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THE 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL 
 
 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 FROM ITS ORIGIN IN GREECE DOWN TO 
 THE PRESENT DAY. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE HENRY LEWES. 
 
 ^ JYiftn is not born to solve the mystery of Existence ; but be must nevertheless attempt iL 
 ia order that he may learn how to keep within the limits of the Knowable.” — Goethk. 
 
 * For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 
 And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns.” 
 
 Tennysson. 
 
 (!. 
 
 LIBRARY EDITION, 
 
 MUCH ENI.AKGED AND THORODGnLY REVISED. 
 
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 VOL. IT. 
 
 £ 9 
 
 XEW YOEK: 
 
 D. APPLETOIL A^D COMPANY 
 
 1, 3, AND 6 BOND STREET. 
 
 
 1890. 
 
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 "VJ 
 
 • V ,.V 
 
[O'/ 
 
 PART II. 
 
 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.- 
 
 10 ^9 8 - 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD. 
 
 FEOM PEOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 § I. Scholasticism. 
 
 Although Modern Philosophy, rigorously defined, commences 
 Tilth Bacon and Descartes, from whom a distinct development is 
 traceable, such as the purpose of this History requires, we must 
 not pass from Proclus to Bacon without at least a rapid glance 
 ai the course of speculative activity during the intervening twelve 
 centuiies. Mediaeval Philosophy has been much decried and 
 much exalted, but very little studied. So vast a subject demands 
 a patience and erudition few can bring to it. Fortunately for 
 me, whose knowledge of Scholasticism is limited to a supei’ficial 
 acquaintance with some of the works of Aquinas, Abelard, and 
 Averroes, the nature of this History excludes any detailed exam- 
 ination of mediaeval speculations. Consulting my own resources 
 and the reader’s interest, I find that the whole career of philo- 
 sophic inquiry, from Proclus to Bacon, can be presented in three 
 typical figures : namely, Abelard, as representing Scholasticism ; 
 Algazzali, as representing Arabian philosophy ; and Giordanc 
 Bruno, as representing the philosophic struggle which overthrew 
 the authority of Aristotle and the Church. These three thinkers 
 I have studied more or less in their own writings ; and the 
 reader will understand, therefore, that the following sketch is 
 wholly drawn from second-hand knowledge in all but these three 
 instances. 
 
 With the Alexandrians, Philosophy, as we have seen, became 
 absorbed in Religion. The Alexandrians were succeeded by the 
 Christian Fathers, who of course made Philosophy the handmaid 
 
34:4 
 
 FROM PEOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 to Religion — ancilla Theologies. The whole philosophic etFort 
 was to mediate between the dogmas of faith and the demands ot 
 reason. Scholasticism derives its name from the schools opened 
 by Charlemagne for the prosecution, of speculative studies, which 
 were only prosecuted in those days by the clergy, they alone 
 having leisure or inclination for such work. Thus did the Mon- 
 asteries form the cradle of Modern Philosophy.* 1 
 
 As far as we can separate the philosophic from the theological 
 element, it displays itself in three capital manifestations : 1st, The 
 debate on Universals ; 2d, The influence of the Arabians, espe- 
 cially in their introduction of the works of Aristotle ; and 3d, 
 The rebellion against Aristotle and all other authority in the 
 proclamation of the independence of Reason. 
 
 There was no separation at all until the ninth century, when, 
 in the person of Scotus Erigena, Philosophy timidly claimed its 
 privilege. And even Scotus Erigena said, “ There are not two 
 studies, one of philosophy and one of religion ; true philosophy 
 is true religion, and true religion is true philosophy.” In the 
 eleventh century appeared Roscellinus, who, in advocating the 
 philosophic doctrine of Nominalism, not only separated Philos- 
 ophy from Religion, but placed it in direct antagonism with the 
 fundamental dogma of the Trinity. To understand this we must 
 remember that in those days there was a profound and even 
 servile submission to the double authority of the Church and the 
 Greek Philosophers, — a submission necessarily resulting from the 
 teaching of the Fathers, who always combined the two. The 
 works of Greek Philosophers were, however, but scantily known 
 through Latin translations and commentaries ; but this perhaps 
 increased the eagerness to know them ; and thus all doctrine be- 
 
 * Victor Cousin, Hist, de la Phil. ii. 9eme Lc(;on. The various historians 
 of Philosophy, especially Eitter and Tennemann, should be consulted ; but 
 the clearest and most readable work known to me is M. Kousselot’s Etudes 
 sur la Phihsophie dans le Moyen Age, 8 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1840. M. Remusat’s 
 Abelard, 2 vols. Paris, 1845, by its analysis of Abelard s works, gives also a 
 very good idea of Scholastic speculation. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM. 
 
 3i5 
 
 came, in fact, erudition. To interpret Aristotle was to establish 
 philosophy. It is a common error to suppose that Aristotle at 
 once and always reigned despotically over the philosophy of the 
 Middle Ages. As M. Rousselot* remarks, there were two dis- 
 tinct characters in Aristotle then accepted ; there was first the 
 Logician, whose word was law , — magister dixit , — whose Organon 
 was the Bible of the schools, — whose authority no one thought 
 of questioning ; and there was also the Metaphysician, who, so 
 far from receiving the worship offered to the Logician, was per- 
 secuted, excommunicated, and burned, because his metaphysical 
 doctrine was thought to contain the fatal heresy of the unity of 
 substance.f It was not until after Abelard, and owing to the 
 Arabian influence, that Aristotle passed — to use M. Remusat’s 
 happy phrase — from the consulship to the dictatorship of Phi- 
 losophy.J 
 
 Plato taught Realism. He maintained the existence of Ab- 
 stract Ideas, as Objects or Substances. Aristotle, on the con- 
 trary, taught that Abstract Ideas were nothing but abstractions ; 
 general names, not general things. Early Scholasticism adopted 
 Realism ; and when Roscellinus by subtle argumentation proved 
 that genera and species were nothing more than logical construc- 
 tions, general terms, flatus vocis, without corresponding essences, 
 it was soon evident that he was in antagonism with the dogma 
 of the Trinity. “That Universal which you call Trinity cannot 
 exist ; and as the relations which unite these three divine persons 
 do not exist, the Trinity cannot exist. There is either one God 
 or three ; if there is but one, he exists in a single person ; it 
 there are three, there are three beings separate, distinct.” 
 
 The consequence of such heresy may be foreseen. Roscellinus 
 was summoned before the Council of Soissons, and there forced 
 
 * Etudes sur la Philos, i. 173. 
 
 t Jourdain, in his erudite work, Eecherches sur Vage et V origins des Tra- 
 ductions d'Aristote, has placed this condemnation of Aristotle beyond a 
 doubt. 
 
 t Ahelard, i. 316. 
 
34G 
 
 FKOM PKOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 publicly to recant. He escaped to England, and perished in 
 exile ; but the seed he had soAvn fructified, and Nominalism after- 
 wards became the reigning doctrine. The amount of verbal 
 quibbling and idle distinctions employed on this famous question 
 is only greater than that employed on other questions, because of 
 its greater importance. No one can form an adequate idea of 
 the frivolity and wearisome prolixity of these Schoolmen without 
 opening one of their books ; and even after having done so, it 
 will remain incomprehensible how sane and earnest intellects 
 could have contented themselves with such grinding of the air 
 in metaphysic mills, unless we understand the error which mis- 
 led them. The error was in mistaking logical constructions for 
 truths, believing ideas to be the correlates of things, so that 
 whatever was discernible in the mental combination was neces- 
 sarily true of external facts. The Schoolmen analyzed the ele- 
 ments of speech and thought with the pertinacious eagerness now 
 employed by chemists in analyzing the elements of bodies. This 
 error is the fundamental error, principium et fans, of all meta- 
 physical speculation ; and with an ill grace do metaphysicians 
 ridicule the follies of the Schoolmen, who only carried to excess 
 the metaphysical Method of unverified Deduction. It may be 
 true that Scholastic philosojjhy was for the most part a dispute 
 about words, but it is not for metaphysicians to cast the re- 
 proach ; and the defenders of Scholasticism have an easy task 
 when they undertake to show that beneath these verbal disputes 
 lay the deepest problems of Ontology. 
 
 § II. Life of Abexarb. 
 
 The name of Abelard has been immortalized by association 
 with that of a noble woman. It is because Heloise loved him, 
 that posterity feels interested in him. M. Michelet indeed thinks 
 that to Abelard she owes her fame: “without his misfortunes 
 she would have remained obscure, unheard of;” and in one sense 
 this is true ; but true it also is that, without her love, Abelaid 
 would have long ago ceased to inspire any interest ; for his wa.« 
 
LIFE OF ABELAKD. 
 
 347 
 
 essentially a shallow, selfish nature. His popularity was rapid, 
 loud, and scandalous. He was fitted for it, lived for it. But 
 many a greater name has faded from the memories of men ; 
 many a once noisy reputation fails to awaken a single echo in 
 posterity. Apart from the consecration of passion and misfor- 
 tune, there is little in his life to excite our sympathy. Viewed 
 in connection with Heloise he must always interest us ; viewed 
 away from her, he presents the figure of a quick, vivacious, un- 
 scrupulous, intensely vain Frenchman. But, in several respects, 
 he represents the philosophic struggle of the twelfth century ; and 
 in this light we may consider him. 
 
 He was horn in Brittany in 1079, of a noble family, named 
 Berenger. The name of Abelard came to him later. His mas- 
 ter laughingly noticed his superficial manner of passing over 
 some studies, filled as he was with others, and said, “ When a 
 dog is well filled, he can do no more than lick the bacon.” The 
 word to lick, in the corrupt Latin of that day, was bajare, and 
 Bajolardus became the cognomen of this “ bacon-licking student” 
 among his comrades, which he converted into Habelardus, “ se 
 vantant ainsi de posseder ce qu’on I’accusait de ne pouvoir pren- 
 dre.”* In the ancient writers the name is variously spelled, as 
 Abailardus, Abaielardus, Abaulardus, Abbajalarius, Baalaurdus, 
 Belardus, and in French as Abeillard, Abayelard, Abalard, Abau- 
 lard, Abaalary, Allebart, Abulard, Beillard, Baillard, Balard, and 
 even Esbaillart ; which variations seem to imply that the old 
 French writers were as accurate in their gelling of proper names 
 as their descendants are in their use of English and German 
 names. 
 
 Abelard’s father joined to his knightly accomplishments a taste 
 for literature, as literature was then understood ; and this taste 
 
 * Ahelari, par M. Charles de Eemusat, Paris 1845, p. 13. This valuable 
 monograph contains the fullest biography of Abelard and the best analysis 
 of his works yet published. Indeed, before M. Cousin published the works 
 of Abelard, in 1836, every account of the philosophy of this thinker was ae 
 cessarily meagre and erroneous. 
 
348 
 
 ■ FROM PKOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 became so dominant in the mind of tbe youth, that be renounced 
 the career of arms altogether for that of learning. Dialectics 
 was the great science of that day, almost rivalling in importance 
 the Theology which it served and disturbed by turns. It was 
 an exercise of intellectual ingenuity, for which this youth mani- 
 fested surprising aptitude. He travelled through various prov 
 inces disputing with all comers, like a knight-errant of philoso 
 phy, urged thereto by the goading desire of notoriety. This 
 love of notoriety was his curse through life. At the age of 
 twenty he came to Paris, hoping there to find a fitting opportu- 
 nity of display — an arena for his powers as a disputant. He at- 
 tended the lectures of William de Champeaux, the most re- 
 nowned master of disputation, to whom students flocked from 
 all the cities of Europe. The new pupil soon excited attention. 
 The beauty of his person, the easy grace of his manner, his mar- 
 vellous aptitude for learning, and still more marvellous facility of 
 expression, soon distinguished him from the rest. The master 
 grew proud of his pupil, loved him through his pride, and 
 doubtless looked on him as a successor. But it soon became 
 evident that the pupil, so quick at learning, did not sit there 
 merely to learn ; he was waiting for some good opportunity of 
 display, waiting to attack his venerable master, whose secret 
 strength and weakness he had discovered. The opportunity 
 came ; he rose up, and in the midst of all the students provoked 
 William de Champeaux to discussion, harassed, and finally van- 
 quished him. Rage and astonishment agitated the students 
 rage and terror the master. The students were indignant be- 
 cause they clearly saw Abelard’s motive. 
 
 Abelard dates the origin of all his woes from this occasion, 
 when he created enmities which pursued him through life ; and, 
 with a sophistication common to such natures, he attributes the 
 enmities to envy at his ability, instead of to the real causes, 
 namely, his inordinate vanity and selfishness. For a tim.e, indeed, 
 the rupture with his master seemed successful. Although only 
 two-and-twenty years of age, he' established a school of Philos 
 
LIFE OF ABELAED. 
 
 349 
 
 ophy at Melun, whicli became numerously attended, and spread 
 his name far and wide. Emboldened by success, be removed 
 his school still nearer to Paris — to Corbeil — in order, as he 
 frankly tells us, that he might be more importunate to his old 
 master. But his rival was still powerful, aged in science and 
 respect. Intense application was necessary, and in the struggle 
 Abelard’s overtasked energies gave way. He was commanded 
 by the physicians to shut up his school, and retire into the coun- 
 try for repose and fresh air. 
 
 In two years he returned to Paris, and saw with delight that 
 his reputation had not been weakened by absence, but that on the 
 contrary his scholars were more eager than ever. His old an- 
 tagonist, William de-Champeaux, had renounced the world, and 
 retired to a cloister, where he opened the school of Saint Victor, 
 afterwards so celebrated. His great reputation, although suffer- 
 ing from Abelard’s attacks, drew crowds. One day, when the 
 audience was most numerous, he was startled by the appearance 
 of Abelard among the students, come, as he said, to learn rhet- 
 oric. William was troubled, but continued his lecture. Abe- 
 lard was silent until the question of “Universals” was brought 
 forward, and then suddenly changing from a disciple to an antag- 
 onist, he harassed the old man with such rapidity and unexpect- 
 edness of assault, that William confessed himself defeated, and 
 retracted his opinion. That retractation was the death of his in- 
 fluence. His audience rapidly dwindled. No one would listen 
 to the minor points of Dialectics from one who confessed himself 
 beaten on the cardinal point of all. The disciples passed over 
 to the victor. When the combat is fierce between two lordly 
 stags, the hinds stand quietly by, watching the issue of the con- 
 test, and if their former lord and master, once followed and re- 
 spected, is worsted, they all without hesitation pass over to the 
 conquei'or, and henceforth follow him. Abelard’s school became 
 acknowledged as pre-eminent; and, as if to give his triumph 
 greater emphasis, the professor to whom William de Champeaux 
 had resigned his chair, was either so intimidated by Abelard’s 
 25 
 
350 
 
 FROM PROCLUS TO BACON, 
 
 audacity, or so subjugated by bis ability, that he offered his chaii 
 to Abekrd, and ranged himself among the disciples. 
 
 Abelard was not content even with this victory. Although 
 undisputed master in Dialectics, he could not hear of any other 
 teacher without envy. A certain Anselm taught Theology at 
 Laon with immense success; and this was enough to trouble 
 Abelard’s repose; accordingly to Laon he went, ridiculed An- 
 selm’s style, laughed at the puerile admiration of the scholars, 
 and offered to surpass the master in the explanation of Scripture. 
 The scholars first laughed, then listened, and admired. Abelard 
 departed, having excited anarchy in the school, and anguish in 
 the heart of the old man. 
 
 His career, at this period, was brilliant. His reputation had 
 risen above that of every living man. His eloquence and sub- 
 tlety charmed hundreds of serious students, who thronged be- 
 neath the shadows of the Cathedral in ceaseless disputation, 
 thinking more of success in dispute than of the truths involved. 
 M. Guizot estimates these students at not less than five thousand 
 — of course not all at the same time. Amidst these crowds, 
 Abelard might be seen moving with imposing haughtiness of 
 carriage, not without the careless indolence which success had 
 given ; handsome, manly, gallant-looking, the object of incessant 
 admiration. His songs were sung in the streets, his arguments 
 were repeated in cloisters. The multitude reverentially made 
 way for him, as he passed ; and from behind their window-cur- 
 tains peeped the curious eyes of women. His name was carried 
 to every city in Europe. The Pope sent hearers to him. He 
 reigned, and he reigned alone.* 
 
 It was at this period that the charms and helpless position of 
 Heloise attracted his vanity and selfishness. He resolved to se- 
 duce her ; resolved it, as he confesses, after mature deliberation. 
 He thought she would be an easy victim ; and he who had lived 
 
 * “ Cum jam me solum in munJo superesse philosopham aestimarem. 
 i. p. 9. 
 
LIFE OF ABELAED. 
 
 351 
 
 ■ji abhorrence of libertinage — seortorum immunditiam semper aJb- 
 horreham — felt that he had now attained such a position that he 
 might indulge himself with impunity. We are not here attrib- 
 uting hypothetic scoundrelism to Abelard ; we are but repeat- 
 ing his own statements. “I thought, too,” he adds, “that I 
 should the more easily gain the girl’s consent, knowing as I did 
 to how great a degree she both possessed learning and loved it.” 
 He tells us how he “ sought an opportunity of bringing her into 
 familiar and daily intercourse with me, and so drawing her the 
 more easily to consent to my wishes. With this view I made a 
 proposal to her uncle, through certain of his friends, that he 
 should receive me as an inmate of his house, which was very near 
 to my school, on whatever terms of remuneration he chose ; 
 alleging as my reason that I found the care of a household an 
 impediment to study, and its expense too burdensome.” The 
 uncle, Fulbert, was prompted by avarice, and the prospect of 
 gaining instruction for his niece, to consent. He committed her 
 entirely to Abelard’s charge, “in order that whenever I should 
 be at leisure from the school, whether by day or by night, I 
 might take the trouble of instructing her ; and should I find her 
 negligent, use forcible compulsion. Hereupon I wondered at 
 the man’s excessive simplicity, with no less amazement than if I 
 had beheld him intrust a lamb to the care of a famishing wolf ; 
 for in thus placing the girl in my hands for me not only to teach, 
 but to use forcible coercion, what did he do but give full liberty 
 to my desires, and offer the opportunity, even had it not been 
 sought, seeing that, should enticement fail, I might use threats 
 and stripes in order to subdue her ?”* 
 
 The crude brutality of this confession would induce us to 
 suppose it was a specimen of that strange illusion which often 
 makes refiective and analytic minds believe that their enthusiasms 
 and passions were calculations, had we not sufficient evidence, 
 throughout Abelard’s life, of his intense selfishness and voracious 
 
 See i. 
 
352 
 
 FROM PROCLtrS TO BACON. 
 
 vanity. Whatever the motive, the incident is curious ; history 
 has no other such example of passionate devotion filling the mind 
 of a woman for a dialectician. It was dialectics he taught her ; 
 since he could teach her nothing else. She was a much better 
 scholar than he ; in many respects better read. She was perfect 
 mistress of Latin, and knew enough Greek and Hebrew to form 
 the basis of her future proficiency. He knew nothing of Greek 
 or Hebrew, although all his biographers, except M. Remusat, as- 
 sume that he knew them both ; M. Michelet, even asserting that 
 he was the only man who did then know them.* In the study 
 of arid dialectics, then, must we imagine Abelard and Heloise 
 thrown together ; and, in the dally communion of their minds, 
 passion ripened, steeped in that vague, dream-like, but intense 
 delight, produced by the contact of great intelligences ; and thus, 
 as the Spanish translator of her letters says, “ buscando siempre 
 con pretexto del estudio los parages mas retirados” — they sought 
 in the still air and countenance of delightful studies a solitude 
 more exquisite than any society. “ The books were open before 
 us,” says Abelard, “ but we talked more of love than philosophy, 
 and kisses were more frequent than sentences.”f 
 
 In spite of the prudential necessity for keeping this intrigue 
 secret, Abelard’s truly French vanity overcame his prudence. 
 He had written love-songs to Heloise ; and with the egotism ot 
 a bad poet and indelicate lover, he was anxious for these songs 
 to be read by other eyes besides those for whom they were com- 
 posed ; anxious that other men should know his conquest. His 
 
 * He knew a few terms current in the theological literature of the day, but 
 had he known more, his ostentatious vanity would have exhibited the knowl- 
 edge on all occasions. He expressly declares, moreover, that he was forced 
 to read Greek authors in Latin versions. See Cousin’s edition of the (Euvres 
 Inedites, p. 43 ; also Dialectica, p. 200, where the non-existence of Latin ver- 
 sions is given as the reason of his ignorance of what Aristotle says in his 
 Physics and Metaphysics. 
 
 t Epist. i. p. 11. He adds, with his usual crudity: “ Et saepius ad sinus 
 quam ad libros reducebantur manus.” Madame Guizot excellently hidioates 
 the distinction between his sensual descriptions and the chaster, chough 
 more passionate, language of Heloise ; “ die rappelk, mais ne detad < p/vni 
 
LIFE OF ABELAKD. 
 
 353 
 
 iongs were soon bandied about the streets. All Paris was in 
 the secret of his intrigue. That which a delicate lover, out of 
 delicacy, and a sensible lover, out of prudence, would have hid- 
 den from the world, this coxcomb suffered to be profaned by 
 being bawled from idle and indifferent mouths.* 
 
 At length even Fulbert became aware of what was passing 
 under his roof. A separation took place ; but the lovers contin- 
 ued to meet in secret. Heloise soon found herself pregnant, and 
 Abelard arranged for her an escape to Brittany, where she resided 
 with his sister, and gave birth to a son. When Fulbert heard of 
 her flight, he was franuo with rage. Abelard came cringing to 
 him, imploring pardon, recalling to him how the greatest men 
 had been cast down by women, accused himself of treachery, and 
 offered the reparation of marriage provided it were kept secret ; 
 because his marriage, if made known, would be an obstacle to 
 hir rising in the Church, and the mitre already glimmered before 
 his ambitious eyes. Fulbert consented. But Heloise, with 
 womanly self-abnegation, would not consent. She would not 
 rob the world of its greatest luminary. “ I should hate this mar- 
 riage,” she exclaimed, “because it would be an opprobrium and 
 a calamity.” She recalled to Abelard various passages in Scrip- 
 ture and ancient writers, in which wives are accursed, pointing 
 out to him how impossible it would be for him to consecrate 
 himself to philosophy unless he were free ; how could he study 
 amid the noises of children and domestic troubles of a house- 
 hold ? how much more honorable it would be for her to sacrifice 
 herself to him ! She would be his concubine. The more she 
 humiliated herself for him, the greater would be her claims upon 
 his love ; and thus she would be no obstacle to his advancement, 
 no impediment to the free development of his genius. 
 
 * That this vanity and indelicacy are eminently French, though unhappily 
 not exclusively French, will be admitted by all who are conversant with the 
 dfe and literature of that remarkable people. It had not escaped the pier- 
 cing gaze and healthy instincts of Moliere, who has an admirable passage on 
 this national peculiarity; see Arnolphe’s monologue, act. iii. scene iiL of 
 VEcole des Femmes. 
 
354 
 
 FROM PROCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 “I call God to witness,” she wrote many years afterwards, 
 “ that if Augustus, the emperor of the world, had deemed me 
 worthy of his hand, and would have given me the universe for a 
 throne, the name of your concubine would have been more glori- 
 ous to me than that of his empress ; carius mihi et dignias vide- 
 retur tua did meretrix quam illius imperatrix'' 
 
 Gladly would Abelard have profited by this sublime passion ; 
 but he was a coward, and his heart trembled before Fulbert. He 
 therefore endeavored to answer her arguments; and she, finding 
 that his resolution was fixed — a resolution which he very char- 
 acteristically calls a bit of stupidity, meam stultitiam — burst into 
 tears, and consented to the marriage, which was performed with 
 all secrecy. Fulbert and his servants, however, in violation of 
 their oath, divulged the secret. Whereupon Heloise boldly denied 
 that she was married. The scandal became great; but she per- 
 sisted in her denials, and Fulbert drove her from the house with 
 reproaches. Abelard removed her to the nunnery of Argenteuib 
 where she assumed the monastic dress, though without taking 
 the veil. Abelard furtively visited her.* Meanwhile Fulbert’s 
 suspicions were roused, lest this seclusion in the nunnery should 
 be but the first step to her taking the veil, and so ridding Abe- 
 lard of all impediment. Those were violent and brutal times, but 
 the vengeance of Fulbert startled even the Paris of those days 
 with horror. With his friends and accomplices, he surprised 
 Abelard sleeping, and there inflicted that atrocious mutilation, 
 which Origen in a moment of religious frenzy inflicted on him- 
 self. 
 
 In shame and anguish Abelard sought the refuge of a cloister. 
 He became a monk. But the intense selfishness of the man 
 would not permit him to renounce the world without also forcing 
 Heloise to renounce it. Obedient to his commands, she took the 
 
 * Ho adds “ Nosti . . . quid ibi tecum mea libidinis egerit intemperantia 
 in quadam etiam parte ipsius refectorii. Nosti id impudentissime tune ac- 
 tum esse in tarn reverendo loco et summse Virgini conseorato.” — Epist. v 
 
 ». 69 . 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF ABELAED. 
 
 355 
 
 veil ; thus once again sacrificing herself to him whom she had 
 accepted as a husband with unselfish regret, and whom she aban- 
 doned in trembling, to devote herself henceforth without hope, 
 without faith, without love, to her divine husband. 
 
 The gates of the convent closed forever on that noble woman 
 whose story continues one of pure heroism to the last; but we 
 cannot pause to narrate it here. With her disappearance, the 
 great interest in Abelard disappears ; we shall not therefore de- 
 tail the various episodes of his subsequent careei’, taken up for 
 the most part with quarrels — first with the monks, whose dis- 
 soluteness he reproved, next with theologians, whose hatred he 
 roused by the “ heresy” of reasoning. He was condemned pub- 
 licly to retract ; he was persecuted as a heretic ; he had ventured 
 to introduce Rationalism, — or the explanation of the dogmas of 
 Faith by Reason, — and he suffered, as men always suffer for 
 novelties of doctrine. He founded the convent of Paraclete, of 
 which Heloise was the first abbess, and on the 21st of April, 1142, 
 he expired, aged sixty-three. “ II vecut dans I’angoisse et mourut 
 dans rhumiliation,” says M. de Remusat, “ mais il eut de la gloire 
 et il fut aime.” 
 
 § III. Philosophy of Abelard. 
 
 It would not be difficult to fill a volume with the exposition of 
 Abelard’s philosophy ; indeed, in M. de Remusat’s work a volume 
 and a quarter are devoted to the subject w’ithout exhausting it. 
 But the nature of this History, and the necessities of space, 
 equally force us to be very brief. Abelard’s contributions to the 
 development of speculation may all be reduced to two points ; 
 the question of Universals, and the systematic introduction of 
 Reason as an independent element in theology, capable not only 
 of explaining dogmas, but of giving dogmas of its own. 
 
 “ The nature of genera and species has formed perhaps the 
 longest and most animated, and certainly the most abstract con- 
 troversy which has ever agitated the human mind,” says M. de 
 Remusat, who adds, “ that it is also one which now seems the 
 
56 
 
 FROM PKOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 least likely to have interested men so deeply.” The same will, 
 probably, one day be said of the question of Immaterialism and 
 Materialism, a logomachy as great, as animated, and as remote 
 from all practical results, as that of Universals, but which, from 
 its supposed relation to religious truths, has been made the great 
 controversy of the schools. In our day there are few speculators 
 who do not believe that important religious principles are indis- 
 solubly connected witli. the doctrine of an immaterial principle 
 superadded to, and in nowise identical with, the brain ; and this 
 in spite of the indisputable fact that the early Christian Fathers 
 maintained the materiality not only of the soul, birt of God him- 
 self in spite also of the many pious moderns of unimpeachable 
 orthodoxy who held, and hold, the doctrines stigmatized as Ma- 
 terialism, and who think with Occam : “ Experimur enim quod 
 iutelligimus et volumus et nolumus, et similes actus in nobis 
 habemus ; sed quod ilia sint e formA immateriali et incorrujpti- 
 bili non experimur, et omnis ratio ad hujus probationem assumpta 
 assumit aliquod dubium.”f 
 
 Although, therefore, the intense feeling stirred by the dispute 
 respecting Universals ajrpears incomprehensible to us, who con- 
 sider the dispute to have been a log'omachy, for the most part; 
 we may render intelligible to ourselves how such a dispute came 
 to be so important, by considering the importance now attached 
 to the dispute respecting an “ immaterial principle.” Idle or im- 
 portant, it was the dispute of the Middle Ages; and M. Cousin 
 is guilty of no exaggeration in saying “the whole Scholastic 
 philosophy issued out of a phrase in Porphyry as interpreted by 
 Boethius.” Here is the passage : “ Intentio Porphyrii est in hoc 
 opere facilem intellectum ad praedicamenta prseparare tractando 
 
 Tertullian wrote a work expressly to combat the immaterialism of Plato 
 and Aristotle. One sentence will suffice to bear out what is said above re- 
 specting God : “ Quis autem negabit Beum esse corpus, etsi Deus spiritusP' 
 M. Guizot, in his legons sur VHist. de la Civilisation en France, and M. Eous- 
 seiot’s Etudes sur la PMlos. dans le Moyen Age, will furnish the reader with 
 other examples. 
 
 + We borrow the passage from Eousselot’s Etudes, iii. 256. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF ABELAED. 
 
 357 
 
 de quiuque rebus vel vocibus, genere scilicet, specie, diflPerentia, 
 proprio et accidenti ; quorum cognitio valet ad praedicamentorum 
 cognitiouem.”* In the phrase reius vel vocibus he was under- 
 stood to signify that things and words were mutually convertible; 
 to discourse of one or of the other was indifferent ; and the ques- 
 tion turned upon this point : Does the word Genus, or the word 
 Species, represent an actual something, existing externally, — or 
 is it a mere wame which designates a certain collection of indi- 
 viduals ? The former opinion was held until Roscellinus attacked 
 it, and brought forward the heresy of Nominalism with such 
 force of argument that, although the heresy was condemned, the 
 logic forced its way; and Abelard, when he attacked the doctrine 
 of Realism, taught by William de Champeaux, borrowed so much 
 of the Nominalist argument that until quite recently he has been 
 called a Nominalist himself. That he was not a pure Nominalist 
 is now clear ; and M. Rousselot has even made out an ingenious 
 case for him as a Realist. But, in truth, he was entirely neither; 
 he was something of both ; he was a Conceptualist. The pe- 
 culiarity of his doctrine consists in the distinction of Matter and 
 Form applied to genus and .species. “Every individual,” he says 
 in a very explicit passage of the treatise De Generihus et Specie- 
 bus, printed by M. Cousin, “is composed of matter and form, i.e. 
 Socrates from the matter of Man, and the form of Socratity ; so 
 Plato is of the same matter, namely that of man, but of different 
 form, namely that of Platonity ; and so of all other individual 
 men. And just as the Socratity which formally constitutes Soc- 
 rates is nowhere but in Socrates, so the essence of man which 
 sustains Socratity in Socrates, is nowhere but in Socrates. The 
 same of all other individuals. By species therefore I mean, not 
 that essence of man which alone is in Socrates, or in any other 
 individual, but, the whole collection which is formed of all the 
 
 * “The object of Porphyry in this work is to prepare the mind for the 
 easy understanding of the Predicaments, by treating of the five things or 
 words, namely, genus, species, difference, property, and accident ; tha 
 knowledge of which leads to the knowledge of the Predicaments.” 
 
358 
 
 FKOM PKOCLtrS TO BACON. 
 
 individuals of the same nature. This whole collection, although 
 esseutially multiple, by the Authorities is named one Species, one 
 Universal, one Nature ; just as a nation, although composed of 
 many persons, is called one. Thus each particular essence of the 
 collection called Humanity is composed of matter and form, 
 namely the animal is matter, the form is however not one, but 
 many, i. e. rationality, morality, bipedality, and all the other sub- 
 stantial attributes. And that which is said of man, namely that 
 the part of man which sustains Socratity is not essentially the 
 part which sustains Platonity, is true also of the Animal.* For 
 the Animal which in me is the form of Humanity, cannot essen- 
 tially be elsewhere ; but there is in it something not different 
 from the separate elements of individual animals. Hence, I call 
 Genus the multitude of animal essences which sustain the indi- 
 vidual species of Animal : the multitude diversified by that which 
 forms Species. For this latter is only composed by a collection 
 of essences which sustain individual forms ; Genus, on the con- 
 trary, is composed by a collection of the substantial differences 
 of different Species. . . . The particular essence which forms the 
 Genus Animal, results from a certain matter, essence of body, 
 and substantial forms, animation and sensibility, which can only 
 exist essentially there, although they take indifferently the forms 
 of all species of body. This union of essences produces the uni- 
 versal named Animal Nature.”f 
 
 This passage will give the reader a taste of Abelard’s quality 
 when he is least tiresome from it we see clearly enough the kind 
 of reality which he attributed to general terms, in opposition to 
 the Nominalists, who taught that terms were only terms; ho 
 said they were terms which expressed conceptions^ and these con- 
 
 * We must subjoin the original : “ Et sicut de homine dictum est, scilicet 
 quod illud hominis quod sustinet Socratitatem, illud essentialiter non sus- 
 tinet Platonitatern, ita de animali. Nam illud animal quod formam humani- 
 tatis quos in me est, sustinet, illud essentialiter alibi non est, sed illi non 
 diffcrens est et singulis materiis singulorum individuorum animalis.” 
 t De G-emribus et Speciebus, p. 524. 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF ABELAHD. 
 
 359 
 
 ceptions were based on realities : as when a multitude is con- 
 ceived under the form of unity, linking together all the actual 
 resemblances existing between the individuals. This looks so 
 very like Realism, that M. Rousselot may be pardoned for having 
 argued at great length the paradoxical thesis of Abelard’s being 
 a Realist ; but a closer examination of the treatise from which 
 we have just cited a long passage, proves that Abelard did not 
 deceive himself in maintaining the Realist doctrine to be errone- 
 ous from his point of view. He maintained that genus and 
 species were not general essences existing essentially and inte- 
 grally in the individuals, whose identity admitted of no other 
 diversity than that of individual modes, or accidents ; which was 
 the doctrine of Realism ; for, if this doctrine were true, the sub- 
 ject of these accidents, the substanse of these modes being iden- 
 tical, every individual would possess the same substance, and 
 humanity would only be one man ; thus Socrates being at 
 Athens, humanity would be at Athens ; but Plato being at 
 Thebes, humanity must then either not be at Athens, or Plato 
 must not be humanity. 
 
 Let us quit here the question of Universals, to consider the 
 second characteristic of Abelard’s philosophy. It was he who 
 gave the form if not the subject-matter of Scholasticism. It was 
 he who brought Logic as an independent power into the arena 
 of theological debate ; a heresy which drew the terrors of the 
 Church upon him : Fonit in ccelum os suum et scrutatur alia 
 Dei, said St. Bernard, writing to the Pope ; and the same St. 
 Bernard let fall the terrible accusation : “ transgreditur fines quos 
 posuerunt patres nostri — he has gone beyond the limits set by 
 our forefathers !” — in all ages, in all nations, a mark of repro- 
 bation. 
 
 Supported, as he thought, by thousands of partisans, Abelard 
 assumed an attitude of offence, almost of disdain. Unconscious 
 of his real danger, he published the substance of his Lectures in 
 a work called Introductio ad Theologiam, in which he undertook 
 to demonstrate by Reason the dogmas of Faith, and promulgated 
 
360 
 
 FKOM PltOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 the then audacious opinion, that all dogmas should be presented 
 under a rational form That this was very far from being ac- 
 ceptable, may be read not only in his condemnation, but also in 
 the passage of his Dialectica, where he says that his rivals de- 
 clared it not permissible in a Christian to treat even of Dialec- 
 tics, because Dialectics was not only incapable of instructing any 
 one in *he faith, but disturbed and destroyed faith by the com- 
 plication of its arguments.^ 
 
 This commencement, feeble though it may have been, marks a 
 new epoch in the development of speculation. The struggle of 
 Reason against Authority, which began with Abelard, has not 
 yet terminated. “ My disciples,” he says in his Introduction, 
 “ asked me for arguments drawn from philosophy such as reason 
 demanded, begging me to instruct them that they might under- 
 stand, and not merely repeat what was taught them ; since no 
 one can believe any thing until he has first understood it ; and it 
 is ridiculous to preach to others what neither teacher nor pupil 
 understand.” 
 
 Not content with this revolutionary principle, Abelard further 
 “ transgressed the limits of his forefathers” by the composition of 
 the treatise Sic.et Non,\ the object of which was to cite the pas- 
 sages of Scripture and the Fathers pro and con. upon every im- 
 portant topic : this collocation of contradictory statements given 
 by the highest possible authorities was meant, as Abelard dis- 
 tinctly informs us, to train the mind to vigorous and healthy 
 doubt, in fulfilment of the injunction, “ Seek, and ye shall find ; 
 knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” “ Dubitando enim ad 
 inquisitionem venimus ; inquirendo veritatem percipimus ; juxta 
 quod et Veritas ipsa Qucerite, inquit, invenietis ; pulsate, et ape- 
 rietur vobisr\ Whatever his intention may have been, the re- 
 
 * Dialectica, p. 434. 
 
 t It is printed in Cousin’s edition, but with omissions. The entire work 
 was published in Germany, 1841, under this title : Petri Ahaelardi Sic d 
 Non ; primum integrum ediderunt E. L Henke et O. S. lAndenhohl. 
 
 I Page 17 of the edition just named. 
 
ALGAZZALI. 
 
 361 
 
 suit of such a work was olearly foreseen by theological teachers, 
 who regarded doubt as damnable, and would not tolerate it under 
 the plausible aspects of intellectual gymnastics, or the love of 
 seeking for truth. But theologians were unable to arrest the 
 development of speculation. Doubt began ; disputation waxed 
 stronger ; logic played like lambent flame around the most sacred 
 subjects ; Scholasticism entered every city in Europe, and filled 
 .t with subtle disputants. 
 
 During the centuries which succeeded, the question of Nomi- 
 nalism was constantly in debate ; and besides it many others so 
 remote, and, to modern apprehensions, so frivolous, that few his- 
 torians boast of more than superficial acquaintance with mediaeval 
 philosophy, and few mention it without scorn. To name but 
 one topic, what does the reader think of a debate, utrum Deus 
 intelligat omnia alia a se jper ideas eorum, an aliter? What 
 does he think of men wasting their energies in trying to convince 
 each other of the true process by which God conceived ideas — 
 discussing, with ardor and unmisgiving ingenuity, topics which 
 are necessarily beyond all possible demonstration ? Nevertheless, 
 absurd as such discussions were, they have found, even in modern 
 times, legitimate successors ; and the laborious futility of the 
 Schoolmen has been rivalled by the laborious futility of the Ger- 
 man metaphysicians. 
 
 We are not here to follow step by step the long course of me- 
 diaeval speculation, but may pass at once to the Arabian Philos- 
 ophy as illustrated in Algazzali. 
 
 § ill. Algazzali. 
 
 In our ignorance of Arabian history, it would be presumptuous 
 to assert that, uYitil the Greeks became known to them, the Arabs 
 had no philosophy at all of their own ; but whatever they may 
 have had, we are only repeating their own avowal in asserting, 
 that after their acquaintance with the Grecian systems, all phil- 
 osophical energy was devoted to the mastery and development 
 of those systems. The history of their philosophy is divided into 
 
362 
 
 FROM PROCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 two parts : the first comprising the period of ancient thinkerSj 
 the Greeks ; the second comprising the efforts of the Mussulman 
 schools. The Greek schools were divided into two series, those 
 which preceded and those which succeeded Aristotle."* In the 
 first series there is scarcely a name familiar to our ears which 
 was not familiar to the Arabian philosophers, Orpheus and 
 Homer included. The Seven Sages are constantly alluded to. 
 Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, in short all the great thinkers, 
 are expounded and commented on, not, according to M. Schmol- 
 ders, with any historical or critical accuracy, hut at any rate 
 sufficiently to show their acquaintance with Greek books. In 
 the series succeeding Aristotle they are more at home. They 
 translated every work they could procure, and studied with ser- , 
 vile ingenuity to appropriate all the doctrines of the Stagirite. 
 Thus it is that Arabian Philosophy lies heside the sphere of 
 European development; although the Arabians played an im- 
 portant part in the development of European culture during the 
 Middle Ages, and Averroes and Avicenna were long regarded as 
 magistri^ no sooner did Europe possess the originals from which 
 the Arabs learned, than they neglected these interpreters, and 
 interpreted for themselves. 
 
 The work which will form the basis of the present Section is 
 one which has the attraction of being entirely original — the his- 
 tory of a mind developing amid Arabian influences, and not the 
 mere reflex of Grecian thought. It is probably owing to the 
 originality of this treatise that it was never translated during the 
 Middle Ages, the translators of those days caring only for Greek 
 Philosophy ; and thus, in spite of the high reputation of Algazzali, 
 the work was a closed book to all but Arabian scholars, until 1842, 
 when a learned German reprinted it with a translation into French.f 
 
 Algazzali, the Light of Islam and Pillar of the Mosque, whc 
 
 * Schmolders, Essai sur les Eeoles Philosophiques oTiez les Arabes, p. 9G. 
 t Essai sur les Eccles Ehilosophiques chez les Arabes. Par M. Sehmolders- 
 Paris, 1842. From my notice of this work in the Edinburgh Review, April 
 1847, 1 have incorporated many passages in the present Section. 
 
ALGAZZALI. 
 
 363 
 
 nnder the names of Gazzali, Ghazail, and Algazel is frequently 
 mentioned by writers on Arabian Philosophy, and was at one 
 time made familiar to Europe by the attacks of his adversary 
 Averroes, was born in the city of Tons, a. d. 1508. He was 
 named Abou Hamed Mohammed, and his father was a dealer in 
 cotton-thread (^gazzal)^ from whence he drew his name. Losing 
 his father in early life, he was confided to the care of a Soufi. 
 The nearest approach to what is meant by a Soufi, is what we 
 mean by Mystic. The infiuence of this Soufi was great. Ho 
 sooner had the youth finished his studies, than he was appointed 
 professor of theology at Bagdad, where his eloquence achieved 
 such splendid success that all the Imams became his eager parti- 
 sans. So great was the admiration he inspired, that the Mus- 
 sulman sometimes said, “ If all Islam were destroyed, it would 
 be but a slight loss, provided Algazzali’s work on the ‘ Revivifi- 
 cation of the Sciences of Religion’ were preserved.” It is this 
 work which M. Schmolders has translated. It hears so remark- 
 able a resemblance to the Discours sur la Methode of Descartes, 
 that, had any translation of it existed in the days of Descartes, 
 every one would have cried out against the plagiarism. 
 
 Like Descartes, he begins with describing how he had in vain 
 interrogated every sect for an answer to the mysterious problems 
 which “ disturbed him with a sense of things unknown and 
 how he finally resolved to discard all authority, and detach him- 
 self from the opinions which had been instilled into him during 
 the unsuspecting years of childhood. “ I said to myself,” he 
 proceeds, “ My aim is simply to know the truth of things ; con- 
 sequently it is indispensable for me to ascertain what is knowl- 
 edge. Now, it was evident to me that certain knowledge must be 
 that which explains the object to be known, in such a manner 
 that no doubt can remain, so that in future all error and conjec- 
 ture respecting it must be impossible. Not only would the 
 understanding then need no efi'orts to be convinced of certitude, 
 but security against error is in such close connection with knowl- 
 edge, that even were an apparent proof of its falsehood to be 
 
364 
 
 FROM PKOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 brought forward, it would cause no doubt, because no suspicion 
 of error would be possible. Thus, when I have acknowledged 
 ten to be more than three, if any one were to say, ‘ On the con 
 trary, three is more than ten ; and to^ prove the truth of my 
 assertion, I will ehange this rod into a serpent and if he were 
 to change it, my conviction of his error would remain unshaken. 
 Ilis manoeuvre would only produce in me admiration for his 
 ability. I should not doubt my own knowledge. 
 
 “ Then was I convinced that knowledge which I did not pos- 
 sess in this manner, and respecting which I had not this cer- 
 tainty, could inspire me with neither confidence nor assurance ; 
 and no knowledge without assurance deserves the name of 
 knowledge. 
 
 “ Having examined the state of my own knowledge, I found it 
 divested of all that could be said to have these qualities, unless 
 perceptions of the senses and irrefragable principles were to be 
 considered such. I then said to myself, Now having fallen into 
 this despair, the only hope remaining of acquiring incontestable 
 convictions is by the perception of the senses, and by necessary 
 truths. Their evidence seemed to me indubitable. I began, 
 however, to examine the objects of sensation and speculation, to 
 see if they could possibly admit of doubt. Then doubts crowded 
 upon me in such numbers that my incertitude became complete. 
 Whence results the confidence I have in sensible things ? The 
 strongest of all our senses is sight; and yet, looking at a shadow 
 and perceiving it to be fixed and immovable, we judge it to be 
 deprived of movement ; nevertheless, experience teaches us that, 
 when we return to the same place an hour after, the shadow is 
 displaced ; for it does not vanish suddenly, but gradually, little 
 by little, so as never to be at rest. If we look at the stars, they 
 seem as small as money-pieces ; but mathematical proofs convince 
 us they are larger than the earth. These and other things are 
 judged by the senses, but rejected by reason as false. I aban- 
 doned the senses, therefore, having seen all my confidence in 
 their tmth shaken. 
 
algazzAli. 
 
 365 
 
 “ Perhaps,” said I, “ there is no assurance but in the notions of 
 Reason : that is to say, first principles, e. g. ten is more than 
 three : the same thing cannot have been created and yet have 
 existed from all eternity; to exist and not to exist at the same 
 time is impossible. 
 
 “ Upon this the senses replied : What assurance have you that 
 your confidence in Reason is not of the same nature as your 
 confidence in us ? When you relied on us. Reason stepped in 
 and gave us the lie ; had not Reason been there, you would have 
 continued to rely on us. Well, may there not exist some other 
 judge superior to Reason, who, if he appeared, would refute the 
 judgments of Reason in the same way that Reason refuted us ? 
 The non-appearance of such a judge is no proof of his non-ex- 
 istence.” 
 
 These skeptical arguments Algazzali borrowed from the Gre- 
 cian skeptics, and having borrowed them, he likewise borrowed 
 from Grecian mystics, of the Alexandrian school, the means of 
 escape from skepticism. He looked upon life as a dream. 
 
 “ 1 strove in vain to answer the objections. And my difficul- 
 ties increased when I came to refiect upon sleep. I said to my- 
 self, During sleep you give to visions a reality and consistence, 
 and you have no suspicion of their untruth. On awakening, 
 you are made aware that they were nothing but visions. What 
 assurance have you, that all you feel and know when awake, does 
 actually exist ? It is all true as respects your condition at that 
 moment ; but it is, nevertheless, possible that another condition 
 should present itself, which should be to your awakened state 
 that which your awakened state now is to your sleep ; so that, 
 in respect to this higher condition, your waking is but sleep.” 
 
 If such a superior condition be granted, Algazzali asks whether 
 we can ever attain to participation in it. He suspects that the 
 Ecstasy described by the Soufis must be the very condition. But 
 he finds himself philosophically unable to escape the conse- 
 quences, of skepticism: the skeptical arguments could only be 
 'efuted oy demonstrations ; but demonstrations themselves must 
 26 
 
366 
 
 FROM PROCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 be founded on first principles ; if they are uncertain, no demon- 
 stration can be certain. 
 
 “ I was thus forced to return to the admission of intellectual 
 notions as the basis of all certitude. This, however, was not hy 
 systematic reasoning and accumulation of proofs, hut by a flash 
 of light which God sent into my soul. For whoever imagines that 
 truth can only he rendered evident hy proofs, places narrow limits 
 to the wide compassion of the Creator.” 
 
 Thus we see Algazzali eluding skepticism ^ust as the Alexan- 
 drians eluded it, taking refuge in faith. He then cast his eyes on 
 the various sects of the faithful, whom he ranged under four 
 classes : 
 
 I. The Dogmatists : those who ground their doctrine wholly 
 upon reason. 
 
 II. The Basttnls, or Allegorists : those who receive their doc- 
 trine from an Imam, and believe themselves sole possessors of truth. 
 
 III. The Philosophers : those who call themselves masters of 
 Logic and Demonstration. 
 
 IV. The Soufls : those who claim an immediate intuition, by 
 which they perceive the real manifestations of truth as ordinary 
 men perceive material phenomena. 
 
 These schools he resolved thoroughly to question. In the 
 writings of the Dogmatists he acknowledged that their aim was 
 realized ; but their aim was not his aim : “ Their aim,” he says, 
 “ is the preservation of the Faith from the alterations introduced 
 by heretics.” But his object was philosophical, not theological ; 
 so he turned from the Dogmatists to the Philosophers, studying 
 cheir works with intense ardor, convinced that he could not refute 
 them until he had thoroughly understood them. He did refute 
 them, entirely to his satisfaction ;* and having done so, turned 
 to the Soufis, in whose writings he found a doctrine which re- 
 quired the union of action with speculation, in which virtue was 
 
 * In the ninth volume of the works of Averroes there is a treatise by Al- 
 gazzaJi, Destruetvo Philosophorum, which contains his refutation »f the phil- 
 osophical schooih. , 
 
ALGAZZlLI. 
 
 367 
 
 a guide to knowledge. The aim of the Soufis was to free the 
 mind from earthly considerations, to purify it from all passions, 
 to leave it only God as an object of meditation. The highest 
 truths were not to be reached by study^ but by transport — by a 
 transformation of the soul during ecstasy. There is the same 
 difference between this higher order of truth and ordinary sci- 
 ence, as between being healthy and knowing the definition of 
 health. To reach this state, it was necessary first to purify the 
 soul from all earthly desires, to extirpate from it all attachment 
 to the world, and humbly direct the thoughts to our eternal 
 home. 
 
 “Eeflecting on my situation, I found myself bound to this 
 world by a thousand ties, temptations assailing me on all sides. 
 I then examined my actions. The best were those relating to 
 instruction and education ; and even there I saw myself given 
 up to unimportant sciences, all useless in another world. Eeflect- 
 ing on the aim of my teaching, I fonnd it was not pure in the 
 sight of the Lord. I saw that all my efforts were directed to- 
 wards the acquisition of glory to myself.” 
 
 Thus did Philosophy lead him to a speculative Asceticism, 
 which calamity was shortly afterwards to transform into practical 
 Asceticism. One day, as he was about to lecture to a throng ot 
 admiring auditors, his tongue refused utterance : he was dumb. 
 This seemed to him a visitation of God, a rebuke to his vanity, 
 which deeply afflicted him. He lost his appetite ; he was fast sink- 
 ing ; physicians declared his recovery hopeless, unless he could 
 shake off the sadness which depressed him. He sought refuge in 
 contemplation of the Deity. 
 
 “ Having distributed my wealth, I left Bagdad and retired into 
 Syria, where I remained two years in solitary struggle with my 
 soul, combating my passions and exercising myself in the purifica- 
 tion of my heart, and in preparation for the other world.” 
 
 He visited Jerusalem, and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, but at 
 length returned to Bagdad, urged thereto by “ private affairs” and 
 the requests of his children, as he says, but more probably urged 
 
368 
 
 FEOM PKOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 thereto by bis sense of failure, for he confesses not to have reached 
 the ecstatic stage. Occasional glimpses were all he could attain, 
 isolated moments of exaltation passing quickly away. 
 
 “Nevertheless, I did not despair of finally attaining this state. 
 Every time that any accident turned me from it, I endeavored 
 quickly to re-enter it. In this condition I remained ten years. In 
 lily solitude there were revelations made to me which it is impos- 
 sible for me to describe, or even indicate. Enough if, for the 
 reader’s profit, I declare that the conviction was forced upon me 
 that the Soufis indubitably walked in the true paths of salvation. 
 Their way of life is the most beautiful, and their morals the 
 purest that can be conceived.” 
 
 The first condition of Soufi purification is, that the novice 
 purge his heart of all that is not God. Prayers are the means. 
 The object is absorption in the Deity. 
 
 “ From the very first, Soufis have such astonishing revelations 
 that they are enabled, while waking, to see visions of angels and 
 the souls of the prophets ; they hear their voices, and receive their 
 favors. Afterwards a transport exalts them beyond the mere per- 
 ception of forms, to a degree which exceeds all expression, and con- 
 cerning which we cannot speak without employing language that 
 would sound blasphemous. In fact, some have gone so far as to 
 imagine themselves to be amalgamated with God, others identified 
 with him, and others to be associated with him.* All these are 
 sinful.” 
 
 Algazzali refuses to enter more minutely into this subject ; he 
 contents himself with the assertion that whoso knows not Ecstasy 
 knows prophetism only by name. And what is Prophetism? 
 The fourth stage in intellectual development. The first, or infant- 
 ile stage, is that of pure Sensation ; the second, which begins at 
 the age of seven, is that of Understanding; the third is Reason 
 by means of which the intellect perceives the necessary, the pos- 
 sible, the absolute, and all those higher objects which transcend 
 
 * How characteristic this is of mysticism in all ages may be seen in the 
 delightful Eours with the Mystics, by Mr. E. A. Vaughan. 
 
ALGAZZALI. 
 
 369 
 
 the Understanding.* After this comes the fourth stage, when 
 another eye is opened, by which man perceives things hidden from 
 others — perceives all that will be — perceives things that escape 
 the perceptions of Reason, as the objects of Reason escape the 
 Understanding, and as the objects of Understanding escape the 
 sensitive faculty. This is Prophetism. Algazzali undertakes to 
 prove the existence of this faculty : 
 
 “Doubts respecting Prophetism must refer either to its possibility 
 or its reality. To prove its possibility it is only necessary to prove 
 that it belongs to the category of objects which cannot be regarded 
 as the products of intelligence : such, for example, as Astronomy or 
 Medicine. For whoso studies these sciences is aware that they 
 cannot be comprehended except by Divine inspiration, with the 
 assistance of God, and not by experience. Since there are astro- 
 nomical indications which only appear once in a thousand years, 
 how could they be known by experience ? From this argument it 
 is evident that it is very possible to perceive things which the 
 intelligence cannot conceive. And this is precisely one of the 
 properties of Prophetism, which has a myriad other properties ; 
 but these others are only perceptible during ecstasy by those who 
 lead the life of the Soufis.” 
 
 We are now in a position to judge of Soufism, which was not, 
 strictly speaking, a Philosophy, nor was it a Religion. No Mus- 
 sulman, according to M. Schmolders, ever regarded it as either. 
 It was simply a rule of life, carried into practice by a body of 
 men, similar to what in Europe would ha^e been a monastic order. 
 The aim of Algazzali’s treatise was something more than the 
 mere inculcation of Soufism, it was the endeavor to supply a 
 ■philosophical basis for the rule of life ; in other words, an attempt 
 to reconcile Religion with Philosophy, or Philosophy with Re- 
 ligion ; precisely analogous to that attempt which constitutes the 
 whole philosophic activity of Scholasticism. There were two 
 great epochs in the intellectual development of the Arabians ; the 
 
 * Kant’s three psychological elements, Siainlichheit, Veratand, Vernun/t, 
 are here anticipated. 
 
370 
 
 FROM PKOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 preaching of Mahomet, and the conquest of Alexandria : the one 
 gave them a Religion, the other gave them a Philosophy. The 
 doctrines of the Koran were blended with those of the Neo-Pla- 
 tonists, and the result was that system of speculation known as 
 Arabian Philosophy ; a system different in its details, but similar 
 in spirit and purpose to that known as Scholasticism, which 
 blended the doctrines of Christianity with those of Grecian spec- 
 ulators. 
 
 § IV. Revival of Learning. 
 
 However similar in spirit, Scholasticism could of course only 
 accept, from the Arabian Philosophy, that portion which was de- 
 rived from Greece, since Christianity necessarily replaced the Ma- 
 hometan element. Europe was indebted to the Arabs for most ot 
 the principal works of Aristotle ; and although it has long been 
 the cue of historians and critics to speak contemptuously of the 
 Arabian translations — a contempt perfectly impartial, seeing that 
 the critics could read no Arabic — we are assured by M. Schmdlders 
 that these translations were very careful, and critical. Through 
 the schools of Cordoba, Seville, Toledo, Valencia, Murcia, and 
 Almeria, the Greek writers penetrated everywhere. 
 
 With the revival of learning, after the fall of Constantinople 
 came fresh streams of Grecian influence. The works of Plato be- 
 came generally known ; under Marsilio Ficino — to whom we owe 
 the Latin translation of Plato* — a school ofPlatonists was formed, 
 which continued to divide, with the school of Aristotle, the su- 
 premacy of Europe, under new forms, as before it had divided it 
 under the form of Realism. The effect of this influx of Grecian 
 influence, at a period when Philosophy was just emancipating 
 itself from the absolute authority of the Church, and proclaiming 
 the divine right of Reason to be heard on all rational topics, was to 
 transfer the allegiance from the Church to Antiquity. To have 
 suddenly cast off all authority would have been too violent a 
 
 * In many respects our best guide to Plato’s meaning where he is most 
 obscure. It is printed in Bekker’s edition. 
 
KEVIVAL OF LEAENING. 
 
 371 
 
 change ; and it may on the whole be regarded as fortunate for 
 human development that Philosophy did so blindly accept the 
 new authority — one altogether human, yet without deep roots in 
 the life of the nation, without any external constituted power, 
 consequently very liable to disunion and disruption, and certain 
 to give way before the necessary insurgence of Season insisting 
 on freedom. 
 
 There is something profoundly significant in the principle ot 
 Authority, when not exercised despotically, and something essen- 
 tially anarchical in the principle of Liberty of Thought, when not 
 restrained within due limits. Both Authority and Liberty are 
 necessary principles, which only in misuse become paralyzing or 
 destructive. It may be made perfectly clear to the rational mind 
 that there can be no such thing as “liberty of private judgment” 
 in Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, or any other 
 science the truths of which have been established ; the person 
 ignorant of these sciences does, and must, take upon trust the 
 statements made by those who are authorities ; he cannot indulge 
 his “ private judgment” on the matter, without forfeiting the re- 
 spect of those who hear him. Does this mean that all men are 
 bound blindly to accept what astronomers and chemists assert ? 
 No ; to require such submission of the judgment, is to pass beyond 
 the principle of Authority, and assume that of Despotism. The 
 principle of Liberty assures entire Ireedom to intellectual activity, 
 warrants the control of Authority, incites men to control it by 
 submitting its positions to those elementary tests by which it was 
 tself originally constituted. If I have made a series of experiments 
 which have led to the disclosure of an important truth, your 
 iberty of private judgment is mere anarchy if it assert itself in 
 denying the truth simply out of your own preconceptions ; but it 
 is healthy freedom if it assert itself in denying the truth after 
 uaving submitted my authority to its original tests (those experi- 
 ments, namely, which gave it authority), and after detecting some 
 error in my experimentation, or some inaccuracy in my induction. 
 The authoritative statement of Sir Charles Bell, repeated by every 
 
372 
 
 FROM PROCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 other anatomist, respecting the separate functions of the anterioi 
 and posterior columns of the spinal chord, was one which permitted 
 no liberty of private judgment, but did permit liberty of private 
 verification ; and when M. Brown-Sequard repeated the original 
 experiments and proved the former conclusions to be erroneous,* 
 his authoritative statement replaced that of previous anatomists, 
 and will continue to replace it, until it has undergone a similar 
 defeat through the process of verification. 
 
 If this is a correct view, it will enable us to understand the 
 long continuance of Aristotle’s authority, which coerced the 
 minds of men as the authority of one confessedly a master in his 
 art, and one whose positions would not easily be brought to the 
 test of verification. Hence, as Bayle says, the method employed 
 was first to prove every thesis by authority, and next by argu- 
 ments ; the proofs by authority were passages of Aristotle : the 
 arguments went to show that these passages, rightly interpreted, 
 meant what the thesis meant. 
 
 Other causes contributed to foster this reverence for Authority ; 
 only one cause could eflfectually destroy it, and that was the rise 
 of positive Science, which by forcing men to verify every step 
 they took, led them into direct antagonism with the ancients, 
 and made them choose between the new truth and the old dogma. 
 As Campanella — one of the reforming thinkers — acutely saw, 
 “the reforms already made in philosophy must make us expect 
 its complete change ; and whoever denies that the Christian 
 mind will surpass the Pagan mind, must also deny the existence 
 of the New World, the planets and the stars, the seas, the ani 
 mals, the colonies, and the modern sects of the new cosmog- 
 raphy.”! It does not come within our purpose here to trace 
 the rise and development of Science; we must therefore pass at 
 once to Giordano Bruno, whom we have selected as the type oi 
 the philosophical insurgents against the anthority of Aristotle 
 and the Church. 
 
 * See Memoires de la Societe de Biologie. 1855. 
 
 + Quoted by M. Eenouvier, Manual de Philos. Moderns., p. 7. 
 
GIOEDANO BKUNO. 
 
 373 
 
 § V. Giokdano Bruno.* 
 
 On the iVth of Fehruary, 1600, a vast concourse of people was 
 assembled in the largest open space in Kome, gathered together 
 Dy the irresistible sympathy which men always feel with what- 
 ever is terrible and tragic in human existence. In the centre 
 stood a huge pile of fagots ; from out its logs and branches rose 
 a stake. Crowding round the pile were eager and expectant 
 faces, men of various ages and of various characters, but all for 
 one moment united in a common feeling of malignant triumph. 
 Religion was about to be avenged : a heretic was coming to ex- 
 piate on that spot the crime of open defiance to the dogmas pro- 
 claimed by the Church — the crime of teaching that the earth 
 moved, and that there was an infinity of worlds : the scouddrel ! 
 the villain ! the blasphemer ! Among the crowd might be seen 
 monks of every description, especially Dominicans, who were 
 anxious to witness the punishment of an apostate from their 
 order ; wealthy citizens were jostling ragged beggars, — young 
 and beauteous women, some of them with infants at their breasts, 
 were talking with their husbands and fathers, — and playing 
 about amidst the crowd, in all the heedlessness of childhood, 
 were a number of boys, squeezing their way, and running up 
 against scholars pale with study, and bearded soldiers glittering 
 with steeL 
 
 Whom does the crowd await ? Giordano Bruno — the poet, 
 philosopher, and heretic — the teacher of Galileo’s heresy — the 
 friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and open antagonist of Aristotle. 
 Questions pass rapidly to and fro among the crowd ; exultation 
 is on every face, mingled vrith intense curiosity. Grave men 
 moralize on the power of Satan to pervert learning and talent to 
 evil : Oh, my friends, let us beware ! — let us beware of learning ! 
 let us beware of every thing ! Bystanders shake significant 
 heads. A hush comes over the crowd. The procession solemn- 
 
 ■* In this Section I have altered and abridged an essay of my own in the 
 British (.quarterly Review. 
 
FROM PROCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 3Ti 
 
 ly advances, the soldiers peremptorily clearing the way for it 
 “ Look, there he is — there, in the centre ! How calm — ho’n 
 haughty and stubborn !” (women whisper, “ How handsome !”) 
 His large eyes are turned towards us, serene, untroubled. His 
 face is placid, though so pale. They offer him the crucifix ; he 
 turns aside his head — he refuses to kiss it ! “ The heretic !” 
 
 They show him the image of Him who died upon the cross for 
 the sake of the living truth — he refuses the symbol! A yell 
 bursts from the multitude. 
 
 They chain him to the stake. He remains silent. Will he 
 not pray for mercy ? Will he not recant? Now the last hour 
 is arrived — will he die in his obstinacy, when a little hypocrisy 
 would save him from so much agony ? It is even so : he is stub- 
 born, unalterable. They light the fagots ; the branches crackle ; 
 the flame ascends ; the victim writhes — and now we see no more. 
 The smoke envelops him ; but not a prayer, not a plaint, not a 
 single cry escapes him. In a little while the wind has scattered 
 the ashes of Giordano Bruno. 
 
 The martyrdom of Bruno has preserved his name from falling 
 into the same neglect as his writings. Most well-read men re- 
 member his name as that of one who, whatever his errors might 
 have been, perished a victim of intolerance. But the extreme 
 rarity of his works, aided by some other causes into which it is 
 needless here to enter, has, until lately, kept even the most curi- 
 ous from forming any acquaintance with them. The rarity of 
 the writings made them objects of bibliopolic luxury : they were 
 the black swans of literature. Three hundred florins were paid 
 for the Spaccio, in Holland, and thirty pounds in England. 
 Jacobi’s mystical friend, Hamann, searched Italy and Germany 
 in vain for the dialogues De la Causa and De VInfinito. But 
 in 1830, Herr Wagner, after immense toil, brought out his valu- 
 able edition of the Italian works, and since then students have 
 been able to form some idea of the Neapolitan thinker.* 
 
 * Opere di Giordano Bruno, Nolano, ora per la prima volta raccolte e pub- 
 UicaU da Adolfo Wagner, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1850 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 
 
 375 
 
 Giordano Bruno was born at Nola, in La Terra di Lavoro, a 
 Tew miles from Naples, and midway between Vesuvius and the 
 Mediterranean.* The date of his birth is fixed as 1550 — that is 
 to say, ten years after the death of Copernicus, — whose system 
 he was to espouse with such ardor, — and ten years before the 
 birth of our own illustrious Bacon. Tasso well says : 
 
 “ La terra 
 
 Simili a gli abitator’ produce 
 
 and Bruno was a true Neapolitan child — as ardent as its volcanic 
 soil, burning atmosphere, and dark thick wine {mangia guerra) 
 — as capricious as its varied climate. There was a restless en- 
 ergy which fitted him to become the preacher of a new crusade 
 — urging him to throw a haughty defiance in the face of every 
 authority in every country, — an energy which closed his wild 
 adventurous career at the stake lighted by the Inquisition. He 
 was also distinguished by a rich fancy, a varied humor, and a 
 chivalrous gallantry, which constantly remind us that the athlete 
 is an Italian, and an Italian of the sixteenth century. Stern as 
 was the struggle, he never allowed the grace of his nature to be 
 vanquished by its vehemence. He went forth as a preacher; 
 but it was a preacher young, handsome, gay, and worldly — as a 
 poet, not as a fanatic. 
 
 The first thing we hear of him is the adoption of the Domini- 
 can’s frock. In spite of his ardent temperament, so full of vigor- 
 ous life, he shuts himself up in a cloister, — allured, probably, by 
 the very contrast which such a life ofiered to his own energetic 
 character. Bruno in a cloister has but two courses open to him : 
 either all that affluent energy will rush into some stern fanati- 
 cism, and, as in Loyola, find aliment in perpetual self-combat, and 
 in bending the wills of others to his purposes ; or else his restless 
 spirit of inquiry, stimulated by avidity for glory, will startle and 
 irritate his superiors. It was not long ere the course was decided. 
 
 * For the biographic details I am mainly indebted to the valuable work ol 
 M. Christian Bartholmess, entitled Jordano Bruno, 2 vols., Paris, 1848, 
 
3T6 
 
 FROM PEOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 He began to doubt the mystery of transubstantiation. Nay 
 more ; he not only threw doubt apon the dogmas of the Church, 
 he had also the audacity to attack the pillar of all faith, the great 
 authority of the age — Aristotle himself. The natural conse 
 quences ensued — he was feared and persecuted. Unable to with- 
 stand his opponents, he fled. Casting aside the monkish robe, 
 which clothed him in what he thought a falsehood, he fled from * 
 Italy at the very moment when Montaigne, having finished the 
 first part of his immortal Essays, entered it, to pay a visit to the 
 unhappy Tasso, then raving in an hospital. 
 
 Bruno was now an exile, but he was free ; and the delight he 
 felt at his release may be read in several passages of his writings, 
 especially in the sonnet prefixed to L'Infinito : 
 
 “Usoito di prigione angusta e nera, 
 
 Ove tanti anni error stretto m’ avvinse: 
 
 Qua laseio la catena, che mi cinse, 
 
 La man di ihia nemica invida e fera,” etc. 
 
 He was thirty years of age when he began his adventurous course 
 through Europe — to wage single-handed war against much of 
 the falsehood, folly, and corruption of his epoch. Like his great 
 prototype, Xenophanes, who wandered over Greece, a rhapsodist 
 of philosophy, striving to awaken mankind to a recognition of 
 the Deity whom they degraded by their dogmas, and like his 
 own unhappy rivals, Campanella and Vauini, Bruno became the 
 knight-errant of truth, ready to combat all comers in its cause. 
 His life was a battle without a victory. Persecuted in one coun- 
 try, he fled to another — everywhere sowing the seeds of revolt, 
 everywhere shaking the dynasty of received opinion. It was a 
 strange time, — to every earnest man, a sad and almost hopeless 
 time. The Church was in a pitiable condition — decaying from 
 within, and attacked from without. The lower clergy were de- 
 graded by ignorance, indolence, and sensuality ; the prelates, if 
 more enlightened, were enlightened only as epicures and pedants, 
 swearing by the Gods of Greece and Borne, and laboriously imi- 
 tating the sonorous roll of Ciceronian periods. The Keformation 
 
GIORDANO BEDNO. 
 
 377 
 
 flad startled tlie ■world, especially the ecclesiastical "world. The 
 Inquisition was vigilant and cruel ; but among its very members 
 were skeptics. Skepticism, with a polish of hypocrisy, was the 
 genei’al disease. It penetrated almost everywhere — from the 
 cloister to the cardinal’s palace. Skepticism, however, is only a 
 transitory disease. Men must have convictions. Accordingly, 
 in all ages, we see skepticism stimulating new reforms ; and re- 
 formers were not wanting in the sixteenth century. Of the 
 Lutheran movement it is needless here to speak. The sixteenth 
 century marks its place in history as the century of revolutions : 
 it not only broke the chain which bound Europe to Eome, it 
 also broke the chain which bound philosophy to Scholasticism 
 and Aristotle. It set human reason free ; it proclaimed the lib- 
 erty of thought and action. In the vanguard of its army, we 
 see Telesio, Campanella, and Bruno, men who must always excite 
 our admiration and our gratitude for their cause and for their 
 courage. They fell fighting for freedom of thought and utter- 
 ance — the victims of a fanaticism the more odious because it was 
 not the rigor of belief, but of 'pretended belief They fought in 
 those early days of the great struggle between science and pre- 
 judice, when Galileo was a heretic, and when the implacable 
 severity of dogmatism baptized in blood every new thought born 
 into the world. 
 
 One spirit is common to all these reformers, however various 
 their doctrines ; that spirit is one of unhesitating opposition to 
 the dominant authority. It is the crisis of the Middle Ages — 
 the modern era dawns there. In the fifteenth century men were 
 joccupied with the newly awakened treasures of ancient learning : 
 it was a century of erudition ; the past was worshipped at the ex- 
 pense of the present. In art, in philosophy, and in religion, men 
 sought to restore the splendors of an earlier time. Brunelleschi, 
 Michael Angelo, Eaphael, disdaining the types of Gothic art, 
 strove to recall once more the classic type. Marsilio Ficino, 
 Mirandola, Telesio, and Bruno, discarding the subtleties and dis- 
 putes of Scholasticism, endeavored to reproduce Pythagoras, 
 
37S 
 
 FKOM PKOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 Plato, and Plotinus. In religion, Luther and Calvin, avowedlj 
 rising against Papal corruptions, labored to restore the Church 
 to its primitive simplicity. Thus the new era seemed retrograde. 
 It is often so. The recurrence to an earlier time is the prepara- 
 tion for a future. We cannot leap far, leaping from the spot 
 where we stand ; we must step backwards a few paces to acquire 
 momentum. 
 
 Giordano Bruno ceaselessly attacked Aristotle. In so doing 
 he knew that he grappled with the Goliath of the Church. Aris- 
 totle was a synonym for reason. An anagTam was made of his 
 name, “ Aristoteles : iste sol erat." His logic and physics, to- 
 gether with the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, were then con- 
 sidered as inseparable portions of the Christian creed. In 1624 
 — a quarter of a century after Bruno’s martyrdom — the Parlia- 
 ment of Paris issued a decree banishing all who publicly main- 
 tained theses against Aristotle; and in 1629, at the urgent 
 remonstrance of the Sorbonne, decreed that to contradict the 
 principles of Aristotle was to contradict the Church ! There is 
 an anecdote recorded somewhere of a student, who, having de- 
 tected spots in the sun, communicated his discovery to a worthy 
 priest : “ My son,” rejdied the priest, “ I have read Aristotle 
 many times, and I assure you there is nothing of the kind men- 
 tioned by him. Go rest in peace; and be certain that the spots 
 which you have seen are in your eyes, and not in the sun.” 
 When Ramus solicited the permission of Beza to teach in Ge- 
 neva, he w'as told, “the Genovese have decreed once for all, that 
 neither in logic, nor in any other branch of knowledge, will they 
 depart from the opinions of Aristotle — ne tantillum quidem ab 
 Aristotelis sentintia deflectereV It is well known that the Stagi- 
 rite narrowly escaped being canonized as a Saint. Are you for 
 or against Aristotle ? was the question of philosophy ; and the 
 piquant aspect of this dpKJ'TovsXsop.ajfia is the fact that both par- 
 ties were often ignorant of the real opinions of the Stagirite ; at- 
 tributing to him indeed doctrines the very reverse of what a more 
 ample knowledge of his writings has shown to have been his. 
 
GIOKDANO BRUNO. 
 
 379 
 
 Bruno, as we said, took his stand opposite to the Aristotelians. 
 Pythagoras, Plato, and Plotinus were his teachers. Something 
 of temperament may have originated this ; for Bruno undoubt- 
 edly belongs to that class of thinkers in whom logic is hut the 
 handmaid of Imagination and Fancy. To him the Aristotle of 
 that age was antipathetic. The Aristotelians taught that the 
 world was finite, and the heavens incorruptible. Bruno declared 
 the world to be infinite, and subject to an eternal and universal 
 revolution. The Aristotelians proclaimed the immobility of the 
 earth : Bruno proclaimed its rotation. Such open dissidence 
 could of course only enrage the party in power. It would have 
 been sufficiently audacious to promulgate such absurdities — hor- 
 renda prorsus absurdissima — as the rotation of the earth ; but to 
 defy Aristotle and ridicule his logic, could only proceed from in- 
 sanity, or impiety. So Bruno had to fiy. 
 
 To Geneva he first directed his steps. But there the power 
 which had proved stronger than the partisans of Servetus, was 
 still dominant. He made his escape to Toulouse ; there he 
 raised a storm among the Aristotelians, such as compelled him 
 to fly to Paris. Behold him then in Paris,’ the streets of which 
 were still slippery with the blood of the Eve of St. Bartholomew. 
 One expects to see him butchered without mercy ; but, by some 
 good fortune, he obtains the favor of Henry III., who not only 
 permits him to lecture at the Sorbonne, but offers to admit him 
 as a salaried professor, if Bruno will but attend Mass. Is it not 
 strange that at a time when attendance at Mass was so serious a 
 matter, — when the echoes of that lugubrious cry, la Messe ou la 
 mart ! which had resounded through those narrow murky streets, 
 must have been still ringing in men’s ears, — Bruno, in spite ot 
 his refusal, not only continued to lecture, but became exceeding- 
 ly popular ? Since Abelard had captivated the students of Paris 
 with his facile eloquence and startling novelties, no teacher had 
 been so enthusiastically received as Bruno. Young, handsome, 
 eloquent, and facetious, he charmed by his manner no less than 
 by his matter. Adopting by turns every form of address — rising 
 
380 
 
 FKOM PKOOLUS TO BACON. 
 
 into tlie aerial altitudes of imagination, or descending into the 
 kennel of obscenity and buffoonery — now grave, propliet-like, and 
 impassioned — now fierce and controversial — now fanciful and 
 humorous — he threw aside all the monotony of professional 
 gravity, to speak to them as a man. He did not on this 
 occasion venture openly to combat the prejudices and doc- 
 trines of the age ; that was reserved for his second visit, after 
 he had learned in England to speak as became a free and earn- 
 est man. 
 
 To England let us follow him. On the misty banks of our 
 noble Thames, he was rudely initiated into the brutality of the 
 English character; but he was amply compensated by his recep- 
 tion at the Court of Elizabeth, where a friendly welcome awaited 
 all foreigners — especially Italians. Nor was his southern heart 
 cold to the exquisite beauty and incomparable grace of our wo- 
 men. England was worth visiting ; and he had reason to refer 
 with pride to “ questo paese Brittannico a cui doviamo la fedelta 
 ed amore ospitale.” It was in England he published the greater 
 part of his Italian works. It was here perhaps that the serenest 
 part of his life was spent. Patronized by the Queen (“ Tunica 
 Diana qual e tra voi, qual che tra gli astri il sole,” as he calls 
 her), he had the glory and the happiness to call Sir Philip Sid- 
 ney friend. 
 
 In the high communion of noble minds, in the interchange of 
 great thoughts and glorious aspirations, another than Bruno 
 might have been content to leave the world and all its errors in 
 peace ; but he had that within him which would not suffer him 
 to be at rest. He could not let the world wag on its way, con- 
 tent to smile on its errors. He had a mission — without the cant 
 of a mission. He was a soldier, and had his battles to fight. In 
 the society of Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Fulke Greville, Dyer, Harvey, 
 and most probably of Antonio Perez and Shakspeare’s Florio, 
 Bruno might have discussed with calmness every question of phi- 
 losophy, — that IS, had he been of an epicurean turn — had he not 
 been Bruno. As it was, lured by his passion for publicity — by 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 381 
 
 nis vanity, no less than by his love of truth — he rushed into the 
 arena, 
 
 “Confident as is the falcon’s flight.” 
 
 If we attribute to him motives not altogether pure — if we see as 
 much ostentation as devotion in this conduct, let it be remem- 
 bered, that in this life the great aims of humanity are worked 
 out by human means, wherein the impure and selfish are as much 
 vital elements as the noble. In the great mechanism there are 
 numberless trivial wheels, and littleness is often the accessory 
 spring of some heroic act. This is no concession to the school 
 of Rochefoucauld. That school makes the great mistake of at- 
 tributing the splendor of the sun to its spots,— of deriving the 
 greatness of human nature from its littleness. A selfish impulse 
 will often mingle with the unselfish impulses which prompt an 
 heroic act. ' We have only to reflect on the numerous instances 
 'of selfish impulse unaccompanied by any heroism, to be assured 
 that if selfishness and disinterestedness may be found conjoined 
 in the mingled woof of human nature, it in nowise alters the 
 fact of disinterestedness, it in nowise lessens the worthiness of 
 heroism. What philosophy is that which sees only vanity in 
 martyrdom, only love of applause in the daring proclamation of 
 truth ? Gold without dross is not to be found in the earth ; but 
 is it therefore copper ? 
 
 Let us follow Bruno’s course with other feelings than those of 
 a short-sighted philosophy. It was not ver}^ long after his arrival 
 in England (1583), that Leicester, then Chancellor of Oxford, 
 gave that splendid fHe in honor of the County Palatine Albert 
 de Lasco, of which the annals of Oxford and the works of Bruno 
 have preserved some details. In those days a foreigner was 
 “ lionized” in a more grandiose style than modern Amphitryons 
 attempt. It was not deemed sufficient to ask the illustrious stran- 
 ger to “ breakfast there were no “ dinners” given in public, or at 
 the club. The age of tournaments had passed away ; but there 
 were still the public discussions, which were a sort of passage-of- 
 arms between the knights of intellect. And such a tourney had 
 
 2r 
 
582 
 
 FROM PBOCLUS TO fiACON. 
 
 Leicester prepared in honor of the Pole. Oxford called upon 
 her doughty men to brighten up their arms, — that is to say, to 
 shake the dust from their volumes of Aristotle, — and all comers 
 M'ere challenged. Bruno stepped into the arena. Oxford chose 
 her best men to combat for Aristotle and Ptolemy. On that 
 cause her existence seemed to depend. Her statutes declared 
 that the Bachelors and Masters- of Arts who did not faithfully 
 follow Aristotle, were liable to a fine of five shillings for every 
 point of divergence, or for every fault committed against the 
 Organon, Bruno wittily called Oxford the widow of sound 
 learning — “ la vedova di buone lettere.” 
 
 The details of this “ wit combat” are unknown to us. Bruno 
 declares that fifteen times did he stop the mouth of his pitiable 
 adversary, who could only reply by abuse.* But there is con- 
 siderable forfanterie about the Neapolitan, and such statements 
 must be received with caution. That he created a “ sensation,” 
 we have no doubt ; but his doctrines were sufficiently startling. 
 We also find him, on the strength of that success, soliciting per- 
 mission of the Oxford Senate to profess openly. With his usual 
 arrogance, he styles himself, in this address, as a “ doctor of a 
 more perfect theology, and professor of a purer wisdom,” than 
 was there taught. Strange as it may appear, permission was 
 granted ; probably because he had the patronage of Elizabeth. 
 He lectured on cosmology, and on the immortality of the soul ; 
 a doctrine which he maintained, not upon the principles of Ar- 
 istotle, but upon those of the Neo-Platonists, who regarded this 
 life as a brief struggle, a sort of agony of death, through which 
 the soul must pass ere it attains to the splendor of existence in 
 
 “ Andate in Oxonia e fatevi raccontar le cose intravenute al Nolano quan- 
 do pubblicamente disputo con que’ dottori in teologia in presenza del Prin- 
 cipe Alasco Polacco, et altri de la nobilita inglese 1 Fatevi dire come si sapea 
 rispondere a gli argomenti, come restb per quindici sillogismi qnindici volte 
 qual piilcino entro la stoppa quel povero dottor, che come il corifeo de 1’ ao- 
 cademia ne puosero avanti in questa grave occasione ! Fatevi dire con quanta 
 incivility e discortesia procedea quel porco, e con quanta pazienza et umanity 
 quell’ altro, che in fatto mostrava essere Napoletano nato et allevato sotto pii 
 benigno cielo !” — La Cena de le Ceneri ; 0pp. Ital. ii. 17^ 
 
 I 
 
GIOEDANO BKTJNO. 
 
 383 
 
 the eternal and universal life. In the deep unquenchable desire 
 which is within us to unite ourselves with God, and to quit this 
 miserable sphere for the glorious regions of eternity, is the writ- 
 ten conviction of our future existence. No doubt he preached 
 this doctrine with stirring eloquence ; but it must have sounded 
 very heterodox in the ears of that wise conclave — styled by 
 Bruno “ a constellation of pedants, whose ignorance, presump- 
 tion, and rustic rudeness would have exhausted the patience of 
 Job” — and they soon put an end to his lectures.* 
 
 We have already intimated the protection which Elizabeth 
 accorded him, and which he repaid by adulation, extravagant 
 enough, but which was then the current style in speaking of 
 royalty ; and it should not be forgotten that this praise of a 
 Protestant Queen was not among the least of his crimes in the 
 eyes of his accusers. Still, even Elizabeth could not protect a 
 heretic ; and Bruno’s audacious eloquence roused such opposition, 
 that he was forced to quit England. He returned to Paris, once 
 more to court the favor of the Quartier Latin. He obtained 
 permission to open a public disputation on the physics of Aris- 
 totle. For three successive days did this dispute continue, in 
 which the great questions of nature, the universe, and the rota- 
 tion of the earth, were discussed. Bruno had thrown aside the 
 veil, and presented his opinions naked to the gaze. His impet- 
 uous onslaught upon established opinions, produced the natural 
 result : he was forced again to fly. 
 
 We next And him in Germany, carrying the spirit of innova- 
 tion into its august universities. In July, 1586, he matriculated 
 as theologice doctor Romanensis., in the university of Marburg, in 
 Hesse ; but permission to teach philosophy was refused him ob 
 arduas causas. Whereupon he insulted the Rector in his own 
 house, created a disturbance, and insisted that his name should 
 be struck off from the list of members of the University. Ha 
 set off for Wurtemberg. His reception in this centre of Luther- 
 
 * Vide Cena de le Ceneri. 
 
384 
 
 FROM PROCLTJS TO BACON. 
 
 anism was so gratifying, that he styled Wiirtemberg the Athens 
 of Germany. ‘‘ Your justice,” he writes to the Senate, “has re- 
 fused to listen to the insinuations circulated against my character 
 and my opinions. You Lave, with admirable impartiality, per- 
 mitted me to attack with vehemence that philosophy of Aristotle 
 which you prize so highly.” For two years did he teach there 
 with noisy popularity, yet on the whole with tolerable prudence, 
 in not speaking against the peculiar views of Lutheranism. He 
 even undertook a defence of Satan ; but whether in that spirit 
 of pity which moved Burns, or whether in the spirit of buffoon- 
 ery which delights to play with awful subjects, we have no means 
 of ascertaining. He did not offend his audience, in whatever 
 spirit he treated the subject. 
 
 Here, then, in Wiirtemberg, with admiring audiences and free 
 scope for discussion, one might fancy he would be at rest. Why 
 should he leave so enviable a position ? Simply because he was 
 not a man to rest in ease and quiet. He was possessed with the 
 spirit of a reformer, and this urged him to carry his doctrines 
 into other cities. Characteristic of his audacity is the next step 
 he took. From Wiirtemberg he went to Prague ; from the cen- 
 tre of Lutheranism to the centre of Catholicism ! In this he had 
 reckoned too much on his own powers. He met with neither 
 sympathy nor support in Prague. He then passed on to Helm- 
 stadt, where his fame having preceded him, the Duke of Bruns- 
 wick conferred upon him the honorable charge of educating the 
 hereditary Duke. Here again, if he had consented to remain 
 quiet, he might have been what the world calls “ successful 
 but he was troubled with convictions — things so impedimental to 
 success ! — and these drew down upon him a sentence of excom- 
 munication. He justified himself, indeed, and the sentence was 
 removed ; but he was not suffered to remain in Helmstadt ; so 
 he passed to Frankfort, and there in quiet, brief retirement, pub- 
 lished three of his Latin works. Here a blank occurs in his an- 
 nals. When next we hear of him he is at Padua. 
 
 After an absence of ten years, the wanderer returns to Italv. 
 
GIOKDANO BRUNO. 
 
 385 
 
 lu his restless course, he has traversed Switzerland, France, Eng> 
 land, and Germany; his hand against every man, and every 
 man’s hand against him. Heretic and innovator, he has irritated 
 the clergy without securing the protection of philosophers. He 
 has sought no protection but that of truth. That now he should 
 choose Padua above all places, must ever excite our astonish- 
 ment. Padua, where Aristotle reigns supreme ! Padua, which 
 is overshadowed by Venice and the Inquisition ! Was he weary 
 of life, that he thus marched into the camp of his enemy ? or 
 did he rely on the force of his convictions and the vigor of his 
 eloquence to triumph even in Padua ? None can say. He came 
 — he taught — he fled. Venice received him, — but it was in her 
 terrible prison. Lovers of coincidences will And a piquant illus- 
 tration in the fact, that at the very moment when Bruno was 
 thrown into prison, Galileo opened his course of mathematics at 
 Padua ; and the six years in which Galileo occupied that mathe- 
 matical chair, were the six yeans Bruno spent in miserable captivity. 
 
 Bruno’s arrest was no sooner eflected, than intimation of it 
 was sent to the Grand Inquisitor San Severina, at Rome, who 
 ordered that the prisoner should be sent to him, under es*cort, on 
 the first opportunity. Thomas Morosini presented himself before 
 the Savi of Venice, and demanded, in the name of his Emi- 
 nence, that Bruno should be delivered up to him. “ That man,” 
 said he, “ is not only a heretic, but an heresiarch. He has writ- 
 ten works in which he highly lauds the Queen of England and other 
 heretical princes. He has written diverse things touching religion, 
 which are contrary to the faith.” The Savi, for some reason or 
 other, declined to give up their prisoner, saying the matter was 
 too important for them to take a sudden resolution. Was this 
 mercy? Was it cnielty? In efiect, it was cruelty; for Bruno 
 languished six years in the prisons of Venice, and only quitted 
 them to perish at the stake. Six long years of captivity — worse 
 than any death. To one so ardent, solitude itself was punishment. 
 He wanted to be among men, to combat, to argue, to live ; and 
 he was condemned to the fearful solitudes of that prison, without 
 
386 
 
 FROM PROCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 books, without paper, without friends. Such was the repose which 
 the weary wanderer found on his native soil. 
 
 His prison doors were at length opened, and he was removed 
 to Rome, there to undergo a tedious • and fruitless examination. 
 Of what use was it to call upon him to retract his opinions? 
 The attempt to convince him was more rational ; but it failed. 
 The tiresome debate was needlessly prolonged. Finding him 
 insensible to their threats and to their logic, they brought him, 
 on the 9th of February, to the palace of San Severino ; and 
 there, in the presence of the cardinals and most illustrious theo- 
 logians, he was forced to kneel and receive the sentence of ex- 
 communication. That sentence passed, he was handed over tc 
 the secular authorities, with a recommendation of a “punish- 
 ment as merciful as possible, and without effusion of blood” — the 
 ut quam dementis sim^ et citra, sanguinis effusionem puniretur — 
 the atrocious formula for burning alive. 
 
 Calm and dignified was the bearing of the victim during the 
 whole of this scene. It impressed even his persecutors. On 
 hearing his sentence, one phrase alone disturbed the unalterable 
 serenity of his demeanor. Raising his head with haughty supe- 
 riority, he said, “I suspect you pronounce this sentence with 
 more fear than I receive it.” A delay of one week was accorded 
 to him, in the expectation that fear might force a retractation; 
 but the week expired, and Bruno remained immovable. He per- 
 ished at the stake ; but he died in the martyr spirit, self-sus- 
 tained and silent, welcoming death as the appointed passage to 
 a higher life. 
 
 “ Fendo i cieli e a 1’ infinite m’ ergo.” 
 
 Bruno perished, the victim of intolerance. It is impossible to 
 read of such a punishment without strong indignation and dis- 
 gust. There is, indeed, no page in the annals of mankind which 
 we would more willingly blot out, than those upon which fanat- 
 icism has written its bloody history. Frivolous as have often 
 been the pretexts for shedding blood, none are more abhorrent 
 to us than those founded upon religious differences. Surely the 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 
 
 387 
 
 question of I’eligion is awful enough in itself! Men have the 
 deepest possible interest in ascertaining the truth of it ; and if 
 they cannot read the problem aright by the light of their own 
 convictions, will it be made more legible by the light of an auto- 
 da-fe ? Tolerance is still far from being a general virtue ; but 
 what scenes of struggle, of violence, and of persecution, has the 
 world passed through, before even the present modicum of tol- 
 erance could he gained 1 In the sixteenth century, free thought 
 was a crime. The wisest men were bitterly intolerant; the 
 mildest, cruel, ilampanella tells us that he was fifty times im- 
 prisoned, and seven times put to the torture, for daring to think 
 otherwise than those in power. It was, indeed, the age of per- 
 secution. That which made it so bloody, was the vehemence of 
 the struggle between the old world and the new — between 
 thought and established dogma — between science and tradition. 
 In every part of Europe — in Rome itself — men uprose to utter 
 their new doctrines, and to shake off the chains which enslaved 
 human intellect. It was the first great crisis in modern history, 
 and we read its progress by the bonfires lighted in every town. 
 The glare of the stake reddened a sky illumined by the fair au- 
 roral light of Science. 
 
 Did Bruno deserve to die ? According to the notions of that 
 age, he certainly did ; though historians have, singularly enough, 
 mzzled themselves in the search after an adequate motive for so 
 severe a punishment. He had praised heretical princes ; he had 
 reasoned philosophically on matters of faith — properly the sub- 
 jects of theology; he had proclaimed liberty of thought, and in- 
 vestigation ; he had disputed the infallibility of the Church in 
 science ; he had propagated such heresies as the rotation of the 
 earth, and the infinity of worlds ; he had refused to attend Mass ; 
 he had repeated many bufiboneries then circulating, which threw 
 contempt upon sacred things ; finally, he had taught a system 
 of Pantheism, which was altogether opposed to Christianit) . 
 He had done all this ; and whoever knows the sixteenth century 
 will see that such an innovator had no chance of escape. Ac- 
 
388 
 
 FROM PROCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 coi’diugly, the flames (as Scioppius sarcastically wrote in describ- 
 ing the execution to a friend) “ carried him to those worlds which 
 he imagined.” 
 
 “As men die, so they walk among posterity,” is the felicitous' 
 remark of Monckton Milnes ; and Bruno, like many other men, is 
 better remembered for his death than for any thing he did while 
 living. The flames which consumed his body have embalmed 
 his name. He knew it would be so — “ La morte d’ un secolo fa 
 vivo in tutti gli altri.” 
 
 Considered as a system of philosophy, we cannot hesitate in 
 saying that Bruno’s has only an historical, not an intrinsic value. 
 Its condemnation is written in the fact of its neglect. But taken 
 historically, his works are very curious, and still more so when 
 we read them with a biographical interest ; for they not only 
 illustrate the epoch, but exhibit the man — exhibit his impetuos- 
 ity, recklessness, vanity, imagination, buffoonery, his thoroughly 
 Neapolitan character, and his sincere love of truth. Those who 
 wish to see grave subjects treated with dignity, will object to the 
 license he allows himself, and will have no tolerance for the bad 
 taste he so often displays. But we should rather look upon these 
 works as the rapid productions of a restless athlete — as the im- 
 provisations of a full, ardent, but irregular mind, in an age when 
 taste was less fastidious than it has since become. If Bruno 
 mingled bufiboneries and obscenities with grave and weighty 
 topics, he therein only follows the general license of that age ; 
 and we must extend to him the same forgiveness as to Bembo, 
 Ariosto, Tansillo, and the rest. Plato himself is not wholly ex 
 empt from the same defect. 
 
 In adopting the form of dialogue, Bruno also followed the 
 taste of his age. It is a form eminently suited to polemical sub- 
 jects ; and all his works were polemical. It enabled him to rid- 
 icule by turns the pedants, philosophers, and theologians ; and 
 to enunciate certain doctrines which even his temerity would 
 have shrunk from, had he not been able to place them in the 
 mouth of another. He makes his dialogues far more entertain- 
 
GIOEDAJSrO BKUNO. 
 
 389 
 
 jug than works of metaphysics usually are ; and this he does by 
 digressions, by ridicule, by eloquence, and a liberal introduction 
 of sonnets. Sometimes his very vivacity becomes wearisome. 
 The reader is stunned and bewildered by the remorseless torrent 
 of substantives and epithets which pours from his too prolific 
 pen. There is nobody to lival him, but Eabelais, in this flux of 
 words.* His great butts are the clergy, and the philosophers. 
 He reproaches the former with ignorance, avarice, hypocrisy, and 
 the desire to stifle inquiry and prolong the reign of ignorance. 
 The philosophers he reproaches with blind adherence to author- 
 ity, with stupid reverence for Aristotle and Ptolemy, and with 
 slavish imitation of antiquity. It should be observed that he 
 does not so much decry Aristotle, as the ido.atry of Aristotle.f 
 Against the pedantry of that pedantic age he is always hurling 
 his thunders. “ If,” says he, in one place, characterizing the 
 pedant, “ he laughs, he calls himself Democritus ; if he weeps, it 
 is with Heraclitus ; when he argues, he is Aristotle ; when he 
 combines chimeras, he is Plato ; when he stutters, he is Demos- 
 thenes.” That Bruno’s scorn sprang from no misology, his own 
 varied erudition proves. But while he studied the ancients to 
 extract from them such eternal truths as were buried amidst a 
 mass of error, they, the pedants, only studied how to deck them- 
 selves in borrowed plumes. 
 
 Turning from manner to matter, we must assign to Bruno a 
 place in the history of philosophy, as a successor of the Neo- 
 Platonists, and the precursor of Spinoza, Descartes, Leibnitz, and 
 
 * To give the reader a taste of this quality, we will cite a sentence from 
 the dedicatory epistle to Gli Eroici Furori ; “ Che spettacolo, o Dio buono ! 
 piu vile e ignobile pub presentarsi ad un oochio di terso sentimento, che nn 
 uomo cogitabundo, afflitto, tormentato, triste, inaninconioso, per divenir or 
 freddo, or caldo, or fervente, or tremante, or pallido, or rosso, or in mina di 
 perplesso, or in atto dirisoluto, un, che spende il miglior intervallo di tempo 
 destillando 1’ elixir del cervello con mettere soritto e sigillar in pubbliei mon- 
 umenti, quelle continue torture, que’ gravi tormenti, que’ razionali discorsi, 
 que’ fatuosi pensieri, e quell! amarissimi studi, destinati sotto la tirannida 
 d’ una indegna imbeeille stolta e sozza sporcaria?” Thus it continues foi 
 some fifty lines more!—0/)/i. Ital. ii. 299. 
 
 t Vide Opp. Ital. ii. 67, where this is explicitly stated. 
 
390 
 
 FKOM PKOCLUS TO BACON. 
 
 Sclielliug. That Spinoza and Descartes were actually conversant 
 with the writing’s of Giordano Bruno, does not distinctly appear. 
 Yet it is not to be disputed that Bruno anticipated Spinoza 
 in his conception of the immanence of the Deity, in his famous 
 natura naturans and natura naturata, and in his pantheistic 
 theory of evolution. He also anticipated Descartes’ famous cri- 
 terium of truth, viz. that whatever is clear and evident to the 
 mind, and does not admit of contradiction, must be true ; and in 
 his proclamation of Doubt as opposed to Authority, he thus in- 
 sists upon Doubt as the starting-point : “ Chi vuol perfettamente 
 giudicare deve saper spogliarsi de la consuetudine di credere, deve 
 V una e V altre contradittoria esistimare egualmente possibile, e 
 dismettere a fatto quelV affezione di cui e imbibeto da nativitd."* 
 Leibnitz was avowedly acquainted with Bruno’s works, and de- 
 rived therefrom his theoi'y of monads. Schelling makes no secret 
 of his obligations. 
 
 There is another merit in Bruno which should not be over- 
 looked, that, namely, of giving a strong impulse to the study of 
 Nature. Occupied with Syllogisms about entities and quiddities, 
 the philosophy of the Middle Ages had missed the great truth 
 that “ man is the minister and interpreter of nature.” Philoso- 
 phy taught that the interpretation could proceed only from 
 within ; that men were to look into their own minds to analyze, 
 subdivide, and classify their own ideas, instead of looking forth 
 into Nature, and patiently observing her processes. j- Bruno was 
 one of the first to call men out into the free air. With his poet- 
 ical instinct, he naturally looked to Nature as the great book for 
 man to read. He deified Nature ; and looked upon the Universe 
 as the garment of God, as the incarnation of the divine activity. 
 Let not this be misunderstood, however. If Bruno embraced 
 
 * De I' Infinite Zfniverso e Mondi; 0pp. Ital. ii. 84. 
 
 + It is of them Telesio energetically says : “Sed veluti cum Deo de sapi- 
 entia contendentes deeertantesque, mundi ipsius prinoipiaet causas ratione in- 
 quirere ansi, et qua; non invenerant, inventa ea sibi esse existimantes, volen- 
 tesque, veluti suo arbitratu, mundnm affluxere .” — De Rerum Natura in 
 Praam. 
 
GIOEDANO BEUNO. 
 
 391 
 
 ilie Copernican theory, and combated the general physics of his 
 day, he is not, on that account, to be mistaken for a man of sci- 
 entific Method. He espoused the correct view of the earth’s 
 sphericity and rotation ; but he did so on the faith of his meta- 
 physical theories, not on rigorous induction. 
 
 Bruno’s creed was Pantheism. God was the Infinite Intelli- 
 gence, the Cause of Causes, the Principle of all life and mind ; 
 the great Activity, whose action we name the Universe. But 
 God did not create the universe ; he informed it with life — with 
 being. He is the universe ; but only as the cause is the effect, 
 sustaining it, causing it, but not limited by it. He is self-exist- 
 ing, yet so essentially active as incessantly to manifest himself as 
 a Cause. Between the supreme Being and the inferior beings 
 dependent upon him, there is this distinction : He is absolntely 
 simple, without parts. He is one whole, identical and universal ; 
 whereas the others are mere individual parts, distinct from the 
 great Whole. Above and beyond the visible universe there is 
 an Infinite Invisible, — an immovable, unalterable Identity, which 
 rules over all diversity. This Being of Beings, this Unity of 
 Unities, is God : “ Deus est monadum monas, nempe entinm 
 entitas.” 
 
 Bruno says, that although it is impossible to conceive nature 
 separated from God, we can conceive God separated from nature. 
 The infinite Being is the essential centre and substance of the 
 universe, but he is above the essence and substance of all things : 
 he is superessentialis, supersubstantialis. Thus we cannot con- 
 ceive a thought independent of a mind, but we can conceive a 
 mind apart from any one thought. The universe is a thought 
 of God’s mind — nay more, it is the infinite activity of his mind. 
 To suppose the world fiuite is to limit his power. “ Wherefore 
 should we imagine that the Divine activity (la divina efficacia) 
 is idle ? Wherefore should we say that the Divine goodness, 
 which can communicate itself ad infinitum, and infinitely difi’use 
 tself, is willing to restrict itself? Why should his infinite capa- 
 city be frustrated — defrauded of its possibility to create infinite 
 
392 
 
 FROM PROCLUS TO BACOFT. 
 
 worlds ? And why should we deface the excellence of the Di 
 vine image, which should rather reflect itself in an infinite mirror 
 as his nature is infinite and immense ?”* 
 
 Bruno admits the existence of only one intelligence, and that 
 is God. Est Ecus in nobis. This intelligence, which is perfect 
 in God, is less perfect in inferior spirits ; still less so in man ; 
 more and more imperfect in the lower gradations of created be- 
 ings. But all these differences are differences of degree, not of 
 kind. The inferior order of beings do not understand them- 
 selves, but they have a sort of language. In the superior orders 
 of beings, intelligence arrives at the point of self-consciousness — 
 they understand themselves, and those below them. Man, who 
 occupies the middle position in the hierarchy of creation, is ca- 
 pable of contemplating every phasis of life. He sees God above 
 him — he sees around him traces of the divine activity. These 
 ti'aces, which attest the immutable order of the universe, constitute 
 the soul of the world. To collect them, and connect them with 
 the Being whence they issue, is the noblest function of the human 
 mind. Bruno further teaches that, in proportion as man labors 
 in this direction, he discovers that these traces, spread abroad in 
 nature, do not differ from the which exist in his own mind.f 
 He thus arrives at the perception of the identity between the 
 soul of the world, and his own soul, both as reflections of the Di- 
 vine intelligence. He is thus led to perceive the identity of 
 Subject and Object, of Thought and Being. 
 
 Such is the faint outline of a doctrine, to preach which, Bruno 
 became a homeless wanderer and a martyr; as he loftily says, 
 “ Con questa filosofia 1’ anima mi s’ aggrandisce, e mi si magni- 
 jica V intellelto." If not original, this doctrine has at any rate 
 the merit of poetical grandeur. In it deep thoughts, wrestling 
 
 * De V Infirdto ; 0pp. Ital. ii. 2i. 
 
 + “ Elp. : What is the purpose of the senses ? — Fil. : Solely to excite the 
 reason ; to indicate the truth, but not to judge of it. Truth is in the sensi- 
 ble object as in a mirror ; in the reason, as a matter of argument ; in the 
 intellect, as a principle and conclusion ; but in the mind it has its true and 
 proper form.” — De I’ Infirdto, p. 18. 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 
 
 393 
 
 with imperfect language, do get some sort of utterance. As a 
 system, it is more imaginative than logical ; but to many minds 
 It would be all the more acceptable on that account. Coleridge 
 used to say, and with truth, that imagination was the greatest 
 faculty of the philosopher ; and Bruno said, “ Philosophi sunt 
 quodammodo pictures atque poetse. . . . Non est philosophus 
 nisi fingit et pingit.” Little as the dull man of science may be 
 aware of it, the great faculty of imagination is indispensable even 
 to his science : it is the great telescope with which we look into 
 the infinite. But in metaphysics imagination plays a still greater 
 part; it there reigns as a queen. 
 
 The works of Bruno are mostly in Italian, Latin having been 
 happily reserved by him for the logical treatises. The volumes 
 which we owe to the honorable diligence and love of philosophy 
 of Adolph Wagner, open with the comedy, 17 Candelajo, which 
 was adapted to the French stage under the title of Boniface le 
 Pedant, from which Cyrano de Bergerac took his Pedant Joue^ 
 — a piece which in its turn was plundered by Moliere, who, with 
 charming wit and candor, avows it : “ Ces deux scenes (in Cy- 
 rano) etaient bonnes ; elles m’appartenaient de plein droit ; on 
 reprend son bien partout oil on le trouveP* According to 
 
 * This is, perhaps, the wittiest of all the variations of the “ pereant male 
 qui ante nos nostra dixissent.” The Chevalier D’Aceilly’s version is worth 
 citing ; 
 
 “ Dis-je qiielque chose assez belle ? 
 
 L’antiquite tout en cervelle 
 Prdtend I’avoir dite avant moi. 
 
 C’est une plaisante donzelle ! 
 
 (Jue ne venait-elle apres moi ? 
 
 J’aurais dit la chose avant elle !” 
 
 While on this subject, we cannot resist Piron’s lines; 
 
 “ Us ont dit, il est vrai, presque tout ce qu’on pense. 
 
 Leurs ecrits sont des vols qu’ils nous ont faits d’avance. 
 
 Mais le remede est simple ; il faut faire comme eux, 
 
 Us nous ont derobes ; derobons nos neveux. 
 
 Un demon triomphant m’eleve a cet emploi : 
 
 Malheur aux ecrivains qui viendront apres moi !” 
 
 La Metromanu, 
 
894 
 
 FROM PKOCLUS TO BACOlSr. 
 
 Charles Nodier, Moliere was indebted to Bruno for several 
 scenes; but it is difficult to settle questions of plagiarism. Bruno’s 
 comedy is long, full of absurd incidents and Neapolitan buflFoon- 
 ery, and might have suggested a good deal to such a prolific 
 mind as Moliere’s. In it he has exhibited “ the amorousness of 
 one old man named Bonifacio, the sordid avarice of another 
 named Bartolomeo, and the pedantry, not less sordid, of a third 
 named Manfurio.” Ladies of vacillating virtue, soldiers, sailors, 
 and scamps concert together to deceive these three old men, and 
 wring money from their sensuality, their avarice, and their super- 
 stition. Bonifacio, desperately in love with Vittoria, is never- 
 theless alarmed at the enormous expense necessary to make his 
 addresses acceptable. He had recourse to Scaramure, a reputed 
 magician, who sells him a wax figure, which he is to melt, and 
 thus melt the obdurate heart of his fair one. After a succession 
 of disasters, Bonifacio is seized by pretended police, who force 
 from him a heavy ransom. Bartolomeo becomes the dupe of 
 Cencio, an impostor, who sells him a receipt for making gold. 
 Manfurio, the pedant, is beaten, robbed, and ridiculed through- 
 out. The senkralism and niggardliness of Bonifacio, and the 
 pedantry of Manfurio, are hit oflf with true comic spirit ; and the 
 dialogue, though rambling and diflfuse, is enlivened by lazzi — not 
 always the most decent, it is true — and crowded with proverbs. 
 Dramatic art there is none ; the persons come on and talk ; they 
 are succeeded by fresh actors, who, having talked, also retire to 
 give place to others. The whole play leaves a very confused im- 
 pression. The hits at alchemy and pedantry were, doubtless, 
 highly relished in those days. 
 
 It is very strange to pass from this comedy to the work which 
 succeeds it in Wagner’s edition. La Cena de le Ceneri. In five 
 dialogues he combats the hypothesis of the world’s immobility ; 
 proclaims the infinity of the universe, and warns us against seek- 
 ing its centre or circumference. He enlarges on the difference 
 between appearances and reality in celestial phenomena; argues 
 that our globe is made of the same substance as the other plan- 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 
 
 395 
 
 ets, and that every thing which is, is living, so that the world 
 may be likened to a huge animal.* In this work he also an- 
 swers his objectors, who bring against his system the authority 
 of Scripture, exactly in the same way as modern geologists an- 
 swer the same objection, viz. by declaring that the revelation in 
 the Bible was a moral not a physical revelation. It did not pre- 
 tend to teach science, but, on the contrary, adopted ordinary 
 notions, and expressed itself in the language intelligible to the 
 vulgar.f In this work there are some digressions more than 
 usually interesting to us, because they refer to the social condi 
 tion of England during Elizabeth’s reign. 
 
 The two works. Be la Causa and Be V Infinito, contain the 
 most matured and connected exposition of his philosophical opin- 
 ions. As our space will not admit of an analysis, we must refer 
 to that amply given by M. Bartholmess.J The Spaccio de la 
 Bestia Trionfante is the most celebrated of all his writings. It 
 was translated by Toland, in 1713, who printed only a very few 
 copies, as if wishing it to fall into the hands of only a few choice 
 readers. The very title has been a sad puzzle to the world, and 
 has led to the strangest suppositions. The “ Triumphant Beast,” 
 which Bruno undertakes to expel, is none other than this ; an- 
 cient astronomy disfigured the heavens with animals as constel- 
 jatioDs, and under guise of expelling these, he attacks the great 
 beast (superstition) whose predominance causes men to believe 
 that the stars influence human affairs. In his Cabala del Ca- 
 vallo Pegaseo, he sarcastically calls the ass “ la bestia trionfante 
 viva,” and indites a sonnet in praise of that respectable quad- 
 ruped : 
 
 * An idea borrowed from Plato, who, in the Timceus, says, OSruj olv in 
 Kard \oybv rbv UKdra iei Myecv rdi'ie rov Kdafiov ^inov evvovv T€ Tjj 
 
 ha Tiv Tov dcoV ycvcaBat irpivoiar. — p. 26, ed. Bekker. Compare also Politicus, 
 p. 2»8. Bruno may have taken this directly from Plato, or he might have 
 learned it from the work of his countryman, Telesio, De Rerum Naturd. 
 
 + " Second© il senso volgare et ordinario modo di comprendere e parlare. ’ 
 The whole of the early portion of Dialogue 4 (in which this distinction is 
 maintained) is worth consulting. — Opere, i. 172 sq. 
 
 t Vol. ii. pp. 128-154. 
 
396 
 
 FKOM PROCLL'S TO BACON. 
 
 “ Oh sant’ asinita, sant’ ignoranza, 
 
 Santa stoltizia, e pia divozioue, 
 
 Qual sola puoi far 1’ anima si Duone 
 
 Cli’ uman ingegno e studio non I’avanzal” etc. 
 
 The Spaccio is an attack upon the superstitions of the day, — a 
 war against ignorance, and “ that orthodoxy 'without morality, 
 and without belief, which is the ruin of all justice and virtue.” 
 Morality, Bruno fancifully calls “the astronomy of the heart;” 
 but did not even Bacon call it “the Georgies of the mind?” 
 The Spaccio is a strange medley of learning, imagination, and 
 buffoonery ; and on the whole, perhaps the most tiresome of all 
 his writings. M. Bartholmess, whose admiration for Bruno 
 greatly exceeds our own, says of it: “The mythology and sym- 
 bolism of the ancients is there employed with as much tact as 
 erudition. The fiction that the modern world is still governed 
 by Jupiter and the court of Olympus, the mixture of reminis- 
 cences of chivalry, and the marvels of the middle ages, with the 
 tales and traditions of antiquity — all those notions which have 
 given birth to the philosophy of mythology, of religions, and of 
 history — the Vicos and the Creuzers — this strange medley makes 
 the Spaccio so interesting. The philosopher there speaks the 
 noble language of a moralist. As each virtue in its turn appears 
 to replace the vices which disfigure the heavens, it learns from 
 Jupiter all it has to do, all it has to avoid : all its attributes are 
 enumerated and explained, and mostly personified in the allegor- 
 ical vein ; all the dangers and excesses it is to avoid are charac- 
 terized with the same vigor. Every page reveals a rare talent 
 for psychological observation, a profound knowledge of the heart, 
 and of contemporary society. The passions are subtly analyzed 
 and well painted. That which still more captivates the thought- 
 ful reader is the sustained style of his long fiction, which may be 
 regarded as a sort of philosophic sermon. Truth and wisdom, 
 justice and candor, take the place in the future now occupied 
 by error, folly, and falsehood of every species. In this last re- 
 spect the Spaccio has sometimes the style of the Apocalypse.” 
 W^ithout impugning the justice of this criticism, we must add, 
 
GIOEDANO BBTJNO. 
 
 397 
 
 that the Spaccio taxes even a bookworm’s patience, and ought 
 to be read with a liberal license in skipping. 
 
 Perhaps of all his writings, Oli Eroid Furori is that which 
 would most interest a modern readei', not curious about the phi- 
 losophical speculations of the Neapolitan. Its prodigality of son- 
 nets, and its mystic exaltation, carry us at once into the heart of 
 that epoch of Italian culture when poetry and Plato were the 
 great studies of earnest men. In it Bruno, avowing himself a 
 disciple of Petrarch, proclaims a Donna more exalted than Laura, 
 more adorable than all earthly beauty : that Donna is the imper- 
 ishable image of Divine Perfection. It is unworthy of a man, he 
 says, to languish for a woman ; to sacrifice to her all those 
 energies and faculties of a great soul, which might be devoted 
 to the pursuit of the Divine. Wisdom, which is truth and 
 beauty in one, is the idol adored by the genuine hero. Love 
 woman if you will, but remember that you are also a lover of the 
 Infinite. Truth is the food of every heroic soul ; hunting for 
 Truth the only occupation worthy of a hero.* The reader of 
 Plato will trace here a favorite image ; and was it not Berkeley 
 who defined Truth as the cry of all, but the game few run down ? 
 
 * Vide, in particular, the fine passage, Oj>p Ital. ii. 406-7. 
 
