakened. To give to the vast system of consciously latent being and experience the name of “consciousness,” to call that “consciousness” whose principal distinction is to constitute a persistent subject with an organised system of experience abiding for the most part in extra-conscious latency; to do this only because all this extra-conscious existence may and does at times become more or less conscious; this is surely committing the fatal error of denoting a state of things by its outright opposite.

There is no denying that most of the content of our being is usually not present in consciousness. Consequently, abiding thus outside consciousness, it cannot possibly form part of consciousness either individual or universal.

Nothing could be more to the point than Professor Dewey’s statement, that “only a living actual fact (let us say existent instead of fact) can preserve within its unity that organic system of differences in virtue of which it lives and moves and has its being.” There is not the least doubt that the subject, who at times is conscious of more or less of his experience, is exactly such an existent as here described. But consciousness, though the medium in which and through which everything is realised, is itself but an intermittent function of that living actual subject which preserves within its unity the organic system of differences in virtue of which it lives and moves and has its being. The consciousness of the subject conveys information to it only interruptedly and in broken bits. These become organically unified into a more or less consistent totality of experience. But this process of unification takes place, not in the dream like stuff which makes up consciousness, but in the persistent, extra-conscious matrix whence our ever lapsing, ever renewed moment of conscious awareness emerges ready-made.

The subject capable of thought and feeling becomes thinkingly and feelingly manifest to itself, when its functions through which consciousness arises are in operation; becomes manifest as bodily active to other sentient beings also, when its functions through which such activity arises are in operation.

But if the real nature of the experiencing subject is not self-consciousness or intelligence, what then can it be?

Idealists, and with them Professor Dewey, become such by believing that the perceptually realised objects are themselves veritable reality, and not mere symbols of extra-conscious reality. Now can they in all sincerity bring themselves to believe that a baby—to use one of Professor Dewey’s illustrations—which experiences a sensation, say a pain caused by the prick of a pin, that this pain-experiencing baby is no other than that colored form within the perceptual consciousness of may be half a dozen spectators; and that it is the perceptual pin within the consciousness of each of them that has pricked the baby and caused the pain?

Does the pain-experiencing baby derive its existence from the fact that the intellect of the spectator interprets the perceptual form within his consciousness to signify a baby, which has forever implicitly formed part of the organic content of his own self-consciousness?

Surely the pain experienced by the baby is not experienced by the perceptually realised baby, not by the baby existing as interpreted perception in the consciousness of him who perceives it. The pain experienced by the baby does nowise form part of the consciousness of the perceiver. Consequently and incontestably, the subject that experiences the sensation, that experiences in fact any kind of feeling or thought, is itself an extra-conscious being, a being only casually and symbolically realised in consciousness.

And if the perceptual baby is merely a conscious symbol signalising an extra-conscious existent, then all perceptual existence, all that constitutes what we perceptually realise as nature, symbolises likewise an extra-conscious reality, a reality that has power so to affect our sensibility as to arouse in us perceptual representations of itself and its characteristics.

The matter stands then exactly as denied by Professor Dewey. It is indeed the “baby thing-in-itself which is affected,” and it is “a world thing-in-itself which calls forth the sensation.” It is not, as maintained by Professor Dewey the baby known to him as his own perception which experiences the sensation by having been pricked within the beholder’s consciousness by a perceptually constituted pin.

But if the entity, which affects the beholder’s sensibility and awakens in him the percept of a baby, exists in verity outside his, the beholder’s, consciousness, and is known to him only as thus symbolically pictured by his own percept; such sense-affecting entity is, on the other hand, nowise to be construed as the unknowable “First Cause,” nowise as that protean Persistent Force, which Mr. Spencer imagines capable of assuming every kind of mental or material appearance.

The so-called material or physical modes which constitute in the beholder the perceptually realised baby, and the so-called immaterial or mental modes which are experienced by the baby as his sensations and emotions; these material and mental modes are in no sense the manifestation of an “Absolute Force” or “inscrutable Power,” as our Spencerians would lead us religiously, and almost theologically to believe.[54]

The material modes that constitute the perceptually realised baby are awakened in the beholder by a definite sense-affecting existent, which is thus revealing not only its bare presence, but most vividly and minutely also its perceptible and distinguishing characteristics. And in the same manner it makes also known that it is interdependently connected with the vast system of sense-affecting entities, that constitutes nature in general.

All reality is interdependently conditioned. The “Unconditioned Reality” of the Hamiltons, Mansels, and Spencers, has nowhere any existence, either in consciousness or outside of it. It is altogether a fictitious, superfluous, and most misleading conception.

As regards the mental modes experienced by the baby, they are evidently exclusively his own affections as a highly and most specifically organised being, and not by any means are they modes of appearance of that most empty abstraction “The Unknowable,” that has with so many believers usurped the throne of their former anthropomorphic Deity.

This coiled up thing over there, is it a rope or a snake? I see it move, and my intellect interprets it to be a snake. Surely the significance of the interpretation does not consist in my realising what was already implicitly contained in my consciousness, but in knowing that in contact with the being out there, which forms no part whatever of myself though perceptually realised by me, I shall become affected in certain additional ways taught by former experience.

Will any unbiassed and competent judge assert that the far-fetched idealistic interpretation is more in accordance with what we really experience, than the very simple one here given?

No doubt the immediate object of physical observation is not the thing-in-itself, but its perceptual realisation. It is such, however, only as symbolical representation of something subsisting outside consciousness, only as a conscious affection awakened with compulsory force in the observer from without. The observer offers his diversely differentiated and delicately attuned sensibilities to the outside world and carefully notices its specific modes of reaction upon definite modes of stimulation. This in truth is the method of scientific observation, from which all conclusions regarding the characteristics of nature are drawn.

The conscious subject phylogenetically evolved in constant interaction with the medium in which he lives and moves and has his being, possesses realising faculties so adjusted as to correctly subserve his needs in relation to such a medium. He then furthermore uses these faculties in order to gain a fuller and more accurate knowledge of further perceptible characteristics of this same medium.

A monistic interpretation of nature cannot possibly be reached by assuming consciousness or intelligence to be ultimate reality, and as such the One and All. It can be reached only by recognising that consciousness is a function of subjects that stand in definite relations to the rest of nature, and have power along with the other constituents of nature so to affect the sensibility of other sentient beings as to cause to arise therein the symbolical representation of themselves.

Systematised experience consists in the organised totality of such symbolical representations. And this organised totality of experience exists as potential possession of the subject in extra-conscious latency, in what we figuratively call memory. Emerging on occasion into consciousness it reproduces more or less faithfully the order and connection of the manifold that constitutes the sense-affecting universe.

In highly developed sentient subjects self-realisation or the “inner life,” which arises from the activity of their emotional and above all their social nature, gains predominant influence over their sensual and perceptual experience, urging them so to transform the given aspect of the outer world as to render it subservient to the aspirations of that inner life.

EDMUND MONTGOMERY.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] Mr. Spencer grapples with the problem of ultimate reality from three different and widely divergent standpoints. First, by assuming that our out and out conditioned nature and knowledge presupposes the existence of an “Unconditioned Reality,” he arrives at the conception of an “Absolute Cause.” Second, by attributing—in keeping with the principle of the Conservation of Energy, all physical and psychical activity to the interconvertible play of modes of force, he arrives at the conception of an “Absolute Force,” whence all these manifest modes proceed; hinting, moreover, that, as our experience of force-manifestation is of a psychical nature, the “Absolute Force” may rather be conceived as psychical than as physical. Third, besides explaining at times that the psychical and physical modes, instead of being interconvertible, are only two different aspects of one and the same reality—and contrary to his assumption of the interconvertibility of psychical and physical modes proceeding from an Absolute Force, he advocates in his Transfigured Realism the view, that our perceptual consciousness figures representatively the corresponding characteristics of a world of things-in-themselves. No wonder that Spencerians are getting somewhat mixed, as the saying is.

THE CONSERVATION OF SPIRIT AND THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

The consideration of the relation that subsists between body and mind is a topic that has led to several theories, one of which has found favor with many on account of its supposed monistic implications. Dr. Carus in his work “The Soul of Man” seems to adopt that theory, and his method of explaining the matter is one of notable superiority. He says:

“Matter and mind (the elements of feeling) are to be considered as one—not the same, but one. They are as inseparable as are the two sides of a sheet of paper. If we look at it from the mind side its activity represents itself as elements of feeling and all kinds and degrees of actual feelings. If we look at it from the matter side its activity represents itself as motions or as all kinds of potential and kinetic energy.”

This doctrine of a double-faced unity has no doubt been favored because it has seemed the best and perhaps the only refuge available against the various forms of dualism. Still this same doctrine is very far from inducing that final pacification of mind which we rightly expect from a competent theory. It is open to the charge of being arbitrary, and it brings no access of insight.

The expressions of those whom we must suppose to be well affected towards any doctrine that gives promise of a monistic issue show this to be the case. Thus Tyndall says:

“I do not think that he (i. e. the materialist) is entitled to say that his molecular groupings and his molecular motions explain everything. In reality they explain nothing. The utmost that he can affirm is the association of two classes of phenomena of whose real bond of union he is in absolute ignorance. The problem of the connection of body and soul is as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the prehistoric ages.”

And Huxley protests that,

“How anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djinn when Alladin rubbed his lamp.”

In truth those who might be expected to speak with considerable reserve in regard to the inabilities of human attainment have emphasised without due sobriety the insuperable aspects of the problem. The past history of culture should have counseled caution, especially in view of the certainty that consciousness is somehow dependent upon nerve action.

It is submitted that the recent progress of science should induce a hopeful temper of mind on this question. Not only have physiology and psychology brought to light more results in the last decades than in centuries past, but in positive monism and formal thought philosophy has also attained to a clearness of method which will prove beneficial to all special investigations. A clear and concise statement of the new positivism is found in the chapter Form and Formal Thought of “Fundamental Problems” by Dr. Carus. Any one who has watched the development of the algebra of thought and the philosophy of logic, will naturally expect signal aid towards the solution of the world-questions from a proper consideration of form and the laws of form. In Dr. Carus’s book and especially in the above mentioned chapter will be found a most popular exposition of that subject.

Those who hold that form and formal thought is the very constituted means by which our information with respect to real existence may be improved, ought to regard it a decided step towards the solution of any hitherto apparently inexplicable problem, if we only but find ourselves able to formulate an idea or process that mediates between the known and the unknown, and represents to our insight how it is possible to think of a phenomenon in accordance with notions that yield perceptible imagery.

Riemann in what has been well characterised as his “stupendous” essay on “The hypotheses that lie at the basis of geometry” remarks:

“We are quite at liberty to suppose that the metric relations of space in the infinitely small do not conform to the hypotheses of geometry; and we ought in fact to suppose it if we can thereby obtain a simpler explanation of phenomena.”

So also Jevons in his “Principles of Science” commenting on “The Character of the Experimentalist” refers to the audacity of speculation that characterised Faraday and that was the leading of his efforts towards some of his most brilliant discoveries. He says:

“We have only to notice the profound conviction in the unity of natural laws, the active powers of inference and imagination, the unbounded license of theorising.”

Theory must precede experiment. We must formulate before we can verify. The words of Faraday: “Let us encourage ourselves by a little more imagination prior to experiment,” shows us the method he followed.

Recent developments in connection with the study of electricity supply us with at least an analogy that may instruct us as to how we may suppose the appearance of consciousness as a result of nerve action.

The nature of electricity has long been an unformulated thesis. That it may be produced by the motion of matter is proved by every dynamo in operation: indeed the oldest experiments in static electricity are to the same effect.

At the present time it seems to be an acceptable doctrine or at least a good working hypothesis that electricity and magnetism are manifestations of that once hypothetical medium called the ether.

Prof. G. F. Fitzgerald in his opening address before Section A of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1888 made these very important remarks:

“In a presidential address on the borderlands of the known, delivered from this chair, the great Clerk Maxwell spoke of it as an undecided question whether electro-magnetic phenomena are due to direct action at a distance or are due to the action of an intervening medium. The year 1888 will ever be memorable as the year in which this great question has been experimentally settled by Hertz in Germany. Henceforth I hope no learner will fail to be impressed with the theory—hypothesis no longer—that electro-magnetic actions are due to a medium pervading all known space.”

That the ether really exists: that it is a proved fact and that it is the substantial basis out of which electricity and magnetism arises, are pretensions too momentous to remain unchallenged if they lacked good evidence in their favor. Yet instead of awakening dissent among the critical hosts of science, these utterances of Professor Fitzgerald have not only been received as voicing the convictions of the scientific world but they are confirmed from time to time by the sometimes tacit and sometimes express assent of all who discourse upon the matters involved.

Prof. Oliver Lodge, one of the leading scientific men of England and an acknowledged authority upon the subject has recently published a work entitled “Modern Views of Electricity.” In his preface he says:

“Few things in physical science appear to me more certain than that what has so long been called electricity is a form or rather a mode of manifestation of the ether.”

He supposes the ether as a compound of two constituents corresponding to positive and negative electricity. Each of these constituents has affinities, cohesions, or entanglements with the various kinds of matter, which affinities, cohesions, or entanglements are greater or less according to the kind of matter involved, so that by the motions of certain sorts of matter under proper conditions the two constituents of the ether are torn apart or separated, or in the language of dynamics, strained. But at the same time these constituents also tend with unceasing persistence to reunite and saturate one another into a state of absolute neutrality. Separate, these constituents show an existence and an energy towards one another. United neither of them shows any existence at all nor any efficacy whatever. They are as though they did not exist.

It is of small moment to the present purpose whether or not this electrical theory is well grounded. In either case its very formulation supplies us with a suggestion as to how it is possible to think of consciousness as a product of nerve action.

Just as the ether is supposed as the substantial basis out of which in consequence of the motion of matter electricity and magnetism becomes manifest, so may we suppose an analogous (perhaps the same) basis surrounding and permeating all things, and out of which in consequence of nerve action, consciousness becomes manifest.

Why may we not suppose this consciousness basis, (which suppose we name spirit,) to be the ultimate substance which being variously modified by energy manifests in one case the phenomena of mind, in another the phenomena of electricity, magnetism, etc., and then again in a third case that phenomenon, mass, or inertia, which is the essential attribute of matter?

As with the ether in the absence of any cause that separates it so that electricity and magnetism become manifest, so spirit may be supposed to be utterly without manifestation and neutral until nerve action modifies its condition, when like electricity in the one case, so here, consciousness becomes manifest.

Why may we not imagine spirit as composed of two constituents corresponding to feeling and volition which united saturate one another into neutrality, but which separated by nerve action manifest feeling that tends to pass into volition, or volition that tends to pass into feeling? This would be in accordance with the phenomena if of reflex action which is supposed to be the elementary type of mentality.

This is in harmony with the views of the author of “The Soul of Man,” for he, although for other reasons, also explains the origin of consciousness from tension. He says:

“Consciousness is an intensified state of feeling caused through tension. It lies between a want and its satisfaction. Satisfaction not being immediately attainable, feelings are no longer in a state of equilibrium, and it is this tension which concentrates and intensifies feeling into consciousness.

“It appears that consciousness never arises without a certain tension. Days spent in an idyllic life flow away almost unconsciously; there is little friction, there are no problems to be solved; there are no unsatisfied wants, or if there are any, they are quickly and easily attended to. There is no need of consciousness, there is not much tension to call it into play, so life passes dreamlike as a tale that is told. The more life is burdened with problems that demand a man’s full care and deliberation, and the stronger are his attempts to solve the problems of his situation, the more intense will his consciousness be.

“It appears to me very doubtful whether conscious beings could exist in a world—if such a world were possible at all—where the struggle for existence was unknown; for it is the struggle for existence that presents the first and most imperative problems to living and feeling beings.”

Spirit or the elementary basis of consciousness considered as a quantity, would on this supposition remain the same, but the forms of its manifestations would change. There would be more or less straining of spirit and accordingly more or less manifestation of consciousness. Or to formulate it in one sentence, we would have to postulate the conservation of spirit.

Such a supposition or some similar supposition if tolerable would bring our ideas into some sort of accord with scientific customs of explanation, and would extricate our minds from that state of utter stultification into which they are cast whenever they are confronted with the relations of body and mind.

FRANCIS C. RUSSELL.

ON CRIMINAL SUGGESTION.

A widely known criminal trial has brought before thoughtful minds, on both sides of the water, this question, viz.: Whether a subject in a hypnotic condition possesses any free will, and whether in such a state, it is possible to transform him into a criminal or at least, for the time being into becoming an accomplice in crime! It is not the first time that this question has been agitated; indeed at the very beginning of Mesmerism, as it was then called, this idea was brought forward.

It was clearly formulated by Dr. Charpignon, whose own opinion nevertheless is, that it was “much easier to restore moral rectitude to a somnambulist who had fallen therefrom, than to pervert the integrity of character of a woman of high moral standing.” In 1866 Dr. Liébeault, in his work on, “Sleep and Kindred States of Being,” of which at that time there were but six copies sold, coincides entirely with this opinion. The passage is too noticeable, not to be quoted in its entirety. (P. 524.)

“We may postulate, as a first principle, that a subject during the state of magnetic sleep, is at the mercy of the hypnotiser. I have made experiments that have confirmed me in this opinion; I have many a time, removed the hats of such persons, searched their pockets, drawn off the rings from their fingers, untied their shoes, etc., ... without their having noticed the action at all, or having made the least resistance, the isolation into which I had thrown them, being the cause of this absence of all consciousness....

“How very grave, the possibilities, are which may ensue from this state of being, we may readily conceive! What I have advanced here, is the result of certain experiments which I made upon a young girl, who, while being very intelligent in her natural waking condition, became during hypnotic sleep the most cross-grained and wilful person I had ever had to deal with. Nevertheless I always ended by mastering her will. I was able to excite in her mind the most criminal resolves; I roused her passions to a high degree. I was able to cause her to fall into a violent rage with a person, to fly out upon her with a knife in her hand; having displaced in her mind the sentiment of friendship, still armed with that instrument, I sent her to stab her best friend, whom I told her she saw in front of her; she obeyed, the knife burying itself in the wall opposite. I almost prevailed upon another young girl, who was however less under the influence, to kill her own mother, and though she wept, she actually prepared to do the deed.

“After all, it has been known for a fact, that a man, who, up to that moment, was of sound mind, hearing a voice continually repeating: ‘Kill your wife. Kill your children’—has obeyed this command, incited thereto by an irresistible impulse; and shall the hypnotic subject already predisposed to hallucination, escape this same involuntary impulse? I am firmly convinced, after having made many other experiments, that a subject to whom is suggested the commission of any bad action, will carry out the crime after his awakening, by reason of what has now become in him a fixed idea. The most moral will become vitiated, the highest-minded perverted.

“If it has already been found possible to reform a woman of loose morals and bring her to abandon entirely her evil courses, why cannot the reverse be effected and by the same means? It would be in the power of the magnetiser to suggest to his subject, not only to become a tale-bearer, a calumniator, a thief, dissolute, etc., at some period subsequent to the magnetic sleep, but, he might use him, for example, as the instrument of his personal vengeance and the poor dreamer, unmindful of the primary incitement to the criminal action, would commit on another’s account, instead of on his own, the evil deed, prompted and forced on thereto, by the irresistible suggestion and will, imposed upon him by another person. And when the crime shall have been consummated, where shall he find the medical jurist, who can hold up to Justice, the torch which is to throw the Light of Truth upon the act, and challenge the innocency of a man, who, up to the moment of the crime never exhibited the slightest sign of insanity, had shown every mark of a sound mind and yet, when convicted of the dreadful deed, states with every apparent sign of good faith, that he has committed it of his own accord? And who can tell whether such cases have not already taken place.”

These momentous words passed unnoticed. At that time, the world did not believe in Hypnotism. M. M. Richot and Charcot restored it to a place of honor. The School of the Salpêtrière made its advent, and saw in Hypnotism a pathological condition. Simultaneously with this school of thought, there arose the rival one at Nancy, which following its leader, Dr. Liébeault, saw in hypnotism, only a psychological phenomenon. One of the masters in this school, M. Liégeois, Professor of the Faculty of Law, in 1884, in his pamphlet on “Hypnotic Suggestion, in relation to Civil and Criminal Law” also propounded to the public this idea of criminal suggestion.

M. Liégeois, like M. Liébeault, did not confine himself merely to theory. He went on to demonstrate and prove his thesis by conclusive experiments.

Strange to say, the Salpêtrière took issue on this point, adopting and defending the opposite opinion.

I would now ask permission to raise my own voice in this debate, and I am the more emboldened so to do, inasmuch as my own personal observations and the study which I have brought to bear on this matter, have caused me to pass, so to speak, from one rival camp to the other. The thesis upheld by the School at Nancy, while it found in me at first an adherent, finds me to-day an adversary.

Just a word about myself to the readers of The Monist.

I have always been a believer in Magnetism. At the outset, and until towards 1875, merely on the faith of books, later, because I had been present at one or two more or less public exhibitions. And it appears singular enough, that though thus imperfectly trained in the knowledge of it, I should have explained, as I did in 1869, the ecstasies and the stigmata of the celebrated Louise Lateau, as coming simply from auto-suggestion; and that even to-day, there should be neither jot nor tittle to subtract from what I then wrote, regarding it.

I only began practising magnetism at the commencement of 1886. I was returning from a visit to the Salpêtrière whither I had been attracted by my doubts on this very transference of thought and from which I returned with my doubts intensified. I have already recounted, in a series of articles, that appeared in less than a year in the Revue Philosophique (“Upon Memory in Hypnotic Subjects”; “On the influence of Imitation and Education in Somnambulism, as exhibited in the so-called hypnotic sleep”; etc.) my experiences, observations, and inductions. Not to speak of my contributions to the Magazines, and notably to the Revue de l’Hypnotisme, I introduced hypnotism into the science course of the Royal Academy of Belgium by means of two works. One, on the “Origin,” the other on the “Extent of the Curative Effects of Hypnotism” (1887-1890). Besides many other polemical writings in favor of the liberty of holding public exhibitions (“Letters to M. Chiriar, Representative,” 1888. “Magnetisers and Physicians,” 1890). I related at length what M. Charcot and his pupils had shown me in Paris, as well as what M. M. Liébeault, Bernheim, and Liégeois, had let me witness at Nancy (“A Visit to the Salpêtrière,” 1886—“A Visit to the School at Nancy,” 1889).

At the time then, that I took upon myself to hypnotise, I firmly believed that the subject became the property of the magnetiser; passing over, as of no importance, the manifest resistances that I met with at every point and in every form on the part of subjects, who, in all other respects I found perfectly adapted to such experiments; as for instance, one who permitted his tongue to be pierced with a large darning needle by my sceptical colleague, Dr. Masius; and to be burned several times, both with a red hot iron and by thermocautery, by my colleague, the surgeon Von Winiwarter, both these experiments having reference to the curative effects of hypnotism. Thus, adhering entirely to the belief of M. M. Liébeault and Beaunis, at the close of 1886 (“A Visit to the Salpêtrière”) I wrote these words:

“M. Beaunis’s statement is perfectly exact. The somnambulist, in the hands of the hypnotiser, is less than the corpse, which the perfect disciple of Loyola should resemble. He is a slave, with no will other than that of his ruler, and in order to fulfil the commands laid upon him, he will push precaution, prudence, cunning, dissimulation and falsehood, to their extremest limits. He will open and shut doors noiselessly, walk in his stockings; will listen and watch, with what keen sight, what acute hearing! He will remember anything and everything you want him to, will forget all you desire him to forget. He will, in good faith, accuse a perfectly innocent man before a Court of justice. He will have seen everything, that in reality he has never seen, if you command him so to do; he will have heard, what he never could have heard and done everything that he never could have done. He will swear by his Household Gods, that he has acted throughout, of his own free will, without any external pressure, will invent motives if need be, and will completely protect and cover his hypnotiser.

“Theoretically, such a power is the most dangerous thing on the face of the earth! I believe though, that practically, with the exception of what might relate to physical or moral abuses or tampering with testamentary wills, there is actually little or no danger. It appears to me the fear of this has been unduly exaggerated.”

In a foot-note of mine, while mentioning with highest praise the memoir of M. Liégeois, I added further: “I do not express any alarm that I cannot show a good reason for.” Among other reasons, I pondered on the difficulty, say rather, the impossibility there is, of obtaining from the subject an absolute abnegation of will-power, whilst at the same time we allow him to retain the necessary free will to cope with any unforeseen accidents which might occur to compromise the fulfilment of the thought and action suggested.

Two or three months later I should not have expressed myself thus; and hence the remarks that accompany the experiments related in my articles on Hypnotic Consciousness, Revue Philosophique, Feb., March, 1887, experiments which took place about a year previous to this (see the note to the contributed articles, Feb. 1887, p. 119). It may there be noticed that my assent is tempered by certain marked reservations. I was even then opposing practice to theory, i. e. I narrowed down these apprehensions of danger to two legitimate causes of alarm, viz. attempts against morals, and tampering with testamentary wills.

