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THE
PHILOSOPHY OF REFLECTION.
LONDON:
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
c.
LW
1636
THE
PHILOSOPHY OF REFLECTION

GENERAL LAD
1
AL LIBRARIES
BY
boere
University
MICHIGAN
SHADWORTH H. HODGSON,
Hon. LL.D. Edin.
AUTHOR OF TIME AND SPACE," " THE-THEORY OF PRACTICE," ETC.
IN THREE BOOKS,
VOL. I.
1
CONTAINING BOOKS I. AND II.
1
Λεπτα δ' άταρπος, νηλεής δ' ανάγκα.
Alcian,
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1878.
[All rights reserved.]
ΤΟ
Keclaas 4-21-31 mint
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
MY FATHER IN PHILOSOPHY,
NOT SEEN BUT BELOVED.
.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
PAGE
PREFACE .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
1
BOOK I.
ANALYSIS OF ASPECTS.
CHAPTER I.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
i. Relation to the Sciences . . .
2. Special relation to Psychology . .
3. The Constructive Branch of Philosophy
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
27
50
76
CHAPTER II.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
1. The Method of Reflection .
2. Its relation to the Primary and Direct Modes
3. Its relation to Perception and Conception
4. Its importance as sole source of verification . .
96
107
126
133
CHAPTER III.
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
1. Self-contradictory nature of Things-in-themselves .
2. Kant's theory of them . . . . .
3. Scientist theories of them . . . . .
4. Scope of the whole question
. 162
. 177
. 186
207
vill
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
BOOK II.
ANALYSIS OF ELEMENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
.
PAGE
219
222
1. The Problems of Philosophy . . .
2. Alignment with Hume, Kant, and Maimon.
3. Analysis of minima of consciousness . .
4. Analysis of the train of percepts . . .
.
. 273
CHAPTER V.
transion
.
.
.
.
.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
1. Analysis of the conceptual process
2. Extension and Intension
. . .
3. The Realistic controversy .
.
4. Extension, Intension, and Comprehension
5. The Logical Categories .
6. Propositions and Reasoning . . .
7. The Logic of Aristotle . .
8. Induction and Syllogism .
9. Meaning of the Copula .
10. The Reflective Categories or Modals .
288
. 308
. 310
321
325
331
338
343
353
361
.
CHAPTER VI.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
1. The Principle of Contradiction :
2. Contradiction in Predication .
3. Contradictory and Contrary propositions .
4. Contraries, Privatives, and Relatives. .
5. Final determination of the Modal Categories .
6. The Logic of Possibility . . . .
7. Concluding remarks . . . . .
373
385
387
391
414
422
· 435
.
PREFACE.
66 Car notre siècle n'a pas encore tout dit."
Viollet-le-Duc.
US-
The purpose of these volumes is, first, to lay down
the outlines, principles, and method of a system of
Metaphysic, basing it upon known facts of conscious-
ness ; next, to show that this system necessitates the
conception of a Constructive Branch of philosophy,
dealing with phenomena which are but very partially
accessible to us; and lastly, to combine these two
branches (the latter given in the merest outline) into
a single System of Philosophy
As the present work completes for me a certain
cycle of thought, I may, perhaps, be permitted to
prefix some remarks on the scope and sources of my
philosophy, which I abstained from doing when I
published its predecessors, “Time and Space” (1865),
and “The Theory of Practice” (1870). It seemed
best to let those works speak for themselves. But
now, as I gather up their results into a more sys-
tematic shape, a word or two of introduction may
not be out of place. There is this advantage in a
preface, that what is there said may often arrest
VOL. I.
в
PREFACE.
attention, when the very same thing in the text,
though possibly said just as well, may be passed over
as unimportant or unintelligible, unless it happens at
once to suggest to the reader some pre-conception of
his own.
My present work, then, is the harvest of my two
former ones; they are the standing corn, this is the
stack. There is a pightel or two added besides. But
it is far from being a mere abridgement or summing
up of their results. A great deal is entirely omitted;
all in fact that was not requisite to the logical
method, articulation, and construction, of a system
of philosophy. Ethical questions, for instance, and
the analysis of emotion and character are hardly
touched on. Some things are completely new, for
instance, the proof of the axiom of uniformity, and
the addition of the constructive branch of philosophy;
but the fundamental conceptions, which are the basis
of the whole, are clearly enunciated, and to a great
extent built upon, in the two former works. The
present work exhibits a system which, in gathering
up and completing their results, at once shows to
what philosophy they lead as their outcome, and is a
means of verifying the truth of their facts and the
justice of their conclusions. If they are true, this will
be the consequence. Does it, or does it not, har-
monise with the results of science, in branches other
than metaphysic?
I deliberately maintain that it does. And then I
say,—If so, we are at last in possession of a meta-
physical system which will not have to be reversed,
however much it may in the future be enlarged and
differentiated. A secure basis, or nucleus, of philo-
sophical doctrine has been found, which must be
PREFACE.
US
included in whatever future systems the course of
time may bring with it. Metaphysic has been organ-
ised, and, within the limits drawn by metaphysic
itself, philosophy has been constituted.
On this subject it would be unbecoming to speak
without extreme caution, and even diffidence. It is
a subject in which experience shows that men are
peculiarly liable to self-deception. The numerous
systems proposed with unhesitating confidence as the
final solution of metaphysical problems, and all in
turn abandoned or forgotten, naturally lead us to
regard all similar attempts as fruits of hallucination,
like the hallucinations which mathematicians ascribe
to squarers of the circle and discoverers of perpetual
motion. The wide-spread prejudice against meta-
physic is therefore not without foundation; and it
becomes necessary for any one who brings forward
a new system in that matter carefully to ask himself
whether he may not be the victim of self-deception,
of an hallucination spreading not over portions only
but over the whole subject, and making him see
metaphysic as a branch of genuine knowledge, when
in truth it is only a mirage of the imagination.
If, however, after such an enquiry he still sees
reason for concluding that the foundations of meta-
physic are certainly true, and that the nature of the
subject is such as to explain the existence of halluci-
nations concerning it, on the supposition that they
are so, then, I think, it is his duty as an enquirer to
avow his conviction, and once more to come forward
with a system which may be the means of bringing
that conviction to the test. This, then, is my posi-
tion. In spite of those repeated failures I still come
forward with another metaphysical system.
ܠܛ
PREFACE.
te
The distrust of metaphysic, which I have already
said has some foundation, though not a sufficient one,
is accompanied with positive dislike. The very name
is unpopular. No one who wished to make his way
in the world would adopt it. Barring theologians
who look upon it as a possible ally, or even entertain
the hope of one day reducing it to the ancient posi-
tion of handmaid to theology, there are few English
writers of weight who, if they have occasion to allude
to it, do not heap scorn and contumely on what they
are pleased to call “metaphysics.” There is, never-
theless, a considerable body of facts bound together
by a method, which can bear no other name so pro-
perly as Metaphysic or Metaphysical Philosophy, mean-
ing that analytic branch of knowledge to which Physic
leads, and which in order of study comes after phy-
sical knowledge. The order of study coincides with
the order which Physic and Metaphysic held to each
other in the arrangement of Aristotle's writings, to
which arrangement the name Metaphysic, Τα μετα τα
puoind, owes its origin.
At the first, no doubt, and in Aristotle's own
mind, metaphysic was identical with ontology. It
was the study which investigated “the existent in
respect of its existence, and its essential attributes in
that respect,” cô by i ốp zai và couvo Dzá Xows
XÚTó. But when that study was stripped of its
absolute character, when the existent,” which is its
object, was shown to be relative and phenomenal,
then the only proper name for it was Metaphysic,
because Ontology carried with it a suggestion of abso-
lute existence. Metaphysic is a general name for
1 Arist. Metaph. 1. 1. p. 1003, a. 21.
PREFACE.
1
the study of existence which implies no assumptions
or foregone conclusions.
Still the dislike to it, name and thing, will never
be removed by remarks of this kind; and uphill work
it must inevitably be, to win even a hearing for any-
thing that shows metaphysical colours, when so many
are committed to an attitude of contemptuous incre-
dulity. Theology has a long train of clients; meta-
physic few or none. Metaphysical writers who are
not also theologians, on some traditional basis or
other, are in England like them that cry in the wil-
derness, their voices once heard and then for ever
inaudible. Such was the subtil and acute author of
Thorndale, William Smith. Such bids fair to be the
philosophic Grote, author of Exploratio Philosophica,
notwithstanding that he has found an editor who from
time to time publishes portions from his manuscripts.
Many such, I do not doubt, have spoken and passed
away. And now comes yet another, to raise their
cry once more, once more perhaps to hear it die away
unanswered. But the time will come, at last it will
come, when a metaphysical system will make its
truth acknowledged, and honour will be done to
those who, in the midst of empiricism, have patiently
though ineffectually reasoned on its principles, then
at last recognised as true.
But to turn to the present system. The principle
which I think I have established beyond the possi-
bility of reversal is that of Reflection. Whatever
other parts of the system may be found untenable,
this will stand. It is nothing else than Descartes'
Cogito ergo sum, analysed and applied. Also, it is
this which makes the system a Metaphysic, and dis-
tinguishes it from an “ Erkenntnisstheorie,” or logic of
PREFACE.
cognition, which is a descendant of Kant's Critic, a
preliminary of metaphysic. Reflection is the founda-
tion of metaphysic because, being the moment of dis-
tinguishing the objective and subjective aspects of
phenomena, it gives us our notion of existence as well
as cognition, and that in the largest sense of the term
existence, so that we cannot speak or even fraine a
notion of anything beyond it. Whatever notion we
frame lies within it, is subjective as well as objective
or imaginary. This notion of subjectivity was what I
attempted to explain in Chapter I., and to enforce in
the Epilogue, of " Time and Space.”
Reflection, then, is the cardinal point of the sys
tem. Next I would call attention to the circumstance,
that the relation of philosophy to science is shown in
it to be a relation not of rivalry but of division of
labour, founded on a philosophical principle of divi-
sion, the distinction between Nature and History.
For the first time, as I believe, a firm line has been
drawn between science and philosophy, without sacri-
ficing the necessary independence of either. If any
choose, after this, to keep within the fruitful limits
of pure science, it is quite open to them to do so, -
Thatła némeubos. But they are thereby setting
themselves a voluntary limitation, which it is more
catholic to overstep.
In close connection with this, I would next point
to what I have already mentioned as a new feature of
the present work, the Constructive Branch of philo-
sophy. The old ontological questions are shown to
belong to this branch, but only when stripped of their
ontological or absolute character. A transformation
of these problems has taken place, and it has been
shown why they are not soluble in their old shape,
PREFACE.
and also in what shape they are conceivably soluble.
The establishment of the Constructive Branch of
philosophy, in dependence on Metaphysic, is the
fulfilment of an anticipatory conception in “Time
and Space,"1 where I have represented metaphysic,
not as the answer, but as the condition of prosecuting
the enquiry into all such great philosophical questions
as: Whence man and the world come, and whither
they go, and what the meaning is of the whole scene
of existence, as it unfolds itself before us.
It will be said, that after all I have not given the
principle or source of existence of the actually known
world. True. But why have I not? Because the
Unseen World must be known first, before we can
point to any one or more principles which make the
existence of our seen world what it is. What Philo-
sophy can do, I have (to the measure of my ability)
done; with what success it is not for me to judge.
I have not attempted what it cannot do. But I have
shown both what things it can, and what it cannot
do, and why.
Next I would remark, that all philosophical sys-
tems, standing as they do in various relations, present
various distinct sides or facets to observation. They
are not like pictures which show a surface only, but
like sculpture which invites inspection from every
side. I will name some of these facets, and the prin-
cipal feature in each, presented by my own system.
They are:
1. In relation to Science,—The distinction be-
tween Nature and History.
1 Part I. Chapter I. p. 14.
PREFACE.
2. In relation to Hume and Kant,—The prin-
ciple of Distinction of Inseparables.
3. In relation to Hegel (the last great system
not recognising a “Thing-in-itself”),—
The nexus of Percepts as prior to the
nexus of Concepts.
4. In relation to Ontology or Absolutism,—The
distinction of a Constructive Branch,
apart from the analytic, in philosophy
5. In relation to the History of Philosophy at
large (which is tantamount to taking the
system per se, as a philosophical system
simply),—The principle of Reflection.
6. In respect of the Logical Movement of
thought within the system itself, and for
avoiding fallacies,—The distinction be-
tween First and Second Intentions.
Some few additional remarks on the foregoing
list. First as to the method itself. This being ana-
lytic, its life and soul must consist in drawing dis-
tinctions. But to draw a distinction is to determine
a relation. The distinctions are therefore also bonds
of union between the things which they distinguish
from each other; and this is why distinguishing pre-
sents us with a system. The system is built up of
distinctions, and I have marked this peculiarity
by taking distinctions as the titles of the several
chapters.
In the logical movement of thought, the first and
most important distinction is that between First and
Second Intentions. The nature and import of this
may be shown by considering, in the case of words,
the two ways in which we use words significantly.
PREFACE.
We use words either denotatively or connotatively;
denotatively when a word is used as a mere mark or
sign to point out which thing of all possible things
we mean to speak of, and connotatively when it is
used to point out a supposed characteristic of the
thing denoted, so that, if that characteristic is not
found in the thing denoted, then the connotation is
false. For instance, I see an object in the road
before me, and denote it by that object yonder. Going
on farther, I connote it by that milestone yonder.
But on coming nearer it turns out to be a man.
Then the connotation milestone is false, and is shown
to be so by holding fast the denotation.
Now to connect this with first and second inten-
tions. Objects are expressed by words used denota-
tively, that object yonder, in order to bring them
before us in their relation to consciousness alone,
separately from other objects in consciousness. To
use terms denotatively is simply to designate which
thing you mean to look at, and to exclude all assump-
tions about it. True, you cannot do this without
reference to the other, the excluded, objects; but
you use the reference for the purpose of excluding
the objects referred to. You then proceed to look
at the object, so designated, in its first intention. It
is an object in relation to consciousness alone.
But it does not follow that, when you perceive
its features, and describe it by a word with a conno-
tation, that then this word describes it in one of its
second intentions. No. If the distinction between first
and second intentions coincided with that between
denotation and connotation, the former distinction
would be superfluous. True, a connotative word
implies a reference to other objects in consciousness;
sn
10
PREFACE.
but this is precisely parallel to the similar reference,
just noticed, in the case of denotative words; we
must abstract from this kind of reference to other
and excluded objects, as a common necessity of lan-
guage.
When the object which has been isolated by de-
signation is distinctly perceived and described by a
word with a connotation, the question arises,—does
the connotative word describing it express a feature
or features of the object as it is perceived, or does it
express a relation or relations to other objects ex-
cluded from it by the original designation ? If the
first, the connotative word expressing it is a term of
the first intention; if the latter, it is a term of second
intention. Take, for instance, the milestone. I see
that it is stone. If by this I mean to infer that it has
the qualities of stone, the term stone is used of it in
its second intention. If I mean only the perceived
colour, hardness, and roughness, of the object before
me, then the term stone is used of it in its first in-
tention. It describes what I perceive and not what
I infer. But there is no mark in the word stone to
indicate in which of these uses it is employed. Hence
the necessity of the distinction between first and
second intentions. For if it had been already em-
bodied in language, it would not need to be drawn
and insisted on in philosophy.
The only so called facts of consciousness which
can be appealed to as evidence are facts taken in
their first intention. But very often facts of con-
sciousness are appealed to as evidence, without this
carefulness; some inference or hypothesis is included
with them. For instance, the sense of freedom in
choosing and acting. Taken strictly in its first in-
PREFACE.
11
tention, the words being used denotatively, the sense
of freedom is a fact of consciousness. There is a
familiar feeling or perception which is fairly called a
sense of freedom. But if we have previously defined,
or unconsciously assumed, freedom to mean action
without motive, or a particular kind of causality
opposed to physical causality, then the sense of free-
dom is no longer a fact of consciousness of the kind
which can be appealed to in evidence, and can no
longer be drawn in to show the existence of an im-
material Self, or a faculty of Will. The sense of
freedom in its first intention does not include the
knowledge that it is a Self which is free, or that there
is a Will which exerts the power of free choice.
Closely connected with the foregoing is the method
of answering objections and detecting fallacies, which
may be called the Point of View doctrine. The struc-
ture and mechanism of consciousness is such, that we
are constantly adopting a particular point of view
without being aware of what we are doing. I mean
that we are always unconsciously making some as-
sumption, or bringing the object of discourse into
connection with something, which there is nothing to
justify us in doing. Hume, for instance, was per-
fectly unconscious that he was making an assumption
when he spoke of impressions as separate, as if they
came raining in upon us like hailstones. You can
see it was unconscious, just because he does not say
that they come separately.
The commonest form of fallacy perhaps is to adopt
some well known and legitimate point of view, and
forget its connections and limitations. Thus many a
scientist takes his stand on the historical method, in
itself so legitimate and so useful, and is unable to see
12
PREFACE.
that it has pre-suppositions which condition it, and
which, even supposing it to be the final method of
science, unavoidably subordinate it to a larger enquiry
which is philosophy.
Another instance is the assertion of contingency
in phenomena and events. This assertion arises from
adopting a point of view looking forward into the
future, and assuming that this view of things should
control views taken from other points; whereas it
is equally essential to thought to look at the course
of time statically, transversely as it were, where-
by what appeared to be a process is frozen into
fixity, arrested into an eternally enduring present
time.