 28 
 
FIRST EPOCH. 
 
 FOUNDATION OF THE INDUCTIVE METHOD. 
 
 § I. The Life of Bacon. 
 
 Francis Bacon was born on the 22d January, 1561. Mr. 
 Basil Montagu, the laborious and affectionate (we had almost 
 said idolatrous) biographer of Bacon, wishes us to believe that 
 the family was ancient and illustrious ; and favors us with rhe- 
 torical flourishes about Bacon retiring to the “halls of his an- 
 cestors.” This is somewhat different from the story of Bacon’s 
 grandfather having kept the sheep of the Abbot of Bury.* 
 
 But although we can claim for Bacon no illustrious ancestry, 
 we must not forget his excellent parentage. His father. Sir 
 Nicholas, was generally considered as ranking next to the great 
 Burleigh as a statesman. His mother, Anne, daughter of Sir 
 Anthony Cooke, “ was distinguished both as a linguist and as a 
 theologian. She corresponded in Greek with Bishop Jewel, and 
 translated his Apologia from the Latin so correctly, that neither 
 he nor Bishop Parker could suggest a single alteration.”! 
 
 His health was very delicate, which made him sedentary and 
 reflective. Of his youth we know little, but that little displays 
 
 * See this question of lineage, and a great many other curious points, 
 satisfactorily settled in an article on the Lives of Bacon, London Review, 
 Jan. 1836. 
 
 t Edinh. Review, July, 1837, p. 9. This is the brilliant article on Bacon, 
 by Macaulay, which has excited so much attention. It is reprinted in hia 
 Essays. 
 
THE LIEE OF BACON. 
 
 399 
 
 the reflective tendency of his mind. At the age of twelve he^ 
 discussed the point as to how a juggler could tell the card of 
 which a man thought : he at first ascribed it to a confederacy 
 between the juggler and the servants, till he at last discovered 
 the law of the mind on which the trick depends. We hear also 
 of his leaving his playfellows to examine the cause of an echo 
 which he had observed in a vault. At thirteen he was entered 
 at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he soon felt a profound 
 contempt for the course of study pursued there, and an inveterate 
 scorn for Aristotle and his followers. It is said that he there 
 planned his Novum Organum ; but this is highly improbable. 
 What he did was perhaps to sketch some new scheme of philo- 
 sophical study, originated by his contempt for that in vogue. 
 There must however be a wide difference between the sketch 
 of a boy, prompted by contempt for reigning opinions, and 
 the wise maturity of his greatest work, the fruit of a life’s medi- 
 tations. 
 
 On leaving Cambridge, he visited Paris, Poitiers, and other 
 parts of France, from whence he v^as recalled on the sudden 
 death of his father. “ Being returned from travaile,” says Dr. 
 Rowley, “ he applyed himself to the study of the Common Law, 
 which he took upon him to be his profession ; in which he ob- 
 tained to great excellency, though he made that (as himself said) 
 but as an accessory, and not as his principal study.” 
 
 In 1590, he sat in Parliament as Member for Middlesex. He 
 soon became distinguished as an orator and as a debater. We 
 have the testimony of an admirable judge to assure us that 
 Bacon’s oratory was worthy of his other powers. Ben Jonson 
 thus writes : “ There happened, in my time, one noble speaker, 
 who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, where 
 he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. Ho man 
 ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered 
 less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. Ho member of 
 his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could 
 Qot cough or look aside from him without loss. He commanded 
 
iOO 
 
 THE LIFE OF BACON. 
 
 .when he spoke, and had his judges angry or pleased at his de- 
 votion.”* 
 
 A grave biographical question, namely that of Bacon’s politi- 
 cal and moral conduct, must be passed over by us without a word 
 of comment, because the question is too complicated and critical 
 for any succinct narrative.f Let us pass on to the year 1616, 
 when Sir Francis Bacon was sworn of the Privy Council ; and 
 in March, 16lY, on the retirement of Lord Brackley, was ap- 
 pointed Keeper of the Great Seal. His administration was any 
 thing but pure. He was the tool of Buckingham, who was alto- 
 gether unscrupulous. On his own account, too, he accepted 
 large presents from persons engaged in Chancery suits. His 
 enemies reckoned his gains in this way at a hundred thousand 
 pounds ; an immense sum in those days, and probably exagger- 
 ated. His works had spread his fame throughout Europe. He 
 had also been created Baron Verulam ; and subsequently Vis- 
 count St. Alban’s. We have every reason to believe that he 
 valued this title more highly than that of the author of the In- 
 stauratio Magna; but, as Mr. Macaulay remarks, posterity, in 
 defiance of royal letters-patent, has obstinately refused to degrade 
 Francis Bacon into Viscount St. Alban’s. 
 
 In the height of this prosperity a terrible reverse was at hand. 
 He was accused of corruption, and was impeached. His re- 
 morse and dejection of mind were dreadful. “ During several 
 days he remained in his bed, refusing to see any human being. 
 He passionately told his attendants to leave him— to forget him 
 — never again to n.ame his name — never to remember that there 
 had been such a man in the world.” The charges against him 
 were such that the King, impotent to save him, advised him to 
 
 * Ben Jonson, Underwoods. In the Discoveries, Ben also speaks admir- 
 ingly and affectionately of him. 
 
 t In the former edition, Mr. Macaulay’s view of this question was 
 adopted ; but on the eve of the appearance of that long-promised edition of 
 Bacon’s works, in which Mr. Spedding is to give the results of his ex- 
 naustive study of this question, it seems desirable not to repeat statements 
 which may turn out error ecus when all the evidence is produced. 
 
THE LIFE OF BACON. 
 
 401 
 
 plead guilty. He did so. The sentence he received was severe : 
 a fine of forty thousand pounds, and to be imprisoned in the 
 Tower during the King’s pleasure. He was declared incapable 
 of holding any office in the State, or of sitting in Parliament, 
 and was banished for life from the verge of the Court. 
 
 This sentence was not executed. He was sent, indeed, to the 
 Tower, but at the end of the second day he was released. His 
 fine was remitted by the Crown. He was soon allowed to pre- 
 sent himself at Court; and in 1624 the rest of his sentence was 
 remitted. He was at liberty to sit in the House of Lords, and 
 was summoned to the next Parliament. He did not, however, 
 attend : age, infirmity, and perhaps shame, prevented him. 
 
 In his retirement, he devoted himself to literature ; and 
 amongst other works published his wonderful treatise De Aug- 
 mentis^ which, though only an expansion of his Advancement of 
 Learning^ may nevertheless be regarded as a new work.* * 
 
 “ The great apostle of experimental philosophy,” says Mr. Ma- 
 caulay, “ was destined to be its martyr. It had occurred to him 
 that snow might be used with advantage, for the purpose of pre- 
 venting animal substances from putrefying. On a very cold day, 
 early in the spring of the year 1626, he alighted from his coach 
 near Highgate, to try the experiment. He went into a cottage, 
 bought a fowl, and with his own hands stuflfed it with snow. 
 While thus engaged, he felt a sudden chill, and was so much in- 
 disposed, that it was impossible for him to return to Gray’s Inn. 
 After an illness of about a week, he expired on the morning of 
 Easter-day, 1626. His mind appears to have retained its strength 
 and liveliness to the end. He did not forget the fowl which had 
 caused his death. In the last letter that he ever wrote, with fin- 
 gers which, as he said, could not steadily hold a pen, he did not 
 omit to mention that the experiment of the snow had succeeded 
 excellently well.” 
 
 * “ I And, upon comparison, that more than two-thirds of this treatise are 
 a version, with slight interpolation or omission, from the Advancement of 
 Learning, the remainder being new matter.” — Hallam, History of Literature 
 
 *f Europe, iii. 169. 
 
4:02 
 
 BACON. 
 
 Bacon, when dying, did not disguise from himself the mournfu, 
 fact, that if he had thought profoundly, he had acted unworthily 
 Knowing at once his errors and his greatness, he said, “ For my 
 name and memory, I leave it to men’s charitable speeches, and 
 to foreign nations, and to the next age.” His confidence was 
 well placed. Leniently as we cannot but think him to tave 
 been treated by his contemporaries, posterity has been still more 
 gracious ; and the reason is felicitously expressed by Macaulay : 
 “ Turn where we will, the trophies of that mighty intellect are 
 full in view. We are judging Manlius in sight of the Capitol." 
 
 § Bacon’s Method. 
 
 Bacon is commonly styled the Father of Experimental Philos- 
 ophy. Was he the first great experimentalist? No. Was he 
 the most successful experimentalist? No. Was he the dis- 
 coverer of some of those great laws, the application of which is 
 the occupation of succeeding generations — was he a Copernicus, 
 a Galileo, a Kepler, a Torricelli, a Harvey, or a Newton ? No. 
 
 He owes this title to his Method, as will be understood after the 
 following sketch, in which we shall follow Professor Playfair’s 
 exposition in his Dissertation on the Progress of Physical Sci- 
 ence, prefixed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
 Before laying down the rules of his Method, Bacon proceeds 
 to enumerate the causes of error — the Idols, as he terms them, 
 in his figurative language, or false divinities, to which the mind 
 had so long been accustomed to bow.* Fie considered this enu- 
 meration as the more necessary, that the same idols were likely to 
 return, even after the reformation of science. 
 
 These idols he divides into four classes, viz. ; 
 
 Idola Tribfis Idols of the Tribe. 
 
 Idola Spectis Idols of the Den. 
 
 Idola Fori Idols of the Forum. 
 
 Idola Theatri Idols of the Theatre. 
 
 * Mr. Hallam was the first to poirit out the mistake which all modern 
 writers have made respeeting the meaning of the word Idol, as used by Ba- 
 ton; whieh does not mean idol, but false appearance {siSmXov). See the 
 passage in Hallam’s Lit. of Europe, iii. 194-6. 
 
bacon’s method. 
 
 403 
 
 1. The Idols of the Tribe are the causes of error founded on 
 human nature in general. “ The mind,” he observes, “ is not 
 like a plane mirror, which reflects the images of things exactly 
 as they are ; it is like a mirror of an uneven surface, which com- 
 bines its own flgure with the figures of the objects it represents.” 
 
 Among the idols of this class, w'e may reckon the propensity 
 which there is in all men to find a greater degree of order, sim- 
 plicity, and regularity, than is actually indicated by observa- 
 tion, Thus, as soon as men perceived the orbits of the planets 
 to return into themselves, they immediately supposed them to be 
 perfect circles, and the motion in those circles to be uniform ; 
 and to these hypotheses the astronomers and mathematicians of 
 all antiquity labored incessantly to reconcile their observations. 
 
 The propensity which Bacon has here characterized, may be 
 called the spirit of system. 
 
 2. The Idols of the Den are those which spring from the pe- 
 culiar character of the individual. Besides the causes of error 
 common to all mankind, each individual has his own dark cav- 
 ern, or den, into which the light is imperfectly admitted, and in 
 the obscurity of which a tutelary idol lurks, at whose shrine the 
 truth is often sacrificed. 
 
 Some minds are best adapted to mark the differences of things, 
 others to catch at the resemblances of things. Steady and pro- 
 found understandings are disposed to attend carefully, to proceed 
 slowly, and to examine the most minute differences ; while those 
 that are sublime and active, are ready to lay hold of the slightest 
 resemblances. Each of these easily runs into excess; the one 
 by catching continually at distinctions, the other at affinities. 
 
 3. The Idols of the Forum are those which arise out of the 
 intercourse of society, and those also which arise from lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Men believe that their thoughts govern their words ; but it 
 also happens, by a certain kind of reaction, that their words fre- 
 quently govern their thoughts. This is the more pernicious, 
 that words, being generally the work of the multitude, divide 
 
i04 
 
 BACON. 
 
 things according to the lines most conspicuous to vulgar appre 
 hensions. Hence, when words are examined, few instances are 
 found in which, if at all abstract, they convey ideas tolerably 
 precise and defined. 
 
 4. The Idols of the Theatre are the deceptions which have 
 arisen from the dogmas of different schools. 
 
 As many systems as existed, so many representations of im- 
 aginary worlds had been brought upon the stage. Hence the 
 name of Idola Theatri. They do not enter the mind impercep- 
 tibly like the other three ; a man must labor to acquire them, 
 and they are often the result of great learning and study. 
 
 After these preliminary discussions. Bacon proceeds, in the 
 Second Book of his Organum, to describe and exemplify the 
 nature of induction. 
 
 The first object must be to prepare a history of the phenomena 
 to be explained, in all their modifications and varieties. This 
 history is to comprehend not only all such facts as spontaneously 
 oflfer themselves, but all the experiments instituted for the sake oj 
 discovery^ or for any of the purposes of the useful arts. It ought 
 to be composed with great care ; the facts accurately related and 
 distinctly arranged ; their authenticity diligently examined ; 
 those that rest on doubtful evidence, though not rejected, yet 
 noted as uncertain, with the grounds of the judgment so formed. 
 This last is very necessary, for facts often appear incredible only 
 because we are ill-informed, and cease to appear marvellous when 
 our knowledge is further extended. This record of facts is Nat- 
 ural History. 
 
 The Natural History being prepared of any class of phenom- 
 ena, the next object is to discover, by a comparison of the diflPer- 
 ent facts, the cause of these phenomena, or, as Bacon calls it, the 
 form. The form of any quality in a body is something convert- 
 ible with that quality ; that is, where it exists the quality exists : 
 thus, if transparency in bodies be the thing inquired after, the 
 form of it is something found wherever there is transparency. 
 Thus form difl^ers from cause in this onlv : we call it form or es- 
 
bacon’s method. 
 
 405 
 
 sence, when the effect is a permanent quality ; we call it cause, 
 when the effect is a change or an event. 
 
 Two other subjects, snbordinate to forms, hut often essential to 
 the knowledge of them, are also occasionally subjects of investiga- 
 tion. These are the latent process, laiens processus ; and the la- 
 tent schematism, latens schematismus. The former is the secret 
 and invisible progress by which sensible changes are brought 
 about, and seems, in Bacon’s acceptation, to involve the principle 
 since called the law of continuity, according to which no change, 
 however small, can he effected but in time. To know the rela- 
 tion between the time and the change effected in it, would he to 
 have a perfect knowledge of the latent process. In the firing of 
 a cannon, for example, the succession of events during the short 
 interval between the application of the match and the expulsion 
 of the ball, constitutes a latent process of a very remarkable and 
 complicated nature, which, however, we can now trace with 
 some degree of accuracy. 
 
 The latent schematism is that invisible structure of bodies on 
 which so many of their properties depend. When we inquire 
 into the constitution of crystals, or into the internal structure of 
 plants, etc., we are examining into the latent schematism. 
 
 In order to inquire into the form of any thing by induction, 
 having brought together all the facts, we are to begin with consid- 
 ering what things are thereby excluded from the number of pos- 
 sible forms. This conclusion is the first part of the process of 
 induction. Thus, if we are inquiring into the quality which is 
 the cause of transparency in bodies ; from the fact that the dia- 
 mond is transparent, we immediately exclude rarity or porosity- 
 as well as fluidity from these causes, the diamond being a very 
 solid and dense body. 
 
 Negative instances, or those where the form is wanting, to bo 
 also collected. 
 
 That glass when pounded is not transparent, is a negative fact, 
 when the form of transparency is inquired into ; also, that col- 
 lections of vapors have not transparency. The facts thus col 
 
BACON. 
 
 i06 
 
 lected, both negative and affirmative, should, for the sake of ref- 
 erence, be reduced to tables. 
 
 Bacon exemplifies his Method on the subject of Heat ; and 
 though his collection of facts is imperfect, his method of treating 
 them is extremely judicious,* and the whole disquisition highly 
 interesting. 
 
 After a great many exclusions have been made, and left but 
 few principles common to every case, one of these is to be as- 
 sumed as the cause ; and by reasoning from it synthetically, we 
 aro to try if it will account for the phenomena. So necessary 
 did this exclusive process appear to Bacon, that he says, “ It may, 
 perhaps, be competent to angels or superior intelligences to de- 
 termine the form or essence directly, by affirmations from the 
 first consideration of the subject ; but it is certainly beyond the 
 power of man, to whom it is only given to proceed at first by 
 negatives, and in the last place to end in affirmatives, after the 
 exclusion of every thing else.” 
 
 There is, however, great difference in the value of facts. Some 
 of them show the thing sought for in the highest degree, some 
 in the lowest ; some exhibit it simple and uncombined, in others 
 it appears confused with a variety of circumstances. Some facts 
 are easily interpreted, others are very obscure, and are understood 
 only in consequence of the light thrown on them by the former. 
 This led Bacon to his consideration of Prerogative Instances, or 
 the comparative value of facts as means of discovery. He enu- 
 merates twenty-seven different species : but we must content our- 
 selves with giving only the most important. 
 
 I. Instantice solitarice : which are either examples of the same 
 quality existing in two bodies otherwise different, or of a quality 
 differing in two bodies otherwise the same. In the first instance 
 the bodies differ in all things but one ; in the seeond they agree 
 in all but one. Thus, if the cause or form of color be inquired 
 
 * This is Playfair’s judgment ; a different opinion will presently be quoted 
 from John Mill. 
 
bacon’s method. 
 
 407 
 
 into, instantioe solitarioB are found in crystals, prisms, drops of 
 dew, which occasionally exhibit color, and yet have nothing in 
 common with the stones, flowers, and metals which possess color 
 permanently, except the color itself. Hence Bacon concludes 
 that color is nothing else than a modification of the rays of light, 
 produced in the fimt case by the different degrees of incidence ; 
 and second, by the texture or constitution of the surface of bodies. 
 He maybe considered as very fortunate in fixing on these exam- 
 ples, for it was by means of them that Newton afterwards found 
 out the composition of light. 
 
 II. The instantice migrantes exhibit some property of the 
 body passing from one condition to another, either from less to 
 greater or from greater to less ; arriving nearer perfection in the 
 first case, or verging towards extinction in the second. 
 
 Suppose the thing inquired into were the cause of whiteness 
 in bodies ; an instantia migrans is found in glass, which entire 
 is colorless, but pulverized becomes white. The same is the case 
 with water unbroken or dashed into foam. 
 
 HI. The instantice ostensivce are the facts which show some 
 particular property in its highest state of power and energy, 
 when it is either freed from impediments which usually counter- 
 act it, or is itself of such force as entirely to repress those im- 
 pediments. 
 
 If the weight of air were inquired into, the Torricellian ex- 
 periment, or the barometer, aflTords an ostensive instance, where 
 the circumstance which conceals the weight of the atmosphere 
 in common cases, namely the pressure of it in all directions, be- 
 |ing entirely removed, that weight produces its full effect, and 
 sustains the whole column of mercury in the tube. 
 
 IV. The instances called analogous or parallel consist of facts 
 between which a resemblance or analogy is visible in some par- 
 ticulars, notwithstanding great diversity in all the rest. Such 
 are the telescope and microscope compared to the eye. It was 
 the experiment of the camera obsCura which led to the discovery 
 of the formation of images of external objects in the bottom of 
 
i08 
 
 BACON. 
 
 the eye by the action of the crystalline lens, and other humor? 
 of which the eye is formed. 
 
 V. InstanticE comitattis : examples of certain qualities which 
 always accompany one another. Such are flame and heat : flame 
 being always accompanied by heat, and the same degree of heat 
 in a given substance being always accompanied with flame. 
 
 Hostile instances, or those of perpetual separation, are the re- 
 verse of the former. Thus transparency and malleability in solids 
 are never combined. 
 
 VI. The instantia crucis. When in any investigation the un- 
 derstanding is placed in cequilihrio, as it were, between two or 
 more causes, each of which accounts equally well for the appear- 
 ances as far as they are known, nothing remains to be done, but 
 to look out for a fact which can be explained by one of these 
 causes and not by the other. Such facts perform the office of a 
 cross, erected at the separation of two roads, to direct the travel 
 ler which to take : hence called crucial instances. 
 
 The experimentum crucis is of such weight in matters of in- 
 duction, that in all those branches of science where it cannot be 
 resorted to (an experiment being out of our power and incapable 
 of being varied at pleasure) there is often a great want of con- 
 clusive evidence. 
 
 § III. The Spirit of Bacon’s Method. 
 
 We may now resume the question of Bacon’s claim to the 
 title of Father of Experimental Science. That which distin- 
 guishes his conception of philosophy from all previous concep- 
 tions is the systematization of graduated Verification, as the sole 
 Method of research. Others before him, notably Albertus 
 Magnus, had insisted on some parts of the experimental Method; 
 his great predecessor and namesake, Roger Bacon, had, in the 
 Opus Majus, insisted on experience as the truest guide, and had 
 distributed the causes of error under four heads (Authority, Cus- 
 tom, Vulgar Prejudice, and False Science), but no one had co- 
 ordinated into a compact body of doctrine all the elements of 
 
THE SriKIT OF BACON’s METHOD. 
 
 409 
 
 the Inductive Method ; and it is in this co-ordination that Ba- 
 con’s great merit lies. Roger Bacon had said that “ experience 
 alone gives accurate knowledge. Reasoning concludes, but estab- 
 lishes nothing ; even mathematical demonstration gives no com- 
 plete and certain conviction without this sanction. But this 
 experimental science is entirely unknown to the many. It has 
 three grand prerogatives relatively to the other kinds of knowl- 
 edge. The first is, that experiment proves and verifies by its in- 
 vestigations the highest propositions which the other sciences can 
 present. The second is, that this method, which alone merits 
 the name of mistress of speculative knowledge, can alone attain 
 to those sublime truths which other sciences cannot reach ; in 
 experimental truths the mind must not seek for the reason of 
 things before the testimony of facts, nor reject those facts because 
 it cannot justily them by argument. The third prerogative is 
 so peculiar to this method that it is independent of its relations 
 with the others ; it consists in two points, namely, in the knowl- 
 edge of the future, the present, and the past, and in the admira- 
 ble operations in which, it surpasses judicial astrology.”* Many 
 — from Socrates downwards — had insisted on Induction ; but the 
 Induction they conceived was that which Bacon calls inductio 
 per enumerationem simplicem, and which consists in “ ascribing 
 the character of general truths to all propositions which are true 
 in every instance that we happen to know of an induction 
 perpetually made in the loose latitude of common talk, and in 
 the less pardonable laxity of common literature. It is the natural 
 and instinctive action of the mind, and is thus distinguished from 
 the circumspect Method of Science. The real merit of Bacon’s 
 conception was his accurate detection of this natural source of 
 
 * This passage, translated from M. Eousselot’s Etudes, iii. 189, Is not prop- 
 erly Bacon’s, bat an abstract of the doctrines developed and exemplified in 
 the sixth part of the Opus Majus, pp. 445-477 of the Loudon edition, 1733. 
 The four causes of error are mentioned in p. 2 of the same edition : “ Fragi 
 iis et indignse auctoritatis exemplum, consuetudinis diuturnitas, vulgi sensut 
 imperiti, et proprise ignorantise occultatio cum ostentatione sapientise appa 
 rentis.” 
 
no 
 
 BACON, 
 
 error, and liis insistance on the wider and more circumspect 
 Method of V erification. 
 
 He did not content himself with telling men to make observa- ' 
 tions and experiments : he told them how observations and ex- 
 periments ought to be made. He did not content himself with 
 stating the proper mode of investigation to be that of Induc- 
 tion founded upon facts : he distinguished proper from impro- 
 per inductions — the “interrogation” from the “anticipation” of' 
 Nature. 
 
 He did this, and he did more. His Method may be said to 
 have two parts : the one, that precise system of rules we have 
 just quoted ; the other, that wise and pre-eminently scientific 
 spirit which breathes through his works. The latter is expressed 
 ■in wise and weighty aphorisms which form perpetual texts for 
 philosophic writers, and reveal the magnificence and profundity 
 of his intellect. It is in these he shows how completely he saw 
 through the false methods of his day, and how justly he is en- 
 titled the Father of Positive Science. 
 
 These aphorisms form, as we have said, perpetual texts. They 
 are quoted on all occasions when Method is treated of. We 
 cannot however resist quoting a half-dozen of them here, because 
 of their exceeding value, and of their fitness as illustrations of 
 his greatness : 
 
 I. Man, the minister and interpreter of Nature, can act and 
 understand in as far as he has, either in fact or in thought, ob- 
 served the order of Nature ; more he can neither know nor do. 
 
 II. The real cause and root of almost all the evils in science 
 
 is this : that, falsely magnifying and extolling the 'powers of the 
 mind, we seek not its real helps. i 
 
 HI. 'There are two ways of searching after and discovering 
 truth : the one, from sense and particulars, rises directly to the 
 most general axioms, and resting upon these principles, and their 
 unshaken truth, finds out intermediate axioms, and this is the 
 method in use ; but the other raises axioms from sense and par- 
 ticulars hy a continued and gradual ascent, till at last it arrives 
 
xHE SPIRIT OF EACOn’s METHOD. 
 
 411 
 
 6t the most general axioms, which is the true way, but hitherto 
 untried. 
 
 IV. The understanding, when left to itself, takes the first of 
 these ways ; for the mind delights in springing up to the most 
 general axioms, that it may find rest ; but after a short stay there, 
 it disdains experience, and these mischiefs are at length increased 
 by logic, for the ostentation of disputes. 
 
 V. The natural human reasoning we, for the sake of clearness, 
 call the anticipation of nature, as being a rash and hasty thing ; 
 and the reason duly exercised upon objects, we call the interpre 
 tation of nature. 
 
 VI. It is false to assert that human sense is the measure of 
 things, since all perceptions, both of sense and mind, are with 
 relation to man, and not with relation to the universe but the 
 human understanding is like an unequal mirror to the rays of 
 things, which, mixing its own nature with the nature of things, 
 distorts and perverts them. 
 
 We need only consider these half-dozen aphorisms to see the 
 positive tendency of his speculations ; and the greater the atten- 
 tion we bestow on his writings, the more is this fact pressed on 
 our notice. His mind was antipathetic to all metaphysics. 
 Neither the ingenuities of logicians, nor the passionate earnest- 
 ness of theologians, in that age of logicians and theologians, 
 could lure him from his path. “ He lived in an age,” says Mr. 
 Macaulay, “in which disputes on the most subtle points of di- 
 vinity excited an intense interest throughout Europe, and no- 
 where more than in England. He was placed in the very thick 
 of the conflict. He was in power at the time of the Synod of 
 Dort ; and must for months have been daily deafened with talk 
 about election, reprobation, and final perseverance ; yet we do 
 not remember a line in his works from which it can be inferred 
 that he was either a Calvinist or an Arminian. While the world 
 
 * This is Dr. Shaw’s translation. The original is, “ sunt ex analogic homi 
 uis, non ex analogia nniversi,” which is intelligible and expressive enough 
 but difficult to render. 
 
BACON. 
 
 1:12 
 
 was resounding with the noise of a disputatious theology and ? 
 disputatious philosophy, the Baconian School, like Allworthy 
 seated between Thwackum and Square, preserved a calm neutral- 
 ity, half scornful, half benerolent, and, content with adding to 
 the sum of practical good, left the war of words to those who 
 liked it.” 
 
 It may not at once be apparent how eminently scientific a 
 spirit is shown in Bacon’s separation of Science from Theology ; 
 but a slight reflection will convince us that, at such an epoch, 
 such a conception was wonderful. The persecution of Galileo 
 by the Church, and his recantation, were fresh in every one’s 
 memory ; they suffice to show that Religion was still considered 
 the arbiter of Philosophy and Science ; nor is this notion yet ex- 
 tinct. The objections raised against the geologists still operate 
 as a powerful obstacle to the universal acceptation of the science ; 
 and similar objections constantly obstruct our scientific progress 
 in other departments. This tendency is frequently deplored; 
 perhaps it might be checked in some degree if it were shown to 
 violate a fundamental canon of all sound philosophy, a canon 
 which may be thus expressed : No speculation should he con- 
 trolled by an order of conceptions not essentially presupposed by 
 it. For example, every one feels the absurdity of controlling 
 Poetry by Mathematics ; because Poetry in no sense presupposes 
 Mathematics, and derives no assistance from them ; but Physics 
 can be controlled by Mathematics, because in Physics there is 
 an essential dependence on Mathematics. We cannot control a 
 chemical speculation by any physiological laws ; but conversely 
 we can, and do, control physiological speculations by chemical 
 laws. The canon, thus expounded, is readily applied to the old 
 disputes between Religion and Science. Theology belongs to a 
 totally different order of conceptions from that of Science. Its 
 aims are difi'erent, its methods are difierent, its proofs are differ- 
 ent. Only in so far as Theology comes into the circle of other 
 sciences, can it be legitimately controlled by them ; for instance, 
 when Theology rests any claims on historical evidence, then, and 
 
THE SPIRIT OF BACOh’s METHOD. 4:13 
 
 «) that extent, must it be controlled by historical criticism ; when 
 it rests any claim on scientific evidence, then and to that extent, 
 must it submit to scientific control ; just as Poetry, if dealing at 
 all with Mathematical problems, must do so correctly, or submit 
 to the criticism of mathematicians. But when the Church de- 
 clares against Galileo ; when the perhaps well-meaning but cer- 
 tainly unwise declaimers of the present day oppose Geology on 
 theological grounds, the error is of the same nature as that of a 
 poet who should assail Mathematics on poetical grounds. There 
 can be no fair disputes between Theology and Science. Each 
 pursues its own path ; the one may push aside the other ; they 
 cannot argue, for they have no common ground. In Theology 
 there may be disputes, as between Catholic and Protestant, 
 Lutheran and Zuinglian, Presbyterian and Quaker, because all 
 proceed from the same starting-point, all invoke the same evi- 
 dence ; and in Science there may be disputes, as between Chem- 
 ists, Geologists, and Physiologists, because, all employing the same 
 methods, the same kind of evidence, there is common ground for 
 them to fight on. But what a dissonance of words, expressive 
 of no less dissonance in ideas, in the phrases “Lutheran Botany” 
 and “ Presbyterian Optics,” “ Catholic Chemistry” and “ Evan- 
 gelical Anatomy !” Yet it is clear that if Theology is to inter 
 fere with and control the speculations of Science, the various 
 theological sects may also control it according to their various 
 views. We therefore see in Bacon’s rigorous separation of the 
 two disparate paths of inquiry a profoundly philosophical tend- 
 ency. He took another and far greater step when he emphatic- 
 ally proclaimed that Physics was “ the mother of all the sciences.” 
 That this was greatly in advance of his age may be gathered 
 from the fact of its to this day remaining a heresy ; the notion ol 
 ethics and politics having the same methods, and being suscep- 
 tible of the same treatment as physics, is by the majority looked 
 upon as fanciful, if not absurd. 
 
 Speaking of the causes of errors in preceding philosophers, 
 Bacon says, “A second cause of very great moment is, that 
 29 
 
BACON. 
 
 il4 
 
 tlirougli all those ages wherein men of genius and learning prio' 
 cipally or even moderately flourished, the smallest part of human 
 industry has been spent upon natural philosophy, though this 
 ought to he esteemed as the great mother of the sciences ; for all 
 the rest, if torn from this root, may perhaps be polished and 
 formed for use, but can receive little iuci'ease. . . . 
 
 “But let none expect any great promotion of the sciences, 
 especially in their effective part, unless natural philosophy he 
 drawn out to particular sciences ; and again, unless these partic- 
 ular sciences be brought back again to natural philosophy. From 
 this defect it is that astronomy, optics, music, many mechanical 
 arts, and what seems stranger, even moral and civil philosophy 
 and logic, rise but little above their foundations, and only skim 
 over the varieties and surfaces of things, viz. because after these 
 particular sciences are formed and divided off, they are no longer 
 nourished by natural philosophy, which might give them strength 
 and increase ; and therefore no wonder if the sciences thrive not, 
 when separated from their roots.”* 
 
 It was in consequence of his having so profoundly penetrated 
 the very nature of science that Bacon was able “ to lay down the 
 rules for the conduct of experimental inquiries, before any such 
 inquiries had yet been instituted. The power and compass of a 
 mind which could form such a plan beforehand, and trace not 
 merely the outline, but many of the most minute ramifications oi 
 sciences which did not yet exist, must be an object of admiration 
 to all succeeding ages.”f 
 
 In his separation of Science from Metaphysics and Theology, 
 and in his conception of Physics as the mother of all the sciences, 
 we see the eminently yjosifeTe spirit of his works ; and this makes 
 him so entirely a modern. He was indeed thoroughly opposed 
 to antiquity, and epigrammatically exposed the fallacy of undue 
 reverence. “ The opinion which men entertain of antiquity is a 
 very idle thing,” said he, “ and almost incongruous to the word 
 
 Novum Organum, i. Aph. 79, 80. 
 
 + P.ayfair. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF BACON ’s METHOD. 
 
 415 
 
 for the old-age and length of days of the world should in reality 
 oe accounted antiquity, and ought to be attributed to our own 
 times, not to the youth of the world which it enjoyed among the 
 ancients ; for that age, though with respect to us it be ancient 
 and greater, vet with regard to the world it was new and less.”* 
 He bore testimony to the genius of several of the ancients, 
 while he declared that their genius availed them nothing, be- 
 cause wrongly employed; adding, in his usual happy style, “a 
 cripple m the right way may beat a racer in the wrong one. 
 Nay, the fleeter the racer is, who has once missed his way, the 
 farther he leaves it behind.” “ We have an example,” he says, 
 “ in Aristotle, who corrupted natural philosophy with Logic, . . . 
 being all along more solicitous how men might defend them- 
 selves by answers, and advance something that should be positive 
 in words, than to come at the inward truth of nature. ... It 
 is true his books of animals, problems, and other pieces, make 
 frequent use of experiments ; but then he flrst pronounced with- 
 out their assistance, and did not duly consult experience in form- 
 ing his degrees and axioms ; but after he had passed judgment 
 according to his own humor, he winds experience round, and 
 leads her captive to his own opinions. . . . Another great reason 
 of the slow progress of the sciences is this : that it is impossible 
 to proceed well in a course where the end is not rightly fixed 
 and defined. Now, the true and genuine end of the sciences is 
 no other than to enrich human life with new inventions and new 
 powers. . . . Fruits and discoveries of works are as the vouchers 
 and securities for the truth of philosophies. But from the phi- 
 losophies of the Greeks, and their descents through particular 
 sciences, now for the space of so many years scarce a single ex- 
 periment can be produced tending to accommodate or improve 
 
 * It is a point of some interest to aseertain from whom Bacon got the 
 aphorism he frequently quotes ; “ Antiquity the youth of the world.” The 
 idea is in Seneca, and is thus expressed by Roger Bacon ; “ Quanto juniorea 
 tanto perspicaciores, quia juniores, posteriores sucoessione temporuin, ingro- 
 diuntur labores priorum .” — Opus Majus, pars i. cap. 6, p. 9. 
 
BACON. 
 
 il6 
 
 the state of man, that may he justly attributed to the speculations 
 and doctrines of their philosophy. . . . Therefore, since the end 
 of the sciences has not hitherto been well defined by any one, 
 we need not wonder if men have erred and wandered in the 
 things subservient to the proper end. Again, if this end had 
 been rightly proposed, yet men have chosen a very wrong and 
 hnpassable way to proceed in. And it may strike any one with 
 astonishment who duly considers it, that no mortal should hither- 
 to have taken care to open and prepare a way for the human un- 
 derstanding, from sense and a well-conducted experience ; but that 
 all things should be left either to the darkness of tradition, the 
 giddy agitation and whirlwind of argument, or else to the uncer- 
 tain waves of accident, or a vague and uninformed experience. 
 Let any one soberly consider what the way is which men have 
 accustomed themselves to, in the inquiry and discovery of any 
 thing, and he will doubtless find that the manner of invention 
 most commonly used is simple and unartful : or on no other 
 than this, viz. when a person goes upon an inquiry, in the first 
 place he searches out and peruses what has been said upon it by 
 others ; in the next place adds his own thoughts thereto ; and 
 lastly, with great struggle of the mind, solicits and invokes, as 
 it were, his own spirit to deliver him oracles ; which is a method 
 entirely destitute of foundation, and rolls wholly upon opinions. 
 Others may call in the assistance of logic ; but this is wholly a 
 nominal assistance, for logic does not discover the principles and 
 capital axioms upon which arts are built, but only such as seem 
 agreeable thereto ; and when men are curious and earnest with 
 it, to procure proofs, and discover principles or first axioms, it 
 refers them to faith, or puts them oflT with this trite and common 
 answer — that every artist must believe in his own art.” 
 
 Dugald Stewart^ well says, “ that the idea of the object of phy- 
 sical science (which may be justly regarded as the groundwork 
 
 * In the excellent Chapter on Induction, PMlos. of Mind, vol. ii. ch. iv. 
 sect. 1. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF BACON’s METHOD. 
 
 417 
 
 of Bacon’s Novum Organurti) differs essentially from what was 
 entertained by the ancients, according to whom ‘ Philosophy is 
 the science of causes' If indeed by causes they had meant 
 merely the constant forerunners or antecedents of events, the de- 
 finition would have coincided nearly with the statement which 
 I have given. But it is evident that by causes they meant such 
 antecedents as were necessarily connected with the effects, and 
 from the knowledge of which the effects might be foreseen and 
 demonstrated. And it was owing to this confusion of the proper 
 objects of Physics and Metaphysics that, neglecting the observa- 
 tion of facts exposed to the examination of their senses, they 
 vainly attempted, by synthetical reasoning, to deduce, as neces- 
 sary consequences from their supposed causes, the phenomena 
 and laws of nature.” 
 
 Dugald Stewart also quotes Aristotle’s express declaration, 
 that to know the physical cause is also to know the efficient cause ; 
 and observes, that from this disposition to confound efficient with 
 physical causes, may be traced the greater part of the theories 
 recorded in the history of philosophy. It is this which has given 
 rise to the attempts, both in ancient and modern times, to ac- 
 count for all the phenomena of moving bodies by impulse ; and 
 it is this, also, which has suggested the simpler expedient of ex- 
 plaining them by the agency of minds united with the particles 
 of matter. To this last class of theories may also be referred the 
 explanations of physical phenomena by such causes as sympa- 
 thies, antipathies, nature’s horror of a vacuum, etc., and other 
 phrases borrowed by analogy from the attributes of animated 
 beings. 
 
 It was Bacon’s constant endeavor, as it has been the cause of 
 his enduring fame, to teach men the real object of Science, and 
 the scope of their faculties, and to furnish them with a proper 
 Method whereon these faculties might be successfully employed. 
 He thus not only stands clear'-ly out in history as the exponent 
 of the long-agitated antagonism to all the ancient and scholastic 
 thinkers, but al«o as the exponent of the rapidly increasing ten- 
 
418 
 
 BACON. 
 
 dency towards positive science. He is essentially modern. All 
 his predecessors, even in their boldest attacks upon ancient 
 philosophy, were themselves closely allied to the spirit of tha* 
 which they opposed. Ramus is the child of Aristotle, though 
 he raised his hand against his father. But Bacon was modern 
 ill culture, in object, and in method. He attacked the ancient 
 philosophy without having thoroughly understood it : he attacked 
 it, because he saw that a method which conducted great intelli- 
 gences to such absurd conclusions as those then in vogue, must 
 necessarily be false. 
 
 “Whence can arise,” he asks, “such vagueness and sterility 
 in all the physical systems which have hitherto existed in the 
 world? It is not, certainly, from any thing in nature itself; for 
 the steadiness and regularity of the laws hy which it is governed^ 
 clearly mark them out as objects of precise and certain knowledge. 
 
 “ Neither can it arise from any want of ability in those who 
 have pursued such inquiries, many of whom have been men of 
 the highest talent and genius of the ages in which they lived ; 
 and it can therefore arise from nothing else but the perverseness 
 and insufficiency of the methods which have been pursued. Men 
 have sought to make a world from their own conceptions, and to 
 draw from their own minds all the materials which they em- 
 ployed ; but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experi- 
 ence and observation, they would have had facts, and not opin- 
 ions, to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the 
 knowledge of the laws which govern the material world. 
 
 “ As things are at present conducted, a sudden transition is 
 made from sensible objects and particular facts to general propo- 
 sitions, which are accounted principles, and round v/hich, as round 
 so many fixed polls, disputation and argument continually re- 
 volve. From the propositions thus hastily assumed, all things 
 are derived by a process compendious and precipitate, ill suited to 
 discovery, but wonderfully accommodated to debate. 
 
 “ The way that promises success is the reverse of this. It re- 
 quires that we should generalize slowly, going from particular 
 
WAS bacon’s method new and useful? 419 
 
 things to those that are but one step more general ; from those 
 to others of still greater extent, and so on to such, as are universal. 
 By such means we may hope to arrive at principles, not vague 
 and obscure, but luminous and well-defined, such as Nature her- 
 self will not refuse to acknowledge.” 
 
 In this pregnant passage he has clearly enough pointed out 
 the position which his philosophy was to occupy. “ Many other 
 philosophers,” as Professor Macvey Napier remarks, “ both an- 
 cient and modern, had referred to observation and experiment in 
 a cursory way, as furnishing the materials ^f physical knowl- 
 edge ; but no one before him had attempted to systematize the 
 true method of discovery ; or to prove that the inductive is the 
 only method by which the genuine office of philosophy can be 
 exercised, and its genuine ends accomplished. It has sometimes 
 been stated that Galileo was, at least, in an equal degree with 
 Bacon, the father of the Inductiv^e Logic ; but it would be more 
 correct to say that his discoveries furnished some fortunate illus- 
 trations of its principles. To explain these principles was no 
 object of his ; nor does he manifest any great anxiety to recom- 
 mend their adoption with a view to the general improvement of 
 science. The Aristotelian disputant, in his celebrated Dialogues, 
 is made frequently to appeal to observation and experiment ; but 
 the interlocutor, through whom Galileo himself speaks, nowhere 
 takes occasion to distinguish between the flimsy inductions of 
 the Stagirite, in regard to the objects in dispute, and those which 
 he himself had instituted, or to hint at the very different com- 
 plexion which philosophy must assume, according as the one 
 kind or the other is resorted to.”* 
 
 § IV. Was the Method New and Useful? 
 
 Bacon’s Method, and the scientific spirit which animates his 
 works, hftve been indicated in the foregoing pages. His philo- 
 sophical importance is to be measured by that Method and that 
 
 * On the Scope and Influence of the Philos. Writings of Bacon, : Trans, of 
 the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh, 1818 . 
 
i20 
 
 BACON. 
 
 spirit; not by any scientific discoveries. A mind so riclily stored 
 could not fiiil to illustrate his writings with manifold graces of 
 style, and with pregnant aphorisms. Accordingly, his Method 
 having been established, and been superseded, having done its 
 work, nothing remains for our profit but these very graces and 
 aphorisms. The great reformer may excite our admiration, his- 
 torically ; his Method excites no admiration for its present in- 
 trinsic value. We have a more perfect Method ; the processes 
 of scientific investigation are better understood ; but we are never 
 in communion with his vast and penetrating intellect without 
 acknowledging his greatness; for his remarks are often as appli- 
 cable now as they were when first written. Hence the frequency 
 of quotations from Bacon ; and these quotations, as Dr. Whewell 
 observes, are more frequently made by metaphysical, ethical, and 
 even theological writers, than they are by the authors of works 
 on Physics. For the present generation, then, whatever the value 
 of Bacon’s works. Bacon’s Method is useless. Some modern wri- 
 ters have asserted that it was always useless ; and this assertion 
 has been supported by arguments so plausible, that they demand 
 attention. 
 
 The objections made to Bacon’s Method are of three kinds. 
 1st. It was nothing new ; 2d. It was useless as a guide to inves- 
 tigation ; 3d. It was .already latent in the scientific spirit then 
 abroad, and must have been elicited by some one, sooner or 
 later. 
 
 “ It was nothing new.” This is a very frequent objection, and 
 is urged by the Count Joseph de Maistre and Mr. Macaulay 
 The former has written a long chapter to prove that Bacon’s In 
 duction is nothing more than the Induction of Aristotle ; and 
 Mr. Macaulay, who adopts the same opinion, devotes several viva- 
 cious pages to show that everybody unconsciously practices this 
 inductive Method. M. de Maistre’s Examen de la Philosophic de 
 Bacon is a vehement attack, written with the celebrated author’s 
 usual vivacity, but with more than his usual arrogance and ve- 
 hemence. As there are many things in Bacon hasty, inexact, or 
 
WAS bacon’s method new and useful? 421 
 
 partaking of the prejudices and errors of his age, his antagonist 
 is at no loss to find matter for ridicule ; but when he treats of 
 Bacon’s Method and Spirit as contemptible puerilities, he only ex- 
 cites a smile in the dispassionate reader. His arguments against 
 Bacon’s Method are, first, that Aristotle had analyzed it before 
 him ; secondly, that Induction is only one form of the Syllogism. 
 
 It is true that Aristotle told us what Induction was ; but it is 
 not true that he analyzed it, as Bacon has done ; nor did he ever 
 pronounce it to be the Method of inquiry : on the contrary, it 
 only served him as one of the means of ascertaining truth, and 
 was not so important in his eyes as the Syllogism. Bacon asserts 
 Induction to be the only Method ; and has no words too strong 
 to express his scorn of the Syllogism, “ which may catch the as- 
 sent, but lets the things slip through.” Dugald Stewart observes 
 that we might as well declare that the ancients had anticipated 
 Newton because they too used the word “attraction,” as that Ar- 
 istotle anticipated Bacon because he too speaks of “ Induction.”* 
 This is, however, going too far the other way. In our Chapter 
 on the Stagirite we have indicated the relation in which the two 
 conceptions stand to each other. 
 
 M. de Maistre says that Induction and Syllogism are the same. 
 “ At bottom, what is Induction ? Aristotle clearly saw it ; It is 
 a syllogism without the middle term — gtfvi hi 6 rowurog (tuXXoy)(tp.og 
 r^g ■ffpw'rrjj xai dp.g'o'ou ‘rporarfswff. (Anal. Prior, ii. 12.) What 
 does it signify whether I say. Every simple being is indestructible 
 by nature ; now my soul is a simple being, therefore, etc. ; or 
 whether I say directly. My soul is simple, it is therefore inde- 
 structible. In either case it is the syllogism which is virtually 
 in the induction, as it is in the enthymeme,” 
 
 Now it is quite true that every induction may be thrown into 
 the form of a syllogism by supplying the major premise ; and 
 it is this which led Archbishop Whately to conclude that Induc- 
 tion itself is but a peculiar case of ratiocination, and that the 
 universal type of all reasoning is the syllogism. We cannot but 
 
 * Philos, of Mind, vol. ii. ch. iv. sect. 2. 
 
i22 
 
 BACON. 
 
 agree with Jolm Mill in holding precisely the reverse opinion, 
 and believing that ratiocination itself is resolvable into Induc- 
 tion.^' Be this as it may, M. de Maistre has afforded us an illus- 
 tration of the difterence between Aristotle and Bacon in the very 
 passage quoted. 
 
 If every induction can be thrown into the form of a syllogism, 
 by supplying the major premise, it is in the way this major 
 premise is established that we must seek the real difference be- 
 tween the Syllogistic and Inductive Methods : and that difference 
 IS the difference between a priori and d posteriori. Every one 
 who has read Bacon, knows that his scorn for the Syllogism is 
 not scorn for it as a form of ratiocination, but as a means of in~ 
 vestigation. He objects to our proceeding to deduce from an 
 axiom not accurately and inductively obtained, consequences 
 which may very well be contained in the axiom, although hav- 
 ing no relation to the truth of things. “The axioms in use, be- 
 ing derived from slender experience and a few obvious particu- 
 lars, are generally applied in a corresponding manner ; no won- 
 der they lead not to new particulars.”! Again : “ Syllogism 
 consists of propositions, propositions of words, and words are 
 the signs of notions ; therefore, if our notions, the basis of all, 
 are confused, and over-hastily taken from things, nothing that is 
 built upon them can be firm ; whence our only hope rests upon 
 genuine Induction!''''^ 
 
 Nothing can be more explicit. Bacon very well knew the dif- 
 ference between his Method and that of the Aristotelians ; and 
 he very well expressed this difterence. To turn round upon him 
 and say all Induction is itself but Syllogism, is mere evasion. 
 He was not giving a logical analysis of the mind : he was warn- 
 ing men against long-standing errors, and pointing out to them 
 the path of truth. 
 
 Mr. Macaulay’s arguments are of a different stamp. To us 
 they are only ingenious and plausible ; yet so ingenious and so 
 
 * See System of Logic, vol. i. pp. 372-3. 
 
 + Novum Organum, Aph. 25. % Ibid., Aph. 14. 
 
WAS bacon’s method new and useful? 423 
 
 plausible as to gain many followers. They are mostly true aa 
 far as they go, but do not appear to us to go to the real point. 
 We shall select the main parts of his opposition : 
 
 “ The inductive method has been practised ever since the be- 
 ginning of the world, by every human being. It is constantly 
 practised by the most Ignorant clown, who by this method is led 
 to the conclusion, that if he sows barley he shall not reap wheat. 
 A plain man finds his stomach out of order. He never heard ot 
 Lord Bacon’s name ; but he proceeds in the strictest conformity 
 with the rules laid down in the second book of the Novum Or- 
 gunum, and satisfies himself that mince-pies have done the mis- 
 chief. ‘ I ate mince-pies on Monday and Wednesday, and was 
 kept awake by indigestion all night.’ T'his is the comparentia 
 ad intellectum instantiarum convenientmm. ‘ I did not eat any on 
 Tuesday and Friday, and I was quite well.’ This is the comparentia 
 instantiarum hi proximo quae natura data privantur. ‘I ate 
 very sparingly of them on Sunday, and was very slightly indis- 
 posed in the evening. But on Christmas-day I almost dined on 
 them, and was so ill that I was in some danger.’ This is the 
 comparentia instantiarum secundum magis et minus. ‘ It cannot 
 be the brandy which I took with them ; for I have drunk brandy 
 for years, without being the worse for it.’ This is the rejectio 
 naturarum. We might easily proceed, but we have already suf- 
 ficiently explained our meaning.” 
 
 The answer to this is, that Induction being the process of all 
 reasoning, of course so long as men have reasoned they have 
 reasoned inductively. But there is simple and incautious Induc- 
 tion, and there is cautious methodical Induction, — instinct and 
 science ; in ordinary cases, men pursue the induction per enu- 
 merationeni simplicem ; in scientific investigations they must pur- 
 sue a very different method ; and at the time Bacon wrote, al- 
 most all philosophical and scientific speculations were vitiated by 
 the incorrect method. 
 
 “ Those who object to the importance of Bacon’s precepts in 
 philosophy,” says Mr. Hallam, “that mankind have practised 
 
m 
 
 BACON. 
 
 many of them immeraorialljr, are rather confirming their utility 
 than taking off much from their originality, in any fair sense of 
 the term. Every logical method is built on the common facul- 
 ties of human nature, which have been exercised since the crea- 
 tion, in discerning — better or worse — truth from falsehood, and 
 inferring the unknown from the known. That men might have 
 done this more correctly, is manifest from the quantity of error 
 into which, from want of reasoning well on what came before 
 them, they have habitually fallen. In experimental philosophy, 
 to which the more special rules of Lord Bacon are generally re- 
 ferred, there was a notorious want of that very process of reason- 
 ing which he supplied.”* “Nothing can be more certain,” as 
 Professor Napier observes, “than that Bacon rests the whole 
 hopes of his philosophy on the novelty of his logical precepts ; 
 and that he uniformly represents the ancient philosophers, par- 
 ticularly Aristotle, as having been wholly regardless of the in 
 ductive method in their physical inquiries. Bacon does not in- 
 deed say that the ancient philosophers never employed themselves 
 in observing Nature ; but he maintains that there is a wide dif- 
 ference between observation, as it was employed by them, and 
 the art of observing for the purposes of philosophical discovery 
 Men in Bacon’s time reasoned like the facetious judge in Mr. 
 Macaulay’s anecdote, “who was in the habit of jocosely pro- 
 pounding, after dinner, a theory, that the cause of the prevalence 
 of Jacobinism was the practice of bearing three names. He 
 quoted, on the one side, Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley 
 Sheridan, John Horne Tooke, John Philpot Curran, Samuel 
 Taylor Coleridge, Theobald Wolfe Tone. These were instantim 
 convenientes. He then proceeded to cite instances ahsentice in 
 'proximo — William Pitt, John Scott, William Wyndham, Samuel 
 Horsley, Henry Dundas, Edmund Burke. He might have gone 
 
 * Hist, of Lit. of Europe, iii. 182. 
 
 t Dissertation on the Scope and Influenoe of Bacon's Writings, p. 13. See, 
 also, a passage to the same effect in Herschel’s Discourse, pp. 113, 114, whioh 
 we do not quote, because the work is in everybody’s hands. 
 
WAS BACOJSl's METHOD NEW AND USEFUL? 425 
 
 on to instances secundum magis et minus. The practice of giv- 
 ing children three names has been for some time a growing prac- 
 tice, and Jacobinism has also been growing. The practice of 
 giving children three names is more common in America than 
 in England. In England we have still a King and a House of 
 Lords ; but the Americans are Republicans. The rejectiones are 
 obvious. Burke and Wolfe Tone were both Irishmen; therefore 
 the being an Irishman is not the cause. In this way our induc- 
 tive philosopher arrives at what Bacon calls the vintage, and 
 pronounces that having three names is the cause of Jacobinism.” 
 This is a very good theoiy for a jocular one ; but we are sur- 
 prised to find so acute a writer as Mr. Macaulay speaking of it in 
 the terms he does J “ Here is an induction corresponding with 
 Bacon’s analysis, and ending in a monstrous absurdity. In 
 what then does this induction difier from the induction which 
 leads us to the conclusion that the presence of the sun is the 
 cause of our having more light by day than by night? The 
 difference evidently is, not in the kind of instances, hut in the 
 number of instances ; that is to say, the difference is not in that 
 part of the process for which Bacon has given precise rules, but 
 in a circumstance for which no precise rule can possibly be given. 
 If the learned author of the theory about Jacobinism had en- 
 larged either of the tables a little, his system would have been 
 destroyed. The names of Tom Paine and William Windham 
 Grenville would have been sufficient to do the work.” 
 
 We especially dissent from the clause printed in italics, which 
 seems to us at variance with all sound Induction. It is precisely 
 the kind of instances adduced in the theory, which makes the 
 theory absurd. The whole theory is a gross example of “ causa- 
 tion inferred from casual conjunction, without any presumption 
 arising Irom known properties of the supposed agent : which is 
 the characteristic of empiricism.” Although in this theory there 
 has been a certain superficial elimination employed, yet that elim- 
 ination is obviously too incomplete for any satisfactory result. 
 Mr. Macaulay subsequently asks. What number of instances is 
 
BACON. 
 
 m 
 
 sufficient to justify belief? After how many experiments would 
 Tenner have been justified in believing vaccination to be a safe- 
 guard against the smallpox? We answer that the number o{ 
 instances depends on the kind of instances, and on the theory 
 which presides over their collection. In proportion as the facts 
 adduced are complex, must the theory which would explain 
 them be consistent with all other known truths, before the facts 
 themselves can have any significance. 
 
 Bacon’s originality is in no way affected by pioving that all 
 men at all times, when they reasoned correctly, reasoned induc- 
 tively. Moreover, in Bacon’s particular department, men had 
 notoriously pursued a wrong Method.* They were not aware of 
 the necessity, which he declared there was in all investigations, 
 to proceed upon a graduated and successive Induction. Bacon 
 first made them aware of this; and, as Dr. Whewell says, “the 
 truly remarkable circumstance is to find this recommendation of 
 a continuous advance from observation, by limited steps, through 
 successive gradations of generality, given at a time when specu- 
 lative men in general had only just begun to perceive that they 
 must begin their course from experience in some way or other. 
 
 . . . In catching sight of this principle, and in ascribing to it 
 its due importance, Bacon’s sagacity, so far as I am aware, 
 wrought unassisted and unrivalled.”f 
 
 The second question now presents itself. Was the method 
 useful as a guide in investigation ? Many persons have declared 
 it to be useless. Mr. Macaulay is of the same opinion. He says, 
 with great truth, “By stimulating men to the discovery of new 
 truth, Bacon stimulated them to employ the inductive method— 
 
 * And this in spite of the warning so emphatically given three centuries 
 before Francis Bacon, by his great namesake Roger Bacon; “Sine experien- 
 tia nihil sufficienter sciri potest. Duo enim sunt modi cognoscendi, scilicet 
 per argumentum et experimentum. Argumentum concludit et faoit nos con- 
 cludere qusestionem, sed non certifioat neque removet dubitationem, ut 
 quiescat animus in intuitu veritatis, nisi cam inveniat vift experientiae.” — 
 Opus Majus, pars vi. cap. i. 
 t Fldlos. of Inductive Sciences, ii. 835, 396. 
 
WAS bacon’s method new and useful? 427 
 
 the only method by ■which truth can be discovered. By stimu- 
 lating men to the discovery of useful truth, he furnished them 
 with a motive to perform the inductive process well and care- 
 fully. His predecessors had been anticipators of Nature. They 
 had been content with first principles, at which they had ar- 
 rived by the most scanty and slovenly induction. And why was 
 this? It was, we conceive, because their philosophy proposed 
 to itself no practical end, because it was merely an exercise of 
 the mind. A man who wants to contrive a new machine, or a 
 new medicine, has a strong motive to observe patiently and ac- 
 curately, and to try experiment after experiment; but a man 
 who merely wants a theme for disputation, or declamation, has 
 no such motive.” 
 
 Now in this passage, as it seems to us, the very merit we are 
 claiming for Bacon is conceded. We are told that Bacon stimu- 
 lated men to employ the Inductive Method — the only method by 
 which new truth could be discovered. Who pointed out the futil- 
 ity of anticipating Nature? — Bacon. Who exposed the “scanty 
 and slovenly induction” of the Schoolmen ? — Bacon. His merit 
 is not simply that of stimulating men to the discovery of new 
 lands, but of also affording them chart and compass wherewith to 
 discover the new lands. There were sev^eral eminent men, his 
 predecessors and contemporaries, who all rose up against the an- 
 cient systems, and stimulated men to the discovery of useful truth ; 
 but these men, although all of them constantly insisted upon ob- 
 servation and experiment, had no glimpse, or only a very partial 
 and confused glimpse, of the Inductive Method. So that when 
 Mr. Macaulay says, “ It was not by furnishing philosophers with 
 rules for performing the inductive process well, but by furnishing 
 them with a motive for performing it well, that he conferred so 
 vast a benefit on society,” we believe he is contradicted, on all 
 sides, by history. The motive had been given by many — indeed, 
 one may say that it was a tendency of the age ; the rules had 
 been devised by no one but himself. These rules, it is true, were 
 ^r from perfect ; but they constitute the beginning, and form the 
 
i28 
 
 BACON. 
 
 basis of tbe more perfect structure ■nbicli successors have erected 
 Mr. hlacaulay’s argumeut receives its force solely from what we 
 cannot but regard as his misconception of the Baconian Induction. 
 That Induction he declares to be daily performed by every man ; 
 but this is confounding ordinary Induction with scientific Induc- 
 tion. It is confounding a simple inference, with a long and com- 
 plicated process of inference. It is confounding what Bacon in- 
 cessantly and emphatically distinguishes, viz. Induction with the 
 Inductive Method ; and this confusion has probably influenced 
 him in the selection of his illustrations. None of the things he 
 has named require a complicated process of reasoning for their 
 discovery. If a man wants to make a shoe, he needs inductions, 
 but is certainly in no need of the Inductive Method ; if he wants 
 to discover a law of Nature, the Inductive Method is indispensa- 
 ble. Mr. Macaulay will not maintain that the ordinary man, who 
 wishes to find out a law of Nature, proceeds in his inquiry by a 
 graduated and successive Induction from particulars to generals, 
 and from generals to those which are still more general ; and this 
 without “anticipation” of Nature — without rash and hasty leap- 
 ing from one particular to some extreme generality. In fact, 
 although Induction^ as the type of reasoning, must be carried 
 on by every reasoning animal, yet so far is the Inductive Method 
 from being the ordinary process of ordinary men, that we know 
 of scarcely any process so contrary to the natural bias of the 
 mind. Bacon has more than once alluded to this bias, which 
 makes us judge hastiljq and on the slenderest evidence. In- 
 deed, the Inductive Method requires a constant and watchful 
 repression of our natural tendency to “anticipate,” and endeavor, 
 by a short cut, to abridge the long journey which conducts us to 
 the Truth. 
 
 But while we think Mr. Macaulay underrates the importance of 
 the inductive rules, we quite agree with him that Bacon overrated 
 their importance. “ Our method of discovery in science,” so runs 
 one of his aphorisms, “is of such a nature that there*is not much 
 left to acuteness and strength of genius, but all degrees of genius 
 
WAS bacon’s method new and usefhl? 429 
 
 and intellect are brought nearly to the same level.”* This is con- 
 tradicted by every two men engaging in scientific pursuits. In 
 proportion to the efi'ectiveness of the instrument, will the original 
 superiority make itself more manifest. Place axes in the hands of 
 two men commissioned to make a clearing in the forest, and the 
 stronger man will be at a greater advantage than he was before. 
 Moreover the Method, however excellent when followed, cannot 
 force men to follow it: the natural bias of the mind is against it. 
 Mr. Macaulay therefore is perfectly right in preferring the spirit 
 of Bacon’s Method to the rules given in the second book of the 
 Organum. 
 
 There is however another reason why the spirit is preferable to 
 the rules ; and that reason is the incompleteness of those rules. 
 The radical defect of Bacon’s method lies in its being inductive, 
 and not also deductive. He was so deeply impressed with a sense 
 of the insufficiency of the Deductive Method alone, which he saw 
 his contemporaries pursuing, and which he knew to be the cause 
 of the failure of his predecessors, that he bestowed all his attention 
 on the Inductive Method. His want of mathematical knowledge 
 had also no small share in this error. Although however it may 
 be justly said that he did not sufficiently exemplify the Deductive 
 Method, it is not correct to say that he entirely neglected it. 
 Those who assert this, forget that the second part of the Novum 
 Organum was never completed. In the second part it was his 
 intention to treat of Deduction, as is plain from the following pas- 
 sage : “ The indications for the interpretation of Nature include two 
 general parts. The first relates to the raising of Axioms from ex- 
 perience ; and the second, to the deducing or deriving of new 
 experinvents from Axioms (de ducendis aut derivandis experi- 
 mentis novis ab axiomatibus).”f We here see that he compre- 
 hended the two-fold nature of the method ; but inasmuch as he 
 did not publish the second part of his Organum, we may admit 
 the remark of Professor Playfair, that “ in a very extensive depart- 
 
 Nbvum Organum, i. Aph. 61. ' 
 30 
 
 t Ibid., ii. Aph. 10. 
 
i30 
 
 BACON. 
 
 meut of physical science, it cannot be doubted that investigation 
 lias been carried on, not perhaps more easily, but with a less fre- 
 quent appeal to experience, than the rules of the Novum Organum 
 would seem to require. In all physical inquiries where mathemat- 
 ical reasoning has been employed, after a lew principles have 
 been established by experience, a vast multitude of truths, equally 
 certaiu with the principles themselves, have been deduced from 
 them by the mere application of geometry and algebra. . . . The 
 strict method of Bacon is therefore only necessary where the 
 thing to be explained is new, and where we have no knowledge, 
 or next to none, of the powers employed.”* 
 
 His deficiency in mathematical knowledge caused him to over- 
 look the equal importance of Deduction and Induction ; — “Bacon 
 has judiciously remarked, that the axiomata ntedia of every sci- 
 ence principally constitute its value. The lowest generalizations, 
 until explained by and resolved into the middle principles, of 
 which they are the consequences, have only the imperfect accu 
 racy of empirical laws ; while the most general laws are too gen- 
 eral, and include too few circumstances to give sufficient indica- 
 tion of what happens in individual cases, where the circumstan- 
 ces are almost always immensely numerous. , In the importance 
 therefore which Bacon assigns, in every science, to the middle 
 principles, it is impossible not to agree with him. But I con- 
 ceive him to have been radically wrong in his doctrine respecting 
 the mode in which these axiomata media should be arrived at ; 
 although there is no one proposition in his works for which he 
 has been so extravagantly eulogized. He enunciates, as a uni- 
 versal rule, that induction should proceed from the lowest to the 
 middle principles, and from those to the highest, never reversing 
 that order, and consequently leaving no room for the discovery 
 of new principles by way of deduction at all. is not to be 
 conceived that a man of Bacon’s sagacity could have fallen into 
 this mistake, if there had existed in his time; among the sciences 
 
 * Dissertation, pp. 58, 61. 
 
WAS bacon’s method new and useful ? 431 
 
 which treat of successive phenomena, one single deductive sci- 
 ence, such as mechanics, astronomy, ‘optics, acoustics, etc., now 
 are. In those sciences, it is evident that the higher and middle 
 principles are by no means derived from the lowest, but the re- 
 verse. In some of them, the very highest generalizations were 
 those earliest ascertained with any scientific exactness; as, for 
 example (in mechanics), the laws of motion. Those general 
 laws had not indeed at first the acknowledged universality which 
 they acquired after having been successfully employed to explain 
 many classes of phenomena to which they were not origingilly 
 seen to be applicable ; as when the laws of motion were em- 
 ployed in conjunction with other laws to explain deductively the 
 celestial phenomena. Still the fact remains, that the proposi- 
 tions which were afterwards recognized as the most general 
 truths of the science, were, of all its accurate generalizations, 
 those earliest arrived at. 
 
 “ Bacon’s greatest merit therefore cannot consist, as we are so 
 often told that it did, in exploding the vicious method pursued 
 by the ancients, of fiying to the highest generalizations for it, 
 and deducing the middle principles from them, since this is 
 neither a vicious nor an exploded method, but the universally 
 accredited method of modern science, and that to which it owes 
 its greatest triumphs. The error of ancient speculation did not 
 consist in making the largest generalizations first, but in making 
 them without the aid or warrant of rigorous inductive methods, 
 and applying them deductively without the needful use of that 
 important part of the deductive method termed verification.”* 
 
 This passage certainly lays bare the weakness of Bacon’s 
 Method ; and does so, we believe, for the first time. But we 
 cannot entirely concur in the concluding paragraph. Although 
 Bacon did not perhaps see the real importance of the Deductive 
 Method, he did see the futility of the Deductive Method em- 
 oloyed before his time ; and he saw moreover that the cause lay 
 
 Mill’s System of Logic, 11. 524-6, 
 
i32 
 
 BACON. 
 
 in the want of “ verification” — in the want of “ the aid or war- 
 rant of rigorous inductive methods this we must think his 
 greatest merit as we think his imperfect conception of the De- 
 ductive Method his greatest imperfection. 
 
 There is also another potent reason why the merely Inductive 
 Method should not have contributed to any great discoveries ; 
 and we must again borrow from the System of Logic the passage 
 wherein this is exhibited : 
 
 “ It has excited the surprise of philosophers that the detailed 
 system of inductive logic has been turned to so little direct use 
 by subsequent inquirers, — having neither continued, except in a 
 few of its generalities, to be recognized as a theory, nor having 
 conducted, in practice, to any great scientific results. But this, 
 though not unfrequently remarked, has scarcely received any 
 plausible explanation ; and some indeed have preferred to assert 
 that all rules of induction are useless, rather than suppose that 
 Bacon’s rules are grounded upon an insufiScient analysis of the 
 inductive process. Such however will be seen to be the fact, as 
 soon as it is considered that Bacon entirely overlooked plurality 
 of causes. All his rules tacitly imply the assumption, so con- 
 trary to all we know of Nature, that a phenomenon cannot have 
 more than one cause.”* 
 
 In another passage, too long for extract, the same author points 
 out a capital error in Bacon’s view of the inductive philosophy, 
 viz. his supposition that the principle of elimination — that great 
 logical instrument which he had the immense merit of first 
 bringing into use — was applicable in the same sense, and in the 
 same unqualified manner, to the investigation of co-existences, as 
 to that of the successions of phenomena.\ 
 
 In conclusion, it may be said that Bacon’s conception of a 
 scientific Method was magnificent, as far as it went ; but in con- 
 sequence of certain deficiencies, owing principally to the want of 
 any established science as a model, the Method he laid down was 
 
 System of Logic, ii. 373. 
 
 t Ibid., ii. 127 et seg. 
 
WAS bacon’s method new and useful? 433 
 
 Duly indirectly useful. If it did not produce great discoveiies, it 
 certainly did exercise an important influence on the minds of 
 those who were afterwards to make great discoveries. “ The 
 way to prove that Bacon’s writings were powerful agents in the 
 advancement of physical knowledge,” says Professor Napier, “ is 
 to prove that they produced these eflects (viz. the overthrow of 
 existing methods — stimulus given to experimental inquiry — and 
 ingenious views and principles requisite for such inquiry) ; and 
 the proof that such effects were actually produced by them, must 
 necessarily be derived from the testimony of those who early ex- 
 perienced, or became otherwise acquainted with, their operation.” 
 And the greater part of his’ instructive Essay is devoted to this 
 proof. The proofs are numerous and decisive, gathered not only 
 from the English and French writers, but also from Italian and 
 German. 
 
 And now the last question presents itself. Was not Bacon’s 
 Method latent in the scientiflc spirit of the age ? Yes ; just as 
 much as the invention of the steam-engine was latent in the 
 knowledge and tendencies of the age of Watt. What does in- 
 vention mean more than the flnding what others are still seek- 
 ing? were it not hidden somewhere, no one could And it. Let 
 no one therefore endeavor to rob a great man of his fame by de- 
 claring that the thing found was lying ready to be found, and 
 would have sooner or later been found by some one. Yes, by 
 some one who had eyes to see what his fellow-men could not 
 see : by some other yreai man. How was it that Bacon’s im- 
 mediate predecessors and contemporaries did not detect this 
 latent method? It was lying there as open for inspection to 
 them as to him. Why did he alone And it ? Because he alone 
 was competent to And it. 
 
 It is very true that in his day, and previously, great discover- 
 ies had been made ; and as they only could be made upon a true 
 Method, the Method was implied in them. But this is no argu- 
 ment against Bacon’s originality. “ Principles of evidence,” says 
 Mr. Mill, “ and theories of method, are not to be constructed d 
 
i34 
 
 BACON. 
 
 priori. The laws of our rational faculty, like those of every 
 other natural agency, are only learnt by seeing the agent at 
 work. The earlier achievements of science were made without 
 the conscious observance of any scientific method ; and we should 
 never have known by what process truth is to be ascertained if 
 we had not previously ascertained truths.” And if we consider 
 for a moment the extreme paucity of ascertained truths in science 
 at the time Bacon wrote, it will enhance our admiration of his 
 marvellous sagacity, to see him do so much with such poor ma- 
 terials; as Playfair says, “the history of human knowledge points 
 out nobody of whom it can be said that, placed in the situation 
 of Bacon, he would have done whaf Bacon did, — no man whose 
 prophetic genius would enable him to delineate a system of 
 science which had not yet begun to exist.” 
 
 Bacon is a great subject, and one as attractive as great ; but 
 our object here has been solely to exhibit his Method, and to 
 indicate its historical position. We have done nothing but point 
 out the gi’ounds upon which his fame, as the father of Experi- 
 mental Philosophy, is built. His Method alone engaged us, be- 
 cause by it alone he claims a place in this history. We have 
 not dwelt upon his errors ; neither have we dwelt upon the won- 
 drous and manifold excellences of that mind which Mr. Macaulay 
 has so felicitously compared to the tent the fairy Peribanou gave 
 to Prince Ahmed : — “ Fold it, and it seemed the toy for the hand 
 of lady : spread it, and the armies of powerful Sultans might re- 
 pose beneath its shade ” 
 
SECOND EPOCH. 
 
 FOUIS'DATK ^N OF THE DEDUCTIVE METHOD 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 DESCAETES. 
 
 § I. Life of Descartes. 
 
 JUST at the clo.e of the sixteenth century, 1596, there was 
 born in Touraine, of Breton parents, a feeble sickly child, named 
 Rene Descartes I-uperron. A few days after his birth, a disease 
 of the lungs cairied off his mother. The sickly child grew to 
 be a sickly boy ; and, till the age of twenty, his life was always 
 despaired of. 
 
 That boy was ( ae the world could ill afford to lose. Few who 
 saw him creeping on the path, which his companions galloped 
 along like young colts, would have supposed that the boy, whose 
 short dry cough and paleness seemed to announce an early grave, 
 was shortly to become one of the world’s illustrious leaders, whose 
 works would continue, centuries after their appearance, to be 
 studied, quoted, and criticised. His masters loved him. He was 
 a pupil of promise ; and in his eighth year had gained the title of 
 the Young Philosopher, from his avidity to learn, and his con- 
 stant questioning. 
 
 His education was confided to the Jesuits. This astonishing 
 body has many evils laid to its door, but no one can refuse to it 
 the praise of having been ever ready to see and apply the value 
 
i36 
 
 DESCARTES. 
 
 of education. In the college of La Fleche the young Descartes 
 was instructed in mathematics, physics, logic, rhetoric, and the 
 ancient languages. He was an apt pupil ; learned quickly, and 
 was never tired of learning. 
 
 Was the food supplied by the Jesuits nutritious? M. Thomas 
 remarks, “ There is an education for the ordinary man ; for the 
 man of genius there is no education but what he gives himself ; 
 the second generally consists in destroying the first.” And £-0 it 
 was with Descartes, who, on leaving La Fleche, declared that 
 he had derived no other benefit from his studies than that of a 
 conviction of his utter ignorance, and a profound contempt for 
 the systems of philosophy in vogue. The incompetence of phi- 
 losophers to solve the problems they occupied themselves with, 
 — the anarchy which reigned in the scientific world, where no 
 two thinkers could agree upon fundamental points, — the extrav- 
 agance of the conclusions to which some accepted premises led, 
 determined him to seek no more to slake his thirst at their fountains, 
 
 “ And that is why, as soon as my age permitted me to quit 
 my preceptors,” he says, “ I entirely gave up the study of letters ; 
 and resolving to seek no other science than that which I could 
 find in myself, or else in the great book of the world, I employed 
 the remainder of my youth in travel, in seeing courts and camps, 
 in frequenting people of diverse humors and conditions, in col- 
 lecting various experiences, and above all in endeavoring to draw 
 some profitable' refiection from what I saw. For it seemed to 
 me that I should meet with more truth in the reasonings which 
 each man makes in his own affairs, and which if wrong would 
 be speedily punished by failure, than in those reasonings which 
 the philosopher makes in his study, upon speculations which pro- 
 duce no effect, and which are of no consequence to him, except 
 perhaps that he will be more vain of them the more remote they 
 are from common sense, because he would then have been forced to 
 employ more ingenuity and subtlety to render them plausible.”* 
 
 * Discoura de la Meiliode, p. 6 of the convenient edition of M. Jules Si- 
 mon. Paris, 1844. 
 
LIFE OP DESOAKTES. 
 
 437 
 
 For many years he led a roving, unsettled life ; now serving 
 in the army, now making a tour; now studying mathematics in 
 solitude, now conversing with scientific men. One constant pur- 
 pose gave unity to those various pursuits. He was elaborating 
 his answers to the questions which perplexed him ; he was pre- 
 paring his Method. 
 
 When only three-and-twenty he conceived the design of a 
 reformation in philosophy. He was at that time residing in his 
 winter-quarters at Neuburg, on the Danube. His travels soon 
 afterwards commenced, and at the age ot thirty-three he retired 
 into Holland, there in silence and solitude to arrange his thoughts 
 into a consistent whole. He remained there eight years ; and 
 so completely did he shut himself from the world, that he con- 
 cealed from his friends the very place of his residence. 
 
 When the results of his meditative solitude were given to the 
 world, in the shape of his celebrated Discourse on Method^ and 
 his Meditations (to which he invented replies), the sensation pro- 
 duced was immense. It was evident to all men that an original 
 and powerful thinker had arisen ; and although of course this 
 originality could not but rouse much opposition, from the very 
 fact of being original, yet Descartes gained the day. His name 
 became European. His controversies Avere European quarrels. 
 Charles L, of England, invited him over, with the promise of a 
 liberal appointment ; and the invitation would probably have 
 been accepted, had not the civil war broken out. He afterwards 
 received a flattering invitation from Christina of Sweden, who 
 had read some of his works with great satisfaction, and wished 
 to learn from himself the principles of his philosophy. He ac- 
 cepted it, and aiuived in Stockholm in 1649. His reception was 
 most gratifying ; and the Queen was so pleased with him as earn- 
 estly to beg him to remain with her, and give his assistance 
 towards the establishment of an academy of sciences. But the 
 delicate frame of Descartes was ill fitted for the severity of the 
 climate, and a cold, caught in one of his morning visits to Chris- 
 tina, produced inflammation of the lungs, Avhich put an end to 
 
m 
 
 DESCARTES. 
 
 his existence. Christina wept for him, had him interred in tha 
 cemetery for foreigners, and placed a long eulogium upon his 
 tomb. His remains were subsequently (1666) carried from 
 Sweden into France, and buried with great ceremony in St. 
 Genevieve du Mont. 
 
 Descartes was a great thinker ; but having said this, we have 
 almost exhausted the praise we can bestow npon him as a man. 
 In disposition he was timid to servility. When promulgating 
 his proofs of the existence of the Deity, he was in evident alarm 
 lest the Church should see something objectionable in them. He 
 had also written an astronomical treatise ; but hearing of the 
 fate of Galileo, he refrained from publishing, and always used 
 some chicane in speaking of the world’s movement. He was 
 not a brave man ; nor was he an affectionate man.' But he was 
 even-tempered, placid, and studious not to give offence. In 
 these, as in so many other points, he resembles his illustrious 
 rival, Francis Bacon ; but his name has descended spotless to 
 posterity, while Bacon’s has descended darkened with more spots 
 than time can efface. It would be hard to say how much differ- 
 ence of position had to do with this difference of moral purity. 
 Had Bacon lived in his study, we should have only praises for 
 his name. 
 
 § II. The Method of Descartes. 
 
 There have been disputes as to Bacon’s claim to the title of 
 Father of Experimental Science; but no one disputes the claim 
 of Descartes to the title of Father of Modern Philosophy. On- 
 tology and Psychology are still pursued upon his Method ; and 
 his speculations are still proudly referred to, by most Continental 
 thinkers, as perfect, or almost perfect, examples of that Method. 
 
 In his Dedication of the Meditations to the Sorbonne, he says : 
 “ I have always thought that the two questions, of the existence 
 of God, and the nature of the soul, were the chief of those 
 which ought to be demonstrated rather by philosophy than by 
 theology; for although it is sufficient for us, the faithful, to be* 
 
THE METHOD OF DESCARTES. 
 
 439 
 
 5eve iu God, and that the soul does not perish with the body, it 
 certainly does not seem possible ever to persuade the infidels to 
 any religion, nor hardly to any moral virtue, unless we first prove 
 to them these two things by natural reason.” Extraordinary 
 language, which shows how completely Philosophy had gained 
 complete independence. 
 
 But if Philosophy is to be independent, — if reason is to walk 
 alone, in what direction must she walk? Having relinquished 
 the aid of the Church, there were but two courses open : the 
 one, to tread once more in the path of the ancients, and to en- 
 deavor by the ancient Methods to attain the truth ; or else to 
 open a new path, to invent a new Method. The former was 
 barely possible. The spirit of the age was deeply imbued with 
 a feeling of opposition against the ancient Methods ; and Des- 
 cartes himself had been painfully perplexed by the universal an- 
 archy and uncertainty which prevailed. The second course was 
 therefore chosen. 
 
 Uncertainty was the disease of the epoch. Skepticism was 
 wide-spread, and even the most confident dogmatism could offer 
 no criterium of certitude. This want of a criterium we- saw 
 leading, in Greece, to Skepticism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, the 
 New Academy, and finally leading the Alexandrians into the 
 province of fiiith, to escape from the dilemma. The question of 
 a criterium had long been* the vital question of philosophy. 
 Descartes could get no answer to it from the Doctors of his day. 
 Unable to find firm ground in any of the prevalent systems ; dis- 
 tracted by doubts ; mistrusting the conclusions of his own un- 
 derstanding ; mistrusting the evidences of his senses, he deter- 
 mined to make a tabula rasa, and reconstruct his knowledge. 
 He resolved to examine the premises of every conclusion, and to 
 believe nothing but upon the clearest evidence of reason ; evidence 
 BO convincing that he could not by any eflTort refuse to assent 
 to it. 
 
 He has given us the detailed history of his doubts. He has 
 A)ld us how he found that he could plausibly enough doubt of 
 
DESCARTES. 
 
 UO 
 
 cvcrj" thing, except of his own existence. He pushed his skepti- 
 cism to the verge of self-annihilation. There he stopped : there, 
 in Self, in his Consciousness, he found at last an irresistible Fact, 
 an irreversible Certainty. 
 
 Finn ground was discovered. He could doubt the existence 
 of the external world, and treat it as a phantasm ; he could 
 doubt the existence of God, and treat the belief as a superstition ; 
 but of the existence of his thinking, doubting mind, no sort of 
 doubt was possible. He, the doubter, existed, if nothing else ex- 
 isted. The existence that was revealed in his own Consciousness 
 was the primary fact, the first indubitable certainty. Hence his 
 famous Cogito, ergo Sum : I think, therefore I am. 
 
 It is somewhat curious, and, as an illustration of the frivolous 
 verbal disputes of philosophers, not a little instructive, that this 
 celebrated Cogito, ergo Sum should have been frequently attacked 
 for its logical imperfection. It has been objected, from Gassendi 
 downwards, that to say, “ I think, therefore I am,” is a begging 
 of the question, since existence has to be proved identical with 
 thought. Certainly, if Descartes had intended to 2)rove his own 
 existence by reasoning, he would have been guilty of the petitio 
 'principii Gassendi attributes to him ; viz. that the major prem- 
 ise, “ that which thinks exists,” is assumed, not proved. But he 
 did not intend this. What was his object? He has told us that 
 it was to find a starting-point from which to reason, — to find an 
 irreversible certainty. And where did he find this ? In his own 
 Consciousness. Doubt as I may, I cannot doubt of my own ex- 
 istence, because my very doubt reveals to me a something which 
 doubts. You may call this an assumption, if you will : I point 
 out the fact as one above and beyond all logic ; which logic can 
 neither prove nor disprove ; but which must always remain an 
 irreversible certainty, and as such a fitting basis of philosophy.* 
 
 I exist. No doubt can darken such a truth ; no soj^hism can 
 confute this clear principle. This is a certainty, if there be none 
 
 * See his replies to the third and fifth eeries of Objections, affixed to hia 
 Meditations. 
 
THE METHOD OF DESCARTES. 
 
 441 
 
 other. This is the basis of all science. It is in vain to ask for a 
 proof of that which is self-evident and irresistible. I exist. Tha 
 consciousness of my existence is to me the assurance of my ex- 
 istence. 
 
 Had Descartes done no more than point out this fact, he would 
 have no claim to .notice here ; and we are surprised to find many 
 writers looking upon this Cogito, ergo Sum, as constituting the 
 great idea in his system. Surely it is only a statement of uni- 
 versal experience — an epigrammatic form given to the common- 
 sense view of 'the matter. Any clown would have told him that 
 the assurance of his existence was his consciousness of it ; but 
 the clown would not have stated it so well. He would have 
 said : I know I exist, because I feel that I exist. 
 
 ■ Descartes thei’efdre made no discovery in pointing out this fact 
 as an irresistible certainty. The part it plays in his system is 
 only that of a starting-point. It makes Consciousness the basis 
 of all truth ; there is none other possible. Interrogate Con- 
 sciousness, and its clear replies will be Science. Here we have 
 a new basis and a new philosophy introduced. It was indeed 
 but another shape of the old formula, “ Know thyself,” so differ- 
 ently interpreted by Thales, Socrates, and the Alexandrians : 
 but it gave that formula a precise signification, a thing it had 
 before always wanted. Of little use could it be to tell man to 
 know himself. How is he to know himself? By looking in- 
 wards? We all do that. By examining the nature of his 
 thoughts ? That had been done without success. By examining 
 the process of his thoughts ? That too had been accomplished, 
 and the logic of Aristotle was the result. 
 
 The formula needed a precise interpretation ; and that inter- 
 pretation Descartes gave. Consciousness, said he, is the basis of 
 all knowledge ; it is the only ground of absolute certainty. 
 ^^Tlatever it distinctly proclaims must be true. The process, 
 then, is simple : examine your Consciousness, and its clear re- 
 plies. Hence the vital portion of his system lies in this axiom, 
 all clear ideas are true • whatever i.s r-learly and distinctly con 
 
DESCARTES. 
 
 ceived is true. This axiom he calls the foundation of all science, 
 the rtile and measure of truth.'^ 
 
 The next step to be taken was to determine the rules for the 
 proper detection of these ideas ; and these rules he has laid 
 down as follows : 
 
 I. Never to accept any thing as true, but what is evidently so ; 
 to admit nothing but what so clearly and distinctly presents 
 itself as true that there can be no reason to doubt it. 
 
 II. To divide eveiy question into as many separate questions 
 as possible ; that each part being more easily conceived, the 
 whole may be more intelligible. — (Analysis.) 
 
 III. To conduct the examination with order, beginning by that 
 of objects the most simple, and therefore the easiest to be known, 
 and ascending little by little up to knowledge of the most com- 
 plex. — (Synthesis.) 
 
 IV. To make such exact calculations, and such circumspec- 
 tions, as to be confident that nothing essential has been omitted. 
 
 Consciousness being the ground of all certainty, every thing 
 of which you are clearly and distinctly conscious must be true ; 
 every thing which you clearly and .distinctly conceive exists, if 
 the idea of it involves existence. 
 
 In the four rules, and in this view of Consciousness, we have 
 only half of Descartes’ system : the psychological half. It was 
 owing, we believe, to the exclusive consideration of this half that 
 Dugald Stewart was led (in controverting Condorcet’s assertion 
 that Descartes Jiad done more than either Galileo or Bacon to- 
 wards experimental philosophy) to say that Condorcet would 
 have been nearer the truth if he had pointed him out as the 
 Father of the E.xperimental Philosophy of the Mind. Perhaps 
 the title is just; but Condorcet’s praise, though exaggerated, was 
 not without good foundation. 
 
 * “ Hao igitur detecia veritate simul etiam invenit omnium scientiarum 
 fundamentura : ac etiam omnium aliarum veritatum mensuram ac regulam ; 
 Bcilicet, quioquid tarn dare ac distincte peroipitur quam istud verum est.’’— 
 Princip. Phil. p. 4, 
 
THE METHOD OF DESCARTES. 
 
 443 
 
 Tliere is, iu truth, another half of Descartes’ s) stem ; equally 
 important, or nearly so : we mean the Mathematical or Deduc- 
 tive Method. His eminence as a mathematician is universally 
 recognized. He was the first to make the grand discovery of the 
 application of Algebra to Geometry ; and he made this at the 
 age of twenty-three. The discovery that geometrical curves 
 might be expressed by algebraical numbers, though highly im- 
 portant in the history of mathematics, only interests us here by 
 leading us to trace his philosophical development. We see him 
 deeply engrossed in mathematics ; we see him awakening to the 
 conviction that mathematics were capable of a still further simpli- 
 fication, and of a far more extended application. Struck as he 
 was with a certitude of mathematical reasoning, he began apply- 
 ing the principles of mathematical reasoning to the subject of 
 metaphysics. His great object was, amidst the skepticism and 
 anarchy of his contemporaries, to found a system which should 
 be solid and convincing. He first wished to find a basis of cer- 
 titude — a starting-point ; this he found in Consciousness. He 
 next wished to find a method of certitude : this he found in 
 mathematics. 
 
 “ Those long chains of reasoning,” he tells us, “ all simple and 
 easy, which geometers use to arrive at their most diflicult demon- 
 strations, suggested to me that all things which came within 
 human knowledge must follow each other in a similar chain; 
 and that provided we abstain from admitting any thing as true 
 which is not so, and that we always preserve in them the order 
 necessary to deduce one from the other, there can be none so 
 remote to which we cannot finally attain, nor so obscure but that 
 we may discover them.”* From these glimpses of the twofold 
 nature of Descartes’ Method, it will be easy to see into his whole 
 system. The psychological and mathematical Methods are in- 
 separable, Consciousness being the only ground of certitude, 
 mathematics the only method of certitude. 
 
 Discours de la MetTwde, p. 12. 
 
DESCARTES. 
 
 iU 
 
 'Vfe may say therefore that the Deductive Method was now 
 completely constituted. The whole operation of philosophy 
 lienceforth consisted in deducing consequences. The premises 
 had been found ; the conclusions alone were wanting. This was 
 held to be true of physics no less than of psychology. Thus, in 
 his Prindpia, he announces his intention of giving a short ac- 
 count of the principal phenomena of the world, not that he maj 
 use them as reasons to prove any thing ; for he adds, “ we desire 
 to deduce effects from' causes., not causes from effects, but only in 
 order that out of the innumerable effects which we learn to be 
 capable of resulting from the same causes, we may determine our 
 minds to consider some rather than others.”'*'^ 
 
 Such being the Method of Descartes, our readers will hear 
 with surprise that some French writers have declared it to be 
 the same Method as that laid down by Bacon ; and this surprise 
 will be heightened on learning that M. Victor Cousin is one of 
 those writers. He says, “ Let us now see what our Descartes has 
 done. He has established in France the same Method that Eng- 
 land has endeavored to attribute exclusively to Bacon ;■ and he 
 has established it with less gi’andeur of imagination in style, but 
 with the superior precision which must always characterize one 
 who, not content with laying down rules, puts them himself in 
 practice, and gives the example with the precept.”f M. Cousin 
 then quotes the four rules wm quoted from Descartes ; and seeing 
 in them Analysis and Synthesis, which he believes constitutes 
 the sole Method of Bacon, declares that the two Methods are 
 one. Such a statement requires no refutation; nor indeed would 
 
 * Prindpia Philos, pars iii. p. 51. The phrase, “cnpimus enim rationes 
 effectuum a causis, non antem e contrario causarum ah effectibus deducere,” 
 may be said to express the nature of his method, as opposed to the method 
 of Bacon. When M. Jules Simon said, “ The commencement of philosophy 
 for Descartes is Doubt ; that alone is all his entire method — cela seul est touts 
 sa Methode" (Introduction prefi.xed to his edition of Descartes, p. 3), he mis- 
 takes, as it seems to us, the whole purpose of Descartes’ artificial skepticism: 
 besides, how can a Doubt be a Method ? 
 t Hist, dela Philos, leqon iii. p. 91, ed. Bru.xelles, 1840. 
 
THE METHOD OF DESCAETES. 
 
 44:5 
 
 *t have been noticed, did it not afford an illustration of the loose 
 way in which the term Method is employed by many writers. 
 
 Bacon was the reverse side of the medal of Descartes. Bacon’s 
 deficiencies lay in that department where Descartes was greatest 
 — in mathematics. Hence Bacon’s over-valuation of Induction, 
 and neglect of Deduction ; hence also Descartes’ over- valuation 
 of Deduction, and neglect of Induction. Both cultivated Phys- 
 ics ; hut Bacon made it the basis of all the sciences; Descartes 
 made it a mere illustration of his principles. The one argued 
 from efiects to causes — from the known to the unknown ; the 
 other deduced efiects from causes — explaining phenomena by 
 noumena — explaining that which presented itself to the senses 
 by that which was intuitively known. Both separated religion 
 from philosophy ; but Bacon declared the problems of religion 
 and ontology insoluble by reason, and therefore beyond the prov- 
 ince of science ; Descartes declared them soluble only by reason, 
 and that it was the first object of philosophy to solve them. 
 
 Besides these and other points of dififerenee, there were also 
 several points of resemblance, owing to the resemblance of their 
 positions as reformers. They . both overvalued their Methods, 
 which they declare will enable all men to philosophize with equal 
 justness. “ It is not so essential to have a fine understanding,” 
 says Descartes, “ as to apply it rightly. Those who walk slowly 
 make greater progress, if they always follow the right road, than 
 those who run swiftly, but run on a wrong one.” This is pre- 
 cisely the thought of Bacon : “ A cripple in the right path will 
 beat a racer in the wrong one.” But both these thinkers assume 
 that the racer will choose the wrong path : whereas, if their 
 Methods are adopted, the finer understanding must always sur- 
 pass the duller in the discovery of truth. 
 
 Before quitting this subject, we must remark on the essentially 
 metaphysical nature and tendency of the Method of Descartes, 
 even when employed on Physics ; and for this purpose we can- 
 not do better than borrow the admirable language of Fontenello 
 in his parallel between Descartes and Newton. “Tous deux geo- 
 31 
 
DESCARTES. 
 
 ii6 
 
 metres excellents ont vu la necessite de transporter la geonietrie 
 dans la physique . . . Mais I’un, prenant un vol hardi, a voulu 
 se placer a la source de tout, se rendre maitre des premiers prin- 
 cipes par quelques idees claires et fondamentales, pour n’ avoir 
 plus qu’a descendre aux phenomenes de la nature comme a des 
 consequences necessaires ; I’autre, plus timide ou plus modeste, 
 a commence sa marche par s’appuyer sur les phenomenes pour 
 remonter aux principes inconnus, resolu de les admettre, quels 
 que les put dormer I’enchainement des consequences. L’un part 
 de ce qu’il entend nettement pour trouver la cause de ce qu’il 
 voit; I’autre part de ce qu’il voit pour en trouver la cause, soit 
 claire, soit obscure.” 
 
 § III. Application of the Method. 
 
 To prove the existence of God was the first application of L)es 
 cartes’ Method ; not, as some say, to prove his own existence ; for 
 that neither admitted of logical proof nor of disproof : it was a pri- 
 mary fact. Interrogating his Consciousness, he found that he had 
 the idea of God, — understanding, by God, a substance infinite, eter- 
 nal, immutable, independent, omniscient, omnipotent. This, to him, 
 was as certain a truth as the truth of his own existence. I exist : 
 not only do I exist, but exist as a miserably imperfect, finite 
 being, subject to change — greatly ignorant, and incapable of cre- 
 ating any thing. In this, my Consciousness, I find by my fini- 
 tude that I am not the All ; by my imperfection, that I am not 
 perfect. Yet an infinite and perfect being must exist, because 
 infinity and perfection are implied, as correlatives, in my ideas of 
 imperfection and finitude. God therefore exists : his existence is 
 clearly proclaimed in my Consciousness, and can no more be a 
 matter of doubt, when fairly considered, than my own existence. 
 The conception of an infinite being proves his real existence , 
 for if there is not really such a being, I must have made the 
 conception ; but if I could make it, I can also unmake it, which 
 evidently is not true ; therefore there must be, externally to my • 
 self, an archetype from which the conception was derived. 
 
APPLICATION OF THE METHOD. 
 
 447 
 
 “The ambiguity in this case,” it has been remarked,* “is the 
 pronoun /, by which in one place is to be understood my will, 
 in another the laws of my nature. If the conception, existing as 
 it does in my mind, had no original without, the conclusion would 
 unquestionably follow that I had made it — that is, the laws of 
 my nature must have spontaneously evolved it ; but that my will 
 made it, would not follow. Now, when Descartes afterwards adds 
 that I cannot unmake the conception, he means that I cannot 
 get rid of it by an act of my will, which is true, but is not the 
 proposition required. That what some of the laws of my nature 
 have produced, other laws, or the same laws in other circumstan- 
 ces, might not subsequently efface, he would have found it dif- 
 ficult to establish.” 
 
 His second demonstration is the weakest of the three. Indeed, 
 it is the only one not irrefragable, upon his principles. The 
 third demonstration is peculiarly Cartesian, and may be thrown 
 into this syllogism : 
 
 All that we clearly and distinctly conceive as contained in 
 any thing, is true of that thing. 
 
 Now we conceive, clearly and distinctly, that the existence 
 of God is contained in the idea we have of him. 
 
 Ergo, 
 
 God exists. 
 
 Having demonstrated the existence of God, he had to prove 
 the distinction between body and soul. This, to him, was easy. 
 The fundamental attribute of Substance must be extension, be- 
 cause we can abstract from Substance all the qualities except ex- 
 tension. The fundamental attribute of Mind is thought, because 
 by this attribute Mind is revealed to itself. Now, according to 
 one of his logical axioms, two substances are really distinct when 
 their ideas are complete, and in no way imply each other. The 
 ideas, therefore, of extension and thought being distinct, it fol- 
 lows that Substance and Mind are distinct in essence. 
 
 We need not pursue our analysis of his metaphysical notions 
 
 * Mill’s System of Logic, ii. 447. 
 
M8 
 
 DESCARTES. 
 
 further. We only stop to remark on the nature of hia demon* 
 strations of God and the soul. It is, and was, usual to prove the 
 existence of God from what is called the “ evidence of design.” 
 Descartes neither started from design, nor from motion, which 
 must have a mover : he started from the a priori ideas of per- 
 fection and infinity ; his proof was in the clearness of his idea 
 of God. His Method was that of definition and deduction. To 
 define the idea of God, and hence to construct the world — not 
 to contemplate the world, and thence infer the existence of God 
 — was the route he pursued. Is it not eminently the procedure 
 of a mathematician ? and of a mathematician who has taken 
 Consciousness as his starting-point ? 
 
 Descartes’ speculations are beautiful exemplifications of his 
 Method ; and he follows that Method, even when it leads him to 
 the wildest conclusions. His physical speculations are some- 
 times admirable (he made important discoveries in optics), but 
 mostly fanciful. The famous theory of vortices deserves a men- 
 tion here, as an example of his Method. 
 
 He begins by banishing the notion of a vacuum, not, as his 
 contemporaries said, because Nature has a horror of vacuum, but 
 because the essence of Substance being extension, wherever there 
 is extension there is Substance ; consequently empty space is a 
 chimera. The substance which fills all space must be assumed 
 as divided into equal angular parts. Why must this be assumed ? 
 Because it is the most simple, therefore the most natural suppo- 
 sition. This substance being set in motion, the parts are ground 
 into a spherical form ; and the corners thus rubbed oflF, like 
 filings or sawdust, form a second or more subtle kind of substance. 
 There is, besides, a kind of substance, coarser and less fitted for 
 motion. The first kind makes luminous bodies, such as the sun 
 and fixed stars ; the second makes the transparent substance of 
 the skies ; the third kind is the material of opake bodies, such 
 as earth, planets, etc. We may also assume that the motions ot 
 these parts take the form of revolving circular currents, or vor* 
 tices. By this means the matter will be collected to the centre 
 
APPLICATION OF THE METHOD. 
 
 449 
 
 of each vortex, while the second or subtle matter surrounds it, 
 and by its centrifugal effort constitutes light. The planets are 
 carried round the sun by the motion of this vortex, each planet 
 being at such a distance from the sun as to be in a part of the 
 vortex suitable to its solidity and mobility. The motions are 
 prevented from being exactly circular and regular by various 
 causes. For instance, a vortex may be pressed into an oval 
 shape by contiguous vortices.* 
 
 Descartes, in his physics, adopted a method which permitted 
 him to set aside the qualities and the substantial forms (which 
 others were seeking), and to consider only the relations of num- 
 ber, figure, and motion. In a word, he saw in physics only 
 mathematical problems. This was premature. Science, in its 
 infancy, cannot be carried on by the deductive Method alone : 
 such a process is reserved for its maturity. 
 
 But this deductive Method, though premature, was puissant. 
 Science is forced to employ it, and Bacon’s greatest error was in 
 not sufficiently acknowledging it. Hence we may partly account 
 for the curious fact that Bacon, with his cautious Method, made 
 no discoveries, while Descartes, with his premature Method, made 
 important discoveries. Of course the greater physical knowledge 
 of Descartes, and the greater attention bestowed by him upon 
 physics, had something to do with this ; but his Method also as- 
 sisted him, precisely because his discoveries were of a kind to 
 which the mathematical method was strictly applicable. 
 
 That Descartes had read Bacon there is no doubt. He has 
 himself praised Bacon’s works as leaving nothing to be desired 
 on the subject of experience ; but he perceived Bacon’s deficiency, 
 and declared that we are “ liable to collect many superfluous ex- 
 periences of particulars, and not only superfluous, but false,” if 
 we have not ascertained the truth before we make these expe- 
 
 * We have followed Dr. Whewell’s exposition of this theory, as given by 
 him, EM. of Ind. Seiences, ii. p. 134. The curious reader will do well, 
 however, to turn to Descartes’ own exposition in the Principia PhilosopbvB. 
 where it is illustrated by diagrams. 
 
450 
 
 DESCARTES. 
 
 riences. In other words, experiment should be the verification 
 of an a priori conception ; whereas Bacon teaches us to form 
 our conceptions from experiment. 
 
 We have said enough to make the Method of Descartes appre 
 ciable. His position is that of founder of the Deductive Method 
 on the basis of Consciousness. His scholars may be divided into 
 the mathematical cultivators of Physics, and the deductive culti- 
 vators of Philosophy. By the first he was speedily surpassed, 
 and his influence on them can only be regarded as an impulsion. 
 By the second he was continued : his principles were unhesita- 
 tingly accepted, and only developed in a somewhat difi"erent 
 manner. 
 
 His philosophical Method subsists in the present day. It is 
 the Method implicitly or explicitly adopted by most metaphy- 
 sicians in their speculations upon ontological subjects. Is it a 
 good Method ? The question is of the highest importance : we 
 will endeavor to answer it. 
 
 § IV. Is THE Method true ? 
 
 In the Dedicatory Epistle prefixed to his Meditations, Des- 
 cartes declares that his demonstrations of the existence of God, 
 etc^ “ equal, or even surpass, in certitude the demonstrations of 
 geometry.” Upon what does he found this belief? He founds 
 it upon the very nature of certitude. Consciousness is the basis 
 of all certitude. Whatever I am distinctly conscious of, I must 
 be certain of ; all the ideas which I find in my Consciousness, as 
 distinctly conceived, must be true. The belief I have in my 
 existence is derived from the fact of my Consciousness : I tJiinlc, 
 therefore I exist. Now as soon as I conceive a truth with dis- 
 tinctness, I am irresistibly led to believe in it ; and if that belief 
 is so firm that I can never have any reason to doubt that which 
 I believe, I have all the certitude that can be desired. 
 
 Further : we have no knowledge lohatever of any thing external 
 io us except through the medium of ideas. The consequence is, 
 
IS THE METHOD TRUE ? 
 
 451 
 
 says Descartes, that whatever we find in the ideas must necessarily 
 be in the external things. 
 
 It is only in our minds that we can seek whether things exist, 
 or not. There cannot be more reality in an effect than in a 
 cause. The external thing, being the cause of the idea, must 
 therefore possess as much reality as the idea, and vice versa. So 
 that whatever we conceive as existent, exists. 
 
 This is the basis on which Descartes’ system is erected ; if this 
 basis be rotten, the superstructure must fall. If the root is 
 vitiated, the tree will bear no fruit. No thinker, except Spinoza, 
 has so clearly, so frankly stated his criterium. Let us then ac- 
 cept the challenge which it offers, since an opportunity is now 
 afforded of bringing together in a narrow field the defenders and 
 antagonists of philosophy. 
 
 If Descartes is wrong — if Consciousness is not the ultimate 
 ground of Certitude, embracing both objective and subjective — 
 if ideas are not the internal copies of external things — then must 
 Philosophy be content to relinquish all claim to certitude, and 
 find refuge again in Faith. 
 
 And Descartes is wTong. The very Consciousness to which 
 he appeals, convicts him. There is this fallacy in his system ; 
 Consciousness is the ultimate ground of certitude, for me ; if I 
 am conscious that I exist, I cannot doubt that I exist ; if I am 
 conscious of pain, I must be in pain. This is self-evident. But 
 what ground of certitude can my Consciousness afford respecting 
 things which are not me ? How does the principle of certitude 
 apply ? How far does it extend ? It can only extend to things 
 which relate to me. I am conscious of all that passes within 
 myself ; but I am not conscious of what passes in not-self : ail 
 that I can possibly know of the not-self is in its effects upon me. 
 
 Consciousness is therefore “ cabin’d, cribb’d, confined” to me, 
 and to what passes within me ; so far does the principle of cer- 
 titude extend, and no farther. Any other ideas we may have, 
 any knowledge we may have respecting not-self can only be 
 founded on inferences. Thus, I burn myself in the fire : J 
 
i52 
 
 DESCAKTKS. 
 
 am conscious of the sensation ; I have certain and immediate 
 knowledge of that. But I can only be certain that a change has 
 taken place in my consciousness ; when from that change I infer 
 the existence of an external object (the fire), my inference may 
 be correct, but I have obviously shifted my ground ; Conscious- 
 ness — my principle of certitude — forsakes me here : I go out of 
 myself to infer the existence of something which is not-self. My 
 knowledge of the sensation was immediate^ indubitable. My 
 knowledge of the object is mediate, uncertain. 
 
 Directly therefore we leave the ground of Consciousness for 
 that of inference, avenues of doubt are opened. Other inferences 
 can be brought to bear upon any one inference to illustrate or to 
 refute it. The mathematical certainty which Descartes attributed 
 to these inferences becomes a great uncertainty. He says we 
 only know things through the medium of ideas. We will accept 
 the proposition as unque-stionable. But then he also says that, 
 in consequence of this, whatever we find in the ideas must neces- 
 sarily be true of the things. The reason is, that as ideas are 
 caused in us by objects, and as every effect must have as much 
 reality as the cause — the effect being equal to the cause — so must 
 ideas have the same reality as things. But this is a double fal- 
 lacy. In the first place, an effect is not equal to its cause ; it is 
 a mere consequent of an antecedent, having no such relation as 
 equality whatever. In the second place, the use of the term 
 “ reality” is ambiguous. Unquestionably an effect really exists; 
 but reality of existence does not imply similarity of modes of 
 existence. The burn occasioned by a fire is as real as the fire ; 
 but it in no way resembles the fire. 
 
 So when Descartes says that what is true of ideas must be true 
 of things, he assumes that the mind is a, passive recipient — a mir- 
 ror, in which things reflect themselves. This is altogether fal- 
 lacious; the mind is an active co-operator in all sensation — sen- 
 sation is a consciousness of changes operated in ourselves, not a 
 consciousness of the objects causing those changes. In truth, so 
 far from our being able to apprehend the nature of things ex« 
 
IS THE METHOD TEHE ? 
 
 4:53 
 
 ternal to us, there is an impenetrable screen forever placed before 
 our eyes, and that impenetrable screen is the very Consciousness 
 upon which Descartes relies. When placed in contact with ex- 
 ternal objects, they operate upon us ; their operations we know, 
 themselves we cannot know ; precisely because our knowledge of 
 them is mediate, and the medium is our Consciousness. Into 
 whatever regions we wander, we carry, with us this Conscious- 
 ness, by means of which, indeed, we know, but all we know, is 
 — ourselves. 
 
 Knowledge is composed of Ideas. Ideas are the joint product 
 of mind on the one hand, and of external causes on the other ; 
 or rather we may say that Ideas are the products of mind excited 
 by external causes. Upon what principles of inference (since we 
 are here on the ground of inference) can you infer that the ideas 
 excited are copies of the exciting causes — that the ideas excited 
 apprehend the whole nature of the causes ? The cause of the 
 fallacy is in that very strong disposition to give objectivity to a 
 law of the mind; in consequence of which we often hear people 
 declare that something they are asserting is “ involved in the 
 idea.” 
 
 There is pne mode of escape left for those who believe in the ' 
 validity of ontological speculations ; namely, to assert the exist- 
 ence of Innate Ideas, or — as the theory is generally stated in 
 modern times — of Necessary Truths independent of all experi- 
 ence. If the idea of God, for example, be innate in us, it is no 
 longer a matter of inference, but of Consciousness; and on such 
 an hypothesis Descartes is correct in believing that the certainty 
 of this idea equals the certainty of geometry. 
 
 But some maintain that he did not assert the existence of In- 
 nate Ideas, though, from its having been a doctrine maintained 
 Dy his followers, it is usually attributed to him. Dugald Stewart 
 quotes the following passage from Descartes in reply to his ad- 
 versaries, who accused him of holding the tenet of Innate Ideas : 
 — “ When I said that the idea of God is innate in us, I never 
 meant more than this, that Nature has endowed us with a facul- 
 
A54 
 
 DESCARTES. 
 
 ty by which we may know God ; but I have never either said 
 thought that such ideas had an actual existence, or even that 
 they were a species distinct from the faculty of thinking. . . , 
 Although the idea of God is so imprinted on our minds that 
 every person has within himself the faculty of knowing Him, it 
 does not follow that there may not have been various individuals 
 who have passed through life without making this idea a distinct 
 object of apprehension ; and, in truth, they who think they have 
 an idea of a plurality of Gods have no idea of God whatever.” 
 
 From this it would appear that he did not hold the doctrine 
 of Innate Ideas. But we must venture to dissent from the con- 
 clusion drawn by Dugald Stewart on the strength of such a pas- 
 sage ; against that passage we will bring another equally explicit 
 (we could bring fifty, if necessary), which asserts the existence 
 of Innate Ideas. “ By the word idea,'^ he says, “ I understand all 
 that can be in our thoughts ; and I distinguish three sorts of 
 ideas : — adventitious, Ijke the common idea of the sun ; framed 
 by the mind, such as that which astronomical reasoning gives of 
 the sun ; and innate, as the idea of God, mind, body, a triangle, 
 and generally all those which represent true, immutable, and eternal 
 essences."* This last explanation is distinct; and it is all that 
 the serious antagonists of Innate Ideas have ever combated. If 
 Descartes, when pressed by objections, gave different explana- 
 tions, we may attribute that to the want of a steady conception 
 of the vital importance of Innate Ideas in his system. The fact 
 remains that Innate Ideas form the necessary groundwork of the 
 Cartesian doctrine. 
 
 Although the theory of Innate Ideas may, in its Cartesian 
 form, be said to be exploded, it does really continue to be upheld, 
 under a new form. A conviction of the paramount necessity of 
 some such groundwork for metaphysical speculation has led to 
 the modern theory of Necessary Truths. This plausible theorj 
 has been adopted by Dr. Whewell in his Philosophy of the In 
 
 * Lettres de Descartes, liv. 
 
IS THE METHOD TRUE ? 
 
 455 
 
 iuctive Sciences; but bis arguments have been completely 
 shattered by John Mill on the one hand, and by Sir John Her- 
 schel on the other.* 
 
 The basis of all modern ontological speculations lies in the as- 
 sumption that we have ideas independent of experience. Experience 
 can only tell us of ourselves, or of phenomena ; of noumena it 
 can tell us nothing. That we have no ideas independent of ex- 
 perience has been clearly enough established in the best schools 
 of psychology ; but the existence of metaphysical speculation 
 proves that the contrary opinion still finds numerous upholders.f 
 
 The fundamental question then of modern Philosophy was 
 this : Have we any Ideas independent of Experience ? And the 
 attempt to solve it will occupy the greater portion of our history. 
 Before entering upon it we must exhibit the Method of Descartes, 
 pushed to its ultimate conclusions in Spinoza. J 
 
 * System of Logic., book ii. ch. v. ; and Quarterly Review, Jane, 1841 ; in- 
 deed, Dr. Whewell’s arguments bad been anticipated and refuted by Locke 
 long before. See Essay, book iv. ch. 6, 7. 
 
 + See the question discussed further on : Epoch VIII. § v. 
 
 X The best modern works on Descartes, apart from regular Histories of 
 Philosophy, are M. Franeisque Boullier’s Histoire et Critique de la Revolution 
 Cartesienne, Paris, 1 842 ; M. Ch. Eenouvier’s Manuel de la Philos. Modeme, 
 Paris, 1841 ; and Feuerbach’s Qeschichte der neuern Philosophie, Leipzig, 1847. 
 The best edition of Descartes’ works is that by Victor Cousin, in eleven vols., 
 8vo., Paris, 1826. M. Jules Simon has also published a cheap and conveni- 
 ent edition, in one volume, of the Discourse on Method, the Meditations, and 
 the Treatise on the Passions, Paris, 1844, Both of these have been excel- 
 lently translated into English (Edinburgh, 1853). 
 
CHAl’TER II 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 § I. Spinoza’s Life. 
 
 Early in the seventeenth century, on a fair evening of sura* 
 mer, a little Jewish boy was playing with his sisters on the Burg- 
 wall of Amsterdam, close to the Portuguese synagogue. His 
 face was mild and ingenious; his eyes were small, but bright 
 quick, and penetrative ; and the dark hair floated in luxuriant 
 curls over his neck and shoulders. Noticeable, perhaps, for his 
 beauty and joyousness, the little boy played amongst the active 
 citizens of that active town. The Dutch then occupied the 
 thoughtful attention of all Europe. After having flrst conquered 
 for themselves firm footing on this earth, by rescuing their coun- 
 try from the sea, they had thrown off the oppressive yoke of 
 Spain ; and had now conquered for themselves a freedom from a 
 far greater tyranny, the tyranny of thought. 
 
 Amsterdam was noisy with the creaking of cordage, the bawl- 
 ing of sailors, and the busy trafficking of traders. The Zuyder 
 Zee was crowded with vessels laden with precious stores from all 
 quarters of the globe. The canals which ramify that city, like 
 a great arterial system, were blocked up with boats and barges : 
 the whole scene was vivid with the greatness and the littleness 
 of commerce. Heedless of all this turmoil, as unheeded in it — 
 heedless of all those higher mysteries of existence, the solution 
 of which was hereafter to be the endeavor of his life — untouched 
 by any of those strange questions which a restless spirit cannot 
 answer, but which it refuses to have answered by others — heed 
 less of every thing but his game, the little boy played merrily 
 with his sisters. That boy was Benedict Spinoza. 
 
spestoza’s life. 
 