Upon these two points I am still of the same opinion, with this exception, that what I then feared probable, I now regard as exceedingly problematic. I mean to say, that a villain who was contemplating the perpetration of a crime, would not easily find an accomplice in a subject of good moral standing. And in any case, I still think as I thought then, that such an accomplice would not only be inapt, but compromising. It is this latter point, I wish to demonstrate to you, by the following criticism upon an experiment never before published.

At the end of May, of last year, I was passing through Nancy with some friends, among whom was Dr. L. Frédéricq, Professor of Physiology at the University of Liège. We were spending the evening at M. Beaunis’s house together with M. M. Liébeault, Bernheim, and Liégeois. Naturally this question of Criminal Suggestion came upon the tapis and was discussed in all its phases, without advancing one step towards its solution. We made an engagement to meet at the hospital on the following day, where M. Bernheim invited me to be present at an experiment, which he maintained would convince me. I will relate at length the occurrence, for in such cases, the slightest details may acquire very great importance.

M. Bernheim threw into the magnetic sleep a great, tall fellow, quite easily influenced, and whose illness did not prevent him from walking about in the ward.

“Presently, when you have waked up, you will go and steal an orange from the patient that you see over there, in that bed opposite. Remember that what you are going to do is very wrong; it is strictly forbidden by honesty and by the law, and you will run the risk of being punished.” The man is waked. He appears to be collecting his thoughts. He rubs his forehead, he is visibly meditating something.

“What is the matter with you? What are you thinking about?” I ask him.

“Nothing.”

“You seem preoccupied.”

“Well, yes, I have to do something.”

“What?”

“I am not obliged to render you an account of my actions.”

“Ah! one would almost say you were meditating some mischief, where are you going?”

“That’s no business of yours.”

“Oh! very well then, I shall watch you and follow you.”

I follow him; he walks towards his companion’s bed, glances at the orange, then leaning up against the window, he calls me to admire some cherries growing on a potted plant. He keeps quite still. Why? Simply because I had told him that I intended to watch him, otherwise my presence would not have troubled him in the least. During this time, M. Bernheim had acquainted the other patient with the intended proceeding, he nevertheless having heard the whole transaction. “I do not think he will do it,” said he to the Doctor, “he is one of my mates and he wouldn’t steal from me.” I walk away and join the group of persons present. I say to M. Beaunis, that this experiment will prove nothing, he answers me by a gesture of surprise. The subject, as soon as he sees me go away and thinks that I am not watching him any more, stretches out his hand, seizes the orange that is behind his mate’s pillow, the latter meanwhile looking full at him. A score for M. Bernheim, but one also for M. Delbœuf! I should need twenty pages at least of commentary on this experiment. But I shall only allow myself to point out the essential points.

This hypnotised subject then, or to speak more correctly, this man to whom a thought has been suggested, after I had warned him that I was watching him, and from whom I never took my eye, goes with the unerringness, so to speak, “of the falling stone,” to carry out the suggested action, not however without a certain distrust of me, and this only, because he had been forewarned. And moreover in his dim consciousness, it is I alone, whom he is watching in that clumsy fashion, in order to seize upon some momentary forgetfulness on my part. He has never noticed at all, that his mate is intently watching him and following his every movement with open eyes; so he steals the orange from under his very nose! Let us not forget that it was M. Bernheim the house physician, who suggested to him to take the orange. But M. Frédéricq himself would equally well have fulfilled that command, even preceded as it was by the little homily, recorded above. Why should he have disobliged M. Bernheim? But indeed, the logic of my opponents is very weak. If, say they, a somnambulist resists criminal suggestion, it is because he is not a susceptible subject, or, that the experiment has been ill conducted, or, that the suggestion has not been strong enough. At that rate, it is useless to continue experimenting, if failure is always to be explained away. On my side, I might with equal reason, argue, that they had been dealing with some licentious mind, as yet all unknowing its inner self, or with a born criminal or a latent thief; and though I object to this kind of argument, it would often prove to be more legitimate reasoning than theirs. Who among us is absolutely virtuous? How many actions which the law calls criminal have we committed, or might we commit, under the pressure of circumstances, without a shadow of remorse? But let us further examine this experiment.

Our subject then put the orange in his trousers’ pocket which stuck out very noticeably. This man might be a criminal, but he was not a dissembler. Looking him straight in the face I said: “What have you been doing?”

“Nothing, I have just done my errand.”

“You have stolen!”

“What nonsense!”

“What have you got in your pocket?”

“Nothing” (notice the absurdity of this reply).

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing!”

“What do you call that?”

“Why! it’s an orange! it’s a very fine orange! Ma foi! I can’t imagine how it came there!”

M. Bernheim intervenes: “You took it from a fellow-patient, from a comrade! That was very wrong.”

“Yes, that’s so, but I wanted it. Look! did you ever see such a fine orange? I took a fancy to it and I determined to have it. Besides, he hadn’t seen it(!) It’s not stealing when it isn’t missed.”

Then I asked: “What is that you said?”

“Why, yes, it is not stealing to take what nobody misses,” answers he, with a scarce perceptible cunning and significant wink.

A few minutes later, after we had ceased noticing him, he came up to M. Frédéricq of his own accord laughingly told him that he was in the habit of abstracting tobacco from his companions on this same ground, that if they never missed it, it was not stealing. “It is all in fun, you know!”

I conclude therefore, that this subject had in him latent tendencies to theft, or if you prefer it, to pilfering. And dare any of us, honestly confess to himself that we have not, deep down in ourselves, the germs of any such vices? Who among the most upright of us, does not consider himself perfectly entitled to defraud the government, or to get the better of a Railway Company, or quietly to appropriate an object which he may casually find?

M. Liégeois will very likely say to me: “We will grant that this experiment has not fulfilled the desired requirements; the subject has not very high moral qualities, and he juggled a little. But here now, are some experiments absolutely unimpeachable.” Thereupon M. Liégeois relates the histories of Miss E..., of N..., of Mme. G..., and of Mme. C... Here are the facts as collated by him in the Gouffe trial.

First narrative. M. Liégeois believed that he had produced in Miss E... such absolute automatism, so complete an annihilation of moral sense and of all liberty of action, that he caused her, without moving a muscle, to place the muzzle of a revolver close to her mother and fire upon her. The youthful criminal appeared completely awake and far calmer than were the witnesses of this scene. (Take notice of this.) Her mother, immediately reproaching her and telling her that she might have killed her, Miss E... answers smiling, with a great deal of common sense: “I have not killed you, since you are speaking to me now.”—“Is any one likely to believe that this is merely pretence and acting,” adds M. Liégeois, “that a daughter will amuse herself by firing at her mother with a revolver, which she does not know is not loaded, simply to deceive the public?”

Well, shall I say it? The hypothesis of simulation, the simulation which is practised in the hypnotic state appears to me to be the only plausible explanation. The calm, smiling attitude of Miss E... is an unanswerable proof of this. I have no doubt that if in a dream she had seen herself firing at her mother, she would have suffered as in a terrible nightmare.

Lately, it was in the beginning of January, I dreamed I was present at a sale of paintings. Among others exposed for sale, there was a long picture, nineteen or twenty feet high and less than three feet wide, representing the assumption of some saint. Hardly had the auctioneer mentioned the price, 6,000 francs, than I made a sign of assent. It is knocked down to me. I start for home with my purchase, but on the way I am seized with remorse. Where shall I hang the religious picture? And even if I find a place for it on the staircase what will it look like in my house, with its old black frame and its extraordinary dimensions? And what a price to have paid, at such a moment when the house bills are pouring in! In the midst of these reflections, I woke up, my heart was beating tumultuously and during the remainder of the night I continued under the most disagreeable impressions. In spite of my knowing that I was awake and reasoning with myself, congratulating myself that it was nothing but a dream, the enormity of my absurd action weighed upon my mind and I kept continually dreading the reproaches of my family, when they should learn the stupid bargain I had made. How widely different is this mental distress from the placid, smiling condition of Miss E... and how naturally one is brought to suppose that during the hypnotic state the subject is not even under the sway of the ordinary illusions of dreamland.

M. Liégeois affirms that Miss E... was not aware that the pistol was not loaded. I do not believe it. Upon what grounds are we to infer that a somnambulist is an imbecile? You and I, and everybody would easily surmise that M. Liégeois’s revolver was not loaded! Then why should not Miss E... surmise the same? Is it not for the very reason that he handed it to her, to fire at her mother, that she would opine as much? Might she not have gathered this from the attitude of the spectators, full of expectancy unmixed by any apprehension? and might she not have wished to astonish them by her docility and sang-froid? All sorts of suppositions are both rational and possible. Besides all this, somnambulists who are absorbed in the work in hand, generally speaking, show a quicker and surer perspicuity; their sensibilities are finer, their quickness, their memory, overstep the ordinary limits as exhibited in their normal state. Do we not hear of scholars, who in the hypnotic sleep, learn their lessons in a very short time and write their essays admirably? I have recorded in the Revue Philosophique, August, 1886, some facts about a subject, upon whom I experimented before one of my classes.

“The experiment I am about to give an account of might serve very well as the explanation of many a miracle. B.[55] is in the hypnotic sleep. We wish to give him some peculiar order, which he shall execute, after he is awake, at a special signal. The signal is to be a knock given by me on the desk; the action, to carry a glass of water (a carafe of water and glass being on a chair) to the student Eucher. He does not know any of the fifteen students present, nor has he yet heard their names. The pupils take their places, without any special order, some standing, some sitting. B. is awakened. We chat a little. I give the signal. B. rises, fills a glass, and without the slightest sign of hesitation, carries it to the student mentioned before, who was sitting on one of the back benches, beside a fellow student. We looked at each other with stupefaction. The intention of the experiment had been, to see how he would obey an obscure command. There were in my audience, certain persons, with leanings toward belief in second-sight. This result seemed to overthrow all my convictions. I again throw him into the sleep, and I command him to carry a glass of water to the student Gérard; we are all standing, awaiting with impatient curiosity what will take place. B. fills the glass and this time sends a questioning look over all the spectators, presents the glass first to one, then to another, and finally I had to point out the student Gérard, to whom he brought the water and made him drink it. I again put him to sleep, and asked him to whom he carried the first glass of water. To M. Eucher—Did you know him? No—How did you recognise him?—By his attitude, he looked as if he wanted to hide away.”

And this is how the mystery was solved. We had unconsciously prepared the scene, and it was this preparation which betrayed us. But it is none the less a remarkable example of the perspicuity shown by somnambulists. This goes to prove that hypnosis, instead of dulling the understanding, sharpens it.

The second of M. Liégeois’s experiments appears to me quite as open to suspicion, and exactly for the same reasons.

“I offered N. a white powder, of the nature of which he is ignorant; I said to him: ‘Pay great attention to what I am about to tell you. This paper contains arsenic. You will go presently to such a street to your Aunt’s Mme. M. who is here now. You will take a glass of water, carefully dissolve the arsenic in it and then you will offer it to your Aunt.’ ‘Yes Sir’—That evening I received the following note from Mme. M.: ‘Mme. M. begs leave to inform M. Liégeois that the experiment succeeded perfectly. Her nephew offered her the poison.’ The criminal remembered nothing about it, and it was very difficult to persuade him that he had indeed wished to poison an Aunt for whom he had a deep affection. The automatism had been complete.”

I cannot help seeing here an erroneous line of reasoning. They conclude, from the absence of all remembrance, that the somnambulist is an automaton, and from this they go on to deduce that he swallows everything that is said to him. But, since he listens to the voice of his hypnotiser; since he knows that to accomplish the behest, he must do things that have not been expressly pointed out, though they are understood in the execution of the deed:—such as to get the water from a well or pump—why do they not allow that he is able also to reflect upon the nature of the deed which he is told to do? Why is it that N..., who is aware that he is being used in an experiment, cannot say to himself during his hypnotic state, that this is only an experiment, that the paper does not contain arsenic, that M. Liégeois never would really want him to poison his aunt, his aunt who is present at the time, and who hears every word?

I repeat again, a hypnotic subject is not an idiot—quite the reverse. All the precaution which M. Liégeois takes to render the experiments reliable and conclusive, turns against the proof desired. Can you imagine the poisoner, Dr. Castaing, saying to his servant before Hypolite Ballet, whom he intended to kill, “Here is some poisoned wine, you will presently give it to the sick man, whom you see over there in that bed.” If he had done this, he would not have been condemned to lose his head, but they would simply have shut him up in a lunatic asylum. And, as far as that goes, the servant might easily, without any suspicion being attached to the action, have given the poison to Hypolite Ballet, and the latter have drunk it.

But we have dallied long enough over these absurd suppositions. Let us pass on now to the third narrative:

M. Liégeois caused Mme. G... to fire at M. P..., an ex-magistrate. In order to show clearly that the revolver was loaded, M. Liégeois fired a shot in the garden and came in, showing a piece of card-board, through which the ball had passed. “With absolute unconsciousness and perfect docility Mme. G... advances to M. P... and fires. Being questioned on the spot by the Chief Magistrate (who was present at the séance) she avows the crime with entire indifference. She has killed M. P... because he was not pleasing to her(!) They can arrest her; she knows quite well what awaits her. If they take away her life, she will pass into the other world like her victim, whom she sees stretched out, and bathed in his own blood. They ask her whether it was not I who suggested to her the idea of the murder. She denies it, and says she did it spontaneously; that she alone is guilty; she is resigned to her fate, she will accept without complaint the consequences of her deed.”

The more I meditate to-day upon these experiments, the less they appear to me to prove what it is desired they should. This perfect tranquillity of Mme. G..., her generosity in not inculpating M. Liégeois; her resignation to the fate that awaits her, establish entirely the fact that she is present in mind and knowledge of events; and just because of this very attitude, that she possesses her full presence of mind. She never dreamed for an instant that she would really kill M. P.... She plays her part conscientiously, she faithfully recites a lesson which she has learned by heart and with which she intermingles side play of her own, childish tricks, as for instance, saying that her victim had displeased her. Let us recall to mind the patient who stole an orange, because it was a fine one. That Mme. G.... sees M. P.... bathed in his own blood, is more than doubtful. I can produce numberless proofs of facts that go to prove that fictitious somnambulists are not dupes of the illusions suggested to them; their calmness proves this. That it is possible to make them commit an action dangerous to themselves or to others, I am not prepared to deny. I will explain myself later upon this point. But from this state, to that of criminal participation, there is an incalculable distance.

That the somnambulist repeats a lesson that he has learned, is shown forth by M. Liégeois’s fourth narrative.

“Mme. C.... was to give some arsenic in a liquid to M. D.... who was thirsty. But M. D.... asked a question that I had not foreseen; he asked what was in the glass. With a frankness that precluded all idea of simulation Mme. C.... answered ‘Arsenic.’

“I was then obliged to amend my suggestion, and I said: ‘If you are asked what is in the glass, say it is sweetened water.’

“Mme. C.... answered the question the second time, ‘Sweetened water.’

“Very courageously M. D.... swallowed the supposed poison. Questioned by the Chief Magistrate Mme. C. remembers nothing; she had seen nothing, done nothing, given no drink to any one. She does not know what they are talking about.”

Again all this is proof to me, that Mme. C. feels that she is being told to perform an innocent action. It would have been interesting to have awakened her in the middle of the act, to see whether she would have remembered her thoughts, just at the moment when she was giving the drink to M. D.... I am not sure but that she would have answered like Miss E... that she had no doubt the poison was imaginary, and the scene prearranged.

We have seen M. D... ask an unforeseen question, which upset the carrying out of the crime. We have witnessed M. Bernheim’s patient steal an orange under the nose of its proprietor, who was looking at him. Admitting, therefore, that all had been foreseen, that M. Liégeois had warned Mme. C... of all the possible questions that might be put to her; that M. Bernheim had strongly recommended his subject to commit his theft secretly, and that every possible detail had been perfectly carried out—should we have even then a faithful transcript of a crime? Can we have the unerring certitude from these occurrences, that a subject in the hypnotic sleep, a bona fide somnambulist will allow himself to be used as an accomplice by a veritable criminal?

* * * * *

In the preceding paragraphs, I carefully analysed the slightest details invalidating experiments, in which the hypnotic subject acts the part of a criminal, in a fictitious crime. I was able to show, that in all these tests, there had been certain suspicious traits suggesting doubt as to the complete illusion of the actor therein, and I finally added: Supposing that everything had worked smoothly, i. e. that everything had been foreseen and that the subject had not been tripped up anywhere, are we authorised in maintaining that a subject thus far unimpeachable as regards a fictitious crime, would accomplish this same deed in reality? I answer, No.

In order to justify this denial, it will be necessary for us to enter into the Psychology of Hypnosis.

A person in the hypnotic sleep, as well as in the natural sleep, is not so absolutely withdrawn from the real world about him as is generally supposed. The hypnotic subject even less so, than the sleeper, for the former remains in intelligent communication with his magnetiser. If the latter tells him to take a book from a table upon which is an inkstand, some boxes, a statuette, he will pick up the book and not any of the other objects. If he is enjoined to walk straight before him in a room encumbered with chairs he will manage to avoid them, and even if the illusion is pushed further he may knock up against them, but the action will be done quite cautiously. And this is why, in public séances, he never hurts himself, in spite of the wildness and apparent excitement of his movements. This is also the reason, that in experiments intended to demonstrate this absolute automatism, the preparation for the proposed crime, the attitude of the spectators, while the subject is carrying out his part, the integrity of the person who is suggesting the action, the calmness of the intended victim; all these things, render the suggestion less illusive than even an ordinary dream would be.

M. Liégeois asks this question at the conclusion of his first narrative: “Where is the spectator, who could believe that this scene was only a melodrama with clever acting; and that a daughter for her amusement, and solely to deceive an audience, would fire an unloaded revolver at her mother?” To this I answer: And why should she not play her part in this melodrama, when she sees M. Liégeois devise it, her mother lend her co-operation, and the audience watch it with curiosity and interest?

Here again we find the same fallacy in the argument: Because a subject does not reveal what is going on within himself, and only puts into visible speech what is suggested to him, it is taken for granted that he is going through a mental process identical with that of his magnetiser. But allow me to ask in my turn: Will it be easily credited, that a daughter, would, deliberately and without a trace of feeling, shoot at her mother, unless, she fully believed the action would have no serious consequences, and that the person who had suggested this impious deed, was only requiring her to act a part?

Hypnotic subjects do not take long to realise that they are being used as tests in experiments. Some are always gracious in responding to them, many end by refusing to lend themselves to be used in such fashion, especially in public séances. All these details go far to prove that in hypnosis, the subjects retain, at least a partial independence.

If a sleeper, who dreamed he was murdering his mother, should behold her terrified, beseeching, invoking the pity of her son, calling for help to the horrified spectators, he would feel that he was induced to commit this deed by some sort of motive, which, absurd or unlikely though it might be, would still be the controlling power; in a word, the dream would be in reality a kind of incoherent and unreal drama, though composed of very real elements, in which horror would play a very present part. But if he should see his ostensible victim smiling and conversing with him amidst a company animated only by a sentiment of curiosity, he might well suspect, even in his sleep, that what he sees and what he is doing, is a pure delusion. And this is exactly what he would say to himself, should it come into his head to fire upon a magistrate, and for the reason that his looks displeased him.

These prearranged scenes fail in verisimilitude and no more deceive the actors in them, than they do the spectators or the author.

To this you may object: But, if the pistol had been loaded, Miss E. would have shot her mother! This rests upon the supposition that the mother and the spectators, still believed it to be unloaded, otherwise, their terror alone, would have been quite sufficient to call back the subject to the reality. And even with this assumption, this murder-test would have borne a greater resemblance to a simple homicide from imprudence. By this I mean to say, that so far as the spectators, the victim, and the assassin were concerned, the act would not have been changed in its character, simply because the magnetiser, had by mistake, given a loaded instead of an unloaded pistol to the subject. I need hardly remark that a real crime would never be perpetrated in this manner.

Thoroughly convinced though I was, of the impossibility of making experiments that would entirely fathom this question, circumstances nevertheless, allowed me once more to make a test which is well adapted to show that it is not as easy as some may think, to transform an hypnotic subject into a murderous automaton.

J... is that excellent somnambulist to whom my experiments have given a certain notoriety. It is she together with her sister, whom I made use of in my studies on “Memory in Hypnosis,” on “Imitation,” and “Hypnotic Consciousness.” She it is, who three several times allowed herself to be experimented upon by blistering on corresponding parts of the body; and notably in one case where in accordance with suggestion no inflammation took place.[56] She is tall, robust, intelligent, industrious, healthy. She is now married and has had a child. The accouchement took place in the hypnotic sleep. The case being in the hands of M. Fraipont, Professor of Obstetrics in the University of Liège; and never was the power of hypnotism more remarkably exhibited.[57] In the case of this patient there remained no trace of remembrance whatever, after awakening.

I have gone into these details merely to show the reader that no better subject could have been found for my purpose. I have in another place (see Revue Philosophique, article on “Hypnotic Consciousness”) pointed out certain traits in her case, which at my début, were strongly calculated to make me a believer in the absolute servility of the hypnotic subject; traits which I shall subsequently recall to your attention and comment upon.

To judge more fairly of the value of the experiment, I must further state, that J. is both resolute and courageous. During several summers she remained in the country in the environs of Seraing in attendance upon my wife who was in ill-health, and in whose room she slept. After the summer vacation it often happened that she spent the whole night alone with her. At the head of the bed hung a six-barrelled revolver, loaded; a precaution that we had taken on account of the well-known strikes which took place in 1886, amongst the workmen of the numerous factories in our neighborhood.

In the summer of 1887 I happened to be absent. A man came one night, prowling round the garden and fumbling at the lock of the door, which he even tried to force. The barking of the dogs wakened J., she opened the window, perceived the man, took the revolver and went down into the hall watching for the moment in which to fire at the nocturnal visitor. The man hearing the noise slipped away with celerity. And the same year that this occurrence took place, J. slept on the first floor with her loaded revolver hanging on a nail beside her bed.

The 24th Feb. 1888, without communicating my intentions to anybody except to my daughter, and that only at the very moment of beginning the experiment, I discharged the revolver. It was six o’clock in the evening. A young lady, (herself an hypnotic subject,) and my daughter, were seated at a table, cutting out articles from a newspaper, which they afterwards tied up in bundles. I called J. and at the moment she opened the door, I hypnotised her by a motion. I said to her in an agitated tone—“Here are some thieves, who are carrying off papers.”—J. came quickly forward and turning towards me said: “No sir, they are playing with them—Why sure enough they are taking them.” Then she walked resolutely up to them and tore the papers out of their hands, put them on the table in front of her and in an imperious tone said: “Don’t you touch them any more.”

I—“You are never going to let those knaves remain in the house—run and fetch the revolver” (it was in the adjoining room). J. ran without hesitation. She returned holding the weapon in her hand and stood on the threshold. “Fire,” cried I.

“Sir, we must not kill them.”

“Thieves? Why certainly!”

“No sir! I will not kill them.”

“You must.”

“I won’t do it.” And she walked backwards still holding the revolver, I following her and energetically reiterating my command. “I won’t. I won’t do it. I will not murder.” She then placed the revolver on the floor but cautiously. She continued to go backwards, I, meanwhile insisting and following her. “I will not do it.”—Having come to a dead stand in the corner of the room, she repulsed me violently and I thought it prudent to awaken her, upon which she came to herself smiling in her usual pleasant manner. She remembered, however, nothing whatever, although at the sight of the revolver lying on the floor, she seemed to have a kind of vague recollection. She did not seem at all discomposed in manner. If this scene had taken place in a dream, she would certainly have exhibited more excitement.

This is what we may term conclusive evidence, that is to say if ever negative evidence can be called so. Let us comment now upon these facts.

It will be noticed that J. is not the dupe of the hallucination to which she has been subjected. She does not take either of the young ladies for thieves, nor the newspapers for valuable papers. Her first answer is very significant—“No sir, they are playing with them.” Besides which her expression, her attitude, the manner in which she looked at the two reputed thieves, and tore the newspapers out of their hands, had something so keenly observant, so prepared, so theatrical, that both my witnesses and myself could not possibly believe her actions ingenuous. I have often questioned her about the illusions that I suggested to her. I asked her for example, if, when I appeared to her under another aspect, for instance under the appearance of a young man, with clustering locks and a black beard, she ever perceived anything of my real resemblance. She invariably answered, that she saw my actual person, as it were in a cloud, behind the figure which I had called up before her mental vision. It is very probable that she recognised my daughter and her friend in the persons whom I pointed out as the robbers. I might have assured myself of this by causing her to recall her thoughts at the time. I am aware that the opponents of this opinion challenge, and not unreasonably, tests made in this manner because they have doubts about the suggestion.

If then the facts were such as are related, J. was playing a rôle not perhaps strictly in accordance with the rules of ordinary acting, knowing that she was reciting a part, but feeling nevertheless that she had a certain part to play and must enter into the spirit of it.

It is incontrovertible that the hypnotic subject really does play his part in precisely this fashion. When, for example, you extend his arm and defy him to put it down he seems to make an effort to lower it, but in reality he does not bring the required muscles into play at all. If you bid him keep his hand open, he never dreams of using the flexor muscles. Again, if the spectators try to change the position of either hand or arm, they meet with energetic resistance.