To say that phenomena change, and give place to
different phenomena, is only another way of saying
that our point of view in looking at the same pheno-
mena changes. To enumerate and systematise the
principal possible points of view is to enumerate and
systematise the corresponding sides presented by
phenomena. The question is, what points of view
are partial and permissible, what unavoidable and
obligatory; what are dominant and what conditioned;
what the including and what the included.
: Here it is that Reflection vindicates its place.
There is no more obligatory, dominant, and compre-
hensive point of view in all the circuit of knowledge
than that of reflection. We adopt it when we put
our first question to an object in its first intention.
And there is no result, either of science or of philo-
sophy itself, to which the question What? may not
be put by reflection, no result which is not in its
turn the starting-point of new enquiries. To bring
this process out in its necessity, to analyse its mechan-
YTT
PREFACE.
ism, to show some of its consequences,—this is the
business of the present book.
These remarks will not, I am aware, be fully
intelligible before the book has been read; but they
will serve, I hope, to guide a judgment upon it after
a first survey. It is not my intention to enumerate
beforehand all its salient points, or sum up what I
conceive to be its results. In what remains of the
Preface, I shall content myself with trying to make
my readers acquainted with my mode of thinking,
and put them as it were on my track.
In philosophy we must be prepared for surprises.
Most admirable is the genial nonchalance of Hume,
when he confesses the utter failure of his system to
explain anything, its total break up into inevitable
contradictions. Good luck to those who never
trouble their heads with philosophy; but for him-
self, he shall continue to philosophise. This scepti-
cism? It is scepticism defied. Could anything show
a more profound, a more absolute, faith in reason, a
more utter confidence that reason was incapable of
deceit? It is Le Roi est mort, instantly followed by
Vive le Roi. This is Hume's tone in the Conclusion
of the First Book of the Treatise of Human Nature;
and it is in perfect harmony with the Introduction,
“And indeed nothing but the most determined scep-
ticism, along with a great degree of indolence, can
justify this aversion to metaphysics.” Be it known,
then, that there are two sorts of scepticism, one, the
philosophical, a posteriori, sort, which is the result of
reasoning badly, and is based upon a profound trust
in reason; the other, the a priori, philistine sort,
14
PREFACE.
which springs from a distrust of reason, and is com-
pensated by an equivalent confidence in creeds.
Observe, I speak of the Hume of the Treatise, the
work of his early manhood, published in 1739. Nine
years later, in 1748, when the Enquiry concerning
Human Understanding, which is the First Book of
the Treatise recast, was published, Hume was a dif-
ferent man. He had suffered the unjust neglect of
the world to spoil him. He was piqued, and drew
back into his shell. His philosophy is still the same,
both in its principles and its results; but it is now
presented in a manner to secure its results against
antagonists, without the frank disclosure of its methods,
the arcana imperii. In fact, on the one hand he
was committed to the results, and on the other, the
public had refused to listen to the methods. In the
Treatise he shows his mind at work, in the Enquiry
he defies you to get within his guard.
True, to estimate Hume fairly as an individual, to
compare him fairly with other philosophers, every
stage of his philosophical development, the intellec-
tual power displayed in the last as well as in the first,
what he retracted as well as what he stood by, must
be taken into account. That will give us the Hume
of biography, the Hume of literary history. But the
Hume that belongs to the history of philosophy, the
Hume that roused Kant from his “dogmatic slumber,"
will always be best known to us from the Treatise of
Human Nature. The doubts and the reasonings
which led to them, once made public, could no longer
be withdrawn. They were there, working in the
minds of others, totally irrespective of the future
position of their author to friends or foes.
But to go back to the two sorts of scepticism.
PREFACE.
15
as
was
d.
Hume's was of the philosophical, a posteriori, sort.
He could therefore sit loose to the fate of his own
speculations, secure that, if they were not wholly
true, they could give place only to a greater truth.
A Baconian Sic cogitavit guided his pen; hence came
that freedom in making admissions, that playing with
words like two-edged blades and no handles, that
delicate irony, which made Kant call him “ the subtil
and gentle Hume," der feine und sanfte Hume, and
which others have misinterpreted as signs, if not of
insincerity, at least of levity unbecoming a philo-
sopher. He saw the contradictory side of things,
inconsistencies were everywhere before him. You
can almost hear him confessing with Swift, “Mihi
ludibria rerum mortalium cunctis in negotiis obser-
vantur." I say that Hume had this temper, which
was not unphilosophical, because he was firmly
grounded in the assurance that reason must rule, in
other words, because he had faith in reason.
Having this faith, a man may sit loose to the fate
of any philosophical system or doctrine, even those
for which he is individually the most concerned.
One thing only is imperatively forbidden—the a
priori scepticism. One foregone conclusion is impe-
ratively necessary—to have no foregone conclusions.
Have faith in reason.
I have often thought what a subject it would be
for the genius of a Bewick or a Doré, a tournament
with philosophical systems, figured as extinguishers;
the knights laying their extinguishers in rest, and
tilting against each other with the large and open
1 For instance, my friend Mr. Collyns Simon. See his article
La Religione e la Metafisica in Filosofia della Scuole Italiane,
Vol. XV. Disp. I. 1877.
16
PREFACE.
AUS.
ends, till victory declared itself for the largest-
rimmed extinguisher that was not split up or shattered
in the encounter. How Leibniz' would disappear
into Kant's, how Comte’s would be engulphed in the
depths of Hegel's. How merrily should the combat-
ants feast together afterwards, and what trumpets
might be made of the extinguishers; what an organ
they would compose; what music of the spheres
would pour from their united throats.
But at this point I think I hear a reader say to
me, Tell us plainly what school you belong to. Hegel
we know, and Hume we know, and even of Kant we
have a sort of inkling ; but your opinions seem to be
a farrago which can be held by no sane man.
Courteous reader, I belong to a school which has
set itself to carry farther the critical strain in Kant's
speculations, just as Hume carried farther Berkeley's
method without stopping at Berkeley's results. The
master of this school is Salomon Maimon, and in that
school I am a disciple. Not indeed a disciple of
Maimon's from the first, for I entered without know-
ing it upon the track, which he was the first to
strike into more than three quarters of a century ago.
I first became acquainted with Maimon's writings
through Herr Kuno Fischer's History of Modern Phi-
losophy. And I made no systematic study of them
until the greater part of the present work had been
actually written. Then I saw in how many and in
how important points I had been anticipated by Mai-
mon; he writing as a contemporary of Kant, I after
enjoying the instruction of the whole post-Kantian
philosophy down to Hegel and Schopenhauer.
Maimon continued the Kantian criticism, and pur-
i Vol. V. Erste Abtheilung, published in 1869.
PREFACE.
17
sued it to new results, namely, to a system founded
on his principle of Determinability, Bestimmbarkeit.
Kant had introduced Critic, name and thing; it was
a branch of analysis, like Logic, but having for its
special purpose to determine the adequacy of Reason
to its problems, its power to perform what it sponta-
neously undertook; and not merely, like Logic, to
determine its structure and method.
The Critic of Pure Reason is an analytic enquiry
into the power and capacity of Reason. Maimon
continued this enquiry. Whereas Fichte, Hegel after
him, and Schopenhauer, took up Kant’s results, and
constructed a theory of Ontology on them and out
of them.
An age which ran after Hegel could not have
much attention to bestow upon Maimon. Still it is
probable that so subtil and so acute a mind as Mai-
mon's, placed moreover at so central a point of view,
was not without effect on his age, though not one
that came to the surface. As he says himself: “A
writer who has a good style is read. One who has
expository power is studied. One who has neither
the one nor the other, supposing him in possession
of weighty and new truths, is used. His mind, though
not his name, is imperishable.”l
Thy name too, Maimon, if any words of mine could
celebrate it. But he who now writes has a pen as
little potent as thine own.
1 Philosophisches Wörterbuch, 1791: sub voc. Vortrag und Stil,
p. 155. “Ein Schriftsteller der einen guten Stil hat, wird gele-
sen. Der einen guten Vortrag hat, wird studirt. Der beide
nicht hat, wird, wenn er nur im Besitze wichtiger und neuer
Wahrheiten ist, benutzt. Sein Geist, nicht aber sein Nahme, ist
unsterblich.”
VOL. I.
18
PREFACE.
My philosophy then belongs to the Critical School
of Maimon, as the continuer of Hume and Kant, so
far as its structure and method are concerned. But
there is another source to be mentioned, to which it
owes, if I may so speak, its informing spirit, and the
suggestion of some of its most distinctive conceptions.
My relation to Coleridge is very different from my
relation to Maimon. From Maimon I learnt (as it
happened) nothing; from Coleridge everything, for
he taught me what things were worth knowing, and
where they could be found. It was in very early life
that I met with his writings, and they became to me
almost as oracles of God. Chiefly the Aids to Reflec-
tion. Never do I think of Coleridge, or turn a page
of his, without feelings of affectionate veneration and
gratitude as to a spiritual father. Wordsworth also
I learnt to read at the same time. And I trust I am
not violating the reserve of private history, which no
one can prize more highly than I do, when I record,
with grateful acknowledgement, that of all the in-
struction which it was my privilege to receive from
Mr. John Campbell Shairp, now Principal of St. An-
drews, this was not the least—that he led me to a
knowledge of these two great men, directly to
Wordsworth, indirectly and in conjunction with
other influences to Coleridge.
Let me mention two of these influences ;—first,
the profound admiration felt for Coleridge by De
Quincey, as shown by many passages in such of De
Quincey's writings as were then known to me; and
secondly, several expressions of Arnold's, especially
this most remarkable one, which used to dwell in my
memory, “His Table Talk marks him, in my judg-
ment, ... as a very great man indeed, whose equal
PREFACE.
19
I know not where to find in England.”1 No equal,
observe, in England, so far as Arnold knew. And a
similar opinion held by De Quincey, a man in many
respects so different from Arnold ;--and both were
names of highest authority with me.
The great Twin Brethren, as I will call them,
Wordsworth and Coleridge, are the founders and
inaugurators of the new era, the ninteenth century
era, at least in England; Bentham and his school are
but continuators of the eighteenth. Of the two, Cole-
ridge still seems to me the greater. His mind is far
more comprehensive, far more flexible, than Words-
worth’s ; he abounds in the prime gift of humour ;
Wordsworth is always either child or prophet, Cole-
ridge is fellow man. And though doubtless the
prophet's definite and concentrated force was the
first to produce its visible effect on the age, still it
does not follow that the slowlier working, and per-
haps more subtil, force, diffused over a larger area,
was in total effect the less rare and potent. Now
Coleridge's writings appeal to those who require a
logical diet. And somehow I found that he caught
and arrested my attention, and made me ponder over
passages to discover their meaning, when I should
perhaps have credited no one else with having a
meaning to be discovered.
For instance, where he writes : “It is a dull and
obtuse mind, that must divide in order to distinguish;
but it is a still worse, that distinguishes in order to
divide. In the former, we may contemplate the source
of superstition and idolatry ; in the latter, of schism,
1 Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, D.D., p. 347.
Sixth edition, 1846.
20
PREFACE.
heresy, and a seditious and sectarian spirit.”1 Partly,
I believe, my attention was fixed here by what seemed
to me a hitch in the logic. A “still worse” mind
ought logically to mean, I thought, intellectually worse,
being contrasted with “dull and obtuse” minds. And
yet what followed seemed to imply that it meant
morally worse. What was the reason of this ?
Again, Aphorism VII. : “In order to learn, we
must attend: in order to profit by what we have
learnt, we inust think—that is, reflect. He only
thinks who reflects.” He only thinks who reflects.
Then what is the difference between them?
Many other passages I might quote, but these
are enough, and I have chosen two which contain
two distinct sources, so to speak, of the present sys-
tem ;-the principle of reflection, and the principle
of distinction of inseparables. Both come to me
directly from Coleridge, in the manner which I have
shown.
But after all, the great lesson which I learnt from
Coleridge was this, the intimate union between the
intellectual and the emotional elements in human
nature. Coleridge alone seemed to know what reli-
gion was, to know it, I mean, by experience. His
system, as a religious philosophy, provided for this
union. From this I concluded, not that his system
was true, but that no system could be true which did
not provide, as its outcome, such a scheme of the
universe as should not only enable, but assist, those
who held it to give the freest scope at once to their
intellectual and to their religious tendencies, Reli-
gion I saw was like an expansive force which would
1 Aids to Reflection. Introductory Aphorisms, XXVI. Sixth
edition, Vol. I. p. 17.
PREFACE.
21
shatter any man-made system of philosophy, unless
that system were a true image of the universe itself.
Nothing can be true which does not find a place, in
the theory, for that passionate determination of the
mind to God, which I do not say is described by, but
which breathes from, the writings of men like Cole-
ridge. And the reason is this, that the passionate
religious tendency is not a sentiment fluttering round
a fancy, but is a feeling rooted deep in the structure
and mechanism of consciousness.
This structure and mechanism of consciousness it
is, whatever be the facts with regard to its depend-
ence on physical conditions, which has forced and is
forcing us to shape ever new theories of the world,
until we get the one which accords with facts, or in
other words, in which all the facts accord with each
other. And this view of matters is the gist and
kernel of modern philosophy, and constitutes its sub-
jectivity. No external test of truth can be even sought
for any more.
But the emotions, and among them the religious
emotions, are as deeply inwoven in the structure and
mechanism of consciousness as any feature of sense
or reason. They carry us deeply into the heart of
things, the hidden springs of being, the inmost nature
of the Existent. Now this is a doctrine which Cole-
ridge, to use an expression of his own, did not pos-
sess, but was possessed by. He saw it as a seer. And
indeed who does possess it yet, in any real sense ?
Who sees it otherwise than as a seer, or has know-
ledge of its length and depth and height?
But it is insight, not exactitude, that is the life of
philosophy. Intensity in all things is of the feeling,
not of the form. A living spirit breathes from Cole-
se
22
PREFACE.
n
ridge's pages, which I at least can find in no others.
The world too has far more to learn from Coleridge
than it yet dreams of, not by way of system or theory,
but by way of vivifying impulse;
“ To life, to life give back thine ear.”
There is a scientific as well as a literary pedantry,
nor are we quite free from it in philosophy. Pedantry
is preferring letter to spirit wherever the two are at
variance, from the letter having been outgrown.
From this besetting sin of a learned class there is no
better preservative than to live in the genial atmo-
sphere of imaginative poetry. I speak only of poetry
which is the expression of imaginative emotion, not
of that of the fancy, still less of didactic poetry or
satire. The enjoyment of truly imaginative poetry
is incompatible with submission to any philosophy
that cramps the intellect. Its narrownesses are felt
to be narrow when you enter their cabin from the
open sunlight. Imposing subtilties and well-turned
phrases, potent in the study or the lecture-room,
bring them out of doors, translate them if you can
into poetic language, force them to assume their true
shape. Do they still appear as truth, or have they
donned a semblance of jest or dreaming? If they
have, away with them to the limbo of fictions; in
philosophy, the land of comprehensive and yet inter-
dependent realities, they can at best be only half-
truths, and, if allowed to pass for truth, wholly mis-
chievous.
And this brings me to some remarks with which
I will conclude this Preface. Two questions there
are, of supreme practical importance at the present
time, on both of which philosophy throws light. The
PREFACE.
23
first is this: Have we or have we not valid reasons
for conceiving of ourselves and the actual world in
which we live as surrounded by an unseen, but in its
nature phenomenal, world, of which ours is the seen
part, and with which it has real but unseen relations?
It seems to me that we have, and to show that we
have is one of the main purposes of the present
work.
The second question arises on this supposition.
Can we treat that unseen world, simply because it is
unseen, as if it were non-existent? Is it possible to
do so in the long-run ? And if not, is it wise to en-
deavour to do so for a brief and uncertain time ?
Surely it is not. The natural relations of man are
with infinity. Systems of philosophy, alike specula-
tive and ethical, must recognise these relations. If
they do not, they are houses built on sand, which
the facts of human nature will lay in ruins;
.:
“Experience, like a sea, soaks all-effacing in.”
In vain the Comtists, or any other school of
Positivists, construct philosophy without taking count
of the unseen world; in vain they build any system
of ethic on facts belonging to the seen world only;
when all is said and done in such ethical systems,
they find themselves either without a religion, or
compelled to invent one. To invent something which
is, as religion, to have binding power over its inven-
tors, a vessel of clay which the potter shall worship.
In truth, religion has no need to be invented; it is
based in the ineradicable sense of the relations of man
to the infinite, of the seen to the unseen world.
These questions, as I have said, are most import-
ant; it is so, because the answer to them must deter-
24
PREFACE.
mine our whole scheme of education. Are we or are
we not to teach that there is an unseen world, and
that we have relations with it? The answer will
necessarily colour the whole scheme of the instruc-
tion given. Not only in schools, but from the first
dawn of a child's intelligence. And I maintain that
only that answer is the true one, only that system of
instruction will in the long-run be found practicable,
which is consistent with the largest view of nature,
that is, with the most comprehensive philosophy.
The motive force which lies in the conception of the
unseen world is an indispensable factor in moral
training. The question for teachers is, Will you
have this force for you or against you? It will as-
suredly shatter your systems of education, if you do
not include it in them. But to include it, you must
lay your foundations in the unseen world.
January 26, 1878.
BOOK I.
ANALYSIS OF ASPECTS.
ᏟᎻᎪᏢᎢᎬᎡ Ꮮ.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Sciences,
§ 1. DISTINCTIONS, not Definitions—such is, and must BOOK I.
be, the primary basis of all philosophy. Before you
CH. I.
can give a definition you must know in general what Relation to the
you are about to define, that it is something proper
to be defined, and has a real local habitation in the
world of thought. You cannot begin by defining ;
that would give only definitions “at large,” definitio
vaga. You must first have a guide to definition,
It is different in the case of some systems of
philosophy. There the work of Distinction is sup-
posed complete, and you begin with applying them
to the phenomena; your country is already mapped,
and you proceed to measure its divisions. Systems
of philosophy which have not thoroughly done the
preliminary work of distinction cannot be permanent.
