^?;>?^«^^-; ;^ *»v ;-j BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF M^nvu ^- Sage 1891 A.^^^^..^ zzi ^/^/i":.. Date Due 1 d» mAx ''-' 6 1.941 • . DECl 9 1341^ larQ' MAR 'I lyaz m^ <^m ^ ^^-^ mp. 0^' *^" jT w^ f'"^ ne**"^ im>^ 5^'^ ' i^K^ Cornell University Library BF161 .LIS PhHo8ophy..o^.,minc!i,an,,esMi(„,i^^^^^^^^^ I olin 3 1924 029 080 831 List s Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029080831 PHILOSOPHY OF MIND PROFESSOR LADD'S WORKS. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. An Essay in the Metaphysics of Psychology. 8vo. $3 .00. INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. An Inquiry after a Rational System of Scientific Principles in their Relation to Ultimate Reality. 8vo. $3.00. PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY, izrao- $i.oofiei. PSYCHOLOGY; DESCRIPTIVE AND EXPLANA- TORY. ATreatise of the Phenomena, Laws, and Develop- ment of Human Mental Life. 8vo. $4.50. OUTLINES OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. A Text-book on Mental Science for Academies and Colleges. Illustrated. 8vo. $2.00. ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. A Treatise of the Activites and Nature of the Mind^ from the Physical and Experimental Point of View. With numer- ous illustrations. 8vo. $4.50. THE DOCTRINE OF SACRED SCRIPTURE. A Critical, Historical, and Dogmatic Inquiry into the Origin and Nature of the Old and New Testaments. 2 vols. Svo. {$7.00. WHAT IS THE BIBLE? An Inquiry into the Origin and Nature of the Old and New Testaments in the Light of Modem Biblical Study. i2mo. $2.00. THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH POLITY. Crown Svo. $2.50. " '■ 1. fi Philosophy of Minp I'j AN ESSAY IN THE METAPHYSICS OF PSYCHOLOGY BY GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1895 I Copyright, 1895, by Chakles Scribner's Sons. John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. " Heilig achten wir die Geister, aber Namen sind uns Dunst ; Wiirdig ehren wir die Meister, aber frei ist uns die Knnst." Uhland. PREFACE THIS book is an essay in the speculative treatment of cer- tain problems, suggested but not usually discussed in the course of a thorough empirical study of mental phe- nomena. Inasmuch as these problems q,ll relate to the real nature and actual performances and relations of the human mind, the essay may properly be called metaphysical. Let it be confessed, then, that the author comes forward with a treatise in metaphysics, — in the more special meaning of that term. I think, however, that in spite of the marked disfavor into which all metaphysics has fallen in certain quarters, no detailed apology for asking readers for such a treatise need be offered in its Preface. Indeed, the first two chapters of the book are occupied in showing how inevitable is the demand which the science of psychology makes for a further philosophical discussion of all its principal problems. If, then, this demand is not made perfectly clear by the more detailed discussion which follows, it would be quite useless to put it forward unsupported, at the beginning of my task, in the hope of producing a favorable first impression upon re- luctant intelligences. As to the kind of metaphysics which it is designed to offer, two or three preliminary remarks seem important. And, first of all, it is to be open and undisguised. Of all " bad " meta- viu PREFACE physics, the very worst is liiiely to be that which is unavowed and concealed, — sometimes even from the author himself, while as yet he is engaged in criticising the metaphysical views of others, or in denouncing metaphysical essays in general. No one whose peace of mind is sure to be disturbed by any attempt, however carried out, at this form of reflec- tive thinking should venture beyond the titlepage and table of contents of this volume. On the other hand, however, I wish to be held responsible for two things which are required in order to entitle to respect every treatise of a similar char- acter. These are, first, the statement of the facts and laws, scientifically established, to which the speculative discussion constantly refers for its own grounds iti experience. And for metaphysics which has no foundations in incontestable experience, I have as little respect as has any one. But besides this constant appeal to facts and to laws empirically established, sound reasoning is indispensable for the deriva- tion of acceptable conclusions in any metaphysical enterprise. Any reader, or critic, therefore, who will point out viola- tions of either of these two requirements, will be entitled to grateful recognition for his service, no less by the author than by the readers of this volume. A few words concerning the relations which this book sus- tains to preceding works by the same author will be helpful for its better understanding. In some sort the entire volume may be regarded as in continuation of a series of works ^ on psychology, or the science of mental phenomena. This science, which, as a science, is, and ever must remain, chiefly descriptive, starts many inquiries regarding the real nature and relations to the external world, and especially to the 1 Elements of Physiological Psychology, 1887 ; Outlines of Physiological Psy- chology, 1891 ; Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, 1894 ; Primer of Psychology, 1894. (All published by Chas. Scribner's Sons.) PREFACE ix body, of that subject of all the phenomena, which we are accustomed to call "the mind." The partial consideration, at least, of such inquiries is extremely difficult to separate from the attempt at anything like a comprehensive treatment of psychology. But these very inquiries can be carried only a little way before they become so inextricably mingled with comprehensive problems in general philosophy as to make us aware that we are already at some distance from that form of discussion which is appropriate to a descriptive science. The discovery just noted shows the necessity which every attempt at a metaphysics of mental phenomena feels of borrowing certain conclusions from the general field of phil- osophy. This necessity is made apparent, and it is also acted upon, in the chapters on the reality, the identity, the unity, and the permanence of the mind, and on the real relations of the mind to the bodily organism. Hence the discussions of this volume not infrequently refer to views briefly stated or hinted at in a work on philosopliy^ by the same author. The nature of psychology, however, and the nature of philosophy, and especially the nature of the relations existing between the two, are such as to make it undesirable, if not impossible, to consider in one book all the metaphysical prob- lems which this empirical science suggests. Indeed, the whole sphere of philosophical study scarcely does more than this. A somewhat but not wholly arbitrary selection of problems had, therefore, to be made ; and their detailed dis- cussion was then brought under the one title, "Philosophy of Mind." The reasons for the selection are made sufficiently clear in the course of the discussion itself. Finally, I do not believe that special students of psychology, whether beginners or advanced students, and thoughtful men 1 Introduction to Philosophy, 1890. Chas. Sniibner's Sons. X PREFACE generally, lack interest in the metaphysical inquiries which are undertaken in this treatise. The fashion of denouncing the study of metaphysics, or of the theory of knowledge, or, indeed, of any group of the profounder philosophical prob- lems, is more the scholastic "fad" of blas^ minds, or the refuge of weak and selfish spirits, than the result of any genuine lack of interest, on the part of the multitude of thinkers, in the earnest discussion of these problems. Such persons become agnostic, or resort to a demand for unques- tioning faith, at the point where they themselves begin to be baffled or tired m the effort at thinking. As to the limits and validity of knowledge men will always eagerly inquire. To rebuke them for this seems, in the light of the history of human reason, like solemn trifling. In the face of the regnant agnosticism, no inquiries can be more obligatory or more important than those which concern a theory of cog- nition. And while so many, in the name of science, are denying the reality, unity, and possibility of a permanent existence of the human mind, and are resolving its entire being into a stream of mechanically associated " epipheno- mena," thrown off from the molecular machinery of the cerebral hemispheres, it is not an inopportune time, or a wholly useless and thankless task, to propose a serious re- discussion like that undertaken in this volume. GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD. Yale Uniteksitt, New Haven, 1895. TABLE OF CO:NrTENTS CHAPTER I - Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind PASE The Opinion of Kant — Psychology "without Metaphysics" — Assumptions involved — The Course taken by the Physical Sciences — Inconsistencies of Mr. Huxley — Peculiar Difficulties of Psychology — Professor Hblfding criticised — Views of Professor James — M. Flournoy's Position examined — Principle of " Psycho-physical Pai'allelism " — Contrasted Views . . 1 CHAPTER II Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind (continued) Difficulties examined — The two Courses open — Views of Volkmann — Views of Wundt— The true Conception of Psychology — Use of Meta- physical Assumptions in Psychology — Psychology as a " Natural Science " — Nature of Philosophy — Relation of Philosophy to the particular Sciences— Mr. Spencer's View of Philosophy — Special Relations of Psy- chology to Philosophy — Branches of Metaphj'sics involved — The Prob- blems of a Philosophy of Mind 41 CHAPTER m The Concept op Mind Popular use of the term "Mind" — Standpoint for Inquiry — Psychology not mere doctrine of " Content " — All mental life an Activity — Nature of Conception in general — ■■ Nature of Self-knowledge — Formation and Development of the concept of Mind — False or inadequate Views examined — The higher Knowledge of Self xii CONTENTS CHAPTER IV The Reality of Mind PAGE The concept of Reality — Kuowledge and Eeality correlates — Of real Beings in general — "What is it to be " Real" ? — The Foundations in experience — Reality an implicate of Self-consciousuess — Of recognitive Memory — And of reflective Thinking — Sceptical and Agnostic Views criticised — The contrasted Reality of Things — True Nature of the mind's Reality 113 CHAPTER V The Consciousness of Identity, and So-called Double Consciousness The concept of Identity — The identity which Things hare — Immanent Idea an implicate of identity — The concept of Self as self-same — Permis- sible Changes in Personality so-called — Identity of Things and of Minds Contrasted — Phenomena of so-called "Double Consciousness" — And the true scientific Attitude toward them — Principle of ' ' psychical Automat- ism" — Phenomena of Inspiration, "Possession," "Obsession," etc. — " Dramatic Sundering of the Ego " — Play of Children — Phenomena of Dreams — Experience of Actors — Phenomena of Prophetism — Parallel from Ethical Consciousness — Explanation of Hypnotism — Loss of Pei^ sonal Identity 148 CHAPTER VI The Unity of Mind The concept of Unity — The unity which Things have — Unitary Being of Mind — Development of mental nnity — Ethical Conclusions from the fore- going investigations — Possibility of Degrees of Eeality — And of mental Unitary Being — Teleological Principle involved — Simplicity and Indi- visibility of Mind . . 189 CHAPTER VII Mind and Body Reality of " Relations " in general — Attempts at a non-metaphysical use of the Principle of Causation — Current conception of Causation in the Physi- cal Sciences — View of Phenomenalism — Iiaw of the Conservation and Correlation of Energy — Origin of the concept of Causation — Develop- ment of the concept of Causation — Work of Intellect upon the World of Things — Principle of "Sufficient Reason '— Summary of Results . 208 CONTENTS XUi CHAPTER VIII Mind and Body (continued') PAGE Classes of Phenomena discussed — Phenomena of "Concomitant Correla- tion '■ so-called, rejected — No absolute Concomitance demonstrable — Formation of two concepts, Body and Mind — Development of this " Bi- partitiou " or " Diremption " — The concept of Body an Abstraction — The Body only formally distinct from Nature — All Metaphysics involved in the Validity of this " bi-partition " — Influences of body on mind — Fac- tors in mental Life not represented in the bodily Basis — Influences of mind on body — "Dynamo-genetic" Influence of Ideas — The Principle of " Suggestion " — Influences from Feeling and Will 237 CHAPTER IX Materialism and Spiritualism Use of Terms defended — Limits of the Discussion — The four Forms of specu- lative Opinion — Materialism, Spiritualism, Monism, and Dualism defined — Position of Materialism stated and discussed — Incomparability of physical and psychical phenomena — Positions of Biichner, Vogt, et al., criticised — Outcome of Materialism unintelligible — Metajihysics of Ma- terialism examined — Position of monistic Spiritualism stated — And its Tenets criticised — " Animism " examined and rejected — Materialism and Spiritualism mutually destructive 283 CHAPTER X Monism and Dualism Method of current Monism — The Agnosticism of Monism — The assumption of Absolute Mind justified — Views of Professor Hbffding criticised — The principle of "Parallelism" examined — And its Terms found either in- adequate or unmeaning— "Proportionality" an inappropriate Term — Facts incompatible with the complete Extension of this Principle — The " Identity-hypothesis" ends in the unintelligible — The Case against psy- chological Monism summed up — Position of speculative Dualism — Ob- jections to this position examined 314 CHAPTER XI Origin and Permanence op Mind Nature of the following Discussions — Problem of the Origin of Mind stated — Application of terms of Locality to Mind — Traducian Theory examined — ' ' Transmission " of Mind an absurdity — Creation Theory examined — xiv CONTENTS PAGE Problem of the Permanence of Mind stated — Concept of Permanence as applied to Mind — The " Tripartite " division of Man— The permanent Unity of the Subject of all conscious states — Principles of all abiding Reality of Mind — Possibility of really existent bat Unconscious Mind —Phenomena of so-called " unconscious Cerebration " — Only possible unconscious Exist- ence of Mind — Being and Becoming of Mind — Relation of finite mind to Absolute Mind 356 CHAPTER XII Place op Man's Mind in Nature Kant's criticism of the Doctrine of Immortality— Nature of Arguments for Im- mortality of Mind — Existence of unconscious " Mind-Stuff" of no value — Views from the psycho-physical standpoint — Necessity for introducing other Considerations — True Nature of Mind-Life — Relations of man's Mind to physical Nature — And, finally, to the Being of the World, con- sidered as Absolute Mind 896 Index 413 PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIND CHAPTER I PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OP MIND IT is now somewhat more than a hundred years since the philosopher Kant expressed himself in despair over the possibility of psychology ever securing title to a place among the exact sciences. One reason which influenced this great thinker to such a state of mind was the inherent lack of power -^ as he thought — on the part of psychology to put off the traditional incertitude of metaphysics, and to put on the robe of mathematics. It is certainly a significant fact to find at the end of the century an almost complete change of view as to the nature of this study. For perhaps the majority of those students whose opinion is best worth consideration now hold, not only that the science of mental phenomena should dispense with metaphysics, but that in its modern form it has actually shown that it can do so ; while an essential charac- teristic of the " new " psychology is undoubtedly the large and methodical use which it makes of experimentation and statistics. This experimental and statistical study of mental phenomena implies, of course, the exercise of that ann by which alone all the exact sciences triumph, — namely, measurement and mathematics. It would seem, then, that this for a time dethroned but now reinstated queen has suc- ceeded in changing her vesture, in a manner which Kant considered her very nature to render forever impossible. 2 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND A more careful examination both of the current practice and of the history of opinion, however, shows that the real state of the case is by no means so clear or so satisfactory. For the obvious truth is that not a few of those writers who cry out most loudly and unsparingly against the admixture of metaphysics with scientific psychology are themselves often the greatest transgressors in this very regard. Indeed, their practice suggests the not unkindly sarcasm that the metaphysical hypotheses and tenets which they think it indispensable to exclude from the " science " of mental phe- nomena are solely those of their opponents. And so it comes about that in some treatises by such writers on psy- chology the soil is first of all cleared, with more or less declamation, of all those noxious weeds of philosophy which might otherwise mix in and spoil the purity of the empirical science ; then, next, the seed of this pure science is diligently sown before our delighted eyes, as it comes fresh from numerous physiological and psycho-physical laboratories, or from the brains, fertile in conjecture, of the author himself. Yet somehow, when the total crop is ready for the harvest, not a few sprouts of metaphysics are still found to have crept into it. Strange to tell, however, they are chiefly of species which flourish best on just that soil, whenever room has been made for them by the clearance of pre-existing species. It can scarcely be claimed, then, that the practice of the advocates of a scientific psychology which shall keep itself clear of all metaphysical implications has as yet taught us precisely how to secure so desirable a result. And if we turn from example to theory (for who does not incline to teach others better than he himself practises in matters of this kind ?), the case does not even then seem much better. For, in general, it is those very psychologists who have been most confident of the possibility of freeing scientific psychology from all investiture of metaphysics who have given us least intelligent and calm discussion of PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 3 the real and permanent relations between the two. Their practice, therefore, too often seems dependent on a lack of consistent theory. There are several forms of such inconsistency which are connected with different forms of concealed or repressed phil- osophical opinion. As against the metaphysics of old-fash- ioned "rational psychology," so-called, some writers advocate empirical " psychology without metaphysics, " or " psychol- ogy without a soul. " But in half-conscious recognition of the truth that to walk consistently along this line of abnega- tion would bring them to the realm where there exists noth- ing but ghosts and dreams of ghosts, they soon show a disposition — to use Professor James's expressive words — to " pull the pall over the psychic half " of the phenomena. They require for the effective working of their psychological theories at least so much metaphysics as consists in the as- sumption of an entity_called the brain, on whose j,ctivity or influence they can lay the responsibility for mental phenomena. They also take their views of causation seriously and in a truly ontological way, so long as they are dealing with states of con- sciousness in systematic dependence upon preceding states of a physical or chemical sort. But when they are faced about by the acknowledged sequences of other phenomena, and are compelled to consider whether states of consciousness can, as is ordinarily supposed, be real causes of subsequent phy- sical and chemical changes, then their entire theory of cau- sation is deftly adapted to the claims of the shallowest phenomenalism. Other writers, indeed, set out with the pronounced and honest attempt to hold fast to the purely scientific point of view, in whichever of the two possible directions we consider the allied yet disparate series of mental and physical phe- nomena. If, for example, the question be as to what nerve- commotions or local impairments in particular areas of the cerebrum are regularly followed by changes in the phenomena 4 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY O? MIND of consciousness ; or as to what kinds, amounts, and time- rates of various stimuli, when applied to the periphery of the nervous system, are succeeded by definite known changes in the quality, intensity, and time-rate of mental states, — then these investigators propose faithfully to state the facts, and to let the generalizations from them stand as mere orderly sequences between the two classes of phenomena. But if the question be as to what movements of the muscles, inner- vations of organs of sense, determinations of qualities and changes of perceived things, disturbances of cerebral' func- tions; or of the circulatory, respiratory, and digestive sys- tems, with all the capillary and secretory activities connected therewith ; or as to what more subtile organic changes and modifications of every form of tissue (such as birth-marks, stigmata, and epileptiform hypersesthesia or hallucinations, reactions of the " psychic cells" so-called) follow certain forms of consciousness called emotions, passions, desires, deeds of will, and " suggested " or " fixed " ideas, — why then, too, these writers accept the obligation to be equally ready to ac- knowledge mere sequences in fact between different classes of phenomena. It is the business of science, say they, simply to discover actual orderly correlations between phenomena. And if this be true of all science, as such) why should it not be true of the particular science of psychology ? It will be our purpose later on to consider in detail the various assumptions involved in the last of the positions just mentioned. It is far from our present purpose to find fault with such a position. It has its own justification; although this justification will be seen to be only temporary and partial. Nor are its advocates to be blamed because they habitually use language and assume subordinate prem- ises that are thoroughly suffused with metaphysics ; for all this belongs to the very necessities of the case. No one can even talk about mental phenomena and about their dependence upon brain-states or upon changing stimulations under psy- PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 5 cho-physical laws without assuming the real existence of both minds and things, and the reality of interaction between them. What is meant by such a complex network of assumptions, — that is something which one may pursue psychological science without knowing and even without considering at all. It is precisely this question of meaning which a scientific, as distinguished from a naive and natural metaphysics, aims to investigate. Grave fault is to be found, however, with a considerable number of this latter class of writers on the science of psy- chology for the unthinking way in which they adopt the so- called purely scientific point of view, — yet graver fault, as has already been indicated, for their failure to abide by it consistently. For they, too, as a rule, fail to keep the adopted point of view of a dualistic phenomenalism. And, after all metaphysics has been thrust out of the front door of the temple of science, they are found somewhat clandes- tinely admitting some one favorite form of metaphysics by the rear door. The sacred precincts have indeed been industriously rid of that metaphysics of Dualism which all unsophisticated science adopts. But the high-priest of the establishment is finally discovered on his knees, — if not in the main scien- tific aula, at least in some ante-chamber or side apartment, — before the altar of Monism. Now, for an avowed meta- physician there is nothing shameful about this; but it is scarcely the right thing to be done by one who has lifted up his voice before the very threshold of the temple in warning against all metaphysics. Such conduct certainly leads the bystanders to the suspicion of ulterior motives of a concealed philosophical kind. What these motives usually are will be made more clear later on ; and how far they seem to us suf- ficient to justify such an attitude of worship will also be explained. We are now simply arguing in the interests of intelligence and candor; and we believe that these twoquali- 6 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND ties ought to characterize the study of the science of psy- chology as of all the other sciences. It would seem, without special research, as though a cer- tain form of metaphysics were the natural and necessary accompaniment of every scientific approach to the study of mental phenomena. This form is of course an uncritical, common-sense Dualism. Psychology assumes that " things " are and "minds" are; and that, within certain limits deter- mined by the so-called " nature " of both, they act causally upon each other. Those happenings which are ascribed to things, and those which are ascribed to minds, are never re- garded by " science without metaphysics " as mere phenomena ; or, rather, the very word " phenomena " necessarily suggests and implies beings of which and to which the phenomena are. That is to say, what science calls "the phenomena" are, after all, in fact, regarded as the observed modes of the behavior of real beings, both of minds and of things. And so long as the student of mental science maintains this atti- tude, he remains on the ground occupied by the students of all the natural sciences. The study of psychology as a natu- ral science is not really, then, the pursuit of a knowledge of correlations between phenomena wholly without any meta- physics whatever; it is rather the pursuit of this science with only such metaphysics as is naively assumed in all scientific inquiry. Psychology may then, for the time being, — if one is only willing to leave it so, — be called " a natural sci- ence ; " but only as it is founded upon a natural, uncritical, and unreflecting metaphysics. How far psychology can successfully be pursued in this way we shall also consider later on. It is instructive, although somewhat disheartening, for the ardent advocate of a purely scientific psychology to contrast the practice and theories of his colleagues with those of the students of the principal physical sciences. All remember how Newton — who himself dabbled somewhat too freely in PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 7 rather poor metaphysics — issued to physics a warning against all metaphysics ; and no doubt his successors in phy- sical investigation at the present day suppose themselves, in the main, to be carefully observing the warning of this great master. At any rate, they are sensitive enough to what they consider the immeasurable superiority of their own sciences when contrasted with even the modern endeavors, in this regard, of the most advanced psychological science. Occa- sionally, however, while speaking with ill-concealed contempt of the " old psychology " as mostly composed of worthless metaphysics, they hold out the hand with a charming show of cordiality toward the " new psychology ; " and this because the latter offers to them the promise of exhibiting, in scien- tific form, what it can accomplish by use of scientific methods, "without metaphysics." If it were our present purpose to discuss problems in the philosophy of nature or the metaphysics of physics, rather than in the philosophy of mind or the metaphysics of psy- chology, we should profit by giving a detailed critical exami- nation to these claims of superiority on the part of the physical sciences. It is enough now to affirm that the modern physical sciences are very far indeed from being capable of exhibiting themselves systematically as stripped of all meta- physics. On the contrary, the most stupendous metaphy- sical assumptions and implications are woven into their structure throughout. Instead of being mere formulas for stating uniform sequences among phenomena, they are de- scriptions and explanations of experiences which appeal at every step to invisible and mysterious entities, to hidden and abstruse forces, to transactions that are assumed to take place among beings whose existence and modes of behavior can never become, in any sense of the words, immediate data of sensuous knowledge. A high place of honor, although doubtless one to be obtained only after enduring the pangs of a prolonged crucifixion, awaits that philosophi- 8 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND cal biologist, or that philosopher sufficiently acquainted with scientific biology, who subjects the modern doctrine of evo- lution to a thoroughly critical analysis, with a view to detect and to estimate its metaphysical assumptions. When such a one appears, if his criticism turn out mainly destruc- tive, it will be interesting to know how much will remain of the so-called "science" of evolution; but if the criticism be favorable and conservative in result, it is safe to say that this result will be attributable to the fact of the " scientists " having builded better as metaphysicians than they knew as mere "scientists." It is vain to endeavor to break the force of the present con- tention by reminding ourselves that the students of natural science regard all so-called entities, real causes, and trans- actions, which never have themselves become or can become phenomena, in the light simply of permissible and helpful hypotheses. Let this be at once conceded ; and let it also be conceded that this way of introducing hypotheses, in the effort to find a more complete explanation of actual experi- ence (of the "phenomena," if one is pleased by insisting on this word), is scientifically legitimate. It will scarcely be seriously maintained, however, that by hypothetical entities, causes, and transactions, the men of science mean mere hypotheses, — that is, assumptions as pure and simple states of the hypothesizing mind, as nothing more than the con- sciousness of ideating and reasoning in a certain way, and of feeling better satisfied if only able to hit upon a certain way of ideating and reasoning. For example, one may call the " luminiferous ether" a hypothetical entity. But by this one only means that it is an entity about the existence of which, and the transactions in which, we have no immediate and certain knowledge. One Cannot see it, hear it, taste or smell or touch it. But if one is permitted to assume such an entity, and such and such transactions in this entity, then one can the better account for existences and transactions of PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 9 which one has indubitable knowledge. The assumed entity- is assumed as an entity; and such an assumption cannot be made "without metaphysics." Or to take another example : What physicist thinks of the so-called " atoms " as mere ideas in his own mind, intro- duced into his dream about a real, an " extra-mental" world, in the interests simply of an ideal consistency? The rather does science incline to maintain that the things seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched are themselves — at least rela- tively — phenomenal ; and that the beings between and in which the relatively real transactions occur are just these transcendent and permanent, these all-potent but yet hypo- thetical entities. It is, says this natural science, these non-phenomenal and never -to-be-phenomenal entities which do the real work of the real world. It is in this frank and courageous but totally uncritical metaphysics, rather than in its success in dispensing with all metaphysics, that the present superiority of the physical sciences to psychological science largely consists ; for it is such metaphysics, and it alone, which is the appropriate outfit of the student of nature who wishes to confine himself to scientific investigation, without avowedly making excur- sions into the fields of philosophy. Its fundamental and unquestioned epistemological assumption is briefly this: Knowledge is to be had by working in the right way for it ; and by " knowledge " is understood the mental representa- tion of things and events as they really are. And if the question is raised. What, then is the " right way " to work for knowledge ? the sufficient practical answer conslBts in pointing out the way in which others have already attained knowledge. But the correlated ontological assumption — the other side, as it were, of the epistemological assumption — is that things really are, that transactions actually take place, and that causes actually operate (and by " really" or " actually " 10 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND is here undoubtedly meant " extra-mentally ") as they are known to be, to take place, and to operate. Nor, unless he is influenced by some suspicion of danger to other philosophi- cal tenets held in reserve and chiefly connected with ethical and religious tenets, does the student of the physical sciences hesitate to apply both the epistemological and the ontological postulates to his own mind and to the minds of other men. As a man of science simply, he has doubt neither of his own real existence, — the same self somehow that he was yesterday and even years ago, — nor of his ability to know himself as he really is. Moreover, he does not think himself obliged, in the interests of any scholastic metaphysical theory, to hesitate about adopting the ordinary common-sense metaphysics. Surely it would be scant cour- tesy in him to deny that the colleagues with whom he discusses the nature of luminiferous ether, and the equiva- lences and performances of the atoms, are themselves really existent minds, standing in actual relations of friendly intercourse to himself. It is, indeed, true that some authorities in the physical sciences, particularly if they are engaged in composing unusually voluminous and profound treatises, think it neces- sary to have a few words of reckoning with so-called meta- physics in a more formal way. In this case, their custom is to announce a position of thoroughgoing agnosticism respect- ing the fundamental assumptions and conceptions with which they will soon be found dealing in these same treatises. For example, their readers are told at once, with a becoming and impressive scientific modesty, that natural science does not know, or even aim to know, what " matter " really is, or what matter is per se, etc. Next comes the confession that "energy," too, is a word in the use of which science desires to get rid of all metaphysical implications ; here also science acknowledges neither the obligation nor the ability to tell what that is real is meant by the term it so constantly employs, PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 11 But before one is even able to inquire whether there can be science where there is no knowledge; and whether all knowledge that is really knowledge is not knowledge of that which really is and really occurs; and whether knowledge of anything per se is not a contradictio in adjectivo ; and whether such sweeping agnosticism does not necessarily lead to the opinion that the systems of modern physical science are themselves no better than merely half consistent dream- ings; and what this entire big book and all the other big books produced by similar authorities are about, if nothing is known as to the real nature of matter and as to the reality set forth by the scientific hypothesis of "the conservation and correlation of energy, " — our author has probably paid his tribute to metaphysics, and is proceeding quietly on his way with the legitimate work of his particular science. This simply means that he has dropped back into the position of a common-sense and uncritical Dualism in respect of his metaphysical assumptions and metaphysical conceptions. And such, as has already been repeatedly said, is the legiti- mate philosophical position of the worker in science only. If, however, our authority in natural science at any point in his own investigations comes into close contact with some question which primarily belongs to the empirical science of psychology, but which is in his mind connected with theological and religious problems, or with philosophi- cal views in the realm of ethics and conduct, then it is not unlikely that his more obvious attitude toward so-called metaphysics will undergo a sudden and marked change. Of possibilities of this sort the writings of Mr. Huxley — to select one example from many — afford many interesting and instructive illustrations. When discoursing exclusively about the bones of extinct animals, and telling us how they demonstrate the theory of evolution and put it on a par for cer- tainty of knowledge with the law of gravitation, or about the structure and functions of living animals considered as pure 12 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND mechanism to be explained in accordance with the hypothesis of the conservation and correlation of physical energy, this celebrated authority in natural science is obviously a com- mon-sense realist of the dualistic type. He discourses con- cerning what he himself has done, and what he himself knows, with naive metaphysical assumption that transactions in the real world of things, actually stretching over vast exten- sions of space and time, are being correctly set forth. But let some question arise as to the freedom of the human animal, or as to the relation of brain and mind, or as to the so- called "reality" of the latter, and how quickly does Mr. Huxley show a disposition to change his philosophical point of view, with all its implied tenets ! Indeed, so rapid some- times is his metaphysical metamorphosis that several quite distinct standpoints may be taken in the course of a few pages. For first, perhaps, we shall find him announcing himself an agnostic of the type of the Kantian who has only followed his master through the first edition of the " Critique of Pure Reason," and who lays emphasis on the destructive criticism and its negative outcome, while rejecting the sub- sequent attempts of the " Critique of Practical Reason " to find room for a metaphysics of morals and religion. Then, anon, he is a materialist, — really so, however he may be inclined to accept or reject the name ; for he is found virtu- ally assuming the reality of the brain and the whole nervous system, and of the other entities belonging to the natural science of man, while maintaining that all mental phenom- ena must be regarded solely as phenomena of the brain, mere " epi-phenomena. " Or, yet again, a still more astound- ing change in the fundamental metaphysics of this facile reasoner takes place ; and now he appears in a garb simulat- ing the idealist of the advanced Berkeleyan type. All that we can immediately and certainly kno^w is now declared to be our own ideas or states of consciousness, — a proposition from which a return to the position that no knowledge of PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 13 reality at all is possible offers no insuperable diflBculty. So varied are the metaphysical performances of the man of sci- ence when, for some reason or other, he gives up the uncriti- cal dualistic metaphysics which is so becoming to him, and enters self-consciously upon the mazy territory of scholastic theories ! But why — we may now ask with increased eagerness, and perhaps with somewhat improved intelligence — shall not psychology be cultivated as a purely natural science, on the basis of the same naive Dualism as that which we have seen rightly to characterize the metaphysical assumptions of the students of the, other natural sciences? If this can be done, why shall not psychology also boast of being at last what Kant seemed to think it never could become, — namely, a science without metaphysics ? And why do not the writers who are most anxious to establish their claim that psychology is a purely natural science themselves frankly adopt and cling to this dualistic position? The reasons for the somewhat vacillating and largely un- satisfactory practice of psychology, in its recent attempts to build itself up as a science without metaphysics, are partly historical. There can be no doubt that an exceedingly promising and already fruitful movement in new lines of psychological research characterizes the modern era. Some of the leaders of this movement have indeed been quite too ready to forget the large accumulations for a truly inductive and scientific psychology, which, even under the excessive domination of special metaphysical views, were made by men of the preceding era. This seems less strange and basely ungrateful, however, if attention is called to the recent rise and rapid advances of what is somewhat too boastfully called the "new pyschology." It was only in 1835 that E, H. Weber published his articles in Wagner's " Handworterbuch ; " and Pechner's first great work, "Elemente der Psychophysik, " did not appear until 1860. 14 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND Now, it is of course almost wholly in connection with the investigation and discussion of the psycho-physical law connected with these names that the modern science of exact measurement of mental phenomena has been devel- oped. Only for so short a time, then, has the science of psychology been endeavoring in earnest to put on the robe of mathematics; although hundreds of skilful and diligent workmen, with patient endurance through hundreds of thousands of experiments, have been contributing piece- meal, as it were, to the construction of this robe. In detailed scientific study of the nature, origin, and development of sense-perception, the immortal monographs of Helmholtz — " Lehre von den Tonempfindungen " and " Handbuch der Physiologischen Optik " — deserve as pioneers the place of honor; but these appeared in their first complete form no earlier than 1862 and 1867 respec- tively. On the physiological side the almost worthless and highly misleading phrenology of Gall and Spurzheim had to provoke a long and determined reaction ; and it was not until the experiments of Fritsch and Hitzig in 1870 that the bare foundations of the modern science of localization of cerebral function were first laid. With the exception of certain exceedingly fundamental matters, about which the first and simplest conclusions are still involved in no little doubt, the experimental investigation of the so-called "higher" mental phenomena cannot be said even to have begun to assume the form of attempt at exact measurement. General nerve-physiology, which may in time become a helpful handmaid to the understanding of all classes of psychoses, and especially the particular nerve-physiology of the cerebral centres, cannot as yet truthfully be claimed to be a science; while as for hypnotism, psychiatry, criminology, and much of the tribute which anthropology, race-psychology, and the comparative psychology of the lower animals assume to pay to a truly scientific treatment PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 15 of human mental life, — why, the less said about this in the form of scientific claims the better. The consciousness of the average student of psychology is then (not wholly unwarrantably) apt to become somewhat confused as to the relations which all these forms of the phenomena sustain to each other, as to the discussion of the wider problems of philosophy, and as to his own rights and duties while taking the part of an avowed investigator of this branch of natural science. Nor is the confusion lessened when the more fundamental preliminary discussions of the right psychological methods, and of the safe and satisfactory use of those methods deemed right in themselves, are thrown upon him. Moreover, the shadow of portentous ethical and perhaps also religious problems, that seem some- how likely to get mixed up with his attempts at an empirical science, overawes or stimulates or angers him. What one thinks is true, or ought to be true, with respect to the origin and explanation of the so-called consciousness of freedom, or the consciousness of self, or the conscious- ness of "the ought," does not particularly concern one's investigation of the pistils and racemes of a plant, of the scales and fins of a fish, or of the chemical and physical constitution of a rock, etc. But if it is a case of laboratory work in investigation of the phenomena of voluntary atten- tion or of conscious choice, it is difficult to exclude the influence of philosophical prejudices. Moreover, the pursuit of the science of psychology without metaphysics (inasmuch as this " without metaphysics " so often practically becomes equivalent to the rejection of all metaphysics except the pursuer's own) is undoubtedly often embarrassed by the lack of thorough training on the psychologist's part. Not a few of the young men who have been set to investigate " special problems " in our newly founded psychological laboratories have no adequate acquaintance either with philosophy or with human psychology as pursued from its 16 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND various points of view; while the psychological and philosophical insight and attainments of most physiologists and physicians, into whose hands chiefly is committed the first treatment of abnormal and pathological mental phe- nomena, are scarcely worth mentioning in this connection. But there is yet another potent reason for the marked shamefacedness and lack of confidence, candor, and thor- oughness which belong to the attitude of much modern psychology toward metaphysical assumptions and meta- physical speculations. The reason is partly to be found m the influence which psychology has received from certain leading forms of natural science. In some respects this influence has undoubtedly been stimulating and salutary. It has assisted to correct the former too prevalent method of attempting to deduce the mental phenomena, their connections and accepted explanations, from preconceived notions as to the nature, activities, and relations of the soul. It has also spurred on investigation into the attempt at increased accuracy in the observation of psychic facts; it has enlarged diligence in the collection of a more adequate basis for induction, and has secured more reserve and care in generalization. Of course, also, without the knowledge which physics, chemistry, and physiology have recently acquired upon a great variety of facts, laws, and improved forms of instrumentation and experiment, any satisfactory equipment for experimental psychology as pursued by labor- atory methods would be quite impossible. The laudable desire at last to rival the other older and better established empirical sciences has undoubtedly contributed many good results already; it promises yet a larger number in the future of scientific psychology. On the other hand, the influence of the physical and natural sciences upon modern psychology has been by no means wholly beneficial. This, however, has not been the fault chiefly of the students of these sciences ; it has been PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 17 the fault chiefly — as far as one may speak of fault at all — of the students of psychology. And here we may note in them a certain half surrender, or too timid and deferential use, of their own peculiar psychological standpoint. This standpoint is and always must remain the same. It is that of discriminating consciousness turned upon the phenomena of consciousness. No attempt at so-called " objective " observation of mental phenomena can ever in the least diminish the necessity which belongs to the very nature of psychological science to regard these phenomena always from the point of view of introspection also. Only in repre- sentative self-consciousness can we ever know what the phenomena of consciousness really are. The piling up of experimental results, the enlarging of collections of statis- tics, the anthropological and other " objective " data, all assist the science of psychology only in so far as they help the psychologist more extensively, accurately, and pro- foundly to analyze this representative self-consciousness. For the world in which his science moves is ever mirrored in his own soul ; and if he fii'st goes outside to collect and arrange signs of the conscious processes of other minds, he must always come back to his own consciousness to interpret the meaning of these signs. When, then, any student of psychology, through fear of being considered too subjective or too metaphysical, neglects to cultivate or depreciates and denounces the analytic of a trained introspective observer, he is in a fair way soon to be found offering for sale his own peculiar birthright ; and the chances are very largely in favor of his exchanging this birthright for some mess of half -cooked pottage. Moreover, the overpowering sense of the reign of law, as this reign is maintained in the physical realm ; the feeling of awe before the sacred principle of the conservation and correlation of energy, as though it were a near approach to blasphemy to suggest that this principle may be utterly 18 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND inadequate (not to say totally irrelevant) to set forth relations of psychic phenomena; and in general the deter- mination not to claim scientific attainments for psychology until she is clothed from head to foot in the garb of mathematics, — all these things have exercised an unduly depressing influence on modern psychology. It is to be hoped that psychologists may some day dwell at peace with physicists and physiologists, not simply by a dumb sub- mission to their formulas as sufficient for the scientific treatment of mental phenomena, but on terms of a genuine equality. Indeed, it is possible that some day the former may show the latter not a few things which they need to know for the more successful pursuit of their own sciences. The foregoing criticism has been — excepting the mention of Mr. Huxley's name — quite general and impersonal. It will now be briefly enforced and illustrated by several selected examples. It is very far from our intention, how- ever, in selecting for detailed examination the opinions and practice of Professor Hoffding, Professor James, and M. Flournoy, as respects the relations of scientific psychology and metaphysics, to hold any one of these writers up to obloquy. On the contrary, the reasons which might induce a critic undertaking our present task to name these three gentlemen are, for the most part, distinctly honorable to them. Of Professor Hoffding,^ it may be said that in defining psychology as "the science of mind," or, again, "of that which thinks, feels, and wills, in contrast with physics as the science of that which moves in space and occupies space," he at first takes intelligently and frankly the stand- point of uncritical dualistic metaphysics. The definition plaii^ly assumes, not merely the existence of "mental phenomena," but of "mind" as the subject of these phe- nomena. Mind is spoken of as "that which thinks, feels, 1 Outlines of Psychology, p. 1. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OP MIND 19 and wills ; " and mind is set in " contrast with " that which "occupies space, and with which scientific physics deals." Such an uncritical Dualism has already been declared to be the attitude pre-eminently fit for the student of mental phe- nomena without any metaphysics beyond that which all the sciences employ. Moreover, the true psychological method is thus from the start openly espoused ; for we are told ' that " if we wish to gain a knowledge of conscious life, we must study it, above all, where it is directly accessible to us, — namely, in our own consciousness," Later on, it is men- tioned as " the merit of the English school to have shown that psychology is independent of metaphysical speculation. " It is as " distinct in aim from the study of external nature and from metaphysical speculation " ^ that the author proposes to exhibit psychological inquiry. In the next following chapter, upon "Mind and Body," however, HofEding proceeds to justify his standpoint as " purely empirical or phenomenal, not metaphysical or onto- logical ; " and to separate it, as scientific, from " the popular mode of apprehension, " which is — he truly says — "a compound of experience and metaphysics. " This procedure, of course, results in a complete departure from the point of view of the first chapter; for its point of view was, as we have already seen, no other than this same popular (and yet empirically scientific) standpoint which naturally leads to an admixture of " experience and metaphysics." And now, instead of reminding us of the contrast between " that which " is the subject of psychoses and " that which " moves in space and occupies space, the whole discussion sets out with the assumption that the validity in reality of this contrast is itself to be tested by certain conjectural physiological laws, and especially by the principle of the conservation and corre- lation of (physical) energy. Because the discussion cannot sustain the strain of the undoubted facts of the contrast, I Outlines of Psychology, p. 11. " Ibid., p. 16. 20 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND what breaks down is not the attempt to justify the laws where they plainly do not belong, but the very contrast itself. And now it is announced^ that "in the mental as in the material world, we hold fast," not to the contrast, which was formerly declared to define the very nature of the science of psychology and the very essence of the psychologi- cal standpoint, but " to the law of continuity " ! And so the " identity hypothesis " is affirmed to be triumphant at the very beginning of a psychological inquiry which originally professed to maintain a standpoint "purely empirical or phenomenal, not metaphysical or ontological. " What, now, is this "so-called identity hypothesis," thus naively substituted for his formerly avowed Dualism by a writer on purely " scientific " psychology? Why, it regards "these worlds [the mental and the material] as two mani- festations of one and the same being, both given in expe- rience. " We shall in due time show that the most avowedly high-and-dry ontological dogmatism contains few declara- tions more obscurely, not to say unintelligibly, metaphysical than this. Even at this point it is evident that nothing but the fear of misunderstanding ^ deters Hoffding from acknowl- edging his view as the "new Spinozism." And was not Spinoza, then, a mietaphysician, and above all an " ontologi- cal " philosopher? However this may be, we have certainly been led by a very short road to a position in marked contrast with any purely empirical standpoint. After this taint of original transgression, due to commerce between psychology as a science and monistic metaphysics, has been admitted into the very life-blood of Professor HofFding's psychological inquiry, one must not be surprised to find it repeatedly breaking to the surface throughout the structural development of the inquiry itself. Among the several marked instances of such a corrupting effect of metaphysics upon the purity of his "empirical science," 1 Outlines of Psychology, p. 66. a ibid., p. 68. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 21 a single selection Avili quite suffice. In his interesting and able discussion of the "Psychology of the Will,"^ Hoffding starts with a fair amount of fidelity to psycho- logical science as dealing primarily with the phenomena of consciousness. But when he comes to the clinch with that profound problem which certain facts usually included by psychological classification under the term " Will " offer to detailed reflective study, we find him abandoning not only the strictly psychological standpoint, but also the very field of metaphysical assumptions which most natur- ally surrounds this standpoint. For in an unqualified way, just after admitting ^ that "so long as we keep to the purely empirical ground of what, before and during the action, takes place in and before consciousness, it is not possible to demonstrate the validity of the causal law in the sphere of the, will or of the mental life in general," Hoffding* indulges in the following metaphysical dicta: "Psychology, like every other science, must be determin- istic ; that is to say, it must start from the assumption that the causal law holds good even in the life of the will, just as this law is assumed to be valid for the remaining conscious life and for material nature." How thorough Hoffding conceives the likeness or identity to be (as implied by the words " just as ") in the reign of causal law within both the psychological and the physical realms, we may gather only too certainly from utterances which immediately follow. For example, we are told:* " It does not matter whether the breach of causality is great or small [that is, in the phenomena of so-called " Will "] ; the question is one of principle. A weight suspended by a string falls to the ground whether the string is cut in one place or in many." And again, ^ " Indeterminism conflicts, not only with psychology, but also with physiology [sic], » Outlines of Psychology, vii. pp. 308 ff. " Ibid., pp. 344 f. » Ibid., pp. 345 f. * Ibid., p. 346. ^ ibid., p. 347. 22 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND inasmuch as it enters into irreconcilable contradiction with the principle of persistence of energy in the organic [sic] province. If a volition without a cause is admitted, then the functions of the brain and of the nervous system must be allowed to originate without a cause. " Neither from the point of view of psychology as the science of psychical phenomena, nor from that of any possible forms of metaphy- sical doctrine as to the nature of physical or psychical being, as to the nature and reality of the so-called " causal law, " or as to the real connections of body and mind, do we now question these rash statements of Professor Hoffding. We simply ask, What has now become of psychology as a " purely empirical or phenomenal, not metaphysical or onto- logical," science? What has become of the naive and rela- tively justifiable metaphysics which considers it as a science of "that which thinks, feels, and wills, ... in contrast . . . with that with which scientific physics deals? " Later on, when the attempt is made to deal thoroughly with the metaphysics of the "identity-hypothesis," we shall ask this authority to show satisfactory reason why the one reality to which the " contrasted " phenomena (psychical and physical) are referred, might not possibly choose to follow the principle of the conservation and correlation of energy in one of its contrasted aspects, and decline to follow it in the other. Just now we are merely forced to the conclusion that Professor Hoffding's attempt at a purely scientific psychology really begins with a mischievous confusion of science and metaphysics, and ends with a yet more mischievous confusion worse confounded. Nor can the result be excused as an honest but necessarily unsuccessful attempt to treat the science of mental phenomena without metaphysics, or at most, only with such metaphysics as is legitimate in all scientific inquiry. The failure plainly must be ascribed to a covert effort to introduce into psychology scholastic and doubtful metaphysical assumptions while claiming to conduct a purely scientific inquiry. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 23 So varied and shifting are the metaphysical standpoints of Professor James in his voluminous treatise on psychology as to induce the boldest critic to hesitate before affirming that he has detected and comprehended them all ; nor do we think that the most friendly critic would readily venture to show how they can all be held together in a perfect harmony. At the very beginning, this writer is more than usually lively in his warning against introducing metaphysics into psychology when treated as "a natural science." In the Preface we are told : ^ " Metaphysics, fragmentary, irrespon- sible, and half-awake, and unconscious that she is metaphy- sical, spoils two goqd things when she injects herself into a natural science." With all this we perfectly agree; especially with the suggestion that it is "fragmentary, irresponsible, and half-awake" metaphysics whose corrupt- ing influence over every form of natural science, and especially over psychology, is chiefly to be feared. On the other hand, we also believe that thorough, responsible, and wide-awake metaphysics is a " good " thing ; of such meta- physics, when it is " consciously " and intelligently, and not clandestinely or dishonestly, combined with science, we see little reason to fear any corrupting influence over any form of natural science. That Professor James does not propose to treat his subject as a science wholly without any metaphysics whatever, he has already informed us at the top of this same page; for he has affirmed that psychology as a natural science assumes for its data (sic), (1) thoughts and feelings, and (2) a physical world in time and space, with which they coexist, and which (3) they know. Now, it might easily be claimed that for psychology as a perfectly pure empirical science (description and explanation) of the phenomena of consciousness (or states of consciousness) as such,^ only the 1 The Principles of Psychology, i. p. vi. 2 So Professor James defines it to he in his smaller work, " Psychology," p. 1. 24 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND first of these data — namely, " thoughts and feelings, " as including, of course, those states of consciousness which we call "knowledge " — are necessarily to be assumed. The assumption of a "physical world in time and space," with which these thoughts and feelings co-exist, is indeed a justifiable assumption for psychology, as it is for every other form of natural science. It is, however, a metaphysical assumption; but it is just that metaphysical assumption which, in Professor James's large and loose way of stating it, constitutes one entire half of a crude, uncritical Dualism. Moreover, from the purely psychological point of view there is probably no other subject the treatment of which by this author is more unsatisfactory than those very "states of consciousness," or — better said — modes of the activity of mind which are called "knowledge." The assumptions "I know," "You know," etc., and the assumption in general that scientific knowledge is attainable and actual, are indeed legitimate for psychology, as for every other form of natural science. At the same time, it is a chief obliga- tion and a supremely difficult task for psychology as an empirical science to trace the genesis and development of knowledge. Professor James has nowhere in his spacious volumes fully recognized this obligation, much less per- formed this task. It may be suspected that the reason for this is to be found — at least in part — in the complete inability of all " cerebral psychology " to throw even a glimmer of light upon the psychological, not to say the epistemological, problems involved in such states of con- sciousness. After having once recognized and approved the opinion of Professor James with reference to his fundamental metaphysi- cal assumptions at the top of this remarkable page, we are the more astonished to read what he says at the bottom of the same page. For in the sentence which follows the warning against such metaphysics as " spoils " the natural science of PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 25 psychology, we have the theory of " a spiritual agent " brought forward as a leading example.' It is " just such metaphysics as this," we are told, which corrupts the " psychology books." But why this excessive tenderness in the Preface toward the metaphysical postulate of a mind as (to quote again the phrase of HofiFdiug) " that which thinks, feels, and wills " ? — unless, indeed, to be a " that-which," etc., is fundamentally different from being an " agent ; " and to think, feel, and will is something necessarily other than to be " spiritual." On the contrary, if the assumption of a physical world is the legitimate and necessary metaphysical standpoint of physics, the assumption of a mental being (or " spiritual agent ") is the equally legitimate and necessary metaphysical standpoint of psychology. But we have already repeatedly declared that both assumptions constitute the equipment in natural meta- physics with which every student of natural science — whether of physics or of psychology — necessarily starts his scientific inquiry. This vacillation between the philosophical standpoint which denies all metaphysics the right to mix with psychology, and that which affirms the rights of the metaphysics of physics, but denies all rights to the metaphysics of mental science, characterizes the entire treatise of Professor James. The total result is rendered even more confusing by large admix- ture of philosophical sympathy with those students of mental life who openly affirm and intelligently defend the assumption of a "spiritual agent," whose are the psychical phenomena, but who is not to be identified either with the sum-total of these phenomena regarded content-wise, or with the subject of the physiological and cerebral phenomena. In many places Professor James seems to hold that this is not only the legitimate preliminary assumption, but the very last word of science and philosophy upon the matter. To prove our somewhat sweeping accusation of inconsistency would scarcely be necessary for those who have, studied " The 26 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND Principles of Psychology " most carefully. We must content ourselves with citing only one er two of the many possible illustrations. A chapter ^ on " The Relations of Minds to Other Things" in a psychological treatise is from its very nature a metaphysical discussion. In this discussion ^ Professor James affirms that whereas when I perceive Orion I am only cognitively, and not dynamically, present there, because " 1 work no effects," — "to my brain I am dynamically present, inasmuch as my thoughts and feelings seem to react upon the processes thereof." Of course, nothing could be more agreeable to the most advanced advocate of the " theory of a spiritual agent " than such a sentence as this ; for it affirms that the spiritual agent not only exists, -but " works effects," and that, too, upon the cerebral processes. By such a claim the mod- ern hypothesis of the conservation and correlation of energy, and all the current weak attempts so to use it in an ontologi- cal way as to contradict the plainest dicta of our ordinary experience, are given a private coup de grace. Especially is materialism inflicted with a deadly wound in the place where it is accustomed to represent itself as invulnerable. Still further on ^ we are told that the psychologist's attitude toward cognition is a thorough-going Dualism. " It supposes two elements (rather beings), — mind knowing, and thing known, — and treats them as irreducible. Neither gets out of itself or into the other, neither in any way is the other, neither makes the other." Further, however, as to the relations of mind and brain, Professor James refuses * to add anything to what has been said in the preceding two chapters. What, however, is our surprise, on refreshing our memories as to what Aa« been said in these chapters, to find that the comparison shows not so much mere addition or subtraction as a totally different metaphysical point of view. For in one of these preceding 1 The Principles of Psychology, vol. i. chap. viii. » Ibid., p. 2] 4. » Ibid., p. 218. « Ibid., p. 216. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 27 chapters * the so-called " Mind-Stuff Theory " is discussed ; and in the course of the discussion the author takes occasion to speak of the " Connection between Mind and Brain " (pp. 176 f .). There we are assured that the view which regards the total state of consciousness as " corresponding " to the entire activity of the brain will be adopted and not departed from during the remainder of the book. The reason given for adopting this view is its supposed superior value as a purely scientific and non-metaphysical hypothesis. In a subsequent brief mention of the " Soul-Theory," although admitting that this form of metaphysics has its marked advantage, inasmuch as it gives us a being or "medium," 2 in which the manifold brain-processes may " combine their effects," Professor James reiterates his de- termination to hold fast by the theory of " blank, unmediated processes," as the last word of a psychology that will content itself with scientific verities, and avoid unsafe metaphysical hypothesis. By keeping to this empirical parallelism, it is declared, our psychology remains positivistic and non-meta- physical. Certainly, however, it is a somewhat far cry from this position to that in which one makes bold to speak of one's self as " working effects " upon one's brain, or as " dyna- mically reacting " upon the cerebral processes. Nor does this alleged " empirical parallelism," in so far as it is actually adhered to and made use of, turn out at all non-metaphysical. In almost every case, on the contrary, where this theory is put to the test, it turns out to be only another way of introducing the same metaphysical standpoint to which we have already called attention as adopted by the Preface ; that is to say, the existence of the brain and of its processes is assumed as a part, a,s the primarily important part, of that " physical world in time and space" with which the thoughts and feelings coexist. It is the only reality, to which all sorts of most highly conjectural performances are freely ascribed in i The Principles of Psychology, vol. i. chap. vi. ^ See pp. 181 f. 28 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND the interests of scientific explanation. But as to any assumed reality for the " spiritual agent," for the soul or the mind, for the subject of the thoughts and feelings, — why, such meta- physics is carefully avoided. Whether we like the word or not, this is undoubtedly the position of materialism. Hence arises Professor James's ideal of a scientific treat- ment of mental phenomena as possible only in the form of a cerebral psychology; hence his frank declaration ^ that nothing resembling a "science" of psychology at present exists. Hence, finally, his intimate philosophical alliance, whenever he is pressed for his ultimate tlioughts, with the metaphysical standpoint of Mr. Hodgson in treating of psy- chological problems. Indeed, we are told out and out, and in italicized print, at the close of the following chapterj^* that it is the relations of the subjective data, of the thoughts and feelings, to things and to the brain (but not to one another or to the mind ? ) , that " constitute the subject-matter of psychologic science." The points of view and of approach to this subject held by M. Plournoy in his interesting monograph ^ differ widely from those of Professors Hbffding and James, as already discussed. This writer, although he gives to his work the title " Meta- physics and Psychology," undertakes to banish all metaphysics, good or bad (if we may for the time being continue to agree with Professor James in holding that there is such a thing possible as " good " metaphysics), forever from the arena of psychological inquiry. He will have none of it, whether it be considered as introduced in the form of assumptions either to be disproved or verified by the progress of scientific inquiry, or in the form of speculations arising in the course of the inquiry, or professed in the interests of fuller explanation of acknowledged psychic facts. The general principle on whose ' See the close of his small book. * Ibid., p. 197. ' Metaphysique et Psychologie, par Th. Flournoy, Docteur en medeclne, etc., Geneve. 1890. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 29 proud shoulders is to be laid the task of this exorcising man- date is called the " Principle of Concomitance, or of Psycho- physical Parallelism." This principle is declared to be at the very base of modern psychology. It is not quite clear, to begin with, what M. Flournoy means by speaking of his principle as " serving as the base " of psychology, — whether, for example, we are to understand that it is one of those necessary but non-metaphysical pre- suppositions which all empirical science may make ; or whether it is a principle inductively derived, but admitted to be true by all students of psychology whose opinion it is worth while to take into our account. Personally, we should be sorry to believe that the latter is the author's meaning ; for he himself has done us the honor to quote us, and this in conjunction with a no less distinguished authority than Pro- fessor Wundt, as among the few remaining " savants " who deny the absolutely universal extent in application of this so- called " principle of parallelism." ^ Denying this principle is defined by M. Flournoy as the equivalent of holding that the phenomena of psychic life show plain tokens of an " activity properly spiritual," having the " function of elaborating the data of sense, comparing them," etc.; and that such activity or function is " independent of the organic processes." Now, to the precise phrasing of the clause just quoted it may safely be presumed that both the writers in question would interpose well-founded objections. Neither of them would be willing to be committed to the view, and — so far as can readily be shown — neither of them has ever expressed the view that psychic activities or functions are, in the stricter sense of the word, ever totally " independent " of the organic, that is, the cerebral, processes. Further than this we will not attempt to answer for Professor Wundt ; and for the answer, in its fuller form, which we should wish to make for ourselves, reference must be had to some of the later 1 Mitaphysique et Psychologie, p. 6. so PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND chapters of the present treatise. It will now suflSce to say that obviously it is not modern experimental psychology alone, with its elaborate system of measurement and psycho-physics, but all psychology of all times, and even the commonest knowledge of the unleai-ned man about his own mental life, which correlates states of consciousness, content-wise, with the character of the stimulus that produces them. One does not need to be a psychologist of the type trained in the modern laboratory to know that when one's fingers are in the crack of a door, the more, within " limits," the pressure of the door is increased, the greater grows the pain ; or that ten candles make things brighter than one candle; or that the weight which is heavier, when thrown into the scales, ordi- narily feels heavier to the muscles, skin, and joints of the man who lifts it. Indeed, the common impression really is, in many respects, more likely to overdo than to underdo the estimate of the strictness of this correlation. It is difficult for men generally to be convinced, for example, that there is so much difference as actually exists between the subjective time-rate of the sensation, or the exact temporal position at which it strikes into the stream of consciousness, and the objective time-rate or temporal position of the occasioning stimuli. So, too, everybody knows that the kind of sensations one has " depends upon " — or, to avoid metaphysics of even the weakest savor, we will say, is "correlated with" — the kind of external excitements which act upon the end-organs of sense. Here, again, it is those far obscurer influences which do not belong to the obvious external correlations, and which even modern psychology can only speak of with any clear intelligibility by employing psychological terms (such as imagination, feeling, desire, intention, etc.) that are overlooked in the popular estimate. It is a long and weary journey, however, from this point of view to the conclusion that all man's psychic life, especially when regarded on the side, not of passive content, but of PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 31 those activities and functions which develop into the so-called " higher faculties," is in like manner strictly correlated with, not to say determined by, the physical series. Such a conclu- sion is certainly not in accordance with the popular view, nor do we believe it to be the view warranted by the most minute study of psycho-physical data after the modern methods. At any rate, it can be said to " serve as a base " for modern psychology only as it is put there ' by investigators who have already grievously departed from the strictly scientific posi- tion, and have incontinently taken up with the metaphysics of our modern psycho-physical Spinozism. But we have already said that the distinction of M. Floiir- noy consists chiefly in his deriving from this acknowledged principle of " concomitance," or complete " psycho-physical parallelism," a crushing refutation, as he thinks, of all meta- physics whatever. For he goes on to declare * that this psycho- physical principle, " like Janus, presents two opposed faces, of which one, looking toward the future, smiles at science, while the other, turned toward the past, shows its teeth at metaphysics." Now, it does not appear to be simply " bad " metaphysics which needs to beware of the growl and bite of this new-born psycho-physical Janus ; it is all metaphysics, — metaphysics as such. As to what M. Flournoy understands by " metaphysics," the reader can scarcely claim to learn from his definition. This runs, as all the world but the metaphy- sicians themselves are agreed : " Metaphysics is that of which those who listen understand nothing, and which he who speaks does not himself understand." It would scarcely consist with courtesy to the audience (these words were originally spoken), or to the speaker himself, to take this facetious defi- nition of metaphysics too seriously; for the larger part of the remainder of this treatise is taken up with a critical dis- cussion of the " principal metaphysical hypotheses concerning the union of the soul and the body." And this discussion is sufiicieutly clear for any intelligent reader to comprehend. 1 Metaphysique et Psychologie, p. 6. 32 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND Now, it will at once be said, in defence of M. Flournoy, that we must constantly bear in mind his intention already an- nounced, — namely, to show how this fundamental and invul- nerable psycho-physical principle is inconsistent with the tenure of any and every form of metaphysics. But here two important things are to be noticed ; and both of them bring back the practical and theoretical difficulties which stand in the way of every attempt wholly to separate scientific psy- chology from the influence of philosophical speculation. First, the criticism of any rejected metaphysical hypotheses has itself no force as criticism, and no meaning as language, with- out admitting the influence of other accepted metaphysical standpoints as the critic's own part. Indeed, in general we suppose it to be strictly true that no particular tenet or sys- tem of tenets in metaphysics can be gainsaid or even discussed without adoption of some other metaphysical tenet or system of tenets. It follows that no consistent champion of science, pure and simple, and wholly " without metaphysics" can ever even draw his sword to slay the metaphysical ogre unless he first come within the realm, and put on the armor, of meta- physics. Otherwise, his sword and he himself are but phan- toms ; and his work of hewing down the metaphysical hypotheses not only is, but must in consistency be regarded by himself as being, like that which goes on in Valhalla. In other words, and to change the figure of speech, there is no critical cure for bad and insufficient metaphysics but good and consistent metaphysics. But, second, M. Flournoy's very proposal of the psycho- physical principle as destructive of metaphysics is itself inca- pable of the statement and application which he gives to it, unless it be taken in a metaphysical way. It is itself the very scientific principle on which both metaphysical materialists and metaphysical spiritualists base their conclusions. Perhaps it would be more correct to call . it the metaphysical principle upon which both materialism and spiritualism base themselves, PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 33 by emphasizing — each one — only one-half of this principle. It is, properly speaking, not at all an inductive principle which itself serves as the base for the modern empirical science of psychology. Only by the entire course of this treatise can the full force of our criticism of M. Flournoy's position be made obvious. But both the foregoing points of Criticism will now be illustrated ; and we shall consider them in the order, above mentioned, as putting the easier task first. How inevitably every author assumes the metaphysical stand- point, and takes for granted the validity of some (his own, of course) metaphysics, whenever he criticises the metaphysics of other people, is well illustrated by M. Flournoy in his remarks on " Phenomenism." ^ This is the term chosen for that form of metaphysical hypothesis which carries idealism to the length of solipsism. Its conclusion is, " My state of con- sciousness, that is all the reality." Or, in other words, its hypothesis reduces matter to " a pure representation of our consciousness, an idea." Perhaps a more thorough prelimin- ary investigation of the inquiry, What is metaphysics ? would have suggested to the author the following conclusion : With- out — totally without — any metaphysics whatever, that is precisely what all reality, whether so-called matter or so-called mind, becomes. But, conversely, as somehow given, or impli- cated, in the state of consciousness, regarded as my state, and not by any possibility regarded merely as state, all reality, whether of matter or of mind, exists. The question we are now interested, however, in discussing is M. Flournoy's method of escape from what he is pleased to call the metaphysical hypothesis of phenomenism, or solipsism, without resort on his own part to metaphysics. The final wrench of this modern advocate of psychologicial science as not the sponsor or the heir, but the executioner of all onto- logical hypotheses, from the clutches of the metaphysical ogre, is accomplished in the following somewhat Johnsonian style. 1 Mftaphysique et Psychologic, pp. 37 f. 3 34 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND It is not material things, however, whose reality can be demonstrated by kicking them, or by striking them with our canes, after the fashion of ordinary common-sense realism, which M. Flournoy is chiefly anxious to save. He admits ^ that the real existence of the very bread he eats might be spared if the mental phenomena vulgarly called " seeing, touching, and eating bread could be constantly followed by the mental phenomenon which I call no longer being hungry and being reinvigorated." Surely idealism need feel no alarm at this point ; for there never was a solipsistic ogre of so vora- cious metaphysical maw as to wish to deprive us of this kind of bread. But there are other interests (touching real entities and of a metaphysical sort) which this critic of phenomenism cannot so lightly surrender. For he goes on to say, with a feeling in which all metaphysicians, whether idealists or dualists, would fully share : " To admit, however, that my wife, my children, all humanity, past, present, and future, are only diverse groups of my sensations and ideas, — that no sentiment of love or hate exists outside of those which I directly expe- rience, — that there are no other Egos than my own, — that I alone, with my actual memories or hopes, comprise all Reality, — ... brrr ! the bare idea of this solitude gives me a chill in the spine; and I am not astonished that all the phenomenist philosophers are in fact unfaithful to their system." The sentences just quoted undoubtedly land their author on the other side of the barriers erected by the advocates of idealism when pressed to the limits of solipsism. But who does not see that M. Flournoy has employed, in order to sur- mount these barriers, the soaring wings of the metaphysics of sentiment ? "We have no objection to mingling sentiment freely with philosophy, if only it be done in such a way as to suffuse with warmth and color the body of a sound reflective thinking ; ' Metaphysique et Psychologie, p. 42. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 35 or, conversely, if reflective thinking be employed to expound the meaning of those universal and unalterable sentiments which belong to the spiritual substance of humanity. But if M. Flournoy supposes that one can logically and consistently undo the conclusions of what he calls the "metaphysics of phenomenism " without help from some other form of meta- physical hypothesis, why then he has himself shown the impossibility of carrying out his own supposition. To posit somehow — call the act of positing by the term " knowledge," "inference," "faith," "hypothesis," or what you will — the reality of a world of minds, past, present, and future, all standing in actual relations toward each other, this is to be metaphysical, in tlie most portentous fashion. Furthermore, unless such an act of positing is to be made a mere act of wil- ful and unintelligent positing, its reasons must be examined and defended against criticism ; its nature and import must be reflectively discussed. But such discussion is metaphysics, in the technical sense of the words ; it furnishes the very body of a well-reasoned and critical Idealism. It would not be difficult to show that in his criticism and rejection of the other contesting " metaphysical hypotheses," — of Spiritualism, Materialism, and Monism, — M. Flournoy is equally, though perhaps not quite so glaringly, inconsistent. The refutation of them all necessarily leads the refuter to assume other metaphysical standpoints than those which he is refuting. But we now pass to the other and less obvious statement which was made above ; we propose to show how the very " principle of concomitance or psycho-physical paral- lelism," as here accepted and defended, is all suffused with metaphysics. As might be expected from the general habit of writers who maintain too thoughtlessly the necessity of a psychological science wholly without metaphysics, M. Flour- noy's various statements and explanations of this principle carry him from one metaphysical standpoint to another in a quite bewildering way. 36 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND The meaning of the fundamental psycho-physical prin- ciple which is to give the coup de grdce to all metaphysics is stated by M. Plournoy in the following compact and intel- ligible way : ^ " Every psychical phenomenon has a determinate physical concomitant." The fuller statement of meaning runs as follows: "That is to say, the totality of interior events, thoughts, sentiments, volitions, etc., which consti- tutes what we call the life of our soul, our psychic or mental life, is accompanied by a parallel series of modifications in our bodily organism, and particularly in our nervous sys- tem; and this in such a way that each term of the psychic series depends upon a definite term of the physiological series ; to each state of consciousness corresponds a special molecular state of our brain, a determinate group of physi- co-chemical phenomena effectuated in the cells or fibres of our cerebral substance." Now, just so long as this state- ment is understood in a totally non-metaphysical way, it simply affirms the regular sequence of one class of phenom- ena upon another class of phenomena. Phenomena called "thoughts, sentiments, volitions, etc.," depend upon phe- nomena called physico-chemical, or molecular states of the brain ; and of these two, it is impossible to deny that we know the one (the "thoughts, etc.") directly and indubitably as phenomena, while the other (the so-called physico-chemi- cal phenomena) are only known in an extremely uncertain, fragmentary, and conjectural fashion. But what is most important to notice is, that so long as the strictly psycho- logical and non-metaphysical standpoint is held, the latter class of phenomena can be known only as they fall under the former class, — that is, as " thoughts " about (or, rather, for the most part, somewhat wild and irregular guesses and half-conceived faiths about, etc.). And now one might catch at this last word, and ask " about " what ? Oh, " about " the brain and its cells and fibres, and about physico-chemical and * Metaphysique et Psychologie, p. 5. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 37 other molecular changes. But, again, we insist that unless M. Flournoy intends to adopt the metaphysical standpoint of common-sense Dualism, he must class himself for the present with the advocates of that very phenomenism which he refutes by flying aloft on the wings of metaphysical sentiment. However, plain signs are not lacking of another metaphy- sical standpoint which M. Flournoy, perhaps unconsciously but no less virtually, assumes ; for he goes on to say ^ that if we should reverse this proposition, and affirm, "Every physical phenomenon has a determinate psychic concomi- tant," we "should depart from the limits of positive science, and enter upon metaphysics without reserve. " Now, for the right to make this very reversal, and indeed for the impera- tive duty of making it, in the interests both of logic and of science, we shall elsewhere strenuously contend. But what we now wish to know is, how this refusal is consistent with a purely non-metaphysical tenure of the celebrated princi- ple of psycho-physical parallelism? Surely, here one may say, it is a lamentably "poor rule that won't work both ways," and it might be added, work with equal ontological efficiency in both directions. The appropriate exhortation irresistibly suggests itself. Either stick to your phenome- nism, or else be consistent in your metaphysics. But pre- cisely what hind of metaphysics is to be shown special favor becomes very clear when we are told : ^ "It may be said in brief that the principle of parallelism, on which experimental psychology is founded, assumes beneath every phenomenon of consciousness a correlative physiological phenomenon; because psychology, in order to become a positive science, ought to become as much as possible physiological." Indeed, its grand ideal, according to M. Flournoy, is to become " nothing but a branch of mechanics. " Now, it may be that psychology will ultimately have to 1 Metaphysique et Psychologie, p. 13. ^ Ibid., p. 15. 