You will ask me how it was that J. did not carry out her acting all through? Why, after she had gone for the revolver with such deliberation, she did not fire it? It was because, the action being so rapid in its development, she had no time for reflection; she must have thought and she actually did believe, that the revolver was loaded as it always was. This is proved by the precaution with which she handled it and put it on the floor. It is evident that she thought it was a dangerous game. If I had known how the affair would terminate, I would have taken the pistol and told her that I would fire myself, in order to see what her thought and action would have been. But notwithstanding all this, supposing she had fired could we have concluded from this, that she really had latent murderous tendencies? We could not have drawn any legitimate conclusions even yet. For if, as we have just stated, J. was not entirely withdrawn from her actual surroundings, she might naturally suppose that I was only joking, and that I should never make her fire on my own child, and on this account she need not feel any anxiety in fulfilling the order that I had given her.

The problem is a serious one. It is also a psychological problem. I have already partially disclosed the solution which I myself am led to give to it, and I can best translate my thoughts by these words and in the following formula: Persons in hypnosis will only execute acts similar to those they would naturally perform in dreams. I have asked a number of persons, among others, those connected with the law, whether they had ever dreamt they committed murders or robberies, and up to the present time all have answered in the negative. And yet, lawyers interrogate criminals, and it would be quite within the realm of possibility through one of those duplications of personality which I pointed out in my work on “Sleep and Dreams,”[58] that they should take up for an instant the rôle of an assassin. This is not an impossible supposition. Does it ever happen that the novelist or the actor, in portraying or impersonating an infamous character, the creation of his imagination, does so identify himself for the nonce, with his own invention, that even in sleep, for a brief space, he incorporates himself, so to speak, into the fictitious personage he has evoked. There are some very curious investigations to make on this subject. But even if any positive facts could be gathered from this, we should still be left in doubt, as to whether by post-hypnotic suggestion the subject would continue to carry out the same rôle.

Doubtless, an anatomist may dream that he is dissecting a body, but could we produce an hypnotic condition such as to make him use the knife as freely upon a living body? Can I make a butcher believe that a child is a sheep? I consider the thing to be perfectly feasible, yet my thesis is not at all weakened by this concession. We will take it for granted that, animated by evil designs you proceed to hypnotise beforehand, the anatomist and the butcher, and then bring them at a given moment to the victim! And let us further imagine that the combination succeeds perfectly. How will you manage to veil in deepest secrecy all your previous manœuvres and cast a semblance of likelihood over the culpability of your accomplices?

Will not the old adage, Cui bono, be quoted against you? In order to insure perfect impunity, you would have to overcome such an accumulation of material impedimenta, the lightest of which would suffice to dissipate all apprehensions in the minds of those in whom chimerical fears have not entirely obliterated their common sense. It is therefore evident that in so far as we know now, from experiments intended to test this theory and these possibilities of Criminal Suggestion, no positive results can be obtained. These criminal actions, so appositely named—Laboratory Crimes—bear no resemblance to actual ones.

If this debate is ever to be closed it can only be before a Criminal Court when a Troppman, a Pranzini, or an Eyraud, shall have been the operator, and it shall have been clearly shown, what interest the assassin had in making use of a so-called, unconscious and automatic accomplice. Then only, shall we be able to appreciate to what degree hypnotism may become a dangerous enemy to society at large. And even then, we shall have to remind ourselves that all our medicines are poisons and that they have the power of destroying even more surely, than that of healing.

Thus the problem is still unsolved.

Here is a story told me by Dr. Liébeault. He, or perhaps it was M. Bernheim, or both together, hypnotised a workman and told him to steal a couple of little plaster figures, that were used as ornaments on the mantel-piece in a house where he was working. He did so. The affair had been forgotten for some time because the suggestion had not been carried out on the spot. About three months after the occurrence, this same workman was arrested for stealing a pair of trousers from the front of a shop. Upon which the previous hypnotic suggestion was remembered.

My opinion is that the workman—and how many there are of the same calibre—had a very slight regard for meum and tuum. This reminds us of that hospital patient, whom we saw pilfering the tobacco from his comrades, and I do not think it was at all necessary to have thrown the workman into the hypnotic sleep in order to make him steal the statuettes. But from another point of view, this experiment, which did not prove anything, might give rise to party arguments from those who deem it desirable to maintain that it was the initiatory suggestion that first gave this man the taste for stealing.

To sum up in a few words this portion of my investigation; the result of my experiments and of my analyses is this: that the experiments of my opponents prove nothing.

For the present I shall confine myself to this purely negative conclusion.

But there are other grounds besides experiments on which we may examine this question. We can do so by careful observation and minute analysis of the actions of hypnotised persons.

I have said before that the degree of morality observable in the dreams of the subject, gives the measure of what may be expected from him during hypnosis.

According to my opinion, hypnotism is less powerful in inciting to actions of grave moral import, than the corrupting influence of word or example, the love of gold, or the excitement of the passions.

All truly scientific experiments have brought into prominence the analogy between physiological and incited dreams, and to-day we may say that this is the doctrine of the future. Thus if an hypnotic subject admits without opposition that he is made of sugar, or of glass, that he feels he is melting in the rain, or being broken to atoms by the awkwardness of the bystanders; if he thinks he is a lamp, or allows himself to be trundled along like a wheelbarrow; if such a subject, I repeat, refuses to steal a purse, or to receive an embrace, the conclusion forces itself upon one that the hypnotic subject has more power over himself than some persons would wish us to believe; in spite of his docility, there are some things he absolutely refuses to do.

If then, reasoning by analogy has ever been legitimate, it is surely so in this case, when the inference can be drawn that the man who refuses to give a blow will refuse to use a knife; and that the woman who refuses to give a token of affection will certainly refuse to allow of serious tampering with morals.

Let us then pay close attention to what observation may teach us.

I shall hope to be able to demonstrate by actual facts, that persons in an hypnotic condition, preserve at least a sufficient portion of their intelligence, their reason, together with freedom of action, to prevent them from committing deeds that neither their conscience nor their habits approve of.

J. DELBŒUF.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] A lad of about 15, very bright. Has been one of Donato’s subjects. Very susceptible and having been hypnotised in a great many public séances.

[56] See my pamphlet on The Origin of Curative Effects in Hypnotism.

[57] See Revue de L’Hypnotisme. April, 1891.

[58] Sleep and Dreams, p. 24 et seqq. (Paris: Félix Alcan).

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE

I.

FRANCE.

When, some ten years ago, M. de Roberty published in the Review of Positive Philosophy a series of articles, under the title of the “New and the Old Philosophy,” I was much impressed by the work. The conception of the three types; the idealistic, the materialistic, and the sensualistic, under which nomenclature he ranged the various philosophic systems, seemed to bring order into the history of philosophy. He also proceeded to treat, after the same manner and in a very happy way, the “law of the three states” of Auguste Comte, by this means rectifying and justifying the latter. The law of the three states, wrote M. de Roberty, corresponds with the present state of philosophy, which is again explained by science, so that to whatever measure knowledge may attain to, it will be equalled by philosophy, which borrows its types and its characteristics from the sequence of facts, at the point where it leaves the sphere of explanatory hypotheses.

Since then M. DE ROBERTY has completed by a new study, his first work on this subject. In the “Unknown” he has laid his finger on one of the weak points of modern positivism; perhaps by dint of searching into details, he has shown himself a little too severe on Comte in the book about which I am going to speak to-day, The Philosophy of the Century (La Philosophie du Siècle.).

This book contains a thoughtful criticism of the three doctrines that occupy contemporaneous thought; and which are: criticism, positivism, and evolutionism. He considers these in conformance to his criterium, as simply the varieties of one single species and the absolutely identical manifestation of a common fund of beliefs and hypotheses held generally by all. According to him critical philosophy derives its direct origin from idealism. Positive philosophy, from materialism; and the philosophy of evolution from sensualism. Going further still, he considers critical philosophy as the legitimate outcome of sensualistic idealism; and positive philosophy, similarly, as the product of sensualistic materialism. Sensualism is thus the common ancestor; the three systems inter-penetrating each other. But the promoters of these systems must be judged with equity, put back into their proper places, and ranged according to their epochs. In my opinion, a philosophical doctrine is valuable, not so much by the clear solutions it affords us, as by its methods of procedure, may I say, even by the coloring it gives to thoughtful minds.

I do not hesitate to recognise in Kant, the strong, rough-handed workman of modern philosophy; in Comte, the most utilitarian; in Spencer the subtlest as well as the most successful. Kant possesses the greatest speculative vigor; Comte, the clearest scientific turn of mind; Spencer, the keenest conception of, and insight into, psychological subjects. Taking these philosophers as a whole, Spencer, in spite of his merits, appears to me the least original, the least remarkable of the three. His universal metaphysics has feet of clay. The classification of the sciences that he wished to substitute for that of Comte is obscure, devoid of general utility; in short the influence of Comte on succeeding generations will be more considerable than Spencer’s, if indeed there are any philosophers who will be bold enough to avow themselves deliberately as Comtists.

This contradiction should not surprise us. It not seldom happens that the influence of a master continues even when his doctrines have suffered shipwreck. We notice this in the great schools of thought of the present day. We may say with truth, that the criticists are inclined to dialectics; the positivists, to methods and systems; the evolutionists to facts. The first excel in the analysis of ideas, but they expose themselves to be lost in abstractions. The second endeavor to reduce to a system all scientific matter, but they run the risk of being either rigorists or becoming too elementary. The last while making rapid strides in the genesis of the subtler phenomena of life, incur the danger of accepting arbitrary liaisons, or of remaining in an inchoate condition. Each one possesses most valuable qualities, which it would be desirable indeed to meet with in the same mind. Each has rendered services which it is but just to recognise and which it would be unwise to disregard.

The main thing is always to be able to understand one another upon the question of what philosophy means and its relation to science. What M. de Roberty cares most for, in all his writings, is the elucidation of this problem. We must concede, that it is one which is worth striving after. And it is surely not asking too much if we demand of every philosopher, that he shall know, more or less, what is meant by philosophising.

Philosophy will be, in the future, very much what it has always been in the past, a general conception of the world. This is a fixed fact for M. de Roberty. Is it true that philosophy preceded science, or, that on the contrary it has always been and will continue to be subsidiary to it? Many are, we know, partisans of the first opinion; it has seemed to them that the sciences have separated little by little from the hazy and indistinct conglomerate which bore the name of theology, metaphysics, in a word, of philosophy. M. de Roberty does not hesitate to adopt the contrary opinion. Philosophy, according to him, has always sprung from science, it has always been the equal of science. But though he proclaims this equality as existing between science and philosophy, this does not in the least oblige him to recognise any equality in their manifestations “in history.” The knowledge of a given science, implies a certain conception of the world; this is the supreme law of philosophical evolution. Philosophy is an abstract science of general interest, having for its end, the integration of the documentary evidence furnished by the various sciences. Comte was strongly imbued with this truth. Spencer made it his own, but he makes a more serious mistake than his predecessor, when he asserts that philosophy is able to “play an active part” in scientific discovery. In the opinion of M. de Roberty, it is neither the antecedent of science, nor is it even to be called an art. Must it then be called a science? Or is it to be comprehended in science? Neither the one, nor the other. He prefers rather to regard it as a link (“un trait d’union”) between these two different kinds of intellectual activity, science and art. The mental faculties may, he tells us, aim at subjugating nature, either in a direct manner, the result of which will be called science; or in an indirect way, in which case we name it art; or they may have still a third intention, taking a kind of middle course between the utility of science and the indirect utility of art, which while actively participating in both, facilitates as well the transition from one to the other, from which springs philosophy. “Most unmistakably identical,” says he finally, “are the elements which produce a particular combination, in the one, they are called science, in the other philosophy.”

But we must not confound the two propositions. “If a house is to be built of brick, does that mean that we are not to distinguish between the materials required in its erection?—that we are to apply to its construction, the ingredients and the procedures used in the making and firing of bricks? We never should build a house if we acted thus.”

Let us not misunderstand this comparison! The house here spoken of is entirely figurative. The hypothesis which underlies it is universally accepted, but its primal condition is always wanting—i. e. universal knowledge. It would be presumptuous indeed, to draw, to-day, the plans and define the style of architecture which shall be used in our future philosophical habitation, since we do not yet possess even the materials wherewith to build it. We can only hope to erect such a temporary shelter, a fort, that may be swept away in a few hours, whenever the enemy shall have discovered an explosive powerful enough to blow it into atoms. I do not care very much, I confess, for the distinction spoken of “between a direct and an indirect utility” and the idea of philosophy forming a link between art and science. This way of representing the facts of the case, seems to me both cumbersome and incomplete. I will not stop here to discuss it. The thoughtful study of M. de Roberty is not compromised by such a small detail, and I would rather remember the positive teaching which is given in the very striking book that I have just been criticising.

“Philosophy and science,” writes the author, “are terms which define two principal species of the vast genus designated under the one name,—knowledge.” The most marked trait of the philosophy of the future, will be the distinction between the two species, as confusion was the predominant characteristic of the philosophy of the past.

* * * * *

The work of M. de Roberty gave us a methodic history of philosophy. That of M. F. PICAVET, The Ideologists—An Essay on the Scientific, Philosophic, Religious, etc., ideas and theories in France since 1789, stretches over a very vast area of descriptive history. His book conducts us from Condorcet to Destutt de Tracy, and Cabanis; from these to Degérando and Laromiguière; it embraces thus nearly the whole of the philosophy of the eighteenth century, which it carries back to the seventeenth, from thence following the thread of its history, through the intervening years, down to our own times. The name “Ideologist” is vague, as are all the rest of the battle-cries which are used by the leaders of parties, or that their adversaries may make use of against them. Ideology, in the sense used by Destutt de Tracy, signifies, that philosophers must confine themselves to psychological research, more particularly to that which concerns the origin and the formation of ideas, an immense field, embracing philology, ethnology, etc. With regard to the wrong sense which Napoleon attached to this word, it was justified in a certain measure by the pretensions of the philosophers in governing life, politics, and law, by doubtful hypotheses, which did not often accord with practice. It cannot be denied that since the time of Rousseau, we pass much too easily from theory to action, and that we fall back too readily on our imagination, to supplement our actual experience. We find in M. Picavet’s book, new and valuable information about all the men who have contributed to the intellectual life of the French nation, during and since the time of the Revolution. We can trace there the origin of certain doctrines, which have appeared to spring up suddenly before our eyes, and shall often be extremely surprised by what we shall read there. It is a most valuable and important work, showing an enormous amount of erudition, fine critical acumen, and a rare descriptive talent. It is quite voluminous (more than 600 pp. 8vo.), and some might indeed consider that it could have been more condensed. But it is primarily a book of reference, in whose pages we shall surely not complain of finding a large amount of information, when we refer to it.

* * * * *

With the book of M. BERNARD PÉREZ, Le Caractère, de l’enfant à l’homme, (Character, from Childhood to Manhood), we leave the domain of philosophy and history to enter into that of psychology. M. Pérez modestly disclaims all pretension to founding a science of character. Nevertheless, that which he has given us and produced here, bears the stamp of originality in a subject in which authors have hitherto only repeated one another. His work is composed of two parts, of which the second forms the completion of, or rather a commentary on, the first. We find here, to start with, a classification of characters, illustrated by portraits which render the developments more tangible; secondly, a study on the common combinations of the principle traits of personality.

The classification of M. Pérez is founded on movements, that is to say it is displayed in sufficiently complete groups connected with some distinct mode of expression, such as rapidity, slowness, and energy of movements. It offers the practical advantage of substituting for the four or six temperaments of the old schools, which are frequently hard to distinguish, classes more flexible and distinguished by visible gestures which betray, more or less clearly, their physiological foundation. M. Pérez has provisorily established six of these classes. He distinguishes the vivacious, the vivacious-ardent, the ardent, the sluggish, the sluggish-ardent, and lastly the balanced type. The last category is in my judgment a sort of utility-box, apparently designed to receive specimens which we are at a loss where else to put. For one of two things is certainly true, either this balance is an insignificant trait or it is one that is dominant in the person, and it is absolutely necessary to state which.

Many will undoubtedly question this doctrine that the movements of a person express all his character and that consequently they are competent to reveal it to us. We might maintain, indeed, that if the movements supply us with the labels of each class, it is not always to be distinctly seen how the different traits of character and of intelligence (the author does not separate the two, and gives his reasons for so doing) subordinate themselves to one another and vary with the motor sign chosen to express them. There can be no question, however, that rapidity, energy, or slowness of movement, do not have certain actual and profound connections with our visceral and cerebral functions, and that the motor sign is easy to be made use of, although it does not reach all the facts which it is employed to describe, and although the explanation of these facts still remains to be sought in the physiological substratum.

M. Pérez has secondly attempted a systematisation of character-traits, by successively studying the relations of gaiety and sadness, irascibility and gentleness, courage and fear, kindness and malevolence, self-love and will, with the principal emotional intellectual and volitional traits of character. He has perceived, instinctively as it were, that the pointing out of generic, specific, and individual marks does not possess its entire worth except on the condition that we also point out the subordination of the same, and he has given this factor much prominence in the last chapters of his book. This portion of the work is replete with subtle observations, and ingenious and profound reflections, but it is fragmentary in character, a half-way production, I might say, between the disconnected literature of the moralist and a reasoned and methodical description such as ethology ought to furnish later on, after the manner, if possible, of the natural sciences.

The desiderata which I here briefly refer to, are not set forth to diminish the value of the work of M. Pérez. It will in its present form render great services, and I should not be at all surprised if the terminology which he has invented should pass into the language of the day, as it is convenient and easily lends itself to the description of character-portraits. Even readers who shall find here much to criticise, will not refuse to accord to it real and solid merit.

* * * * *

After the work of M. Pérez, a study of my own naturally ranges itself—La Psychologie du peintre[59]—concerning which I ask permission to offer a few remarks. I have set myself the problem, in this work, of determining a professional type, and I have chosen one of those which are certainly the most distinctly defined. If other authors could give us the psychology of the musician, of the lawyer, of the physician, and of the geometer, such a task would not be an indifferent performance in what concerns our knowledge of character, and we should arrive at the construction of a natural history of society from a different point of view and by different methods from those at the disposal of the novelist. We should accomplish, unquestionably, the passage from general and abstract psychology, to concrete psychology.

Do professional types really exist? and if they exist, what are they composed of? The question as I view it, is not bereft of interest for the psychologist. We do, no doubt, find among painters, vivacious, sluggish, and ardent individuals, and we may indeed, in studying this or that particular painter, discover in him some one or other of the combinations described by M. Pérez. But that does not stand in the way of the growth and constitution of social types, and individuals may find a natural place in the different categories of a general classification without ceasing to belong to their professional category in consequence of a natural self-grouping of their intellectual faculties, and a definite tendency of the traits of their emotional nature. It would be justifiable to say, at the same time simplifying and enlarging a little the facts, that originally our viscera form our character but our cerebral organism forms our profession; and if it is true furthermore that a certain physiological state brings with it a definite intellectual mode of operation, it is none the less true that the same culture of the mind and the long-continued habits of a profession are apt to impose upon one’s personality a definite discipline and mean equilibrium of tendencies and sentiments; and it is in this sense that it has seemed to me we are at liberty to speak of a professional type without equivocation or violence.

Those who will not accept this manner of looking at this subject will find, I hope, some additional interest in my work on the score of the special questions which are treated of there: the heredity of genius, memory, the classification of the sentiments (implied rather than formulated), the relations of the will to the design considered as writing, the evolution of art in its connection with visual analysis, and so forth. There is here a sufficiently abundant supply of materials capable of being wrought up in social psychology and the criticism of art. But it does not become me to bestow praises on my own work, and it would be too easy for me to subject it to criticism. My readers will find in it themselves the weak portions, without my pointing them out to them; and it would be a source of great pleasure to me to have the same assurance that they will discover in it qualities which I do not perceive there.

* * * * *

There remains still to be mentioned La Première partie d’une étude sur la théorie du droit musulman,[60] by SAVVAS PACHA, one time governor and governor general, one time minister of public works and foreign secretary of Turkey. Savvas Pacha—a Christian of Greek descent—has held high positions in the Ottoman Empire and is esteemed as one of the most learned men in Islamic law who have ever lived. His book therefore demands the greatest consideration; it will not possess less interest for philosophers than for statesmen and jurists. In my opinion, works of this class should be consulted by psychologists as much as by sociologists; we are too much inclined nowadays to neglect certain social studies which offer us valuable information respecting the genius of races and the conditions of their moral existence.

The work of Savvas Pacha will undoubtedly contribute much toward the elucidation of some mooted points of very first importance; I should like to mention—the history of creation, and the exposition of the principles of a law which rules more than a million human beings and is intimately interwoven with their political life; a more exact knowledge of the Semitic genius; an estimate of the relations which have existed between the juridical metaphysics of the Semitic peoples and that of the schools of Greece, between the Mohammedan law and the Roman law in provinces once Romanised but afterwards subjected to the empire of the Caliphs.

It does not seem at all doubtful that the ontology of Aristotle in particular has exercised an influence on the philosophy of the Arabian jurisconsults. A second truly remarkable fact, too, is not the new ontology which they have produced, but the use they have made of it in their legislative fabrics. It is impossible to enter into details here; I limit myself to the mere pointing out of the facts.

With respect to the originality of the institutions that belong to the period of the first Abbassids, the same has been contested by a number of historians. M. Renan, among others has maintained that they are the work of the Iranian genius. Savvas Pacha refutes this opinion in a peremptory manner, and we shall no longer be able to deny, after having read him, that the Mohammedan civilisation, with the corpus juris which stands for its most perfect production, has really proceeded from the genius of the races that bore the banner of Islam from the confines of China to the Straits of Gibraltar.

Shall I add that we may deduce from this work, so learned and so suggestive, the elements of an instructive comparison between two grand divisions of human history whose evolution seems still to be pursued on lines wholly apart—that which we call Christianity and that which has sprung from the teachings of Mohammed?

I fervently hope that Savvas Pacha will not delay the publication of the other works which he has promised. When they appear he will have furnished us with the most considerable work which we possess on the institutions of a great division of humanity, still too little known to us.

LUCIEN ARRÉAT.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] All the works so far mentioned are published by F. Alcan.

[60] Published by Marchal et Billard, Paris.

II.

GERMANY.

Productions of a literary-historical character are under certain circumstances also entitled to mention in a philosophical magazine, especially if they present to us the intellectual development and physiognomy of an individual or of a community in a scientific manner, as is done in the Essays of KARL WEIGAND which have just been published by Merhoff, of Munich. Of the larger essays contained in this book we will especially mention those on Voltaire, Rousseau, Baudelaire, and Taine, to which in psychological respects a high value is to be accorded, and which although not exactly easy are nevertheless pleasant reading.

Viewed from this standpoint the History of North American Literature by KARL KNORTZ (Berlin, 1891, Lustenöder) hardly admits of consideration; not even Edgar Allen Poe, who in the psychological point of view is of unexceptionally great importance, is in any respect profoundly treated. The work is made up of a series of well written articles which first no doubt were published in newspapers and magazines for the public at large. We deem it proper, however, to mention the work in this place, because it contains a chapter on the philosophical literature of North America, in which, we must admit, philosophy does not appear to the best advantage. The representatives of philosophy in North America, the author says, are in the main doctors of divinity and securely installed university professors, and this department of study has therefore no dangerous connections; the gentlemen calmly wend their way along the ancient and well-trodden path of the aprioristic philosophers and proscribe without any ado all modern innovations, Darwinism in particular.

As they have not as yet consigned the belief in God and immortality and the freedom of the will to the lumber-room of traditional opinions, and as they are as a rule only superficially acquainted with the results of the exact sciences, despite the fact that many assure us of the contrary, they accordingly fancy that they are easily able to solve the imagined chief problem of philosophy, the reconciliation of religion and science.

This judgment may contain much that is true, but from the little that we personally know of things in North America, is to be decidedly restricted. Moreover, we by no means share the low opinion which the author entertains of all attempts to reconcile religion and science. Religion is a phenomenon of too great antiquity and its influence in the life of nations is too thoroughly established to entitle us, on the ground of science with which it is still involved in violent conflict, summarily to disregard it; and consequently every attempt at reconciliation is worthy of the best efforts of the noblest. It is of course a question whether we shall ever arrive at the point where we will completely understand all religious things, but we certainly must with time arrive at a point where religion shall no longer contain inconsistencies, contain nothing, that is, of which the absurdities are patent.

There was indeed, in Germany also, a time when the belief was very widely spread that religion as compared with science might be ignored completely; it was the time when Ludwig Büchner and Karl Vogt were so much read, when the magazine Gartenlaube counted its greatest number of readers. But this time is long since past, and just as since that time employment with philosophy, especially with ethics, has become more comprehensive, so also the interest in religio-philosophical questions, which aim at a reconcilement of the two hostile powers, has been considerably augmented. Aside from the German productions which have been written in a conciliatory tone, like the book, to give an example, of Moriz Carrière on Christianity and the Modern World Conception, foreign works of this same class have also been much read, particularly Drummond’s Natural Law in the Spiritual World, to which indeed in our judgment no particular value is attributable, as it does not help us to any real knowledge but contents itself with analogies which scientifically are absolutely worthless.