For instance, Spinoza begins with a definition of
Causa Sui; “By Cause of Itself I understand that,
the essence of which involves its existence; or again,
the nature of which cannot be conceived except as
This Chapter appeared originally, in three parts, in the three
first Nos. of MIND, Jan. to July 1876. Some slight alterations
nd additions have been made.
28
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
CH. I.
elation to the
Sciences.
KI. existing.” Very good; but is there such a thing ?
Is such a thing possible to thought? There is at least
$ 1.
Relation to the one term here which calls for analysis. “Essence”
may be considered to be sufficiently explained by
being distinguished into the nature of anything as it
is conceived. But Existence, what is that? Till we
know that, we are ignorant whether any essence can
possibly involve existence; whether putting “exist-
ence” into the definition of anything makes that thing
to exist. There is a good deal of distinction-work to
be done with reference to "existence” before a causal
connection between a thing and itself, causa sui, can
be founded on a conceptual connection between the
essence and the existence of that thing. Till then,
the famous definition of Causa Sui is all in the air, a
definition at large.”
System then or no system, the first thing to be
done and done thoroughly in Philosophy is to dis-
tinguish,--to distinguish in order to know what to
define, and what sort of notions to employ in defining
it. Let us see you handle the subject, turn it about,
exhibit its facets; let us know what sort of a thing
you imagine it to be, where are its boundaries, who
are its neighbours, what its products,
“ Arvo pascat herum, an baccis opulentet olivæ,
Pomisne an pratis an amicta vitibus ulmo :
Scribetur tibi forma loquaciter et situs agri.”
The first distinction to be established, and one
which is a pre-requisite of all the rest, is between
philosophy and science; the ground must first be
won before we can proceed to distinguish the several
provinces which it contains;. there can be no dis-
tinctions within philosophy, unless there is a philo-
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
29
CH. I.
$1.
Sciences,
an 1
sophy which is itself distinct from all other branches BOOK I.
and kinds of knowledge.
This distinction cannot be a total separation ; Relation to the
an unscientific philosophy would be no philosophy at
all. But the distinction may be drawn in many
ways, of which only one can be the true one. Four
ways of drawing it may be enumerated as follows:
First, it is possible so to draw the line between
them that nothing remains for philosophy but the
preliminary guesses at truth which men have made
before striking into the true methods of discovery,
which true methods with their results are science,
and supersede the old mistakes, which are philosophy.
If this were the true account of the matter, philosophy
would have no locus standi in the intellectual world,
only the ignorant would be its votaries, and philo-
sophers would be no better than obscurantists, basing
themselves more or less consciously on the maxim,
populus vult decipi et decipiatur. This way of looking
at the matter, being very prevalent in England, may
perhaps be called English Positivism.
Secondly, the line may be drawn between them
by saying, that as science advances, and divides into
many branches, room is made for a coördination and
systematisation of all, which is a work demanding
separate treatment and separate labourers; and that
this work is philosophy. This view is that of Comt-
ian Positivism.
Thirdly, it may be maintained that philosophy is
the discovery of Absolute Existence, and that the
sciences only then become scientific when they are
deduced from the laws of this absolute existence,
from which they thus receive their whole scientific
character. This is the Hegelian view.
30
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
BOOK I.
CH. I.
Sciences.
W
Fourthly, a position may be taken up which
ascribes to philosophy as its special work, besides the
$ 1.
Relation to the coördination and systematisation of the second head,
a negative task,—the task of disproving and keeping
out of science all ontological entities, whether these
appear merely as spontaneous products of the uncor-
rected imagination or have been reduced into sys-
tems, such as for instance the Hegelian. This view
is that taken by Mr. Lewes in the important work?
which is now in progress. Mr. Herbert Spencer's
view also, which runs up all knowable phenomena to
a foundation in the Unknowable, is very similar.
There is yet a fifth view possible, the one which
I shall endeavour to establish in the present Chapter. -
Briefly stated, it is this: Philosophy is more than the
coördination and systematisation of the second head,
and more than the negative function of the fourth
head; it has a positive content and a positive method
of its own, and yet a content and a method which are
in no sense ontological or transcendent. And this
method and content are the permanent and inde-
structible raison d'être of philosophy, assuring to it
an existence as a distinct kind of science.
Let me be allowed to dwell a little on what is
involved in this view, which I have stated at present
in very general terms. If philosophy has a distinct
method and a distinct and positive content, it follows
that there has been for some definitely assignable
period a growing system of philosophical doctrine,
of philosophical truths retained distinguishable from
philosophical errors discarded, a system due not to
one or two philosophers only but to many, the
1 Problems of Life and Mind. See particularly Vol. I. pp. 62.
75. 86; and Vol. II. p. 221.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
31
CA. I.
81.
growth not of a single epoch but of centuries. There Book I.
must be a history of philosophy different from the
history of successive systems of philosophy, and from Relation to the
the law of their succession. The systems of philosophy
are not philosophy, its history is not the history of
their succession. It follows likewise that there cannot
be a history of philosophy until the object of that his-
tory, philosophy itself, the growing system, has been
detached and delineated.
But what meets us most prominently, when we
first turn our attention to philosophical subjects, is
the apparent absence of a philosophy, the obvious
presence of a multitude of conflicting systems. What
is the explanation of these two facts? The readiest
explanation is offered by the first of the views enu-
merated above; the systems are present because un-
disciplined minds have abounded, the philosophy is
absent because it is non-existent. But on the view
which I am about to maintain, this easy explanation of
the facts cannot be the true one. The true explana-
tion is, that philosophy is apparently absent because
it is yet in its infancy, and the systems are obvious
because they are necessary means of giving it birth.
The systems would on this view have served a pur-
pose consistent with their own untenability, and phi-
losophy would have been receiving form independ-
ently of their decay. It is true that on this suppo-
sition philosophy must be as yet in a very early stage
of its development, and so no doubt it is. Its syste-
matisation as an organic whole is most imperfect;
organisation is its primary need. But everything
seems to me to show the possibility of such an organi-
. sation, the possibility of marking out and giving co-
herence to a body of philosophical doctrines which
32
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
CH. I.
Book I. shall form for philosophers of all schools a common
possession and a common basis, as they will assuredly
$ 1.
Relation to the have been won by a common effort.
Sciences.
Nevertheless system-making in philosophy cannot
be laid aside; there is one indispensable function
which it alone can perform. It is the mode by
which verification is effected ; it is to philosophy
what verification by observation and experiment is to
the physical sciences. And by the nature of the case
it is the only verification of which the phenomena of
philosophy are capable; for these are not like those
of the physical sciences, things which fall under the
cognizance of the outer senses, but pure representa- .
tions—pure, that is, from presentation; with these
science ends, and with these philosophy begins. Its
theorems consist not simply in thoughts about things,
but in thoughts about thoughts of things. These
pure representations however which are the phe-
nomena, the facts, of philosophy, must always be
verifiable by the facts of nature, that is to say, in
technical terms, by the presentations which they
represent. In many cases these verifications are so
simple that any one can perform them without a
special scientific training, as for instance in the pure
representation all visible surfaces are coloured.'
Others are more difficult, and here we must have re-
course to science to prove the truth of the represen-
tation before we can admit it as a fact in philosophy.
Thus the law of gravitation is, in science, a
thought about things, being, in nature, a general
fact in the things themselves. Here the verification
consists in examining the things. But the law of
gravitation as it is in Science, in its character of a
thought about things, becomes in Philosophy the
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
33
BOOK I.
CH. I.
$1.
elation to the
object-matter of a further examination, a philo-
sophical one; it becomes one of the phenomena of
philosophy, and the basis of thoughts which have Relation to the
Sciences,
thoughts of things for their object. Here the verifi-
cation of any theorem of philosophy relating to the
law of gravitation must consist not in comparing the
law of gravitation with physical phenomena, which is
a verification belonging to science, but in comparing
the theorem of philosophy with the law of gravitation
as it is in science. The ultimate as well as the par
ticular laws of science are among the phenomena of
philosophy; it is only to be regretted that they are
still so few. While, then, the laws of science are
verified by the facts of nature, those of philosophy
are verified by the laws of science; in other words,
theories of philosophy must be made to harmonise
with the laws of science so far as these are at any
time known; and it is from this requirement that all,
legitimate system-making in philosophy springs.
In these remarks we may also read the explana-
tion of the predominantly literary character of phi-
losophy in contrast with science, of its workshop
being the library not the laboratory, its pabulum the
writings of previous or contemporary philosophers.
For philosophy is primarily and mainly, I mean in
its whole analytic branch, concerned with clearing the
ideas, not with discovering new facts, but with analys-
ing old ones; its problem being not how the world
came into being, but how, having come, it is intelli-
gible.
I now proceed to establish the true distinction,
as I conceive it, between philosophy and science. In
the first place it is abundantly clear that they have
points of agreement. Going back to the meaning of
VOL. I.
34
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Воок
CH. I.
Sciences.
13
25
those who first called themselves philosophers, lovers
$ 1.
of knowledge instead of possessors of it, it is clear
Relation to the that the position which they thus took up was not
one of disregard to knowledge already attained, to
knowledge in and for itself, but the adoption of a
new point of view by the observer towards that
knowledge; it involved a generalisation of the notion
of knowledge, and brought out the fact, that while
they were possessors of some portions of knowledge,
they were only aspirants to possess other portions,
which other portions were to them as yet unknown
and only to be called knowledge in potentia, in futuro.
At the same time this future, and not yet actual,
knowledge was necessarily assumed as being of the
same kind, in point of being truly knowledge, as
those portions which were already reduced into pos-
session. Philosophy, then, was conceived as a further
search, a pioneering expedition, into realms as yet
unknown, in order to bring them under laws of the
same kind as those which constituted the knowledge
already discovered.
So far there is, it may be said, no very wide dis-
tinction between philosophy and science; for science
too must always have recognised the search for
further knowledge as essential to itself; a science
which professed to contain only what was already
known, and not also means and methods for future
discoveries, would be a mere scientia docens, not
utens; and philosophy would be merely a grandilo-
quent name for one part of science, for that part of
it which faced forwards into the as yet unknown and
undiscovered. In short, if this distinction were all,
the first of the views enumerated above would be
fully justified.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
35
CH. I.
$ 1.
Sciences.
But now comes another distinction. As science
BOOK I.
advances, her discoveries are made piecemeal, one by
one; as they are made they are compared and classi- Relation to the
fied; and thus along with the general advance of
science there goes on a distinction of the whole into
special sciences; and as the number of new disco-
veries increases in each branch of science, the grow-
ing mass and complexity of each branch becomes
sufficiently great to occupy and more than occupy
the whole energies of individual men, leaving them
no disposable opportunity for making discoveries in
other branches than their own. But in every special
branch of science, as it is thus called into being by
the growth and development of knowledge, the same
distinction prevails, I mean the just noted distinc-
tion between present and future knowledge, between
hypotheses that have and hypotheses that have not
yet been verified. Here it is that the distinct scope
of philosophy takes, as it were, a second step towards
its manifestation. And the general forward outlook
in the special sciences taken together, as distin-
guished from the already acquired knowledge, taken
together, in all of them, is that which marks philo-
sophy in this its second, but still most rudimentary,
stage of distinction from science. Philosophy ap-
pears in this second stage of its life, so to speak, as
taking the results acquired by each of the special sci-
ences, and endeavouring to frame hypotheses which
should unite them into a single system, and make
them serve as a guide suggestive of new hypotheses.
The rudiments of the notion of philosophy, as
distinguished from science, are thus given by the
two combined characteristics of generality and hypo-
thesis. But the rudiments only. And these same
36
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
CH. I.
NO
Book I. characteristics contain in themselves the germ of a
5 third, which is necessarily developed from them. If
Relation to the we stopped short at these two, seeing nothing else
Sciences.
in philosophy to differentiate it from science, we
should find ourselves holding the second view, that
of Comtian Positivism. For it may be argued that,
even supposing the greatest completeness in the num-
ber and organisation of the special sciences to have
been reached, and by consequence the greatest gene-
rality in the hypotheses which will connect their
results into a system of the whole; in which case the
greatest possible difference would exist between the
functions of science and those of philosophy, as they
have been up to this point delineated ; even then, it
may be said, the functions of philosophy, so far as
they have any scientific value, are not different in
kind from those of science Philosophy, the framer
of general hypotheses, is merely a special science to
which a particular task is assigned, for convenience
sake, that of coördinating the several sciences into a
single system of sciences, and the results of all into
a single science of nature. The main problems of
philosophy would be two, or rather one with a
double aspect, the Classification of the Sciences, and
the Codification of the Laws of Nature; in fact just
what Comte aimed at in his first great work, the
Cours de Philosophie Positive. But neither of these
problems is different in any essential characteristic
from those of science proper, that is, from science in
any of its special branches. The distinction of philo-
sophy from science would be, then, in this case a de-
tail, most important it is true, and even necessary,
but one resting on no fundamental difference in their
functions.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE,
37
CH. I.
LA
All this I take to be indisputable; and if no other Book I.
distinction than the two already mentioned can be
$ 1.
shown to exist between philosophy and science, then Relation to the
it must be admitted that philosophy has no special
raison d'être, no claim to a separate and independent
but merely to a nominal existence, such as the term
Positive Philosophy is intended to accord to it. I
proceed, then, to show that there is a third charac-
teristic, by which, in combination with the two for-
mer ones, philosophy is distinguished as different in
kind from science.
All the special sciences, in their demonstrations,
run up to certain ultimate notions as their basis of
demonstration, and there they stop. Beyond these
they do not care to pursue their analysis, content
with the acknowledgement, which no one refuses, that
those ultimate notions which they take as their basis
correspond to realities of experience, and represent
those realities with essential accuracy. Some among
the special sciences base themselves upon notions
which they take from other special sciences more
abstract and more general than themselves; physio-
logy, for instance, partly upon chemical notions,
partly upon mechanical, partly upon physical ; che-
mistry bases itself partly upon mechanical, partly
upon physical; these two last run up again into what
is called Rational Mechanic; and here for the first
time we meet with ultimate notions which are not
derived from any other more abstract special science,
but are drawn directly from the fountain head, expe-
rience.
These ultimate notions are Mass, and Energy
Potential and Kinetic. That is the shape into which
Rational Mechanic has thrown the two older and
CO
Don
38
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
BOOK I.
CA. I.
$1.
vaguer notions of Matter and Force, for the sake of
first defining them and then exactly calculating or
Relation to the measuring them. Mass is measureable matter,
Sciences.
quantity of matter being its definition. Energy,
potential and kinetic, is phenomenal and measureable
force, as distinguished on the one side from force as
the cause of motion, on the other from particular
forces, that is, groups or modes of motion of a particu
lar kind, as for instance gravitation, or electricity.
For both force and energy involve the notion of
motion, the motion of masses or portions of matter in
action and reaction with other portions. And both
in mass and energy taken together, and in matter and
force taken together, motion is involved. Motion
itself again is abstracted and treated apart from the
different kinds of matter which move, in a separate
branch of science known as Kinematic; and this
branch forms the connecting link between rational
mechanic and the sciences of pure mathematic.
What I have, then, specially to observe is, that in
rational mechanic we meet with elements or notions
which are not derived from pure mathematic, and
which have no other source than direct experience;
and of these notions, which in their most abstract
and general shape are called Matter and Force (mea-
sureable and calculable under the terms Mass and
Energy), science can give no other account than that
they are facts, and ultimate facts, of experience. Ex-
perience is their source, and experience also fur-
nishes the verification of the reasonings concerning
them.
Rational Mechanic, in respect of its other ele-
ments, holds of Geometry and the sciences of mathe-
matical calculation, Arithmetic, Algebra, and the
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
39
CH. I.
§ 1.
Sciences.
1
Calculus, through the medium of Kinematic. And Book I.
these sciences include between them, and are based
upon, the notions of abstract Motion (which involves Relation to the
those still more abstract of Space and Time), Num-
ber, Quantity, Continuity, Discontinuity, Infinity, and
Figure. Pure Mathematic includes all the methods
of calculation and measurement so far as they are
irrespective of what the things are which are calcu-
lated or measured. And as such these sciences base
themselves upon certain ultimate notions which serve
as principles of the process of calculating and mea-
suring.
The question accordingly arises with respect to
these sciences of pure mathematic,—Are they compe-
tent to explain thoroughly the nature of those notions
which they assume as their ultimate bases of demon-
stration? Does for instance the calculator explain
what an Unit is ? Certainly not. All he tells us is
We can count anything once. This once is the unit
of numeration, and it is obviously independent of,
and indifferent to, any particular kind of object
counted (or measured) by it. In fact, he defines an
unit, and defines it sufficiently for his purpose; it is
defined in such a way as to serve for a basis of further
reasoning, but not in such a way as to show on what
it is itself based. He defines but does not analyse it.
Again, does the geometer explain how and whence
he comes by his object-matter, how he comes to regard
pure spatial extension as figured ? No. He begins
with figured space. Either he begins with the notion
of Volume, and proceeds to analyse it by the ways in
which it is bounded, or else he begins with the notion
of Boundary, points, lines, surfaces, and proceeds to
the construction of Volume. The Configuration of
40
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
8 1.
Sciences.
CO
Book I. Space is his object-matter; and he analyses this,
notionally as well as actually, to its remotest part;
Relation to the but he assumes Figured Space, in the general, as a
datum; he does not tell us how it comes to be possi-
ble, but contents himself with saying that we all
know it to be so, and that this his basis is sufficiently
clear in meaning and secure in reality.