 457 
 
 It is a pleasant thing to think of Spinoza as a boy, playing 
 At boyish games. He has for so long been the bugbear of theo- 
 logians and timid thinkers ; he has for so long been looked upon 
 as a monster, an atheist, and (to add to the horror), a Jewish 
 atheist; and looked upon, even by those who were not so aghast 
 at the consequences of his system, as nothing more than a frigid 
 logician, that we dwell with singular pleasure on any more human 
 aspect of his character. We hope, ere we have done, to con- 
 vince the reader that this rigorous logician was a wise, virtuous, 
 and affectionate man. 
 
 His parents were honest merchants of Amsterdam, who had 
 settled there in company with a number of their brethren, on 
 escaping the persecution to which 'all Jews were subject in Spain. 
 The young Baruch* was at first destined to commerce ; but his 
 passion for study, and the precocity of his intellect, made his 
 parents alter their resolution in favor of a rabbinical education : 
 a resolution warranted by sickliness of constitution, which had 
 increased his love of study. The sickly child is mostly thought- 
 ful : he is thrown upon himself and his own resources ; he suf- 
 fers, and asks himself the cause of his pains, asks himselt 
 whether the world suffers like him ; whether he is one with na- 
 ture, and subject to the same laws, or whether he is apart from 
 it, and regulated by distinct laws. From these he rises to the 
 awful questions — Why ? Whence ? and Whither ? 
 
 The education of the Jews was almost exclusively religious, 
 the Old Testament and the Talmud forming their principal stu- 
 dies. Spinoza entered into them with a fanatical zeal, which, 
 backed as it was by remarkable penetration and subtlety, won 
 the admiration of the Chief Rabbin, Saul Levi Morteira, who be- 
 came his guide and instructor. Great indeed were the hopes en- 
 tertained of this youth, who at fourteen rivalled almost all the 
 doctors in the exactitude and extent of his biblical knowledge 
 
 * Baruch was Spinoza’s Hebrew name, which he himself translated into 
 Latin as Benedietus ; from which some have erroneously supposed that he 
 tmbraced Christianity, whereas he only renounced Judaism. 
 
i58 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 But these hopes were turned to fears, when they saw that young 
 and pertinadous spirit pursue his undaunted inquiries into what- 
 ever region they conducted him, and found him putting difficul- 
 ties to them which thev, Rabbins and philosophers, were unable 
 to solve. 
 
 Spinoza was to be deterred neither by threats nor by sophisti- 
 cations. He found in the Old Testament no mention of the doc- 
 trine of immortality : there was complete silence on the point.* 
 He made no secret of his opinions; and two of his schoolfel- 
 lows, irritated at his intellectual superiority, or else anxious to 
 curry favor with the Rabbins, reported his heresy with the usual 
 fertility of exaggeration. Summoned to appear before the Syn- 
 agogue, he obeyed with a gay carelessness, conscious of his inno- 
 cence. His judges, finding him obstinate in his opinions, threat- 
 ened him with excommunication : he answered with a sneer. 
 Morteira, informed of the danger, hastened to confront his re- 
 bellious pupil ; but Spinoza remained as untouched by his rhet- 
 oric as he was unconvinced by his arguments. Enraged at this 
 failure, Morteira took a higher tone, and threatened him with 
 excommunication, unle.ss he at once retracted. His pupil was 
 irritated, and replied in sarcasms. The Rabbin then impetuously 
 broke up the assembly, and vowed “only to return with the 
 thunderbolt in his hand.” 
 
 In anticipation of the threatened excommunication, Spinoza 
 wisely withdrew himself from the Synagogue — a step which 
 protoundly mortified his enemies, as he thereby rendered futile all 
 intimidations which had been employed against him, particularly 
 the otherwise terrible excommunication ; for what terror could 
 such a sentence inspire in one who voluntarily absented himsel) 
 from the society which pretended to exclude him ? 
 
 Dreading his ability, and the force of his example, the Syna- 
 gogue made him an offer of an annual pension of a thousand 
 
 * On this silence Warbnrton endeavored to establish the divinity of the 
 Legation of Moses ; and Bishop Sherlock has exerted considerable ingenuity 
 in explaining the discrepancy which skeptics had seized hold of as an argu- 
 ment in their favor. 
 
SPINOZA'S LIFE. 
 
 459 
 
 florins, if he would only consent to be silent, and assist from time 
 to time at their ceremonies. Spinoza, indignant at such an at- 
 tempt to palter with his conscience, refused it with scorn. One 
 evening, as he was coming out of the theatre, where he had 
 been relaxing his overtasked mind, he was startled by the fierce 
 expression of a dark face, thrust eagerly before his. The glare 
 of bloodthirsty fanaticism arrested him ; a knife gleamed in the 
 air, and he had barely time to parry the blow. It fell upon his 
 chest, but, fortunately deadened in its force, only tore his coat. 
 The assassin escaped. Spinoza walked home thoughtful.* 
 
 The day of excommunication at length arrived ; and a vast 
 concourse of Jews assembled to witness the awful ceremony. It 
 began by the solemn and silent lighting of a quantity of black 
 wax candles, and by opening the tabernacle wherein were depos- 
 ited the Books of the Law of Moses. Thus were the dim imagina- 
 tions of the faithful prepared for all the horror of the scene. Mor- 
 teira, the ancient friend and master, now the fiercest enemy of the 
 condemned, was to order the execution of the sentence. He 
 stood there, pained, but implacable ; the people fixed their eager 
 eyes upon him. High above, the chanter rose and chanted forth, 
 in loud, lugubrious tones, the words of execration ; while from 
 the opposite side another mingled with these curses the thrilling 
 sounds of the trumpet ; and now the black candles were reversed, 
 and were made to melt, drop by drop, into a huge tub filled with 
 blood. This spectacle — a symbol of the most terrible faith — 
 made the whole assembly shudder ; and when the final Anath- 
 ema Maranatha! were uttered, and the lights all suddenly im- 
 merced in the blood, a cry of religious horror and execration 
 burst from all ; and in that solemn darkness, and to those solemn 
 curses, they shouted Amen, Amen ! • 
 
 Thus was the young truth-seeker expelled from his commu- 
 
 *■ Some of the biographers contradict Bayle’s statement of the assassina- 
 tion being attempted as Spinoza was leaving the theatre, and declare that ha 
 was coming from the Synagogue; hut they forget that he, had entirely re- 
 nounced going there, and this was the probable motive of the assassin. 
 
160 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 nily. bis friends and relations forbidden to bold intercourse with 
 biin. Like the yoang and energetic Sbelky, who afterwards im 
 itated bini, be found bimself an outcast in this busy world, with 
 no other guides tbrougb its perplexing labyrinths than sincerity 
 and self-dependence. Two or three new friends soon presented 
 themselves ; men wno warred against their religion as he had 
 warred against his own ; and a bond of sympathy was forged 
 out of a common injustice. Here again we trace a resemblance 
 to Shelley, who, discountenanced by his relations, sought amongst 
 a few skeptical friends to supply the affections he was thus de- 
 prived of. Like Spinoza, he too had only sisters, with whom he 
 had been brought up. No doubt, in both cases, the conscious- 
 ness of sincerity, and the pride of martyrdom, were great sus- 
 tainments in this combat with society. They are always so ; and 
 it is well that they are so, or the battle would never be fought ; 
 but they never entirely replace the affections. Shut out from 
 our family, we may seek a brotherhood of apostasy ; but these 
 new and precarious intellectual sympathies are small compensa- 
 tion for the loss of the emotional sympathies, with all their links 
 of association, and all their memories of childhood. 
 
 Spinoza must have felt this, and, to fill the void of his yearn- 
 ing heart, he sought the daughter of his friend and master, Van 
 den Ende, as his wife. 
 
 This Van den Ende had some influence on Spinoza’s life. He 
 was a physician in Amsterdam, who conducted a philological 
 seminary with such success, that all the wealthy citizens sent him 
 their sons ; but it was afterwards asserted, that to every dose of 
 Latin he added a grain of atheism. He undertook to instruct 
 Spinoza in Latin, and to give him board’ and lodging, on condi- 
 tion that he should subsequently aid him in instructing his schol- 
 ars. This. Spinoza accepted with joy ; for although master of 
 the Hebrew, German, Spanish, Portuguese (and of course Dutch) 
 languages, he had long felt the urgent necessity of Latin. 
 
 Van den Ende had a daughter; her personal charms were 
 equivocal, but she was thoroughly versed in Latin, and was an 
 
Spinoza’s life. 
 
 461 
 
 accomplislied musician. The task of teaching young Benedict 
 generally fell to her : and as a consequence the pupil soon be- 
 came in love with the tutor. We often picture this courtship as 
 a sort of odd reverse of Abelard and Heloise. Spinoza we fancy 
 not inattentive to the instruction, but the more in love with it 
 coming from so soft a mouth : not inattentive, yet not wholly ab- 
 sorbed. He watches her hand as it moves along the page, and 
 longs to squeeze it. While “ looking out” in the dictionary, their 
 hands touch — and he is thrilled ; but the word is found, never- 
 theless. The lesson ended, he ventures on a timid compliment, 
 which she receives with a kind smile ; but the smile is lost, 
 for the bashful philosopher has his eyes on the ground ; when 
 he raises them, it is to see her trip away to household duties, or 
 to another pupil : and he looks after her sighing. But, alas for 
 maidenly discernment ! our female Abelard was more captivated 
 by the showy attractions of a certain Kerkering, a young Ham- 
 burg merchant, who had also taken lessons in Latin and love 
 from the fair teacher ; and who, having backed his pretensions 
 by the more potent seductions of pearl necklaces, rings, etc., 
 quite cast poor Benedict into the shade, who then turned from 
 love to philosophy. 
 
 His progess in Latin had, however, been considerable; he 
 read it with facility, and found it invaluable in his philosophical 
 studies, especially as the works of Descartes now fell into his 
 hands : these he studied with intense avidity, feeling that a new 
 world was therein revealed. The laws of the ancient Jewish 
 doctors expressly enjoin the necessity of learning some mechan- 
 ical art, as well as the study of the law. It was not enough, 
 they said, to be a scholar— the means of subsistence must also 
 be learned. Spinoza had accordingly, while belonging to the 
 Synagogue, learnt the art of polishing glasses for telescopes, mi- 
 croscopes, etc., in which he arrived at such proficiency that Leib- 
 nitz, writing to him, mentioned, “ Among the honorable things 
 which fame has acquainted me with respecting you, I learn with 
 no small interest that you are a clever optician.” By polishing 
 32 
 
162 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 glasses he gained a subsistence — humble, it is true, but equal to 
 his wants. To this he joined, by way of relaxation, the study of 
 design, and soon became very expert. Colerus had a portfolio 
 of portraits of several distinguished men, sketched by him ; and 
 one among them was a portrait of himself, in the dress of Ma- 
 saniello.^' 
 
 In his eight-ancl-twentieth year Spinoza left his natal city of 
 Amsterdam, and resolving to devote his life to study, retired to 
 Rhynsburg, near Leyden, where, still pursuing his trade as a 
 glass-polisher, he devoted every spare hour to philosophy. The 
 fruits of his solitude were the Abridgment of the Meditations of 
 Descartes, with an Appendix, in which he first disclosed the 
 principal points of his own system. This is a very interesting 
 work. It contains the most accurate and comprehensible ac- 
 count of Descartes ever written ; and the Appendix is curious, as 
 containing the germ of the Ethica. It made a profound sensa- 
 tion; and when, the following year, he removed to Woorburg 
 a small village near the Hague, his reputation attracted to him 
 a great concourse of visitors. Many enmities were excited 
 amongst the disciples of Descartes, by the exposition of the weak 
 points of their master’s system ; and Spinoza had to suffer their 
 rude attacks in consequence. But the attention of all thinking 
 men was fixed upon him ; and the clearness and precision of his 
 work won him admiration. So many new friendships did he 
 form, that he at last yielded to the numerous solicitations that 
 he should come and live eutirely at the Hague. It was not the 
 learned alone who sought his friendship ; men of rank in public 
 afiairs were also numbered amongst them. Of the latter we may 
 mention the celebrated Jan de Witt, who loved Spinoza, and 
 profited by his advice in many an emergency. The great Conde 
 also, during the invasion of Holland by the French, sent to de- 
 
 * “Your enemies have not failed to assert that by that you pretended to 
 show that you would create in a little while the same uproar In Christianity 
 that Masaniello created m Naples .” — Menoontre de Bayle avec Spinoza dam 
 ''autre Monde. 1711. 
 
Spinoza’s life. 
 
 463 
 
 sire Spinoza to come and see him. The Philosopher obeyed, but 
 the Prince was prevented from keeping his appointment — to his 
 own loss. This journey was very near proving fatal to Spinoza. 
 The populace having learned that he had been in communication 
 with the enemy, began to suspect him of being a spy. His land- 
 lord, alarmed at these reports, warned him of them; he feared, 
 he said, that the populace would attack the house. “ Fear noth 
 ing,” replied Spinoza, calmly ; “ it is easy for me to justify my- 
 self, and there are persons enough who know the object of my 
 journey ; but whatever may arrive, as soon as the people assemble 
 before your door, I will go out and meet them, even though 1 
 should share the fate of De Witt.” The same calm courage 
 
 which made him proclaim the truth, now made him ready to 
 
 confront the infuriated populace. Fortunately all passed off in 
 peace, and he was left to his studies. Karl Ludwig, anxious to 
 
 secure so illustrious a thinker, offered him the vacant chair of 
 
 Philosophy at Heidelberg, which, however, Spinoza could not 
 accept, conscious that the philosophy he would teach was too 
 closely allied to theology not to trench on its dogmas ; and the 
 Elector had expressly stipulated that he should teach nothing 
 which could prejudice the established religion. He therefore 
 begged to decline it, as his public duties would interfere with his 
 private meditations. Yet it was both a lucrative and honorable 
 post he refused ; but a philosophical contempt for worldly honors 
 was amongst his characteristics. 
 
 It is invigorating to contemplate Spinoza’s life. Dependent 
 on his own manual exertions for his daily bread, limited in his 
 wants, and declining all pecuniary assistance so liberally offered 
 by his friends, he was always at ease, cheerful, and occupied. 
 There is an heroic firmness traceable in every act of his life ; 
 there is a perpetual sense of man's independence, worthy all imi- 
 tation. He refuses to accept the belief of another man — he will 
 believe for himself ; he sees mysteries around him, awful, inex- 
 plicable ; but he will accept of no man’s explanation. God has 
 given him a soul, and with that he will solve the problem, or 
 
SPINOZA. 
 
 i6i 
 
 remain -without a solution. He leaves the Synagogue ; he leaves 
 Descartes ; he thinks for himself. In a far subordinate sphere 
 he will also assert his independence. Having but the most mis- 
 erable pittance, and with the purses of his friends open to him, 
 he preferred limiting his desires to accepting their bounties. He 
 preferred working and gaining his own subsistence, so long as it 
 was to be gained. This was no crotchet, neither was it ignoble 
 calculation. The friends were sincere, their offers were sincere : 
 he knew it, but thanked them, and declined. The heritage, 
 * which on his father’s death fell to his lot, he resigned to his sis- 
 ters. The large property which his friend Simon de Vries had 
 announced his intention of leaving him, he would not consent to 
 accept, but made Simon alter his will in favor of his brother, at 
 Schiedam. The pension offered him if he would dedicate his 
 next work to Louis XIV., he refused, “having no intention of 
 dedicating any thing to that monarch.” He was indebted to no 
 one but to God ; who had given him talents, and energy to make 
 those talents available, not to let them and him rot in idleness, or 
 in ignoble dependence, while all the world had to toil.* 
 
 Yet it was a hard, griping poverty that he endured. On look- 
 ing over his papers after his death, they found accounts of his 
 expenditure. One day he ate nothing but a soupe au lait, with 
 a little butter, which cost about three halfpence, and a pot of 
 beer, which cost three farthings more. Another day he lived on 
 a basin of gruel, with some butter and raisins, which cost him 
 twopence halfpenny ; “ And,” says the pastor Colerus, “ although 
 often invited to dinner, he preferred the scanty meal that he 
 found at home, to dining sumptuously at the expense of another.’ 
 This was the man who was, by his contemporai’ies, branded with 
 the names of Atheist and Epicurean ; and who has borne these 
 
 ■* It was in a man’s own energy that he saw the germ of worth and great- 
 ness, and -wisely ridiculed the notion of patronage in this noteworthy pas- 
 sage: “Governments should never found academies, for they serve more to 
 oppress than to encourage genius. The unique method of making the arts 
 and sciences flourish, is to allow every individual to teach what he thinks, at 
 his own risk and peril.” — Tract. Polit. o. 8, § 49. 
 
Spinoza’s life. 
 
 465 
 
 names forever after througli all Europe, excepting only Germany, 
 While on the one hand no man was perhaps ever more filled 
 with religion (so that Novalis could call him a “ God-intoxicated 
 man”), on the other hand his Epicureanism, at twopence-half- 
 penny sterling per diem, stands a legible charge against him. 
 
 The publication of his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was an 
 event of some importance, both in the history of philosophy and 
 of Spinoza. The state of men’s minds at that period was not 
 favorable to the reception of any great philosophical system ; 
 and Spinoza found himself obliged to prepare the way for his 
 future doctrines, by examining the nature of that ecclesiastical 
 power which could excite at will such violent perturbation in 
 the State, and by examining also the foundations on which that 
 power reposed. This great question still agitates mankind ; and 
 it is as curious as instructive to observe that the late orthodox 
 and estimable Dr. Arnold taught a doctrine precisely similar to 
 that taught by the heretical and persecuted Spinoza.* 
 
 Times were troubled. Holland, it is true, was reposing on 
 her laurels, won in the long and desperate struggle against 
 Spain. Having freed herself from a foreign yoke, she had, one 
 would fancy, little now to do but to complete her canals, extend 
 her commerce, and enjoy her peace. But this land of political 
 freedom — this ark of refuge for the persecuted of all nations — 
 the republic whose banner was freedom, and in whose cities Eu- 
 ropean freethinkers published their works — was disturbed by 
 theological faction. The persecuted Jews might flock from 
 Spain and Portugal, the synagogue might rear itself beside the 
 church ; the Protestants of France and Belgium were welcome 
 as brothers and citizens ; but, arrived there, the fugitives might 
 witness, even there, the implacable war of party. Toleration 
 was afforded to political freethinking, and to the diversities of 
 religion; but, within the pale of the State religion,' malice and 
 all uncharitableness were daily witnessed. There the' Gomarists 
 
 * Compare Arnold, Introductory Lectures on Modern History : Appendix 
 to the first Lee' ure. 
 
466 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 and Arminians disputed concerning the infallibility of their doc- 
 trines, and cloaked their political ambition under evangelical 
 protestations.* 
 
 This was the state of things on the appearance of the Trac- 
 tatus. Spinoza, seeing the deplorable dissensions of the theolo- 
 gians, endeavored to make evident the necessity of a State 
 religion, which, without absolutely imposing, or interfering with, 
 private creeds, should regulate all outward observances. Because, 
 as it is the office of the State to watch over all that concerns 
 the common welfare, so should it watch over the Church, and 
 direct it according to the general wish. But two things per 
 fectly distinct must not here be confounded, viz. liberty of 
 observance and liberty of thought. The latter is independent of 
 all civil power ; but the former must be subject to it, for the 
 sake of the public tranquillity. 
 
 Although this portion of the Tractatus could not have met 
 with general approbation, yet it would scarcely have raised 
 violent dissensions, had Spinoza confined himself to such specu- 
 lation ; but, anticipating the rationalism of modern Germans, he 
 undertook a criticism of the Bible, and attacked the institution 
 of priesthood as injurious to the general welfare. It is curious 
 to notice Spinoza’s anticipation of the Hegelian Christology, 
 which, in the hands of Strauss, Feuerbach, and Bruno Bauer, 
 has made so much.noise in the theological world : — “I tell you,” 
 says Spinoza, in his letter to Oldenburg, “ that it is not necessary 
 for your salvation that you should believe in Christ according to 
 the flesh ; but of that eternal son of God, i. e. eternal wisdom of 
 God, which is manifested in all things, but mostly in the human 
 mind, and most of all in Jesus Christ, a very different concep- 
 tion must be formed.” — “Dico ad salutem non esse omnino 
 necesse, Christum, secundum carnem noscere, sed de seterno illo 
 filio Dei, hoc est, Dei seterna sapientia, quae sese in omnibus 
 rebus, et maxime in mente humana et omnium maxime in 
 
 Saintes, Eiatoire de la Vie de Spinoza, p. 63. 
 
Spinoza’s life. 
 
 467 
 
 Christo Jesu manifestavit, longe aliter sentiendum.”* The con- 
 sequences were as might have been expected : the book was at 
 once condemned, and forbidden to be received in almost every 
 country. This, as usual, only gave a greater stimulus to curi- 
 osity, and the sensation the work produced may be judged of 
 by the quantity of “ refutations ” which appeared. Many were 
 the artifices used to introduce it into the various countries. An 
 edition was published at Leyden, under this title : Dan. Hensii 
 Operum Historicorum collectio prima. Edit. II., priori editione 
 multo emendatior et auctior ; accedunt quosdam hactenus inedita. 
 This was reprinted at Amsterdam as Henriquez de Villacorta, 
 M. Dr. a Cubiculo Philippi IV., Caroli II., Archiatri Opera 
 chirurgica omnia, sub auspiciis potentissimi Eispaniarum Regis. 
 This absurd title was adopted to pass it into Spain. Another 
 edition in French, called La Clef du Sanctuaire, was published 
 at Leyden in 1678, and in Amsterdam as Traite des Ceremonies 
 des Jui/s, and again as Reflexions curieuses d'un Esprit, des- 
 interesse. 
 
 Spinoza’s devotion to study, with its concurrent abstemious- 
 ness and want of exercise, soon undermined his constitution ; 
 but he never complained. He suffered that, as he had suffered 
 every thing else — in silence. Once, only, a hint escapes him. 
 “If my life be continued,” he writes to a friend respecting a 
 promise to explain certain matters. No plaint — no regret — 
 merely a condition put upon a promise. He was a calm, brave 
 man ; he could confront disease and death, as he had confronted 
 poverty and persecution. Bravery of the highest kind distin- 
 guished him through life, and it was not likely to fail him on 
 the quitting it; and yet beneath that calm, cold stoicism, there 
 was a childlike gayety springing from a warm and sympathizing 
 heart. His character was made up of generous simplicity and 
 heroic forbearance. He could spare somewhat from even his 
 scanty pittance to relieve the wretched. He taught the learned 
 
 Ojiera Fosthuma, p. 450. 
 
1:68 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 world the doctrines he had elaborated with endless toil; but ha 
 taught children to be regular in their attendance on divine ser- 
 vice. He would question his host and hostess, on their return 
 from church, I'especting the sermon they had heard, and the 
 benefit they had derived. He had no unwise proselytism which 
 would destroy convictions in minds unfitted to receive others. 
 One day his hostess asked him if he believed that she would be 
 saved by her religion. He answered, “ Your religion is a good 
 one — you ought not to seek another, nor doubt that yours will 
 procure your salvation, provided you add to your piety the 
 tranquil virtues of domestic life.” Words full of wisdom, spring- 
 ing from an affectionate and experienced mind. 
 
 So lived the Jew, Spinoza. So he developed his own nature, 
 and assisted the development in others. Given up to philosophy, 
 he found in it “ the time medicine of the soul ” of which Cicero 
 speaks.* His onlj' relaxations were his pipe, receiving visitors, 
 chatting to the people of his house, and watching spiders fight. 
 This last amusement would make the tears roll down his cheeks 
 with laughter. 
 
 The commencement of the year found him near his end. 
 The phthisis, which he had suffered from for twenty years, now 
 alarmingly increased. On Sunday, the 22d February, he insisted 
 on his kind host and hostess leaving him, and attending divine 
 service, as he would not permit his illness to obstruct their devo- 
 tions. They obeyed. On their return he talked with them 
 about the sermon, and ate some broth with a good appetite. 
 After dinner his friends returned to church, leaving the physician 
 with him. When they came home they learned, with sorrow 
 and surprise, that he had expired about three o’clock, in the 
 presence of the physician, who seized what money there was on 
 the table, together with a silver-handled knife, and left the body 
 without further care. So died, in his forty-fifth year, in the full 
 vigor and maturity of his intellect, Benedict Spinoza. “ Ofl:er 
 
 * Cicero, Tmc, iii. 6, Compare also the fine saying of Giordano Bruno 
 Ip. 898). 
 
SPINOZA S DOCTKINE. 
 
 469 
 
 up -with me a lock of hair to the manes of the holy but repudi- 
 ated Spinoza !” exclaims the pious Schleiermacher. “ The great 
 spirit of the world penetrated him ; the Infinite was his beginning 
 and his end ; the universe his only and eternal love. He was 
 filled with religion and religious feeling ; and therefore it is that 
 he stands alone, unapproachable ; the master in his art, but 
 elevated above the profane world, without adherents, and with- 
 out even citizenship.”* 
 
 § II. Spinoza’s Doctrine. 
 
 The system of Spinoza, which has excited so much odium, is 
 but the logical development of the system of Descartes which has 
 excited so much admiration. Curious ! The demonstration of 
 the existence of God was one of Descartes’ proudest laurels ; the 
 demonstration of the existence of God — and of no other exist- 
 ence being possible — condemned Spinoza to almost universal 
 execration. 
 
 Dugald Stewart, generally one of the most candid of men, evi- 
 dently shared the common prejudice with respect to Spinoza. 
 He refuses therefore to admit that Spinoza, whom he dislikes, 
 held opinions at all similar to those of Descartes, whom he ad- 
 mires. “ It was in little else,” says he, “ than his physical prin- 
 ciples that he agreed with Descartes ; for no two philosophers 
 ever differed more widely in their metaphysical and theological 
 tenets. Fontenelle characterizes his system as Cartesianism 
 pushed to extravagance.” This is far from correct. Spinoza 
 diflfered with Descartes on a few points, and agreed with him on 
 most ; the difi'erences were only those of a more rigorous logical 
 development of the principles both maintained. 
 
 It was at an important era in Spinoza’s life that the writings 
 of Descartes fell in his way. He was then striving to solve for 
 himself the inexplicable riddle of the universe. He had studied 
 with the learned Morteira ; but though wise in all the wisdom 
 
 *■ Schleiermacher, Bede uher die Religion, p. 47. 
 
i70 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 of the Jews, he was still at au immeasurable distance from the 
 desired solution. Descartes captivated him by the boldness of 
 his logic, and by the independent nature of his Method, whereby 
 truth was sought in the inner world of man, not in the outward 
 world, nor in the records of authority. He studied Descartes 
 with avidity ; but he soon found that there also the riddle re- 
 mained unsolved. He found the fact of his own existence some- 
 what superfluously established ; but the far greater existence in 
 which his own was included — of which the great All was but a 
 varied manifestation — of this he found no demonstration. Cogito, 
 ergo sum, is irresistible. Cogito, ergo Deus est, is no basis for 
 philosophy. 
 
 Spinoza therefore asked himself — What is the noumenon which 
 lies beneath all phenomena ? We see everywhere transforma- 
 tions perishable and perishing ; yet there must be something be- 
 neath, which is imperishable, immutable ; what is it? We see 
 a wondrous universe peopled with wondrous beings, yet none of 
 these beings exist per se, but per aliud : they are not the authors 
 of their own existence ; they do not rest upon their own reality, 
 but on a greater reality — on that of the ‘to sv ical ro irav. What 
 is this reality ? 
 
 The question, Spinoza thought, could not be answered by the 
 idea of Perfection. No : the great reality of all existence is Sub- 
 stance. Not Substance in the gross and popular sense of “body” 
 or “ matter,” but the substans — that which is standing under all 
 phenomena, supporting and giving them reality. What is a 
 phenomenon ? An appearance, a thing perceived : a state of 
 the perceiving mind. But what originates this perception — 
 what changes the mind from its prior to its present state ? Some- 
 thing, external and extrinsic, changes it. What is this some- 
 thing ? What it is, in itself, we can never know : because to 
 know it would bring it under the forms and conditions of the 
 mind, i. e. would constitute it a phenomenon ; — unknown, there- 
 fore, but not denied — this ens — this something, is ; and this, 
 which Kant calls noumenon, Spinoza calls Substance. 
 
471 
 
 Spinoza’s doctrine. 
 
 All philosophy, as all existence, must start from me principle, 
 which must he the ground of all. What is this commencement 
 — this ? Perfection, replies Descartes. No, says Spinoza. 
 
 Perfection is an attribute of something prior to it. Substance is 
 the Descartes, in common with most philosophers, had 
 
 assumed a duality : he had assumed a God, and a world created 
 by God. Substance, to him, was by no means the primal fact of 
 all existence; on the contrary, he maintained that both Exten- 
 sion and Thought were Substances ; in other words, that mind 
 and matter were distinct independent Substances, different in 
 essence, and united only by God. Spinoza affirmed that both 
 Extension and Thought were nothing more than Attributes ; and 
 by a subtle synthesis he reduced the duality of Descartes to 
 an all-embracing unity, and thus arrived at a conception of 
 the One. 
 
 The- absolute Existence — the Substance — (call it what you 
 will) is God. From Him all individual concrete existences arise. 
 All that exists, exists in and by God ; and can only thus be con- 
 ceived. Here then the mystery of the world begins to unfold 
 itself to the patient thinker ; he recognizes God as the fountain 
 of life ; he sees in the universe nothing but the manifestation of 
 God ; the finite rests upon the bosom of the infinite ; the incon- 
 ceivable variety resolves itself into unity. There is but one real- 
 ty, and that is God. 
 
 Such was Spinoza’s solution of the problem : upon this he felt 
 he could repose in peace, and upon this only. To live with God 
 — to know God with perfect knowledge, was the highest point 
 of human development and happiness ; and to this he conse- 
 crated his life. Taking the words of St. Paul, “ In Him we live, 
 move, and have’ our being,” as his motto, he undertook to trace 
 the relations of the world to God and to man, and those of man 
 to society. 
 
 Spinoza agreed with Descartes in these three vital positions • 
 — I. The basis of all certitude is Consciousness. II. Whatever 
 is clearly perceived in Consciousness must therefore be necessari* 
 
172 
 
 SPIKOZA. 
 
 ly true ; and distinct ideas are true ideas, true expressions of ol> 
 jective existences. III. Consequently metaphysical problems are 
 susceptible of mathematical demonstration. 
 
 The only novelty in Spinoza’s Method is, that it is a further 
 development of the Method of Descartes. Descartes thought 
 that the mathematical Method was capable of being applied to 
 metaphysics, but he did not apply it ; Spinoza did apply it. 
 This may seem a trifling addition : in reality it was the source 
 of alt the differences between Spinoza and his teacher. Des- 
 cartes’ principles will inevitably lead to Spinoza’s system, if those 
 principles are rigorously carried out. But Descartes never at- 
 tempted the rigorous deduction of those consequences, which 
 Spinoza, using the mathematical method, calmly and inflexibly 
 deduced. Those who rebel at the conclusions drawn, must im- 
 jmgu the premises from which they are drawn; for the system 
 of Spinoza is neither more nor less than a demonstration. 
 
 To this demonstration we are about to lead our readers, and 
 only beg of them a little steady attention and a little patient 
 thought, convinced that they will then have little difficulty in 
 finding their ^way. We shall translate some portions of the 
 Ethica with the utmost care, because we think it every way ad- 
 visable that the reader should have Spinoza’s own mode of state- 
 ment, and thereby be enabled to watch his manner of deducing 
 his conclusions from his premises. The work opens with eight 
 
 nEFINITIONS. 
 
 I. By a thing which is its own Cause I understand a thing, 
 the essence of which involves existence ; or the nature of 
 which can only be considered as existent,* , 
 
 II. A thing finite is that which can be limited {terminari po- 
 test) by another thing of the same nature, e.g. body is said 
 
 ^ This is an important definition, as it gets rid of tlie verbal perplexity 
 hitherto felt relative to an “ end.’ess chain of causes.” The doubter might 
 always ask the cause of the first cause in the series ; but here, by identi- 
 fying cause and existence. Spinoza annihiiates the diflSculty 
 
SPINOZA S DOG.TEINE. 
 
 473 
 
 to be finite because it can always be conceived as larger. 
 So thought is limited by other thoughts. But body does 
 not limit thought, nor thought limit body. 
 
 m. By Substance I understand that which exists in itself, and 
 is conceived per se : in other words, the conception of 
 which does not require the conception of any thing else 
 antecedent to it. 
 
 IV. By Attribute I understand that which the mind perceives 
 as constituting the very essence of Substance. 
 
 V. By Modes I understand the accidents (affectiones) of Sub- 
 stance ; or that which is in something else, through which 
 also it is conceived. 
 
 VI. By God I understand the Being absolutely infinite, i. e. the 
 Substance consisting of infinite Attributes, each of which 
 expresses an infinite and eternal essence. 
 
 Explanation : I say absolutely infinite, but not infinite sue 
 genere ; for to whatever is infinite only suo genere, we can 
 deny infinite Attributes ; but that which is absolutely in- 
 finite includes in its essence every thing which implies es- 
 sence, and involves no negation. 
 
 VII. That thing is said to be free which exists by the sole ne- 
 cessity of its nature, and by itself alone is determined to 
 action. But that thing is necessary, or rather constrained, 
 which owes its existence to another, and acts according to 
 certain and determinate causes. 
 
 VIII. By Eternity I understand Existence itself, in as far as it is 
 conceived necessarily to follow from the sole definition of 
 an eternal thing. 
 
 These are the Definitions ; they need not long be dwelt on, 
 although frequently referred to by him ; above all, no objection 
 ought to be raised against them, as unusual or untrue, for they 
 are the meanings of various terms in constant use with Spinoz,a, 
 and he has a right to use them as he pleases, provided he does 
 not afterwards depart from this use, which he is careful not to 
 do. We now come to the seven axioms. 
 
i74 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 AXIOMS. 
 
 I. Every thing which is, is in itself, or in some other thing. 
 
 II. That which cannot be conceived through another [peraliud) 
 must be conceived through itself [per se). 
 
 III. From a given determinate cause the effect necessarily fol- 
 lows ; and vice versd, if no determinate cause be given, no 
 effect can follow. 
 
 IV. The knowledge of an effect depends on the knowledge of 
 the cause, and implies it. 
 
 V. Things that have nothing in common with each other can- 
 not be understood by means of each other, i. e. the concep- 
 tion of one does not involve the conception of the other. 
 
 VI. A true idea must agree with its object [idea vera debet cum 
 suo ideato convenire.) 
 
 VII. Whatever can be clearly conceived as non-existent, does 
 not, in its essence, involve existence. 
 
 These axioms at once command assent, if we except the 
 fourth, which, because the wording is ambiguous, has been 
 sometimes thought absurd ; but the truth is, that the opposite 
 conceptions now prevalent respecting cause and effect prevent a 
 real appreciation of this axiom. Mr. Hallarn goes so far as to 
 say, “ It seems to be in this fourth axiom, and in the proposition 
 grounded upon it, that the fundamental fallacy lurks. The rela- 
 tion between a cau.se and effect is surely something perfectly dif- 
 ferent from our perfect comprehension of it, or indeed from our 
 having any knowledge of it at all ; much less can the contrary 
 assertion be deemed axiomatic.”* There is a want of subtlety 
 in this criticism, as well as a want of comprehension of Spinoza's 
 doctrines ; and we wonder it never suggested itself to Mr. Hallarn 
 that the modern notions of cause and effect do not correspond 
 with the Spinozistic notions. In the above axiom it is not 
 meant that there are no effects manifested to us of which we 
 
 Introduction to Literature of Europe, iv. 246. 
 
Spinoza’s doctrine. 
 
 475 
 
 do not also know the causes — it is not meant that a man receiv- 
 ing a blow in the dark is not aware of that blow (effect), 
 though ignorant of the immediate cause. What is meant is, 
 Jiat a complete and comprehensive knowledge of the effect is 
 only to be obtained through a complete and comprehensive 
 knowledge of the cause. If you would know the effect in its 
 totality — in itself — you must know also the cause in its totality. 
 This is obvious : for what is an effect ? — an eflfect is a cause re- 
 alized : it is the natura naturans conceived as natura naturata. 
 We call the antecedent. Cause, and the sequent, Effect; but 
 these are merely relative designations : the sequence itself is 
 antecedent to some subsequent change, and the former ante- 
 cedent was once only a sequent to its cause ; and so on. Causa- 
 tion is change ; when the change is completed, we name the 
 result effect. It is only a matter of naming. But inciting this 
 change, causing it, as we say, there is • some power (cause) in 
 nature ; to know this effect therefore — that is, not merely to 
 have a relative conception of our own condition consequent on 
 it, but to comprehend this power, this reality, to penetrate its 
 mystery, to see it in its totality, we must know what the effect 
 is, and how it is ; we must know its point of departure, and its 
 point of destination ; in a word, we must transcend the knowledge 
 of phenomena, and acquire that of noumena. In a popular sense 
 we are said to know effects, but to be ignorant of causes. 
 Truly, we are ignoran of both — and equally ignorant. A 
 knowledge of sequences we have, and of nothing more. The 
 vital power determining these sequences we name, but cannot 
 know ; we may call it attraction, heat, electricity, polarization, 
 etc., but, having named, we have not explained it. 
 
 This is what Spinoza implicitly teaches; and had Mr. Hallam 
 attended only to what the very next axiom proclaims, namely, 
 that things have nothing in common with each other, cannot be 
 understood by means of each other, i, e. the conception of one 
 not involving the conception of the other — he would have un- 
 derstood Spinoza’s meaning; for, if effect be from cause, 
 
 I 
 
SPINOZA. 
 
 tTG 
 
 then its conception does not involve the conception of cause; 
 
 out if it be the same as cause, then does the one conception in- 
 volve that of the other; ergo^ the more complete the knowledge 
 
 of the one, the more complete the knowledge of the other. 
 
 The reader will bear this in mind when studying Spinoza. 
 
 We will now proceed to the 
 
 PKOPOSITIONS. 
 
 Prop. I. Substance is prior in nature to its accidents. 
 
 Demonstration, Per Definitions 3 and 6. 
 
 Prop. II. Two Substances, having different Attributes, have 
 nothing in common with each other. 
 
 Demonst. This follows from Def. 3 ; for each Substance must be 
 conceived in itself and through itself ; in other words, the 
 conception of one does not involve the conception of the 
 other. 
 
 Prop. III. Of things which have nothing in common, one can- 
 not be the cause of the other.* 
 
 Demonst. If they have nothing in common, then (per Axiom 5) 
 they cannot be conceived by means of each other ; ergo 
 (per Axiom 4) one cannot be the cause of the other. 
 
 Q. E. D. 
 
 Prop. IV. Two or more distinct things are distinguished among 
 themselves either through the diversity of their Attributes, 
 or through the diversity of their Modes. 
 
 Demonst. Every thing which is, is m itself or in some other 
 thing (per Axiom 1) ; that is (per Def. 3 and 5), there is 
 
 * This fallacy has been one of the most influential corrupters of philosoph- 
 ical speculation. For many years it was undisputed ; and most metaphy- 
 sicians still adhere to it. See Mill’s System of Logic, ii. 876-386. The 
 assertion is that only like can act upon like. This was the assumption of 
 Anaxagoras, and the groundwork of his system. If the assumption be cor- 
 rect, his system is true. But although it is true that like produces (causes) 
 like, it is also as true thatZife produces unlike; thus fire produces when 
 applied to our bodies, explosion when applied to gunpowder, charcoal when 
 applied to wood ; all these effects are unlike the cause. Spinoza’s positior 
 is logical ; those who have since upheld the fallacy have not that excuse. 
 
Spinoza's doctkine. 
 
 477 
 
 nothing out of ourselves {extra intellectum) but Substance 
 and its Modes. There is nothing out of ourselves whereby 
 things can he distinguished amongst one another, except 
 Substances, or (which is the same thing, per Def. 4*) their 
 Attributes and Modes. 
 
 Prop. V. It is impossible that there should be two or more 
 Substances of the same nature, or of the same Attribute. 
 
 Demonst. If there are many different Substances, they must be 
 distinguished by the diversity of their Attributes, or of their 
 Modes (per Prop. 4). If only by the diversity of their 
 Attributes, it is thereby conceded that there is nevertheless 
 only one Substance of the same Attributes ; but if by the 
 diversity of their Modes, it follows that Substance being 
 prior in nature to its Modes, it must be considered inde- 
 pendently of them ; that is (per Def. 3 and 6), cannot be 
 conceived as distinguished from another ; that is (per Prop. 
 4), there cannot be many Substances, but only one Sub- 
 stance. Q. E. D. 
 
 Prop. VI. One Substance cannot be created by another Sub- 
 stance. 
 
 Demonst. There cannot be two Substances with the same At- 
 tributes (per Prop. 5) ; i. e, (per Prop. 2), having any thing 
 in common with each other ; and therefore (per Prop. 3) 
 one cannot be the cause of the other. 
 
 Corollary. Hence it follows that Substance cannot be created by 
 any thing else. For there is nothing in existence except 
 Substance and its Modes (per Axiom 1, and Def. 3 and 5) ; 
 now this Substance, not being created by another, is self- 
 caused. 
 
 Corollary 2. This proposition is more easily to be demonstrated 
 by the absurdity of its contradiction ; — for if Substance can 
 
 * In the original, by a slip of the pen. Axiom 4 is referred to instead of 
 Def. 4; and Auerbach has followed the error in his translation. We notice 
 it because the reference to Axiom 4 is meaningless, and apt to puzzle tho 
 student. 
 
 33 
 
1:78 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 be created by any thing else, the conception of it would de- 
 pend on the conception of the cause (per Axiom 4 *), and 
 hence (per Def. 3) it would not be Substance. 
 
 Prop. VII. It pertains to the nature of Substance to exist. 
 Demonst. Substance cannot be created by any thing else (per 
 Coroll. Prop. 6), and is therefore the cause of itself ; i. e. 
 (per Def. 1) its essence necessarily involves existence ; or 
 it pertains to the nature of Substance to exist. Q. E. D. 
 Prop. VIII. All Substance is necessaril}' infinite. 
 
 Demonst. There exists but one Substance of the same Attribute ; 
 and it must either exist as infinite or as finite. But not as 
 finite, for (per Def. 2) as finite it must be limited by another 
 Substance of the same nature, and in that case there would 
 be two Substances of the same Attribute, which (per Prop. 
 5) is absurd. Substance therefore is infinite. Q. E. D. 
 
 Scholium . — I do not doubt that to all who judge confusedly 
 of things, and are not wont to inquire into first causes, it will be 
 diffisult to understand the demonstration of Pro]). 7, because 
 they do not sufficiently distinguish between the modifications of 
 Substance, and Substance itself, and are ignorant of the manner 
 in which things are produced. Hence it follows, that seeing 
 natural things have a commencement, they attribute a commence- 
 ment to Substances ; for he who knows not the true causes of 
 things, confounds all things, and sees no reason why trees should 
 not talk like men ; or why men should not be formed from 
 stones as well as from seeds ; or why all forms cannot be changed 
 into all other forms. So, also, those who confound the divine 
 nature with the human, naturally attribute human affections to 
 God, especially as they are ignorant how these affections are 
 produced in the mind. But if men attended to the nature of 
 Substance, they would not in the least doubt the truth of Prop. 
 7 ; nay, this proposition would be an axiom to all, and would be 
 numbered among common notions. For by Substance they 
 
 Here the potency and significance of Axiom 4 begins to unfold itself. 
 
Spinoza’s doctkine. 
 
 4Y9 
 
 would understand that which exists in itself, and is conceived 
 through itself ; i. e. the knowledge of which does not require the 
 knowledge of any thing antecedent to it.* But by modification 
 they would understand that which is in another thing, the con- 
 ception of which is formed through the conception of the thing 
 in which it is, or to which it belongs ; we can therefore have 
 correct ideas of non-existent modifications, because, although 
 out of the understanding they have no reality, yet their essence 
 is so comprehended in that of another, that they can be con- 
 ceived through this other. The truth of Substance (out of the 
 understanding) lies nowhere but in itself, because it is conceived 
 per se. If therefore any one says that he has a distinct and 
 clear idea of Substance, and yet doubts whether such a Sub- 
 stance exist, this is as much as to say that he has a true idea, 
 and nevertheless doubts whether it be not false (as a little atten- 
 tion sufiBciently manifests) ; or, if any man affirms Substance to 
 be created, he at the same time affirms that a true idea has be- 
 come false ; than which nothing can be more absurd. Hence 
 it is necessarily confessed that the existence of Substance, as 
 well as its essence, is an eternal truth. And hence we must 
 conclude that there is only one Substance possessing the same 
 Attribute ; a position which requires here a fuller development. 
 I note therefore — 
 
 1. That the correct definition of a thing includes and expresses 
 nothing- but the nature of the thing defined. From which it 
 follows — 
 
 2. That no definition includes or expresses a distinct number 
 of individuals, because it expresses nothing but the nature of the 
 thing defined ; e.g. the definition of a triangle expresses no more 
 than the nature of a triangle, and not any fixed number of 
 triangles. 
 
 * The reader will bear in mind the result of Descartes’ philosophy, if lie 
 would fully seize Spinoza’s meaning and the basis on which it reposes. 
 Descartes, as we saw, could find nothing indubitable but existence. Exist- 
 ence was the primal fact of all philosophy, self-evident and indisputable. 
 
i80 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 3. There must necessarily be a distinct cause for the existence 
 of every existing thing. 
 
 4. This cause, by reason of which any thing exists, must be 
 either contained in the nature and definition of the existing thing 
 (viz. that it pertains to its nature to exist), or else must lie beyond 
 it — must be something different from ft. 
 
 From these positions it follows, that if a certain number of indi- 
 viduals exist, there must necessarily be a cause why that number, 
 and not a larger or smaller number : e. g. if in the world twenty 
 men exist (whom, for greater perspicuity, I suppose to exist at 
 once, no more having previously existed), it will not be sufiicient 
 to show the reason why twenty men exist, to point to human 
 nature as the cause, but it will further be necessary to show cause 
 why only twenty men exist, because (per note 3) a cause must be 
 given for the existence of every thing. This cause however (per 
 notes 2 and 3) cannot be contained in human nature itself, 
 because the true definition of man does not involve the* number 
 twenty. Hence (per note 4) the cause why twenty men exist, 
 and why each individual exists, must lie beyond each of them ; 
 and therefore must we absolutely conclude that every thing, the 
 nature of which admits of many individuals, must necessarily 
 have an external cause. As therefore it pertains to the nature 
 of Substance to exist, so must its definition include a necessary 
 existence, and consequently from its sole definition we must con- 
 clude its existence. But, as from its definition, as already shown 
 in notes 2 and 3, it is not possible to conclude the existence of 
 many Substances, ergo it necessarily follows that only one Sub- 
 stance of the same nature can exist.” 
 
 Here we may pause in our translation, before we penetrate too 
 far in this geometrical exposition of Spinoza’s theology. Enough 
 has already been given to exhibit the rigor and precision with 
 which the consequences are deduced step by step, each propo- 
 sition being evolved from those which preceded it; and he who 
 wishes to follow the system in detail must open the Ethics for 
 himself, abridgment being impossible. To complete our expo- 
 
spenoza’s doctkine. 
 
 481 
 
 sition of the doctrine, we shall merely state in a few sentences 
 the principal positions : 
 
 There is but one infinite Substance, and that is God. What- 
 ever is, is in God ; and without Him, nothing can be conceived. 
 He is the universal Being of which all things are the manifesta- 
 tions. He is the sole Substance ; every thing else is a Mode ; yet, 
 without Substance, Mode cannot exist. God, viewed under the 
 attributes of Infinite Substance, is the natura naturans ^ — viewed 
 as a manifestation, as the Modes under which his attributes 
 appear, he is the natura naturata. He is the cause of all things, 
 and that immanently, but not transiently. He has two infinite 
 attributes — Extension and Thought. Extension is visible Thought, 
 and Thought is invisible Extension : they are the Objective and 
 Subjective of which God is the Identity. Every thing is a mode 
 of God’s attribute of Extension ; every thought, wish, or feeling, 
 a mode of his attribute of Thought. That Extension and Thought 
 are not Substances, as Descartes maintained, is obvious from this ; 
 that they are not conceived per se, but per aliud. Something is 
 extended: what is? Not the Extension itself, but something 
 prior to it, viz. Substance. Substance is uncreated, but creates 
 by the internal necessity of its nature. There may be many 
 existing things, but only one existence ; many forms, but only 
 one Substance. God is the “ idea immanens ” — the One and All. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the fundamental doctrine of Spinoza ; 
 and now we ask the reader, can he reconcile the fact of this 
 being a most religious philosophy, with the other fact of its 
 having been almost universally branded with Atheism ? Is this 
 intelligible ? Yes ; three causes present themselves at once. 
 1. The readiness with which that term of obloquy has been ap- 
 plied to opponents, from time immemorial — to Socrates as to 
 Gottlieb Fichte. 2. The obscurity of polemical vision, and the 
 rashness of party judgment. 3. The use of the ambiguous word 
 Substance, whereby God was confounded with the material world. 
 
 This last point is the most important, and deserves attention. 
 To say “ God is the infinite substance,” does look, at first sight, 
 
482 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 like the atheism of the D’Holbach School; but no one could 
 ever have read twenty pages of Spinoza without perceiving this 
 to be a misunderstanding ; for he expressly teaches that God is 
 not corporeal, but that body is a Mode of Extension.^ No : 
 God is not the material universe, but the universe is one aspect 
 of his infinite Attribute of Extension ; he is the identity of the 
 natura naturans and the natura naturata.j 
 
 It is a mere verbal resemblance, therefore, this, of Spinozism 
 to Atheism ; but the history of philosophy shows too many 
 instances of verbal analogies and ambiguities becoming sources 
 of grave error, to astonish any reader. 
 
 Next to the inevitable misapprehensions created by Spinoza’s 
 use of the word Substance, we must rank among the sources of 
 his ill repute the misapprehensions created by his doctrine of 
 Final Causes. Although Bacon energetically reprobated the 
 pursuit of Final Causes — those “ barren virgins,” as he charac- 
 teristically styled them — pointing out the productive error of all 
 such pursuit ; and although the advance and extension of science 
 has gradually more and more displaced this pursuit, it is still 
 followed by minds of splendid reach and attainment, as the surest 
 principle of research in some departments. But although the 
 error has the countenance of men whom we cannot speak of 
 
 * Dugald Stewart somewhat naively remarks that “ in no part of Spinoza’s 
 works has he avowed himself an Atheist ” (he would have been very much 
 astonished at the charge) ; “ but it will not be disputed by those who compre- 
 hend the drift of his reasonings, that, in point of practical tendency. Atheism 
 and Spinozism are one and the same.” It may be so ; yet nothing can war- 
 rant the accusation of Atheism, merely because Spinoza’s doctrines may 
 have the same practical tendency as that of Atheism. Spinoza did not deny 
 the existence of God ; he denied the existence of the world : he was conse- 
 quently an Acosmist, not an Atheist. If the practical tendency of these two 
 opposite systems really is the same, Spinoza could not help it. 
 
 + “ Natura naturans et natura naturata in identitate Deus est.” It must 
 be borne in mind that identity does not (as in common usage) mean same- 
 ness, but the root from which spring two opposite stems, and in which they 
 have a common life. Man, for instance, is the identity of soul and body; 
 water is the identity of oxygen and hydrogen. Great mistakes are con- 
 stantly being made, owing to overlooking this distinction of vulgar and 
 philosophical terms. 
 
Spinoza’s docteine. 
 
 483 
 
 without respect, the fact itself that only in those departments ot 
 inquiry, wherein imperfect knowledge still permits the Meta- 
 physical Method to exercise its perverting influence, are Final 
 Causes ever appealed to, is significant, w'e think, of the nature of 
 the error. While no Astronomer, no Physicist, no Chemist 
 reasons teleologically, there are many Biologists who proclaim 
 teleology to be a luminous guide. Cuvier declared that to it he 
 owed his discoveries; Owen declares that it has often aided him. 
 We cannot hei’e pause to discuss the validity of final causes, but 
 the reader will probably be glad to have Spinoza’s remarkable 
 analysis, which he throws into an Appendix at the end of the 
 book Be Deo : 
 
 “ Men do all things for the sake of an end, namely the good, 
 or useful, which they desire. Hence it comes that they always 
 seek to know only the final causes of things w'hich have taken 
 place, and w'hen they have heard these they are satisfied, not 
 having within themselves any cause for further doubt. But if 
 they are unable to learn these final causes from some one else, 
 nothing remains to them but to turn in upon themselves, and to 
 reflect on the ends by which they are themselves w’ont to be 
 determined to similar actions ; and thus they necessarily judge 
 of the mind of another by their own. Further, as within them- 
 selves and out of themselves they discover many means W'hich 
 are highly conducive to the pursuit of their own advantage,— 
 for example, eyes to see with, teeth to masticate with, vegetables 
 and animals for food, the sun to give them light, the sea to 
 nourish fish, etc., — so they come to consider all natural things 
 as means for their benefit: and because they are aware that these 
 things have been found, and not prepared by them, they have 
 been led to believe that some one else has adapted these means 
 to their use. For after considering things in the light of means, 
 they could not believe these things to have made themselves, 
 but arguing from their own practice of preparing means for their 
 use, they must conclude that there is some ruler or rulers of 
 nature endowed with human freedom, who have provided all 
 
m 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 these things for them, and have made them all for the use oi 
 men. Moreover, since they have never heard any thing of the 
 mind of those rulers, they must necessarily judge of this mind 
 also by their own ; and hence they have argued that the Gods 
 direct all things for the advantage of man, in order that they 
 may subdue him to themselves, and be held in the highest hon.r 
 by him. Hence each has devised, according to Lis character, a 
 different mode of worshipping God, in order that God might love 
 him more than others, and might direct all nature to the advan- 
 tage of his blind cupidity and insatiable avarice. Thus this 
 prejudice has converted itself into superstition, and has struck 
 deep root into men’s minds; and this has been the cause why 
 men in general have eagerly striven to explain the final causes of 
 all things. But while they have sought to show that Nature 
 does nothing in vain (^. e. which is not fit for the use of men), 
 they seem to me to have shown nothing else than that Nature 
 and the Gods are as foolish as men. And observe, I pray you, 
 to what a point this opinion has brought them. Together with 
 the many useful things in Nature, they necessarily found not a 
 few injurious things, namely, tempests, earthquakes, diseases, etc. ; 
 these they supposed happened because the Gods were angry on 
 account of offences committed against them by men, or because 
 of faults incurred in their worship ; and although experience every 
 day protests, and shows by infinite examples that benefits and 
 injuries happen indifferently to pious and ungodly persons, they 
 do not therefore renounce their inveterate prejudice. For it was 
 easier to them to class these phenomena among other things, the 
 cause of which was unknown to them, and thus retain their 
 present and innate condition of ignorance, than to destroy all the 
 fabric of their belief, and excogitate a new one.” 
 
 We cannot pursue the argument further, because in the sub- 
 sequent positions Spinoza refers to propositions proved in the 
 Ethics ; what has been given will however suffice to show how 
 clearly and emphatically he described the anthropomorphic tend- 
 ency of judging Infinite by Finite wisdom. With it we conclude 
 
Spinoza’s doctkine. 
 
 485 
 
 the exposition of Spinoza’s theology — one of the most extraordi- 
 nary efforts of speculative faculty which history has revealed to 
 us. We have witnessed the mathematical rigor with which it 
 is developed ; we have followed him step by step, dragged on- 
 wards by his irresistible logic ; and yet the final impression left 
 on our minds is, that the system has a logical but not a vital truth. 
 We shrink back from the consequences whither it so irresistibly 
 leads us ; we gaze over the abyss to the edge of which we have 
 been dragged, and seeing naught but chaos and despair, we re- 
 fuse to build our temple there. We retrace our steps with hur- 
 ried earnestness, to see if no false route has been taken ; we 
 examine every one of his positions, to see if there be not some 
 secret error, parent of all other errors. Arrived at the starting- 
 point, we are forced to confess that we see no error — that each 
 conclusion is but the development of antecedent positions ; and 
 yet, in spite of this, the mind refuses to accept the conclusions. 
 
 This, then, is the state of the inquirer : he sees a vast chain of 
 reasoning- carried on with the strictest rigor. He has not been 
 dazzled by rhetoric nor confused by illustrations. There has 
 been no artful appeal to his prejudices or passions ; he has been 
 treated as a reasoning being, and has no more been able to doubt 
 the positions, after once assenting to the definitions and axioms, 
 than he is able to doubt the positions of Euclid. And yet we 
 again say that the conclusions are repugned, refused ; they are 
 not the truth the inquirer has been seeking ; they are no expres- 
 sions of the thousand-fold life, the enigma of which he has been 
 endeavoring to solve. 
 
 Unable to see where this discrepancy lies, he turns with impa- 
 tience to the Avorks of others, and seeks in criticisms and refuta- 
 tions an outlet from his difficulty. But — and it is a curious 
 point in the history of philosophy — he finds that this bold and 
 extraordinary thinker has never been refuted by any one meeting 
 him on his own ground. Men have taken up separate proposi- 
 tions, and having wrenched them from their connection with the 
 whole system, have easily shown them to be quite at variance 
 
SPINOZA. 
 
 iSG 
 
 with — the systems of the vefuters. This is easy work.* On the 
 other hand, the inquirer finds that the great metaphysicians of 
 Germany adopt Spinoza’s fundamental positions, differing with 
 him only on points of detail or of language. In their works the 
 consequences do not look so appalling, because they are set forth 
 in lofty terms and ambiguous eloquence ; but the difference is 
 only verbal. Is there, then, no alternative ? Must I accept 
 Spinoza’s system, repugnant as it is ? Such is the inquirer’s per- 
 plexity. 
 
 To release him from this perplexity will perhaps be possible, 
 although only possible, we believe, by arguments which cut away 
 the root of all metaphysical knowledge whatever. If Spinoza is 
 in error, the error must be initial, ^ov we have just admitted that 
 it does not lie in any illogical deduction. And initial the error 
 is. The method brings it into distinctness. The application of 
 Geometry to Metaphysics is the process most repulsive to meta- 
 physicians, because it best serves to elucidate the nullity of their 
 attempts. Geometry is purely deductive ; from a few definitions 
 and axioms the whole series of consequences is evolved. Meta- 
 physics also is purely deductive ; from a few definitions and 
 axioms it constructs a universe. M. Darairon, in his very able 
 M^moire, denies that the geometrical method can be applied to 
 Metaphysics, because our intelligence cannot form notions so clear 
 and necessary respecting substance, cause, time, good and evil, as 
 respecting points, lines, and surfaces ; and whenever such clear 
 notions have been attempted it has only been by sacrificing some- 
 thing of the reality, by the consideration of one aspect to the ex- 
 clusion of the other.j This is perfectly true if applied to meta- 
 
 * This is the way Bayle answers Spinoza ; yet his answer has been pro- 
 nounced by Dugald Stewart “ one of the most elaborate and acute refuta- 
 tions which has yet appeared.” Mr. Stewart’s dislike of the consequences 
 he believed inseparable from Spinozism has here, we think, biased his judg- 
 ment. Bayle’s attempt at a refutation is now pretty generally considered to 
 be pitiable. Jacobi declares Spinozism to be unanswerable by those whc 
 simply reason on the problem : faith alone can solve it otherwise, 
 t Memoire sur Spinoza, 19, 20. 
 
Spinoza’s doctrine. 
 
 487 
 
 physicians in general; but is certainly not true as applied to 
 Spinoza, whose notions of substance, cause, etc. are not less clear 
 than his notions of lines and surfaces, — a point we shall insist on 
 presently. Meanwhile let us ask, lohy can we not form notions 
 of cause, substance, and the rest, equalling in clearness our no- 
 tions of lines and surfaces ? The answer to this question dooms 
 metaphysics to eternal uncertainty : It is because Geometry never 
 quit's the sphere of its first assumption, that its axioms retain 
 their necessary clearness, and its consequences their necessary 
 truth. It begins with lines and surfaces, with lines and surfaces 
 it ends ; it is a purely subjective and deductive science. Its 
 truths, when objectively applied, include no other elements than 
 those originally given ; when from ideal lines and the relations 
 of those lines we pass to real lines and relations, we are still 
 strictly within the sphere of lines and their relations; and the 
 mightiest geometry can tell us nothing whatever of any other 
 property of substance ; it is powerless before any relations except 
 those of surfaces. If Metaphysics could thus remain within the 
 sphere of its original assumption, it also might rival geometry in 
 precision ; but Metaphysics unhappily starts from the subjective 
 sphere, and immediately passes on to the objective, pretending 
 to include in its circle far more than is given in the original sub- 
 jective datum, pretending indeed to disclose the whole nature of 
 substance, cause, time, and space, and not merely certain relations 
 among our ideas of these. When, for example, Spinoza passes 
 from his ideal distinction of cause and effect to real applications, 
 as when he proves that God must act according to the laws of 
 His own nature, yet without constraint, nothing determining Him 
 save His own perfection, it is evident that by this Spinoza be- 
 lieves the purely subjective definition he has framed expresses 
 the whole truth of objective reality ; he pretends to know the 
 nature of God, and to know it through the notions he has framed 
 of cause and effect. The error here is as great, though not so 
 potent, as if a mathematician were to deduce the chemical pro- 
 perties of a salt from the properties of right angles. To select 
 
i88 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 another example, the fifth proposition, on which so much of 
 Spinoza’s sj^stem depends; “It is impossible that there should 
 be two or more Substances of the same nature, or of the same 
 Attribute.” This is subjectively true ; as true as a proposition 
 in Euclid ; that is to say, it is perfectly coherent with all that 
 Spinoza teaches of Substance and. Attribute ; but if we pass from 
 his subjective circle out into the great world of reality — if we 
 disregard his definition, and look only at actual substances before 
 us — say two minerals — we then fail to detect any proof of his 
 subjective definition necessarily or even probably according with 
 objective fact, since we perceive the definition to be framed from 
 his ideas, and not founded on objective reality. 
 
 The mathematician deduces conclusions from purely subjective 
 distinctions, and these conclusions are found to correspond with 
 objective fact, to nearly the whole extent of what was originally 
 assumed; namely the relations of surfaces, and no further. The 
 metaphysician deduces conclusions equally subjective, and it may 
 be that such conclusions will apply to objective fact (as when it 
 is said “nothing can be and not be at the same moment”) ; but 
 the moment he transcends the circle of subjective distinction, as 
 when he speaks of Cause, Time, Space, and Substance, his ideas 
 are necessarily indistinct, because he cannot know these things: 
 he can only frame logical conclusions respecting them, and these 
 logical conclusions at every step need verification. 
 
 This, of course, the metaphysician will deny. He believes in 
 the validity of reason. He maintains the perfect competence of 
 human intellect to know and discourse on Cause, Time, Space, 
 and Substance; but he has not the same clear argument Spinoza 
 had, on which to ground this belief. And here we are face to 
 face with the radicaj assumption which constitutes the initial 
 error and logical perfection of Spinoza’s system. He holds and 
 expressly teaches that the subjective idea is the actual image or 
 complete expression of the objective fact. “ Hoc est, id quod in 
 intellectu objective continetur debet necessario in natuiA dari.” 
 The order and connection of ideas is precisely the order and 
 
Spinoza’s doctrine. 
 
 489 
 
 connection of tilings. In the Scholium to Pi'op. VIII. we have 
 seen him maintaining that the correct definition of a thing ex- 
 presses the nature of a thing, and nothing but its nature : which 
 |is true in one sense ; for unless it express the nature of the 
 thing, the definition must be incorrect : but false in another and 
 more important sense ; for every definition we can frame only 
 expresses our conceptions of the nature of the thing : and thus 
 we may define the nature of the inhabitants of the moon, and 
 adhere to our definitions with the utmost logical rigor, yet all the 
 while be utterly removed from any real knowledge of those in- 
 habitants. The position is logically deducible from Spinoza’s 
 conception of the relation between Thought and Extension as the 
 two Attributes of Substance ; but it is a position which is emphat- 
 ically contradicted by all sound psychology. Nevertheless, with- 
 out it Metaphysics has no basis. Unless clear ideas are to be 
 accepted as the truths of things, and unless every idea, which is 
 distinctly conceived by the mind, has its ideate, or object, — met- 
 aphysicians are without plausible pretence. 
 
 Having thus signalized the fundamental position of Spinoza’s 
 doctrine, it is there, if anywhere, that we shall be able to show 
 his fundamental eiTor. On the truth or falsehood of this one 
 assumption, must Spinozism stand or fall ; and we have formerly 
 endeavored to show that the assumption is false. Those who 
 agree in the reasonings we adduced may escape Spinozism, but 
 they escape it by denying the possibility of all Philosophy. 
 
 This consideration, that the mind is not a passive mirror re- 
 flecting the nature of things, but the partial creator of its own 
 forms — that in perception there is nothing but certain changes 
 in the percipient — this consideration, we say, is the destruction 
 of the very basis of metaphysics, for it expressly teaches that the 
 subjective idea is not the correlate of the objective fact : and 
 only upon the belief that our ideas are the perfect and adequate 
 images of external things can any metaphysical speculation rest, 
 Misled by the nature of geometry, which draws its truths from 
 the mind as the spider draws th“ web from its bosom, Descartes 
 
1:90 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 assumed that metaphysical truths could be attained in the same 
 way. This was a confusion of reasoning, yet Spinoza, Leibnitz, 
 and their successors, followed him unhesitatingly. Spinoza, how- 
 ever, had read Bacon’s denouncement of this a 'priori Method, 
 though evidently unprepared to see the truth of the protest. It 
 IS curious to read his criticism of Bacon : he looks on it as that 
 writer's great error to have mistaken the knowledge of the first 
 cause and origin of things. “ On the nature of mind,” he says, 
 “ Bacon speaks very confusedly ; and while he proves nothing, 
 judges much. For in the first place he supposes that the human 
 intellect, besides the deceptions of the senses, is subject to the 
 deceptions of its own nature, and that it conceives every thing 
 accordintr to the analomes of its own nature, and not according 
 to the analogies of the universe; so that it is like an unequal 
 mirror to the rays of things, which mixes the conditions of its 
 own nature with those of external things.”* 
 
 We look upon Spinoza’s aberration as remarkable, however, 
 because he had also seen that in some sense the subjective was 
 not the absolute expression of the objective ; as is proved by his 
 celebrated argument for the destruction of final causes, wherein 
 he showed that order was a thing of the imagination, as were 
 also right and wrong, useful and hiu-tful — these being merely 
 such in relation to us. Still more striking is his anticipation of 
 Kant in this passage : “ Ex quibus dare videre est, mensuram, 
 tempus, et numerum, nihil esse prseter cogitandi, seu potius ima- 
 glnandi modes which should have led him to suspect that 
 the same law of mental forms was also apf)licable to all other 
 subjects. 
 
 We have pointed out the initial error, let us now refer to the 
 logical perfection of Spinoza’s system. M. Damiron argues 
 against the application of the geometric method, on the ground 
 
 * “ Nam priino supponit quod intelleotus liumatuis, praeter fallaciam sen- 
 Buum, sua sola natura fallitur, omniaque fingit exanalogia suae naturae, etnon 
 ex analogia universi; adeo ut sit instar speculi inaeqiialis ad radias rerum. 
 qui suam naturaim naturae rerum immisoet.” — Epist. ii., Opera, p. 338. 
 
Spinoza’s doctrine. 
 
 491 
 
 Df the imperfecc conceptions men form of metaphysical objects ; 
 but this, as already hinted, cannot be said of Spinoza’s concep- 
 tions ; they are as perfect and as clear as his conceptions of ge- 
 ometry ; whether they are as accurate and comprehensive as 
 they are clear, is another question. Spinoza w'ould maintain 
 them to be so ; and he would be justified on his principles ; jus- 
 tified, indeed, on all logical principles of metaphysics. Did we 
 not see that the perfection of Mathematics was owing to its never 
 transcending the sphere of its first assumption, never including 
 other elements than those included in its definitions and axioms ? 
 Precisely this may also be said of Spinozism ; its original as- 
 sumption is, that every clear idea expresses the actual nature of 
 the object; and hence whatever conclusions are logically evolved 
 from clear ideas, will be found objectively represented in the ex- 
 ternal world. Whether the mathematician worts a problem in 
 his mind with ideal surfaces, or actually juxtaposes substances 
 and points out their relations of surface, the truths deduced are 
 equally valid ; in the same way, whenever a Spinozist works out 
 a problem with ideal elements, he is doing no more — on his as- 
 sumption — than if he had the objective elements before him, and 
 could visibly disclose their relations. Hence the full justification 
 of Spinoza’s employment of the geometrical method. And his 
 employment of it, while exciting the admiration of all posterity 
 for the gigantic power of thought disclosed, has had the further 
 advantage of bringing within the narrowest possible field, the 
 whole question of the possibility of Metaphysical certitude. 
 
 We must not, however, longer linger with this great and good 
 man, and his works. A brave and simple man, earnestly medi- 
 tating on the deepest subjects that can occupy the human race, 
 he produced a system which will ever remain as one of the most 
 astounding efi’orts of abstract speculation — a system that has 
 been decried, for nearly two centuries, as the most iniquitous and 
 blasphemous of human invention ; and which has now, within 
 the last sixty years, become the acknowledged parent of a whole 
 nation’s philosophy, ranking among its admirers some of the 
 
4:92 
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 most pious and illustrious intellects of tlie age. The ribald 
 atheist turns out, on nearer acquaintance, to be a “God-intox- 
 icated man.” The blasphemous Jew becomes a pious, virtuous, 
 and creative thinker. The dissolute heretic becomes a childlike, 
 simple, self-denying, and heroic philosopher. We look into his 
 works with calm earnestness, and read there another curious page 
 of human history : the majestic struggle with the my.steries of ex- 
 istence has failed, as it always must fail ; but the struggle demands 
 our warmest approbation, and the man our ardent sympathy. 
 Spinoza stands out from the dim past like a tall beacon, whose 
 shadow is thrown athwart the sea, and whose light will serve to 
 warn the wanderers from the shoals and rocks on which hun- 
 dreds of their brethren have perished.'^ 
 
 * Spinoza’s works have been ably edited by Prof. Paulus, and better, re- 
 cently by Bruder, in three volumes, 12ino. The edition we use is the quar- 
 to, which appeared shortly after his death : B. D. S. Opera Posihuma, 1677. 
 A very close and literal German translation in five small volumes, by Berthold 
 Auerbach, was published in 1841. M. Emile Saisset published one more 
 paraphrastic in French. We are aware of scarcely any thing in English, 
 critical or explanatory, except the account given in Mr. Hallam’s Introduction 
 to the Literature of Europe, and the articles Spinoza and Spinozism in the 
 Penny Oyclopcedia, and Spinoza's Life and Worles in the Westminster Be- 
 view, May, 1843 (the three last by the present writer). 
 
 Since the first edition of this History, there have appeared two remarkable 
 articles by Mr. Froude,— one ort Spinoza’s Life, in the Oxford and Cambridge 
 Review, Oct., 1847, and one on his doctrine, Westminster Review, July, 1854. 
 An analysis of the Tractatus appeared in the British Quarterly a few years 
 ago ; and a translation of the Tractatus PoUticus by William Maccall, 1855. 
 
 Besides historians of philosophy the following writers may be consulted; 
 Sigwart, Der Spinozismus historisch und philosophisch erlautert; Herder, 
 Gott, einige Gesprdche uber Spinoza's System; Damiron, Memoirs sur Spinoza 
 et sa Doctrine (in the Memovres dt f Acadimie). 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FIRST CRISIS IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 The doctrine of Spinoza was of great importance, if only be- 
 cause it brought about the first crisis in modern Philosophy, 
 His doctrine was so clearly stated, and so rigorously deduced 
 from admitted premises, that he brought Philosophy into this 
 dilemma : 
 
 Either my premises are correct, and we must admit that 
 every clear and distinct idea is absolutely true ; true, not only 
 subjectively, but objectively ; — If so, my system is true ; 
 
 Or my premises are false ; the voice of Consciousness is not 
 the voice of truth ; and if so, then is my system false, but all 
 Philosophy is impossible : since the only ground of Certitude — 
 our Consciousness — is pronounced unstable, our only means of 
 knowing the truth is pronounced fallacious. 
 
 Spinozism or Skepticism ? choose between them, for you have 
 no other choice. 
 
 Mankind refused however to make a choice. If the princi- 
 ples which Descartes had established could have no other result 
 than Spinozism, it was worth while inquiring whether those 
 principles themselves might not be modified. 
 
 The ground of discussion was shifted ; psychology took the 
 place of ontology. It was Descartes’ theory of knowledge 
 which led to Spinozism ; that theory therefore must be exam- 
 ined : that theory henceforth becomes the great subject of dis- 
 cussion. Before deciding upon the merits of any system which 
 embraced the great questions of Creation, the Deity, Immor- 
 tality, etc., men saw that it was necessary to decide upon the 
 competence of the human mind to solve such problems. 
 
 34 
 
i94 
 
 FIKST CRISIS IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 All knowledge must be obtained either through experience, or 
 independent of experience. Knowledge dependent on experience 
 must necessarily be merely knowledge of phenomena. All are 
 agreed that experience can only be experience of ourselves as 
 modified by objects. All are agreed that to know things se 
 — noumena — we must know them through some other channel 
 than experience. 
 
 Have we, or have we not, that other channel ? This is the 
 problem. Before we can dogmatize npon ontological subjects, 
 we must settle this question : 
 
 Can we transcend the sphere of our Consciousness and know 
 things per se? 
 
 And this question further resolves itself into — Have we ideas 
 independent of experience ? 
 
 To answer this question was the great object of succeeding 
 philosophers. The fiict that modern philosophy, until Fichte, 
 was almost exclusively occupied with Psychology has been con- 
 stantly noticed ; but the reason why Psychology assumed this 
 importance, the reason why it took the place of all the higher 
 subjects of speculation, has not, we believe, been distinctly 
 stated. Men have contented themselves with the fact that 
 Psychology occupied little of the attention of antiquity, still 
 less of the attention of the Middle Ages ; and only in modern 
 times has it been the real ground on which the contests of the 
 schools have been carried on. Psychology was the result of a 
 tendency similar to that which in science produced the Inductive 
 Method. In both cases a necessity had arisen for a new course 
 of investigation ; it had become evident that men had begun at 
 the wrong end, and that before a proper answer could be given 
 to any of the questions agitated, it was necessary first to settle 
 the limits and conditions of inquiry, the limits and conditions of 
 the inquiring faculties. Thus Consciousness became the basis 
 of Philosophy ; to make that basis broad and firm, to ascertain 
 its nature and capacity, became the first object of speculation. 
 
THIRD EPOCH. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY REDUCED TO A QUESTION OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER I, 
 
 HOBBES. 
 
 Perhaps no writer except Spinoza has ever been so uniformly 
 depreciated as Hobbes. From bis first appearance until the 
 present day he has been a by-word of contempt with the 
 majority of writers ; and even by those who have been liberal 
 enough to acknowledge merit in an adversary, he has been 
 treated as a dangerous and shallow thinker. The first person 
 who saw his importance as a political thinker, and had the 
 courage* to proclaim it, was, we believe, James Mill. . But^as 
 long as political and social theories continue to be ■j'u(Jged'’bf 
 by their supposed consequences, so long will Hobbes be denied a 
 fair hearing. He has roused the odium theologicum. It will be 
 ’ong ere that will be appeased. 
 
 Faults he had, unquestionably ; short-comings, incomplete 
 views; and — as all error is dangerous in proportion to its plausi- 
 bility — we will say that he was guilty of dangerous errors. 
 Let the faults be noted, but not overstrained ; the short-comings 
 and incomplete views, enlarged and corrected ; the errors calmly 
 examined and refuted. We shall be gainers by it; but by in- 
 considerate contempt, by vilifying, no good result can be ob- 
 tained. Impartial minds will always rank Hobbes amongst the 
 greatest writers England Has produced. He is profound, and he 
 
496 
 
 HOBBES. 
 
 is clear; weiglity, strong, and sparkling. His style, as mere 
 style, is in its way as fine as any thing in English : it has the 
 clearness as well as the solidity and brilliancy of crystal. Nor 
 is the matter uifworthy of the form. It is original, in the sense 
 of having been passed through the alembic of his own brain, 
 even when formerly the property of others. Although little of 
 it would now appear novel, it was novel when he produced it. 
 Haughty, dogmatic, overbearing in manner, he loved Truth, and 
 never hesitated to proclaim her. “ Harm I can do none,” he 
 says, in the opening of the Leviathan, “ though I err no less 
 than they (i, e. previous writers), for I shall leave men hut as 
 they are, in doubt and dispute ; but intending not to take 
 any principle upon trust, but only to put men in mind of what 
 they know already, or may know by their experience, I hope tc 
 err less ; and when I do, it must proceed from too hasty conclud- 
 ing, which I will endeavor as much as I can to avoid.”* 
 
 In this passage we see Locke anticipated. It proclaims that 
 Psychology is a science of observation ; that if we would under- 
 stand the conditions and operations of our minds, we must 
 patiently look inwards and see what passes there. All the rea- 
 soning and subtle disputation in the world will not advance us 
 one step, unless we first get a firm basis on fact. “ Man,” he 
 says elsewhere, with his usual causticity, “ has the exclusive 
 privilege of forming general theorems. But this privilege is 
 alloyed by another, that is, by the privilege of absurdity, to 
 which no living creature is subject but man only. And of men 
 those are of all most subject to it, that profess Philosophy" And 
 the cause of this large endowment of the privilege to Philoso- 
 phers we may read in another passage, where he attributes the 
 difficulty men have in receiving. Truth, to their minds being pre- 
 possessed by false opinions — they having prejudged the question. 
 The passage is as follows : — “ When men have once acquiesced 
 in untrue opinions, and registered them as authenticated records 
 
 * Wo/rTcs, edited by Sir W. Molesworth, iv. 1. 
 
HOBBES. 
 
 497 
 
 in their minds, it is no less impossible to speak intelligibly to 
 such men than to write legibly on a paper already scribbled 
 over.” 
 
 Hobbes’s position in the History of Philosophy is easily as- 
 signed. On the question of the origin of our knowledge he 
 takes a decided stand upon Experience : he is the precursor of 
 modern Materialism : 
 
 “ Concerning the thoughts of man I will consider them first 
 singly, and afterwards in a train or dependence upon one another. 
 Singly they are every one a rtpresentation or appearance of 
 some quality or other accident of a body without us, which is 
 commonly called an ohject. Which object worketh on the eyes, 
 ears, and other.parts of a man’s body ; and by diversity of work- 
 ing, produceth diversity of appearances. 
 
 “ The original of them all is that which we call Sense^ for there 
 is no conception in a man’s mind which hath not at first, totally 
 or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense. The rest 
 are derived from that original.”* 
 
 We have here stated, in the broadest manner, the principle 
 of Materialism. It is in direct antagonism to the doctrine of 
 Descartes that there are innate ideas ; in direct antagonism to 
 the old doctrine of the spirituality of Mind. Theoretically this 
 principle may be insignificant ; historically it is important. 
 
 Hobbes’s language is plain enough, but we will still further 
 quote from him, to obviate any doubt as to his meaning. 
 
 “ According to the two principal parts of man, I divide his 
 faculties into two sorts — faculties of the body, and faculties o^ 
 the mind. 
 
 “ Since the minute and distinct anatomy of the powers of the 
 body is nothing necessary to the present purpose, I will only sum 
 them up in these three heads, — power nutritive, power genera- 
 tive, and power motive. 
 
 * Leviathan, ch. 1. In the following expgsition we shall sometimes cite 
 from the Leviathan, and sometimes from the Human Nature, This genera' 
 reference will enable us to dispense with iterated loot-notes. 
 
m 
 
 HOBBES. 
 
 “ Of the powers of the mind there be two sorts — cognitive, im 
 aginative, or conceptive and motive. 
 
 “For the understanding of what I mean by the power cogni- 
 tive, we must remember and acknowledge that there be in our 
 minds continually certain images or conceptions of the things 
 without us. This imagery and representation of the qualities of 
 the things without, is that which we call our conception, imagi- 
 nation, ideas, notice, or knowledge of them; and the faculty, or 
 power by which we are capable of such knowledge, is that I 
 here call cognitive power, or conceptive, the pov/er of knowing or 
 conceiving.” 
 
 The mind is thus wholly constructed out of sense. Nor must 
 we be deceived by the words faculty and power, as if they meant 
 any activity of the mind — as if they implied that the mind co- 
 operated with sense. The last sentence of the foregoing passage 
 is sufficient to clear up this point. He elsewhere says : — “ All 
 the qualities called sensible are, in the object that causeth them, 
 but so many several motions of the matter by which it presseth 
 on our organs diversely. Neither in us that are pressed are they 
 any thing else but divers motions ; for motion produceth nothing 
 but motion." 
 
 Hobbes, therefore, and not Locke, is the precursor of that 
 school of Psychology which flourished in the eighteenth century 
 (principally in France), and which made every operation of the 
 mind proceed out of transformed sensations ; which ended, logi- 
 cally enough, in saying that to think is to feel — penser c'est 
 sentir. 
 
 It is to Hobbes that the merit is due of a discovery which, 
 though so familiar to us now as to appear self-evident, was yet 
 in truth a most important discovery, and was adopted by Des- 
 cartes in his Meditations * — it is that our sensations do not cor- 
 respond with any external qualities; that what are called sen- 
 
 Descartes may possibly have discovered it for himself; but the priority 
 of publication is at any rate due to Hobbes — a fact first noticed, wo believe, 
 by Mr. Hallam : Literature of Europe, iii. 271. 
 
HOBBES. 
 
 499 
 
 sible qualities are nothing but modifications of the sentient 
 being : 
 
 “ Because the image in vision, consisting of color and shape, 
 is the knowledge we have of the qualities of the object of that 
 sense; it is no hard matter for a man to fall into this opinion 
 that the same color and shape are the very qualities themselves; 
 and for the same cause that sound and noise are the qualities of 
 the bell or of the air. And this opinion hath been so long re- 
 ceived that the contrary must needs appear a great paradox; 
 and yet the introduction of species visible and intelligible (which 
 is necessary for the maintenance of that opinion) passing te and 
 fro from the object is worse than any paradox, as being a plain 
 impossibility. I shall therefore endeavor to make plain these 
 points : 
 
 “ That the subject wherein color and image are inherent, is not 
 the object or thing seen, 
 
 “ That there is nothing without us (really) which we call an 
 image or color. 
 
 “That the said image or color is but an apparition unto us of 
 the motion, agitation, or alteration which the object worJceth in the 
 brain, or spirits, or some internal substance of the head. 
 
 “ That as in vision, so also in conceptions that arise from the 
 other senses, the subject of their inference is not the object, but 
 the sentient.” 
 
 This important principle, which Carneades among the ancients 
 alone seems to have suspected, Hobbes has very clearly and con- 
 clusively illustrated. 
 
 Sense furnishes us with conceptions ; but as there are other 
 operations of the mind besides the conceptive, it remains to be 
 seen how sense can also be the original of them. 
 
 And first, of Imagination. Mr. Hallam has noticed the acute- 
 ness and originality which often characterize Hobbes’s remarks , 
 and he instances the opening of the chapter on Imagination in 
 the Leviathan. It is worth quoting : — “ That when a thing lies 
 still, unless somewhat else stir it, it will lie still forever, is a truth 
 
500 
 
 HOBBES. 
 
 no one doubts of. But that wheu a thing is in motion it will 
 eternally be in motion, unless somewhat else stay it, though the 
 reason be the same, namely that' nothing can change itself, is not 
 so easily assented to. For men measure not only other men but 
 all other things by themselves ; and, because they find them- 
 selves subject after motion to pain and lassitude, think every 
 thing else grows weary of motion, and seeks repose of its own 
 accord ; little considering whether it be not some other motion 
 wherein that desire of rest, they find in themselves, consisteth.” 
 Imagination Hobbes defines as a “ conception remaining and by 
 little' and little decaying from and after the act of sense.” . . . 
 “ Imagination, therefore, is but decaying sense." The reader must 
 not here understand by imagination any thing more than the re- 
 taining of an image of the object, after the object is removed. It 
 is the term used by Hobbes to express what James Mill happily 
 called Ideation. Sense, Sensation ; ideas. Ideation. Hobbes 
 says, sense. Sensation ; images. Imagination. 
 
 The materialism of Hobbes’s theory does not consist merely in 
 his language (as is the case with some philosophers — Locke, for 
 instance) ; it lies at the very root of the theory. Thus, he says, 
 we have sensations and we have images — ideas. Whence those 
 images ? “ When a body is once in motion it moveth, unless 
 
 something hinder it, eternally ; and whatsoever hindereth it, can- 
 not in an instant, but in time and by degrees, quite extinguish 
 it ; and as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves 
 give not over rolling for a long time after : so also it happeneth 
 in that motion which is made in the internal parts of man ; then, 
 when he sees, dreams, etc. For after the object is removed, or 
 the eye shut, we still retain an image of the thing seen, though 
 more obscure than when we see it. . . . The decay of sense in 
 men waking is not the decay of the motion made in sense, but 
 an obscuring of it, in such manner as the light of the sun ob- 
 scureth the light of the stars ; which stars do no less exercise 
 their virtue, by which they are visible, in the day than in the 
 nighc. But because amongst many strokes which our eyes, ears, 
 
HOBBES. 
 
 501 
 
 and other organs receive from external bodies, the predominant 
 only is sensible ; therefore the light of the sun being predomi- 
 nant, we are not affected with the action of the stars.” This illus- 
 tration is very happy ; but it only serves to bring out into 
 stronger relief the materialism of the theory. He has told us 
 what Imagination is; let us now learn what is Memory. “This 
 decaying sense, when we would express the thing itself, I mean 
 fancy itself, we call imagination, as I have said before ; but when 
 we would express the decay, and signify that the sense is fading, 
 old, and past, it is called memory. So that imagination and 
 memory are but one thing, which for divers considerations hath 
 divers names.” Mr. Hallam objects to this, and says that it is 
 very evident that imagination and memory are distinguished by 
 something more than their names. Truly, by us ; but not by 
 Hobbes ; he evidently uses the word imagination in a more ge- 
 nerical sense than we use it : he means by it Ideation. Thus he 
 calls dreams “the imagination of them that sleep.” It is that 
 state of the mind which remains when the objects which agitated 
 it by sensations are removed : the mind is then not so agitated, 
 but neither is it calm ; and he compares that state to the gentle 
 rolling of the waves after the wind hath ceased. 
 
 Let this be distinctly borne in mind : Hobbes sees nothing in 
 the intellect but what was previously in the sense. Sensations, 
 and the traces which they leave (i. e. images), form the simple 
 elements of all knowledge ; the various commixtures of these ele- 
 ments form the various intellectual faculties. We may now open 
 at the third chapter of the Leviathan. In it he propounded, as 
 something quite simple and obvious, the very important law oi 
 association of ideas.* He states it with great Clearness and 
 thorough mastery, though he evidently was quite unaware of its 
 extensive application. 
 
 “ When a man thinketh,” he says, “ on any thing whatsoever, 
 his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to 
 
 * See Sir W. Hamilton’s Dissertation' affixed to Beid's WorTcs, p. 898, fol 
 a history of this la's? of association. 
 
502 
 
 HOBBES. 
 
 be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently 
 But as we have no imagination whereof we have not formerly 
 had sense in whole or in parts, so we have no transition from 
 one imagination to another whereof we never had the like before 
 in our senses. The reason whei’eof is this : all fancies (*'. e. im- 
 ages) are motions within us, relicts of those made in sense ; and 
 those motions that immediately succeed one another in the sense 
 continue also together after the sense; insomuch as the former 
 coming again to take place and be predominant, the latter fol- 
 loweth by coherence of the matter moved, in such manner as 
 water upon a plain table is drawn which way any one part of it 
 is guided by the finger.” 
 
 The materialism here is distinct enough. He continues, in 
 excellent style : “This train of thoughts, or mental discourse, is 
 of two sorts. The first is uuguided, without design, and incon- 
 stant, wherein there is no passionate thought to govern and di- 
 rect those that follow to itself, as the end and scope of some 
 desire or other passion ; in which case the thoughts are said to 
 wander, and seem impertinent one to another, as in a dream. 
 Such are commonly the thoughts of men that are not only with- 
 out company, but also without care of any thing; though even 
 then their thoughts are as busy as at other times, but without 
 harmony ; as the sound which a lute out of tune would yield to 
 any man ; or in tune, to one that could not play. And yet in 
 this wild ranging of the mind, a man may ofttimes perceive the 
 way of it, and the dependence of one thought upon another 
 For in a discourse of our present civil war, what would seem more 
 impertinent than to ask, as one did, what was the value of a 
 Roman penny ? Yet the coherence to me was manifest enough. 
 For the thought of the war introduced the thought of delivering 
 up the King to his enemies ; the thought of that brought in the 
 thought of the delivering up of Christ; and that again the 
 thought of the thirty pence, which was the price of that treason , 
 and thenee easily followed that malicious question, and all this 
 n a moment of time ; for thought is quick.” 
 
HOBBES. 
 
 503 
 
 “ For thought is quick.” This is the simple pregnant com- 
 ment, justly deemed sufBcient. It is no purpose of this history 
 to dwell upon literary merits ; “ but the style,” as Buffon says, 
 “ is the man,”* and occasionally we are forced to notice it. The 
 plain direct remark with which Hobbes concludes the above 
 passage, would, in the hands of many moderns, have run some- 
 what thus; “How wonderful is thought! how mighty! how 
 mysterious! In its lightning speed it traverses all space, and 
 makes the past present.” Hobbes, with a few simple, direct 
 words, produces a greater impression than would all the swelling 
 pomp of a passage bristling with notes of exclamation. This is 
 the secret of his style. It is also the characteristic of his specula- 
 tions. Whatever faults they may have, they have no vagueness, 
 no pretended profundity. As much of the truth as he has 
 clearly seen he clearly exhibits : Avhat he has not seen he does 
 not pretend to see. 
 
 One important deduction from his principles he has drawn ; 
 “ Whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea, 
 no conception of any thing we call infinite. No man can have 
 in his mind an image of infinite magnitude, nor conceive infinite 
 swiftness, infinite time, or infinite power. When we say that 
 any thing is infinite, we signify only that we are not able to con- 
 ceive the ends and bounds of the thing named, having no con- 
 ception of the thing, but of our own inability. And therefore 
 the name of God is used not to make us conceive him, for he is 
 incomprehensible, and his greatness and power are inconceivable, 
 but that we may honor him. Also, because whatsoever we con- 
 
 * I leave this passage as it originally stood, for the sake of correcting a 
 nniversal error. I have since detected it to be an error by the simple pro- 
 cess of reading Buffon’s actual words, which some French writer misquoted 
 from memory, and which thousands have repeated without misgiving, al- 
 though the phrase is an absurdity. The phrase occurs in Buffon's Diaeours 
 de Reception a V Academic, where speaking of style as that alone capable ol 
 conferring immortality on works, because the matter was prepared by pre- 
 ceding ages, and must soon become common property, whereas style re- 
 mains a part of the man himself ; he adds, “ Gee cTioses sent hors de Vhomme ; 
 U style est de Vhomme meme." There is immense difference between saying 
 le style e'est Vhomme, and le style est de Vhomme. 
 
504 : 
 
 HOBBES. 
 
 ceive lias been perceived first by sense, either all at once or by 
 parts, a man can have no thought representing any thing not sulh 
 ject to Sense." 
 
 This is frank, but is it true ? On Hobbes’s principles it is irre 
 sistible. His error lies in assuming that all our thoughts must 
 be images. So far is this from being true, that not even all our 
 sensations are capable of forming images. What images are* 
 given by the sensations of heat or cold, of music or of taste? 
 
 Every man’s consciousness will assure him that thoughts are 
 not always images. It will also assure him that he has the idea, 
 notion, conception, figment (or whatever name he may give the 
 thought) of Infinity. If he attempts to form an image of it, 
 that image will of course be finite : it would not otherwise be an 
 image. But he can think of it ; he can reason of it. It is a 
 thought. It is in his mind; though how it got there may be a 
 question. The incompleteness of Hobbes’s psychology lies in 
 the inability to answer this question. If the maxim he adopts 
 be true, nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu, the 
 question is insoluble ; or rather the question itself is a practical 
 refutation of the maxim. 
 
 We insist upon Hobbes’s materialism, the better to prepare the 
 reader for a correct appreciation of Locke, one of the most 
 misrepresented of plain writers. Hobbes, in the sixth chapter 
 of his Human Nature., has very carefully defined what he means 
 by knowledge. “There is a story somewhere,” he says, “of one 
 that pretends to have been miraculously cured of blindness, 
 wherewith he was born, by St. Alban or other saints, at the 
 town of St. Albans ; and that the Duke of Gloucester being 
 there, to be satisfied of the truth of the miracle, asked the man. 
 What color is this? who, by answering it was green, discovered 
 himself, and was punished for a counterfeit : for though by his 
 sight newly received he might distinguish between green and 
 red and all other colors, as well as any that should interrogate 
 him, yet he could not possibly know, at first sight, which of them 
 was called green, or red, or by any other name. 
 
HOBBES. 
 
 505 
 
 “ By this we may understand there be two kinds of knowl- 
 edge, whereof the one is nothing else but sense, or knowledge 
 original, and remembrance of the same ; the other is called 
 science, or knowledge of the truth of propositions, and how things 
 are called, and is derived from understanding. Both of these 
 sorts are but experience ; the former being the experience of the 
 effects of things that work upon us from without ; and the latter 
 experience men have from the proper use of names in language : 
 and all experience being, as I have said, but remembrance, all 
 knowledge is remembrance.” 
 
 The only ambiguity possible in the above passage is that which 
 might arise from the use of the word understanding. This he 
 elsewhere defines as follows : 
 
 “ When a man, upon the hearing of any speech, hath those 
 thoughts which the words of that speech in their connection 
 were ordained and constituted to signify, then he is said to un- 
 derstand it; understanding being nothing else but conception 
 formed by speech.” 
 
 We must content ourselves with merely alluding to his admi- 
 rable observations on language, and with quoting, for the hun- 
 dredth time, his weighty aphorism, “Words are wise men’s coun- 
 ters ; they do but reckon by them ; but they are the money of 
 fools.” 
 
 No attempt is here made to do full justice to Hobbes ; no 
 notice can be taken of the speculations which made him famous. 
 Our object has been fulfilled if we have made clear to the reader 
 the position Hobbes occupies in modern psychological specu- 
 lation. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 § I. Life of Locks. 
 
 John Locke, one of the wisest of Englishmen, was born at 
 Urington, in Somersetshire, on the 29th of August, 1632. Little 
 is known of his family, except that his father had served in the 
 Parliamentary wars ; a fact not without significance in connection 
 with the steady love of liberty manifested by the son. 
 
 His education began at Westminster, where he stayed till he 
 was nineteen or twenty. He was then sent to Oxford. That 
 University was distinguished then, as it has ever been, by its 
 attachment to whatever is old : the Past is its model ; the Past 
 has its affection. That there is much good in this veneration for 
 the Past, a few will gainsay. Nevertheless, a University which 
 piqued itself on being behind the age, was scarcely the fit place 
 for an original thinker. Locke was ill at ease there. The phi- 
 losophy upheld there was Scholasticism. On such food a mind 
 like his could not nourish itself. Like his great predecessor 
 Bacon, he imbibed a profound contempt for the University 
 studies, and in after-life regretted that so much of his time 
 should have been wasted on such profitless pursuits. So deeply 
 convinced was he of the vicious method of college education, 
 that he ran into the other extreme, and thought self-education 
 the best. There is a mixture of truth and error in this notion. 
 It is true that all great men have been mainly self-taught; all 
 that is most valuable a man must learn for himself, must work 
 out for himself. The error of Locke’s position is the assumption 
 that all men will educate themselves if left to themselves. The 
 fact is, the majority have to be educated by force. For those 
 
IIFE OF LOCKE. 507 
 
 who, if left to themselves, would never educate themselves, col- 
 cges and schools are indispensable. 
 
 Locke’s notion of an educated man is very characteristic of 
 him. Writing to Lord Peterborough, he says, “Your Lordship 
 would have your son’s tutor a thorough scholar, and I think it 
 not much matter whether he be any scholar or no : if he but 
 understand Latin well and have a general scheme of the sciences, 
 I think that enough. But I would have him well-bred and 
 well-tempered.” 
 
 Disgusted with the disputes which usurped the title of Phi- 
 losophy, Locke principally devoted himself to Medicine while at 
 Oxford. His proficiency is attested by two very difierent per- 
 sons, and in two very different ways. Dr. Sydenham, in the 
 Dedication of his Observations on the History and Cure of 
 Acute Diseases, boasts of the approbation bestowed on his 
 Method by Mr. John Locke, “ who examined it to the bottom ; 
 and who, if we consider his genius and penetrating and exact 
 judgment, has scarce any superior, and few equals now li\dng.” 
 The second testimony is that aflbrded by Lord Shaftesbury, 
 when Locke first met him. The Earl was suS'ering from an 
 abscess in the chest. No one could discover the nature of his 
 disorder. Locke at once divined it. The Earl followed his ad- 
 vice, submitted to an operation, and was saved. A close inti- 
 macy sprang up between them. Locke accompanied him to 
 Loudon, and resided principally in his house. 
 
 His attention was thus turned to politics. His visits to Hol- 
 land delighted him. “ The blessings which the people there en- 
 joyed under a government peculiarly favorable to civil and 
 religious liberty, amply compensated, in his view, for what their 
 uninviting territory wanted in scenery and climate.”* He also 
 visited France and Germany, making the acquaintance of several 
 distinguished men. 
 
 In 16 YO he planned his Essay concerning Human Understand- 
 
 * Dugald Stewart. 
 
508 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 ing. This he did not complete till 1687. In 1675 the delicate 
 state of his health obliged him to travel, and he repaired to the 
 south of France, where he met Lord Pembroke. To him the 
 Essay is dedicated. He returned in 1679, and resumed his 
 studies at Oxford. But his friendship for Shaftesbury, and the 
 liberal opinions he was known to hold, drew upon him the dis- 
 pleasure of the Court. He was deprived of his studentship by 
 a very arbitrary act.* Nor did persecution stop there. He was 
 soon forced to quit England, and find refuge at the Hague. 
 There also the anger of the king pursued him, and he was 
 obliged to retreat further into Holland. It was there he pub- 
 lished his celebrated Letter on Toleration. 
 
 He did not return to England till after the Revolution. Then 
 there was security and welcome. He was pressed to accept a 
 high diplomatic office in Germany, but the state of his health 
 prevented him. In 1690 the first edition of his Essay appeared. 
 He had indeed already 688) published an abridgment of it in 
 Leclerc’s Bibliotheque Universelle. The success of this Essay 
 was immense; and Warburton’s assertion to the contrary falls 
 to the ground on the mere statement of the number of editions 
 which the work rapidly went through. Six editions within four- 
 teen years,! and in times when books sold more slowly than they 
 sell now, is evidence enough. 
 
 The publication of his Essay roused great opposition. He 
 soon got involved in the discussions with Stillingfleet, Bishop of 
 Worcester. He was soon after engaged in the political discus- 
 sions of the day, and published his Treatise on Government. It 
 was about this time that he became acquainted with Sir Isaac 
 
 * See Macaulay, History of England, i. 545-6. 
 
 t The writer of the article Locke, in the Eney. Brit., says that the fourth 
 edition appeared in 1700. Victor Cousin repeats the statement, and adds 
 that a fifth edition was preparing when death overtook tlie author ; this 
 fifth edition appearing in 1705. We know not on what authority these 
 writers speak ; hut that they are in error may be seen by turning to Locke’s 
 Epistle to the Reader, the last paragraph of which announces that the edition 
 then issued by Locke himself is the sixth. 
 
SPIRIT OF LOCKE’s WEITINGS. 
 
 509 
 
 Newtoa ; and a portion of their very interesting correspondence 
 has been given by Lord King in his Life of Locke, 
 
 Locke’s health, though always delicate, had not been disturbed 
 by any imprudences, so that he reached the age of seventy-two 
 — a good ripe age for one who had studied and thought. He 
 expired in the arms of his friend, Lady Masham, on the 28th of 
 October, 1'704. 
 
 § II. On the Spirit of Locke’s Writings. 
 
 It has for many years been the fashion to decry Locke. In 
 direct sneers at his “ superficiality ” abound in the writings of 
 those who, because their thought is so muddy that they cannot 
 see its shallow bottom, fancy they are profound. Locke’s “ma- 
 terialism ” is also a favorite subject of condolence with these 
 writers ; and they assert that his principles “ lead to atheism.” 
 Lead whom ? 
 
 Another mode of undervaluing Locke is to assert that he only 
 borrowed and popularized the ideas originated by Hobbes. The 
 late Mr. Hazb^-t — an acute thinker, and a metaphysician, but a 
 wilful reckless writer — deliberately asserted that Locke owed 
 every thing to Hobbes. Dr. Whewell repeats the charge, though 
 in a more qualified manner. He says, “ Hobbes had • already 
 promulgated the main doctrines, which Locke afterwards urged, 
 on the subject of the origin and nature of our knowledge.” 
 
 Again, “Locke owed his authority mainly to the intellectual 
 circumstances of the time. Although a writer of great merit, 
 he by no means possesses such metaphysical acuteness, or such 
 philosophical largeness of view, or such a charm of writing, as 
 to give him the high place he has held in the literature of 
 Europe.” 
 
 That Locke did not borrow his ideas from Hobbes will be very 
 apparent in our exposition of Locke ; but meanwhile we may 
 quote the testimony of Sir James Mackintosh, one of the best 
 read of our philosophers, and one intimately acquainted with 
 both these thinkers : — 
 
 *So 
 
510 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 “ Locke and Hobbes agree chiefly on those points in which 
 except the Cartesians, all the speculators of their age were agi'eed. 
 They differ on the most momentous questions — the sources of 
 knowledge, the power of abstraction, the nature of the will ; on 
 the two last of which subjects, Locke, by his very failures them- 
 selves, evinces a strong repugnance to the doctrine of Hobbes. 
 They difier not only in their premises and many of their con- 
 clusions, but in their manner of philosophizing itself. Locke 
 had no prejudice which could lead him to imbibe doctrines from 
 the enemy of liberty and religion. His style, with all its faults, 
 is that of a man who thinks for himself ; and an original style 
 is not usually the vehicle of borrowed opinions.” * 
 
 To this passage we will add another from a still more distin- 
 guisht-d judge : 
 
 “Few among the great names in philosophy have met with a 
 harder measure of justice from the present generation than 
 Locke, the unquestioned founder of the analytic philosophy of 
 mind, but whose doctrines were first caricatured, then, when the 
 reaction arrived, cast off by the prevailing school even with con- 
 tumely, and who is now regarded by one of the conflicting parties 
 in philosophy as an apostle of heresy and sophistry ; while 
 among those who still adhere to the standard which he raised, 
 there has been a disposition in later times to sacrifice his repu- 
 tation in favor of Hobbes — a great writer and a great thinker 
 for his time, but inferior to Locke not only in sober judgment, 
 but even in profundity and original genius. Locke, the most 
 candid of philosophers, and one whose speculations bear on every 
 subject the strongest mark of having been wrought out from 
 the materials of his own mind, has been mistaken for an un- 
 worthy plagiarist, while Hobbes has been extolled as having an- 
 ticipated many of his leading doctrines. He did not anticipate 
 many of them, and the present is an instance in what manner 
 it was generally done. [The writer is speaking of Locke’s refu- 
 
 Edinburgh lieview for October, 1821, p. 242. 
 
SPIRIT OF LOCKE’s ‘WRITINGS. 
 
 511 
 
 tation of Essences^ They both rejected the scholastic doctrine 
 of Essences, but Locke understood and explained what these 
 supposed essences were. Hobbes, instead of explaining the dis- 
 tinction between essential and accidental properties, and between 
 essential and accidental propositions, jumped over it, and gave a 
 definition which suits, at most, only essential propositions, and 
 scarcely those, as the definition of Proposition in general.”* 
 
 Dugald Stewart indeed says, “ that it must appear evident 
 Locke had diligently studied the writings of Hobbes but Sir 
 J. Mackintosh, as quoted above, has explained why Locke appears 
 to have studied Hobbes ; and Stewart is far from implying that 
 Locke therefore gained his principal ideas from Hobbes. In- 
 deed he has an admirable note in which he points out how 
 completely Locke’s own was the important principle of Re- 
 Jlection. “ This was not merely a step beyond Hobbes, but the 
 correction of an error which lies at the very root of Hobbes’s 
 system.”! 
 
 That Locke never read Hobbes may seem incredible, but is, 
 we are convinced, the truth. It is one among many examples 
 of how few were the books he had read. He never alludes to 
 Hobbes in any way that can be interpreted into having read him. 
 Twice only, we believe, does he allude to him, and then so dis- 
 tantly, and with such impropriety, as to be almost convincing 
 with respect to his ignorance. The first time is in his Reply to 
 the Bishop of Worcester, in which he absurdly classes Hobbes 
 and Spinoza together. He says, “I am not so well read in 
 Hobbes and Spinoza as to be able to say what were their 
 opinions on this matter, but possibly there be those who will 
 th Ji your Lordship’s authority of more use than those justly 
 decried writers'' The form of expressioh, “ I am not so well 
 read,” etc., is pbviously equivalent to — I have never read those 
 justly decried writers. His second allusion is simply this ; — 
 
 * Mill’s System of Logic, i. 15C. 
 
 t Dissertation on the Progress of MetapTi. Philosophy, p. 235 (Hamilton’a 
 ed.). The note is very long and curious. 
 
512 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 “ A Hobbist would probably say.” We cannot at present lay 
 our bands on the passage, but it refers to some moral question. 
 
 The above is only negative evidence. Something like positive 
 evidence however is the fact that Hobbes’s doctrine of Association 
 of Ideas — a principle as simple of apprehension as it is impor- 
 tant — was completely unknown to Locke, who, in the fourth or 
 fifth edition, added the chapter on association as it now stands. 
 Moreover, Locke’s statement of the law is by no means so satis- 
 factory as that by Hobbes ; he had not so thoroughly mastered 
 it; yet had he read it in Hobbes, he would assuredly have im- 
 proved on it. That he did not at first introduce it into, his work 
 is a strong presumption that he had not then read Hobbes, be- 
 cause the law is so simple and so evident, when stated, that it 
 must produce instantaneous conviction. 
 
 It is strange that any man should have read Locke, and ques- 
 tioned his originality. There is scarcely a writer we could name 
 whose works bear such an indisputable impress of his having 
 “ raised himself above the almsbasket, and not content to live 
 lazily on scraps of begged opinions, set his own thoughts to work 
 to find and follow truth.” It is still more strange that any uian 
 should have read Locke and questioned his power. That patient 
 sagacity which, above all things, distinguishes a philosopher, is 
 more remarkable in Locke than almost any writer. He was also 
 largely endowed with good sense ; a quality, Gibbon remarks, 
 which is rarer than genius. In these two qualities, and in his 
 homely racy masculine style, we see the type of the English 
 mind, when at its best. The plain directness of his manner, his 
 earnestness without fanaticism, his hearty' honest love of truth, 
 and the depth and pertinence of his thoughts, are qualities which, 
 though they do not dazzle the reader, yet win his love and respect. 
 In that volume, you have the honest thoughts of a great honest 
 Englishman. It is the product of a manly mind : clear, truthful, 
 direct. No vague formulas — no rhetorical flights — no base flat- 
 tery of base prejudices — no assumption of oracular wisdom — no 
 word -jugglery. There are so many writers who cover their 
 
SPIKIT OF LOCKe’s WKITINGS. 
 
 513 
 
 vanity with a veil of words, who seem profound because they are 
 obscure, that a plainness like Locke’s deceives the careless reader, 
 who is led to suppose that what is there so plain must have been 
 obvious. 
 
 Locke, though a patient, cautious thinker, was any thing hut a 
 timid thinker; and it does great honor to his sagacity, that at 
 a time when all scientific men were exclaiming against the danger 
 of hypotheses, believing that the extravagant errors of Schoolmen 
 and alchemists were owing to their use of hypotheses — a time 
 when the great Newton himself could be led into the unphilo- 
 sophical boast hypotheses non Jingo, our wise Locke should 
 exactly appreciate them at their true value. He says, — 
 
 “Not that we may not, to explain any phenomena of nature, 
 make use of any probable hypotheses whatsoever. Hypotheses, 
 if they are well made, are at least great helps to memory, and 
 often direct us to new discoveries. But we should not take them 
 up too hastily (which the mind that would always penetrate into 
 the causes of things, and have principles to rest on, is very apt 
 to do) till we have very well examined particulars, and made 
 several experiments in that thing which we would explain by 
 our hypothesis, and see whether it will agree to them all; 
 whether our principles will carry us quite through, and not be as 
 inconsistent with one phenomenon of nature as they seem to 
 accommodate and explain another ; and, at least, that we take 
 care that the name of principles deceive us not nor impose on us, 
 by making us receive that for an unquestionable truth which is 
 really at best but a very doubtful conjecture : such as are most 
 (I had almost said all) of the hypotheses in natural philosophy.” 
 
 Locke did not seek to dazzle ; he sought Truth, and wished all 
 men to accompany him in the search. He would exchange his 
 opinions with ease when he fancied that he saw their error. He 
 readily retracted ideas which he had published in an immature 
 form; “thinking himself,” as he says, “more concerned to quit 
 and renounce any opinion of my own than oppose that of another, 
 when truth appears against it.” He had a just and incurable 
 
514 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 suspicion of all “great volumes swollen with ambiguous words.* 
 He knew how much jugglery goes on with words ; some of it 
 conscious, some of it unconscious, but all pernicious. “Vague 
 and insignificant forms of speech and abuse of language have for 
 so long passed for mysteries of science ; and hard and misapplied 
 words, with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a 
 right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, 
 that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak, or 
 those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance 
 and hindrance of true knowledge. To break in upon this sanctu- 
 ary of vanity and ignorance will be, I suppose, some service to 
 the human understanding.” 
 
 Locke had an analytical mind. He desired to understand and 
 to explain things, not to write rhetorically about them. There 
 were mysteries enough which he was contented to let alone ; he 
 knew that human faculties were limited, and reverentially sub- 
 mitted to ignorance on all things beyond his reach. But though 
 he bowed down before that which was essentially mysterious, he 
 was anxious not to allow that which was essentially cognizable 
 to be enveloped in mystery. Let that which is a mystery remain 
 undisturbed : let that which is not necessarily a mystery be 
 brought into the light of day. Know the limits of your under- 
 standing — beyond those limits it is madness to attempt to pene- 
 trate ; within those limits it is folly to let in darkness and 
 mystery, to be incessantly wondering and always assuming that 
 matters cannot he so plain as they appear, and that something 
 lying deeper courts our attention. 
 
 To minds otherwise constituted — to men who love to dwell in 
 the vague regions of speculation, and are only at ease in an intel- 
 lectual twilight — Locke is naturally a disagreeable teacher. He 
 flatters none of their prejudices ; he falls in with none of their 
 tendencies. Mistaking obscurity for depth, they accuse him of 
 being superficial. The owls declare the eagle is blind. Thev 
 want the twilight ; he 
 
 “ Wantons in the smile of Jove.” 
 
locke’s method. 
 
 515 
 
 They sneer at his “shallowness.” So frequent are the sneers and 
 off-hand charges against him, that I, who had read him in my 
 youth with delight, began to suspect that my admiration had 
 been rash. The proverb says, “ Throw but mud enough, some 
 will be sure to stick.” It was so with Locke. Eeiterated de- 
 preciation had somewhat defaced his image in my mind. The 
 time came however when, for the purposes of this history, I had 
 to read the Essay on Human Understanding once more, care- 
 fully, pen in hand. The image of John Locke was again revived 
 within me ; this time in more than its former splendor. His 
 modesty, honesty, truthfulness, and directness I had never doubt- 
 ed ; but now the vigor and originality of his mind, the raciness 
 of his colloquial style, the patient analysis by which he has laid 
 open to us such vast tracts of thought, and above all, the manli- 
 ness of his truly practical understanding, are so strongly impressed 
 upon me, that I feel satisfied the best answer to his critics is to 
 say, '''•Read him'' From communion with such a mind as his, 
 nothing but good can result. He suggests as much as he teaches ; 
 and it has been well said, “that we cannot speak of his Essay 
 without the deepest reverence ; whether w'e consider the era 
 which it constitutes in philosophy, the intrinsic value (even at 
 the present day) of its thoughts, or the noble devotion to truth, 
 the beautiful and touching earnestness and simplicity which he 
 not only manifests in himself, but has the power, beyond almost 
 any writer, of infusing into his reader.” 
 
 § HI. Locke’s Method. 
 
 “ It may be said that Locke created the science of Meta- 
 physics,” says D’Alembert, “in somewhat the same way as New- 
 ton created Physics. ... To understand the soul, its ideas and 
 its affections, he did not study books ; they would have misdi- 
 rected him ; he was content to descend within himself, and after 
 having, so to speak, contemplated himself a long while, he pre- 
 sented in his Essay the mirror in which he had seen himself. 
 
516 
 
 LOCKE, 
 
 In one word, he reduced Metaphysics to that which it ought to 
 be, viz. the experimental physics of the mind.”* 
 
 This is great praise, and from high authority, but we suspect 
 that it can only be received with some qualification. Locke made 
 no grand discovery which changed the face of science. He was 
 not even the first to turn his glance inwards. Descartes and 
 Hobbes had been before him. 
 