Recently the little treatise Ernste Gedanken of the Saxon officer VON EGIDY (Leipsic, 1891, Wilh. Wigand) has been much talked about. The reformatory effect of this brochure has, indeed, hitherto been very slight and will hardly become more extensive in the future, but the response that it has met with in the widest circles of the German public, proves that many ardent friends of religion anxiously desire that the dogmatic shackles and integuments shall be stripped from the body of the Christian beliefs, and that it shall appear, in the clearest and purest light, that which it is, the religion of love.

Theological criticism has not taken an exactly favorable attitude towards the little book of Lieut. Egidy, and even the liberals, who pay the fullest credit to the good intentions of the author call attention to the fact that the greater part of what Egidy advances has been said before and said better, and that there is an almost absolute lack of positive proposals to be adopted. The Egidy movement will thus probably have, they conclude, no lasting effects.

We cannot indeed absolutely say that these critics are wrong, if we are at all conversant with the development of protestant theology. A very instructive and opportune work in this respect is a book of the well-known Berlin professor OTTO PFLEIDERER, who, as his religio-philosophical treatises evidence, himself belongs to the reconcilers of Christianity and the modern world-conceptions. In the year 1889, at the instigation of the editor of the Library of Philosophy issued by Swan, Sonnenschein, & Co. of London, he published in the English language a work on The Development of Protestant Theology since Kant and in Great Britain since 1825, and this same work has now just appeared in German (published by Mohr of Freiburg) in a somewhat more extended form. As its title proclaims, and as its belonging to the Library of Philosophy would signify, the work is chiefly concerned with the influence which philosophy has exercised on theological thought. To make this influence plain, the author presents at the start, in the form of an introduction, a concise but extremely lucid exposition of the philosophical doctrines that especially demand consideration in this direction. Of German philosophers, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, and of English, Herbert Spencer are treated of at length.

In view of the great respect which Hegel still enjoys in America, it will perhaps interest many of the readers of The Monist if I give here an utterance of Pfleiderer, which in the point of view of the history of religion is also deserving of consideration, at least on the part of those who are recognised adherents of evolutionism.

“No other branch of inquiry,” says Pfleiderer, “owes so much to Hegel as History; the arbitrary construction of details from the philosophical concept which had crept in by Hegel and his immediate followers, has of course been discarded by exact historical inquirers, but there has remained that profounder conception of historical life generally as a development of the common mind of all ages and nations, conformable to law, dominated by ideas, and aiming at necessary general purposes; there has remained that profounder insight into the intricate play of phenomena, into the kernel of things and men, into the dominating ideas that lie as guiding impulses at the foundation of even the apparent disharmony of individual passions; there has remained that unprepossessed understanding for the necessity of even the contrarieties and struggles, for the errors and passions of men, for conflict is the father of all things, as Hegel says with Heraclitus, and as it is only through the struggle of partial rights and one-sided truths that the whole truth of the idea can force its way into existence; there has remained finally that intelligent respect for the heroic figures of history in which the genius of a people and of an age have been incarnated, which as the instruments of a higher power have awakened the thought that slumbered in all souls, given it clear expression, and infused in it life by their mighty deeds. Neither a Leopold Ranke, nor a Thomas Carlyle, nor a Ferdinand Christian Bauer would be conceivable without Hegel’s philosophy of history.”

Pfleiderer expresses himself here very cautiously concerning Hegel, and in other passages his caution is extended further still. Nevertheless, it will seem to many as if that philosopher has been too highly estimated by Pfleiderer. Especially will the followers of Herbart be dissatisfied, who was involved in violent combat with Schelling and Hegel. It is not the place here to enter minutely into this subject; but it is to be mentioned that the name of Herbart does not occur once in this large book. Perhaps Pfleiderer is of Edward Zeller’s opinion who says in his “History of Modern Philosophy,” that the philosophy of Herbart has proved itself unfruitful. It must be confessed, indeed, that the philosophy of Hegel has proved itself for religious doctrine very fruitful; but whether we should be satisfied with its results is quite a different question. Be that however as it may; still, after Schoel has presented Herbart’s ideas concerning religion in a special work, since men like Drobisch, Thilo, and Strumpell have further elaborated these ideas; since particularly Ziller in his Ethics has also profoundly treated religious problems in the sense of Herbart, it is no longer allowable to omit the name of Herbart when we treat of the modern philosophy of religion.

In other respects also we are not always in full accord with the author. So, for example, in Hausrath’s Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, a work to which we ourselves are very much indebted, the perfection of the form of the presentment is justly praised, as is also the merit of having inserted into the greater setting of universal history the development of early Christianity; but it is not mentioned that Hausrath has often allowed himself to be misguided into combinations whose flimsiness cannot escape the notice even of the lay student.

But these are only slight deficiencies of a work that is otherwise excellent and full of matter, closing with the words: “This much is certain, that the labors of the best and wisest of all the theologians of our century, who have here been passed in review before the eyes of the reader, however different the paths may be which individually they have entered upon, have yet been all directed to the one end that Christianity shall strip itself of its dogmatic coverings and fetters and evince its world-conquering power in the ethical idealism of a love that unites us with God and joins together the hands of humanity into the federation of brotherhood.”

If this aim were universal, that is if it were also recognised by the theologians, a not inconsiderable portion of the dispute between religion and science would be done away with, and the sole question would then turn on the contrariety of theological and philosophical ethics. But even respecting this point a settlement would be much sooner brought about, if those concerned would evince the same spirit of reconciliation as HANS GALLWITZ, city pastor of Sigmaringen, has recently done in his book Das Problem der Ethik in der Gegenwart (Göttingen, 1891, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht). The author, it is true, deals critically not only with the philosophical ethics of a Paulsen and a Wundt, but also with the theological ethics of a Hermann and a Kaftan; still the settlement of things with the philosophers forms the bulk of this rather extensive work, the contents of which we cannot of course give here. Gallwitz also speaks in considerable detail of Kant, whom he opposes in respect of the psychological questions here involved, wholly rejecting anything like a transcendental will. If we must agree with him in this respect, we can nevertheless not follow him in his assumption of a special ethical constitution of the soul.

In conclusion let me note the titles of two works to which I shall revert in a subsequent letter. On The Psychology in Kant’s Ethics Dr. ALFRED HEGLER of Tübingen presents a meritorious and compendious treatise of 300 pages (Freiburg, 1891, Mohr), and Professor HOSTINSKY of Prague publishes an exposition and interpretation, based on the sources, of Herbart’s Æsthetics, in which, as is well known, ethics and æsthetics in the restricted sense are wholly severed from psychology.

CHR. UFER.

CRITICISMS AND DISCUSSIONS.

THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE.

To the Editor of The Monist:

SIR—I am glad to hear that Prof. Max Müller intends to answer our double-barrelled criticism of his article on the above subject. Meanwhile, however, I should like to say a few words with regard to the point which he selects for immediate response (see The Monist, Jan. 1892, p. 286). And my object in saying these few words is to remove from his mind the idea that with regard to the point in question I had the smallest intention of bringing against him “a serious charge of want of accuracy, unpardonable in a scholar.” On the contrary, as regards this point I was simply defending myself from his charge against me—to wit, the charge of arrogance.

In his article on “Thought and Language” he observed, “Professor Romanes has no right to speak of men like Noiré, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, to say nothing of Hobbes, with an air of superiority.” In answer to this charge I stated the bare facts of the case,—viz. that in my book I had alluded to Noiré merely for the sake of stating his theory as to the origin of speech, and of expressing my large measure of agreement therewith; that I had quoted Huxley only in places where my argument needed authoritative opinions on matters of comparative anatomy; that I had only once mentioned Hobbes, and then in order to back by his authority a philosophical doctrine for which I was contending; and, lastly, that I had never mentioned Herbert Spencer at all. Now, if my critic feels that a mere statement of these facts amounts to a serious charge against him as a scholar, I can only express my regret that he should have imposed on me the necessity of stating them.

But what now is his reply to this simple statement of facts? Briefly, he drops his own “serious charge” as regards Noiré, Huxley, and Hobbes, and takes his stand upon the case of Herbert Spencer. “It is true,” he says, “Mr. Spencer’s name does not occur in the index. But on p. 230 we read: ‘So here again we meet with additional proof, were any required, of the folly of regarding the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition.’ Now it is well known that it is Herbert Spencer who regards the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition.” As if it were one man alone who takes this view, and that man Herbert Spencer! Or as if Herbert Spencer’s name were so specially identified with it, that in calling it a philosophically foolish view I expected my readers to understand a disrespectful allusion to him! Surely my critic knows as well as I do that this question touching the function of the copula is one which has been debated for centuries; and therefore that with much more show of reason he might accuse me of making an attack on the President of the United States, on the ground that I had expressed a decided opinion in favor of free trade.

But more than this. So far is it from being “well known that it is Herbert Spencer who regards the copula as an essential ingredient of a proposition,” that I am under the necessity of asking Prof. Max Müller for references in proof of such a statement. Chapters X and XI of the “Principles of Psychology” (Vol. II) are those which, as far as I am aware, most nearly approach the subject. Yet the word “copula” does not once occur in them. Moreover, with all that Mr. Spencer has there said upon the nature and structure of propositions I am, and always have been, in full agreement.

Yours faithfully,

GEORGE J. ROMANES.

Oxford, Feb. 12.

A DEFENSE OF LITTRÉ.

To the Editor of The Monist.

If all the readers of The Monist for October were acquainted with the life and writings of Littré I should not have to defend him against your criticism, as everyone could see that there is more truth than poetry in my sonnet. But I fear that “the voice, the spirit, and the soul of Positivism” is not so well known as he deserves to be, and I venture to ask for space to reply.

Proceeding in order, I should like to correct the impression left by the following passage: “Comte had not nominated a successor who should in his place be the Directeur du positivisme. Littré had forfeited this honor on account of his quarrels with Comte in which he strongly sided with Madame Comte against her husband.” The misunderstanding between the two men had a more serious origin than these family squabbles and arose from the fact that Littré would not follow Comte through the mystic vagaries of the Politique Positive. He admits that being under his intellectual ascendency he went too far on the new way, but he soon found that the master was violating his own method and, having to choose between them, he held to the method. Littré’s refusal to join Comte in his adhesion to the régime of the coup d’état of 1851 was the immediate cause of the rupture. His “excessive tolerance” did not extend to the Bonapartes, whom he detested cordially. It is characteristic of the man that he continued his yearly subscription to the fund that he had created for his friend’s support notwithstanding this break in their relations.

As to his tolerance, I think with you that he carried it a little too far in his own family. Greater firmness might have spared us the vision of priests bedeviling him in his agony and dragging his body in triumph to holy ground. But the case that you take as an example does not seem to me conclusive. It was not necessary to possess his knowledge of history in order to appreciate the difficulties attendant upon interference with his catholic wife in the education of their daughter, and as success was impossible he wisely limited his endeavor to fields unobstructed by the “eternal feminine.”

Seriously, we admit that Littré was tolerant to excess, but not that the attitude of his philosophy is, as you say, “mere scepticism leading to indifferentism.” In the words of M. Wyrouboff, who aided him for many years in editing the magazine called La Philosophie Positive, “men, no matter how superior they may be, are never abstract formulas interpreting with equal facility all the parts of a mental conception; they always represent a mixture of strength and weakness in variable proportions.... It seemed as if intellectual activity had absorbed all the living forces of his (Littré’s) being, leaving in the place of physical activity only the faculty of passive resistance to the will of others.” This refers to the man in his old age but in youth he was an athlete of remarkable strength. Renan said of him: “While his temperament was calm his mind was revolutionary, and therefore he never gave way. In July 1830, he was in the first line of those who broke into the place du Carrousel and George Farcy was shot through by his side.” I am tempted to quote a little more from this master of words. “So great was his love of truth that, perhaps alone in our century, he could retract without lessening himself. Truth led him like a child.... It is not well to be too perfect.... His apparent negations were only the extreme reserve of a mind that dreads hazardous appreciations. He was so much afraid of going beyond what he saw clearly that he often stopped short of it. Hesitation that implies a thousand times more delicate worship of the eternal ideal than the rash solutions that satisfy superficial minds.”

Even in old age there were no signs of “indifferentism” in his conduct. In the words of Pasteur, “At the Mesnil he was consulting physician for the whole village (always gratuitously). Continuing his labors till three o’clock in the morning, the light of his lamp shone afar during the night like a beacon that reassured the sick. It was known that at the first call, M. Littré would leave his work and go wherever his aid was needed.”

These are the words of men that knew him, but my first-hand opinion of him was formed solely from his writings and his public acts as senator, etc.; fancy such a man in our senate!

The note in which you say that I attended positivistic lectures (Comte’s?) in France together with Mr. Frederic Harrison is a flattering anachronism.

Littré’s father received a sword of honor while in the navy for beating off an English ship of superior force, and the son’s philosophy prompts not only to action but to action, if necessary, in the good old fashioned positive way.

My second objection refers to the line where you say that your positivism “has nothing to do with Comte or with any of Comte’s disciples,” and, leaving Comte aside, I hope to show that you and Littré are much better friends than you imagine. A view noted by him on p. 27, Vol. 1, of his magazine, La Philosophie Positive, ought to assure this happy result.

In the preface of your valuable work entitled “Fundamental Problems” you draw particular attention to the part that treats of “Form and Formal Thought,” which, you say, discusses a subject of fundamental importance. “A correct conception of form and the laws of form will clear away many mysteries; it will afford a satisfactory explanation of causality and shed a new light on all the other problems of philosophy.”

The part referred to begins thus: “In the introduction to his ‘Critique of Pure Reason,’ Immanuel Kant proposes the question: How are synthetical Judgments a priori possible? on the solution of this problem the whole structure of his philosophy rests, which he characterises as Transcendental Idealism.” (“A priori, as used in the limited sense by Kant, is purely formal knowledge, while a posteriori is identical with experience.”)

Further on I read, “Our own views grew out of a study of Kant’s Transcendentalism”; and the first words of your “Conclusion” are these: “Although Kant’s Transcendental Idealism cannot be considered as a final solution of the basic problem of philosophy, it nevertheless pursues the right method and has thus actually led us to a solution which, we hope, will in time be recognised as final.”

In looking for the difference between the two solutions to find the part in yours that belongs to you alone, I see on p. 50 of “Fundamental Problems” that “Kant thinks it is a strange and wonderful fact that our formal thought (the rules of arithmetic, mathematics, logic, etc., which are a priori) agrees so precisely with the highest (i. e. the most general) laws of nature, which can be ascertained and verified by experience. Kant sees only two ways of solution. Either the laws of pure reason, he says, have been gathered by experience from nature, or, on the contrary, the laws of nature have been deduced from our a priori rules. The former solution is impossible, since the formal sciences are proven to have been formulated with the exclusion of all sensory experience. ‘Therefore,’ says Kant, ‘the second solution only remains. Reason dictates its laws to nature’; i. e. ... the sensory impressions are the raw material only from which the well-ordered whole of nature, as an object of science, is created by the synthetic faculty of reason.... Kant has taken into consideration two ways only. He overlooks the third and most obvious explanation.... The third possibility is that which has been propounded in the foregoing pages. According to our explanation, the formal (the highest or most general) laws of nature and the formal laws of thought are identical. Their agreement is not wonderful but inevitable as both are expressions of the forms of existence in general.”

This then is your “solution of the basic problem of philosophy.”

Turning back to page 34, I find under the title “The Origin of the A Priori”: “Kant answers the question ‘How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?’ by showing that such synthetic judgments undoubtedly exist.” “He might have ventured a step further by proposing another question: ‘What is the origin of the a priori?’ Only by answering this question could he have shown how synthetic judgments a priori are possible. This he did not do, and the omission has produced great confusion among German, French, and English thinkers.” On the next page, 36, I find “According to our view, form is a property of reality as well as of our cognition. Formless matter does not exist. Form and matter as they exist in reality, are inseparable.... Knowledge also in its primitive shape, when it is, so to say, natural and crude, is an intimate combination of sense-perceptions and formal cognition. The sense-perceptions are the real substance of knowledge, while formal cognition is the principle which arranges and systematises sense-experiences.” ... “Logic does not create order and system in our brain, but it makes us conscious of the order that naturally grew in our mind.”

In the division entitled “The Order of Nature” you say that “Formal thought represents the mere laws of thought in their abstractness, and has been acquired by abstraction. The mere forms of thought exhibit a wonderful regularity.... This regularity of formal thought, which is expressed in all logical laws, arithmetical calculations, and in all mathematical conceptions, has naturally grown in our mind as the psychical expression of a physical regularity in the arrangement of the various brain-structures and their combinations. The arrangement of brain-structures in certain regular forms has been effected in accordance with the same laws that govern the development of forms generally.”

This answer to the question, “What is the origin of the a priori” is what you call the corner-stone of your positivism, which, you say, “it is to be hoped, will prove the only true Monism.”

Now I give my translation of Littré’s view, which he published in 1867, in an article entitled “The Three Philosophies.”

“The effective certainty that the mathematical laws of number, of figure and of motion are at the base of physical phenomena, and the inductive belief that they are equally at the base of chemical and of biological phenomena induce me to note here a view upon the relation that must be found between subjective phenomena and objective phenomena, that is to say upon the relation that causes the subject to draw from the object a science and laws. The nervous substance, which is the organ of all intelligence, is made up of material elements which arrive with their conditions; and when this substance becomes capable of thinking, it passes under the conditions proper to the elements that form it; which results in (se traduit par) a science and its laws. The material work that takes place in the brain while it fulfils its office, is, as is known, a work of nutrition, which consists of a chemical exchange of molecules. Every chemical action is, in turn, equivalent to a certain quantity of heat; and again, this heat is equivalent to a certain quantity of motion. Thus thought, no matter how we represent to ourselves the relation to nervous substance, is connected with mathematical modes of which it becomes conscious when it becomes luminous. Not that I would in any way have it understood that thought is but an equivalent of heat or of motion. Far from that, equivalence is not identity; and whenever we change from one degree to another in the natural and scientific order we meet a new unknown which is the characteristic of this degree. The induction that leads us to connect thought with mathematical conditions, leads us also to connect it with physical, chemical, and biological conditions, of which it is necessarily participant. Finally, when, at the highest point, it arrives face to face with itself, it studies itself experimentally like the rest, and forms its own doctrine. If it attempts to go out metaphysically into space, it is reduced to combining subjectively its own elements, turns in a circle without issue and falls back upon itself. If, on the contrary, it makes the same attempt towards nature from which it emanates, then the ways open, science is established, and positive philosophy appears. The material constitution of the nervous substance is the point of junction between the human mind and laws or general facts. If I had been younger, I should have made a work of this view, not a paragraph; but old age must hasten.”

I have translated more than was necessary so as to give the “view” as a whole. Does it not contain the answer to your question, “What is the origin of the a priori”?

Though Littré solved your “basic problem of philosophy” he did not attach so much importance to this solution as you do because his philosophy is based upon a generalisation from all facts and not upon any one fact, however important it may be.

“Positive Philosophy is the conception of the world that results from the systematised ensemble of the positive sciences” and does not depend upon the solution of any psychological problem, although it recognises the importance of all psychological facts.

Your originality lies in your application of Littré’s discovery.

The reader has his choice between Littré’s positivism and your neo-Kantism, but if he side with you he must at least thank Littré for the solution on which your philosophy is based.

You say that “Comtean Positivism, especially as it is represented by Littré, consists mainly if not exclusively of the doctrine to ‘let metaphysics alone.’” Is this fair to the man that solved your “basic problem of philosophy” in a paragraph?

Positivism as represented by Littré gives due importance to the subjective element. He recognised that three essentials were necessary to the completion of Comte’s philosophy: a political economy, a cerebral theory, and what, for want of a better name he termed the subjective theory of humanity. This last comprised ethics, æsthetics, and psychology. Speaking of a confusion that obscures the whole discussion relative to psychology, he says: “Cerebral theory, mental or psychological theory are taken in two very different senses, which are never distinguished. These terms signify sometimes the organic conditions under which intelligence manifests itself, sometimes the formal conditions under which the intellect operates. As soon as these two significations are separated we perceive the means of settling the debate as to the place of psychology; for to the question: Where should these two orders be studied? it will be answered that the first should be studied in anatomy, physiology, zoölogy, the evolution of ages, pathology, it belongs therefore without contest to biology; but it will be answered that the second should be studied in the total development of history and in the application to all the modes of cognition; it belongs incontestably to philosophy. Thus there are two psychologies, one biological, the other philosophical, one relating to the individual man, the other to the collective man, one furnishing what is necessary in order to pass from biology to sociology, the other examining the subjective instrument by the light of all positive knowledge. But this complement of philosophy I do not call psychology, I call it the subject-theory of humanity; because while including psychology, it includes much more.” That is to say; ethics and æsthetics.... “In the order of the positive method it is at first by means of the object that human knowledge is built up, and we end with the subject.” “The theory of the subject is the indispensable complement of the theory of the object.”

Of positive philosophy Littré says: “While it constructs the series of the partial philosophies and thus embraces all objective knowledge, it constructs at the same time the series of effective methods and thus embraces all logical power. I borrow this expression from M. Comte, who so happily named these effective methods the logical powers of the human mind. When it has terminated its first series it is found to have also terminated the second. Thus the ensemble of the methods represents the function of the subject; the ensemble of the partial philosophies, the function of the object.”

Is this what you call a “one-sided philosophy”?

You say that Littré is the worst kind of a metaphysician because he maintains that we can know nothing about first and final causes; I quote him to show his position: “Positive philosophy is at the same time a system that comprises all that is known of the world, of man and of society, and a general method including all the ways by which things have been learned. What is beyond, either, materially, the depths (fond) of boundless space, or, intellectually, the endless enchainment of causes, is absolutely inaccessible to the human mind. But inaccessible does not mean null or non-existent. Immensity, both material and intellectual, holds by a narrow tie to what we know and becomes by this alliance a positive idea of the same order; I mean to say that by touching and bordering it, this immensity appears in its double character, reality and inaccessibility. It is an ocean that washes our shore, and for which we have neither bark nor sail, but whose clear vision is as salutary as it is formidable.” Aug. Comte et la Phil. Pos., 2d Ed., p. 519.

As Littré had found this shore encumbered with the wrecks of expeditions that had started out in search of first causes and final causes, it is no wonder that he was a little timid. His metaphor needs explanation in the light of other passages, otherwise it might seem to discourage pursuit of the unknown. He did not discountenance hypotheses but he was very much afraid of our inclination to take guesses for truth; and this, by the way, is the reason why he is not appreciated in this country, where we are so fond of guessing. What he really did was to discourage those navigators who would go in search of the Jumping-off-place, for the best that can befall them is to come back to where they started. The men that know the earth is round are the only men that find new worlds.

In answer to your statement that Littré’s philosophy “is an inventory rather than a plan to guide science in its further evolution” I will only repeat in his words, what he has shown so well, that “positive philosophy is the ensemble of human knowledge, disposed according to a certain order which enables us to grasp its connections and its unity, and to draw from it the general directions for each part and for the whole.”

You say that “Littré rejects the evolution theory and its attempts to explain ethics.” I quote him from La Philosophie Positive, March, 1880: “Positive philosophy does not deny the evolution of ethics; far from doing so, it maintained and inculcated this evolution long before the utilitarian doctrine made it its ethical pivot.”.... “General morality, born of the gradual culture of the sentimental basis of the human soul under the social protection of progressive centres, is entirely disinterested, and this is what makes its purity and its force.”

In your philosophy you have a god and a religion, in his we have the same things, but as they are so different from what is generally understood by these terms, we use others. Here are some of the Paroles de Philosophie Positive: “In the eyes of history, there are no false religions, there are only incomplete religions which make their way through time and perfect themselves.... The definition of religion is taken from its office, which is: to put education, and consequently moral life, en rapport with the conception of the world at each phase of humanity. Whoever examines this definition will find that it satisfies all the conditions of religion, either in the past, the present, or the future. It will be perceived that theology is not inherent in the religious idea. It was not always there in the past; for we cannot give the name of theology to primordial fetichism, which addressed its worship to neighboring objects, nor to the religions that adore natural agents, such as air, wind, night, dawn; it is with polytheism that theology begins. As for the future, general science, conceiving the world differently from the way in which it was conceived during the reigns of the successive religions, takes an office equivalent to the religious office, and must in its turn place education and moral life in accord with the universe as it appears to us.”.... “We do not outrage the old doctrine, whose past is glorious and venerable; but there is a public for which it is a dead letter; and it is to this public that we address ourselves and for this public that we labor.”

Is this not aspiration to be in unison with “the order of the world,” which you call God? And when Littré traces this aspiration back to its organic origin is he not explaining what you affirm?

Our philosophies are not perfect, but we must apply them, such as they are, to the needs of the day. The most pressing of all these needs, in my opinion, is unity of action among those who are animated with the new spirit.

Let us pull together.

Very truly yours,

LOUIS BELROSE, JR.

ÉMILE LITTRÉ’S POSITIVISM.