As I am not primarily occupied with the inter-
connection of the sciences, it will not be expected
that I should have stated the exact moment at which
these ultimate notions are introduced into the
sciences, or have made a distribution of them beyond
the possibility of objection. It is enough that the
positive physical sciences between them, from physio-
logy to mathematic, do introduce these to them ulti-
mate notions, namely, Mass and Energy (which may
be taken as involving the higher notions of Matter,
· Force, Cause), Motion, Unity, Length of Time, and
Configuration of Space. And I think I have made it
sufficiently evident, that these ultimate notions, ulti-
mate to the physical and mathematical sciences, are
not ultimate in all respects. They are ultimate in
respect that we can securely reason downwards from
them, that is to say, construct valid definitions of
them, and base valid demonstrations on them, in the
physical and mathematical sciences; but not ultimate
in respect that we can analyse them still farther,
reasoning upwards from them, and ascending to still
higher generalities and greater abstractions. Their
validity as the basis of science is sought and found in
what lies below them, in the concrete objects to which
they are to be applied. It is conceivable they should
also have another validity as deductions, or cases, of
higher abstractions, to which they in their turn would
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
41
TIT
e
.)
11
serve as a basis of validity and as concrete object-
Book I.
C#. I.
matter.
§ 1.
The question whether any such higher abstrac- Relation to the
Sciences.
tions are discoverable is thus posed by the sciences
themselves; and the conditions of its solution are
also laid down in the posing. We are required to
find an answer to the questions, What are Mass,
Energy, Matter, Force, Cause, Motion, Unity, Length
of Time, and Configuration of Space? And the con-
ditions of solution are, that the answers shall be in
terms which do not repeat again the things about
which the question is put (the common logical re-
quirement in all solutions), but shall consist of higher
generalities or abstractions, which yet shall be really
known to us (not fictitious), and shall thus present
us with new knowledge about the things in question.
In other words, the notions in question are to be
analysed or resolved into elements more abstract
than themselves, which elements, in composition,
shall give us again the original notions.
Now in thus approaching the question whether
any such higher abstractions are discoverable, every
way but one is barred to us. We start from notions
representing concrete objects of experience, and re-
presenting those objects already in the most general
and abstract shape. We cannot therefore look for
the answer in any objects of concrete experienoe, or
in notions representing them; because this would be
to go to notions less, instead of more, abstract and
general. We must pass beyond all concrete objects
of experience, and beyond the most general notions
which we can frame of such objects; and we have to
answer the question What? Títotı; concerning these
most abstract notions. Where, then, is there a limit
42
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
CH. I.
$ 1,
Relation to the
Sciences.
emoT
Book I. to our thought within which we may have been con-
fined consciously or unconsciously,--a limit which is
Relation to the now to be removed and give freer scope to thought;
where has there been a restriction which it is possible
to take away? If there has been no such limit, no
such restriction, then we cannot take a step beyond
where we are already; we are already at the end of
our tether, and every road is barred to us. The ulti-
mate notions of science are then for us the ultimate
notions in every respect, and the question whether
we can refer them to higher generalities is answered
in the negative.
But it becomes clear on a little further reflection
that there has been such a limit and restriction, a
limit by removing which we can take a step in ad-
vance and reach a still higher generalisation, yet
without passing into the region of fictitious entities.
For we have hitherto been regarding the objects of
our enquiry as objects, that is to say as endowed, some
way or other, with an existence independent of our-
selves the spectators of them; or, if we have made a
reservation to the effect that these objects are, after
all, only phenomena relative to the percipients, still
we have not as yet made any use or application of
the reservation. But now the moment is come at
which the fruits of the reservation may be reaped.
We find that we can analyse the ultimate notions of
science still farther, by looking upon them as pheno-
mena relative to the percipients, and asking ourselves
what features they possess in this their subjective
character, in their character of states of consciousness
as contradistinguished from their character of objects,
or portions of an objective world. We are thus
simply taking the obverse aspect of the very same
S
NO
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
43
T
VU
Sciences.
ultimate notions which we were dealing with before;
Book I.
CH. I.
and the result is a new, and subjective, analysis of $1
those notions which in their objective aspect in Relation to the
which they were the bases of the sciences) appeared
to be unanalysable and ultimate.
It is found, on thus regarding them, that certain
modes of Sensation in combination with pure spatial
extension and pure time-duration, are the consti-
tuent elements of each of these ultimate notions taken
subjectively. And by pure spatial extension, and
pure time-duration, I mean the space element and the
time element, in and with which any sensation is felt.
Every sensation without exception has a time ele-
ment; every sensation of sight and of touch has a
space element as well. And by calling this element
pure, I mean that it is different from the sensation,
and as different from it is unaffected by division,
continuous, having no divisions of its own, but re-
ceiving them from sensation. The divisions of pure
time and of pure space are given only by changes in
sensation, and without these divisions of pure time
and pure space we should have no consciousness
whatever of time in lengths of duration, or of space
in its configurations or relative positions of points,
lines, or surfaces.
We have also here the source of the notions of
continuity and discontinuity; of quantity, which is
the sole object of measurement; and of infinity, the
notion of which is nothing but continuity without
break, or abstracted from discontinuity. Number
rests upon the notion of unity, or of an unit.
To count a thing once, which is the notion of an
unit, depends on that thing being distinguished by
change of sensations from what precedes and follows
44
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Rela
to the
ed
Book 1. it in consciousness, no matter whether that change is
CH, I,
arbitrarily introduced by ourselves, as in the case of
$ 1.
Relation to the units of measurement, or not.
Sciences,
Motion requires change not of sensations simply,
but of their position in space, taking place in suc-
cession of times.
Cause involves the notion of the inseparability
of things previously regarded as separable. But to
treat things as separables is to treat them as if one
was before the other in time, whether their order of
sequence may, or may not, be equally well reversed,
and the things found to be simultaneous in time.
Cause therefore requires the notion of sequence of
sensation. :
For the notion of force (if it is held necessary to
introduce it into science in the character of a cause
of motion), a peculiar class of sensations is required,
that of muscular tension or effort, whether derived
from efforts of our own which we feel ourselves, or
from these carried over in imagination and attributed
to objects which are or may be in opposition to our-
selves.
Energy, if not explained by reference to force,
is in that case simply a derivative of motion. It
consists of changes in the position and motion of
masses and parts of masses.
Mass, as remarked above, is nothing but matter
scientifically treated.
And lastly, that solid resisting thing which we
call Matter requires for its comprehension (speaking
only of normal cases) sensations of sight in combina-
tion with those of touch and muscular tension. At
any rate sensation (whether of sight, or touch, or
both combined), but always in spatial extension, is
I
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
45
CH. I.
$ 1.
Sciences.
the necessary and sufficient analysis of our notion of Book I.
Matter.
It must suffice, in a Chapter like the present, just Relation to the
summarily to indicate the nature of the questions
and answers which arise on passing onwards from
the ultimate notions of science to their analysis as
states of consciousness. As above I could do no
more than enumerate the ultimate notions of science;
without attempting to assign them with perfect accu-
racy to their respective places in science, so here I
must content myself with indicating, and cannot
pretend to demonstrate, the general nature of the
analysis which these notions receive in philosophy:
That analysis is a final one, in the sense that there
is no further conceivable limit the removal of which
would throw open another field, as the removal of
the objective limit unbarred the entry into the field
of subjectivity. The analysis is also an analysis of
the nature of the things analysed, not on account of
how they arise or what are their antecedents. Ulti-
mate subjective analysis of the notions which to
science are themselves ultimate-such is the answer
which I have to give to the question; What are the
features which distinguish philosophy from science?
Up to this point, it will be observed, we have
been occupied with the relation of philosophy to one
class of sciences only, the physical and mathematical.
When we come to the other classes into which the
sciences are usually, and exhaustively, divided, a
similar conclusion will be forced upon us. A similar
conclusion, because in these classes of sciences, the
Moral and the Logical, the ultimate notions which
are their distinguishing and characteristic marks are
already subjective; for which reason it is that these
04
46
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Воок І.
CH. 1.
$ 1.
Relation to the
Sciences.
Ce
sciences are most usually treated as forming a part of
philosophy as distinguished from science.
Interwoven as all the moral sciences are at every
step with those of the physical and mathematical
series, yet their subjective character is everywhere
predominant, and their objective subsidiary. They
are practical in their character, that is to say, the
comparative importance of motives to conscious
beings, the comparative value of states of conscious-
ness, is the chief matter of discussion and enquiry.
Whatever notions we take as ultimate in any of them,
whether (for instance) that of Justice and Injustice
in Jurisprudence, of Wealth in Political Economy, of
Beauty and Deformity in Æsthetic, of the Good of a
Coinmunity in Politic or Sociology, of Good and
Evil in Ethic,—these ultimate notionis, ultimate in
respect of the particular branches of science which
are based upon them, are yet capable of a further
analysis into elements, an analysis not indeed differ-
ing from what has preceded it in point of subjectivity,
since both alike are subjective, but still an analysis
more searching than would be strictly necessary for a
definition which should afford a basis for a branch of
science. I mean that, with less searching analysis
and consequently less accurate definitions, the sciences
based on them would be less perfect, but not there-
fore impossible.
In Logic again we have, as its ultimate basis, the
three Postulates known as the laws or principles of
Identity, Contradiction, and Excluded Middle. Upon
these the whole doctrine of Logic rests, and for its
validity no more is requisite than the statement of
them. They carry their evidence in themselves. They
are in a precisely similar position to that of the ulti-
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
47
CH, I.
$ 1.
mate notions of mathematical science. They have,
Book I.
too, as being even more abstract than most, if not all,
Relation to the
of the latter notions,—they have immediately attach- Relatio
Sciences.
ing to them the double attribute of subjectivity and
objectivity. They are at once laws of things and
laws of thought. At least if they should be finally
held not to be immediately laws of things, the dis-
cussions which have been raised upon the point
suffice to show the appearance of such a double cha-
racter in them. But even in their case a further
subjective analysis is possible, an analysis by no
means requisite to assure us of their validity, but
certainly requisite to ascertain their nature. This
analysis is of the same general character as in the
case of the ultimate mathematical notions. It is into
some particular volition and time; that is to say, we
must attend to some feeling, distinct from others,
before we can say, This feeling is this feeling (A
is A); This feeling is not what is not this feeling
(No A is Not-A); and Everything is either this
feeling or what is not this feeling (Everything is
either A or Not-A).
The several sciences then, in every case, yield us
notions, their ultimate bases, which are susceptible
of a further subjective analysis, whether these notions
are themselves objective as in the physical and mathe-
matical sciences, subjective as in the practical, or
both at once as in logic. But besides these ultimate
notions of the several sciences, there is yet one notion
to be mentioned, a notion not peculiar to any one
science, but common to all, and involved in the par-
ticular ultimate notions of each. This notion is
that of Existence. Different as the three groups of
sciences, physical, logical, and moral, are in point of
се
48
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Воок т.
CH. 1.
$ 1.
b. subjectivity and objectivity, yet the notion of Exist-
ence is involved alike in all. Not Matter only but
Relation to the States of Consciousness also have existence; they are
Sciences.
what they are and while they are. What, then, is
the notion of Existence, and does it belong to science
or to philosophy to answer this question? It clearly
belongs to philosophy; first, because the notion of
existence is more general and abstract than any of
the ultimate notions of the physical or mathematical
sciences; and secondly, because subjective existence,
a notion which emerges first in philosophy, is an in-
cluded part of the general notion which embraces
existence both subjective and objective. We may
put these two reasons in somewhat different phrase.
The subjective aspects of material objects exist, as
well as the objects themselves; and states of con-
sciousness, such as are the emotions, and feelings of
pleasure and pain, which have no material objects,
yet exist for the Subjects of them.
Subjective states and objective things, then, are
both alike esčistents. But they stand in a somewhat
different relation to consciousness. The objective
things are the nearer of the two to the consciousness
both of the individual and of the race, counting from
the moment when he or it begins to philosophise;
the subjective states are the nearer to the conscious-
ness of both, counting from the epoch when sentience
arises. We begin to philosophise having "objects”
already formed in the mind; but there has been a
process by which these objects have been formed,
prior to philosophical consciousness, but not prior to
consciousness generally. It is a case for the appli-
cation of the maxim-What is last in analysis is first.
in genesis; and, What is last in genesis is first in.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
49
CH. I.
$ 1.
analysis. Thus it has long been observed and often Book I.
repeated, that the distinction between the two kinds
of existents, subjective states and objective things, is Relation to the
Sciences.
not perceived at the earliest stage of an individual's
experience.
6. The baby new to earth and sky,
What time his tender palm is prest
Against the circle of the breast,
Has never thought that this is I:'

“But as he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of 'I,' and 'me,'
And finds 'I am not what I see,
And other than the things I touch.'”I
When, however, this distinction is perceived, then
both kinds of existents become objects to the perci-
pient; and the perception of both, in their contra-
distinction, is itself distinguished by the name of
reflective perception as opposed to direct, and by that
of self-consciousness as opposed to consciousness
simply. It is this “moment” of reflective perception
or self-consciousness which is the central and cardinal
feature in philosophy, and that which, by enabling
us to distinguish the subjective from the objective
aspect of things, distinguishes philosophy from science
by an inner and indelible characteristic.
The answer therefore to the question, What is
Existence ? can only be given, if at all, by philosophy.
But what that answer will be I am not now to dis-
cuss. In general terms it may be said that, for philo-
sophy, existence means presence in consciousness,
esse means percipi ; and this quite generally, so as to
include all the modals into which the general propo-
sition may be thrown ; as for instance, possible
Tennyson, In Memoriam, XLIV.
VOL. I.
mi
RAGUA
AU
50
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Book I.
CH. I.
Relation to the
Sciences.
existence designates what is possibly present in con-
sciousness; actual existence what is actually present
be in consciousness; imaginary existence what is ima-
gined as present in consciousness; necessary exist-
ence what is necessarily present in consciousness; and
so on. For all the modes of existence there are corre-
sponding modes of presence in consciousness, and
without a corresponding mode of presence in con-
sciousness we should have no knowledge whatever of
any mode of existence,-neither what it was nor that
it was. In short, consciousness itself is the subjective
aspect of existence, and each in its bare generality is
the ultimate and common feature of which all the
modes of consciousness on the one side, and all the
modes of existence on the other, are differentiations.
In this most abstract and general character, their
character as summa genera of Modals, they are un-
analysable into elements, consequently undefinable,
and only so far capable of explanation as the two
unanalysables, the two opposite aspects, existence
and consciousness, throw mutual light on each other.
We know existence as consciousness, and to know
that we do so is self-consciousness.
$ 2.
$ 2. I have now to advert to a peculiarity which
Special relation
to Psychology. will open up an entirely new branch of the subject.
The distinction which has been established between
the subjective and objective aspects, and which is the
basis of that between philosophy and science, is one
which rests on the support of no previous theory as
to the substratum or agent of consciousness, any more
than it rests upon any theory as to a corresponding
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
51
CH. 1.
substratum of Matter, or generally of the objective BOOK I.
aspect. No soul, or mind, or ego, or nervous organ-
$ 2
ism, is assumed as the thing which has the states of Special relation
to Psychology
consciousness. No material existent is assumed as
the thing which has the properties of resistance or
impenetrability, or which is the seat of the forces by
which matter is actuated.
On the contrary, and this is the point now specially
to be noted, the distinction between the subjective and
objective aspects precedes, and is required for the for-
mation of any such theory, of whatever character it
may be, relative either to Mind or to Matter. This
will be clear if we reflect that, before we can devise
an hypothesis to account for the existence of either
aspect apart from the other, we must have distin-
guished, however roughly, the two aspects themselves.
Now it will, no doubt; have occurred to readers
who have followed me up to this points that there has
been an important omission in my enumeration of
the sciences which run up into philosophy. I have
omitted all mention of the science of Psychology.
This omission I am about to rectify. Psychology has
all states of consciousness for its object-matter; and
so far it has precisely the same object-matter as that
here attributed to philosophy. Now psychology is
a science, and that science which is the peculiar glory
of Englishmen, having been, if not created, yet chiefly
cultivated by them. It would seem then that, by
simply adding the science of psychology to the list of
the other sciences, we cover the same ground and
perform the same service as we should do by super-
posing philosophy on the sciences, as something
generically different from them. One or the other
appears superfluous, and in such a case the simplest
52
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Book 1.
CH. I.
expedient must be the best, and philosophy must give
place to a less pretentious rival.
$ 2.
Special relation It is here that the remark just made finds its
to Psychology.
application. The main purpose of Psychology is to
investigate the laws by which different states of con-
sciousness either co-exist or follow one another; it
leaves behind it the mere analysis of particular co-
existences and of particular sequences of conscious
states, and, by comparing several instances of them,
· endeavours to discover the general laws which con-
nect particular states into sequences or into co-
existences. It seeks the conditions of their appear-
ing in this or in that connection. Leaving their mere
analysis, which assigns their elements of analysis,
their nature, or their conditions essendi, it seeks their
conditions existendi, that is, their genesis and history.
It assumes them, therefore, to be not only distin-
guishable, as in analysis, but also separable, capable
of existing as parts in different connections or wholes.
It starts from states of consciousness as units, not
indeed necessarily capable of existing alone, but still
units capable of entering into various combinations.