 Yet Locke had his Method; a Method peculiarly his own. 
 Others before him had cast a hasty glance inwards, and dogma- 
 tized upon wh,at they saw. He was the first to watch patiently 
 the operations of his mind, that, watching, he might surprise the 
 evanescent thoughts, and steal from them the secret of their com- 
 binations. He is the founder of Modern Psychology. By him 
 the questions of Philosophy are boldly and scientifically reduced 
 to the primary question of the limits of human understanding. 
 By him is begun the history of the development and combination 
 of our thoughts. Others had contented themselves with the 
 thoughts as they found them ; Locke sedulously inquired into 
 the origin of all our thoughts. 
 
 M. Victor Cousin, who, as a rhetorician, is in constant antago- 
 nism to the clear and analytical Locke, makes it an especial 
 grievance that Locke and his school have considered the ques- 
 tion respecting the oiigin of ideas as fundamental. “ It is from 
 Locke,” he continues, “that has been borrowed the custom ot 
 referring to savages and children, upon whom observation is so 
 difficult ; for the one class we must trust to the reports of travel- 
 lers, often prejudiced and ignorant of the language of the country 
 visited ; for the other class (children), we are reduced to very 
 equivocal signs.”f 
 
 AVe cannot see how Locke should avoid referring to savages 
 and children, if he wanted to collect facts concerning the origin 
 of ideas ; it is a practice inseparable from the psychological 
 
 * “ En un mot, il rdduisit la metaphysique a ce qu’elle doit 6tre, en effet 
 ’la physique experimcntale de I’ftme .” — Discours Prelim, de V Encyclopedie. 
 
 t Hietoire de la Philos. 17 lecjon. 
 
Locke’s method. 
 
 517 
 
 Method. Perhaps no source of error has been more abundant 
 than the obstinacy with which men have in all times looked 
 upon their indissoluble associations as irresistible truths — as 
 primary and universal truths. A little analysis — a little observa- 
 tion of minds removed from the influences which fostered those 
 associations, would prove that those associations were not uni- 
 versal truths, but simply associations. It is because men have 
 analyzed the mind in its cultivated condition, that they have 
 been led to false results ; had they compared their analysis with 
 that of an uncultivated mind, they might have gained some in- 
 sight. The objection against Locke’s practice could only pro- 
 ceed from men who study psychology without previous acquaint- 
 ■ ance with physiology — which, though they do not know it, is 
 the same as studying functions without any knowledge of the 
 organs. Locke was the flrst who systematically sought in the 
 history of the development of the mind for answers to many of 
 the fundamental questions of psychology, and he has been blamed 
 for this, in the same spirit as that which dictated the sneers of 
 John Hunter’s professional contemporaries, because that admira- 
 ble anatomist sought in comparative anatomy for elucidation of 
 many anatomical problems. Now-a-days no well-informed student 
 ’s ignorant of the fact that Comparative Physiology, and Embry- 
 ology, are our surest guides in all biological questions, simply 
 because we therein see the problems gradually removed from 
 many of the complexities which frustrate our research in the 
 higher and more completely developed organisms. Locke saw 
 clearly enough that the philosophers were accustomed to con- 
 sider their minds as types of the human mind ; whereas their 
 minds, being fllled with false notions and warped by prejudices, 
 could in nowise be taken as types ; for even granting that the 
 majority of their notions were true, yet these true notions were 
 not portions of the furniture of universal minds. He sought for 
 illustrations from such minds as had not been so warped. 
 
 His object was “to inquire into the original, certainty, and 
 extent of human knowledge.” He was led to this by a conver- 
 
518 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 sation with some friends, in which, disputes growing warm, “ aif 
 ter we had puzzled ourselves awhile, without coming any nearer 
 a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my 
 thoughts that we took a wrong course ; and that before we set 
 ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to ex- 
 amine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings 
 were or were not fitted to deal with." 
 
 The plan he himself laid down is as follows : 
 
 “ First, I shall inquire into the original of those ideas, notions, 
 or whatever else you please to call them, which a man observes 
 and is conscious to himself he has in his mind ; and the ways 
 whereby the understanding comes to be furnished with them. 
 
 “Secondly, I shall endeavor to show what knowledge the un- 
 derstanding hath by those ideas ; and the certainty, evidence, 
 and extent of it. 
 
 “Thirdly, I shall make some inquiry into the nature and 
 grounds of faith or opinion ; whereby I mean that assent which 
 we give to any proposition as true, of whose truth we have yet 
 no certain knowledge ; and we shall have occasion to examine 
 the reasons and degrees of assent.” 
 
 We may here see decisively settled the question so often raised 
 respecting the importance of Locke’s Inquiry into Innate Ideas. 
 “ For Locke and his school,” says M. Cousin, justly, “ the study 
 of understanding is the study of Ideas; hence the recent cele- 
 brated name of Ideology for the designation of the science of 
 mind.” Indeed, as we have shown, the origin of Ideas was the 
 most important of all questions; upon it rested the whole prob- 
 lem of Philosophy. 
 
 According to the origin of our Ideas may we assign to them 
 their validity. If they are of human growth and development, 
 they will necessarily partake of human limitations. As Pascal 
 well says, “ Si I’homme commenQoit par s’etudier lui-meme, il 
 verroit combien il est incapable de passer outre. Comment 
 pourroit-il se faire qu’une partie connut le tout?” 
 
 Locke has given us a few indications of the state of opinion 
 
locke’s method. 
 
 519 
 
 respecting Innate Ideas, which it is worth while collecting. “I 
 have been told that a short epitome of this treatise, which was 
 printed in 168S, was condemned by some without reading, be- 
 cause innate ideas were denied in it, they too hastily concluding 
 that if innate ideas were not supposed, there would be little left 
 either of the notion or proof of spirits.” Recapitulating the con- 
 tents of the chapter devoted to the refutation of innate ideas, he 
 says, “ I know not how absurd this may seem to the masters of 
 demonstration, and probably it will hardly down with anybody 
 at Jirst hearing^ And elsewhere : “ What censure doubting 
 thus of innate principles may deserve from men, who will be apt 
 to call it pulling up the old foundations of knowledge and cer- 
 tainty, I cannot tell ; I persuade myself at least that the way I 
 have pursued, being conformable to truth, lays those foundations 
 surer.” 
 
 Locke’s Method was purely psychological ; although he had 
 been a student of medicine, he never indulges in any physiologi- 
 cal speculations, such as his successors. Hartley and Darwin, de- 
 lighted in. Ideas, and ideas only, solicited his analysis. Dugald 
 Stewart has remarked, that in the Essay there is not a single 
 passage savoring of the anatomical theatre or of the chemical 
 laboratory. 
 
 We have already spoken of the 'positivism of Bacon ; that of 
 Locke shall now speak for itself in his own words ; — “ If by this 
 inquiry into the nature of the understanding I can discover the 
 powers thereof, how far they reach, to what things they are in 
 any degree proportionate, and where they fail us, I suppose it 
 may be of use to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more 
 cautious in meddling with the things exceeding its comprehen- 
 sion, to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether, and sit 
 down in a quiet ignorance of those things which upon examination 
 are found to be beyond the reach of our capacities. We should 
 not then perhaps be so forward, out of an affectation of universal 
 knowledge, to raise questions and perplex ourselves and others 
 about things to which our understandings are not suited, and of 
 
520 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 which we cannot frame in our minds any clear or distinct per- 
 ceptions, or whereof (as it has perhaps too often happened) we 
 have not any notions at all. Men have reason to be well satis- 
 fied with what God has thought fit for them, since he has given 
 them, as St. Peter says, iravra ‘Trpog- xal svdi^Siav, whatsoever 
 is necessary for the convenience of life and the information of 
 virtue ; and has put within the reach of their discovery the com- . 
 fortable provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. 
 How short soever their knowledge may he of a universal or per- 
 fect comprehension of whatever is, it yet secures their great con- 
 cernments, that they have light enough to lead them to the 
 knowledge of their Maker and the sight of their own duties. 
 Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads and employ 
 their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will 
 not boldly quarrel with their own constitutions, and throw away 
 the blessings their hands are filled with because they are not big 
 enough to grasp every thing. 
 
 “ We shall not have much reason to complain of the narrowness 
 of our minds, if we will hut employ them about what may he op 
 use to us, for of that they are very capable ; and it will be an 
 unpardonable as well as childish peevishness, if we undervalue 
 the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to 
 the ends for which it was given us, because there are some things 
 set out of reach of it. It will be no excuse to an idle and unto- 
 ward servant who would not attend his business by candlelight, 
 to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The candle that is set 
 up within us shines bright enough for all our purposes. 
 
 “When we know our own strength we shall the better know 
 what to undertake with hopes of success and when we have 
 well surveyed the powers of our minds, and made some estimate 
 what we may expect from them, we shall not be inclined either 
 to sit still, and not set our thoughts on work at all, despairing of 
 
 * “ The real cause and root cf almost all the evils in science is this ; that 
 falsely magnifying and extolling the powers of the mind, we seek not its 
 true helps.'’ — Bacon. 
 
Locke’s method. 
 
 521 
 
 knowing any thing; or, on the other side, question every thing, 
 and disclaim all knowledge because some things are not to be 
 understood. It is of great use to the sailor to know the length 
 of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the 
 ocean. It is well he knows that it is long enough to reach the 
 bottom at such places as are necessary to direct his voyage, and 
 caution him against running upon any shoals that may ruin 
 him. . . . This was that which gave the first rise to this Essay 
 concerning the Understanding; for I thought that the first step 
 towards satisfying several inquiries the mind of man was very 
 apt to run into, was to take a survey of our own understandings, 
 and to see to what things they were adapted. Till that was done 
 I suspected we begau at the wrong end, and in vain sought for 
 satisfaction in a quiet and sure possession of truths that most 
 concerned us, whilst we let loose our thoughts into the vast 
 ocean of being ; as if that boundless extent were the natural and 
 undoubted possession of our understandings, wherein there is 
 nothing exempt from its decisions, or that escaped its compre- 
 hension. Thus men extending their inquiries beyond their ca- 
 pacities, and letting their thoughts wander into those depths where 
 they can find no sure footing, it is no wonder that they raise 
 questions and multiply disputes, which, never coming to any clear 
 resolution, are proper only to continue and increase their doubts, 
 and to confirm them at last in perfect skepticism.” 
 
 The decisive manner in which Locke separates himself from 
 the ontologists is not only historically noteworthy, but is also 
 noticeable as giving the tone to his subsequent speculations. 
 We have admired the Portico ; let us enter the Temple. 
 
 § IV. The Origin of our Ideas. 
 
 Hobbes had said, with Gassendi, that all our ideas are derived 
 from sensations ; nihil est intellectu quod nonprius fuerit in sensu. 
 Locke, who is called a mere popularizer of Hobbes, said that there 
 were two sources, not one source, and these two were Sensation 
 
522 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 and Reflection, Separating himself decisively from the up- 
 holders of the doctrine of innate ideas — of truths independent of 
 experience, — he declared that all our knowledge is founded on 
 experience, and from experience it ultimately derives itself. 
 Separating himself no less decisively from the Gassendists, who 
 saw no source of ideas but Sensation, he declared that although 
 Sensation was the great source of most of our ideas, yet there 
 was “ another fountain from which experience furnisheth the 
 understanding with ideas and this source, “ though it he not 
 sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very 
 like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense this 
 he calls Reflection. 
 
 After Dugald Stewart’s ample exposure of the wide-spread 
 error that Locke was the chief of the so-called Sensational School, 
 we need spend little time in inquiring whether Locke did or did 
 not teach that all knowledge was referable to sensation. The 
 passages which contradict the vulgar error respecting Locke’s 
 doctrine are numerous and decisive. Dugald Stewart has se- 
 lected several ; but perhaps the one we have quoted above will 
 be considered sufficiently explicit. Reflection, he says, “ though 
 it be not sense,” may yet analogically be considered as an inter- 
 nal sense. To prevent all misconception, however, we will as a 
 decisive example refer to his proof of the existence of God, which 
 he sums up by saying, “ It is plain to me that we have a more 
 certain knowledge of the existence of a God than of any thing 
 our senses have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I pre- 
 sume I may say that we may more certainly know that there is 
 a God, than that there is any thing else without us.” (Book IV. 
 ch. X.) Locke made the senses the source of all our sensuous 
 knowledge ; our ideal knowledge (so to speak) he derived from 
 Reflection. 
 
 Historians have not accorded due praise to Locke for the im- 
 portant advance he made towards a solution of the great question 
 on the origin of knowledge. While Leibnitz has been lauded to 
 the skies for having expressed Locke’s doctrine in an epigram, 
 
THE ORIGIISr OF OUR IDEAS. 
 
 523 
 
 Locke has not only been robbed of bis due, but has been sacri- 
 ficed to his rival. It is commonly said, “ Locke reduced all our 
 knowledge to Sensation ; Leibnitz came and accepted the old 
 adage of nihil estin intellectu quod nonprius fuerit in sensw, but 
 be iccepted it as only half the truth ; and therefore added, nisi 
 ipse intellectus." Now, firstly, Locke did not accept the adage 
 as the whole truth ; he said that Reflection was a second source 
 of ideas. Secondly, Dugald Stewart has remarked that the 
 addition which Leibnitz made when he said there is nothing in 
 the intellect which was not previously in the sense, except the 
 intellect itself^ expresses no more than the doctrine of Locke, who 
 says, “ External objects furnish the mind with ideas of sensible 
 qualities; and the mind furnishes the understanding with the 
 ideas of its own operations.” Thirdly, although the phrase is 
 epigrammatic, and thereby has had such success in the world as 
 epigrams usually have, it will not bear scrutiny : few epigrams 
 will. Except as a verbal jingle, how trivial is the expression — 
 the intellect in the intellect ! Suppose a man to say, “ I have no 
 money in my purse, except my purse itself,” he would scarcely 
 be less absurd. For when the Schoolmen said, “nothing was in 
 the intellect which was not previously in the sense,” they did not 
 mean that the intellect was the same as the sense ; they meant 
 that the intellect was furnished with no ideas, notions, or concep- 
 tions which had not been furnished them by sense ; they meant 
 that the senses were the inlets to the soul. 
 
 Dr. Whewell approves of the epigram ; and alluding to Mr. 
 Sharpe’s objection to it, viz. that we cannot say the intellect is 
 in the intellect, he says, “ This remark is obviously frivolous ; foi 
 the faculties of the understanding (which are what the argument 
 against the Sensational School requires us to reserve) may be 
 said to be in the understanding with as much justice as we may 
 assert that there are in it the impressions derived from sense.” 
 We submit that the “faculties” of the understanding are not 
 “ all that must be reserved for the argument against the Sensa- 
 tional School ” (if the Lockeists be meant, and to them only did 
 
524 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 Leibnitz address himself), fca- the simple reason that the faculties 
 never were denied.* Opponents have attributed such a notion 
 to Locke’s school ; no member of that school ever proposed it. 
 The question never was, Have we an Understanding, and has 
 that U nderstanding certain Faculties ? No ; the question simply 
 was — What is the origin of our Ideas: are they partly innate 
 and partly acquired, or are they wholly acquired, and if so, is 
 Sense the sole inlet ? To this plain question some replied plainly, 
 “Sense is the origin of all our ideas.” Locke replied, “Sense 
 and Reflection are the sources of all our ideas.” Leibnitz re- 
 plied, “.There is nothing in the intellect which was not previously 
 in the sense; except the intellect itself:” which latter remark is 
 altogether beside the question. And yet this remark has called 
 forth many pages of laudatory declamation; pages in which 
 Locke is cast into the background, and charged with having 
 overlooked the important fact that man has an intellect as well 
 as senses. This notion, once started, continued its triumphant 
 course. Men are for the most part like sheep, who always follow 
 the bell-wether : what one boldly asserts, another echoes boldly ; 
 a third transmits it to a fourth, and the assertion becomes con- 
 solidated into a traditional judgment. Some one more serious, 
 or more independent than the rest, looks into the mattei’, sees 
 an error, exposes it ; but tradition rolls on its unimpeded course. 
 I do not expect to shake the traditional error respecting Locke ; 
 I was bound, however, to signalize it. Locke does not derive all 
 our knowledge from sensation ; Leibnitz has not made any ad- 
 dition by his too famous nisi ipse intellectus.\ 
 
 By Sensation, Locke understands the simple operation of exter- 
 
 * Locke often speaks of the operations of the mind as proceeding from 
 powers intrinsical and proper to itself. He says also : “ Thus the first ccgaacity 
 of human intellect is, that the mind is fitted to receive the impressions made 
 on it ; either through the senses by outward objects, or ly its own operations 
 wteen it reflects on them,'’' — Essay, b. ii. c. i. § 24. 
 
 t Leibnitz himself says, when making the distinction, “ Cela s’accorde 
 assez avec votre auteur de I’Essai, que cherche une bonne partie des Ideeo 
 dans la refiexion de I’esprit sur sa propre nature.” — Nouveaux Essais, ii. c. i 
 
THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS. 
 
 525 
 
 nal objects through the senses. The mind is herein wholly pas- 
 sive. The senses, therefore, may be said to furnish the mind 
 with one portion of its materials. By Eeflection he understands 
 that interna! sense, by means of which the mind observes its own 
 operations. This furnishes the second and last portion of the 
 materials out of which the mind frames knowledge. “ If it shall 
 be demanded,” he says, “ when a man begins to have any ideas, 
 I think the true answer is, when he first has any sensation. For 
 since there appear not to be any ideas in the mind before the 
 senses have conveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in the under- 
 standing are coeval with sensation.” This is making a decisive 
 stand against the upholders of innate ideas ; but it is a very rude 
 and incomplete view. 
 
 Deeply considered, not only are ideas not coeval with sensa- 
 tions, but sensations themselves are not coeval with the opera- 
 tion of external objects on our organs. Our senses have to be 
 educated., i. e. to be drawn out, developed. We have to learn to 
 see, to hear, and to touch. Light strikes on the infant retina, 
 waves of air pulsate on the infant tympanum : but these as yet 
 produce neither sight nor hearing : they are only the prepara- 
 tions for sight and hearing. Many hundred repetitions are 
 necessary before what we call a sensation [i. e. a distinct feeling 
 corresponding to that which the object will always produce upon 
 the developed sense) can be produced. Many sensations are 
 necessary to produce a perception : a perception is a cluster of 
 sensations with an ideal element added. On the educated 
 Sense objects act so as instantaneously to produce what we call 
 their sensations ; on the uneducated Sense they act only so as to 
 produce a vague impression, which becomes more and more defi- 
 nite by repetition.* 
 
 Plato finely compares the soul to a book, of which the senses 
 
 * See this growth of sensation treated in detail in Beneke’s MeMbiien 
 der Paychologie. See also the chapters on Hartley and Darwin fur- 
 ther on. 
 
 
 36 
 
526 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 are the scribes* Accepting this comparison, writing is only pos 
 sible after a series of tentatives ; the hand must practise, before it 
 can steady itself sufficiently to trace letters ; so also must the 
 senses learn by repetition to trace intelligible figures on the 
 iahula rasa of the mind. 
 
 Locke continues his account of the origin of all our knowledge 
 thus: “In time the mind comes to reflect on its own operations 
 about the ideas got by -sensation, and thereby stores itself with a 
 new set of ideas, which I call ideas of reflection. These are the 
 impressions which are made on our senses by outward objects 
 that are extrinsical to the mind, and its own operations proceed- 
 ing from powers intrinsical and proper to itself; which when 
 reflected on by itself, becoming also objects of its contemplation, 
 are, as I have said, the original of all knowledge. Thus the first 
 capacity of the human intellect is, that the mind is fitted to re- 
 ceive the impressions made on it; either through the senses by 
 outward objects, or by its own operations when it reflects on 
 them. This is the first step that a man makes towards the dis- 
 covery of and the groundwork whereon to build all those notions 
 which ever he shall have naturally in this world. All those 
 sublime thoughts which tower above the clouds, and reach as 
 high as heaven itself, take their rise and footing here : in all that 
 good extent wherein the mind wanders, in those remote specu- 
 lations it may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot 
 beyond those ideas which sense or reflection have offered for its 
 contemplation.” 
 
 The close of this passage is an answer to the ontologists ; not 
 one, however, which they will accept. They deny that sensation 
 and reflection are the only sources of materials. But we will 
 continue to hear Locke: “When the understanding is once 
 stored with these simple ideas, it has the power to repeat, com- 
 pare, and unite them, even to an almost infinite variety, and so 
 
 * Philebus, p. 192. Plato’s words are not given in the text, but the 
 sense is. 
 
ELEMENTS OF IDEALISM AND SKEPTICISM IN LOCKE. 527 
 
 can make at pleasure new complex ideas. But it is not in the 
 power of the most exalted wit, or enlarged understanding, by 
 any quickness or variety of thought, to invent or frame one new 
 simple idea in the mind not taken in by the ways aforementioned.” 
 
 This is very explicit — and, we believe, very true. If true, 
 what becomes of Philosophy ? 
 
 § V. Elements of Idealism and Skepticism in Locke. 
 
 The passage last quoted naturally leads us to consider Locke’s 
 position in the great debate carried on respecting our knowledge 
 of things per se. 
 
 Can we know things as they are ? Descartes and his followers 
 suppose that we can : their criterion is the clearness and distinct- 
 ness of ideas. Locke admirably said, ^‘Distinct ideas of the 
 several sorts of bodies that fall under the examination of our 
 senses, perhaps we may have ; but adequate ideas I suspect we 
 have not of any one amongst them.” Our ideas, however clear, 
 are never adequate ; they are subjective. But Locke only went 
 half-way towards the conception of knowledge as purely subjec- 
 tive. He did not think that all our ideas were images, copies 
 of external objects ; but he expressly taught that our ideas of 
 what he calls primary qualities^ are resemblances of what really 
 exist in bodies ; adding, that “ the ideas produced in us by second- 
 ary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. There is 
 nothing like our ideas existing in the bodies themselves. They 
 are, in the bodies we denominate from them, only a power to 
 produce those sensations in us." 
 
 It is remarkable that the last sentence did not lead him to the 
 conclusion that all the qualities which we perceive in bodies are 
 but the powers to produce sensations in us ; and that it is we 
 who attribute to the causes of these sensations a form analogous 
 to their effects. He himself warned us “ that so we may not 
 think (as perhaps usually is done) that they (ideas) are exactly 
 the images and resemblances of something inherent in the subject ; 
 most of those of sensation being in the mind no more the like- 
 
528 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 ness of something existing without us, than the names that stand 
 for them are likenesses of our which yet upon hearing they 
 
 are 'apt to excite in us.” And elsewhere, “ It being' no more im 
 possible to conceive that God should annex such ideas to such 
 motions (i. e. the motions of objects affecting the senses) with 
 which they have no similitude, than that he should annex the 
 idea of pain to the motion of a piece of steel dividing our flesh, 
 with which that idea hath no resemblance.” 
 
 From these passages it will be seen how clearly Locke under- 
 stood the subjective nature of one portion of our knowledge. 
 He did not carry out the application of his principles to primary 
 qualities, owing, perhaps, to inveterate association having too 
 firmly established the contrary in his mind. Every one is willing 
 to admit that color, light, heat, perfume, taste, etc., are not qual- 
 ities in the bodies which produce in us those eflfects, but simply 
 conditions of our sensibility, when placed in certain relations with 
 certain bodies. But few are willing to admit — indeed only phi- 
 losophers (accustomed as they are to undo their constant associ- 
 ations) can conceive the primary qualities, viz. extension, solidity, 
 motion, and number, to he otherwise than real qualities of bodies 
 — copies of which are impressed upon us by the relation in which 
 we stand to the bodies. And yet these qualities are no less sub- 
 jective than the former. They do not belong at all to bodies, 
 except as powers to produce in us the sensations. They are de- 
 monstrably as much the eflfects produced in us by objects, as the 
 secondary qualities are ; and the latter every one admits to be 
 the effects, and not copies. Wherein lies the difference ? wherein 
 the difHculty of conceiving primary qualities not to belong to 
 bodies ? In this ; the primary qualities are the invariable condi- 
 tions of sensation. The secondary qualities are the variable con- 
 ditions. We can have no perception of a body that is not ex- 
 tended, that is not solid (or the reverse), that is not simple or 
 complex (number), that is not in motion or rest. These are in- 
 variable conditions. But this body is not necessarily of any 
 particular color, taste, scent, heat, or smoothness ; it may be color- 
 
ELEMENTS OF IDEALISM AND SKEPTICISM IN LOCKE. 529 
 
 .ess, tasteless, scentless. These secondary qualities are all vari- 
 able. Consequently the one set, being invariable, have occasioned 
 indissoluble associations in our nainds, so that it is not only im- 
 possible for us to imagine a body, without at the same time im- 
 agining it as endowed with these primary qualities ; but also we 
 are irresistibly led to believe that the bodies we perceive do cer- 
 tainly possess those qualities quite independently of us. Hence 
 it has been said that the Creator himself could not make a body 
 without extension : for such a body is impossible. The phrase 
 should be, “ such a body it is impossible for us to conceived But 
 our indissoluble associations are no standards of reality. 
 
 That we cannot conceive body without extension is true ; but 
 that, because we cannot conceive it, the contrary must be false, 
 is preposterous. All our assertion in this matter can amount to 
 is, that knowledge must be subordinate to the conditions of our 
 nature. These conditions are not conditions of things, but of 
 our organizations. K we had been so constituted as that all 
 bodies should affect us with a sensible degree of warmth, we 
 should have been irresistibly led to conclude that warmth was a 
 quality inherent in body ; but because warmth varies with dif- 
 1 ferent bodies and at different times, there is no indissoluble asso- 
 ciation formed. And so of the rest. 
 
 To return to Locke : he has very well stated the nature of 
 our knowledge of external things, though he excepts primary 
 qualities. “ It is evident,” he says, “ that the bulk, figure, and 
 motion of several bodies about us, produce in us several sen- 
 sations, as of colors, sounds, tastes, smells, pleasure and pain, 
 etc. These mechanical affections of bodies having no affinity at 
 all with those ideas they produce in us (there being no conceiv 
 able connection between any impulse of any sort of body 
 and any perception of a color or smell which we find in our 
 minds) we can have no distinct knowledge of such operations be- 
 yond our experience ; and can reason about them no otherwise 
 than as the effects produced by an infinitely wise Agent, which 
 perfectly surpass our comprehensions.” 
 
530 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 He shortly after says, “ The things that, as fai as our observa- 
 tion reaches, we constantly find to proceed regularly, we may 
 conclude do act by a law set them ; hut yet by a law that we 
 know not : whereby, though causes work steadily, and effects 
 constantly flow from them, yet their connections and dependencies 
 being not discoverable in our ideas, we can have but an experimen- 
 tal knowledge of them." Here we have Hume’s doctrine of 
 Causation anticipated. 
 
 To prove the subjective nature of our knowledge is but one 
 step towards the great question. The second step, which it is 
 vulgarly supposed was only taken by Berkeley and Hume, was 
 also taken by Locke. Hear him : “ Since the mind in all its 
 thoughts and reasonings hath no other immediate object but its 
 own ideas, which it alone does or can contemplate, it is evident 
 that our knowledge is only conversant about them. Knowledge, 
 then, seems to me nothing but the perception of the connection 
 and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy, of any one of 
 our ideas.” 
 
 This is the great stronghold of Idealism and Skepticism. 
 Locke foresaw the use which would be made of it; and he 
 stated the problem with remarkable precision. “ It is evident » 
 that the mind knows not things immediately, but only by the 
 intervention of ideas it has of them. Our knowledge therefore 
 .s real, only so far as there is a conformity between our ideas and 
 the reality of things. But what shall be here the criterion ? 
 How shall the mind, when it perceives nothing but its own ideas, 
 know that they agree with the things themselves ?" 
 
 Thus has he stated the problem which was solved by Idealism 
 on the one hand, and by Skepticism on the other. Let us see 
 how he will solve it. There are two sorts of ideas, he says, the 
 simple and the complex ; or, to use more modern language, per- 
 ceptions and conceptions. The first “must necessarily be the 
 product of things operating on the mind in a natural way, and 
 producing those perceptions which by the wisdom and' will of 
 our Maker they are ordained and adapted to. From whence it 
 
ELEMENTS OF IDEALISM AND SKEPTICISM IN LOCKE. 531 
 
 follows that simple ideas are not fictions of our fancies, but the 
 natural and regular productions of things without us really oper- 
 ating upon us ; and so carry with them all the conforrnity which 
 is intended, or which our state requires : for they represent 
 things to us under those appearances which they are fitted to 
 •produce in us." 
 
 This leaves the question of Idealism unanswered, though it 
 cuts the Gordian knot of Skepticism. It is a plain and explicit 
 avowal of the subjectivity of our knowledge ; of the impossi- 
 bility of our ever transcending the sphere of our consciousness 
 and penetrating into the essences of things. Complex ideas 
 being made out of simple ideas, we need not examine their pre- 
 tensions to infallibility. All human certainty is therefore only a 
 relative certainty. Ideas may be true for us, without being at 
 all true when considered absolutely. Such is Locke’s position. 
 He stands upon a ledge of rock between two yawning abysses. 
 He will stand there, and proceed no further. Why should he 
 move when he knows that a single step will precipitate him 
 into some fathomless galf ? No ; he is content with his ledge 
 of rock. “ The notice we have by our senses,” he says, “ of the 
 existence of things without us, though it be not altogether so 
 certain as our intuitive knowledge or the deductions of our rea- 
 son, employed about the clear, abstract ideas of our own minds ; 
 yet it is an assurance that deserves the name of knowledge. If 
 we persuade ourselves that our faculties act and inform us right 
 concerning the existence of those objects that affect them, it 
 cannot pass for an ill-grounded confidence ; for I think nobody 
 can in earnest be so skeptical as to be uncertain of the existence 
 of those which he sees and feels. At least he that can doubt 
 so far (whatever he may have with his own thoughts) will never 
 have any controversy with me, since he can never be sure I 
 say any thing contrary to his own opinions. As to myself, I 
 think God has given me assurance enough as to the existence of 
 things without me ; since by their different application I can 
 produce in myself both pleasure and pain, which is one great 
 
532 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 concernment of my present state. We cannot act by any thing 
 but onr faculties; nor talk of knowledge but by the help of 
 those faculties which are fitted to apprehend even what knowl- 
 edge is.” 
 
 Again, anticipating the objection that “ all we see, hear, feel, 
 and taste, think and do, during our whole being, is but the 
 series and deluding appearances of a long dream, and therefore 
 our knowledge of any thing be questioned ; I must desire him to 
 consider that if all be a dream, then . he doth but dream that 
 makes the question ; and so it is not much matter that a waking 
 man should answer him. But yet, if he pleases, he may dream that 
 I make him this answer. That the certainty of things existing in 
 in rerum natura, when we have the testimony of our senses for it, 
 is not only as great as our frame can attain to, hut as our con- 
 dition needs" This leaves Idealism unanswered ; but’ it pro- 
 nounces Skepticism to be frivolous ; “for our faculties,” he con- 
 tinues, “ being not suited to the full extent of being, nor to a per- 
 fect, clear, comprehensive knowledge of things free from all doubt 
 and scruple, but to the preservation of us, in whom they are, 
 and accommodated to the use of life ; they serve our purpose 
 well enough, if they will but give us certain notice of those 
 things which are convenient or inconvenient to us.” 
 
 That this is very good common-sense every one will admit. 
 But it is no answer to Skepticism. Hume, as we shall see here- 
 after, proclaimed the very same opinions : but the difference be- 
 tween him and Locke was, that he knew such opinions had no 
 influence whatever upon the philosophical question, but simply 
 upon the practical affairs of life ; rvhereas Locke, contenting 
 himself with the practical, disdained to answer the philosophical 
 question.* 
 
 We may sum up the contents of this Section by saying that 
 Locke distinctly enough foresaw the Idealistic and Skeptical 
 
 * Dr. Reid conjectures that “ Locke had a glimpse of the system which 
 Berkeley afterwards advanced, though he thought proper to suppress it 
 within his own breast.” Not to suppress, but to disdain it. 
 
LOCKE S CRITICS. 
 
 533 
 
 arguments which might be drawn from his principles. He did not 
 draw them, because he thought them frivolous. Aware that all 
 human certitude could only be relative certitude — that human 
 knowledge could never embrace the nature of things, but only 
 the nature of their effects on us — he w’as content with that 
 amount of truth, and “sat down in quiet ignorance of those 
 things which are beyond the reach of our capacities.” The 
 grand aim of the Sssay was to prove that all knowledge is 
 founded on experience. That proved, he was aware that Expe- 
 rience never could be other than relative — it could only be our 
 Experience of things ; and our Experience could be no absolute 
 standard ; it could only be a standard for us. 
 
 § VI. Locke’s Critics. 
 
 We cannot leave the great Englishman without adverting to 
 the tone adopted by many of his critics. This tone has been 
 any thing but considerate. The sincerest and least dogunatic of 
 thinkers has, for the most part, met with insincere and shallow- 
 criticism. 
 
 That men should misrepresent Spinoza, Hobbes, or Hume, is 
 intelligible enough ; men are frightened, and in their terror ex- 
 aggerate and distort what they see. That they should misrep- 
 resent Kant, Fichte, or Hegel, is also intelligible ; the remote- 
 ness of the speculations, and the difficulty of the language, are 
 sufficient excuses. But that they should misrepresent Locke is 
 wholly inexcusable. He was neither an audacious speculator, 
 nor a cloudy writer. His fault was that he spoke plainly and 
 honestly. He sought the truth ; he did not wish to mystify any 
 one. He endeavored to explain the Chemistry of the Mind (if 
 the metaphor be permissible), renouncing the vague, futile 
 dreams of Alchemy. All those men who still seek to penetrate 
 impenetrable mysteries, and refuse to acknowledge the limits of 
 man’s intelligence, treat Locke with the same superb disdain as 
 the ambitious alchemists treated the early chemists. The tone 
 .n which most modern Frenchmen and Germans speak of Locke 
 
534 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 is painful ; the tone in which many Englishmen speak of him is 
 disgraceful. To point out any error is honorable ; hut to ac- 
 cuse him of errors which are not to be found in his work, to 
 interpret his language according to your views, and then accuse 
 him of inconsistency and superficiality ; to speak of him with 
 superciliousness, as if he were some respectable but short-sighted 
 gentleman dabbling with philosophy, and not one of the great 
 benefactors of mankind, deserves the severest reprobation.* 
 
 There is no excuse for not understanding Locke. If his lan- 
 guage be occasionally loose and wavering, his meaning is always 
 to be gathered from the context. He had not the lucidity of 
 Descartes or Hobbes ; but he was most anxious to make himself 
 intelligible, and to this end he varied his expressions, and stated 
 his meaning in a variety of forms. He must not be taken liter- 
 ally. No single passage is to be relied on, unless it be also 
 borne out by the whole tenor of his speculations. Any person 
 merely “ dipping into ” the Essay, will find passages which seem 
 very contradictory ; any person carefully reading it through will 
 find all clear and coherent. 
 
 The most considerable of Locke’s modern critics is Victor 
 Cousin. He has undertaken an examination and refutation of 
 all Locke’s important positions. The eminence of his name and 
 the popular style of his lectures have given great importance to 
 his criticism ; but if we are to speak out our opinion frankly, we 
 must characterize this criticism as very unfair, and extremely 
 shallow. We cannot here examine his examination : a volume 
 would not suffice to expose all his errors. Let one example of 
 his unfairness, and one of his shallowness, sufiice. 
 
 Speaking of the principle of reflection, he says : “ In the first 
 place, remark that Locke here evidently confounds reflection 
 with consciousness. Reflection, strictly speaking, is doubtless a 
 faculty analogous to consciousness, but distinct from it, and which 
 
 * On this point, consult Dr. Vaughan’s vigorous defence of Locke against 
 Ms critics in the Essays on History, Philosophy, etc. 
 
Locke’s critics. 
 
 635 
 
 more particularly belongs to philosophers, whereas consciousness 
 belongs to every man.” 
 
 We answer, that in the first place, so far from its being evi- 
 dent that Locke confounds reflection with consciousness, his 
 whole Essay proves the contrary. In the second place, M. 
 Cousin, using the word reflection in a peculiar sense (viz. as tan- 
 tamount to speculation), forces that sense upon Locke, and thus 
 makes the contradiction ! If M. Cousin had interpreted Locke 
 fairly, he could never have thus “ caught him on the hip.” 
 
 It is quite true that in the passage quoted by M. Cousin, the 
 faculty of reflection is limited to the operations of the mind ; but, 
 as we said, to pin Locke down to any one passage is unfair ; and 
 his whole Essay proves, in spite of some ill-worded definitions, 
 that by reflection he meant very much what is usually meant by 
 it, viz. the activity of the mind in combining the materials it re- 
 ceives through sense, and becoming thus a source of ideas. 
 
 This leads us to the second example. M. Cousin wishing to 
 prove, against Locke, that we have ideas from some other source 
 besides sensation and reflection, instances the idea of space, and 
 examines how it was possible to obtain that idea through sensa- 
 tion and reflection. That the idea of pure space could not have 
 been obtained through the senses he seems to think is satisfac- 
 torily proved by proving that the idea has nothing sensuous in 
 it; that it could not have been obtained through reflection, 
 because it has nothing to do with the operations of our under- 
 standing, is equally evident to him. Hence, as both sources fail, 
 he pronounces Locke’s account of the origin of our knowledge 
 “ incomplete and vicious.” 
 
 This argument, which extends to several pages, is deemed by 
 M. Cousin triumphant, Locke indeed says that “ we get the idea 
 of space both by our sight and touch.” Any honest inquirer 
 would never quibble upon this — would never suppose Locke 
 meant to say that space is a sensation. He would understand that 
 Locke meant to say. “ the idea of space is an abstraction : the 
 primary matei’ials are obtained through our touch and sight.’’ 
 
536 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 Locke did not anticipate any quibbling objection, so did not 
 guard against it ; but in bis explanation of our idea of substance 
 he has given an analogous case ; although his antagonists have 
 also frequently objected that the idea of substance never could 
 have been obtained through sense. It has been thought an irre* 
 sistible argument against Locke’s theory : the very fact that we 
 have an idea of substance is supposed to be sufficient proof of- 
 some other source of knowledge than sensation and reflection. 
 This is an example of how carelessly Locke has been read. He 
 expressly tells us, in more places than one, that the idea of sub- 
 stance (and by idea he does not here mean image, but a thought) 
 is an inference grounded upon our experience of external things. 
 True it is that we perceive nothing but phenomena, but our 
 minds are so constituted that we are forced to suppose these 
 jrhenomena have substances lying underneath them. 
 
 “ If any one will examine himself,” he says, “ concerning his 
 notion of pure substance in general, he will find he has no other 
 idea of it at all, but only a supposition of he knows not what 
 support of such qualities which are capable of producing simple 
 ideas in us, which qualities are commonly called accidents. If 
 any one should be asked what is the subject wherein color or 
 Weight inheres, he would have nothing to say but the solid ex- 
 tended parts ; and if he were demanded what is it that solidity 
 and extension inhere in, he would not be in a much better case 
 than the Indian who, saying that the world was supported by a 
 great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on, to which 
 his answer was, A great tortoise; but being again pressed to 
 know what gave support to the great broad-backed tortoise, re- 
 plied, Something, he knew not what.” 
 
 The same couise of argument will apply to space. Space is 
 an idea suggested by place, which is surely one derived fi om the 
 senses ; but M. Cousin declaims away at a great rate, and brings 
 forward many arguments and illustrations, all utterly trivial, to 
 show that the idea of space could never have been a sensation. 
 A little more attention in reading the author he attacks would 
 
LOCKE S CRITICS. 
 
 537 
 
 have saved him all this trouble. Locte never for an instant 
 supposed that the idea of space could have been a sensation : on 
 the fact that it could not, he grounds his position that the idea 
 is vague, and is a mere “ supposition.” 
 
 The German critics we may pass over in silence. The whole 
 tenor of their speculations unfits them for judging Locke. But 
 let us hear an Englishman, who is also an historian : — “ We need 
 not spend much time in pointing out the inconsistencies into 
 which Locke fell,” says Dr. Whewell, “ as all must fall into in- 
 consistencies who recognize no source of knowledge except the 
 senses.” Let us remai'k, in the first place, that it is surely a 
 questionable procedure thus to pass over so great a man as 
 Locke, whose influence has been so general and lasting, and 
 whose “inconsistencies” it behooved Dr. Whewell, more than 
 most men, to refute, inasmuch as Locke’s principles refute his 
 whole philosophy. Secondly, it is a misrepresentation to assert 
 Locke’s having recognized “ no source of knowledge except the 
 senses.” On reconsideration he must admit that Locke did 
 recognize another source. “ Thus he maintains,” continues Dr. 
 Whewell, “ that our idea of space is derived from the senses of 
 sight and touch — our idea of solidity from the touch alone. 
 Our notion of substance is an unknown support of unknown 
 qualities, and is illustrated by the Indian fable of the tortoise 
 which supports the elephant which supports the world.” 
 
 Space we have already considered in answering M. Cousin. 
 As to solidity, if the idea be not derived from the sensation, from 
 whence is it derived ? And as to substance, we must here again 
 notice a misrepresentation of Locke, who does not define it as 
 “ an unknown support of unknown qualities,” but as an unknown 
 support of known qualities ; from our knowledge of the qualities 
 we infer the existence of some substratum in which they inhere. 
 We are, with respect to substance, somewhat in the condition of 
 a blind man, who, whenever he moved in a certain direction, 
 should receive a blow from some revolving wheel. Although 
 unable to see the wheel, and so understand the cause of the pain 
 
538 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 he received, he ■would not hesitate to attribute that cause to 
 something without him. All he could ever know, unassisted, 
 would be the fact of his being struck when he moved in a cer- 
 tain direction ; he could have no other knowledge of the wheel, 
 yet he would be quite certain that there was something besides his 
 pain, and that unknown something would stand to him in a rela- 
 tion somewhat similar to that in which the unknown support 
 of known accidents of bodies stands to us. This is Locke’s 
 meaning. 
 
 “Our notion of power or cause,” continues the historian, “is 
 in like manner got from the senses ; and yet, though these ideas 
 are thus mere fragments of our experience, Locke does not' hesi- 
 tate to ascribe to them necessity and universality when they 
 occur in propositions. Thus he maintains the necessary truth of 
 geometrical properties ; he asserts that the resistance arising from 
 solidity is absolutely insurmountable ; he conceives that nothing 
 short of Omnipotence can annihilate a particle of matter ; and 
 he has no misgivings in arguing upon the axiom that every 
 thing must have a cause. He does not perceive that upon his 
 own account of the origin of our knowledge, we can have no 
 right to make any of these assertions. If our knowledge of the 
 truths which concern the external world were wholly derived 
 from experience, all that we could venture to say would be, that 
 geometrical properties of figures are true as far as we have tried 
 them; that we have seen no example of a solid body being re- 
 duced to occupy less space by pressure, or of a material substance 
 annihilated by natural means; and that, wherever we have exam- 
 hied^ we have found that every change has had a cause.” 
 
 This is only one among many instances of Dr. Whewell’s want 
 of accurate interpretation of Locke. The fallacy on which his 
 argument rests, we shall examine at some length when we come 
 to treat of Kant. Meanwhile let the following passage prove 
 that he has misconceived Locke, who certainly did not hesitate 
 to ascribe necessity and universality to certain ideas when they 
 “occur in propositions,” but who very clearly explained the na- 
 
Locke’s critics. 
 
 539 
 
 ture of this necessity in a masterly passage: ‘‘There is one sort 
 of propositions concerning the existence of any thing answerable 
 to such an idea ; as having the idea of an elephant, phoenix, mo- 
 tion, or angle, in my mind, the first and natural inquiry is, 
 whether such a thing does anywhere exist. And this knowledge 
 is only of particulars. No existence of any thing without us, 
 except God, can certainly he known further than our senses in- 
 form us. 
 
 “ There is another sort of propositions, wherein is expressed 
 the agreement or disagreement of our abstract ideas and their 
 dependence on one another. Such propositions may be universal 
 and certain. So, having the idea of God and of myself, of fear 
 and obedience, I cannot but be sure that God is to be feared and 
 obeyed by me : and this proposition will be certain concerning 
 man in general, if I have made an abstract idea of such species 
 whereof I am one particular. But yet this proposition, how cer- 
 tain soever, that men ought to fear and obey God, proves not to 
 me the existence of men in the world, but will be true of all 
 such creatures wherever they do exist : which certainty of such 
 general propositions depends on the agreement or disagreement 
 to be discovered in those abstract ideas. In the former case our 
 knowledge is the consequence of the existence of things pro- 
 ducing ideas in our minds by our senses ; in the latter, knowl- 
 edge is the consequence of the ideas (be they what they will) 
 that are in our minds producing their general certain proposi- 
 tions. 
 
 “ Many of these are called ceternoe veritates ; and all of them 
 indeed are so ; not from being written in the minds of all men, 
 or that they were any of them propositions in any one’s mind 
 till he, having got the abstract ideas, joined or separated them 
 by affirmation or negation. But wheresoever we can suppose 
 such a creature as man is, endowed with such faculties, and 
 thereby furnished with such ideas as we have, we must conclude 
 he must needs, when he applies his thoughts to the consideration 
 of his ideas, know the truth of certain propositions that will arise 
 
540 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 from the agreement or disagreement which he will porcei\'e in 
 his own ideas. Such propositions therefore are called eternal 
 truths, not because they are eternal propositions actually formed 
 and antecedent to the understanding that makes them ; nor be- 
 cause they are imprinted on the mind from any patterns that 
 are anywhere of them out of the mind and existed before ; but 
 because being once made about abstract ideas so as to be true, 
 they will, whenever they can be supposed to be made again at 
 any time by a mind having those ideas, always actually be true.”* 
 This passage is sufficient to exonerate him from the charge of 
 inconsistency ; sufficient also, we believe, to show the error of 
 Dr. Whewell’s own conception of the necessity of certain truths. 
 
 The foregoing are samples of the style in which the great mas- 
 ter of Psychology is spoken of by his most modern critics. Let 
 them be sufficient warning to the reader of what he is to expect 
 from the partisans of the reaction against Locke, and his follow- 
 ers ; and stimulate him to the careful study of that author who 
 “ professes no more than to lay down, candidly and freely, his 
 own conjectures concerning a subject lying somewhat in the 
 dark, without any other design than an unbiased inquiry after 
 truth.” 
 
 * Book iv. ch. xi. §§ 13, 14. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 LEIBI^ITZ. 
 
 Leibnitz was the first and last of Locke’s great critics. He 
 bad studied the Essay on the Human Understanding^ though he 
 could not accept its principles. His arguments have formed the 
 staple of objection against Locke ; and from him they come with 
 peculiar force, because they are parts of his system. 
 
 Leibnitz has a great reputation in philosophy and mathemat- 
 ics ; but the nature of this work forbids our entering into any 
 detailed examination of his claims, inasmuch as he introduced no 
 new ideas, no new extension of old methods. All that can here 
 be done is to indicate the line of opposition which he took with 
 respect to Locke’s theory of the origin of Knowledge. 
 
 At first he answered Locke in a few paragraphs of a somewhat 
 supercilious tone. He evidently looked upon the Essay as not 
 destined to achieve any influential reputation.* This opinion he 
 lived to alter ; and in his Nouveaux Essais sur VEntendement 
 Humain, he brought all his forces to bear upon the subject ; he 
 grappled with the Essay, and disputed tire ground with it inch 
 by inch. This remarkable work was not published till many 
 years after his death, and is not included in M. Dutens’ edition. 
 Dugald Stewart was not aware of its existence ; and this fact will 
 explain a passage in his Dissertation, where he says that Leib- 
 nitz always speaks coldly of Locke’s Essay. Leibnitz does so in 
 his earlier works ; but in the Hew Essays he treats his great ad- 
 versary with due respect ; and in the Preface, speaks of him with 
 eulogy. “The Essay concerning Human Understanding, writ- 
 
 * See Reflexions sur VEssai de M. Locke, in the Eecueil of Desmaizeaux, 
 vol. ii. 
 
 37 
 
542 
 
 LEIBNITZ. 
 
 ten by an illustrious Euglisbman, being one of the finest and 
 most esteemed works of our time, I have resolved to make some 
 comments on it. . . . Thus I shall procure a favorable introduc- 
 tion for my thoughts by jdacing them in such good company. 
 
 . . It is true that I am often of a difierent opinion ; but so far 
 from detracting on that account from the merit of this celebrated 
 writer, that I do him justice in making known in what and 
 wherefore I differ from nim, when I judge it necessary to pre- 
 vent his authority from prevailing over reason on some important 
 points. In fact, although the author of the Essay says a thou- 
 sand things which I must applaud, yet our systems greatly differ. 
 His has greater affinity to that of Aristotle, — mine, to that of 
 Plato.” This is the spirit in which the Homeric heroes regard 
 their adversaries ; an interchange of admiration for each other’s 
 prowess does not deaden one of their blows, but it makes the 
 combat more dignified. 
 
 Leibnitz belonged to the Cartesians ; but he also mingled with 
 the doctrines of Descartes certain ideas which he had gathered 
 from his commerce with antiquity. Plato, and Democritus espe- 
 cially, influenced him. To a mind thus furnished, the doctrines 
 of Locke must needs have been unwelcome ; indeed they could 
 not be e.vpected to gain admission. Moreover, as F. Schlegel 
 well observed, every man is born either a Platonist or an Aris- 
 totelian.* Leibnitz and Locke were examples of this antago- 
 nism : “ Our differences,” says Leibnitz, “ are important. The 
 question between us is whether the soul in itself is entirely empty, 
 like tablets upon which nothing has been written {tabula rasa), 
 according to Aristotle and the author of the Essay ; and whether 
 all that is there traced comes wholly from the senses and experi- 
 ence ; or whether the soul originally contains the principles of 
 several notions and doctrines, which the external objects only 
 awaken on occasions, as I believe with Plato.” 
 
 ♦ Coleridge used to pass oflf this aphorism as his own. It is to be found 
 however in Schlegel’s Geschichte der Literatur. 
 
LEIBNITZ. 
 
 543 
 
 The nature of the problem is well stated here ; and Leibnitz 
 tides with Plato in his solution of it. The main arguments by 
 which he supports his view are those so often since repeated of 
 the Universality and Necessity of certain truths, and of the in- 
 capacity of experience to furnish us with any thing beyond a 
 knowledge of individual cases. “ For if any event can be foreseen 
 before it has been tried, it is manifest that we contribute some- 
 thing for our own parts.” Ergo, mere experience, it is argued, 
 does not constitute all our knowledge. “ The senses, although 
 necessary for all actual knowledge, are not sufficient to give us all 
 of it ; since the senses never can give but examples, that is to say 
 particular or individual truths. But all the examples which con- 
 firm a general truth, how'ever numerous, do not suffice to establish 
 the universal necessity of that truth ; for it does not follow that 
 that which has once occurred will always occur in the same way.” 
 Leibnitz continues : “ Whence it appears that necessary truths, 
 such as we find in mathematics, and particularly in arithmetic 
 and geometry, must have principles of which the proof does not 
 depend upon examples, nor consequently upon the senses, al- 
 though without the senses one would never have thought of 
 them. So also logic, metaphysics, and morals are full of such 
 truths, and consequently their proofs can only come from those 
 internal principles which are called innate^ 
 
 Locke would perfectly have agreed with these premises, but 
 the conclusion he would rightly have rejected. That the senses 
 alone could not furnish us with any general truth, he taught as 
 expressly as Leibnitz did ; but this in no way affects his system, 
 for he did not build his system upon the senses alone. 
 
 Leibnitz however seems to have been misled by Locke’s lan- 
 guage in the first definition of Reflection ; for he says, “ Perhaps 
 the opinions of our able author are not so far from mine as 
 they appear to be. For after having employed the whole of his 
 first book against innate knowledge taken in a certain sense, he 
 acknowledges in the beginning of the second that there are 
 ideas which do not originate from the senses, but arise from Re- 
 
544 
 
 LEIBNITZ. 
 
 flection. Now reflection is nothing but attention to that which 
 passes within us ; and the senses do not convey to us what we 
 already possess within ourselves. Can it then be denied that 
 there is much innate in the mind ?” 
 
 The passage in italics is a curious instance of how the mind, 
 preoccupied with its own opinions, sees them reflected in the 
 expressions of others. Leibnitz here assumes the very point at 
 issue ; assumes that the mind has innate ideas which the senses 
 cannot convey to it ; and this assumption he supposes to be 
 contained in Locke’s words. Locke taught precisely the con- 
 trary. “The mind is itself innate,” continues Leibnitz — (to 
 which we reiterate our objection: innate mwhat? In itself? 
 or in us ? To say that it is innate in itself is a quibble ; that it 
 is innate in us is a displacement of the question : no one ever 
 doubted that the mind of man was born in man — born with 
 man ; the question was. Are there any ideas born with the 
 mind, or are all ideas acquired hy the mind ?) “ The mind is 
 
 itself innate, and there are included in it substance, duration, 
 change, action, perception, pleasure, and a thousand other ob- 
 jects of our intellectual ideas. ... I have used the comparison 
 of a block of marble which has certain veins in it, rather than 
 a plain piece of marble such as the philosophers call tabula rasa ; 
 because if the soul resembled tablets unwritten on, truths would 
 be in us like the figure of Hercules in the block of marble, 
 when that marble may receive indifferently one figure or another. 
 But if there are veins in the marble which mark the figure of 
 Hercules rather than any other figure, that marble would be 
 more determinate, and the figure of Hercules would in some 
 way be innate, although labor would be necessary to discover 
 the veins, and to free them from their envelopment of marble. 
 Thus are ideas and truths innate in us.” 
 
 This is an ingenious statement of the theory : unfortunately 
 for it, the very existence of these veins in the marble is an as- 
 sumption, and an assumption not made for the facilitating of 
 inquiry, but simply for the proof of the theory assumed ; it is 
 
LEiBNrrz, 
 
 545 
 
 an hypothesis framed for the sake of explaining — what?— the 
 hypotheses itself! Ideas are first assumed to he innate; to 
 prove this assumption, another assumption — the existence of 
 innate ideas — is made ; and the theory is complete. 
 
 The real force of Leibnitz’s theory lies in his distinction be- 
 tween contingent and necessary truths, and in his position that 
 experience alone could never furnish us with necessary truths. 
 The examination of this we must delay till we come to Kant. 
 
 A brief view of the celebrated scheme of Pre-estahlished Har- 
 mony will be all that is necessary to complete what we have 
 here to say of Leibnitz. It was in those days an axiom univer- 
 sally admitted that “Like could only act upon Like.” The 
 question then arose : how does body act upon mind ; how does 
 mind act upon body ? The two were utterly unlike : how 
 could they act upon each other ? In other words : how is Per- 
 ception possible ? All the ordinary explanations of Perception 
 were miserable failures. If the mind perceives copies of things, 
 how are these copies transmitted? Effluvia, eidola, images, motions 
 in spirits, etc., were not only hypotheses, but hypotheses which 
 bore no examination : they did not get rid of the difflculty of 
 two unlike substances acting upon each other. 
 
 Leibnitz borrowed this hypothesis from Spinoza — whom, by 
 the way, he always abuses: The human mind and the human 
 body are two independent hut corresponding machines. They 
 are so adjusted that they are like two unconnected clocks con- 
 structed so that at the same instant one should strike the hour 
 and the other point it. “ I cannot help coming to this notion,” 
 he says, “ that God created the soul in such a manner at first, 
 that it should represent within itself all the simultaneous changes 
 in the body ; and that he has made the body also in such a 
 manner as that it must of itself do what the soul wills : so that 
 the laws which make the thoughts of the soul follow each other 
 in regular succession, must produce images which shall be coin- 
 cident with the impressions made by external objects upon our 
 organs of sense ; while the laws by which the motions of the 
 
546 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE THIRD EPOCH. 
 
 body follow each other are likewise so coincident with the 
 thoughts of the soul as to give to our volitions and actions the 
 very same appearance as if the latter were really the natural 
 and the necessary consequences of the former.”* 
 
 This hypothesis has been much ridiculed by those unaware of 
 the difficulties it was framed to explain. It is so repugnant how 
 ever to all ordinary views, that it gained few, if any, adherents. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE THIRD EPOCH. 
 
 The result of the speculations we have been considering — spec 
 Illations begun by Gassendi and Hobbes, and further developed 
 by Locke — was to settle, for a long while, the dispute respecting 
 Experience, and to give therefore a new direction to inquiry. 
 
 It was considered as established, — 1st. That we could have no 
 knowledge not derived from experience. 2d. That experience 
 •was of two kinds, viz. of external objects and of internal opera- 
 tions ; therefore there were two distinct sources — sensation and 
 reflection. 3d. That all knowledge could only consist in the 
 agreement or disagreement of our ideas. 4th. Finally, that we 
 could never know things in themselves, but only things as they 
 affect us ; in other words, we could ouly know our ideas. 
 
 To this had Locke brought Philosophy. Rightly interpreted, 
 it was a denial of all Philosophy — a demonstration of its im 
 possibility ; but this interpretation Locke did not put upon his 
 doctrines. That remained for Hume. Locke’s system jiroduced 
 three distinct systems: Berkeley’s Idealism, Hume’s Skepticism, 
 and Condillac’s Sensationalism. 
 
 * The best edition of Leibnitz’s works is that by Erdmann — Leibnitii 
 Opera Philosoph.ica : Berlin, 1839. The Nouveaux Eesais &.rc there for the 
 second time published (the first was in Easpe’s edition, Leipzig, 1765) ; and 
 they have been since republished in a cheap and convenient form by M, 
 Jacques ; Paris, 1845. 
 
FOURTH EPOCH. 
 
 THE SUBJECTIVE NATUKE OF KNOWLEDGE L EA DS TO 
 IDEALISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BEEKELEY. 
 
 § I. Life of Berkeley. 
 
 There are few men of whom England has better reason to be 
 proud than of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. To extra- 
 ordinary merits as a writer and thinker, he united the most ex- 
 quisite purity and generosity of character; and it is still a 
 moot-point whether he was greater in head or heart. 
 
 He was born on the 12th of March, 1684, at Kilkrin, in the 
 county of Kilkenny ; and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, 
 where, in 1707, he was admitted as a Fellow. In 1709, he pub- 
 lished his New Theory of Vision, which made an epoch in 
 Science ; and the year after, his Principles of Human Knowledge, 
 which made an epoch in Metaphysics. After this he came to 
 London, where he was received with open arms. “Ancient 
 learning, exact science, polished society, modern literature, and 
 the fine arts, contributed to adorn and enrich the mind of this 
 accomplished man. All his contemporaries agreed with the 
 Satirist in ascribing 
 
 ‘ To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.’ 
 
 Adverse factions and hostile wits concurred only in loving, admi- 
 ring, and contributing to advance him. The severe sense of 
 
5i8 
 
 BERKELEY. 
 
 Swift endured his visions ; the modest Addison endeavored to 
 reconcile Clarke to his ambitious speculations. His character 
 converted the satire of Pope into fervid praise. Even the dis- 
 cerning, fastidious, and turbulent Atterbury said, after an inter- 
 view with him, ‘ So much learning, so much knowledge, so much 
 innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the por- 
 tion of any but angels, till I saw this gentleman.’ 
 
 His acquaintance with the wits led to his contributing to the 
 Guardian. He became chaplain and afterwards secretary to the 
 Earl of Peterborough, whom he accompanied on his embassy to 
 Sicily. He subsequently made the tour of Europe with Mr. 
 ishe, and at Paris met Malebranche, with whom he had an ani- 
 mated discussion on the ideal theory. In 1'724 he was made 
 Dean of Derry. This was worth eleven hundred pounds a year 
 to him ; but he resigned it in order to dedicate his life to the 
 conversion of the North American savages, stipulating only with 
 the Government for a salary of one hundred pounds a year. On 
 this romantic and generous e.xpedition he was accompanied by 
 his young wife. He set sail for Rhode Island, carrying with him 
 a valuable library of books, and the bulk of his property. But, 
 to the shame of the Government, be it said, the promises made 
 him were not fulfilled, and after seven years of single-handed 
 endeavor, he w'as foreed to return to England, having spent the 
 greater part of his fortune in vain. 
 
 He was made Bishop of Cloyne in 1734. When he wished 
 to resign, the King would not permit him ; and being keenly 
 alive to the evils of non-residence, he made an arrangement be- 
 fore leaving Cloyne, whereby he settled £200 a year, during his 
 ibsence, on the poor. In 1752, he removed to Oxford, where, 
 in 1753, he was suddenly seized, while reading, with palsy of the 
 heart, and died almost instantaneously. 
 
 Of his numerous writings we cannot here speak ; two only 
 Delong to our subject : the Principles of Knowledge, and the 
 
 * Sir J. Mackintosh. 
 
LIFE OF BERKELEY. 
 
 549 
 
 Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous. We hope to remove some 
 of the errors and prejudices with which his name is incrusted. 
 We hope to show that, even in what are called his wildest moods, 
 Berkeley was a plain, sincere, deep-thinking man, not a sophist, 
 playing with paradoxes to display his skill. 
 
 § II. Berkeley and Common Sense. 
 
 All the world has heard of Berkeley’s Idealism ; and innumer- 
 able “ coxcombs ” have vanquished it with a grin.”* Ridicule 
 has not been sparing. Argument has not been wanting. Ideal- 
 ism has been laughed^at, written at, talked at, shrieked at. That 
 it has been understood is not so apparent. In reading the criti- 
 cisms upon his theory it is quite ludicrous to notice the constant 
 iteration of trivial objections, which, trivial as they are, Berkeley 
 had already anticipated. In fact the critics misunderstood him, 
 and then reproached him for inconsistency — inconsistency, not 
 with his principles, but with theirs. They forced a meaning upon 
 his words which he had expressly rejected ; and then triumphed 
 over him because he did not pursue their principles to the extrav- 
 agances which would have resulted from them. 
 
 When Berkeley denied the existence of matter, he meant by 
 “ matter ” that unknown substratum, the existence of which 
 Locke had declared to be a necessary inference from our knowl- 
 edge of qualities, but the nature of which must ever be altogether 
 hidden from us. Philosophers had assumed the existence of 
 Substance, i. e, of a noumenon lying underneath all phenomena — 
 a substratum supporting all qualities — a something in which all 
 accidents inhere. This unknown Substance, Berkeley rejects. It 
 is a mere abstraction, he says. If it is unknown, unknowable, 
 it is a figment, and I will none of it ; for it is a figment worse 
 than useless ; it is pernicious, as the basis of all atheism. If by 
 matter you understand that which is seen, felt, tasted, and touch- 
 ed, then I say matter exists : I am as firm a believer in its exist- 
 
 * “ And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.” — Pope. 
 
550 
 
 BERKELEY. 
 
 ence as any one can be, and herein I agree with the vulgar. If, 
 on the contrary, you understand by matter that occult substratum 
 which is not seen, not felt, not tasted, and not touched — that of 
 which the senses do not, cannot, inform you — then I say I believe 
 not in the existence of matter, and herein I differ from the phi- 
 losophers and agree with the vulgar. 
 
 “ I am not for changing things into ideas,” he says, “ but rather 
 ideas into things ; since those immediate objects of perception, 
 which, according to you (Berkeley might have said according to 
 all philosophers) are only appearances of things, I take to be the 
 real things themselves. 
 
 “ Hylas. Things ! you may pretend what you please ; but it 
 is certain you leave us nothing but the empty forms of things, 
 the outside of which only strikes the senses. 
 
 “ Philonous. What you call the empty forms and outside of 
 things seem to me the very things themselves. . . . We both 
 therefore agree in this, that we perceive only sensible forms ; but 
 herein we ditfer : you will have them to be empty appearances ; 
 I, real beings. In short, you do not trust your senses ; I do." 
 
 Berkeley is always accused of having propounded a theory 
 which contradicts the evidence of the senses. That a man who 
 thus disregards the senses must be out of his own, was a ready 
 answer ; ridicule was not slow in retort ; declamation gave itself 
 elbow-room, and exhibited itself in a triumphant attitude. It 
 was easy to declare that “ the man who seriously entertains this 
 belief, though in other respects he may be a very good man, as 
 1 man may be who believes he is made of glass ; yet surely he 
 hath a soft place in his understanding, and hath been hurt by 
 much thinking.”* 
 
 Unfortunately for the critics, Berkeley did not contradict the 
 evidence of the senses ; did not propound a theory at variance 
 in this point with the ordinary belief of mankind. His pecu- 
 liarity is, that he confined himself exclusively to the evidence of 
 
 Reid, Inquiry. 
 
BERKELEY AND COMMON SENSE. 
 
 551 
 
 the senses. What the senses informed him of, that, and that 
 only, would he accept. He held fast to the facts of conscious- 
 ness ; he placed himself resolutely in the centre of the instinctive 
 belief of mankind : there he took his stand, leaving to philoso- 
 phers the region of supposition, inference, and of occult sub- 
 stances. 
 
 The reproach made to him is really the reproach he made to 
 philosophers, namely, that they would not trust to the evidence 
 of their senses ; that over and aiove what the senses told them, 
 they imagined an occult something of which the senses gave no 
 indication. “Now it was against this metaphysical phantom of 
 the brain,” says an acute critic, “ this crotchet-world of philoso- 
 phers, and against it alone, that all the attacks of Berkeley were 
 directed. The doctrine that the realities of things were not made 
 for man, and that he must rest satisfied with mere appearances, 
 was regarded, and rightly, by him, as the parent of skepticism 
 with all her desolating train. He saw, that philosophy, in giving 
 up the reality immediately within her grasp, in favor of a reality 
 supposed to be less delusive, which lay beyond the limits of ex- 
 perience, resembled the dog in the fable, who, carrying a piece 
 of meat across a river, let the substance slip from his jaws, while 
 w'ith foolish greed he snatched at the shadow in the stream. 
 The dog lost his dinner, and philosophy let go her secure hold 
 upon truth. He therefore sided with the vulgar, who recognize 
 no distinction between the reality and the appearance of objects, 
 and, repudiating the baseless hypothesis of a world existing un- 
 known and unperceived, he resolutely maintained that what are 
 called the sensible shows of things are in truth the very things 
 themselves.”* 
 
 True it is that, owing to the ambiguities of language, Berke- 
 ley’s theory does seem to run counter to the ordinary belief of 
 mankind, because by Matter men commonly understand the 
 
 * Blachwood' s Mag., June, 1842, p. 814, art, Berhdey and Idealism: under 
 stood to have been written by Professor Perrier. 
 
552 
 
 BEKICEI.PJY. 
 
 Seen, the Tasted, the Touched, etc. ; therefore when the exist' 
 ence of matter is denied, people naturally suppose that the exist- 
 ence of the Seen, the Tasted, and the Touched is denied, never 
 suspecting that Matter, in its philosophical sense, is the not seen, 
 not tasted, not touched. Berkeley has not, it must be confessed, 
 sufficiently guarded against all ambiguity. Thus he says in one 
 of the opening sections of his Principles of Human Knowledge, 
 that “ it is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men 
 that houses, mountains, rivers, and, in a word, all sensible objects, 
 have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being per- 
 ceived by the understanding.” This is striking a false key- 
 note. It rouses the reader to oppose a coming paradox. Yet 
 Berkeley foresaw and answered the objections which Wimpey, 
 Beattie, Reid, and others brought forward. He was not giving 
 utterance to a caprice ; he was not spinning an ingenious 
 theory, knowing all the while that it was no more than an inge- 
 nuity. He was an earnest thinker, patient in the search after truth. 
 Anxious therefore that his speculations should not be regarded 
 as mere dialectical displays, he endeavored on various occasions 
 to guard himself from misapprehension. 
 
 “ I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that 
 we can apprehend either by sensation or reflection. That the 
 things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, 
 really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing 
 whose existence I deny is that which philosophers call Matter, or 
 corporeal substance. And in doing this the'^c is no damage 
 done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss 
 it. . . . 
 
 “ If any man thinks we detract from the reality or existence of 
 things, he is very far from understanding what has been pre 
 mised in the plainest terms I could think of. . . . It will be 
 urged that thus much at least is true, viz. that we take away all 
 corporeal substances. To this my answer is, that if the word 
 substance be taken in the vulgar sense for a combination of sen- 
 sible qualities, such as extension solidity, weight, etc., this we 
 
BERKELEY AND COMMON SENSE. 
 
 553 
 
 cannot be accused of taking away.* * * § But if it be taken in the 
 pbilosophic sense, for tbe support of accidents or qualities 
 without the mind ; then, indeed, I acknowledge that we take it 
 away, if one may be said to take away that which never had 
 any existence, not even in the imagination.! But say what we 
 can, some perhaps may be apt to reply, he will still believe his 
 senses, and never suflfer any arguments, however plausible, to 
 prevail over the certainty of them. Be it so : assert the evi- 
 dence of sense as high as you please, we are willing to do the 
 same. That what I see, hear, and feel, doth exist, i. e. is per- 
 ceived by me, I no more doubt than I do of my own being ; hut 
 I do not see how the testimony of sense can he alleged as a proof 
 of any thing which is not perceived hy sense."\_ 
 
 After reading these passages (and more of a similar cast 
 might be quoted), in what terms shall we speak of the works 
 written to refute Idealism ? Where was the acuteness of the 
 Reids and Beatties, when they tauntingly asked why Berkeley 
 did not run his head against a post, did not walk over preci- 
 pices, etc., as, in accordance with his theory, no pain, no broken 
 limbs could result ?§ Where was philosophical acumen, when 
 writers could imagine they refuted Berkeley by an appeal to 
 common sense — when they contrasted the instinctive beliefs of 
 mankind with the speculative paradoxes of a philosopher, who 
 
 * An answer to Dr. Johnson’s peremptory refutation of Berkeley, visi. 
 kicking a stone ; as if Berkeley ever denied that what we call stones e.\- 
 isted ! 
 
 + This is not well said. That substance was imagined to exist (as a sup- 
 port of accidents) Berkeley’s argument supposes ; it is against such an ima- 
 ginary existence he directs his attacks. Perhaps he means that no image of 
 substance could be formed in the mind ; which no one disputes. 
 
 t Principles of Human, Knowledge, sections 35, 36, 37, 40. 
 
 § “ But what is the consequence ? I resolve not to believe my senses ? 1 
 break my head against a post that comes in my way ; I step into a dirty 
 kennel ; and after twenty such wise and rational actions I am taken up and 
 clapt into a madhouse. Now I confess I had rather make one ot those credu- 
 lous fools whom nature imposes upon, than of those wise and rational phi- 
 .osophers who resolve to withhold assent at all this expense.” — Eeid’s 
 Inquiry, ch. 4, § 20. This one passage is as good as a hundred. 
 
554 
 
 BEKKELEY. 
 
 expressly took his stand beside common sense against philoso- 
 phers ? 
 
 Men trained in metaphysical speculations may find it difficult 
 to conceive the non-existence of an invisible unknovrable sub- 
 stratum ; but that the bulk of mankind fine, ‘t almost impossible 
 to conceive any such substratum, is a fact which the slightest 
 inquiry will verify. We remember a discussion which lasted an 
 entire evening, in which by no power of illustration, by no force 
 of argument, could the idea of this substance, apart from its 
 sensible qualities, be rendered conceivable to our antagonist. 
 
 Berkeley therefore, in denying the existence of matter, sided 
 with common sense. He thought, with the vulgar, that matter 
 was that of which his senses informed him ; not an occult some- 
 thing of which he could have no information. The table he 
 saw before him certainly existed : it was hard, polished, colored, 
 of a certain figure, and cost some guineas.. But there was no 
 phantom table lying underneath the apparent table — there was 
 no invisible substance supporting that table. What he per- 
 ceived was a table, and nothing more ; what he perceived it to 
 be, he would believe it to be, and nothing more. His starting- 
 point was thus what the plain dictates of his senses, and the 
 senses of all men, furnished. 
 
 § HI. Idealism. 
 
 The first step which a philosopher takes in any inquiry is a 
 departure from Common Sense. Reflecting upon what his 
 ^enses convey to him, he seeks an explanation of phenomena ; 
 and it is in proportion to the care with which he analyzes the 
 facts to be explained, that he is usually supposed to be free 
 fi’om the mere extravagances of speculation. And yet Berke- 
 ley’s rigorous analysis of the facts of consciousness has obtained 
 for him the reputation of being one of the most extravagant oi 
 speculators ! 
 
 This is the problem : our senses inform us of the existence of 
 
IDEALISM. 
 
 555 
 
 certain sensible qualities, such as extension, color, solidity, etc. 
 But our reason tells us that these qualities must be qualities of 
 something : they cannot «xist as mere extension, color, etc. : 
 there must be something extended, colored, etc. What is that 
 something ? The solution given by the philosophers was uni- 
 formly this : what that substance is we can never know, because 
 it lies beyond our apprehension ; but we are forced to admit it, 
 as a support to the qualities which we do apprehend, as a sub- 
 stance in which sensible qualities inhere. So that, deeply con- 
 sidered, the only reason for inferring the existence of Matter is 
 the necessity for some synthesis of attributes. 
 
 Now, what did Berkeley ? With very subtle perception of 
 the diflBculties of the problem, he boldly solved it by making the 
 synthesis a mental one. Thus was matter wholly got rid of ; it 
 had no lono-er the excuse of beina: an inference. 
 
 The nature of human knowledge is the first object of his in- 
 quiry. “ It is said that the faculties we have are few, and those 
 designed by nature for the support and pleasure of life, and not 
 to penetrate into the inward essence and constitution of things. 
 Besides, the mind of man, being finite, when it treats of things 
 which partake of infinity, it is not to be wondered at if it run 
 into absurdities and contradictions, out of which it is impossible 
 it should ever extricate itself, it being of the nature of infinite 
 not to be comprehended by that which is finite.” 
 
 This is plainly enough launched at Locke ; but the worthy 
 Bishop has no such disposition “ to sit down in quiet ignorance.” 
 He suspects that “ we may be too partial in placing the fault 
 originally in our faculties, and not rather in the wrong use we 
 make of them.” He believes that God is too bountiful not to have 
 placed knowledge within our reach, of which he has given us the 
 desire. Berkeley here forgets the lesson man was taught in Para- 
 dise, where the Tree of Knowledge was placed within his reach, 
 but the fruits thereof forbidden him. “ Upon the whole,” con- 
 tinues Berkeley, “ I am inclined to think that the far greater 
 part, if not all the difficulties which have hitherto amused philoso- 
 
556 
 
 BEKKELET. 
 
 phers and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing 
 to themselves. That we have first raised a dust, and then com- 
 plain we cannot see.” 
 
 The pretension on which all philosophy is founded is here 
 openly proclaimed. The consequences of Locke’s doctrine are 
 rejected ; the premises are retained. Berkeley’s account of the 
 origin of knowledge is the same as Locke’s, only somewhat 
 more explicitly defined. “ It is evident to any one who takes a 
 survey of the objects of human knowledge that they are either 
 ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are per- 
 ceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind ; 
 or, lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, 
 either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those origi- 
 nally perceived in the aforesaid ways.” 
 
 Remark, firstly, that the objects of knowledge are said to he 
 ideas. This has a paradoxical air to those unaccustomed to 
 metaphysics, yet it is the simple expression of the facts of con- 
 sciousness. All that the mind can be conversant about is ob- 
 viously its ideas : we are conscious of nothing but the changes 
 that take place in our minds. Whether these ideas are the 
 copies or representatives of any things — whether changes in our 
 state are to be attributed to any external cause : this is a question 
 of philosophy, a question which common sense makes no scruple of 
 begging. You see before you a flower, and you assume that an 
 external thing resembling that flower exists, and that your sensa- 
 tion is produced by it, as a reflection in a mirror is produced by 
 an object out of the mirror. But dive deeper into consciousness ; 
 interrogate yourself, and you will find that the comparison of the 
 mirror is an assumption made only to explain the facts of con- 
 sciousness, not given in those facts. Moreover, granting the as- 
 sumption, you will then make the mind immediately conversant 
 with its ideas only ; for assuming that objects reflect themselves 
 m the mirror, the mirror itself knows only the reflections ; these 
 it knows immediately ; the objects it knows mediately, i. e. 
 through the reflections. Thus is Berkeley keeping rigorously to 
 
IDEALISM. 
 
 557 
 
 tlie facts of consciousness when he says that the “ objects of 
 knowledge are ideas.” 
 
 Secondly, remark on Berkeley’s use of the word idea, which 
 stands both for sensation and idea. We cannot but regard this 
 confusion of language as the cause of no little misapprehension 
 of his doctrines. It is well therefore to warn the reader thereof. 
 Now to consequences. “That neither our thoughts, nor pas- 
 sions, nor the ideas formed by our imagination, exist without the 
 mind, is what everybody will allow ; and to me it is no less evi- 
 dent that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, 
 however blended or combined together {that is, whatever ejects 
 they compose'), cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving 
 them. . . . The table I write on, I say exists, L e. I see it and feel it, 
 and if I were out of my study I should say it existed ; meaning 
 thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that 
 some other spirit actually does perceive it. As to what is said 
 about the existence of unthinking things, without any relation to 
 their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. 
 Their esse is percipi ; nor is it possible they should have any 
 existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive 
 them.” 
 
 It is in this last paragraph that the kernel of his system lies. 
 He had identified objects with ideas : having done so, it was easy 
 to prove that objects could not exist without a perceiving mind if' 
 in which to exist as ideas. “ For what are the objects but the 
 things which we perceive by sense ?” Realism assents ; objects 
 are what we perceive. “And what, I pray you,” continues 
 Berkeley, “ do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations ?” 
 Realism hesitates ; certainly the mirror has nothing immediately 
 present to it, besides the reflections. “ And is it not plainly re- 
 pugnant,” triumphantly continues Idealism, “ that any one of 
 these ideas, or any combination of them, should exist unper- 
 ceived ?” Realism has no answer to offer. It is in a dilemma 
 from which there is apparently no escape. 
 
 The supposition of the existence of matter is founded on the 
 38 
 
 I 
 
 :a 
 
 
 
558 
 
 BERKELEY. 
 
 
 doctrine of abstract ideas (against which Berkeley wages war), 
 “For can there be a nicer strain of abstraction than to distin- 
 guish the existence of sensible objects from their being perceived, 
 so as to conceive them existing unperceived ? Light and colors, 
 heat and cold, extension and figures — in a word, the things we 
 see and feel — what are they but so many sensations, notions, 
 -t^L>-ideas, or impressions on the sense ; and is it not impossible to 
 ’separate, even in thought, any of these from perception ? For my 
 part, I might as easily divide a thing from itself. I may indeed 
 divide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from each other, those 
 things which perhaps I never perceived by sense so divided. 
 Thus I imagine the trunk of the human body without the limbs, 
 or conceive the smell of a rose without thinking of the rose itself. 
 So far I will not deny that I can abstract, if that be properly 
 called abstraction which extends only to the conceiving sepa- 
 rately such objects as it is impossible may really exist, or be ac- 
 tually perceived asunder ; but my conceiving or imagining power 
 does not extend beyond the possibility of real existence or per- 
 ception. Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel any 
 thing without an actual sensation of that thing, so it is impossi- 
 ble for me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or ob- 
 ject distinct from the sensation or perception of it. In truth, the 
 object and the sensation are the same thing, and cannot there- 
 fore be abstracted from one another. . . . 
 
 “ In a word, all the choir of heaven and furniture of earth — 
 all those bodies which compose the mighty fi ame of the world — 
 have not any subsistence without a mind ; their to l^per- 
 
 ceiye^^ or known ; and consequently, so long as they are not ac- 
 tually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind, or that of 
 any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at 
 all, or else subsist in the mind of some eternal spirit. . . . 
 
 “Though we hold indeed the objects of sense to be nothing 
 else but ideas which cannot exist unperceived, yet we may not 
 hence conclude they have no existence except only while they 
 are perceived by us, since there may be some other spirit that 
 
IDEALISM. 
 
 559 
 
 perceives them, though we do not. Whenever bodies are said to 
 have no existence without the mind, I would not he understood to 
 mean this or that particular mind, hut all minds whatsoever. It 
 does not therefore follow that bodies are annihilated and created 
 every moment, or exist not at all during the intervals between 
 our perception of them. ... 
 
 “ I am content to put the whole upon this issue : if you can 
 but conceive it possible for one extended movable substance, or 
 in general for any one idea, or any thing like an idea, to exist 
 otherwise than in a mind perceiving it, I shall readily give up 
 the cause ; I shall grant you its existence, though you cannot 
 either give me a reason why you believe it exists, or assign any 
 use to it when it is supposed to exist. I say the bare possibility 
 of your opinion being true, shall pass for an argument that it 
 is so. 
 
 “But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to 
 imagine trees in a park, Dr books iu a closet, and nobody by to 
 perceive them. I answer, you may so: there is no diflSculty in 
 it. But what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in 
 your mind certain ideas which you call books and trees, and at 
 the same time omitting to frame the idea of any one perceiving 
 them ? 
 
 “ But do not you yourself perceive or thinh of them all the 
 while ? This therefore is nothing to the purpose : it only shows 
 you have the power of imagining or framing ideas in your mind, 
 but it does not show that you can conceive it possible the objects 
 of your thought may exist without the mind. To make out this, 
 it is necessary that you conceive them existing unperceived or 
 imthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy. When we do 
 our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all 
 the while only contemplating our own ideasf* 
 
 The last very remarkable passage must have been overlooked 
 
 * The foregoing passages are all taken from the FrinoipUs of Human 
 Knowledge, sections 5, 6, 6, 22 and 23. 
 
560 
 
 BERKELEY. 
 
 by the critic before mentioned, otherwise he would not have said 
 that the “knot which Berkeley loosened, but which he certainly 
 died not expi'icitly untie,” was to be resolved, for the first time, 
 by the arguments he there brings forward. Berkeley had untied 
 the knot, explicitly, satisfactorily ; and that too in the same way 
 as his critic.* 
 
 The distinction between primary and secondary qualities, 
 Berkeley easily refutes, and shows that the same arguments 
 which make the secondary qualities to be only affections of the 
 mind may be applied to the primary qualities. 
 
 Having battered down almost every objection, trivial or seri- 
 ous, that could be offered. Idealism iterates its fundamental prin- 
 ciple ; — All our knowledge of objects is a knowledge of ideas ; 
 objects and ideas are the same. Ergo, nothing exists but what 
 is perceived. 
 
 Realism espies a loophole. These ideas, with which we admit 
 the mind to be solely conversant, are but the ideas (images) of 
 certain things ; these things exist independently of being per- 
 ceived, though their ideas cannot. Berkeley foresaw this also. 
 “ But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist without 
 the mind, yet there may be things like them whereof they are 
 copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind in 
 an unthinking substance. I answer, an idea can he like nothing 
 hpAapJ^a ; a color or figure can be like nothing but another 
 color or figure. Again, I ask whether those supposed originals 
 or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or repre- 
 sentations, be themselves perceivable or no ? If they are, then 
 they are ideas, and we have gained our point ; but if you say 
 they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense to assert a 
 color is like something which is invisible ; hard or soft, like some- 
 thing which is intangible ?” (Sect. 8.) 
 
 Realism is without a shadow of an answer. The philosophers 
 are powerless against a theory so defended. No wonder that 
 
 * See the article in Blackwood, p. 817, tt seq. 
 
IDEALISM. 
 
 561 
 
 Idealism should have been pronounced irrefutable ; the weapons 
 were not forged, or, at any rate, were not in the armory of phi- 
 losophy, which could successfully assail a fortress built on such a 
 position. Dr. Reid’s attempt we shall examine by and by. 
 
 As far as the simple facts of Consciousness extend, the analysis 
 given by Berkeley is unimpeachable, unless we deny that Con- 
 sciousness is immediately affected by sensations, and assert that 
 it is immediately affected by external objects ; but no metaphysi- 
 cian ever took up this position, for it would lead him to maintain 
 that Consciousness is nothing but these very sensations, which 
 are produced in the organism by the action of external influ- 
 ences ; and this would be getting rid of the substratum Mind, 
 in order to rescue the substratum Matter. No metaphysician 
 therefore ever did or could, logically, object to Berkeley’s funda- 
 mental j)osition ; but only tried to elude it, or make it open into 
 other issues. 
 
 Given, however, the facts, there comes the question of infer- 
 ences. It has been well said by Mr. Herbert Spencer that the 
 denial of an external world “ consists of a series of dependent 
 propositions, no one of which possesses greater certainty than 
 the single proposition to be disproved.”* If the grounds of our 
 belief in an external world are questionable, what better grounds 
 have we for the belief that the external world is a mere subjec- 
 tive phenomenon ? 
 
 We are to settle whether it is a more plausible hypothesis that 
 ideas are proximately produced in us by the mere Will of the 
 Creator, whose will is effectuated by certain laws ; or whether the 
 ideas are proximately produced in us by external objects, which 
 exist quite independently of us. This question, remember, is one 
 which admits of no proof. It is not a question of fact, but of 
 plausibility. It is not to be decided by common sense, but by 
 analogical reasoning. Our knowledge extends no further than 
 OUT ideas. Our inferences can be nothing more than inferences. 
 
 Principles of Psychology, p. 86 
 
662 
 
 BERKELEY. 
 
 0 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 Berkeley has far better reasons for his inference than his critics 
 imagine. He could not see the force of the argument which 
 made Matter a necessary postulate. That we could have sensa- 
 tions and ideas without the presence of objects, is manifest from 
 the fact that we do often have them so, in dream s and frenzie s. 
 If, therefore, matter is not always necessary for the production 
 of ideas — if ideas can be sometimes produced without the pres- 
 ence of external objects — the pretended necessity, which alone 
 forms the argument for the existence of matter, is done away with. 
 
 “ But though,” he says, “ we might possibly have all our sen- 
 sations without bodies, yet perhaps it may be thought easier to 
 conceive and explain the manner of their production by suppos- 
 ing external bodies in their likeness rather than otherwise, and 
 so it might at least be probable there are such things as bodies 
 that excite ideas in our minds. But neither can this be said, for 
 though we give the Materialists^ their extern al bodies, th ey, by 
 their own confession, are never nearer the knowing how our ideas 
 are produced, since they own themselves unable to comprehend 
 in what manner body can act upons^it, or how it is possible it 
 should imprint an idea in the mind.” 
 
 We have here the difficulty stated, which most Dualists 
 (those who maintain the existence of spirit and matter, as dis- 
 tinct substances) have not been sufficiently alive to; and one 
 which gave rise to Leibnitz’s theory of pre-established harmony, 
 and to Malebranche’s theory of our seeing all things in God. 
 This difficulty is indeed insuperable. It is easy to talk of the 
 spirit being a mirror in which the universe reflects itself. Try 
 for an instant to imagine a substance, such as matter, reflecting 
 itself in, or acting upon, another substance having no one prop- 
 erty in common with it. You cannot. Nor is this all : you 
 cannot even imagine two substances so distinct as matter and 
 spirit are defined to be. 
 
 Berkeley then is right in triumphing over Realism and Dual 
 ism. Right in saying, that if he were to accord them the exist- 
 ence of matter, they could make no use of it. The subject would 
 
IDEALISM. 
 
 563 
 
 remain as dark as before : matter throws no light on it. He 
 maintains that our ideas are produced in us in conformity with 
 the laws of Nature. These laws have been ordained by God. 
 To suppose that matter is the mere occasional cause — the vehicle 
 JJ^u^hjwMch the laws of Nature 0}>erate — is gratuitous. The 
 agency of the Creator is more simple and direct. He had no 
 need of creating first laws, and afterwards matter, through which 
 these laws should come into effect. He created the laws alone ; 
 th ey act upon _us-as-they- were destined to act, and without the 
 super fiuous aid of matter, which is a mere go-between. 
 
 Now, as an inference — as a scientific hypothesis — few thor- 
 oughly acquainted with the question, and with the data on which 
 it was founded, can, we think, deny that this of Berkeley is many 
 degrees superior to the hypothesis of Dualism. While philoso- 
 phers teach that there are two distinct eternal substances, which 
 they name Spirit and Matter, Berkeley;, teaches that there is only 
 ■one subs tance, viz. Spirit . Wffhffhis one substance he can con- 
 struct the world. According, therefore, to the fundamental rule 
 in philosophy, that “ Entities or existence are not to_be_multi- 
 
 L 
 
 plied unless upon n ec essit y” (entia non sunt multiplicanda proe- 
 ter necessitatem), the introduction of a second substance, viz. 
 matter, is superfiuous, or worse. Of the existence of matter we 
 have no proof whatever ; it is a mere inference ; it is inferred, 
 in order to explain the phenomena: and what phenomena? 
 those of perception — i. e. the phenomena of the thinking sub- 
 stance. 
 
 If, then, Berkeley is more rigorous in his analysis of facts, and 
 more ingenious and plausible in his hypothesis, than his antago- 
 nists suppose, shall we pronounce his Idealism satisfactory and 
 true ? 
 
 Hume said of it, that it a dmitted of no answer, but produced^ 
 no conviction. And we have met with no final refutation of it. 
 Yet, inasmuch as it is the irresistible belief of mankind that ob- 
 jects are not dependent either upon our perception of them, or 
 upon the perception of any other mind, for their existence — that 
 
564 
 
 BERKELEY. 
 
 objects exist per se, and would continue to exist if all minds were 
 annihilated — Berkeley’s theory never can produce conviction. 
 Reid, therefore, was right in standing by this universal and irre- 
 sistible belief. He was egregiously wrong, however, in supposing 
 that he answered Berkeley by an appeal to this irresistible belief. 
 It ^oes not follow that a belief which is irresistible uiust_be_true. 
 This maxim, so loudly proclaimed by the Scotch school,"* is re- 
 futed by several well-known facts in philosophy. Thus— to take 
 the most striking example — the belief that the sun revolved round 
 the earth, was for many centuries irresistible, and false. Why may 
 not Berkeley have been a metaphysical Copernicus, who, by rig- 
 orous demonstration, proved the believe of mankind in the exist- 
 ence of matter to be irresistible and false ? Reid has no answer 
 to give. He can merely say, “I side with the vulgar;” but he 
 might have given the same answer, to Copernicus. Many illus- 
 trious men (Bacon among them) ridiculed the Copernican theory; 
 but all the dogmatism, ridicule, and common sense in the world 
 could not affect that theory. Why, we repeat, may not Berkeley 
 have been a metaphysical Copernicus ? 
 
 To prove that he was not, you must prove his reasoning de- 
 fective ; to prove this, you must show wherein his error lies, and 
 not wherein his theory is at variance with your belief. All that 
 your irresistible belief amounts to, is that of a strong, a very 
 strong, presumption against the truth of that which opposes it. 
 Reid, in accepting this presumption as a proof, was in the right 
 BO long as Berkeley’s reasoning was not strong enough to over- 
 
 * Especially by Dr. Brown, wlio says that the “skeptical argument for the 
 non-existence of an external world, as a mere play of reasoning, admits of 
 no reply.” The only reply he makes is, that the belief is irresistible. Hume 
 had already admitted that the belief was irresistible; the whole scope of his 
 philosophy was to prove it both irresistible and/alse. How absurd, then, to 
 appeal to the belief! Kant truly observes, in the Preface to his Eritii:, “ Ad- 
 mitting Idealism to be as dangerous as it really is, it would still remain a 
 shame to philosophy and reason to be forced to ground the existence of an 
 external world on the (mere) evidence of belief.” The more so as the fact 
 of belief had never been questioned. The question was. Is the belief well 
 grounded ? 
 
idealism:. 
 
 565 
 
 come it ; but singularly wrong in supposing that the presumption 
 was a refutation. 
 
 Berkeley’s main position is, that the objects of knowledge are 
 ide as, and no iMnaJiut ideas. The position is incontrovertible. 
 The conclusion therefore, all human knowledge can only be the 
 knowledge of ideas, and of nothing but ideas, is equally incontest- 
 able. Not less so the second conclusion ; objects being identified 
 with ideas, and we having no idea of an object but as it is per- 
 ceived, the ESSE of objects to us is percipi. -f- 
 
 In admitting all this, what do we admit? Simply that human 
 knowledge is not the “ measure of all things.” Objects to us can 
 never be more than ideas ; but are we the final measure of all 
 existence ? It was the dogma of the Sophist that Man is the 
 measure of all things. It should not be the dogma of the sober 
 thinker. Because we can only know objects as ideas, is it a 
 proper conclusion that objects only exist as ideas? For this 
 conclusion to be rigorous, we must have some proof of our knowl- 
 edge being the absolute standard of truth, instead of the stand- 
 ard of the relation things bear to our intellect. 
 
 The Idealist will say, “ If you cannot know any thing beyond 
 your ideas, why do you infer that there is any thing ? — A ques- 
 tion not easily answered. He will moreover say, “ I defy you 
 to conceive any thing existing unperceived. Attempt to imagine 
 the existence of matter when mind is absent. You cannot, for 
 in the very act of imagining it, you include an ideal percipient. 
 The trees and mountains you imagine to exist away from any 
 perceiving mind, what are they but the very ideas of your mind, 
 which you transport to some place where you are not ? In fact, 
 to separate existence from perception is radically impossible. It 
 is God’s synthesis, and man cannot undo it.”* 
 
 To this we answer, it is very true that, inasmuch as our knowl- 
 edge of objects is identical with our ideas, we can never, by any 
 
 * See this argued in a masterly manner by the critic in Blackwood before 
 quoted. 
 
566 
 
 BERKELEY. 
 
 freak of thought, imagine an object apart from the conditions 
 under which we know it. We are forced by the laws of our na- 
 ture to invest objects ■with the forms in which we perceive them.* 
 We cannot therefore conceive any thing which has not been 
 subject to the laws of our nature, because in the very act of con- 
 ception those laws come into play. But is it not a very difl'er- 
 ent proposition to say, “I cannot conceive things otherwise than 
 according to the laws of my nature,” and to say, “ I cannot con- 
 ceive things otherwise, consequently they cannot exist otherwise?” 
 The Idealist here assumes that knowledge is absolute, not rela- 
 tive — that man is the measure of all things. 
 
 Perception is the identity (in the metaphysical sense of the 
 word) of the ego and the non-ego — the tertium quid of two uni- 
 ted forces ; as water is the identity of oxygen and hydrogen. 
 The ego can never have any knowledge of the non-ego, in which 
 it (the ego) is not indissolubly bound up ; as oxygen never can 
 unite with hydrogen to form water, without merging itself and 
 the hydrogen in a. tertium quid. Let us suppose the oxygen 
 endowed with a consciousness of its changes. It would attribute 
 the change not to hydrogen, which is necessarily hidden from it, 
 but to water., the only form under which hydrogen is known to 
 it. In its consciousness it would find the state named water (per- 
 ception), which would be very unlike its own state (the ego) ; 
 and it would suppose that this state, so unlike its own, was a rep- 
 resentation of that which caused it. We say then, that although 
 the hydrogen can only exist for the oxygen (in the above case) 
 in the identity of both as water, this is no proof that hydrogen 
 
 *■ “ 'When in perception,” says Sohelling, “ I represent an object, object 
 md representation are one and the same. And simply in this our inability to 
 discriminate the object from the representation during the act, lies the con- 
 viction which the common sense of mankind has of the reality of external 
 things, although these become known to it only through the representa- 
 tions.” {Ideen zu einer Philos, der Natur, Einleitung, p. xix., quoted by Sir 
 W. Hamilton.) This is indisputable, but it is only saying that our knowl- 
 edge of things is subject tc the conditions of knowledge. Because cannot 
 discriminate between the object and the representation, it is no proof that 
 there is no distinction between them. 
 
IDEALISM. 
 
 567 
 
 does not exist under some other relations to other forces. In like 
 manner, although the non-ego cannot exist in relation to mind 
 otherwise than in the identity of the two (perception) ; this is 
 no sort of proof that it does not exist in relation to other beings 
 under quite different conditions. 
 
 In cg nelusion; we admit, with the Idealists, that all our hnowl- 
 £c(2e^_q^cts consists in our ideas. But we cannot admit that 
 all existence is limited by our knowledge, merely on the ground 
 that when we would conceive any thing existing, we are forced 
 to conceive it in accordance with the laws of our conceptive fac- 
 ulties. "W^e^adpiit) tvith the Idealists, that all our knowledge is 
 su^ectim. But we do not admit that what is true subjectively, is 
 -trufi_X!bjectively. Wc--believe in the existence of an external 
 _wprld. quite-independent of any percipient ; not because such is 
 the obvious and universal belief, but because the arguinents by 
 which Idealisiu -wuuld controvert it are vitiated by the assump- 
 tion of knowledge being a criterion of all existences. Idealism 
 agrees with Realism in placing reliance on the evidence of sense ; 
 it argues however that inasmuch as our hnoioledge is confined to 
 ideas, we have no right to assume any thing beyond ideas. Yet 
 it also is forced to assume something as the cause of ideas : this 
 cause it calls the Will of the Creator; and this is an assumption. 
 The real dispute therefore should be concentrated on this point : 
 Which assumption is more consonant with our irresistible belief, 
 — the assumption of an external^atter unlike our sensations, 
 yet, the causer of -them; or the assumption of a providential 
 scheme, in which our sensations are the eflects of the operation 
 of Divine laws, and in which matter plays no part? The answer 
 cannot be dubious. The former assumption, as more consonant 
 with universal belief, must be accepted. 
 
 Berkeley, we believe, failed as a metaphysical Copernicus, be- 
 cause the assumption which he opposed to the universal belief 
 was less consonant with that belief than the assumption it was 
 meant to replace. Had Copernicus not started an hypothesis 
 which, however contradictory to the senses, nevertheless afforded 
 
568 
 
 BERKELEY. 
 
 a much better explanation of celestial phenomena than was pos- 
 sible on the old hypothesis, he would not have been listened to. 
 Berkeley’s assumption, if conceded, carries him no deeper than 
 the old assumption. Idealism explains nothing. To accept it 
 would be to renounce a universal belief for a mere hypothesis. 
 But that Berkeley was a deep and remarkable thinker must be 
 readily conceded; and he failed, as the greatest Philosophers of' 
 all times have failed, not because he was weak, but,because_Phi- 
 losophy was impossible. 
 
 Those who have followed the course of this History with at- 
 tention to its moral (so to speak) will not fail to observe how 
 Berkeley’s Idealism is at bottom but the much decried system of 
 Spinoza, who taught that there was but one essence in the uni- 
 verse, and that one was Substance. Berkeley also taught that 
 there was but one, and that one was Thought. Now call this 
 One what you will, the result is the same ; speculatively or prac- 
 tically. You may have certain degrading associations attached 
 to the idea of substance ; or certain exalted associations attached 
 to that of spirit. But what difference can your associations make 
 with respect to the real nature of things? 
 
 One great result of Berkeley’s labors was the lesson he taught 
 of the vanity of ontological speculations. He paved the way to 
 that skepticism which, gulf-like, yawns as the terminal road of 
 all consistent Metaphysics. 
 
 • . -c . -■ ; 
 
 7 j 
 
 
FIFTH EPOCH. 
 
 THE AEGUMENTS OP IDEALISM CAKKIED OUT INTO 
 SKEPTICISM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HUME. 
 
 § I. Life of Hume. 
 
 Mr. Burton’s ample and excellent biography* would furnish 
 TU with materials for a pleasant memoir, could we here afford 
 the requisite space ; but we must content ourselves with refer- 
 ring the reader to that work, and with merely recording the 
 principal dates and events of an uneventful life. 
 
 David Hume was born at Edinburgh, 26th April, 1711; the 
 youngest child of a poor laird of good blood. He was an orphan 
 before his education was completed. His guardians first thought 
 of the profession of law, but, owing to his repugnance, he was 
 absolved from that career, and was placed in a Bristol counting- 
 house, where he did not remain long. On coming of age he 
 found himself in possession of a small property, too small for 
 honorable subsistence in England, but large enough for France, 
 and to Rheims he went ; from thence to La Fleche, where the 
 Jesuits’ college and library were great attractions to the studious 
 youth ; and there he passed several years in solitary study. 
 
 * The Life and Correspondence of David Hume, from the Papers lequeathed 
 to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. By John Hill Burton. 2 vols. 
 
570 
 
 HUME. 
 
 A gi'eat ambition moved bim : be was to accomplish for moral 
 science a revolution analogous to that wbicb Bacon bad effected 
 in physical science. His Treatise on Human Nature, which ap- 
 peared in 1737, and which fell still-born from the press, was an- 
 nounced as an attempt to introduce the experimental method 
 into reasonings on moral science. We need scarcely point out 
 the profound miseonception of the Experimental Method here 
 implied ; nor is it necessary to show at any length that there 
 was no novelty whatever in Hume’s attempt to test psychology 
 by experience. 
 
 In 1741 appeared the first part of his immortal Essays ; and 
 in 1747 he accompanied General St. Clair, as secretary, in the 
 embassy to Vienna and Turin. In 1752 he published his Po- 
 litical Discourses and the Inquiry concerning the Principles of 
 Morals. The appointment of Librarian to the Faculty of Ad- 
 vocates in Edinburgh — the salary of which he generously gave 
 to the poor poet Blacklock — placed at his disposal a fine collec- 
 tion of books ; and this suggested the undertaking which has 
 long been held his greatest title to fame — the History of Eng- 
 land, the first volume of which appeared in l7o4. 
 
 For the literary historian there are two piquant episodes in the 
 life of Hume. The first is the ovation given to the philosopher 
 in Baris, whither he had accompanied the Marquis of Hertford ; 
 the second is his friendship and quarrel with Rousseau. We 
 cannot pause to dwell on either. 
 
 Hume died in the spring of 1776, leaving a name imperish- 
 able in our literature, although it is a name attached to opinions 
 which have roused, and will continue to rouse, the most vehe- 
 ment opposition. It should never be forgotten, moreover, that, 
 in spite of Hume’s opinions, so wise and good a man as Adam 
 Smith could publicly write of him, “ Upon the whole, I have 
 always considered him, both during his lifetime and since his 
 death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise 
 and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will 
 permit.” 
 
hume’s skepticism. 
 
 571 
 
 § II. Hume’s Skepticism. 
 
 The marvellous acuteness and subtlety of Hume have never 
 been denied ; and his influence upon speculation has been aided 
 as much by the alarm his doctrines excited, as by the ingenuity 
 with which they were upheld. If Berkeley met with no refu- 
 ters, Hume could meet with none. Antagonists have generally 
 been compelled to admit that the skeptical reasoning was un 
 answerable. 
 
 Locke had shown that all our knowledge was dependent upon 
 experience. Berkeley had shown that we had no experience of 
 an external world independent of perception ; nor could we have 
 any such experience. He pronounced matter to be a figment. 
 Hume took up the line where Berkeley had cast it, and flung it 
 once more into the deep sea, endeavoring to fathom the myste- 
 ries of being. Probing deeper in the direction Berkeley had 
 taken, he found that not only was Matter a figment, Mind was a 
 figment also. If the occult substratum, which men had inferred 
 to explain material phenomena, could be denied, because not 
 founded on experience; so also, said Hume, must we deny the 
 occult substratum (mind) which men have inferred to explain 
 mental phenomena. All that we have any experience of, is im- 
 pressions and ideas. The substance of which these are supposed 
 to be impressions, is occult — is a mere inference ; the substance 
 in which these impressions are supposed to be, is equally occult 
 • — is a mere inference. Matter is but a collection of impressions. 
 Mind is but a succession of impressions and ideas.* 
 
 Thus was Berkeley’s dogmatic Idealism converted into Skep- 
 ticism. Hume, speaking of Berkeley, says, “Most of the wri- 
 tings of that very ingenious philosopher form the best lessons of 
 skepticism which are to be found either among the ancient or 
 
 * Locke had already shown that we are as ignorant of spirit as of sub- 
 stance. We know mind only in its manifestation ; we cannot know it per s« 
 as a substratum. Hume’s argument therefore had a firm foundation in phi- 
 losophy. He only concluded from admitted premises. 
 
572 
 
 HUME. 
 
 modem pbilos6phers, Bayle not excepted. He professes, how- 
 ever, in his title-page (and undoubtedly with great truth) to 
 have composed his book against the Skeptics, as well as against 
 the Atheists and Free-thinkers. But that all his arguments, 
 though otherwise intended, are in reality merely skeptical, ap- 
 pears from this, that they admit of no answer, and produce no 
 conviction.” 
 
 Remark, also, that Hume’s skepticism, though it reduces phi- 
 losophy to a singular dilemma, viz. that of either refuting the 
 skeptical arguments, or of declaring itself and its pretensions to 
 be vain and baseless, nevertheless affects in no other way the or- 
 dinary judgments or actions of mankind. Much stupid ridicule 
 and frivolous objection have been, and probably will continue tp 
 be, brought against Hume. Reid, from whom one might have 
 expected something better, is surprised at Hume’s pretending to 
 construct a science upon human nature, “ when the intention Oi 
 the whole work is to show that there is neither human nature 
 noi science in the world. It may, perhaps, be unreasonable to 
 complain of this conduct in an author who neither believes his 
 own existence nor that of his reader ; and therefore could not 
 mean to disappoint him, or laugh at his credulity. Yet I can- 
 not imagine that the author of the Treatise on Human Nature 
 is so skeptical as to plead this apology. He believed, against his 
 principles, that he should be read, and that he should retain his 
 personal identity, till he reaped the honor and reputation justly 
 due to his metaphysical acumen.” He continues further in this 
 strain, dragging in the old error about Pyrrho having incon- 
 sistently been roused to anger by his cook, “ who probably had 
 not roasted his dinner to his mind,” and compares this forgetful- 
 ness to Hume’s every “ now and then relapsing into the faith ol 
 the vulgar.”* 
 
 If this was meant for banter, it was very poor banter ; if for 
 argument, it was pitiable. But if such arguments appeared 
 
 Inquiry, Introd. i. § 5. 
 
hume’s skepticism. 
 
 573 
 
 ralid to a thinker of Reid’s reputation, it is reasonable to sup 
 pose that inferior men may also receive them as conclusive, 
 Hume shall, therefore, be allowed to speak for himself; and he 
 shall speak in the language of that very Treatise on Human 
 Nature to which Reid alludes : 
 
 “ Should it be here asked me whether I sincerely assent to this 
 argument which I seem to take such pains to inculcate, and 
 whether I be really one of those skeptics who hold that all is 
 uncertain, and that our judgment is not in any thing possessed 
 of any measures of truth and falsehood, I should reply that this 
 question is entirely superfluous, and that neither I nor any othei 
 person was ever sincerely and constantly of that opinion. Na- 
 ture, by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity, has determined 
 us to judge as well as to breathe and feel ; nor can we any more 
 forbear viewing certain objects in a stronger and fuller light 
 upon account of their customary connection with a present im- 
 pression, than we can hinder ourselves from thinking as long as 
 we are awake, or seeing the surrounding bodies when we turn 
 our eyes towards them in broad sunshine. Whoever has taken 
 the pains to refute the cavils of this total skepticism, has really dis- 
 puted without an antagonist, and endeavored by arguments to 
 establish a faculty which Nature has antecedently implanted in 
 the mind and rendered unavoidable. 
 
 “ My intention, then, in displaying so carefully the arguments 
 of that fantastic sect, is only to make the Reader sensible of the 
 truth of my hypothesis, that all our reasonings concerning causes 
 and effects, are derived from nothing but custom ; and that be- 
 lief is more properly an act of the sensitive than of the cogitative 
 
 part of our natures If belief were a simple act of the 
 
 thought, without any peculiar manner of conception, or the ad- » 
 dition of force and vivacity, it must infallibly destroy itself, and 
 in every case terminate in a total suspense of judgment. But 
 as experience will suflflciently convince any one, that although he 
 finds no error in my arguments, yet he still continues to believe 
 and think and reason as usual, he may safely conclude that his 
 39 
 
574 
 
 HUME. 
 
 reasoning and belief is some sensation or peculiar manner of con- 
 ception, which ’tis impossible for mere ideas and rellections to 
 destroy,”* 
 
 It has always struck us as an illustration of the great want of 
 candor displayed by Hume’s opponents, that they never quoted 
 this very significant and explicit passage ; indeed, we never re- 
 member to have seen the passage quoted by any one. Let us 
 ask, what does the foregoing declaration amount to, if not to the 
 boasted “ common-sense view,” that our belief in the existence of 
 matter is instinctive, fundamental ? Does not Dr. Brown’s ad- 
 mission that the skeptical argument is unanswerable as a mere 
 play of reasoning, concede all that Hume requires ? Does not 
 Dr. Brown’s conclusion, that we are thrown upon “ irresistible 
 belief” as our only refuge against skepticism, equally accord 
 with Hume’s explicit declaration that we do believe and cannot 
 help believing, though we can give no reason for the belief? 
 
 “Thus the skeptic,” Hume adds a little further on, “still con- 
 tinues to reason and believe, even though he asserts that he can- 
 not defend his reason by reason ; and by the same rule he must 
 assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, though 
 he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain 
 its veracity. Nature has not left this to his choice, and has 
 doubtless esteemed it an affair of too great importance to be 
 trusted to our uncertain reasonings and speculations. We may 
 w'ell ask, what causes induce us to believe in the existence of body ? 
 but ’tis in vain to ask whether there be body or not ? that is a 
 point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.” 
 
 After this let no more be said about Hume’s practical incon- 
 sequences. Locke before him had clearly enough seen and sig- 
 nalized the impotenc'e of the attempt to penetrate beyond phe- 
 nomena, and had, with his usual calm wisdom, counselled men to 
 “ sit down in quiet ignorance.” He knew the task was hopeless ; 
 he knew, also, that it was trivial. God has given us the means 
 
 *■ Human Nature, part iv. § i. p. 250. 
 
hume’s skepticism. 
 
 675 
 
 of knowing all that directly concerns us, a certainty which suf- 
 fices for all our wants. With that, reasonable men will be con- 
 tent. If they seek more, they seek the impossible ; if they push 
 their speculations deeper, they end in skepticism. It was the 
 philosophical mission of Hume (to adopt a phrase in vogue) to 
 show how inevitably all such speculations, if consistent, ended in 
 skepticism. 
 
 “ ilen,” he says, “ are carried by a natural instinct or prepos- 
 session to repose faith in their senses. When they follow this 
 blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always suppose the 
 very images presented to the senses to be the external objects, 
 and never entertain any suspicion that the one are nothing hut 
 representatives of the other. But this universal and primary 
 opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, 
 which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind 
 but an image or perception. So far, then, we are necessitated by 
 reasoning to contradict the primary instincts of Nature, and to 
 embrace a new system with regard to the evidence of our senses. 
 But here philosophy finds herself extremely embarrassed, when 
 she would obviate the cavils and objections of the skeptics. She 
 can no longer plead the infallible and irresistible instinct of na- 
 ture, for that led us to quite a different system, which is ac- 
 knowledged fallible, and even erroneous; and to justify this pre- 
 tended philosophical system by a chain of clear and convincing- 
 argument, or even any appearance of argument, exceeds the 
 power of all human capacity. 
 
 “ Do you follow the instinct and propensities of nature in as- 
 senting to the veracity of the senses? But these lead you to 
 believe that the 'f&vj perception or sensible image is the external 
 object — (Idealism). 
 
 “ Do you disclaim this principle in order to embrace a more 
 rational opinion, that the perceptions are only representations of 
 something external ? You here depart from your natural pro- 
 pensities and more obvious sentiments ; and yet are not able to 
 satisfy your reason, which can never find any convincing argu- 
 
576 
 
 HUME. 
 
 ment from experience to prove that the perceptions are connected 
 with external objects” — (Skepticism). 
 
 This is the dilemma to which Philosophy is reduced : out of 
 it there is no escape ; and Hume deserves the gratitude of man- 
 kind for having brought philosophy to this pass. Mankind, how- 
 ever, has paid him with reprobation. As the whole course of 
 this History has been occupied in tracing the inevitable result of 
 all Philosophy to be precisely this much abused skepticism, our 
 readers will be prepared for a different appreciation of Hume. 
 Let us, therefore, endeavor to define the nature of this skepticism, 
 which has caused such great alarm. Skepticism, meaning doubt, 
 and being frequently used to signify religious doubt, has alarm- 
 ing associations attached to it. To call a man a skeptic is to call 
 him a heretic. And, unfortunately for Hume’s philosophical 
 reputation, he was a skeptic in religion as well as in philosophy, 
 and mankind have conseqirently identified the former with the 
 latter. 
 
 Now, philosophical skepticism can only mean a doubt as to 
 the possibility of Philosophy ; — in other words, a doubt only on 
 one particular subject. If I accept the consequences to which 
 the doctrine of Hume leads me, am I forced to suspend my 
 Tudgment, and to pronounce all subjects imcertain ? or am I only 
 to pronounce some subjects uncertain ? The latter is clearly the 
 only opinion I can entertain. What then are the questions on 
 which I must be content to remain in darkness ? Locke, no less 
 than Hume, has told us : All which relate to Philosophy — which 
 irretend to discuss the nature and essences of things. 
 
 This skepticism, the reader must acknowledge, has nothing 
 very alarming in it, except to Philosophy. It is maintained by 
 the vast majority of thinking men — some from conviction, others 
 from a vague sense of the futility of ontological speculation. 
 Only the bad passions roused in discussion could pretend to con- 
 found it with heresy. This Skepticism indicates the boundaries 
 of inquiry. It leads us from impossible attempts to fly, to in- 
 struct us how securely we may run. It destroys Philosophy 
 
hume’s theobt of causation. 
 