An editor cannot make it a rule to accept criticisms of considerable length which have reference to a remark incidentally made in a book review. The present case, however, although it belongs in this category, is of a peculiar nature. First, the remark on Littré was made by the editor himself, and accordingly he feels personally responsible for it; secondly, it contains a brief delineation of Littré’s character as a man and as a philosopher in the way in which he is usually regarded by the most prominent historians of philosophy. Mr. Belrose presents Littré in quite a new light and quotes passages in corroboration of his conception of Littré which are perhaps not generally known, for they are buried in articles of the positivistic journal La Philosophie Positive, and this journal enjoyed neither a long life nor a large circulation; nor is it to be had in any of the libraries accessible to me. Seventeen editorial articles were republished in bookform, (La Science. Au point de vue philosophique, par É. LITTRÉ. Paris, 1873), but the article “The Three Philosophies” is not among them.

If Mr. Belrose’s conception of Littré proves to be true, I shall not only gladly correct my own wrong view of Littré, but I wish also to call attention to the fact that he has been misrepresented by almost all and certainly by the best and most painstaking philosophical historians.

I cannot however in the main points accede to Mr. Belrose’s view and will have to sustain my former opinion that M. Littré was an agnostic. He made it a matter of principle to suspend his opinion on some of the most fundamental philosophical problems, which he considered as inaccessible. His positivism, accordingly, differs toto cœlo from the positivism presented in The Monist. His philosophy, like that of Comte, is so far as I understand it, a policy of let-metaphysics-alone. It gives up the struggle with metaphysics as a hopeless undertaking. Therefore, I should say, Littré’s positivism has not conquered metaphysics, and although it lets metaphysics alone, metaphysics plays an important part in it. Littré is an agnostic and like every agnostic that believes in the unknowable, a metaphysician without knowing it.

The doctrine of the three stages of knowledge, viz., the theological, metaphysical, and positive stages, appears to me of less importance. The doctrine of the three stages is at the same time not properly a Comtean idea; Comte adopted it from Turgot, the great statesman and one of the greatest men as a thinker and also as a character that ever lived and who is too little appreciated as such.

The main doctrine of Comte’s positivism is the doctrine that first and final causes cannot be known, and we must abandon our search for them; that human knowledge is limited to the middle, while the two ends are inaccessible. These insoluble questions, he declares, have made no progress from the beginning. Mr. Lewes in his book “Comte’s Philosophy of the Sciences” expresses this agnosticism in the following words (p. 31): “Our province is to study her [nature’s] laws, to trace her processes, and, thankful that we can so far penetrate the divine significance of the universe, be content—as Locke wisely and modestly says—to sit down in quiet ignorance of all transcendent[61] subjects.”

This idea has so far as I am aware never been given up by Littré; it remained the basis of his belief in the unknowable and his works abound in expressions that concerning the main problems of life, “the positive philosophy will neither assert nor deny anything.”

Littré concludes the last article of his volume “La Science” with the following words:

“Le domaine ultérieur est celui des choses qui ne peuvent pas être connues. La science positive professe de n’y rien nier, de n’y rien affirmer; en un mot, elle ne connaît pas l’inconnaissable, mais elle en constate l’existence. Là est la philosophie suprême; aller plus loin est chimérique, aller moin loin est déserter notre destinée.”

This quotation alone, I think, settles the first main point at issue.

Now I maintain that Comte’s view of causation where he refers to first and final causes is fundamentally wrong; causation is transformation and causality is the formula under which we comprehend the changes of matter and energy that take place. The expressions first and final causes are misnomers (see “Fundamental Problems,” the chapter The Problem of Causality). First cause is either the starting point of a series of some longer chain of causes and effects, or as the term is generally applied or rather misapplied, stands for the last ground or reason, i. e. the answer given to the ultimate question why?, which is the most general raison d’être that would explain and contain all the other and less general raisons d’être regarding the nature of existence. The term final cause, again, means either the last cause in a series of causes or (and so it is generally used) it is a misnomer for purpose; and the final cause supposed to be inaccessible to human comprehension is the purpose of the existence of the world at large. I object to there being three kinds of causes. There is one kind of causality only, and the causes of this causality in all the causal processes with which we are confronted are perfectly intelligible.

The problem of the first cause of the origin of our world, viz. the solar system and the milky way, was attacked first by Kant and later by Laplace, and the latter, without knowing of Kant’s solution, solved it in the main in the same way. All recent investigations stand upon this Kant-Laplace hypothesis so called, having added corrections only as to details. Shall we declare that these labors are vain and gratuitous efforts of vague speculations? Littré says, with reference to such speculations, concerning the past and future states of the world (le monde):

“La dissémination primordiale de la matière qui devait le composer, la dissémination future de la matière qui le compose, dépassant toute expérience, dépassent toute conjecture.”

If I misunderstand Littré, it appears to me a pardonable mistake.

Yet is not the problem as to the origin of the world at large, why matter and energy exist at all, insolvable? Littré says that the positive cosmogonies, such as the doctrine of evolution do not touch the absolute; they have nothing to do with first and final causes. He says: “Les cosmogonies positives la [i. e. la place des cosmogonies religieuses] remplissent, non pas qu’elles aient la prétention ni le pouvoir de pénétrer dans l’absolu et d’embrasser, les causes premières et finales.”—l. c., p. 560.

That kind of causality which is sometimes called “ontological,” having reference to the existence, not of single things as transformations from other things, but of the world at large and formulated in such questions as how did the universe itself, the world as a whole, originate, is properly speaking no causality, it is not a question concerning a cause, but concerning a raison d’être. However without haggling about the words cause and raison d’être, this ontological causality so called is by no means beyond human comprehension. The ontological question has found a very definite answer in the formulation of the law of the conservation of matter and energy; which declares that existence at large did not originate, the total amount of matter as well as of energy existed always and will exist always. It has not been created; it is uncreatable and indestructible; it is eternal.

Littré is quite explicit in declaring that the positive philosophy lets alone all theological and metaphysical problems. It is neither atheistic nor theistic, and does not side with either materialism or spiritualism. He says:

“Ni spiritualiste, ni matérialiste, la philosophie positive écarte de la science générale les débats que la science particulière a depuis long temps et à son grand profit rejetés.”—Preface d’un disciple in Comte’s “Course de Phil. pos.” p. xxvii.

Littré characterises as the main object of the positive philosophy, “to give to philosophy the positive method of the sciences, to the sciences the idea of the unity of philosophy.” He says: “Ainsi fut accompli ce qu’on doit appeler l’œuvre philosophique du dix-neuvième siècle, donner à la philosophie la méthode positive des sciences, aux sciences l’idée d’ensemble de la philosophie.” Preface, p. viii.

I am in perfect agreement with Littré that this is the object of positivism; but, if I understand Littré correctly, I disagree from his conception of the positive method. He limits the positive method to what he calls “experience,” and excludes every notion of the a priori. Littré apparently misunderstood the proper meaning of Kant’s idea of the a priori, for he used as a matter of course the a priori method wherever it was indispensable, so for instance in mathematics and in the application of mathematics.

Mr. Belrose says:

[Littré] “solved your basic problem of philosophy [i. e. what is the origin of the a priori] in a paragraph.”

The problem of the a priori reasoning is the question “Why can we know certain things before we have tested them by experiment? Man has not arrived by experience but by pure reasoning at the conclusion that the sum of the angles of every plane triangle has 180 degrees. How is he justified in declaring a priori that the angles of a certain plane triangle make up 180 degrees, although he has not measured them?” This problem is the fundamental problem of the scientific or positive method; it is the same problem which Mr. Charles S. Peirce discusses in his article (see pp. 321 et seqq. of the present number of The Monist), for the problem of apriority is identical with the question of necessity.

Littré has, so far as I know, never discussed the problem of apriority and necessity. He has simply rejected the idea of the a priori as the method of a false metaphysics, which is incompatible with the a posteriori method of positive science. The passage quoted by Mr. Belrose most certainly does not contain a solution of the problem. Littré declares therein that every chemical action is equivalent to a certain quantity of heat; and again this heat is equivalent to a certain quantity of motion. Thus, he says, thought is connected with mathematical modes of which it becomes conscious. Thought, he adds, is not an equivalent of heat or motion, for equivalence is not identity, but it is connected with mathematical conditions. This means that that kind of brain-action which represents conscious thought, depends upon definite proportions. But what in all the world has this idea to do with the problem of apriority? The phrase “mathematical modes” (which is misleading in this passage) is an unfortunate expression for “proportions” and we must add that Littré is mistaken when he says that the nervous substance when it becomes luminous, becomes conscious of these mathematical modes with which it is connected. Aside from “luminous” being simply an allegorical expression for conscious, it is wrong to say that the nervous substance becomes conscious of the mathematical modes of heat as they are proportioned in the brain. A sentient being knows through sensation nothing about the mechanism or the mechanical proportions of its own sentient structure. Sensation is the act of a becoming conscious not of the sentient structure itself but of the meaning which this sentient structure has acquired, and a consciousness of the mathematical modes which according to Comte’s hierarchy of the sciences ought to be the beginning of knowledge develops at a very late period. Any explanation of the origin of a priori, be it ever so brief, would lead us too far away from the points of our controversy. It is sufficient here to point out that the passage quoted by Mr. Belrose, contains no solution of the problem of our knowledge and certitude of mathematical, arithmetical, and other purely formal laws. On the contrary, this very passage is replete with error; it is a misstatement of facts and does not even bring to light the difficulties of the problem.

Littré was prejudiced against the a priori, and his prejudice induced him to underrate its importance. I read in one of Littré’s passages quoted by Mr. Belrose:

“If it [thought] attempts to go out metaphysically into space, it is reduced to combining subjectively its own elements, turns in a circle without issue and falls back upon itself.”

The a priori method of thought subjectively combining its own elements, is by no means a turning in a circle without issue so that in the end it will fall back upon itself. The a priori method of thought subjectively combining its own elements is employed by arithmetic, mathematics, and logic, and we are confronted with the astonishing fact that rules, or formulas, or calculations which were made by pure thought subjectively combining its own elements, are applicable and hold good as reliable guides in our experiments. If there were no a priori, how could we foretell or, what is more still, how could we predetermine the course of nature? The a priori has been wrongly employed by the so-called metaphysical philosophers to give us information about the substance and essence of the world. But the misapplication of the a priori is no reason for denouncing it as radically wrong.

The existence of the a priori is an undeniable fact. Kant was right in recognising it in its sweeping importance, yet he was wrong in his interpretation of the a priori, which according to his transcendentalism was based exclusively upon a peculiarity of the mind and not upon the nature of things. The positivists in France did not only object to the wrong interpretation of the transcendentalists but also denied the existence of the a priori. Accepting the principle that every knowledge must ultimately be a statement of facts, the question How is the a priori to be based upon facts? became in my conception of philosophy the burning problem which was next in order as a conciliation between Kant and Comte.

The French positivists, foremost among them Comte and Littré, have not given us an explanation of what is true and false in the theological and metaphysical notions of first and final causes, of the a priori of God, of substance, of force, etc.; they have simply abandoned the investigation of these ideas which are after all the most important tools in the household of the human mind for scientific and ethical purposes; and thus they have, in spite of their positivism in questions of detail, retained the metaphysical method of a priori reasoning which is quite legitimate in the formal science but out of place concerning facts. Take for instance the following argument concerning the materiality of things:

“Là, c’est à dire dans les sciences positives, on ne connaît aucune propriété sans matière, non point parce que, a priori, on y a l’idée préconçue qu’il n’existe aucune substance spirituelle indépendante, mais parce que, a posteriori, on n’a jamais rencontré la gravitation sans corps pesant, la chaleur sans corps chaud, l’électricité sans corps électrique, l’affinité sans substances de combinaison, la vie, la sensibilité, la pensée, sans être vivant, sentant et pensant.”—La Science, p. 307.

I do not mean to say that there are immaterial or spiritual substances, but I should say that any purely a posteriori argument in favor of their non-existence is insufficient. Would Littré mean that a Zulu should declare that ice cannot exist because he has never seen water frozen as hard as a stone? Any amount of experience, i. e. all a posteriori evidence, is in parts and will out of itself never acquire universal validity.

How strongly Littré is still implicated in the metaphysical method of applying a priori ideas to a posteriori experiences can be learned from the following statement:

“Le monde est constitué par la matière et par les forces de la matière: la matière dont l’origine et l’essence nous sont inaccessible; les forces qui sont immanentes à la matière. Au delà de ces deux termes, matière et force, la science positive ne connaît rien.” Preface, p. ix.

The metaphysical ideas, matter and force, are a priori notions of mystical entities or things in themselves, and thus it appears natural that experience should know nothing of them. But real matter and actual force are not unknowable existences. They can be known. We know something of them and positive science is engaged in broadening and deepening this knowledge. Says Littré:

“Les propriétés physiques sont manifestes en toute substance, dans quelque état qu’elle soit, isolée ou non isolée, et s’exercent sur les masses; les propriétés, n’apparaissent qu’entre deux substances, ont besoin de la binarité et s’exercent sur les molécules; enfin les propriétés vitales dépassant la binarité, ne sont compatibles qu’avec un état moléculaire plus composé.” Preface, p. x.

One of the fundamental principles of positivism, as I conceive it, is the definition of knowledge as a description of facts or of their properties. We call certain properties of the facts (i. e. the objects of our experience) matter and others force. When we say that we do or do not know a certain phenomenon we mean that we have or have not as yet succeeded in placing them properly in that system of thought-symbols of which our mind consists. Yet there is no sense in speaking of matter and force as being unknowable while the properties of matter and force are said to be manifest and appearing under certain conditions.

I have presented the main reasons why I still hold that there is a radical difference between Littré’s view of positivism and my own. Littré is an agnostic and he was an agnostic before that name had been invented. His objection to metaphysicism consists in the doctrine not that the object of metaphysics is a chimerical non-existence, but that the object of metaphysics exists yet it cannot be known. Thus Littré is as much a metaphysician as those philosophers whom he censures for their metaphysical views. He does not censure them for believing that the metaphysical exists, but for believing that it is knowable and attempting to investigate its nature.

As to the hierarchy of the sciences I shall simply quote a few extracts from Eugen Dühring’s criticism of Comte. Dühring says (Krit. Gesch. der Phil., p. 486):

“If Comte’s positivism were nothing more than what we have here laid down, its main contents would, strange enough, consist in negativity. The criticism of a certain kind of metaphysics, viz. of an ontology phantastical to a greater or lesser extent, would form its most significant character. The other element which consists in presenting a hierarchy and unitary conjunction of some of the sciences which are called positive in the usual sense of the term, cannot pretend to be philosophy in the higher sense of the word or even to be useful for science. A general view of knowledge, whether it consists of six or sixty volumes, does not add the least iota to the contents of our knowledge.... We cannot expect that a specialist should be pleased with a hierarchical sketch of his science, especially if the delineations are filled out with details of which he would be a better judge.”

It is true, and I concur in this with the French positivists, that a positive philosophy must be a systematic arrangement of knowledge. But I conceive it to be the philosopher’s work, not to take an inventory of the sciences, but to define the fundamental concepts of scientific enquiry and to elucidate the methods of cognition. Such fundamental concepts are the ideas, truth and criterion of truth, cause and effect, mind, thought, knowledge, ethics, etc. Concepts are the tools of thought and the practice of using them correctly has to be learned.

Positivism is not the original invention of a world-system, but the systematising of statements of facts so as to produce a world-system. The old philosophers gave us first a world-system, from which and in accord with which they defined their views of truth, cognition, cause, etc. They began to build their philosophy from the top down. Positivism begins from the bottom and is building up to the top with the assistance of the special sciences. A positive philosophy is inseparable from, but it cannot be replaced by, the sciences. The field of philosophy is to superintend the method and the plan of building, so as to compare the details and bear in mind the unity of the whole. In this sense Dühring says in criticising Comte (p. 486):

“However, concerning the form of the connections of methodical reflections, something can be done. Yet it must be possible to separate everything of such a kind and also new insights, so as to constitute a special branch of knowledge. Otherwise they will escape the specialists’ attention.... Not only Comte but all philosophers given to the idea of systematisation and construction of particular knowledge have made attempts in this direction which at most may range as sketches or popular presentations in a higher sense.”

Concerning Littré’s view of Comte’s religious vagaries Dühring says (p. 483):

“His [Comte’s] biographer, the Academician Littré of Paris, and also Stuart Mill are right in considering ‘The Course of Positive Philosophy’ as the main and fundamental work which is decisive as a contribution of his and a source of instruction to the world. However, they are very one-sided when they overlook that the philosopher even in his vagaries exhibited a universality of mind which remains superior to the standpoint of either Littré or Mill.”

I agree with Mr. Belrose that Comte’s religion as he conceived it consists of vagaries, but the main idea of developing the religions of the past which, as Littré says, are not false but only incomplete religions, into a religion that shall be in accord with the science of our day is no vagary, but a great and an important ideal.

Far be it from me to belittle Littré because I disagree from him in some fundamental questions. He was in his time, he is still, and will remain for ever a star of first magnitude in our philosophical galaxy. That which I consider as his errors does not detract from his greatness. Were not Kant’s mistakes in a similar way closely interwoven with his greatest merits? It is flattering to me that Mr. Belrose finds an agreement between his master’s and my views concerning the basic problem of philosophy, but I cannot discover it. Yet I gladly acknowledge that there exists an agreement of aim, and this agreement of aim which finds its truest expression in the word “positivistic” is perhaps of greater importance than the agreement of views.

P. C.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] Italics are not mine.

OBSERVATIONS ON SOME POINTS IN JAMES’S PSYCHOLOGY.[62]

In calling attention to some objections to the views advanced by Professor James on the subjects of Belief, Emotion, and Will, it is only justice to myself to express the admiration I feel for his work as a whole. The thoroughly scientific spirit which pervades it, the author’s candor in admitting and his skill in surmounting difficulties, his learning and his originality, his aptness in illustration, and the energy and vivacity of his style combine to make it full of interest as well as instruction. It is because it should be, and doubtless will be widely influential, that it is important that any doubtful positions assumed in it should be subjected to a careful examination.

I shall endeavor to avoid any misrepresentation of the views which I combat, but space will not allow me to do full justice to the arguments by which they are supported, if such a thing is possible for an antagonist. For this, I must refer the interested reader to the original book. If what I have to say should have the effect of increasing the number of its readers, I shall not have written altogether in vain, whether I succeed or fail in setting the truth in a clearer light.

I. BELIEF.

Professor James entitles the chapter devoted to this subject “The Perception of Reality,” and defines belief to be “the mental state or function of cognising reality.” He explains that, “As used in the following pages, ‘Belief’ will mean every degree of assurance, including the highest possible certainty and conviction” (Vol. II, p. 283).

According to this definition, erroneous beliefs, such, for instance, as the belief that the earth is flat, stationary, and the centre of the universe, or the delusion of an insane man that he is Jesus Christ, are cognitions of reality. Professor James would probably say that they are realities to the mind entertaining them, and it is true that the feeling of belief is the same, whether the thing believed be true or false. I think, however, that it is more customary to use the verb which he employs in connection with beliefs which agree with the objective facts, and that the “feeling” or “sense” of reality would be a better term than “perception” or “cognition.”

This, however, is not, to my mind, the most serious objection to the definition. Although Professor James does not use the word “knowledge” in this connection, it seems evident, from the passage quoted above, and from what he says elsewhere, that he considers all kinds, as well as all degrees of certainty to be beliefs. It seems to me evident, on the other hand, that many of our cognitions of reality are not properly called beliefs. As an instance, I will quote the illustration with which he opens the discussion of “The Various Orders of Reality” (p. 287).

“Suppose a new-born mind, entirely blank and waiting for experience to begin. Suppose that it begins in the form of a visual impression (whether faint or vivid is immaterial) of a lighted candle against a dark background, and nothing else, so that whilst this image lasts it constitutes the entire universe to the mind in question. Suppose, moreover (to simplify the hypothesis), that the candle is only imaginary, and that no ‘original’ of it is recognised by us psychologists outside. Will this hallucinatory candle be believed in, will it have a real existence for the mind?

“What possible sense (for that mind) would a suspicion have that the candle is not real? What would doubt or disbelief of it imply? When we, the onlooking psychologists, say the candle is unreal, we mean something quite definite, viz. that there is a world known to us which is real, and to which we perceive that the candle does not belong; it belongs exclusively to that individual mind, has no status anywhere else, etc. It exists, to be sure, in a fashion, for it forms the content of that mind’s hallucination; but the hallucination itself, though unquestionably it is a sort of existing fact, has no knowledge of other facts; and since those other facts are the realities par excellence for us, and the only things we believe in, the candle is simply outside of our reality and belief altogether.

“By the hypothesis, however, the mind which sees the candle can spin no such considerations as these about it, for of other facts, actual or possible, it has no inkling whatever. That candle is its all, its absolute. Its entire faculty of attention is absorbed by it. It is, it is that; it is there; no other possible candle, or quality of this candle, no other possible place, or possible object in the place, no alternative, in short, suggests itself as even conceivable; so how can the mind help believing the candle real? The supposition that it might possibly not do so is, under the supposed conditions, unintelligible.”

I readily grant that it is, under the supposed circumstances, unintelligible that the candle should be thought to be unreal, but it seems to me equally so that it should be believed to be real. What does Professor James mean by a belief in the reality of the candle under such conditions? Nothing more than that the mind is conscious of a sensation which we know, but it does not, is like that produced by the sight of a candle. This sensation is certainly a reality, and the only possible reality to that mind. Professor James must, then, be understood as maintaining that a sensation, pure and simple, is a belief in an object exciting the sensation. If, for instance, the first consciousness of the supposed mind were the odor of a rose, or the whistle of a locomotive, he must admit that the mind would believe in the rose or the locomotive. If I have a headache, or am hungry or tired, I not only have beliefs about these sensations, but the headache, the hunger, the weariness, are themselves beliefs. Now I submit that this is contrary to all ordinary use of language. It is, perhaps, impossible for an adult, with his mind full of memories of past experiences, to have a sensation without some sort of a belief about it, but although the sensation and the belief may be inseparable, they are not indistinguishable, and, as a matter of fact, every one does distinguish between his sensations and his beliefs about them. I do not think it would be quite correct to say even of an adult who had never seen or heard of a candle, that, on seeing one for the first time, he would believe in the reality of the candle, although doubtless he would believe he saw something real—a real flame, for instance.

If it be admitted that sensations are entitled to be called beliefs, it seems impossible to stop short of the conclusion that all states of consciousness are beliefs.

Emotions and volitions are as much realities as sensations, and are known as such by the mind that experiences them. That memory and imagination involve belief, is too evident to need discussion. But if this be the case, the chapter on belief could have been very greatly abbreviated—need not in fact, contain more than four words. To say that all consciousness is belief would perhaps simplify matters, but it would not advance our knowledge very much, nor would it accord with the ordinary use of the word, which has reference to a particular kind of consciousness, which every one knows, however hard he may find its definition.

It seems to me, therefore, that Professor James’s definition of belief is defective in two ways. There are beliefs which are not cognitions of reality, and there are cognitions of reality which are not beliefs. Especially in regard to the latter class, I think that the definition confuses a distinction that is real and important, between different kinds of knowledge. We know our sensations, emotions and volitions in a way which differs not only in degree but in kind from any usual, or, I think, legitimate sense of the word “Belief.”

Perhaps it would be the safer course to rest content with pointing out the objections to the author’s definition without laying myself open to retaliation by attempting one of my own, but it does not seem to me impossible to give one which will include all that is understood by the term and nothing more. I should say that belief is the sense or feeling of relation between mental objects. That we have belief whenever we have this feeling, seems to me too plain to require argument, and I am unable, after a good deal of reflection, to call to mind any belief that is not included in the definition. If I see, or imagine that I see a lighted candle, it may excite in my mind a great variety of beliefs, as, that the flame is hot, that the light and heat are caused by the chemical union of oxygen with carbon and hydrogen, that the material of which the candle is composed is wax, paraffine or tallow, that it has a cotton wick, that it is of a certain size, weight, and color, and so on indefinitely. All of these are evidently ideas of relation. To say “flame,” or “hot” does not express a belief, unless something else is understood, but to say “flame is hot” does so. If I say that the color red is equal to the square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle, I fail to express a belief because the mind perceives no relation between the objects, and the answer to such a statement would be, not that it is or is not true, but that it has no meaning. The only cases which occur to me in which it might be plausibly argued that a belief did not involve the feeling of relation are such impersonal expressions as “it rains,” or, “it is cold.” The exception, however, is only apparent, arising from the erroneous idea that everything which is implied in language must be expressed. When we say, “it rains,” we mean, “rain is falling.” In either form of language, the thought conveyed is that of the relation of the drops of water and their motion. The stock-broker, with his prearranged code, may communicate the ideas of a long sentence in a single word, or the Freemason may do the same to the initiated by a gesture. In such a case, it would be absurd to contend that no relation is felt or communicated because there is no formal subject or predicate.