But this search for the laws, or relations of depen-
dency one on another, between states of consciousness
is at once guided by facts to the objective aspect of
the states of consciousness, excluding their subjective
aspect. It is “things” outside the body which appear
to cause “subjective states” within the body. The
search for laws of dependency forces us not only to
separate the states of consciousness from one another,
but also to separate states of consciousness as subjec-
tive from their objective aspect, that is, from the same
states of consciousness as objective, in other words
to separate Subjects generally from Objects generally.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
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CH. 1.
$ 2.
For relations of dependency have in all other sciences
been found to exist only where the thing from which
the dependence moved, that is, the condition or Special relation
- to Psychology.
cause, was of a solid and material nature, a substance,
capable of existing įvegyeią. Psychology there-
fore, in seeking the conditions existendi of subjective
states, seeks them in the laws or in the nature of sub-
stances, only reserving the question whether there is,
beside the organism and the objects external to it, a
substance residing in the organism but of an imma-
terial nature, that is, a Soul or Mind. Psychology
passes in this way beyond the field of mere subjective-
objective analysis, and envisages the particular rela-
tions of dependence which particular portions of the
subjective aspect have to particular portions of the
objective. And it is therefore not permitted, like
philosophy, to abstract from the substrate or agent
which has the states of consciousness; for it is only
in and by such a substrate or agent that the causal
nexus in its sequences and the dependence in its co-
existences can be accounted for.
But if this is the distinction between philosophy
and psychology, the question immediately arises-
May not philosophy, then, be regarded as a part, the
analytical part, of a larger whole, psychology? There
are two main reasons against so regarding it. The
first is drawn from another application of the remark
above made. To do so would involve an inversion of
the logical and historical relations between the two.
Historically there was the germ of a philosophy, a dis-
tinction between the objective and subjective aspects,
before there was the germ of a psychology, an enquiry
into the conditions of existence of the phenomena
of the latter. And logically, the distinction of the
54
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
$2.
Book 1.
CH. I.
aspects is the prior condition of the enquiry ; for
distinction must precede separation, and, as we have
Special relation seen, it is psychology that first separates the two
aspects; in doing which it gives back, as an object
of direct consciousness, things which were in phi-
losophy the object of reflective consciousness.
Here we come to the second reason. The analysis
of states of consciousness as given in philosophy takes
those states in connection with their objective aspects;
these objective aspects it is which give us the states
to be analysed; but in psychology it is in reference
to their conditions in the organism, or other substra
tum, that they come under analytic dissection. The
former is a general, the latter a special, method.
There is a common object-matter for analysis, namely,
states of consciousness, in both ; but in philosophy
we look for features which reproduce the world at
large, in psychology for features which we can con-
nect, as dependents, with qualities or properties of
the conscious organism, or other substrate of con-
sciousness; disconnecting them from their objective
aspects in the world of existences, and thus assuming
the separability of the subjective and objective aspects.
And necessarily so, for we are here occupied with
this question among others, how far the subjective
states of consciousness are a correct image and repro-
duction of the objective world. But when we take
these same states of consciousness in philosophy, we
disconnect them from their conditions in the con-
scious organism, and connect them with their objec-
tive aspects in the world of existences; thus assuming
the inseparability of the subjective and objective as-
pects. And we are enabled to do this without dan-
ger of erecting subjective fictions into truths, because
PHILOSOPỤY AND SCIENCE.
55
CH. I.
in philosophy we do not begin with the subjective Book I.
aspects but with the objective; we take the ultimate
$ 2.
truths of the sciences and enquire what are their sub- Special relation
to Psychology.
jective aspects, and do not take any supposed ulti-
mate subjective aspects, and ask what their objective
aspects, what their corresponding existences, must be.
The method and assumption of philosophy are, in this
sense, diametrically opposite to those of psychology.
It is a different but perfectly legitimate way of look-
ing at the same phenomena, though in so looking at
them they assume a different complexion and give
rise to a different set of distinctions and definitions.
I argue therefore that it is not permissible to
classify psychology and philosophy, so opposite in
point of method, so different in point of object-mat-
ter, as parts of a single science; and still less permis-
sible to call philosophy the analytical part of a larger
whole, psychology, seeing that philosophy is not only
prior in logic and larger in scope, but also has a me-
thod corresponding in generality to its larger object-
matter.
For let us consider for a moment what it is that
constitutes a separate science, and demarcates one
science from another. It is not merely an arbitrary
difference in point of object-matter; nor yet is it an
arbitrary difference in method; but it is the mutual de-
termination of method, in the first instance, by object,
and then of object, in the second instance, by method.
There is no science of the individual, nor yet of any
individual class of things. It is always a general
feature or features which is the object of a science.
The same individual things are the object of Mechanic
by reason of displaying the general feature of poten-
tial and kinetic energy, and the object of Chemistry
56
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Book I.
CH. I.
§ 2.
US
by reason of displaying the general feature of mole-
cular affinity in composition and decomposition.
Special relation Wherever any general feature is such as to be acces-
to Psychology.
sible in a particular way better than in others, that
way of access is the method of the science, and that
general feature, wherever found, is its object-matter.
Physiology investigates the general feature, Life,
wherever found ; that is, in living organisms of all
varieties. Psychology investigates the general fea-
ture, Consciousness, in living organisms, that further
feature in them not investigated by physiology. The
range of psychology is an enlargement of that of
physiology, for only objects in local contact with the
organism directly influence its vitality, whereas things
not in local contact, but imagined only, may be said to
influence its consciousness, and indirectly its vitality,
—such merely imagined things being the index and
evidence of nerve-processes which at once subserve
consciousness and are endowed with vitality.
Psychology, then, differs from physiology in this,
that it brings in subjective states as part of the gene-
ral object, Vitality of organisms, and thus gives a
new complexion to the phenomena of vitality; it has
the old object-matter with additions, and therefore
in a new shape. For its method it depends partly
on Reflection; as we have seen above, that the sub-
jective aspect must first be distinguished, before it
can be separated, from the objective. But psycho-
logy is not the first science to make this use of Reflec-
tion, to adopt and employ the distinction of subjec-
tive and objective aspects. All the other sciences
require it in the same way; the difference is, that
they bring into their object-matter portions of the
objective aspect only, i.e. Things, the external world;
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
57
BOOK I.
Ch. I.
$ 2.
whereas psychology brings into its object-matter sub-
jective states as such.
But what most decisively distinguishes philoso- Spe
phy from psychology, as well as from all the other
sciences, is its elevation of Reflection into a method.
And this elevation introduces a new feature into the
general object-matter, namely, the feature of insepa-
rability of the two aspects. They never were, in fact,
separated; but this fact had not been adverted to.
To advert to it, to become aware of it as a general
truth, is to elevate the act or process of Reflection
into a method. In employing it we continually ask
what we mean by such and such terms, what is the
analysis of such and such percepts. We have thus a
method which is all-embracing in its scope, for there
is no word, no thought, of which this question may
not and must not be asked.
While therefore philosophy is a further differen-
tiation of the general object-matter of psychology
and the other sciences, it is also a new method, and
the method corresponds to the differentiation. Method
and object-matter together make it a separate science,
demarcated from psychology very much as psychology
is from physiology. Some perhaps there are who
would class psychology as a part of physiology, or
both as parts of biology. But however we may class
them nominally or for occasional convenience, the
difference of method, mutually determining and de-
termined by the difference of object matter, is that
which it is practically as well as theoretically impor-
tant to observe and retain; for it is this which con-
stitutes the permanent articulation of the scientific
system, and this by which it corresponds to the dis-
tinctions of nature. On this ground therefore I con-
ever W
58
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Book I.
CH. 1.
$ 2,
to Psychology
DU
1
tend, that philosophy is demarcated from psychology
by a difference as permanent and complete as that
which demarcates psychology from physiology, or
any one of the special sciences from the rest.
Let us now cast a glance at the practical bearings
of the subject. Philosophy, it has been maintained,
is not a part of the larger whole, psychology, in point
of theory at least. Is there any reason for treating
it in practice as if it were so ? If there is, it must be
based on the fact that a better and more searching
analysis is afforded by treating philosophy as a part
of psychology than by taking it separately and then
making it an independent ally. I maintain that there
is no better but a worse result on the whole to be
anticipated from pursuing the two as if they were
one, and that one psychology, than from pursuing
the two independently and using each to correct and
control the other.
The practical difference may be seen by com-
paring what is called the English School of philo-
sophy with the Continental. From Bacon downwards
all our philosophical writers with but few exceptions
(and even in these the theologian has usually pre-
ponderated over the philosopher, as in Berkeley and
Coleridge)—all our philosophical writers are domi-
nated by the notion of a separation between con-
sciousness and its objects, and approach philosophical
questions with the notion of settling what we can
know of objects, with what certainty we can know it,
and what our wisest course of action is in conse-
quence. But this is to adopt the distinction between
the mind in its organism and the world external to
the mind, as an ultimate one. Our English writers
are thus psychologists in the above explained sense
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE,
59
Воок І.
CĦ. I.
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to Psychology.
of the term, and not philosophers in the strict sense.
All our great triumphs have been won on this basis.
Bacon's “Homo naturæ minister et interpres tantum
facit et intelligit, quantum de naturæ ordine re vel
mente observaverit, nec amplius scit aut potest,”?
shows this in the most unequivocal manner; and so
also does the whole First Book of the Novum Organum,
with its demolition of the Four Idols, and its methods
of sound philosophising. The same presupposition is
obvious in Locke'sl disproof of Innate Ideas. Berke:
ley's Idealism again, based on his Theory of Vision,
is a psychological theory; it resolves the connection
between consciousness and its material and external
objects, assumed as a causal one, into a causal con-
nection between the mind and its states of conscious-
ness. Hume's system, based upon Berkeley's, and
applying his principles, evaporated substantial Mind
as completely as Berkeley had evaporated substantial
Matter. It was the suicide of a non-philosophical
psychology, and was immediately followed by Kant's
philosophical reconstruction. Hartley is a thorough-
going physiological psychologist, establishing the com-
plete dependence of consciousness on its organism.
Very rarely does John Stuart Mill rise fairly and in-
disputably into the philosophical region, and when
there he takes but a short flight; one such occasion
is when, in his Excamination of Sir William Hamilton's
Philosophy, he defines Matter as a “permanent pos-
sibility of sensation.'2 The existence of Mind, to
? See Mr. T. H. Green's masterly disquisition on Locke,
Berkeley, and Hume, in the General Introduction to his and Mr.
Grose's recent edition of Hume's Philosophical Works. The truth
of what I here state about these writers cannot be more fully or
more conclusively shown than by that disquisition.
2 Chapter XI. page 198.
60
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
$ 2.
BOOK I. which he next proceeds, fairly bafiles him.
CH. I.
Yet this
happy invention of a phrase which will render a
Speciai relation philosophical conception familiar to English readers
to Psychology.
is a great service to philosophy. When we come to
living writers we find in the speculations of most of
them no difference, I at least can find none, in respect
to the principle now in question, from those of the
great English writers who have preceded them.
Take for example Mr. Spencer. Although he dis-
tinguishes subjective psychology from objective, and
maintains of the former that “under its subjective
aspect, Psychology is a totally unique science, inde-
pendent of, and antithetically opposed to, all other
sciences whatever. The thoughts and feelings which
constitute a consciousness, and are absolutely inac-
cessible to any but the possessor of that conscious-
ness, form an existence that has no place among the
existences with which the rest of the sciences deal ;"1
and though this might seem amply sufficient as an
admission of the philosophical principle of the neces-
sity of a subjective and analytic method ; yet Mr.
Spencer immediately, and even in this very enuncia-
tion, falls back into the separation between the
objective and subjective aspects, “Mind still con-
tinues to us a something without any kinship to
other things;"2 and Psychology consists of two totally-
independent aspects, objective and subjective,—“ the
two forming together a double science which, as a
whole, is quite sui generis.?Mr. Spencer has not
seen that it is Reflection, in subjective psychology,
which perceives the two aspects subjective and ob-
jective, and that the two, as so perceived, are insepar-
1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. I. $ 56. p. 140. 2nd edit.
2 Id. id. p. 140.
3 Id. id. p. 141.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
61
CH. I.
$ 2
MU
JU
S
able and co-extensive. He speaks of several classes Book I.
of nervous changes which have objective aspects
only—do not present inner faces to consciousness ; Special relation
i to Psychology.
and others have subjective aspects in early life, but
cease to have them in adult life."1 If so, I would
ask, if these nervous changes have no subjective
aspect, how is it that he is aware of their existence?
Mr. Spencer takes the proximate conditions of sub-
jective states (conditions existendi) for the objective
aspects of those states.
Mr. Spencer's conception of the subjective aspect
of Psychology, then, would be totally inadequate to
serve as a Philosophy, if any one should put it for-
ward to do so; for it is deficient in generality. Mr.
Spencer distinguishes it from objective science, and
this, so far as it goes, would enable it to serve as a
philosophy; but he does more, he separates it from
objective science in separating it from the objective
aspects of things. But if there are objective aspects
of things which have no subjective aspects, as the last-
quoted passage shows him to maintain, then the sub-
jective aspect of things, and the subjective analysis
which deals with them, must be quite inadequate to
deal with things in their most general relations and
laws, that is, to philosophise about them.
The comparative narrowness of this point of view
is seen when we turn to the development of philo-
sophy in countries where the distinction between
man's knowledge and the world external to man was
not the dominant one. Beginning with the publica-
tion of Telesio's work1 De Natura Rerum juxta propria
principia in 1565, we find in Italy a philosophy of
i Principles of Psychology, Vol. I. $ 43. p. 104. 2nd edit.
2 See Signor Fiorentino's Bernardino Telesio : Firenze, 1874.
en
en
UIT
62
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
BOOK I.
CH. I.
$ 2.
nature ripening into the large all-embracing systems
of Giordano Bruno and Campanella. - Bruno and
Special relation Campanella worked at a metaphysic entirely new,
to Psychology.
which was to be a metaphysic of identity, to replace
the metaphysic of Aristotle, which may be called one
of duality and opposition."1 And if these two great
minds still sought to explain the universe by means
of entities imagined out of abstractions, this was no
more than was inevitable for men, in that early age,
who refused to envisage the problem before them in
anything short of its true and vast proportions, and
who would have scorned to claim for themselves the
title of philosophers while leaving others to solve its
hardest questions and encounter its deadliest enemies.
English philosophers on the other hand, in declining
the pursuit of “formal and final causes” as “barren
virgins consecrated to God,” were in truth declining
for themselves the arduous attempt to include Theo-
logy in the philosophical domain, and were thus
compelled either to accept it ready made from the
theologians, or leave it to be criticised and combated
by others. It is the poets and not the philosophers,
it is our Marlowes, our Shaksperes, our Miltons, our
Shelleys, who in England have been the real antago-
nists of a narrow and unphilosophical theology.
Three words are the imperishable contribution of
Descartes to modern philosophy, possibly his only in-
controvertible one. But these three words are the
morning-star which ushers in the new day. In the
famous Cogito ergo sum is expressed the distinction
between consciousness and its objects, in contrast to
that between man's knowledge and the world external
to man; the fundamental distinction of philosophy
1 Fiorentino: Work cited, Vol. II. p. 183.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
63
as opposed to the fundamental distinction of psycho: BOOK I.
CH. I.
logy; the assertion of the moment of self-conscious- . 82
ness or reflection as opposed to the moment of direct Special relation
to Psychology.
consciousness or direct perception.
In Leibniz, with whose mind all modern Germany
is impregnated; we have again a system of philosophy
including psychology within it. The monad of
Leibniz was not the monad of Bruno; but, says Sig.
Fiorentino, “for all that, Bruno and Leibniz have as
much resemblance aś was possible for two philoso-
phers between whom Descartes had intervened.
Bruno, prior to the Cartesian reform, would find the
union of opposites in nature; Leibniz, who came after
it, in subjective thought, in that power of reflecting
the universe which each monad carries within it.”l
But it was not until Kant that the Cartesian mo-
ment of self-consciousness was to become explicit,
militant, and finally dominant. And this is the rea-
son of the supreme importance of Kant in philosophy.
The difference between the two principles of psycho-
logy and philosophy, I mean the two moments of
direct and reflective consciousness, the latter involy-
ing a distinction without a separation, the former a
separation following on a distinction, was dormant
and unperceived until Kant; who himself held them
both without perceiving their incompatibility, endea-
voured to combine them, in the Critic of Pure Reason.
Kant endeavoured to hold together, as principles
equally dominant, the notion of a Mind endowed
with faculties and that of a moment of self-conscious-
ness, the so-called unity of Apperception. And
Kant's system exploded into fragments because it
contained these two principles in this close juxta-
1 Work cited, Vol. II. p. 105.
64
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
CH. I.
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Book I. position. This showed that one of them was a fiction;
there are no such things as innate forms either of
Special relation the faculty of intuition or of the faculty of thought.
to Psychology.
This is not yet understood by us English. We are
still occupied in expounding Kantianism, as if it was
a living system. You might sooner rebuild Solo-
mon's Temple. It is just an instance of what I said
at the beginning about the use of systems; Kant's
system was the means of verifying the principles
which he believed himself to have discovered, and
resulted in the establishment of some, the discrediting
of others.
To have, then, two fundamental principles at once,
essentially different yet professing to cover the same
ground, is impossible; either one must be retained
and the other discarded, or else a modus vivendi must
be found and a separate function assigned to each.
Most of the German post-Kantian systems have at-
tempted to discard the psychological, the English the
philosophical, principle; and to select and discard
exclusively either the one or the other would be easy
enough, if only facts would allow you to ignore the
one which you have discarded. But this is impos-
sible. Sooner or later an exclusive philosophy is
wrecked on the rocks of science; and an exclusive
psychology on the rocks of philosophy. To discover
a modus vivendi between the two principles, then, and
thus to form a single philosophical whole, with its two
doctrines, philosophical and psychological, contra-
distinguished and yet combined, so that each may
illumine, control, and support, the other,—this has
been and is the problem of philosophy from Kant's
time to ours. It is not a question of sacrificing
either, but of combining both in the places and with
U
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
65
Ch. I.