 577 
 
 ouly to direct all our energies towards positive Science. In the 
 words of Goethe, “Let us not attempt to demonstrate what can- 
 not be demonstrated ! Sooner or later we shall otherwise make 
 our miserable deficiencies more glaring to posterity by our so- 
 called works of knowledge.” 
 
 Hume was a skeptic ; and, consequently, early in life ceased 
 devoting his marvellous acuteness to any of the questions agi- 
 tated in the schools. His Essays and his History were excellent 
 products of this change of direction ; and although he did devote 
 a portion of the Essays to philosophy, yet it was but a portion, 
 and one which gave a more popular aud elegant exposition of 
 the principles of his first work. 
 
 § HI. Hume’s Theory of Causation. 
 
 It is customary to speak of “Hume’s theory of Causation,” 
 and to bestow no inconsiderable acrimony upon him on its ac- 
 count. But, in the first place, the theory is not peculiarly his ; 
 in the second place, his application of it to the question of Mir- 
 acles, which has excited so much vehement controversy, reduces 
 itself to “ this very plain and harmless proposition, that what- 
 ever is contradictory to a complete induction is incredible. That 
 such a maxim as this should be either accounted a dangerous 
 heresy, or mistaken for a recondite truth, speaks ill for the state 
 of philosophical speculation on such subjects.”* 
 
 The theory may be thus briefly stated. All our experience of 
 causation is simply that of a constant succession. An antece- 
 dent followed by a sequent — one event followed by another : 
 this is all that we experience. We attribute indeed to the an- 
 tecedent, a power of producing or causing the sequent ; but we 
 can have no experience of such a power. If we believe that the 
 fire which has burned us will burn us again, we believe this from 
 habit or custom ; not from having perceived any power in the 
 
 Mill’s System of Logic, vol. ii. p. 183. 
 
578 
 
 HUME. 
 
 fire. We believe the future will resemble the past, because cus- 
 tom has taught us to rely upon such a resemblance. “ When 
 we look about us towards external objects, and consider the 
 operation of causes, we are never able in a single instance to 
 discover any power or necessary connection — any quality which 
 binds the etfect to the cause, and renders the one an inhrllible 
 consequence to the other. We only find that the one does ac- 
 tually in fact follow the other. The impulse of one billiard-ball 
 is attended with motion in the second. This is the whole that 
 appears to the outward senses. The mind feels no sentiment or 
 inward impression from this succession of objects; consequently 
 there is not, in any single instance of cause and effect, any thing 
 which can suggest the idea of power or necessary connection.”* 
 This is the whole of his theory. His explanation of our belief 
 in power, or necessary connection, is that it is a matter of habit. 
 
 I know not whether Hume ever read Glanvill’s Scepsis Scien- ' 
 tifica. The title was one to attract him. At any rate, Glanvill 
 had clearly enough stated Hume’s theory, e, g. “ All knowledge 
 of causes is deductive ; for we know of none by simple intuition, 
 but through the mediation of their effects. So that we cannot 
 conclude any thing to be the cause of another hut from its con- 
 tinually accompanying it ; for the causality itself is insensihle." 
 Malebranche had also anticipated it ; and so had Hobbes. The 
 language indeed of the latter is so similar to the language em- 
 ployed by Hume, that I agree with Dugald Stewart in believing 
 Hume to have borrowed it from Hobbes. “ What we call ex- 
 perience,” says Hobbes, “is nothing else but remembrance of 
 what antecedents have been followed by what consequents. . . 
 
 No man can have in his mind a conception of the future, for the 
 future is not yet ; but of our conceptions of the past we make a 
 future, or rather call past future relatively. Thus, after a man 
 has been accustomed to see like antecedents followed by like 
 consequents, whensoever he seeth the like come to pass to any 
 
 &says, sect. vii. 
 
HUME S THEOET OF CAUSATION. 
 
 579 
 
 Aing he had seen before, he looks there shall follow it the same 
 that followed then.” 
 
 This theory of Causation has been hotly debated, partly be- 
 cause of the “ consequences” which some have seen, with alarm, 
 to be deducible from it (for opinions are judged of more by their 
 supposed consequences than by their presumed truth) ; partly 
 also because Hume has not stated it with the clearness which 
 prevents misunderstanding. It is only to the latter point we can 
 here attend. 
 
 When Hume asserts that experience gives no intimation of 
 any connection between two events, but only of their invariable 
 conjunction , — when he says that the mind cannot perceive a 
 causal nexus, but only an invariableness of antecedence and se 
 quence, he is contradicted, or seems to be, by the consciousness 
 of his readers. They declare that, over and above the fact of 
 sequence, there is always an intimation of poioer given in every 
 causation, and this it is which distinguishes causal from casual 
 sequence, — connection from mere conjunction. The fire burns 
 paper because there is some power in the fire to effect this 
 change. Mere antecedence, even if invariable, cannot be suffi- 
 cient, or else day would be the cause of night, the flash of light- 
 ning would be the cause of the thunder-peal. Swallows fly close 
 to the earth some little while before the rain falls ; but no one 
 supposes the flight of the swallows causes the fall of the rain. 
 In every case of causatiou there must be au element of power — a 
 pacity of producing the observed change — a nexus of some kind, 
 over and above the mere juxtaposition of bodies. If diamond 
 will cut glass, it has a power to do so ; the sharpest knife is with- 
 out this power. 
 
 So reason Hume’s antagonists. Nor do I think they are 
 finally answered by resolving the idea of power into mere invari- 
 ableness of antecedent and sequent ; for they may reply that the 
 “ in variableness” itself is deduced from the idea of power ; we be- 
 'ieve the fire will invariably burn the paper because it has the 
 power to do so, because there is a real nexus between fire and 
 
580 
 
 HUME. 
 
 the combustion of pnper ; only on such a belief can our expecta- 
 tion of the future resembling the past be securely founded. 
 
 The ordinary belief of mankind in the existence of something 
 more than mere antecedence and consequence, is therefore a fact. 
 This fact Hume and others omit. Because they cannot perceive 
 the power, they declare that we have no belief in it. Hume in- 
 sists upon the impossibility of our perceiving power — of our per- 
 ceiving any necessary connection between two events. But, say 
 those who oppose this theory, “ Although we ca.xmoi perceive the 
 power, we are forced to believe in it ; and this belief is not a mat- 
 ter of custom, but is given in the very facts of consciousness. 
 We perceive that some power is at work producing effects ; the 
 precise nature of this power, indeed, we cannot perceive, because 
 we never can know things per se. When a spark ignites gun- 
 powder, we perceive a power in the spark to ignite gunpowder : 
 what that power is, we know not ; we only know its effects. But 
 our ignorance is equally great of the gunpowder : what it is we 
 know not ; we only know its appearances to us. It might as 
 well be said that we believe in the gunpowder from custom 
 (since we really know nothing of \\,per se), as that we believe in 
 the power of the spark to ignite gunpowder from custom, since 
 we really know nothing of power per se. We know nothing 
 per se." 
 
 I have marshalled the arguments, with as much force as I 
 could muster, into so small a field, in order to bring into appre- 
 ciable distinctness the source of the opposition to Hume’s theory 
 on the part of many who have no doctrinal distrust towards it. 
 Before attempting an elucidation of the difficulty, it will be need- 
 ful to consider the grounds of our belief in causation. As it is a 
 fact that all men believe in some power involved in every causal 
 act, we have to ask. Is that belief well founded ? 
 
 Two schools at once present themselves. The one (that of 
 Hume) declares that the belief has no good grounds ; it is a 
 matter of custom. If I believe the sun will rise to-morrow, it is 
 because it has always risen. If I believe that fire will burn ii. 
 
HUMES THEORY OF CAUSATION. 
 
 581 
 
 future, it is because it has always burned. From habit I expect 
 the future will resemble the past : I have no proof of it. 
 
 The other school declares that this belief in causation “ is an 
 intuitive conviction that the future will resemble the past.” This 
 is the language of Eeid and Stewart. Dr. Whewell would have 
 us admit the belief as a fundamental idea — a necessary truth in- 
 dependent of and superior to all experience. 
 
 Both explanations we take to be very incompetent. Custom 
 or habit can essentially have nothing whatever to do with it, be- 
 cause our belief is as strong from a single instance as from a 
 thousand. “ When many uniform instances appear,” says Hume, 
 “ and the same object is always followed by the same event, we 
 then begin to entertain the notion of cause and connection. We 
 then feel a new sentiment, to wit, a customary connection in the 
 thought between one object and its usual attendant ; and this 
 sentiment is the original of that idea which we seek for.” This 
 is manifestly wrong. A single instance of one billiard-ball mov- 
 ing another, suffices to originate the “sentiment,” without further 
 repetition. Nor is there more truth in the assertion that the be- 
 lief depends on “ conviction of the future resembling the past 
 this explanation assumes that the general idea precedes the par- 
 ticular idea. If we believe that similar effects will follow when- 
 ever the same causes are in operation — if we believe that fire will 
 burn, or that the sun will rise to-morrow — we are simply believing 
 in our experience^ and nothing more. We cannot help believing 
 in our experience ; that is irresistible : but iu this belief, the idea 
 of either past or future does not enter. I do not believe that 
 fire will burn because I believe that the future will resemble the 
 past, but simply because my experience of fire is that it burns — 
 that it has the power to burn. Take a simple illustration, trivial, 
 if you will, but illustrative ; — A child is presented with a bit ot 
 sugar ; the sugar is white, of a certain shape, and is solid ; his 
 experience of the sugar is confined to these properties : he puts 
 it in his mouth ; it is sweet, pleasant : his experience is extend- 
 ed ; the sugar he now believes (knows) to be sweet and pleasant, 
 
582 
 
 HUME. 
 
 as well as white and solid.^' Thus far experience is not tran- 
 scended. Some days later, another piece of sugar is given him. 
 Is it now necessary for him to have any “ intuitive conviction 
 that the future will resemWe the past” — any fundamental idea 
 independent of experience — to make him believe that if he puts 
 the sugar in his mouth it will taste sweet ? Not in the least : 
 he believes it is sweet, because he knows it is sweet — because 
 his experience of sugar is that it is sweet. By no effort coidd 
 he divest himself of the idea of its sweetness, because sweetness 
 forms an integral part of his idea of the sugar. So we may say 
 of the sun’s I’ising : it is part and parcel of our idea of the 
 sun. So of one billiard-ball putting a second in motion : our 
 experience of billiard-balls is that they put each other in mo- 
 tion. 
 
 Custom has primarily nothing to do with the belief. If we 
 had only one experience of fire — if we saw it only once applied 
 to a combustible substance — we should believe that it would 
 burn, because our idea of fire would be the idea of a thing which 
 burns. Custom has however, secondarily^, some influence in cor- 
 recting the tendency to attribute properties to things. Thus, a 
 child sees a friend who gives him an apple. The next time the 
 friend comes he is asked for an apple, because the idea of this 
 fiieud is of a man who, amongst other properties, has that of 
 giving apjiles. No apple is given, and this idea is destroyed. 
 Similarly, when all our experience of things is confirmatory of 
 our first experience, we may say that habit or custom induces us 
 to attribute certain effects to certain causes. When our subse- 
 quent experience contradicts our first experience, we cease to at- 
 tribute those effects to those causes which we first experienced ; 
 
 * It will perhaps seem strange that we should select sweetness as an ex- 
 ample of causation. We selected it for its simplicity. No one will deny 
 that the taste of sweetness is as much an effect caused by the sugar as pam 
 is an effect caused by fire. But people are apt to overlook that causation is 
 the result of the properties of one body acting upon the properties of an- 
 other. They would call sweetness a quality in sugar : but the motion of a 
 billiard-ball they say is caused by another ball. 
 
htjme’s theory of causation. 588 
 
 tLis is only saying that our subsequent experience has destroyed 
 or altered the idea we formed at first. 
 
 Remark how much confusion is spread over this subject by 
 the inconsiderate inti’oduction of the word belief. It is incor- 
 rect to say that a man believes that fire will burn him if he puts 
 his fiuger in it; he knows it. He will believe that it has burned 
 some one else — he will believe in a proposition you make about 
 fire, because belief is the assent to propositions : but to talk of 
 his believing that sugar will be sweet, when he knows it is sweet, 
 when he cannot think of it otherwise than as sweet ; or that fire 
 will burn when he knows it burns, is as improper as to say that 
 he believes himself cold when he is cold. 
 
 Only from this improper use of the word belief could the 
 theory of fundamental ideas, or of “ an intuitive conviction that 
 the future will resemble the past,” have stood its ground for a 
 moment. If the proposition “Fire will burn paper” were put to 
 any one, he would unquestionably believe it, because he has no 
 other knowledge of the fire under those circumstances. The 
 proposition is as evident to him as that two and two make four. 
 Although, therefore, he may be said to believe in the proposition, 
 “ Fire will burn paper,” he cannot properly be said to act upon 
 belief when he attempts to light paper : he acts upon his knowl- 
 edge. Metaphysicians argue as if the belief in the immediate 
 result of an action were a belief in some implied proposition about 
 the course of nature. It is really a reliance upon experience ; 
 nothing more. 
 
 It is necessary to distinguish between belief in existence, and 
 belief in propositions. It is inaccurate to say a man believes in 
 his own existence, as if that were similar to his belief in a propo- 
 sition. But though a man cannot believe in his own existence, 
 simply because it is impossible for him to conceive himself as 
 non-existent, he may believe that he will exist eternally, because 
 that is a proposition, the converse of which is conceivable and 
 maintainable. 
 
 The primordial acl of all thinking whatever, is, as I have ex 
 
HUME. 
 
 58-i 
 
 plained in the Introduction to this History, the making present 
 to the mind of what is absent from the sense ; and this, which 
 connects all intellectual phenomena into one class, renders the 
 accurate demarcation of them sometimes impossible, so insensi- 
 bly does the one pass into the other. Thus when I say, “I see 
 it has rained,” because the wet streets make me infer that the 
 wetness w'as caused by rain, my assertion is grounded on a men-, 
 tal re-presentation of the absent occurrence, precisely analogous 
 to that which takes place when I infer the sweetness of the sugar 
 before me, or perceive that the flower in Julia’s hair is a rose, or 
 believe that the paper she holds close to the candle will infallibly 
 ignite if paper and flame come in contact. In each case the in- 
 ference, perception, or belief, is the re-presentation of facts form- 
 erly present in my experience of rain, sugar, roses, and candles. 
 Whenever I forget any of the attendant facts, i. e. fail to make 
 them present, I can only form an incomplete conception of the 
 thing about which I reason, or infer. Bad logic is imperfect re- 
 presentation. In proportion to the complexity of a proposition 
 will be the liability to eiTor, because of the liability to suffer 
 some of the attendant ftrcts to drop out of sight. Thus the prop- 
 osition “Fire will burn paper” is so simple, and accordant with 
 daily experience, that assent to it is instantaneous ; but the prop- 
 osition “ Human life may extend over two centuries” is one im- 
 plying so many facts which cannot be made present to the mind, 
 because not lying within familiar experience, that instead of as- 
 sent it produces denial, or at least doubt, which is suspension of 
 belief, which again is the confessed inability to make all the facts 
 present to the mind. That “two and two make four” is the im- 
 mediate and irresistible conclusion of every educated man ; never- 
 theless, this very man would pause before assenting to the prop- 
 osition “Eight times three hundred and ninety-six, make three 
 thousand one hundred and sixty-eight,” because he would have 
 to make present to his mind the successive steps of the calcula- 
 tion, and this would demand an effort, great in proportion to hia 
 want of familiarity with calculations. 
 
hume’s theoky of causation. 
 
 585 
 
 In spite of this identity of belief and perception, it is necessary 
 for the perspicuity of discussion to discriminate the two, and I 
 propose therefore to restrict the term belief to the assent to prop- 
 ositions, and demarcate it from those direct inferences which 
 are made in the presence of objects and have reference to them. 
 I would say, we believe in the proposition “ Fire burns,” but 
 know the fact that the paper about to be thrust into flame will 
 ignite. Such a discrimination of terms will be found useful in 
 discussing causation. We shall thus see in what respect assent 
 to a proposition, complex in its elements, differs from the “ prac- 
 tical belief” of mankind in particular facts— we shall separate 
 the belief of the philosopher in the proposition “ Every efiect 
 must have a cause,” from the belief of the child that the fire, 
 which yesterday burned paper, will burn it to-day. Both beliefs 
 are grounded on and limited by experience ; but the experience 
 of the philosopher is distinguished from that of the child by its 
 greater accumulation of analogous facts. The “necessity” and 
 “universality” which, according to Kant and Dr. Whewell, dis- 
 tinguish the philosophical conception, and raise it above experi- 
 ence, will he considered hereafter. For the present it is enough 
 if we have reduced belief in causation (or in power) to experience 
 of a direct kind, not separable from any other intellectual act, 
 but allied to all other acts in being the mental re-presentation of 
 phenomena formerly present in experience. And this will help 
 us, perhaps, to reconcile the combatants who quarrel over the 
 idea of “ power” in causation. 
 
 Thus while it will be admitted by the one party that between 
 two events, named respectively cause and effect, no nexus is per- 
 ceived by us, over and above the mere fact of antecedence and 
 sequence ; and that therefore Hume is right in saying — we only 
 perceive this antecedence, and do not perceive the causal link ; 
 on the other hand it must be maintained, that between those 
 two events there is a specific relation, a something which makes 
 the one succeed the other, causing this particular eflfect rather 
 than another ; and this subtle link it is which is the nexus con- 
 
586 
 
 HUME. 
 
 tended for ; this relation it is which distinguishes a casual act 
 from one of accidental sequence. There, must be a peculiar rela- 
 tion, or property, existing between oxygen and metals, otherwise 
 metals never could be oxidized. The oxidation of iron is an 
 effect like the ignition of paper ; but it is an effect producible 
 only through a specific relation or cause. To say that we can- 
 not know this cause, cannot perceive this relation, and that 
 antecedence and sequence are all that we can perceive, is only 
 saying that we cannot penetrate beyond phenomena and their 
 successions ; but this is no more a ground for the denial of a 
 causal nexus, than it is for the denial of an external world. 
 
 All things necessai'ily stand related to all other things : some- 
 times these relations are obtruded on our notice, because they 
 pass from relations of coexistence into relations of succession, and 
 we name them causes and effects ; at other times they remain in 
 the background of unremarked coexistence, and our unsolicited 
 attention overlooks them ; we do not then name them cause and 
 effect. The carbonate of lime, which I see before me as marble, 
 suggests to me in its inaction, no conception of power, or caus- 
 ation, because my attention is not solicited by any successive re- 
 lations; yet, if I had witnessed the action of the carbonic acid 
 on the lime, which originally caused- the two substances to unite 
 and form marble, the passage from one state to another would 
 have suggested the idea of some power at work. It is clear that 
 there must be relations existing between the carbonic acid and 
 the lime, which cause the two to remain united, as we see them 
 in marble. We do not see these relations — we do not, therefore, 
 see the cause — but we know the cause must be in operation all 
 the while, although, in consequence of no changes taking place, 
 we are not solicited to observe the operation. Hence it is that 
 only successive phenomena are named causal ; and hence is it 
 that Hume was right in saying that en dernim analyse, invari- 
 ableness of antecedence and sequence is all that experience tells 
 us of causation ; although he did not, I think, state his position 
 clearly, nor discern its real basis. 
 
hume’s theory of cAuSxmoN. 587 
 
 This conception of causation, as the direct relation between 
 any two phenomena, whether coexistent or successive, accords 
 with the fact that what is called the effect is itself but the union 
 of two causes — the oxygen and the metal co-operate to form an 
 oxide ; the group of facts which we designate as the antecedent, 
 combines with the group of facts called the sequent ; as when we 
 say that “ Henry I. died of eating lampreys by which we mean, 
 that in a certain condition of his organism the introduction of 
 lampreys was the antecedent to a whole series of sequences ter- 
 minating in death ; although we are perfectly aware that the 
 salmon was not the “ cause,” but only one integer in the sum of 
 causes. The difficulty in fixing upon a true cause is this very 
 complexity of relations : only when we can be said to know all 
 the elements of a group, can we isolate one to estimate its in- 
 fluence. 
 
 I have endeavored to reconcile the two contending parties on 
 this perplexing question, and for all further discussion must refer 
 to John Mill’s chapter in his System of Logic, where, however, 
 there is a passage which seems to me quite contrary to the doc- 
 trine he upholds. I allude to his strictures on the dogma cessante 
 causa cessat et effectus. “ A coup de soldi giv^es a man a brain- 
 fever ; will the fever go off as soon as he is moved out of the 
 sunshine? A sword is run through his body: must the sword 
 remain in his hody in order that he may continue dead V'* 
 Surely this argument is tenable only by those who confound a 
 cause with the whole group of conditions which precede, and the 
 effect with the whole group of conditions which succeed ; and 
 is not tenable by those who hold that cause and effect are simply 
 antecedent and sequent. The solar rays striking on the man’s 
 head produce a disturbance in the circulation, which in its turn 
 becomes the antecedent to a congestion of the blood-vessels in the 
 brain, which becomes a brain-fever ; instead of one succession of 
 cause and effect, we have here a series of such successions ; and 
 
 * Vol. i. p. 413. 
 
5S8 
 
 HUME. 
 
 if we could analyze tlie various stages of the sun-stroke, we 
 should find that each effect did cease on the cessation of the 
 cause ; indeed, if an effect be nothing hut the sequent of an an- 
 tecedent — and not the product of some creative power in the 
 cause — it must depend for its existence on the presence of the 
 antecedent. 
 
 Hume’s theory of causation set Kant speculating on the con- 
 stituent elements of cognition ; but before we follow out the de- 
 velopment of Philosophy in that direction, it will be necessary to 
 trace the further development of Locke’s influence in other di- 
 rections. 
 
SIXTH EPOCH. 
 
 tUE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE REFERRED TO SENSATION BV 
 THE CONFUSION OF THOUGHT WITH FEELING: THE SEN- 
 SATIONAL SCHOOL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CONDILLAC. 
 
 § I. Life of Condillac. 
 
 Etienne De Condillac was born at Grenoble, in IVIS. His 
 life was passed mainly in study, and was not varied by any of 
 those incidents which give interest and romance to biography. 
 He published his first work, Essai sur V Origine dqs Connoissances 
 Eumaines, in 1746. Three years after, his Traite des Systemes. 
 His other works followed rapidly; and established for him such 
 a reputation, that he was appointed tutor to the Prince of Parma, 
 and for wfiose instruction he wrote the Cours d'Etudes, In 
 1768 the capricious doors of the Academic FranQaise were 
 opened to him ; but once elected a member, he never after at- 
 tended any of its sittings. He published his Logique in his old 
 age, and left behind him his Langue des Calculs. He died in 
 1780. 
 
 § II. Condillac’s System. 
 
 We have seen how Idealism and skepticism grew out of the 
 doctrines respecting the origin of knowledge. We have now to 
 see the growth of the “ Sensational School.” 
 
 The success which Locke met with in France is well known. 
 
 40 
 
590 
 
 CONDILLAC. 
 
 For a whole century the countrymen of Descartes extolled the 
 English philosopher, little suspecting how that philosopher would 
 have disclaimed their homage, could he have witnessed it. Con- 
 dillac is the acknowledged representative of Locke in France. 
 When his first work, entitled Essai sur V Origine des Connois- 
 sances Humaines, appeared, he had no notion of simplifying 
 Locke by reducing all Knowledge tc Sensation. He was a 
 modest Locke'st, and laid down as the fundamental principle, 
 that “ sensations and the operations of the mind are the mate- 
 rials of all our knowledge — materials which reflection sets in ac- 
 tion by seeking their combinations and relations.” (Chap. i. § 5.) 
 
 In I’JSd appeared his celebrated work, the Traite des Sensa- 
 tions. In it he quits Locke’s principle for that of Gassendi and 
 Hobbes. “ The chief object of this work,” he says, “ is to show 
 how all our knowledge and all ouv faculties are derived from the 
 senses; or, to speak more accurately, from sensations.” The in- 
 clusion of “our faculties,” as well as our ideas, in this sensuous 
 origin, is, however, due entirely to Condillac. Hobbes never 
 thought of such a “simplification.” The divergence from Locke 
 is obvious : instead of the two sources of ideas, recognized in the 
 Essay on Human Understanding, it assumes one source only — 
 Sensation ; instead of mind, with certain elementary faculties, it 
 assumes one elementary faculty — that of Sensibility — out of 
 which all the faculties are evolved by the action of external ob- 
 jects on the senses. Nor was this a mere slip of Condillac’s pen 
 the error is radical ; it constitutes the peculiarity of his system. 
 Speaking of various philosophers, and quoting, with praise, the 
 maxim attributed to Aristotle, that “ Nothing is in the intellect 
 which was not previously in the senses,” he adds, “Immediately 
 after Aristotle comes Locke ; for the other philosophers who have 
 written on this subject are not worthy of mention. This Eng- 
 lishman has certainly thrown great light on the subject, but he 
 has left some obscurity. , . . All the faculties of the soul ap- 
 peared to him to be innate qualities, and he never suspected they 
 might be derived from sensation itself.” 
 
Condillac’s system. 
 
 691 
 
 Certainly, Locke never suspected any thing of the kind, and 
 would loudly have repudiated it, had any one suggested such a 
 simplification of the psychological problem. He might have 
 asked Condillac, why is it no Ape haviug the five senses of Man 
 has ever yet been educated as a Man ? and if faculties are noth- 
 ing but sensations, why are the faculties of the Ape so remark- 
 ably inferior, when the senses, some of them at least, are so 
 remarkably superior to those of Man ? We find, on the one 
 hand, animals having senses like those of man, but not having 
 the faculties of man ; we find, on the other hand, men deficient 
 in certain senses — sight, hearing, taste, or smell — who, so far 
 from being deficient in mental faculties, are remarkable for their 
 high endowments; a striking example of which is the case of 
 Laura Bridgman, born blind, deaf, and dumb. Nay, among men 
 having all the senses in activity, we find the greatest disparities 
 in mental faculty ; and we do not find that the men whose sen- 
 ses are the most susceptible and active, are the men whose intel- 
 lectual faculties are the most developed ; which is strange, if the 
 faculties are nothing but sensations. How does Condillac ex- 
 plain the familiar fact of Idiots being in full possession of their 
 senses ? When he makes his famous Statue grow into an Intel- 
 ligence, by the gradual evolution of one sense after the other, it 
 never occurs to him that he tacitly admits the presence of the 
 very mind which is said to be evolved ; since in the absence oi 
 that mind the senses will not elevate the statue one inch above 
 diocy. 
 
 Had Condillac been surveying the animal series, and endeavor- 
 ing to trace the gradual development of Sensibility throughout 
 that series, he might have maintained, with some philosophical 
 cogency, that the various faculties were the derivative products 
 of sensation. But he had no such conception. He looked upon 
 the mind as a tabula rasa, a blank page on which sensations wrote 
 certain characters; and instead of regarding the mind in the 
 light of an organism, the food of which was furnished by the 
 senses, he regarded it as a simple granary, in which the gi'ain, on 
 
592 
 
 CONDILLAC. 
 
 entering, “transformed itself” into bread, oven, and baker. He 
 thought the senses created the faculties and were the faculties. 
 He might as well have said that exercise creates the faculty of 
 running. The child cannot run till he has exercised his limbs ; 
 but the exercise does not give him the limbs, it only calls them 
 into action. 
 
 Condillac is right in saying that we are not born with the 
 mental faculties developed (a point to be touched upon here- 
 after), but he is wrong in saying that these faculties are only 
 sensations. And when he endeavored to construct the mind and 
 its faculties out of transformed sensations, he never once sus- 
 pected that the faculty of transformation — that which transforms 
 — could not be itself a sensation. It is very easy to imagine 
 transformed sensations ; but the sensations do not, we presume, 
 transform themselves. What is it that transforms them ? The 
 mind? Not so. The mind is the aggregate of our mental 
 states, faculties, etc. ; the mind is made up of “ transformed sen- 
 sations,” and cannot, therefore, be the transforming power. We 
 return to the charge, and demand. What is it which trans- 
 forms? Condillac has no answer. All he can say is, what he 
 says over and over again, that our faculties are transformed sen- 
 sations. Hear him : 
 
 “ Locke distinguishes two sources of ideas, sense and reflection. 
 It would be more exact to recognize but one ; first, because re- 
 flection is, in its principle, nothing but sensation itself ; secondly, 
 because it is less a source of ideas than a canal through which 
 they flow from sense. 
 
 “ This inexactitude, slight as it may seem, has thrown much 
 obscurity over his system. He contents himself with recognizing 
 that the soul perceives, thinks, doubts, believes, reasons, wills, 
 reflects; that we are convinced of the existence of these opera- 
 tions, because we find them in ourselves, and they contribute to 
 the progress of our knowledge ; but he did not perceive the ne- 
 cessity of discovering their origin and the principle of their gen- 
 eration — he did not suspect that they might only be acquired 
 
Condillac’s system. 
 
 593 
 
 habits ; he seems to have regarded them as innate, and he says 
 only that they may be perfected by exercise.”* 
 
 This is far enough from Locke, f who would have been amazed 
 to hear that “judgment, reflection, the passions,_in a word, all 
 the faculties of the mind, are nothing but sensation which trans- 
 forms itself differently (qui se transforme diflferemment).” 
 
 As it is curious to see how sensation transforms itself into these 
 faculties, we will translate Condillac’s account. “If a multitude 
 of sensations operate at the same time with the same degree of 
 vivacity, or nearly so, man is then only an animal that feels ; ex- 
 perience suSices to convince us that then the multitude of im- 
 pressions takes away all activity from the mind. But let only 
 one sensation subsist, or without entirely dismissing the others, 
 let us only diminish their force ; the mind is at once occupied 
 more particularly with the sensation which preserves its vivacity, 
 and that sensation becomes attention, without its being necessary 
 for us to suppose any thing else in the mind. If a new sensation 
 acquire greater vivacity than the former, it will become in its 
 turn attention. But the greater the force which the former had, 
 the deeper the impression made on us, and the longer it is pre- 
 served. Experience proves this. Our capacity of sensation is 
 therefore divided into the sensation we have had, and the sensa- 
 tion which we now have ; we perceive them both at once, but 
 we perceive them differently : the one seems as past, the other 
 as present. The name of sensation designates the impression 
 actually made upon our senses ; and it takes that of memory 
 when it presents itself to us as a sensation which has formerly 
 been felt. Memory, therefore, is only the transformed sensation. 
 When there is double attention, there is comparison ; for to be 
 
 * Extrait raissonnedu TraiU des Sensations ; (Euvres de Condillac (1803), 
 iv. 13. 
 
 t It would be idle to refute here the vulgar notion that Condillac perfected 
 l.ocke’s principles; or, as M. Cousin absurdly says, that Locke’s Essay^s.% 
 the rough sketch (ebauche) of which the TraiU des Sensations is the per- 
 fected picture ; such a notion can he entertained only by' those who blindly 
 accept traditionary judgments. The brief exposition we shall give of Con- 
 dillac is a sufficient answer to all such assertions. 
 
59i 
 
 CONDILLAC, 
 
 attentive to two ideas or to compare them, is the same thing 
 But we cannot compare them without perceiving some difference 
 or some resemblance between them ; to perceive such relations, 
 is to judge. The acts of comparing and judging are therefore 
 only attention ; it is thus that sensation becomes successively at- 
 tention, comparison, judgment.” 
 
 The other faculties are explained in a similar way, but we 
 need quote no more. That such a system should ever have at- 
 tained the favor it did, is a striking example of the facility with 
 which men may be misled by an artful use of words, 
 
 Condillac said that science is only a well-constructed language 
 (une langue Men faite ) ; so much did he rely upon precision in 
 words. Nor is this inexplicable in a man who fancied he had re- 
 duced the analysis of mind to its simplest elements by merely 
 naming them differently. It is, however, as absurd to call ideas 
 sensations because the ideas were originated by sensations, as it 
 would be to call reasoning observation, because reasoning is 
 founded on observation. The only excuse for the error is in the 
 common, but false, supposition that ideas are faint impressions. 
 They are not impressions at all. Condillac says that an idea is 
 a remembered sensation, and this remembrance is only a lesser 
 degree of vivacity in the sensation. We answer that the idea is 
 nothing of the kind ; so far from being the sensation in a lesser 
 degree, it is not the sensation at all ; it is altogether different 
 from the sensation. Although every mau who has experienced 
 toothache, can have a very distinct idea of it (in other words, he 
 can think of, and talk of toothache), we defy him to detect in 
 his idea any repetition of the sensation. Nor is this wonderfnl ; 
 sensation is the product of a distinct part of the nervous system, 
 the senses; ideas are the product of another distinct part of 
 the nervous system, the cerebrum : sensation is feeling, thought 
 is thinking. To suppose feeling and thinking are the same (al- 
 though both may come under the term feeling, by giving the 
 word some new general signification), is an absurdity reserved 
 for the Sensational School, the last and not the least illustrious 
 
Condillac’s system. 
 
 595 
 
 of whom, M. Destutt de Tracy, consolidated it into an aphorism : 
 penser c'est sentir. 
 
 The ambiguities of language have in this case been assisted 
 by the nature of our sensations. Thus all our visual ideas, inas- 
 much as they assume shape, do seem like faint sensations ; iLe 
 reason is, that although it is a very different thing to look at tho 
 sun and to think of it, yet in thinking, our idea corresponds, in 
 some measure, with our sensation : the idea is of a round, yellow, 
 luminous body, and is not improperly called an image of the sun. 
 If it is an image of the sun, we easily conclude that it is a faint 
 copy of our sensation. But in the case of other senses, there is 
 no difficulty in detecting the error. When we say that we can 
 recall the sensation of hunger, we verbally confound our power of 
 thinking a thing, with our power of feeling it. There is, in truth, 
 a generic distinction between Thought and Sensation, ■which it 
 is fatal to overlook ; nor could it have been overlooked but for 
 the introduction and adoption of that much-abused word “idea,” 
 instead of thought. 
 
 I do not believe we can recover any sensation at all, but only 
 the ideal effect of the sensation. Mr. Bain, who of all psychol- 
 ogists, as it appears to me, has approached nearest to the truth, 
 here remarks, that the “ exact tone of feeling, the precise inward 
 sensation due to a state of hunger, is almost irrecoverable and 
 unimaginable in a state of comfortable repletion.” I believe it 
 to be utterly irrecoverable. “But,” he adds, “the uneasy move- 
 ments, the fretful tones, the language of complaint, are all easy 
 to recall ; they belong to the more intellectual part of the sys- 
 tem ; and by these we can recover some portion of the total fact, 
 which is also just about as much as we can communicate to a 
 second person. The digestive state for the time being, rules the 
 tone of sensation so effectually, that we cannot, by any effort, 
 restore the currents due to an entirely opposite state ; we can 
 only recover the more revivable accompaniments.”* The reason 
 
 The Senses and the Intellect, p. 337. 
 
596 
 
 CONDILLAC. 
 
 of this I take to be simply the impossibility of displacing a sen 
 sation (e. g. that of repletion) by an idea. The sensation of hun- 
 ger was due to a peculiar stimulus of the nervous system ; so 
 long as that stimulus was present, the sensation was present ; 
 when another stimulus replaced it, another sensation succeeded, 
 and in the presence of that stimulus no other sensation is recov- 
 erable. The “revivable accompaniments” were not sensations, 
 but the sequences of sensations, ideal elements. When Mr. Bain 
 contrasts the sense of sight with the sense of hunger, and says 
 “that we can recover a picture or vision of fancy almost as ex- 
 actly as we saw it, though not so strongly,” and thinks that this 
 gives to the sense of sight its “ intellectual character,” he appears 
 to me to overlook the generic distinction between Sensation and 
 Thought, a distinction which Condillac and his school systemat- 
 ically set aside. “ We can repossess ourselves,” he adds, “of the 
 exact scene as it laj^ to the eye ; in fact the sensation itself is the 
 most retainable part of the whole^' I cannot but think that, if 
 Mr. Bain will reconsider this statement, he will admit that the 
 sensation itself is precisely the part which is not I'etainable, not 
 recoverable ; for although the image of the landscape beheld in 
 memory is like the actual scene which we gazed upon — or, in 
 more accurate language, although we are similarly affected by 
 the remembrance as by the original stimulus— yet a psychologist 
 of Mr. Bain’s rank does not need to be told that the landscape 
 in perception is constituted by a variety of intellectual inferences 
 — all its relations of space, form, solidity, etc., being purely in- 
 tellectual elements, and these only are the elements present in 
 the remembrance, the actual sensations not being present at all. 
 What therefore is recoverable, is the purely intellectual part of 
 the whole ; what is irrecoverable, the sensational ; precisely as 
 in the case of hunger ; we can recall the effects of hunger, even 
 when quietly digesting dinner, but we cannot recall the sensation 
 of hunger. 
 
 The point in dispute is so important, and is so intimately 
 bound up with the whole doctrine of the Sensational Schcol, 
 
Condillac’s system. 
 
 597 
 
 forming indeed the battle-ground of all psychological doctrine, 
 that we must consider it with more than a passing attention. 
 The confusion of Sensation with Ideation, or Thought, is Con- 
 dillac’s systematic error ; but it is an error from which few, if 
 any writers, even of the spiritualist schools, have been free. Ex- 
 plicitly, or implicitly, these two phenomena have been regarded 
 as two aspects of the same thing. The rigorous demarcation of 
 Sensation as one process, from Ideation as another process, — 
 each dependent on its separate nervous centre, — will be found in 
 no psychological treatise. Nevertheless, Comparative Anatomy 
 has succeeded in demonstrating the independence of the organs 
 of Sense, and the Brain-proper ; although no one has yet suc- 
 ceeded in detecting the true relations which connect these inde- 
 pendent centres, and make them act together. We know that 
 the brain is as much an addition to the organs of Sense as these 
 organs are additions to the nervous system of the simpler ani- 
 mals. Low down in the animal scale we can detect no trace at 
 all of a nervous system ; ascending a few steps, we detect a sim-. 
 pie ganglion with its prolongations ; ascending higher, we detect 
 a more complex arrangement of ganglia, and rudimentary organs 
 of Sense ; ascending still higher and higher, we detect more 
 complex organs of Sense, and a rudimentary Brain ; till at last 
 we arrive at man, with his complex organs and his complex 
 Brain. But so independent is the Brain, that even in the 
 human species cases occur of “ anencephalous monsters,” that 
 is to say, children born without any Brain whatever; and 
 these children breathe, suck, cry, and struggle, like other 
 children. 
 
 Further, it is ascertained that the function of this Brain (or 
 Cerebrum) is Thought — or, as James Mill, with a nice sense of 
 utility, proposed to call it, Ideation. Granting this, we grant 
 that the functions Sensation and Ideation are as independent as 
 the organs of which they are the functions ; and although Idea- 
 tion is organically connected with Sensation, yet not more so 
 than muscular motion is connected with Sensation. Neither the 
 
59S 
 
 CONDILLAC. 
 
 anatomical nor the psychological connections of the two havo 
 been accurately discriminated, but the broad fact of their inde- 
 pendence suffices for ray present argument ; which is merely to 
 establish the position that the organs of Sense are competent 
 to Sensation, without the addition of a Brain ; and that the 
 Brain, although constantly set into action by the organs of 
 Sense, is in itself a separate centre, and the seat of specific 
 actions.* 
 
 It is customary to speak of the organs of Sense as if they were 
 simple organs ; we must not therefore innovate in this matter, 
 although we find it needful to remind the reader that each spe- 
 cial sense is really the function of a complex apparatus of organs. 
 The apparatus of Sight, for example, may be separated into at 
 least three parts : — 1st, for the reception of impressions of light ; 
 2d, for the transmission of those impressions ; 3d, for the sensa- 
 tion. Of these the last need only here be specially considered, 
 and may be called the Sensational Centre.\ In this centre the 
 external stimulus becomes a sensation ; from this centre the sen- 
 sation is generally (not always) propagated to the cerebrum, 
 which in turn may propagate the influence to the centre of mus- 
 cular motion, or elsewhere. 
 
 Ev'ery sense, whether it be one of the five special senses, or of 
 the so-called “organic senses” (such as those of the alimentary 
 canal or of muscular activity), has its own special centre, or sen- 
 sorium ; but there seems to be no ground for assuming, wdth 
 Unzer and Prochaska, the existence of any one general sensori- 
 um, to which these all converge ; and I shall speak therefore of 
 the Sensational Centres as the seats of sensations derived from 
 
 * See this point illustrated in detail by Unzer and Proehaska, in their 
 treatises translated for the Ray Society by Dr. Laycook. 
 
 t I would call it sensory ganglion, if that did not presuppose the existence 
 of a distinct ganglion, anatomically separable in the higher animals, as it is 
 in those lower animals which have nothing but sensory ganglia. At present, 
 however, science does not warrant such a statement otherwise than as an 
 hypothesis. Besides, I indude the spinal chord among the general Sens.v 
 tional Centres. Compare Prochaska, p. 430. 
 
Condillac’s system. 
 
 599 
 
 the stimuli which act on the organs of sense. Considered as 
 Sensational Centres, they are perfectly independent of the Brain ; 
 they may and do act without implicating the Brain, for they will 
 act when the Brain is absent ; a bird deprived of its cerebrum 
 manifests unequivocal symptoms of being sensitive to light, sound, 
 etc. But in the normal state of the organism these centres are 
 intimately connected with the Brain ; and the stimuli which 
 affect them directly, indirectly affect the Brain. Light, imping- 
 ing on the retina, determines a change in the optic Sensational 
 Centre ; this change is usually propagated to the cerebrum ; and 
 as the first change was a sensation, so is the second an idea ; this 
 idea may excite other ideas, or it may be so faint in its influence 
 as to be almost immediately absorbed, and then we are said to 
 be “ scarcely conscious” of the sensation — meaning that we 
 thought very little about it : an example of which is the little 
 attention we pay to the clock striking when we are engaged in 
 study, if the fact is indifferent to us ; we hear it, but think not 
 of it the next moment ; if on the other hand the striking of the 
 clock is not indifferent to us, the various thoughts which it 
 awakens make us eminently “ conscious of the sensation.” In 
 the heat of battle, a sword passes through a man’s arm, and 
 nevertheless the wound is followed by no pain or “ conscious- 
 ness the stimulus which under ordinary circumstances would 
 have been propagated fi-om a Sensational Centre, and thence 
 radiating to the cerebrum, would have roused up manifold ideas, 
 namely, of consequences, what was necessary to be done, etc., is 
 prevented from so radiating, and is not carried beyond the Sen- 
 sational Centre. 
 
 Not only can we have sensations without being conscious ot 
 them — i. e. without thinking about them ; we can also think with 
 perfect freedom when all the Sensational Centres (except those 
 of organic life) are unaffected by any stimulus, i. e. when we have 
 no sensations. We do so when awake in bed during the stillness 
 of night ; the senses are in repose, the Brain is active. 
 
 Thus is the independence of Ideation and Sensation proved 
 
600 
 
 CONDILLAC. 
 
 psychologically and anatomically ; and with this proof we de- 
 stroy the basis of Condillac’s doctrine. But even on purely 
 metaphysical grounds we may reject his theory of the origin o< 
 knowledge. It rests on two positions ; — the first is the reduction 
 of all knowledge to sensation ; the second is the dogma of oui 
 fiiculties not being innate. The first is the doctrine of Gassend/ 
 and Hobbes. It is thus stated by Diderot, one of Condillac’s i 
 most celebrated pupils : — “ Every idea must necessarily, when 
 brought to its state of ultimate decomposition, resolve itself into 
 a sensible representation or picture ; and since every thing in 
 our understanding has been introduced there by the channel of 
 sensation, whatever proceeds out of the understanding is either 
 chimerical or must be able, in returning by the same road, to re- 
 establish itself according to its sensible archetype. Hence an 
 important rule in philosophy. That every expression which can- 
 not find an external and a sensible object to which it can thus 
 establish its affinity, is destitute of signification.”* 
 
 Those who maintain sensuous experience to be the basis of all 
 knowledge, will of course assent to the position that every one 
 of our ideas can be decomposed into sensuous elements ; but 
 ideas themselves are not sensations, they are formed from sensa- 
 tions, and are not sensible pictures. The least experience is suf- 
 ficient to convince us that we have many ideas which cannot be 
 reduced to any sensible picture whatever ; or, to prevent any of 
 the ambiguity which belongs to the word “ idea,” let us rather 
 say we have many thoughts which cannot be reduced to any 
 sensible picture. We can think of a sound without any power 
 of forming a picture of sound ; we can think of virtue or good- 
 ness, of patriotism or scoundrelism, without being able to form 
 mental pictures of these ideas. 
 
 Now for the second point ; Condillac, we believe, was the first 
 to catch a glimpse of the important truth that our faculties are 
 not innate — are not even connate ; but he bungled in attempting 
 
 Quoted by Dugald Stewart, Philosophical Essays, p. 166. 
 
CONDILLAC S SYSTEM. 
 
 601 
 
 to trace the genesis of these faculties. That men are not born 
 with the powers of reasoning, remembering, imagining, is a prop- 
 osition which will meet with very little credit at first. A little 
 experience and reflection however show us that as the child cer- 
 tainly cannot reason, remember, or imagine, these being faculties 
 subsequently and slowly developed, we must conclude that the 
 mental faculties are only potentially iu the new-born child. The 
 baby can no more reason than he can talk. He learns to do 
 both ; and, before he can learu them, the powers of his mind no 
 less than the muscles of his vocal organs must grow, be devel- 
 oped, and strengthened by exercise. Man is no more born with 
 reason than an acorn is born an oak. The grown man has rea- 
 son, as every oak has branches and foliage. But the infant and 
 the acorn, though they contain that within them which, under 
 fitting circumstances, will be dev^eloped into reason in the one, 
 and foliage in the other, cannot be said to have as yet either 
 reason or foliage. 
 
 This is an important discov^ery, and yet one which is appa- 
 rently obvious, aud obtruded upou our experience by the daily 
 observation of children. Condillac has the merit of having first 
 seen it; but he saw it very imperfectly, and failed altogether to 
 make any good use of it. As an example : He who told us 
 that our faculties were not innate, but were “ acquired habits,” 
 tells us, when he comes to the genesis of those faculties, that 
 they spring into existence at once — are born full-grown — the 
 acorn suddenly leaps into an oak. Thus his famous statue has 
 Memory, Judgment, Desire, etc., as soon as it has Sensations. 
 This is enough to show that if Condillac discovered an important 
 fact, he only stumbled over it, and knew not its significance.^ 
 Let us hope that, if England is to produce any new system of 
 Psychology, this most important point will not be overlooked : 
 the growth and development of our faculties is as much a part 
 
 * The only person who, to onr knowledge, has made any use of this fact, 
 18 Dr. Beneke, who has made it the basis of his whole philosophy. See hie 
 Neue Payclwloyie, also the lehrhuch der Psychologie (Berlin, 1845). 
 
602 
 
 CONDILLAC. 
 
 of Psychology, as the growth ami development of our organs is 
 a part of Biology.* 
 
 Condillac has made but a poor figure in our pages; let us 
 hasten to add, that although his fundamental positions are erro- 
 neous, his worl s display considerable merits both in manner and 
 matter. Manj v:duable remarks, and some good analyses, may 
 be found in hi; writings; and the style is admirably clear. He 
 departed so wii ily from Locke, that it seems strange he should 
 ever have been considered as a disciple. But we have express 
 testimony to the fact that he was Locke’s disciple ; and if we 
 consider for a moment the great stress which Locke always placed 
 upon the sensuous origin of our knowledge — that being the point 
 he wished to bring prominently forward, because his precursors 
 had neglected it — we shall easily conceive how Condillac might 
 have been more impressed wdth that part of the system than 
 with the other, which Locke had rather indicated than developed. 
 Moreover it was Locke’s object to prove the mind to be a tabula 
 rasa, in order to disprove innate ideas. This once being granted, 
 it was easy to fall into the error of Condillac’s “ simplification.” 
 
 Condillac was clear, but much of his clearness was owing to 
 his shallowness ; much of the simplicity was owing to meagre- 
 ness. He tried to construct Psychology upon no firmer basis 
 than that adopted by the metaphysicians whom he opposed. 
 Analysis of mental operations and merely verbal distinctions had 
 been pow’erless in the hands of his precursors, nor were they 
 powerful in his. In many subordinate matters he improved on 
 them ; some of his analyses were better ; many of his verbal dis- 
 tinctions were useful ; but he had no true psychological Method, 
 and could found no desirable system. The idea of connecting 
 Psychology with Biology had not yet been distinctly conceived 
 Although the brain was universally held to be the “ organ” of 
 the mind, the mind was, by the strangest of oversights, not re- 
 
 * Since this was written Mr. Herbet Spencer has expounded the develop- 
 ment of the faculties in his very remarkable Principles of Psycholoii'^ 
 ( 1855 ). 
 
hartley’s life. 
 
 603 
 
 garded as the function of that organ ■* consequently no one 
 thought of connecting the study of the mind with the study of 
 the nervous system ; no one thought of a physiological basis as 
 indispensable to psychological science. We shall see hereafter 
 what attempts have been made in this direction. The first step 
 may be said to have been taken by Hartley. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HARTLEY. 
 
 § I. Life of Hartley. 
 
 David Hartley, the son of a Yorkshire clergyman, was bom 
 on the 30th of August, 1705. He went to Cambridge at fifteen, 
 and became a Fellow of Jesus College. Originally destined for 
 the Church, he had scruples about signing the Thirty-nine Arti- 
 cles, and gave up the Church for Medicine, which he subsequently 
 practised with great success. 
 
 When only twenty-five years of age he conceived the design 
 and commenced the execution of his celebrated Observations on 
 Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations, led thereto, as 
 he tells us in the Preface, by hearing that “ the Rev. Mr. Gay 
 had asserted the possibility of deducing all our intellectual 
 pleasures and pains from association.” Mr. Gay published his 
 views in a dissertation prefixed to Law’s translation of King On 
 the Origin of Evil ; but although Hartley acknowledges having 
 
 * I may here enter a brief caveat affainst the conclusion that I hold the 
 “ mind to be the function of the brain. ” This is no place to argue so wide 
 a question; and 1 content myself with saying, that in the crude form in 
 which that opinion is frequently presented, I do not agree. Ideation I hold 
 to be one function of the brain ; but Mind is something more general than 
 this special function of Ideation ; and the brain has other functions besides 
 Ideation, other functions than any usually called mental. 
 
004: 
 
 HARTLEY. 
 
 derived tlie suggestion from Gay, it is clear to all readers of his 
 work, that he had thoroughly mastered, and made his own, the 
 principle of Association as the primary law of intellectual com- 
 bination. Hartley did not publish his Observations till 1748, 
 eighteen years after the scheme was first laid. The year before, 
 according to Dr. Parr, he published a small treatise as a precur- 
 sor to this work. “You will be astonished to hear,” Dr. Parr 
 R’l'ites to Dugald Stewart,* “ that hi this book, instead of the 
 Doctrine of Necessity, Hartley openly declares for the indifference 
 of the will, as maintained by Archbishop King.” And the reader 
 will be astonished to hear that Hartley does no such thing! 
 Dugald Stewart, who had not seen the work referred to, remarks 
 that “it is curious that, in the course of a year. Hartley’s opin 
 ions on so very essential a point should have undergone a com- 
 plete change still more curious, however, that Dr. Parr should 
 have read the work and discovered in it such a mare’s-nest. The 
 tract in question is reprinted in the volume of Metaphysical 
 Tracts by English Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century, Pre- 
 fared for the Press by the late Rev. Samuel Parr, D.D. London, 
 1837 — a volume precious to metaphysical students, because it con- 
 tains Collier’s Claris Universalis Specimen of True Philosophy. 
 If the reader will turn to the third of these tracts. Conjectures 
 quoedam de Sensu, Motu, et Idearum Generatione, without date, 
 he will find that it is nothing more nor less than an abstract, in 
 Latin, of the first part of Hartley’s Observations ; and that the 
 question of Free-will is nowhere opened in it. I can only sup- 
 pose that Dr. Parr, unacquainted with physiological speculations, 
 was misled by the admirable discussion of automatic and volun- 
 tary actions (pp. 31—35), into the notion that Hartley there es- 
 poused the doctrine of free-will ; but I am surprised that Sir W. 
 Hamilton should have allowed the error to pass uucorrected ir 
 his edition of Stewart’s Dissertation. 
 
 Hartley died on the 25th of August, 1757, aged fifty-two, and 
 
 Stewart’s Dissertation, part ii. p. 355 of Hamilton’s edition. 
 
hartley’s system. 
 
 605 
 
 ieft a name so distinguished for piety and goodness, that it in a 
 great measure shielded his doctrines from the reprobation they 
 have often incurred when promulgated by others. 
 
 § II. Hartley’s System. 
 
 Combining a suggestion thrown out by Newton at the end of his 
 Principia^ and in the questions annexed to his Opticss, respecting 
 vibrations of an ether as the cause of sensation, with the doctrine 
 of Locke respecting Association of Ideas, Hartley produced a 
 system of Psychology, which is historically curious as the first 
 attempt to explain psychological phenomena on physiological 
 principles. If not worth much as a contribution to Philosophy, 
 it is very noticeable as an elfort to connect intellectual with phys- 
 ical phenomena; and, however subsequent writers may have rid- 
 iculed, not without excuse, the vibrations and vibratiuncles which 
 Hartley substituted for the old metaphysical conceptions, it 
 is certain that his attempt to explain the phenomena physio- 
 logically, has very much influenced the thoughts of succeeding 
 speculators. 
 
 “ Man,” he says, “ consists of two parts, body and mind.” 
 Does he mean by this to proclaim the existence of a distinct, 
 immaterial entity superadded to the body? According to the 
 terms of his definition, on the first page of his work, this seems 
 to be his intention ; for he defines it as “ that substance, agent, 
 principle, etc., to which we refer the sensations, ideas, pleasures, 
 pains, and voluntary motions.” Yet the whole system of vibra- 
 tions seems to imply the contrary ; and at the close of the first 
 part of his work, he declares that he holds himself aloof from 
 the question altogether. He will not deny the immateriality of 
 mind : “ On the contrary, I see clearly, and acknowledge readily, 
 that matter and motion, however subtly divided, yield nothing . 
 more than matter and motion still. But then neither would I 
 affirm^ that this consideration affords a proof of the soul’s imma- 
 teriality.” He thinks, with Locke, that it is quite possible the 
 Creator should have endowed matter with sensation ; but he will 
 41 
 
606 
 
 HARTLEY. 
 
 not undertake to affirm it as a truth. “ It is sufficient for me 
 that there is a certain connection, of one kind or other, between 
 the sensations of the soul, and the motions excited in the medul- 
 lary substance of the brain.”* A more rigorous logic would 
 have forced him into a more decided opinion ; for this question 
 of the soul’s immateriality is one vitally affecting- the system oi 
 vibrations; and his adversaries have had little difficulty in show- 
 ing the insufficiency of “vibrations” to explain the phenomena 
 of an immaterial mind. Between the immaterial principle and 
 these material vibrations, there is an impassable gulf; let the 
 other vibrate never so rhythmically, it alwaj-s remains “ vibrating 
 ether,” it cannpt become “ sensation,” “ thought ;” nor does Hart- 
 ley bridge over the gulf by the assumption of an “ infinitesimal 
 elementary body intermediate between the soul and the gross 
 body,” to which, and from which, the vibrations of the nerves 
 are communicated ; the radical difficulty remains the same. 
 
 It may be objected, perhaps, that those who point out the de- 
 fect in Hartley’s hypothesis are themselves open to a similar 
 charge, since they assume an immaterial principle to be effected 
 by a material change, and assume the mind to be in connection 
 with the body, following its alterations. But there is this differ- 
 ence between them and Hartley : they do not pretend to explain 
 how mind is affected by body ; he does. They accept, as an ulti- 
 mate fact, what he attempts to elucidate ; and it is his elucida- 
 tion which they refuse to acknowledge. 
 
 And we must agree with them in rejecting the hypothesis 
 which Hartley proposes ; for it is not only incompetent to ex- 
 plain the phenomena, but it is also one of those ingenuities inca- 
 pable of really serving the purpose of a good hypothesis, because 
 in itself wholly incapable of verification. 
 
 His first proposition is that “ The white medullary substance 
 of the brain, spinal marrow, and the nerves proceeding from 
 
 * Compare also Scholium to Prop. 5 (vol. i. p. 33) and Conjecturm quoedam 
 de Senau, etc., p. 41. 
 
hartley’s system. 
 
 607 
 
 viem, is tlie immediate instrument of sensation and motion.” 
 Modern physiologists maintain precisely the reverse of this, de- 
 claring the matter to be the specific seat of sensation and 
 intelligence. I may say, in passing, that both these positions 
 seem to me erroneous in their exclusiveness ; and that the white 
 as well as the gray substance must be present, just as the zinc 
 and copper plates must both be present in the galvanic battery. 
 
 Hartley continues: “External objects impressed upon the 
 senses occasion, first in the nerves on which they are impressed, 
 and then in the brain. Vibrations of the small — or, as any one 
 may say, infinitesimal — medullary particles. These Vibrations 
 are motions backwards and forwards, of the same kind as the 
 oscillation of pendulums, and the tremblings of the particles of 
 sounding bodies. They must be conceived to be exceedingly 
 short and small, so as not to have the least efiicacy to disturb or 
 move the whole bodies of the nerves or brain. For that the 
 nerves themselves should vibrate like musical strings is highly 
 absurd.” 
 
 It appears from a passage in the Contemplation de la Nature 
 of the Genevese naturalist, Charles Bonnet, who published, al- 
 most contemporaneously with Hartley, a doctrine almost indis- 
 tinguishable from Hartley’s, that certain physiologists had already 
 entertained the idea of sensation being the result of a nervmus 
 oscillation. “ Ils vouloient faire osciller les nerfs pour rendre 
 raison des sensations ; et les nerfs ne peuvent pas osciller. Ils 
 sont mous, et nullement elastiques.”* Not the nerves, but the 
 elastic ether which penetrates the nerves, is the seat of these os- 
 cillations, according to Hartley and Bonnet. 
 
 The greatest defect of this hypothesis is that it explains noth- 
 .ng, while seeming to explain every thiiig. Sensation remains 
 as mysterious as before. If we call sensations by the new name 
 of vibrations, we have done nothing but change the name ; and 
 if we say sensations are vibrations, or are produced by them, 
 then the onus of proof rests on our shoulders. 
 
 * Partie vii. ch. i. 
 
608 
 
 HARTLEY. 
 
 While acknowledging the defect of Hartley’s system, let us 
 not forget its excellence. If the doctrine of Association was not 
 first applied by him, it was- by him first made a physiologico- 
 psychological basis. He not only applied it to the explanation 
 of mental phenomena; he applied it, and with great ingenuity, 
 to those physiological phenomena which still interest and per- 
 plex philosophers, namely the voluntary and involuntary actions. 
 His twenty-first proposition, and the elucidations which follow, 
 deserve to be read, even in the present day ; and the following 
 passage from the abstract published in Parr’s Tracts, is, in its 
 pregnant brevity, worth quoting here. “ Discentes pulsare in- 
 strumenta musica, primo movent digitos actione voluntari^, con- 
 nectente? interea Ideas, imperiaque Animse, hos motus lente 
 excitantia, cum aspectu characterum musicorum. Continuato hoc 
 processu, accedunt indies, propius propiusque ad se invicem, 
 motus digitorum, et impressiones characterum, et tandem, Ideis 
 et imperiis Animse in infinitum quasi diminutis, coalescunt. Fi- 
 dicen igitur peritus chordas digitis percurrit citissime, et ordine 
 justo, ex raero aspectu characterum musicorum, animo interim 
 alienis cognitationibus intento ; atque proinde characteres musici 
 idem illi prsestant oflScium, ac Sensationes impressse recens natis, 
 in motibus eorum automaticis. Migrant itaque ope Associationis 
 tarn Motus voluntarii in automaticos, quam automatici in volun- 
 tarios.”* 
 
 So little dependent is the psychological doctrine of Association 
 on the physiological doctrine of Vibrations, that Priestley, in his 
 Abridgment of Hartley, omits the latter hypothesis altogether. 
 The principle of Association passed into the Scotch school ; and 
 Hartley thus historically forms the transition to Reid and h*s 
 followers, who studiously avoided any thing like a physiological 
 explanation of mental phenomena. Before passing to Reid, how- 
 ever, it will be well to glance at Darwin. 
 
 Conjectural, p. 84. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 DAEWm. 
 
 Although even more neglected than Hartley by the present 
 generation, Darwin, once so celebrated, deserves mention here 
 as one of the psychologists who aimed at establishing the physio- 
 logical basis of mental phenomena. 
 
 Erasmus Darwin was born at Elton, near Newark, on the 12th 
 December, 1Y31. After studying at St. John’s College, Cam- 
 bridge, and taking his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Edin- 
 burgh, he established himself as a physician in Lichfield, mar- 
 ried twice, had three sons, and died in the seventieth year of his 
 age, 18th April, 1802. As a poet, his Botanic Garden (1Y81) 
 by its tawdry splendor gained him a tawdry reputation ; as a 
 philosopher his Zoonomia ; or, Laws of Organic Life (2 vols. 
 4to, 1794-6), gained him a reputation equally noisy and fleeting. 
 
 Although couched in different language, Darwin’s theory is 
 substantially the same as Hartley’s ; instead of “ vibrations” he 
 substitutes “ sensorial motions.” By the sensorium Darwin means 
 “ not only the medullary part of the brain, spinal marrow, nerves, 
 organs of sense, and of the muscles ; but also at the same time 
 that living principle, or spirit of animation, which resides through- 
 out the body without being cognizable to our senses, except by 
 its effects.” The changes which occasionally take place in the 
 sensorium, as during the exertions of volition, or the sensations 
 of pleasure or pain, are termed sensorial motions* 
 
 The medullary substance, he thinks, pas^es along the nerves 
 and mingles with the muscular fibres. The “ organs of sense 
 *onsist in like manner of moving fibres enveloped in the medul- 
 lary substance.” The word idea has various meanings, he says, 
 
 * Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 10. 
 
610 
 
 DARWIN. 
 
 and to give it precision he defines it as “ a contraction or mo- 
 tion, or configuration of the fibres which constitute the imme- 
 diate organ of sense. Synonymous with the word idea we shall 
 sometimes use the words sensual motion, in contradistinction to 
 muscular motion'' 
 
 He then undertakes to prove the existence of these sensual 
 motions, and deduces from this proof the fact that as we advance 
 in life all the parts of our bodies become rigid, and are conse- 
 quently less susceptible of new habits of motion, though they 
 retain those already established. Hence only the young can 
 learn ; hence the aged forget the events of yesterday and remem- 
 ber those of infancy.* 
 
 “ If our recollection, or imagination, be not a repcuition of 
 animal movements, I ask, in my turn, What is it ? You tell me 
 it consists of images or pictures of things. Where is this exten- 
 sive canvas hung up ? or where the numerous receptacles in 
 which these are deposited ? or to what else in the animal sys- 
 tem have they any similitude ? That pleasing picture of objects, 
 represented in miniature on the retina of the eye, seems to have 
 given rise to this illusive oratory ! It was forgot that this rep- 
 resentation belongs rather to the laws of light than to those of 
 life ; and may with equal elegance he seen in the camera ob- 
 scura as in the eye ; and that the picture vanishes forever when 
 the object is withdrawn.”! 
 
 Had Darwin left us only the passage just cited, we should 
 have credited him with a profounder insight into Psychology 
 than any of his contemporaries, and the majority of his succes- 
 sors, exhibit ; and although the perusal of Zoonomia must con- 
 vince every one that Darwin’s system is built up of absurd hypoth- 
 eses, Darwin deserves a place in history for that one admirable 
 conception of psychology as subordinate to the laws of life. So 
 
 * Zoonomia, vol. i. p. 27. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 29. In Bain’s Senses and the Intellect, p. 60 sq., the reader will 
 find the old theory of a sensorium, or chamber of images, which Darwin 
 here pashes aside, satisfectorily refuted from the physiological point of view 
 
DARWIN. 
 
 611 
 
 little has this conception been appreciated, that not only are sys- 
 tems of Psychology constructed in serene indifference to Physi- 
 ology, but many of the questions agitated in mental Physiology 
 are hopelessly entangled because men vdll not, or cannot, dis- 
 criminate between problems of Physics and problems of Physi- 
 ology ; between phenomena regulated by laws of inorganic mat- 
 ter, and phenomena regulated by laws of organic matter. Thus 
 the questions. Why with two eyes do we see objects shigle? and, 
 Why do we not see objects inverted, since their images are in- 
 verted on the retina ? have puzzled thousands ; and not one of 
 the attempted solutions has recognized the important fact that 
 the problems are psychological, not optical nor anatomical, con- 
 sequently cannot be settled by optics or anatomy ; angles of 
 incidence, and discussation of optic nerves, have nothing to do 
 with the phenomena the moment after the Sensational Centre 
 has been affected. We might as well attempt to deduce the as- 
 similation of sugar from the angles of its crystals, or from the 
 sand-like disposition of its grains, as to deduce the perception 
 of an object from the laws of optics : the; crystals and grains of 
 sugar must first be destroyed, and the sugar made soluble, before 
 it can be assimilated ; the retinal images must, in like manner, 
 first be transformed in the Sensational Centre before they can, 
 through the sensational centre, affect the cerebrum. 
 
 That this is no gratuitous hypothesis of mine, but expresses 
 the actual process of perception, in as far as that process has 
 been ascertained, may perhaps be made clear from the following 
 considerations. When I say that the perception of a visual ob- 
 ject is a psychological act, not in any way explicable by the laws 
 of optics, or by any investigation of the anatomical structure of 
 the optic apparatus, I ground that assertion on certain authorita- 
 tive facts ; for example, I take up the vexed question of our per- 
 ceiving an object as single, although two images are formed on 
 the two retinas ; and instead of endeavoring to explain it by del- 
 icate anatomy of the retina, or the decussating fibres of the optic 
 nerves, 1 at once remove it from that circle of discussion by class 
 
612 
 
 DAKWIN. 
 
 ing it with phenomena precisely analogous. We see objects 
 single with two eyes , true, but we also hear sounds as single 
 with two ears, we smell odors as single with two nostrils, we feel 
 objects as single with five fingers. How is it that no physiolo- 
 gist has refiected on the bearing of these facts ? If the ordinary 
 explanations of optical perception are correct, why do not audi- 
 tory and olfactory nerves decussate ? — Why do not the waves of 
 sound affect similar points of the tympanum — and so the whole 
 mystery be cleared up I No sooner is attention called to the 
 fact of single hearing and single smelling, with two auditory and 
 two olfactory nerves, than we at once cease to regard single 
 vision with two optic nerves as any thing special, and we try if 
 a psychological explanation will not avail. I believe the ex- 
 planation to be very simple. We cannot have two precisely simi- 
 lar sensations at precisely the same instant; the simultaneousness 
 of the two sensations renders them indistinguishable. Two sounds 
 of precisely the same pitch and intensity, succeeding each other 
 by an appreciable interval, will be heard as two sounds ; but if 
 they succeed each other so rapidly that the interval is ina25pre- 
 ciable, no distinction will be felt, and the two will be heard as 
 one, because heard simultaneously. As I am forced to be very 
 brief here, the reader will not expect any development of this 
 theory, but will pass wdth me to the consideration of other psy- 
 chological aspects of perception. 
 
 The fact of our being able to see an image reflected on the 
 retina of an animal, and of our being able to explain on optical 
 principles the formation of that image, has very much misled 
 physiologists in their efforts to comprehend sensation ; they have 
 naturally imagined that in vision we see the retinal image ; 
 whereas, unless I am altogether mistaken, we see nothing of the 
 kind — we are affected by that retinal image, as in hearing we are 
 affected by a wave of air, but do not perceive the wave ; or as in 
 imelling we are affected by the action of volatile substances on 
 the olfactory nerve, but do not perceive the substances. We 
 only perceive the changes effected in us by these agents. 
 
DARWIN. 
 
 G13 
 
 The various Sensational Centres (see p. 598) are variously 
 affected by the same stimuli : electricity giving to the gustatory 
 nerve the stimulus of savorous bodies, to the auditory nerve the 
 stimulus of sonorous vibrations, to the optic nerve the stimulus 
 of luminous bodies, to the tactile nerves the stimulus of touch. 
 Pressure on the eye causes luminous spots to be seen ; we seem 
 to see fire-flies. The pressure of over-distended blood-vessels 
 produces spectral illusions, and we see daggers in the air as 
 vividly as any at our sides. Unhappy students well know the 
 “ singing in the ears” produced by over-study. Nor is this all ; 
 narcotics introduced into the blood excite in each Sensational 
 Centre the specific sensation normally excited by its external 
 stimuli ; giving the appearance of luminous spots to the eyes, of 
 singing in the ears to the auditory nerves, and of “ creeping sen- 
 sations” to the nerves of touch. 
 
 The reason of this is that each Sensational Centre has its spe- 
 cific manner of being affected, no matter what the specific nature 
 of the thing affecting it. While only certain things aflfect it sen- 
 sationally, all those which do affect it, do so in a specific manner. 
 Light, for instance, affects the optic centre, but produces no ap- 
 preciable effect on the auditory, gustatory, or tactile centres ; 
 nevertheless the optic centre may be affected by pressure, by 
 narcotics, or by electricity, precisely in the same way as by 
 light. The vibrations of a tuning-fork, which aflfect the auditory 
 centre as sound, affect the tactile centre as “ tickling,” not 
 “ sound.” 
 
 From these indubitable facts it is not difficult to elicit a con- 
 clusion, namely, that sensation depends on the Sensational Centre 
 and not on the external stimulus, that stimulus being only the 
 cause of the sensational change. Whether the retina be directly 
 aflfected by rays of light issuing from an object, or the optic cen- 
 tre be affected by the pressure of congested blood-vessels, in each 
 case we see, in each case the optic centre is afi'ected in that spe- 
 cific manner in which alone it is capable of being aflfected. Con- 
 sequently inasmuch as the visual sensation depends on the optic 
 
C14 
 
 DARWIN. 
 
 centre beinr affected, and does not depend on the formation oi 
 an image on the retina, we have no alternative hut to admit that 
 the retinal affection is transformed by the Sensational Centre, nnd 
 there the impression first becomes a sensation. 
 
 It may be added as confirmation of the foregoing’ doctrine re- 
 specting the centre as the seat of sensation, that Muller has cited 
 examples of luminous spectra being excited by internal causes 
 after the complete destruction of the retina ; and “ Luicke relates 
 the case of a patient who, after the extirpation of the eye for fun- 
 goid disease, perceived all kinds of luminous appearances inde- 
 pendently of external objects.”* 
 
 When therefore it is asked, Why do we see objects erect, 
 when they throw inverted images on the retina ? the answer is. 
 Because we do not see the retinal image at all ; we see, or are 
 affected by, the object ;• and our perception of the erectness of 
 that object does not depend on vision, but on our conceptions of 
 space and the relations of space — which are not given in the 
 visual sensation, but are ideal conceptions : conceptions which 
 are acquired in a complicated series of inferences, according to 
 most philosophers ; which are “forms of thought,” according to 
 Kant; but which are by no school held to be immediate ele- 
 ments of sensation. 
 
 We thus return to the position that in every act of conscious- 
 ness the impression on the nerve becomes transformed into a 
 sensation only in the Sensational Centre ; and the old theories 
 of “ eidola,” “images,” “impressions,” are seen to be untenable. 
 -Just as the crystals of sugar have to be decomposed, and the 
 sugar, transformed into glucose, the glucose transformed into 
 lactic acid, before sugar can be assimilable in the organism, so 
 have the retinal images to be decomposed in the optic centre be- 
 fore a visual sensation can be produced. Attempt a more direct 
 process, and failure is inevitable : cane-sugar injected into the 
 veins is expelled in the, urine as a foreign substance, not assimila- 
 
 Miiller, Physiology, Eng. Trans, i. 1072. 
 
DARWIN. 
 
 615 
 
 ble ; and, in like manner, the most dexterous adjustment of rays 
 of light falling immediately on the optic ganglion, not transmit- 
 ted thereto by the optic nerve, would produce no visual sensation. 
 
 Does not this demonstrate the purely subjective nature of all 
 our knowledge, and the necessary admixture of the ideal element 
 in all perception ? It also demonstrates the futility of the theory 
 adopted by Hartley and Darwin, which attempts to explain men- 
 tal phenomena by “ vibrations” and “ motions.” Motion can 
 only be motion, it cannot be the specific phenomena we name 
 sensation. To call sensations aud ideas by the vague name of 
 motions, is to violate the conditions of philosophic language, and 
 to mislead those who accept it into the belief that an explanation 
 has been given in the change of term. That Darwin was by it 
 misled into absurdity will be apparent in the following attempt 
 to explain perception : 
 
 “ No one will deny,” he says, “that the medulla of the brain 
 and nerves has a certain figure ; which, as it is diffused through 
 nearly the whole of the body, must have nearly the figure of 
 that body. Now it follows that the spirit of animation, or living 
 principle, as it occupies this medulla and no other part, has also 
 the same figure as the medulla . . . which is nearly the figure 
 of the body. When the idea of solidity is excited, a part of the 
 extensive organ of touch is compressed by some external body, 
 and this part of the sensorium so compressed exactly resembles 
 in figure the figure of the body that compressed it. Hence 
 when we acquii'e the idea of solidity we acquire at the same time 
 the idea of figure ; and this idea of figure, or motion of a part 
 of the organ of touch, exactly resembles in its figure the figure 
 of the body that occasions it ; and thus exactly acquaints us with 
 this property of the external world.”* 
 
 He is thus brought back to the old conception of the mind 
 being “ impressed” by the exact forms of objects as wax is im- 
 pressed by a seal. As he proceeds he gets more and more ab- 
 
 * Zoonomia, pp. 111-2. 
 
616 
 
 DAEWIN. 
 
 surd. Thus he says, although “ there may exist beings in the 
 universe that have not the property of solidity ; that is, which 
 can possess any part of space at the same time that it is occupied 
 by other bodies ; yet there may be other beings that can assume 
 this 'property of solidity or disrobe themselves of it occasionally, as 
 we are taught of spirits and of angels ; and it would seem that 
 the spirit of animation must be endued with this property, other i 
 wise how could it occasionally give motion to the limbs of ani- 
 mals ? or be itself stimulated into motion by the obtrusions of 
 surrounding bodies, as of light or odor ?”* He is led to this by 
 the Spinozistic axiom, that “ no two things can influence or affect 
 each other which have not some property common to both of 
 them,” which axiom destroys the possibility of spirit acting on 
 body. Hartley, as we saw, tried to get over this difficulty by 
 assuming the existence of a substance intermediate between body 
 and spirit. Darwin finds it easy to assume that the spirit has 
 the power of putting on or putting oft’ the properties of matter 
 just as it pleases. “Hence the spirit of animation at the time 
 it communicates or receives motion from solid bodies must itself 
 possess some property of solidity. And at the time it receives 
 other kinds of motion from light, it must possess that property 
 which light possesses to communicate that motion named Visi- 
 bility. In like manner it possesses Saporosity, Odorosity, Tangi- 
 bility, and Audibility.”! 
 
 This is enough to show how little Darwin understood the real 
 value of his luminous idea respecting Psychology based on the 
 laws of life ; enough also to make every one understand how 
 philosophers rebelled against such “ materialism” as issued from 
 the explanation of mental phenomena by “ sensory motions.” 
 Before finally quitting the Zoanomia we must pause a moment 
 over the explanation of our feeling for Beauty. He describes the 
 sensations of the babe when “ soon after it is born into this cold 
 world it is applied to its mother’s warm bosom,” and the agree- 
 
 * Zoonomia, p. 114. 
 
 t Ibid., i. 115. 
 
DAEWIN. 
 
 617 
 
 able influences wbich thus grow up in the mind associated with 
 the form of the bosom “which the infant embraces with its 
 hands, presses with its lips, and watches with its eyes ; and thus 
 acquires more accurate ideas of the form than of the odor, and 
 flavor, or warmth, which it perceives by its other senses. And 
 hence in our maturer years, when any object of vision is presented 
 to us, which, by its waving or spiral lines, bears any similitude 
 to the form of the female bosom, — whether it be found in a 
 landscape with soft gradations of rising and descending surface, 
 or in the form of some antique vases, or in the works of the 
 pencil or chisel, — we feel a general glow of delight which seems 
 to influence all our senses ; and if the object be not too large, 
 we experience an attraction to embrace it with our arms, and 
 to salute it with our lips, as we did in our early infancy the bosom 
 of our mother.”* 
 
 One of the happiest illustrations of ridicule being the test of 
 truth, is the reply of Sheridan to this theory of Beauty. “ I sup- 
 pose,” said he, “ that the child brought up by hand, would feel 
 all these emotions at the sight of a wooden spoon !” 
 
 Zoanomia, i. 145. 
 
SEYENTH EPOCH. 
 
 SECOND CRISIS . IDEALISM, SKEPTICISM, AND SENSATIONAL- 
 ISM PRODUCING THE REACTION OP COMMON SENSE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 REID. 
 
 Dugald Stewart opens his Account of the Life and Writings 
 of Thomas Reid with remarking that the life was “ uncommonly 
 barren of those incidents which furnish materials for biography 
 and as onr space is scanty, we will content ourselves with a bare 
 enumeration of such facts as may be useful for reference. Thomas 
 Reid was born in 1710, at Strachan in Kincardineshire. He 
 was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen. In 1752 he occu- 
 pied the chair of Moral Philosophy in Aberdeen. In 1764 ap- 
 peared his Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of 
 Common Sense. “In 1763* the Inquiry received a still more 
 substantial testimony of approbation from the University of 
 Glasgow,” in the offer of the chair of Moral Philosophy, vacant 
 by the resignation of Adam Smith. In 1780 Reid resigned his 
 office, and passed the remaining years of his life in retirement 
 and study. In 1785 appeared his Hssays on the Intellectual 
 Powers. He died in Glasgow in 1796, having survived four of 
 his children. 
 
 * We follow Stewart ; but there must be some error here. If the Inquiry 
 was not published till 1764, Reid could not in 1763 have been offered the 
 chair at Glasgow as a “ testimony of approbation.” 
 
RKn>, 
 
 619 
 
 Reid’s philosophy made a great stir at first, but has for some 
 Tears past been sinking into merited neglect. The appeal to 
 Common Sense as arbiter in Philosophy, is now pretty well un- 
 derstood to be on a par with Dr. Johnson’s kicking a stone as a 
 refutation of Berkeley. Indeed Dugald Stewart himself was fully 
 alive to the inconsequence of such an argument, and endeavored 
 to shield his master by saying that the phrases “Common Sense” 
 and “ Instinct” were unhappily chosen. Unfortunately they were 
 not mere phrases with Reid ; they were principles. It is impos- 
 sible to read the Inquiry and not see that Reid took his stand 
 upon Common Sense and Beattie and Oswald, his immediate 
 disciples, are still more open to the charge. 
 
 It would carry us to great lengths if we were to examine all 
 the questionable tenets contained in the Philosophy of Common 
 Sense. We cannot however pass the supposed triumph over 
 Locke, who said that personal identity consists in Consciousness ; 
 “ that is,” continues Reid, “ if you are conscious you did such a 
 thing a twelvemonth ago, this consciousness of what is past can 
 signify nothing else but the remembrance that I did it; so 
 Locke’s principle must be, that Identity consists in remembrance ; 
 and, consequently, a man must lose his personal identity with 
 regard to every thing he forgets.” Here Locke is altogether 
 misstated. Consciousness does not resolve itself into any single 
 act of memory, as Reid would here have us believe, nor can per- 
 sonal identity be limited to any one act. I have the conscious- 
 ness of a certain mental state, therewith is connected the re- 
 membrance of some anterior state, which was also connected 
 with an anterior state, and so on. The chain is made up of 
 many links, and although some of these may be out of sight, not 
 one is broken. I am connected with my boyhood by a regular 
 series of transmitted acts of consciousness. I may have forgotten 
 
 * “ I despise Philosophy, and renounce its guidance : let my soul dwell 
 with Common Sense.” {Inquiry, ch. i. § 3.) Let it be observed in passing, 
 that by Reid’s disciples the Inquiry is always regarded as his best work ; 
 Jie Essays were written in old age. 
 
620 
 
 KEID. 
 
 a thousand things, hut I have not forgotten myself : if one ad 
 performed yesterday is forgotten to-day, all are not forgotten ' 
 and to remember one, however indistinctly, is sufficient to keep 
 up the continuity of consciousness. Let those who fancy the 
 sentiment of personal identity does not consist in the conscious- 
 ness of personal identity, show us in what it does consist. 
 
 We come now to Reid’s great achievement, that upon which 
 he declared his philosophical fame to rest : the refutation of 
 Berkeley and Hume by the refutation of the Ideal theory. This 
 he considered as his contribution to philosophy ; this has been 
 made the monument of his glory. It appears to us, after a long 
 acquaintance with his writings, and a careful perusal of what his 
 critics and admirers have advanced, that his sole merit in this 
 respect is that of having called attention to some abuses of lan- 
 guage, and to some examples of metaphors mistaken for facts. 
 How much confusion the word “ idea” has always created need 
 scarcely be alluded to ; and any attempt to destroy the accepta- 
 tion of the word as tantamount to image, must be welcomed as 
 salutary. So far let us be grateful to Reid. Locke’s use of the 
 word “idea” as signifying “a thought” instead of an “image,” 
 has misled thousands. But whatever abuses may have crept in 
 with the use of the word idea, it seems to us quite clear that 
 Berkeley and Hume are not to be refuted by refuting the hy- 
 pothesis of ideas, as Reid and his school suppose. 
 
 Let us, to avoid useless discussion, take it for granted that 
 philosophers did adopt the theory of ideas which Reid combats ; 
 let us also grant that Reid has overturned that theory. What 
 advance is made towards a solution of the problem ? Not one 
 step. The dilemma into which Hume threw Philosophy remains 
 the same as ever. As I cannot transcend the sphere of my Con- 
 sciousness, I can never know things except as they act upon me 
 — as they affect my Consciousness. In other words, a knowledge 
 of an external world otherwise than as it appears to ray Sense, 
 which transforms and distorts it, is impossible. 
 
 This proposition may be said to form the ground of Skepti- 
 
KEID. 
 
 621 
 
 cism. Now, we ask, how is that proposition affected by over- 
 throwing the ideal theory ? What does it signify whether the 
 “affections of my consciousness” be regarded as “images” or 
 not ? They do not remain less purely subjective which ever way 
 we regard them. They are changes in me. The main position 
 of Skepticism is precisely this subjectivity of knowledge. Be- 
 cause we cannot transcend consciousness, we can never know 
 things per se. Reid acknowledges that we cannot know things 
 per se ; but he says that we must believe in them, because in 
 what we do know their existence is suggested. This is exactly 
 the opinion of Locke ; nay more, it is the doctrine of Hume : for 
 he says that we do believe in an external world, though we have 
 no good reason for doing so. Sir J. Mackintosh relates, that he 
 once observed to Dr. Thomas Brown that he thought Reid and 
 Hume differed more in words than opinions : Brown answered, 
 “Yes, Reid bawled out v'e must believe in an outward world; 
 but added, in a whisper, we can give no reason for our belief. 
 Hume cries out we can give no reason for such a notion; and 
 whispers, J own we cannot get rid of it.” 
 
 Reid ought to have seen that his refutation of the ideal theory 
 left Idealism and Skepticism untouched :* for either doctrine it 
 matters little how the knowledge be acquired, so that it be en- 
 tirely subjective. The argument brought forward by Dugald 
 Stewart — that the belief in the existence of an external world 
 is one of the Fundamental Laws of Human Belief — is more phil- 
 osophical ; but when he says that Berkeley’s Idealism was owing 
 to the unhappy and unphilosophical attempt of Descartes to 
 prove the existence of the world, he forgets that Idealism was 
 known in the ancient schools long before any one thought of 
 proving the existence of matter. Moreover, although Stewart’s 
 formula is not open to the same objections as Reid’s, yet it leaves 
 the vital question untouched. 
 
 No one doubts that we believe in the existence of an external 
 
 * In fact, Malebranche’s Idealism, which is very similar to Berkeley’s, ie 
 founded on a theory of Perception almost identical with Reid’s. 
 
 42 
 
522 
 
 REID. 
 
 world. Idealism never questions the fact. The only doubt is 
 whether that belief be objectively as well as subjectively true. 
 To say that the belief iu objective existence is a Fundamental 
 Law, is simply saying that we are so constituted that we are 
 forced to attribute external reality to our sensations. As well 
 say we are so constituted that fire applied to our bodies will give 
 us pain. We are so constituted. What then ? Does this ad- 
 vance us one step ? Not one. We have still to seek some proof 
 of the laws of our constitution being the measure of the laws of 
 other existences — still to seek how what is true of the subjective 
 must necessarily be true of the objective. 
 
 Thus, granting to Stewart all he claims, we see that he does 
 not attain to the heart of the question ; and, strictly speaking, 
 he does not touch Berkeley at all ; he only touches Hume. 
 For what answer can it be to Berkeley, to say that our Belief in 
 matter is a Fundamental Law, not to be questioned ? Berkeley 
 would reply : “ Exactly ; I said as much. I said that men be- 
 lieved their senses, and believed that what they saw was out of 
 them. This is the law of human nature : God has so ordained 
 it. But that which men do not believe, is the existence of an 
 occult substance, an imaginary world lying underneath all ap- 
 pearances. You do not mean to assert that the belief in this sub- 
 stance is a Fundamental Law ? If you do, you must be mad.” 
 Stewart’s answer is thus shown to be quite beside the mark. 
 
 Reid constantly declares that no reason can be given for our 
 belief; it must be referred to an original instinctive principle of 
 our constitution, implanted in us for that express purpose. If 
 this be so, we ask, upon what pretence does Reid claim ihe 
 merit of having refuted Idealism and Skepticism by refuting the 
 deal hypothesis? If instinct and not reason is to settle the 
 question, then has the ideal hypothesis nothing to do with it; if 
 the refutation of the ideal hypothesis sufficed, then has instinct 
 nothing to do with it. “To talk of Dr. Reid,” said the Quar- 
 terly, in its review of Stewart’s Second Dissertation, “ as if his 
 writings had opposed a barrier to the prevalence of Skeptical 
 
REID. 
 
 623 
 
 pliiJosophy, is an evident mistake. Dr. Reid successfully refuted 
 the principles by which Berkeley and Hume endeavored to 
 establish their conclusions; but the conclusions themselves he 
 himself adopted as the very premises from which he reasons. 
 The impossibility of proving the existence of a material world 
 from ‘ reason, or experience, or instruction, or habit, or any other 
 principle hitherto known to philosophers,’ is the argument and 
 the only argument by which he endeavors to force upon us his 
 theory of instinctive principles.” 
 
 It appears, then, that inasmuch as Reid declares instinct to be 
 the only principle upon which we can found our belief in an ex- 
 ternal world, his argument against Berkeley is trebly vicious. 
 First, because the belief •was never questioned ; secondly, because 
 although we must act according to our instincts, such a neces- 
 sity is no proof that our beliefs are true ; thirdly, because if in- 
 stinct, and not reason, is to be the arbiter, the attack on the 
 ideal hypothesis is utterly beside the question. 
 
 Thus we see that, granting to Reid the glory he claims of 
 having destroyed the ideal hypothesis, he has only destroyed an 
 outpost, fancying it to be the fortress. A few words on his own 
 theory of perception may not be out of place here. 
 
 He justly enough declared the ideal hypothesis to be gratui- 
 tous. We have no reason for supposing that the mind perceives 
 images of things instead of the things themselves. But he over- 
 looks, or rather denies, the fact that we perceive things mediate- 
 ly I he says we perceive them immediately. His explanations 
 are contradictory and confused, but he repeats the assertion so 
 often, that there can be no doubt he meant to say we perceive 
 things immediately : the mind stands face to face with the thing, 
 and perceives it immediately, without any medium of ideas, 
 images, eidola, or the like. In this we believe him utterly in the 
 wrong ; his battle against “ ideas” carried him too far. It is one 
 thing to say that loe are affected by the things, and not by images 
 of things ; and another thing to say that we perceive things im- 
 mediately. The former is correct ; the latter is in direct contra- 
 
621 
 
 
 diction witli all we know of perception ; and Reid constantly 
 contradicts himself on the point. 
 
 “ When I attend,” he says, “ as carefully as I can to what 
 passes in my mind, it appears evident that the very thing Lsaw 
 yesterday, and the fragrance I smelled, are now the immediate 
 objects of my mind when I remember it. . . . Upon the strictest 
 attention, memory appears to me to have the things that are 
 past, and not present ideas for its objects.” 
 
 This is his position against the ideal hypothesis, which as- 
 sumes that nothing is perceived but what is in the mind which 
 perceives it; that we do not really perceive things which are 
 external, hut only certain images and pictures of them imprinted 
 on the mind. The position is untenable. The very thing, the 
 rose, of which he thinks, is not an immediate object at all : it is 
 elsewhere. The fragrance cannot even be recalled ; that is to 
 say, cannot be felt again, but only thought. All we can remem- 
 ber is the fact of having been affected by the rose in a certain 
 manner ; that affection we call fragrance ; we cannot recall the 
 affection. Reid could hardly, therefore, have meant what his 
 words literally express. Perhaps he meant, that when we think 
 of the rose and the fragrance, the object of which we think is 
 the rose, not an idea of the rose. But what a truism ! He 
 says, that “ in memory the things that are past, and not present 
 ideas, are the objects of the mind.” This is either a needless 
 truism or a falsism. Let us alter the sentence thus — “ In mem- 
 ory the things thought q/are not themselves present to the mind, 
 but the thoughts only are present to it.” Reid would not dis- 
 pute this — could not dispute it ; yet it is only a more guarded 
 statement of the ideal hypothesis ; it substitutes “ thoughts” for 
 “ideas.” He was misled by the ambiguity of the word “ object,” 
 which he uses as if meaning simply what the mind is thinking 
 of; and of course the mind thinks of the thing, and not of the 
 idea. But the ideal hypothesis takes “object” to be that which 
 is immediately present to — face to face — with the mind, viz., an 
 idea, or thought ; and of course the mind thinks by its thoughts : 
 
KEID. 
 
 625 
 
 A may think about the thing, but it is through the medium 
 thought. 
 
 The difference is this : — The Idealist says, that when things 
 affect us, our sensations are what we perceive, and not the things 
 producing those sensations. Eeid says, we feel our sensations, 
 but therewith also we perceive the things. The Idealist further 
 says, that when we think of things, the immediate object face to 
 face with the mind is not a thing but an idea (thought). Eeid 
 says the object is the very thing : which is either an absurdity, 
 or else does not differ from the ideal hypothesis. 
 
 We are quite ready to admit that the pretended separation 
 of thoughts from thinking, and the making thoughts ' objects,’* 
 is vicious ; and therefore Eeid’s language is perhaps less objec- 
 tionable. But we must confess that we see no other advantage 
 he gains over his adversaries. He does not pretend that our 
 sensations are at all like their causes ; nay, he fancies that he 
 destroys the ideal hypothesis by insisting on the want of resem- 
 blance between matter and our sensations. He says, over and 
 over again, that the external world is in no respect like our sen- 
 sations of it. “ Indeed, no man can conceive any sensation to 
 resemble any known quality of bodies. Hor can any man show, 
 by any good argument, that all our sensations might not have 
 been as they are, though no body, nor quality of body, had ever 
 existed.”* This granted, the question arises. How do you know 
 any thing of the external world ? Eeid answers, “ It is owing to 
 an original instinct implanted in us for that purpose.” Push the 
 question further, drive him into a corner, and bid him tell you 
 what that instinct enables you to know of matter, and he will 
 answer, “ In sensation there is suggested to us a cause of that 
 sensation in the quality of a body capable of producing it. This 
 is Locke’s view. 
 
 The great point in Eeid’s theory is, that with our sensations 
 are joined perceptions. “ The senses have a double province,” ha 
 
 Inquiry, ch. v. § 2. 
 
626 
 
 KEID. 
 
 says ; “ they furnish us with a variety of sensations, some pleas 
 ant, others painful, and others indifferent ; at the same time they 
 give us a conception, and an invincible belief of the existence of 
 external objects. This conception and belief, which nature pro- 
 duces by means of the senses, we call ‘perceptions’^ This, upon 
 which so much stress is laid that philosophers are said to have 
 been always in error because they overlooked it, we regard as a 
 remarkable instance of Reid’s want of subtlety. Neither Berke- 
 ley nor Hume denied the fact of our belief in the externality of 
 the causes of sensations : Berkeley denied that these causes had 
 an occult substratum ; Hume denied that any reason could be 
 given for our belief in their externality. What force then has 
 “ Perception ?” It is nothing more than that “ belief,” accord- 
 ing to Reid ; though to call perception a belief is, to say the 
 least, a somewhat inaccurate use of language. But grant all he 
 wishes, and you grant that with our sensations there is an ac- 
 companying belief in the existence of an external cause of those 
 sensations. Berkeley would answer, “Very true; but that cause 
 is not unthinking matter.” Hume would answer, “Very true; 
 but we can give no reason for our belief ; we can know nothing 
 of the cause.” Reid can only retort, “Perception is belief:” a 
 retort which has been deemed satisfactory by his school ; which 
 really is only an abuse of language ; and which moreover has 
 the further disadvantage of being available only as an argument 
 against Hume ; for against Berkeley it is powerless. If percep- 
 tion is belief, and we perceive an external world, Hume may be 
 answered when he says we have no grounds for our belief. But 
 Berkeley is not answered. He says that we do believe in an ex- 
 ternal world ; but that world is not a world of unthinking mat- 
 ter — it is a world of divine agency. Reid would not pretend 
 that in sensation or perception we can distinguish the nature of 
 the causes which affect us ; he constantly tells us that we can- 
 not know what those causes are, but only that there are causes, 
 
 Essays on Intellectual Powers, ii. ch. xvii. 
 
EEID. 
 
 627 
 
 As long as the noumenal world is removed from our inspection, 
 BO long must Berkeley remain unrefuted by any theory of per- 
 ception. The error of his system, as we endeavored to show, is 
 in the gratuitousness of his assumption with respect to the imme- 
 diate agency of the Deity. 
 
 Reid says, that if we grant Berkeley’s premise — viz. “ we can 
 have no conception of any material thing which is not like some 
 sensation in our minds” — then are the conclusions of Idealism 
 and Skepticism unanswerable. This premise therefore he dis- 
 putes. Now attend to his challenge : — -“This I would therefore 
 humbly propose, as an experimentum crucis, by which the ideal 
 system must stand or fall ; and it brings the matter to a short 
 issue : Extension, figure, and motion may, any one or all of them, 
 be taken for the subject of this experiment. Either they are 
 ideas of sensation, or they are not. If any one of them can be 
 shown to be an idea of sensation, or to have the least resemblance 
 to any sensation, I lay my hand upon my mouth and give up all 
 pretence to reconcile reason to common sense in this matter, 
 and must suffer the ideal skepticism to triumph.”* It was not 
 till after repeated perusals that we caught the significance of 
 this passage ; and are not quite positive that we have understood 
 it now. To admit it to have any force at all, we must understand 
 “ ideas of sensation” as “ images of sensation.” Certainly, exten- 
 sion is no copy of any one sensation. But if Reid means to say 
 that the idea of extension is not the result of complex sensations 
 which a body excites in us — if he means to say that the idea 
 of extension is not an abstract idea by which we express a cer- 
 tain property of bodies, a property known to us only through sen- 
 sation — then must we cease all dispute, and leave him in pos- 
 session of his wonderful discovery. 
 
 Reid’s theory of perception may be thus stated : — External 
 objects occasion certain sensations in us; with these sensations 
 we perceive the.existence of certain qualities capable of producing 
 
 Inquiry, ch. v. § 7. 
 
828 
 
 KEID. 
 
 them; these he distinguishes into primary and secondary. The 
 primary, he says, we perceive immediately ; the second, mediately. 
 
 And this is the theory by which, with the aid of an “ original 
 instinct” (some instincts then are acquired ?), he is supposed to 
 have refuted Idealism. Any one may see that. Berkeley might 
 readily have relinquished his ideal hypothesis, and accepted 
 Reid’s, with perfect security for Idealism. The “ unknown 
 causes,” which Reid calls “qualities,” Berkeley calls “divine 
 laws.” The difference is merely nominal. 
 
 This much with respect to Idealism. With respect to Hume, 
 the theory is almost as harmless, Hume would say, “All that 
 is given in sensation is sensation ; your “ perception” (which you 
 call belief) of qualities amounts to nothing more than a suppo- 
 sition — a necessary one, I admit; but I have always said that 
 our belief in external causes of sensation was an irresistible preju- 
 dice ; and my argument is, that we have nothing but the pi'cju- 
 dice as a proof — reason, we have none.” 
 
 Finally, with respect to Locke, it will in the first place be seen 
 that Reid’s solution is neither more nor less than that given by 
 Locke ; in the second place, the boasted refutation of the ideal 
 hypothesis is always supposed by Reid’s school to be a refutation 
 of Locke’s view of the origin of knowledge ; and this is a very 
 great mistake. Because Berkeley and Hume pushed Locke’s 
 system to conclusions from which he wisely shrank, it has been 
 generally supposed that his account of the origin of our knowl- 
 edge is indissolubly bound up with the ideal hypothesis, by it to 
 stand or fall. This probably is the meaning of the vulgar error 
 that Locke’s view of knowledge leads to atheism. It led to 
 Hume. In disproof of Reid’s supposition we answer, firstly. 
 Idealism is not indissolubly bound up with the ideal hypothesis, 
 although Berkeley may have adopted that hypothesis ; secondly, 
 Locke’s system is altogether independent of the hypothesis, and 
 in his Review of the doctrines of Malebranche he very distinctly 
 and emphatically denies it. The force of this observation will 
 better be appreciated when it is remembered that although 
 
EEID. 
 
 629 
 
 Locke’s language is notoriously unguarded and wavering, all his 
 reasonings are founded on the use of the word “ ideas” as synony- 
 mous with “ notions” or thoughts.” 
 
 In conclusion, although we think it has been shown that the 
 Common-Sense Philosophy egregiously failed in answering 
 Berkeley and Hume, it was not without service by directing the 
 attention of mankind more exclusively to Psychology. The 
 phrases so complacently used by Dugald Stewart to express the 
 nature of his inquiries, namely “inductive metaphysics” and 
 “ experimental philosophy of the mind,” are perhaps objection- 
 able ; but few will deny the value of his Elements^ and of Brown’s 
 Lectures^ works so popular as to need no further mention here. 
 The Analysis of the Mind^ by the late James Mill, which may 
 be regarded as the development of Hartley’s doctrine, stripped 
 of its physical hypothesis, is less known ; but it is a work of 
 great value, and would long ago have been as popular had it 
 been written in a more engaging manner. No one interested in 
 these inquiries should omit studying it.* 
 
 The philosophy of the Scotch School was a protest against 
 Skepticism. It failed ; but another protest was made in Ger- 
 many, and on philosophical principles. That also failed, but in 
 another way ; and the attempt was altogether more worthy of 
 Philosophy. The reader foresees that we allude to Kant. 
 
 * Since the first edition of this work. Sir W. Hamilton has published an 
 edition of Eeid, illustrated and enriched by notes and dissertations of incom- 
 parable erudition and acuteness. Eespecting the interpretation Sir William 
 gives to Eeid’s doctrines, I will only say that he has shown what a subtle 
 mind can read into the philosophy of common sense ; but he has not in the 
 least produced the conviction in me of Eeid’s having meant what the illus- 
 trious successor supposed him to have meant. At the same time I will add 
 that the limits of my work having restricted me to the consideration of Eeid’s 
 contributions to Philosophy (in the narrow sense of the term), I have not 
 do«»e justice to his many excellent qualities as a teacher. His works are well 
 wo'thy of diligent study, and their spirit is eminently scientific. 
 
EIGHTH EPOCH. 
 
 RECURRENCE TO THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION RESPECTING 
 THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 KANT. 
 
 § I. Life of Kant. 
 
 Immanuel Kant was born at Konigsberg, in Prussia, 22cl 
 April, 1V24. His family was originally Scotch, a circumstance 
 which, when taken in conjunction with his philosophical con- 
 nection with Hume, has some little interest. His father was a 
 saddler, a man of tried integrity. His mother was somewhat 
 severe, but upright, speaking the truth, and exacting it. Kant 
 was eaily bred in a love of truth, and had before him such ex- 
 amples of moral worth as must materially have contributed to 
 form his own inflexible principles. 
 
 Madame de Stael has remarked, that there is scarcely another 
 example, except in Grecian history, of a life so rigorously philo- 
 sophical as that of Kant. He lived to a great age, and never 
 once quitted the snows of murky Konigsberg. There he passed 
 a calm and happy existence, meditating, professing, and writing. 
 He had mastered all the sciences ; he had studied languages, 
 and cultivated literature. He lived and died a type of the Ger- 
 man Professor : he rose, smoked, drank his coflee, wrote, lec- 
 tured, took his daily walk always at precisely the same hour. 
 The cathedral clock, it was said, was not more punctual in its 
 movements than Immanuel Kant.'^ 
 
 * He mentions having once been kept two or three days from his pro- 
 menade by reading Rousseau’s Emile, which had just appeared. 
 
LIFE OF KANT. 
 
 631 
 
 He was early sent to the University. There he began and 
 there he ended his career. Mathematics and physics principally 
 occupied his attention at first; and the success with which he 
 pursued these studies soon manifested itself in various publica- 
 tions. He predicted the existence of the planet Uranus ; and 
 Herschel himself, after discovering it, admitted Kant’s having 
 first announced it. 
 
 But none of these publications attracted much attention till 
 the renown of his Critique of Pure Reason had made every 
 thing produced by him a matter of interest. Nor did the 
 Critique itself attract notice at first. The novelty of its views, 
 the repulsiveness of its terminology and style, for some time ob- 
 scured its real value. This value was at length discovered and 
 made known. All Germany rang with praises of the new phi- 
 losophy. Almost every “chair” was filled by a Kantist. Num- 
 berless books, and not a few pamphlets, came rapidly from the 
 press, either attacking or defending the principles of the Critical 
 Philosophy. Kant had likened himself to Copernicus. The 
 disciples likened him both to Copernicus and Newton ; for he 
 had not only changed the whole science of Metaphysics, as 
 Copernicus had changed the science of Astronomy, but had also 
 consummated the science he originated. 
 
 The Critique was, he tells us, the product of twelve years’ 
 meditation. It was written in less than five months. These 
 two facts sufficiently explain the defects of its composition. In 
 his long meditations he had elaborated his system, divided and 
 subdivided it, and completed its heavy and useless terminology. 
 In the rapidity of composition he had no time for the graces of 
 style, nor for that all-important clearness of structure which (de- 
 pending as it does upon the due gradation of the parts, and upon 
 the clearness with which the parts themselves are conceived) 
 may be regarded as the great desideratum of a philosophical 
 style. 
 
 But in spite of these defects — defects which would have been 
 pardoned by no public but a German public — the Critique be 
 
632 
 
 KANT. 
 
 came celebrated, and its author bad to endure tbe penalty of 
 celebrity. He was pestered with numerous calls of curious 
 strangers, who would not leave Konigsberg without having seen 
 him. To tbe curious were added the admiring. Enthusiastic 
 scholars undertook long journeys to see their great master. 
 Professor Reuss one day walked into his study, saying brusquely 
 that “he had travelled a hundred and sixty miles to see and. 
 speak with Kant.” The visits became so numerous, that in the 
 latter part of his life he contented himself with merely showing 
 himself at the door of his study for a few minutes. 
 
 Kant never spoke of his own system, and from his house the 
 subject was entirely banished. He scarcely read any of the at- 
 tacks on his works : he had enough of Philosophy in his study 
 and lecture-room, and was glad to escape from it to the topics of 
 the day. 
 
 He died on the 12th of February, 1804, in the eightieth year 
 of his age, retaining his powers almost to the last. He latterly, 
 during his illness, talked much of his approaching end. “I do 
 not fear death,” he said, “ for I know how to die. I assure you 
 that if I knew this night was to be my last, I would raise my 
 hands and say, ‘ God be praised !’ The case would be far differ- 
 ent if I had ever caused the misery of any of his creatures.” 
 
 For a picture of Kant’s daily habits, and many interesting 
 traits of his character, the reader will do well to look at De 
 Quincey’s “ Last Days of Immanuel Kant,” in the third volume 
 of his Miscellanies. I cannot find space for such details ; nor 
 for more than a passing mention of Kant’s relation to Sweden- 
 borg, of which such unjustifiable use is often made by the ad- 
 mirers of the latter, who proclaim, with emphasis, that Kant 
 testified to the truth of Swedenborg’s clairvoyance. He did 
 nothing of the kind. In his Letter on Swedenborg* he narrates 
 two of the reported cases of Swedenborg’s clairvoyance.! and says 
 
 * Kleine AnthropologiscTie Schriften (Theil vii. p. 5, of Eosenkrantz and 
 Schubert’s ed.). 
 
kant’s historical position. 
 
 633 
 
 he knows not how to disprove them, they being supported by 
 such respectable testimony ; but be nowhere testifies to them 
 himself; and in Anthropologie, §§ 35 and 37,* his energetic 
 contempt for Swedenborgianism and all other Schwarmerei is 
 unequivocally expressed. 
 
 § II. Kant’s Historical Position. 
 
 There is a notion, somewhat widely spread through England, 
 that Kant was a “ dreamer.” He is regarded as a sort of Mystic ; 
 and the epithet “ transcendental" is made to express the superb 
 contempt which common sense feels for the vagaries of philoso- 
 phers. The “dreams of the Kantian philosophy,” and “tran- 
 scendental nonsense,” are phrases which, once popular, now less 
 so, are still occasionally to be met with in quarters where one 
 little expects to find them. 
 
 We are bound to say that, whatever the errors of Kantism, 
 “ dreaminess” or “ mysticism” are the last qualities to be predi- 
 cated of it. If its terminology render it somewhat obscure and 
 repulsive, no sooner is the language comprehended, than all ob- 
 scurity falls away, and a system of philosophy is revealed, which 
 lor rigor, clearness, and, above all, intelligibility, surpasses by 
 many degrees systems hitherto considered easy enough of com- 
 prehension. 
 
 Convinced that the system of Kant is plainly intelligible, and 
 finding that neither Kant himself nor the generality of his ex- 
 positors, have succeeded in overcoming the repulsiveness of neol- 
 ogisms and a cumbrous terminology,! our task must obviously 
 
 • Kleine Anthropologische Schriften, zweite Abtheil. p. 89 sq. 
 t Since this was written, we have read the work of Victor Cousin, Letons 
 mr Kant, vol. i. Paris, 184:2. (Translated into English hy Mr. Henderson, 
 London, 1854.) It is not only one of the hest expositions we have seen ; it 
 is also the most intelligihle. The chapter on Kant in M. Barchou de Pen- 
 hoen’s useful work, Histoire de la Philos. Allemande depuis Leibnitz Jusqu'a 
 Eegel, 2 vols. Paris, 1836, may also he read with advantage ; though incom- 
 plete, it is intelligihle. Also Morell’s History of Speculative Philos, in the 
 Nineteenth Century. Readers of German will do well to read Chalyhaus’a 
 Uistorische Entwickelimg der Speculativen Philos, von Kant bis Hegel (Dres- 
 
63i 
 
 KANT. 
 
 be to give an exposition of the system, as far as possible, in ordi- 
 nary philosopbica'i language ; and, by exhibiting the historical 
 position which it occupies, connect with it speculations already 
 familiar to the reader. 
 
 From Spinoza to Kant the great question had been this : — • 
 Have we, or have we not, any Ideas which can be called necessa- 
 rily, absolutely true ? A question which resolved itself into this : 
 Have we, or have we not, any Ideas independent of Experience ? 
 
 The answer given by the majority of thinkers was, that we 
 liad no ideas independent of Experience ; and Hume had shown 
 that Experience itself was utterly incompetent to assure us ot 
 any truth not simply relative. 
 
 Experience irresistibly led to Skepticism. The dilemma, there- 
 fore, which we signalized in the First Crisis of modern Philoso- 
 phy, again presented itself : Spinozism or Skepticism ? The 
 labors of so many thinkers had only brought the question round 
 to its starting-point. But Spinozism was alarming — Skepticism 
 scarcely less so. Before submitting to be gored by either horn 
 of the dilemma, men looked about to see if there was no escape 
 possible. A temporary refuge was found by the Scotch School 
 in Common Sense, and by Kant in Criticism. 
 
 Kant called his system the Critical Philosophy. His object 
 was to examine into the nature of this Experience which led to 
 Skepticism. While men were agreed that Experience was the 
 source of all knowledge, Kant asked himself. What is this Ex- 
 perience ? — What are its Elements ? 
 
 The problem he set himself to solve was but a new aspect of 
 
 den, 1843). (It has been twice translated into English : by Mr. Tulk and by 
 Mr. Edersheim.) Michelet’s Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philos, in 
 Deutschland von Kant bis Hegel (Berlin, 1837), is a learned and valuable 
 work, but can be read only by the initiated. More generally useful than 
 any of these is the Hist, de la Philos. Allemande depuis Kant jiisqu'a Hegel, 
 by J. Wilm, Paris, 1856. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason has been trans- 
 lated by Mr. Meiklcjohn {Bohn's Phihsophical Library, 1855) with so inuci 
 accuracy and ability that the translation may be read with entire confidence 
 which can rarely be said of translations from the German. 
 
KANT S HISTORICAL POSITION. 
 
 635 . 
 
 the problem of Locke’s Essay. On this deep and intricate ques- 
 tion of human knowledge two opposite parties had been formed 
 ■ — the one declaring that all our knowledge was given in Expe- 
 rience, and that all the materials were derived from Sensation, 
 and Eeflection upon those materials ; the other declaring that 
 Sensation only furnished a portion of our Experience. This sec- 
 ond party maintained that there were Elements of knowledge 
 which not only were never derived from Sensation, but which 
 absolutely transcended all sensation. Such, for instance, is the 
 idea of Substance. Experience only informs us of qualities : to 
 these qualities we add a substratum which we call Substance ; 
 and this idea of a substratum, which we are compelled to add, 
 Locke himself confesses we never gained through any sensation 
 of matter. Other ideas, such as Causality, Infinity, Eternity, 
 etc., are also independent of Experience : ergo, says this school, 
 antecedent to it. 
 
 In the course of inquiry, the untenableness of the theory of 
 innate ideas had become apparent. Descartes himself, when 
 closely pressed by his adversaries, gave it up. Still the fact of 
 our possessing ideas apparently not derivable from experience, 
 remained ; and this fact was to be explained. To explain it, 
 Leibnitz asserted that although all knowledge begins with Sensa- 
 tion, it is not all derived from Sensation ; the mind furnishes its 
 quota ; and what it furnishes has the character of universality, 
 necessity, consequently of truth, stamped on it. This doctrine, 
 slightly modified, is popularly known as the doctrine of “ original 
 instincts” — of “ Fundamental Laws of Belief.” 
 
 Kant also recognized the fact insisted on by the adversaries 
 of the Sensational School ; and this fact he set himself carefully 
 to examine. His first object was therefore a Criticism of the 
 operations of the mind. 
 
 Kant considered that his conception of a purely critical phi- 
 losophy was entirely original.* No one before him had thought 
 
 * And Sir W . Hamilton repeats the statement : Discussions, p. 15. 
 
636 
 
 KANT. 
 
 of thus subjecting Reason itself to a thoroughly ciltical in\esti' 
 gation, ill order to reach answers to such questions as : Are a 
 priori synthetic judgments possible ? Is a science of Metaphys- 
 ics possible ? Certainly no one had isolated the a priori ele- 
 ments of knowledge from those given in Experience, as Kant 
 isolated them, to build a system thereon ; but the whole tend- 
 ency of speculative development since Hobbes, had been, as 
 we have seen, towards the investigation of the grounds of cer- 
 titude. 
 
 On interrogating his Consciousness, Kant found that neither 
 of the two ordinary explanations would account for the phenom- 
 ena : the abstract Ideas we have, such as Time, Space, Causal- 
 ity, etc., could not be resolved into Experience alone : nor, on 
 the other hand, although d priori, could they be supposed ab- 
 solutely independent of Experieuce, since they are, as it were, 
 only ihe forms (necessary conditions) of our Experience. 
 
 There are not two sources of Knowledge, said he : on the one 
 side, external objects, and on the other, human understanding. 
 Knowledge has but one source, and that is the union of object 
 and subject. Thus, water is the union of oxygen and hydrogen ; 
 but you cannot say that water has two causes, oxygen and hy- 
 drogen ; it has only one cause, namely, the union of the two. 
 
 In this conception the existence of two distinct factors is as- 
 fumed. “ That all our knowledge begins with Experience,’' he 
 says, “ there can be no doubt. For how is it possible that the 
 faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise 
 than by means of objects which affect our senses, and partly ot 
 themselves produce representations ( Vorstellungen), partly rouse 
 our powers of understanding into activity, to compare, to con- 
 nect; or to separate these, and so to convert the raw material of 
 our sensuous impressions into a knowledge of objects which is 
 called Experience ? In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge 
 of ours is antecedent to Experience, but begins with it. But 
 although all our knowledge begins with Experience, it by nc 
 means follows that all arises out of Experience. For, on the con- 
 
KANT’s niSTOEICAL POSITION. 
 