Whatever may be thought of the sufficiency of my definition, I risk the assertion that it includes all beliefs that can be affirmed, denied or doubted. We never question our sensations, emotions or volitions—we have them, are aware of them, and that is the end of the matter. It is the relations of our sensations to each other, and to our pleasures and pains, our choices and rejections, that involve us in all sorts of perplexities. The whole question of the grounds of belief in general, and the truth or falsehood of particular beliefs is a question of relations. It is, then, in the sense indicated above that I shall use the word hereafter.

Having settled the definition, it may be worth while to consider for a moment whether this feeling of relation, which can only be known by experience, is enough like any other mental states to be classed with them. On this point Professor James says: “In its inner nature, belief, or the sense of reality, is a sort of feeling more allied to the emotions than to anything else. Mr. Bagehot distinctly calls it the ‘emotion’ of conviction. I just now spoke of it as acquiescence. It resembles more than anything else what in the psychology of volition we know as consent. Consent is recognised by all to be a manifestation of our active nature. It would naturally be described by such terms as ‘willingness’ or the ‘turning of our disposition.’ What characterises both consent and belief is the cessation of theoretic agitation through the advent of an idea which is inwardly stable, and fills the mind solidly to the exclusion of contradictory ideas. When this is the case, motor effects are apt to follow. Hence the states of consent and belief, characterised by repose on the purely intellectual side, are both intimately connected with subsequent practical activity. This inward stability of the mind’s content is as characteristic of disbelief as of belief. But we shall presently see that we never disbelieve anything except for the reason that we believe something else that contradicts the first thing. Disbelief is thus an incidental complication to belief, and need not be considered by itself.” (P. 283).

I am unable to satisfy myself whether, in the above passage, Professor James has in mind the feeling of belief or other feelings which often accompany it. The “cessation of theoretic agitation,” “willingness,” “turning of our disposition,” are accompanied by feelings which I should say are not only like, but identical with emotion. In the case of old, confirmed beliefs, however, theoretic agitation ceased, and the turning of the disposition occurred, if at all, long ago, and I am unable to recognise anything resembling emotion in my belief that two and two make four, that cows eat grass, that iron is a metal, and many others that might be mentioned. Nor do these beliefs, at the present time, give rise to motor effects, which, so far as I am able to see, only result from such beliefs as are, directly or indirectly, associated with emotion. If such beliefs as I have mentioned are not purely intellectual, as distinguished from emotional phenomena, I should be at a loss to know where the distinction is to be made between “the head” and “the heart.” The sense of relation seems to me to be the most purely intellectual of all the mental functions, and, although it may give rise to all sorts of emotions, the more settled, undisturbed and unquestioning the belief, the less likely is it to give rise to any but the feeling of calm, which seems to me to be the antithesis of emotion. I should say that belief is a feeling sui generis, without enough analogy with any other to justify classing them together.

I have already quoted the illustration with which Professor James opens the discussion of the subject of Reality. After quoting from Spinoza, to the same effect, the supposed case of a horse with wings imagined to be real in the absence of any contradictory thought, he goes on to say: “The sense that anything we think of is unreal can only come, then, when that thing is contradicted by some other thing of which we think. Any object which remains uncontradicted is ipso facto believed and posited as absolute reality.” (P. 288). Elsewhere he says:

“... all propositions, whether attributive or existential, are believed through the very fact of being conceived, unless they clash with other propositions believed at the same time, by affirming that their terms are the same as the terms of those other propositions.” (P. 290).

This, I think, is stated too strongly, at least, in the latter quotation. A proposition that is uncontradicted will be believed, but it is not necessary that the contradictory proposition should be believed in order that the first may fail of belief. I believe nothing, at present, contradictory of the proposition that it is now raining in Boston. I think it not improbable that such may be the case, but at the same time the contrary proposition is present to my mind, that it may not be raining in Boston, and the result is the state of mind which Professor James very properly regards as the opposite of belief—doubt. But supposing that a proposition is presented to the mind, which, being for the time uncontradicted, is believed, and that subsequently another, contrary proposition is presented, is it certain that the latter will be disbelieved? May not a state of doubt replace belief in this case also? Or supposing that two propositions, which have been believed independently, are brought into juxtaposition in such a way as to show that they are inconsistent, how are we to determine which if either, shall be believed? Professor James seems to teach that it is a matter of choice.

“That we can at any moment think of the same thing which at any former moment we thought of is the ultimate law of our intellectual constitution. But when we now think of it incompatibly with our other ways of thinking of it, then we must choose which way to stand by, for we cannot continue to think of it in two contradictory ways at once. The whole distinction of real and unreal, the whole psychology of belief, disbelief and doubt, is thus grounded on two mental facts—first, that we are liable to think differently of the same; and second, that when we have done so, we can choose which way of thinking to adhere to and which to disregard.[63] The subjects adhered to become real subjects, the attributes adhered to real attributes, the existence adhered to real existence; while the subjects disregarded become imaginary subjects, the attributes disregarded erroneous attributes, and the existence disregarded an existence in no man’s land, in the limbo ‘where footless fancies dwell.’” (P. 290).

The doctrine that belief is, in the last analysis, a matter of choice is a prominent feature of Professor James’s teaching, to which I shall have occasion to refer again. It seems to me to involve him in some inconsistencies. For the present, it should be noted that he admits the reality of every mental object in its proper relations.

“If I merely dream of a horse with wings, my horse interferes with nothing else and has not to be contradicted. That horse, its wings, and its place are all equally real. That horse exists no otherwise than as winged, and is moreover really there, for that place exists no otherwise than as the place of that horse, and claims as yet no connection with the other places of the world. But if with this horse I make an inroad into the world otherwise known, and say, for example, ‘That is my old mare Maggie, having grown a pair of wings where she stands in her stall,’ the whole case is altered; for now the horse and place are identified with a horse and place otherwise known, and what is known of the latter objects is incompatible with what is perceived of the former. ‘Maggie in her stall with wings! Never!’ The wings are unreal, then, visionary. I have dreamed a lie about Maggie in her stall.” (P. 289).

Here, the dream is a reality, and the winged horse is as really a part of it as the mare Maggie is of the outside world. The reality of the winged horse in the one case, and his unreality in the other, depend on his relations to other mental objects. So, for instance, if any one should say that a mermaid was a creature with the portion of a man from the waist up united to the body and limbs of a horse, I should be justified in contradicting him, and saying that it was not a mermaid but a centaur that he had in mind. It would not be a valid answer to say that there were really no such things as mermaids and centaurs. In mythology, a centaur has as definite a structure as a giraffe has in zoölogy, and it is as inexcusable to confound the one as the other with anything else. This point is amplified by the author in a section on “The Many Worlds,” in which the various objects of thought are found in their proper relations, and out of which each one selects a world of practical realities, according to his dominant habits of attention. In the relative sense, in which we contrast reality with unreality, or consider one object more real than another,

“Reality means simply relation to our emotional and active life ... in this sense, whatever excites and stimulates our interest is real.” (P. 295).

“Whatever things have intimate and continuous connection with my life are things of whose reality I cannot doubt.” (P. 298).

This power of exciting and stimulating our interest, Professor James finds to be possessed in a pre-eminent degree by sensations, which thus become, directly or indirectly, our tests of reality, and among which those which are pleasurable or painful hold the first rank. Next to them, if not of equal power, are emotions.

“The greatest proof that a man is sui compos is his ability to suspend belief in the presence of an emotionally exciting idea. To give this power is the highest result of education. In untutored minds the power does not exist. Every exciting thought in the natural man carries credence with it. To conceive with passion is eo ipso to affirm.” (P. 308).

Professor James’s account of the grounds of belief seems to me inadequate in that it fails to show the connection between our sensations and emotions and other mental states and our beliefs. Why is it that the sight of the heavenly bodies, for instance, awakens in different minds such diverse beliefs as the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems of astronomy? What does a man who is frightened believe? What belief would necessarily result from a colic? It is not enough to say that sensations and emotions are connected with belief; we want to know how they are connected.

Bearing in mind the definition of belief as the sense of relation between objects, the question resolves itself into the origin of feelings of relation. As relations are of various kinds, they may be suggested to the mind by different circumstances. They may, I think, be divided into three classes:

1) Relations of likeness and unlikeness. These result from the comparison and discrimination of objects. All the beliefs involved in the recognition and classification of objects arise in this way. When, on seeing a certain object, I say that it is a bay horse, and will weigh about eleven hundred pounds, I give expression to relations of comparison. The comparison may be immediate, between objects simultaneously present to the senses, or alike present only to memory or imagination, or between a present object and a remembered one, or mediate, by comparison of two or more objects with some other. All mathematical truths are of this kind.

2) Relations of cause and effect, of substance and quality, of whole and component parts, of order in time and space, are due to association. When I say of the horse that his movements are caused by muscular contractions, that he is of a gentle disposition, that he has a bony skeleton and red blood, that he is five years old and is harnessed to a carriage, I express relations of association. In his chapter on Association Professor James says:

“Belief in anything not present to sense is the very lively, strong, and steadfast association of the image of that thing with some present sensation, so that as long as the sensation persists the image cannot be excluded from the mind.” (Vol. I, p. 598).

I do not think it is a fact that the image of the thing believed in need be associated with any present sensation. I am not aware, for instance, that there is, at present, any such association in my belief in the existence of the city of Constantinople, or that Queen Victoria is reigning in England. The associations in these and similar cases are with objects of memory and not with present sensations. On the other hand, what we mean by belief in a present object always involves memory of the past. When we say that we believe in anything, we either mean that it is like other things of the same sort of which we have had experience, or that it stands in some other relation to them. Complete loss of memory would not only destroy all our past beliefs, but, if it were permanent, would prevent our ever forming any new ones. The universe, in such a case, would be a mere chaos of sensations.

In order that things may be associated, they must first be discriminated, otherwise, as Professor James has shown, in his chapter on Discrimination and Comparison, they are thought of, not as associated things, but as one thing. In like manner, when discriminated things have once been associated, the tendency is, in the absence of contrary experience, to think of them as belonging together. A child, attracted by the brightness of the teapot, touches it and burns his fingers. He naturally expects the teapot to be hot the next time he sees it. He is told that his Christmas gifts were brought down the chimney by Santa Claus. Until the statement is contradicted, he believes it. Why should he not? Or the association of things in the mind may come about without any external suggestion. I remember that the first time that I ever heard a person snore, the thought came into my mind that the strange noise was made by a bear, and I lay awake most of the night, in fear of being devoured. The tendency is to think of things as related in the way in which they are first presented to the mind, until they come up in some different relation. This seems to be the explanation of the tendency to “believe as much as we can,” to “affirm immediately the reality of all that is conceived,” of which Professor James speaks. With increased experience, we find that there is a difference in the uniformity of associations, and accordingly the coincidence of two or more things is associated with the doubt whether or not the association is a constant one.

3) In addition to the relations considered above, there are some which, although expressed in terms of association and comparison, seem to me to have a different origin. That the whole is greater than any of its parts is a relation of comparison; that a thing cannot be in two different places at the same time, that every event has a cause, that there is an external world, are relations of association. Although they do not arise independently of experience, they contain more than is given in experience, and the uniformity and firmness with which they are believed can, it seems to me, only be accounted for by the assumption of an innate propensity to look upon things as related in these ways.

So far as I am able to judge, beliefs always arise in one or another of these three ways. But a still more interesting question, from the practical point of view, than that of the origin of beliefs, is that of the comparative validity of the various grounds of belief. Are they all of equal worth, and if not, is there any way of determining which are to be given the preference, or is belief, like taste, a matter about which “non disputandum”?

Professor James does not go very deeply into the discussion of this question. As we have seen, he assigns to sensation the greatest efficacy in producing belief, and discusses the comparative power of various sorts of sensations in this respect. Emotion he makes a close second. But the question which gives us the more reliable information, in cases in which they conflict, he does not discuss at all. As a matter of fact, there is no doubt that a man under the influence of strong emotion often draws different conclusions from the evidence of his senses from those at which he would arrive in its absence. Is he warranted in doing so? Would any degree of personal interest warrant a man in believing or disbelieving the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Newtonian theory of gravitation, the Mosaic or the Darwinian view of the origin of species? There is no doubt that belief on such subjects as these is influenced by our interest, real or supposed, in one or the other view, and perhaps Professor James would say that he deals with the working of minds as they are, not as we imagine that they ought to be, but the general knowledge that a class of considerations is reliable or the reverse is another thing that not only ought to, but actually does affect our beliefs, and the question of the method to be pursued in ascertaining the actual relations of things, of forming true beliefs instead of false ones, is one which hardly ought to be ignored in a discussion of the subject.

Referring to the three classes of relations already considered, it is, I think, evident that there are differences in the way in which they affect our belief. In comparison, the essential thing is the accuracy of the observation. One who has once fully comprehended the proof that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, is as sure of it as he could be after any amount of experience. In comparing sensible objects, we may, it is true, and our belief confirmed by repetition, but this is only in case that we doubt whether the comparison was rightly made in the first place. That red does not look like blue, nor sweet taste like sour, we are as certain on one trial as a hundred. If we apply a foot measure to an object eight inches long, nothing can add to our certainty that they are not of the same length. In matters of association, on the other hand, a great deal depends on the uniformity of the association—the number of times that we have experienced it without contrary experience. When I hear a crow, for instance, I believe that it is black, because all the crows that I have ever seen have been so. A sheep I assume to be white, but with a less degree of confidence, because black sheep are more numerous than white crows. In the case of a horse, I have no belief in regard to the color within a certain range, unless I have some means of knowing about the particular animal in question. If I were told that my friend had bought a horse, I should have no idea whether it was bay, or black, or white, or some mixture of these colors. If, however, I were told that the natural color of my friend’s horse was green, I should be much more confident that the statement was false than if the same person should tell me he had seen a white crow, for, the same reason that I should more readily believe in a black sheep than in the latter. In the customary use of the word, I might say I knew it was not so. In the case of intuitive judgments experience has little or nothing to do with the strength of belief. The adult man is no more firmly convinced of the existence of something external to himself than the child, and, although he may come to doubt it on speculative grounds, he no more fails than the child to show by his actions that he has a practical faith in it.

In many, if not most of our beliefs, all of these elements are present. If I see an orange, for instance, I have the intuition of externality, the comparison with other oranges that I have already seen, and associations of internal structure, taste, smell, and the like. All of these, and very possibly some emotion, as, for instance, a desire to eat it, may arise, simultaneously or so nearly so as not to be distinguished in time, as parts of a single mental state.

There is one kind of association, of importance enough to deserve mention, of which Professor James makes no mention. The beliefs, or alleged beliefs of other people have an influence on our minds which is, I think, not inferior to that of emotion. The man who can, without misgiving, maintain an opinion which contradicts all that he learned in childhood and all that is held by those whose good opinion he most values is, I fancy, quite as rare as he who can suspend judgment in the presence of an emotionally exciting idea. Most of us take our religious, political, scientific, and practical beliefs at second hand, from the friends with whom we associate or the books and papers we read. Take a young man out of his home and put him, for instance, in college, and it will probably work a change in his moral standards, not necessarily for the better. At home, if he knew of a theft, or an assault, he would very probably be ready to bring the offender to justice, but if the offender is his classmate, and the sufferer a member of the succeeding class, he will very probably think it a more shameful thing to report the wrong than to do it. At the same time, he doubtless considers it utterly reprehensible that ignorant Italian peasants should feel in the same way about betraying their neighbors who are guilty of robbery or murder.

Coming now to the influence of emotion on belief, it will not, I presume, be disputed that it comes about by way of association. Professor James, as we have seen, holds that “every emotionally exciting thought, in the natural man, carries credence with it.” I suspect that this is true only in the sense that, in the absence of experience, not only every exciting thought, but every thought is believed. However this may be, in respect to the natural man, I think it is pretty certain that, in the case of such artificial beings as those who reflect on the causes of their emotions and beliefs, it will be found that in order for an idea to excite our emotions, a certain degree of belief is necessary. Professor James illustrates his position by the fact that a man can walk along a curbstone without any apprehension of falling, because the thought of falling awakens no emotion of dread, while on the edge of a precipice the emotion caused by the thought of the consequences of a mis-step may quite overcome his belief in his ability to keep his balance. But a chamois-hunter or an acrobat will pass along the same place without the slightest apprehension, not because he does not think of what would happen if he should fall, nor because he has more liking than any one else for being dashed to pieces, but because he has what the inexperienced man lacks, entire confidence in his ability to avoid the danger.

Since I began writing the last paragraph, a number of thoughts have passed through my mind, any one of which would be sufficiently exciting if I believed in them, as, that I may die within the next half hour; that I may fall heir to a fortune, and the like, none of which have produced any emotional disturbance, because I do not believe that there is any probability of their being true. Why was it that not only the medical profession but the public in general became so much interested, recently, in the announcement that Dr. Koch had discovered a substance that promised to be a cure for tuberculosis? Partly on account of the interests involved, but at least equally because his reputation was such as to inspire confidence in what he said. There are plenty of medicines advertised in the newspapers for which greater claims are made than Dr. Koch made for his discovery, which fail to arouse any such general interest. These examples are probably enough for illustration of the familiar fact that belief is the most common cause of emotion, and that a thought that is not believed is apt to leave us unmoved.

Nevertheless, it is a notorious fact that emotion has a great deal to do with determining the sort and degree of evidence which is satisfactory to us. Love and hate, respect and contempt, affect our beliefs in regard to the character of their objects in matters entirely independent of the qualities which originally inspired the feelings. We find it an easy matter to believe that a man whose religious or political opinions we think pernicious is a bad man in matters which have nothing to do with his opinions, and may find it almost incredible that one whom we like personally should think differently from ourselves on matters in which we are deeply interested. But what particular evil we shall believe of the person whom we dislike, or good of the one whom we like, depends entirely on circumstances. A man, for instance takes a dislike to a stranger on account of some lack of good manners. Whether he shall suspect him of being a clergyman or an infidel, a drinker or a prohibitionist, a Sunday-school teacher or a gambler, or both, is likely to depend very largely on his own tastes and principles in regard to such matters. So, on the other hand, his views in regard to religion, temperance and gambling, are probably due in great measure to the practice of the people whom he likes. A woman who has been brought up with a horror of drunkenness hears that a man with whom she is violently in love is a drinker. She will probably disbelieve it at first, but if she becomes convinced of the truth of the report, she will very likely come to think that a drunkard need not be such a bad fellow after all. If there is any one thing that more affects our beliefs than what the people we like say, it is what they do.

In like manner, emotional states without any definite object, such as we call moods if they are transient, and disposition or temperament if they are habitual, color our belief, not by originating any definite propositions, but by making us receptive to those that tend to confirm them. It is not when a man is broken in spirit by repeated calamities that he is most ready to believe that “where there’s a will there’s a way,” nor in the flush of youth, health and triumph that the doctrine that “all is vanity,” comes home to his heart. In whatever way such states of mind come about, whether as a result of original constitution, or of experience, or of disease, they make the mind inhospitable to whatever does not harmonise with them. In the case of insanity, this disposition may outweigh the plainest evidence of the senses, so that a man may believe that he is rolling in wealth and luxury when he is destitute of the ordinary comforts of life, or that his wife and children are dead when they are present before his eyes. In a lower degree, most of us probably have experience of something of the sort in “fits of the blues,” but while the general character of the belief may be decided by the emotional tone of the mind, its precise form is determined by the man’s interests. Low spirits would not be likely, for instance, to effect a man’s opinion as to the probable course of the stock market, unless he were in some way interested in stocks, and the view favored by his emotional condition would depend on the side of the market on which his interest lay. Beliefs which, in our ordinary state of mind, are not associated with any strong feeling, such as mathematical truths and the physical and chemical laws of matter, remain unaffected in all kinds and degrees of emotional disturbance.

It seems clear, then, that, as a matter of fact, emotions affect our beliefs through association. It is not difficult to see how this comes about. Emotions tend to perpetuate themselves. A man who is in high spirits will laugh at vexations which, if he were in an irritable frame of mind would seem intolerable. We allow liberties to our friends which would offend us in persons to whom we are indifferent. The same inertia of the mind which is shown in these cases offers a resistance to any thought that tends to disturb it. If I like a man and hate dishonesty, evidence that the man is dishonest calls up at the same time two contrary emotional states, which cannot subsist together. One of three things must happen; either the association of the feeling of liking with the person of the man, or of that of repugnance with dishonesty, or of the quality of dishonesty with the man must be given up, or at least impaired. But the feeling of affection for my friend and that of hatred for the alleged fault are old established associations, while that of dishonesty with his personality is a new one, which, in order to find lodgement, must expel the original inhabitant. Although I may have formed no definite association of honesty with him, the difficulty is of precisely the same sort as if I had. In either case it is the breaking up of an habitual association.

Such being the way in which emotion affects belief, its value as a ground of belief must be determined in the same way as in other cases of association. If any emotion is so exclusively connected with some definite object that the one is never present without the other, we are warranted in inferring the existence of the object from the presence of the emotion, as Robinson Crusoe inferred from the human footprints on the sand that men had been there. As a matter of fact, there is comparatively little uniformity in associations of this kind. The same things affect different persons differently, and the same persons differently at different times. Our hopes and fears are sometimes realised and sometimes disappointed, and people to whom, on slight acquaintance, we feel attracted, often develop qualities of a different kind from what we expected as we come to know them better. If I am fond of money, and also of idleness, or of friendship, and also of having my own way at all times, it does not follow that taking my ease is the way to get rich, nor that always insisting on my own way is the course to make friends. The most, I think, that can be said in favor of emotion as a ground of belief is, that its existence presupposes the existence of some object adapted to excite it. Avarice may be said, in a sense, to prove the existence of wealth—if there were no wealth there would doubtless be no avarice—but not that a particular avaricious man will be wealthy. Fear implies the existence of harm, but not necessarily that harm is coming upon the one that fears. These are matters in which we can apply the test of experience to our beliefs, and it seems evident that emotion adds nothing to our knowledge. We know the things independently of the emotions they excite, and every one recognises that to expect a thing merely because we either desire or fear it is, in matters which we can test by experience, utterly fallacious.

But there are matters lying outside the range of our experience in regard to which it is often confidently asserted that our desires and fears are sufficient proof of their reality—a view in which I cannot agree. If it could be shown that we long for something of an entirely different kind from anything we have known, that might perhaps be an argument in favor of its existence, but such is not the case. The wish for immortality, for instance, is nothing more than the wish for life. Probably there are but few who would not rather have immortality without death than after it, but experience has at last convinced the most hopeful that this is not to be expected, and the search for fountains of youth and elixirs of life has few devotees. We want life, and we have life; we want happiness, and we know happiness, whether we ourselves have it or not, but to say that the fact that we want more than we get of both is a reason for supposing that we shall ever have all that we want of either is to reason in a way which we should all see to be fallacious if applied to things of every-day life. I conclude, then, that the emotions which a belief excites are utterly valueless as a test of its truth, and that we may expect that, both with individuals and the race, emotion will play a smaller and smaller part in belief as true knowledge and culture increase. This is not saying that, in cases of doubt, it is unreasonable to hope that things may turn out as we wish.

As to innate beliefs, it is enough to say that we cannot altogether rid our minds of them, and that they answer perfectly the purpose of working hypotheses. A man may question the reality of an external world to his heart’s content, but if he runs his head against a wall, or drops a brick on his toe, it will hurt him just as much as the most thorough-going materialist. The consequence is that such a doubt does not affect our conduct. Abstractly, these beliefs do not all impress us with the same degree of certainty. That the same thing cannot be in two different places at once, is, I think, felt to be more absolutely and necessarily true than that there is such a necessity in the order of events as is implied in the idea of causation, but for all practical purposes we are as sure of the one as of the other.

I have already quoted Professor James’s assertion of our ability to choose which among different ways of thinking of the same we shall adhere to and which disregard. Perhaps the most prominent feature of his teaching on the subject of belief is that it is an active, not a passive state of the mind—a choice, not a necessity. One or two more quotations on this point will make this plain.

“As bare logical thinkers, without emotional reaction, we give reality to whatever objects we think of, for they are really phenomena, or objects of our passing thought, if nothing more. But, as thinkers with emotional reaction, we give what seems to us a higher degree of reality to whatever things we select and emphasise and turn to WITH A WILL. These are our living realities, and not only these, but all things that are intimately connected with these (p. 297).

“Now the important thing to notice is that the difference between the objects of belief and will is entirely immaterial, as far as the relation of the mind to them goes. All that the mind does is in both cases the same; it looks at the object and consents to its existence, espouses it, says ‘it shall be my reality.’ It turns to it, in short, in the interested emotional way” (p. 320).

Although the doctrine is stated, in these and other passages, without qualification, it is hard to reconcile it with some other statements. He devotes a chapter to “Necessary Truths,” and says:

“We must attach the predicate ‘equal’ to the subject ‘opposite sides of a parallelogram’ if we think those terms together at all” (p. 617).

I do not know that it makes much difference whether we say that, in a case like this, we cannot think differently of the same, or that, having thought so, we cannot choose which way of thinking to adhere to and which to disregard. The proposition that a horse is a vertebrate animal cannot be called a necessary, a priori truth, but I find it as impossible to think of a horse that is not a vertebrate animal as of a parallelogram with the opposite sides unequal. A figure with the opposite sides unequal would not be a parallelogram, and anything that was not animal and vertebrate would not be a horse. Whether the difficulty in the two cases is the same or not, it is clear that, by Professor James’s admission, here is a restriction of our choice as to what we will believe.