$ 2.
lon-
the functions which each is suited to perform and fill. BOOK I.
Now the philosophical principle has been shown
above to be the broader and more general of the two, Special relation
Vos to Psychology.
and the questions which spring from it remain to be
answered when the psychological principle has ad-
duced its last proof and said its last word. It is a
power which must be reckoned with, since it cannot
be either ignored or transcended. And we possess in
philosophical analysis a mode of criticising all non-
scientific speculations, to the irruptions of which the
territory of science is constantly exposed, and against
which science has no weapon of its own but that of
attempting to ignore them. Philosophy in short is
alone competent to deal with speculations which,
whether they are tenable or whether they are absurd,
spring at any rate from a reflective source, and con-
sequently are of a philosophical character.
The English school of thought was based on the
acceptance of the scholastic doctrine of Nominalism
as a sufficient basis of philosophy; Nominalism mean-
ing, for the members of that school, the doctrine,
that general terms were nothing else but abbreviated
expressions for the classes of similar particular per-
cepts, or things, of which experience consisted. In
this they showed their practical and non-theoretical
tendency; being satisfied with a very meagre account,
to say the least of it, of what general terms really
were, and asking principally what they were good for,
what purpose they served. But whatever may be
the truth with regard to the scholastic doctrine of
Nominalism, it is totally unfit to serve as a basis of
philosophy. Both in its first shape, in which it is
identical with Conceptualism, and still more in its
later shape, in which it is opposed to Conceptualism
VOL. I.
as
66
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
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CH. I.
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Book I. and is then more properly to be called Terminism,-
it leaves behind it a large field of questions untouched,
to Psychology.
in relating to Percepts. When Locke, for instance,
maintained Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu,
another answer than that of Leibniz-nisi ipse intel-
lectus-was at hand; an answer consisting in the
further question-But what is in sensu ? This answer
it was which was formulated by Kant, a formulation
which was itself open to the objection made above,
namely, that it assumed the Mind as separable from
the World, by assigning one element of sensation to
the Subject and another to the Object. Further
analysis than Kant's, but in the same general direc-
tion, was therefore a necessity. But the English
school ignored the possibility of such an analysis of
Locke's sensus. They assumed sensations as the
atoms, so to speak, of consciousness; and even now,
though admitting that these atoms may have distin-
guishable elements, they do not in practice lay any
stress on distinguishing them.
Mr. Spencer's Principles of Psychologył will again
furnish us with an illustration. Accepting as really
simple those constituents of Mind which are not de-
composable by introspection, he mentions two kinds
of proximate components of Mind,-Feelings and the
Relations between feelings. “Each feeling, as we
here define it, is any portion of consciousness which
occupies a place sufficiently large to give it a per-
ceivable individuality; which has its individuality
marked off from adjacent portions of consciousness
by qualitative contrasts; and which, when intro-
spectively contemplated, appears to be homogeneous.
These are the essentials.
Is
*
* * * And obviously
i Vol. I. $ 65. pp. 163-165. 2nd edit.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
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if it does not occupy in consciousness an appreciable B
area, or an appreciable duration, it cannot be known
as a feeling.” “A feeling proper is either made up Special relation
of like parts that occupy time, or it is made up of
like parts that occupy space, or both.”
Here we have what I have called above the pure
time and pure space elements of percepts. The feel-
ings proper, though not decomposable by intro-
spection, have yet elements which introspection
distinguishes. They are empirical units, but meta-
physical concretes. Mr. Spencer however leaves be-
hind him their analysis, and passes to the examination
of their interconnection. He goes no farther back
in analysis than is requisite for his Psychology, no
farther than to those units of consciousness which
correspond to his ultimate units of physiology, his
single hypothetical nervous shocks.” But these
units of consciousness are not simple but complex,
if we look at them subjectively. In the analysis of
direct perception, therefore, there is a great field left
untrodden by one of the ablest of modern psycho-
logists. .
But the ultimate analysis of perception in re-
flective or self consciousness, and not merely in direct,
is the question on which philosophical controversy
must chiefly hinge, at least for the present. It in-
volves the question of the possibility of the alleged
“Intellectual Intuition," of envisaging a substratum
common to the two modes of existence, consciousness
and objects of consciousness, and of all the various
forms which this mode of speculation may assume.
And the analysis of direct perception to its furthest
limits, not stopping short at Mr. Spencer's admission
that it can be analysed, is a pre-requisite for the ana-
68
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIÊNCE.
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Book T. lysis of reflectivè. It will not suffice for psychology
CH. I.
to throw the onus probandi, e. g., the proof that we
Special relation have a “faculty" of Intellectual Intuition, on sup-
to Psychology
porters of the systems of speculation contemplated.
The question is one concerning the contents of expe-
rience, not concerning its conditions. It will not do
to say; -we have no “organ” for procuring us such
and such experiences; we must first enquire what
experiences we actually have, and then will follow
the question, what “organs” are those by which they
are procured. So long as psychological schools can
be fairly taxed with narrowness of basis, with not
embracing philosophical problems in all their length
and breadth, they may hold their ground as science,
but they cannot be regarded as judges in matter of
philosophy, or pleaders in matters of theology
But here I must turn to another point. If the
ultimate analysis of perception in all its branches is
the distinguishing mark of philosophy, --if this is
what its differentia from psychology consists in,-
then I shall be asked, Is not philosophy, in your
view of it, just what the Germans mean by Cogni-
tiontheory (Erkenntnisstheorie), nothing more, nothing
less? The answer to this question will, I hope, clear
up any remaining obscurity which may possibly be
still left hanging about my conception of philosophy.
The answer depends upon bringing into connection,
and confronting one with the other, what has now
been said on the relation of philosophy to psycho-
logy, and what was said in the former section of the
Chapter on its relation to the other sciences, and
especially to the notion of Existence.
The German Cognitiontheory is a child of Kant-
ianism, and it has not outgrown its parent. Phi-
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
69
losophy, in my view of it, is more than Cognition- Book I.
theory, inasmuch as it contains in the phenomena of
$ 2.
Reflection, round which it centers, the answer to the Special relation
w to Psychology.
question, What existence itself is. It is not only a
theory of knowledge, but a theory of existence also.
Under all doctrines, opinions, theories, there lie,
perhaps tacitly, assumptions; and these are usually
to be traced to, or at least when traced are found in
the form of, distinctions. People distinguish this
from that, and then put the question, Do you mean
this or that? assuming that you must mean either
one or else the other. Their assumption is a dis-
tinction which appears to them undeniable. Now
Cognitiontheory proceeds on the distinction between
knowledge and existence assumed as an ultimate one;
and thereupon a cognition-principle (Erkenntniss-
princip) is opposed to a real-principle (Realprincip).
Thus, (by way of example), Herbart reproaches
Fichte with “the fallacy of transforming the Ego,
which he was justified in using only as cognition-
principle, into a real-principle."1,
Now there is a great deal of truth in this distinc-
tion, but there is also so much error, or to say the
least indistinctness, that it cannot be used as the
basis of philosophy; that is to say, the German Cog-
nitiontheory, which is founded on it, is not phi-
losophy in its length and breadth. We want to know
first what a Real-principle is, and what constitutes its
distinction from a Cognition-principle; we want first
to know, as Mr. Matthew Arnold has well urged, and
to use his own words, we want first to know what
being is.”2 The distinction can be ultimate only if
1 Allgemeine Metaphysik, $ 98. Werke, Vol. III. p. 278.
2 God and the Bible, Ch. II. p. 72.
70
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Воок І.
CH. I.
relatio
I. each member of it is per se notum ; i.e., immediately
§ 2.
known and incapable of further explanation.
ion Now my contention is, that this is not the case;
to Psychology.
but that the meaning of both terms is given only, in
and by reflection. Thus the facts of reflection over-
rule the distinction between knowledge and existence,
cognition-principle and real-principle, as an ultimate
one; those facts give rise to it, and they alone can
interpret and explain it. The important fact is, that
in reflection knowledge and existence are united, not
separated. The term cognition theory assumes that
they may be separated and treated apart. The true
cognitiontheory is a reflection theory; that is the
step forward which philosophy has made since Kant,
and chiefly through him. Greater definiteness and
deeper insight into cognitiontheory is attained; re-
flection is its principle, and the facts of reflection
nostri farrago libelli.
The nature, analysis, or whatness of a thing is a
real-principle, to use the German phrase, as much as
a cognition-principle; and this is given in reflection;
esse is percipi. There is a double-aspected source of
knowledge and of fact, a common source to the two
streams, as it were, of investigation and the history
investigated. Knowledge and fact are not separate
ab initio. It is of course important to keep them
separate in scientific investigations. It is in philo-
sophy that their original union is apparent, and it is
the business of philosophy to insist upon this.
The facts of reflection, then, overruling the dis-
tinction of cognition-principle and real-principle as an
ultimate one, replace it by another, or rather remove
it to a subordinate position, as belonging to history
and genesis, not to nature and analysis. Conditiones
SOI
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
71
DOOR 1.
au is the shape in
CH, I.
cognoscendi, conditiones existendi,—that is the sh
intend: that is throhamoin BOOK I.
which the older forms now appear.
The nature, analysis, or whatness of anything is Special relation.
double, subjective and objective. This belongs to
reflection and to philosophy. The genesis or his-
tory of anything is, not double, but of two separ-
able kinds; there is the history of the thing itself,
and the history of our knowledge of the thing; its
conditions of existing, and the conditions of our
knowing it to exist. And this distinction between
Nature and History is the link between the philo-
sophical analysis of nature, given by reflection, and
the scientific enquiries into (1) the conditions of
things and events existing and occurring, and into
(2) the conditions of our having knowledge of things
and events, the ordo ac connexio idearum, which is
psychology.
Metaphysic (which is the analytic part of phi-
losophy) and psychology have, in one sense, the same
object-matter, states of consciousness, but treat it in
quite different ways. Psychology is a science, sub-
ordinate to metaphysic which is philosophy. Her-
bart's name must never be forgotten, when this doc-
trine is in question. The particular way, indeed, in
which he drew the line between them, I cannot but
think erroneous. But the relation in which they
stand to each other, as a more and a less general
method of treating the same phenomena, he was the
first to dwell on, explain, and enforce. “The whole
series of Experience-forms must be investigated twice over
(doppelt); metaphysically and psychologically. Both in-
vestigations must lie side by side, and be compared
together long enough for every one to see their com-
plete difference so plainly as never to be in danger
72
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Boo!
CH. I.
I. of confusing them again."1 Psychology has to do in
my opinion) with the genesis and history of states
Special relation of consciousness in particular organisms; metaphysic
to Psychology
has to do with the analysis of states of consciousness
in connection with their objects; the objective aspect,
as a whole, being summed up in the word Existence.
The meaning of the term existence is at the root
of all philosophical discussion; and more prominently
so since Kant. But precisely here it was that Kant
was defective. He did not see that existence was a
reflective perception; he saw that it was not an
inherent quality or attribute; but he thought that
the notion of anything's existing was a positing, a
Setzung, of the mind. “Existence (Sein) is plainly
no real predicate, i. e., conception of something which
can come on, additionally, to the conception of a
thing. It is merely the positing (Position) of a thing
or of certain determinations by themselves."2
This notion of existence being a positing, which
does not necessarily exclude, but at the same time
does not distinctly admit, reflective perception,—this
notion was taken up by Fichte, and its vagueness
determined in the Idealistic sense. The Ego was
made to posit, that is, to produce, what it really per-
ceived. Positing is an action pure and simple; reflec-
tion also is an action, but the action is perception ;-
an object is involved equally independent with the
Subject. This balance of equal independence, mutual
interdependence, was destroyed by Fichte. Existence
fell wholly on the side of the Subject, the Ego, which
was pure agency.
1 Allgem. Metaph. Werke, Vol. III. p. 258.
2 Kritik d. R. V. p. 439 : Hartenstein, 1853. From the famous
hundred dollars passage.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
73
Ch. I.
This shows us, too, how the most opposite theories Book I.
come out of Kantianism. Take Kant's positing, and
82.
make the balance incline to the objective side, the Special relation
thing posited, and you have an objective existent,-
something there to be perceived. The fact that the
thing is there, apart from what it is, is Herbart's
interpretation of Kant's positing ; upon this he bases
his philosophy; and for this reason only he calls
himself a Kantian.1 But to take this alternative is
to take, along with it, what Kant was quitting, what
lay behind him, what the philosophical world, before
Kant, was familiar with, namely, the supposed abso-
lute character of objective existence.. .
But it is in the balance itself that, not only the
relativity of existence, but also its true explanation
and analysis, consist. Let it once fall on either side,
and two things are the result; first, you have an
Absolute Existence, whether absolute as subject or
absolute as object, and secondly, you have the ques-
tion, what their existence means, to solve over again;
that is, you have to rediscover the relativity, the
esse=percipi, of existence. In other words, the
point of view of reflective perception is the only final
one, however unlike its solution may be to what we
expected, in answer to the question which we ima-
gined ourselves to be asking. The answer which we
get from reflection not only is, but also shows why it
is, the final one.
The Germans, then, have not carried out their
cognitiontheory to its full limits, have not given it
its legitimate development. Yet how forcibly are
we again struck with the contrast which their treat-
1 Allgem. Metaph. Werke, Vol. III. pp. 65. 117. 157. And
many other passages.
74
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
CH. I.
D
BOOK I.
ment of the question presents to that which is usual
in this country. They treat philosophical questions
$ 2.
Special relation as philosophical; they have not that profound horror
to Psychology.
of the theoretical, which is the too common charac-
teristic of Englishmen. And this leads me to remark,
in conclusion of the present section of the subject,
the very different reaction which the larger and the
narrower methods of philosophising respectively exer-
cise on their disciples.
The practical result of the larger view of the
scope of philosophy, and of the discussions raised by
the introduction of the Cartesian moment of self-
consciousness into philosophy, both before and after
Kant, has been to render philosophy more searchingly
analytic. Hardly any analysis of conscious states
pure and simple is to be found in English writers;
whose strength is expended either on the physio-
logical and physical conditions of those states, or on
their sequences in consciousness itself under the title
of laws of Association. In German writers, on the
other hand, analysis of this kind is very frequent
and very excellent. They map the country before
exploring it in detail. The works of Leibniz, and
especially of Wolff, are storehouses of distinctions ;
Kant analyses and analyses again, first from one
point of view, then from another, making each new
analysis throw light on former ones. If of Hegel's
great system not one stone should remain upon
another, his all-penetrating all-comprehending ana-
lyses will for ever remain as instructive and as stimu-
lating to the mental powers, as are those of Plato
and those of Aristotle, whose systems have long
ceased to find disciples.
Far be it from me to depreciate the powers or the
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE,
75
Book I.
CH. I.
$ 2.
Special relation
to Psychology.
achievements of my countrymen. I glory in Bentham,
in Locke, in Hobbes, in Bacon; I glory in William of
Ockham and all his train;
« πλατείαι πάντοθεν λογίοισιν εντί πρόσοδοι
vãoov sünnéa Távde nooueñv.”.
But yet is there a more excellent way; and we
shall not merge our individuality by forming an
alliance, nor need we strike our colours in setting
sail upon a broader stream, A greater and more
comprehensive philosophy can arise in the line of Locke
than can ever arise in the line of Leibniz; but only on
the condition of replacing our narrow psychological
horizon by an horizon of true philosophical range,
This being done, our psychological and scientific
method is at least as necessary to the soundness, as
the philosophical to the comprehensiveness, of a
complete philosophy.
Briefly, then, to resume the position at which we
have now arrived, we may define Philosophy, in con-
tradistinction to Psychological Science, as the ulti-
mate analysis of states of consciousness in connection
with their objective aspects, abstracting from their
conditions in the organism; and in contradistinction
to Science in general, as the subjective analysis of
the ultimate notions of the Sciences. In both alike
it has the three characteristics of being ultimate,
subjective, and analytic. The first characteristic,
ultimate, belongs to philosophy ex hypothesi. That is
to say, only such enquiries as are ultimate, which
stand nearest to and endeavour to penetrate farther
into the unknown, the “dark foundations” of being,
do we set apart as search and not as science. The
second, subjective, rests on a simple fact of experience,
esum
re
76
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
$ 2.
Book I, the apparent reduplication of objects in subjectivity;
consciousness being like light, which reveals itself
Special relation and the object at once; the object itself and the
object seen being one. The third, analytic, is deter-
mined by the process of Reflection being made the
principle of the method pursued. But this third
characteristic is open to the doubt, whether it entirely
exhausts the possibilities of philosophy; whether it
does not restrict philosophy to too narrow a field ;
whether philosophy itself may not be synthetic also.
It is clear that philosophy, being subjective and ulti-
mate, must be reflective, and therefore analytic of its
object-matter; the question is, whether it is analytic
only.
§ 3.
$ 3. The question just raised, whether philosophy
The Construc-
tive Branch of is more than merely analytical, brings us for the first
Philosophy.
time into serious contact with the claims and preten-
sions of Ontology. The ontological question may be
variously stated. Is it possible to transcend the dis-
tinction between the subjective and objective aspects,
resolving them into something which is neither of
them actually, and yet which is both of them poten-
tially ? Or again, Is it possible to exhibit the genesis
of the two aspects, if not from a common source, yet
of either of them from the other? Or again, Can we
hope to assign a reason why there should be con-
sciousness and existence at all, or why there should
be consciousness and existence only?