 637 
 
 \,rary, it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge [Erfahr- 
 ungserkenntniss) is a compound of that which we receive through 
 impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies 
 from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion), an 
 addition which we cannot distinguish from the original element 
 given by sense, till long practice has made us attentive to and 
 skilful in separating it. It is therefore a question which require? 
 close investigation, and is not to be answered at first sight— 
 whether there exists a knowledge altogether independent of Ex 
 perience, and even of all sensuous impressions.”* 
 
 To investigate this is the purpose of Criticism. 
 
 The whole world is to us a series of Phenomena. Are these 
 Appearances the production of the Mind to which they appear ; 
 or are they the pure presentation of the things themselves ? 
 Idealism or Eealism ? Neither ; yet both. The Mind and the 
 object co-operating produce the Appearance or sensuous impres- 
 sion. In their union Perception is effectuated. 
 
 The- Mind has certain materials furnished it, and on these 
 materials it imposes certain forms or conditions of its own. These 
 forms alone make perception possible, since they constitute the 
 modes of the mind’s operation. If we had only sensations — that 
 is, supposing objects acted upon us, and we did not also act upon 
 them — the result would be no more than that of the wind play- 
 ing on the AHolian harp ; Experience would be impossible. To 
 make Experience possible, the mind must grasp objects in a syn- 
 thesis of the objects and the forms of the perceptive power. 
 
 Kant’s Criticism was directed against Locke on the one hand, 
 in establishing that we have ideas independent of Experience ; 
 and against Hume on the other, in establishing that these ideas 
 have a character of universality, necessity, and irresistibility. 
 But — and the point is important — his Criticism proved that 
 these ideas, although universal and certain, could not be called 
 absolutely true ; they were only subjectively true. This was fall- 
 
 43 
 
 *■ Kritik, Einleitung (Translation, p. 1). 
 
638 
 
 KANT. 
 
 ing back into Hume’s position ; since altliough Hume called be- 
 lief in causality the effect of habit, and Kant called it a law of 
 the mind, yet both agieed in denying to it any objective truth ; 
 both agreed that a knowledge of things per se was impossible. 
 
 We regard the result of Kant’s investigation of the elements 
 of Thought as nothing less than a scientific basis for Skepticism. 
 He likens his philosophical reform to the reform introduced into 
 Astronomy by Copernicus.'"' Finding the labors of men unsatis- 
 factory, Copernicus bethought him that perhaps success might 
 crown his efforts if he shifted his ground, if, instead of assuming 
 that the sun turned round the earth, he were to assume that the 
 earth turned round the sun. So Kant says, that the ordinary 
 assumption of our knowledge following the order of external ob- 
 jects seemed to him better if reversed, and if we were to assume 
 that the objects obeyed the laws of our mental constitution. And 
 he calls his system critical, because it is founded on an examina- 
 tion of our cognitive faculties. Both the name and the compar- 
 ison appear to us erroneous. An examination of the cognitive 
 faculties was, as we have often said, the great topic of philo- 
 sophical speculation, and although the examination of Kant 
 differed somewhat from every other in result, it in nowise differ- 
 ed in method. Copernicus positively changed the point of view. 
 Kant did nothing of the kind : his attempt to deduce the laws of 
 the phenomenal world from the laws of mind, was little more 
 than the attempt of Descartes to deduce the world from Con- 
 sciousness ; it is the same as the attempts of Leibnitz and Berke- 
 ley in method ; and the result is very much the re alt obtained 
 by Hume, namely, that we can know nothing but our own ideas, 
 we can never know things per se. Kant, after analyzing the 
 operations of the mind, discovered indeed certain principles of 
 certitude ; but he admitted that those principles could not be 
 applied to things herjond the Mind ; and that all within the 
 sphere of our cognition was no more than phenomenal. He re- 
 
 * See the celebrated second Preface to the Kritik. 
 
kant’s histoeical position. 
 
 639 
 
 views his investigation, and then, declaring that he has gone the 
 round of the domain of human Understanding and measured it 
 exactly, he is still forced to ndmit that that domain is only an 
 island. Nature has assigned to it invariable limits. It is the 
 empire of Truth ; hut it is surrounded by a stormy and illimita- 
 ble sea, upon which we discover nothing but illusions. There, 
 on that sea, the navigator, deceived by masses of ice which ap- 
 pear and disappear successively before him, believing that at 
 every moment he is about to discover land, wanders without re- 
 pose, guided only by one hope ; he is the plaything of the stormy 
 waves, always forming new plans, always preparing himself for 
 new experiences, which he cannot renounce, and yet which he 
 can never obtain.* 
 
 To the Skeptic Kant says, “ No : experience is not a deceit ; 
 human Understanding has its fixed laws, and those laws are true.” 
 
 To the Dogmatist he says, “But this Understanding can never 
 know Things per se. It is occupied solely with its own Ideas. 
 It perceives only the Appearances of Things. How would it be 
 possible to know Noumena ? By stripping them of the forms 
 which our Sensibility and Understanding have impressed upon 
 them (^. e. by making them cease to be Appearances). But to 
 strip them of these forms, we must annihilate Consciousness — we 
 must substitute for our Sensibility and Understanding, a faculty, 
 or faculties, capable of perceiving Things per se. This, it is obvi- 
 ous, we cannot do. Our only means of communication with 
 objects are precisely this Sensibility and this Understanding, 
 which give to objects the forms under which we know them.” 
 
 To the Dogmatist, therefore, Kant’s reply is virtually the same 
 as Hume’s. He proves that the Understanding, from the very 
 nature of its constitution, cannot know Things per se. The 
 question then arises. Have we any other Faculty capable ot 
 knowing Things per se ? The answer is decisive. We have no 
 such Faculty. 
 
 * Kritik, b. i. cap. ill. 
 
640 
 
 KANT. 
 
 Tlie difference between Hume and Kant, M'hen deeply consid 
 ered, is this : Hume said that the Understanding was treach- 
 erous, and, as such, it rendered Philosophy impossible. Kant 
 said that the Understanding was not treacherous, but limited ; 
 it was to be trusted as far as it went, but it coidd not go far 
 enough ; it was so circumscribed, that Philosophy was impos- 
 sible. 
 
 This difference, slight as it may appear, led to important dif- 
 ferences in the application of Kant’s principles. The mendacity 
 of Consciousness maintained by Hume, led him to utter Skep- 
 ticism in Philosophy and in Eeligion, as subjects on which reason 
 could not pronounce. The veracity of Consciousness (as far as 
 it went) maintained by Kant, was a firm and certain basis, though 
 a limited one, on which to build Eeligion and Morals, as we shall 
 see hereafter. Kant’s critics do not in general appear to be aware 
 of the consequences resulting from his exposition of the veracity 
 of the Understanding. Yet, as the battle was confessedly between 
 him and Hume, it might have been suspected that he would not 
 have left the field entirely to his antagonist. 
 
 The reader is, we trust, now prepared to follow with interest 
 the leading points of Kant’s analysis of the mind. In giving an 
 indication of the result of that analysis, before giving the anal- 
 ysis itself, we hope to have so far interested the reader, that he 
 will read the analysis with sharpened attention ; seeing whither 
 dry details are leading, he will not deem them dry. 
 
 And first of the famous question : How are synthetic judg- 
 ments^ a priori, possible ? This is the nut Kant has to crack with 
 Hume. But first let us understand Kant’s language. He divides 
 all our judgments into two classes, analytic and synthetic. The 
 analytic judgment is, as it were, but a writing out of our expe- 
 rience. When we say that a triangle is a figure with three sides, 
 or that a body is extended, we are judging analytically; i. e. we 
 are adding nothing to our conception of body or triangle, we are 
 only analyzing it. The synthetic judgment, on the contrary, is 
 when we predicate some attribute of a thing, the conception of 
 
KANT'S HISTORICAL POSITION. 
 
 641 
 
 which does not involve that attribute : such as that a sti aight 
 line is the shortest road between two points. 
 
 There are two classes of synthetic judgments : those a pos- 
 teriori and those a priori. The former result from experience ; 
 e. g. gold is ductile. We must absolutely know that gold is 
 ductile, before we can predicate ductility of gold. But the 
 a priori judgments are independent of experience : e.g.& straight 
 line is the shortest road between two points ; which experience 
 may confirm, but which is recognized as true, independent of 
 experience ; above all, it has a character of universality which 
 experience could not bestow ; for though experience may show 
 us how a straight line is, in many instances, the shortest road 
 between two points, it cannot prove that there is, absolutely, no 
 shorter road in any case. 
 
 Hume declared that our experience of Cause and Effect was 
 simply an experience of antecedence and sequence ; and that our 
 attributing a cause to any effect was a mere matter of habit. 
 
 True, replied Kant, in the fact of antecedence and sequence, 
 causation is not given ; but inasmuch as causation is irresistibly 
 believed in, the idea must have some source. If it is not given 
 in the things observed, then must we seek it in the observer. In 
 this fact of causation what have we ? We have first antecedence 
 and sequence ; ■v’e have next an attribute of causation predicated 
 of them. The first is given in our experience ; the second is 
 not given in our experience, but is independent of it. This sec- 
 ond is therefore an a priori synthetic judgment. “ It must either 
 have an a priori basis in the understanding, or be rejected as ? 
 chimera. For it demands that something. A, should be of such 
 a nature that something else, B, should follow from it necessarily, 
 and according to an absolutely universal law. We may certainly 
 collect from phenomena a law, according to which this or that 
 usually happens, but the element of necessity is not to be found 
 in it. Hence it is evident, that to the synthesis of cause and 
 effect belongs a dignity which is utterly wanting in any empir- 
 ical synthesis ; for it is no mere mechanical synthesis, by means 
 
642 
 
 KANT. 
 
 » 
 
 of addition, but a dynamical one ; that is to say, the effect is not 
 to be cogitated as merely anne.xed to the cause, but as posited by 
 and through the cause, and resulting from it.”^ This, therefore, 
 is an a priori judgment. By means of such judgments we are 
 not only able to say that one thing is the cause of another, but 
 also we are enabled to make this wide generalization : Every ef- 
 fect must have a cause. Here, as in the proposition of a straight 
 line being the shortest road between two points, we have an idea 
 not given in experience, and an idea, the universality of which, 
 experience could never verify. 
 
 We are thus led to assert that the Mind does add something 
 to sense-experience ; and that what it adds is not only inde- 
 pendent of experience, but has the further character of certi- 
 titude and universality, which experience can never claim. The 
 certainty of experience is always limited ; it never can have 
 the character of universality, however rich it may be ; for after 
 a thousand years it may be proved erroneous. Thus, it was uni- 
 versally believed that all crows were black : a wide experience 
 had established it— yet white crows were found ; and experience 
 was forced to acknowledge it had been in error. So with the 
 motion of the sun, once universally believed, because founded 
 upon experience. That which is to be held as irresistibly true, 
 which shall be universally and necessarily maintained by all 
 men, cannot have its origin in Experience, but in the constitution 
 of the Mind. Hence the truth of Mathematics ; not, as is so often 
 said, because it is an abstraction of Forms and Relations, but 
 because it is founded on the necessary laws of our mental con- 
 stitution. 
 
 In these synthetic judgments, a priori, there is a ground of 
 Certitude. The veracity of human reason reposes on that Cer- 
 titude. Although therefore, says Kant, we can never know 
 whether our conceptions of things, per se, are adequate, we can 
 know what conceptions all men must form of them ; although 
 
 ♦ KntiTc, b. i c. ii. § 9 (Transl., p. 76), 
 
kant’s histokical position. 
 
 64:3 
 
 we cannot know if our knowledge has any objective truth, we 
 can be certain of its subjective truth. 
 
 A principle of Certitude having been found, nothing further 
 was necessary for its confirmation than to ascertain in how far 
 this principle could be the basis of a science. Kant showed 
 that it formed the basis of all science. People do not dispute, 
 said he, respecting Mathematics or Logic, or the higher branches 
 of Physics ; and if they do dispute, they end by agreeing. But 
 in Metaphysics, disputes are endless. Why is this? Simply 
 because Logic, Mathematics, and the higher branches of Physics 
 are Sciences of Generalities; they do not occupy themselves 
 with variable and contingent, but with the invariable and uni- 
 versal properties. Logic is composed of rules which are reduci- 
 ble to certain self-evident propositions. These propositions, re- 
 duced to their principles, are nothing more than the laws of the 
 human mind. These laws are invariable because human nature 
 is invariable. Mathematics is, in the same way, the study of 
 certain invariable properties, which do not exist in nature, but 
 which are conceptions of the mind, upon data furnished by na- 
 ture, abstraction being made of all that is variable and uncertain 
 in those data : e. g. the essential properties of an equilateral tri- 
 angle, abstraction being made of any hody which is triangular, 
 and only the properties themselves being considered. 
 
 In physics, since the time of Galileo, men have seen that they 
 are judges, not the passive disciples, of nature. They propose an 
 a •priori problem ; and, to solve this problem, they investigate 
 nature, they make experiments, and these experiments are di- 
 rected by reason. It is reason that they follow, even when oper- 
 ating on nature ; it is the principle of that reason which they 
 seek in nature, and it is only in becoming rational that physics 
 become a science. Again we find science reposing on the laws 
 of the mind ! 
 
 Thus, the laws which form the basis of logic, mathematics, 
 and physics, are nothing less than the laws of the human mind. 
 It is, therefore, in the nature of the human mind that the certi- 
 
641 
 
 KANT. 
 
 tude of all the sciences is to be found ; and the principles of 
 this certitude are universality and necessity. 
 
 Psychology thus becomes the groundwork of all Philosophy ; 
 to Kant’s Psychology we now address ourselves. 
 
 § III. Kant’s Pstchologt. 
 
 It has been shown that experience does not furnish the whole 
 of our knowledge ; 
 
 That what it does furnish has the character of contingency 
 and variability ; 
 
 That the mind also furnishes an element, which element is an 
 inseparable condition of all knowledge ; without it knowledge 
 could not be ; 
 
 That this element has the character of universality and necessity. 
 
 And that the jrrinciple of all certitude is precisely this univer- 
 sality and necessity. 
 
 It now remains for us to examine the nature of the mind, and 
 to trace the distinctive characters of each element of knowledge, 
 the objective and the subjective. Instead of saying, with the 
 Sensational School, All our knowledge is derived from the senses, 
 Kant said. Half of all our knowledge is derived from the senses : 
 and the half which has another origin, is indissolubly bound up 
 with the former half. Thus, instead of saying with the Carte- 
 sians, that, besides the ideas acquired through the sense, we have 
 also certain ideas which are innate, and irrespective of sense ; 
 Kant said all our ideas have a double origin, and this twofold 
 co-operation of object and subject is indispensable to all knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 Let us clearly understand Kant’s object. He calls his great 
 work the Critique of the Pure Reason. It is an examination of 
 the mind, with a view to detect its a priori principles. He calls 
 these pure because they are a priori^ because they are above and 
 beyond experience. Having demonstrated that the mind has 
 some pure principles — has, some ideas which were never given in 
 experience, and must therefore be a priori — he was led to inquire 
 
rant’s psychology. 
 
 b'4{) 
 
 how many the mind possessed. In his Critique therefore we 
 are only to look for the exposition of a priori principles. He 
 does not trouble himself with investigating the nature of percep- 
 tion ; he contents himself with the fact that we have sensations, 
 and with the fact that we have ideas whose origin is not sensuous. 
 
 The Non-ego and the Ego, the objective world and the sub- 
 jective mind, being placed face to face, the two co-operate to 
 produce knowledge. We are however here only concerned with 
 the subject. What do we discover in it? First, a Sensibility — 
 a power of being affected by objects ; this is what Kant calls 
 the Receptivity of the mind : it is entirely passive. By it the 
 representations of objects (i. e. sensations) are received. Second- 
 ly, an understanding {Ver&tand) — a firculty of knowing objects 
 by means of the representations furnished by our Sensibility : 
 this is an active faculty ; in antithesis to. Sensibility, it is a 
 Spontaneity, 
 
 But our Sensibility, although passive, has its laws or con- 
 ditions ; and, to discover these conditions, we must separate that 
 which is diverse and multiple in our sensations from that which 
 remains invariably the same. The objects are numerous and 
 various ; the subject remains invariable. Kant calls the multi- 
 ple and diverse element by the name of material ; the invariable 
 element by the name of form. If therefore we would discover 
 the primary conditions of our Sensibility, we must discover the 
 invariable elements in all sensations. 
 
 Tliere are two invariable elements — Space and Time. They 
 are the forms of our Sensibility. Space is the form of our Sen- 
 sibility, as external ; Time the form both as internal and ex- 
 ternal. 
 
 Analyze sensations of external things as you will, you can 
 never divest them of the form of Space. You cannot conceive 
 bodies without Space ; but you can conceive Space without 
 bodies. If all matter were annihilated, you must still conceive 
 Space to exist. Space therefore is the indispensable condition 
 of sensation : the form of external Sensibility. It is not given 
 
646 
 
 KAJSTT. 
 
 in the materials of sensation ; since you may conceive the objects 
 annihilated, but cannot conceive the annihilation of Space. Not 
 being given in the material, it must therefoi'e constitute the form. 
 
 Similar reasoning proves that Time is also the form of our 
 Sensibility, considered both as internal and as external. We 
 cannot conceive things as existing, except as existing in Time ; 
 but we can conceive Time as existing, though all things were 
 annihilated. Things subjected to our Sensibility are subjected 
 to it in succession ; that is the form of our Sensibility. 
 
 Such then are the two indispensable conditions of all sensa- 
 tion — the two forms with which we invest all the varied mate- 
 rials presented to us. It is evident that these two ideas of Space 
 and Time cannot have been given in the materials, consequently 
 are not deducible from experience ; ergo, they are a priori, or, 
 as Kant calls them, pure intuitions. 
 
 Having settled this point, he enters into his celebrated ex- 
 amination of the question. Have Space and Time any objective 
 reality ? 
 
 We need not reproduce his arguments, which however may 
 be studied as fine dialectical exercises, but content ourselves with 
 giving the result. That result is easily foreseen : If Space and 
 Time are the forms of our Sensibility, and are not given in ex- 
 perience, not given in the materials presented, we may at once 
 assume that they have no existence out of our Sensibility. Kant’s 
 reduction of Space and Time to formal elements of thought 
 without corresponding objective reality, has been refuted by 
 Herbert Spencer,* who has shown that the experience-hypothe- 
 sis better explains the genesis of these conceptions. I must not 
 venture to interrupt the exposition of Kant by any quotations, 
 but will add my own conviction that Space and Time are 
 objective realities in the sense that solidity, color, etc., are 
 objective realities ; in other words, although, as we conceive 
 them, they are purely subjective, and do not exist externally as 
 
 Principles of Psychology, pp. 52-58. 
 
ttant’s psychology. 
 
 m 
 
 the Space and Time which exist in us, nevertheless some external 
 reality there is, corresponding to our subjective state ; precisely 
 as there must be some corresponding objects of solidity, color, 
 etc., otherwise the conceptions of solidity, color, etc., would 
 never have been formed. 
 
 Eeturning now to the exposition, we must follow Kant’s 
 analysis of the forms of the Understanding. The forms of Sensi- 
 bility being those of Space and Time, we must pass onwards to 
 the higher operations of the mind. The function of the Under- 
 standing is to judge. It is eminently an active faculty ; and by 
 it the perceptions furnished through our Sensibility are elevated 
 into conceptions [Begriffe). If we had only Sensibility, we 
 should have sensations, but no knowledge. It is to the Under- 
 standing that we are indebted for knowledge. And how are we 
 indebted to it ? Thus : — the variety of our sensations is reduced 
 to unity — they are linked together and made to interpret each 
 other by the understanding. A sensation in itself can be noth- 
 ing but a sensation : many sensations can be nothing but many 
 sensations, they can never alone constitute conceptions. But 
 one sensation linked to another by some connecting faculty — the 
 diversity of many sensations reduced to unity — the resemblances, 
 existing amidst the diversity, detected and united together — is 
 the process of forming a conception, and this is the process of 
 the Understanding, by means of imagination, memory, and con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Our senses, in contact with the external world, are affected by 
 objects in a certain determinate manner. The result Kant calls 
 a representation ( Vorstellung') in reference to the object repre- 
 sented ; an intuition (^Anscliauung) in reference to the affection 
 itself. These intuitions are moulded by the Understanding into 
 conceptions ; the sensation is converted into a thought. 
 
 The Understanding is related to Sensibility in the same way 
 as Sensibility is related to external things. It imposes certain 
 forms on the materials furnished it by Sensibility, in the same 
 way as Sensibility imposed the forms of space and time upon 
 
34:8 
 
 KANT. 
 
 objects presented to it. Those forms of the Understanding are 
 the laws of its operation. 
 
 To discover these forms we must ask ourselves, What is the 
 function of the Understanding ? — Judgment. How many classes 
 of judgments are there ? In other words, What are the invari- 
 able conditions of every possible judgment ? — They are four : 
 quantity, quality, relation, modality. Under one of these heads,* 
 every judgment may be classed. 
 
 A subdivision of each of these classes follows; — 1. In judging 
 of any thing under the form of quantity, we judge of it as unity 
 or as plurality ; or, uniting these two, we judge of it as totality. 
 2. So of quality : it may be reality, negation, or limitation. 3. 
 Relation may be that of substance and accident, cause and effect, 
 or action and reaction. 4. Modality may be that of possibility, 
 existence, or necessity. 
 
 Such are Kant’s famous Categories. They are little better 
 than those of Aristotle, which we before declared to be useless. 
 For although the object of Kant was different from that of Aris- 
 totle, as Sir W. Hamilton points out the result was nothing 
 but a cumbrous machinery incompetent to aid our investigations, 
 although very seductive to the lovers of verbal distinctions. 
 
 In those Categories Kant finds the pure forms of the Under- 
 standing. They render thought possible ; they are the invaria- 
 ble conditions of all conception; they are the investitures bestow- 
 ed by the understanding on the materials furnished by sense. 
 
 By the Categories, he declares he has answered the second 
 half of the question. How are synthetic judgments, a priori, pos- 
 sible ? The synthetic judgments of the Categories are all a 
 priori. But we have not yet exhausted the faculties of the 
 mind. Sensibility has given us intuitions (perceptions). Un- 
 derstanding has given us conceptions, but there is still another 
 faculty — the crowning faculty of Eeason ( Vernunft), the pure 
 forms of which we have to seek. 
 
 * Discyusaions, p. 25. 
 
kant’s psychology. 
 
 649 
 
 Understanding is defined, the faculty of judging ( Vermogen 
 der TJrtheile ) ; Reason is the faculty of ratiocination — of draw- 
 ing conclusions from given premises ( Vermogen der Schl'usse). 
 Reason reduces the variety of conceptions to their utmost unity. 
 It proceeds from generality to generality till it reaches the 
 unconditional. Every conception must he reduced to some 
 general idea, that idea again reduced to some still more general 
 idea, and so on till we arrive at an ultimate and unconditional 
 principle, such as God. 
 
 Reason not only reduces particulars to a general, it also de- 
 duces the particular from the general : thus, when I say, “ Peter 
 is mortal,” I deduce this particular proposition from the general 
 proposition, “ All men are mortal and this deduction is evi- 
 dently independent of experience, since Peter being now alive, I 
 can have no experience to the contrary. These two processes 
 of reducing a particular to some general, and of deducing some 
 particular from a general, constitute ratiocination. 
 
 Reason has three pure forms ; or, as Kant calls them, borrow- 
 ing the term from Plato, ideas. These are wholly independent 
 of experience ; they are above Sensibility — above the Under- 
 standing ; their domain is Reason, their function that of giving 
 unity and coherence to our conceptions. 
 
 The Understanding can form certain general conceptions, 
 such as man, animal, tree ; but these general conceptions them- 
 selves are subordinate to a still more general idea, embracing all 
 these general conceptions, in the same way as the conception of 
 man embraces several particulars of bone, blood, muscle, etc. 
 .The idea is that of the universe. 
 
 In the same way all the modifications of the thinking being — 
 all the sensations, thoughts, and passions — require to be em- 
 braced in some general idea, as the ultimate ground and possi 
 bility for these modifications, as the noumenon of these phe- 
 nomena. This idea is that of an ego — of a personality — of a 
 soul, in short. 
 
 Having thus reduced all the varieties of the ego to an uncon- 
 
650 
 
 KAITT. 
 
 ditioual unity, viz., soul, and having also reduced all the varieties 
 of the non-ego to an uncondhional unity, viz., the world, his task 
 would seem completed ; yet, on looking deeper, he finds that 
 these two ideas presuppose a third — a unity still higher, the 
 source of both the world and of the ego — viz., God. 
 
 God, the soul, and the world, are therefore the three ideas of 
 reason, the laws of its operation, \S\^ "pure forms of its existence. 
 They are to it what Space and Time are to Sensibility, and what 
 the categories are to Understanding. 
 
 But these ideas are simply regulative : they operate on con- 
 ceptions as the Understanding ojrerates upon sensations ; they 
 are discursive, not intuitive ; they are never face to face with 
 their objects : hence Reason is powerless when employed on 
 matters beyond the sphere of Understanding ; it can draw noth- 
 ing but false, deceptive conclusions. If it attemjjts to operate 
 beyond its sphere — if it attempts to solve the question raised re- 
 specting God and the world — it falls into endless contradictions. 
 
 “ While we regard as conclusive Kant’s analysis of Time and 
 Space into conditions of thought,” says Sir W. Hamilton, “ we 
 cannot help viewing his deduction of the Categories of the Un- 
 derstanding and the Ideas of speculative Reason as the work of 
 a great but perverse ingenuity and we, who do not even regard 
 the analysis of Space and Time as conclusive, may echo this 
 ludgment with greater emphasis. 
 
 § IV. Consequences op Kant’s Psychology. 
 
 We have given briefly the leading points in Kant’s analysis 
 of the mind. We have now to trace the consequences of that 
 analysis. 
 
 The great question at issue was : JIave we, or have we not, any 
 ideas which are absolutely, objectively true? Before this could 
 be answered, it was necessary to answer this other question ; 
 Have we, or have we not, any ideas independent of experience ? 
 Because if we have not such ideas, we can never pretend to 
 solve the first question ; our experience can only be of that 
 
UUNSEQUENCEa OF KANt’s PSYCHOLOGY. 651 
 
 wliich is relative, contingent, subjective ; and to solve the ques- 
 tion, we must be in possession of absolute, necessary, objective 
 truth. 
 
 Kant answered the second question affirmatively. His Critique 
 was a laborious demonstration of the existence of ideas not de- 
 rived from experience, and in no way resoh^able into experience. 
 But he answered the first question negatively. He declared that 
 our ideas are essentially subjective, and cannot therefore have 
 objective truth. He did not deny the existence of an external 
 world ; on the contrary, he affirmed it, but he denied that we 
 can know it : he affirmed that it was essentially unknowable. 
 
 The world exists, — that is to say, the noumena of the various 
 phenomena which we perceive, exist. The world is not known 
 to us as it is per se, hut as it is to us — as it is in our knowledge 
 of it. It appears to us ; only the appearance therefore can be 
 known ; the world must ever remain unknown, because, before 
 being known, it must appear to us, i. e. come under the condi- 
 tions of our Sensibility, and be invested with the forms of Space 
 and Time, and come under the conditions of our Understanding, 
 and be invested with the categorical forms. 
 
 Suppose object and subject face to face. Before the subject 
 can be afiected by the object — that is to say, before a sensation 
 is possible — the object must be modified in the sensation by the 
 forms of our Sensibility ; here is one alteration. Then before 
 sensation can become thought, it must he subjected to the cate- 
 gories of the Understanding : here is another alteration.* 
 
 Now, to know the object per se — i. e. divested of the modifi- 
 cations it undergoes in the subject — is obviously impossible ; for 
 it is the subject itself which knows, and the subject knows only 
 under the conditions which produce these modifications. 
 
 Knowledge, in its very constitution, implies a purely subjec- 
 tive, ergo, relative character. To attempt to transcend the sphere 
 
 ♦ Compare what was said on the transformation of impressions into sensa 
 tions, pp. 611 , aq. 
 
652 
 
 KANT. 
 
 of the subjective is vain and hopeless ; nor is it wise to deplore 
 that we are “ cabin’d, cribb’d, confined” within that sphere from 
 which we never can escape. As well might the bird, when feel- 
 ing the resistance of the air, wish that it were m vacuo, thinking 
 that there it might fly with perfect ease. Let us therefore con- 
 tent ourselves with our own kingdom, instead of crossing peril- 
 ous seas in search of kingdoms inaccessible to man. Let us 
 learn our weakness.'^ 
 
 First Result. — A knowledge of things joei* se [Dinge an sich) 
 is impossible, so long as knowledge remains composed as at 
 present; consequently Ontology, as a science, is impossible. 
 
 But, it may be asked, if we never knew noumena {Dinge an 
 sich), how do we know that they exist? Their existence is a 
 necessary postulate. Although we can only know the appear- 
 ances of things, we are forced to conclude that the things exist. 
 Thus, in the case of a rainbow, we discover that it is only the 
 appearance of certain drops of water : these drops of water again, 
 although owing their shape, color, etc., to us, nevertheless exist. 
 They do not exist as drops of water, because drops of water are 
 but phenomena; but there is an unknown something which, 
 when affecting our Sensibility, appears to us as drops of water. 
 Of this unknown something we can affirm nothing, except that 
 it necessarily exists because it affects us. We are conscious of 
 being affected. We are conscious also that that which afi'ects us 
 must be something different from ourselves. This the law of 
 causation reveals to us. 
 
 A phenomenon, inasmuch as- it is an appearance, presupposes 
 a noumenon — a thing which appears , — but this noumenon, which 
 is a necessary postulate, is only a negation to us. It can never 
 be positively known ; it can only be known under the conditions 
 of sense and understanding, ergo, as a phenomenon. 
 
 Second Result. — The existence of .an external world is s 
 necessary postulate, but its existence is only logically affirmed. 
 
 Compare Kant’s fine passage at the close of the Einleitung 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF KANt’s PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 653 
 
 From the foregoing it appears that we are unable to know any 
 thing respecting things per se ; consequently we can never 
 predicate of our knowledge that it has objective truth. 
 
 But our knowledge being purely subjective and relative, can 
 we have no certainty? — are we to embrace skepticism? No. 
 
 Third Kesult. — Our knowledge, though relative, is certain. 
 We have ideas independent of experience; and these ideas have 
 the character of universality and necessity. Although we are 
 not entitled to conclude that our subjective knowledge is com- 
 pletely true as an expression of the objective fact, yet we are 
 forced to conclude that within its own sphere it is true. 
 
 Fourth Result. — The veracity of consciousness is established. 
 
 Fifth Result. — With the veracity of consciousness, is estab- 
 lished the certainty of morals. 
 
 It is here we see the importance of Kant’s analysis of the 
 mind. Those who reproach him with having ended, like Hume, 
 in skepticism, can only have attended to his Critiqae of the Pure 
 Reason, which certainly does, as we said before, furnish a scien- 
 tific basis for skepticism. It proves that our knowledge is rela- 
 tive ; that we cannot assume things external to us to be as we 
 conceive them : in a word, that Ontology is impossible. 
 
 So far Kant goes with Hume. This is the goal they both at- 
 tain. This is the limit they agree to set to the powers of the 
 mind. But the different views they took of the nature of mind 
 led to the difference we before noted respecting the certaintv of 
 knowledge. Kant having shown that consciousness, as far as it 
 extended, was veracious ; and having shown that in conscious- 
 ness certain elements were given which were not derived from 
 experience, but which were necessarily true; it followed that 
 whatever was found in consciousness independent of experience 
 was to be trusted without dispute. 
 
 If in consciousness I find the ideas of God, the world, and 
 \drtue, 1 cannot escape believing in God, the world, and virtue, 
 This belief of mine is, I admit, practical, not theoretical ; it is 
 founded on a certainty, not on a demonstration ; it is an ultimate 
 44 
 
354 
 
 KANT. 
 
 fact, from which I cannot escape — it is not a conclusion deduced 
 by reason. 
 
 The attempt to demonstrate the existence of God is an impos- 
 sible attempt. Reason is utterly incompetent to the task. The 
 attempt to penetrate the essence of things — to know things -per 
 se — to know noumena — is also an impossible attempt. And 
 yet that God exists, that the world exists, are irresistible con- 
 victions. 
 
 There is another certitude, therefore, besides that derived from 
 demonstration, and this is moral certitude, which is grounded 
 upon belief. I cannot say, “ It is morally certain that God ex- 
 ists,” but I must say, “ I am morally certain that God exists.” 
 
 Here then is the basis for a Critique of the Practical Reason, 
 an investigation into the Reason, no longer as purely theoretical, 
 but as practical. Man is a being who acts as well as knows. 
 This activity must have some principle, and that principle is 
 freedom of will. 
 
 As in the theoretical part of Kant’s system we saw the super- 
 sensual and unconditioned presupposed as existent (under the 
 name of things per se), but not susceptible of being known or 
 specified ; so in this practical part of the system we find the 
 principle of freedom altogether abstract and indeterminate. It 
 realizes itself in acts. 
 
 In the very constitution of his conscience, man discovers the 
 existence of certain rules which he is imperatively forced to im- 
 pose upon his actions ; in the same way as he is forced by the 
 constitution of his reason to impose certain laws upon the mate- 
 rials furnished him from without. These moral laws have like- 
 wise the character of universality and necessity. The idea ot 
 virtue never could be acquired in experience, since all we know 
 of virtuous actions falls short of this ideal which we are com- 
 pelled to uphold as a type. The inalterable idea of justice is 
 likewise found, a priori, in the conscience of men. This, indeed, 
 has been denied by some philosophers ; but all a priori truths 
 have been denied by them. They cite the cruel customs of some 
 
kant’s fundamental pkinciples. 655 
 
 «a\age races as proo.fs that the idea of justice is not universal.* 
 Thus, some tribes are known to kill their old men when grown 
 too feeble ; and they test their strength by making these old men 
 hold on to the branch of a tree, which is violently shaken, and 
 those that fall are pronounced too weak to live. But even here, 
 in spite of the atrocity, we see the fundamental ideas of justice. 
 Why should they not abandon these aged men to all the horrors 
 of famine and disease? and why put them to a test? Look 
 where you will, the varied customs of the various nations peo- 
 pling the earth will show you different notions of what is just 
 and what is unjust ; but the a priori idea of justice — the moral 
 law from which no conscience can be free — that you will find 
 omnipresent. 
 
 We regret that our space will not permit us to enter further 
 into Kant’s system of morality, and his noble vindication of the 
 great idea of duty. But enough has been said to show the de- 
 pendence of his Critique of the Practical Reason upon the prin- 
 ciples of his Critique of the Pure Reason ; a dependence which 
 some hasty critics have pronounced an unphiloso 2 Dhical compro- 
 mise. 
 
 § V. Examination of Kant’s Fundamental Principles. 
 
 Kant’s system presents three important points for our consid 
 eration : 
 
 1. It assigns a limit to the powers of reason, and clearly marks 
 out the domain of scientific inquiry. In this it is skeptical, and 
 furnishes skepticism with terrible weapons. 
 
 2. It proclaims that knowledge has another origin besides ex- 
 perience ; and that the ideas thus acquired are necessarily true. 
 In this the veracity of consciousness is established, and skep- 
 ticism is defeated. 
 
 3. It founds upon this veracity of consciousness a system of 
 morals ; the belief in a future state, and in the existence of God. 
 
 *■ Kant alludes to Locke. 
 
656 
 
 KANT. 
 
 lu the course of our exposition we abstained from criticism ; 
 certain that it would lead us far beyond our limits to venture on 
 an examination of any but the fundamental principles. The 
 three points above mentioned will, if closely examined, be found 
 to present only one calling for discussion here, and that one is 
 the second. 
 
 For the admission contained in the first — viz. that we are un- 
 able to know things in themselves — gives up Philosophy as a 
 matter beyond the reach of human intelligence. Skepticism is 
 made the only result of ontological speculation. But we are 
 guarded against such a conclusion entering deeply into practical 
 life, by the demonstration of our having ideas independent of ex- 
 perience. This is the second point. Were this second point to 
 fall to the ground, nothing but skepticism could remain. With 
 the second point must stand or fall the third. 
 
 The second point, therefore, becomes the central and vital 
 point of Kant’s system, and must engage our whole attention. 
 All such subsidiary criticism as is current in Germany and 
 France, respecting the impossibility of separating the objective 
 from the subjective elements of a knowledge which is confessedly 
 both subject and object in one, may be safely set aside. Let the 
 possibility be granted ; the vital question is not connected with 
 it. The same may be said of the illogicality of Kant’s assuming 
 for the practical reason that which he denies to the pure reason. 
 The vital point in his system is, we repeat, the question as to 
 whether we have ideas independent of experience. This is all- 
 important. 
 
 And what gives it its importance ? The conviction, that if 
 we are sent into this world with certain connate principles of 
 truth, those principles cannot be false ; that if, for example, the 
 principle of causality is one which is antecedent to all experience, 
 and is inseparable from the mind, we are forced to pronounce it 
 an ultimate truth. 
 
 Let us meditate on this question. As Kant confessedly was 
 led to his own system by the speculations of Hume on causation, 
 
kant’s fundamental pbinciples. 
 
 657 
 
 and as that is the most important of all the a priori ideas with 
 which the mind is supposed to be furnished, we will content our- 
 selves with examining it. If that be found dependent on expe- 
 rience, all the a priori ideas must be likewise given up. This is 
 the nut we have to crack ; its kernel is the kernel of the whole 
 question. Let us first consider these Necessary Truths, as Dr. 
 Whewell calls a priori ideas. 
 
 That two parallel lines can never meet, is a Necessary Truth. 
 That is to say, it necessarily follows from the definition of a 
 straight line. To call it, however, an a priori truth, a truth in- 
 dependent of experience, seems to us a very imperfect analysis 
 of the mind’s operations. An attempt is made to prove that the 
 idea could never have been gained through experience, because 
 it commands universal assent, and because experience itself could 
 never give it necessity. Dr. Whewell’s argument is, that let us 
 follow two parallel lines out as far as we can, we are still unable 
 to follow them to infinity : and, for all our experience can tell 
 us to the contrary, these lines may possibly begin to approach 
 immediately beyond the farthest point to which we have followed 
 them, and so finally meet. Now what ground have we for be- 
 lieving that this possibility is not the fact ? In other words, 
 how do we know the axiom to be absolutely true ? Clearly not 
 from experience, says Dr. Whewell, following Kant. 
 
 We answer. Yes ; clearly from experience. For our experience 
 of two parallel lines is precisely this : they cannot inclose space. 
 Dr. Whewell says that, for all our experience can tell us to the 
 contrary, the lines may possibly begin to approach each other at 
 some distant point ; and he would correct this imperfect expe- 
 rience by a priori truth. The case is precisely the reverse. The 
 tendency of the mind unquestionably is, to fancy that the two 
 lines will meet at some point ; it is experience which corrects this 
 tendency. There are many analogies in nature to suggest the 
 meeting of the two lines. It is only our reflective experience 
 which can furnish us with the proof which Dr. Whewell refers 
 to ideas independent of all experience. What proof have we 
 
658 
 
 KANT, 
 
 that two parallel lines cannot inclose space ? Why this : aa 
 soon as they assume the property of inclosing space, they lose the 
 ■property of parallelism — they are no longer straight lines, but bent 
 lines. In carrying out imaginatively the two parallel lines into 
 infinity, we have a tendency to make them approach ; we can 
 only correct this by a recurrence to our experience of straight 
 lines ; we must call up a distinct image of a straight line, and 
 then we see that two such lines cannot inclose space. 
 
 The whole difficulty lies in the clearness or obscurity with 
 which the mind makes present to itself past experience. “ Ee- 
 frain from rendering your terms into ideas,” says Herbert Spen- 
 cer, “and you may reach any conclusion whatever. The whole 
 is equal to its part, is a proposition that may be quite comfort- 
 ably entertained so long as neither wholes nor parts are ima- 
 gined.”* But no sooner do we make present to our minds the 
 meaning of parallel lines, than in that very act we make present 
 the impossibility of their meeting, and only as the idea of these 
 lines becomes wavering, does the idea of their meeting become 
 possible. 
 
 “Necessary truths,” says Dr. Whewell, “are those in which 
 we not only learn that the pro 2 )Osition is true, but see that it must 
 be true ; in which the negation is not only false, but impossible ; 
 in which we cannot, even by an effort of the imagination, or in 
 a supposition, conceive the reverse of that which is asserted. 
 That there are such truths, cannot be doubted. We may take, 
 for example, all relations of Number. Three and two make five. 
 We cannot conceive it otherwise. We cannot by any freak of 
 thought imagine that three and two make seven.” 
 
 That Dr. Whewell cannot by any freak of thought now ima 
 gine three and two to make seven, is very likely ; but that he 
 could never imagine this, is untrue. If he had been asked the 
 question before he had learned to reckon, he would have ima- 
 gined seven quite as easily as five : that is to say, he would not 
 
 Frincifka of Psychology, p. 49. 
 
kaut’s fundamental peinciples. 
 
 659 
 
 have known the relation of three and two. Children have no 
 intuitions of numbers: they learn them as they learn other 
 things. “ The apples and the marbles,” says Herschel, “ are put 
 in requisition, and through the multitude of gingerbread-nuts 
 their ideas acquire clearness, precision, and generality.” But 
 though, from its simplicity, the calculation of three added to 
 two, is with a grown man an instantaneous act; yet if you ask 
 him suddenly how many are twice 365, he cannot answer till he 
 has reckoned. He might, certainly, by a very easy “ freak of 
 thought” (i. e. by an erroneous calculation), imagine the sum- 
 total to be 720; and although when he repeats his calculation, 
 he may discover the error, and declare 730 to be the sum-total, 
 and say, “It is a Necessary Truth that 365 added to 365 make 
 730,” we should not in the least dispute the necessity of the 
 truth, but presume that he himself would not dispute that he 
 had arrived at it through experience, namely, through his knowl- 
 edge of the relations of numbers, a knowledge which he remem- 
 bers to have laboriously acquired when a boy at school. 
 
 The foregoing remarks having, we trust, established that the 
 truths of Geometry and Arithmetic, which form one class of the 
 so-called Necessary Truths, are not obtained a -priori, independ- 
 ently of Experience, we pass on to the other class, which we 
 would call Truth of Generalization. 
 
 Our example shall be that chosen by Kant : “ Every effect 
 must have a cause.” This is not a mere writing out of our con- 
 ceptions : it is not a mere explanation, in different terms, of what 
 we mean. It is a wide generalization. Experience can only be 
 experience of individual causes and effects ; and although in our 
 conception of an effect the conception of a cause is certainly in- 
 volved, and in so far the judgment may be supposed an analytic 
 judgment, yet if we look closer, the ambiguity will disappear. 
 The word effect implies as a correlative the word cause. But 
 the Thing we see before us does not imply the existence of some 
 other Thing which caused it ; and our judgment that it must 
 have had an antecedent cause, is purely synthetic. 
 
660 
 
 KANT. 
 
 When we assert that every effect must have a cause, we assert 
 that which no experience can have warranted. Is the idea there- 
 fore acquired through some other channel ? No ; and the up- 
 holders of the doctrines of Innate Ideas, Fundamental Laws of 
 Belief, Categories cf the Understanding, and Necessary Truths, 
 appear to us to labor under a confusion of thought which a very 
 little well-directed analysis might have cleared up. The con- 
 fusion is this : — Our experience is obviously incapable of guaran- 
 teeing the truth of any universal and necessary idea. But to 
 assume therefore that the idea is independent of experience, is to 
 forget that what experience may not guarantee^ it may suggest; 
 and the universality and necessity of our ideas, is nothing more 
 nor less than the suggestions of the understanding, which by the 
 law of its operation generalizes from particulars, and converts 
 them into universals. We will presently explain this more fully ; 
 let us now hear Kant, who distinguishes a pure cognition from 
 an empirical cognition by this mark of necessity and universality. 
 “ Experience no doubt teaches us that this or that object is con- 
 stituted in such and such a manner, but not that it could not 
 possibly exist otherwise.” . . . “ Empirical universality is only 
 an arbitrary extension of the validity from that which may be 
 predicated of a proposition valid in most cases to that which is 
 asserted of a proposition which holds good in all. When, on the 
 contrary, strict universality characterizes a judgment, it necessa- 
 rily indicates another peculiar source of knowledge, namely, a 
 faculty of cognition a prior-i. Necessity and strict universality, 
 therefore, are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empiri- 
 cal knowledge, and are inseparably connected with each other.”* 
 And elsewhere ; “ If we thought to free ourselves from the labor 
 of these investigations by saying, ‘ Experience is constantly offer- 
 ing us examples of the relation of cause and effect in phenomena, 
 and presents us with abundant opportunity of abstracting the 
 conception of cause, and so at the same time of corroborating the 
 
 MnlfMung, § ii. (Traiisi. p. 8). 
 
K ant’s fundamental principles. 661 
 
 objective validity of this conception” — we should in this case be 
 overlooking the fact that the conception of cause cannot arise in 
 this way at all ; that on the contrary it must either have a basis 
 in the Understanding, or be rejected as a mere chimera. For 
 this conception demands that something (A) should be of such a 
 nature that something else (B) should follow from it necessarily, 
 and according to an absolutely universal law. We may certain- 
 ly collect from phenomena a law, according to which this or that 
 usually happens, but the element of necessity is not to be found 
 in it. Hence it is evident that to the synthesis of cause and 
 effect belongs a dignity which is utterly wanting in any empiri- 
 cal synthesis.”* 
 
 Referring to what was said in discussing Hume’s theory of 
 causation, we may pass on to Dr. Whewell’s re-statement of 
 Kant’s views : 
 
 “ That this idea of cause is not derived from experience, we 
 prove (as in former cases) by this consideration : that we can 
 make assertions, involving this idea, which are rigorously neces- 
 sary and universal ; whereas knowledge derived from experience 
 can only be true as far as experience goes, and can never contain 
 in itself any evidence whatever of its necessity. We assert that 
 “ every Event must have a Cause and this proposition we 
 know to be true, not only probably and generally and as far as 
 we can see ; but we cannot suppose it to be false in any single 
 instance. We are as certain of it as we are of the truths of 
 arithmetic and geometry. We cannot doubt that it must apply 
 to all events, past, present, and to come, in every part of the 
 universe, just as truly as to those occurrences which we have 
 ourselves observed. What causes produce what effects ; — what 
 is the cause of any particular event ; what will be the effect of 
 any peculiar process ; these are points on which experience 
 may enlighten us. But that every event must have some cause, 
 Experience cannot prove any more than she can disprove. She 
 
 Transcendental. Logih, § 9 (Transl. p. 76). 
 
662 
 
 KANT. 
 
 can add nothing to the evidence of the truth, however often. she 
 may exemplify it. This doctrine then cannot have been acquired 
 by her teaching ; and the Idea of Cause which the doctrine in- 
 volves, and on which it depends, cannot have come into our 
 minds from the region of observation.”"* 
 
 There is one minor point in this argument which we must no- 
 tice first. Dr. Whewell says that the proposition “ Every event 
 must have a cause” cannot possibly be false in any one instance. 
 We think there is one, which he himself would admit; but to 
 make it clear, we must substitute an equivalent for “ event.” 
 The abstract formula of causation is this : “ Every existence pre- 
 supposes some Cause of its existence : ex nihilo nihil Jit.'' And 
 this formula is employed against the atheists, to prove that the 
 world could not have made itself out of Nothing, erffo it must 
 have had a Cause. Now the obvious answer has often been 
 given, namely, that the Cause itself must have had a Cause, and 
 so on ad injinitum. Nevertheless, as reason repugns such an 
 argument, and as it declares that somewhere the chain of causes 
 and effects must stop, in that very declaration it falsifies the 
 formula of causation — “ Every existence must have a cause.” 
 
 Let not this be thought quibbling ; it is only an exposure of 
 the weakness of the theory of causation. If that theory be cor- 
 rect — if the formula is a necessary Truth, objectively as well as 
 subjectively, the argument against atheism falls to the ground. 
 For, would the atheist argue, this is the dilemma : either the 
 chain of causes and effects must be extended to infinity ; or you 
 must stop somewhere, and declare that the ultimate Existence 
 has no cause. In the first case you fall into unlimited skepti- 
 cism ; in the second you fall into atheism, because the world is 
 an Existence of which we are assured ; why, then, is not it the 
 ultimate Existence ? You have no right to assume any prior 
 cause ; if you must stop somewhere, it is more rational to stop 
 there. 
 
 * Philos. Ind. etc., vol. i. p. 159. 
 
kant’s fundamental pkinciples. 
 
 663 
 
 This dilemma admits of but one escape-bole, namely, the denial 
 of the formula “ Every existence presupposes a cause” being any 
 thing more than a psychological law. Curiously enough, the 
 only loophole is in the doctrine maintained by David Hume — a 
 doctrine for so many years supposed to be the inlet of theologi- 
 cal skepticism ! 
 
 Our belief in the formula “ Every event must have a cause” is 
 founded entirely on experience : is, indeed, nothing more than 
 our experience generalized. 
 
 To prove this, we will consider a single case of causation, A 
 child burns his finger in the candle ; he then believes that a 
 candle will always burn his fingers. Now we are asked how it 
 is that the child is led to believ'e that the candle will always 
 burn his finger ; and the answer usually afforded is, that “ he is 
 irresistibly led to believe in the uniformity of nature in other 
 words, the idea of causality is a fundamental idea. 
 
 We answer, The child believes the candle will burn, because 
 the experience he has of a candle is precisely this experience ot 
 its burning properties. Before he had burnt his finger, his ex- 
 perience of a caudle was simply of a bright thing which set 
 paper alight. Having now extended Ms experience.^ the candle is 
 to him a bright thing which sets paper alight, and which causes 
 pain to his finger when placed in contact with it.* 
 
 According to the well-known law of association, the fiame of a 
 candle, and pain to the finger applied to it, are united, and form 
 one experience. This particular act of causation is therefore 
 nothing but a simple experience to the child ; and for the per- 
 fection of this experience it is in nowise needful to assume that 
 the child has any belief in the “connection of events,” or in the 
 “ uniformity of the laws of Nature.” No fundamental idea is 
 necessary for the particular belief.f Is it then necessary for the 
 
 * See p. 486 sq., where the argument is stated more fully, 
 t This is denied by the thinkers whom we are now combating : they 
 assume that the fundamental idea is necessary ; but this is a mere assump 
 
664 
 
 ■KANT. 
 
 belief in the general proposition — “ Every effect must have a 
 cause ?” 
 
 When Kant and the Kantists say that no particular act of 
 causation can be inferred a priori (such, for example, as that fire 
 will melt the solid wax) ; but that nevertheless causality itself 
 can be inferred a priori, i. e. we are constrained to believe that 
 something will follow the application of fire to the wax, and this 
 a priori judgment is independent of experience, — they seem to 
 me to fall into the error of confounding the general with the 
 particular. No general proposition is possible except as an ex- 
 pression of particular propositions ; and all particular proposi- 
 tions are the expression of particular experiences. “ I'hat all 
 lions are carnivorous” is only intelligible as a general proposition 
 after one or more lions have been recognized as carnivorous ; 
 that “ every effect must have a cause” is only conceivable after 
 many particular experiences of causes and effects. No particular 
 act of causation can be inferred a priori, because for each par- 
 ticular inference we need the basis of particular experience ; but 
 general causation seems possible to be inferred a priori, because 
 in the full-statured mind general causation has a basis of general 
 experience. I must know that fire does melt wax, before I can 
 infer that it will melt wax ; but I can infer that fire will do 
 something to wax, after my general experience of fire is, that it 
 has always done something to bodies. This general inference is 
 founded on and limited by general experience, in the same way 
 as particular inferences are founded on particular experience. 
 The uncultured mind will be as powerless to deduce the general 
 inference, as the cultured mind is, to deduce the particular in- 
 ference, a priori ; and so true is this, that only philosophical 
 thinkers are capable of steadily believing in that causality which 
 Dr. Whewell designates as a fundamental idea. 
 
 Thus, belief in particular laws of causation is no more than 
 belief in our experience ; and if we are asked why we believe 
 
 tion made for the purpose of saving their theory, an assumption of the very 
 point at issue. 
 
kant’s fundamental principles. 
 
 665 
 
 ihat our future experience will resemble the past, we answer, be- 
 cause we have no other possible belief of things than that which 
 is formed by experience : we cannot possibly believe the candle 
 as not burning us in future, because our experience of a candle 
 has been, that it does burn, and our beliefs cannot transcend the 
 experience which made them. 
 
 As to the belief in universal causation, we may prove in vari- 
 ous ways that it is the result of a mere act of generalization ; and 
 this very act itself is strictly limited by experience : that is to 
 say, we are led by the laws of our mind to judge of the unknown 
 according to the known. Thus, having found every event w’hich 
 has come under our cognizance produced by some cause, we con- 
 clude that every possible event must have a -cause. We judge 
 of the unknow-n by the known. Familiar illustrations of this 
 generalizing tendency are those rash judgments formed of na- 
 tions and of classes, and founded on the experience of a single 
 fact. Thus we once heard it gravely asserted, that “ all French 
 babies had long noses.” The person asserting it had seen a 
 French baby with a long nose. Now the only conception of a 
 French baby in this person’s mind was that of a baby with a 
 long nose. That was the type according to which all unseen, 
 unknown babies were judged. Not being a very reflective per- 
 son, he could not divest himself of his conception, and he could 
 not believe that his conception was not true of all French babies. 
 Had he never seen other French babies, he would perhaps have 
 died in the belief that they all had long noses; unless some 
 better-informed person had corrected this conception by his 
 larger experience. So, if we had only the experience of one fact 
 of causation, we should always believe in that fact — we should 
 always believe that all candles would burn. To make many 
 similar experiences of the conjunction of cause and effect, is not 
 only to have many beliefs in particular acts of causation, it is 
 also to collect materials for a wide generalization, and from these 
 known conjunctions to pronounce that formula of universal con- 
 junction applied to unknown and yet unborn events. 
 
666 
 
 KANT. 
 
 This latter process, however, is performed by few. All believe 
 irresistibly in particular acts of causation. Few believe in uni- 
 versal causation ; and those few not till after considerable reflec- 
 tion. Philosophers, indeed, assure us that this belief is univer- 
 sal; that it is an instinct; a law of the mind; a Fundamental 
 Idea. If philosophers would take the trouble to inquire amongst 
 intelligent people, they would find that, so far from the belief in 
 question being instinctive and irresistible, the great majority 
 have no consciousness at all of such an instinct — the belief never 
 having once presented itself to their minds — the proposition re- 
 quiring a great deal of explanation and argument before it can 
 be received ; and amongst those persons many would absolutely 
 refuse to admit the" truth of the proposition. Those who live 
 only amongst philosophers will doubt this. We can, however, 
 declare that it has more than once come within our experience. 
 We have argued with a student of chemistry, whom we found 
 it impossible to convince that the law “ Every event has some 
 cause” is universal. He not only could conceive it to be other- 
 wise in the moon ; but he looked upon our argument as an un- 
 warrantable assumption. The mystery of this was, that he had 
 never read any metaphysics, and had but mediocre powers of 
 ratiocination. What shall we say to an instinctive belief, which, 
 unlike all other instinctive beliefs, does not spontaneously present 
 itself to our consciousness ; and when presented, is with the ut- 
 most difficulty accepted ; and accepted only by some ? Com- 
 pare this with any other instinctive belief — that in the existence 
 of an external world, for instance — and see what characters the 
 two have in common. Ask a boor if he believe in the existence 
 of the world, and he will think you mad to ask him. Ask an 
 ordinary man if he believe that every effect must have a cause, 
 and the chances are that he will tell you he does not know ; you 
 will find it difficult to make him understand the necessity. 
 
 Nay, to leave ordinary men, and to confine ourselves to phi- 
 losophers, amongst them we shall find that, with respect to one 
 class of phenomena, more than one-half of the thinking world 
 
kant’s fundamental principles. 667 
 
 is firmly convinced that every eflPect does not imply a cause : tha 
 class of phenomena referred to are those of human volitions. All 
 those who espouse the doctrine of Freedom of the Will declare 
 that all our volitions are self-caused, — that is to say, our volitions 
 are not caused by any thing external to themselves, not deter- 
 mined by any prior fact. 
 
 If, then, speculative men can be led to believe that one large 
 class of phenomena is not amenable to the law of cause and ef- 
 fect, what becomes of the universality of causation? And if 
 speculative men can conceive the laws of cause and effect to be 
 absent from some phenomena, and ordinary men do not con- 
 ceive these laws to be universally applicable, what becomes 
 of the necessity? And if the mass of mankind require a con- 
 siderable quantity of argument and explanation to make them 
 understand the proposition, what becomes of the instinctive 
 belief? 
 
 It is argued that a belief in a particular act of causation is 
 only possible on the assumption of a fundamantal idea of causal- 
 ity inherent in the mind ; that, although a child may never have 
 had the formula “ Every effect must have a cause” presented to 
 his mind, nevertheless this formula is implicitly in his mind, 
 otherwise he would have no reason for believing in the particu- 
 lar act ; it must exist as a fundamental idea. We might as 
 rationally argue that a child cannot have an idea of a man with- 
 out previously having a fundamental idea of humanity. 
 
 The fallacy lies in this : the fundamental idea of causality is a 
 generalization. Now, of course, the general includes the partic- 
 ulars ; but, though it includes^ yet it does not precede them, and 
 the error is in supposing that it must and does precede them. A 
 boy, as Locke says, knows that his whole body is larger than his 
 finger ; but he knows this from his perceptions of the two, not 
 from any knowledge of the axiom that the “ whole is greater 
 than a part.” Dr. Whewell would say that he could not have 
 such knowledge unless he had the fundamental idea ; whereas, 
 we side with Locke in asserting that the mind in such casea 
 
668 
 
 KANT. 
 
 never begins with generalities, but ends with them ; and to say, 
 that because the general axiom implies the particular instance, 
 or that the particular instance implies the general axiom, there- 
 fore the axiom is independent of experience, is to cheat one’s self 
 with words. 
 
 The belief in causation is belief founded upon the experience 
 of particular acts of causation. 
 
 The irresistible tendency we have to anticipate that the future 
 course of events will resemble the past, is simply that we have 
 experience only of the past, and, as we cannot transcend our ex- 
 perience, we cannot conceive things really existing otherwise 
 than as we have known them. From this we draw a conclusion 
 strikingly at variance with the doctrine maintained by Kant and 
 Dr. Whewell. We say, that the very fact of our being com- 
 pelled to judge of the unknown by the known — of our irresisti- 
 bly anticipating that the future course of events will resemble 
 the past — of our incapacity to believe that the same effects 
 should not follow from the same causes — this very fact is a 
 tiiumphant proof of our having no ideas not acquired through 
 experience. If we had a priori ideas, these, as independent of, 
 and superior to, all experience, would enable us to judge the un- 
 known according to some other standard than that of the known. 
 But no other standard is possible for us. We cannot by any 
 effort believe that things will not always have the properties we 
 have experienced in them ; as long as they continue to exist, we 
 must believe them to exist as we know them. 
 
 Although belief in particular acts of causation is irresistible 
 and universal, yet belief in the general proposition JEvery effect 
 must have a cause” is neither irresistible -nor universal, but is 
 entertained only by a small portion of mankind. Consequently 
 the theory of it priori ideas independent of all experience, re- 
 ceives no support from the idea of Causality. 
 
 In a “ Letter to the Author of the Prolegomena Logica," Dr. 
 Whewell has restated his views, to meet the objections of his 
 critics ; and as this is the latest development of the Kantian 
 
kant’s fundamental principles. 
 
 669 
 
 ioctrine which I have seen, it may not be uninstructive to con- 
 sider it. 
 
 Dr. Whewell’s main positions are, that Necessary Truths, or 
 Fundamental Ideas, are independent of experience, and are in- 
 tuitions, which are seen not only to he true, hut necessarily true, 
 because their contraries are inconceivable. The only condition 
 presupposed is, that the Ideas be clearly conceived. He says : 
 “ I lay stress on the condition that the Ideas must be clearly and 
 distinctly possessed. The Idea of Space must be quite clear in 
 the mind, or else the Axioms of Geometry will not be seen to be 
 true : there will be no intuition of their truth ; and for a mind 
 in such a state, there can be no Science of Geometry. A man 
 may hav'e a confused and perplexed, or a vacant and inert state 
 of mind, in which it is not clearly apparent to him, that two 
 straight lines cannot inclose a space. But this is not a frequent 
 case. The Idea of Space is much more commonly clear in the 
 minds of men than the other Ideas on which science depends, as 
 F orce or Substance. It is much more common to find minds in 
 which these latter Ideas are not so clear and distinct as to make 
 the Axioms of Mechanics or of Chemistry self-evident. Indeed, 
 the examples of a state of mind in which the Ideas of Force or 
 of Substance are so clear as to be made the basis of science, are 
 comparatively few. They are the examples of minds scientifi- 
 cally cultivated, at least to some extent. Hence, though the 
 Axioms of Mechanics or of Chemistry may be, in their own na- 
 ture, as evident as those of Geometry, they are not evident to so 
 many persons, nor at so early a period of intellectual or scientific 
 culture. And this being the case, it is not surprising that some 
 persons should doubt whether these Axioms are evident at all ' 
 T should think that it is an error to assert that there exist, in 
 such sciences as Mechanics or Chemistry, Fundamental Ideas fit 
 to be classed with Space, as being, like it, the origin of Axioms.” 
 
 Aware that many of these intuitive ideas are so far from being 
 universally acknowledged that many persons can conceive the 
 contraries, he adds : 
 
 45 
 
670 
 
 KANT. 
 
 “This difficulty has been strongly inged by Mr. Mill, as sup 
 porting his view, that all knowledge of truth is derived from ex- 
 perience. And in order that the opposite doctrine, which I have 
 advocated, may not labor under any disadvantages which really 
 do not belong to it, I must explain, that I do not by any means 
 assert that those truths which I regard as necessary, are all 
 equally evident to common thinkers, or evident to persons in all 
 stages of intellectual development. I may even say, that some 
 of those truths which I regard as necessary, and the necessity of 
 whieh I believe the human mind to be capable of seeing, hy due 
 preparation and thought, are still such, that this amount of prep- 
 aration and thought is rare and peculiar ; and I will willingly 
 grant, that to attain to and preserve such a clearness and subtlety 
 of mind as this intuition requires, is a task of no ordinary diffi- 
 culty and lahorh' 
 
 What, it may be asked, is all this preparation, and labor, but 
 experience? If these Fundamental Ideas are “Intuitions” whieh 
 cannot be given by experience, but are above and beyond it, 
 how is all this experience needed before these Necessary Truths 
 can be seen to be true? Dr. Whewell is ready with his 
 answer : 
 
 “ That some steady thought, and even some progress in the 
 construction of Science, is needed in order to see the necessity 
 of the Axioms thus introduced, is true, and is repeatedly asserted 
 and illustrated in the History of the Sciences. The necessity of 
 such Axioms is seen, but it is not seen at first. It becomes 
 clearer and clearer to each person, and clear to one person after 
 another, as the human mind dwells more and more steadily on 
 the several subjects of speculation. There are scientific truths 
 which are seen hy intuition, hut this intuition is progressive. This 
 is the remark which I wish to make, in answer to those of my 
 critics who have objected that truths which I have propounded 
 as Axioms, are not evident to all.” 
 
 That this is no answer at all, but is virtually a concession of 
 the very point in dispute, wih be seen by an attentive perusal of 
 
Kant’s fundamental pkinciples. 
 
 671 
 
 the following passage, wherein he brings his new form of the 
 doctrine into greater distinctness : 
 
 “An able writer in the Edinburgh Review (No. 193, p. 29) 
 has, in like manner, said, ‘Dr. Whewell seems to us to have gone 
 much too far in reducing to necessary truths what assuredly the 
 generality of mankind will not feel to be so.’ It is a fact which 
 I do not at all contest, that the generality of mankind will not 
 feel the Axioms of Chemistry, or even of Mechanics, to be ne- 
 cessary truths. But I had said, not that the generality of man- 
 kind would feel this necessity, but (in a passage just before quoted 
 by the Reviewer) that the mind, under certain circumstances, 
 attains a point of view from which it can pronounce mechanical 
 {ax^^ oih.%v) fundamental truths to he necessary in their nature, 
 though disclosed to us by experience and observationf 
 
 If these truths, said to be intuitive and independent of expe- 
 rience, are by Dr. Whewell confessed to be “ disclosed by expe- 
 rience,” there can be but one point of separation between him 
 and his critics ; and, if I have understood him aright, that point 
 is the character of “ necessity,” which, in common with Kant, he 
 ascribes to these truths. The fundamental ideas, when seen, are 
 seen to be not only true, but necessarily true ; and in this neces- 
 sity lies their distinctive characteristic. 
 
 I conceive that no such distinction whatever can be made out 
 between truths which are necessary and truths which are contin- 
 gent. All truth is necessary truth. Although all opinions are 
 by no means of one character, some being evident, soine prob- 
 able, some very uncertain ; yet all truths are true. That “ fire 
 burns” is a truth as “ necessary” as that two parallel lines cannot 
 inclose space. That sulphur has a greater affinity for iron 
 than for lead, is a truth as “necessary” as that the whole is 
 greater than a part. That iron-rust is owing to the action ot 
 oxygen, is as “ necessary” a truth as that two and two make 
 four. It is our knowledge which is contingent, not the truth 
 itself. We may be in error when we believe the fact of sul- 
 phur’s greater affinity for iron than for lead ; in matters so ill- 
 
672 
 
 KANT. 
 
 uuderstood as chemical actions, error is very conceivable, and 
 our supposed truth may turn out a misconception ; but if the re- 
 lation be truly stated, the truth is as “ necessary” as that two and 
 two make four. The whole question, therefore, that can be 
 raised, is : Is the asserted relation true ? and not, Is the truth 
 necessary ? 
 
 To make this clearer^ let us, instead of the proposition “ two 
 and two make four,” substitute “ seventy-two and one hundred 
 and forty make two hundred and twelve.” In the one case error 
 is impossible ; by no freak of thought can we conceive two and 
 two as making five ; the truth is perceived directly, and the in- 
 conceivability of the contrary is confessed. In the latter case 
 error is very possible ; unless a careful calculation be made, the 
 mind may fall into error, i. e. conceive the contrary of what is 
 true. But iu each case the truth expressed is the relation of 
 numbers, which we ascertain by experience. So also the prop- 
 osition “ fire burns” is a necessary truth, the contrary to which 
 is as inconceivable as the contrary of “two parallel lines can 
 never inclose space.” For although we can imagine it “ possible” 
 that fire, under some circumstances, should not burn, we can 
 only imagine it by mentally substituting for fire some other thing 
 called by that name, just as we can only imagine parallel lines 
 inclosing space by mentally bending the lines, and making them 
 other than parallel. 
 
 Truths are nothing but perceived relations ; some of these re- 
 lations are so simple, are so universally presented to our expe- 
 rience, that we cannot conceive them to be otherwise ; and thus 
 no freak of thought will enable us to conceive fire not burning, 
 two and two making five, or parallel lines inclosing space ; while 
 other relations are so complicated, or so unfamiliar, that we very 
 easily conceive the possibility of their being otherwise. The 
 oxidation of substances is so familiar to the chemist, that he can- 
 not conceive what to the general public is very conceivable ; the 
 relations of lines and surfaces are so familiar to the geometer, 
 that he cannot conceive the contrary of Euclid’s propositions ; 
 
kant’s fundamental pkinciples. 
 
 673 
 
 lo him they are irresistible truths; but he can remember the 
 time when they were by no means irresistible. Dr. Whewell 
 explains this difference by the difference in the clearness with 
 which the geometer “possesses the Idea of Space,” a clearness 
 only to be obtained through great labor and training of the mind ; 
 and we think no philosopher ever propounded any other expla- 
 nation, certainly no philosopher belonging to the school which 
 derives all our ideas from experience. 
 
 The distinction, then, between the so-called Necessary and 
 Contingent Truths, is not that the former are independent of ex- 
 uerience, and are truths seen to be necessarily true, while the latter 
 are seen to be contingently true, the contraries being conceiv- 
 able. All truths are seen to be necessarily true, if they are seen 
 to be true at all ; and the character of contingency is not appli- 
 cable to the relations expressed in certain formulas, but solely to 
 the modes in which we got at those formulas : the contingency 
 of “ seventy-two and one hundred and forty making two hundred 
 and twelve,” is the liability of our miscalculating ; and the prop- 
 osition is a contingent one until we have so checked our calcu- 
 lation as to be certain we have ascertained the true relations. 
 Thus it is held that all animals with incisor teeth are carnivorous ; 
 we have ascertained it by our universal experience of carnivorous 
 animals ; but, strong as the presumption is that the relation is 
 true, we are forced to consider it a contingent truth, because 
 there is a possibility of our experience some day detecting an 
 exception; just as exceptions have been detected to the general 
 relation between comparative length of the intestine in herbiv- 
 orous, and shortness of it in carnivorous, animals, but we never 
 call the proposition “ a whole is greater than its part” a contin- 
 gent truth, because no extension of experience could alter rela- 
 tions so simple and so universal; we cannot call “fire burns pa- 
 per” a contingent truth, because no extension of experience can 
 alter relations so simple : if, by way of exception, a case of in- 
 combustible paper be exhibited, we know that the original prop- 
 osition meant ordinary paper, and not paper of different prop- 
 
674 
 
 KANT. 
 
 erties. We cannot call the truth “ sugar is sweet” contingent, be- 
 cause any extension of our experience which made us acquainted 
 with sugar not sweet, would bring forward some other kind of thing 
 than that which we designate by the name of sugar. We can- 
 not call the truth “ iron is heavy” contingent. We can call no 
 truths contingent except those which express relations either 
 complicated or unfamiliar; simplicity of relation implying di- 
 rectness of perception, and universality of experience coercing 
 the mind into uniformity of expectation. The Fundamental 
 Ideas which Dr. Whewell distinguishes as Necessary Truths, are 
 nothing more than ideas fi'amed in our minds by the uniformity 
 of our experience. And thus we return to the old position, that 
 experience, and experience alone, is the source of all ideas. 
 
 If the foregoing arguments are valid, what becomes of Kant’s 
 system? We are forced to conclude, that inasmuch as his 
 stronghold — the existence of a priori ideas — cannot sustain at- 
 tack, the entrance of the enemy Skepticism is inevitable. Kant 
 was not a skeptic ; but he deceived himself in supposing that his 
 system was any safeguard from Skepticism. 
 
 The veracity of Consciousness, which he had so laboriously 
 striven to establish, and on which his Practical Reason was 
 based, is only a relative, subjective veracity. Experience is the 
 only basis of Knowledge ; and Experience leads to Skepticism. 
 
raXH EPOCH. 
 
 ONTOLOGY EE-ASSERTS ITS CLAIM.— THE DEMONSTRATION 
 OF THE SUBJECTIVITY ONCE MORE lEADS TO IDEALISM. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 § I. Life of Fichte. 
 
 Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born at Rammenaii, a village 
 lying between Bischofswerda and Pulsniz, in Upper Lnsatia, on 
 the 1 9th May, 1762.* 
 
 His childhood, of which many touching anecdotes are related, 
 was signalized by extraordinary intellectual capacity and great 
 moral energy. He was a precocious child, and long before he 
 was old enough to be sent to school he learned many things 
 from his father, who taught him to read, and taught him the 
 pious songs and proverbs which formed his own simple stock ot 
 erudition. With these varions studies was mixed an enchanting 
 element — the stories of his early wanderings in Saxony and 
 Franconia, stories to which young Johann listened with never- 
 tiring eagerness. It was probably the vague longings which- 
 these recitals inspired, that made him wander into the fields, 
 quitting his companions, boisterous in mirth, to roam away and 
 enjoy the luxury of solitude, there to give vent to the indul- 
 
 -*■ See the biography by Fichte’s son — Fichte’s Lelen und literarischet 
 Briefwechsel, 2 vols., 1836. 
 
(J7G 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 gence of those uuspeakable longings. This pale and meditative 
 child is at ease in solitude. He stands for hours, gazing in the 
 far distance, or in mournful yearning at the silent sky over- 
 arching him. The sun goes down, and the boy returns home 
 melancholy with the twilight. He does this so constantly that 
 neighbors remark it ; comment on it ; and, in after-years, when 
 that boy has become a renowned man, they recur to it with sud- 
 den pleasure, not forgetting also that they had “ always said 
 there was something remarkable in the boy.” 
 
 Fichte’s progress was so rapid that he was soon intrusted with 
 the office of reading family prayers ; and his father cherished 
 the hope of one day seeing him a clergyman. An event curious 
 in itself, and very important in its influence on his subsequent 
 career, soon occurred, which favored that hope, and went far to 
 realize it. But before we relate it we must give a touching 
 anecdote, which exhibits Fichte’s heroic self-command in a very 
 interesting: lig:ht.'^ 
 
 O O 
 
 The first book which fell into his hands after the Bible and 
 Catechism, was the renowned history of Siegfried the Horned, 
 and it seized so powerfully on his imagination, that he lost all 
 pleasure in any other employment, became careless and neglect- 
 ful, and, for the first time in his life, was punished. Then, in 
 the spirit of the injunction which tells ns to cut off our right 
 hand if it cause us to offend, Fichte resolved to sacrifice the be- 
 loved book, and, taking it in his hand, walked slowly to a stream 
 flowing past the house, with the intention of throwing it in. Long 
 he lingered on the bank, ere he could muster courage for this first 
 self-conquest of his life ; but at length, summoning all his reso- 
 lution, he flung it into the water. His fortitude gave way as he 
 saw the treasure, too dearly loved, floating away forever, and he 
 burst into a passionate flood of tears. Just at this moment the 
 father arrived on this spot, and the weeping child told what he 
 
 * For both anecdotes we are indebted to a very interesting article on 
 Fichte which appeared in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 71. We have 
 abridged tile passages ; otherwise the narrative is unaltered. 
 
LIFE OF FICHTE. 
 
 677 
 
 had done ; but either from timidity or incapacity to explain his 
 feelings, was silent as to his true motive. Irritated at this treat- 
 ment of his present, Fichte’s father inflicted upon him an un- 
 usually severe punishment, and this occurrence formed a fitting 
 prelude to his after-life, in which he was so often misunderstood, 
 and the actions springing from the purest convictions of duty, 
 were exactly those for which he had most to suffer. When a 
 sufldcient time had elapsed for the offence to be in some measure 
 forgotten, the father brought home another of these seducing 
 books ; but Fichte dreaded being again exposed to the tempta- 
 tion, and begged that it might rather be given to some of the 
 other children. 
 
 It was about this time that the other event before alluded to 
 occurred. The clergyman of the village, who had taken a fancy 
 to Gottlieb and often assisted in his instruction, happened one 
 day to ask him how much he thought he could remember of the 
 sermon of the preceding day. Fichte made the attempt, and, to 
 the astonishment of the pastor, succeeded in giving a very toler- 
 able account of the course of argument, as well as of the texts 
 quoted in its illustration. The circumstance was mentioned to 
 the Count von Hoffmansegg, the lord of the village, and one day 
 another nobleman, the Baron von Mittiz, who was on a visit at 
 the castle, happening to express his regret at having been too 
 late for the sermon on the Sunday morning, he was told, half in 
 jest, that it was of little consequence, for that there was a boy in 
 the village who could repeat it all from memory. Little Gott- 
 lieb was sent for, and soon arrived in a clean smock-frock and 
 bearing a large nosegay, such as his mother was accustomed to 
 send to the castle occasionally as a token of respect. He an- 
 swered the first questions put to him with his accustomed quiet 
 simplicity ; but when asked to repeat as much as he could recol- 
 lect of the morning’s sermon, his voice and manner became more 
 animated, and, as he proceeded, entirely forgetting the presence 
 of the formidable company, he became so fervid and abundant 
 m his eloquence, that the Count thought it necessary to interrupt 
 
378 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 him, lest the playful tone of the circle should be destroyed by 
 the serious subjects of the sermon. The young preacher had 
 however made some impression on his auditory ; the Baron 
 made inquiries concerning him, and the clergyman, wishing for 
 nothing more than an opportunity to serve his favorite, gave such 
 an account that the Baron determined to undertake the charge 
 of his education. He departed, carrying his 'protege with him, 
 to his castle of Siebeneichen, in Saxony, near Meissen, on the 
 Elbe ; and the heart of the poor village boy sank, as he beheld 
 the gloomy grandeur of the baronial hall, and the dark oak for- 
 ests by which it was surrounded. His first sorrow, his severest 
 trial, had come in the shape of what a misjudging world might 
 regard as a singular piece of good fortune, and so deep a dejec- 
 tion fell on him, as seriously to endanger his health. His patron 
 here manifested the really kindly spirit by which he had been 
 actuated ; he entered into the feelings of the child, and removed 
 him from the lordly mansion to the abode of a country clergy- 
 man in the neighborhood, who was passionately fond of children, 
 and had none of his own. Under the truly paternal care of this 
 excellent man, Fichte passed some of the happiest years of his 
 life, and to its latest day looked back to them with tenderness 
 and gratitude. The affectionate care of this amiable couple, who 
 shared with him every little domestic pleasure, and treated him 
 in every respect as if he had been indeed their son, was always 
 remembered by him with the liveliest sensibility, and certainly 
 exercised a most favorable infiuence on his character. 
 
 In this family, Fichte received his first instruction in the lan- 
 guages of antiquity, in which, however, he was left much to his 
 own efforts, seldom receiving what might be called a regular les- 
 son. This plan, though it undoubtedly invigorated and sharpened 
 his faculties, left him imperfectly acquainted with grammar, and 
 retarded, in some measure, his subsequent progress at Schul- 
 pforte. His kind preceptor soon perceived the inefficiency of his 
 own attainments for advancing the progress of so promising a 
 pupil, and urged his patron to obtain for Fichte what appeared 
 
LIFE OF FICHTE. 
 
 679 
 
 to him the advantages of a high school. He was accordingly 
 sent, first to Meissen, and afterwards to the seminary at Schul- 
 pforte. 
 
 There the system of fagging existed in full force, and with its 
 usual consequences, tyranny on the one side, dissimulation and 
 cunning on the other. Even Fichte, whose native strength of 
 character in some measure guarded him from evil infiuences that 
 might have been fatal to. a mind of a feebler order, confesses that 
 his life at Schulpforte was any thing but favorable to his integ- 
 rity. He found himself gradually reconciled to the necessity of 
 ruling his conduct by the opinion of the little community around 
 him, and compelled to practice occasionally the same artifices as 
 others, if he would not with all his talents and industry be al- 
 ways left behind. 
 
 Into this microcosm of contending forces the boy of thirteen, 
 nurtured amidst lonely hills and silent forests, now found himself 
 thrown. The monastic gloom of the buildings contrasted, at 
 first, most painfully with the joyous freedom of fields and woods, 
 where he had been accustomed to wander at will ; but still more 
 painfully, the solitude of the moral desert. Shy and shrinking 
 within himself he stood, and the tears which furnished only sub- 
 jects of mockery to his companions, were forced back, or taught 
 to flow only in secret. Here, however, he learned the useful les- 
 son of self-reliance, so well, though so bitterly taught by want of 
 sympathy in those around us, and from this time to the close of 
 his life it was never forgotten. It was natural that the idea of 
 escape should occur to a boy thus circumstanced, but the dread 
 of being retaken and brought back in disgrace to Schulpforte, 
 occasioned hesitation. While brooding over this project, it hap- 
 pened that he met with a copy of Robinson Crusoe, and his en- 
 thusiasm, the enthusiasm of thirteen, was kindled into a blaze. 
 The desert should be his dwelling-place ! On some far-off island 
 of the ocean, beyond the reach of men and the students of 
 Schulpforte, he would pass golden days of freedom and happi- 
 ness. It was a common boyish notion, but the manner in which 
 
6S0 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 it was carried into execution, shows traces of the character of the 
 individual. Nothing could have been easier than for him to 
 have taken his departure unperceived on one of the days when 
 the scholars were allowed to go to the playground ; but he 
 scorned to steal away in secret; he would have this step appear 
 as the result of necessity and deliberate determination. He 
 therefore made a formal declaration to his superior, a lad who< 
 had made a cruel and oppressive use of the brief authority in- 
 trusted him, that he would no longer endure the treatment he 
 received, but would leave the place at the first opportunity. As 
 may be supposed, the announcement was received with sneers 
 and laughter, and Fichte now considered himself in all honor 
 free to fulfil his resolution. It was easy to find an opportunity, 
 and accordingly, having taken the precaution to study his pro- 
 posed route on the map, he set off, and trudged on stoutly on 
 the road to Naumberg. As he walked, however, he bethought 
 himself of a saying of his beloved old pastor, that one should 
 never begin an important undertaking without a prayer for Di- 
 vine assistance ; he turned, therefore, and kneeling down on a 
 green hillock by the roadside, implored, in the innocent sincerity 
 of his heart, the blessing of Heaven on his wanderings. As he 
 prayed, it occurred to the new Robinson that his disappearance 
 must occasion grief to his parents, and his joy in his wild scheme 
 was gone in a moment. “Never, perhaps, to see his parents 
 again !” This terrible thought suddenly presented itself with 
 such force that he resolved to retrace his 'steps, and meet all the 
 punishments that might be in store for him, “that he might 
 look once more on the face of his mother.” 
 
 On his return, he met those who had been sent in pursuit of 
 him ; for as soon as he had been missed, the “ Obergesell” had 
 given information of what had passed between them. When 
 carried before the Rector, Fichte immediately confessed that he 
 had intended to escape, and at the same time related the whole 
 story with such straightforward simplicity and openness, that the 
 Rector became interested for him, and not only remitted bis 
 
LIFE OF FICHTE. 
 
 681 
 
 punishment, but chose for him, among the elder lads, anothei 
 master, who treated him with the greatest kindness, and to whom 
 he became warmly attached. 
 
 Fichte had become a Candidatus Theologise when his patron 
 died, and with him died all hopes of being a clergyman. His 
 prospects were gloomy in the extreme ; but he was relieved from 
 anxiety by being offered the situation of private tutor in a family 
 in Switzerland. He soon after made acquaintance with Lavater 
 and some other literary men. He also formed an attachment, 
 which was to last him through life, with a niece of Klopstock. 
 
 Fichte’s tutorship was remarkable. The parents of his pupils, 
 although neither perfectly comprehending his plans, nor approv- 
 ing of that part which they did comprehend, were nevertheless 
 such admirers of his moral character — they stood in such re- 
 spectful awe of him — that they were induced to submit their own 
 conduct with respect to their children to his judgment. We 
 presume that all well-meaning tutors occasionally make sugges- 
 tions to parents respecting certain points in their conduct tow- 
 ards the children ; but Fichte’s plan is, we fancy, quite unexam- 
 pled in the history of such relations. He kept a journal which 
 he laid before them every week, and in which he had noted the 
 faults of conduct of which they had been guilty. This lets us 
 into the secret of Fichte’s firm and truthful character, as much 
 as any thing we know about him. It was from such a soil that 
 we might expect to find growing the moral doctrines which af- 
 terwards made his name illustrious. But this domestic censor- 
 ship could not last long; it lasted for two years; and that it 
 should have lasted so long is, as has been remarked, strong ev- 
 idence of the respect in which his character was held. But it 
 was irksome, insupportable, and ended at length in mutual dis- 
 satisfaction. He was forced to seek some other mode of subsist- 
 ence. He went to Leipzig, where he gave private le.ssons in 
 Greek and Philosophy, and became acquainted with the writings 
 of Kant. This was an important event to him. Hear in what 
 verms he speaks of it : 
 
682 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 “ I have been living, for the last four or five months, in Leip- 
 zig, the happiest life I can remember. I came here with my 
 head full of grand projects, which all burst one after another, 
 like so many soap-bubbles, without leaving me so much as the 
 froth. At first this troubled me a little, and, half in despair, I 
 took a step which I ought to have taken long before. Since I 
 could not alter what was without me, I resolved to try to alter 
 what was within. I threw myself into Philosophy — the Kantian, 
 videlicet — and here I found the true antidote for all my evils, 
 and joy enough into the bargain. The influence which this phi- 
 losophy, particularly the ethical part of it (which, however, is 
 unintelligible without a previous study of the Krilik der reinen 
 Vernunft) has had upon my whole system of thought, the revo- 
 lution which it has effected in my mind, is not to be described. 
 To you especially I owe the declaration, that I now believe, with 
 my whole heart, in free will, and that I see that under this sup- 
 position alone can duty, virtue, and morality have any existence. 
 From the opposite proposition, of the necessity of all human 
 actions, must flow the most injurious consequences to society ; 
 and it may, in fact, be in part the source of the corrupt morals 
 of the higher classes which we hear so much of. Should any 
 one adopting it remain virtuous, we must look for the cause of 
 his purity elsewhere than in the innocuousness of the doctrine. 
 With many it is their want of logical consequence in their actions. 
 
 “I am furthermore Avell convinced, that this life is not the land 
 of enjoyment, but of labor and toil, and that every joy is granted 
 to us bu. to strengthen us for further exertion ; that the manage- 
 ment of our own fate is by no means required of us, but only self- 
 culture. I trouble myself, therefore, not at all concerning the 
 things that are without; I endeavor not to appear, but to be. 
 And to this, perhaps, I owe the deep tranquillity I enjoy ; my 
 external position, however, is well enough suited to such a frame 
 of mind. I am no man’s master, and no man’s slave. As to 
 prospects, I have none at all, for the constitution of the church 
 here does not suit me, nqr, to say the truth, that of the people 
 
LIFE OF FICHTE. 
 
 683 
 
 either. As long as I can maintain my present independence I 
 shall certainly do so. I have been for some time working at an 
 explanatory abridgment of Kant’s Kritik der Urtheilskraft (Crit- 
 ical Inquiry into the Faculty of Judgment), but I am afraid I 
 shall be obliged to come before the public in a very immature 
 state, to prevent being forestalled by a hundred vamped-up pub- 
 lications. Should the child ever make its appearance, I will send 
 it to you.”* 
 
 It was in consequence of his admiration of Kant, that, after 
 several ineffectual attempts to settle himself he went to Konings- 
 berg. Instead of a letter of introduction, Fichte presented Kant 
 with a work, written in eight days, and which bore the title of 
 A Critique of every possible Revelation. Kant at once recognized 
 his peer, and received him warmly. But Kant himself, though 
 celebrated, was neither rich nor influential. Fich'te’s affairs were 
 desperate. We have his own confession in the fragment of a 
 journal which he kept at the time. 
 
 . “ 28 <A August. — I yesterday began to revise my Critique. In 
 the course of my meditation some new and excellent ideas were 
 excogitated, which convinced me that my work was superficial. 
 I endeavored to carry out my investigation to-day ; but my im- 
 agination led me so far away, that I could do nothing. I have 
 ’■eckoned my finances, and find that I have just enough to sub- 
 sist on for a fortnight. It is true this is not the first time in my 
 life that I have found myself in such an embarrassment, but I 
 was then in my own country ; besides, in growing older, one’s 
 sense of honor becomes more delicate, and distress is more and 
 more of a hardship. ... I have not been able to make any res- 
 olution. I certainly shall not speak on the subject to M. Bor- 
 owsky, to whom Kant has given me an introduction. If I speak 
 to any one, it shall be to Kant himself. 
 
 “ ls< Sept. — I have made a resolution which I must commu- 
 
 *■ It was never printed ; probably because, as he here anticipates, he was 
 forestalled. 
 
584 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 nicate to Kaut. A situation as tutor, however reluctantly I 
 might accept it, does not even offer itself ; while, on the other 
 hand, the incertitude in which I am placed does not allow me to 
 work. I must return home. I can perhaps borrow from Kant 
 the small sum necessary for my journey. I went to him to-day 
 for that purpose, but my courage failed me ; I resolved to write 
 to him. 
 
 “ 2d Sept. — I finished my letter to Kant, and sent it. 
 
 “ Zd Sept. — Received an invitation to dinner from Kant. He 
 received me with his usual coi'diality ; but informed me that it 
 would be quite out of his power to accede to my request for an- 
 other fortnight. Such amiable frankness ! 
 
 “ I have done nothing lately ; but I shall set myself to work, 
 and leave the rest to Providence. 
 
 “ Qth Sept. — Dined with Kant, who proposed that I should 
 sell the MS. of my Critique to Hartung the bookseller. ‘ It is 
 admirably written,’ said he, when I told him I was going to re 
 write it. Is that true ? It is Kant who says so. 
 
 “ \ 2th Sept. — I wanted to work to-day ; but could do noth- 
 ing. How will this end ? What will become of me a week 
 hence ? Then all my money will be gone.” 
 
 These extracts will not be read without emotion. They paint 
 a curious picture in the life of our philosopher : a life which was 
 little more than a perpetual and energetic combat. 
 
 The Critique was published anonymously, and gained immense 
 applause ; partly, no doubt, because it was generally mistaken 
 for the production of Kant himself. The celebrity he acquired 
 when the authorship was disclosed, was the means of procuring 
 him the chair of Philosophy at Jena, the offer of which was made 
 him towards the end of 1793. 
 
 Jena was then the leading University of Germany ; and 
 Fichte might flatter himself that at length he had a settled posi- 
 tion, in which he might calmly develop his scientific views, 
 But his was a Fighter’s destiny. Even here, at Jena, he found 
 himself soon opposing and opposed. His endeavors to instil a 
 
LIFE OF FICHTE. 
 
 685 
 
 higher moral feeling into the students — his anxiety for their bet- 
 ter culture — only brought on him the accusation of endeavoring 
 to undermine the religious institutions of his country ; and his 
 speculative views brought on him the charge of atheism. 
 
 Atheism is a grave charge, and yet how lightly made ! The 
 history of opinion abounds in instances of this levity ; yet scarce- 
 ly ever was a charge more groundless in appearance than that 
 against Fichte, whose system was atheistic only in superficial ap- 
 pearance. Nevertheless the cry was raised, and he had to battle 
 against it. It is understood that the Government would have 
 been willing to overlook the publication of the work which 
 raised this cry, .if Fichte had made any sort of explanatory modi- 
 fication ; but he would not hear of it, tendered his resignation, 
 and soon afterwards found an asylum in Prussia, where he occu- 
 pied the Chair at Erlangen, and afterwards at Berlin. From 
 his career at Berlin we will select one incident typical of his 
 character. 
 
 The students are assembled in crowds to hear their favorite 
 professor, who is to lecture that day upon duty, — on that duty 
 whose ideal grandeur his impassioned eloquence has revealed to 
 them. Fichte arrives, calm and modest. He lectures with his 
 usual dignified calmness, rising into fiery bursts of eloquence, but 
 gc verned by the same marvellous rigor of logic as before. He 
 leads them to the present state of affairs. On this topic he grows 
 still more animated ; the rolling of drums without frequently 
 drowning his voice, and giving him fresh spirit. He points to 
 the bleeding wounds of his country ; he warms with hatred 
 against oppressors ; and enforces it as the duty of eveiy one to 
 lend his single arm to save his country. 
 
 “ This course of lectures,” he exclaims, “ will be suspended till 
 the end of the campaign. "We will resume them in a free coun- 
 try, or die in the attempt to recover her freedom.” Loud shouts 
 respondent ring through the hall ; clapping of hands and stamp- 
 ing of feet make answer to the rolling drums without ; every 
 German heart there present is moved, as at the sound of a 
 46 
 
6S6 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 trumjDet. Ficlite descends ; passes through the fi'owd ; and 
 places himself in the ranks of a corps of volunteers then depart- 
 ing for the army. It is the commencement of the memorable 
 compaign of 1813. 
 
 In another year he was no more ; he fell, not by a French 
 bnllet, but by the fever caught while tending his loved wife, who 
 herself had fallen a victim to her attendance on unknown suffer- 
 ers. On the 28th of January, 1814, aged fifty-two, this noble 
 Fichte expired. 
 
 There are few characters which inspire more admiration than 
 that of Fichte ; we must all admire “ that cold, colossal, ada- 
 mantine spirit standing erect and clear, like a Cato Major among 
 degenerate men ; fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and 
 to have discoursed of beauty and virtue in the groves of Aca- 
 deme ! So robust an intellect, a soul so calm, so lofty, massive, 
 and immovable has not mingled in philosophical discussion since 
 the time of Luther. For the man rises before us amid contra- 
 diction and debate like a granite mountain amid clouds and 
 winds. Ridicule of the best that could be commanded has been 
 already tried against him ; but it could not avail. What was 
 the wit of a thousand wits to him ? The cry of a thousand choughs 
 assaulting that old cliff of granite ; seen from the summit, these, 
 as they winged the midway air, showed scarce so gross as bee- 
 tles, and their cry was seldom even audible. Fichte’s opinions 
 may be true or false ; but his character as a thinker can be 
 slightl}^ valued only by those who know it ill ; and as a man ap- 
 proved by action and suffering, in his life and in his death, he 
 ranks with a class of men who were common only in better ages 
 than ours.”'^' 
 
 § II. Fichte’s Historical Position. 
 
 Kant’s Criticism, although really leaving skepticism in posses- 
 sion of the field, was nevertheless believed to have indicated a 
 
 * Carlyle. 
 
 I 
 
kichte’s histoeicae position. 
 
 687 
 
 new domain, in which a refuge might be found. The thought 
 soon suggested itself that on this domain an indestructible tem- 
 ple might be erected. Kant had driven the piles deep down into 
 the earth — a secure foundation was made ; but Kant had de- 
 clined building. 
 
 Jacobi, for one, saw in the principles of “ criticism” a path on 
 which he could travel. He maintained, that just as Sense was, 
 according to Kant, a faculty whereby we perceived material 
 things, so also was Reason a sense, a faculty, whereby we per- 
 ceive the supei'sensual. 
 
 It was indeed soon evident that men would not content them- 
 selves with the mere negation to which Kant had reduced our 
 knowledge of things per se. It was the positive part of his sys- 
 tem they accepted and endeavored to extend. This attempt 
 forms the matter of all the subsequent history of German Philos- 
 ophy till Hegel. We rvill briefly state the nature of the dis- 
 cussions which the result of Kant’s system had rendered im- 
 perative. 
 
 Kant had postulated the existence of an object as the neces- 
 sary correlate to a subject. Knowledge was both objective and 
 subjective ; but inasmuch as it was thus inseparably twofold it 
 could never penetrate the essence of things — it could never know 
 the object — it could only know phenomena. Hence the pro- 
 blem was ; 
 
 What is the relation of object and subject ? 
 
 To solve this, it was necessary to penetrate the essence of 
 things, to apprehend noumena. All the efibrts of men were 
 therefore to be directed towards this absolute science. The 
 ground of all certitude being in the a priori ideas, an attempt 
 was made to construct a priori the whole system of human 
 Knowledge. 
 
 The Ego was the necessary basis of the new edifice. Conscious- 
 ness, as alone certain, was proclaimed the ground upon which ab- 
 solute science must rest. 
 
 Fichte’s position is here clearly marked out. His sole object 
 
688 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 was to construct a science out of consciousness, and thereon to 
 found a system of morals. 
 
 Let us at the outset request the reader to give no heed to any 
 cf the witticisms which he may hear, or which may suggest 
 themselves to him on a hasty consideration of Fichte’s opinions. 
 That the opinions are not those of ordinary thinkers, we admit ; 
 that they are repugnant to all “ common sense,” we must also 
 admit ; that they are false, we believe : but we also believe 
 them to have been laborious products of an earnest mind, the 
 consequences of admitted premises, drawn with singular audacity 
 and subtlety, and no mere caprices of ingenious speculation — no 
 paradoxes of an acute but trifling mind. 
 
 It was within him that he found a lamp to light him on his 
 path. Deep in the recesses of his soul, beneath all understand- 
 ing, superior to all logical knowledge, there lay a faculty by 
 which truth, absolute truth, might be known. 
 
 “I have found the organ,” he says in his Bestimmung des 
 Menschen, “by which to apprehend all reality. It is not the 
 understanding ; for all knowledge supposes some higher knowl- 
 edge on which it rests, and of this ascent there is no end. It is 
 Faith, voluntarily reposing on views naturally presenting them- 
 selves to us, because through these views alone we can fulfil our 
 destiny, which sees our knowledge, and pronounces that ‘ it is 
 good,’ and raises it to certainty and conviction. It is no knowl- 
 edge, but a resolution of the will to admit this knowledge 
 This is no mere verbal distinction, but a true and deep one, 
 pregnant with the most important consequences. Let me for- 
 ever hold fast by it. All my conviction is but faith, and it pro- 
 ceeds from the will and not from the understanding ; from the 
 will also, and not from the understanding, must all the true cul- 
 ture proceed. Let the first only be firmly directed towards the 
 Good, the latter will of itself apprehend the True. Should the 
 latter be exercised and developed while the former remains 
 neglected, nothing can come of it but a facility in vain and end- 
 less sophistical subtleties refining awav into the absolutely void 
 
Fichte’s histoeicae position. 
 
 689 
 
 iuane. I kiu.w that every seeming truth, born of thought alone, 
 and not ultimately resting on faith, is false and spurious ; for 
 knowledge, purely and simply such, when carried to its utmost 
 consequences, leads to the conviction that we can know nothing ! 
 Such knowledge never finds any thing in the conclusions, which 
 it has not previously placed in the premises by faith ; and even 
 
 then its conclusions are not always correct Every human 
 
 creature born into the world has unconsciously seized on the 
 reality which exists for him alone through this intuitive faith. 
 If in mere knowledge — in mere perception and reflection — we 
 can discover no ground for regarding our mental presentations 
 as more than mere pictures, why do we all nevertheless regard 
 them as more, and imagine for them a basis, a substratum inde- 
 pendent of all modifications ? If we all possess the capacity and 
 the instinct to go beyond this natural view of things, why do so 
 few of us follow this instinct, or exercise this capacity? — nay, 
 why do we even resist with a sort of bitterness when we are 
 urged towards this path ? What holds us imprisoned in these 
 natural boundaries? Not inferences of our reason; for there 
 are none which could do this. It is our deep interest in reality 
 that does this — in the good that we are to produce — in the com- 
 mon and the sensuous that we are to enjoy. From this interest 
 can no one who lives detach himself, and just as little from the 
 faith which forces itself upon him simultaneously with his exist- 
 ence. We are all born in faith, and he who is blind follows 
 blindly the irresistible attraction. He who sees follows by sight, 
 and believes because he will believe.”* 
 
 Here the limit set by Kant is overleaped : a knowledge of 
 realities is affirmed. But it is not enough to affirm such a 
 knowledge ; we must prove it. To prove this is the mission of 
 Philosophy. 
 
 Fichte, who thought himself a true Kantist, although Kant 
 very distinctly and publicly repudiated him, declared that the 
 
 * We adopt the translation of Mrs. Percy Sinnett : Destmation, of Man 
 London, 184:6. 
 
690 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 materials for a science had been discovered by Kant; nothing 
 more was needed than a systematic co-ordination of these mate- 
 rials : and this task he undertook in his famous Doctrine of 
 Science (^Wissenschaftslelire). In this he endeavored to con 
 struct a ’priori all knowledge. 
 
 § HI. Basis of Fichte’s System. 
 
 We are supposed to perceive external objects through the 
 ideas which these objects excite in us. But this assumption is 
 not warranted by the facts of consciousness. What is the fun- 
 damental fact? It is that I have in my mind a certain idea. 
 This, and this only, is primitively given. When we leave this 
 feet in quest of an explanation, we are forced to admit either 
 that this idea is spontaneously evolved hy me ; or else some not- 
 me — something different from myself — has excited it m me. 
 Idealism or Dualism ? choose between them. 
 
 Kant, unwilling to embrace idealism, and unable to conceive 
 how the Ego spontaneously evolved within itself ideas of that 
 which it regarded as different from itself, postulated the exist- 
 ence of a Non-Ego, but declared that we knew nothing of it. 
 In this he followed Locke, and the majority of philosophers. 
 
 Truly, said Fichte, we know nothing of it ; we can only know 
 that which passes within ourselv'es. Only so much as we are 
 conscious of can we know ; but in consciousness there is no ob- 
 ject given, there is only an idea given. Are we forced by the 
 very laws^of our reason to suppose that there is Non-Ego exist- 
 ino- ? — are we forced to assume that these ideas are images of 
 something out of us and independent of us ? To what does this 
 dilemma bring us ? Simply to this ; that the very assumption, 
 here called a necessary consequence of our mental constitution — 
 this Non-Ego, which must be postulated, is, after all, nothing but 
 a postulate of our reason ; is therefore a product of the Eyo. It 
 is the Ego which thus creates the necessity for a Non-Ego ; it is 
 the Ego which thus, answering to the necessity,, creates the Non- 
 Ego wanted. Ideas, and nothing but ideas, are given in the 
 
BASIS OF FICHTE S SYSTEM. 
 
 60l 
 
 primitive fact of consciousness. These are the products of the 
 activity of the Ego ; and not, as is so commonly asserted, the 
 products of the passivity of the Ego. The soul is no passive 
 mirror reflecting images. It is an active principle creating them. 
 The soul is no lifeless receptivity. Were it not brimming over 
 with life and activity, perception would be impossible. One 
 stone does not perceive another. A mould does not perceive the 
 liquid that is poured into it. 
 
 Consciousness is in its very essence an activity. Well, then, 
 if 'n its activity it produces images, and if by the laws of its 
 nature it is forced to assume that these images hav'e some sub- 
 stratum, what is this assumption but another form of the soul’s 
 activity ? If the Ego is conscious of its changes, and yet is 
 forced to attribute these changes to some external cause, what is 
 this very act of assuming an external cause but the pure act of 
 the Ego ? — another change in the consciousness ? 
 
 You admit that we cannot know Substance ; all our knowl- 
 edge is limited to accidents — to phenomena. But, you say, you 
 are forced to assume a Substance as the basis of these accidents 
 — a noumeuon as that whereby phenomena are possible ; and 
 yet you cannot know this noumenon. Fichte answers ; If you 
 cannot know it, your assumption, as the mere product of your 
 reason, is nothing more nor less than another form of the activity 
 of the Ego. It is you who assume ; and you assume what you 
 call Substance. Substance is nothing but the synthesis of acci- 
 dents. And it is a mental synthesis. 
 
 Thus Fichte founded Idealism upon the basis of consciousness, 
 which was the admitted basis of all certitude ; and he not only 
 founded idealism, but reduced the Ego to an activity, and all 
 knowledge to an act. 
 
 The activity of the Ego is of course an assumption, but it is 
 the only assumption necessary for the construction of a science. 
 That once admitted, the existence of the Non-Ego, as a product 
 of the Ego, follows as a necessary consequence. 
 
 Every one will admit that A = A ; or that A is A. This is 
 
692 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 an axiom which is known intuitively, and has no need of proof. 
 It is the proposition of absolute identity [Satz der Identitat). It 
 is absolutely true. In admitting this to be absolutely true, we 
 ascribe to the mind a faculty of knowing absolute truth. 
 
 But in saying A equals A, we do not affirm the existence of A ; 
 we only affirm that if A exist, then it must equal A. And the 
 axiom teaches us not that A exists ; but there is a necessary re- 
 lation between a certain ^anc. then ; and this necessary relation 
 we will call X. But this relation, this X, is only in the Ego, 
 comes only f7-om the Ego. It is the Ego that judges in the pre- 
 ceding axiom that A = A ; and it judges by means of X. 
 
 To reduce this to language a little less scholastic, we may say 
 that, in every judgment which the mind makes, the act of judg- 
 ing is an act of the Ego. 
 
 But as the X is wholly in the Ego, so therefore is A in the 
 Ego, and is posited hy the Ego. And by this we see that there 
 is something in the Ego which is forever one and the same, and 
 that is the X. Hence the formula, “ I am I : Ego = Ego.” 
 
 We come here to the Cogito, ergo sum, of Descartes, as the 
 basis of all certitude. The Ego posits itself, and is by means of 
 this very self-positing. When I say “ I am,” I affirm, in con- 
 sciousness, my existence ; and this affirmation of my conscious- 
 ness is the condition of my existence. The Ego is therefore at 
 one and the same time both the activity and the product of ac- 
 tivity; precisely as thought is both the thinking activity, and 
 the product thought. 
 
 We will, for the present, spare the reader any further inflic- 
 tion of such logical abstractions. He will catch in the foregoing 
 a glimpse of Fichte’s method, and be in some way able to esti- 
 mate the strength of the basis on which idealism reposes. 
 
 The great point Fichte has endeavored to establish is the 
 identity of being and thought — of existence and consciousness — 
 of object and subject. And he establishes this by means of the 
 Ego considered as essentially an activity. 
 
 Hence the conclusion drawn in the practical part of his phi 
 
BASIS OF FICUTE’s SYSTEM. 
 
 693 
 
 losophy, that the true destination of man is not thought, hut 
 action, which is thought realized. “ I am free,” he says. That 
 is the revelation of consciousness. “ I am free ; and it is not 
 merely my action, but the free determination of my will to obey 
 the voice of conscience, that decides all my worth. More bright- 
 ly does the everlasting world now rise before me ; and the fun- 
 damental law's of its order are more clearly revealed to my men- 
 tal sight. My will alone, lying hid in the obscure depths of my 
 soul, is the first link in a chain of consequences stretching 
 through the invisible realms of spirit, as in this terrestrial world 
 the action itself, a certain movement communicated to matter, is 
 the first link in a material chain of cause and effect, encircling 
 the whole system. The will is the efficient cause, the living 
 principle of the world of spirit, as motion is of the world of 
 sense. I stand between two worlds, the one visible, in which the 
 act alone avails, and the intention matters not at all ; the other 
 invisible and incomprehensible, acted on only by the will. In 
 both these worlds I am an effective force. The Divine life, as 
 alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-forming, self-repre- 
 senting will, clothed, to the mortal eye, with multitudinous sen- 
 suous forms, flowing through me and through the whole im- 
 measurable universe, here streaming through my veins and 
 muscles, — there, pouring its abundance into the tree, the flower, 
 the grass. The dead, heavy mass of inert matter, which did but 
 fill up nature, has disappeared, and, in its stead, there rushes by 
 the bright, everlasting flood of life and pow'er, from its Infinite 
 Source. 
 
 “The Eternal Will is the Creator of the world, as he is the 
 Creator of the finite reason. Those who will insist that the 
 world must have been created out of a mass of inert matter, 
 which must always remain inert and lifeless, like a vessel made 
 by human hands, know neither the world nor Him. The In- 
 finite Season alone exists in himself — the finite in him ; in our 
 minds alone has he created a world, or at least that by and 
 through which it becomes unfolded to us. In his light we be» 
 
694 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 hold the light, and all that it reveals. Great, living Will ! 
 whom no words can name, and no conception embrace ! well 
 may I lift my thoughts to thee, for I can think only in thee. In 
 thee, the Incomprehensible, does my own existence, and that of 
 the world, become comprehensible to me ; all the problems of 
 being are solved, and the most perfect harmony reigns. I veil 
 my face before thee and lay my finger on my lips.” 
 
 § IV. Fichte’s Idealism. 
 
 The ground-principle of Fichte’s idealism having been given, 
 we have now to see how he avoids the natural objections which 
 rise against such a doctrine. But first let us notice how this 
 deification of personality was at once the most natural product 
 of such a mind as Fichte’s, and the best adapted to the spirit of 
 the age which produced it. His doctrine was an inspiration of 
 that ardent and exalted spirit which stirred the heart of Ger- 
 many, and made the campaign of 1813 an epoch in history. 
 Germany then, as now, was most deficient in energetic will. It 
 had armies, and these armies were headed by experienced gener- 
 als. But among them there was scarcely another beyond the 
 impetuous Bliicher, who had steadfast will. They were beaten 
 and beaten. At length they were roused. A series of insults 
 had roused them. They rose to fight for fatherland ; and in 
 their ranks was Fichte, who by deed as well as doctrine sought 
 to convince them that in Will lay man’s divinity. 
 
 The question being, What is the relation of Object and Sub- 
 ject? and Fichte’s solution being Object and Subject are identi- 
 cal^ it followed from his position that inasmuch as an Object and 
 a Subject — a Non-Ego and an Ego — were given in knowledge, 
 and the distinction between them by all men supposed to be 
 real, the origin of this distinction must arise in one of two ways : 
 either the Ego must posit the Non-Ego, wilfully and consciously 
 (in which case mankind would never suppose the distinction to 
 be a real distinction) ; or else the Ego must cause the Non Ego 
 to be, and must do so necessarily and unconsciously. 
 
fiohte’s idealism. 
 
 695 
 
 How does Fichte solve the problem ? He assumes that the 
 existeuce of the very Ego itself is determined* by the Non-Ego ; 
 and in this.way : To be, and to be conscions, are the same. The 
 existence of the Ego depends upon its consciousness. But to be 
 conscious of Self is at the same time to be conscious of Not-Self ; 
 the correlates Self and Not-Self are given in the same act of con- 
 sciousness. But how is it that we attribute reality to Not-Self ? 
 Just as we attribute reality to Self, namely, by an act of Con- 
 sciousness. Not-Self is given in Consciousness as a reality, and 
 therefore we cannot suppose it to be a phantom. 
 
 We may pause here to remark how all the witticisms against 
 Idealism fall to the ground. The wits assume that when it is 
 said the World is produced by the Ego, this World must be held 
 as a phantom. Now nobody ever believed that external objects 
 had no reality ; the only possible doubt is as to whether they 
 have any reality independent of mind. 
 
 In consciousness we have a twofold fact, namely, the fact of 
 Self, and the fact of Not-Self, indissolubly given in one. We 
 conclude therefore that Consciousness — that the Ego — is partly 
 self-determined, and partly determined by not-self. Let us sup- 
 pose the entire reality of the Ego (that is, in its identity of Sub- 
 ject and Object) represented by the number ten. The Ego, 
 conscious of five of its parts — or, to speak with Fichte— 
 five, does by that very act posit five parts negatively in itself. 
 But how is it that the Ego can posit a negation in itself? It 
 does so by the very act of Consciousness ; in the act of sepa- 
 rating five from ten, the five remaining are left passive. The 
 negation is therefore the passivity of the Ego. This seems to 
 lead to the contradiction that the Ego, which was defined as an 
 Activity, is at the same time active and passive. The solution 
 
 * The German word lestimmen, which we are forced to translate “ to de- 
 termine,” is of immense use to the metaphysicians ; we would gladly have 
 Buhstituted some other equivalent, could we have found one to represent 
 the meaning better. To determine, in philosophy, does not mean (as in or- 
 dinary language), to resolve, hut to render definite. Chaos, when dtter- 
 mined, is the created world. 
 
696 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 of this difficulty is that it is Activity which determines Passivity 
 and reciprocally. Let us suppose the absolute reality as a 
 Sphere ; this is entirely in the Ego, and has a certain quantity. 
 Every quantity less than this totality, will, of necessity, be nega- 
 tion, passivity. In order that a less quantity should be com- 
 pared with the totality and so opposed to it, it is necessary there 
 should be some relation between them ; and this is in the ideai 
 of divisibility. In the absolute totality, as such, there are no 
 parts ; but this totality may be compared with parts and distin- 
 guished from it. Passivity is therefore a determinate quantity 
 of Activity, a quantity compared with the totality. In regard to 
 the Ego as absolute, the Ego as limited is passive ; in the rela- 
 tion of Ego as limited to the Non-Ego, the Ego is active and the 
 Non-Ego passive. And thus are activity and passivity recipro- 
 cally determined. 
 
 The result of this and much more reasoning, is the hypothesis 
 that when mankind attribute to objects a real existence they are 
 correct ; but they are incorrect in supposing that the Object is 
 independent of the Subject : it is identical with the Subject. The 
 common-sense belief is therefore correct enough. It is when we 
 would rise above this belief, and endeavor to philosophize, that 
 we fall into error. All the philosophers have erred, not in as- 
 suming the reality of objects, but in assuming the reality of two 
 distinct, disparate existences, Matter and Mind; whereas we have 
 seen that there is only one existence, having the twofold aspect 
 of Object and Subject. 
 
 Nor is the distinction unimportant. If Dualism be accepted, 
 we have no refuge from Skepticism. If we are to believe that 
 Dinge an sick exist — that Matter exists independently of Mind, 
 exists per se — then are we doomed to admit only a knowledge of 
 phenomona as possible. The things in themselves we can never 
 know ; we can only know their effects upon us. Our knowledge 
 is relative, and never can embrace the absolute truth. 
 
 But if Idealism be accepted, the ordinary belief of men is not 
 only respected but confirmed ; for this belief is that we do know 
 
Fichte’s iDEALisii. 
 
 697 
 
 things in themselves, and that the things we know do exist. The 
 Dualist forces you to admit that you cannot know things in 
 themselves ; and that your belief in their existence is merely the 
 postulate of your Reason, and is not immediately given in the 
 facts of Consciousness. The Idealist, on the contrary, gives you 
 an immediate knowledge of things in themselves, consequently 
 opens to you the domain of absolute Truth. He only differs 
 from you in saying that these things, which you immediately 
 know, are part and parcel of yourself; and it is because you and 
 they are indissolubly united, that immediate knowledge is pos- 
 sible. 
 
 “ But,” says Realism, “ I know that objects are altogether in- 
 dependent of me. I did not create them. I found them there, 
 out of me. The proof of this is that if, after looking at a tree, I 
 turn away, or shut my eyes, the image of the tree is annihilated, 
 but the tree itself remains.” 
 