Again, he speaks of pleasurable and painful sensations as “belief-compelling.” Compulsion, so far as it exists, excludes choice, and if this expression is justified it implies another limitation on the freedom of belief.

With regard to painful sensations, it seems to me that the fact is that they, and their associations, force themselves on our attention, rather than that we “select, and emphasise and turn to them with a will.” If I have a toothache, I may believe that if I retain the tooth it will keep me in pain for a long time, and if I have it extracted, that will also be a painful process. It does not seem to me that the expressions quoted above accurately describe my state of mind in regard to either of these beliefs.

According to Professor James, when a man becomes convinced that he is financially bankrupt, or that he has lost his good name, or that he is suffering from an incurable and fatal disease, it is because he “espouses” this view of the matter, “consents to its existence,” says “it shall be my reality.” This notwithstanding that such a belief may drive him to determine that, so far as in him lies, all existence, all reality shall cease; to consent to death and espouse the grave. Would not the criminal who hears his death-sentence pronounced prefer, if he could, to disbelieve his eyes and ears, and to feel that it was all a bad dream? So far as I can judge with regard to many unwelcome beliefs, they are not like the highwayman who offers the alternative of “your money or your life,” but like him who throws you down, binds and robs you without offering any choice.

Perhaps the most striking example of the view under consideration is found in a foot-note on p. 318, in which, after quoting, with approval, a statement of Royce that “The ultimate motive with men of every-day life is the will to have an external world,” he goes on to say:

“This immixture of the will appears most flagrantly in the fact that although external matter is doubted often enough, minds external to our own are never doubted. We need them too much, are too intensely social to dispense with them. Semblances of matter may suffice to react upon, but not semblances of communing souls. A psychic solipsism is too hideous a mockery of our wants, and, so far as I know, has never been seriously entertained.”

Leaving aside the question whether any one who really disbelieved that there was any reality, outside of his own mind, in objects of sense, could believe in the existence of that which he only infers from the conduct of those objects, it seems to be distinctly stated that the reason of these beliefs is, not that we cannot help believing so, but that we choose to believe so, and not otherwise, and that we are able, having so chosen, to believe as we wish. That there may be no doubt as to the sense in which the term “Will” is used, I will quote the explanation with which he opens his chapter on that subject:

“We desire to feel, to have, to do, all sorts of things which at the moment are not felt, had, or done. If with the desire there goes a sense that attainment is not possible, we simply wish; but if we believe that the end is in our power, we will that the desired feeling, having or doing shall be real; and real it presently becomes, either immediately upon the willing or after certain preliminaries have been fulfilled” (p. 486).

Now each one must judge for himself whether this, or anything like this is the way in which he came to believe in an external world. Judging from my own experience, I should say that the reason we originally have such a belief is that it arises spontaneously in our minds, and that, for a long time, it never occurs to us that it can be otherwise. However that may be, I am certain that when the contrary possibility was presented to my mind, it struck me as strange, rather than dreadful, and that I firmly believe many things that seem to me far more hideous than the doctrine that I am the universe. So far as society is concerned, if I can be Shakespeare and Milton and Goethe, Plato and Bacon, Newton and Darwin, Luther and Columbus and Washington, as well as all the people of my acquaintance, it strikes me that I can be pretty good company for myself. To use the universality of the belief as a proof of its voluntary nature seems to me very much such an argument as to say that because all bodies attract each other in the ratio of their mass and inversely as the square of the distance, the falling of a stone must be a purely voluntary matter. I do not see what stronger argument, in a case like this, could be made for the necessity of a belief than the alleged fact that no one, under any circumstances, is free from it.

Now, if we substitute the term “Propensity” for “Will” in the passage quoted above, it would seem to me an entirely accurate description of the facts, and I can only understand how the authors quoted could take the ground they do except on the assumption that all propensities, or at least all which prevail, are choices or volitions. That such is not the case seems to me clear enough in regard to belief from some of the instances which I have already mentioned, but it will perhaps be still more evident from cases in which belief is not in question. The propensity to remember and constantly think of painful and distressing things, which we would gladly banish from our thoughts, or such things as silly rhymes and trifling tunes; to tremble and lose our presence of mind in danger, when we have most need of the full use of all our faculties; to express our emotions by muscular movements when we wish to conceal them, and many others that might be mentioned, are examples of the fact that an invincible propensity may be quite the reverse of a choice.

That belief is an activity of the mind may be freely admitted. The mind—whatever the substratum of our states of consciousness may be—is not a receptacle, to hold indifferently whatever may be poured into it nor a sheet of blank paper, on which this or that may be written by circumstances; it has a character of its own, and reacts to its environment. What the reaction shall be depends both on the character of the mind and what is presented to it, but it seems incorrect to assume that all the dispositions of the mind are of the nature of desires or aversions. In the last analysis of which we are capable, our character is probably due to our physical constitution, original and acquired, and our beliefs may be profoundly affected by a few glasses of whiskey or an attack of fever. Whether the reactions of the matter of which our brains are formed are as invariable as those of inorganic matter need not be discussed here; the present point is that while belief is a sense of the relations of things as they are, the essence of will is the desire to have them otherwise than as they are. To make belief a matter of choice is the same as to say that I may at the same time choose that things shall be as they are and otherwise.

Professor James closes the chapter with a practical observation:

“If belief consists in an emotional reaction of the entire man on an object, how can we believe at will? We cannot control our emotions. Truly enough, a man cannot believe at will abruptly. Nature sometimes, and indeed not very infrequently, produces instantaneous conversions for us. She suddenly puts us in an active connection with objects to which she had till then left us cold. ‘I realise for the first time,’ we then say, ‘what that means!’ This happens often with moral propositions. We have often heard them; but now they shoot into our lives; they move us; we feel their living force. Such instantaneous beliefs are truly enough not to be achieved by will. But gradually our will can lead us to the same results by a very simple method; we need only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real, and keep acting as if it were real, and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real. It will become so knit with habit and emotion that our interests in it will be those which characterise belief. Those to whom God and Duty are now mere names can make them much more than that, if they make a little sacrifice to them every day. But all this is so well known in moral and religious education that I need say no more” (p. 321).

The above passage seems to me to illustrate at the same time the force of Professor James’s rhetoric and an occasional tendency on his part to be carried away by it into statements that are altogether too sweeping. In an immense proportion of cases, the method that he recommends is precisely the surest way to convince ourselves that the thing in question is not real. It is the method which the small boy takes to convince himself that the gun is not loaded; the drunkard and spendthrift to satisfy themselves that their vices will not bring them into poverty and disgrace. A man may sit all day at the fork of the road, and believe that the broad way does not lead to destruction, but when he puts his belief in practice he discovers the truth. So far as practical matters, capable of being brought to the test of experience, are concerned, it can only be said that if they are real, we shall convince ourselves that such is the case by acting as if they were real. Doubtless Professor James had not such prosaic things as these in mind when he wrote the passage, but a method that will not serve us in regard to such questions as whether water will wet us or fire burn us, can hardly be called infallible. But even in regard to questions that must always remain matters of opinion it is not true in the unqualified sense in which Professor James puts it. Probably many men, brought up in the belief that it was their duty to observe the first day of the week by religious worship because the Hebrews were required to abstain from labor on the seventh day, have come to modify their belief without any material change in their practice, and even the belief in regard to the nature and attributes of God may be affected in advance of a change in the conduct based upon it.

The law of association in this regard is subject to the same limitations as we have already found to hold in respect to other matters. Associations of action with belief have a tendency to strengthen it, but, as in the case of emotion, they may be overcome by other considerations, and it is entirely possible for a man to go on for the better part of a lifetime in punctilious conformity to usages which in his heart he despises, and break out in open rebellion at last. From the ethical point of view, the advice which seems to be implied, of deliberately choosing a way of setting doubts at rest which is as efficacious on the side of error as of truth, of vice as of virtue, seems to me, to say the least, of doubtful tendency. We must often act in doubtful cases, and take the risk, amongst others, of thus confirming ourselves in error, but certainly there can be no more solemn motive for weighing well our beliefs before committing ourselves to them by action than the fact that we may, by habit, pervert our moral sense, blind our judgment and stifle our conscience.

To the man who believes that there is a universe, of which he forms an infinitesimal part, and that all his interests depend on his attitude toward the power that works in it, it is of infinitely more interest to know how he can know the truth than how he can convince himself of this or that. Shall truth be our master, to be followed and obeyed, though he command us to give up all else that we hold dear, or our servant, to be employed as suits our passion or caprice, and dismissed when he will no longer serve our purpose?

This is perhaps the most momentous question that we are called on to decide. The man who makes the wrong choice may or may not attain what he seeks, but though he gain the whole world, he will lose his own soul.

W. L. WORCESTER.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] The Principles of Psychology, by William James, Professor of Psychology in Harvard University. In two volumes. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1890.

[63] The italics, in this and my other quotations, are the author’s.

THE NATURE OF MIND AND THE MEANING OF REALITY.[64]

Professor William James’s supposition of “an hallucinatory candle” seen by a “new born mind entirely blank and waiting for experience to begin” is an impossible and self-contradictory figment. We might as well speak of the dry Niagara falls employed in the manufacture of some material goods out of nothing. For, first, a mind entirely blank is no mind and, secondly, a blank mind if it could exist at all, would have no hallucinations. An hallucinatory candle can be produced only out of the memories or the combination of memories of former candle-sensations. A blind man sees in his dream no colors, and a deaf man hears no symphonies.

A new-born babe is already in possession of many inherited memories. Thus the first sense-impressions after the babe’s birth find the organism, especially its skin, nerves and muscles predisposed for their reception. The babe’s organism accordingly presents an instance of a relative but not of an absolute blank; an absolute blank of a something that is to develop into mind can mean only a lump of sentient matter at the moment of formation. As soon as it is formed it is exposed in every second of its existence to innumerable impressions which fill the blank with contents and these contents are the mind that is developing.

Sentient substance is not at rest, but like a flame it is possessed of an incessant activity. The form of this activity is both extraordinarily plastic and stable. It is plastic, for every impression together with the reaction of the impression modifies it and leaves a trace: it is stable for the traces of all the impressions and reactions are preserved.

The first sense-impression of a lump of sentient substance produces an irritation which objectively considered is a commotion of the sentient substance and subjectively considered a feeling, the substance being sentient ex hypothesi. This first and primitive feeling is meaningless, for it has not, and cannot have, any reference to any other feeling, memory or mind, and meaning is created through the interaction of feelings with memories of feelings.

Some later sense-impression of the same kind will not only produce the same irritation but also serve as an irritation to awaken the memory-trace left by the former sense-impression. The new feeling will melt into one with the reawakened memory of the former feeling. In the long run many traces of the same kind which are, as it were, deposited in the same place will constitute an organ predisposed to receive the correspondent impressions; and now a sense-impression received by such an organ may be called a sensation. A sensation is not merely a feeling, it is a feeling of a special kind and it is felt to be of a special kind. In other words, a sensation is a feeling that has acquired meaning; and this meaning is the product of the interaction and coöperation of feelings and memories. Sensations have become symbols representing the cause of the sense-impression which produced the sensation, and ideas are symbols of a higher order representing either whole classes of a certain kind of causes of sense-impressions or certain features thereof, or certain relations among them.

Thus every mind is a system of sentient symbols. These symbols being as it were pictures intended somehow to represent or allegorically speaking to portray things are called “ideas,” while the things symbolised are in their totality called objective existence or “reality.”

Considering the nature of mind, it is obvious that there cannot be an entirely blank mind. We might as well speak of an entirely blank picture. But an entirely blank picture is a canvas and no picture at all. That a mind which is not as yet a mind can have neither sensations nor hallucinations is almost self-evident. Similarly there is no sense in saying that a picture that consists of an utter blank and thus is properly speaking no picture at all but an empty canvas, either does or does not correctly represent a certain object.

The word “real” is used in two senses (1) as a name for everything that exists and (2) to signify that kind of existence which is the object of our sensory and mental experience, i. e. the objective world so-called. The former of these two definitions is more comprehensive; for it includes the realm of mentality, the ideal world of subjectivity. The latter is used in contrast to the subjective world of mental life and thus expressly excludes the ideal realm of the mind and of mental symbols.

The questions as to What is reality? and Is there anything real at all? must not be formulated as they are by Professor James, in terms of belief but in a statement of facts and by defining certain facts as real.

An hallucination is real in the first sense of the word; it is an actual existence; it is a feeling taking place in the mind of some organism. It is also real in the second sense of the word in so far as it is a vibration of a brain structure. However an hallucination is not real in the second sense of the word in so far as its meaning has not its correspondent analogue.

Let the meaning of a certain mental symbol be a candle, under which name we comprise a certain group of experiences, and let the cerebral structure of this mental symbol be awakened by another stimulus than that which is generally called a candle. Those experiences which as a group are called a candle are of a certain kind. If a piece of paper approaches the lighted candle, it will burn. An hallucinatory candle will leave the paper intact, although the person who has the hallucination may see the paper burn. Thus the ideas or images of objects are built up of experiences which have taught us that under certain conditions certain events happen; in consequence of certain actions there are constantly certain reactions taking place. Reality consists of such facts; it is the sum total of all reactions; reality is the nature of objects which react somehow.

Those who jump at the conclusion that our subjective sensations, such as colors, tastes, sounds, etc., must be regarded as objective properties of things, are grossly mistaken. Our sensations are not qualities of things but subjective phenomena: they do not inform us about the nature of things, but reveal to us how things affect our senses. Those however who deny or doubt objective existence are no less mistaken. The world is not a subjective phenomenon of sensations, but an objective existence symbolised in sensations.

The question is not “Does reality exist?” but “What is Reality?” or “What is the meaning of ‘real’?” When we say “Objects are real,” we mean that they resist, they react, their presence produces somehow some effect. When we say, We ourselves are real, we mean that we react upon the objects with which we come in contact, we mean, that in our bodily existence we are objects in an objective world.

Actions and reactions are taking place. This is a fact. He who denies it is like the man who declares that he is not at home; he contradicts himself: for the denial of a question is a reaction upon an action. The term reality is the symbol of the nature of actions and reactions in their efficacy, it denotes the essence of facts and thus the question “Does reality exist?” has no sense. We denote that which exists, that which acts and reacts, that which is a fact, or howsoever we may express it, by the word “reality.” We might deny that the reactions of the objective world are constant, or that a certain idea of a certain reaction is erroneous, viz. that the reaction if put to the test would prove to be different from what it was expected—but all these denials and doubts which are of daily occurrence in the domain of science presuppose that there are reactions taking place and reality or objective existence is only a collective name for these reactions and their nature. The name object still preserves the idea of reaction, for object is that which reacts upon touch, which resists, which is objected.

We shall lose ourselves in inextricable confusion by making a matter of doubt and belief what is really a statement of facts. To speak of a doubt or belief in the reality of things in general is tantamount to speaking of a belief in our experiences which, whatever their particular nature may be, are facts. And to doubt our experiences, not the correctness of a particular experience, but experience in general, i. e. the very existence of experience is tantamount to doubting our own being.

A consideration of what we mean by an hallucination can best make clear what we mean, and rationally can only mean, by reality. A real candle is a mental symbol of something which will under certain conditions react in a certain way. An hallucinatory candle is also a mental symbol, but the thing which it purports to mean, does not exist; i. e. there is nothing that will react. The symbol is there, but not that something the existence of which the symbol of the idea “candle” would indicate.

This method of dealing with the problem of the old naïve realism and the pseudo-critical idealism of former times is not based upon the assumption of the reality of things (which means, of the reality of reality); it is simply a careful formulation of the problem to prevent our being entangled all about with contradictions; it is the method of rendering clear the basic principle of positivism, that all knowledge is a description of facts, which description of facts is made for the purpose of, dealing with facts.

P. C.

FOOTNOTES:

[64] This article was suggested by Dr. W. L. Worcester’s criticism on Professor James’s Psychology. When Dr. Worcester discusses Professor James’s supposition of an hallucination in a blank mind, saying that it would be “the only possible reality of that mind,” he almost seems to adopt Professor James’s views of the subject himself. Clearness about such fundamental terms as mind and reality, are so much needed that the following remarks may not be out of place as a further explanation of the subject. Exactness in fundamental and general terms will save much labor in detail work.

MONISM NOT MECHANICALISM.

COMMENTS UPON PROF. ERNST HAECKEL’S POSITION.

Prof. Ernst Haeckel’s Anthropogeny, the fourth edition of which appeared of late,[65] brings again into prominence that conception of monism which identifies the monistic view with mechanicalism.

A review of this book has appeared already in The Open Court, No. 231, in which we called attention to the great merits of a work which has become a household book, not only for the scientist, but for every educated reader who is interested in man and the origin of man. Our knowledge in Anthropogeny, certainly, will influence not only our general world-conception, but through our general world-conception it will extend its influence not only over every branch of science but also into the broader fields of man’s daily life and his practical morality.

Professor Haeckel is the most popular naturalist of to-day and there is no one, perhaps, who has made a more effective propaganda for the monistic world-conception than he. So it is almost a matter of course that his definition of monism is generally accepted as the standard. We have formulated our view of monism in a way which in principle and general outlines concurs with the commonly accepted usage of the term, yet it deviates from it in some important points which are perhaps not merely matters of detail. It will be difficult to say how far we agree and how far we disagree with Professor Haeckel’s monism because those subjects in which we disagree, have never been elaborated by him, and we are inclined to believe that he would modify some of his expressions, if he devoted a quiet hour’s thought to the objections we have to make to his definitions.

Professor Haeckel’s monism being mechanicalism savors strongly of materialism. He says in the latest edition of his “Anthropogenie” which is now before us, Vol. II, p. 851:

“There can be no doubt that a thorough consideration and unprejudiced deliberation of these facts will lead to a decisive victory of that philosophical conception which with one word we call monistic or mechanical in opposition to the dualistic and teleological. Upon the latter are based most of the philosophical systems of antiquity, of the mediæval times, and also of the present time. The mechanical or monistic philosophy declares that certain and immutable laws obtain everywhere in the phenomena of human life as much as in nature generally, that a necessary causal connexus obtains everywhere in phenomena and, accordingly, that the knowable world forms throughout a unitary whole, a monon. Monism moreover maintains that all phenomena are produced alone through mechanical causes (causæ efficientes) not through premeditated purposive causes (causæ finales).”

And in the first lecture “The History of Evolution and Philosophy,” (p. 15) he says:

“We shall clearly recognise in the following investigations how the most wonderful enigmas of human and animal organisations, heretofore considered as inaccessible, have become accessible to a natural solution through Darwin’s reform in the doctrine of evolution by a mechanical explanation of purposeless efficient causes.”

In agreement with these views, Professor Haeckel regards the terms necessity and mechanicalism as equivalent terms. He rejects any kind of teleology, any kind of final causes, and also the freedom of the will. He opposes the so-called moral world-order as contradictory to the idea that the world is regulated by mechanical law and he adopts the latter to the exclusion of the former. All these points come out very strongly and clearly in Professor Haeckel’s letter to the editor of The Open Court, where his view of monism is graphically presented in a concise tabular form.

We here reproduce this table from No. 212 of The Open Court, for the convenience of our readers:

=======================+=======================+======================== MONISM. | FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS. | DUALISM. -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ Inseparable. | Matter and force. | As a matter of | God and world. | principle distinct | Soul and body. | entities. -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ Mechanicalism. | Life. | Vitalism. Necessary evolution. | | Teleological creation. -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ Universal (conservation| Immortality. | Individual. of energy). | Freedom of will. | A person’s will being Determinism. | | absolutely free. -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ Causæ efficientes. | Causation. | Causæ finales. (Efficient causes.) | | (Final causes.) -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ Regulated by mechanical| World-order. | So-called “Moral.” law. | | -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------ Inseparable and subject| Inorganic and organic | As a matter of to the same laws. | nature. | principle distinct | | and subject to | | different laws. -----------------------+-----------------------+------------------------

Now we agree with Professor Haeckel in one main point, viz. “that certain and immutable laws obtain everywhere in the phenomena of human life as much as in nature generally, and that the knowable world forms throughout a unitary whole, a monon.” But we cannot agree to his proposition that “the wonderful enigmas of organised life are accessible to a natural solution by a mechanical explanation of purposeless efficient causes.” We grant willingly that mechanical explanations will serve for all motions that take place in the world; even the motions of the brain take place in strict obedience to the laws of molar and molecular mechanics. But a mechanical explanation is not applicable to that which is not motion. If it were applicable it would not be desirable, for it would be of no avail. Mechanical explanations are to be limited to mechanical phenomena. Feeling however is not a mechanical phenomenon, and an idea, being a special and a very complex kind of a feeling, or rather and more accurately expressed, being the special meaning of a very complex feeling, is not a mechanical phenomenon either. It is true that when a feeling takes place and when an idea is thought in the brain of an organised being, that a certain nervous action takes place. The nervous action is a motion and this motion represents a definite amount of energy. There is no theoretical difficulty, although there are almost insurmountable practical difficulties, in measuring the definite amount of potential energy that is changed into kinetic energy when a man thinks. Yet the brain-motion is not the idea and by a mechanical explanation of the brain-motion we have not even touched the problem of what the nature of the idea is, why ideas originate and how they act.

We know that Professor Haeckel when he so vigorously insists on mechanicalism, opposes those philosophers who believe that there are motions which cannot be explained by mechanical laws. We side with Professor Haeckel against any one who maintains that some motions are mechanical (molar or molecular) and others are exceptions to the laws of mechanics, representing a kind of hypermechanics. But we cannot admit the explanation by mechanical laws of non-mechanical phenomena.

Professor Haeckel speaks of purposeless efficient causes—zwecklos thätige Ursachen. He speaks of efficient causes, as excluding final causes. He is right in his objection to final causes as the term is commonly used. But while there are causes that are zwecklos, there are no causes that are ziellos. Every process of causation takes a definite course, it has a certain and definable direction. The end of this direction need not be a conscious aim, but it is an aim whatever it be, it is a Ziel. In this sense every efficient cause is at the same time a final cause. The gravitating stone has no purpose, yet it has an aim. So the evolution of organised life is a natural process having a very definite aim. And this aim of the evolution of organised life is determined by factors of a very complex nature. One of these factors is almost imperceptible at the beginning, but it is of a constantly and rapidly growing importance; and this factor is the psychical element that appears with organised life. This factor is nothing supra-natural, nothing extra-natural, and yet it is not something material or mechanical. It is this factor which in its highest efflorescence changes aims into purposes, and with this change it creates again a new factor of evolution which is the purposive aspiration to conform to the world-order and thus to advance the further progress of mankind. This aspiration is in one word called morality.

When we speak of a moral world-order we mean that such moral behests as were formulated in prescripts by Confucius, by Buddha, by Moses, by Jesus, and other moral teachers of mankind have an objective and immutable foundation in the nature of things. The mechanical law in the province of motions, the logical law in the realm of thought, geometrical proportions in mathematics, the regularity of natural laws, etc., form in our world-conception a part of this moral world-order. The laws of social life are not opposed to them but correlative.

The purpose of a man’s action reveals his character, and the character of the man is his innermost nature. In an analogous way the aim of evolution and especially the aim of the evolution of organised beings reveals the character, the innermost nature of the universe. Psychic life is absent so far as we can see in the primordial world substance as it appears in the form of a nebula; it is absent still in the primordial state of planets. It appears with the subjective states of awareness that rise into existence in organised life. The subjectivity of unorganised matter is, in comparison with man’s subjectivity, to be considered as a blank; i. e., if there is in it a state of awareness, which we have reasons to doubt, it is apparently without meaning; it does not symbolise external objects; it is no mind; it is, as it were, blind. Yet the aim of evolution being the development of psychical life, shows that the subjectivity of unorganised matter is spiritual in its innermost nature. And the aim of psychical life being the development of moral ideals, we are very well justified in speaking of the world-order as moral. When speaking of the world-order as moral we mean that the moral prescripts of the great ethical teachers of mankind are founded in and derived from the world-order of nature.

There is one objection to calling the world-order moral, and we therefore dislike to use the phrase. It is this: Morality means conformity to a certain standard. The standard is not moral, but those who do or do not conform to it are moral or immoral. Therefore if there is any truth in the idea of God it is this that there is a standard for human conduct to conform to, there is an authority which has to be obeyed and this authority is God. To speak of God as moral or immoral is anthropomorphism. If “God” means anything, it means that power of the world-order obedience to which is called morality. If we say God is moral, God ceases to be God, the moral authority above him to which he has to conform would be the really true God. Thus logically the personal conception of God leads to a superpersonal conception of God.

These are in brief our objections to Professor Haeckel’s definition of monism as being identical with mechanicalism and perhaps also with materialism. My opinion that Professor Haeckel may after all accede to our view of monism is based upon an interesting and friendly conversation which I enjoyed with him several years ago in Jena. Professor Haeckel is not the one-sided naturalist that he is often represented to be by orthodox clergymen. He does not see the workings of the natural laws only, he sees also the moral aspect to which a consideration of the natural laws leads. That his books emphasise the former without entering into the problems of the latter is natural for a scientist, but he personally is certainly even broader than are his books, and I should say that his very opposition to certain errors which have been foisted by an antiquated dogmatism upon our religious institutions, show the deeply religious spirit of his character.