38 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF UIKD sell its " soul " for so clieap a price as mechanics is likely to be able to pay ; although there be psychologists who do not propose to close the bargain just at present: if they must sell at all, they are content to wait for a large rise in the value of the commodities offered in exchange. "Just at present," however, it can scarcely be claimed by any one who has sufficient acquaintance with facts to be an acknowl- edged authority, that cerebral physiology constitutes a large enough scientific cosmos to induce a wise man to take the whole of it in exchange for even a hypothetical soul. But how such an exchange will ever be effected totally without metaphysics is what we find it particularly difficult to com- prehend. And have we not just now seen M. Flournoy him- self expressing his willingness to surrender the ontological verity of his own daily bread, if only he can save that of his "wife, children, and all humanity, past, present, and future " ? That is to say, when defending certain souls, in whom he has a practical interest, against the destructive meta- physics of phenomenism, he is a pronounced metaphysician of the common-sense (albeit, rather emotional), realistic type. But now, in the interests of a so-called "psycho- physical principle of parallelism " that works "effectually only in one direction, " — namely, in that of reducing the science of psychology to a branch of mechanics, — he is ready to assume only the ontological verity of brains, his own and, we must suppose, those of " all humanity, past, present, and future. " What would become of real brains without real bread to nourish them, or what would become of "all humanity " considered as devoid of psychical reality, or how men would win and distribute bread and grow brains unless physical phenomena did have a determinate psychic con- comitant, are not made quite clear. But what is exceed- ingly clear is something more than the same tenderness which we found Professor James displaying toward the ontological interests of the physical half of the principle of PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 39 parallelism. Indeed, the metaphysical standpoint involved in this one-sided working of the principle of parallelism is defi- nitely that of metaphysical materialism. Yet M. Plournoy elsewhere criticises and rejects the metaphysics of materi- alism; and, as we have seen, he adopts the standpoint of a metaphysics of spiritual idealism, in the interests of his friends and of "all humanity." Further illustration of a similar shifting of philosophical points of view, in the very effort to establish a science of psychology wholly without metaphysics, is afforded us by the way in which M. Flournoy invariably speaks of physical science and of its principle of the conservation and corre- lation of energy. Here his standpoint is apparently that of a common-sense realist of the dualistic type. Bread exists, and brains exist, and a world of material objects exists, and " all humanity " exists ; the latter may know the former, may effectuate changes in it, in spite of the fact that the psycho-physical principle, as a scientific principle, is to be taken ontologically in only one direction. The views of these three 'authors have been discussed at such length, and with so much of somewhat sharply polemi- cal criticism, because they are quite representative of the success which Monism, Materialism, and Positivism are accustomed to attain in the effort to treat psychology as a purely " natural science, " without any admixture of meta- physics whatever. One can scarcely suppress a pardonable feeling of relief and satisfaction on turning to writers who, like Volkmann and Wundt, for example, openly maintain the right to introduce speculative and metaphysical tenets into scientific psychology ; and who openly adopt some philosophical stand- point, and remain standing in it and ready to defend it, in a consistent and intelligible way. So far as it seems neces- sary to refer to definite views on the relations of psychology and the philosophy of mind, as held by writers who set so 40 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND commendable an example, this will be done in the following chapters. The result of our investigation thus far has been to show how inconsistent is much of the practice of the advocates of psychology as a "natural science," without metaphysics; what are the advantages of the physical sciences, as at present pursued, when compared with psychology in respect of their method of making metaphysical assumptions; and, at least in a preliminary way, what kind of metaphysics is consistent with that uncritical but wholly justifiable approach to its problems which psychological science as such affects. A more careful examination must now be given to those relations of psychology and the philosophy of mind which grow out of the very nature of both. CHAPTER II PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OP MIND {continued) THE difiBculties of a consistent and not needlessly offen- sive practice in treating psychological problems as related to metaphysics are scarcely so great as would seem to follow from the examples criticised in the earlier chapter. There are two ways of adjusting these difficulties, either one of which ought to be fairly satisfactory to any candid student of the subject. In the first place, one may approach the examination of mental phenomena with the modest and unobtrusive metaphysics of the man of science who does not aim to be at the same time a philosopher. In this way, one takes for granted, at least to begin with, the existence both of things and of minds, the reality of causal relations between the two, and the possibility of knowing both what they and their relations really are. Let it be noted at once, however, that these assumptions justify the explanation of mental phenomena by the dis- covery of those changes in things with which they are connected, and as well by the hypothesis (undoubtedly a meta- physical one) that they are phenomena of a being which ex- ists and develops in actual relations to the world of things, and which may be called " the mind. " Such is, indeed, the matter-of-fact metaphysical standpoint assumed by every worker in psychology who investigates some definite problem (let us say, of reaction-time, or association of ideas, or changes of affective consciousness, in the laboratory,* or of 42 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND the hypnotic, the insane, the criminal, in so-called real life ; or on the basis of the dramatic representation of soul-life in novels, plays, etc. ). To this same standpoint every investi- gator unconsciously adheres, so long as he does not try con- sciously and critically to be metaphysical. And no one finds any fault with him for doing this. Indeed, the writer of an entire treatise on mental phenomena, even including those phenomena which we call our conceptions of " Self " of "Things," of "Time," of "Space," of "Causation," etc., may definitely adopt the same metaphysical standpoint. And so far as he adheres to it, he may be justified in claim- ing that he does not need the help of special metaphysics at all, that he is only taking the standpoint appropriate to the investigations of problems in psychology considered purely as a natural science. Where his chief difficulties will begin to show themselves, and how he may best face or avoid them, will be considered later on. But, again, it is equally legitimate that. the writer on scientific psychology, especially if he propose to deal some- what thoroughly with the entire round of psychological prob- lems, should adopt some definitive metaphysical point of view, with its allied assumptions or reasoned conclusions; and that he should then make such use of it as can be shown to be helpful or necessary in the explanation of mental phenomena. Such a course would undoubtedly invite un- friendly and perhaps contemptuous criticism from ardent but immature advocates of psychology without metaphysics. But why may not speculative hypotheses of an ontologi- cal character (and, in truth, all speculative hypotheses have an ontological character) be applied to the tentative explanation of mental phenomena? The same method is not thought inconsistent with fidelity to the demands of science in all other departments of investigation. Why, then, should discriminations be made — of all subjects — against psychology? In answer, it will be shown in due time that PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 43 certain metaphysical hypotheses of a special kind are abso- lutely indispensable for both the description and the expla- nation of certain classes of mental phenomena. Indeed, ontological assumptions and ontological conceptions belong to the essential nature of the phenomena themselves. To illustrate the position just taken, by the most nearly analogous case of the physical sciences: Is the physicist to be frightened away from the assumption that some substan- tial being (called "Matter"), always having quantitative measureableness or " Mass, " and being the seat or vehicle of a variety of modes of "Energy," all conserved and corre- lated, exists as the subject of the phenomena he observes, by an outcry against metaphysics? Does he not the rather introduce, freely enough, other entities, such as luminif- erous ether, and perhaps electricity, etc., in the interests of his explanatory science of physical phenomena ? Does not chemistry in its modern form posit, as explanatory postulates, the existence of some seventy different kinds of entities (called " atoms "), each packed full of capacities and potencies (the so-called "natures" of the atoms)? And is it deterred from doing this by any outcry against such a monstrous amount of metaphysics in the very heart, as it were, of physical science ? Nor is it particularly difficult to say what relations must be maintained between all such speculative and metaphysical elements of the body of explanatory science and that body itself. First, as all would admit, the observed facts, the phenomena, must be ascertained as they really exist, in their relations of con- comitance and sequence. Speculation must not be allowed to dictate to them what they shall be, or how they shall occur and recur; on the contrary, speculation is introduced in the interests of explaining them. Then there are the well-known rules restricting and guiding the introduc- tion into our scientific knowledge, so-called, of all theory and hypothesis, — such as the rule of parcimony (entia 44 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND non multiplicanda), etc. But the call may at any time be issued, "back to the facts," —that is, back to a new envis- agement of actual experience, and to a more thorough an- alysis of this experience; and then forth, again, if you will, to enlarged and modified speculative and explanatory hypotheses. Now, no valid reason can be assigned why a considerable amount of even special metaphysics should not be employed in the explanations of psychological science. Indeed, this science will be seen, above all others, to invite and almost to necessitate such a method of study. Such a method is that actually employed with distinguished success by the two writers to whom commendatory reference was made at the close of the last chapter, in their admirable and volu- minous treatises on the science of psychology. One of them, Volkmann, makes prominent the metaphysical hy- pothesis of the Soul as the really existent subject (or Trager) of the mental states, and as reacting upon all kinds of excitement (upon being " brought into relation " with other being) in the form of mental representation {Vorstellen). The other, Professor Wundt, although keSeping his specula- tive tenets more in the background at first, adopts the con- ception of the Soul as an actual psychic energizing, as a dynamic and synthetic reality, which forms the ultimate explanation of all the phenomena of conscious experience. The metaphysical outcome, as well as metaphysical assump- tion, of "Volkmann is really a certain form of Dualism; although the author himself prefers for it another name. That of Wundt is a certain form of Monism, to which the title of "Ideal-realism" is assigned. It would be unfair, not to say ungenerous, for the advo- cates of psychology without metaphysics to deny the very high scientific merit of the voluminous treatises written by the two authorities just mentioned; the fact is that their chefs-d'ceuvre stand in the very front rank of psychological PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 45 science. Indeed, Yolkmann's Lehrbuch der Psychologie ^ and Wundt's Grundzuge der Phydologisehen Psychologic ^ are the two masterpieces among modern German attempts to deal scientifically with the whole round of mental phenomena. Nor does it appear, in our judgment, that the quality of the empirical science of these psychologists has been " spoiled, " jr even greatly injured, by their frank and intelligent, but on the whole well restrained, use of metaphysical and specu- lative hypotheses. This judgment is maintained in spite of the dislike shown in certain quarters to even that modified form of the Herbartian realism which Volkmann employs ; as well as to the various conceptions of psychic synthesis, apperceptive function, etc., which Wundt adopts, in subor- dination to his general metaphysical standpoint. The practice of all writers who aim at any great thorough- ness in the treatment of psychological problems — especially, of course, those which present themselves in the effort to explain the so-called "higher" forms of mental functioning — differs largely, in respect of the metaphysics involved, as a matter of degrees. For this and other reasons it will serve our general j)urpose well to examine very briefly the opinions of Volkmann and of Wundt on the use of philosophi- cal standpoints and philosophical tenets in the cultivation of scientific psychology. We leave to the reader the task of comparing their actual practice with that of the writers considered in the last chapter. According to Volkmann, the primary and obvious prob- lem of psychology is the explanation of -psychical phenom- ena. But ^^explanation" is further declared to mean "the reduction of the phenomena of our inner world, which are given merely in time, to those actual events which lie at 1 Lehrbuch der Psyohologie vom Standpunkte des Realismus und nach gene- tischen Methods, von Ph. Dr. Wilhelm Volkmann, Bitter von Tolkmar (3d ed., CSihen, 1884. A fourth edition jnst issued). * Grundziige der Physiologischen Psyohologie, von Wilhelm Wundt, Professor an der Universtat zu Leipzig (4th ed., Leipzig, 1893). 46 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND their foundations (das ihnen zu Grunde liegende wirhlicJi G-eschehene), and the establishment of the laws according to which the former follow from the latter. " ^ So, then, the question whether the determination of the nature and exis- tence of the soul belongs, -as an integral and legitimate part, to the problem of psychology depends upon whether or not the explanation of any of the phenomena is conditioned in any way upon our insight into the existence and nature of the subject of all the phenomena. And while this question may be, for the time being, left unanswered, we must at least admit that its investigation occupies in psychology a posi- tion parallel to that occupied by the metaphysics of matter in physical science. Now, it is not easy to see how a psychologist who takes the position of the "scientist," for instance, can consis- tently object to this position of Volkmann ; for, as we have seen, the former assumes, in the interests of the explana- tion of psychic phenomena, the existence of a brain and of a real world of objects with manifold actual occurrences there- in (so far as they are in the brain, though mostly of a highly or purely conjectural sort). Only, as we have also seen, the " scientist " often abandons early the peculiar standpoint of psychological science, as Volkmann does not; and thus draws near, in a perilously friendly way, if he does not actually go wholly over to the metaphysics of monistic materialism. For Volkmann, on the contrary, the funda- mental principles of psychology are laid in " actual psychic events."^ And so close is the connection which the meta- physical hypothesis of a real soul, as the subject of all the psychic phenomena, sustains to the possible interests of scientific explanation, that the old division between rational and empirical psychology must be abandoned. Much of what has been held to belong to rational psychology must then be assigned to metaphysics rather than to psy- i Lehrbuch der Psychologie, vol. i. pp. 2 f. ^ Ibid., pp. 3 f. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OP MIND 47 chology at all; and what should be retained as part of the science of psychology consists only of so much as 'can be successfully employed in the explanation of actual phenomena. The true method of psychology, Volkmann goes on to declare, is the " genetic ; " and this method traces and ex- plains the development of mental life by a combination of empirical and speculative or metaphysical principles. For who would think of claiming that the general laws of this life can be established by induction upon a basis of actual facts, without making any use of such concepts as causality, substance, change, force, self-consciousness, time, etc. ? Indeed, it is just such concepts as these which have reality in the interests of explanatory science, rather than those wholly barren and abstract concepts of " powers " and " faculties " with which the old-fashioned psychology so freely dealt. Volkmann thus arrives at the following definition of psy- chology. ^ It is "that science which sets before itself the problem of explaining the general classes of psychical phe- nomena, by means of the forms of mental representation as empirically given, and by means of the speculative con- ception of mental representation according to the laws of the life of such representation." It is, of course, the effort of this consummate disciple of the Herbartian psychology and Herbartian metaphysics to explain all mental phenom- ena as due to one mode of the soul's reaction (Vorstellen). The "soul " is, indeed, assumed as the subject of the states; but it is this peculiar mode of the soul's reaction which both gives unity to Volkmann's treatment of psychological science, and also furnishes the occasion for perpetual objections on the part of those who dissent from his theoretical point of view. Psychology, he holds, can never be deprived of its necessarily philosophical character ; on the other hand, its metaphysics ' Lehrbuch der Psychologie, vol. i. p. 34. 48 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND is not to be constructed a priori, but in the interests of making " thinkable " what is given to us a posteriori. Yet the standpoints of psychology and metaphysics are different; ^ metaphysics answers the same problems with the assump- tion of a speculative process which psychology answers with the demonstration of a historical process. But how can they be kept wholly apart ? They cannot ; for all the prob- lems of metaphysics, and even all the conceptions of meta- physics, are psychical products; indeed, the totality of metaphysical thinking is nothing but a psychological process. Even the conception of metaphysics itself is possible only under the assumption of psychological science. Yet this relation of the dependence of metaphysics on psychology does not by any means deprive the former of all power to render assistance to the latter; for our knowledge of the correctness, of the objective validity, and of the aesthetical or ethical as well as epistemological value of metaphysical conceptions is by no means wholly dependent upon our ability to demonstrate the historical process of their origin and development. Moreover, it could be added — although Volkmann does not insist upon this, as he might — that the psychologist who studies and demonstrates such a psycho- logical process cannot strip himself of the metaphysical assumptions and conceptions which are essential parts of his own developed mental being. Volkmann then proceeds to point out ■ — and this may always be done to the confusion and contempt of all attempts to institute a cerebral psychology wholly without any meta- physics — that the physiological hypothesis is itself insepa- rably connected with metaphysical conceptions. ^ It is not necessary to our purpose further to follow his discussion of views concerning the being and nature of the soul. Materialism is neatly and consistently criticised from the critic's own philosophical point of view ; so also " Spiritual- » Compare pp. 49 f. } Compare pp. 81 f. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 49 ism," meaning by this the explanation of the body solely from the standpoint of the assumed reality of the soul. The same task is then performed for that form of Dualism which denies the possibility of any mutually determining influ- ences, or causal relations, between the body and the soul; while at the close of the section on Monism the author's own philosophical standpoint on these fundamental ques- tions of speculative psychology is definitively announced. It is that of the "psychology of Realism." This assumes the existence of spirit as real and unitary being ; analyzes the body into a system of unitary beings ; and then shows how the development of the spirit as soul takes place through its changing relations with the body, while it establishes the unity of the soul's law of activity upon the basis of the difference in the nature of the two beings. The amount of discussion which Professor Wundt allows to disputed metaphysical questions is relatively less than that allowed by Volkmann; while his use of the adopted philosophical standpoint and theory of the soul's nature is not so obvious. This marked difference between the two authors is partly due to the fact that the former pro- fessedly treats all psychical phenomena solely from the physiological and experimental points of view, and also to a difference in training, outfit, and interests. But Wundt, who is known as a leading authority in physiological and experimental psychology, has definitely committed himself to the opinion that it is impossible to effect a complete separation between psychology and philosophy. The rela- tion between the two is,^ he affirms, so close and peculiar that the attempt at a partition of sovereignty results in an abstract scheme which, in the presence of actuality, must always appear unsatisfactory. Prominent among those conceptions which, according to Professor Wundt, pre-exist for every attempt at scientific 1 System der Philosophie (Leipzig, 1889), pp- 5, 21 f. 4 60 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND psychology {psychologische Vorhegriffe) is that of the " soul. " This conception, in some form, must be adopted by all scien- tific psychology. When we approach any of its problems, "soul means for us the subject to which we attribute, as predicates, all the particular facts of inner observation. " ^ Undoubtedly, too, for the natural consciousness, as it ex- presses itself in language, "the soul is not merely a subject in the logical sense, but a substance, a real being, as whose manifestations or transactions the so-called activities of the soul are apprehended. " To the adoption of this metaphysi- cal presupposition a scientific psychology may possibly be led at the conclusion of its task ; but on entering upon that task the author proposes simply to regard the soul as the logical subject of inner experience. This seems equivalent to the proposal to use the language of common-sense meta- physics until the science of psychology has been pursued far enough to enable us to establish, on an empirical basis, a critical interpretation and estimate of the real meaning and value of that language. Repeatedly, however, does it become evident, during the course of the scientific discussions which fill his two large volumes, that Wundt is making use of the speculative hypothesis which we just attributed to him, in the interests of a fuller explanation of observed psychical phenomena. At the close of the treatise ^ there is a brief discussion of the leading metaphysical hypotheses regarding the nature of the soul. Materialism, Spiritualism, and Animism — the mean- ing given to the second of the three differing from that of Volkmann — are examined and dismissed as unsatisfactory. The author's own view is then introduced by a statement of the epistemological principle that "only inner experience possesses for us immediate reality." Idealism must there- fore always gain an indisputable victory over every contest- 1 Grundzuge d. Physi61ogisohen Psychologie (4th ed. ), vol. i. pp. 10 f. 2 Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 626 ff. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 51 ing view of the world, although it does not dispense with our obligation to recognize also the reality of the external world. From the psychological standpoint, the actual ele- ment of all spiritual functions seems to Wundt to be one and essentially the same activity, in which sensation and will appear at work in aboriginal union. This most primary psychical activity he designates as ^^ Impulse" (Trieb rather than Vbrstellen, as Volkmann holds). From it all the forms of mental development proceed, even including that apperceptive activity which finally appears as an indepen- dent process. Thus does scientific psychology lead to the reproduction in changed form of the Aristotelian definition of the Soul as the " prime Entelechy of the living body ; " for the physical development must be understood, not as tlie cause, but as the effect of the psychical development. The psycho-physical standpoint, however, must be taken as soon as one raises this question : What is the relation in which we are to conceive of the psychical as standing toward the assumed (metaphysically) substantial ground of the physical? The problem for all psycho-physical explanation of mental phenomena, therefore, becomes the problem of so expanding the physical conception of substance as to com- prehend in it the manifestation of the psychical life of this complicated substantial complex. Now, from the purely physical point of view, since the elementary property of physical substance is motion, the moved substance is re- garded as likewise the subject {Tragerin) of the elemen- tary psychical phenomenon, — of impulse. But on its physi- cal as on its psychical side, the living body is a unity ; so that finally, therefor,e, our entire scientific investigation of the reciprocal relations between the physical and the psy- chical leads us to the assumption that "what we call the Soul is the inner being of the same unity that, externally considered, we regard as the body belonging to it." But Wundt's Monism is plainly of the idealistic order ; for we 52 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND are at once informed: "This way of apprehending the problem of reciprocal relation leads, however, unavoidably beyond itself to the assumption that spiritual being is the actuality of things, and that its most essential property is development. " How far we find ourselves in agreement with either the standpoints, or the assumptions, or the conclusions of Volk- mann or of Wundt, the subsequent treatment of all the problems involved will, we trust, make perfectly clear. The views of these authors have been introduced at this point in order to put their theory and practice in contrast — and, we believe, in contras.t highly favorable to them, both as speculative thinkers and as students of empirical science — with the practice and theory of the writers cited in the first chapter. And now, leaving for the present all polemical and criti- cal discussion of the views of others, let us raise anew the question : In what relation does scientific psychology stand to the philosophy of mind (the science to the metaphysics of mental phenomena)? This question involves three subordi- nate questions, — namely. What is Psychology? What' is Philosophy? and. What is that relation between the two which grows out of the very nature of both? ■If psychology is approached as purely as possible from the empirical point of view, the effort is, of course, made to isolate, with reference to their scientific pursuit, a certain class of facts. Or, to use the more stately and impressive term, we endeavor to tell precisely what phenomena it is designed scientifically to establish and to investigate. In the case of beginning psychology, as in the case of beginning any other so-called science, we need not give immediate pause to consider that the very word "phenomena" is mean- ingless without the assumption of actual beings of which the phenomena are, and of other beings to which the phenomena appear. Nor, of course, can we think this phrase through PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 53 without recognizing the complicated metaphysical postulate of things standing in real relation to other things, and to minds that know them. But passing by so obvious an onto- logical skeleton, as it grins upon us the instant the secret chamber of empirical science is opeiied, and studiously keep- ing the most unblushing naivete, we next inquire: What kind of phenomena, then, does this our science propose to consider? And here, in answer, one must use terms which only psychological science itself can define, — if, indeed, they admit of any definition whatever. Let the reply be, then, that it is the phenomena of consciousness, as such ; it is psychic facts, as psychic, or — if you please — "psy- choses " of all kinds, which psychological science proposes to examine. And if further inquiry be made as to what that " consciousness " is " of " which all the phenomena are, or " to " which, as to a general class, they belong, perhaps no better answer can be given than to say: What you are whenever you think or feel or will, when you are in wide- awake use of all your powers, or when you dream in most extreme submission to the caprices of fancy, — that it is to be conscious. Yet even thus, in our most cautious expres- sion as to the essentials of phenomena of consciousness, of psychic facts, merely as such, we seem to have come peril- ously near the scarcely submerged rocks of metaphysical hypothesis. For to describe consciousness as "what you are when," etc., seems likely, if too curious inquiry be made as to its import, to involve us in the consideration of some of the most abstruse of philosophical problems. However — since the endeavor at knowledge must move on — this may be accepted as a preliminary definition : Psy- chology as a purely empirical pursuit, psychology as descrip- tive and explanatory, is "the science of the phenomena of consciousness, as such." In this way it would seem that the descriptive branch of the science might at least be begun without either interference or assistance from metaphysics. 54 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND Possible assistance from metaphysics in the form of specula- tive hypotheses explanatory of the facts, one might fairly expect to encounter or even wish to invoke later on. But, alas ! even the description of the phenomena of mind appears quite impossible, if such description is to correspond to act- ual psychic facts, without the danger and almost the neces- sity of introducing metaphysical convictions and hypotheses. For actually — that is, in the real life of ourselves and of other persons — the facts are not at all faithfully described by saying, " Sensations are, or perceptions are, or feelings are, or desires are, " etc. The rather does faithful descrip- tion compel us to say: "/(or you, or he) perceive; or /feel; or / desire ; or / plan ; or / think, " etc. For such, when stated in the most meagre possible fashion, are the actual facts of ordinary experience. So that the portion, or phase, or " aspect, " or " fringe, " of the total psychic fact which is expressed or signified by the subject of the descriptive sen- tence (by the " I, " or the " that-which " thinks), and by the place which it sustains as subject to the perception, feeling, desiring, planning, or thinking attributed to it, is as much distinctive of, and integral to, the fact itself as anything about it possibly can be. Indeed, with all this left out of the description, the character of the psychic fact is totally changed; it is, in truth, no longer a faithfully described psychic fact. At about this point, then, the psychologist is compelled to take some sort of attitude toward those implications of all known phenomena of consciousness which are neither remote inferences from the facts nor metaphysical hypotheses intro- duced solely in the attempt to explain the facts, but are important belongings of the very facts themselves. At this same point, then, the psychologist must adopt one of those two metaphysical standpoints which, as has just been said, are the only justifiable positions for the investigator of this empirical science. He may say to himself, if not to his PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 55 readers : Yes, for the time being I will hold by such cora- mon-sense metaphysics as is plainly involved in all faith- ful and complete description of the psychic facts. I will assume, as men generally do, that there is some sort of a real being corresponding to this so-called " I, " this Mind or Soul ; and that what it is may be known by ascertaining how it behaves under the greatest possible variety of conditions, and in the greatest variety of relations. To render such knowledge scientific, — this is the very end of all psycho- logical investigation. But the right is reserved, as the result of the process of investigation, to criticise — to adopt or to reject, to modify and to restrict or expand — this very same assumption with which the investigation begins. To make this assumption is but to show the same courtesy to the mind as that which the psychologists who appeared in the last chapter as advocates of a " natural science " of mind without metaphysics actually show to the brain and to other material things. How much more reasonable and scientific this form of courtesy is becomes at once apparent, when it is considered that the very facts which the psychologist undertakes to describe and explain are statable only in terms such as, "/perceive," "/think," "/feel," etc. And to say simply, Perceptions are, thoughts are, feelings are, etc. ; or to say, Thoughts think, perceptions perceive, and feelings feel, etc. ; or to affirm that "the present knowledge knows the other knowledges, " — is not at all fairly to describe the facts. It is to do little better than to travesty them. Yet, again, the psychologist may at this same point, with an equal propriety and an almost if not quite equal safety, bring forward his own more special metaphysical assump- tions. He may state what is the real import, which he understands to be justifiable on a basis of fact, of those popular conceptions that are implicated in the faithful and complete description of all developed psychoses. To employ 56 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND speculative hypotheses in a manner to distort or dishonestly' to hypothecate the facts would be no less unscientific and injurious in psychology than in any of the other empirical sciences. Here also, as in all scientific investigation, the statement of facts that can be verified as facts, and the use of hypotheses in explanation of the facts, must be kept distinct; and to each the suitable kind and amount of confidence must be assigned. Practically, however, the psychologist's ability and skill in doing this do not depend upon the particular school to which he belongs; upon whether he is a disciple of the old psychology and believes in metaphysics, or is " well up " in laboratory methods and has publicly announced himself as an adherent of the very newest psychology, wholly without metaphysics, and even without so much as the assumption of a soul. Those who are most familiar with all the modern researches know best how much the theories of the man behind the reacting-key incorporate themselves into the very structure of his experi- mental results. And he is totally unfit to handle psycho- logical problems in a broad way who does not recognize how much that is true and wise about the nature of the human mind has been told by poets, play-writers, novelists, and metaphysicians, who never so much as dreamed of the existence of psychological laboratories. Here the occasion' may be seized to remark how pitifully meagre, compared with the rich, full, and mysterious con- tent of actual human lives, is that list or series of so-called psychic facts which has been, or which can be, subjected to experimental analysis. Psycho-physics and physiological psychology have, indeed, many interesting and important problems fully before them, if not already firmly in hand. But supposing these problems to be much extended or even satisfactorily solved, — after all, the larger universal prob- lems of psychology remain comparatively undiminished in magnitude and in mystery. These involve nothing less PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 57 than the description and explanation of the total nature and life of that being which is called the Human Mind. And what a tangle, — involving not simply sensations and revived images of sensations, determinable as respects quality, and measurable in quantity, in time-rate or duration in time, but also innumerable subtle faiths, fears, anticipations, instincts, and forms of tact or of talent so-called, super- stitions, blind impulses, freaky changes or heaven-granted renewals and re-establishments of good-will, varied and in- describable, affectional, quasi-intellectual, and semi-volun- tary elements, to say nothing of subconscious and perhaps unconscious mental, activities of kinds difficult or impossible to describe, — what a tangle," indeed, is the actual life of this so-called Mind! Nor need it be an Aristotle, a Leibnitz, or a Goethe, of whom one is speaking. To describe and explain the actual mental life of Hans or of Bridget, of the child at one's feet, or the beggar at one's door, or the idiotic or insane in the neighboring asylum, is much too great a task for the most ambitious psychologist. But since the psychologist himself — yes, even the child and the idiot — is no less certainly metaphysical and philo- sophical in respect of the very structure and flow of his mental life than was Aristotle or Leibnitz, it is difficult to see how he is to act the part of a scientific psychologist without also taking on himself at some stage in the pro- ceedings the role of a metaphysician. Suppose, however, that the side of metaphysics be — as is fitting — very lightly emphasized in the mere descriptions of scientific psychology. It is still scarcely possible to avoid increasing the emphasis upon this side when the more important and more truly scientific function of the psy- chologist is attempted; this consists, of course, in expla- nation of the facts. For to explain is to show on what conditions, and in what regular sequences, and as implicat- ing what activities and relations on the part of other beings, 58 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND the psychic facts actually occur. Or, to say the same thing in other words, to explain is to show why I think, or feel, or desire, or will, in this way rather than in some other. It is, ultimately, to propound some acceptable theory respect- ing the nature and development of this " I " to which all the activities of thinking, feeling, desiring, and willing are assigned. Suppose, then, that the investigator of mental phenomena is greatly captivated by the recent notable triumphs of psycho-physics and physiological psychology. He therefore determines to devote himself to the elucidation of the phenomena of consciousness in such ways only as seem to promise most of tangible and definitely verifiable results. This means, in his thought, that the psychic facts, the known phenomena of consciousness with which alone all psychological science takes its start, are to be explained solely by investigating the character of the external stimuli, the histological structure and physiological functions of the end-organs, or more particularly of the cerebral centres and tracts, which afford conditions, occasions, or causes of the several particular classes of facts. But, surely, explanation of this sort cannot dispense with the observation and certifi- cation, at first hand, of the very facts to be explained ; and these the very nature of psychological science defines as "phenomena of consciousness." But only self-consciousness can give us immediate knowl- edge of psychological facts, — knowledge by direct observa- tion, that is, of the facts of consciousness, as such. Here, again, emerges the distinct danger, and, we believe, the inevitable necessity of assuming some kind of virtually metaphysical hypothesis regarding this " Self " which so mingles with all the psychic facts. But even if the investi- gation proceed with the determination to regard the phe- nomena as mere phenomena {of no mind, and to no mind), what shall be said of the necessity for metaphysics of some sort when detailing the complicated physiological and physical PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 59 conditions on which these phenomena depend? This neces- sity is most obvious and imperative in that kind of psy- chology — namely, cerebral psychology — which some of its more ardent and unreflecting advocates have declared to be the only scientific psychology. . For here nothing can be more vain and illusory — yes, even more unfair and mis- leading in a blameworthy way — than to claim that such a form of psychological science can be built upon the basis of a non-metaphysical phenomenism. In saying this, we well know what is customary. But it is precisely against what is customary that the present protest is made. And not a word of the charges implied in the foregoing sentences is unjustifiable ; not a word, therefore, will need to be retracted. A scientific psychology which explains known psychic facts by a strict correlation of them with known cerebral facts — both classes of facts being understood alike as mere phenomena without any metaphysics whatever — not only never has been established, but from the very nature of the ease it never can be established. The psychic facts may indeed be known as facts demand- ing explanation. Biit the correlated, or pre-conditioning, or occasioning cerebral facts are, and always must remain, nothing more than highly conjectural happenings, in an inferred or assumed entity, which can never be directly observed by either external or internal means. Or, suppose one insists upon cultivating psychological science simply as a correlation, in uniform modes of sequence, of two series of phenomena. The particular series of phenomena which are assumed to stand for those changes in the brain that afford the explanatory conditions of the known phenomena of consciousness can never be regarded, without metaphysical assumptions, as anything but other phenomena of the same psychologist's consciousness. Moreover, these particular phenomena, on which is laid the stress of explaining such wonderful phenomena as are the known psychic facts, con- 60 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND sist of a few imperfect and wofully meagre perceptions, always post factum and almost always post mortem, pieced out by crude conjectures as to other possible perceptions. And the conjectures admit of future verification as facts only if we could perceive wjiat we never have perceived, and never can hope to perceive. More concerning the absurdity of the claim that a science of psychology can ever be built up by establishing corre- lations between two classes of known phenomena, one of which shall consist of brain-states, without any metaphysics whatever, will be said later on. It is enough here to return to the indubitable truth that, when speaking of cerebral conditions, or antecedents, or concomitants, as explanatory of psychic facts, nobody means mere phenomena. No advo- cate of physiological psychology really supposes that he is contributing anything to a " natural science " of psychology without making use of naive and uninstructed metaphysics. The claim to cultivate psychology without this much of metaphysics can scarcely be met fitly with anything better than the charge of inconsistency or insincerity. What every student of physiological psychology actually accom- plishes in advancing his science depends at every step upon inferences. These inferences are permeated through and through with metaphysical hypotheses, and they lead toward the hope of a knowledge that must ever walk largely by faith. They concern real beings in which changes, wholly out of power to put themselves in evidence as mere phe- nomena, are assumed to be taking place. To assume the possibility of cerebral psychology as a " natural science, " wholly without metaphysics, is therefore an absurdity. The insufficiency, but by no means the absurd- ity, of the claim to cultivate psycho-physics and experi- mental psychology without metaphysical standpoints or metaphysical assumptions can be made equally clear. Here, however, there exist, on both sides, so to speak, a series of PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 61 phenomena which can be known as phenomena, and which can be compared as such. For example : In discovering and testing the laws of color-mixture, of stereoscopic vision, or of illusions of visual perception, a series of so-called physical 'phenomena can be arranged which, in some sort, are the observed and well-known immediate antecedents, or con- comitants, of a series of connected psychic facts. The same thing is true of investigations undertaken in the interests of Weber's law; or of any other disputed principle in psycho-physics, in the narrower meaning of this latter term. On the contrary, no discussion of a physiological or cerebral basis for the empirical principle must be admitted, unless we are prepared to let our " phenomena " slip over into the region where we need assumed entities to serve as their "bearers," as the real "substances" in which they are inferred or conjectured to take place. Nor can such a continuous series of physical phenomena as would serve to establish, even in the most limited way, what M. Flournoy has called the "psycho-physical prin- ciple of parallelism," be gained without dependence upon the ordinary common-sense realism as at least a tenable, working metaphysical hypothesis. For, as every one knows who has any practical acquaintance with what really takes place in conducting such researches, the physical series is never given as " continuous ; " it is never known in any such shape as that it can be placed " parallel " to the psychical series, in the form of actually observed phenomena. As a series even, that is to say, it always consists very largely of inferred or conjectured changes in real beings, whose exist- ence and activities must be brought into consciousness, and kept in consciousness, in order to be compared with the parallel psychic series, in a metaphysical rather than in a merely phenomenal way. Nor does this disturb the prac- tised investigator, experimentally, of psychic phenomena. For he is not thinking at all about the possibility of estab- 62 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND lishing psycho-physics as theoretical phenomenism; he is rather taking the ordinary common-sense metaphysics into his scientific researches, in an uncritical but wholly justifi- able way. Nor does he begin to cry out against metaphysics in general, as the " spoiler " of psychology, or to play the part of a " Janus " showing his teeth at speculative hypotheses, instead of endeavoring himself consciously and critically to adjust his own metaphysics to the empirically determined facts. The necessity of employing some metaphysical standpoints and metaphysical assumptions in the pursuit of scientific psychology as explanatory becomes still clearer when the comparatively narrow fields of physiological and psycho- physical investigation are left behind, and a return is made to the consideration of the larger and more comprehensive domain of general psychology. In this domain we encounter the problems of knowledge, of self-consciousness, of thought, of ethical sentiments and ideas, and even of the origin and development of human belief in "reality." Indeed, what are these so-called metaphysical hypotheses themselves, — what are so-called Materialism, Idealism, Monism, Dualism, and all the most elaborate systems of speculative and reflec- tive thinking, all the weird ideas, most abstract and remote from empirical data, — but psychoses demanding treatment at the hands of psychology? This treatment must, indeed, be undertaken from, and confined to, the psychological standpoint, unless we frankly and intelligently pass over from the field of psychology to the more wide and all- embracing domain of philosophy. But in the very explana- tion of metaphysics itself, of the same metaphysics which helps, as well as of that which spoils the empirical science of psychology, this science must have its say. Metaphysics, considered as phenomenon of consciousness, is a psychologi- cal problem. Metaphysical hypotheses are successions of psychoses demanding to be faithfully described and then explained. PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 63 Now, for the explanation of many psychic facts and ten- dencies, if we may so speak, in the onflowing stream of consciousness, even when one remains faithful to the distinc- tively psychological point of view, some ontological theory can by no means be regarded as useless or insignificant. These facts, too, like all psychic facts, must be not only described as they occur, but also explained, if possible, in all that fulness of reality which belongs to the experience of the human race. Here, too, it is the total psychosis, or the trend in development of the entire mental life, which demands to be explained. But who would venture to deny that what men mean by saying " I know " involves a net- work of ontological hypotheses? The psychological analysis of any state of so-called knowledge, of any of those psychoses properly described by the affirmation " I know, " shows that all knowledge implicates reality, envisaged, inferred, believed in, — we do not now stop to inquire as to the manner of implication. Especially is this true and obvious of every act of so-called seZf-knowledge ; for the psychologist is simply ignoring what everybody means by the word, unless he understands the reality of the self-knowing and the self- known, the one Self, to be involved as an immediate datum of experience. And — to take another example — who for a moment thinks of describing what takes place when he tugs hard at a stone, and at last feels it giving way before his efforts, or climbs, however slowly and wearisomely, the mountain's side, as a correlation between two series of phenomena which needs no metaphysical hypothesis of a real being " working effects " and producing changes in a world of real beings related to itself ? One might even be disposed to ask, What better explana- tory hypothesis for the psychic fact of xjonviction or belief in reality can be given than its own ontological verity? What better explanation of the knowledge or belief of men that the / which thinks, feels, and wills really exists, and is the 64 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND real subject of these changing psychoses, than the metaphysi- cal hypothesis that this is so? "What better explanation of men's convictions that they are causes, and active agents, and "work effects," than the metaphysical hypothesis that this is so? To be sure, one's courage as to the future of cerebral psychology, even after its expected Copernicus or Lavoisier has arisen, together with one's great faintness of heart as one looks over the assured results of our present attainments i^ this line of science, may well make one wary of metaphysical hypotheses in general. But as to how psychic facts called facts of knowledge are ever to be ex- plained without some kind of an ontological theory or con- viction, we find it impossible to form even the most shadowy conception. In general, so far from holding it to be true that metaphysics has nothing to do with the explanations of psychology, we think that in this science, pre-eminently, speculative hypotheses of the right order, when rightly employed, throw a flood of light upon many of the most important and yet most obscure of the facts. For, after all, the final aim of psychology, however it may strive to start -with and keep close to and ever return upon the facts, is to understand the nature and development, in its relations to other beings, of that unique kind of being which we call the Soul or Mind. And this is what all, except a few over- timid psychologists who are morbidly afraid of the scorn of physical science and rabidly antagonistic to metaphysics in psychology, really believe. Even these psychologists can scarcely write a half-dozen pages upon any of the problems suggested by the higher and more complex forms of psy- choses, or discuss the nature of psychology and its relation to metaphysics, without showing that they really believe the same thing. This whole subject will be made clearer, especially in its broader and more significant aspects, by a brief discussion of PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 65 the nature of philosophy and of the relation in which it stands to psychology as the descriptive and explanatory science of the phenomena of mental life.