 “ No,” answers Idealism, “ the tree itself does not remain : for 
 the tree is but a phenomenon, or collection of phenomena the 
 tree is a Perception, and all perceptions are subjective. You 
 suppose that every one must admit that our ‘perceptions are dif- 
 ferent from their objects. But are they different ? that is pre- 
 cisely the question at issue ; and you assume it. Let us be 
 cautious. What is an object — a tree for instance ? Tell me, 
 what does your Consciousness inform you of? Let me hear 
 the fact, the whole fact, and no inference from the fact. Is not 
 the object (tree) one and the same as your perception (tree) ? Is 
 not the tree a mere name for your perception ? Does not your 
 Consciousness distinctly tell you that the Form, Color, Solidity, 
 and Smell of the Tree are in you — are affections of your Sub- 
 ject ?” 
 
 “ I admit that,” replies Realism ; “ but although these are in 
 me, they are caused by something out of me. Consciousness tells 
 me that very plainly.” 
 
 “ Does it so ? I tell you that Consciousness has no such 
 power. It can tell you of its own changes; it cannot trans> 
 
898 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 cend itself to tell 'you anything about that which causes its 
 changes.” 
 
 “ But I am irresistibly compelled to believe,” says Realism, 
 “ that there are things which exist out of me ; and this belief, be- 
 cause irresistible, is true.” 
 
 “ Stop ! you run on too fast,” replies Idealism ; “ your belief is 
 not what }mu describe it. You are not irresistibly compelled to 
 believe that things exist, which said things lie underneath all 
 their appearances, and must ever remain unknown. This is no 
 instinctive belief; it is a philosophic inference. Your belief 
 simply is, that certain things, colored, odorous, extended, sapid, 
 and solid, exist; and so they do. But you infer that they exist 
 out of you? Rash inference. Have you not admitted that 
 color, odor, taste, extension, etc., are but modifications of your 
 sentient being; and if they exist in you, how can they exist out 
 of you ? They do not : they seem to do so by a law of the 
 mind which gives objectivity to our sensations.”* 
 
 “Try your utmost to conceive an object as any thing more 
 than a synthesis of perceptions. You cannot. You may infer, 
 indeed, that a substratum for all phenomena exists, although un- 
 known, unknowable. But on what is your inference grounded ? 
 On the impossibility of conceiving the existence of qualities — 
 extension, color, etc. — apart from some substance of which they 
 are qualities. This impossibility is a figment. The qualities 
 have no need of an objective substratum, because they have a 
 subjective substratum : they are the modifications of a sensitive 
 subject; and the synthesis of these modifications is the only sub- 
 stratum of which they stand in need. This may be proved in 
 another way. The qualities of objects, it is universally admitted, 
 are but modifications of the subject : these qualities are attrib- 
 uted to external objects ; they are dependent upon the subject 
 
 * The difference between Berkeley and Fichte is apparent here. The 
 former said that the objects did exist independent of tlie Ego, but did not 
 exist independent of the universal Mind. Fichte’s Idealism was Egoism', 
 Berkeley’s was a theological Idealism. 
 
APPLICATION OF FICHTf’s IDEALISM. 
 
 699 
 
 for their existence ; and yet, to account for their existence, it is 
 asserted that some unknown external something must exist as a 
 substance in which they must inhere. Now, it is apparent that, 
 inasmuch as these qualities are subjective and dependent upon 
 the subject for their existence, there can be no necessity for an 
 object in which they must inhere.” Thus may Idealism defend 
 ’tself against Realism. 
 
 We have made ourselves the advocates of Fichte’s principles, 
 but the reader will not mistake us for disciples of Fichte. In 
 the exposition of his system we have, for obvious reasons, gen- 
 erally avoided his ■ own manner, which is too abstract to he 
 followed without difBculty, and we have endeavored to state his 
 ideas in our own way. To exhibit Fichte’s Idealism is, strictly 
 speaking, all that our plan imposes on us ; but although his phil- 
 osophical doctrines are all founded upon it, and although it was 
 the doctrine which made an epoch in German Philosophy, con- 
 sequently the doctrine which entitles him to a place in this His- 
 tory, nevertheless we should be doing him injustice and mislead- 
 ing our readers, if we did not give some glimpse of his moral 
 system. The Idealism, as Idealism, seems little better than an 
 ingenious paradox : only when we see it applied can we regard 
 it as serious.* 
 
 § V. Application of Fichte’s Idealism. 
 
 The Ego is essentially an Activity ; consequently free. But 
 this free activity would lose itself in infinity, and would remain 
 without consciousness — in fact, without existence — did it not 
 
 * Those who are curious to see what he himself makes of his system, are 
 referred to his WissenschafUhhre (of which a French translation by M. Paul 
 Grimblot exists, under the title of Doctrine de la Science), or, as a more pop- 
 ular exposition, to his Bestimmung des Menschen, a French translation of which 
 has been published by M. Barchou de Penhoen, under the title Destination 
 ie VHomnie, which, from the character and learning of the translator, is, we 
 have no doubt, an excellent version. An English translation has also been 
 made by Mrs. Percy Sinnett, which can be recommended. Fichte’s work. 
 The Nature of the Scholar, has also recently appeared, by Mr. W. Smith, 
 who has also translated the Characteristics of the Present Age. 
 
roo 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 encounter some resistance. In the effort to vanquish this resist* 
 ance, it exerts its will, becomes conscious of something not itself, 
 and thereby becomes conscious of itself. But resistance limits 
 freedom, and as an Activity the Ego is essentially free — it is 
 irresistibly impelled to enjoy perfect freedom. This expansive 
 force, which impels the Ego to realize itself by complete develop- 
 ment, and thereby assimilating the Non-Ego — this force, in as 
 far as it is not realized, is the aim of man’s existence — it is his duty 
 
 Here a difference from the ordinary schools of morality begins 
 to show itself. Duty is not a moral obligation which we are free to 
 acknowledge or reject; it is a pulse beating in the very heart of 
 man — a power inseparable from his constitution ; and according 
 to its fulfilment is the man complete. 
 
 The w’orld does not exist because w'e imagine it, but because 
 we believe it. Let all reality be swept away by skepticism — we 
 are not affected. Man is impelled by his very nature to realize 
 his existence by his acts. Our destination is not thought, but 
 action. Man is not born to brood over his thoughts, but to man- 
 ifest them — to give them existence. There is a moral world 
 within ; our mission is to transport it without. By this we cre- 
 ate the world. For wdiat is the condition of existence ? — what 
 determines Thought to be? Simply that it should realize itself 
 as an object. The Ego as simple Subject does not exist ; it has 
 only a potentiality of existence. To exist, it must realize itself 
 and become Subject- Object, 
 
 Mark the consequence : Knowing that we carry within us the 
 moral world, and that upon ourselves alone depends the attain- 
 ment of so sublime an object as the manifestation of this world, 
 it is to ourselves alone that we must direct our attention. This 
 realization of the world, what is it but the complete development 
 of ourselves ? If we would be, therefore — if we would enjoy the 
 realities of existence, we must develop ourselves in the attempt 
 to incessantly realize the beautiful, the useful, and the good. 
 Man is commanded to be moral by the imperious necessity of 
 his own nature. To be virtuous is not to obey some externa) 
 
APPLICATION OF FICHTE’s IDEALISM. 
 
 701 
 
 .•aw, but to fulfil an internal law : this obedience is not slavery, 
 but freedom ; it is not sacrificing one paiiicle of freedom to any 
 other power, but wholly and truly realizing the power within us 
 of being free. . 
 
 Life is a combat. The free spirit of man, inasmuch as it is 
 finite, is limited, imperfect; but it incessantly struggles to subju- 
 gate that which opposes it — it tends incessantly towards infin- 
 ity. Defeated in his hopes, he is sometimes discouraged, but 
 this lasts not long. There is a well-spring of energy forever 
 vital in the heart of man ; an ideal is forever shining before 
 him, and that he must attain. 
 
 Man knows himself to be free ; knows also that his fellow- 
 men are free ; and therefore the duty of each is to treat the 
 others as beings who have the same aim as himself. Individual 
 liberty is therefore the principle of all government : from it 
 Fichte deduces his political system. 
 
 And what says Fichte respecting God ? He was, as we know, 
 accused of atheism. Let us hear his real opinions. In his an- 
 swer to that charge we have an abstruse, but at the same time 
 positive, exposition of his views.* God created the world out of 
 an inert mass of matter ; and from the evidence of design in this 
 created world we infer an intelligent designer. This is the com- 
 mon view ; but Fichte could not accept it. In the first place, 
 what we call the World is but the incarnation of our Duty 
 {unsere Welt ist das versinnlichte Materia^ unserer PJlicht), It 
 is the objective existence of the Ego: we are, so to speak, the 
 creators of it. Such a statement holes very like atheism, espe- 
 cially when Fichte’s system is not clearly apprehended : it is, 
 however, at the worst, only Acosmism. 
 
 Nor could Fichte accept the evidence of Design, because De- 
 sign is a mere conclusion of the understanding, applicable only 
 to finite, transient things, wholly inapplicable to the infinite : 
 Design itself is but a subjective notion.f 
 
 * GerichUiche Verantmortungsschriften gegen die Anklage des Atheismus. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 48. 
 
 47 
 
FICHTE. 
 
 ro2 
 
 “God,” says Fichte, “must be believed in, not inferred. Faith 
 is the ground of all conviction, scientific or moral. Why do 
 you believe in the existence of the world ? it is nothing more 
 than the incarnation of that which you carry within you, yet 
 you believe in it. In the same way God exists in your Con- 
 sciousness, and you believe in him. He is the Moral Order 
 {moralische Ordnung) of the world ; as such we can know him, 
 and only as such. For if we attempt to attribute to him Intel- 
 ligence or Personality, we at once necessarily fall into anthropo- 
 morphism. God is infinite : therefore beyond the reach of our 
 science, which can only embrace the finite, but not beyond our 
 faith.'^* 
 
 By our efforts to fulfil our Duty, and thus to realize the Good 
 and Beautiful, we are tending towards God, we live in some meas- 
 ure the life of God. True religion is therefore the realization 
 of universal reason. If we were all perfectly free, we should be 
 one; for there is but one Liberty. If we had all the same con- 
 victions, the law of each would be the law of all, since all would 
 have but one Will. To this we aspire ; to this Humanity is 
 tending. 
 
 The germ of mysticism which lies in this doctrine was fully 
 developed by some of Fichte’s successors, although he himself 
 had particularly guarded against such an interpretation, and dis- 
 tinguishes himself from the mystics. 
 
 Let us now pass to jp|[„.hte’s Philosophy of History. 
 
 The historian only accomplishes half of the required task. 
 He narrates the events of an epoch, in their order of occurrence, 
 and in the form of their occurrence ; but he cannot be assured 
 that he has not omitted some of these events, or that he has 
 given them their due position and significance. The philosopher 
 must complete this incomplete method. He must form some 
 idea of the epoch — an Idea d priori, independent of experience. 
 He must then exhibit this Idea always dominant throughout the 
 
 * Sittenlehre, pp. 189, 194. 
 
APPLICATION OF FICHTE’s IDEALISM. 703 
 
 epoch — and manifesting itself in all the mnltiplicity of facts, 
 which are but its incarnation. What is the world but an incar- 
 nation of the Ego ? What is an epoch but an incarnation of an 
 Idea? 
 
 Every epoch has therefore its pre-existent Idea. And this 
 Idea will be determined by the Ideas of the epochs which have 
 preceded it ; and will determine those which succeed it. Hence 
 we conplude that the evolutions of Ideas — or the History of the 
 World — is accomplished on a certain flan. The philosopher 
 must conceive this plan in its totality, that he may from it 
 deduce the Ideas of the principal epochs in the history of Hu- 
 manity, not only as past, but as future. 
 
 The question first to be settled is this : What is the ground- 
 plan of the world? or, in other words, according to Fichte, 
 What is the fundamental Idea which Humanity has to realize ? 
 
 The answer is : The Idea of Duty. This, in its concrete ex- 
 pression, is : To fix the relations of man to man in such order 
 that the perfect liberty of each be compatible with the liberty of 
 the whole. 
 
 History may thus be divided into two principal epochs. The 
 one, in which man has not established the social relations on the 
 basis of reason. The other, in which he has established them, 
 and knows that he has done so.- 
 
 That Humanity exists but for the successive and constant 
 realization of the dictates of reason is easily proved. But some- 
 times Humanity has knowledge of what it performs, and why it 
 performs it ; sometimes it obeys but a blind impulse. In this 
 second case, that is to say, in the first epochs of the terrestrial 
 existence of Humanity, Reason, although not manifesting itself 
 distinctly, consciously, nevertheless exists. It manifests itself as 
 an instinct, and appears under the form of a natural law ; it 
 manifests itself in the intelligence only as a vague and obscure 
 sentiment. Reason, on the contrary, no sooner manifests itself 
 as Reason, than it is gifted with consciousness of itself and its 
 acts. This constitutes the second epoch. 
 
704 
 
 FICHTE. 
 
 But Humanity does not pass at once from the first to the 
 second epoch. At first Reason only manifests itself in a few 
 men, the Great Men of their age, who thereby acquire authority. 
 They are the instructors of their age ; their mission is to elevate 
 the mass up to themselves. Thus Instinct diminishes, and Rea- 
 son supervenes. Science appears. Morality becomes a science. 
 The relations of man to man become more and more fixed in 
 accordance with the dictates of reason. 
 
 The entire life of Humanity has five periods. I. The domina- 
 tion of Instinct over Reason : this is the primitive age. II. The 
 general Instinct gives place to an external dominant Authority ; 
 this is the age of doctrines unable to convince, and employing 
 force to produce a blind belief, claiming unlimited obedience ; 
 this is the period in which Evil arises. III. The Authority, 
 dominant in the preceding epoch, but constantly attacked by 
 Reapon, becomes weak and wavering : this is the epoch of skep- 
 ticism and licentiousness. IV. Reason becomes conscious of it- 
 self; truth makes itself known; the science of Reason develops 
 itself : this is the beginning of that perfection which Humanity 
 is destined to attain. V. The science of Reason is applied ; 
 Humanity fashions itself after the ideal standard of Reason ; 
 this is the epoch of Art, the last term in the history of our 
 species. 
 
 This brief outline of Fichte’s system will be sufificient to assign 
 him his place in the long line of European thinkers who have 
 worked, with such perseverance, the glittering mine of Meta- 
 physics ; and sufficient also, we trust, not only to stimulate the 
 curiosity of such readers whose studies lie in that direction, but 
 also to furnish them with a general view capable of rendering 
 the details intelligible. 
 
LIFE OF SCHELLING. 
 
 705 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SCHELLING. 
 
 § I. Life of Schelling. 
 
 Frederick William Joseph Schelling was bom in Leon- 
 berg, in Wiirtemberg, 27th of January, 1775. At the Uni- 
 versity in Tubingen he first knew Hegel, and their friendship 
 was enduring and productive. At Leipzig he studied Medicine 
 and Philosophy ; in the latter he became the pupil of Fichte. 
 He afterwards filled Fichte’s vacant chair at Jena, where he 
 lectured with immense success. In 1807 he was made a mem- 
 ber of the Munich Academy of Sciences. And in Bavaria, 
 honored, rewarded, and ennobled, he remained till 1842, when 
 the King of Prussia seduced him to Berlin ; and there, in the 
 chair once held by Hegel, he opened a series of lectures, in 
 which he was to give the fruit of a life’s meditation. 
 
 His appearance at Berlin was the signal for violent polemics. 
 The Hegelians were all up in arms. Pamphlets, full of person- 
 alities and dialectics, were launched against Schelling, apparent- 
 ly without much effect. His foes at length grew weary of 
 screaming; and he continued quietly to lecture. In 1845, the 
 writer of this work had the gratification not only of hearing 
 him lecture on Mythology to large audiences, but also of hearing 
 him in the expansiveness of private conversation pour forth his 
 stores of varied knowledge. His intellectual vigor was such, 
 that although seventy summers had whitened his hair, he seemed 
 to have still a long lease of life ; and indeed he continued nine 
 years longer to inspire the respect of all who knew him. He 
 died on the 20th August, 1854. 
 
706 
 
 SCHELLING. 
 
 § II. Schelling’s Doctrines. 
 
 Schelling is often styled the German Plato. In such parallels 
 there is always some truth amidst much error. Schelling’s works 
 unquestionably exhibit great power of vivid imagination con- 
 jined with subtle dialectics ; if on this ground he is to be styled 
 
 Plato, then are there hundreds to share that title with him. 
 His doctrines have little resemblance to those of his supposed 
 prototype. Curiously enough, his head was marvellously like 
 that of Socrates ; not so ugly, but still very like it in general 
 character. 
 
 Schelling may be regarded as having been the systematizer of 
 a tendency, always manifesting itself, but then in full vigor in 
 Germany — the tendency towards Pantheism. This tendency is 
 not merely the offspring of Mysticism. It may be recognized in 
 the clear Goethe, no less than in the mystical Novalis. In some 
 way or other, Pantheism seems the natural issue of almost every 
 Philosophy of Eeligion, when rigorously carried out ; but Ger- 
 many, above all European countries, has, both in poetry and 
 speculation, the most constantly reproduced it. Her poets, her 
 artists, her musicians, and her thinkers, have been more or less 
 Pantheists. Schelling’s attempt, therefore, to give Pantheism a 
 scientific basis, could not but meet with hearty approbation. 
 
 We may here once more notice the similarity, in historical 
 position, of the modern German speculations to those of the 
 Alexandrian Schools. In both, the incapacity of Eeason to 
 solve the problems of Philosophy is openly proclaimed ; in both, 
 some higher faculty is called iu to solve them. Plotinus called 
 this faculty Ecstasy. Schelling called it the Intellectual In- 
 tuition. The Ecstasy was not supposed to be a faculty possessed 
 by all men, and at all times ; it was only possessed by the few, 
 and by them but sometimes. The Intellectual Intuition was not 
 supposed to be a faculty common to all men ; on the contrary, it 
 was held as the endowment only of a few of the privileged : it 
 was the faculty for philosophizing. Schelling expresses his dis- 
 
schelling’s doctrines. 
 
 707 
 
 dain for those who talk about not comprehending the highest 
 truths of Philosophy. “Really,” he exclaims, “one sees not 
 wherefore Philosophy should pay auy attention whatever to In- 
 capacity. It is better rather that we should isolate Philosophy 
 from all the ordinary routes, and keep it so separated from ordi- 
 nary knowledge, that none of these routes should lead to it. 
 Philosophy commences where ordinary knowledge terminates.”* 
 The highest truths of science cannot be proved, they must be 
 apprehended ; for those who cannot apprehend them there is 
 nothing but pity ; argument is useless. 
 
 After this, were we to call Schelling the German Plotinus, we 
 should perhaps be nearer the truth than in calling him the Ger- 
 man Plato. But it was for the sake of no such idle parallel 
 that we compared the fundamental positions of each. Our ob- 
 ject was to “ point a moral,” and to show how the same forms 
 of error reappear in history, and how the labors of so many 
 centuries have not advanced the human mind in this direction 
 one single step. 
 
 The first point to be established is the nature of Schelling’s 
 improvement upon Fichte : the relation in which the two doc- 
 trines stand to each other. 
 
 Fichte’s Idealism was purely subjective Idealism. The Object 
 had indeed reality, but was solely dependent upon the Subject. 
 Endeavor as we might, we could never separate the Object from 
 the Subject, we could never conceive a possible mode of exist- 
 ence without being forced to identify with it a Subject. Indeed 
 the very conception itself is but an act of the Subject. Admit- 
 ting that we are forced by the laws of our mental constitution to 
 postulate an unknown something, a Noumenon, as the substance 
 in which all phenomena inhere, what, after all, is this postulate ? 
 It is an act of the Mind ; it is wholly subjective ; the necessity 
 for the postulate is a mental necessity. The Non-Ego therefore 
 !s the product of the Ego. 
 
 * Neue ZeiUchrift-fur Speculative Physilc, ii. 84. 
 
SCHKLLING. 
 
 ro8 
 
 There is subtle reasoning in the above ; nay more, it contain? 
 a principle which is irrefutable : the principle of the identity of 
 Object and Subject in knowledge* This Schelling adopted. 
 Nevertheless, in spite of such an admission, the nullity of the ex- 
 ternal world was too violent and repulsive a conclusion to be 
 long maintained ; and it was necessary to see if the principle of 
 identity might not be preserved, without forcing such a con- 
 clusion. 
 
 The existence of the objective world is as firmly believed in as 
 the existence of the subjective : they are, indeed, both given in 
 the same act. We cannot be conscious of our own existence 
 without at the same time inseparably connecting it with some 
 other existence from which we distinguished ourselves. So in 
 like manner we cannot be aware of the exisf^nce of any thing 
 jut of ourselves without at the same time inseparably connecting 
 with it a consciousness of ourselves. Hence we conclude that 
 both exist ; not indeed separately, not independently of each 
 other, but identified in some higher power. Fichte said that the 
 Non-Ego was created by the Ego. Schelling said that the two 
 were equally real, and that both were identified in the Absolute. 
 
 Knowledge must be knowledge of something. Hence Knowl- 
 edge implies the correlate of Being. Knowledge without an 
 Object known, is but an empty form. But Knowledge and Be- 
 ing are correlates ; they are not separable ; they are identified. 
 It is as impossible to conceive an Object known without a Sub- 
 ject knowing, as it is to conceive a Subject knowing without an 
 Object known. 
 
 Nature is Spirit visible ; Spirit is invisible Nature ;f the abso- 
 lute Ideal is at the same time the absolute Real. 
 
 * This is the stronghold of Idealism, and we consider it impregnable, so 
 long as men reason on the implied assamption, that whatever is true in 
 numan knowledge is equally true (i. e. actually so co-ordinated) in fact, 
 that as things appear to vs so they are per se. And yet without this assump- 
 tion Philosophy is impossible. 
 
 t Our readers will recognize here a favorite saying of Coleridge, many 
 
SCHELLING S DOCTRINES. 
 
 709 
 
 Hence Philosophy has two primary problems to solve. In 
 the Transcendental Philosophy the problem is to construct Na- 
 ture from Intelligence — the Object from the Subject. In the 
 Philosophy of Nature the problem is to construct Intelligence 
 from Nature — the Subject from the Object.* And how are we 
 to construct one from the other ? Fichte has taught us to do so 
 by the principle of the identity of Subject and Object, whereby 
 the productivity and the product are in constant opposition, yet 
 always one. The productivity (Thatiylceit) is the activity in act; 
 it is the force which develops itself into all thingt. The pro- 
 duct is the activity arrested and solidified into a fact ; but it is 
 always ready to pass again into activity. And thus the world 
 is but a balancing of contending powers within the sphere of the 
 Absolute. 
 
 In what, then, does Schelling differ from Fichte, since both 
 assert that the product (Object) is but the arrested activity of 
 the Ego ? In this ; the Ego in Fichte’s system is a finite Ego — 
 it is the human soul. The Ego in Schelling’s system is the Ab- 
 solute — the Infinite — the All, which Spinoza called Substance ; 
 and this Absolute manifests itself in two forms : in the form of 
 the Ego and in the form of the Non-Ego — as Nature and as 
 Mind. 
 
 The Ego produces the Non-Ego, but not by its own force, not 
 out of its own nature ; it is the universal Nature which works 
 within us and which produces from out of us ; it is universal 
 Nature which here in us is conscious of itself. The souls of men 
 are but the innumerable individual eyes with which the Infinite 
 World-Spirit beholds himself. 
 
 What is the Ego ? It is one and the same with the act which 
 renders it an Object to itself. When I say “ myself” — when I 
 form a conception of my Ego, what is that but the Ego making 
 
 of whose remarks, now become famous, are almost verbatim from Schelling 
 and the two Schlegels. 
 
 *■ System des Transcendentalen IdealismuSj p. 7 
 
no 
 
 SCHELLING. 
 
 itself an Object ? Consciousness therefore may be defined the 
 objectivity of the Ego. Very well ; now apply this to the Abso- 
 lute. He, too, must be conscious of himself, and for that he 
 must realize himself objectively. We can now understand 
 Schelling when he says, “ The blind and unconscious products 
 of Nature are nothing but unsuccessful attempts of Nature to 
 make itself an Object {sich selbst zu refiectiren) ; the so-called 
 dead Nature is but an unripe Intelligence. The acme of its 
 eflforts — that is, for Nature completely to objectize itself — is at- 
 tained through the highest and ultimate degree of reflection in 
 Man — or what we call Reason. Here Nature returns into itself, 
 and reveals its identity with that which in us is known as the 
 Object and Subject.”* 
 
 The function of Reason is elsewhere more distinctly described 
 as the total indifference-point of the subjective and objective. 
 The Absolute he represents by the symbol of the magnet. Thus, 
 as it is the same principle which divides itself in the magnet into 
 the north and south poles, the centre of which is the indifierence- 
 point, so in like manner does the Absolute divide itself into the 
 Real and Ideal, and holds itself in this separation as absolute in- 
 difference.f And as in the magnet every point is itself a magnet, 
 having a North pole, a South pole, and a point of indifierence, 
 so also in the Universe, the individual varieties are but varieties 
 of the eternal One. Man is a microcosm. 
 
 Reason is the indifference-point. Whoso rises to it, rises to 
 the reality of things (zum wa,hren Ansich), which reality is pre- 
 cisely in the indifference of Object and Subject. The basis of 
 Philosophy is therefore the basis of Reason ; its knowledge is a 
 knowledge of things as they are, i. e. as they are in Reason.J 
 
 The spirit of Plotinus revives in these expressions. We have 
 in them the whole key-stone of the Alexandrian School. The 
 
 * System des Tran-scendentalen Idealismua, p. 5. 
 
 t Hence SchelUng’s philosophy is often styled the Indifference Plii* 
 losophy. 
 
 f Zeitschrift fur Speculative Physik, vol. ii. heft 2. 
 
schelling’s doctkines. 
 
 711 
 
 Intellectual Intuition by wbicb we are to embrace tbe Absolute, 
 is, as before remarked, but another form of the Alexandrian 
 Ecstasy. Schelling was well aware that the Absolute, the In- 
 finite as such, could not be known under the conditions of finity, 
 cannot be known in personal consciousness. How, then, can it 
 be known ? By some higher faculty which discerns the identity 
 of Object and Subject — which perceives the Absolute as Abso- 
 lute, where all difference is lost in indifference. 
 
 There are three divisions in Schelling’s system : the philosophy 
 of Nature, the transcendental philosophy, and the philosophy of 
 the Absolute. 
 
 His speculations with respect to Nature have met with consid- 
 erable applause in Germany. Ingenious they certainly are, but 
 vitiated in Method ; incapable of verification. Those who are 
 curious to see what he makes of Nature are referred to his Zdt- 
 schriftfur speculative Physih, and his Ideenzu einer PMlosophie 
 der Natur. The following examples will serve to indicate the 
 character of his speculations.* 
 
 Subject and Object being identical, the absolute Identity is the 
 absolute totality named Universe. There can be no difference 
 except a quantitative difference ; and this is only conceivable 
 with respect to individual existences. For the absolute Identity 
 is quantitative indifference both of Object and Subject, and is 
 only under this form. If we could behold all that is, and behold 
 it in its totality, we should see a perfect quantitative equality. It 
 is only in the scission of the Individual from the Infinite that 
 quantitative difference takes place. This difference of Object and 
 Subject is the ground of all finity; and, on the other hand, quan- 
 titative indifference of the two is Infinity. 
 
 That which determines any difference is a Power i^Potenz), 
 and the Absolute is the Identity of all Powers {aller Potenzen), 
 
 * The reader must not complain if he do not understand what follows : 
 intelligibility is not the characteristic of German speculation ; and we ar* 
 here only translating Schelling’s words, without undertaking to enlighten 
 their darkness. 
 
SCHELLING. 
 
 ri2 
 
 All matter is originally liquid ; weight is the power through 
 which the Attractive and Expansive force, as the immanent 
 ground of the reality of Matter, operates. Weight is the first 
 Potenz. The second Potenz is Light — an inward intuition of 
 Nature, as weight is the outward intuition. Identity with Light 
 is Transparency. Heat does not pertain to the nature of Light, 
 but is simply a modus existendi of Light. Newton’s speculations! 
 upon Light are treated with disdain, as a system built upon il- 
 logical conclusions, a system self-contradictory, and leading to 
 infinite absurdities. Nevertheless this absurd system has led 
 men to many discoveries : it is the basis of a gradually advan- 
 cing science ; while the views of Schelling lead to nothing ex- 
 cept disputation. So with his explanation of Electricity : let us 
 suppose it exact, and we must still acknowledge it to be useless. 
 It admits of no verification ; admits of no application. It is ut- 
 terly sterile. 
 
 There are, indeed, general ideas in his Natur-philosophie, 
 which not only approach the conceptions of positive science, but 
 have given a powerful stimulus to many scientific intellects. The 
 general law of polarity, for example, which he makes* the law of 
 universal nature, is seen illustrated in physics and chemistry ; al- 
 though the presumed relation between heat and oxygen, which 
 he makes the basis of all atomic changes, no chemist will nowa- 
 days accept. When, in the second part of this treatise, he the- 
 orizes on organic life, the result is similar — namely, some general 
 ideas which seem luminous are enforced by particular ideas cer- 
 tainly false. He maintains that vegetation and life are the prod- 
 ucts of chemical action : the first consisting in a continual deox- 
 idation, the second in a continual oxidation ; as soon as this 
 chemical action ceases, death supervenes, for living beings exist 
 only in the moment of hecoming.\ He only expresses the uni- 
 versally accepted idea of life when he makes it depend on the 
 ncessant disturbance and re-establishment of an equilibrium,! or, 
 
 Von der Wtltseele, p. 25, sq. 
 
 t Ihid., p. 181. t Ibid., p. 284. 
 
SCHELLING’s DOCTEnSTES. 713 
 
 as De Blaiaville defines it, “a continual movement of decompo- 
 sition and recomposition.” 
 
 All the functions of Life are hut the individualizations of one 
 common principle ; and all the series of living beings are but 
 the individualizations of one common Life : this is the Weltseele, 
 or anima mundi. The same idea had been expressed by Goethe, 
 and has since been presented, under various forms, by Oken and 
 many German naturalists. The idea of a dynamic progression 
 in Nature, is also the fundamental idea in Hegel’s philosophy. 
 
 Schelling, in his JahrbucJier der Medicin, says that Science is 
 only valuable in as far as it is speculative ; and by spec-lation 
 he means the contemplation of God as He exists. Reason, inas- 
 much as it affirms God, cannot affirm any thing else, and anni- 
 hilates itself at the same time as an individual existence, as any 
 thing out of God. Thought (das Denhen) is not my Thought ; 
 and Being is not my Being ; for every thing belongs to God or 
 the All, There is no such thing as a Reason which we have ; 
 but only a Reason that has us. If nothing exists out of God, 
 then must the knowledge of God be only the infinite knowledge 
 which God has of himself in the eternal Self-affirmation. God 
 is not the highest, but the only One. He is not to be viewed as 
 the summit or the end, but as the centre, as the All in Al l. 
 Consequently there is no such thing as a being lifted up to the 
 knowledge of God ; but the knowledge is immediate recognition. 
 
 If we divest Schelling’s speculations of their dialectical forms, 
 we shall arrive at the following results : 
 
 Idealism is one-sided. Beside the Subject there must exist an 
 Object ; the two are identical in a third, which is the Absolute. 
 This Absolute is neither Ideal nor Real — neither Mind nor Na- 
 ture — but both. This Absolute is God. He is the All in All ; 
 the eternal source of all existence. He realizes himself under 
 one form, as an objectivity; and under a second form as a sub- 
 ‘ectivity. He becomes conscious of himself in man : and this 
 man, under the highest form of his existence, manifests Reason, 
 and by this Reason God knows himself. Such are the conclu 
 
7U 
 
 SCHELLING. 
 
 sions to which Schelling’s philosophy ^eads us. And now, wc 
 ask, in what does this philosophy differ from Spinozism ? 
 
 The Absolute, which Schelling assunies as the indifference- 
 point of Subject and Object, is but the ‘n'purov dyaSov and primal 
 Nothing, which forms the first Hypostasis of the Alexandrian 
 Trinity. The Absolute, as the Identity of Subject and Object, 
 being neither and yet both, is but the Substance of Spinoza, 
 whooe attributes are Extension and Thought. 
 
 With Spinoza also he agreed in giving only a phenomenal re- 
 ality to the Object and Subject. With Spinoza he agreed in 
 admitting but one existence — the Absolute. 
 
 But, although agreeing with Spinoza in his fundamental posi- 
 tions, he differed with him in Method, and in the applications of 
 those positions. In both differences the superiority, as it seems 
 to me, is incontestably due to Spinoza. 
 
 Spinoza deduced his system very logically from one funda- 
 mental assumption, viz. that whatever was true of ideas was 
 true of objects. This assumption itself was not altogether ar- 
 bitrary. It was grounded upon the principle of certitude, which 
 Descartes had brought forward as the only principle which was 
 irrefragable. Whatever was found to be distinct and a priori in 
 Consciousness, was irresistibly true. Philosophy was therefore 
 deductive ; and Spinoza deduced his system from the principles 
 laid down by Descartes. 
 
 Schelling’s Method was very different. Aware that human 
 knowledge was necessarily finite, he could not accept Spinoza’s 
 Method, because that would have given him only a knowledge 
 of the finite, the conditioned ; and such knowledge, it was ad- 
 mitted, led to skepticism. He was forced to assume another 
 faculty of knowing the truth, and this was the Intellectual Intu- 
 ition. Beason which could know the Absolute, was only possible 
 by transcending Consciousness and sinking into the Absolute. 
 As Knowledge and Being were Identical, to know the Infinite, 
 we must he the Infinite, i. e. must lose our individuality in the 
 universal. 
 
LIFE OF HEGEL. 
 
 715 
 
 Consciousness, then, which had for so long formed the basis 
 of all Philosophy, was thrown over by Schelling, as incompetent 
 to solve any of its problems. Consciousness was no ground ol 
 certitude. Reason was the organ of Philosophy, and Reason was 
 hnpenonal. The Identity of Being and Knowing took the 
 place of Consciousness, and became the basis of all speculation. 
 We shall see to what it led in Hegel. 
 
 Our notice of Schelling has necessarily been brie^ not because 
 he merited no greater space, but because to have entered into 
 details with any satisfaction, would have carried us far beyond 
 our limits. His works are not only numerous, but differ consid- 
 erably in their views. All we have endeavored to represent is 
 the ideas which he produced as developments of Fichte, and 
 which served Hegel as a basis.* 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 § I. Life of Hegel. 
 
 George Frederick William Hegel was born at StUttgard, 
 the 27th of August, 1770. He received that classical education 
 which distinguished the Wirtembergian students beyond all 
 others ; and in his eighteenth year he went to Tubingen, to pur- 
 sue his theological and philosophical studies. He was there a 
 fellow-student with Schelling, for whom he contracted great es- 
 teem. The two young thinkers communicated to each other 
 their thoughts, and discussed their favorite systems. In after- 
 
 *■ A French translation of Schelling’s most important wort, under the 
 title of Systime de Vldealisme transcendental^ by P. Grimhlot, the translator 
 of Fichte, has appeared ; also a version of Bruno ; ou, Zes Principee de* 
 Choses. 
 
716 
 
 HEGEL, 
 
 life, when opposition had sundered these ties, Hegel never spoke 
 of this part of their connection without emotion. In his twen- 
 tieth year he had to give up all his plans for a professorship, and 
 was content (hunger impelling) to accept the place of a private 
 tutor, first in Switzerland, and subsequently in Frankfort. 
 
 Early in 1801 his father died; and the small property he in- 
 herited enabled him to relinquish his tutorship, and to move to 
 Jena, where he published his dissertation De Orhitis Planetarum. 
 This work was directed against the Newtonian system of Astron- 
 omy, It was an application of Schelling’s Philosophy of Na- 
 ture ; and in it Newton was treated with that scorn which Hegel 
 never failed to heap upon Empirics, i. e. those who trusted more 
 to experience than to logic. In the same year he published his 
 Difference between Fichte and Schelling^ in which he sided with 
 the doctrines of his friend, whom he joined in editing the Crit- 
 ical Journal of Philosophy. It is in the second volume of this 
 Journal that we meet with his celebrated essay Olauhen und 
 Wissen (Faith and Knowledge), in which Kant, Jacobi, and 
 Fichte are criticised. 
 
 At Jena he enjoyed the society of Goethe and Schiller. The 
 former, with his usual sagacity, detected the philosophical genius 
 which as yet lay undeveloped in Hegel ; of which more may be 
 read in Goethe and Schiller’s Correspondence. Hegel, on the 
 other hand, was to the last one of Goethe’s stanchest admirers ; 
 and many a gleam of lustre is shed over the pages of the phi- 
 losopher by the frequent quotations of the poet. 
 
 At the University of Jena, Hegel then held the post of Privat- 
 docent / but his lectures had only four listeners. These four, how- 
 ever, were all remarkable men : Gabler, Troxler, Lachmann, and 
 Zellmann. On Schelling’s quitting Jena, Hegel filled his chair ; 
 but filled it only for one year. Here he published his Phanorne- 
 %ologie des Geistes. He finished writing this work on the night 
 of the ever-memorable battle of Jena. While the artillery was 
 roaring under the walls, the philosopher was deep in his work, 
 unconscious of all that was going on. He continued writing, as 
 
HEGEL ’S METHOD. 
 
 717 
 
 A.rcliimedes at the siege of Syracuse continued his scientific re- 
 searches. The next morning, manuscript in hand, he steps into 
 the streets, proceeding to his publisher’s, firmly convinced that 
 the interests of mankind are bound up with that mass of writing 
 which he hugs so tenderly. The course of his reverie is some- 
 what violently interrupted ; bearded and gesticulating French 
 soldiers arrest the philosopher, and significantly enough inform 
 him that, for the present, the interests of men lie elsewhere than 
 in manuscripts. In spite of French soldiers, however, the work 
 in due time saw the light, and was welcomed by the p nilosophical 
 world as a new system — or rather as a new modification ofSchel- 
 ling’s system. The editorship of the Bamberg newspaper was 
 then oflfered him, and he quitted Jena. He did not long remain 
 at Bamberg ; for in the autumn of 1808 we find him Rector of 
 the Gymnasium College at Niimberg. He shortly after married 
 Fraulcin von Tucher, with whom he passed a happy life, and 
 who bore him two sons. In 1816 he was called to the chair 
 of Heidelberg, and published in 1817 his JEncyclopadie der Philos. 
 Wissenschaften, which contains an outline of his system. This 
 work so exalted his reputation that in 1818 he was called to the 
 chair of Berlin, then the most important in Germany, He 
 there lectured for thirteen years, and formed a school, of which it 
 is sufficient to name its members Gans, Rosenkranz, Michelet, 
 Werder, Marheinecke, and Hotho. 
 
 Hegel was seized with cholera in 1831, and after a short ill- 
 ness expired, in the sixty-second year of his age, on the 24th of 
 November, the anniversary of the death of Leibnitz. 
 
 § II. Hegel’s Method. 
 
 Schelling’s doctrines were never systematically cc-ordinated. 
 He was subtle, ardent, and audacious ; but he disregarded pre- 
 cision ; and stood in striking contradiction to his predecessors, 
 Kant and Fichte, in the absence of logical forms. 
 
 The effect of his teaching was felt more in the department of 
 the philosophy of nature than elsewhere. Crowds of disciples^ 
 48 
 
HEGEL. 
 
 ri8 
 
 some of them, as Oken and Steffens, illustrious disciples, attempt- 
 ed the application of his principles ; and after a vast quantity of 
 ingenious but sterile generalization, it was found that these prin- 
 ciples led to no satisfactory conclusion. 
 
 Schelling’s .deas were, however, very generally accepted in the 
 philosophical world at the time Hegel appeared. These ideas 
 were thought to be genuine intuitions of the truth ; the only draw- 
 back was their want of systematic co-ordination. They were 
 inspirations of the truth ; and demonstrations were needed. The 
 position Hegel was to occupy became therefore very clear. 
 Either he must destroy those ideas and bring forward others ; or 
 he must accept them, and, in accepting, systematize them. This 
 latter was no easy task, and this was the task he chose. In the 
 course of his labors he deviated somewhat from Schelling, because 
 the rigorous conclusions of his logic made such deviations neces- 
 sary ; but these are, after all, nothing but modifications of Schel- 
 ling’s ideas ; very often nothing but different expressions for the 
 same ideas. 
 
 What then constitutes Hegel’s glory ? What is the nature of 
 his contribution to philosophy, and what has placed him on so high 
 a pedestal of renown ? It is nothing less than the invention of 
 a new Method.* 
 
 The invention of a method has always been considered the 
 greatest effort of philosophical genius, and the most deserving of 
 the historian’s attention. K methodL \s 2i path of transit. Who 
 so discovers a path whereon mankind may travel in quest of truth, 
 has done more towards the discovery of truth than thousands of 
 men merely speculating. What had the observation and specu- 
 lation of centuries done for astronomy before the right path was 
 found ? And if a method could be found for philosophy — if a 
 path of transit from the phenomenal to the noumenal world could 
 be found — should we not then be quickly in possession of the truth? 
 
 * This is the claim put up by his disciple, Michelet, OescTi. der Systeme der 
 Philos, ii. 604-5 ; who declares Hegel’s method to be all that can properly be 
 called his own. Comp. Hegel’s Vermischte Schriften,\u 
 
HEGEL S METHOD. 
 
 719 
 
 A Method is all-important. The one invented by Descartes 
 seemed promising ; but it led to Malebranche and Spinoza. The 
 one invented by Locke had obvious excellences ; but it was a 
 path of transit to Berkeley and Hume. That of Kant led to 
 Fichte and Skepticism. 
 
 Curious to consider ! In the modern as in the ancient world, 
 the inevitable results of a philosophical Method are Idealism and 
 Skepticism. One class of minds is led to Idealism or Mysticism ; 
 another class is led to Skepticism. But as both these conclusions 
 are repugnant to the ordinary conclusions of mankind, they are 
 rejected, and the Method which led to them is also rejected. A 
 new one is found ; hopes beat high ; truth is about to be discov- 
 ered ; the search is active, and the result — always the same — re- 
 pugnant Idealism or Skepticism. Thus struggling and baffled, 
 hoping and dispirited, has Humanity forever renewed the con- 
 flict, without once gaining a victory. Sisyphus rolls up the 
 heavy stone, which no sooner reaches a certain point than down 
 it rolls to the bottom, and all the labor is to begin again. 
 
 We have already traced the efibrts of many noble minds ; we 
 have seen the stone laboriously rolled upwards, and seen it swift- 
 ly roll down again. We have seen Methods discovered ; we have 
 followed adventurous spirits as they rushed forward to conquest ; 
 and seen the discouragement, the despair which possessed them, 
 as they found their paths leading only to a yawning gulf of 
 Skepticism, or a baseless cloud-land of Idealism. We have now 
 to witness this spectacle once more. We have to see whither 
 Hegel’s Method can conduct us. 
 
 And what is this Method which Hegel discovered ? Accepting 
 as indisputable the identity of Object and Subject, he was forced 
 also to accept the position, that whatever was true of the thought 
 was true of the thing. In other words. Mind and Matter being 
 identical. Ideas and Objects were correlates, and equally true. 
 This wjs the position upon which Descartes stood; the position 
 upon which Spinoza stood. Schelling and Hegel arrived at this 
 position by a different route, but they also took their stand upon it. 
 
720 
 
 HE3EL. 
 
 Now, it is evident that such a position is exposed to attacks on 
 all sides ; to none more so than the contradictions which rise up 
 from within it. If whatever is true of Ideas is true also of Objects, 
 a thousand absurdities bristle up. Thus, as Kant said, there is 
 considerable difference between thinking we possess a hundred 
 dollars, and possessing them. Hegel’s answer is delicious : he 
 declares that “ Philosophy does not concern itself with such 
 things as a hundred dollars !” (daran ist philosophisch nicJits zu 
 erkennen) Philosophy directs its thoughts only towards that 
 which is necessary and eternal. 
 
 Very well; let such miserable illustrations as that of dollars 
 be banished from discourse ; let us concern ourselves only with 
 what is necessary and eternal ; let us confine ourselves to abstract 
 tions. Are there no contradictions here between Thoughts and 
 Realities ? For example, we have the Thought of Non-existence : 
 does therefore this Non-existence which is our Thought also 
 possess an objective being? Is there a Non-existence ? 
 
 We have chosen this idle question, because Hegel himself has 
 forced us to it. He boldly says, that the Non-existence — the 
 Nothing — exists, because it is a Thought (das Nichts ist ; denn 
 es ist ein Gedanke). It is not, however, merely a Thought, but 
 it is the same Thought as that of a pure Being [Segn), viz. an 
 entirely unconditioned Thought. 
 
 In this, coupled with his famous axiom, that “ Being and Non- 
 Being are the same” {^Seyn und Nichts ist dasselbe), we have 
 two of the curious results to which his Method led him. It was 
 the Method of Descartes, founded upon Descartes’ principle of 
 the truth of ideas being equivalent to the truth of things ; but 
 inasmuch as this met with strong opposition from various sides, 
 Hegel resolved to give it a deeper, firmer basis, a basis that went 
 underneath these contradictions. The basis was his principle of 
 the identity oj contraries. 
 
 Two contraries are commonly supposed to exclude each other 
 reciprocally ; Existence excludes Non-Existence. This notion 
 Hegel pronounces to be false. Every thing is contradictorv in 
 
Hegel’s method. 
 
 721 
 
 itself: contradiction forms its essence: its iientity consists in 
 being the union of two contraries. Thus Being {Seyn) consid- 
 ered absolutely — considered as unconditioned — that is to say, as 
 Being in the abstract, apart from any individual thing, is the 
 same as Nothing. Existence is therefore identical with its nega- 
 tion. But to conclude that there is not Existence, would be 
 false ; for the abstract Nothing {Nichts) is at the same time the 
 abstract Being. We must therefore unite these two contraries, 
 and in so doing we arrive at a middle term — the realization* of 
 the two in one, and this is conditioned Existence — it is the world. 
 
 Here is another example. In pure light — that is, light without 
 color or shadow — we should be totally unable to see any thing. 
 Absolute clearness is therefore identical with absolute obscurity — 
 with its negation, in fact; but neither clearness nor obscurity 
 are complete alone : by uniting them we have clearness mingled 
 with obscurity ; that is to say, we have Light properly so called. 
 
 Hegel thus seized the bull by the horns. Instead of allowing 
 himself to be worsted by the arguments derived from the con- 
 tradictions to which the identity of Existence and Knowledge 
 was exposed, he at once met the diflSculty by declaring that the 
 identity of contraries was the very condition of all existence ; 
 without a contrary nothing could come into being. This was 
 logical audacity which astounded his countrymen, and they have 
 proclaimed this feat worthy of immortal glory. A new light 
 seemed to be thrown upon the world : a new aspect was given 
 to all existences. Being was at the same time Non-Being ; Sub- 
 ject was at the same time Object; and Object was Subject: 
 Force was at the same time Impotence; Light was also Dark- 
 ness, and Darkness was also Light. 
 
 “Nothing in this world is single; 
 
 All things, by a law divine, 
 
 In one another’s being mingle.” 
 
 The merit of this discovery, whatever may be its value, is 
 
 * The original word is werden — the hecoming. It is much used in German 
 (peculation to express the transition from Non-being to Being. 
 
722 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 considerably diminished when we remember how distinctly it 
 was enunciated in ancient Greece. Heraclitus had told us how 
 “ All is, and is not ; for though it comes into being, yet it forth- 
 with ceases to be.” Empedocles had told us how there was 
 “ Nothing but a mingling and then a separation of the mingled.” 
 Indeed the constant flux and reflux of life, the many changes, 
 and the compound nature of all things, must early have led 
 men to such a view. Hegel himself admits that all the posi- 
 tions maintained by Heraclitus have been by him developed 
 in his Logic. What then was wanting to Heraclitus — what 
 is the great merit of Hegel? A perception of the logical 
 law of the identity of contraries. To this Hegel has the sole 
 claim. 
 
 Here, then, is the foundation-stone of Hegel’s system. He 
 adopts the principle of the identity of Subject and Object. This 
 principle being pronounced false, because it leads to manifest 
 contradictions, Hegel replies that the principle is true ; and that 
 it must lead to contradictions, because the identity of contraries 
 is the condition of all existence. 
 
 Such is the Method which admiring disciples extol as the 
 greatest efifort of Philosophy, as the crown of all previous spec- 
 ulations ; and even in France it has been in some quarters ac- 
 cepted as a revelation. 
 
 The law being given, we may now give the process. Let us 
 take any one Idea (and with Hegel an Idea is a reality, an Ob- 
 ject, not simply a modification of the Subject) ; this Idea, by its 
 inherent activity, tends to develop that which is within it. This 
 development operates a division of the Idea into two parts — a 
 positive and a negative. Instead of one Idea we have therefore 
 two, which reciprocally exclude each other. The Idea, therefore, 
 by the very act of development, only conduces to its own nega- 
 tion. But the process does not stop there. The negation itself 
 must be negatived. By this negation of its negation, the Idea 
 returns to its primitive force. But it is no longer the same. It 
 has developed all that it contained. It has absorbed its contrary 
 
ABSOLUTE IDEALISM. 
 
 723 
 
 Thus the negation of the negation, by suppressing the negation, 
 at the same time preserves it.* 
 
 We may, by way of anticipation, observe that Hegel’s notion of 
 God becoming conscious of Himself in Philosophy, and thereby at- 
 taining His highest development, is founded on the above process. 
 God as pure Being can only pass into reality through a nega- 
 tion ; in Philosophy He negatives this negation, and thus becomes 
 a positive alBrmation. 
 
 § III. Absolute Idealism. 
 
 We have seen Hegel’s Method. Whether that be a path of 
 transit to the domain of truth, or only to the cloud-land of mys- 
 ticism and the bogs of absurdity, our readers will very soon 
 decide. Meanwhile we must further detail Hegel’s opinions ; we 
 must see whither his Method did lead him. 
 
 As every thing contains within itself a contradiction, and as 
 the identity of the two constitutes its essence, so we may say 
 that Schelling’s conception of the identity of Subject and Ob- 
 ject was not altogether exact. He assumed the reality of both 
 of these poles of the magnet ; and the identity he called the 
 point of indifference between them. These two extremities were 
 always separate, though identified. Hegel declared that the 
 essence of all relation — that which is true and positive in every 
 relation — is not the two terms related, but the relation itself. 
 This is the basis of Absolute Idealism. 
 
 It may be thus illustrated. I see a tree. Psychologists tell 
 me that there are three things implied in this one fact of vision, 
 viz. a tree, an image of that tree, and a mind which apprehends 
 that image. Fichte tells me that it is I alone who exist ; the 
 tree and the image of the tree are but one thing, and that is a 
 modification of my mind. This is Subjective Idealism. Schel- 
 ling tells me that both the tree and my Ego are existences 
 
 * This play upon words is assisted by the German avfheben, which means 
 ‘to suppress” as well as “to preserve.” See Ott, Hegel et la Philos. Alls 
 mande, p. 80. 
 
72i 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 equally real or ideal, but they are nothing less than manifesta- 
 tions of the Absolute. This is Objective Idealism. But, accord- 
 ing to Hegel, all these explanations are false. The only thing 
 really existing (in this one fact of vision) is the Idea — the rela- 
 tion. The Ego and the Tree are but two terms of the relation, 
 and owe their reality to it. This is Absolute Idealism. 
 
 Of the three forms of Idealism, this is surely the most pre- 
 posterous ; and that any sane man — not to speak of a man so 
 eminent as Hegel — should for an instant believe in the correct- 
 ness of the logic which “ brought him to this pass” — that he 
 should not at once reject the premises frcni which such conclu- 
 sions followed — must ever remain a wonder to all sober thinkers 
 — must ever remain a striking illustration of the unbounded con 
 fidence in bad logic which distinguishes metaphysicians — 
 
 “ Gens ratione ferox, et mentem pasta chimaeris.” 
 
 Truly, a race mad with logic, and feeding the mind with chi 
 meras. 
 
 What does this Absolute Idealism bring us to ? It brings us 
 to a world of mere “ relations.” The Spinozistic notion of “ Sub- 
 stance” was too gross. To speak of Substance, was to speak only 
 of one term of a relation. The Universe is but the Universe ot 
 Ideas, which are at once both Objective and Subjective, their es- 
 sence consisting in the relation they bear to each other, in the 
 identity of their contradiction. 
 
 Remark, also, that this Absolute Idealism is nothing but 
 Hume’s Skepticism, in a dogmatical form. Hume denied the 
 existence of Mind and Matter, and said there was nothing but 
 Ideas. Hegel denies the existence of both Object and Subject, 
 and saj-s there is nothing but the “relations” of the two. He 
 blames Kant for having spoken of Things as if they were only 
 appearances to us [Erscheinungen fur uns) while their real na- 
 ture [Ansich) was inaccessible. The real relation, he says, is 
 this : that the Things we know are not only appearances to us, 
 but are in themselves mere appearances {sondern an sich blosse 
 Erscheinungen). The real Objectivity is this ; that our Thoughts 
 
ABSOLUTE IDEALISM. 725 
 
 are not only Thoughts, but at the same time are the reality of 
 Things.'*' 
 
 This is the Philosophy — not a Philosophy, remember — not a 
 system •which may take its place amongst other systems. No, 
 it is the Philosophy par excellence. We have Hegel’s -word for 
 it ;f we have the confirmation of that word by many ardent dis- 
 ciples. True it is, that some of the young Hegelians, when re- 
 proached with the constant changes they introduce, reply that it 
 belongs to the nature of Philosophy to change. But these are 
 inconsiderate, rash young men. Mature and sober thinkers (of 
 Hegel’s school) declare that, although some improvements are 
 possible in detail, yet on the whole Hegel has given the Philos- 
 ophy to the world. 
 
 And this philosophy is not a system of doctrines whereby man 
 is to guide himself. It is something far greater. It is the con- 
 templation of the self-development of the Absolute. Hegel con- 
 gratulates mankind upon the fact of a new epoch having dawned. 
 “ It appears,” says he, “that the World-Spirit [Weltgeist) has at 
 last succeeded in freeing himself from all encumbrances, and is 
 able to conceive himself as Absolute Intelligence (sich als abso- 
 
 luten Geist zu erfassen) For he is this only in as 
 
 far as he knows himself to be the Absolute Intelligence : and 
 this he knows only in Science ; and this knowledge alone consti- 
 tutes his true existence."^ 
 
 Such pretensions would be laughable, were they not so painful 
 to contemplate. To think not only of one man, and that one 
 remarkable for the subtlety of his intellect, a subtlety which was 
 its bane, together with many other men — some hundred or so, 
 all rising above the ordinary level of ability — one and all cul- 
 tivating, as the occupation of their lives, a science with such 
 pretensions, and with such a Method as that of the identity of 
 
 * “ Dass die Gedanken nicht bloss unsere Gedankeu, sondern zugleich daa 
 Ansich der Dinge und des Gegenstandliclien iiberhaupt sind.” — Encyclopddie, 
 p. 89 ; see also p. 97. The whole of this Introduction to the EncycU/p'ddie ij 
 worth consulting, 
 t Gesch. der Philos, iii. 690. 
 
 t Ibid. iii. 689. 
 
726 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 contraries ! The delusions daily to be seen are those of ij^no- 
 rance, and only depend upon ignorance. But the delusions of 
 Metaphysics are the delusions of an ambitious intelligence which 
 “ o’erleaps itself.” Men such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, 
 for example, belong incontestably to a high order of intelligences ; 
 yet we have seen to what their reasonings brought them ; we 
 have seen what absurdities they could accept, believing they had 
 found the truth. Hegel especially impresses you with a sense of 
 his wonderful power. His works w'e have always found very 
 suggestive ; his ideas, if repugnant to what we regard as the 
 truth, are yet so coherent, so systematically developed, so obvi- 
 ously coming from matured meditation, that we have always 
 risi^ from the perusal with a sense of the author’s greatness; 
 We allude especially to his Lectures on Esthetics, his History 
 of Philosophy^ his Philosophy of History^ and his Philosophy 
 of Religion. 
 
 As for the system itself, we may leave to all readers to decide 
 whether it be worthy of any attention, except as an illustration of 
 the devious errors of speculation. A system which begins with 
 assuming that Being and Non-Being are the same, because Being 
 in the abstract must be conceived as the Unconditioned, and so 
 must Non-Being, therefore both, as unconditioned, are the same ; 
 a system which proceeds upon the identity of contraries as the 
 method of Philosophy ; a system in which Thought is the same as 
 the Thing, and the Thing is the same as the Thought; a system 
 in which the only real positive existence is that of simple Relation, 
 the two terms of which are Mind and Matter ; — this system, were it 
 wholly true, leaves all the questions for which science is useful as 
 a light, just as much in the dark as ever, and is therefore unwor- 
 thy the attention of earnest men working for the benefit of 
 mankind. 
 
 Not only is it useless ; it is worse, it is pernicious. The facility 
 with which men can throw all questions into the systematic ob- 
 scurity of metaphysics, has long been the bane of German Liter- 
 ature and Thought. In England and France we have been 
 
Hegel’s logic. 
 
 727 
 
 saved from perpetuating the frivolous discussions of the School 
 men, mainly because we have retained their nomenclature and 
 terminology, and are warned by these from off scholastic ground ; 
 but the Germans, having invented a new philosophical language, 
 do not perceive that the new terms disguise old errors ; they fail 
 to recognize in Irrlicht the familiar face of Ignis fatuus. 
 
 § IV. Hegel’s Logic. 
 
 Philosophy being the contemplation of the self-development of 
 the Absolute, or, as Hegel sometimes calls it, the representation 
 of the Idea {Darstellung der Idee), it first must be settled in what 
 directions this development takes place. 
 
 The process is this. Every thing must be first considered 
 per se [an sich) ; next in its negation, or some other thing [An- 
 derseyn). These are the two terms — the contraries; but they 
 must be identified in some third, or they cannot exist ; this third 
 is the Relation of the two (the Anundfursichseyri). This is the 
 afiSrmation which is founded on the negation of a negation : it is 
 therefore positive, real. 
 
 The Absolute, which is both Thought and Being, must be con- 
 sidered in this triple order, and philosophy falls into three parts : 
 
 I. Logic, the science of the Idee’* an und fur sich. 
 
 II. Nature-philosophy, as the science of the Idee in its An- 
 derseyn. 
 
 HI. Philosophy of Intelligence, as the Idee which has re- 
 tnrned from its Anderseyn to itself. 
 
 Logic, in this system, has a very different meaning from that 
 usually given to the word. It is, indeed, equally, with the com- 
 mon logic, an examination of the forms of Thought ; but it is 
 more : — it is an examination of Things, no less than of Thoughts. 
 As Object and Subject are declared identical, and whatever is 
 trne of the Thought is equally true of the Thing, since the 
 
 * The Idee is but another term for the Absolute. W e shall use it, rather than 
 Idea, because the English word cannot be employed without creating un- 
 necessary confusion. 
 
728 
 
 HEttEL. 
 
 Thought is the thing, Logic, of course, takes ihe place of the 
 ancient Logic, and, at the same time, of Metaphysics. It is the 
 generation of all abstract ideas. Consequently it contains the 
 whole system of Science ; and the other parts are but the appli- 
 cation of this Logic. 
 
 Hegel’s Logic is contained in three stout volumes of dry hard 
 scholasticism. It is a representation of the Idee, in its process 
 of pure thought, free from all contact with objects. It is wholly 
 abstract. It begins with pure Being. This pure Being, in vir- 
 tue of its purity, is unconditioned ; but that which has no condi- 
 tions has no existence : it is a pure abstraction. Now a pure ab- 
 straction is also the Nothing (das Nichts) : it also has no condi- 
 tions; its unconditionalness makes its nothingness. The first 
 proposition in Logic is, therefore, “ Being and Non-Being are the 
 same.” 
 
 Hegel admits the proposition to be somewhat paradoxical, and 
 is fully aware of its openness to ridicule ; but he is not a man 
 to be scared by a paradox, to be shaken by a sarcasm. He is 
 aware that stupid common-sense will ask, “ whether it is the 
 same if my house, my property, the air I breathe, this town, sun^ 
 the law, mind, or God, exist or not.” Certainly, a very pertinent 
 question : how does he answer it ? “ In such examples,” he 
 
 sa} s, “ particular ends — utility, for instance — are understood, and 
 then it is asked if it is indifierent to me whether these useful 
 things exist or not ? But, in truth, Philosophy is precisely the 
 doctrine which is to free man from innumerable finite aims and 
 ends, and to make him so indifferent to them that it is really all 
 the same whether such things exist or not.” Here we trace the 
 Alexandrian influence ; except that Plotinus would never have had 
 the audacity to say that Philosophy was to make us indifierent 
 whether God existed or not ; and it must have been a slip of the 
 pen which made Hegel include God in the examples : a slip of 
 the pen, or else the “ rigor of his pitiless logic,” of which his dis- 
 ciples talk. “ Pitiless’’ indeed ! — more ’ntrepid absurdity it 
 would be difiicult to find. 
 
Hegel’s logic. 
 
 729 
 
 Remark, also, the evasive nature of his reply. Common-sense 
 suggests to him a plain direct question, not without interest. This 
 question, plain as it is, goes to the bottom of his system. He 
 evades it by answering, that Philosophy has nothing to do with 
 the interests of men. Very true ; his system has nothing to do 
 with them. But the question put was not, “ Has Philosophy to 
 concern itself with the interests of mankind ?” The question put 
 was, “ If, as you say, Being and Von-Being are the same, is it the 
 same thing to have a house and not to have it ?” Hegel might 
 have given a better answer even upon his own principles. 
 
 To return, however. The first proposition has given us the two 
 contraries ; there must be an identity — a relation — to give them 
 positive reality. As pure Being, and as pure Non-Being, they have 
 no reality ; they are mere potentialities. Unite them, and you 
 have the Becoming ( Werden)^ and that is reality. Analyze this 
 idea of Becoming, and you will find that it contains precisely 
 these two elements, — a Non-Being from which it is evolving, 
 and a Being which is evolved. 
 
 Now these two elements, which reciprocally contradict each 
 other, which incessantly tend to absorb each other, are only 
 maintained in their reality by means of the relation in which they 
 are to each other ; — that is, the point of the magnet which keeps 
 the poles asunder, and by keeping them asunder prevents their 
 annihilating each other. The Becoming is the first concrete 
 Thought we can have, the first conception ; Being and Non-Be- 
 'ng are pure abstractions. 
 
 A question naturally suggests itself as to how Being and Non- 
 Being pass from Abstractions into Realities. The only answer 
 Hegel gives us is, that they become Realities : but this is answering 
 us with the very question itself. We want to know how they be- 
 come. In themselves, as pure Abstractions, they have no reality ; 
 and although two negatives make an aflBrmative in language, it 
 is not so evident how they can accomplish this in fact. The 
 question is of course insoluble ; and those Hegelians whom we 
 questioned on the point, unanimously declared it to be one of 
 
rso 
 
 UKOSL* 
 
 those truths (very numerous in their system) which can be com 
 prehended, but not proved. 
 
 Let us grant the Becoming. It is the identity of Being and 
 Non-Being ; and as such it is Being as determined, conditioned. 
 All determination {Besiimmung) is Negation.* Therefore, in 
 order that Being should become, it must suffer first a negation ; 
 the Ansichseyn must also be Anderseyn, and the relation of the 
 two is total reality, the Anundfursichseyn, 
 
 Quality is the first negation : it is the reality of a thing. 
 That which constitutes Quality is the negation which is the con- 
 dition of its Being. Blue, for example, is blue only because it is 
 the negation of red, green, purple, etc. ; a meadow is a meadow 
 only because it is not a vineyard, a park, a ploughed field, etc. 
 
 Being, having suffered a Negation, is determined as Quality, — 
 it is Something, and no longer an Abstraction. But this some- 
 thing is limited by its very condition ; and this limit, this nega- 
 tion, is external to it : hence Something implies Some-other-thing. 
 There is a This and a That. Now the Something and the 
 Some-other-thing, the This and the That, are the same thing. 
 This is a tree ; That is a house. If I go to the house, it will 
 then be the This, and the tree will be That. Let the tree 
 be the Something, and the house the Some-other-thing, and the 
 same change of terms may take place. This proves that the two 
 are identical. The something carries its opposite (other-thing) 
 within itself ; it is constantly becoming the other-thing. Clearly 
 showing that the only positive reality is the Relation which 
 always subsists throughout the changes of the terms. 
 
 This, it must be owned, looks like the insanity of Logic. It is 
 not, however, unexampled in Hegel’s works. In his Phdnome- 
 noloyie des Geistes, he tells us that perception gives us the ideas 
 of Now, Here, This, etc. And what is the Now ? At noon I say 
 “ it is day.” Twelve hours afterwards I say, “ it is 
 night.” My first affirmation is therefore false as to the second, 
 
 * This, as many other ideas, is borr,^wed from Spinoza, in whose system it 
 has real signiflcanco. In Hegel’s it is a mere play upon words. 
 
hegel’s logic. 
 
 Y31 
 
 my second false as to the first : which proves that the Now is a 
 general idea ; and as such a real existence, independent of aP 
 particular Nows. 
 
 Our readers are by this time probably quite weary of this friv- 
 olous Logic ; we shall spare them any further details. If they 
 wish further to learn about Quantities, Identities, Diversities, etc., 
 they must consult the original. 
 
 Those who are utter strangers to German speculation will 
 wonder, perhaps, how it is possible for such verbal quibbles to 
 be accepted as Philosophy. But, in the first place. Philosophy 
 itself, in all its highest speculations, is but a more or less inge- 
 nious playing upon words. From Thales to Hegel, verbal distinc- 
 tions have always formed the ground of Philosophy, and must 
 ever do so as long as we are unable to penetrate the essence of 
 things. In the second place, Hegel’s Logic is a work requiring 
 prodigious effort of thought to understand : so diflScult and am- 
 biguous is the language, and so obscure the meaning. Now, 
 when a man has once made this effort, and succeeded, he is very 
 apt to overvalue the result of all that labor, and to believe what 
 he has found, to be a genuine truth. Thirdly, Hegel is very 
 consistent ; consistent in audacity, in absurdity. If the student 
 yields assent to the premises, he is sure to be dragged irresistibly 
 to the conclusions. Fourthly, the reader must not suppose that 
 the absurdities of Hegel’s system are so apparent in his works as 
 in our exposition. We have exerted ourselves to the utmost to 
 preserve the real significance of his speculations , but we have 
 also endeavored to bring them into the clear light of day. Any 
 thing except a verbal translation would reveal some aspects of 
 the absurdity, by the very fact of bringing it out of the obscurity 
 with which the German terminology veils it. The mountain 
 looming through a fog turns out to be a miserable hut as soon 
 as the fog is scattered ; and so the boasted system of Absolute 
 Idealism turns out to be only a play upon words, as soon as it 
 is dragged from out the misty terminology in which it is en- 
 shrouded. 
 
732 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 § V. Application of the Method to Nature and History, 
 Religion and Philosophy. 
 
 Having exhibited the various evolutions of the Idee aa pure 
 Thought, Hegel undertakes to exhibit its objective evolutions in 
 the domain of Nature. 
 
 In the former attempt he had only to deal with abst: actions ; 
 and it was no such difficult matter to exhibit the “ genesis of 
 ideas” — the dependence of one formula upon another. Verbal 
 distinctions were sufficient there. But verbal distinctions, auda- 
 cious logic, and obscure terminology avail nothing ‘n attacking 
 the problems loresented to us by Nature; and in endeavoring to 
 give scientific solutions, Nature is not to be coerced. Aware of 
 the difficulties— seeing instinctively that the varieties of Nature 
 could not be reduced to the same simplicity as the varieties of 
 the Idee — as Thought had been reduced in his Logic — Hegel as- 
 serted that the determinations of the Idee in its exteriority could 
 not follow the same march as the determinations of the Idee as 
 Thought. Instead of generating each other reciprocally, as in 
 the Logic, these determinations in Nature have no other connec- 
 tion than that of coexistence ; sometimes indeed they appear 
 isolated. 
 
 When we look abroad upon Nature, we observe an endless 
 variety of transformations. At first these seem without order ; 
 on looking deeper, we find that there is a regular series of devel- 
 opment from the lowest to the highest. These transformations 
 are the struggles of the Idee to manifest itself objectively. Nature 
 is a dumb Intelligence striving to articulate. At first she mumbles ; 
 with succeeding eff'orts she articulates ; at last she speaks. 
 
 Every modification which the Idee undergoes in the sphere of 
 pure Thought it endeavors to express in the sphere of Nature 
 And thus an object is elevated in the scale of creation in so fai 
 as it resumes within itself a greater number of qualities : inor- 
 ganic matter is succeeded by organic, and amongst organ'zed 
 
APPLICATION OP HEGEl’s METHOD. 733 
 
 beings there is a graduated scale from the plant up to man. In 
 man the Idee assumes its highest grade. In Eeason it becomes 
 conscious of itself, and thereby attains real and positive existence 
 — the highest point of development. Nature is divine in prin- 
 ciple (an sick), but it is a mistake to suppose it divine as it exists. 
 By the Pantheists Nature is made one with God, and God one 
 with Nature. In truth. Nature is but the exteriority (Aeusser- 
 iickkeit) of God ; it is the passage of the Idee through imperfec- 
 tion (Ahfall der Idee). Observe moreover that Nature is not 
 only external in relation to the Idee, and to the subjective exist- 
 ence of the Idee, namely Intelligence ; but exteriority constitutes 
 the condition in virtue of which Nature is Nature (sondern die 
 AeusserlickJceit macht die Bestimmung aus, in welcker sie als 
 Natur ist). 
 
 The Philosophy of Nature is divided into three sections — 
 Mechanics, Physics, and Physiology. Into the details, we are 
 happy to say, our plan forbids us to enter ; or we should have 
 many striking illustrations of the futility of that Method which 
 pretends to construct the scheme of the world d priori. Experi- 
 mental philosophers — Newton especially — are treated with con- 
 sistent contempt. Hegel is not a timid speculator ; he recoils 
 from no consequence ; he bows down to no name ; he is im- 
 pressed by no fact, however great. That Newton’s speculations 
 should be no better than drivel, and his “ discoveries” no better 
 than illusions, were natural consequences of Hegel’s fundamental 
 theories. That all Europe had been steadily persevering in ap- 
 plying Newton’s principles, and extending his discoveries, — that 
 Science was making gigantic strides, hourly improving man s 
 mastery over Nature, hourly improving the condition of man- 
 kind, — this fact, however great it might appear to others, when 
 coupled with the other fact, that upon the ontological Method 
 no discoveries had yet been made, and none seemed likely to be 
 made — appeared to Hegel as unworthy of a philosopher’s notice. 
 The interests of mankind were vulgar considerations, for which 
 49 
 
734 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 there would always be abundant vulgar minds. The jAilosophei 
 had other objects. 
 
 The third and last part of Hegel’s system is the Philosophy of 
 Intelligence. Therein the Idee returns from Nature to itself, and 
 returns through a consciousness of itself. 
 
 Subjectively the Idee first manifests itself as a Soul ; it then 
 returns upon itself, and becomes Consciousness ; and finally ren- 
 ders itself an Object to itself, and then it is Reason. 
 
 Objectively the Idee manifests itself as Will, and realizes itself 
 in History and in Law. 
 
 The Subjective and Objective manifestations being thus 
 marked out, we have now to see in what manner the identity of 
 the two will manifest itself. The identity of the Objective and 
 Subjective is the Idee as Intelligence, having consciousness of 
 itself in individuals, and realizing itself as Art, as Religion, and 
 as Philosophy. 
 
 The “ Lectures on the Philosophy of History,”* edited by the 
 late accomplished Professor Gans, is one of the pleasantest books 
 on the subject we ever read. The following ideas will be suffi- 
 cient to give an indication of its method. 
 
 History is the development of the Idee objectively — the pro- 
 cess by which it attains to a consciousness of itself by explaining 
 itself.f The condition of Intelligence is to know itself ; but it 
 can know itself only after having passed through the three 
 phases of the method, namely, affirmation, negation, and nega- 
 tion of negation, as the return to consciousness endowed with 
 reality. It is owing to these phases that the human race is per- 
 fectible. 
 
 States, Nations, and Individuals represent the determinate 
 moments of this development. Each of these moments manifests 
 
 * Werke, vol. ix. 
 
 t History is a sort of Theodieea ; the merit of originality, however, which 
 Hegel claims {EinUitung, p. 20), is due to Vieo, from whom he has largely 
 borrowed ; Vico expressly calls his New Science a Civil Theology of Divi/m 
 Providence. See La Science Nouvelle, livre i. ch. iv. 
 
APPLICATION OF HEGEL ’s METHOD. T35 
 
 rtself in the constitution, in the manners, in the creeds, in the 
 whole social state of any one nation. For this nation it is what 
 we call the spirit of the age : it is the only possible truth, and 
 by its light all things are seen. But with reference to the abso- 
 lute Idee all these particular manifestations are nothing but 
 moments of transition — instruments by which the transition to 
 another higher moment is prepared. Great men are the incar- 
 nations of the spirit of the age. 
 
 It is not every nation that constitutes itself into a state : to do 
 that, it must pass from a family to a horde, from a horde to a 
 tribe, and from a tribe to a state. This is the formal realization 
 of' the Idee. 
 
 But the Idee must have a theatre on wBich to develop itself. 
 The Earth is that theatre ; and as it is the product of the Idee 
 (according to the Naturphilosophie'), we have the curious pheno- 
 menon of an actor playing upon a stage — that stage being him- 
 self ! But the Earth, as the geographical basis of History, has 
 three great divisions : — 1. The mountainous regions. 2. The 
 plains and valleys. 3. The coasts and mouths of rivers. The 
 first represents the primitive condition of mankind ; the second 
 the more advanced condition, when society begins to be formed; 
 the third, when, by means of river-communication, the activity 
 of the human race is allowed free development in all directions, 
 particularly of commerce. This is another of the ideas of Vico,* 
 and is in contradiction to all history. 
 
 The great moments of History are four. 1. In the East we 
 have the predominance of substantiality; the Idee does not 
 know its freedom. The rights of men are unknown because the 
 East knows only that one is free. This is the childhood of the 
 World. 2. In Greece we have the predominance of Individu- 
 ality. The Idee knows that it is free, but only under certain 
 forms, that is to say, only some are free. Mind is still mixed 
 with Matter, and finds its expression therein ; this expression ia 
 
 * La Science HimveUe, livre i. ch. ii. § 97. 
 
T36 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 Beauty. This is the youthhood of the World. 3. In Rome we 
 have opposition between the Objective and Subjective : the po- 
 litical universality and individual freedom both developed, yet 
 not united. This is the Manhood of the World. 4. In the Teu- 
 tonic Nations we have the unity of the contradiction — the Idee 
 knowing itself ; and instead of supposing, like Greece and Rome, 
 that some only are free, it knows that all men are free. This is 
 the old-age of the World ; but although the old-age of body is 
 weakness, the old-age of Mind is ripeness. The first form of 
 government which we see in History is Despotism ; the second is 
 Democracy and Aristocracy ; the third is Monarchy.''^ 
 
 On reading over this meagre analysis, the ingenious specula- 
 tions of the original will scarcely be recognized. Such is the 
 art with which Hegel clothes his ideas in the garb of Philosophy, 
 that though aware that he is writing fiction, not history, and 
 giving us perversions of notorious facts as the laws of historical 
 development — telling us that the Spirit of the World manifests 
 himself under such and such phases, when it is apparent to all 
 that, granting the theory of this World-Spirit’s development, the 
 phases were not such as Hegel declares them to have been ; — al- 
 though we are aware of all this, yet is the book so ingenious 
 and amusing, that it seems almost unfair to reduce it to such a 
 caput mortuum as our analysis. Nevertheless the principles of 
 his philosophy of History are those we have given above. The 
 application of those principles to the explication of the various 
 events of History, is still more ingenious. 
 
 Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion has in the last few years been 
 the subject of bitter disputes. The schisms of the young Hege- 
 lians — the doctrines of Strauss, Feuerbach, Bruno, Bauer, and 
 others — being all deduced, or pretended to be deduced, from 
 Hegel’s system, much angry discussion has taken place as to the 
 real significance of that system. When doctors thus disagree, 
 we shall not presume to decide. We will leave the matter to 
 
 PMlosophie der Oeschichte, p. 128. 
 
APPLICATION OF HEGEl’s METHOD. 737 
 
 tbeologiaus ; and for the present only notice Hegel’s fundamental 
 ideas. 
 
 It is often a matter of wonder to see how Hegel’s Method .is 
 applied to all subjects, and how his theory of life can he brought 
 to explain every product of life. This is doubtless a great logical 
 ment ; and it inspires disciples with bonndless confidence. Few, 
 however, we suspect, have approached the subject of Eeligion 
 without some misgivings as to the applicability of the Method 
 to explain it. Probably the triumph is great when the applica- 
 bility is shown to be as perfect here as elsewhere. Of this our 
 readers shall judge. 
 
 Hegel, of course, accepts the Trinity ; his whole system is 
 Trinitarian. God the Father is the eternal Idee an und fur sich : 
 that is to say, the Idee as an unconditioned Abstraction. God the 
 Son, engendered by the Father, is the Idee as Andersseyn : that 
 is to say, as a conditioned Reality. The separation has taken 
 place which, by means of a negation^ gives the Abstraction real 
 existence. God the Holy Ghost is the Identity of the two ; the 
 negation of the negation and perfect totality of existence. He is 
 the Consciousness of himself as Spirit ; this is the condition of 
 his existence. 
 
 God the Father was before the World, and created it. That 
 is to say, he existed an sich, as the pure Idee, before he assumed 
 any reality. He created the World, because it is the essence of 
 his being to create (es gehmd zu seinem Seyn, Wesen, Schopfer 
 zu seyn). Did he not create, then would his own existence be 
 incomplete. 
 
 The vulgar notion of theologians is that God created the world 
 by an act ; but Hegel says that the creation is not an act, but an 
 eternal moment — not a thing done, but a thing perpetually doing ; 
 God did not create the world, he is eternally creating it. Attached 
 also to this vulgar notion, is another less precisely but more 
 commonly entertained ; namely, that God, having created the 
 world by an act of his will, lets it develop itself with no inter- 
 ference of his ; as Goethe somewhere ridicules it, he “ sits aloft 
 
738 
 
 HEGEL. 
 
 seeing the world go.” This was not the doctrine of St. Paul, 
 whose pregnant words are, “ In Him we live, and move, and have 
 our being.” We live in God, not out of him, not simply by him. 
 And this is what Hegel means when he denies that the creation 
 was a single act. Creation was, and is, and ever will be. Crea- 
 tion is the reality of God ; it is God passing into activity, but 
 neither suspended nor exhausted in the act. 
 
 This is all we can here give of his Philosophy of Religion ; 
 were we to venture further, we should only get ourselves entan- 
 gled in the thorny labyrinth of theological problems. Let us 
 pass, therefore, to his History of Philosophy, which, according 
 to him, is the history of the development of the Idee as intelli- 
 gence. This development of thought is nothing more than the 
 various transitions which constitute the moments of the absolute 
 Method. All these moments are represented in history ; so that 
 the History of Philosophy is the reproduction of the Logic under 
 the forms of intelligence. The succession of these moments 
 gives to each period a particular philosophy ; but these various 
 philosophies are, in truth, only parts of the one philosophy. 
 This looks like the Eclecticism of Victor Cousin ; and indeed 
 Cousin’s system is but an awkward imitation of Hegel ; but the 
 Frenchman has either misunderstood, or has modified, the views 
 of his master. 
 
 Historically speaking, there have been, according to Hegel, 
 but two philosophies — that of Greece and that of Germany. The 
 Greeks conceived Thought under the form of the Idee ; the mod- 
 erns have conceived it under the form of Spirit. The Greeks 
 of Alexandria arrived at unity ; but their unity was only ideal, 
 it existed objectively in thought. The subjective aspect was 
 wanting : the totality knew itself not as subjective and objective. 
 This is the triumph of modern philosophy. 
 
 The moments have been briefly these : — 1. With Thales and 
 the Eleatics, the Idee was conceived as pure Being — the One. 
 
 2. With Plato it was conceived as Universal, Essence, Thought. 
 
 3. With Aristotle as Conception [Begrijf). 4. With the Stoics, 
 
APPLICATION OF HEGEl’s METHOD. 
 
 739 
 
 Epicureans, and Skeptics, as subjective Conception. 5. With 
 the Alexandrians as the totality of Thought. 6. With Descartes 
 as the Self-Consciousness. 7. With Fichte as the Absolute, or 
 Ego. 8. With Schelling as the Identity of Subject and Object. 
 
 We close here our exposition of Hegel’s tenets; an exposition 
 which we have been forced to give more in his own words than 
 we could have wished ; but the plan we adopted with respect to 
 Kant and Fichte would not have been so easy (we doubt if it be 
 possible) with respect to Hegel, whose language must be learned, 
 for the majority of his distinctions are only verbal. In Kant 
 and Fichte the thoughts were to be grappled with ; in Hegel the 
 form is every thing. 
 
 We have only touched upon essential points. Those desirous 
 of more intimate acquaintance with the system, are referred to 
 the admirable edition of his complete works, published by his dis- 
 ciples, in twelve volumes, octavo. If this voluminousness be some- 
 what too alarming, we can recommend the abridgment by Franz 
 and Hillert {^Hegel’s Philosophie in wortlichen Auszugen, Berlin, 
 1843), where the whole system is given in Hegel’s own words, and 
 only his illustrations and minute details are omitted. Michelet’s 
 work is useful mainly for its bibliography. He indicates the vari- 
 ous directions taken by Hegel’s discij les. Chalybaus is popular, 
 but touches only on a few points. Barchou de Penhoen evidently 
 knows Hegel only at second-hand, and is not to be trusted. Dr. 
 Ott’s work is ill written, but is very useful as an introduction to 
 the study of the works themselves, and has been very useful to 
 us in our exposition. No work of Hegel’s has been translated 
 into English •* and only his ESsthetih into French, and that is 
 more an analysis, we believe, than a translation. The Philos- 
 ophy of Plistory has been translated into Italian. 
 
 * Since this was written, a part of the Logic has appeared under this 
 title : Eie Subjective Logic of Hegel., translated by H. Sloman and J. Wallon, 
 1855. To the list of works mentioned above should he added Wilm’s ad- 
 mirable Hist, de la PUlos. Allemande, by far the best work on the subject 
 known to me. 
 
TENTH EPOCH. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY SEEKING ITS BASIS IN PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CABANIS. 
 
 While Ontology was reasserting its claim in Germany, with 
 such results as we have seen, Philosophy in England and France 
 relinquished its lofty claims, and contented itself with the en- 
 deavor to construct a Psychology. The writings of Reid, Stew- 
 art, Brown, James Mill, and their disciples, valuable in many 
 respects, are all deficient in Method, all without a firm basis. The 
 attempt of Hartley and Darwin to connect Psychology with 
 Physiology, we have seen was premature. It nevertheless point- 
 ed out the true direction. If Psychology is to be studied as a 
 Science, it must be studied according to rigorously scientific prin- 
 ciples ; if, on the contrary, it is to be studied as a branch of 
 Metaphysics, then indeed the Seotch sehool, and every other 
 unscientific school, may justly complain of the encroachment of 
 Physiology on their domain. 
 
 The history of the rise of psychological Method remains to be 
 written. It began with Hobbes and Locke. They opposed the 
 reigning doctrine of innate ideas. They analyzed Thought as 
 the product of Experience. Hobbes, as was natural in the first 
 vehemence of the swing of reaction against spiritualism, recog- 
 nizes nothing in the mind but sensations in all their varieties ; 
 
CABANIS. 
 
 Til 
 
 the mind, he said, is moved by external motion, that is all. 
 Locke, on deeper meditation, saw that there was something more 
 than this ; he saw, dimly it is true, yet never overlooking it alto- 
 gether, that the mind co-operated. Not only Sense, but Reflection 
 on the materials given through Sense, furnished, he said, the 
 complex thoughts of man. Thus he proclaimed Experience the 
 source of knowledge. The mind of the child was like a sheet of 
 blank paper, on which Experience wrote its various records. In 
 Locke, we see the initial steps of the Physiological Method ; and 
 as he was himself an anatomist, there is nothing surprising in 
 his having been led by his study of man’s structure to some con- 
 clusions respecting man’s mind. He directed that attention to 
 Sense which metaphysicians had been in the habit of directing 
 to ideas and verbal subtleties ; and by so doing, took an impor- 
 tant step towards the confrontation of speculation with fact ; and 
 initiated the still more important idea of a constant relation be- 
 tween organ and function. He also was led to study the growth 
 of mind ; and hence his frequent reference to savages and chil- 
 dren, which distresses Victor Cousin, who is often as terrified at 
 a fact as at a ghost. 
 
 Great as Locke’s services were, there was a radical vice in his 
 system which prevented its acceptance. He began the Physio- 
 logical Method, but he only began it. The Experience-hypoth- 
 esis would not suffice to explain all phenomena (at least not as 
 that hypothesis was then understood) ; there were forms of 
 thought neither reducible to Sense and Reflection, nor to indi- 
 vidual Experience. He drew illustrations from children and 
 savages-; but he neither did this systematically, nor did he ex- 
 tend the Comparative Method lo animals. The prejudices of that 
 ag’e forbade it. The ignorance of that age made it impossible. 
 Comparative Physiology is no older than Goethe, and Compara- 
 tive Psychology is only now glimmering in the minds of men as 
 a possibility. If men formerly thought they could understand 
 man’s body by dissecting it, and did not need the light thrown 
 thereon by the dissection of animals ; they were still less likely 
 
742 
 
 CABANIS. 
 
 to seek psychical illustrations in animals, denying, as they did, 
 that animals had minds. 
 
 The school of Locke, therefore, although regarding Mind as a 
 property of Matter, consequently directing attention to the hu- 
 man organism, trying to understand the mechanism of sensation, 
 and thus dealing with tangible realities instead of with impalpa- 
 ble and ever-shifting entities, was really incompetent to solve the 
 problems it had set itself, because its Method was imperfect, and 
 its knowledge incomplete. The good effect of its labors was pos- 
 itive ; the evil, negative. Following out this positive tendency, 
 we see Hartley and Darwin advancing still nearer to a true 
 Method ; — by a bold hypothesis, making the phenomena depen- 
 dent on vibrations in the nerves ; thus leading to a still more 
 precise and definite consideration of the organism. 
 
 These were, however, tentatives guided by no distinct concep- 
 tion of the necessary relation between organ and function ; and 
 the Physiological Method, truly so called, must be first sought in 
 Cabanis. 
 
 Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis was born 5th of June, lYSY, at 
 Conac, neai' Brives. He became a physician, and established 
 himself at Auteuil, where, in the house of Madame Helvetius, he 
 cultivated the acquaintance of Turgot, D’Holbach, Franklin, 
 Condillac, Diderot, and D’Alembert. To these let us add Con- 
 dorcet and Mirabeau, both of whom he attended in their last 
 hours. He died on the 6th of May, 1808. He wrote several 
 works, but one only has survived in the memories of philosophic 
 readers : Rajjports du Physique et du Moral de V Homme* 
 
 A disciple of Condillac, he nevertheless saw, more distinctly 
 than any man before him, one radical vice of Condillac’s system, 
 namely, the limitation of mental phenomena to sensations, an^l 
 
 This work originally appeared as a senes of Memoires read before the 
 Institute (1798-99). It was published as a separate book in 1802, under the 
 title Traite du, Physique et du Moral de V Homme ; which title is also borne by 
 the second edition of 1805. Not until 1815, and after the death of Cabanis, 
 was the word Rapports substituted for Traite. 
 
CABANIS. 
 
 743 
 
 the non-recognition of connate instincts. If sensation were the 
 admitted source of all mental phenomena (and Cabanis rightly 
 extended these phenomena beyond “ ideas”), it became the duty 
 of philosophers to examine the nature of sensation itself. “ No 
 one,” he says, “ had clearly explained in what the act of sensibil- 
 ity consists. Does it always presuppose consciousness and dis- 
 tinct perception ? and must we refer to some other property of 
 the living body all those unperceived impressions and movements 
 in which volition has no part?” To put this question was to in- 
 augurate a new study. It became necessary to examine whether 
 all mental phenomena were not reducible to the fundamental 
 laws of sensibility. “ All the while that the Intellect is judging 
 and the Will is desiring or rejecting, many other functions are 
 going on, all more or less necessary to the preservation of life. 
 Have these diverse operations any influence, the one on the 
 other? And is it possible from the consideration of different 
 jrhysical and moral states, which are observed simultaneously, to 
 seize the relations which connect the most striking j^henomena, 
 with such precision as to be certain that in the other less obvi- 
 ous cases, if the connection is less easily detected, it is so simply 
 because the indications are too fugitive ?” 
 
 This conception of. a possible Psychology is in itself enough to 
 mark forever the place of Cabanis in the History of Philosophy. 
 It establishes Psychology as one branch of the great science of 
 Life. It connects the operations of intelligence and volition with 
 the origin of all vital movements. It makes Life and Mind cor- 
 relatives. This was a revival of the great truth clearly recog- 
 nized by Aristotle, from whom it descended to the Schoolmen. 
 “ Impossibile est,” says Aquinas, very emphatically, “ in uno 
 homine esse plures animas per essentiam differentes, sed una tan- 
 tum est anima intellectiva, quse vegetativse et sensitivse et intel- 
 lectivse, oflSciis fungitur.” The division of Life and Mind as 
 two distinct entities was introduced by the Italians of the Renais- 
 sance, adopted by Bacon, and once more rejected by Stahl, who 
 returned to the Aristotelian conception. With the fall of Stahl’s 
 
74 : 4 : 
 
 CABANIS. 
 
 doctrine, the separation of Mind from Life again became the 
 dictum of the schools, until Cabanis ; no one since Cabanis 
 seems to have been thoroughly impressed with the unity of the 
 two till Mr. Herbert Spencer presented it as the basis of psycho- 
 logical induction,* The consequences were immediate : if Mind 
 was to be studied as one aspect of Life, it could only be efficient- 
 ly studied on that inductive and experimental Method which had 
 reached the certain truths of positive science : “ Les principes 
 foudamentaux seraient egalement solides ; elles se formeraient 
 egalement par I’etude severe et par la composition des faits ; 
 elles s’etendraient par les m^mes methodes de raisonuement.” 
 Cabanis warns his readers that they will find nothing of what is 
 called Metaphysics in his book; they will only find physiological 
 researches, mais dir'igees vers V etude particuliere d’un ordre de 
 fonctions. 
 
 In the purely physiological direction, indeed, Cabanis had 
 many predecessors, from Willis in the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, to Prochaska, who preceded Cabanis by one year only.f 
 The nervous system had of course been studied by physiologists, 
 and this study led them to psychological theories ; but although 
 we may find elsewhere, especially in Unzer and Prochaska, 
 sounder views of the physiology of the nervous system, we find 
 nowhere so clear and large a conception of the physiological 
 psychology. 
 
 “ Subject to the action of external bodies,” says Cabanis, “ man 
 finds in the impressions these bodies make on his organs at once 
 his knowledge and the causes of his continued existence ; for to 
 live is to feel ; and in that admirable chain of phenomena which 
 constitute his existence, every want depends on the development 
 
 * Spencer, Principles of Psychology^ 1855. 
 
 t Lehrs'dtze aus der Physiologic des Menschen, 1797. Curiously enough the 
 second and third editions of this work were exactly contemporaneous with 
 the second and third editions of Cabanis, 1802 and 1805 (counting the publi- 
 cation in the Memoira de I'Institut as one edition). It is not to be supposed 
 that Cabanis knew of Froehaska’s existence ; nor is there more than a gen- 
 eral resemblance in their physiological conclusions. 
 
CABANIS. 
 
 U5 
 
 of some faculty ; every faculty by its very development satisfies 
 some want, and the faculties grow by exercise as the wants ex- 
 tend with the facility of satisfying them. By the continual action 
 of external bodies on the senses of man, results the most remark- 
 able part of his existence. But is it true that the nervous cen- 
 tres only receive and combine the impressions which reach them 
 from these bodies ? Is it true that no image or idea is formed 
 in the brain, and that no determination of the sensitive organ 
 takes place, other than by virtue of these same impressions on 
 the senses strictly so called ?”* 
 
 This question cuts away the very root of Condillac’s system. 
 Cabanis had no difficulty in showing that Condillac’s limitation of 
 our mental phenomena to the action of the special senses, was a 
 contradiction of familiar experience, e. g. the manifold influence 
 exercised by the age, sex, temperament, and the visceral sensa- 
 tions generally. A survey of the human organism, compared with 
 that of animals, conducted him to the following conclusions : 
 
 “ The faculty of feeling and of spontaneous movement, forms 
 the character of animal nature. 
 
 “The faculty of feeling consists in the property possessed by 
 the nervous system of being warned by the impressions produced 
 on its different parts, and notably on its extremities. These im- 
 pressions are internal or external. 
 
 “ External impressions, when perception is distinct, are called 
 sensations. 
 
 “ Internal impressions are very often vague and confused, and 
 the animal is then only warned by their effects, and does not 
 clearly distinguish their connection with the causes. 
 
 “ The former result from the application of external objects to 
 the organs of sense ; and on them ideas depend. 
 
 “ The latter result from the development of the regular func- 
 tions, or from the maladies to which each organ is subject ; and 
 from these issue those determinations which bear the name of 
 instincts. 
 
 * Deuxieme Memoire, § ii. 
 
74 ^ 
 
 ca:banis. 
 
 “Feeling and movement are linked together. Every move- 
 ment is determined by an impression, and the nerves, as the or- 
 gans of feeling, animate and direct the motor organs. 
 
 “ In feeling, the nervous organ reacts on itself. In movement 
 it reacts on other parts, to which it communicates the contractile 
 faculty, the simple and fecund principle of all animal movement. 
 
 “Finally, the vital functions can exercise themselves by the 
 influence of some nervous ramifications, isolated from the sys- 
 tem : the instinctive faculties can develop themselves, even when 
 the brain is almost wholly destroyed, and when it seems wholly 
 inactive. 
 
 “But for the formation of thoughts it is necessary that the 
 brain should exist, and be in a healthy condition : it is the spe- 
 cial organ of thought.”* 
 
 He justly repudiates any attempt to explain sensibility, which 
 must be accepted as a general property of organized beings, in 
 the same way that attraction is accepted as a general property ot 
 masses. No general fact admits of explanation. It can only be 
 subordinated to some other fact, and be explained by it, on the 
 supposition that it is not general. Accepting sensibility, there- 
 fore, as an ultimate fact in the organic world, he detects its phe- 
 nomena running through all those called vital and all those called 
 mental. 
 
 “It is something,” he says, “to have established that all ideas 
 and all moral phenomena are the results of impressions received 
 by the different organs ; and I think a still wider kep is taken 
 when we have shown that these impressions have appreciable 
 differences, and that we can distinguish them by their seat and 
 the character of their products, although they all act and react 
 on each other, on account of the rapid and continual communi- 
 cations with the sensitive organ.”f The object of his treatise is 
 to examine the relations existing between the moral and physical 
 conditions, how the sensations are modified by modifications in 
 
 * Deuxilrm Mimoire, § viii. 
 
 t Ibid., § v. 
 
CABANIS. 
 
 747 
 
 the organs, how ideas, Instincts, passions are developed and mod 
 ified by the influences of age, sex, temperament, maladies, etc. 
 It is not, therefore, a treatise on Psychology, but contributions 
 towards a science of Psychology, and as such may still be read 
 with advantage, although the science of the present day rejects 
 many of its physiological details. He foresaw that this would be 
 so. “Le lecteur s’apercevra bientot que nous entrons ici dans 
 une carriere toute nouvelle. Je n’ai pas la pretention de I’avoir 
 parcouru jusqu’au bout; mais des hommes plus habiles et plus 
 heureux acheveront ce que trop.souvent je n’ai pu que tenter.” 
 
 As a specimen of inductive Psychology, we must not pass over 
 in silence his experimental proof of instinct being developed by 
 certain organic conditions. He takes one of the most marvellous 
 of instincts, that of maternal love, and having analyzed its phys- 
 iological conditions, he says “ In my province, and some of the 
 neighboring provinces, when there is a deficiency of sitting Hens, 
 a singular practice is customary. We take a capon, pluck OS’ 
 the feathers from the abdomen, rub it with nettles and vinegar, 
 and in this state of local irritation place the capon on the eggs. 
 At first he remains there to soothe the pain ; soon there is estab- 
 lished within him a series of unaccustomed but agreeable im- 
 pressions, which attach him to these eggs during the whole 
 period of incubation ; and the effect is to produce in him a sort 
 of factitious maternal love, which endures, like that of the hen, 
 as long as the chickens have need of aid and protection. The 
 cock is not thus to be modified ; he has an instinct which 
 carries him elsewhere.” 
 
 The novelty of the conception which Cabanis put forth, and 
 the interest attached to many of his illustrations, made his work 
 very popular; but its influence was only indirect. The igno- 
 rance which almost all psychologists continued to display, not 
 only of Physiology, but of the necessity of a physiological 
 Method, together with the alarm excited by the accusation of 
 “ materialism,” aided as it was by the reaction, mainly political, 
 but soon extending itself to philosophical questions, which con- 
 
748 
 
 CABANIS. 
 
 demned tlie labors of the eighteenth century, left Cabanis with 
 few adherents and no continuers. In elaborate works the brain 
 was still designated as the “ organ of the mind,” but the mind 
 was passionately declared not to be the function of the brain ; 
 the profouuder views of Cabanis, which regarded Mind as one 
 aspect of Life, were replaced by the old metaphysical concep- 
 tions of le Moi — the Ego — the immaterial Entity playing upon 
 the brain as a musician plays upon an instrument.'^ Instinct 
 was no longer regarded as determined by the organism, chang- 
 ing with its changes, rendered abortive by mutilations, and ren- 
 dered active by stimulation ; but as a “ mysterious principle im- 
 planted” in the organism ; a “ something” which, although es- 
 sentially mysterious and unknowable, appeared to be perfectly 
 well known to the metaphysicians. 
 
 While the reaction was strong against Cabanis and against 
 the whole eighteenth-century Philosophy, there arose another 
 doctrine, which, taking Physiology as its avowed basis, succeeded, 
 in spite of vehement opposition, in establishing itself perma- 
 nently among the intellectual tendencies of the age ; and that 
 doctrine may now be said to be the only psychological one which 
 counts any considerable mass of adherents. I allude to Phre- 
 nology. 
 
 *■ One living writer, of authority, has gravely declared that mental fa 
 tigue is the consciousness which the mind has of the brain's weariness] 
 In our confessed inatdlity to understand what matter is, why will men 
 persist in dogmatizing on what it is not? We know neither matter no' 
 spirit, we only know phenomena. 
 
CHAPTER n. 
 
 PHEEKOLOGY. 
 
 § I. Life of Gall. 
 
 Francis Joseph Gall was born at Tiefenbrunn, in Suabia, on 
 ibe 9th of March, lYSY. In the preface to his great work, 
 Anatomie et Physiologie du Sj/stime Nerveux^ 1810, he narrates 
 now as a boy he was struck with the differences of character and 
 talents displayed by members of the same family, and how he 
 observed certain external peculiarities of the head to correspond 
 with these difl’erences. Finding no clue given in the works of 
 metaphysicians, he resumed his observations of nature. The 
 physician of a lunatic asylum at Vienna allowed him frequent 
 occasions of noticing the coincidence of peculiar monomaniacs 
 with peculiar configurations of the skull. The prisons and 
 courts of justice furnished him with abundant material. When- 
 ever he heard of a man remarkable either for good or evil, 
 he made his head a study. He extended his observation to ani- 
 mals ; and finally sought confirmation in anatomy. The exterior 
 of the skull he found, as a general rule, to correspond with the 
 form of the brain. 
 
 After twenty years of observation, dissection, theorizing, and 
 arguing, he delivered his first course of lectures in Vienna. This 
 was in lYOG. The novelty of his views excited a great sensation ; 
 one party fanatically opposing them, another almost as fanatically 
 espousing them. Ridicule was not sparing. The new system 
 lent itself to ridicule, and angry opponents were anxious, as oppo- 
 nents usually are, to show that what made them angry was utterly 
 farcical. In 1800 Gall gained his best disciple, Spurzheim. 
 
 50 
 
750 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 Hitherto Gall had been aided by a young anatomist named 
 Niklas, to whom he taught the new method of dissecting the 
 brain now Spurzheim’s mastery of anatomical manipulation, 
 combined with his power of generalization and of popular expo- 
 sition, came as welcome aids in the gigantic task of establishing 
 the new doctrine on a scientific basis. 
 
 In 1802, M. Charles Villers, the translator of Kant, published 
 his Lettre a Georges Cuvier sur une Nouvelle Theorie dii Cerveau 
 gar le Docteur Gall. I have not been able to procure this Let- 
 ter, but it is in many points interesting to the historian of Phre- 
 nology, because it not only expounds the doctrine as it was then 
 conceived, but describes the localization of the organs then 
 fixed on by Gall. A plate represents the skull, marked by 
 Gall himself, with the four-and-twenty organs, which at that 
 period comprised the “ original faculties ” of the mind. Among 
 these twenty-four, there are four subsequently discarded alto- 
 gether : Vital Force — Susceptibility — Penetration (independent 
 of that which characterizes the metaphysical faculty) — and Gen- 
 erosity (independent of benevolence.) Not only are these four as- 
 tonishing organs marked by Gall as representing original facul- 
 ties, but the twenty organs which were afterwards retained by 
 him are differently localized ; so that, according to M. Lelut 
 from whom I borrow these details, “of those twenty organs 
 there is scarcely one which occupies the place Gall finally as- 
 signed to it.”f 
 
 Phrenologists should give prominence to this fact. They are 
 bound not to pass it over. In every way it is important in the 
 history of the doctrine. It may perhaps be satisfactorily 
 explained ; but until it be so explained, it must tell against them ; 
 and for the very reason which they incessantly advance as their 
 claim to consideration, namely, that the several organs were 
 
 * Gall pays his tribute to Niklas in the first edition of the Anat. et Phys, 
 du Syateme Nerveux, i. preface xv. In the second edition this tribute is omit- 
 ted ; not very creditably. 
 
 t Lelut; Byet de V Org analog ie Phrenologique, 18i3, p. 29. 
 
LIFE OF GALL. 
 
 751 
 
 established by observation, not by any theory.* For, if the doctrine 
 had been established by a mingling of hypothesis and observa- 
 tion, nothing would be more likely than that the first sketch of it 
 would be immature in conception, and uncertain in details; 
 whereas, if the doctrine grew up slowly from a gradual accumu- 
 lation of rigorously verified facts, these facts would remain con- 
 stant through all the tentative changes of doctrine. Gall had 
 been twenty years collecting facts of correspondence between ex- 
 ternal configuration and peculiarities of character. He had con- 
 trolled these observations by repeated verifications. Prisons, 
 lunatic asylums, busts, portraits, remarkable men, even animals, 
 had furnished him with facts. Unless these facts really deserve 
 all the credit which is demanded for them, Phrenology has the 
 ground cut from under it ; and if we are to give them our confi- 
 dence, upon what ground can we relinquish it in favor of subse- 
 quent facts, which deny all that has been said before ? If Gall 
 could be deceived after twenty years of observation of facts 
 which, according to his statement, are very easily observed, be- 
 cause very obvious in their characters, why may he not have 
 been equally deceived in subsequent observations ? If one col- 
 lection of facts forced him to assign the organ of poetry to a 
 particular spot (on the skull marked by him for M. Villers), how 
 came another collection of facts to displav-v. poetry, and substitute 
 benevolence on that spot ? Are the manifestations of poetry and 
 benevolence so closely allied as to mislead the observer ? 
 
 Probably Spurzheim’s assistance came at the right moment to 
 rectify many of the hazardous psychological statements, and to 
 marshal the facts in better order. Together they made a tour 
 through Germany and Switzerland, diffusing the knowledge of 
 their doctrine, and everywhere collecting fresh facts. On the 
 30th of October, 1806, they entered Paris. In 1808 they pre- 
 
 * “ On voit par la marohe de ees reoherclies que le premier pas fut fait par 
 la deconverte de quelques organes ; que ce n’est que graduellement que noua 
 avons fait parler les faits pour en deduire les principes gener.aux, et que o’est 
 eubsequemment et a la fin que nous avons appris i connaitre la structure da 
 cerveau.” — Anat. et Phys. i. preface xviii. 
 
752 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 sented to the Institute their Meraoire on the Anatomy and Physi 
 ology of the Nervous System in general^ a,nd of the Brain in 
 particular ; and in 1810 appeared the first volume of their great 
 work, under the same title, which work was remodelled in 1823, 
 and published in six volumes, octavo, under the title of Fonctions 
 du Cerveau. 
 
 In 1813 Gall and Spurzheim quarrelled and separated. Spurz- 
 heim cjime to England, Gall remained in Paris, where he died 
 on the 22d of August, 1828. At the post-mortem examination, 
 his skull was found to be of at least twice the usual thickness, — a 
 fact which has been the source of abundant witticisms, for the 
 most part feeble. A small tumor was also found in his cerebel- 
 lum ; “ a fact of some interest, from that being the portion of the 
 brain in which he had placed the organ of amativeness, a pro- 
 pensity which had always been very strongly marked in him.”* 
 I know not in what sense the writer just quoted thinks the fact 
 so remarkable. Tumors in other organs are not usually the indi- 
 cations of increased activity ; nor are we accustomed to find 
 great poets with tumors in the organ of “imagination;” great 
 artists with tumors in the perceptive region ; great philanthro- 
 pists with tumors on the frontal arch ; great rebels with tumors 
 behind their ears.f 
 
 § II. Gall’s Historical Position. 
 
 The day for ridiculing Gall has gone by. Every impartial com- 
 petent thinker, whether accepting or rejecting Phrenology, is 
 aware of the immense services Gall has rendered to Physiology 
 and Psychology, both by his valuable discoveries, and by his bold, 
 if questionable, hypotheses. He revolutionized Physiology by 
 his method of dissecting the brain, and by his bold assignment 
 
 * The Erujlish Cyelopoedia, vol. iii., Art. Gall. 
 
 t To anticipate the reply that the existence of disease in the or^an would 
 provoke unusual activity of the organ, it is only necessary to state thatG.all's 
 “ propensity” is not said to have been called into unusual activity shortly 
 before his death, but to have always been very active. Had there been a 
 casual connection between the disease and the activity, increase of the activ- 
 ity would have followed the rapid progress of the disease. 
 
gall’s historical position. 
 
 763 
 
 of definite functions to definite organs. To verify or refute his 
 hypotheses, vast researches were undertaken ; the nervous system 
 of animals was explored with new and passionate zeal ; and now 
 there is no physiologist who openly denies that mental phenom- 
 ena are directly connected with nervous structure ; while even 
 Metaphysicians are beginning to understand the Mechanism of 
 the Senses, and the general laws of nervous action. The time 
 has arrived in which it seems almost as absurd to theorize on 
 mental phenomena in defiance of physiological laws, as it would 
 be to adopt Stahl’s advice, and consider anatomical and chemical 
 researches futile in the study of Medicine. We owe this mainly 
 to the infiuence of Gall. He first brought into requisite promi- 
 nence the principle of the necessary relation between organ and 
 function. Others had proclaimed the principle incidentally ; he 
 made it paramount by constant illustration, by showing it in de- 
 tail, by teaching that every variation in the organ must necessa- 
 rily bring about a corresponding variation in the function. He 
 did not say mind was the product of organization : “ Nous ne 
 confondons pas les conditions avec les causes efiicientes all he 
 asserted was the correspondence between the state of the organ 
 and its manifestations.* This was at once to call the attention 
 of Europe to the marvellous apparatus of organs, which had pre- 
 viously been so little studied, except from a purely anatomical 
 view, that no one, until Sdmmerring (who was Gall’s contempo- 
 rary), had observed the relation between size of the brain and in- 
 tellectual power, as a tolerably constant fact in the animal king- 
 dom. This one detail is sufficient to make every reader suspect the 
 chaotic condition of Physiological Psychology when Gall appeared. 
 
 Nor has Gall’s infiuence been less remarkable in the purely 
 psychological direction. People are little aware how that influ- 
 
 * So also Spurzheim says : “ Both Dr. Gall and I have always declared that 
 we merely observe the effective and intellectual manifestations, and the or- 
 ganic conditions under which they take place ; and that in using the word 
 organs we only mean the organic parts by means of which the faculties of the 
 mind become apparent, but not that these constitute the mind.” — Phrenolo- 
 
 m p- 16 - 
 
754 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 ence is diffused, even through the writings of the opponents of 
 Phrenology, and has percolated down to the most ordinary intel- 
 ligences. “ Ni les vains efforts d’un despotisme energique,” says 
 Auguste Comte, “ secondes par la honteuse condescendance de 
 quelques savans fort accredites, ni les sarcasmes ephemeres de 
 I’esprit litteraire et metaphysique, ni m^me la frivole irrationa- 
 lite de la plupart des essais tentes par les imitateurs de Gall, 
 n’ont pu emp6cher pendant les trente dernieres annees I’accroisse- 
 ment rapide et continu, dans toutes les parties du monde savant, 
 du nouveau systeme d’etudes de I’homme intellectual et moral. 
 A quels autres signes voudrait-on reconnaltre le succes progres- 
 sif d’une heureuse revolution philosophique ?”* 
 
 Gall may be said to have definitively settled the dispute be- 
 tween the partisans of innate ideas and the partisans of Sensa- 
 tionalism, by establishing the connate tendencies, both affective 
 and intellectual, which belong to the organic structure of man. 
 Two psychological facts, familiar from all time to the ordinary 
 understanding, but shrouded from all time in the perplexities of 
 philosophy, were by Gall made the basis of a doctrine. The 
 first of these facts is, that all the fundamental tendencies are con- 
 nate, and can no more be created by precept and education than 
 they can be abolished by denunciation and punishment. The 
 second fact is, that man’s various faculties are essentially distinct 
 and independent, although intimately connected with each other. 
 What followed ? That the Mind consists of a plurality of func- 
 tions, consequently must have a plurality of organs, became the 
 necessary corollary of this second proposition, as soon as the re- 
 lation between organ and function was steadily conceived. 
 
 These two propositions have entered into the body of all Euro- 
 pean doctrines, although the corollary from the second is still 
 vehemently disputed by many. No man of any intellectual 
 eminence would now repeat Johnson’s celebrated assertion of the 
 poetic faculty being simply intellectual activity in a special di 
 
 * Cours de Philos. Positive, iii. 766. 
 
CKANIOSCOPY. 
 
 765 
 
 tection, wliereby Newton migbt have written Othello, and Shah ■ 
 speare the Principia, had either of these great noen set them- 
 selves the task. “ Sir, a man can walk as far east as he can walk 
 west,” was thought a conclusive illustration ; which indeed it 
 was, when the “ unity” cf the faculties found no contradiction ; 
 but which no one would now accept as more than a fallacious 
 analogy. 
 
 Another conception systematized by Gall has also passed into 
 general acceptance, namely, the pre-eminence of the affective 
 faculties over the intellectual ; and the subdivision of the affec- 
 tive faculties into propensities and sentiments, and of the intel- 
 lectual faculties into perceptives and reflectives ; thus marking 
 the progress in development from the individual to the social, 
 from the sensuous to the intellectual, which constitutes the great 
 progress of civilization in the triumph of sociality over animality. 
 
 § III. Cranioscopt. 
 
 Phrenology has two distinct aspects. It is a doctrine of Psy- 
 chology, and it is an Art of reading character. The scientific 
 doctrine is based on the physiology of the nervous system, to 
 which is added psychological analysis and classification. The 
 Art is based on empirical observation of coincidences between 
 certain configurations of the skull and certain mental phenomena. 
 This latter is truly Cranioscopy, and is no more entitled to the 
 name of a science, than are Physiognomy or Cheironomy ; a 
 point which Gall’s successors have, with scarcely an exception, 
 entirely overlooked. When therefore the phrenologists with 
 much emphasis declare their system to be a system of “ facts” 
 and “ observations,” which claim our confidence because they 
 are facts and not “ mere theories,” it is absolutely necessary that 
 we should accurately discriminate in what sense these said facts 
 are to be understood ; because according to that sense will be 
 the kind of confidence they will claim. If, for instance, they are 
 presented purely as empirical facts — the observed coincidences 
 between certain cranial appearances and corresponding mental 
 
756 
 
 PHRENOLOGY, 
 
 manifestations — we may thankfully accept them as valuable 
 materials. Abundance of such material does exist; no one 
 acquainted, even superficially, with phrenological writings will 
 deny it. But without desiring to lessen the value of these facts 
 by rigorous criticism of the evidence on which they rest, we may, 
 nay more, we must, if our inquiry be regulated by scientific pre- 
 cision, treat them as we treat all other empirical fixcts, namely, 
 hold them as mere sign-posts, until they be proved universal^ 
 and until they be bound together by some ascertained law. Now 
 it will scarcely be denied that the observed correspondences be- 
 tween special cranial configuration and me\stal peculiarities, do, 
 in many instances, fail. Large heads are sometimes observed in 
 connection with very mediocre abilities; small heads, on the 
 contrary, with very splendid abilities; particular “organs” do 
 not always justify their prominence by the presence of the par- 
 ticular “faculties” which they are said to indicate. I wish 
 rather to understate than overstate the difiiculty, and I will not 
 seek to gain any advantage by multiplying exceptions : it is 
 enough for the present argument if any exceptions have been 
 observed ; because any exception to an empirical generalization 
 is fatal to it as an empirical generalization, and can only be set 
 aside when the generalization has ceased to be empirical, and 
 has become scientific. Thus, I am aware that phrenologists ex- 
 nlain each exception to their perfect satisfaction. But, in 
 explaining it, they quit the sphere of empirical observation to 
 enter that of science ; and thus their explanation itself has only 
 the validity which can be given it by theory. To make my 
 meaning more definite, let us suppose that the empirical general- 
 ization of large chests being the cause of great muscular power, 
 IS under discussion. As an observed fact— an empirical fact — 
 the correspondence of broad chests and muscular strength, is a 
 valuable addition to our empirical knowledge. Taken as an in- 
 dication, no one disputes the fact ; but taken as a cause, and 
 connected with a physiological theory, it bears quite a different 
 value. The physiologist may say that the fact proves breadth 
 
CEANIOSCOPY. 
 