P. C.

FOOTNOTES:

[65] Anthropogenie oder Entwickelungsgeschichte des Menschen. Keimes-und Stammesgeschichte. By Ernst Haeckel. Mit 20 Tafeln, 440 Holzschnitten und 25 genetischen Tabellen. Vierte, umgearbeitete und vermehrte Auflage. Leipzig: Engelmann.

MR. CHARLES S. PEIRCE ON NECESSITY.

Mr. Charles S. Peirce is one of those thinkers who in the investigation of a subject go right down to the bottom of the problem. This appears to me the more conspicuously so, as the result to which his investigations lead stand in a strong contrast to my own views. Yet I cannot help admiring the boldness of his trenchant critique which finds the difficulties at the point where really the main difficulty of all philosophical inquiry lies buried. It lies buried, i. e. it does not appear on the surface of things. If it lay on the surface, our most superficial thinkers would naturally light on it; but most of them walk their way in peace, unmolested by the question, Is there any truth in the idea of necessity. An editorial treatment of this problem may be expected in a forthcoming number of The Monist.

P. C.

BOOK REVIEWS.

EINLEITUNG IN DAS ALTE TESTAMENT. By C. H. Cornill, Professor at the University at Königsberg.

When Darwin and his followers first gave to the world the astonishing results of their studies, few were those who at once recognised the importance of the new theories and still fewer those who readily accepted them. But within the last thirty years, gradually but steadily the number of those who have adopted as virtually true the hypotheses of the new school, has been increasing until to-day those are in the minority who teach a view different from Darwin on the origin and evolution of the universe. The history and fate of the new studies in Biblical criticism bear a striking analogy to the reception accorded to Darwinian researches. At first they were met with well nigh universal opposition. They were declared to be subversive of the holiest interests of religion. They were held to rob the Bible of its glory. But by slow degrees the first passion yielded to wiser counsel. Curiosity led to the examination of the new positions; and in consequence in ever widening circles the conviction gained ground that far from taking away from the dignity of the old Hebrew literature, these new investigations and the method upon which they footed, lent new lustre to the collection of ancient writings. And to-day the battle has been won by the school of Wellhausen and Kuenen. Few are those who to-day urge the old views on the authorship date and historical succession of the several parts composing what is called the O. T. or even on the canonisation of the whole collection.

The startling assumptions of Wellhausen, Graf, and their Dutch colleagues had their forerunners, as had Darwin and Wallace. But when George and Vatke in the fourth decade of our century and Reuss, in his first academic lectures, virtually anticipated the lines of research of their later successors, the world was too busy with other matters to give their labors much attention. (Cfr. this work, p. 8.) For all this, primitive orthodoxy had only few representatives in this domain, at least in Germany. While Hävernick and Keil and Hengstenberg, are ranged on the extreme right of the line defending with all the resources of a vast erudition the traditional views, the middle ground is occupied by such men as Ewald, and Hitzig, and the teacher of these De-Wette, a school of critics that to-day yet counts among its protagonists such men as Dillmann and Schrader and Kittel. With Graf, a new era may be said to have begun for Biblical criticism. Notwithstanding the violent opposition encountered, the school has won the day. Its greatest triumph was perhaps the acquiescence in its positions shortly before his death by that master of Biblical science, Professor Delitzsch of Leipzig. What the cardinal point of contention is between the warring camps, is well known. It is the relative age and position of what is technically designated as the Priestly code, in the Hexateuch. According to the new school this portion is the capping stone of the edifice, as it were. For Dillmann it is pre-exilic; for Wellhausen post-exilic.

The book before us places itself without equivocation on the standpoint of this latest criticism. It is thus another leaf in the laurel wreath crowning the men of the new dispensation. For the name of the author is guarantee of the scholarly character of the work; and views which have the endorsement of a man of the renown and the scholarship of Professor Cornill carry the presumption of having truth on their side. Professor Cornill is however, a new-comer in this special field. His life work, as he himself says, lies in another province of the vast realm of Biblical critical studies. His fame is associated with his critical edition of the text of Ezekiel, a work which will forever stand as the best guide for all who would venture on the dangerous ground of conjectural textual emendations. For Cornill was the first to lay down the method which above all must be followed in so venturesome a task and his new version is the classic illustration of the correctness of his method of proceeding. That a man who has established for himself the reputation of being methodic and painstaking almost to a fault, a man who is dowered with critical acumen of the highest order, should after going anew over the whole ground cast the weight of his scholarly authority in favor of the views of the new critical school is a fact the significance of which cannot be blinked. We are indeed glad that the publishers entrusted this number of their intended series of manuals for theological students, to a scholar who had hitherto not written ex cathedra on this particular subject. Thus was ensured a new and impartial examination of all the points involved.

The ends which this series of manuals is to serve, decided of course the style and scope of this work. Of introductions (Einleitungen) to the O. T. there was no scarcity; but (see preface) they were either too bulky and too full and thus did not answer the requirements of the student, not yet a scholar; or they were too brief, mere “ponies” as we here in America would say, intended to be learnt by heart for the purpose of passing a good examination. The difficulty thus consisted in combining thoroughness with the necessary brevity without sacrificing lucidity. No mere results on the other hand were to be stated. The student was to be initiated into the course of the investigations, the reasons for the conclusions and thus his interest was to be awakened and the way prepared for independent research on his own part. That the author has succeeded in carrying out this his programme, every section of the book confirms. His fear that the full analysis in paragraph 12, of the priestly code will be found to be out of place in an “outline of this kind” is groundless. We do not hesitate that this very section is the gem of the whole work full as it is of numerous passages which cannot but stir to profitable reflection the student. None can lay this book aside without confessing that he has gained a “Gesammtanschauung,” an insight into the unity and coherence of the new views, apt to convince all earnest and unbiased minds of the truth that in this science (Wissenschaft) criticism is standing on firm ground. In the selection of the books named at the head of each chapter, or in the course of the discussion, the Professor has displayed most consummate skill. There is scarce one important work which with profit may be consulted but is mentioned; and what is more in the right connection. This feature is not the least valuable in the whole work; the student thus has at ready command a bibliography which excludes the chaff and stores the wheat.

But let us dwell a little more specifically on the plan and execution and the contents of this book. Two plans may suggest themselves to the writer of an “introduction” of this kind. He may attempt to give a picture of the rise of literature among the ancient Hebrews and treat of the different writings which have come down to us, often the fragments of larger works, in the order of their composition and at the same time connect with this discussion the reasons for departing from the traditional views as to their dates and so forth and for assigning them to a new age. This would be virtually writing a history of the literature. It is this plan which Reuss adopted. But according to our Professor, investigation has not proceeded far enough to make such a history possible. He even doubts whether it ever will (p. 2). Perhaps his verdict is justified. At all events he is right when he urges that in such a sequence much which belongs to the branch which he is to teach, will scarcely find its proper or organic place. And therefore it was a wise conclusion of his to adhere to the second plan, the traditional, for such Einleitungen which treats of the different books in the order of the Hebrew canon and finally takes up the discussion of such questions as the collection of the canon, the condition of the text, the different ancient versions and their value for the reconstruction, if possible, of the true original. But what is an Einleitung? It is that theological “discipline” which concerns itself about holy scripture as a book. It is its business to fix the time when and the manner how the several writings were composed, which now collectively form the holy scriptures, again it is one of its main objects to understand at what period and under what conditions the several writings were collected and also the manner of the tradition of this collection down to us. The method of this inquiry can be none other but the historic critical. To this definition of the character of this discipline, to retain this German name, none will take exception. It is both succinct and complete. The second paragraph gives a full survey of the history of the studies in this field. It covers within the brief space of ten pages the results of scholarly labors extending over a period of over fourteen hundred years. It is not a dry enumeration of names and book titles. Under each scholar, the salient element of his contribution is emphasised. The living principle of these studies is thus illustrated in its growth and successive development. Take for instance this description of Wellhausen’s method, and in a similar manner that of all other predecessors or co-laborers is brought out: “At the hand of the history of the cultus and that of tradition, he shows how these two lines of development run parallel to each other, how the religious process of evolution at every halt and turn finds its expression and at the same time its corroboration in the productions of literature: Israel and Judaism are two concepts radically different from each other; it is the canon that differentiates Judaism from old Israel.” Paragraph three states the author’s reasons for treating the single books first before taking up the discussion of their collection into a canon, and also why the apocrypha are excluded. These not being in the canon, are foreign to the purposes of an introduction into the canon books. None will deny that the Professor’s arguments on these points are irrefutable. His inquiry into the age of the art of writing among the Hebrews concludes this general preliminary. He is of the opinion that as far back as the memory of the Hebrews goes, they were acquainted with this art as nowhere there is a sign that among them there was a dim recollection of an analphabetic period. Recent finds have made it plain that during the reign of the Pharaoh of the exodus a lively correspondence was kept up between Palestine and Egypt, while for the reign of David the names of his court officials is documentary proof that there were writers at his court. The use of the pen must have been pretty general among the people as is shown by Judges viii, a chapter which belongs to the oldest layer of historical compositions.

Our space is too limited to abstract every chapter of this remarkable book. Much as we should like to do this, and especially as in this manner alone we can hope to do justice to its merits, we must confine ourselves, now that we come to the “special introduction” to a few selections taken from the discussion of the main points in reference to books which have been the centre of critical study. The Pentateuch as is natural receives the lion’s share of the author’s attention. We have no hesitancy in saying that his is the best exposition of the modern views which has yet come under our notice. The Pentateuch cannot be the work of Moses; internal evidence, as already pointed out by Aben Esra, Hobbes, Peyrerius, and Spinoza, render the traditional assumption of Mosaic authorship untenable. But the Pentateuch cannot be the work of one author. The critical labors of one and a half century, sketched most skillfully, has made it plain that the Pentateuch has been “worked together” from four independent original writings, (Quellenschriften) a yahwistic work, J. an elohistic, E. a Deuteronomistic D. and a priestly which after Kuenen is denoted as P. On this general division the scholars are agreed, the relative age of the separate parts alone is yet under controversy. In paragraph seven an analysis is given of the first four books as assigned to the three sources. Deuteronomy occupies a position of its own. It is characteristically different in language and thought from the others; it is something essentially new and is in itself homogeneous. In the main Deuteronomy is the book of the covenant mentioned in II. Kings xxiii; this original D. is now incorporated in chapters xii, xiii, xiv-xvii, where however certain verses and even parts of verses must be eliminated. Perhaps xxviii, or as Professor Cornill argues, something more succinct but of the same general nature, a curse, may have belonged to the original D. This must have been the book published under such extraordinary circumstances in 621. Who is its author? It presents itself as the work of Moses. But this is characteristic of the tendency of the age to take a great man as the father of a new literary production, a tendency which was perfectly well understood and was far above the level of a literary deception. Its early manifestation in D. is merely proof that even then Moses was among the people the law-giver par excellence. The author of D. must be looked for in the circle of the pious who in consequence of Manasse’s retrogression were bound all the more closely unto each other. In other words among the men of the prophetic party, who must have had influence also over certain priestly orders, for D. is a compromise and an alliance between the prophets and the priests. Besides these components of original D. the book contains in its present form additions and duplicates which partly are historical and hence are denoted by D.h, partly parenetic, hence D.p; but again in these are many later interpolations. For the particulars in this regard, we must refer to the work of Cornill itself. His analysis displays a keen eye and will on the whole be sure to be accepted as final. The date of D. being 621, what is the time of the other great sources of the present Pentateuch. It is clear that D. is acquainted with the “book of the covenant” Ex. xx, 23.-xxiii, 33. and with both Decalogues (?). Thus it was acquainted with JE. P. on the other hand is totally unknown. The historical portions of D. confirm this deduction from the legislative pieces. JE is clearly known to D. while of a knowledge of P. there is not the least trace. How far back of 621 may we go to fix the date of both J. and E.? The period of the first kings seem to be the limit, or more particularly the reign of David. But which of the two is the elder, J. or E.? There can be no question that J. is. For he is more naïve as appears from a comparison among others of chapters Gen. xx, 1-17, xxi 22-32 which belong to E., with chapter Gen. xxvi. 1-33 which is J.’s. E. appears to be a theological recasting of J. E. is the work of the Northern kingdom. Joseph always appears as the leader of his brothers and other features confirm this impression. The year 722, when in the Northern realm national consciousness was at its high water mark may then be supposed to be the terminus ad quem. But is E. as we have it a literary unit? Kuenen has proven that it is not. A century after its original composition a second edition so to speak must have been made with a view to meet the requirements and prejudices of the Judaic population of the South. Ex. chapters 32-33, are of great decisive importance in this connection. They are a rebuke for the golden calf worship at Dan and Bethel. Thus E. is divided again into two E.1 and E.2, to which come yet other later amplifications f. i. Num. xxi, 32-35. E.1 then belongs to the reign of Jeroboam II (750); and E.2 is the work of a later author living in Judah and under the influence of prophetic ideas. The locality of J. is a point of controversy. Cornill sides with those who maintain that his home is the Southern kingdom of Judah. The incidents in the Patriarchal biographies which seem to weaken such an assumption are explained as original traits of tradition which J. had no interest to change. J. again is not a literary unit; it compromises J.1, J.2, and even J.3. The reasons for these subdivisions are clearly given in the book. J. must have been composed in its different parts between 850-625. The priestly code occupies a whole paragraph, the signal merit of which we have noticed above. This is indeed the master-piece of a great critical master. The many points which are involved in the discussion of this mooted problem are treated with a clearness and a calmness which carry conviction to the most sceptical. P. presents a spiritual unity but not a literary. P. is the offspring of P.1 an old priestly record and P.2 a narrative and legislative composition which is as it were the substance and skeleton of P. around which younger accretions have gathered at different times for which Cornill in order to simplify his symbols proposes the designation of P.x. J. S. Vater as early as 1805 has proven that in the so-called Mosaism, of the influence in literary and legislative respect of our P. there is no evidence before the captivity. Wellhausen and Kayser and Kuenen have demonstrated what for Vatke was a dim suspicion. Dillmann, Kittel, and Delitzsch as little as Baudissin have succeeded in saving the pre-exilic character of P. Certain it is that before Esra 458 (444), this code had no official recognition. From Nehemiah we have the proof that our P. corresponds to the “Book of the Law of Moses” which was read at the great assembly in October 444. On the other hand the book of Chronicles is based on P. as it details history, as it would have been, if P. had been the law regulating life and liturgy and temple service. Had P. been known before D. what reason should the priest have had who promulgated it to substitute for it another code less advantageous for his own order? P. is clearly a development of D. D. presents itself as something new in all of its demands, in its insistence on centralisation, in one sanctuary and in one priestly order on the legitimacy of the tribe of Levi exclusively. Of the tabernacle there is not one syllable in the whole of the pre-exile literature. It is a clear projection into antiquity of the Deuteronomic Central sanctuary. The relations of P. to Ezekiel make this still plainer. This prophet is the link of transition between D. and P. The omissions in the festal cycle of E. can only be explained that this prophet-priest was unacquainted with P. The captivity is thus the time for the composition of P. in the main. Its emphasis on circumcision as the sign of the covenant which decides the connection with the chosen seed and nation, is proof of this. And the chronology finally corroborates all previous inferences as the chronology of Genesis which is so important a part of P. is unmistakably a reconstruction after certain principles of the Babylonian history of the beginnings. (Oppert.) P. was written during the century from Ezekiel to Esra (570-458). It was not merely P.2 that Esra read before the assembled people. P.1 and P.2 seem thus to have been united even at this time. But it is not to be assumed that under Esra P. was already a part of the other portions of our Pentateuch. P. itself contains parts which are later than Esra. P.x is undoubtedly later and these additions are easily explained on the very assumption of the official introduction of P. P. is not the work of an individual; it is that of a whole school, a school which naturally formed in the captivity. Besides these “source-writings,” the Pentateuch contains smaller pieces of great antiquity mostly of a poetic character which had for a long time an independent existence. Such is Gen. xlix, Exodus xv, and others. Exodus xxi-xxiii, the so-called book of the covenant, requires also a treatment by itself. It is characteristic of this book that it ignores totally the Decalogue. Kuenen has solved the difficulties in which this collection of judicial precedents is involved by pointing out that it is the predecessor of D. D. is merely the substitute for this. As it is older than E. and is the precipitate of the unwritten law of the earlier kingly period, we place its date in the ninth century. Lev. xvii-xxvi while betraying in many regards affinity with P. is still distinct from it. It stands between Ezekiel and P.; it is one of the many priestly Thoroth which undoubtedly were current among the class whom they concerned. How now did these component parts finally combine? This is elucidated in paragraph fourteen. First J. and E. were put together, by an editor of Jehovistic leanings, whom Wellhausen has styled Rj. (R. standing for German Redacteur, Editor). This Rj. worked over, and that often decidedly, his materials in keeping with his own convictions. This Rj. probably lived about 650. His position is pre-deuteronomic. A second editor combined the work of Rj. with D. He is designated as Rd. His was the placing of the old book of the covenant near Sinai in order to gain room for Deuteronomy. He thus became the cause of much confusion. He lived during the second half of the Babylonian captivity. JED. was finally combined with P. by a third editor (Rp.) who is characterised by considerable reverence for the old documents. He omitted much to guard against repetition but at the same time where the relations differed he preserved them most faithfully and endeavored to place them into their proper position and connection. Rp. was thus virtually the author of our Pentateuch. But living after Esra even with him the Pentateuch was not yet closed. Many younger hands had a share in its final shaping. Glosses were added or crept into the text, as is shown by comparison with the lxx. The book of Joshuah is a necessary continuation and complement of the Pentateuch.

But here we must stop quoting in detail. Much as we should desire to reproduce Cornill’s own words relating to other Biblical books, want of space precludes even the attempt. Suffice it to say that as in his treatment of the Pentateuch, so every question bearing on Biblical criticism is handled with the skill of the master. At whatever turn we ask information of this book we receive it most abundantly. This is indeed a students book. It stimulates while it instructs. It leads while it describes the road passed over. In the discussion of the critical problems on the Psalms, the prophets Isaiah and Zechariah, on the final collection of the canon, the translation of the Bible and the relation of the different recensions to each other, the historical books as distinct from Chronicles, and Esra, and so forth, every point is treated with a lucidity of style and a fulness of material which is the rare gift of a man who is saturated with his science and loves it for its own sake. This book is destined to rank among the classics. Its earnest study and repeated consultation can therefore be recommended to all who wish to inform themselves about the method and the achievements of the critical schools. The kindred book by Driver, recently published will not make a translation into English of Cornill’s manual less desirable. We take leave from the author with a feeling of great gratitude for the pleasure and the profit we derived from his contribution to the literature of Biblical scholarship. The book is well printed and singularly free from typographical errors.

DR. E. G. HIRSCH.

THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES. An Inaugural Lecture. By Andrew Seth, M. A. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons. 1891.

As stated by the author, this lecture deals, not with the circle of the philosophical sciences, but only with the subjects traditionally associated with a Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in Scotland. These subjects belong to the three-fold classification of logical, psychological, and metaphysical, or philosophical in the strict sense. They therefore embrace the study of the conditions to which valid reasoning must conform, the investigation, introspectively and otherwise, of the phenomena of consciousness, and the study of the two-fold question of knowing and being, which as epistemology and metaphysics are included under the designation of Philosophy. These three lines of learning are cognate, and the first two are in a measure introductory to the third, or at least, says Professor Seth, if we go beneath the surface they lead us into the very heart of philosophical difficulties. The lecturer refers in his sketch of the present outlook in these three departments of science to the marvellous activity displayed in the department of psychology. All the influences at work may be said to meet and come to fruition in Mr. Ward’s “masterly treatise” in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” and “the rich and stimulating volumes” of Professor James, of Harvard. Experimental psychology is now widely spread in Germany and has been enthusiastically taken up in America, “where every well-equipped college aims at the establishment of a psychological or psycho-physical laboratory.” Professor Seth thinks, however, that the experimental psychologists magnify their office overmuch. The field of experiment is necessarily limited to the facts of sensation, the phenomena of movement, and the time occupied by the simpler mental processes. The results are often so contradictory as to leave everything in doubt, and where definite results are obtainable, their value is often not apparent. Moreover, many of the results are of a purely physiological nature, and are only by courtesy included in psychological science. We would remark on this, that without the experiments the results would not have been obtained and that their value will become apparent when the methods of experiment are perfected. After referring to the critical function of philosophy as a doctrine of knowledge, Professor Seth states that as constructive it should lay special stress on a teleological view of the universe. By this is meant, that philosophical teleology should concentrate itself upon the proof that there is an end of evolution, “that there is an organic unity or purpose binding the whole process into one and making it intelligible—in one word, that there is evolution and not merely aimless change,” such as is supposed in a purely mechanical view of the universe. As to the nature of the end, although the lecturer accepts Hegel’s view that all things are relative to man as rational, he cannot accept “the abstraction of the race in place of the living children of men.”

Ω.

DER MENSCHLICHE WELTBEGRIFF. By Dr. Richard Avenarius, Ord. Professor der Philosophie an der Universität Zürich. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland. 1891.

This monograph is as it were a self-confession. The author endeavors to attain clearness in his own philosophical standpoint. He looked back upon the path he has traveled and feels that “the solution of the problem-attained is fundamentally a personal self-liberation” (Preface, ix). This book is most commendable reading to all idealists and agnostics. It is an interesting and instructive little work, tracing with a keen psychological criticism the vagaries of certain philosophical conceptions, through which not alone the author but the thinkers of mankind in general have strayed. The philosopher begins with what Avenarius calls the “natural world-conception.” But this natural world-conception leads to contradictions and the evil spirit of speculation leads us in a circle through the barren fields of idealism. Avenarius asks: “Is the world really of such a nature that it appears unitary and consistent only to the superficial thinker, while it leads every one astray who attempts to grasp it more precisely in its entirety—the more so the more consistently the thinker proceeds?” (p. xiii.)

The author proposes the question: “In what consists the inevitableness of the contradiction to which every general world-conception seems to have led? Or, if the world really be unitary what is the evil spirit that leads those astray who hunger and thirst after a true cognition of the world?”

The author has entirely abandoned the idealistic standpoint, an inclination to which he showed in his first publication, “Philosophie als Denken der Welt gemäss dem Princip des kleinsten Kraftmasses.” He says: “Doubt of the correctness of my way heretofore pursued was induced through the barrenness of theoretical idealism in the field of psychology; and yet cognition and experience should belong to this science as psychological ideas.”

The author in explaining the development of thought as it takes place in man proceeds in a personal way, so much so that every idealist ought to be satisfied. There are whole pages which teem with ME’s and I’s. The method of notation is what might be called American. Europeans often complain about our abbreviations, the Y. M. C. A., the S. A. S., the C. B. & Q. Ry., etc., which are great puzzles to the uninitiated new-comer. In a similar way Avenarius introduces such algebraic signs as R and E, which means reality and the sensations which our fellow-men are supposed to have. M is Man, T is fellow-man. T₁ is the bodily appearance of T, it is R; while T₂ is the E of T, i. e. his soul or spirit. C is the nervous central organ, etc. Thus Avenarius says (p. 18):

“I can in a relative consideration assume R to be the condition of changes in the E values, supposed to exist in M, only if M and in M the system C are parts of my supposition,” and in a note (p. 117) he adds:

“The skeleton in Goethe’s poem, ‘The Dead’s Dance,’ scents without an organ of smell, sees without eyes, thinks without a brain; it also moves without muscles. To consider such acts as true is now universally declared to be superstition. The time will come when the assumption of psychical phenomena without the coördination of the system C will universally be considered in the same way.”

The first three chapters remind us very much of W. K. Clifford’s article “On the Nature of Things in Themselves.” But the article is nowhere mentioned and it is most probable that it is unknown to the author. If Avenarius had known Clifford’s view, he might have presented his ideas with more economy of space. But if he did not know Clifford’s article, the coincidences of procedure and to a great extent also of the result attained are the more remarkable. What Avenarius calls the E values are termed by Clifford “ejects,” and the formation of ejects is called by Avenarius “introjection.”

On page 52 we read the following sentence on the three phases of the cognition of the data of experience:

“The first phase alone, that of ingenuous empiricism, cognises, i. e. explains the totality of these facts without the assistance of a non-sensible ... the second that of ingenuous realism conceives the non-sensible as supersensible, and the third, that of ingenuous criticism, as the pre-sensible. The epithet ingenuous has reference to the foundation, not to the doctrinary system built upon it. That which makes the said realism and criticism ingenuous is a survival of the ingenuous empiricism.”

The theory which conceives the external cause of an experience as an object, effecting in the subject sensations, passes successively through the following views. The object is said to be (1) not within the range of experience, (2) not within the range of cognition, (3) not-existing. Thus it reaches via agnosticism its climax in idealism and “pure experience becomes a something that is never truly experienced, it becomes the totality of mere or pure sensations” (p. 62).

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us