^ It is not an easy matter to define philosophy, or to state its relation to the particular sciences ; especially, perhaps, in these later days when the sciences have attempted, on the one hand, so successfully to define themselves, and yet, on the other hand, have reached out indefinitely in every direction and taken all possible forms of experience under the protection of their method and its exactions. Indeed, so long as one merely consults history in an uncritical way, or merely cites and compares the great authorities in science and philosophy, one gets only a confused conception as to what the latter discipline aims to accomplish. By a mixed use of historical criticism and analysis of the content and aims of the particular sciences, together with a judicious recognition of the deeper needs and ultimate aspira- tions of human reason, a fairly satisfactory result may be obtained. At any rate, we may learn enough to be of real assistance in our present pursuit. The history of rational progress shows that men have always been disposed to more or less of reflective inquiry concerning certain problems of knowledge, of the being of things, of the nature of themselves, and of the ideals of con- duct. Philosophy — if by it the fruits of such reflective inquiry be meant — is an older and more permanent interest than science. Vague and unsatisfactory as were its conception and pursuit among the ancient Greeks, the conception and pursuit of what we now understand by " the sciences " were yet more vague and unsatisfactory. The present alleged lack of in- terest in philosophy, and the relatively great amount of interest in science, are more specious than real. As we have already indicated, the particular sciences are themselves full of the most interesting and absorbing speculative tenets. 1 On this subject more in detail, see the author's " Introduction to Philoso- phy," chapters i.-iv, 5 66 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OP MIND Under the guise of exorcists of philosophy they hare absorbed no little of its surplus capital, and have thus set up in the business of philosophy, while displaying the sign, " This temple is dedicated to science only," over tlieir doors. Two or three things relative to the restless longings and perpetually new ventures of human reason are, however, tolerably clear. Men long for and perpetually seek such an acquaintance with what they are pleased to call " reality " as shall withstand all the assaults of critical and sceptical in- vestigation. Science cannot profess its devotion to truth, with one breath, although uttering its scorn for metaphysics with the next breath, without manifesting this same longing and quest of the human mind. Even the word " truth " has no meaniug whatever except with reference to the implied con- ception of reality ; and upon this point the naive utterances of common speech are as suggestive as anything can well be : " Tell me truly, is it really so ? " For the conception of " truth," as an ascertainment of the mind, is universally held to implicate the correlated extra-mental being and extra-men- tal transactions to which men think the word " real " is most appropriately applied. In spite of the reiterated protestations of certain devotees of physical science, that all they ask for or claim to find is the uniform collocations and sequences of phenomena, and the mathematical formulas which most nearly express these collocations and sequences, this desire for and assumption of a knowledge of reality cannot be re- moved from the body of physical science itself. To remove it would render science no longer what the very word signifies, — a system of knowledges ; it would convert science into the individual dreamer's half-consistent dream. Only a sliglit acquaintance with the aims and the accom- plishments of the particular sciences is necessary, however, to know that their entire structure is underlaid and interpene- trated with assumptions which, as sciences, they take no pains to verify and little pains to understand. Even the primary PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OP MIND 67 meaning of many of these assumptions, as they are made by common consent of the students of these sciences, is by no means always clear. Their more ultimate import is, of course, uniformly left out of consideration, unless science turns itself into speculative and reflective thinking ; that is, unless science remains no longer science, but becomes philosophy. And when we compare assumption with assumption, and especially per- haps, the assumptions of the sciences of man with the assump- tions of the sciences of nature, the obscurity deepens into that darkness which belongs to the most extreme confusions and contradictions of human thought. Here, then, is the region of darkest night from which issues, however vain one may think it will continue to be, the perpetual cry for help from the analytic and critical arm of philosophy. Ever to strive — and only the more seriously and eagerly the mare difficult the task appears and the farther from present, fulfilment — for a profound and comprehensive knowledge of these assumptions, and for a reconciliation of their most obvious and most per- sistent contradictions, is the definite and permanent task, set by its own nature, before the reason of man. It has not unaptly been spoken of as a task belonging to the progressive self-knowledge of reason itself. Yet again, all knowledge, psychologically considered, ap- pears not only as essentially an assumed commerce of mind with real being,, but also as a development in self-unification. For the individual man all growth in ordinary knowledge — in such knowledge as is necessary simply to secure possession of " common-sense " so called, and to escape the unenviable reputation of foolishness or idiocy — is a unification of indi- vidual experiences into one experience, into experience as a rational whole. But the particular sciences advance still further the process of unification along the lines which belong to them, and which render them particular. For this purpose they relatively isolate a certain larger or smaller group of similar and connected phenomena, and expend upon 68 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND them all their powers of observation and inference. Thus chemistry regards certain phenomena for its own purposes of unification ; thus biology deals with the one group of obscure and complex phenomena from which we derive the abstract conception of life. But the more the particular sciences are pursued in a com- prehensive and penetrating way, the more obvious become the numerous and subtle connections which exist between them. Not one of them can then be claimed to be particular in any such sense of the word as to imply that it deals with phenomena which are not inseparably linked in, by objective laws and by mental principles, with the phenomena of those other sciences which, nevertheless, bear different names. On the contrary, they can all be arranged, however roughly, so as to show how they build themselves up one upon an- other ; and how they all alike imply some higher and more perfect unity for that real world to which all the groups of phenomena belong. Thus, for example, modern physiology ex- tends itself, in the form called " genc^ral, " over the phenomena of plant life as well as of animal life ; modern chemistry, in the form called "physiological," reaches up into biology; modern molecular physics strives to reduce under more definite mathematical formulas, as determining the chang- ing relations of the molecules, the phenomena of chemistry and of physiology ; modern cerebral physiology and " general nerve-physiology " is scarcely content with the position of handmaid to psychology, but would gladly turn her former mistress quite out of the household of mind; and modern psychology is showing, to good purpose, that the view which regarded micro-organisms as explicable, with respect to the reasons for their behavior, in terms of undifferentiated bioplasmic "stuff," needs help everywhere from the assump- tion of a "psychic life " in even the smallest and simplest living forms. Meanwhile, we find the " scientists " them- selves turning into philosophers of the most high-and-dry a PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 69 priori sort. They come forward virtually to maintain that their own recently discovered principles, and even some of their most doubtful hypotheses, must be allowed the suprem- acy of indubitable and eternal truths. They are even ready to dispute, on the basis of their discoveries, all the ethico- religious convictions that have hitherto been most comfort- ing to the heart, however unsatisfactory to the intellect, of man. Hence some justification for the sarcasm of Clerk Maxwell that already two of the Newtonian principles of all mechanics have acquired an a priori character; and that given a sufficient lapse of time, the third will doubtless become a priori also. The very growth of knowledge, then, calls attention in a forceful way to those needs of human reason from which philosophy ever springs afresh, and which it ever — however vainly — strives to satisfy. Mr. Spencer has well said that science is only the " partial unification " of knowledge ; but the particular sciences themselves, when considered with reference to the relations they sustain toward each other, excite a demand for the more " complete unification " of knowledge. It is this complete unification of knowledge which, says Mr. Spencer, is philosophy. The rather is it true that toward this goal reflective thinking ever strives, though never with more than a partial success; it is this which constitutes the final aim of reason as it is expressed in all the current systems of philosophy. Here it is, then, that the synthetic arm of philosophical discipline is stretched out with an offer of help toward the particular sciences. But this help it cannot render, cannot even offer intelligently, without itself comprehending the princi- ples of the particular sciences, and constantly acknowledg- ing its dependence upon them. Yet by behaving itself aright, philosophy can do a work which the particular sciences can neither properly undertake nor fitly accomplish. It finds its own material, not only in those assumptions 70 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND which underlie the particular sciences and to which it must itself give a critical and yet conciliatory treatment, but also in those most general principles which these sciences have discovered as actually exemplified in the world of minds and of things. With all this material before it, philosophy can continue bravely to attempt the discharge of its own supreme function. It can give a speculative unity {speculative, not because it is bare speculation disregardful of fact, but because it is the highest synthetic handling of the facts after they are grouped, in a preliminary way, under subordinate principles) to the world as known by the mind of man. In brief, then, it is the work of philosophy, by analysis and criticism, so to discover and shape the principles of the particular sciences as that they shall best serve as material for realizing its own final aim; and this final aim is the supreme synthesis of reason, the highest and most complete unification of knowledge itself. Or, to say the same truth in a different way. Philosophy seeks a unitary eoneeption of the real world that shall be freed, as far as possible, from in- ternal contradictions and based upon all the facts of nature and of human life. But inasmuch as its business is, not specu- latively to construct an abstract or ideal world, but rather to understand the world as it really is, the primary work of ascertaining the facts, and of grouping them in well-ordered and verifiable generalizations, belongs to the various par- ticular sciences. This is merely to say that the more com- plete unification of philosophy reposes upon the basis of the partial unifications of the particular sciences. Only in this way can philosophy come into, and keep within, the neces- sary and constant close contact with actuality. But since it rises far above the sciences toward a unification that is complete, it makes bold to frame some conception of a Unity of all Reality, in the light of which each of the more par- ticular principles may subsequently be the better under- stood. For that understanding of the world as it really PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 71 is -ffhich alone will satisfy human reason is no mere gather- ing of facts, nor a mere grouping of facts, as such, under formulas more or less approximately exact. To understand the world rationally, we must know its import; fully to understand even the facts, we must know their significance ; critically to understand the assumptions and generalized experiences belonging to the particular groups of phenomena, we must be able to view them in the light of universally applicable ideas. For such reasons, in brief, we have elsewhere defined philosophy as "the progressive rational system of those assumptions and generalizations which belong to the partic- ular sciences, all regarded as forming a Unity of Reality. " Philosophy, then, is necessarily ontological in its aim; it necessarily includes metaphysics. To deny this is to refuse to admit the possibility of philosophy, as distinguished from science, at all. And even science, aa has repeatedly been shown already, cannot distinguish itself, however naively, from mere day-dreaming without claiming to be ontological. And now the more intimate and peculiar — indeed, the quite unique — relation in which the science of psychology stands to philosophy may, briefly, be made clear. Psy- chology is a sort of universal propasdeutics to philosophy. By this something more is meant than is ordinarily under- stood by the term " propaedeutics. " For it is not simply as a preliminary discipline leading up to the successful study of philosophy, that the science of psychology holds its place in any well-arranged system of education. It is also true that in Nature's school of reflective thinking, where the ' problems are given out to the unfolding powers of reason by that hand which guides the order of rational development, a connection between the two is strictly maintained. Those problems of being and of conduct, reflection over which has for us no merely speculative interest, but some solution of which is necessary, in order to live the life of reason at all, 72 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND themselves start forth inevitably from the reflective study of our own mental life. It is in the effort to explain ourselves to ourselves that we most intelligently and persistently demand some explanation of the world of things and of other minds. Furthermore, as could be shown with almost indefinite detail and array of convincing facts, every principal psy- chological problem leads up to, and lays heavily upon the very heart of reason itself a number of philosophical prob- lems most important and most profound. In vain does the psychologist start his scientific researches into the phenomena of consciousness, as such, with the determination to stop short whenever the pursuit of these researches seems likely to lead him over into the debatable regions of philosophy. He may, indeed, exercise a wise reserve here, with respect to the presentation of his assured results, whether before the public or before his own mind. But there is, after all, only one alternative, — either arbi- trarily to limit reason in those inquiries which it belongs to its very nature to insist upon making, or else to pass over (if, indeed, it is possible even theoretically to draw a dis- tinct and fixed line between the two) from the psychological to the philosophical pursuit of the same inquiries. What is it but the working of just this alternative which explains the confused theory and inconsistent practice of the writers whose views were examined in the last chapter ? Plainly, it is just this, too, which guides the clearer theory and more consistent practice of the writers whose views were presented in the earlier part of this chapter. Moreover, the history of psychological theories shows be- yond doubt that it is the character of the psychological method employed, and of the attempted solution of problems primarily psychological, which chiefly determines the atti- tude of any thinker in philosophy toward the different pos- sible solutions of the connected philosophical problems. Of PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 73 this inevitable influence there is not in all the history of phi- losophy a more conspicuous example than that same master- mind whose despairing view respecting the possibility of a scientific pyschology was quoted at the beginning of this treatise. All the principal obscurities and defects of the critical philosophy of Kant are largely due to obscurities and deficiencies in his views of the nature and laws of the phenomena of consciousness. Indeed, with a meaning which becomes the more pertinent the more deeply one penetrates the doctrine of the three Critiques, one may safely declare that the defective psychical experience, the lacking psychoses, especially of the affective kind, of this great philosopher account, in no small degree, for the defective character of his philosophical system. In paHiavZar, the problems of philosophy all emerge and force themselves upon the mind in the attempt thoroughly to comprehend and satisfactorily to solve the problems of a scientific psychology ; and the attempts, along the different main lines of research in psychology, to deal scientifically with its problems all lead up to the place where this science hands these same problems over to philosophy. This tenet respect- ing the relations of psychology to philosophy admits of varied illustration. A few of the more important examples will now be discussed separately. A recent writer has repeatedly maintained, in the very midst of a voluminous treatise on psychology as a natural science, that this science assumes knowledge as an already existing and inexplicable datum,. In some sort this claim is no doubt true. For all attempts at ordinary knowledge or at science tacitly imply the possibility of knowledge in general, — the actuality of something to be known and the existence (at least in some meaning of the word, as a cognizing activity) of the knowing mind. But, on the other hand, it is one of the most important and difficult tasks of a truly scientific psychology, not simply to assume, but also to explain, those 74 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND psychoses which are called " acts, or states, of knowledge ; " and this, with respect to their nature as complex mental phenomena, their origin in the onflowing stream of con- sciousness, and the laws of their development. But here, as ever, it appears that, in the very description of this form of psychosis, the entire fact is not simply, "knowledge is" or "knowledges are," but ^^ I know;" and when men say "I know," they mean something quite dif- ferent from what they mean when they say "I feel," or "I will," or "I think," or "imagine," or "remember." When a dutiful scientific psychology has once faced this complex and mysterious psychosis, it is bound to discover that somehow the whole being of mind is implicated in knowledge, ^- memory, imagination, thought, feeling, will, and whatever besides belongs either to perception by the senses or to self-consciousness. Yes, something more than even this varied content, as reached in the attempt to regard this psychosis merely content-wise. For there is — however one may choose to express the fact — conviction of reality here; and if "conviction of reality " be wanting, why, then, " knowledge " is no longer to be called knowledge. This is true, whether the knowledge be that of Aristotle and Newton, or of the child or of the fool ; whether it be knowl- edge most ordinary, or most extraordinary, and affecting the title of science, specifically so-called. And what shall the scientific psychologist do now? Shall he hide his head under the narrow and drooping wing of psychology as a pure and totally non-philosophical science? He may do so ; and there are not a few writers that actually try to take this course. But readers who think clearly will see that this is precisely the place where a demand for something more becomes imperative upon the student of mental phe- nomena. Here, indeed, is where the need for a Thebry of Knowledge which undertakes to examine from somewhat different standpoints the nature of knowledge, its validity PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 75 and its limits, begins more definitely to appear. But such a theory is philosophy in the form of Noetics, or Epistemology, It must, like all forms of philosophical inquiry, learn its facts and laws from the science of mental phenomena ; but it cannot forget that its own birthright is inalienably secured by the mind's own desire to understand the fullest import of these very facts and laws. In like manner does the study of the phenomena of per- ception, as a collection of problems in scientific psychology, necessarily lead to a further philosophical treatment of these same problems. Indeed, the history of scientific research into these phenomena, and of the accompanying and resulting philosophical speculation, emphasizes the same conviction. The leading schools of metaphysics, the great and permanent distinctions in the answers which reflective thinking gives to the principal ontological problems, depend upon the way in which the different psychological aspects and determinations of perceptive activity are regarded. For the phenomenon to be explained is not that " sensations are, " or that " mental representations are," or even that "perception is;" but that "I perceive," by sight or touch or otherwise, this or that thing, here or there, etc. Now this " I perceive " is plainly an affirm- ation of knowledge, and of knowledge not about things in general, but o/some particular Thing. In the light of the full content of this psychological phenomenon, with the import which those who have experience of the content attach to that experience, the metaphysical theories of certain philosophical schools, both of the idealistic and of the realistic type, ap- pear remarkably thin. Or let the answer which, as an alleged conclusion of scientific psychology, the English and French sensationalism, or the English associationalism, or much of the modern experimental and physiological psychology, with its revived sensationalism and associationalism (Ziehen and others) has given to the demand for an explanation of this psychosis be brought back face to face with the 76 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND psychosis itself. In vain do you talk to the plain man about sensations, and sensation-complexes, and localization, and eccentric projection, and revived and associated images of past sensations, merely; he knows perfectly well that his experience, even as a psychosis, is not yet satisfactorily explained ; for he knows that it is an experience of knowl- edge, — knowledge of a thing. And here the psychologist is bound to go again over the ground of knowledge, considered as both a psychological and a philosophical problem ; here he is bound, in the interests of full explanation, to face the inquiry. What about the Reality of that Thing ? How, then, shall he, unless he pauses just at the place where the demand for an explanation of the psychic facts becomes most imperative and most interesting, — a demand which is now emphasized in the form of a phenomenon that implicates an envisagement by the mind of a real being that is not mind, — refuse to consider this philosophical problem? i Even more difficult, if not impossible, is it to keep apart the scientific consideration of the problems started by the actual experience called self-consciousness, and the reflective treatment of that cluster of obscure and difiBcult inquiries which constitute the special philosophy of mind. " I know that I am here and now, thinking, feeling, desiring, plan- ning, doing thus and so. " It is I and no other, whether mind or thing; here and not yonder, where the other is; now and not then, when I remember well I was elsewhere. Really existing? why, yes, indeed; existing really and indubitably in the most self-evidencing and simple manner in which any actuality can, alive to the very core. And now, again, in vain will the psychologist fence off the questions of the plain man as to the import of his experience, as to the truth that exists, and is known to be, in so wonderful a series of 1 What teacher of psychology has not found interest in the phenomena of per- ception by the senses, as a matter of natural science, drooping, until the burning metaphysical questions wrapped up in the phenomena have begun to stir the minds of his pupils ? PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OP MIND 77 psychoses as this, by attempting to draw the lines tauter between psychology as a valuable natural science and the useless speculations of the metaphysics of mind. For the thing which the science is requested to explain is just this peculiar and contentful psychosis (or series of psychoses). What is this " I " that assumes to know the " me ; " and this " me " that admits that it is known by the " I " ? What is it " really to be " as the " 1 " knows itself to be ? and What is this being "here and now " unless it involves a con- trast with some " then and there " in which the " same I " was ? When such questions as these are asked, in the form in which they spring immediately out of the effort to describe and understand the total psychic phenomenon, how will the psychologist, on the pretence of sticking solely to the task of a so-called natural science, reply without resort to metaphysical distinctions ? Among these are quite certain to be the distinctions between " specious present " and " real present," between "phenomenal Ego" and "real Ego," be- tween space and time as " objectively valid " and space and time as only forms of psychoses. But such language is empty verbiage without a quasi-appeal to the arbitrament of philosophy. What shall either put or find a meaning in it without that reflective thinking which is the essence of philosophizing itself ? Thus do the psychological problems started by the com- mon experience of perception and of self-consciousness inevitably serve as propaedeutic to the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of mind. Indeed, they do something more than gently lead the inquirer to these branches of philosophical discipline. They force him to undertake the cultivation of them in the interests of a more satisfactory result for his efforts to understand the psychic phenomena as such. But even to reach out toward this result one must, of course, suppose one's self capable of transcending indi- vidual consciousness, whether of the perceptive or the intro- 78 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND spective form. In order, also, to have a philosophy of nature, one must resort, not to a simple analysis of the object considered as a Thing, but to the sciences which tell us about things; and to have a philosophy of mind one must turn away from simple introspection of self toward all the indications which can be gathered as to the psychical behavior of other like beings. The two main branches of metaphysics together con- stitute the philosophy of the Real. But the science of psychology discovers psychoses, no less actual as psychoses than any which have thus far been described, that point beyond themselves to the realm of the Ideal. In its attempt to explain the workings of ethical and. aestheti- cal consciousness, as such, the problems of the philosophy of conduct and of the philosophy of art (ethics and assthet- ics) have their rise. For the larger mission of a scientific psychology is not fulfilled until it has as faithfully described and carefully explained our human faiths and thoughts respecting what " ought to be " as our knowledge respecting what really is. Nor does this class of psychoses appear so separable, so distinct, either actually or theoretically, from the others, as to enable psychology to explain what men think or believe ought to be without relation to, what they know or judge really is. And much of what they are entitled to say they know or infer really to be, cannot be explained without relation to what they think or believe ought to. be. Hence, in a measure, the difficulty, both theoretical and practical, of giving any purely psychological discussion, for example, to the phenomenon of choice. No matter how firmly the determinist in psychology may resolve to maintain the attitude of a collector and correlator of phenomena, unprej- udiced by metaphysical theories of causation, it is difficult indeed for him to carry out his resolution. Just because he regards his science as natural, he is tempted to re- ceive a bludgeon from the hands of the natural sciences^ PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 79 wherewith to threaten or assault the "free spiritual agent," if at any time such an agent should seem to raise his head amid the psychic phenomena. That such an agent is there, not only as necessarily implicated in a rational interpreta- tion of the phenomena, but also as the self-conscious victor over various forms of reality, is the philosophical tenet of the opponent of determinism. This tenet, too, it seems equally hard to refrain from introducing as an integral part of the explanation of the phenomena. Thus, too, in the debate of philosophical questions between eudaemonism and rigorism in ethics, or between the view which resolves the feeling of the beautiful into the expe- rience of the sensuously agreeable and the view which distinguishes the two and regards the former as unique, the descriptive and explanatoi-y science of psychology is well- nigh compelled to take a part. This is not so much because the empirical science is anxious to lift the responsibility from the shoulders of philosophy by coming over into its domain; it is rather because the science cannot discover any line clearly drawn between this philosophical domain and its own. For suppose that the psychologist finds himself compelled to describe the psychosis called the feeling "I ought " as something totally different from the memory, expectation, calculation, or present experience of the pleas- urable, — how can he then fail to have the more ultimate question suggested! as to whether that which ought to be, and that which is sought for pleasure's sake, is one and the same? Again, if the psychologist fi,nds certain men main- taining that in them the beautiful awakens thoughts and feelings which imply what is objective, universal, and of ideal worth, how shall he refuse to consider whether the im- port of such thoughts and feelings has a basis in the world at large ? But, of course, such problems are among those which psychology starts and then hands over to a philo- sophical ethics and aesthetics for their further examination. 80 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESTD It is, indeed, only indirectly that the attempted solution of problems in psychological science leads to the effort at that supreme synthesis which is the crowning work of the philosophic mind. But indirectly it does both point and lead in the direction of this synthesis. For it is scarcely scientific in the highest sense of the word to leave the different groups of psychological problems, with their scien- tific and philosophical aspects and answers, in isolated and fragmentary form. Here the psychological treatment of the so-called " categories " becomes important. To psychology, as an empirical science, the categories are only the most persistent and universal forms of psychoses themselves ; but to say only thus much comes very near to saying that the categories are the universal and necessary modes of the be- havior of mind. Some of them, however, are modes of the behavior of mind in the inferential knowledge of things ; and "knowledge of things" is a term which it is difficult to employ with a full intelligence, without implying that forms of knowledge, considered as psychoses (psychological), are also forms of the being of things (ontological). Thus the interests awakened by the effort to harmonize all, and to carry forward the science of mind to its ideal com- pleteness, press hard upon us in the direction of that supreme unifying activity of reason, in which the essence of synthetic philosophy consists. It is not strange, then, that different inquirers, who set out together with the deter- mination to discuss mental phenomena in terms of natural science merely, so often find themselves wrangling over the problems which it belongs to the philosophy of religion to undertake. For it is a large part of the supreme task of this branch of philosophy to find a real ground for ideals, and to vindicate the right of reason to project its ideals upon reality. The entire history of man's reflective thinking shows how closely connected are the views taken as to the nature, import, and destiny of the human mind (no matter PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND 81 how much pretence of being merely scientific these views may make) with speculative views as to the nature, import, and destiny of the World as a Whole. It is not without meaning that "Microcosm" and "Macrocosm" are terms applied to the two. It is not, of course, the intention of this treatise to under- take the speculative discussion of all the problems handed over by psychological science to further reflective thinking. The problems of Knowledge belong to Epistemology ; the general problems of Being belong to Metaphysics (in the broader sense of the word); the problems of the real being and relations of Things belong to the Philosophy of Nature. Certain points of view, and even certain conclusions, from all these particular branches of philosophical discipline will be assumed in the discussions which we propose. Although "freedom of will," and the holding of ethical and jesthetical ideas, are activities belonging to the nature of the mind, "and so, it would seem, naturally falling into the department of the philosophy of mind, these problems will be reserved for philosophical ethics and philosophical assthetics to discuss. Under the heading, "Philosophy of Mind," as the term is to be employed in this volume, we separate (somewhat arbi- trarily, it is to be admitted) a certain class of problems which psychological science hands over to philosophy for a more thorough examination, and for a solution, if solution can be found. These problems are, for the most part, started by the psychology of that form of human experience which is called the consciousness of Self. It is the Self, however, not simply as known immediately to itself, but also as scientifically known in its relations to the bodily organism. And although we are confessedly giving a specu- lative and theoretical treatment to the phenomena, and are assuming for this treatment certain postulates of a theory of knowledge and of a metaphysics of things, we shall hold ourselves responsible at every step to the empirical science 6 82 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PHttOSOPHY OF MIND of mental phenomena. Indeed, this essay in the philosophy of mind is deliberately based upon previous long-continued researches into the facts and laws of a scientific psychology. To these researches appeal must be made for the right to speculate as to the nature of mind. The right — we believe — has been earned by careful study of the mental phenomena from all possible points of view. And it is the author's controlling wish that the validity of the following speculative conclusions should constantly be brought face to face with the conclusions of the empirical science of mind. CHAPTER III THE CONCEPT OP MIND "PHILOSOPHICAL discussion of the nature and reality -■- of Mind, and of its real relations to the bodily organism, has often been rendered unnecessarily obscure by certain defects and fallacies which have their rise in psychological science. For this reason, chiefly, a meta- physical essay of this sort should first make the attempt to set forth its own grounds so far as they are discoverable in the actual experience of men. We begin, therefore, by considering the origin, nature, and development of the con- cept of mind. Or, since there is danger that even this introductory discussion may be undertaken in a manner too abstract, too far removed from the daily psychic life of the multitude of mankind, the same inquiry may be expressed in yet more familiar terms. What do people generally mean when they talk about " the mind, " or when they speak and think of themselves and of others as " having minds, " or as "being minds." [The term miud, in preference to the term soul, need not be insisted upon. It has indeed its obvious disadvantages ; among which perhaps the greatest is this, that it emphasizes almost unavoidaWy the side of intellection and of ratiocination, to the relative or complete exclusion of those affective and conative aspects of con- sciousness which equally belong to the real nature of the mental life. But the word " soul " — the equivalent of which in German, Seele, is employed safely by writers of 84 THE CONCEPT OF MIND every shade of philosophical tenets — can scarcely be used in English without implying undesirable theological assump- tions or evoking obstinate theological prejudices]. Any satisfactory inquiry into the Concept of Mind must plainly take its start from the standpoint of empirical psychology. Its very nature as an inquiry is defined by the effort to set forth descriptively, and then as far as possible to explain, those actual phenomena of consciousness to which the use of the term corresponds. Only as this course is faithfully pursued , (and by faithfully we mean in form true to the facts, and true to all the facts) can the subse- quent more speculative and theoretical discussion of mental phenomena claim credence and respect. For the value of any discussion consists in the amount of light which it throws upon the import of such inferred truths as are certainly impli- cated in the facts. In the interests of a sound philosophy, it is quite as important that all the truths (and no other con- clusions than these) implicated in the facts should be dis- covered, critically examined, and systematically expounded, as it is important for a truly scientific psychology that it should describe and explain all the psychic facts. The exhibition and defence of the legitimate inferences and ulterior import belonging to psychic facts, as faithfully described and scientifically explained, — this is the Philosophy of Mind. But if the customary treatment given by psychologists to those psychoses which may properly be called " concepts of mind " be compared with the actual psychoses themselves, it will be found — we believe — to be characterized by several important defects and even more important fallacies. Two or three of the most important and common of these will now be briefly discussed. The primary point of view to be assumed shall be that of scientific psychology. It is a most important fallacy in much of the current psy- chology to assume that the whole of any mental phenomenon is described and explained when the mere " content " of con- THE CONCEPT OF MIND 85 sciousness has been described and explained. That is to say, the larger number of those who cultivate psychology as an empirical science habitually regard consciousness, and the phenomena of consciousness, merely "content-wise," as it were. Thus the descriptive part of the science is limited to a statement of what particular qualities and quantities of sensations, or what particular associated images of past sensations, or what particular forms of feeling, are con- tained in, and so themselves comprise or constitute, the total field of consciousness. It is, indeed, possible to employ the phrase "content of consciousness" so as vir- tually to exclude from the task of descriptive and explana- tory science all considerations that have no reference to answering this definite question: What is the particular kind of conscious state, the pyschosis, now existent; and why is it this rather than some other psychosis ; why an A rather than some B ? Such psychology can always, of course, stop the mouths of objectors by asking, "What is there left of any phenomenon of consciousness to describe and explain, if, ex hypothesi, there is nothing in particular left, no definite content remaining to be described and explained ? " Of course, also, no psychosis can be scientifi- cally treated in neglect of its description and explanation, content-wise. For a psychosis without content is equivalent to no psychosis at all. There are no phenomena of con- sciousness in general ; there are only phenomena which have such and no other content, and which need to be explained and described with reference to their concrete definiteness, if they are to be described and explained at all. Such admissions as the foregoing are very far, however, from justifying the course of those students of scientific psychology whom we have just accused of serious defect and fallacy. For their fallacy is, in its very nature, a defect. It does not consist in too careful recognition of the neces- sity of dealing scientifically with the phenomena of con- 86 THE CONCEPT OF MIND sciousness, content-wise. It consists, the rather, in an almost total neglect and virtual if not explicit denial of another aspect, a different "potency," equally belonging to all the phenomena of consciousness. I'or all consciousness, and every phenomenon of consciousness, makes the demand to be considered as a form of functioning, and not as mere differentia- tion of content. Phenomena of consciousness are always conscious activities as truly as they are contents of con- sciousness. Consciousness is itself consciousness of activity, — fundamentally so ; and it is so all the way through from the lowest to the highest and most developed forms of func- tioning. The task of a scientific psychology is, therefore, as truly the description and explanation of phenomena of con- sciousness, considered as forms of active functioning (of consciousness "function-wise"), as it is the description and explanation of the particular qualities and quantities of the phenomena regarded as passive states (of consciousness " content-wise "). In saying this, our intention is not at present to fall back upon any metaphysical doctrine of "Will as the ground and essence of all mental life, — whether in the purely speculative form of Schopenhauer, or with the modified and more scientific character given to it by Wundt. "Will," indeed, as we have elsewhere shown,i is a term without meaning unless it be employed to designate a com- plex faculty, developed in the course of experience and involving all the more primary forms of the functioning of mental life. The proof which a scientific psychology, faithful to all the psychic facts, has to give for statements like those just made cannot be presented here in detail. For such proof the philosophy of mind appeals chiefly to the empirical study of the phenomena of attention, of conation, and of discriminating consciousness. The conclusion, as it is 1 See "Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory," especially chapters xL and xxW. THE CONCEPT OF MIND 87 justified by the science of mental phenomena, may be set forth in the following quotations (for the fuller proof refer- ence is made to the work from which the quotations are taken) : — "The relation of attention to the conative aspect of all conscious activity has been much emphasized by modern writers on psychology. . . . When, then, it is affirmed that all attention, even the most primary, is influenced by conation, it is meant that attention rises and falls, is dis- tributed and re-distributed, in constant dependence upon the varying amounts of psychical self-activity which charac- terize the different mental states. For, from the most fundamental point of view, all psychic energy is self- activity; it appears in consciousness as the energizing, the conation, the striving, of the same being which comes to look upon itself as attracted to discriminate between this sensation and that, or compelled to feel some bodily pain, or solicited to consider some pleasant thought. This aspect of conation — the immediate awareness of being self-active — belongs to all passive or impulsive or forced mental states as truly, though not in the same way, as to the so-called distinctively active and voluntary states. Expressed in popular and figurative language, it may be said. If the attention is impelled or forced, still it is my attention ; I yield to the impulse; I submit to the force. And this psychical yielding or submission, especially when it is accompanied by the consciousness of striving to yield or not to yield, to submit or not to submit, is the conative or volitional aspect of all my mental life. " ^ Or, again: "The presence of the aspect, or factor, of 'conation' must be recognized in all psychic facts, and in all development of psychic faculty. To be the subject of any psychosis is always — to speak roughly — to be doing something. Every sensation and idea, every phase of change- 1 Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 83 f. 88 THE CONCEPT OF MIND ful feeling, may be said (with no unmeaning figure of speecli) to furnish the soul with a challenge to arouse itself and act out its own nature, or express its will. Nay, more ; so far as we can obtain evidence concerning the very beginnings of mental life, co-etaneous with the first having of sensations and the most primitive experience of being affected with pleasurable or painful feeling, spontaneity of active consciousness, psychical doing and striving, may be discerned. ... By conation we mean to designate a primary and indubitstble datum of consciousness. . . . All psychic life manifests itself to the subject of that life as being, in one of its fundamental aspects, its oivn spontaneous activity. All complex psychic facts are fully described only when we add to the phrases — I have such sensations, and recognize such objects, and feel affected so and so — this other equally pertinent and necessary declaration, / now act in this or that way. . . . The fully developed psychological expres- sion for conation is, then, as follows: I act and I know that I act, — this as truly as I see, or hear, or feel pleasure or pain, and know that I have the sensation, or am subject to the pleasure or pain. For psychology, active consciousness is identical with consciousness of activity. . . . Indeed, if any statement based upon purely psychological grounds and having to do with the description and explanation of facts of consciousness, as such, can be depended upon, it is that which affirms the continual presence of conation as con- sciousness of activity. Indeed, here we reach the most fundamental of all psychic phenomena. " ^ Yet again: "Primary intellection is not so much a faculty in the sense of being a form of mental life separable, at least by a process of abstraction, from other most closely allied forms ; it is rather that very activity which furnishes conditions to the formation of every psychosis as related to others in the stream of consciousness; it is the process of 1 Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 212, 215, 219. THE CONCEPT OF MIND 89 elaboration indispensable for the formation of all faculty. . . . Regarded as activity (and so, pre-eminently, it must be regarded), it is