 757 
 
 Df chest to admit of more perfect oxygenation of the blood, and 
 thus causes greater muscular power. Against such a theory we 
 bring the fact that no absolute and constant relation between 
 broad chests and muscular power exists ; if we find large chests 
 accompanying strength, we also find small chests in certain lithe, 
 wiry frames accompanying even greater strength ; the empirical 
 generalization is thus destroyed, the explanation is shown to be 
 imperfect, and the ratio of muscular power i« shown to depend 
 on some other condition besides the oxygenation of the blood. 
 
 When phrenologists explain away the exceptions to their em- 
 pirical facts, they are on the field of pure science, and their ex- 
 planations can only have value in proportion to the validity of 
 the scientific principles invoked ; and thus the Art of Cranios- 
 copy is perpetually forced to recur to that very Physiology which 
 the successors of Gall have so unwisely neglected, and of which 
 (because it refuses its aid ?) they often speak so contemptuously. 
 The fact of a large head with a small mental capacity, or of a 
 small head with a great mental capacity, is explained by them 
 as resulting from the difierence in the “ temperaments” of the 
 two. But have they discriminated the conditions thus vaguely 
 indicated by the word temperament ? Have they estimated the 
 proportions in which the temperaments are mingled ? Have they 
 discovered a means of valuation by which the exact infiueuce of 
 each temperament can be estimated ? They have not even made 
 the attempt. 
 
 And yet that such a valuation is indispensable to the scientific 
 precision of their results, must be evident to every one. What, 
 strictly speaking, is this “ temperament,” which acts as a disturb- 
 ing force in the calculation ? I believe that science will one day 
 show that it is the result of that law of indeterminate composi- 
 tion which distinguishes living tissue from all other substances. 
 Inorganic bodies combine according to the law of determinate 
 composition : the proportions of the constituent elements are 
 fixed, definite, invariable. In water we invariably find 88’9 of 
 oxygen, and ll'l of hydrogen, in every 100 parts; never more, 
 
758 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 never less ; let the water be dew, rain, snow, or artificially pro- 
 duced in the laborator}’^, its composition is always determinate, 
 even to tbe fraction. In any piece of flint every 100 parts will 
 be composed of 48'2 of silicon and 51‘8 of oxygen; never more, 
 never less. But tbis is not tbe case with organic substances 
 (those at least which we ventured to distinguish as teleorganic 
 substances),* which are indeterminate in composition. Elemen- 
 tary analyses do not yield constant results, as do the analyses of 
 inorganic substances. Nerve- tissue, for example, contains both 
 phosphorus and water, as constituent elements ; but the quantity 
 of these elements varies within certain limits ; some nerve-tissues 
 have more phosphorus ; some more water ; and according to 
 these variations in the composition will be the variations in the 
 nervous force evolved. This is the reason why brains differ so 
 enormously even when their volumes are equal. The brain dif- 
 fers at different ages, and in different individuals. Sometimes 
 water constitutes three-fourths of the whole weight, sometimes 
 four-fifths, and sometimes even seven-eighths. The phosphorus 
 varies from 0'80 to 1'65, and 1'80; the cerebral fat varies from 
 3'45 to 5'30, and even 6T0. These facts will help to explain 
 many of the striking exceptions to phrenological observations 
 (such, for example, as the manifest superiority of some small 
 brains over some large brains), and are, indeed, included within 
 the comprehensive formula constantly advanced by phrenologists 
 that “size is a measure of power, other things being equal.” In 
 this formula there is a truth, and an equivoque. The truth may 
 be passed over by us, as claiming instantaneous assent. The 
 equivoque must arrest us. Phrenologists forget that here “ the 
 other things” never are equal ; and consequently their dictum, 
 
 * Matter is divided into Inorganic and Organic ; in 1853 1 proposed a mod- 
 iflcation of this division into — 1. Anorganic; 2. Merorganic; and 8. Tele- 
 organic : the first including those usually styled inorganic ; the second in- 
 cluding those substances in an intermediate state, eithei wanting some 
 addition to become living, or having lost some elements, and passed from 
 the vital state into that of product; the third including only the truly vital 
 substances. 
 
CKANIOSCOPY. 
 
 759 
 
 “ size is a measure of power,” is without application. Thera 
 never is equality in the things compared, because two brains ex 
 actly similar in size, and external configuration, will nevertheless 
 differ in elementary composition. The difference may be slight, 
 but however slight, it materially aflTects the result. The differ- 
 ence of elementary composition brings with it a difference in 
 development ; and by development, I do not mean growth, but 
 differentiation* Parallel with these differences, not appreciable 
 by any means in the phrenologist’s power, there are psychologi- 
 cal differences, resulting from the effect of education. So that 
 to say “ size is the measure of power,” is as vague as to say “ age 
 is the measure of wisdom because, although it is true that size 
 is an index of power, and, other things being equal, the greater 
 the brain the greater the mental power, it is equally true, that 
 age and experience in minds of equal capacity will produce pro- 
 portionate wisdom : unfortunately we cannot get minds of equal 
 capacity placed under the same conditions ; and thus it happens 
 that we find some men with large brains inferior to others with 
 much smaller brains, and men of patriarchal length of years more 
 unwise than their nephews. 
 
 And, in a less degree, this is true of size, taken as the measure 
 of power, between one organ and another in the same brain. 
 Failing utterly when two different brains are compared, the indi- 
 cation of size will be no more than approximative when two 
 parts of the same brain are compared ; although in this case the 
 other things are necessarily more nearly equal ; it is the same 
 nerve-tissue, the same temperament we are dealing with. In a 
 , given brain, therefore, we may reasonably expect to find that any 
 one organ which is larger in size than another, will be more 
 powerful in function. But although this, as an empirical gener- 
 alization, is a valuable indication, it is by no means certain, be- 
 cause there may be, and indeed usually is, a difficulty thrown in 
 
 * I have explained, at some length, the relation of growth and develop- 
 ment in an article on Dwarfs and Giants, in Frazer's Magazine for August 
 and September, 1856. 
 
760 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 tlie way by tlie inappreciable yet potent differences of developmenl 
 wbicli have taken place. Differentiations occur in two direc- 
 tions, in elementary composition and in morphological develop- 
 ment. One brain may have more phosphorus than another; 
 and in the same brain one organ may be vesicular or more fibrous 
 than another. Thus it by no means follows that a man with re- 
 flective organs large in size, shall have so exercised these organs 
 as to have brought their development into proportional advance; 
 while on the other hand his smaller imaginative organs may 
 have been so developed by culture and exercise, as to have placed 
 them on a par in efficiency with the reflectives. Daily expe- 
 rience assures us that such is the case ; and the philosophic 
 phrenologist might point to it as one explanation of the many 
 exceptions which Cranioscopy must necessarily encounter in its 
 attempt to read character according to external indications. 
 
 This is not the place for an examination of Phrenology as an 
 Art, or as a Science. I content myself, therefore, with the fore- 
 going indication of what I believe to be the true position of 
 Cranioscopy, and some of the difficulties which beset it. That 
 the collection of observed correspondences between certain con- 
 figurations of the skull and certain mental characteristics, is a 
 worthy task, and one which must materially aid the science of 
 Psychology, I do not think would be denied by any philosopher, 
 if it were undertaken with that subsidiary aim ; but when phrenol- 
 ogists obtrude their “system” on the notice of philosophers, 
 declaring it to be a completed science of Psychology, and a 
 true method of reading character, they must not be surprised if 
 contradiction meet them on all sides, and if this contradiction 
 often speak the language of contempt: since daily experience 
 cannot sanction the present pretensions of the Art, because the 
 Art is found to be constantly at fault; nor can psychologists 
 recognize the pretensions of the Science. 
 
PHRENOLOGY AS A SCIENCE. 
 
 T61 
 
 § IV. Phrenology as a Science. 
 
 To defend their Art, phrenologists are compelled to recur tc 
 their Doctrine, founded on the physiology of the nervous sys- 
 tem, and on a psychological classification of the faculties. Indeed, 
 while on the one hand we find every phrenologist since Gall, 
 Spurzheim, and Vimont, occupied entirely with Cranioscopy, and 
 many even speaking with disdain of anatomists and physiolo- 
 gists ; on the other hand we find them anxious to bring forward 
 physiological and pathological evidence, whenever that evidence 
 favors their views ; and we hear them confidently assert that 
 Phrenology is the only true Physiology of the nervous system. 
 This latter assertion I am quite willing to echo, if the terms be 
 somewhat modified, and the phrase run thus : “ Phrenology aspires 
 to be the true Physiology of the nervous system ; when that 
 Physiology is complete. Phrenology will be complete.” But for 
 the present we find Physiology confessing its incompleteness — 
 confessing itself in its infancy; whereas Phrenology claims to be 
 complete, equipped, full-statured ! Rightly considered, that very 
 claim is a condemnation of Phrenolo'gy, as at present understood. 
 The pretension of being a perfect or nearly perfect system, surely 
 implies a profound ignorancp of the subject, an entire misconcep- 
 tion of the complexity of the problem it pretends to have solved. 
 At a time when Science is unable to solve the problem of three 
 gravitating bodies, phrenologists pretend to find no difficulty in 
 calculating the result of forces so complex as those which con- 
 stitute character : at a time when the nervous system is confessed, 
 by all who have studied it, to be extremely ill-understood, the 
 functions of that system are supposed to be established; at a 
 time when Physiology is so rapidly advancing that every decade 
 renders most books antiquated, a Psychology professedly founded 
 on that advancing science remains immovable ! 
 
 Gall was on the right path when he entitled his first great 
 work Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System.* His 
 
 “Quiconque,” he says, “est convaincu que la structure des parties du 
 
762 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 successors liave quitted that path. lu spite of his emphatic dec- 
 larations, when he was engaged in his exposition of the anatomv 
 and phj^siology of the nervous system,* * declarations of the neces 
 sity there was always to make the study of organ and function 
 go hand in hand, so that he would only have his labors I’egarded 
 “ as the basis of an essay towards a more perfect work in spite, 
 we say, of every philosophical consideration, his successors have > 
 neglected Physiology for Cranioscopy ; not one of them has 
 made or attempted to make any discovery or extension of dis- 
 covery in the direction Gall so successfully opened ; and the 
 result of this neglect has been twofold — first, that since Gall and 
 Spurzheim, Phrenology has not taken a single step ; second, that 
 all the eminent physiologists of Europe who have devoted them- 
 selves to the study of the nervous system, unanimously reject a 
 theory which does not keep pace with the advance of science. 
 It is very easy for phrenologists to disregard the unanimous 
 opposition of physiologists, and to place this opposition to the 
 account of prejudice, or the “ not having sufficiently studied 
 Phrenology but an impartial on-looker sees clearly enough 
 that, making every allowance for prejudice, the opposition rests 
 mainly on the discrepancy between the facts stated by phrenol- 
 ogists and the facts which Science has hitherto registered. Had 
 phrenologists kept themselves acquainted with what was grad- 
 ually being discovered by physiologists, they would have seen 
 that something more than prejudice must be at work when all , 
 the eminent neurologists, such as Serres, Flourens, Majendie, 
 Leuret, Longet, Lelut, Lafargue, Bouillaud, Baillarger, Muller, 
 Valentin, and comparative anatomists such as Owen, declare 
 against Phrenology ; although every one of these is ready to 
 admit the importance of Gall’s method of dissection, ready to 
 incorporate whatever results Gall arrived at, which can be in any 
 
 eerveau a un rapport necessaire imm^diat avec leurs fonctions, trouvera 
 qu’il est naturel de r^unir ces deux objects I’un a I’autre, en les consid4raut 
 et en les traitant comme im seul et mfime corps de doctrine.” — An. ei Phys., 
 pref. XXV. 
 
 * Compare his Anat. et Phys. da Syst. Keroeux, i. 95 and 271. 
 
PHRENOLOGY AS A SCIENCE. 
 
 763 
 
 way confirmed. I do not blame phrenologists for having ren- 
 dered no assistance to Physiology by their own labors ; but I 
 am forced to point out the historical consequences of their hav- 
 ing neglected to follow the path commenced by Gall, and devi- 
 ated into that of simple Cranioscopy. The neglect of which 
 they complain, is entirely owing to their presenting a rude sketch 
 as a perfect science, and to their keeping behind the science of 
 their day, instead of on a level with it. Impatient of contradic- 
 tion, they shut their eyes to diflBculties ; unable to accommodate 
 their principles to the principles of Physiology, they contempt- 
 uously dismiss objections as “ merely theoretical,” and fall back 
 upon their “ well-established facts.” 
 
 Gall undertook a gigantic task. He produced a revolution, 
 and his name will always live in the history of Science. It is 
 idle to attempt to undervalue his work by citing his predecessors. 
 Others before him had thought of localizing the different facul- 
 ties in different parts of the brain. He and Spurzheim have 
 mentioned such predecessors.* These, however, are very vague, 
 unfertile conceptions ; they in no way lessen Gall’s originality. 
 A nearer approach is to be read in Prochaska, whom Gall often 
 mentions, although he does not, I think, mention this particular 
 anticipation. It is the third section of chapter five, and is enti- 
 tled, “ Do each of the divisions of the intellect occupy a sepa- 
 rate portion of the brain ?” and it concludes thus : “ It is by no 
 means improbable that each division of the intellect has its allot- 
 ted organ in the brain, so that there is one for the perceptions, 
 another for the understanding, probably others also for the will 
 End imagination and memory, which act wonderfully in concert 
 and mutually excite each other to action. The organ of imagi- 
 nation, however, amongst the rest will be far apart from the 
 organ of perceptions.”f How far this general supposition of a 
 
 *■ Fonclions du Cerveau, ii. 350 sq. Compare also Lelut: R^et de VOi’ga-' 
 %u)logia, p. 21 sq., and Prochaska, p. 374 sq. 
 
 + Prochaska, p. 447. There is a remarkable passage, too long for quotation 
 nere, m Willis’s Cerebri Anatome, c. x. p. 125, on the convolutions as indi 
 
76i 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 “ probability” is from Gall’s specific attempt to localize the or- 
 gans, need not be pointed out. The attempt was far from being 
 fully successful : but, as a tentative, it was truly philosophical, 
 and produced a revolution. 
 
 Having once conceived the brain to be an apparatus of organs, 
 not a single organ, the problem was to analyze this apparatus 
 into its constituent organs, and to assign to each its special func- 
 tion. In this difficult problem Gall, by the necessities of his po- 
 sition as a system-founder, was forced to proceed on a false 
 method, namely, that of determining the separate organs accord- 
 ing to a purely physiological and superficial analysis, instead of 
 subordinating this analysis to anatomical verification. It is this 
 arbitrary and unscientific proceeding which has made all anato- 
 mists reject the system. What would he have said to a physi- 
 ologist who, knowing that the liver formed bile and sugar, should 
 have assigned the function of bile-formation to one lobe, and 
 the function of sugar-formation to another lobe, no structural dif 
 ferences having been observed ? or who should assign to the 
 different lobules of the kidney functions as different as are as- 
 signed to the different convolutions of the brain ? It is perfectly 
 true that from inspection of an organ no idea of its function can 
 be obtained ; and this truth has blinded phrenologists who are 
 not physiologists to the necessity of nevertheless always making 
 anatomy the basis of every physiological analysis. No inspection of 
 the alimentary canal could disclose to us that its function was that 
 of digestion. Nevertheless the function of digestion, except in 
 the crude conception of ordinary men, is only intelligible after a 
 rigorous analysis of the several processes, buccal, stomachal, and 
 intestinal ; for the intelligence of each of which, we must assign 
 to each gland its specific secretion, and to each secretion its spe- 
 cific action : a physiologist who should attempt the explanation 
 of digestion on any other mode would justly be slighted by every 
 
 eating intellectual superiority. I give only the opening ; “ Plicae sunt con- 
 volutiones cerebri longd plures ac inajores in homine sunt qu4m in quovis alio 
 animali, nempfi propter varies etmultiplioes facultatum superiorum actus.” 
 
PHRENOLOGY AS A SCIENCE. 
 
 765 
 
 good biologist in Europe. If Phrenology is the Physiology of 
 the nervous system, it mus! give up Gall’s approximative method 
 for a method more rigorously scientific ; and as Auguste Comte 
 justly remarks, phrenologists, before they can take rank among 
 men of science, must “ reprendre, par une serie derecte de travaux 
 anatomiques, I’analyse fondamentale de I’appareil cerebral, en 
 faisant provisoirement abstraction de toute idee de fonctions.”* 
 
 One of the fundamental questions which must be answered by 
 this anatomical analysis, is that which no phrenologist condescends 
 to ask, namely. Are the convolutions the seat of intelligence ? in 
 other words. Is the gray vesicular matter which forms the surface 
 of the brain, the sole and specific seat of those changes on which 
 all mental phenomena depend ? This is a question which Crani- 
 oscopy may ignore, since the facts on which Cranioscopy is 
 founded are little if at all affected by it. To Phrenology the ques- 
 tion is initial, all-important; because if the “Physiology of the 
 nervous system” should turn out defective in its basis, the whole 
 scaffolding will have to be erected anew. I put the question in 
 two forms, because although it is commonly said that the convo- 
 lutions of the brain form the oi’gans, yet as many animals are alto- 
 gether without convolutions, the vesicular surface, whether convo- 
 luted or not, must be understood as the seat of mental changes; 
 the convolutions being only a mode of increasing the surface. 
 
 As the space at my disposal is inadequate to any exhaustive 
 discussion of this important question, the reader will be satisfied 
 with a brief indication of the doubt which Physiology forces me 
 to express respecting the convolutions as the specific seat of men- 
 tal manifestations. I cannot reconcile the current opinion on 
 that subject with anatomical and zoological facts. I believe that 
 the vesicular matter which constitutes the convolutions, is only 
 one factor in the sum ; it would, however, lead me too far to 
 enter on the discussion, which might be objected to as at present 
 only hypothetical. 
 
 * Coursde Philosophie Positive, iii. 821. Comte is much more favorable to Gall 
 than I am, yet see his remarks on the multiplication of the faculties, p. 828 sq 
 61 
 
766 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 Quitting all hypothetical considerations for the less questiona 
 ble e^^dence of facts, I find M. Baillarger'^ — who invented a 
 new method of measuring the surfaces of brains, by dissecting 
 out all the white substance from their interior, and then unfold- 
 ing the exterior, and taking a cast of it — declaring from his meas- 
 urements that it is far from true that in general the intelligence 
 of difierent animals is in direct proportion to their respective 
 extents of cerebral surface. If their absolute extents of surface 
 be taken, the rule is manifestly untrue in many instances ; and it 
 is not more true if the extent of surface in proportion to the vol- 
 ume of the brain be regarded ; for the human brain has less 
 superficial extent in proportion to its volume than that of many 
 inferior mammalia : its volume is two and a half times as 
 great in proportion to its surface, as it is in the rabbit, for 
 example. 
 
 Nor is this all. The researches of M. Camille Darestef estab- 
 lish beyond dispute that the number and depth of the convolu- 
 tions bear no direct relation to the development of intelligence ; 
 whereas they do bear a direct relation to the size of the animal ; 
 so that, given the size of the animal in any genus, he can predict 
 the degree of convoluted development ; or given the convolutions, 
 he can predict the size : “ toutes les especes a cerveau lisse ont 
 une petite taille ; toutes les especes a circonvolutions nombreuses 
 et compliquees sont, au contraire, de gran detaille.” Further, I 
 am informed by Professor Owen that the grampus has convolu- 
 tions deeper and more complicated than those of man. From all 
 which facts it becomes evident that the phrenological basis is so 
 far from being in accordance with the present state of our know- 
 ledge of the nervous system as to require complete revision. 
 
 Phrenology has another important point to determine, namely, 
 the relation of the size of the brain to mental power. Is the size 
 of the brain to be taken absolutely, and its functional activity in 
 
 * Gazette Medicale, 19 April, 1845. Paget : Report on the Progress of Anat 
 omy, in British and Foreign Med. Rev. July, 1846. 
 
 t Annates des Sciences Naturelles, 3'- s4rie. xvii. 30, and 4c sdrie, i. 73. 
 
PHKENOLOGY AS A SCIENCE. 
 
 767 
 
 Llie purely mental direction to be measured by its absolute bulk ? 
 A galvanic battery of fifty plates is five times as powerful as a bat- 
 tery of ten plates ; a cord of twenty threads is five times as strong 
 as a cord of four threads, other things equal ; and, in like manner, 
 we should expect that a brain of fifty ounces would be twice as 
 powerful as one of twenty-five ounces (the limits are really greater 
 than these). Nevertheless, we find no such absolute and constant 
 relation between size and mental power as would justify the 
 phrenological position ; the weight of the human brain being 
 about three pounds ; the weight of the whale’s brain being five 
 pounds ; the weight of the elephant’s between eight and ten 
 pounds. If therefore the function of the brain be solely or mainly 
 that of mental manifestation, and if size be the measure of 
 power, the whale and the elephant ought to surpass man, as a 
 Newton surpasses an idiot. If on the contrary the brain, as a 
 nervous centre, has other functions besides that of mental mani- 
 festation, these discrepancies can be explained, although Phrenol- 
 ogy must take these other functions into account.* 
 
 It is true that phrenologists have been aware of these discrep- 
 ancies; and, unable to admit the whale and elephant as superior 
 to man, they have met the objection by saying the size must be 
 estimated relatively, not absolutely. Compared with the weight 
 of his body, the brain of man is certainly heavier than the brains 
 of most animals, including the whale and the elephant ; and this 
 fact seems to restore Phrenology to its cheerfulness on the sub- 
 ject; but the fact does not hold good of monkeys, the smaller 
 apes, many species of birds, and some rodents. This is the dilem- 
 ma ; either the ratio of mental power depends on the absolute 
 size of the brain, and in this case the elephant will be thrice 
 as intelligent as man ; or it depends on the relative size of the 
 brain compared with the body, and in this case man will be less 
 intelligent than a monkey or a rat, although more intelligent than 
 
 ♦ i have sketched the relations of the brain to the body in the paper 
 oefore referred to, on Dwarfs and Giants. See Frazer's Mag., Sept. 1856, 
 p. 289. 
 
768 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 the elephant. Moreover, if relative size is the basis taken, phre- 
 nologists would be bound to compare in each case the weight of 
 the brain with the weight of the body, before they could establish 
 a conclusion ; and this is obviously impracticable. I have stated 
 the dilemma ; but having stated it, I will add that although phre- 
 nologists attach importance to questions of weight of the brain, 
 there seems to me a great fallacy involved in such estimates. Intel- 
 ligence is not to be measured by the balance. Weight is no index 
 of cerebral activity, nor of the special directions of the activity. 
 
 Enough has been said to show that Phrenology, so far from at 
 present being the only true physiological explanation of the ner- 
 vous system, is in so chaotic and unstable a position with respect 
 to its basis, as to need thorough revision ; and until some 
 phrenologist shall arise who, following up the impulsion given by 
 Gall, can once more place the doctrine on a level with the science 
 of the age, all men of science must be expected to slight the pre- 
 tensions of Phrenology as a psychological system, whatever it may 
 hereafter become. That a new Gall will some day arise I have 
 little doubt, for I am convinced that Psychology must be establish- 
 ed on a physiological basis. Meanwhile, for the purposes of this 
 History, it suflBces to have indicated the nature of Gall’s innova- 
 tion, and the course of inquiry he opened. As a psychological clas- 
 sification, the one now adopted in Phrenology can only be regarded 
 in the light of a tentative sketch ; superior indeed to those which 
 preceded it, but one which daily experience shows to be insufficient. 
 
 To conclude this chapter, we may point to Gall as having 
 formed an epoch in the History of Philosophy by inaugurating 
 a new Method. From the time when Philosophy itself became 
 reduced to a question of Psychology, in order that a basis might 
 if possible, be laid, the efforts of men were variously directed, 
 and all ended in skepticism and dissatisfaction, because a true 
 psychological Method did not guide them. The history of the 
 tentatives towards a true Method has been sketched in various 
 chapters of this volume, and with Gall that Method may be said 
 to have finally settled its fundamental principles. 
 
ELEVENTH EPOCH. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY FINALLY RELINQUISHING ITS PLACE IN FAVOR 
 OF POSITIVE SCIENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ECLECTICISM. 
 
 “Nous ne croyons pas les choses parce qu’elles sent vraies,” 
 says Pascal, “ mais nous les croyons vraies parce que nous les 
 aimons.” This is one ever-present obstacle to the progress of 
 mankind. We do not love truth because it is true, hut because 
 it seems to countenance other opinions which we believe necessary 
 to our well-being. Only a few philosophic minds have strength 
 enough to detach their eyes from consequences, and concentrate 
 all their attention on Truth ; and these few can only do so in 
 virtue of their steadfast conviction that Truth can never be really 
 injurious, whatever phantoms apprehensive ignorance may con- 
 jure up around it. 
 
 The reaction against the Philosophy of the eighteenth century 
 was not a reaction against a doctrine proved to be incompetent, 
 but against a doctrine believed to be the source of frightful im- 
 morality. The reaction was vigorous because it was animated 
 by the horror which agitated Europe at the hideous excesses of 
 the French Revolution. Associated in men’s minds with th< 
 saturnalia of the Terror, the philosophical opinions of Condillac 
 Diderot, and Cabanis were held responsible for the crimes of the 
 Convention ; and what might be true in those opinions was 
 dung aside with what was false, without discrimination, without 
 
770 
 
 ECLECTICISM. 
 
 analysis, in fierce impetuous disgust. Every opinion which had 
 what was called “ a taint of materialism,” or seemed to point in 
 that direction, was denounced as an opinion necessarily leading 
 to the destruction of all Religion, Morality, and Government. 
 Every opinion which seemed to point in the direction of spirit- 
 ualism was eagerly welcomed, promulgated, and lauded; not 
 because it was demonstrably true, but because it was supposed 
 capable of preserving social order. And indeed when, looking 
 back upon those times, we contemplate the misery and anarchy 
 which disgraced what was an inevitable movement, and dimmed 
 what was really noble in the movement, we can understand how 
 generous hearts and minds, fluctuating in perplexity, did instinct- 
 ively revolt not only against the Revolution, but against all the 
 principles which were ever invoked by the revolutionists. Look- 
 ing at the matter from this distance, we can see clearly enough 
 that “ materialism” had really no more to do with the Revolu- 
 tion than Christianity had to do with the hideous scenes in 
 which the Anabaptists were actors ; but we can understand how 
 indelible was the association of Revolution and materialism in 
 the minds of that generation. 
 
 So profoundly influential has this association been, that a cel- 
 ebrated surgeon of our own day perilled his position by advo- 
 cating an opinion, now universally accepted, but then generally 
 shuddered at; namely, that the brain is the “organ” of the 
 mind. He had to retract that opinion, which the pious Hartley 
 and many others had advanced without offence. He had to 
 retract it, not because it was scientifically untenable, but because 
 it was declared to be morally dangerous. It was “ materialism,” 
 and materialism “ led” to the destruction of all morality. Al- 
 though every man now believes the brain ti^ be veritably the 
 organ of the mind, the word materialism is still used as a bug- 
 bear. Instead of being refuted as false, it is by many denounced 
 as dangerous. I believe the philosophy of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury to be dangerous because false ; the writers to whom I allude 
 declare it false because they believe it dangerous. I believe it 
 
ECLECTICISM. 
 
 771 
 
 also to be in many respects healthful, because in many respects 
 true ; and it would be uncandid in me not to declare that if 1 
 oppose the eighteenth century doctrine, I believe the spiritualism 
 which denounces it is even more incomplete as a philosophy, and 
 consequently even more dangerous in its influence. 
 
 The history of the reaction in France is very instructive, but 
 it would require more space than can here be given adequately 
 to narrate the story.* Four streams of influence converged into 
 one, all starting from the same source, namely, horror at the 
 revolutionary excesses. The Catholics, with the great Joseph 
 de Maistre and M. de Bonald at their head, appealed to the relig- 
 ious sentiments; the Royalists, with Chateaubriand and Madame 
 de Stael, appealed to the monarchical and literary sentiments ; 
 the metaphysicians, with Laromiguiere and Maine de Brian, and 
 the moralists with Royer-Collard, one and all attacked the weak 
 points of Sensationalism, and prepared the way for the enthusi- 
 astic reception of the Scotch and German philosophies. A 
 glance at almost any of these writers will suffice to convince the 
 student that their main purpose is to defend morality and order, 
 which they believe to be necessarily imperilled by the philosophy 
 they attack. The appeals to the prejudices and sentiments are 
 abiding. Eloquence is made to supply the deficiencies of argu- 
 ment; emotion takes the place of demonstration. The hearer 
 is charmed, roused, dazzled. He learns to associate all the nobler 
 sentiments with spiritualistic doctrines, and all grovelling ideas 
 with materialistic doctrines ; till the one school becomes insep- 
 arably linked in his mind with emotions of reverence for what- 
 3ver is lofty, profound, and noble, and the other with emotions 
 of contempt for whatever is shallow and unworthy. The leaders 
 of the reaction were men of splendid talents, and their work was 
 eminently successful. But now that the heats of controversy 
 have cooled, and all these debates have become historical, we 
 
 * The reader may consult on this topic Damiron, Essai sur VHktoire de la 
 Philosophie en France an XIXieme Siecle ; and Taine, Les Philosoplies Fran- 
 fais du XIXieme Siecle. 
 
772 
 
 ECLECnCISM, 
 
 who look at them from a distance can find in them no philosoph 
 ical progress, no new elements added which could assist the evo- 
 lution of Philosophy and form a broader basis for future monu- 
 ments. In political and literary History these attempts would 
 claim a conspicuous position ; in the History of Philosophy they 
 deserve mention only as having made mankind aware of the 
 limited nature of the eighteenth century philosophy, and its ex- 
 traordinary lacunae. Their ofiSce was critical, and has been 
 fulfilled. 
 
 One doctrine, and one alone, emerged from these attempts, 
 and held for some time the position of a . school. It made a 
 noise in its day, but even the echoes have now become almost 
 inaudible, for a feebler doctrine scarcely ever obtained acquies- 
 cence. We must, nevertheless, bestow a few sentences on it to 
 make our history complete. Eclecticism is dead, but it produced 
 some good results, if only by the impetus it gave to historical 
 research, and by the confirmation it gave, in its very weakness, 
 to the conclusion that an a 'priori solution of transcendental 
 problems is impossible. For Eclecticism was the last product of 
 philosophical speculation, the gathering together of all that phi- 
 losophers had achieved, and the evolution from these separate 
 achievements of one final doctrine, which final doctrine is itself 
 rejected. 
 
 Victor Cousin and Thomas Jouffroy are the chiefs of this 
 school, one a brilliant rhetorician utterly destitute of originality, 
 the other a sincere thinker, whose merits have been thrown into 
 the shade by his brilliant colleague. As a man of letters, M. 
 Cousin deserves the respect which attends his name, if we except 
 <he more than questionable use which he has made of the labors 
 of pupils and assistants without acknowledgment. However, 
 our business is not with Cousin, but with Eclecticism. Royer- 
 Collard introduced the principles of the Scotch, school, to combat 
 with them the principles of sensationalism. Reid and Stewart 
 were translated by Jouffroy, explained and developed by Royer- 
 Collard, Jouffroy, and Cousin. The talents of these professors, 
 
ECLECTICISM. 
 
 \ 
 
 773 
 
 aided by the tendency towards any reaction, made the Scotch 
 philosophy dominant in France. But Victor Cousin’s restless 
 activity led him to the study of Kant : — and the doctrines of the 
 “ Konigsberg sage” were preached by him with the same ardor 
 as that which he had formerly devoted to the Scotch. As soon 
 as the Parisians began to know something of Kant, M. Cousin 
 started off to Alexandria for a doctrine : he found one in Proclus. 
 He edited Proclus ; lectured on him ; borrowed some of his 
 ideas, and would have set him on the throne of Philosophy, had 
 the public been willing. A trip to Germany in 1824 made him 
 acquainted with the modern Proclus — Hegel. On his return to 
 Paris he presented the public with as much of Hegel’s doc- 
 trines as he could understand. His celebrated Eclecticism is 
 nothing but a misconception of Hegel’s History of Philosophy^ 
 fenced round with several plausible arguments. 
 
 All error, M. Cousin repeatedly enforces, is nothing but “ an 
 incomplete view of the truth.” Upon this definition is based the 
 proposition that “ All systems are incomplete views of the reality, 
 set up for complete images of the reality.” The conclusion is 
 obvious : “ All systems containing a mixture of truth and error 
 have only to be brought together, and then the error would be 
 eliminated by the mere juxtaposition of system with system. 
 The truth or portion of the truth which is in one system would 
 be assimilated with the portions of the truth which are in other 
 systems ; and thus the work would be easy enough.” 
 
 Eclecticism, therefore, means the bringing together of all dis- 
 covered truths eliminated from their accompanying errors ; and 
 out of this body of truths a doctrine is to be elaborated. A great 
 task ; but is it practicable ? The system is based on the defini- 
 tion of error ; by that it must stand or fall. 
 
 The definition appears to us altogether untenable. Error is 
 sometimes an incomplete view of the truth ; but it is not always: 
 it is sometimes no view of the truth at all, but a mere divergence 
 from it. When Newton constructed his theory of the laws of 
 attraction, and interposed an ether as the medium through which 
 
7U 
 
 eclecticism:. 
 
 they operated, he had an incomplete view of the truth. But 
 when Descartes developed his theory of vortices, he was quite 
 wide of the truth — he was altogether wrong. The phrase “ in- 
 complete view” is indeed so vague, that men who sport with 
 verbal subtleties may justify the theory of Descartes as an incom- 
 plete view of the truth ; a very incomplete view. At anv rate 
 no one will be disposed to assert that by the mere juxtaposition 
 of Newton’s doctrine with that of Descartes he could in any way 
 eliminate the error that is in both. 
 
 If therefore all systems are not incomplete v ews of the reality 
 — if all systems do not contain certain portions of the truth — how 
 is the eclectic to decide which systems are available for his pur- 
 pose, which philosophies are to be juxtaposed ? This leads to the 
 necessity of a criterium. M. Jouffroy tells us that it is an easy 
 matter. We have only to collect all the systems which have 
 ever been produced, have them translated and arranged in their 
 legitimate order, and the truths discovered by each will become 
 organized in one doctrine. 
 
 Without stopping to ask what is the legitimate order, and how 
 we are to know it, the student is. naturally anxious to learn by 
 what criterium Eclecticism proposes to judge and separate truth 
 from error in any system. The inquiry is pertinent. It is easy 
 to bid us be careful in separating the wheat from the chaff, that 
 we may garner it up in the storehouses of the world. Suppose 
 the farmer does not know the wheat when he sees it, what crite- 
 rium do you give him whereby he may judge wheat to be wheat, 
 not chaff? None. The philosopher can only distinguish the 
 truth in two ways : either he knows it already, and then he has 
 vvhat he is seeking ; or else he knows it by its relation to and 
 accordance with those truths which he is already in possession 
 of That is to say, he has a criterium in his System : those 
 views which range under it, he accepts as extensions of his 
 knowledge ; those which range beyond its limits, he denies to be 
 true. 
 
 Suppose the eclectic places in juxtaposition the two great 
 
ECLECTICISM. 
 
 775 
 
 schools which have always divided the Xvorld, viz. that which 
 declares experience to be the source of all knowledge ; and that 
 which declares we have a great deal of our knowledge antece- 
 dent to and independent of experience. Both of these systems 
 he pronounces to be composed of truth and error. He assumes 
 this ; for a little consideration might tell him that it is utterly 
 impossible both should be correct : experience either is or is not 
 the sole fountain of knowledge. The difference is as decided as 
 that respecting the motion of the earth, or the motion of the 
 sun. Ptolemy and Copernicus : choose between them ; any 
 compromise is impossible, unless you wish to side with the Sizar 
 who, when the question was put, “ Does the earth move round 
 the sun, or the sun round the earth ?” replied, “ Sometimes one 
 and sometimes the other.” He was an eclectic apparently. Let 
 us however for a moment grant that the two schools of Psychol- 
 ogy are both partly right and partly wrong ; we then ask, What 
 criterium has the eclectic whereby to distinguish error from 
 truth ? He has none ; the doctors are silent on the point. 
 
 That men derive assistance from others, and that those who 
 went before us discovered many truths, all admit. And there 
 can be no doubt that a juxtaposition and comparison of various 
 doctrines would be of service. Eclecticism, therefore, as a sub- 
 sidiary process is valuable ; and has always been practised. M. 
 Cousin however converts this subsidiary process into a primary 
 one, and dignifies it with the attributes of a Method. In the one 
 sense it is simply that the inquirer consults the works of his pre- 
 decessors, and selects from them all that he considers true : viz. 
 such portions as confirm, extend, and illustrate his previous opin- 
 ions ; these opinions constituting his criterium. Let the reader 
 reflect on the pertinacity with which men refuse to admit views 
 which to others are self-evident, because those views are or seem 
 to be opposed to religion, or the reigning doctrine, and he will 
 clearly enough see the nature of this criterium. The history of 
 opinion is crowded with instances of it. M. Cousin however does 
 not so understand Eclecticism. He says we should admit all 
 
m 
 
 AUGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 Bystems as containing some truths; and these truths separate 
 themselves from errors by the mere process of juxtaposition^ 
 somewhat in the manner, we presume, of chemical affinities. — 
 A theory that needs, one would think, no further refutation than 
 a simple statement of its principles. 
 
 Havmg dismissed Eclecticism as a Method, we need not waste 
 time in examining M. Cousin’s various and constantly shifting 
 opinions. It is enough that he himself has relinquished them. 
 It is enough that France and Europe reject them. 
 
 This final doctrine then fares no better than the doctrines 
 which preceded it. Philosophy is still in search of its Method 
 and its basis ; and wearied out by so many fruitlel^s efforts, it 
 finally gives up the quest, and allows itself to be yabsorbed by 
 Science. The dogmatic assertion of this position is to be found 
 in Auguste Comte. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ALGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 As I have devoted a whole volume to the exposition of Comte’s 
 philosophy,* it will be unnecessary to enter into a detailed exposi- 
 tion here ; and the small space at disposal may be occupied with 
 a general indication of his historical position and the nature of 
 his Method. 
 
 In the course of this History one fact has been gradually as- 
 suming more and more distinctness, as the various failures to 
 establish any solid basis for Philosophy have been brought before 
 us : namely, that mankind has, from the origin of speculative in- 
 quiry, been pursuing a false Method. Gradually, as men became 
 dware of this fact, they withdrew themselves more and more from 
 Philosophy, and devoted their speculative energy to Science. 
 
 * Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences, 1853 (Bohn’s Scientific Library, vol. SOL 
 
AUGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 7Y7 
 
 Even those who, reluctant to relinquish the high aims of Philoso- 
 phy, tried by changes of direction to discover new and more pros- 
 perous issues, and hoped in reinvestigating the nature of human 
 knowledge to disclose some yet unsuspected path which might 
 lead them to the goal, found Psychology itself forced to range 
 beside the positive sciences, and to adopt me one Method which 
 hitherto had alone been fruitful in results. And while from all 
 directions a convergence towards Science was silently taking 
 place, there arose a powerful thinker who proclaimed the in- 
 herent necessity of this convergence, and the necessity under 
 which' Philosophy now was of definitively relinquishing its 
 ancient claims in favor of the positive Method, which could lead 
 men to a general doctrine such as might once more establish har- 
 mony in their endeavors, and give to Europe an invigorating faith. 
 
 In the Cours de Philosophie Positive, 6 vols., 1830—42, Au- 
 guste Comte did for the nineteenth century what Bacon did for 
 the seventeenth : he resumed in one vast work the various re- 
 forming tendencies of preceding ages. Whoever casts his 
 glance at the present intellectual state of Europe, will perceive a 
 great want of unity, caused by the absence of any one doctrine, 
 general enough to embrace every variety of ideas, and positive 
 enough to carry with it irresistible conviction. Look at the state 
 of Religion ; — Catholicism and Protestantism make one great 
 division ; but within the sphere of each we see numerous subdi- 
 visions ; the variety of sects is daily increasing. Each Religion 
 has remarkable men amongst its members ; but each refuses to 
 admit the doctrines of the others. There is, in fact, no one gen- 
 ,.eral doctrine capable of embracing Catholics, Protestants, Mo- 
 hammedans, and their subdivisions. Look also at the state of 
 Philosophy There is no one system universally accepted ; there 
 are as many philosophies as there are speculative nations, almost 
 as many as there are professors. The dogmas of Germany are 
 held in England and Scotland as the dreams of alchemists ; the 
 Psychology of Scotland is laughed at in Germany, and neglected 
 in England and France. Besides this general dissidence, we see. 
 
AUGUSTE COMTE 
 
 rrs 
 
 in France and Germany at least, great opposition between Re- 
 ligion and Philosophy openly pronounced. This opposition is 
 inevitable : it lies in the very nature of Philosophy ; and although, 
 now as heretofore, many professors eagerly argue that the two 
 are perfectly compatible and accordant, the discordance is, and 
 always must be, apparent. 
 
 With respect to general doctrines, then, we find the state of 
 Europe to be this : religions opposed to religions ; philosophies 
 opposed to philosophies ; and Religion and Philosophy at war 
 with each other. Such is the anarchy in the h^her regions. 
 
 In the positive sciences there is less dissidence, but there is the 
 same absence of any general doctrine ; each science is on a firm 
 basis, and rapidly improves ; but a Philosophy of Science is no- 
 where to be found except in the work of M. Auguste Comte> 
 which comes forward with the express purpose of supplying the 
 deficiency. The speciality of most scientific men, and their in- 
 capacity of either producing or accepting general ideas, has 
 long been a matter of complaint; and this has been one great 
 cause of the continuance of Philosophy : for men of speculative 
 ability saw clearly enough that however exact each science 
 might be in itself, it could only form a part of Philosophy. 
 Moreover, the evil of speciality is not confined to neglecting the 
 whole for the sake of the parts ; it affects the very highest con- 
 dition of Science, namely, its capability of instructing and direct- 
 ing society. 
 
 In the early ages of speculation, general views were eagerly 
 sought and easily obtained. As Science became rich and com- 
 plex in materials, various divisions took place ; and one man 
 cultivated one science, another man another. Even then general 
 views were not absent. But as the tide rolled on, discovery suc- 
 ceeding discovery, and new tracts of inquiry leading to vast 
 wildernesses of undiscovered truth, it became necessary for one 
 man to devote himself only to a small fraction of a science, which 
 he pursued, leaving to others the task of bringing his researches 
 under their general head. Such a minute division of labor was 
 
AUGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 779 
 
 necessary for the successful prosecution of minute and laborious 
 researches ; but it ended in making men of science regard only 
 the individual parts of science ; the construction of general doc- 
 trines was left to philosophers. A fatal error ; for such doctrines 
 could only he truly constructed out of the materials of Science 
 and upon the Method of Science ; whereas the philosophers were 
 ignorant of Science — or only superficially acquainted with it — 
 and despised the Method. The Natur-Philosophie of Schelling 
 and Hegel is a sufficiently striking example of the results of such 
 a procedure. ■’ 
 
 We come then to this conclusion: in the present ^ state of 
 things the speculative domain is composed of two very different 
 portions, — general ideas and positive sciences. The general ideas 
 are powerless because they are not positive ; the positive sciences 
 are powerless because they are not general.. The new Philosophy 
 which, under the title of Positive, M. Comte proposes to create 
 — and the basis of which he has himself laid — is destined to put 
 an end to this anarchy, by presenting a doctrine which is posi- 
 tive, because elaborated from the sciences, and yet possessing all 
 the desired generality of metaphysical doctrines, without possess- 
 ing their vagueness, instability, and inapplicability. 
 
 Besides this general aim of the new “ Great Instauration,” we 
 have to notice three initial conceptions which Comte advances, 
 two of which relate to Method, and one to History. 
 
 The first is the conception of Philosophy, which, in its widest 
 sense, is identical with Science ; consequently one Method must 
 be followed in all investigations, whether the investigations relate 
 to Physics, to Psychology, to Ethics, or to Politics, Every spe- 
 cial science, no matter what its subject-matter, is but a branch of 
 the one Positive Philosophy. 
 
 The second conception is that of Classification, whereby all 
 the special sciences will assume their proper place in the hie 
 rarchy of Science, the simpler being studied first, and thus becom- 
 ing instruments for the better prosecution of those which suc- 
 ceed. Thus Mathematics becomes the instrument of Astronomy 
 
780 
 
 AUGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 and Physics ; Chemistry becomes the instrument of Biology 
 and Biology becomes the instrument of Sociology. 
 
 The third conception is that of the fundamental law of evolu 
 tion. This conception sets forth that Humanity has three stages, 
 the Theological, the Metaphysical, and the Positive. Whether 
 we examine the history of nations, of individuals, or of special 
 sciences, we find that speculation always- commences with super- 
 natural explanations, advances to metaphysical explanations, and 
 finally reposes in positive explanations. The first is the neces- 
 sary point of departure taken by human intelligence ; the second 
 is merely a stage of transition from the supernatural to the posi- 
 tive ; and the third is the fixed and definite condition in which 
 knowledge is alone capable of progressive development. 
 
 In the Theological stage, the mind regards all efi'ects as the 
 productions of supernatural agents, whose intervention is the 
 cause of all the apparent anomalies and irregularities. Nature is 
 animated by supernatural beings. Every unusual phenomenon 
 is a sign of the pleasure or displeasure of some being adored and 
 propitiated as a God. The lowest condition of this stage is that 
 of the savages, viz. Fetishism. The highest condition is when 
 one being is substituted for many, as the cause of all phenomena. 
 
 In the Metaphysical stage, which is only a modification of the 
 former, but which is important as a transitional stage, the super- 
 natural agents give place to abstract forces (personified abstrac- 
 tions) supposed to inhere in the various substances, and capable 
 themselves of engendering phenomena. The highest condition 
 of this stage is when all these forces are brought under one gen- 
 eral force named Nature. 
 
 In the Positive stage, the mind, convinced of the futility of all 
 inquiry into causes and essences, applies itself to the observation 
 and classification of laws which regulate effects : that is to say, 
 the invariable relations of succession and similitude which all 
 things bear to each other. The highest condition of this stage 
 would be, to be able to represent all phenomena as the various 
 particulars of one general view. 
 
AUGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 781 
 
 Tims, in Astronomy we may trace the gradual evolution from 
 Apollo and his chariot, through the Pythagorean ideas of Num- 
 bers, Harmonies, and so many other metaphysical abstractions, 
 to the firm basis on which it is now settled ; the law of gravita- 
 tion. So that it is by geometry and dynamics we hope to wrest 
 their secret from the spheres ; not by the propitiation of a Sun- 
 god. Thus also in Physics, where thunder was the intervention 
 of Jove, and where Metaphysics had introduced Nature’s “ hor- 
 ror of a void,” Science seeks the laws of gravitation, elfeciricity, 
 light, etc. 
 
 In the work already mentioned I have illustrated this law in 
 many ways. The reader is advised however to seek in Comte’s 
 own volumes for a complete verification of the law, and its im- 
 portance in all historical inquiry.'* A few sentences will sufiice 
 to indicate the nature of the three stages : — All are agreed, in 
 these days, that real knowledge must be founded on the observa- 
 tion of facts. But no science could have its origin in simple ob- 
 servation ; for if, on the one hand, all positive theories must be 
 founded on observation, so, on the other, it is equally necessary 
 to have some sort of theory before we address ourselves to the 
 task of steady observation. If, in contemplating phenomena, we 
 do not connect them with some principle, it would not only be 
 impossible for us to combine our isolated observations, and con- 
 sequently to draw any benefit from them ; but we should also 
 be unable even to retain them, and most frequently the impor- 
 tant facts would remain unperceived. We are consequently 
 forced to theorize. A theory is necessary to observation, and a 
 correct theory to correct observation. 
 
 This double necessity imposed upon the mind — of observation 
 for the formation of a theory, and of a theory for the practice of 
 observation — would have caused it to move in a circle, if nature 
 had not fortunately provided an outlet in the spontaneous activ- 
 
 * This advice can the more easily be followed now that a translated con- 
 densation of the Positive Philosophy by Harriet Martineau, has placed tbs 
 work within reach of English readers. 
 
 52 
 
782 
 
 A.trG'DSTE COMTE. 
 
 ity of the mind. This activity causes it to begin by assuming a 
 cause, which it seeks out of nature, i. e. a supernatural cause. 
 As man is conscious that he acts according as he wills, so he nat- 
 urally concludes that every thing acts in accordance with some 
 superior will. Hence Fetishism, which is nothing but the endow- 
 ment of inanimate things with life and volition. . This is the 
 logical necessity for the supernatural stage : the mind com- 
 mences with the unknowable ; it has first to learn its impotence, 
 to learn the limits of its range, before it can content itself with 
 the knowable. 
 
 The metaphysical stage is equally important as the transitive 
 stage. The supernatural and positive stages are so widely op- 
 posed that they require intermediate notions to bridge over the 
 chasm. In substituting an entity inseparable from phenomena 
 for a supernatural agent, through whose will these phenomena 
 were produced, the mind became habituated to consider only the 
 phenomena themselves. This was a most important condition. 
 The result was, that the ideas of these metaphysical entities 
 gradually faded, and were lost in the mere abstract names of the 
 phenomena. 
 
 The positive stage was now possible. The mind having ceased 
 to interpose either supernatural agents or metaphysical entities 
 between the phenomena and their production, attended solely 
 to the phenomena themselves. These it reduced to laws y in 
 other words, it arranged them according to their invariable re- 
 lations of similitude and succession. The search after essences 
 and causes was renounced. The pretension to absolute knowl- 
 edge was set aside. The discovery of laws became the great ob- 
 ject of mankind. 
 
 Kemember that although every branch of knowledge must 
 pass through these three stages, in obedience to the law of evo- 
 lution, nevertheless the progress is not strictly chronological. 
 Some sciences are more rapid in their evolution than others ; 
 some individuals pass through these evolutions more quickly than 
 others ; so also of nations. The present intellectual anarchy re^ 
 
AtIGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 783 
 
 suits from that difference ; some sciences being in the positive, 
 some in the supernatural, and some in the metaphysical stage : 
 and this is further to be subdivided into individual differences ; 
 for in a science which, on the whole, may fairly be admitted as 
 being positive, there will be found some cultivators still in the 
 metaphysical stage. Astronomy is now in so positive a condi- 
 tion, that we need nothing but the laws of dynamics and gravi- 
 tation to explain all celestial phenomena ; and this explanation 
 we know to be correct, as far as any thing can be known, because 
 we can predict the return of a comet with the nicest accuracy, 
 or can enable the mariner to discover his latitude and find his 
 way amidst the “ waste of waters.” This is a positive science. 
 But so far is meteorology from such a condition, that prayers for 
 dry or rainy weather are still offered up in churches ; whereas if 
 once the laws of these phenomena were traced, there would no 
 more be prayers for rain than for the sun to rise at midnight. 
 Remark also, that while in the present day no natural philoso- 
 pher is unwise enough to busy himself with the attempt to dis- 
 cover the cause of attraction, thousands are busy in the attempt 
 to discover the cause of life and the essence of mind. This differ- 
 ence characterizes positive and metaphysical sciences. The one 
 IS content with a general fact, that “ attraction is directly as the 
 mass and inversely as the square of the distance this being 
 sufficient for all scientific purposes, because enabling us to pre- 
 dict with unerring certainty the results of that operation. The 
 metaphysician or metaphysical physiologist, on the contrary, is 
 more occupied with guessing at the causes of life, than in observ- 
 ing and classifying vital phenomena with a view to detect their 
 laws of operation. First he guesses it to be what he calls a 
 “ vital principle” — a mysterious entity residing in the frame, and 
 capable of engendering phenomena. He then proceeds to guess 
 at the nature or essence of this principle, and pronounces it 
 “ electricity,” or “ nervous fiuid,” or “ chemical affinity.” Thus 
 he heaps hypothesis upon hypothesis, and clouds the subject from 
 his view. 
 
784 
 
 AUGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 The more closely we examiue the present condition of the sci 
 ences, the more we shall be struck with the anarchy above indi- 
 cated. We shall find one science (Physics) in a perfectly posi- 
 tive stage, another (Biology) in the metaphysical stage, a third 
 (Sociology) in the supernatural stage. Nor is this all. The 
 same varieties will be found to co-exist in the same individual 
 mind. The same man who in Physics may be said to have ar- 
 rived at the positive stage, and recognizes no other object of in- 
 quiry than the laws of phenomena, will be found still a slave to 
 the metaphysical stage in Biology, and endeavoring to detect the 
 cause of life ; and so little emancipated from the supernatural 
 stage in Sociology, that if you talk to him of the possihility of a 
 science of history, or a social science, he will laugh at you as 
 a “theorizer.” The present condition of Science, therefore, ex- 
 hibits three Methods instead of one : hence the anarchy. To 
 remedy the evil all ditferences must cease : one Method must 
 preside. Auguste Comte was the first to point out the fact, and 
 to suggest the cure ; and it will render his name immortal. So 
 long as the supernatural explanation of phenomena was univer- 
 sally accepted, so long was there unity of thought, because one 
 general principle was applied to all facts. The same may be 
 said of the metaphysical stage, though in a less degree, because 
 it was never universally accepted ; it was in advance of the 
 supernatural, but before it could attain universal recognition, the 
 positive stage had already begun. When the positive Method is 
 universally accepted — and the day we hope is not far distant, at 
 least among the elite of humanity — then shall we again have 
 unity of thought, then shall we again have one general doctrine 
 powerful because general. That the positive Method is the only 
 Method adapted to human capacity, the only one on which truth 
 can be found, ie easily proved : on it alone can prevision of phe- 
 nomena depend. Prevision is the characteristic and the test of 
 knowledge. If we can predict certain results and if they occur 
 as we predicted, then are we assured that our knowledge is cor- 
 rect. If the wind blows according to the will of Boreas, we may. 
 
AUGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 785 
 
 tudit&A, propitiate his favor, but we cannot calculate upon it. We 
 can have no certain knowledge whether the wind will blow or 
 not. If, on the other hand, it is subject to laws, like every thing 
 else, once discover these laws, and men will predict concerning 
 it as they predict concerning other matters. ‘‘ Even the wind 
 and rain,” to use the language of one of our clearest writers, 
 “ which in common speech are the types of uncertainty and 
 change, obey laws as fixed as those of the sun and moon ; and 
 already, as regards many parts of the earth, man can foretell 
 them without fear of being deceived. He plans his voyages to 
 suit the coming monsoons, and prepares against the floods of the 
 rainy season.”* If one other argument be needed, we would 
 simply refer to the gradual and progressive improvement which 
 has always taken place in every department of inquiry conduct- 
 ed upon the positive Method — and with a success in exact pro- 
 portion to its rigorous employment of that Method — contrasted 
 with the circular movement of Philosophy, which is just as far 
 from a solution of any one of its problems as it was flve thousand 
 years ago ; the only truths that it can be said to have acquired 
 are a few psychological truths, and these it owes to the positive 
 Method. So little has the Philosophy of Science been studied, 
 that Comte’s admirable classiflcation of the fundamental sciences 
 has not only been regarded as a merely ingenious speculation, 
 but many writers have said that it was not difi’erent from other 
 classifications which had been proposed, among which Hegel’s 
 has been mentioned. But the resemblance is only superficial. 
 A few sentences must suffice here to indicate the principle on 
 which it is based : — The problem to be solved is the dependence 
 of the sciences upon each other. This dependence can only re- 
 sult from that of the corresponding phenomena. In considering 
 these, it is easy to class them in a small number of natural cate 
 gories, so disposed that the rational study of each successive 
 category should be founded on the knowledge of the principal 
 
 * Dr. Arnott’s Elements of Physics, fifth edition, vol. i, p. 13. 
 
786 
 
 AUGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 laws of the preceding category. The order of their dependence 
 is determined by the degree of simplicity or generality of the 
 phenomena. It is evident that the most simple phenomena — 
 those which are least mixed up with others — are the most gen- 
 eral ; for that which is observed in the greatest number of circum- 
 stances is the most independent of the various particulars of 
 those circumstances. The principle therefore to be adopted is 
 this : we must commence with the study of the most simple or 
 general phenomena, and proceed successively to the most com- 
 plex and particular. 
 
 A distinction is to be made between the two classes of pheno- 
 mena which are manifested by inorganized bodies and by organ- 
 ized bodies. The phenomena of the latter are obviously more 
 complex than those of the former ; they greatly depend upon in- 
 organized bodies, while these in no way depend upon organized 
 bodies. Organized bodies manifest all the phenomena of the in- 
 organized, whether chemical or mechanical ; but they also mani- 
 fest the phenomena named vital, which are never manifested by 
 inorganized bodies. 
 
 In the study of inorganic Physics we commence by separating 
 the general phenomena of the universe from the less general ter- 
 restrial phenomena. Thus we have, first, celestial Physics, or 
 Astronomy, whether geometrical or mechanical ; secondly, ter- 
 restrial Physics. The phenomena of Astronomy being the most 
 general, the most simple, and the most abstract of all, we must 
 begin our study with them. Their laws influence all other ter- 
 restrial phenomena, of which they are essentially independent. 
 In all terrestrial Physics universal gravitation is a condition ; 
 and so the simple movement of the body, if we would consider 
 all the determining conditions, is a subject of greater complexity 
 than any astronomical question. 
 
 Terrestrial Physics is also divided into two classes : Physics 
 and Chemistry. Chemistry, rightly conceived, presupposes a 
 knowledge of Physics : for all chemical phenomena are more 
 complex than those of Physics, and depend on them in great part : 
 
AUGUSTE COMTE. 
 
 787 
 
 whereas they have no influence on physical phenomena. All 
 chemical action is subject to the influence of weight, heat, etc., 
 and must therefore be treated after them. 
 
 Organic Physics requires a similar division into Biology and 
 Sociology. The phenomena relating to mankind are obviously 
 more complex than those relating to the individual man, and 
 depend upon them. In all social questions we see in operation 
 the physiological laws of man ; and we see also something pe- 
 culiar, not physiological, which modifies the effects of these laws, 
 and which results from the action of individuals on each other, 
 curiously complicated by the action of each generation on its suc- 
 cessor. It would be manifestly as impossible to treat the study 
 of the collective species as a pure deduction from the study of 
 the individual, as it would be to treat Physiology as a pure de- 
 duction from Chemistry. 
 
 The Positive Philosophy therefore resolves itself into five fun- 
 damental sciences, of which the succession is determined by a 
 necessary and invariable subordination founded on a comparison 
 of corresponding phenomena. The first (Astronomy) considers 
 the most general, simple, and abstract phenomena — those far- 
 thest removed from humanity : they influence all others, but are 
 not influenced by them. The last (Sociology) considers the 
 most particular, complex, and concrete phenomena — those most 
 directly interesting to man ; they depend more or less upon all 
 the preceding classes, without exercising on the latter the slight- 
 est influence. Between these tw'o extremes the degrees of spe- 
 ciality and of complication of phenomena gradually augment 
 according to their successive independence. 
 
 The foundation of a comprehensive Method is the great 
 achievement of Comte, as it was of Bacon, and the influence he 
 has exercised, and must continue to exercise, will be almost ex- 
 clusively in that direction. Over his subsequent efibrts to found 
 a social doctrine, and to become the founder of a new religion, 
 let us draw the veil. They are unfortunate attempts which re- 
 mind us of Bacon’s scientific investigations ; and, in the minds o 
 
788 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 many, these unfortunate attempts will create a prejudice against 
 what is truly grand in his philosophic career. In the Cours de 
 Philosophic Positive we have the grandest, because on the whole 
 the truest, system which Philosophy has yet produced ; nor 
 should any differences, which must inevitably arise on points of 
 detail, make us forget the greatness of the achievement and the 
 debt we owe to the lonely thinker who wrought out this system. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Modern Philosophy opens with a Method ; and ends with a 
 Method ; and in each case this method leads to positive Science, 
 and sets Metaphysics aside. Within these limits we have wit- 
 nessed various efforts to solve the problems of Philosophy ; and 
 all those efforts have ended in skepticism. 
 
 There are two characteristics of Modern Philosophy which 
 may here be briefly touched on. The first is the progressive 
 development of Science, which in ancient speculations occupied 
 the subordinate rank, and which now occupies the highest. The 
 second is the reproduction in Philosophy of all the questions 
 which agitated the Greeks, which also pass through a similar 
 course of development: not only are the questions similar, but 
 their evolutions are so. 
 
 After the Eleatics had vexed the problems of Existence to no 
 purpose, there came Democritus, Anaxagoras, Plato, and Aris- 
 totle, who endeavored to settle the problems of the nature and 
 origin of human knowledge. So, in modern times, after Des- 
 cartes and Spinoza, came Hobbes, Locke, Leibnitz, Reid, and 
 Kant. The ancient researches into the origin of knowledge 
 ended in the Skeptics, the Stoics, and the New Academy : that 
 is to say, in Skepticism, Common Sense, and Skepticism again. 
 The modern researches ended in Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and 
 Kant : that is, in Idealism, Skepticism, Common Sense, and 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 789 
 
 Skepticism agaiu. These inquiries terminating thus fruitlessly, 
 a new and desperate spring was made in Alexandria ; reason 
 was given up for ecstasy ; Philosophy merged itself in Religion. 
 In Germany a similar spectacle presents itself: Schelling identi- 
 fied Philosophy with Religion. T hus has P hilosophy Tromplet;erd-*- 
 jts- circle, and we are left in this nineteenth centurj jprecise^^a^ 
 the same point at which we were in the fifth. 
 
 Observe, however — and the fact Ts full of significance — how, 
 in the course of speculation, those questions which were suscepti- 
 ble of positive treatment, gradually acquired strength and devel- 
 opment. If we are as far removed from a solution of any onto- 
 logical problem as we were in the days of Proclus, we are not 
 nearly so ignorant of the laws of mental operation. Psychology 
 is not a mature science yet ; but it boasts of some indisputable 
 truths. Although much remains to do, much also has been 
 done ; and whatever be the ultimate results of the new Method, 
 it is satisfactory to feel that we have at least escaped from the 
 vicious circle of verbal quibbling and logomachy, and are advan- 
 cing on a straight road, every step bringing us nearer to positive 
 knowledge, every addition being that of inalienable truth. 
 
 Modern philosophy staked its pretensions on the one ques- 
 tion : Have we any ideas independent of experience ? This was 
 asking, in other words. Have we any organon of Philosophy ? 
 
 The answer always ends in a negative. If any one, therefore, 
 remain unshaken by the accumulated proofs this History alFords 
 of the impossibility of Philosophy, let him distinctly bear in 
 mind that the first problem he must solve is. Have we ideas in- 
 dependent of experience ? Let him solve that ere he begins tc 
 peculate. 
 
4 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 'A 
 
 J 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abelard, his character, hirth, de- 
 scent, studies, 346 ; love of dia- 
 lectics, taste for notoriety, personal 
 appearance, triumph over his mas- 
 ter, origin of his misfortunes, 348 ; 
 establishes a school of philosophy, 
 his debate with Champeaux, 349 ; 
 his brilliant career, intrigue with 
 Heloise, 350-355 ; becomes a monk, 
 founds the convent of the Para- 
 clete, his philosophy and contribu- 
 tions to the development of specu- 
 lation, 355 ; peculiarity of his doc- 
 trine, 357-859 ; object of his work 
 Introductio ad Theulogiam, his trea- 
 tise Sic et Non, 359. 
 
 Academy, the New, difference be- 
 tween the skepticism of the New 
 Academicians and that of the Pyr- 
 rhonists, 293 ; its derivation from 
 Plato explained, 296. 
 
 Academicians, the New, problem re- 
 specting perception presented by 
 them, 298-304. 
 
 Alcibiades, his description of Socra- 
 tes, 123. 
 
 Algazzali: birth, parentage, studies, 
 profession, 363 ; resemblance be- 
 tween him and Descartes, 363 ; his 
 skepticism, 364 ; his examination 
 of doctrines held by the faithful, 
 366 ; his career and endeavors to 
 attain the ecstatic state, 367 ; his 
 attempts to prove the existence of 
 prophetism, 369. 
 
 Alexandrian schools, the, 307; schools 
 of philosophy formed at Alexandria, 
 308 ; illustrious men assembled 
 there, 809 ; direction given to the 
 mind by the Alexandrian school, 
 313 ; in what its originality con- 
 sists, its dialectics, 315 ; its theories 
 of inspiration, 819 ; the Alexandrian 
 Trinity, 320-324 ; similarity of the 
 Alexandrian Trinity to that of Spi- 
 noza, 326 ; aim of the Alexandrian 
 school, 833 ; its termination in Pro- 
 clus, 336. 
 
 Ameinias, his statement respecting 
 Parmenides, 49. 
 
 Anaximander, his birth, inventions 
 ascribed to him, 10 ; astronomical 
 and mathematical knowledge, lead- 
 er of a colony to Apollonia, resi- 
 dence at the court of Polycrates, 
 doctrines and speculations, 11 ; his 
 distinction between finite things 
 and the Infinite All, 13 ; his specu- 
 lations wholly deductive, 14 ; his 
 physical speculations, 15 ; harmony 
 between him and Pytliagoras, 83. 
 
 Anaximenes, doctrines of, a develop- 
 ment of those of Thales, his birth- 
 place, his theory respecting air, 6 ; 
 his doctrine an advance on Thales, 7. 
 
 Anaxagoras : birth, patrimony, char- 
 acter, passion for philosophy, and 
 residence at Athens, 71 ; his pov- 
 erty, career as a teacher, pupils, 
 accusation, banishment, death, 72 ; 
 his philosophy, 72 : leading doc- 
 trines, 74; cosmology, 75 ; his re- 
 jection of Fate and Chance, 76 ; 
 Plato’s objection to him, 78 ; his 
 notion respecting Intelligence, 80 ; 
 mistakes made by him, inapplica- 
 bility of the title JSclectic to him, 82 ; 
 admission of both Sense and Kea- 
 son into his system, 83. 
 
 Antisthenes, his life, teachers, sys- 
 tem, 177 ; his manners and gloomy 
 temper, school founded by him, 178. 
 
 Arabians, two great epochs in the in- 
 tellectual development of the, 369 ; 
 Arabian philosophy, 361 ; Arabian 
 philosophers, their familiarity with 
 Greek writers, 362 ; obligations of 
 Europe to, 370. 
 
 Arcesilaus: birth, studies, promotion 
 to the academic chair, character, 
 death, 294 ; his doctrine of a acata- 
 lepsy, 297. 
 
 Archytas and Timjeus, works attrib- 
 uted to them, spurious, 24. 
 
 Aristippus, founder of the Cyrenaic 
 school ; nis acquaintance with Soc- 
 
792 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 rates, 173; residence at Corinth; 
 disposition and character, return 
 to Cyrene, 174; his pliilosophy, a 
 precursor of Epicureanism, its re- 
 lation to Socrates, 175 ; his doc- 
 trine of pleasure, 177. 
 
 Aristotle : birth, origin, 241 ; educa- 
 tion, visit to Athens, 242 ; writes 
 \\\s History nf AnimaU, 243; founds 
 the school of the Peripatetics, in- 
 fluence of his writings, 244 ; nature 
 of his method, 246 ; difference be- 
 tween him and Plato, 247 ; his doc- 
 trine of induction, 249 ; commence- 
 ment of positive science in Aris- 
 totle’s method, 250 ; difference be- 
 tween the Aristotelian method and 
 the method of positive science, 250 ; 
 difference between Aristotle’s and 
 Plato’s use of the term dialectics, 
 252 ; his categories, 255 ; object of 
 his logic, 256 ; his propositions, 
 257 ; his definition of the syllo- 
 gism, 259 ; his metaphysics, 261 ; 
 errors in his theory, 262 ; his va- 
 rious doctrines, 263 ; compared 
 with Plato, his versatile intellect, 
 264 ; results of his labors, 266 ; 
 his long authority explained, 372; 
 his influence on the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, 378. 
 
 Authority and Liberty, principles 
 of, 371. 
 
 flacon, Francis : birth, ancestry, edu- 
 cation, 398 ; visits France, kudies 
 common law, distinguished as an 
 orator, 399 ; sworn a member of the 
 Privy Council, appointed keeper of 
 the Great Seal ; created Baron Ver- 
 ulam, accused of corruption, 400 ; 
 impeached, retires from public life, 
 401 ; his death, his method, 402 ; 
 his four classes of idols, 402 ; his 
 de.9cription of induction, 404 ; his 
 doctrine illustrated, 405 ; his Pre- 
 rogative Instants, 406 ; distinguish- 
 ing characteristic of his philosophy, 
 408 ; his chief merit, 409 ; division 
 of his method into two parts, his 
 Aphorisms, 410 ; positive tendency 
 of his speculations, 411 ; his sepa- 
 ration of science from theology il- 
 lustrated, 412; his declaration re- 
 specting physios, 413 ; his testimo- 
 nies to the genius and errors of the 
 ancients, 415 ; the groundwork of 
 his Organum, 416 ; his constant 
 aim, 417 ; inquiry into the ori- 
 ginality and usefulness of his 
 method, objections brought against 
 
 it by Le Maistre and Macaulay re- 
 futed, 420^34. 
 
 Baillarger, M., his method for meas- 
 uring the surfaces of the brain, 766. 
 
 Belief and perception, dilference be- 
 tween, 585. 
 
 Berkeley, George : birth, education, 
 publication of his writings, visit to 
 London, reception there, character, 
 548 ; career, travels, preferment, 
 visit to America, return to Eng-_ 
 land, made Bishop of Cloyne, re-' 
 mova. to O.xford, death, his ideal- 
 ism, 549 ; misunderstanding of 
 him by his critics, his rejection of 
 the noumenon explained, 550 ; ac- 
 cusation brought against him re- 
 futed, doctrine of the reality of 
 things maintained by him, 552 ; 
 his definition of substance, 553; his 
 starting-point, 556 ; his theory of 
 the origin of knowledge, 557 ; ker- 
 nel of his system, 558 ; his identi- 
 fication of the object with sensa- 
 tion, 559 ; fundamental principle 
 of Ids theory, 560; his refutation 
 of realism, 561 ; his triumph over 
 dualism, 563 ; liis theory irrefuta- 
 ble, 564 ; his main position incon- 
 trovertible, 566 ; causes of his fail- 
 ure, results of his labors, 569. 
 
 Brain, function of the, 597 ; discrep- 
 ancies in the size of the, 767. 
 
 Bruno, Giordano, his martyrdom, 
 373; rarity of his works, 374; his 
 birth and disposition, character, 
 adopts the Dominican frock, 375 ; 
 his doubts on transubstantiation 
 and respecting Aristotle, his ad- 
 venturous course, 376 ; his perse- 
 cutions, 377 ; his teachers, 379 ; 
 his position among teachers, his 
 travels and adventures, 379-384 ; 
 flight to 'Venice, thrown into pris- 
 on, 385 ; sent to Rome, excommuni- 
 cated and perishes at the stake, 
 386 ; historical value of his system, 
 character of his writings, 388 ; his 
 anticipation of Spinoza and Des- 
 cartes, impulse given by him to the 
 study of Nature, 390 ; his creed, 
 391 ; grandeur of his system, 392 ; 
 his comedy, 393 ; his various writ- 
 ings, 394-397. 
 
 Cabanis, Pierre Jean Georges, 740 ; 
 physiological method to be sought 
 m him, 742 ; birth, profession, res- 
 idence at Auteuil, death, his work 
 entitled Rapports en Physique, hia 
 position in toe history of philoso 
 
INDEX. 
 
 793 
 
 phy, 742 ; his recognition of the 
 unity of life and mind, 743 ; his 
 predecessors, his physiological psy- 
 chology, 744; results of his survey 
 of the human organism, 746 ; object 
 of his treatise, 746 ; popularity and 
 influence of his work, 747. 
 
 Oariieades, birth, teachers, promo- 
 tion to the academic chair, sent as 
 ambassador to Eome, 295 ; influ- 
 ence, return to Athens, death, 296. 
 
 Cartesian doctrine, 454. 
 
 Causation, defined, 586 ; weakness of 
 the theory of, e.vposed, 662 ; in- 
 stinctive belief in causation proved 
 to be false, 666 ; belief in causa- 
 tion, on what founded, 668 ; uni- 
 versal causation, source of the be- 
 lief in, 664 ; reflection required for 
 the belief in, not an instinct, 666. 
 
 Century, the si.vteenth, its place in 
 history, 377. 
 
 Certainty, how attainable, xxxiv. 
 
 Christology, Hegelian, Spinoza’s an- 
 ticipation of, 466. 
 
 Collard, Eoyer, 772. 
 
 Common sense philosophy, failure of 
 and benefits conferred by, 629. 
 
 Comte, Auguste : historical position, 
 nature of his method, 776 ; his 
 Cours de Philosophie Positive, 'I’ll ; 
 his inauguration of a philosophy of 
 science, 778 ; his three initial con- 
 ceptions, 779 ; his fundamental .aw 
 of evolution, 780 ; nature of, 781 ; 
 its three stages not strictly chrono- 
 logical, 782 ; his classification of the 
 fundamental sciences, 785 ; his in- 
 fluence, 787. 
 
 Condillac, Etienne de, birth, career, 
 publication of his essay, appointed 
 tutor to the Prince of Parma, made 
 a member of the French Academy, 
 publication of his Logie, death, 589 ; 
 the representative of Locke in 
 France, object of his TraiU des Sen- 
 sations, peculiarity of his system, 
 590 ; his misconception of Locke, 
 his doctrine refuted, 591 ; his error 
 respecting the mental faculties, 
 592 ; his theory of sensations, 593 ; 
 his definition of ideas, 594 ; the 
 systematic error of his system, 597 ; 
 examined into, 598, 599 ; destruc- 
 tion of the basis of his system, his 
 discovery tliat our faculties are not 
 innate or even connate, 600 ; merits 
 of his works and style, his want of 
 ■1 true psychological method, 602. 
 
 0- nseiousness, limitation of, 451. 
 
 0( ntinuity, law of, 405. 
 
 Cousin, Victor, 772. 
 
 Cranioscopy, 755-759; difficulties be- 
 setting, 760. 
 
 Cyrenaic school, the, 173. 
 
 Cynic school, the, 177 ; effect created 
 by the school in Athens, * great 
 qualities of its disciples, 181 ; causes 
 of the want of respect felt ffir them, 
 182. 
 
 Dareste, Camille, his researches into 
 the convolutions of the brain, 766. 
 
 Darwin, Erasmus : birth, studies, 
 profession, his poem of the Botanie 
 Garden, his Zoonomia, his theory 
 the same as Hartley’s, his defini- 
 tion of the word idea, 609 ; his 
 conception of psychology, 610 ; hi“ 
 theory of vibrations, explanation of 
 perception, 615; theory of beauty, 
 616. 
 
 Definitions, employment of, by Soc- 
 rates, 153 ; importance of, in the 
 Socratic method, 156 ; in what they 
 consist, 253. 
 
 Democritus, the laughing philoso- 
 pher: birth, 94; character, station, 
 career, anecdotes respecting, ob- 
 scurity of his philosophy, difficulty 
 of assigning him a position, 94 ; 
 differences between him and other 
 schools, nature of his doctrine and 
 teaching, his identification of sensa- 
 tion and thought, 95 ; his doctrine 
 of reflection, 96 ; his hypothesis to 
 explain perception, 98 ; his doctrine 
 of atomism, 99; superiority of his 
 system, 100. 
 
 Descartes, Eenc : birth, parentage, 
 precocity, studies, 435 ; travels, 
 pursuits, 436 ; conceives the design 
 of a reformation in philosophy, 
 publication of his Discourse on 
 Method, sensation produced by it, 
 visit to Stockholm, death, 437 ; 
 character, 438 ; causes which led 
 him to the invention of his method, 
 439 ; logical imperfection of his 
 Cogito, ergo Sum, 440 ; vital portion 
 of his system, 441 ; psychological 
 portion, 442 ; mathematical or de- 
 ductive portion, 443; differences 
 and resemblances between him and 
 Bacon, nature and tendency of his 
 method, 445 ; applications of h:s 
 method, 446 ; weakness of his at- 
 tempts to demonstrate the exist- 
 ence of God, 447 ; physical specu- 
 lations, 448 ; position, 450 ; his 
 criterion examined, fallacy of his 
 system, 451 ; fallacy of his notion 
 
794 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 that the mind is a passive recipient, 
 4.'i3 ; his doctrine respecting innate 
 ideas, 454. 
 
 Dialectics, Zeno of Elea, tlie inventor 
 of, 57 ; creation of, to what owing, 
 
 62.’ 
 
 Diogenes of Apollonia : birth, tenets, 
 7; theory of life, 8; the last ancient 
 philosopher attached to the physi- 
 cal method, 9. 
 
 Diogenes of Sinope : birth, parent- 
 age, flight to Athens, poverty, life, 
 179; his ostentation, 182; charac- 
 teristics, death, 184. 
 
 Eclecticism, 769 ; origin and growth 
 of, 771 ; definition of, 773 ; crite- 
 rium, necessity of a, 774 ; want of 
 a criterium in the system, 775 ; 
 valuable as a subsidiary process, 
 776. 
 
 Ecstasy, faculty of, place it holds in 
 Neo-Platonism, 318. 
 
 Ego, the activity and passivity of the, 
 696. 
 
 Eleatics, the, 37. 
 
 Empedocles, contrary opinions as to 
 the place occupied by him, 83 ; in- 
 terpretation of the disputed pas- 
 sage in Aristotle respecting, 84 ; 
 Dirth, station, espousal of the dem- 
 ocratic party, travels, character, 
 and anecdotes respecting him, 86 ; 
 uncertainty as to his teachers and 
 his writings, 88 ; diversity of opin- 
 ion with respect to his position sig- 
 nificant, his relation to the Eleatic 
 school, his resemblance to Zenoph- 
 anes, 88; his attempts to prove the 
 existence of Reason and of the Di- 
 vine Nature, 90 ; his attacks on an- 
 thropomorphism, 90 ; his relation 
 to the Pythagorean school, 91 ; ad- 
 vance made by him on Anaxago- 
 ras’s doctrine, 92 ; his conception 
 oi God, 93. 
 
 Epicureans, the, 274. 
 
 Epicurus: birth, origin, and educa- 
 tion, 274; ids travels, opening of 
 his school in the garden, his char- 
 acter, accusations brought against 
 him refuted, misrepresentations of 
 bis doctrine, 275; dislike fell for 
 him by the Stoics, 276; his doc- 
 trine and system, 277, 278; his 
 ethical doctrine, psychology and 
 physics, 279 ; his doctrine review- 
 ed, 2S0. 
 
 Epochs in Philosophy : first epoch — 
 speculations on the nature of the 
 universe, 1 : second epoch — specu- 
 
 lations on the creation of the uni 
 verse and the origin of knowledge, 
 63 ; third epoch — intellectual crisis, 
 101 ; fourth epoch — a new era 
 opened, 122 ; fifth epoch — partial 
 adoption of the Socratic method, 
 169 ; sixth epoch — complete adop- 
 tion of the yooratic method, 186 ; 
 seventh epoch — philosophy again 
 
 ■ reduced to a system, 241 ; eighth 
 epoch — second crisis of Greek phi- 
 losophy, 268 ; ninth epoch — phi- 
 losophy allies itself with faith, 307 ; 
 conclusion of ancient philosophy, 
 336. Transition period, 343. First 
 epoch, foundation of the inductive 
 method, 398 ; second epoch — foun- 
 dation of the deductive method, 
 435; third epoch — philosophy re- 
 duced to a question of psychology, 
 495 ; fourth epoch — the subjective 
 nature of knowledge leads to ideal- 
 ism, 548 ; fifth epoch — the argu- 
 ments of idealism carried out into 
 skepticism, 570 ; sixth epoch — the 
 origin of knowledge referred to 
 sensation, 589 ; seventh epoch — 
 second crisis, 618 ; eighth epoch — 
 recurrence to the fundamental 
 question respecting the origin of 
 knowledge, 630 ; ninth epoch — on- 
 tology reasserts its claim, 675 ; 
 tenth epoch — psychology seeking 
 its basis in physiology, 740 ; elev- 
 enth epoch — philosophy finally re- 
 linquishing its place in favor of 
 positive science, 769. 
 
 Euclid of Megara ; birth, delight in 
 listening to Socrates, 170; his re- 
 semblance to the Eleatics, his dia- 
 lectics, 172. 
 
 E.xistence, belief in, 583. 
 
 Experience, dispute concerning, 546 ; 
 the foundation of our belief in 
 causality, 663. 
 
 Experimentum crucis, value of the, 
 408. 
 
 Feathers, the Christian, 343. 
 
 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb : birth, pre- 
 cociousness, 675 ; anecdotes of, 676, 
 677; education, 678 ; life at Schulp- 
 forte, 679 ; becomes a candidatui 
 theologia., residence in Switzerland, 
 acquaintance with Kant’s writ- 
 ings, 681 ; writes an abridgment of 
 Kant’s Kritik, 683; extracts from 
 his journal, made professor of phi- 
 losophy at Jena, 684; residence at 
 Berlin, 685 ; death, character, his- 
 torical position, 686 ; his opinions, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 795 
 
 hia definition of faith, and place 
 occupied by it in his system, 688 ; 
 basis of his system, 69u ; ids doc- 
 trine of the Ego and Non-Ego, 
 691 ; his doctrine of the identity 
 of Subject and Object, 692 ; his 
 doctrine of the Will, 693 ; his 
 idealism, his distinction between 
 the Ego and Non-Ego, 694; differ- 
 ence between him and Berkeley, 
 698 ; application of his idealism, 
 his doctrine of the aim of man’s 
 existence, 699 ; his definition of 
 Duty, his doctrine of the condition 
 of existence and the freedom of the 
 Ego, 700; his opinions respecting 
 God, 701; his philosophy of his- 
 tory, 702. ■ 
 
 Gall, Francis Joseph : birth, atten- 
 tion early called to phrenology, 
 lectures at Vienna, 749; Gall and 
 Spurzheim visit Paris, quarrel be- 
 tween them, his historical position, 
 services rendered by him to phys- 
 iology and psychplogy, 752; his 
 infiuence, 753 ; his systematization 
 of the affective faculties, 755 ; his 
 anatomy of the nervous system, 
 761 ; consequence of the abandon- 
 ment of Gall’s method, 763; his 
 predecessors, necessary rejection 
 of his system, 764. 
 
 German Pantheists, 706. 
 
 Greek ethics, their range, 337. 
 
 Greek inquiry, its results, 337. 
 
 Greek philosophy, nature of the sec- 
 ond crisis of, 306. 
 
 Greek speculation, conclusions ar- 
 rived at after reviewing the history 
 of, 327. 
 
 Hartiey, David : birth, parentage, 
 studies, profession, 603 ; publica- 
 tion of his Treatise, misapprehen- 
 sion of him by Dr. Parr, death, 
 604 ; character, his system, hia 
 definition of man, 605 ; his opinions 
 respecting mind and matter, 606 ; 
 his theory of vibrations, applica- 
 tion of the doctrine of association, 
 607 ; position occupied by him, 608. 
 
 Hegel, George Frederick William, 
 birth, education, residence at Tu- 
 bingen, intimacy with Scheliing, 
 715; residence at Jena, publica- 
 tion of his dissjrtation I)e Orbitis 
 and his essay Grlanben und Wissen, 
 intimacy with Goethe and Schiller, 
 lectures at Jena, publishes his 
 Phdnomenologie, 716 ; leaves Jena 
 
 for Bamberg and Nurnbeig, mar- 
 riage, residence at Heidelberg, pub- 
 lishes his Encyclopddie, made pro- 
 fessor at Berlin, death, his method, 
 teaching, 717 ; Ids position, inven- 
 tion of a new method, 718; nature 
 of his method, 719 ; results of his 
 method, 720; his doctrine respect- 
 ing contraries, 721 ; process of his 
 law respecting contraries, 722 ; his 
 notion of God, his method, whith- 
 er it led him, 723 ; similarity to 
 Hume, 724; estimate of his phi- 
 losophy by his disciples, 725 ; his 
 greatness, uselessness and perni- 
 ciousness of his system, 726 ; his 
 logic, in what it consists, first prop- 
 osition in his logic, how treated by 
 him, 727, 730 ; his system, why 
 overrated, 731 ; application of his 
 method, 732; his Philosophy of 
 Nature, 733; his Philosophy of In- 
 telligence, his Lectures on History, 
 734; Philosophy of Religion^ 736; 
 applicability of his method to all 
 subjects, 737 ; analysis of his History 
 of Philosophy, 738 ; editions and 
 abridgments of his works, 739. 
 
 Heloise, her history, 350-355. 
 
 Heraclitus, the crying philosopher, 
 his origin, birth, and character, 
 64; his philosophy, tendency of 
 his doctrines, contradiction' be- 
 tween him and Xenophanes, 65 ; 
 a materialist, 66 ; hia doctrine a 
 modification of the Ionian system, 
 69 ; his explanation of phenomena, 
 70; his office negative, 70. 
 
 History, two principal epochs in, 703. 
 
 Hobbes, Thomas, depreciation of, 
 his errors, writings, 495 ; his style 
 and matter, 496 ; his position in 
 the history of philosophy ; 497 ; 
 the precursor of the eighteenth 
 century-school of psychology, his 
 discovery respecting our sensa- 
 tions, 498 ; his definition of imagi- 
 nation, 500 ; definition of memory, 
 501 ; association of ideas demon- 
 strated by him, 502 ; his psychol- 
 ogy, 504 ; definition of understand- 
 ing, 505. 
 
 Humanity, five periods in the life of, 
 704. 
 
 Hume, David, birth, parentage, visit 
 to France, 570; publication of his 
 treatise on Human Nature, and his 
 Essays, travels, publication of hia 
 Political Discourses and his In- 
 quiry, appointed librarian to the 
 Faculty of Advocates, publication 
 
796 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 of his Ilistonj of England, his 
 death and cliaractor, 571 ; his skep- 
 ticism, liis influouco on specula- 
 tion, his theory respecting matter 
 and mind, 572; unreasonableness 
 of the objections to l.im, 573 ; his 
 theory of the source of our reason- 
 ing, 574; charges brought against 
 him refuted, 575; nature of his 
 mission, 576 ; his skepticism, na- 
 ture of, 577 ; his theory of causa- 
 tion, 578 ; source of the opposition 
 to it, 579, 580 ; incompetency of 
 his explanation of our belief in 
 causation, 581. 
 
 Idealism, unsatisfactory nature of, 
 569 ; idealistic arguments answer- 
 ed, 566 ; errors and truths in the 
 system, 568. 
 
 Idea, use of the word, 558. 
 
 Ideas, innate, doctrine of, antici- 
 pated by Parmenides, 50 ; ideas, 
 innate, 453; inquiry into the ori- 
 gin of, by Locke, 518; theory of 
 fundamental ideas, 583. 
 
 Induction and Syllogism, distinction 
 between, 258; nature of induction, 
 404; how to be conducted, 405; 
 co-ordination of its elements into 
 a compact body of doctrine, 409 ; 
 difference between simple-incau- 
 tious, and cautious-methodical, 
 423 ; a graduated and successive, 
 insisted upon, 426 ; ordinary con- 
 fused with scientific, 427 ; induc- 
 tive method as distinguished from 
 induction, inductive rules', im- 
 portance of, overrated by Bacon, 
 428. 
 
 Intellectual operations explained, 
 xxix. 
 
 Intuitional reason, assumption re- 
 specting, XXV. 
 
 Ionian school, distinctive character- 
 istics of, 2. 
 
 Jouflfroy, Thomas, 772. 
 
 Kant, birth, parentage, education, 
 ursuits, character, life at Konigs- 
 erg, 630; publication of his Ori- 
 tique of Pare Reason, 631 ; death, 
 relation to Swedenborg, 632 ; his- 
 torical position, clearness of his 
 system, 633 ; object he had in 
 view, 634; his inquiry into the na- 
 ture of experience, his criticism of 
 the operation of the mind, problem 
 he set himself to solve, his concep- 
 tion of a purely critical philosophy. 
 
 635; his theory of knowledge, 686; 
 his theory of the purpose of criti- 
 cism, ^ 637 ; his answer to the 
 skeptic and dogmatist, 639 ; dif- 
 ference between him and Hume, 
 his theory of the veracity of con- 
 sciousness, 640; leading points of 
 his analysis of the mind, his divi- 
 sion of judgments into analytic 
 aiid synthetic, 641 ; his theory that 
 mind does add something to sense- 
 experience, 642 ; his psychology, 
 object of his Critique, 644 ; his in- 
 quiry into the objective reality of 
 space and time, 646 ; his analy&is 
 of the forms of the understanding, 
 647 ; his Categories, his inquiry 
 into the pure forms of reason, 648 ; 
 his theory of the office of reason, 
 his theory of the three pure forms 
 of reason, 649 ; consequences of 
 his psychology, 650 ; his theory of 
 an external world, 651 ; his theory 
 of the constitution of knowledge, 
 his assumption of the impo.ssibility 
 of ontology as a science, 652 ; re- 
 sults of his analysis, 653 ; his 
 theory of moral certitude, of the 
 freedom of the will, 654; funda- 
 mental principles, examination of, 
 655 ; vital point in his system, 
 656 ; his theory of causation and 
 doctrine of necessary truths, 657- 
 
 659 ; his distinction between a 
 pure and an empirical cognition, 
 
 660 ; his views on causation re- 
 stated by Whewell, 661-664 ; erroi 
 in his theory of causation, 665-667 ; 
 latest development of his doctrine, 
 668; his doctrine of fundamental 
 ideas, 669 ; his notion of progres- 
 sive intuition, 670-673; result of 
 his system, 674. 
 
 Leibnitz : his arguments against 
 
 Locke, reputation as a philosopher 
 and mathematician, 541 ; influence 
 of the ancients over him, 542; his 
 arguments respecting universality 
 and necessity, his doctrine of ne- 
 cessary truths, 543; real force of 
 his theory, 545. 
 
 Locke, John : birth, parentage, edu- 
 cation, life at Oxford, contempt for 
 university studies, 506 ; his pro- 
 ficiency in medicine, turns his at- 
 tention tc polities, travels, plans 
 his Essay, 507 ; returns to Oxford, 
 is deprived of his studentship, 
 goes to the Hague, publication ol 
 his letter on Toleration, returns to 
 
INDEX. 
 
 797 
 
 England, publication of his Essay, 
 its success, opposition excited, ac- 
 uaintance with Newton, 50S ; 
 eath, spirit of his writings, charges 
 brought against him, 509 ; proof 
 that he did not borrow from 
 Hobbes, 510, 511 ; his good quali- 
 ties and originalitj-, 512 ; his esti- 
 mate of the value of hypothesis, 
 his readiness to change his opin- 
 ions, 513 ; characteristics of his 
 Essay, 514 ; his method, 515 ; the 
 founder of modern psyohclogy, 
 516 ; object he had in view, 517 ; 
 plan laid down by him in the con- 
 Quct of his inquiry, 518 ; his posi- 
 tivism, 519 ; his theory of the origin 
 of our ideas, 521 ; and of the origin 
 of our knowledge, 523 ; his defini- 
 tion of reflection and sensation, 
 525 ; elements of idealism and 
 skepticism in his system, 527 ; his 
 theory of the primary and second- 
 ary qualities of bodies, 528 ; his 
 anticipation of the doctrine of cau- 
 sation, 529 ; his deflnition of knowl- 
 edge, his doctrine respecting sim- 
 ple and complex ideas, 530 ; his 
 denunciation of skepticism, 532 ; 
 object of his essay, 533 ; his critics, 
 533-539 ; careful study of him rec- 
 ommended, 540. 
 
 Logic, definition of, 252 ; object of 
 Aristotle’s logic, 256 ; bad logic de- 
 fined, 585. 
 
 Macaulay, his argument against the 
 originality and usefulness of Ba- 
 con’s method refuted, 420-434. 
 
 Materialism, principle of, stated, 493. 
 
 Mathematicians, the, 10 ; collision be- 
 tween the mathematical and physi- 
 cal systems, 62. 
 
 Megaric school, the, 169. 
 
 Metaphysics, science of, denied by 
 tlie Sophists, 121 ; three questions 
 propounded by metaphysics, an- 
 swered by the Alexandrian school, 
 328 ; metaphysical and scientific 
 methods, germinal difference be- 
 tween, xxii ; irrationality of spec- 
 ulation or nictaphysics, xxxi. 
 
 Method, estimate of, by Socrates, 
 158 ; peculiarities of a philosophi- 
 cal method, Soeratic method, its 
 vagueness, 169 ; Aristotle’s method, 
 246 ; spirit of Bacon’s method, 408 ; 
 method of verification, 410 ; useful- 
 ness of Bacon’s method, 427 ; radi- 
 cal defect of Bacon’s method, 429 ; 
 Bacon’s method only indirectly use- 
 63 
 
 ful, 432 ; Bacon’s method latent in 
 the spirit of the age, no evidence 
 against his originality, 433 ; full es- 
 tablishment of the deductive meth- 
 od, 444 ; Descartes’ method, good- 
 ness of, examined, 449 ; Spinoza’s 
 method, novelty of, 472; Locke’s 
 method, 515 ; Hegel’s method, 717 ; 
 the history of the rise of the psy- 
 chological method, 740 ; the posi- 
 tive method, 776; value of the 
 positive method, 784; illustrations 
 of the superiority of the positive 
 method, 785; the birth of the new 
 method, xfi. 
 
 Mill, John, his strictures on the dog- 
 ma cessante causa cessat et effectus, 
 537. 
 
 Mysticism, infusion of, into philoso- 
 phy, 331. 
 
 Neo-Platonism, antagonism between 
 it and Christianity, causes of its 
 failure, 314; Neo-Platonic theory 
 of God, 322; Neo-Platonic doctrine 
 of emanation, Neo-Platonic theory 
 of the origin of the world, 323 ; 
 their doctrine respecting God, 329. 
 
 Nominalism, dispute concerning, ,346. 
 
 Object, the, and sensation, want of 
 correspondence between, 303, 
 
 Ontological speculations, basis of all 
 modern, 455. 
 
 Parmenides, his birth, 48 ; wealth and 
 devotion to study, his politics, char- 
 acteristics of his philosophy, 49 ; 
 his doctrine respecting the duality 
 of thought, 50 ; hij antithesis to 
 idla always ulans, 53 ; central point 
 in his system, his notion on the 
 science of Being, 53 ; his doctrine 
 of the identity of thought and ex- 
 istence, 54; his physical specula- 
 tions, ideal element introduced in- 
 to his speculations, skeptical tend- 
 ency of his doctrines, 55. 
 
 Perception and reasoning, difference 
 between, xxv ; perception and sen- 
 sation, difference between, xxvi; 
 nature of perception defined, 301 ; 
 process of, 611. 
 
 Philo: birth, genius, education, his 
 teachers, Greek and Oriental ele- 
 ments of his mind, 310 ; agreement 
 and difference between him and 
 Plato, 311 ; his theology, 312. 
 
 Philosophy, distinction between it 
 and science, present decadence of, 
 circular movement of, xi ; spectacle 
 
798 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 presented by the history of, xii ; 
 delinition of, ancient pliilosophy es- 
 sentially metaphysical, xiii; supe- 
 riority of science to, xiv ; charac- 
 teristics of, XV ; difference between 
 and science illustrated, xvi; re- 
 garded as a system of credit, xxii ; 
 contrast between pliilosophy and 
 science, xxii ; proved to be impos- 
 sible, XXX ; the initiator of science, 
 xxxi ; purpose of the author in 
 writing the liistory of, xxxi ; mor- 
 al pliilosophy created by Socrates, 
 266 ; conclusion of ancient philoso- 
 phy, 336 ; influence of, 337 ; Chris- 
 tian philosophy a misnomer, phi- 
 losophy, in what it consists, 338; 
 modern philosophy, commence- 
 ment of, mediseval philosophy, 343 ; 
 influence of Aristotle over mediae- 
 val philosophy, 345 ; emancipation 
 of philosophy, 370; fundamental 
 question of modern, 455 ; first cri- 
 sis in modern philosophy, 493 ; re- 
 action against the eighteenth cen- 
 tury philosophy, 769-771; office of 
 positive philosophy, 779 ; reduc- 
 tion of positive philosophy into five 
 fundamental sciences, 787 ; two 
 characteristics of modern philoso- 
 phy, present condition of, impos- 
 sibility of a, 788. 
 
 Phenomena, order of their depend- 
 ence, 786. 
 
 Phrenology, rise of, 748 ; changes 
 made in the localization of the or- 
 gans, 750; two distinct aspects of, 
 755; difficulties of, 759 ; proper ob- 
 ject of, 760; assumptions of, 761; 
 initial question affecting, 765; im- 
 ortant poiht it has to determine, 
 66 ; chaotic aspect of, 768. 
 
 Physics, organic and inorganic, treat- 
 ed by the positive method, 786. 
 
 Physicists, the, 1. 
 
 Plato ; interest felt in him, his char- 
 acter, nature of his metaphysics, 
 morals, and politics, 186 ; parent- 
 age, birth, and education, 188; his 
 skepticism, and correction of, by 
 Socrates, his travels, 189 ; his lec- 
 tures, 191 ; their purely argument- 
 ative character, visit to Sicily, 192; 
 sold as a slave, visit to Syracuse, 
 death, disposition, 193 ; character 
 of his writings, 195 ; his Dialogues 
 and Epistles^ various of them spu- 
 rious, 165, 166 ; his opinions illus- 
 , trated in his Dialogues, 197 ; design 
 of his Dialogues, his dialectics, 199 ; 
 attempts to classify his Dialogues, 
 
 chronology of, 201 ; necessity for a 
 positive arrangement of his works, 
 variations in his opinions, 203, 204; 
 new classification of his works pro- 
 posed, purpose of his Dialogues, 
 206 ; his method, nature of his phi- 
 losophy, 207 ; nature of his method, 
 209 ; his conception of philosophy 
 as dialectics, his great dogma, 210 ; 
 his theory of general terms, 212; 
 his doctrine of ideas, 214r-216 ; his 
 psychology illustrated, 216-220 ; his 
 doctrine of innate ideas, 221 ; his 
 doctrine of recollection, 222 ; divi- 
 sion of his philosophy into two 
 branches, 223 ; passage from the 
 Bepuhlic illustrative of his method, 
 224; his doctrine of rational and 
 sensitive souls, his system a resume 
 of the conflicting tendencies of his 
 age, 226 ; summary of his dialectics, 
 227 ; his theology and cosmology, 
 228 ; his analogical reasoning, 229 ; 
 his doctrine of evil, 231 ; doctrine 
 of metempsychosis as applied by 
 him, 232; his view of the beautiful 
 and the good, 233 ; his ethics, 236 ; 
 contradictions in his ethical opin- 
 ions, his Bepuhlto, 236-240. 
 
 Platonic philosophy, central error of, 
 154. 
 
 Platonism, its union with Oriental 
 mysticism, 812. 
 
 Plotinus, 314; his agreement with 
 Plato, 316 ; his resemblance to Ger- 
 man metaphysicians, 324 ; spirit of, 
 revived by Sclielling, 710. 
 
 Position of the Socratic method in 
 the history of speculation, 266. 
 
 Process, the exclusive, necessity of, 
 insisted on, 406. 
 
 Proolus: birth, visit to Alexandria 
 and Athens, his theological tend- 
 ency, 332 ; his estimate of faith, his 
 method, 333 ; his assumption re- 
 specting mathematics, 334 ; his as- 
 sertion respecting the mind, 835; 
 the last of tlie ancient philosophers, 
 336. 
 
 Prophetism, 368. 
 
 Protagoras, the first avowed Sophist, 
 his studies, resemblance between 
 him and Heraclitus, his doctrine of 
 sensation, 116 ; a teacher of moral- 
 ity, 119. 
 
 Psychology, lesson taught by, xxix ; 
 its assumption of the place of on- 
 tology, 493; reason of the im- 
 portance it has assumed, 494; 
 psychological method, history of 
 the, 740; necessity of its estab- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 799 
 
 lishment on a physiological basis, 
 768. 
 
 Pyrrho, founder of the skeptical phi- 
 losophy, contrast between him and 
 Socrates, 268 ; his doctrine, irre- 
 coverability of, 269. 
 
 Pythagoras: birth, 15; one of the 
 great founders of mathematics, fa- 
 bles current about him, 16 ; proba- 
 bility of his having visited Egypt, 
 unlikelihood of his having been in- 
 structed by Egyptian priests, 17 ; 
 invention of the word philosupher 
 by him, 18 ; its interpretation, his 
 secret society, 19 ; political career 
 20 ; residence at Croton, difference 
 between him and his predecessors, 
 21 ; risings against him, death, 22 ; 
 musical scale invented by him, his 
 philosophy, 23 ; his doctrines a con- 
 tinuation of Anaximander’s, uncer- 
 tainty as to the genuineness of the 
 opinions ascribed to him, no peculiar 
 doctrines attributed to him oy Plato 
 and Aristotle, his oral teaching, 24 ; 
 his theory of numbers, 26 ; his doc- 
 trines contained in a few mystical 
 sentences, 30 ; his opinions on sub- 
 sidiary points, his doctrine of the 
 transmigration of souls, 31 ; his doc- 
 trines in relation to the preceding 
 philosophy, 32 ; the representative 
 of the second branch of Ionian phi- 
 losophy, 83. 
 
 Pythagoreans, celebrated, Pythago- 
 rean sehool, its method and ten- 
 dency, why called the mathemati- 
 cal, 25 ; Pythagorean system, a 
 verbal quibble at the foundation of, 
 27 ; Pythagorean formula, mistake 
 as to its meaning by Ritter and 
 others, 28; Pythagorean doctrine, 
 38 ; translations from Aristotle’s 
 Metaphysics respecting, 34-36. 
 
 Realism and Nominalism, origin of the 
 dispute between, 211. 
 
 Reasoning, how conducted in Bacon’s 
 time, 425. 
 
 Reformers, sixteenth century, spirit 
 eommon to the, 377. 
 
 Reid, Thomas ; birth, education, made 
 Professor of Moral Philosophy at 
 Aberdeen, publication of his In- 
 quiry into the Human Mind and of 
 his Essays on the Intellectual Powers, 
 death, his philosophy, 618 ; his mis- 
 statement of Locke, 619 ; his refu- 
 tation of the Ideal theory, 620; his 
 attack on skepticism, 621 ; his the- 
 0 ^ of perception and instinct, 623 ; 
 difference between the Ideal hy- 
 
 pothesis and Reid’s theory, tho 
 great point in his theory, 625 ; his 
 theory of ideas of sensation, 627 ; 
 difference between Reid and Berke- 
 ley, his mistake respecting the ori- 
 gin of knowledge, 628. 
 
 Reminiscence, doctrine of, implied in 
 a passage from the Phmdo, 220. 
 
 Re^blic, the, of Plato, difficulty of 
 determining its date, 201. 
 
 Revolution, the French, and material- 
 ism, fancied association between, 
 770. 
 
 Rome and the Eastern schools of phi- 
 losophy, xxxii ; Roman philosophy, 
 308. 
 
 Sensation, growth of, 525 : impossi 
 bility of displacing by an idea, 596 ; 
 distinction between sensation and 
 ideation, 597 ; sensation independ- 
 ent of thought, 599 ; dependent on 
 the sensational centre, 613 ; visual 
 sensation, how produced, 614. 
 
 Sensation school, the, 589 ; sensation 
 al centres, 598. 
 
 Skeptics, mistakes made by the an- 
 cient, nature of their influence, 
 271 ; main position of skepticism, 
 621 ; skepticism not refuted by 
 Reid’s theory, 622. 
 
 Schelling ; birth, studies at Tubingen, 
 friendship with Hegal, residence at 
 Jena and Berlin, death, 705; his 
 doctrines, his pantheistic tendency, 
 706 ; his improvement on Fichte’s 
 doctrine, 707 ; difference between 
 him and Fichte, the Ego in Sohel- 
 ling’s system, 709 ; function of rea- 
 son in his system, 710 ; three divi- 
 sions in his system, his speculations 
 on Nature, 711 ; luminousness of 
 some of his ideas, 712 ; his opinion 
 of science, results of his specula- 
 tions, 713; similarity and difference 
 between him and Spinoza, differ- 
 ence between their methods, 714. 
 
 Science, linear progress of, xi ; sci- 
 ences, progressive development of, 
 777 ; present condition of, 784. 
 
 Scientifle method, its superiority, 
 xxii. 
 
 Scholasticism, 343 ; manifestations of 
 the philosophical element in, 844. 
 
 Schoolmen, the error committed by, 
 346. 
 
 Scotch philosophy, failure of, 629._ 
 
 Socrates : his opinions respecting 
 Anaxagoras, 78 ; his life, antagon- 
 ism between him and the Sophists, 
 his mission, 122 ; treatment W the 
 
800 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Sophists, effect produced by him, 
 his personal appearance, 123 ; his 
 qualities, 125; his birth, parents, 
 education, and early studies, 127 ; 
 his wife, his military services, 128 ; 
 anecdotes respecting him, 129 ; his 
 public career, 130 ; conduct as Epis- 
 tates, 182; mistaken for a Sophist, 
 133 ; his mode of disputation, 134 ; 
 his tastes and habits, 135 ; his daily 
 occupation, 186 ; his enemies, 137 ; 
 his condemnation, apology for the 
 Athenians, 138 ; his alleged impiety, 
 189 ; his religious opinions, 140; his 
 trial, 141 ; speech made by him, 
 142 ; his behavior in the prospect of 
 death, 143 ; impression produced 
 by it on Phsedo, 144; the closing 
 scene, 145 ; his character, 147 ; his 
 
 E hilosophy, new method invented 
 y him, 148 ; his use of the terms 
 genus and species, 149 ; assertion re- 
 specting his anticipation of Bacon’s 
 method, differences and resem- 
 blances between him and Bacon, 
 151 ; drift of his questioning, 153 ; 
 the founder of a new epoch, 155; 
 his opinion of physical speculation, 
 156 ; philosophic basis given by him 
 to the doctrine of the immortality of 
 the soul, 160; his arguments in fa- 
 vor of a beneficent Providence, 161- 
 165 ; conjectures respecting his de- 
 mon, 166 ; his statement respecting 
 the Divine Voice, 167 ; Socrates’ phi- 
 losophical career justified, 199; sum- 
 mary of the Socratic movement, 
 266 j benefit conferred by the So- 
 cratie epoch, 267, 
 in/phog, meaning of the word, 19. 
 Sophists, the, much calumniated, 102; 
 cause of the dislike felt for them by 
 Plato, 103 ; meaning of the word, 
 104 ; vagueness of the term, 105 ; 
 various assertions respecting them 
 proved to be false, 106 ; their teach- 
 ing, 107 ; art taught by them, not 
 reprehensible, 108 ; art of disputa- 
 tion taught by them, 109 ; their art 
 compared with forensic oratory, 
 111; their popularity, 112; estima- 
 tion of their art by the Greeks, 113 ; 
 doctrines taught by them ethical, 
 examination of their doctrines, 114 ; 
 difference between them and the 
 Skeptics, 118 ; their opinion of ora- 
 tory, the natural production of the 
 opinions of the epoch, 120, 
 
 S luflsm, 369. 
 
 fc.ieculation, tendency of early philo- 
 sophical, 3. 
 
 Spinoza: his childhood, 456; his pa- 
 rents, his early passion for study, 
 his doubts, 457 ; summoned before 
 the Rabbins, withdraws from the 
 synagogue, 458 ; his attempted as- 
 sassination, his excommunication, 
 459 ; his subsequent career, his love 
 for his master’s daughter, 460 ; his 
 disappointment, his Latin studies, 
 461 ; leaves Amsterdam for Ley- 
 den, writes his abridgment of the 
 Meditations of Descartes, sensation 
 produced by it, his residence at the 
 Hague, 462 ; declines the chair of 
 philosophy at Heidelberg, beauty 
 of his course of life, 463 ; his pov- 
 erty, 464; publication ofhis Tracta- 
 tus Theologico-Politicus, 465 ; state 
 of things in Holland on its appear- 
 ance, 466 ; his character, aniuse- 
 ments, death, 468 ; his doctrine, a 
 logical development of the system 
 of Descartes, 469 ; his doctrine of 
 Substance, 470 ; his agreement with 
 Descartes, 471 ; novelty ofhis meth- 
 od, his Definitions, 472 ; his Axioms, 
 474 ; his notions on cause and 
 effect, 475 ; his Propositions and 
 Corollaries, 476-478 ; his proof ot 
 the existence of Substance, his the- 
 ology, 480; his expo.sition of his 
 doctrine completed, causes why it is 
 branded as atheistical, 481 ; his doc- 
 trine of Final Causes, 482; his de- 
 monstration of the anthropomor- 
 phic tendency of judging infinite by 
 finite wisdom, 484; impression left 
 on the mind by his theological sys- 
 tem, 485 ; initial error of his sys- 
 tem, 486 ; whence it arises, 487 ; 
 logical perfection of his system, his 
 criticism of Bacon, 490 ; justifica- 
 tion of his employment of the geo- 
 metrical method, 491. 
 
 Stoics, the, 281 ; Stoical doctrine, 
 analogy between the Stoics and the 
 Scotch philosophers, their ethical 
 doctrine, 289 ; tendency of theii 
 etliical formula, 291 ; mistakes made 
 by them, merits and demerits oi 
 Stoicism, 292. 
 
 Systems,, errors at the root of philo- 
 sophical, 14. 
 
 Table-turning, xv 
 
 Thales, father of Greek speculation, 
 birth, origin of his activity in poli- 
 tics, 1 ; a proficient in mathemati- 
 cal knowledge, 2 ; his attempt to 
 discover the beginning of things, 
 8 ; his philosophy in harmony with 
 
INDEX. 
 
 801 
 
 ancient opinions, wrongly accused 
 of atheism, 4; his speculaticns, in- 
 ductive in their nature, 14. 
 
 Timseus and Archytas, works attrib- 
 uted to them, spurious, 24. 
 
 TimcBus, Aristotle’s comment on the, 
 
 200 . 
 
 Truths, necessary and contingent, 
 671 ; nature of contingent truths, 
 673. 
 
 Universal*, importance of the dispute 
 concerning, 356. 
 
 Van Heusde’s arrangement of Plato’s 
 w’orks, 205. 
 
 Verification of particulars, the distin- 
 guishing characteristic of the sci- 
 entific method, xxx. 
 
 Verification, graduated, systematiza- 
 tion of, 408. 
 
 Villers, Charles, his letter to Cuvier, 
 750. 
 
 Xenophanes : birth, a cultivator of 
 elegi.ac and gnomic poetry, banish- 
 ment, and wanderings as a rhapso- 
 dist, poverty and fanaticism, 37 ; 
 a monotheist, 88 ; his doctrine re- 
 specting Truth, disagreement be- 
 tween his doctrines and those of 
 Pythagoras, few of his rhapsodies 
 extant, 39 ; conclusions arrived at 
 by him, 41 ; the head of the Mono- 
 
 theists and Skeptics, his philoso- 
 phy, attempted solution of the pro- 
 blem of existence, 42 ; explanation 
 of his notion respecting God, con- 
 tradiction between his opinions, 43 ; 
 his pantheism, his monotheism dif- 
 ferent from anthropomorphism, a 
 monotheist only in contradiction to 
 his polytheistical contemporaries, 
 44 ; nature of his skepticism, 46 ; 
 his conceptions of the Deity, 47 ; 
 his influence on the progress of 
 speculation, 48. 
 
 Zeno, alias Palamedes of Elea, 55; 
 character, political activity, cap- 
 tured by Nearchus, 56 ; death, his 
 philosophy, the inventor of dialec- 
 tics, 57 ; the first prose writer, 58 ; 
 diflterence between him and Parme- 
 nides, his doctrine of one existence 
 and many appearances, his argu- 
 ments respecting motion, 59 ; his 
 Achilles puzzle, 60; its refutation, 
 61 ; Zeno, the terminator of the 
 second great line of independent 
 inquiry, 62. 
 
 Zeno, the Stoic : birth, origin, pur- 
 suits, studies, career, 281 ; founds 
 a school, his character, personal ap- 
 pearance, death, 282; his philoso- 
 phy, psychology, 284; bis theory 
 of sensation, 286. 
 
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 are the general, not the special, laws which govern communities of insects composed of 
 inhabitants as numerous as the human beings living in London and Peking, and who labor 
 together in the utmost harmony for the common good. That there are remarkable analo- 
 gies between societies of ants and human beings no one can doubt. If.'accordirg to Mr. 
 Grote, ‘positive morality under some form or other has existed in every society of which 
 the world has ever had experience,’ the present volume is an effort to show whether this 
 passage be correct or noV'—New York Times. 
 
 New York: D. APPLETON & CO,, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 
Date Di?e 
 
 
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 L. B, Gat. No. 1137 
 
L671A V.2 10298