These are statements of what is properly and
strictly the problem of Ontology. An ontological
system is one which professes to furnish and demon-
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
77 .
11
1
strațe an affirmative answer to any one of these ques- Book I.
tions. But if we look at the various systems of
philosophy which are synthetic and constructive as The Construc-
tive Branch of
well as analytic, we shall see that they envisage these Philosophy.
questions with very varying degrees of distinctness ;
and that, even where they envisage the questions
distinctly, they yet contain much which, though pro-
fessedly constructive and not analytic, still does not
go beyond the ultimate duality of subjective and
objective aspects, distinct but inseparable, given by
reflection. Let us enumerate the explanations, the
ultimate constructive principles, given by some of
these systems. Such constructive principles are :
The Very One, sò aütoév, of Neo-Platonism,
The Triune God, of Christian Theology,
Leibniz' Monad of Monads,
Spinoza's Infinite Substance consisting of In-
finite Attributes,
Schelling's Absolute Identity of Subject and
Object,
Hegel's Identification of Contradictories,
Schopenhauer's Will as Thing-in-itself,
Mr. Herbert Spencer's Unknowable.
These are all produced as solutions in constructive
philosophical speculations, widely different from each
other as they are in other respects; for instance, in
respect of how much, in detail, the several systems
they belong to profess to have achieved; or again,
from a theological point of view. One and all, they
go to the very limit of the human tether; they em-
brace everything. Even Mr. Spencer's system, which
knows that nothing can be known of the dark founda-
tions, is unlimited knowledge in respect of range. It
78
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Book I. knows so far, and all beyond is known to be unknow-
ca able. Hegel's system, on the other hand, knows so
Construc: far, and knows that all beyond is knowable too, for
tive Branch of 10y and
Philosophy. its inmost source of being is known.
It is very difficult to pronounce whether the
authors of systems such as these suppose themselves
to have transcended the duality of subject and object,
for they imagine something as transcending it, and
by this very act of imagining make subjective that
transcendent something. The truth is, that they have
not grasped, or at least have not stated, in all its
bearings, this property of Reflection, namely, that all
its objects are subjective as well as objective; either
they have not repeated often enough the process of
reflecting again on their own proceeding, or else
they have not thought it worth while to explain the
rationale of it to their readers. At the same time
they all of them go, as remarked above, to the very
end of the matter.
We see, then, two things; (1) Constructive systems
have busied mankind in all ages; (2) the ontological
part has not been clearly marked out from the re-
maining parts of those systems, and thus Ontology
has not been distinguished from a possibly legitimate
philosophical construction,
The necessity for leaving a place open for philo-
sophical construction, distinguished from Ontology,
is shown by the facts of Reflection. Consciousness
(I mean always as it exists in an individual) stands
as it were at a point in space, an infinite space, which
is Existence. But consciousness is as infinite as the
space. Otherwise, how could it imagine the space as
infinite? Again, consciousness is endowed with facul-
ties as it is called, that is, works in certain determi-
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
79
ġ anu tive Branch of
LA
nate modes; now everything determinate is limited Book I.
by its determination, there may be other modes
8 3.
which are to this consciousness indeterminate, and The Construc-
in that sense unknown. The world as given by our Philosophy.
determinate modes of consciousness is to us the actual
world in which we live. The world as it would be
given by other modes is indeterminate existence,
indeterminate to us but determinate to those other
modes of consciousness, being their actual world.
There is then, beside our determinate world; a world
indeterminate to us, but possible if there should be
other modes of consciousness than ours, that is, pos-
sible to our thought since we imagine its condition,
and actual to those other modes, if they are actually
existing. It is this possible and to us indeterminate
world which is the field of constructive philosophy
as distinguished from analytic philosophy on the one
hand and from Ontology on the other. It is a world
included within the grasp of Reflection, but excluded
from that of Direct Consciousness.
The constructive branch of philosophy, then,
having this field assigned to it by the method of
Reflection, is not only one which has been pursued
by philosophers, but it is a necessary and legitimate
branch of enquiry. The direction in which its pro-
blems and their solutions (if any) will lie, and the
point of its connection with the analytic branch, are
evident. How much it will contain, what answers
are possible to its questions, and even the particular
shape of these questions, are points which need not
here be dwelt on. One thing however is too im-
portant to be passed over. The constructive branch
of philosophy cannot be pursued except in connec-
tion with the analytic branch. Otherwise it would
80
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
BOOK I.
Ch. I.
$ 3.
• not be philosophy at all,--for it would not be sub-
jective and it would not be ultimate. But it does
The Construc- not necessarily follow that its problems must take an
tive Branch of Hero
Philosophy. ontological shape, that philosophers should propose to
transcend the distinction of subjective and objective
aspects, and to define the supposed underlying Unity.
We have got two analyses, a subjective and an ob-
jective, to combine. The elements given by these
analyses may be hypothetically constructed and recon-
structed in various ways. Again, the modes of con-
sciousness known to us are not all that are possible;
there may be conscious beings with senses, emotions,
and intellectual endowments, widely different from,
as well as more numerous and more powerful than,
our own. There is a vast field of the unknown to
traverse, and all this field lies, with all its possibili-
ties, before the constructive branch of philosophy.
Science is of the world as our human modes of con-
sciousness reveal it to us; it is a knowledge of the
laws of objective existence as that existence appears
to man; it is the history of the universe expressed
in general terms, in concepts not in percepts. Still
it does not transcend what has or what may have
happened, what can happen or will happen, as con-
ceivable by ourselves. But a Fourth Dimension of
metaphysical or unfigured Space is a problem of con-
structive philosophy. It is an object not unknow-
able, but unknown; we know the sort of thing it
must be, at the same time as we know that we cannot
construe the notion of it to ourselves, or bring it into
harmony with our actual space of three dimensions,
which seems to include all possible directions of
spatial extension.
Or we may state the position of the constructive
Oll.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
81
CH. I.
Te
branch of philosophy as follows. There cannot be Book I.
anything, beyond existence, that is not existence; it
$ 3.
is a contradiction in terms ; or, there cannot be an The Construca
tive Branch of
existence that has not a subjective aspect, for to be is Philosophy.
to have a subjective aspect, in some consciousness or
other. But there may be existences, or existent
worlds, very different from that one which is the
world of our consciousness ; and we may imagine
such worlds, analogous to our own, by supposing
changes in regard to the ultimate elements of our
own subjective analysis, which may be done either
by the hypothesis of different but analogous Feel-
ings, or by that of a different combination of the sub-
jective elements themselves. There would thus be
new worlds for new conscious beings. And our own
world would appear as one of a series or group of
analogous worlds, yet without in any way transcend-
ing phenomenal existence, or the duality of subjec-
tive and objective aspects, distinct but inseparable.
We may farther suppose this series or group gradu-
ated so as to consist of members infinitesimally dif-
ferent from each other, yet none of which would be
actual to any conscious beings but its own, however
near it stood to those most like it in the group. And
this whole hypothetical group of phenomenal worlds
would be the field of the constructive branch of philo-
sophy.
Again we may say, that the problems of the con-
structive branch of philosophy will include, but possi-
bly by giving them quite different shapes from what
they have hitherto appeared under, the old questions
of God, and Immortality; and generally of the Why,
the Whence, and the Whither, as distinguished from the
What and the How, of our actual world. I exclude
VOL. I.
82
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Book I. the question of Freedom, that appearing to me to be
not a problem, but a puzzle which is within the com-
$ 3.
The Construct petence of the analytic branch; though it is not im-
Philosophy. possible that further light should be thrown upon it
from the constructive. But if we take our actual
world as a whole, limited by the worlds of the hypo-
thetical group, then the How of our actual world
becomes a question of its connection with those
worlds, and consequently a question for the construc-
tive branch of philosophy.
Whatever light might be thrown upon the nature
of our own world by imaginations directed to the
hypothetical group, the insight gained would not be
science; no laws of our own world would be thereby
discovered or proved; for the hypotheses would not
be verifiable. Still there might be an advantage to
science in suggestions which might be thus afforded
for framing other scientific hypotheses relating to
our own world, hypotheses which themselves, when
framed, would be capable of verification and therefore
scientific. For instance, but by way of illustration
merely, the hypothesis of an universal Ether is a
scientific hypothesis, capable of verification by means
of its consequences; but it is also an hypothesis which
we may easily imagine to have been suggested, in the
first instance, by speculations on hypothetical worlds
or their relations to our own. And supposing that
to have been the case, we should then have an in-
stance of what I intend by saying that hypotheses in
philosophy, not themselves verifiable, may conceivably
suggest hypotheses in science which are or may be-
come so. Here is the link which connects the con-
structive branch of philosophy with science in its
strict signification; and it is clear I think that, though
LU
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
83
indirect, it is still not to be altogether disregarded,
BOOK I.
CH. I.
even from a scientific point of view.'
$ 3.
Widely different however from what is here in- The Construc-
tive Branch of
tended as the constructive branch of philosophy are Philosophy.
theories which bear a similar relation to some parti-
cular branch of science; such theories as for instance
that of Herr G. Th. Fechner in his Zendavesta (1851),
to the effect that the whole universe is animated, and
every sun and planet a being endowed with an indi-
vidual life and consciousness; or that put forward in
The Unseen Universe (1875), which maintains the
existence of an infinite series of worlds composed of
finer matter than that out of which the visible uni-
verse is framed. One is a physiologist's, the other a
physicist's, imagination. Such theories belong to a
constructive branch, not of philosophy, but of science.
They build an extension, or they remodel the struc-
ture, of the physical world as we see it and know it;
but they, build or remodel with the old stones, or with
new ones of similiar quality. Philosophy in remodel-
ling would transmute the very substance of the stones
as it were into diamond or opal. I am very far from
denying the value of such scientific speculations; I
welcome and applaud them. At the same time it is
necessary to keep them distinct from analogous ima-
ginations of philosophy in its constructive branch;
and, above all, not to use them as supports of a ready-
made theology, which is thereby made to sit in the
chair of philosophy.
It is at this point that I find myself opposed to
those who hold the fourth of the views concerning
philosophy enumerated at the outset, a view recently
and very powerfully advocated by Mr. Lewes. The
field which I have vindicated as belonging to a legiti-
ne
TE
84
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Book 1.
CH. I.
$ 3.
mate branch of philosophy, the constructive branch,
is, if I mistake not, that described by Mr. Lewes as
The Construc; the region of “the supra-sensible” and “the metempi-
tive Branch of
Philosophy. rical,” and excluded, in the character of an “unex-
plored remainder," not only from science but also
from philosophy. At the last of the places cited,
Mr. Lewes mentions two senses of the word Object.
“We apply the term Object to the Not-self. This
Not-self may be either the objective aspect of the
world felt and thought, i.e., of the External in actual
and virtual relation to Sentience; or the universe of
existence, conceived in its totality, including that
smaller section of it which is grouped by a Subject."
And then, speaking of the “ Universe considered as
the totality of Existence, under this aspect he says,
“the Object is not the other side of the Subject, but
the larger circle which includes it.”
On this I would ask,—This interspace between
the including and included circles,—what is it? Is
it knowable or unknowable? If unknowable, how
do we know that it exists? If knowable at all, why
not included in philosophy ?
There is one way of understanding the expression
“larger circle,” in which it does not conflict with the
expression “other side,” here contrasted with it.
Namely, when the universe considered as the totality
of existence is distinguished into its two aspects, the
Object and the Subject, this double-aspected Whole
may be taken as the larger circle including either of
the two aspects, since it includes both Object and
Subject; but then this same double-aspected Whole
is also, in the present act of reflection, the Object of
1 Problems of Life and Mind, Vol. I. pp. 39-46. 177. 189.
194-5.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE,
85
CH. I.
Construc-
1
our imagination; it is the other side of our subject.
BOOK I.
Reflection continually distinguishes, equates, and
$ 3.
combines, the two aspects. And in this sense the T
ctive Branch of
universe, the totality of existence, is the object of Philosophy.
philosophy, being the object of Reflection. It is
from the point of view of direct consciousness that
the universe is not the other side of the Subject, but
the larger circle which includes it, since it includes,
in Mr. Lewes' words, “that smaller section of it which
is grouped by a Subject.”.
There is then, according to Mr. Lewes, and from
the direct consciousness point of view, an objective
existence which has no subjective counterpart, is not
“grouped by a Subject." This part of existence I
understand Mr. Lewes to exclude from philosophy
under the names “ supra-sensible” and “metempi-
rical.” “I am far from implying,” says Mr. Lewes,
" that a Supra-sensible does not exist. I only affirm
that it does not exist for us as an objeçt of positive
knowledge, though forced upon us as a negative con-
ception."1 He would " divide the field of Speculation
into the Sensible World, the Extra-sensible World,
and the Supra-sensible World: a division correspond-
ing with our previous distribution of positive, specu-
lative, and metempirical."2 And after speaking at
length of the two first of these, as comprising all
that is accessible to experience, and consequently all
that is admissible in science, he proceeds: “ There is,
however, a third division claimed by Theology and
Metempirics, the region of the Supra-sensible, or
Metempirical, which is closed indeed against the Me-
thod of Science, but is open to Faith and Intellectual
Intuition.”
1 Vol. I. p. 252. 2 Vol. I. p. 253. 3 Vol. I. p. 264.
CD
86
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
CA, I.
BOOK I. I on the other hand, from the reflection point of
83. view, would include this region in philosophy, though
Construc-
tive Branch of CACTUUing 11
: excluding it from science; not because it is “open
Philosophy. to faith and intellectual intuition,” but because it is
embraced by reflection. Unless it were embraced
by reflection, I do not see how it could be examined
at all, even to be rejected. To examine it at all is to
include it in philosophy; the examination may result
in its exclusion from science, but not in its exclusion
from philosophy, for that would stultify the exami-
nation itself. Within philosophy, accordingly, I
would assign this region a place as its constructive
branch, making this branch of philosophy wholly
dependent upon the results of the analytical branch.
To include it in philosophy, at least as a possible
branch, is to give a meaning to Wolff's definition of
philosophy, “scientia possibilium quatenus esse pos-
sunt.”1 To exclude it is to leave unattempted the very
questions which most torment us, and for the hope
of solving which in great measure philosophy itself
is undertaken. Indeed for most people, philosophy
means the constructive branch, means the solution
of the questions, Why, Whence, Whither, of Exist-
ence, and means nothing else. The purely analytical
branch of philosophy has for most people no interest
and no significance. .
The exclusion of what Mr. Lewes calls the supra-
sensible and metempirical from philosophy, the re-
jection of a constructive by the side of the analytical
branch, is tantamount to reducing the object-matter
of philosophy to the dimensions of the object-matter
of science; a reduction of field which is in conflict
with the larger method of philosophy, the method of
1 Logica. Disc. Prælim. § 29.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE,
87
The Construc-
1
BOOK I.
reflection, as compared with that of science. The
CH. I,
larger method requires and involves a larger field or
on
object-matter. Mr. Lewes is therefore quite con- 1
sistent with himself in reducing the method of philo- Philosophy.
sophy to the method of science, as well as reducing
the dimensions of its field. “It is towards the trans-
formation of Metaphysics by reduction to the Method
of Science that these pages tend."1 The solution of
metaphysical problems by the method of science-
this is what I take to be the purpose of philosophy,
according to Mr. Lewes; and philosophy with him,
so far as it differs from science at all, must mean the
analysis which effects the reduction of philosophical
to scientific problems, by reducing the method of
philosophising to the method of science, and thus
prepares their final scientific solution.
This is why I described Mr. Lewes as placing the
function distinctive of philosophy from science in the
negative task which it performed, of disproving and
banishing ontological entities. If this appears an
inadequate description, as Mr. Main has urged against
me that it is,? I think it is only from its unavoidable
brevity that it appears, so. I certainly had no inten-
tion of denying that Mr. Lewes' treatment of the
ultimate generalisations of the sciences included “re-
interpretation and analysis;" I do not see how they
could be treated at all without doing so; nor yet
that Mr. Lewes aimed at reducing them to “terms
of Feeling."
The one difference, I apprehend, which is the
source of the rest, between Mr. Lewes and myself, is
1 Problems, &c. Vol. I. p. 5. And see the whole of the Intro-
duction passim.
2 In Mind, No. II. p. 292.
88
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
Phi
KI. no small one. It relates to the method or methods
Ch. I.
of philosophy and science;-has or has not philo-
The Construct sophy a peculiar method, based on the principle of
sophy. Reflection? The answer to this question determines
its distinctive characteristic with respect to science,
and the range of object-matter proper to each. The
facts of Reflection, as I contend, make the method
of philosophy what it is, and inevitably render its
object-matter larger than the object-matter of science.
Of course I do not deny that reflection enters into
the special sciences and into psychology; they could
hardly have been constituted without it. A glance
at the two former sections of the Chapter will show
this. Reflection is the common thread running
through all, and connecting them with philosophy.
But philosophy elevates this common thread of reflec-
tion into a method ; and it is its method founded on
reflection that at once distinguishes philosophy from
the sciences and gives it a larger field. Nor do I see,
on the opposite view of the method taken by Mr.
Lewes, and on the consequent exclusion from philo-
sophy of the supra-sensible, of that part of existence
outside of "the smaller section of it which is grouped
by a Subject,” how philosophy can logically advance
a claim to be a doctrine concerning existence as a
whole, or can make, as Mr. Lewes nevertheless does, 1
any statement about “the Absolute.”