that form of psychic energizing which accomplishes the elaboration of all materials, the organiza- tion of all processes and forces, the development of the total life of mind. . . . Every psychosis, however elementary and simple such psychosis may seem to be, is something more than the sum of the so-called elements comprising it, — for example, such a complex of sensations, such feelings, so much conation, as content, etc. Every state of conscious- ness is not only capable of being regarded on the side of passive content of consciousness, — it must also be regarded on the side of active discriminating consciousness. . . . The very term 'faculties of the mind ' implies different forms of func- tioning which consciousness discriminates while assigning them all to the one subject of psychical states ... In criti- cism of the popular figures of speech it scarcely need be said that consciousness regarded as objectively discriminated, and consciousness regarded as discriminating activity, are only two sides, as it were, of one and the same conmousness, " ^ There is scant cause for wonder, then, that those psy- chologists who deny, or overlook, or even unduly minimize this conative aspect of all consciousness should find no evi- dence of the presence of an " active agent " in the phenom- ena of consciousness. Hence arise some of the most extreme opinions of a psychology that, whether studied as an empiri- cal science or as a rational system of assumptions and inferences regarding the ulterior explanations of mental phe- nomena, thinks to dispense with the so-called Soul or Mind. Just as little reason for wonder is there that people gener- ally take no account of the negative or agnostic metaphysics which results from so defective an empirical science ; they cannot even comprehend what it means. For however little the psychologically uninstructed man may be able to tell in 1 See " Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory," pp. 288 f. 90 THE CONCEPT OF MIND an intelligible and defensible way, -what he means by speak- ing of himself as having, or being, a soul or a mind, what he does really mean is chiefly due to this unassailable fact of his consciousness of activity. To be doing something, and to be aware of it, — this is the very experience on the basis of which, chiefly, men construct their conception of the Self; and they could, perhaps, easier tell what they mean by being a mind with no definite content of sensation, feeling, ideation, or thought, than with no definite form of agency or conscious activity attributable to this Self. But of all this, in so far as it is warranted and demanded by the phenomena of consciousness, we shall speak later on. Another important fallacy, which often profoundly influ- ences the philosophy of mind, but which originates in a defective psychological science, concerns the very nature of conception itself. On the one hand, it is often assumed that to have any conception of a Self or Mind, implies some actual envisagement of a pure, spiritual Being, that some- how presents itself to itself as a statical object (at least, if one could only think, in lofty, non-sensuous, and strenuous fashion enough) for its own contemplation. From this false and ghostly psychology emerges all the most high and dry doctrine of Subject and Object, of Subject-Object, etc., to disport itself before a gaping crowd of spectators in the metaphysical show-room. The spectators are required to recognize their own concrete, warm-blooded, and sensuous selves as duly represented in such pale ghosts of abstract thinking. This, of course, Hans and Bridget, and even many another somewhat more advanced in the study .of psychological phenomena than these, find it quite impossible to do. Thereupon the advocates of " psychology without a soul " make a rally in their turn ; they think to capture and hold in exclusive possession the theatre, if only they can succeed in driving out such ghosts as these. This feat of expulsion they expect to accomplish by the strange expe- THE CONCEPT OF MIND 91 dient of chasing them round and round, in front of and behind the sensuous paraphernalia of the place, — the effort being to keep them perpetually wandering from pillar to post : as though the thing (first both in time and in impor- tance) for the psychologists of both parties to do were not to acknowledge that these alleged products of abstract thinking are indeed nothing better than ghosts. But then (next in time and not less in degree of importance) comes the neces- sity of showing the realities whence such ghosts arise. For nothing can be clearer than that, if there are no realities, then there are no ghostly semblances or representatives of realities. Men do not dream of things of which they have absolutely no knowledge in waking life. The procedure which leads the advocate of empirical psychology without the assumption of a soul to the con- clusion that there really is no soul, not infrequently takes the following course: So often as I examine any actual, concrete state of my conscious mental life, I find there no entity that need be called the soul or the mind ; I find only the iever-present sensation, idea, or thought. And if I try to grasp and hold the present psychosis, in order to see whether, in some particular form, it may not seem to give unmistakable evidence of the presence of a real being for the Self, — then that which indubitably exists (namely, the present sensation, idea, or thought) has slipped from me, and has given place to a new and changed conscious state. But the same thing follows in the case of this new and changed conscious state. It, too, is only knowable as a wave, rising and falling, in the stream of consciousness. Indeed, in speaking of what I am, so far as I can catch my real and concrete self in consciousness, as a conscious phenomenon, and so as admitting of scientific description, — not to say explanation, — the very term "stream of consciousness " is a gross exaggeration of the quasi-permanent character of this " I, " or Self. For a " stream " implies permanent banks 92 THE CONCEPT OF MIND that, really existing, give direction to and make possible the existence of the stream. Moreover, every stream exists as an actual succession of simultaneously existing parts ; it exists, all at once, as a stream consisting of sections with varying depths and different disturbances of the surface throughout its entire length. But it involves a complete misuse of the figure of speech to call the successive states of consciousness "a stream," as though any such perma- nency and reality of existence as this were implied for the totality of this succession. In this so-called "stream of con- sciousness " each section, each wave, comes into being only as the next preceding ceases to be; so too did that next preceding one come into its being ; so will the next and yet the next succeeding wave begin to be. Where, then, shall we find, no matter how closely we search, any reality answer- ing to this fiction of a permanent subject of changing states, — that is, of a real being, for the Mind; something more than, or over and above, the passing being, in ceaseless suc- cession, of the conscious states? The discussion of the metaphysical problems raised by this faithful description of the psychic facts will be attempted in due time. For the present, however, one may admit the truthfulness of such a description without any great distress. Or, at any rate, risings of distressful feeling may be par- tially allayed if one will keep two or three important truths in mind. It is hard to see how the reality of the Soul, if only one is to admit that there is such a reality, loses any of its interest or value by a confession of the general truth- fulness of such a picture of one's experiences with one's self as has just been drawn. One might, indeed, ask of any stream of consciousness that appeared at the court of meta- physics as a candidate for admission to the kingdom of reality (and this not in pure facetiousness) : What kind of reality other than this do you then, indeed, want ? Would the soul itself choose to be any other kind of a real stream THE CONCEPT OF MIND 93 than just this? Would it prefer to exist, as soul, in its entire psychical length, like a meadow brook or a mighty river, at one and the same instant of time ? But it is not our present purpose to minister to a mind diseased with metaphysical agnostics, by the cure of whole- some laughter. We wish rather to show that to expect any envisagement of the pure being of mind to take place is to mistake the very nature of the process of conception itself; and this, not primarily from a metaphysical but rather from a scientific and psychological point of view. Nor is the concept of mind the only sufferer when such demands ai-e made upon consciousness to furnish, in proof of its reality, some in- stance of a concrete presentation of the reality as an object for itself. The same thing is true of every concept, — of the concept of the most real material existences, as well as of the most ghostly concept of pure " spiritual being " so called. For the indubitable psychological truth here pertinent is that conception itself is only a complex form of mental functioning; it is always a process involving a succession of psychoses related to each other under laws of the life of ideation and of thought. Let one ransack in the same way one's consciousness for one's concept of a horse, a dog, a tree, or a star; let the chemist ransack his consciousness for his concept of an atom, or of some particular combina- tion of atoms ; the physiologist his, for his concept of some bodily function or product of bodily functions, — and neither of these searchers will ever come face to face with the kind of object which he seeks. Here is where the false psycho- logical theory of conceptualism has done as much harm to a realistic metaphysics of mind as has been done by an agnosticism which denies the possibility of having any metaphysics at all. Respecting the psychological theory of conception, as based upon the actual facts of consciousness, we are then forced to the following conclusions : " Concepts, judgments. 94 THE CONCEPT OF MIND and trains of reasoning are themselves, in actuality, only established forms of the movement of mental life. " ^ [The description and explanation of them — whatever they may be concepts of, or judgments about, or trains of reasoning leading to — belong to the " morphology " of intellectual life and development,] Or, again: "Conception, judgment, and reasoning must all be regarded as actual forms of psychoses in the flowing stream of consciousness; the rather do we designate by these words certain successions of psychoses which derive their characteristics from the nature of their sequence, and of the laws {or fixed forms) which are shown by the states of consciousness in this sequence. " ^ Of conception in general, a psychological theory which has regard to the actual phenomena of consciousness compels us to hold that its process " is a union of the reproductive function of con- sciousness with the thinking function, — the essence of the latter being the act of judging."^ Thus the psychological universality of the process of conception is found to consist in "the consciousness that we are mentally representing as 'belonging together,' as 'really related,' what is given in sense and imagination as manifold; that we are mentally representing as identical what is experienced in presenta- tion as various, in respect of place and time and other contents, without this variety itself being brought into consciousness." To discover the peculiar character of the " reproductive function " which belongs to the process of conception, the empirical science of psychology must con- sider the changes that go on in the processes of representa- tive image-making, and that are known as the "fusion," "condensation," and "freeing" of these mental images or ideas.* While the psychological nature of the thinking function, of the activity of judging, which enters into all Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 430. 2 Ibid., p. 437. » Ibid., pp. 439 f. * Comp. ibid., cbnpters xii. and xiii. THE CONCEPT OF MIND 95 actual processes of conception, is understood only when we note that judging, too, is a process, — to speak figuratively, — and that the " synthesis of judgment is accomplished by a flow, in determinate direction, of the stream of conscious- ness, intelligently uniting two successive waves of this stream so that they belong together under the laws which govern the whole. "^ Psychologically considered, then, it is a foolish question to ask whether we can indeed immediately envisage, or other- wise come to a knowledge of, the Ego, Mind, Soul, or Self, as a pure and changeless Being, — a sort of statical and abstract object for its own self -contemplation. To " realize " such a concept of mind it woiild be necessary to change the essential nature of mind as it is capable of, and actually exer- cises the complex function of, conception. But, then, the con- cept of mind is at no peculiar disadvantage in these regards. If one is asked to conceive of any being whatever in this way, or else required to relinquish all confidence in the reality, unity, and identity of such being, why, then, one can only take the latter course. But it is a shallow and flimsy psychological science which can propose such an alternative as this : either no metaphysics, or else a metaphysics which the examination of fundamental psychic facts renders absurd. The bearings of all this upon the philosophy of mind will be examined in due time. But in treating of the concept of mind as an actual and incontestable phenomenon of common human consciousness, the case must not be prejudiced at the beginning by a false psychological theory of the nature of conception itself. A third psychological fallacy, which too often warps and dwarfs the philosophical theory of the real nature and rela- tions of mind, is a false or inadequate view of knowledge. For seZ/-knowledge, if it can never be more than knowledge, certainly need not, as a matter of course, be less. If there 1 Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 447. 96 THE CONCEPT OF MIND is any one subject in the consideration of which speculative theory, on the one hand, has cut itself free from an exami- nation of the undoubted psychic facts, and, on the other hand, alleged scientific description and explanation of con- sciousness has obscured the more important facts, it is this subject of knowledge. Hence immortal works on the Theory of Knowledge, such as Kant's "Kritik der reinen Vernunft," and Fichte's various treatises on " Wissenschaftslehre," which soar aloft upon the wings of speculation in far too obvious disregard of actual and concrete phenomena of knowl- edge. Hence also those decidedly mortal and deservedly perishable essays in psychological science (?) which get no further in their examination of the phenomena than to recognize the sensational and image-making factors of that knowledge of one's self which comes through the senses. But knowledge itself is a psychosis; it is a mental phenomenon demanding description and explanation at the hands of the student of scientific psychology. And if the adequate explanation cannot be found in any psycho-physical or physiological or statistical researches, why, then, so much the worse for their alleged satisfactoriness as the only truly scientific sources of psychology. It is true that psycho- logical science, like all science, assumes knowledge, — its possibility, its actual possession, etc. But this assumption itself, like the phenomenon assumed, is also a mental phe- nomenon. Nay, more, and much more. Knowledge ! this is just the one all important mental phenomenon ; this is — we might say with warrant — the all-embracing, perfectly patent, and yet deeply mysterious, mental phenomenon. And when you have described and explained it you find yourself to have described and explained — at least as indirectly included in it — all the factors and phases of mental life and mental development. What, however, can be expected of a so-called scientific psychology which has no satisfactory science of those psychoses called " acts " or THE CONCEPT OF MIND 97 "states " of knowledge to propose? If it inadequately recog- nizes, or explains away, or denies the facts of all knowl- edge, and the immediate inferences implicated in those facts, will it be likely to serve as a satisfactory basis for establishing the truths of self-knowledge^. Now, that knowledge is a psychical fact cannot be denied without assuming it; for this assumption is, of course, involved in the very proposal to have any science at all. And that self-knowledge is a psychical fact cannot be denied without assuming it; for this assumption too is involved in the very proposal to have any psychological science at all. Here again we are met with the conviction how inane and futile is the proposal to pursue science with a perfect freedom from all metaphysical or ontological assumptions whatever ; how peculiarly inane and futile is the proposal to free psycho- logical science from all ontological assumptions with respect to the reality, unity, and identity of the so-called Self, or Mind ! For this is the (though not the only) distinguishing feature of the psychosis called "knowledge," — that it is even when regarded as mere phenomenon, necessarily seen to be ontological. The activity of knowing cannot be performed without in- volving the envisagement, or the valid inference of, reality. Activity which falls in any way short of this is something less than knowledge. The object of knowledge cannot be presentatively, or representatively, or inferentially, brought into consciousness, cannot exist at all as mental object, without implicating the reality of that which is thus objec- tively known. To be an object of knowledge is to be really, here and now, or then and there, for the knowing mind. Mental activities or processes there may be which do not reach reality, — such as the so-called having of sensations, of mental images, or of feelings, or the conducting of trains of pure thought, or the creation of bare ideals, or the hold- ing and cherishing of mere beliefs, — but they are not processes of knowledge. 98 THE CONCEPT OF MIND And to be an object of knowledge is to be known as real ; whatever must be said about objects of imagination, of thought and belief, of the " opining " and the endeavor of the mind. Finally, when the activity considered as psychosis, from the psychological point of view, is an activity of so-called self-knowing, its fundamental characteristics as knowledge are in no respects changed. When the object of knowledge is the so-called Self, or Mind, or Ego, its funda- mental characteristics, as object constituted and known by the knowing process, are in no respect changed. The very effort faithfully to describe and analytically to explain the mental phenomena of knowledge, which a genuine and thorough psychological science requires, leads us to such conclusions as follow: "Two important general considerations — almost uniformly overlooked by psycholo- gists — concern the scientific description of cognitive states of consciousness. (1) They are reached as the result of a course of development. From the psychological point of view knowledge is a development. . . . And (2) This particular development, which we call ^knowledge,' involves all the activi- ties of the mind. " ^ More particularly, " knowledge implies the exercise of every form of intellectual activity. Knowl- edge implies the having of sensations, and the mental act of discriminating among them ; but to know is something more than merely to be sensuously affected in various discrimi- nable ways. Knowledge also implies memory and imagina- tion; but to know is not merely to have mental images, whether identified or not with previous presentative experi- ence. Again, no knowledge is possible unless the faculty of judgment is operative ; unless relating activity, which is of the very essence of knowledge, is prominent in the psychi- cal process. And yet we rightly distinguish between the most elaborate and highly developed logical thinking and what we call knowledge of things or of Self. Not the ^ Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 509. THE CONCEPT OF MIND 99 simplest act of knowledge can rest upon logical conclusion alone. It is obvious, then, that cognition involves the com- bined activity and development of all 'intellective ' (if this word may be used in so general a significance) faculty. " i But knowledge, as a psychosis, is not an affair of the intellect alone; it is an affair of feeling and will as well. " Nor does such feeling always operate upon the intellect by an influence that is separable in time. On the contrary, the real total fact (the actual psychic fact) is that the thing is known to be what it is both felt and judged to be. . . . The influence of feeling on intellect is not, then, influence merely from one faculty upon another external to it, as it were. The rather do the so-called faculties of intellect and feeling blend in all cognition, and the complex result — the very object of hnowledge — is determined by both. . . . Pre-eminently true is it that we must strive and do, must will and realize the results of conation, if we are to gain and to develop knowl- edge. The psychology of attention as the determiner and director of all knowledge, suggests this truths . . . Any one of us may experience it concretely by answering the challenge which every real object of sense-perception offers to us: 'Do you wish to know (not opine, or guess, or specu- latively think) that I am, and what I am? then come and try your will against me. ' The same thing is true of self-knowl- edge. As says Goethe: 'How can a man learn to know himself ? By reflection never, only by action. ' Pale images and dreams, or abstract thought about such dream-like things, is all that sensation and intellect could give us, if we were not beings of will standing in immediate relations to a complicated muscular system. Indeed, it is largely if not chiefly by willing and experiencing the reactionary effects of willing, that we have any knowledge of Things or Self. " ^ One of the most profound psychological fallacies which underlies the two Critiques of Kant (both the "Kritik der ^ Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 510. ' Ibid., pp. 511 f. 100 THE CONCEPT OF MIND reinen Vernunft," and the "Kritik der praktischen Ver- nunft ") is a false distinction between faith and knowledge. For faith is conceived of, by this great thinker, as separated from and opposed to knowledge ; and knowledge is supposed to be removed with regard to certain objects in order that room may be found for faith. But the undoubted psychic fact, the obvious characteristic of the psychosis as such must be stated as follows: "Knowledge involves belief in reality; and it is just this which chiefly distinguishes knowledge from mere imagining, remembering, or thinking, as such. When we know any object, it is not merely as object for the knowing process, but as a 'being' existing in some state, that we know it. When the belief or conviction attaching itself, as it were, to the reality of the being becomes suffi- ciently clear and strong, then one may say, I know the object, and may say this with an emphasis bearing some proportion to the strength of the belief. . . . The specific character of this belief, in contrast with other beliefs, may be brought out by calling it ' metaphysical. ' And since it is not a particular acquired belief, but belongs to the very nature of knowledge as such, it may be called ' rational ' and instinctive. In brief, then, without this rational and yet instinctive {?) metaphysical belief, psychological analysis shows that knowledge is impossible. ... In maintaining that a metaphysical faith lies at the basis of all the existence and development of human knowledge, we only state a fact as scientific psychology finds it, and is obliged to leave it for philosophy — if possible — to explain." ^ If, now, thus much of preliminary discussion may be regarded as doing away with certain current negative and agnostic conclusions respecting the nature and validity of the process of conception, and also as establishing on a basis of psychological science certain points of view from which clearly to discern the more positive truths respecting the 1 Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 513, 514 f. THE CONCEPT OF MIND 101 same subject, there is no need to dwell long in further details of exposition. A description of the origin, nature, development, and significance of the concept of mind, as an actual psychosis, is bound to include the following particu- lars : That state, or activity, of mental life from which this concept is derived, and to which it returns — as it were — with ever richer contributions of content to the same state or activity, is called " self-consciousness. " In every act of self-consciousness, however, some definitely discernible con- tent of sensation, of imagining, of thinking, and of feeling is to be found. Every such act is, therefore, a consciousness of some complex state, — as a state of having such sensations, images, thoughts, and feelings ; and all these, so far as each state of consciousness can be described content-ivise. Moreover, there are certain kinds of sensations which seem to stand in a peculiarly intimate and relatively inseparable relation to the content of every act of self-consciousness. These are, chiefly, either such sensations as are only obscurely localizable, although they belong to peculiarly intraorganic and vital processes; or they are such as are found to accompany all the so-called " pure " activities of mind, on account of their connection with the fixation and redistribution of attention, and with the feelings of effort which customarily accompany these processes; or, again, they are such as have a strong tone of pleasurable or pain- ful feeling which forbids, for the time being, the objective reference of the sensation-elements of consciousness, and so compels or favors, the subjective reference of these elements to the Ucfo, as its states. Furthermore, in the various concrete acts of self-con- sciousness, either of these different classes of sensations (sometimes one and sometimes another) may be relatively emphasized in the complex sensation-content of conscious- ness. Hence different organs of the body get personified and identified with the Self, or Soul, but only with it as 102 THE CONCEPT OF MIND having such a concrete and particular form of experience. Thus sometimes it is the " heart " that feels joy or sorrow ; again it is the "bowels " that are stirred with anger or appe- tite ; yet again, it is the " head " that is lofty with pride, or is cast down with humility, etc. Different individuals, too, on account of characteristic differences of temperament or of experience, become customarily conscious of self as con- cretely defined by different forms of the sensation-content of consciousness. Haw this psychological law operates is illus- trated in a very interesting way by the case of children. If we question them to find out what they chiefly understand by the "I" or the "Me" or the "Self," which they set for themselves as both subject and object of any sentence declarative of their self-conscious experiences, they are found to vary its bodily localization according to the con- crete form of activity of which they are, by self-conscious- ness for the time being, aware. With the " I " that loves they identify the embracing arms, the swelling heart, and the lips used for kisses ; with the " 1 " that hates, the set teeth, the clenched fists, and the swelling chest and heart, into which the hatred has poured itself, as it were. So, too, in adult experience, that part of the very self of which for the time being one seems most conscious, changes according to the characteristics of the more or less definitely localized sensation-content of the particular experience. Under bodily suffering I am, with the larger part of my very self, suffering with the pain now in my head, now in my abdomen, and now in my back. Thus, too, as we may facetiously say, the self-consciousness of the dyspeptic is chiefly the conscious- ness of his own disordered stomach and digestive canal ; but the self-consciousness of the man with disease of the heart is the consciousness of the labored and irregular action of this organ. Once more, that individualization of Self, which charac- terizes the self-consciousness of A from that of B is, THE CONCEPT OF MIND 103 undoubtedly, in no small degree a matter of different kinds of sensation-content. For what each Self is to itself is no less truly different than what each Self is to some other self. Yet, further, so changed may the sensation-content of the experience of self-consciousness become, either in lapse of considerable time or with comparative suddenness, that one may emphasize the change by saying, "I seem to myself another Self from that which I once was. " With the chang- ing age of the individual, the changing characteristics of race- heredity and race-environment, and the changing degrees and forms of culture, this form of the content, which belongs to all self-consciousness, may greatly enlarge or diminish in extent and alter in complex quality. But when the psychologist seizes upon any one form of sensation-content and identifies with it not only all con- scious content but also all consciousness of functioning, and then sinks in this one aspect of sensation all the instinctive faiths and implicated inferences of self-knowledge, he becomes guilty of another most inexcusable defect and fallacy. No wonder that thinking which sets out from so pitifully meagre psychological analysis should conclude with so wofully narrow a philosophy of mind. We are told by a recent brilliant writer on psychology, ^ that, in his own case at least, " the ' Self of selves, ' when carefully examined, is found to consist mainly of the collection of these peculiar motions in the head, or between the head and throat. " And on this basis the conclusion, as scientifically defensible, is reached that "our entire feeling of spiritual activity, or what commonly passes by that name, is really a feeling of bodily activities whose exact nature is by most men over- looked." This is "the real nucleus of our personal iden- tity." Hence follows the conclusion in philosophy that the " substantialist view" of the Soul has no standing in experience, and is quite "needless for expressing the actual 1 James, "The Principles of Psychology," vol. i. pp. 301 f. 104 THE CONCEPT OF MIND subjective phenomena of consciousness as they appear;" while "Transcendentalism is only Substantialism grown shame -faced, and the Ego only a 'cheap and nasty ' edition of the soul." Now we shall not venture to deny the testimony of any man's consciousness as to where he localizes his dominant bodily sensations whenever he makes a concentrated effort to conceive of the self, and to observe the effect upon the bodily sensations of such a concentration of effort. All this may well enough differ with different individuals, and even with the same individual in different concrete acts of self-con- sciousness. Indeed, there is abundant testimony to prove that great differences exist. But to resolve the entire self- known Self, even " content-wise, " into any definite form of localized bodily sensations, is a quite unwarrantable pro- cedure ; and this no less so, however impossible it be found to purify the stream of self-consciousness from all such con- tent of sensation. Even the author of the hypothesis just cited, after "dallying with it for a while," admits that over and above his bodily sensations " there is an obscurer feeling of something more. " Some such conclusion must undoubt- edly be admitted; and not only a feeling of "something more, " but of something different, however persistently any particular form of sensation-content may assert itself. Tor just as soon as one detects in consciousness the sensations localized " in the head, or between the head and throat, " one is equally compelled to speak of these sensations as states which the Ego has, not as all that the Ego is, — not even, by any means, all that it knows and feels itself here and now to be. For purposes of complete identification with the self-known Self, or as forming the whole constitution of the "Self of selves," these head and throat feelings are not a whit more competent than feelings in the finger-tips or in the toes. The utmost that can be afiirmed of them is that perhaps in certain cases they most persistently accompany THE CONCEPT OF MIND 105 all the individual's efforts at self-consciousness. It is one thing to say that in all concrete acts of self-consciousness we find ourselves having some at least obscurely localized bodily sensations, and quite another to say that these par- ticular sensations are, or are regarded or felt by us as being, identical with our entire very Self. What is true of all particular bodily sensations is also true of particular mental images, particular thoughts, par- ticular feelings. These all, considered "content-wise," are emphasized as states in which we find ourselves whenever we perform the act of self-consciousness. But just because they change so notably, while essentially the same underlying intellectual processes and the same metaphysical faith, or leap to reality, goes with every act of self-consciousness, the images, thoughts, and feelings, with their actual concrete- ness, must be regarded as here and now mine ; but they are not all that I here and now know, feel, and believe myself to he. For — to return to a denial of that fundamental psycho- logical fallacy which leads the author just quoted to resolve all feeling of so-called "spiritual activity" into peripherally located sensations — the truth is that in all actual, concrete cases of self-consciousness I am active, and am conscious of being active. Never can I resolve all that I am, and know myself to be, into mere passive content of feeling, much less of bodily sensation. Whenever I am self-conscious, I catch myself, not only in a state of being passively impressed with some form of sensation, and feeling, but also in the act of doing somewhat. Indeed the core and centre of my con- sciousness of self is the consciousness of functioning in some particular way, of being active thus and no otherwise. For to talk of a consciousness of Self that is not really an activity, a form of functioning, a conation as well as a sen- sation or a feeling, is to talk of an absurdity. And that " Self of the selves " which I seek and find, if ever my 106 THE CONCEPT OF MIND search is successful, is chiefly the here and now concretely and actually active self. For a Self is no self that is not doing something; and an act of selt-eonseiousness, which is not a consciousness of seli-activiti/, is not an act of «eZf-con- sciousness at all. This "active agent," actually here and now active and knowing itself as active, is indeed no trans- cendental being, up aloft in the heavens of metaphysics ; but then neither is it submerged beneath the slime, or covered with the thin varnish, of purely empirical psychology. It is just that active agent which is active in the process of self-consciousness, and self-known to be active; and it is called agent because it acts in being self-conscious, and, as object, finds itself to be active agent. For any analysis of actual, concrete acts of self-consciousness which does not find this agent active there is simply inadequate analysis. No wonder, we remark again, that all men stare at the exposition which such psychology gives of the psychic facts ; and then laugh to scorn the philosophy of mind which builds itself upon such psychology. In order to attain any concept of mind, however, a pro- cess of reflective thinking (or rather repeated processes of reflective thinking) is necessary; and this process must proceed upon the basis of the concrete experiences had in the individual acts of self-consciousness. The result of this process of reflection is to explicate for thought what is actu- ally implicated in the concrete experiences. But, as has already been repeatedly affirmed, this very reflective think- ing and its so-called product (the formed concept of mind) is itself actually always a process; and to expect that it shall be anything else is to expect that, somehow, the concept of mind shall really not be a concept at all. Moreover, as the true psychological view reminds us, all the concrete acts of self-consciousness, on the basis of which the generalizations resulting in the concept are per- formed, themselves imply thinking activity. They also imply THE CONCEPT OF MIND 107 memory, and whatever other forms of intellectual life psy- chologists are compelled to recognize. But to say, this does not do away with the validity or diminish the value of self- consciousness, or of the generalized concept of mind which takes its origin in these acts of self-consciousness. On the contrary, the statement simply calls attention to the true nature of the mental activities of self -consciousness and of conception so-called. All mental life is a development ; all development of mental life involves the activity of all the so-called mental faculties. Different men come to be — with an indefinite number of degrees of speed, completeness, and variety of concrete phases or factors — self-conscious ; and in this process of becoming they make use of all their developing mental powers of intellection, feeling, and cona- tion. So, also, do they come to have, by more elaborate processes of reflective thinking, — and this, too, with an indefinite number of degrees of speed, completeness, and variety of concrete phases or factors, — the concept of Self. This development of conceptual knowledge must be regarded as dependent upon the development of self-consciousness; just as all conceptual processes must be regarded as depend- ent upon concrete and individual experiences. But, in turn, the result of exercising reflective thinking upon the individ- ual experiences modifies these experiences themselves. For the character of a man's coming to self-consciousness depends upon the concept which he has formed of the Self. The true psychological view of what actually takes place in the formation of the concept of Self, of my Mind, and then of Mind in general, explains the infinite psychological variety which the concept discloses. We may declare, not only is every Self, or Mind, different from every other; but every Self conceives of itself as different from every other. Here the fundamental and irremovable distinction is, of course, that made in the act of self-consciousness. But, on the basis of this distinction — as can be discovered if men 108 THE CONCEPT OF MIND are questioned either directly or by indirect observation of the various expressions of their thoughts — every man's notion of Self differs from that of every other man. Since, however, the concept of Mind in general is more abstract by far than the concept of the Self, more agreement may be expected as to the " marks " of the former concept than of the latter. Yet different individuals, at different ages, different races and different stages and types of civilization, different schools of philosophy and other institutes expres- sive of the highest results of reflective thinking, reveal differ- ent notions as to the nature of mind. How, indeed, could this be otherwise than so? For every concept formed in the mind of man is also a matter of race development ; it implies intellectual growth on the part of each mind, not only as an individual, but also as a member of the race. At the same time certain permanent faiths and assumptions, certain indubitable and unchanging experiences of knowledge, — some factors that are the same for every concept of mind, by all minds, — may be discovered. It is the business of the philosophy of mind to discover these, to explicate and expound them as they are found actually implicated and relatively unrecognized in the growing experience of mankind. In general also, it now appears clear what is the natural course which the development of the concept of mind pur- sues. For children, and in childish individuals, and for the childhood of the race, the more concrete and sensuous ele- ments, the elements of bodily sensation and of warm vital feeling having a pronounced pleasurable or painful tone, dominate imagination, memory, and thinking, in the process of forming the concept of the Self. For such stages of de- velopment, what is known to be true of " my " self is thought to be true of the mind of the other self than me, and of every other than myself. I am then to myself, in each concrete act of self-consciousness, chiefly a sensuous bodily self, warm THE CONCEPT OF MIND 109 with some kind of feeling, and doing something in a mani- fest bodily way. And other selves are conceived of as similar to myself; so also of minds in general. But even in this low stage of development, if genuine self-consciousness has been reached, and if reflective thinking has operated upon the basis of self-consciousness, there is undoubtedly the feeling and the thought of " something more. " For genuine self-consciousness implies acts of reflective thinking, and of conscious reference of more distinctively mental states to an agent active in them; and these forms of functioning, too, are self-felt, self-cognized, and made to contribute to the total result in the form of that concept of self which re- flective thinking itself achieves. So that, by insensible degrees it is likely, the character of the concrete acts of self- consciousness becomes changed; and, in consequence, the concept of mind derived upon the basis of these concrete acts becomes profoundly modified. Those activities which are spoken of as peculiarly spiritual become relatively more emphasized. Then is the Self known to itself as imagining, remembering, feeling, thinking, and planning, without the so exclusive dominaaice of the vital and sensuous bodily functions. When the human being, no matter how young or untu- tored, ceases relatively from those activities which empha- size the bodily functions, sits down with itself, as it were, and recalls in idea the past, or thinks out plans for the future, or reflects upon some problem of an abstract charac- ter, — if it observes itself self-consciously, it becomes aware of this so-called "spiritual self." True, it may still be forced to notice certain sensations "about the head and throat," or around the eyes, or elsewhere; but the "some- thing more " than these is now the chief part of the expe- rience. It is not less real, because it is not statable in terms of sensation-content. On the contrary, it is not statable in terms of sensation-content for the very excellent 110 THE CONCEPT OF MIND reason that it really is not sensation-content, but is some- thing "other" as well as "more." Suppose, still further, that in some moment of dawning self-consciousness, in its yet more highly developed form, that belief in reality, or metaphysical leap, which somehow and somewhere surely enters into all knowledge, should itself be consciously recognized. This to be sure would not, it is likely, take place in the abstract manner of Susbtantial- ism or Transcendentalism as recognized forms of the phi- losophy of mind. But it might iitly come — and, indeed, experience amply shows that it actually does come — in some such way as to awaken the consciousness of that distinctness in reality which makes every Self set itself off from, and over against, the whole remainder of other minds and of all things. Here, as will subsequently appear, is the secret of that feeling of loneliness which only rational and self-con- scious lives can have. And shall it be denied that men have these experiences, and that they get their notions of themselves and of other minds from them, — yes, plain men and women too, savage and untutored men and women, children of tender years, and those not more than half com- pos mentis? To have the experience is one thing; and to express it in the words of Jean Paul Richter is quite another thing: "Never shall I forget the phenomenon in myself, never till now recited, when I stood by the birth of my own self-consciousness, the place and time of which are distinct in my memory. On a certain forenoon I stood, a very young child, within the house-door, and was looking out toward the wood-pile, as, in an instant, the inner revela- tion 'I am I,' like lightning from heaven, flashed and stood brightly before me ; in that moment I had seen myself as I, for the first time and forever ! " With the development of mental life as sensation, ideation, feeling, conation, and thinking, — all regarded as processes of this life, processes in consciousness and consciously cog- THE CONCEPT OF MIND 111 nized states, — and with the constant accompaniment of that ontological belief to which we have referred, the birth and growth of self-knowledge is achieved. It may be regarded as a resultant, psychologically considered, of all these forms of functioning. " So rounds he to a separate mind, From whence clear memory may begin, As thro' the frame that binds him in, His isolation grows defined." For a genuine self-knowledge involves the developed faculties of perception, of recognitive memory (with its development of time-consciousness, as determined and clarified by refer- ence to some form of the succession of objective events), of imagination, reflective thinking, emotion, and will. This self-knowledge is, indeed, emphatically " something more " than obscurely localized bodily sensations ; with their motor effects and concomitants. Thus much of a concept of mind it needs no specially trained powers of reflection to acquire. Indeed, without thus much of self-knowledge we cannot speak of a developed and adult human mind. On the basis, however, of similar acts of self-conscious- ness, the highest, most comprehensive, and thoroughly defensible concept of what it is to be a "Mind," as all human minds really are, is constructed by processes of reflec- tive thinking, carried to their utmost limits. To claim this there is no need to introduce new "faculties" so-called, or new uses of the same faculties. The philosophical special- ist's study of the nature of mind aims only at accomplishing what all human striving in science and philosophy aims to accomplish; this is the highesjb possible elaboration of the data of experience, the supreme interpretation of the phe- nomena. The philosophy of mind simply expounds the theory of what the Soul is on the basis of what the Soul appears to itself to be. Nor need any sharp and irremovable line of distinction be drawn between the conclusions warranted by 112 THE CONCEPT OF MIND psychology alone and those warranted by anthropology or biology. For only as the phenomena which the latter sciences gather and attempt to treat scientifically are inter- preted in terms of consciousness, as known in self -conscious- ness, can they enter as data into the philosophy of mind. No investigator can escape from the circle in which he is forever asking, What really are other minds, as stated in terms of what I know myself to be? For the anthropological and biological sciences of mind cannot arrive at a real knowl- edge of mind unless they trust the individual's self-knowledge, to which these deliverances may appeal, and from which they may flow. But this highest knowledge of mind is itself, from the psychological point of view, a process having more or less of actual content according to the degree of the development of the individual mind in which it takes place. It is the fullest possible explication of what is implicated in such an actual process, which the philosophy of mind attempts. In other words, we are now going to try, by a process of ana- lytical and reflective thinking, to expound what every mind that has reached self-knowledge knows itself, as mind, actu- ally to be. The implications of that concept of mind, whose nature, genesis, and development, as a series of psychic facts, psychology presents and explains, are to receive a theoretical exposition and development. CHAPTER IV THE EEALITY OP MIND ANY intelligent discussion of the questions, whether the mind is real ; and in what sense, if at all, reality is to be attributed to the mind, — must borrow certain conclusions from general metaphysics and from the theory of knowledge. Without some preliminary conception of what is meant by " being real, " it is, of course, useless to inquire whether the mind is real. It is equally evident that the answer which each thinker's reflection gives to the question, What is it to be real? will largely influence his answer to the question: Is, then, that which we call "Mind" also entitled to be called real? Moreover, if any inquirer is already so far gone in agnosticism as to doubt whether an answer can be given to either of these questions, or as even to deny that knowl- edge of the real is possible at all, debate over those par- ticular inquiries which constitute the philosophy of mind may be quite superfluous. How can one philosophize in company with a writer who rejects the possibility of phi- losophy. How can one discuss a question in the meta- physics of mind before the man who, on theoretical grounds satisfactory to himself, abjures all metaphysics whatever? It would be unreasonable, however, to expect any complete discussion of the possibility of metaphysical philosophy in general as a preliminary necessity for the discussion of questions in this particular branch of philosophy. Such an expectation would amount to demanding two voluminous 114 THE REALITY OF MIND treatises on the main branches of a broad subject, as introduc- tory to one treatise on another of its subordinate branches. This order of treatment, indeed, might seem commendable for one bent on proceeding most logically in the construction of an entire philosophical system. But from our present point of view all discussions in the philosophy of mind spring out of the demands of psychological science to have a fully interpretative answer to this inquiry : How shall we faithfully describe and satisfactorily explain the phenomena of human consciousness ? In other words, it is the phi- losophy of mind as the supplement of empirical psychology, rather than as a derivative branch of a metaphysical system, that has just now enticed us into the general field of phi- losophy. We shall therefore content ourselves with bor- rowing a few of the most necessary conclusions from certain other forms of philosophizing. The more diligent culti- vation and thorough defence of the entire domain from which we borrow may fitly be left for another time. And, first, with what theory of knowledge should one approach all particular inquiries in the philosophy of mind ? In general, this question may be answered by saying. With just such a theory of knowledge, of its nature, its possi- bilities, and its validity, as is assumed in entering upon any theoretical discussion. Only it is, of course, eminently desirable for us to recognize certain truths as to what that view, fundamentally considered, actually is. Now, nothing is more certain than that in fact the fitting view, on approaching any philosophical discussion, is not agnostic with regard to truth in general ; much less does it harbor so extreme a negative conclusion as denies the possi- bility, by knowledge, of reaching reality. On the contrary, it assumes the very truth, in yet fuller and more self-evi- dencing form, to which all thorough psychological analysis of knowledge draws attention. This truth, when stated curtly and without qualifications, may be expressed as fol- THE REALITY OP MIND 115 lows : Knowledge and reality can never be considered apart. " Knowledge " that does not involve the correlate of reality, that is not of reality as its object, is not knowledge. " Reality " considered as apart from all terms and all possi- bility of knowledge, reality that is not known or conceived of as knowable, is for us no reality. It is customary for those who assume an agnostic position with respect to all outcome of knowledge toward the side of reality, to identify knowledge of reality with a knowledge of being in general, of " pure " being, or of " being per se. " In case, however, they abhor such highly metaphysical phrases too much even to take them upon their tongues contemptuously, they may content themselves with denying the possibility of knowing anything but phenomena. But since the existence of any "Thing" or any "Mind," when regarded as implicating somewhat over and above, or behind or beneath, the phenomena, seems to clash with this general denial, such agnostics are also customarily led on to forms of statement not essentially different from those which they so much abhor. It is plain that the first thing to be done in all such debate as we are now entering upon is to distinguish clearly the meaning of the terms employed. In certain meanings of the words knowledge and reality, an agnostic position which denies or even doubts the power of the human mind to know reality, is simply suicidal. No, not " simply " suicidal ; for it is such an agnosticism as can never so much as attain enough of life in the kingdom of reason to lose its own life by a natural death : commit suicide it certainly can- not, for very lack of life either to be taken away or to exer- cise in its own removal. In using certain other meanings of the same words, however, the most extreme agnosticism may be quite defensible; but then it may also be perfectly harm- less. For if agnosticism only deprives us of something called " knowledge " which is not recognizable or attainable or val- 116 THE REALITY OF MIND uable as knowledge, and of something called " reality " -which is not recognizable or attainable or valuable as reality, we can scarcely have serious quarrel with it. When it is said, however, that "we can never know anything but phenom- ena, " we are invited to consider a statement which is either meaningless, or else in every conceivable meaning of the words it employs is squarely contradictory of the most obvious facts of experience. A few thoughts on each of the positions just taken must suffice. No one can affirm the impossibility of knowing reality, in such meanings of the words knowledge and reality as make the affirmation contradict the undoubted, fundamental facts of knowledge itself. I cannot tell you that I know that you and I cannot know, without assuming in this same agnostic proposition both the possibility of knowledge for you and for me, and also the reality, in some sort, of both you and me. And inasmuch as you are always a " thing " to me, and I am a " thing " to you, unless I know that things in some sort really are, I cannot regard my own utterances as a communication of even agnostic knowledge from me to you. Here agnosticism, in respect of its theory of knowledge, splits upon the same rock as that upon which extreme idealism in the form of solipsism has always been wrecked. I am real and you are real, as things and as minds, and both of us know this to be so; or, rather, we know each other as real, — otherwise there is not so much as a standing-place for a tip-toe to be found, from which to make the vault downward into the dark abyss of agnosticism. But as for knowledge of beings per se, or of beings sup- posed to exist per se (if this "per se " means existence otherwise than as actual or conceivable objects of knowl- edge), — as to such knowledge and such being no concern need be felt over its fate at the hands of agnosticism. For such so-called knowledge of being per se is not knowledge at all. THE REALITY OF MIND 117 This declaration is true whether the phrase be interpreted to mean Being that is abstracted from all concrete attributes or modes of activity in relation to other being, or Being that exists totally isolated and apart from other being, in itself, or by itself. The use of such phrases results in sub- stituting an empty concept, or an attempt to think with- out thinking anything in particular as based upon actual experience, for the concept of knowledge as the facts of knowledge warrant that this concept should be formed. " Being per se, " if any such being there be, is no somewhat about the possibility of knowing which we need either to care or to debate. But freely to concede all this is quite another thing from consenting to the proposition that nothing but phenomena can be known. For we can no more speak of a knowledge of pure phenomena — that is, of phenomena as merely phenomena — than of a knowledge of pure being, or of being per se. Knowledge of nothing but phenomena is not knowledge at all. For the very phrase "nothing but" (or its equivalent, whatever this may be) reveals an inten- tion to employ the word "phenomenon" as sharply con- trasted with and exclusive of reality. It suggests that phenomena are to be considered as mere appearances, mere seemings, mere apparitions. It is thus implied that Reality does not belong — so to speak — to the object of con- sciousness, even when it is an object of knowledge. But, as has already been said in another connection, the word phe- nomenon and all kindred words have absolutely no mean- ing except as implying some particular being of which, and some being to which, the phenomenon is. And all the more, when this word is sharply contrasted, as mere appearance, with reality, does it forbid our doing away with the concept of reality, or the resolving of all into nothing but phe- nomena. On the contrary, phenomenon as mere appearance implies real existence with which the contrast of appear- ance is made. 118 THE REALITY OF MIND "When, however, the inquiry is started, Where is such reality to be found, and whence does our conception of it originate? we are compelled both by empirical psychology and by the theory of knowledge alike to respond : In knowl- edge and in knowledge only. And thus we hare completed the circle, as it were, and reached again the same ultimate truth. This is the distinguishing characteristic, and myste- rious but indubitable fact of all knowing, that it is either the envisagement or the sound logical inference of real beings, and of real happenings in the states and relations of these beings. Not infrequently, however, the localization of the pains of the extreme agnostic is changed the moment he is brought face to face with that ontological inquiry which is, as it were, the other half of the epistemological inquiry. Who, indeed, could be found to deny that some sort of reality is, somehow, knowable, — or, rather, is actually known, when- ever and however there is knowledge at all ? But this consideration is almost certain to shift the point of view on which sceptical inquiry bears most heavily. Now the inquiry takes the following form : " What is reality " ? or, rather, What are we to understand by " being real " ? In the discussion of such an inquiry as this it is of the utmost importance to understand the nature of the inquiry, and that from the very moment when the inquiry is first proposed. It is to be assumed that the question asked is of such a nature that it can, at least, be understood as a question and intelligently discussed. All ontological inquiry must there- fore concern itself with reality as known, or knowable, and so as capable of being brought under terms of sense-percep- tion, of self -consciousness, memory, imagination, thought, feeling, will, and character, — or under some of all the other terms which it is necessary to use in order to define the sphere of the known and the knowable. From another point of view, then, we are compelled to say that to inquire what either THE REALITY OF MIND 119 things or minds reallj' are, as "pure beings," "things-in- themselves," or "beings per se," is not a genuine ontological inquiry. To raise such an inquiry is to attempt the absurd and irrational in the very name of the highest reason itself. It would, then, be far better and safer for metaphysics to adopt a more concrete, intelligible form of stating the onto- logical problem. "What are the assumptions and primary forms of representation and conception under which we know all things and all minds really to be? Or, again, What is it really to be, as all things and all minds are known to be? But even after the problem of general metaphysics has been stated in an intelligible manner, its answer is by no means an easy affair. For metaphysical discussion is often embarrassed and confused in several ways unnecessarily. Among these is the vain and irrational attempt to go on forever analyzing and defining. Analysis and definition must of course reach impassable limits and come to an end somewhere. If, then, we analyze the conception of Reality, as such reality is known in sense-perception and in self-consciousness, into its constituent subordinate conceptions ( the " categories ") we cannot analyze or explain these residua of all analysis still further. At this limit of analysis, we can only appeal to immediate experience for a knowledge of what is meant by the terms which stand for such conceptions. To attempt to define or explain further would be to attempt to reduce that which is simplest of all to that which is more complex. But to refuse to say that we know what these terms mean is to assert that we know what is most complex, but do not know what is simpler and necessary to know in order to know the complex. Metaphysical discussion is often further embarrassed by the foolish assumption that nothing can be certainly known unless it be reached as the result of a conscious syllogistic process. It is often also assumed that the more complicated and subtle this process is, the more worthy of assured con- 120 THE REALITY OF MIND viction attaching to it is the final conclusion. But in the growth of knowledge, although intellection and its activity of inference and interpretation enter into all knowledge, — even into that which we consider most " immediate, " — the certainty of inferential knowledges is always dependently connected with a superior certainty for some of our imme- diate knowledges. And — to consider the same order in dependence from the ontological side — all inferred realities (such, for example, as the atoms of modern physics) depend, for their being known, upon envisaged realities. That analysis and discussion of the general conception of Reality as known and knowable, which metaphysics implies, yields the following particulars : Every real heing is known as a self-active subject of states, standing in manifold relations to other beings, and maintaining its right to be called real by acting and being acted upon,- — only, however, in obedience to certain laws (^or uniform modes of its behavior as such a being and no other'). Undoubtedly, in such a sentence as the foregoing, several unresolvable conceptions are mixed up with figures of speech that both call for and admit of further interpretation. Among such conceptions, or categories, are those indicated by the words a " subject" of states, " self-activity," " relation" (" in which " the being is popularly said " to stand "), etc. Some sort of continuance or permanence in " time," and " change," whether of place (hence " space ") or of states, are also implied. If, however, the meaning of the word " states," as applied to the being which is said to be their " subject " or to " have them " or to " change them," be demanded, it is found that the same transaction in reality is implied jas that which may be described by " modes of behavior," or " forms of self- activity " and of " being influenced by " other beings ; while words like " law " (which is said to be " obeyed ") and " uni- formity" (which is said to be discerned in the " behavior") when one tries to comprehend them, introduce us still fur- THE REALITY OF MIND 121 ther to the profound mysteries of all reality. These mysteries science may try to set forth, but certainly does not solve, when it talks about the " nature " or " kind " of being which any particular concrete reality is supposed to have. For example, the realities called atoms are divisible into some seventy kinds, — each kind with its own nature, according to its supposed uniform modes of behavior. But any definite conception of such a nature as " belonging to " any being, and so as delimiting its being and making it such a kind of being and no other, depends upon our experience with its " modes of behavior." Thus are we brought around to the same point in tlie circle again : uniformity, or recurrent simi- lar modes of the behavior of any being, suggests and proves to the mind a permanent nature of that being. But wliat we mean by ascribing a nature to any being is found only in the attempt to summarize the reasons for its known or possible modes of behavior. Why, for example, do oxygen atoms behave as they do, while hydrogen and nitrogen atoms be- have so differently under similar circumstances ? Answer : Because it is their nature to. But what is meant by their " nature," in which the reasons for their modes of behavior are found ? Answer : So, as a matter of fact, do these beings actually behave. Furthermore, any analysis of the conception of " law," without which it is impossible to tell what is meant by the reality ascribed to things and to minds as known, shows that this conception is, in part, the result of the same experience as that from which the conception of a nature for things and for minds is framed. The so-called law, or laws, of the being of each reality are in part interior to it ; they are not some- thing imposed " upon," or set " over " and " above," the beings which obey the laws. Obedience to any law implies a uni- formity in the modes of behavior which has its source in the very being itself. This, then, is really the same conception, based upon the same experience, as that which we have 122 THE REALITY OF MIND already found to be covered by the word nature. Law, however, always implies relatious of one being to other beings ; it also implies different modes of behavior- under different relations to differing kinds of beings. On the other hand, in varying its modes, of behavior according to its vary- ing relations to the variant kinds of beings, every being must remain true to its own nature ; otherwise it loses its own peculiar claim really to be. It must, that is to say, in all that it does, both have respect to what those other beings are doing in relation to which it stands, and also have respect to what it is itself essentially. Law reigns only where there is both self-respect and respect for other beings ; and this is just as true of things as it is of minds. Now, finally, it is absolutely impossible to tell what is meant by all this, as corresponding to anything that takes place in reality, without introducing the idea oi purposiveness ; or what we have elsewhere ^ called, in a confessedly figurative way, the " immanent idea " which belongs to the very being of every thing, and without which it cannot be known to be real, or even conceived of as real. In general, therefore, it may now be claimed that every assumption and subordinate conception which metaphysics finds by its analysis to be necessary to all reality, belongs most obviously and incontestably to that particular real being which is called the mind. Indeed, if this were the place for such a contention it could be shown that all these meta- physical assumptions and conceptions are quite devoid of meaning except as such meaning is gathered from the known reality of mind. To be, to stand in relation, to be self-active, to act upon other being, to obey law, to be a cause, to be a permanent subject of states, to be the same to-day as yester- day, to be identical, to be one, — all these, and all similar conceptions, together with the proofs that they are valid for real beings, are affirmed of physical realities (projected into 1 See " Introduction to Philosophy,'' p. 247 f. THE REALITY OF MIND 123 them) only on a basis of self-knowledge envisaging and inferring the reality of mind. Without psychological insight and philosophical training, such terms, or their equivalents, are meaningless in physics. And because writers on physics do not in general have this insight and this training, in spite of their utmost endeavors to treat physics as an empiri- cal science without metaphysics, they flounder and blunder and contradict themselves hopelessly whenever they touch upon fundamental matters. (Let any one who does not be- lieve this statement read again the best treatises on physics, and critically examine their so-called axioms, their definitions, and their so-called self-evident propositions.) For the detailed proof of the foregoing statements the subsequent chapters must be held responsible, so far as responsibility can be discharged in a work of such limited character. Those particular conclusions of empirical psy- chology are now to be examined, in which are found indubi- tably implicated the reality of the mind. But it is the reality of mind as concrete and as known by mind, and no so-called pure being or being per se of mind, which is to be expounded and vindicated. For the pure being or being ^er se of mind we care nothing, — care no more for it than for the pure nothing or pure nonsense which it is. Once and for all, let it be tossed over into the " death-king- dom " of meaningless abstractions. And why should any one feel that real souls have suffered thereby the slightest loss? The peculiarly close relation between psychology as the science which describes and explains the phenomena of con- sciousness and the philosophy of mind is enforced, in a most impressive way, by every attempt to answer the question now before us. That question has been stated as follows: May I affirm — and in what sense, if at all, may I affirm — the known reality of mind ? But plainly such a question as this must be taken at once to experience ; and to a form of 124 THE REALITY OF MIND experience which it is the appointed task of psychology to treat scientifically, however difficult it may find the accom- plishment of such a task. But it is also the right and the obligation of the philosophy of mind to examine the same experience, and to point out its more ultimate implications and interpretation, in accordance with sound views of general metaphysics and of the theory of knowledge. The experience to which reference has been made may roughly be divided into two kinds : it is, first, experience which I have with myself ; and it is, second, experience which I have as indicating the character of the experience of other selves or minds. These two are, however, mutually helpful and supplementary. They are both necessary for the highest and most defensible form of an answer to the question, What is it really to be as all minds are ? Experience with myself alone may enable me to affirm something as to what I know myself really to be; but experience with others is needed to enable me to affirm what will approbate itself to others as true regarding the reality that all minds are. Yet, even when stated in this limited way, we still find that, as Tourgu^nieff has said, " The soul of another is a darksome forest," unless we can light it up with the lamp of self-knowl- edge. But Goethe is no less right in affirming, " Only in man, man knows himself. " There is also sound and broad psy- chological wisdom in the German couplet, — " Willst du dich selber erkennen, so sieh wie die Anderenes treiben ; Willst du die Anderen verstehn, blick in dein eigenes Herz." And now what is that experience with my Self, that phe- nomenon of consciousness, which may be evoked and studied as a basis for the framing and validating of a conception of the reality of mind ? Thorough analysis and penetrating psychological insight present it as by no means the simple affair which is customarily described, — and this both by those who incline to deny, and by those who stoutly affirm, the real being of the mind. Both classes of contestants, THE REALITY OF MIND 125 indeed, ordinarilj' minimize and thin out the phenomenon, in the interests of their diverse philosophical views. Thus ex- perience is reduced to a convenient " simplicity." As has already been seen, one psychologist represents the experience as though it were simply the presence in consciousness of some peculiar form of a sensation-content (localized about the head or throat, perhaps, or between the two) ; and another talks as though it were an envisagement of a simple indivisi- ble soul-being, or soul-" stuff," — if one may be pardoned so uncouth a term. Both these views are, however, altogether too " simple " to suit the vast complexity of the phenomenon, — not to say, to serve as an adequate interpretation and ex- plication of the import which properly belongs, for reflective thinking, to the phenomenon. " / am ; " " / was ; " and " / have meanwhile been" — all men, on questioning themselves as to their knowledge of what is affirmed in these three propositions, find it impossible to deny their truth. United as respects their import, and ex- plained so as to bring out their full content, they amount to an affirmation of the self-known and incontestable reality of 'the mind. But the moment we depart from the sphere of this true import, from the sphere covered by the full content of these three propositions, we find ourselves engaged in trying to Know the unknowable, to imagine some perfectly unimagiiiable reality of the mind. On the other hand, to know with full consciousness what is contained in these three propositions is to know one's self really to be, in the fullest meaning of the words. When, however, the_ three propositions just laid down are examined with respect to the kind of faculty, as it were, operative in them, as well as with respect to the strength of conviction which attaches itself to them, important differ- ences are brought to view. / am, here and now, — but always perceiving or thinking somewhat, feeling somehow, and doing something : to have the experience which must be 126 THE REALITY OF MIND described in such terms as this is to be self-conscious ; it is to have immediate self-knowledge, in the fullest meaning of these words. I was, then and there, — just at that other time and perhaps distant place, — perceiving or thinking somewhat, feeling somehow, and doing something: to have the experience which must be described in such terms as these is to have recognitive memory; it is to have knowl- edge of self as existent in the past, in the fullest meaning of these words. / have been all the meanwhile, — in various places and different portions of time, — perceiving or think- ing somewhat, feeling somehow, and doing something : this is a statement which, while it implies consciousness of self here and now, and memory of self in many " thens " and "theres," rests upon a different basis and has a different kind of conviction attaching itself to its truthfulness from that which belongs to the other two statements. For not only self-consciousness and memory, but logical inference that may with no great difficulty be called into doubt, enter into this third proposition. In calling attention to, and even emphasizing strongly, the important psychological differences of the three proposi- tions under discussion, it must be remembered that neither self-consciousness nor memory nor inference, in the ful- lest sense of either of these three words, can take place without involving the other two. One cannot become fully self-conscious without developed memory and intellect ; nor remember self-cognitively without development of self-con- sciousness and inference; nor attain knowledge by reason- ing, without self-consciousness and memory. Yet each of the states and functions of mental life expressed by the three propositions "I am," "I was," and "I have been," may emphasize one of these so-called faculties, to the exclusion relatively of the other two.^ 1 For the truth of this view, as derived from a scientific study of the phe- nomena, the reader may be referred to the author's "Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory," where it is maintained throughout. THE REALITY OP MIND 127 For the reality that I know myself here and now to be, so- called self-consciousness is responsible. I know that I am here and now, thus both active and determined as to content of consciousness, — this is a sentence that only expresses in the imperfect and, as it were, temporally "elongated" fashion which the use of words for realities always necessi- tates, the functioning and the product of immediate self- knowledge. In such an act or state self-feeling, self-activity, and discriminating consciousness have attained the achieve- ment of self-knowledge. And like every achievement of knowledge, this particular one is suffused with the warm conviction of the reality of that which is known. The being which affirms itself to be aware of itself as existent — whether regarded as subject or as object in every act of self-consciousness (the "I" that knows, etc., or the "me" that is known as being, etc. ) — is not, however, a far- away or hidden substrate of being. It is just this self-know- ing, concrete, and determinate being which is here and now present to itself as self-known. In all such language, and in whatever other language one may choose to employ, one can only inadequately express what the real transaction of self-consciousness is to every Self which has experience of it. To describe the transaction, however, as mere state or mere activity of a definitive kind, is imperfectly to describe it Self-knowledge — although it comes as the result of a development — implies a knowing being that knows itself, in an actual and indubitable experience, really to be. We have no words to express, or power of thought and imagination to conceive, the absurdity involved in the attempt to deny this self-known here-and-now-being of the mind in self-consciousness. If the transaction be regarded on the side of its immediacy and the indubitable charac- ter of the conviction which guarantees its validity, no doubt or denial or hesitancy to accept can possibly serve to come between us and it, to impair our confidence in it. It is a 128 THE REALITY OF MIND philosophical commonplace, which has become tiresome by repetition and almost obscure in the brightness of, its own luminousness, that avowed doubt, denial,_ and hesitancy, all implicate the self-known reality of mind. No one has ever understood or announced this more clearly than did, hun- dreds of years ago, the Church-father Augustine. This is no less true since experimental psychology has determined approximately how long (say, from a fraction of a second to six or seven seconds) it takes to come to self-consciousness ; no less true, also, in view of the rapid wandering of atten- tion over the field of consciousness, or of those changes in the extent of the " grasp " of consciousness which accompany acts of self-consciousness, as they accompany and make an important part of all phenomena of consciousness. Nor can the case be argued with this " witness " of self- consciousness, so long as we understand its testimony to be confined simply to the self-known " here-and-now-being " of the Self, and not to be extended to some inferred, much less envisaged, pure being, or being per se, of an unknowable substrate. For, unless its guaranty is given in the very being of mind, no argument has any validity or can even have exist- ence as an argument of any kind. The "being " of any argu- ment is only a series of mental processes that succeed each other according to laws of the mind's intellectual procedure; and every conclusion, logically drawn, is bound to its premises only by the living, combining activity of conscious mind. Except as it is assumed, I am and have been, from start to finish in the argument, the same intellect, no argument has existence or validity for me. The argument by which we support, as well as that by which we try to controvert, the self-known reality of mind can neither prove nor disprove it; both arguments assume it. Yet, further, it is only in this warm, full, and ever-con- vincing consciousness of self-existence that all knowledge of the existence of so-called real things has its source and THE REALITY OF MIND 129 secure defence. If I am not really here and now existent, then no object of my knowing can claim reality, as the to me here-and-now-known object that it is. If it were pos- sible to regard the object-Self as mere phenomenon when it is an object of knowledge, it would follow that the object-Thing is known as mere phenomenon also. But, as has already been explained repeatedly, to talk of any knowledge as of mere phenomena is to talk of that which is absurd and self- contradictory. Indeed, just so long as we cling to the psychological point of view, and regard only " the phenomenon of consciousness as such," we must affirm as a fortiori indu- bitable the known reality (as " here-and-now-being ") of the mind. For, psychologically considered, every phenomenon of knowledge emphasizes the highest form of the being, as an active knowing subject, of the mind. On this form of the mind's functioning, with the activities involved (inference, faith, assumption, or belief, reaching reality, — call it what you will), all reality depends. The nature of that meta- physical element which, while it is called in the subject a " belief in " or a " belief with reference to " reality, becomes in the object a "being real," renders it impossible to give the indubitable character for reality which things have any preference over that which is known to belong to mind. At this point the ontological aspect of all knowledge is again reached. Man as a knowing subject is metaphysical in respect of the knowing function. All real objects are given to him as being real in the form of objects of his knowledge. In general, knowledge and reality are corre- lates, but certainly no less truly when the objects are minds than when they are things. And if we try to tear out of the phenomenon of knowledge the ontological postulate (or act of belief in reality) which is of its very essence as knowl- edge, we do not lose the real being of our own minds simply, but we lose all being and all knowledge at once. Agnos- ticism here pushes the explanation of the psychic fact to an 130 THE REALITY OF MIND extreme which does away with its essential quality and essential outcome altogether ; and in losing these, the whole world of reality falls in one common wreck. But the act of self-consciousness, so far as it may be con- sidered apart from memory, implicates and guarantees only the "here-and-now-being" which I know I really am. "i" was" is, however, a proposition which is made with scarcely less confidence and certainly with no less frequency than the proposition "I am." In its most general form this state- ment is, as to both time and place, vague and indefinite. In this its general form it is likewise most impotent to arouse and confirm a conviction of the reality of mind. But this conviction is experienced and implied in every clear and content-ful act of recognitive memory. For example: "I was, on July — th of '92, at one and a half o'clock of the afternoon, upon the top of Asama-yama, in company with A. B. and others, in the midst of a cloud that obscured the surrounding landscape but did not hide the crater, feeling very sore and weary with lying most of the night before on the floor of a tea-house, and with having ridden from four to eleven of that morning on the wooden saddle of a Japanese pack-horse, and having thereafter climbed the volcano's cone ; yet greatly exhilarated by the scene, conversing upon such topics, etc." I was, there and then, thus consciously active and determined in content of consciousness ; it was / that was there ; and I know all this beyond the possibility of doubt. On making, however, a careful psychological analysis of such an act of memory, or rather such a series of acts of remembering, as the foregoing, it is found that the different " moments " of the complex resultant, the different features of the total memory-picture, have a somewhat different origin and differing degrees of validity. That it was indeed the " year '92," on the " — ^th day of the month July," and that the hours were " one and a half o'clock of the afternoon," " four of the THE REALITY OF MIND 131 morning," etc., I may be ready to receive evidence. The first date may be proved correct by resort to a diary ; the second and third in the same way, or by some more definitive act of recollection, such as that of taking out a watch when about to mount the pack-horse, and again when on the point of climb- ing the crater's cone, or already on its top. For the name of the mountain and of the village from which the ascent was made, resort may be had to the guide-book which was in use on the occasion itself. My own perceptions, feelings, and thoughts, on the other hand, even if the memory of them must be refreshed by reference to some written record, are far more likely to spring up with spontaneous freshness as a necessary part of the memory-picture itself. They indeed constitute the very essential content of the process of memory so-called. On further reflective analysis of this act of memory, and of the knowledge which it is and implicates, it may easily be dis- covered that the originals which it represents were, at the time of their occurrence, quite widely different activities of the mind. For my original knowledge of the numbers of the year, the day of the month, and hour of the day, I was depend- ent chiefly on some kind of evidence, — diary, watch, testi- mony of companions, or remoter calculation of probabilities (itself dependent upon a variety of more or less doubtful memories). For the name of the mountain and of the village where the ascent began, the guide-book was at the time con- sulted, or the testimony of others taken. But for my own perceptions, feelings, and thoughts there was originally the same evidence which I have for all present perceptions, feel- ings, and thoughts cognized as such ; there was, that is to say, the immediate and incontestable evidence of self-consciousness. In general, it may be said, though not with perfect accuracy, that the knowledge of memory follows the order and laws of the knowledge of that which is remembered. Was the original knowledge largely or chiefly inferential, and so capable of having its grounds called in question and subjected to discus- 132 THE REALITY OF MIND sion ? Then the memory-knowledge is also considered a fit subject for discussion ; it too may be called upon to display the grounds upon which it reposes. But was the original knowledge, so-called "immediate knowledge," whether of things or of self ? Then for the memory-knowledge there can be no grounds superior to those which are to be found in the very nature of the memory-knowledge itself. Still further, however, in the psychological description and explanation of the phenomenon of memory, it is important to notice that the very nature of the complete memory-picture (or, to speak more accurately, the precise detei'mination of the psychic processes of recollection) is, to a certain large extent, itself subject to modification on grounds of inference. Suppose — to recur to the example just given — that I am asked, " How do you know that you were on the top of Asama- yama at precisely one and a half o'clock of the afternoon ? " the reply might be : " Because I remember looking at my watch and noting the hour immediately upon arrival." But here one of my companions might say : " I remember distinctly that you looked at your watch and announced this very hour when, as yet, we were only half-way up the cone." " And, besides," he might go on to argue, "it is very unlikely that one would expose a watch which one valued to the fumes of sulphur," etc. On hearing this contradictory statement, based upon memory equally immediate with my own, and the argument urged in its support, I might reasonably be induced to revise my own mem- ory-picture ; I might actually find it now modified, or so obscured that my original confidence in it was partly gone. Something similar, though scarcely so likely to prove effective, might also occur with reference to the more accurate recall of the obscur- ing cloud, the time of its appearance, its extent, etc. That, however, I did not feel sore and weary exceedingly, did not think the crater with its horrible rumblings and occasional out- burst of flame impressive, did not experience a high degree of aesthetical enjoyment, it would be quite useless, if not absurd, THE REALITY OF MIND 133 for any one else to call upon his memory or adduce argu- ment to prove. In general, then, the clear and vivid memory- knowledge of what was given originally to knowledge hy self -consciousness, psychologically considered, as respects the indubitable content of reality known, approaches the original knowledge of self-consciousness itself. In the foregoing sentence the word " approaches " was used ; and this word was carefully chosen. For the psychology of memory, when its data are extended so as to cover the various faults of memory, — its ordinary mistakes, lapses, pathologi- cal forms, liabilities to confusion of the two leading kinds of representation, so that what is really only imagined gets itself recollected, — shows that few or none of the statements de- tailing any concrete case of memory can vindicate themselves as absolutely certain. Even one's own feelings and thoughts might not only get displaced in respect of the exact time assigned to them in the past stream of consciousness, but might also get assigned to that stream, more or less definitely, as in its past, without ever having actually occurred in it. Doubtless the degrees and shadings of our lower affective phe- nomena, the clearness, cogency, and order of our ratiocinative processes, the elevation and purity of our sesthetical, ethical, and religious sentiments, have been in many cases actually far different from what we now remember them to be. But after making all possible admissions to which a candid and thorough examination of the facts of empirical psychology calls attention, the basis on which the philosophy of mind places the knowledge of one's past reality is not destroyed or even impaired. This reality covers just so much as is affirmed of the mind whenever I say " I was " with reference to some concrete and definite experience in the past. Such knowledge is knowledge still ; the reality of the object of knowledge is implicated in the act of memory still. This reality is not indeed, the " here-and-now-being " of mind as known by mind in the developed act of self-con- 134 THE REALITY OF MIND sciousness; it is the " then-and-tbere-being " of mind as representatively known by mind in the developed act of recognitive memory. But the certainty of conviction attach- ing itself to the affirmation is the highest possible that can be given to any object of memory-knowledge. It is impossible to put the proposal to prove or to disprove the validity of recognitive memory in general into any terms that do not assume the whole question, and so evince the absurdity of ail opposition to the accepted view. Proof itself cannot proceed a single step without assuming the validity of the act of memory. For unless memory could be trusted to carry, as it were, the meaning of the premises and the mean- ing of the conclusion, not only would no valid inferences be possible, but the very conception of all validity to inference would be destroyed. Moreover, that synthetic activity of judging which the drawing of the conclusion in every instance involves is itself dependent, both for its character and for its validity, upon the assumed trustworthiness of memory. Every inference must involve a conclusion from some judgment to some other judgment. But how is one to know what judg- ment to conclude without memory of the grounds which deter- mine this question of " what ? " How is one to conclude, with the rational conviction of truth attaching itself to the par- ticular character of the conclusion, without memory of the point of starting, and of the middle term through which the process moved ? How can argument be tested without such memory as makes it possible to repeat the progress of thought from the same grounds to the same conclusion, — the "re- view " of the process of ratiocination for purposes of " veri- fication " ? Now, it is true that the blind leap to a conclusion which fuses with perception ^ and guides the display of " tact " and skill, in a nearly or quite unconscious way, does not seem to involve the verifications of recognitive memory. The form of i Comp. " Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory," pp. 318 ff. THE REALITY OF MIND 135 inference sometimes called " instinctive " is undoubtedly largely an unconsciously determined movement of the mechan- ism of ideas that does not necessarily involve knowledge with its correlate of reality. It is not, however, of such so-called inference that we are now speaking; but neither is it of a merely mechanical movement of the ideas that we are speaking under the term recognitive memory. The consciousness of a connection of one judgment with other judgment as its rea- son, or ground, is a psychic fact which must be recognized as highly distinctive of the work of human intellect. It is upon this consciousness that inferential knowledge, with all the fair fabric of science and of the truths of philosophy, reposes. But the validity of this consciousness itself depends upon the validity of recognitive memory; it can never be employed either to prove or to disprove the trustworthiness of such memory. Plainly, too, when we speak of improving memory, clarify- ing it, and correcting poor memory by good memory, or one man's memory by that of another man, the appeal in the last resort must be taken to this same mysterious and ultimate source of authority, — namely, to the knowledge of the past by recognitive memory. The moment, however, that we agree to call the memory-function by the term knowledge, its ontological significance and guaranty is established, — as was the case with the immediate knowledge of self-conscious- ness. Whether the particulars of any concrete act of memory — and only with some degree of particularity and concreteness can I actualize my " being-then-and-there," as given in memory — be more or less defensible as particulars, the fact that "I was" and that this I that now remember is the same I that was, must be regarded as indisputable. It is indisputable, not because it is given as a matter of proof which may be successfully maintained by syllogistic processes against other contradictory arguments ; but it is indisputable because to assume and to imphcate the past reality of the 136 THE REALITY OF MIND Ego is of the very essence of memory as a form of knowledge, and because memory cannot even be called in question with- out this sa'me assumption. How the unity and identity of mind are concerned in the fact of knowledge by memory, and what sort of unity and identity this fact concerns, we shall inquire later on. What now interests us is simply this, that the " then-and-there " reality of mind is indisputably implied in all recognitive memory. To remember recognitively is to have knowledge of the being in the past of the subject of the act of memory. This is the truth which is really brought out by the effort to find an answer to such absurd questions as the following: How could a being that was not actually existent in the past know itself as existent in that past ? How could a being with no past know by memory some other being than itself as existent in its own past? For what is memory, when it reaches that development which we call knowledge, but just this, — the knowledge of my own experience as involving my " then-and-there-being ; " just as the immediate knowledge of Self in the act of self-consciousness is the knowledge of my " here-and-now-being " ? But if scepticism and agnosticism are to be pushed to the utmost limit on the epistemological side, and the condition of uncertainty or doubt or denial regarding all memory-knowl- edge is to be maintained, then it is not the past reality of mind alone which drops down into the dark abyss of nescience ; it is not the reality of my mind which first vanishes into mere phenomenon of memory: — it is all reality. But it is first and most irrecoverably the reality of things. Except as they liang dependent on memory, with its faith and knowledge, sun, moon, and stars ; birds, beasts, and fishes ; the " wife, children, and all humanity past " (the beings M. Flournoy is so desirous to save), — all are engulfed in that bottomless pit of non-existence which ever follows close behind the ever present being affirmed by self-consciousness, and swallows THE REALITY OF MIND 137 them all as fast as they come forth out of the womb of nothing on the way to nothing as their tomb. For nothing else has its " then-and-there-being " guaranteed as implicated inseparably in the very nature of recognitive memory, in the same manner as the past self-known being of the remem- berer's own mind. But the proposition " I have been," during the time be- tween the present " I-am " and the remembered " I-was," reposes on yet other and different grounds. Psycholo- gically considered, this proposition rests upon grounds of consciousness belonging to a quite different order from the phenomena in which either self-consciousness or recognitive memory are chiefly emphasized. What do I mean when I say, " 1 have been in existence these twenty years since the time when, as I now remember, 1 had such an ex- perience " ? And how do I verify, or on what grounds believe, such a statement as this ? Epistemologically and ontologically considered, the import and the proof of exist- ence continuously all the way through, as it were, from the remembered " then-and-there-being " to the consciously known " here-and-now-being " require a quite different order of dis- cussion from that followed hitherto. On beginning an examination of the meaning and validity of this proposition — "I have been," since ever " I was," up till the moment covered in the knowledge expressed by saying, " I am " — from the point of view of empirical psychology, it is found to involve a large development of the power of reflective thinking. Faithfully described, indeed, the phenomenon of consciousness which the proposition states plainly includes a strong and quite irresistible conviction. Let the adult of average intelligence, but without special cultivation in tlie analysis of self-consciousness or special acquaintance with the problems of philosophy, be asked. Have you then really existed all the time since the first thing which you remem- ber ? and he will be likely to. greet the inquiry with an incred- 138 THE REALITY OF MIND ulous smile or a vacant stare. This is not so much because he cannot comprehend the meaning of the question as because he cannot comprehend how the actual fact can be called in question at all. But what, from the point of view of psychology, is this actual fact? It is simply a mode of mental procedure, a certain determinate flow in the stream of consciousness, involving complex activities and the myste- rious accompaniment of rational convictions. As " phenom- enon," it cannot be faithfully described without noting all these activities; its description must include, besides the concrete form of the activities, the accompaniment of con- victions also. Or, perhaps, we may be forced into consent to take the convictions especially into account as among the most important and permanent of the activities. What, then, is it to which consciousness actually gives birth that is expressed by the proposition, " I have been " ? Plainly, — one of the most obvious and important of the " moments " of this complex psychic fact implies the possi- bility of an indefinite number and variety of acts of recog- nitive memory. On this point, again, let consciousness be consulted. Your plain man when asked. What do you mean by saying, " I have been " ? will almost certainly proceed to answer, " Why, I remember that I was ! " and this over and over again. " Once I was, years ago, in such a place, under such circumstances, thinking, feeling, and planning thus and so ; again, even longer ago, I was elsewhere, under different circumstances, with markedly different thoughts, feelings, and plans ; and yet again, much more recently, or yesterday, or but an hour or two gone by. I was, the same I that tell you of it, as I distinctly remember, existent at these many points of time ; and I am sure I could recall yet many other occa- sions when I should distinctly remember that I was." This potentiality of recognitive memory, and the consciousness of it, is then a prime "moment" in that determinate flow of mental life which warrants the conclusion, " I have been." THE REALITY OF MIND 139 Just as evident is it, howeyer, that no such proposition is warrantable upon the basis solely of acts of recognitive memory ; it is not upon the potentiality of memory alone that the knowledge of the mind's continued existence between any particular " I was " and the present " I am " can rely. It is only a small part of any entire stretch of objective time which clear recognitive memory, with its knowledge of the Ego's past existence, can hope to cover. Of the many states of most undoubted self-knowledge, with its full conviction of the reality of the knowing Self, which actually happened in the past, only an insignificant percentage, as it were, can ever be recalled. And if all of these states could be recalled, great gaps in the continuity of existence which the proposi- tion " I have been " is designed to cover, would still remain. Of these gaps some were originally filled by such states of intense absorption in the life of the senses, or in practical activities with their more purely objective references, as con- tained few and weak elements of self-knowledge. Other gaps were originally filled with those lower and more obscure conditions of mental representation, which, if they consti- tuted the entire outcome of mental development, would never give rise to any rational inquiry concerning the reality of mind. Indeed, if these states, sensuously determined and capable of more nearly complete description, merely content- wjse, were, as some psychologists claim, the sum total of the stream of consciousness, as well might one expect crows or dogs to enter upon debate concerning the reality of their minds. Still other gaps were originally just this — gaps; they were not filled, so far as can be discovered, with any of even the lower forms of mentality. Such were the states of deep and dreamless sleep, or the times when the mind lost consciousness, and swooned quite away. Now, the bridge over all these gaps can never — so far as we are permitted to make assertions on the basis of known psychic facts — be con- stituted by successive acts of recognitive memory. Nor is it 140 THE KEALITY OF MIND necessary in this connection to do more than call attention to the fact that the stream to be bridged itself widens ceaselessly as the successive acts of memory themselves go on. All these very acts of memory are " moments " in the onflowing stream. It is the faculty of thought, distinctively, with those phases of metaphysical assumption (or ontological leaps) which accom- pany its functions, that bridges over all gaps in the knowledge, by self-consciousness and recognitive memory, of the reality of our own minds. Here the manner of its procedure is in no respect different from that which it follows in bridging over the gaps that lie between every real being, as known now to be, and the same real being as remembered to have been. Indeed, without relying upon the process of reflective thinking, with its accompaniment of ontological postulates and beliefs warm with conviction, we cannot speak of any continuous real being whatever, or even of any reality as belonging to change and to motion in the world of external objects. If, for example, I perceive what appears to be the same being (that is, the sufficiently similar being) Xnow at the point A, and then at the point B, and still later at the point 0, in the line A B C, I may say: "I know tliat the same X has been in motion all the way from A to 0." Although I now only perceive it at C, and only remember that I perceived it at B and at A, I nevertlieless confidently affirm that it, as continuously and really existent, has passed over the entire line from A to 0. By a similar conclusion, which has its basis not only in per- ception and memory, but also in inference, the astronomer directs his telescope to another and advanced point along the line of movement followed by some heavenly body ; and when he has the phenomenally similar sensation of light, he affirms his knowledge of the continuously same existence. Nor does he doubt the reality of the being inferred to have been in the several positions between "this" and "that" any more than the reality of the being perceived " now " and " herfe," THE REALITY OF MIND 141 or of the being definitely remembered as " then " and " there." With the same persuasion of Icnowledge does tlie microscopist examine his specimens of animal and plant life. This per- suasion is not at all shaken when important changes take place in the object known ; not even when those changes are of the most startling and transforming character. Indeed, all such knowledge as enters into the theory of development not only admits of, but even seeks and builds itself upon, a similar basis. In spite of changing states, in spite of wonderful and unexpected transformations of character, in spite of gaps that neither immediate knowledge by the senses nor knowledge by memory can overcome, science affirms of everything with which investigation undertakes to deal : " It has really been all the way through, from the it- was to the it-is." In brief, without this function of reflective thinking, to supplement per- ception and memory, science is wholly impossible ; and without the ontological assumption which goes with it, what is called science, is notliing but the dreamer's well-ordered dream. Nor is it found that the most agnostic of so-called " scientists " are particularly lacking in warmth of conviction when the validity of this ontological postulate, this metaphysical leap, respecting their own alleged knowledge of things is called in question. If the bearings of this form of thinking, and the meaning of its results, were considered more in detail, it would appear that much of the language of common life and many of the more important terms of science depend upon it. Of the lat- ter class might be mentioned all that scientific talk about " po- tential " energy, " latent " states, " tendencies," " strains," etc., with which physics entertains and instructs us ; and as well the brilliant pictures which chemistry forms of the intra- molecular relations of the atoms. But what, pray, would become of the proud science of biological evolution, if its right were denied to bridge over its gaps with thought and imagination ? For who can deny that gaps are abundant 142 THE REALITY OF MIND enough in it ? And who can deny that from the known as it " now-is " to whatever " then-was," biological evolution has few stepping-stones in memory ? The truth is that this so-called science consists almost wholly in a debatable system of arranging abstract thoughts. Indeed, it would be strictly justifiable if it were called to account before the bar of philos- ophy (however this might be deemed rank heresy in scien- tific circles) for constructing a " then-was " for the world of material realities out of mythological and imaginary beings. Certainly, as to solid ground in known reality, this science has frail standing indeed compared with that which the plain man finds when he affirms the continuous reality of his own soul's existence. When, however, the grounds on which our conviction re- poses as to the validity of the proposition " I have been " are critically examined, tliey are found quite different from those on which repose the propositions " I am " and " I was." Tliey are not only different but inferior. That / am, the very nature of the act of developed self-consciousness does not permit me to doubt ; that / was is fully guaranteed in the act of recognitive memory. But that I have been, when I cannot remember that I was, admits of being called in question ; while to affirm that I have really been, as mind, during those gaps when no actual function of mind-life, no psychoses to be attributed to the subject, actually occurred, — this may turn out not only an unwarrantable but a meaningless proposition. Yet even thus the basis on which the reality of mind rests, as affirmed by the proposition I have been, is in certain im- portant respects superior to any which can be placed beneath the reality of any material thing. That " I have been," between two periods when I remember that " I was," is an inference which reaches a high degree of probability, but of probability only. It is conceivable that I may not all the while have been, in any intelligible meaning of the words " to be," as applied to the existence of mind. In- THE REALITY OF MIND 143 deed, it is impossible to tell in what meaning of the words, except as indicating a mere possibility of the renewal of actual being (a possibility which, when it is actualized as renewal, we regard as a certainty instead of a mere possibility), I can affirm that / have been during those gaps when, according to the hypothesis, no mental states occurred. It was the impression made by this uncertainty which led the Cartesian philosophy to infer that the mind always thinks. It desired to save the reality of mind in this way. But the argument of the Car- tesian philosophy saves only the abstract conception of the potentiality of a renewal of true mental existence; and it saves this at the price of a contradiction or disregard of psychic facts. For mind, as for all other beings, bare poten- tiality is not worth saving at any price. The inferred continuous reality of mind, however, has in one respect at least the preference over any similar reality that can be claimed for material tilings. It is conceivable — to recur to the illustration already employed (p. 140) — that the physical being perceived as X at the end of any line ((7), although it appear exactly similar to the beings remembered at the points B and A in the same line, and although it appear at the right time to simulate the movement of one and the same being from A through B to 0, should still not be in reality the same with the remembered beings. The being which appeared, as remembered at B, however similar in ap- pearance to X, may have been in reality some F; and the being which appeared at A may have really been yet another^ being, — namely, some Z. Indeed, it is conceivable that however continuously one may seem to observe the move- ment of the same thing along the entire line AO, in reality the fact may have been that an indefinite number of suffi- ciently similar beings were successively perceived at the various observed points along the line. Series of phe- nomena of this sort are not only conceivable, they may actually be produced without very intricate optical appa- 144 THE REALITY OF MIND ratus. The same conclusion holds true of the continuous reality of any one thing when not in motion, — and this, however closely it is watched to see that no substitution of one similar reality for another takes place. Nothing, indeed, but a network of highly probable conclusions, which adjust the ontological explanation in the firmest and most appropri- ate manner to our total experience, prevents us from regard ing the whole world of things as momently quenched and then replaced by a similar world of actually new realities. But concerning the reality of the actually remembered self, such a supposition as the foregoing is not simply to a high degree improbable, it is even absolutely inconceivable. For this is precisely what the act of recognitive memory both means and necessarily implicates, — "I was ; and I that was am the same real I that now am." In the case both of things and of minds, however, the guaranty for the " have-been " which lies between the remembered " was " and the self-con- scious " am-now," can be found only in that confidence which is attached to the derived results of much reflective thinking. But for certain points in the past life of the Ego, — namely, for those in whose behalf recognitive memory can be evoked, — we have the guaranty furnished by an absolute impossibility of thinking the contrary ; and this belongs to the reality of mind, as it does not to the reality of things. " I have been," — of this it is impossible that I should doubt, so long as I do not extend the "have-been" to cover a larger area than that which can be covered by the indubitable memory " I was." Who, however, that does not enjoy metaphysical quibbling for its own sake will refuse to extend the claim of continuous real existence for the mind so as to cover all those forgotten, and perhaps never again to be remembered, states of which .there actually was self-consciousness in the past of mental development ? In general, the term knowledge cannot be denied to conclusions, with respect both to things and to THE REALITY OF MIND 145 minds, that rest upon essentially the same basis as that which establishes the continuity in reality of beings that only occasionally, as it were, are immediately known to be or re- membered to have been. The whole body of physical science consists of just such conclusions. An agnosticism which we do not thinlc of applying to material things, we have no right to attempt to apply to our own minds. What, however, shall be said of those gaps in the contin- uity of mental existence where there is not only no memory or well-grounded inference of actual psychic facts, but where there really were no such facts existent to be subsequently remembered or inferred ? The more complete answer to this question must be postponed. The answer which must be given, however, is briefly this : Where there are no mental states, no psychic functions actually exercised, no really existent content of consciousness, there we cannot speak of the real existence of mind. But does this mean that when one falls into a deep and dreamless sleep, or swoons away, or because of a blow or of disease sinks into com- plete unconsciousness, one ceases really to be ? Certainly, if the words " real being " are to refer to the self-known reality of mind. As mind, I exist no longer if I cease from all the functions and activities of mind. For the reality of mental life consists of actual mentality ; it is the really being self-conscious, self-active, knowing, remembering, and thinking, as mind. Bare abstract potentiality of future mentality is — we repeat — no substitute for, or even mental representative of, the real being of the mind. The truth may be brought out by a counter question. Sup- pose the dreamless sleep to be continued forever, the uncon- sciousness caused by disease or a blow to be never followed by return to consciousness : on what ground, and with what con- ceivable meaning, could the continued existence of that mind be affirmed ? Only the actual fact of a resumption of self- consciousness, and the actual connection of the renewed 10 146 THE REALITY OF MIND mental life with the past mental life by acts of recognitive memory, can warrant the inference "I have been from the beginning until now." The " potentiality " with which as the fruit of reflective thinking we strive to satisfy reason in its attempt to account for what lies between the present " I-am " and the past " I-was," is the negation of reality instead of its equivalent. It is in this respect, then, that the conception of a con- tinuous reality for the mind is contrasted with the conception of' a continuous reality for things. For — to recur again to the same example — if I know that the thing X, which I now perceive at the point C, is the same thing as that which I remember perceiving at the point B, and previous to that at the point A, then I cannot think the possibility of its not having been in existence continuously at every point of the line A 0, or of some other line between A and C. If X is a composite being, it may indeed be taken apart and conveyed piecemeal, as it were, from ^ to C ; or it may be removed by some circuitous and unseen path and then brought to C; while meantime a really different but seemingly like body obviously moves along the line A C. A similar result of reflective thinking is often stated by the science of physics, in a more restricted way. " A body cannot move from A to C, along the line A C without passing through every point successively between A and C." [That this proposition, with whatever of ontological postu- lates it involves, is accepted as true for all things, there can be no doubt. The interesting metaphysical discussion of the grounds for our confidence in it cannot occupy us at the present time.] If, however, the effort be made to carry over this analogy to the existence of the mind in time, it breaks down completely. For on the one hand — as has already been said — no meaning can be discovered for the proposition that the real existence of the mind, as mind, must be affirmed as continuing (to speak figuratively) at such points THE REALITY OF MIND 147 along the line A C as are marked by no mental content or forms of mental activity. On the other hand, if the mind knows itself to be existent now, and remembers itself as existent at any time in the past (that is, — to employ again the same figure of speech, — maintains its reality, by the forms of its functioning, at both C and A), then it makes no difference with the fact and with the character of its present or its past reality, whether it has been non-existent, or not, at an indefinite number of times between. Finally, in maintaining the right of the mind to regard itself as real, both here and now, and also then and there, we have indirectly decided the question as to what is the character of the mind's reality. The further expansion of the •truth as to the nature of mind, as self-known and so known to be real, is indeed the main theme of the subsequent chap- ters. But the results of the previous discussion may now fitly be summarized, at least in a preliminary way : The peculiar, the only intelligible and indubitable reality which belongs to Mind is its being for itself, by actual functioning of self -consciousness, of recognitive memory, and of thought. Its real being is just this " for-self-being " (^Fur-sich-seyn). Every mind, by living processes, perpetually constitutes its own being, and knows itself as being real. To be self-conscious, to remember that we were self-conscious, and to think of the Self as having, actually or possibly, been self-conscious, — this is really to be, as minds are. And no other being is real mental being. The bare potentiality of such being, as pro- jected by thought backward or forward in time, is not real mental being; on the contrary, it is in contrast with, it is the negation of, the real being of the mind. CHAPTER V THE CONSCIOUSNESS OP IDENTITT, AND SO-CALLED DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT I, who now exist, am the same as the I that formerly was, in no matter how many so ever of my past remem- bered or inferred experiences, is a proposition which men generally maintain with the most intense and indubitable conviction respecting its certainty. Both the meaning of this proposition and the grounds on which the conviction of its certainty reposes have, however, been made subjects of no little debate. Any dispute over its validity is, of course, most intimately connected with the interpretation of its meaning. On the one hand, certain advocates of the so-called " Identity of Mind " argue as though the grasp of human consciousness could by some supreme effort envisage the Self as a " pure " entity, a being per se, the self-same and unchangeable subject or ground of the phenomena, through all the well-known changes which actually belong to mental life and to its de- velopment. On the other hand, other psychologists insist upon the perpetual flux of consciousness, to such an ex- tent that the very conception of change loses all definite meaning by lack of anything even relatively permanent with which the change itself may be thrown into contrast. In discussing the nature of that identity which may be affirmed of mind, we shall maintain the points of view that have already been chosen. The rights belonging to these points of view must also be conceded and maintained. These THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 149 rights are all summed up iu this one, — the right to give a rational although speculative, treatment to mental phenom- ena as they are faithfully described and — however inade- quately — explained by empirical psychology. In carrying out this particular discussion, then, something must again be borrowed from general metaphysics. The conception which we now wish to borrow, after it is clarified and freed from internal contradictions by critical treatment, is of course that of " self-sameness," or " identity." For, indeed, how can one intelligently discuss the question whether the mind is to be considered self-same, or spoken of as knowing its own identity, unless some definite meaning be first obtained for these very words ? Here, too, the results of reflective thinking must be accepted without retracing in detail the processes by which the results have been reached. It is customary, especially in circles permeated with those prejudices whibh accompany modern physical science and its pursuit, to insist upon the independent stability and perma- nency of things as contrasted with the dependency and fluctu- ations of mind. This contrast is often stated in such a way as seems to imply forgetfulness of the truth that all our knowl- edge of things is statable only in terms of change. For there is much sound sense in that view of the ancient Greek philoso- phy which emphasized the changeableness, perpetual flux, and so unreality of all things as in contrast with the eternal and unchangeable character of ideas. Certainly, if we may speak of man as having consciousness of the character and events of the so-called physical world, it is nothing permanent or in any way self-same in this world, which such objective consciousness contains. The important psychological truth is this : It is only of the similar in things that the human mind is immediately and indisputably aware ;^ all con- ception of the self-same or the identical is an extremely subtile and complex affair, resulting from a large amount 1 See "Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory," pp. 274 f., 293 f., 447 f. 150 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. of reflective thiukiug, and " shot through " with a variety of ontological postulates. In fact, it might be said : By sight we know the similar ; but it only is by faith that we come to know the same. And this is even more indisputably true of things than it is of minds. To ordinary perception by the senses those things are called the " same," or " identical," whose successive changes of states can be traced with enough of conformity to some idea, or type, of change to serve the practical purposes of identifi- cation. In order that we may re-cognize things, make use of them, adapt ourselves to their changes, we must not be too scrupulous about insisting upon exact or even nearly exact similarity in their different states. But, on the other hand, if we allow ourselves to be too loose and indefinite in our esti- mate of the permissible limits of change, we make the serious and often fatal mistake of confounding things that are really quite difierent in their relations and effects. The child needs, for his safety, the influence of mental conviction that this is indeed the very same dog which bit him yesterday ; although to-day the brute looks pleasant, and is not, as yesterday, snarl- ing and showing his teeth. His lesson that even those things which appear most like are often not indeed the same comes later. But this lesson is scarcely less important for his safety ; and it is even more important for his growth in precise knowl- edge. In both cases, however, it is only the various groupings of more or less similar and dissimilar attributes of which he receives the testimony of his senses. Thought, with its cease- less work of ontological postulating, underlays these various groupings with the conception of a something which is perma- nent and does not change. This " something " — if the some- what humorous tautology may be permitted — is necessary in order that anything may be indeed a real " Thing," rather than simply an appearance to be ascribed as a state to some other thing. To the uncritical mind, then, it doubtless seems as though THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 151 an unchanging "core " of reality belongs to, everything. The attributes, the states, the changing modes of behavior of the thing, are thus regarded as added, in a somewhat external fashion, to its essential core. Little ci'itical analysis is needed, however, to show how completely figurative and inap- plicable to reality, or to its explanation, are such forms of speech and thought as this. What is demanded, and what is known as actually taking place in satisfaction of the demand, is simply this : Every x (every " Thing " whatsoever), in order to be entitled still to be called x (or the " self-same " thing), must in its changes run only through series such as can be indi- cated by X, x^, x\ a^, x^ . . . x" ; or, on occasion of its coming into other relations with different beings, the series may be that indicated by x, a;", x^, 3^,3? . . . a;<°. What is true of x is true of every other thing, — for example of every y and every a. But if any x should happen to break off its proper series of changes, — especially if the rupture be sudden, — and if it should begin to run through the series y, «/^, y^, etc., or the series s^ s^, s^, etc. ; why, tiien (begging pardon for the apparent contradiction in language), x would have become y, i. e., x would no longer be x, the self-same thing. That is to say, even to be a " Thing," self-same and real, there must be con- formity to law. But here we have come upon the same underlying and unanalyzable conceptions as those which met us in the attempted analysis of the last chapter. The real identity of anything consists in this, that its self-activity mani- fests itself, in all its different relations to other things, as con- forming to an immanent idea. In view of what has just been said, this important truth is apparent ; namely, that it is not change itself which is incon- sistent with identity. On the contrary, it is the very character of the actual changes observed or inferred which leads either to the affirmation or to the denial of identity. This statement is no less true because it is less popularly obvious concerning the most stable of inorganic, material beings than of organisms, 152 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. or even of self-conscious minds. But must not the atomic theory be reciconed with here, — that brilliant metaphysical hypothesis with which the modern sciences of physics and (especially) of chemistry have justified their most sweeping empirical generalizations ? Certainly ; and it is in the appli- cation of this theory to reality that the truth for which we are contending is most forcefully illustrated. The compelling force of the illustration is found in the fact that here, accord- ing to the very terms of the hypothesis itself, the atoms are those elements of all material reality, ever self-same, by combination, separation, and recombination of which all the changing states of things are scientifically explained. In pre- cisely what, however, does the real self-sameness or identity of the atoms themselves consist ? Certainly, for each of the about seventy different kinds of atoms, considered as per- manent kinds, it can consist only in conformity to the " nature " of its particular kind. Oxygen atoms can remain oxygen, and nitrogen atoms can remain nitrogen, — and so on, to the end of the entire list of seventy, — only if the oxygen atoms continue faithful in behavior, in all the differ- ent possible relations, to the laws of their kind ; and only if the nitrogen atoms in turn abide by the laws of their differ- ent kind. But what does all this amount to " in reality " ? No answer can be given to this question without recurring to the same conceptions as those which have been seen to charac- terize our knowledge of the identity of the complex things into which the atoms enter. The meaning of x is x, self-same, and does not become y, only if x be governed in its behavior in all relations according to its own appropriate ideas. The metaphysics of our conceptions does not alter whether by x be meant some kind of an atom instead of a stone or a star. Or let some single atom (some individual representative of the kind called oxygen) be selected and named x; then, too, let the conditions and the character of our knowledge of it as self-same remain unchanged. Now, to be sure, science THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 153 assumes that x has maintained its individuality, as well as its specific character, through incalculable periods of time, and under an infinite variety of most trying circumstances. But it has maintained this only by conformity to the laws which define its own nature, under every variety of changing circum- stances. In all its transactions, so indescribably varied, — now in the soil, now in the water, now in the plant, now in the brain of the scientist whose conception of it we are at present holding for true, — x has remained identical, the very type of the permanent amidst all change. But how self-same and how identical ? Again is the mind forced to recognize the truth that only in the id&al, as applied for the regulation of the limits of its behavior, can we rest our search for that which admits of no change. Nor, when the exigencies of the meta- physics and the physics of chemistry become heightened by enlarged acquaintance with observed facts, and when Sir Wil- liam Thompson's, or some other theory of an infinite interior complexity for the individual atom is devised, is the character of our conception of identity changed. No small a;, how- ever small (even if we let x stand for some unit in the intra- atomic mechanism), can vindicate its claim to remain one and the same with itself, except upon precisely the same terms as those which belong to the largest of the material masses called X. But if what has been said is indeed true of the elements of material reality and of those inorganic beings into which they are compounded, it is more obviously true of all organic beings, with their greater rapidity and variety of changes and their capacity for development. Indeed, what is called " re- maining the same," in the case of all organic beings, is just this, — remaining faithful to some immanent idea,while undergoing a great variety of changes in the pursuit, as it were, of this idea. Thus modern physiology shows how nearly, or quite, every par- ticle of matter in any growing thing may be changed, and yet the total growth is spoken of as remaining the same. Here 154 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. the unscientific observer trusts his observation and memory of similar relations in space as a chief guide in the task of iden- tification. Only as he finds the phylloxera, for example, in sufficiently similar relations of space within the substance of his vines, does he credit his eyes with the conclusion that beings so different in aspect at the different stages of their development can really be pronounced the same. If, however, while he has slept, some malicious neighbor substitutes a poor tree for a good one in his garden, he refuses to believe that so different a growth can be the same thing, in spite of the testi- mony of the senses that the two occupy the same place in space. When, however, an appeal is taken to the minute and comprehensive observations of modern biological science, — especially as supplemented by the study of micro-organisms under the higher powers of the microscope, by embryology, etc., — the impression is greatly heightened rather than diminished, how utter is the impossibility of understanding what can be meant by organic beings remaining the self-same, unless the thought be admitted of a control over the limits of change by some immanent idea. This impression is still further heightened the more the import of the theory of development is reflectively considered. For under this theory what is there in reality that does not change ? Shall, then, all reality be resolved into mere change, — into change that is change in no real being, or change of no real being, according to the unchanging limits of some ideal ? To attempt even to state such inquiries as these, in their full import, would carry us quite too far aside from our present line of thought. We turn now to consider the identity of mind, with the inquiry whether it is different from or inferior to that which thought forces us to ascribe to things. For in the case of things, whether organic or inorganic, composite or elemen- tary, something that does not change, something that is "over" and "above" change, must be postulated for them THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 165 all ; and yet analysis is unable to discover what this some- thing can possibly be> unless it be the ideas which limit and control the change. What, then, is the import of that conception of the " Self " as self-same amid all changes of circumstances and even of its own qualities or modes of behavior, which men generally hold ; and what are the grounds upon which the conception rests ? Plainly, in the first place, there is no intention to deny all possibility of change in the phenomena which are attributed as states to the subject of them all, to the so-called Ego or Self. On the contrary, the very existence of the phe- nomena depends upon the observation of actual change. To keep the soul changeless (whatever one might then try to mean by the word " soul "), even during the briefest processes of self-consciousness or recognitive memory, is quite impos- sible. Indeed, the actuality of these processes, as considered from the psychological point of view, consists of just this, — they are processes of becoming. No one is ever self-conscious without becoming so. No one ever remembers, with recogni- tion of self, and with even an approach to clearly defined time-consciousness, without passing through that process in which the remembering itself consists. Further, as has already been sufficiently emphasized, the very conception of a Self as identical, or self-same, is a generalization from a vast amount of experience with perpetually changing states. This conception, too, is never actually a statical envisagement, as it were, of some pure unchanging being of a Self ; it is the rather always a conscious process implying the activities of .thinking, remembering, imagining, and willing, — a " mo- ment" of movement according to intellectual laws, in the perpetually flowing stream of consciousness. Moreover, the recognized changes in the more prominent and customarily uniform characteristics of any mind — its individualizing determinations — may be almost indefinitely great and sudden, without serious impairment, much less 156 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. destruction, of the consciousness of identity as based on valid grounds. Thus we frequently hear men saying with con- scious pride, " I have totally changed " in this or that respect, since so long ago. These self-recognized clianges may have reference to knowledge, to opinions, to faith, to emotions and sentiments, or to the most deeply laid purposes and plans. Indeed, even the popular estimate holds that the mind which does not develop — and development implies change, is change according to some idea — fails so far forth to vindi- cate its claim to be a real mind, in any worthy way. Even character, and that vague, indefinite background of tenden- cies which is called inherited disposition or temperament, may greatly alter ; and yet the mind affirms itself to be the same individual mind, distinguishing itself from every other (both selves and things) as abidingly, in some sort, one and the same. What is called religious conversion affords many startling instances of such change. The slower altera- tions that are forced upon all men by the discipline of life, or that are voluntarily effected in accordance with some reversal of underlying purposes and plans, or that naturally follow from passage through the different stages of advancing age, or that arise from markedly different environments, are too familiar to need mention here. In all these cases there is, to be sure, another way of re- garding the matter, which emphasizes the influence of such changes upon the very consciousness of identity itself. With this, too, all are familiar enough ; although its highly figura- tive character, as considered in its relation to the meta- physical problem now under discussion, is seldom sufficiently observed. Men not infrequently speak of themselves, and more frequently they are spoken of by others, as more or less greatly changed. Sometimes it is even said, " He is (or I am) completely changed ; he is not at all the same man that he was.'' Wlien the more fundamental and obscure bodily feel- ings are markedly different from those to which consciousness THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 157 is accustomed, more or less profomid disturbances of the con- sciousness of identity may take place. Great and especially abrupt changes in the environment — as, for example, when one is landed for the first time in an Oriental country; or when one passes from riches to poverty, or in the reverse direction ; or when the accustomed associations with one's fellows are greatly altered — produce different but important disturbances of this consciousness. On " coming to our- selves" from overwhelming and sudden griefs or misfor- tunes, the world and ourselves may for a long time look far otherwise than has been their wont ; things are different, and we are wholly changed. The bearing of such alterations in the consciousness of identity upon the metaphysical problem, where they become permanent and reach the extreme limits of their effect upon personality, will be considered later on. But in all the more ordinary cases, such as are now under consideration, it should appear at once that changes heighten rather than diminish the reality and validity of the consciousness of identity properly described and understood. For this very conscious recognition of the alterations implies a standard of comparison ; and this standard of comparison can be no other than the same con- sciousness of identity which seems temporarily and partially to be confused or impaired. How, indeed, can one be con- scious of being changed who is not also conscious of being, in some sort, one and the same being that is self-regarded as the identical subject of the change ? This consciousness of being " the subject of change," — for it is /, and not another, that am changed — involves the consciousness of identity in such manner that the two cannot be divorced. As long, then, as I know that it is I that am changed, — that this veritahle and continuously existent Self is really now so differently circumstanced, disposed, and affected from what it remembers itself formerly to have been, — I cannot be said to have lost the consciousness of identity. The con- 158 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. sciousness of change involves the knowledge and the convic- tion that I am, amid all changes of environments and internal states, in some import of the word, " self-same." Indeed, the clearness and comprehensiveness of One's knowledge of the particular changes, and the keenness with which they are felt, measure in no unimportant way the breadth and depth of one's power to identify one's self. And nothing but the complete loss of self-consciousness and recognitive memory, and of the power of reflective thinking as exercised upon a basis of self-consciousness and recognitive memory, can destroy that knowledge of the Self as self-same which is implied in all actual exercise of these so-called faculties. In view of the statement just made, both the meaning and the grounds of the mind's affirmation of its self-sameness become at once apparent. First, negatively. No form of consciousness furnishes the knowledge, either immediate or inferential, of an unchanging core of existence as belonging to the so-called Self. The consciousness of identity — what- ever else it may be or may not be — is no envisagemeut of an unalterable self-being after the analogy of some dead lump of a material entity, or some atom capable only of being moved into new external relations with other beings, but incapable of variable internal states. And, indeed, has it not been shown that this very analogy is misleading ? Such a " lump," such a so-called " atom," would be no self-same existence ; such an abstraction would, indeed, have no claim to be existent at all. Nor does the identity which any individual mind knows itself to have, and which is the only self-same- ness worthy of being attributed to mind as mind, consist in being recognized by some other than its Self as being the same. In announcing this truth we come upon considerations which need to be explained with further detail. When men say to one another, " You have greatly altered," or, " You are a totally changed man," — they most frequently refer to changes in the bodily condition and states. Such THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 159 changes, of course, have only an indirect bearing upon the self-sameness of mind, in so far as they are indicative of past or present alterations in mental trails. Frequently, however, we note with joy or sadness the great and abrupt alterations of which we get indication, in the mental disposition, tendencies, and actual forms of mental functioning of our acquaintances and friends. Again, we trace with a genuine psychological interest, and as a fruitful psychological study, the alterations of mentality which biographies, dramas, and novels set forth. It is only, however, when the proofs of actual self-conscious- ness, and of recognitive memory in such form as to bring the different mental epochs and activities into a sort of continuity of development, and of reflective thinking with its achievement of a conception of Self, seem to be permanently lacking, that an actual loss of so-called personal identity is deplored. For now, as the significant saying recurs, " This person has lost his mind." Self-same he no longer is, for he is no longer the same to himself; he no longer is self-conscious, or re- members, or thinks himself into an actual and yet concep- tual " for-self-being." But, second, the positive import of such negative declara- tions as the foregoing is not particularly obscure. From the negative conclusion it follows positively that there is no other consciousness of identity than such as is implicated in actual self-consciousness and memory. No conception of any import whatever for the words, " con- sciousness of identity " can be gained which is not gained by subjecting these activities of the mind to a process of reflective thinking. Therefore — positively and indubitably — to be self-conscious and to remember recognitively is to be con- scious of being identical and self-same. So that in order to tell what is meant by being the same mind (as a mind) that formerly was, and was yet before that, and so on, it is only necessary to describe the processes of self-consciousness and of memory, to subject them to analysis, and to set forth in 160 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. words (to be verified, of course, only by other minds that can repeat the same processes in their consciousness) what is found to be involved in these processes. In the narrowest possible meaning of the word " self-same," then, — and this is the meaning penetrated with a warm and irresistible convic- tion, — no being is really the same as minds are self-same that does not, by actual mental activity, make itself to be the same. Real self-sameness as minds are capable of it is a form, so to speak, of " for-self-being." Or, again, unless I am the same to myself, I am not the self-same being. And if I am the same to myself, then no other being can deny my self-same- ness, or impair its standing at the bar of reason. Further to draw out the import of this conclusion would only take us again over the already well-worked field of psy- chological analysis as applied to states of self-consciousness and of recoguitive memory. We should only find ourselves again rehearsing familiar facts, — such as how the knowing subject and the object known are, in the process called self- consciousness, woven into a vital oneness of being; how the existence of any state implies a being that is subject of the state, and cannot be considered as mere state ; how this sub- ject is self-known only as in some concrete state and not as mere being per se ; how the activity of self-reference to the subject must be considered as belonging potentially to the process of coming to self-consciousness, and to the passing through any pliase that may be discriminated as one act of self-consciousness ; and how belief, or conviction, warms and validates the whole activity, so as to prevent its being felt as a process of mere thinking, and thus converts it into self- knowledge, — an enyisagement by Self of the actuality, here and now, of the same Self. An analysis of the act of recognitive memory discovers, in addition to what has just been described, the knowledge of the Self as existent in the past, — then, as now, self- conscious, and referring all states to the self-same subject THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC, 161 of them all. Finally, the very conception of identity in its most refined, ultimate terms, is realized in no other way than by going over again, in imagination and thought, these self-same processes of self-consciousness and memory. And what it would be to be identical as minds are, other than to be capable of just such activity, is something of which no conception whatever can possibly be formed. By repeated acts of this kind, however, all men form some conception of their personal identity which is at once more comprehensive and more vague than this. Memory and thought avail to produce the picture of a certain continuity of mental development which is ascribed to the Self as its life- history. As I remember my own experiences in the past, the consciousness of their similarity in respect of essential char- acteristics is emphasized in a vivid way. Many times, as I can well remember, have 1 had the same thoughts and feelings ; long ago did I form, and repeatedly since have 1 re-formed, essentially the same plans. My disposition and tendencies, especially in the realm of affective phenomena ; my complex emotions and sentiments ; my habitual and ingrained modes of action and of conduct, — are consciously remembered and recognized as somewhat persistently tlie same. My re- peated states of consciousness, whether as regarded in the aspect of content or in the character of functions, bear, amid all changes, certain permanent marljs of similarity. Espe- cially does this seem to be true with respect to so much of my being as has been taken in charge by the Ego, with a con- scious intent to mould it according to a consciously formed plan, — with respect to my character, in the narrower sense of this word. As aware of all this by repeated and com plicated acts of reasoning on a basis of memory and self- consciousness, I may affirm that 1 know myself to be, amid all changes, the same being essentially unchanged. This inferred and secondary knowledge of personal iden- tity corresponds more closely in its characteristics to that 11 162 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. sameness which is attributable to things. Tlie Ego is con- ceived of as a real being, of many changing states and manifold different activities, and yet as a being that both consciously and unconsciously follows some law. Amid changes of its ideas it remains permanent, because it is held within limits by the power of some immanent idea. When this identity which may be afifirmed of minds is com- pared with that which may be affirmed of things, it is readily seen that the former has the preference in several important regards. First, things have a known self-sameness only as they are perceived and remembered by minds. If it be not assumed that minds remain, in the essential principles of their percep- tion and memory, faithful to the same unchanging laws of intellectual life, then there is no guaranty for the identity or sameness of any thing. Second, things have in reality no sameness, no identical and permanent being, except a& they conform to the terms of mental existence, and manifest the immanency and con- trol of that which is inconceivable unless it be stated in terms of mind. In vain do physics, chemistry, and biology strive to escape some such conclusion as this. The terms which they employ to set forth what in the physical world, amid all changes, remains really the same, are absolutely meaningless unless all material reality is admitted to be the expression and the subject of what is ideal. Third, actually to be known to one's self as the self-same, after the manner of every self-conscious, remembering, and thinking mind, — this is to realize the highest and most indubitable form of identity. On the one hand, to dispute the validity of the act which ascribes this self-sameness to the mind, and on the other hand to try to vindicate or even to conceive of any other kind of identity as belonging to mind, are alike absurd. Fourth, instead of change and development being inconsist- THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 163 ent with mental identity, with this self- sameness of the Self, the depth and comprehensiveness of its identity, are measured chiefly by the variety and rapidity of the change to which it can be subjected. All that is required of real mental develop- ment is that it shall be true to some fixed ideal. Indeed, to adopt consciously a plan, and to conform the greatest possible variety of changes to this plan, is to be the same Self through- out, in the highest intelligible meaning of the words. Fifth, only this kind of identity has any value in the realm of mind ; only this can fitly be an object of thought, solici- tude, or culture to the mind. An unchanging core of reality, as a sort of hidden " mind-stuff," at the centre of mental being, is no possession to be coveted, even if it were (as it certainly is not) anything the possibility of which can be conceived. " All states of consciousness," says Mr. Thomp- son,^ " imply and postulate a subject Ego, whose substance is unknown and unknowable, to which states of conscious- ness are referred as attributes, but which in the process of reference becomes objectified and becomes itself an attribute of a subject Ego which lies beyond, and which ever eludes cognition though ever postulated for cognition." And to such a statement as this we have the assent of another writer ^ on psychology who speaks disparagingly of " Kantian machine-shop," and who deliberately discards all " mind-stuff " theory. " This," says Professor James (referring to Mr. Thompson's elusive Ego), " is exactly our judging and remem- bering present 'Thought,' described in less simple terms." But neither in the heavens above nor in the earth beneath nor in the waters that are under the earth, nor in consciousness, — whether regarded as envisagement or postulate or inference, — " lies " any such Ego as this. And if it were existent, and could be cornered and caught in spite of its attempts to " elude cognition," it would be an absolutely worthless ^ System of Psychology, vol. i. 114. 2 James, Principles of Psychology, vol. i. 355. 164 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. " catch," at the best. For it is only the Ego that, instead of "eluding cognition," is actually present in every act of self- consciousness, self-knowing and self-known, which has any claim to existence, or to worth of existence in case it validates its claim. Just to know the Self, as actually and concretely self-conscious, remembering, thinking, here-and-now being, is to be a self-same mind, and to know that you are self-same. For this word is " nigh thee ; " it is not afar off. There is no salvation for the entity called soul, in such ghostly metaphysics as this. In the light of the foregoing discussion the phenomena of so-called " double consciousness " become, if in certain aspects more formidable with their threats against the metaphysical tenet of personal identity, in certain other aspects much less so. About these phenomena in general, two or three remarks are necessary, even more in the interests of psychological science than of the philosophy of mind. And, first, the phenomena themselves require much more careful scrutiny with a view to ascertain the exact facts, and all the facts, than they have yet received. They are of course by no means new. Similar phenomena are, indeed, old enough ; they might long ago have been subjected to that more thorough psycho- logical analysis which they have only of late begun to receive. In their more rare form, however, they have not yet been at all systematically collected and subjected to expert treat- ment. In their most extreme form they are very rare, and are to be regarded as belonging to abnormal and pathological psychology. While, then, the philosophy of mind will un- doubtedly be obliged to take their testimony into the account, just so soon and so far as it can be ascertained what that testimony is, their bearing and weight can properly be only such as belong to rare and irregular phenomena. In connection with this historical fact it should also be noticed that apparently in none of the most remarkable cases of so-called double consciousness have we as yet anything THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 165 like a complete set of data for the formation of a judgment, even as respects the individual case. The same thing is true of all the phenomena of hypnotism, — a part of which indeed, in the most remarkable cases, these phenomena of double consciousness actually are. States of hypnosis, of all degrees of depth and all varieties of the extremely complex physiologi- cal and psychological symptoms, are as old as the history of man. But it is not until very recently that hypnotic phe- nomena have begun to receive any scientific handling by competent experts in cerebral physiology and in psychology. Up to the present time, even on the part of these experts themselves, the temptation to " plump down " a physiological or psychological theory, with coarse general outlines that fit only certain aspects of the rarest cases, has been quite too often triumphant. For example, only just now is it beginning to appear how inadequate and misleading are the current statements that no trace of memory remains over from the preceding hypnosis; that lihe^hypnotic^sTibject is a totally changed and wholly self-forgetful being in the state of hypnosis, etc. Through the not unnatural desire to observe and emphasize the rarer and more abnormal extremes of the reported cases of " double consciousness," many other phenomena which fitly serve to bridge the apparently impassable gulf between them and the most ordinary experiences have been quite too much neglected. Almost all writers on hypnotism have been guilty of this neglect, no matter how candid and thorough they may have intended to be, A similar defect of scientific observation is common enough in all the sciences. Its results are not less, but rather more, disastrous in psychology than in any of the other sciences of observation. All observers, when they allow themselves to become absorbed in the effort to discover chiefly the strange, the unusual, the abnormal, tlie magical, the supernatural in mental life, are accustomed to find it. And no doubt it is really there. But if it is really 166 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. there, it is in reality accompanied by, and coupled with, so much that is ordinary, accountable to known law, normal, and matter of familiar experience, as greatly to modify and tone down the theoretical outcome. Repeated and far more searching observation, directed definitely toward finding. out what is not pathological, — namely, the evidences of ordi- nary self-consciousness and memory, on the basis of which every person maintains to himself his own unitary being and self -sameness, — must be given to all cases of hypnotic or insane double consciousness, before they can fitly serve as data for philosophical generalizations. Further, the strictly scientific attitude must be steadfastly maintained in the examination of the alleged phenomena of double consciousness. What this attitude is, whether it be toward hypnotism or toward witchcraft, toward telepathy or toward sorcery, there can be in this age of the world no reasonable doubt. The scientific attitude clings to what is already known, to the explicable and the explained ; from this firm point of standing, it then endeavors, by further exten- sions and new theoretical combinations of known principles, to explain that which at first sight seems to be wholly new. This is, in our judgment, the only right attitude for the man of science to take toward the modern discussions of hypnotic phenomena. The possibility of being compelled to admit wholly new principles in physiology and psychology we cheer- fully admit. No fact or class of facts, established on satis- factory evidence, is ever to be denied. If any proved fact or class of facts cannot be brought under known physioloo-ical or psychological laws, — as, indeed, mnny undoubted facts cannot be, — this, too, is to be frankly confessed. But, on the other hand, all the history of the development of science, all the most sacred rights and precious achievements of science, even the very existence of science as distinguished from wild vagaries or mere popular opinion, depends upon holding fast to what we have, or think we have ; and upon THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 167 using this as the iiistrument to conquer and possess the more. But if in reaching out too eagerly after the still dim and uncertain more beyond, we let slip from our grasp what we already most firmly have, the case becomes one, not of getting something new to add to the body of science ; — it becomes rather a case of losing all. As for us, then, on the one hand we will not allow ourselves to be relegated to the ranks of the Philistines, because we do not rush off at a tangent in pursuit of new and high-flying theories of telepathy, double consciousness, and what not ; but, on the other hand, we will not, through fear of being relegated there by others, wander afar in company with the camps of the psychologist gypsies. To apply the foi'egoing cautions to the subject in hand, — even the most strikingly abnormal cases of double conscious- ness, when all the phenomena connected with them are care- fully examined and duly estimated, seem likely to show another than their already too much emphasized abnormal aspect. As in the case of the insane, so in the case of the hypnotic. Between the wildest vagaries of a pathological sort and the most regular operations of the sanest mind, it is possible to interpolate an innumerable series of gradations so as to shade up or shade down from one into the other. Such a process of mediating can be accomplished for, every mental faculty, no matter how much it may seem to be disordered in the case of the insanest mind. In the case of the most insane mind, even, what is normal and regular is really predominat- ing. The inmates of our mad-houses are more like than unlike ourselves in the workings of both brain and mind. It is only that loss of all so-called faculty which distin- guishes diseases like progressive general paralysis that dif- ferences its afflicted subject from other minds, — and this, by the continued removal of all manifestation of mind. The confident and even cheerful expectation may be cher- ished that, as the science of psychology develops by the use 168 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. of the modern inductive methods, it will more and more see its way clear to explain states of hypnosis, with their alleged phenomena of double consciousness and all their other most unique phenomena, in accordance with the empirically established principles of all mind. Indeed, the history of hypnotism is itself a lesson to this effect; the same lesson is embodied in the very word " liypnotism." Few men of science continue to speak of " animal magnetism," or of " Mesmerism ; " a diminishing number persist in ascribing these peculiar states of brain and mind to occult telluric influences, or to mysterious physical effluences from the person Of the experimenter. Physiologically, hypnoses are best likened to states of natural sleep ; psychologically con- sidered, they are more satisfactorily explicable by the well- known principle of mental " suggestion " than in any other way. Who can doubt that the essential nature of brain and of mind, and of the relations between the two, remains un- changed, when, after a single word of command, or a few passes, or a minute of fixed staring, the same person goes from the normal condition of single consciousness to the abnormal condition of double consciousness ? It may well be, however, that so-called " single " consciousness, in its most normal form, always conceals and indeed, as it were, is made up of double (and even multiple) consciousnesses, in some valid meaning of these latter words ; and, on the other hand, that every case of " double " or " triple " consciousness is only a relative exaggeration of processes that customarily underlie the recognized forms of every so-called single consciousness. In the interests, then, both of psychological science and of the philosophy of mind, we feel obliged to maintain for the present a position of reserve. Our confidence in the principle of continuity as applied to the study, both scientific and philosophical, of the mental life is such as to lead, however, to this belief, — the explanation of double consciousness, THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 169 when the facts are ascertained and the explanation is made, will be found in tlie extension rather than the reversal of principles already known to apply to the normal activity of body and mind. It is, then, only in a tentative way that we now briefly sketch our opinion as to what some of the most important of these principles probably are. One of the most important and comprehensive of all prin- ciples of mental development, both in a regulative and in a constitutive way, is connected with the organization of what may be called a " psychical automatism." By a purely phys- iological automatism we understand those centrally initiated nerve-commotions generally due (although proof cannot be given for the very reasonable conjecture) to changes in the character of the blood-supply, which control the end-organs of motion, — as distinguished from the peripherally initiated or reflex nerve-commotions that, ascending by the centripetal tracts, excite the central organs. The term " psychical automatism," as it will now be employed, may properly in- clude certain modifications of consciousness. These are, however, so transient and obscure that they either never get themselves analytically separated, as it were, by an act of selective attention and discriminating consciousness from the entire conscious complex : or else they are, although perhaps '" moments " actually recognized as constitutive of the con- scious complex, not consciously attributed to the Self as its state, not definitively made objects of self-consciousness. Or, again, although attaining for the instant some tinge of self- conscious recognition and of attribution to the Ego, they may never live in memory afterward, and so have no place what- ever in that consciously self-known Self which is also known as self-same. [It will be seen that the sphere of the " auto- matic," psychologically considered, is not made co-extensive with conation, although including the conative aspect of consciousness. But it does include all that is ordinarily ascribed to wholly, or nearly, " blind impulse," to " instinct," 170 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. to " tact," and in general to that side or sphere of ourselves of which least is known, and which, when recognized, seems strangest even to ourselves.] In the natural development of mental life the sphere covered by psychical automatism becomes constantly en- larged and more and more highly organized, as it were. To those blind impulses, instincts, appetencies, and unconsciously or half-consciously exercised potencies which belong to what we in our ignorance call the " nature " of the species and of the individual, there are added certain similar "residua," which are the acquirements of previous conscious forms of functioning. These appear to have dropped down from the realm of the clearly conscious into the obscurity of " the un- conscious " or " the half-conscious " or " the sub-conscious," so-called. Under this description are also included, of course, the enormous number of acquired impulses, appetencies, forms of tact and habits of psychic functioning which constitute what is sometimes so significantly called the " second nature." So, then, every man, when considered in the whole round of his potentialities as well as actual performances, is not simply, nor even perhaps chiefly, what he now consciously knows or remembers himself to be : he is also an " automaton." Of this automaton it may ordinarily be said, with a meaning that is something more than merely humorous, either, " I have it," or " It has me," or " I am it." But again, we may declare, " It is not-me ; " it is indeed something with which /often have much trouble and many a sore battle, and from which /receive much help or ill-usage, as either my best friend or my worst enemy. I have the automaton, because within certain limits (narrow enough, indeed, at some times) I can control it, and show ownership over it as over one of my belongings. But then again the automaton has me ; for in spite of my fixed deter- mination to depart, on due occasion or habitually, from its ordinary modes of procedure, its grasp upon me is not suc- cessfully broken by any number of conscious idealizations or THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 171 deeds of will. I am the automaton ; for, to be sure, what is this other, this puppet, but a part — and sometimes it would seem the more important part — of mj' own self-same Self ? But then, finally, I am not the automaton ; I externalize it, objectify it, objurgate and anathematize it ; or I give thanks to it, when it has carried me safely over places where, I should not, consciously and reflectively and voluntarily, have known what to do. Now, this partial separation of the Ugo and its automaton may, so far as time is concerned, be characterized chiefly by simultaneity, or chiefly by succession. In certain conditions which are entitled to be called normal (at least, if by " nor- mal " be meant the customary rather than the easily expli- cable), and which are indicative of the true and more abiding nature of mind, two closely related courses of functioning, each characterized by its appropriate form of consciousness (or by " no-consciousness," if the use of the word be allowed in this way), may run along together nearly side by side. Such a thing actually happens, in a limited way, whenever one is walking, while at the same time in conversation or in thought; whenever a skilled musician repeats some well-known com- position, or improvises, while mentally engaged with concerns of a far different order. Here it is the automaton chiefly which walks and plays, with little or no recognition or control from the self-conscious and reflective soul. Yet this so-called automaton is not purely physiological, but is partly psychical ; for a tolerably continuous train of co-consciousness — although it may be dim and not recognized as belonging to the Self — exists as an actual form of mental functioning in control of the bodily movements. In many cases of more than ordinarily exalted activity both the self-conscious, remembering, and thinking soul, and also the well-trained automaton with its dimly conscious or sub- conscious guidance of the impulsive, instinctive, and ideating activities, do splendid service by co-operating at the same 172 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. time. Not a few brilliant extemporaneous speeches have been made, or rare improvisations performed, when the self- conscious mind of the performer was far away, and occupied as it were with sad accusing thoughts, or with memories absorbing all its powers. The Ego then took little or no account of its automaton, and the automaton made little or no report of its doings to the Ego. But the automaton be- haved according to its office, as an automaton, quite as credi- tably as did the self-conscious, remembering, and reflecting soul. Indeed a large part of the most impressive art-work of the world, in all the various departments of art, has been per- formed, not so much with self-conscious ideation and reflec- tive purpose as with inspirations and forms of striving that seem born of a life beneath and above the self-conscious soul. The artist must then confess, " The work was done not so much hy us as for us, by another within us. It is only a pardon- able exaggeration which has in all ages made many of these workmen themselves declare their ignorance of the rules which governed them, and which has even compelled them to ascribe the work accomplished by them to some indwelling or overpowering divine influence.^ Thus the " automaton " becomes imaged as a genius, a damon, or a god, — another than me, a " not-me," and yet related in so intimate and peculiar a way to the self-known Self as to be liable at any time to be absorbed into it again. In other instances, perhaps not much more rare, the psy- chic automaton, instead of running its career in a sort of parallel course with the self-conscious Ego, so as to give the impression of two or more strata of consciousness lying 1 A recent investigation, undertaken to discover the principles consciously fol- lowed by the authors of successful theatrical compositions, however unfit for tt safe scientific generalization, makes clear this point of view. " Nous icnorons comment notre esprit s'y prend pour faire ime pitee de theatre,'' says one author. Another, M. Pailleron, even goes so far as to declare, "Si quelqu'un sait, aprfes avoir ecrit une bonne pifece, comment il s'y est pris, qu'il recommence." (Bevue Philosophique, Fevr. 1894, pp. 228 f.) THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 173 one beneath the other at different depths, as viewed from the superior point of view of self-consciousness, assumes for the time being nearly exclusive control. Many cases of artistic, military, or religious " inspiration " so-called, exhibit the phe- nomena of double consciousness in this form. Thus the war- rior, only after his frenzy in the battle has subsided, and even then but partially, becomes conscious by memory and infer- ence of what he has done ; but the consciousness which accompanied the actual transactions is more accurately de- scribed as that of " another " acting in ways and with impulses only very imperfectly known to the self-conscious mind. In extreme instances it requires all the force of the most con- vincing objective records — the testimony of eye- and ear- witnesses, or the changes effected in external things — to convince the actor himself that he did in fact so behave. Its own automaton astonishes the Self either by working in a relative independence of its control, and yet under its eye, for a season, or else by deeds which challenge self-conscious thought to account for them at all except by ascribing them to this automaton. Similar piienomena doubtless lie at the base of that language which has so frequently been employed to describe the results of religious inspiration. The Self is said to become the " scribe," the " organ," the " mouthpiece," the " penman," or even the " pen," of Another than the Self. Oftentimes — so Philo Judaeus declares of himself — when he has come to write upon a subject with his mind empty, all of a sudden it has become full ; thoughts have fallen from heaven like a shower of snow, or like seed from the hand of the sower, into his mind ; lie has become possessed of a Corybantic frenzy under the divine impulse ; he has become altogether ignorant of the place, of the persons present, of himself, and of what was said and written.^ In general, according to Philo, in inspiration the human withdraws completely before the 1 Quis rer. div. haer. t. i., p. 510. 174 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. divine; the finite soul yields up its place to a heavenly visitant.1 Extreme cases of " possession " or " obsession," and certain forms of insanity where the disordered sensations and mental images are objectified and personified so as to constitute, out of part of the mental phenomena, a sort of " double " which is recognized as standing in peculiar relations to the Ego, might, of course, be instanced in this connection. But why should illustrations for the principle be sought in unfamiliar and abnormal experiences ? In no unimportant way the same principle becomes operative in the case of almost every dreamer for all that portion of the twenty-four hours of his daily life which he passes in dreams. The phenomena of dream-life are, as a rule, so different from those of the waking life, so little remembered and self-consciously attributed to their real subject, that it is not difficult to consider them as belonging to some other than the Self with whom we are made acquainted by our waking states. Sometimes, indeed, these phenomena get themselves organized, as it were, into habitual forms of recurrence which present this other and much more purely automatic Self as markedly different in impulses, habits, environment, and even conscious feelings, ideas, and purposes, from the characteristics of the much more self-con- scious, self-active, and reflective Self of waking hours. Thus the automaton, that is in reality ours and yet is in some sort not-ourselves, comes to possess the entire time during which the stream of dream-consciousness is running, in a kind of daily succession with the true and higher Self. This automaton, so far as known at all, appears to us as more or less markedly unlike the self-known Self. It holds the reins by night and drives the rickety cart of consciousness in an irregular, freaky, and yet perhaps characteristically " tempera- 1 Tbe prophet is quite unconscious of everything he utters in this condition of ecstasy ; he cannot comprehend it, is indeed in utter ignorance of it ; he speaks all yiyoviis Iv iyvola. — De spec, leg., t. ii., p. 343. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 175 mental " way ; but by day we take the reins into our own hands, and " character," self-conscious thought, and choice direct the mind's chariot along the paths of what is real and true and good. Moreover, our entire waking life is characterized by succes- sive risings and fallings in the dominance of the psychically automatic individual and the self-conscious, reflecting, and self-active spirit. Repeatedly does each one catch one's self in the condition of being aroused from states in which half- blind impulse and nearly passive association spurred on by feeling have almost or quite absorbed the entire field of con- sciousness. Not infrequently, as one is aroused, one is wholly unable to remember, or can only descry as shadowy shapes, with faces turned from us and fleeing toward the gulf of oblivion, any of the mental images or other experiences be- longing to these states. " The psychic automaton " has been playing the prominent part upon the stage of mental life ; and it is conveying swiftly away its troop of actors, just as the eye of the intellectual and moral critic turns reflectively upon that stage. ^ Another less important and yet most suggestive class of facts, which throw much light on the more advanced cases of double consciousness, may be brought under a psychological principle for which we venture to suggest the phrase, the " dramatic sundering of the Ego." This class of facts, when subjected to thorough psychological analysis, and explained in the light of acknowledged psychological laws, instead of enabling us to dispense with the authority of self-conscious- ness, is found to have its very origin and significance only in a full recognition of the activities of self-consciousness. In other words, I can make myself seem to myself two or more selves, or I am able to appear to myself as two or more selves, 1 A discussion of the phenomena of double consciousness in hypnotic states, from the physiological and experimental points of view, which concludes that "hypno- sis consists in an artificially induced preponderance of the secondary (or auto- matic) Ego,'' may be found in Max Dessoir's " Das Doppel-Ich." Leipzig, 1890. 176 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. only as I am capable of constituting myself, and appearing to myself, as one and the same Self. That dramatic sundering of the Ego, upon which many of the most startling phenomena of double consciousness depend, is itself possible, in any ex- alted form, only for self-conscious and cognitively remember- ing minds. In discussing the nature and import of such phenomena of mental life, an appeal must be made to states of conscious- ness somewhat similar to those which were just referred to as coming under the principle of psychic automatism. And, indeed, " the psychic automaton," the " other-Self " more or less consciously created and recognized as the resul- tant of mental activities, and the creating "self-cognizing Self," get mixed together and interrelated in the actual mental life, in many most curious and interesting ways. When I dramatically put myself in another's place, think my thoughts as his thoughts, and feel the feelings appropriate to that other's imagined or known condition and environment, it is largely upon my own automaton, of course, that I draw both for material and for constructive energy. This state- ment simply involves an extension of the principle that all interpretation of the consciousness of others, all entering into human life in general, or into the specific form of life belong- ing to certain individuals, depends upon self-consciousness. Only as I know and remember my Self, and as I regard the forms and laws of mental behavior as unchanging, can I mentally represent others than that Self, — be they kings and queens, or thieves and beggars, among the children of men. This is true even of my thoughts about the psychic life of the lower animals, or the psychic side of plant-life, or the doings of "mind-stuff" as ?wmc?-stuff, or the quiescent and dreamy consciousness of some liypothetical " World-Soul." It is always the same I that puts itself into that other. No mat- ter how unlike what I really am that other may seem, for the time, to me to be ; and no matter how absorbed, even to the THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 177 temporary loss of all self-consciousness, I may become in that other, — all goes back to self-knowledge, to self-feeling, to consciousness of self-existence as one and the same. It is all this or nothing ; and there is no third to choose. The kinds and degrees, however, of this "dramatic sun- dering of the Ego," are many ; the variety of instances is almost innumerable. Among the most interesting and sug- gestive psychologically are the performances in which chil- dren indulge. In the development of early infancy the construction of the Ego as self-known, and the power to separate off this Self, and by an activity of lively imagination project it into another, proceed almost pari ^assw. Thus the young girl who plays the part of the patient does not simply pretend to be ill ; she has, according to the measure of her past experience and the vividness of her imagination, the real thoughts and feelings appropriate to the case. To pretend in earnest to be ill is really to be ill ; and no doubt some of the so- called real illness of her later years will be fully as much pi'e- tence as is this earlier play at illness. Yet she can, by dint of questioning, be called back at any time to the knowledge that she is not really ill, but is really only playing the part of patient. So that, after all, the healthy and normal Ego regards the Me, when made ill by imagination, as a sort of other Self. Nor does her companion who takes the part of doctor prove herself less equal to the peculiar task of artistic diremption imposed upon her. Or, by a scarcely greater stretch of activities in a similar direction, the same narrow personality of the child may break itself up into two so dissimilar selves as are a patient and the doctor; for the same child can play both patient to itself as doctor, and doctor to itself as patient. Who that has watched the skilful and quick shifting of the phases of consciousness, the successive appropriate objectifications, of the little mother with her doll, can doubt the psychic reality of what is thus accomplished ? But here the measure of the actual diremp- 12 178 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC, tion of the Ego thus secured is to be found in the child's pre- vious experience with its own Self. Both the process which makes the child a real child to itself as mothei-, and that which makes it a real mother to itself as child, presuppose and call forth a certain development of self-consciousness, of rec- ognitive memory, and of reflective thinking. Now it is in the exercise and development of these faculties that all the self- known reality and identity of mind has been found to consist ; and without these faculties it would be quite as impossible for such dramatic sundering of the Ego to take place at all as for the consciousness of Self to approach perfection. In dreams, too, this same psychological process often takes place in a startling way. Its result is connected with the answer to the question: Why do dream-images — absurd, changeable, and impossible as they are — become so objec- tive to the mind, so real to the dreamer, both during the dream and after he has awakened out of his immediate enthralment ? The true psychological answer to" this ques- tion reverses the ordinary impressions ; for all images, both those of waking life and those of dream-life, are originally alike both objective and subjective. It is only the critical operation of trained intellect, checking and correcting the native metaphysical tendency to objectify all mental images, which — in sane waking life — prevents such images from being considered realities as in dream-life have no difficulty in validating their spurious claim. And so it comes about that to the uncritical Self in dreams any of its performances may be appropriated ; and any other of its performances, equally its own, may get appropriated to some other object or other Self. For the dreamer, as says Delbceuf, is a "momen- tary and involuntary dupe of his own imagination," as the poet is "the momentary but voluntary dupe," and the insane man is " the permanent and involuntary dupe." ^ Instances of this dramatic sundering of the Ego in dreams, 1 Le Sommeil et les Eeves, p. 91. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 179 where part of the life of consciousness has been " split off " and organized into an impersonal object or another Self, are abundant enough. Why should it not be so in this state where the mind holds everything for true and real which fancy throws up before it ? ^ Thus we read of an asthmatic dreamer who, himself panting and sweating in sleep, saw one of the horses in the diligence in which he was taking a dream- ride over a mountainous road fall down and lie panting and sweating before his eyes. Said a sleeper on whose face Preyer sprinkled some sprays of water : " Pray take a cab ; it is rain- ing terribly." Not infrequently that other Self, whicii has been created by a "dramatization of selfhood" (so Delboeuf) out of certain selected " stuff " from the stream of conscious- ness, seems to get the better, either in action or in knowledge, of the seemingly real Self. Here might be mentioned the case of the boy who dreamed out correctly the construing of a difficult passage in Latin by hearing it igiven by a trium- phant rival, when he could himself make nothing out of it. In the same way M. Maury, by a dramatic sundering of the Ego in a dream, corrected the bad English of liis real Self by the good English of the other unreal Self. " I called for you yesterday," said he to his friend in his dream. "You should say, I called on you yesterday," responded the grammatical monitor which the dreaming consciousness had itself created. And was not Dr. Johnson once greatly vexed at being worsted by his opponent in an argument in a dream ? In all such instances taken from dream-life, the principle of simultaneous or successive action and interaction between the self-conscious Ego and its automaton, and the principle of more clearly conscious and intentional dramatic sunder- ing of the Ego by its own act, operate in ways that ren- der them almost indistinguishable. But there are certain familiar experiences of waking life which serve to clarify and 1 On the " dramatic sundering of the Ego " in dreams, compare Du Prel, " The Philosophy of Mysticism," vol. i. 112 f. 180 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. emphasize the latter of these two principles. Here again, as happens almost uniformly in the mental life, what is rated as highest and what is rated as lowest evince the same psycho- logical principles. Psychologically considered, the dreamer often becomes a constructive artist or a seer of no mean order ; and, on the other hand, the artist, the actor, the in- spired prophet, or even the ethically quickened man in his states of most intense moral consciousness, behaves in certain important respects as though in a dream. The experience of actors may be appealed to in illustration of this truth.i This experience, indeed, differs greatly as respects the completeness with which different and perhaps equally successful performers throw themselves into the per- sonality — with all its changes of feeling and thought, as fitted to the changing situations and the development of the plot — which they for the time being represent. Some actors testify that they not only appear to the audience to be the person whom they are dramatically presenting, but that they are to themselves that very same person ; they for the time being suffer his woes and rejoice in his triumphs. Their own true and normal self is absorbed in the characters of the plays they are acting ; so that it requires some shock, or other dis- tinct reason, for resuming meantime the selfhood which be- longs to this true self. Other actors claim, however, that they find it necessary to maintain constantly a reflective and critical attitude toward themselves ; they must consider themselves not as being temporarily the characters they represent, but rather as always playing a part. More careful psychological examination of all these cases seems to show that we are here dealing simply with a ques- tion of degrees. The actor who plays a part wholly without putting himself into it — if indeed such a thing be possible — is necessarily a hard, unfeeling, and untrue representative of 1 On this subject see the very suggestive inductive examination made by William Archer in his work. " Masks or Faces ? " THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. 181 that part. Some considerable genuine dramatic sundering of the Ego is indispensable to a satisfactory dramatic represen- tation of the person who is really other than this Ego. On the other hand, the actor who becomes so completely absorbed in the part he is playing as to lose all self-consciousness and critical reflective control over the projected secondary Ego, — who suffers the dramatic sundering to become so complete as that his own Self is finally lost in that other Self, — must either have such trained powers and such genius as that the automaton can be safely trusted with this important work, or he must probably fail of the highest success by over-doing the matter. In fact, we do not believe that either of these extremes is ever completely realized. What actually takes place is a kind of more or less intermittent intercourse between the two streams of consciousness. I as the actor observe the me that is now in the part I am acting. I am indeed living largely in that other who is so different in character, situation, and destiny from my own true Self. I am he ; and nowhere in the world perhaps does he exist just now except as the I that^ am absorbed more or less completely in him. And yet all the way through this absorp- tion of my Self in that other, my consciousness is shot through and through with perceptions, feelings, memories, and thoughts which are of my own true Self; and these lead me to distin- guish this other from that true Self ; although this other is in truth my own true Self acting a part. Perhaps the most marvellous example in all history of the achievements possible through this cultivation of native genius in the power of dramatic self-diremption was the novelist Balzac. Of this author we are told, so vivid was his sensuous imagination that the mental representation of a knife cutting his flesh anywhere produced the keen and lance-like pain that ordinarily requires actual cutting. It was not simply in some one other than himself that this man had the power of becom- ing absorbed. For he seems to have lived, as his own expe- 182 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF IDENTITY, ETC. rience while setting on the stage all the wonderfully varied characters of his " Com^die Huinaine," the whole round of the thoughts, feelings, and purposes of all the characters. They dined with him, slept with him, walked with him, and sat beside him in the room where he worked. The rather was he, as a self-conscious, remembering, and reflecting Self, con- stantly, for the voluntarily adopted purposes of his art, so projecting himself into these ideals as to create out of the projections veritable selves that ran their appropriate courses of history somewhat nearly parallel with one another, and with that stream of consciousness which was especially iden- tified as their author's own Other selves they were, set over against each other and against Ms Self ; and yet they were all Balzac's creations, the recognized and well-loved works of the creative genius of this central Self. Particularly interesting and instructive for the study of the same psychological problem is the experience of the ancient Hebrew prophets, and indeed the prophetic consciousness gen- erally. The very basis of the experience which belongs to prophetic inspiration is laid in a certain dramatic sundering of the Ego. To become consciously inspired, the subject of inspiration must recognize an Other than his own Self, stand- ing over against this Self and holding some form of commu- nion with it ; and yet, as to the existence and character of this Other — lo! it appears that it is in the Self that is in- spired (for inspiration which is external is not inspiration at all), and that its character corresponds to and is determined by certain of the thoughts, feelings, and purposes belonging to the normal Self. These thoughts, feelings, and purposes have organized themselves into another One than the Self in which they were themselves born.' In view of this experi- ence the Hebrew prophets describe their state of inspiration ^ This view is psychologically true, as all the phenomena of prophetisin among the Hebrews and elsewhere abundantly show ; and this as quite independent of whatever answer may be given to the inquiry after their more ultimate ori