But the distinction between the two branches of
philosophy now indicated and I hope justified, the
analytical and the constructive, is practically most
important. It is mainly for want of such a distinc-
tion that those of the above-named constructive sys-
tems which offered a positive solution have failed to
| 1 Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 503.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
83.
recommend themselves. For they aimed at giving BOOK I.
an explanation of the universe which should contain
its analysis and genesis at once, in a single principle. The Construcs
They attempted too much, and for that very reason Philosophy.
they performed too little. Consider it thus. An
analysis of the actual world giving us a cause of pos:
sible worlds,-how insufficient must any such cause
be. How narrow a conception, called in to explain
how vast a problem!
We must, then, distinguish two legitimate branches
of philosophy, the analytic and the constructive. But
the analytic branch has already been provided with a
name; it is that which I at least have always spoken
of by the name of METAPHYSIC. The constructive
branch may remain at present undesignated. The
kind of problems which will be attempted in it is as
yet too undetermined. Indeed it has never hither-
to, so far as I know, been distinguished as a legiti-
mate branch of philosophy, as separate from the
analytic branch which is Metaphysic, and at the same
time cleared and clarified from the pretensions of
Ontology, which have been mixed up with it into an
undistinguished total. And this is my point of dif-
ference from the third of the opinions about philo-
sophy, enumerated at starting, that of the Absolutists.
Still less has this new constructive branch been fol-
lowed with any distinct consciousness of its scope
and of the means at its disposal. Nor do I mean,
in the present Chapter at least, to make any preten-
sions on its behalf, either as to the soundness of the
methods possible to it, or as to the results which may
be expected from them. All I say is, that theoreti
cally a legitimate place is open for it in the whole
of philosophy; that philosophy has such a branch,
90
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. -
BOOK I.
CH. 1.
$ 3.
The Construo.
tive Branch of
Philosophy.
clearly distinguishable from Science on the one side
and from Metaphysic on the other. And we can see
already, in a very general way, what sort of a con-
tent it will have. It will consist in the combination
of an hypothetical psychology with Metaphysic. It
will be hypothetical psychology, psychology carried
up into more general regions, because it can only
advance by assuming consciousness to be separable
from its objects and conditioned by its organism,
whatever that organism may be. It cannot, like the
analytic branch, begin with the objective aspect, but
must begin with the subjective, as the only one which
is known to it. This it does in making the above-
mentioned hypothesis of changes in regard to the
ultimate elements of our own subjective analysis.
And it ends with the objective aspects corresponding
to this new beginning. That is to say, its method is
that which we have seen is the method of psychology
proper. Its aim is to put the objective aspect, a new
hypothetical world, to the hypothetical subjective
aspect with which it begins. It is thus closely con-
nected with what is the great problem, as yet totally
unsolved,1 of scientific psychology, namely, What is
the mode of connection between consciousness and
its organism; or, in what way is it conditioned by its
organism? We know at present nothing more than
the mere fact of the dependence.
The constructive branch of philosophy is accord-
ingly to be regarded as a philosophised psychology,
or the return of Metaphysic upon psychology. The
most abstruse problem of psychology is the starting-
point of the constructive branch of philosophy. Yet
1 Mr. Lewes takes a wholly different view, which I cannot in
this place discuss.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
BOOK I.
CH, I.
$ 3.
the constructive branch is not a higher branch of
a gno Dance V
philosophy than the analytic. This Ontology pro-
fessed to be. But it is clear that, however large and T
tive Branch of
sweeping we may suppose the constructive branch to Philosophy.
be, as it has now been sketched, still it is and must
always be impossible for it to transcend the ultimate
distinction of subjective and objective aspects, or to
resolve these into a higher unity; for this would be
to overpass the very limits, to abolish the very dis-
tinction, to the establishment of which it owes its own
existence as a branch of philosophy. Above and
beyond all other branches of knowledge is that sub-
jective method whose last word is ANALYSIS.
I shall have occasion in future chapters to criti-
cise ontological and absolutist systems belonging to
the third of my five classes of philosophies. But the
second class, Comtian Positivism, which claims to be
(1) philosophy, (2) subjective philosophy, and (3) to
reject metaphysic altogether, requires a few words of
criticism in the present place, before dismissing it
from further consideration, along with what I have
called English Positivism, as not coming up to the
notion of philosophy at all.
“Comte's philosophical position,” writes one of
the very ablest of his English disciples,1 “ may be
summed up in these two sentences :
1. He attempted a Synthesis of scientific con-
ceptions.
2. That Synthesis was subjective, and not ob-
jective.
It discarded, that is to say, all attempts to stand
outside the universe, to regard it as a whole, and to
1 Dr. J. H. Bridges in Fortnightly Review, June 1877. Vol. XXI.
N.s. p. 853. Evolution and Positivism.
92
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
$ 3.
Th
Book I. explain it. The unifying influence, that which made
CH, I.
it a synthesis, was the recognition of Man as the
he Construc: central object; of the study of social and moral phe-
tive Branch of
nomena as the central science, to which the rest were
subsidiary.”
It will be seen at once that this sense of the term
subjective is not that which I have contended for in
this Chapter; the distinction between objective and
subjective not being drawn from the point of view of
Reflection. The recognition of Man as the central
object, and the study of social and moral phenomena
as the central science, do not make this philosophy
subjective in any other sense than psychology is sub-
jective. The arguments which weigh against the
claims of psychology to count as philosophy are
equally weighty against the claims of this philosophy
to do so. Subjective means to the Comtist nothing
more than practical, or practically advisable; being
central in a philosophy in which everything is re-
ferred to the needs and the powers of Man.
Of course it is not surprising that, from this prac-
tical point of view, metaphysic should be wholly dis-
carded. Still there is an equal misconception as to
what metaphysic is, allied to that as to what sub-
jectivity is, which it is important to notice. For
the Comtist mind will often be found to be most
thoroughly metaphysical in the true and, to me, lau-
datory sense of that term. The term metaphysical by
no means suggests to the Comtist subjective analysis ;
it denotes the very opposite, namely, the adoption of
unanalysed entities as scientific explanations of pheno-
mena. Thus in the concluding part of Dr. Bridges'
article just quoted, we find him setting down the
1 Fortnightly Review, July 1877, Vol. XXII. N.s. p. 91.
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
98
two fluids in electricity, phlogiston in chemistry, and BOOK I:
caloric in thermology, as unverifiable conjectures
$ 3.
evolved by a metaphysical stage of thought. But, The Construch
right or wrong; warrantable or unwarrantable, con- Philosopbiỹ.
jectures of this kind have nothing metaphysical about
them in the true sense of the term. Ontological their
character may be; but it is the very purpose and
business of metaphysic to analyse and resolve such
entities whenever they come forward in philosophical
matter, and of thought akin to metaphysic to do so
whenever they come forward in scientific matter:
Analysis is the business of metaphysic; and of all its
congeners.
W
One word in conclusion as to the permanent
motives for philosophising: Science has its existence
and development assured to it by the various utilities
which it procures, as well as by the satisfaction which
it affords to the deep-rooted passion for pure knows
ledge. Philosophy has this latter guarantee in
common with science, but the utilities which it
procures are not so obviously and inevitably mani-
fest. They are nevertheless equally real and equally
necessary, that is to say, depend solely on philosophy
as much as the others depend solely on science. They
belong to the moral more than to the physical world.
All the moral sciences, the sciences of Life and
Manners, depend upon philosophical analysis in the
last resort; the philosophies of Religion,' of Morals,
of History, of Law, of Æsthetics, seek the definitions,
the divisions, and sub-divisions, of their object-matter
in the distinctions which general subjective analysis
alone supplies. The history of the development of
94
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
BOOK I.
CH. I.
$ 3.
Construc-
Religion, of Morals, of Civilisation, of Law, of Art,
is not enough. Tracing their gradual changes from
107 an earlier to a later mode of existence does not tell
Philosophy. us what they were at first, nor what they are now.
At every stage which they traverse or attain, their
condition at that stage requires analysis, that we may
know what it is that they have been, what it is that
they have become. Psychology cannot explain
Shakspere, nor analyse the Fourth Gospel. We
want another analysis, not to supersede but to com-
plete the psychological. We want an Organon for
the Literde Humaniores. The only Organon which
is at once sufficiently subtil for this purpose, and
sufficiently comprehensive to embrace science as well
as literature, is that which is offered by philosophical
analysis,-as yet indeed in its infancy, but it is the
infancy of a giant. These are motives which must
act with increasing force as intelligence expands and
strengthens; and on their permanence depends the
permanence of philosophy
There are yet motives of another kind which
concur to the maintenance of philosophy. The pro-
blems of the constructive branch of philosophy suppose
the solutions of some at least of the problems of the
analytic branch. This analytic branch, then, which
I call Metaphysic, has the key, if there be a key, to
the questions which concern that larger imagined
whole of which the actual world, as science discovers
it, is a part, the sea of possibility out of which the
island of actuality rises. If there be a key-yes, it;
but so long as science cannot say there is no key,
does any one suppose that mankind will cease to look
for one? Religion alone forces us to the attempt;
for God, restricted to a finite region, cannot be an
EIS
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.
95
CH. I.
The Construc-
y
object of worship. The moral law compels us; for Bo
can that law which conscience obeys be a law of less
than eternal validity ?
tive Branch of
The problems of the constructive branch, there- Philosophy.
fore, have an inherent power compelling our atten-
tion; they have also an attracting interest; an interest
partly of the same kind as the intellectual interest of
pure knowledge, and partly also moral. The possi-
bilities which these problems envisage are possibilities
of an emotional kind, as well as an intellectual. They
have a fascination for meditative minds, a fascination
which perpetually induces such minds to frame
hypotheses, and calls forth as perpetually the reaction
of analysis and criticism. Nor will an hypothesis
which is philosophical admit of other than a philo-
sophical criticism. Philosophy alone can understand
philosophy; the criticism must be of the household
of the hypothesis. The two branches of philosophy,
then, which alone are adequate to interpret and
explain each other, the one perpetually inventing,
the other perpetually analysing and criticising,
hypotheses, rest ultimately on the same motives,
and spring from the same reflective root. The only
competent criticism of the constructive branch is
furnished by the analytical; and, so long as there
remains anything unknown to be discovered, not
science but philosophy itself, that analytic philosophy
which is Metaphysic, will remain the speaker of the
last word.
In
CHAPTER II.
ÞRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIÕUSNESS:
Ron
KI.
moᏐᏂ
Reflection
Book I. $ 1. MR. LEWES in the two first volumes of his
Problems of Life and Mind has performed an emi-
§ 1.
of nent practical service to philosophy; he has stepped
down from the “irreconcilable” position of ultra Posi-
tivism, and has consented to discuss metaphysical
questions. Since Mr. Lewes proclaims himself to be
still a Positivist,1 this proceeding on his part is a
concession, and a very important onë; it concedes
the claims of metaphysical problems to be discussed ;
claims which Comte disallowed, discussions to which
he held they had no right. We may argue from this
concession being made, that the same validity in
metaphysic, which has gained a hearing for its pro-
blems, will show itself farther in gaining a recognition
1 “This is not a retreat,” he writes, “ but a change of front.
Throughout my polemic against Metaphysics, the attacks were
directed against the irrational Method, as one by which all problems
whatever must be insoluble.” Problems, &c. Vol. I. p. 6. And
again, “Nor can there be any dispute that the speculations he
[Comte) had in view are inane, when pursued on the Method tra-
ditionally followed; but an extension of the principles of Positivism
may legitimately include even these speculations; and Scientific
Method, rightly interpreted, will find its employment there." p. 7.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
97
Воок І.
CH, II.
C
ver
for that peculiar principle in its method which, while
distinguishing it from science, enables it and it alone
$ 1.
to deal satisfactorily with those problems which have The method of
Reflection.
thus forced themselves into notice. Mr. Lewes treats
metaphysical problems, but treats them, professedly
at least, by methods of science; if he can give satis-
factory solutions of them by methods which are
strictly scientific, there will be no need for applying
metaphysical methods, and all that distinguishes meta-
physic from science will either vanish entirely, or at
any rate become practically useless and therefore per-
nicious.
This, then, is the position in which metaphysicians
· are placed by Mr. Lewes' book. They are called
upon to face a new aspect of the controversy, not
indeed new to their anticipation,
“non ulla laborum
nova facies inopinave surgit,”
-but new in its actual occurrence, new in the par-
ticular shape and dress which it assumes. A scientist
professes to solve their problems for them by methods
of science. Two questions, then, have to be answered,
first, Are the problems really solved ? and secondly,
If so, are they solved by strictly scientific and not
metaphysical methods ? Now any separate doctrine
or branch of knowledge is constituted such, and con-
tradistinguished from others, by some peculiarity in
its principle and method, not solely by the objects or
problems to which it is directed. Its principle and
method indeed give to those objects and problems a
new shape and colour; and in this way it may be said
that the doctrine is contradistinguished from others
by its objects, namely, by its objects as shaped and
VOL. I.
98
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
Reflection,
moulded for enquiry by its principle and method.
CH, IL
But in the last resort it is the principle and method,
$ 1.
The method of shaping the object-måtter, which constitute and indi-
vidualise the doctrine. Other doctrines will shape
and mould those same objects differently, will handle
them in their own way, make them new and adopt
them thus renewed as their peculiar object-matter.
If metaphysic has not a distinct and individualising
principle and method, or if that principle and that
method are not valid, it cannot sustain itself above or
apart from the other sciences, but must leave its pro-
blems to be dealt with by them, or not dealt with at all.
Since, then, it is a thing inevitable that I should
have frequent occasion to criticise and dissent from
Mr. Lewes, let me here express at the outset my
great admiration of his two brilliant volumes, as well
as my obligation to them for rousing me to examine
more minutely the foundations of my own system,
and to give renewed attention to its logical struc-
ture. Mr. Lewes and Mr. Spencer are the two lead-
ing representatives of philosophy in England. It is,
then, almost a necessity of the case, that any one who
believes himself in possession of a more complete
truth should endeavour to make it good, by placing
his analysis and interpretation of phenomena in con-
trast with theirs. But to proceed.
Some few years ago Professor Huxley, in his Lay
Sermons, held out what seemed to be the hand of
fellowship from science to metaphysic; and I at-
tempted to respond to that appeal by showing what
the claims of metaphysic were, and what were the
lowest necessities in point of principle and method,
which metaphysic could not renounce without ceas-
i On Descartes' Discourse : Lay Sermons, p. 374.
University
GENERAL
FRAL LIBRA

PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
$ 1.
Reflection.
ing to exist, a principle and a method which, being
Book I.
CH. II.
founded in the nature of things, must be recognised
by all who make the truth of things their object. I The method of
refer to an article which I published in the Contem-
porary Review for Nov. 1872, on The Future of
Metaphysic. What Professor Huxley thought of the
view there taken of metaphysic I do not know; he
has not, I believe, spoken upon the point since that
time. But now we have, in Mr. Lewes' book; a dis-
tinct attempt to deal with that set of questions which
are commonly called metaphysical, and to solve them
by methods which are, avowedly at least, not meta-
physical but only scientific. The controversy has
thus moved a step onwards. There are, so to speak,
counter claims put forward on the part of science, to
those which I had put forward, in that article of Nov.
1872, on the part of metaphysic.
Now I am not going to review Mr. Lewes' book.
I am occupied, not negatively in criticising others, but
positively in establishing some of the fundamental
doctrines of philosophy. And the reason why I make
mention of Mr. Lewes, and the new phase which he
has caused the old controversy to assume, is this, in
order that the practical bearing of the present work
on the immediate philosophical questions of the day
may be made apparent. Mr. Lewes has come nearer
to the true philosophical position than any other
scientific writer. He therefore enables us better than
any other to see in what the difference consists ; he
has narrowed the limits within which it lies. I shall
therefore take leave to advert to his book, whenever
the connected course of exposition of my own views
leads me to controvert his.
Philosophy was shown in the preceding Chapter,
100
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
00K to be distinguished from science by being an exercise
Ch. II.
of reflective as distinguished from direct conscious-
$ 1.
The method of ness. Its principle is the mode of self-consciousness,
Reflection,
and its method is prescribed by that principle; it
consists in a repeated analysis of phenomena as they
are in consciousness, as parts or states of it; and not
in their character as objects outside consciousness for
consciousness to stand and look at. For objects in this
latter character, as objects for consciousness to stand
and look at, may be treated also as objects in conscious-
ness; and this way of treating phenomena is therefore
the more general, being applicable to all phenomena
and not to those only which have the character of
objects for consciousness to stand and look at.
This more general treatment is the method of
reflection; and reflection or self-consciousness it is
which we have now to examine and analyse more
thoroughly than could be done in the foregoing
introductory Chapter. We have to show its nature
and characteristic differences from other modes of
consciousness, those other modes having hitherto
been included in the one term direct consciousness, a
term which we shall now find admits a further dis-
tinction, namely, into a mode before and a mode
after reflection, the three together being those which
give the title to the present Chapter,-primary, re-
flective, and direct consciousness.
In the exposition of the general outlines of
philosophy, this distinction of reflection from other
modes of consciousness holds the place once held by
a general distinction of the “faculties” of the mind,
as they used to be called; such as the faculties of
sensation, perception, imagination, memory, appe-
tition, volition, reasoning; or rather of the general
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
101
CH, II.
U
heads to which these faculties were referred, as for
Воок І.
instance, the three groups usually adopted of feeling,
$ 1.
cognition, and conation. These are now superseded The method of
Reflection.
by the distinction between the two modes of simple
(including primary and direct) and reflective con-
sciousness, and their subdivisions; the so-called
faculties of the mind being exhibited as modes of
consciousness, and as derivative modes of these two
chief and fundamental modes. The distinction, then,
between simple and reflective consciousness will prove
fertile in other distinctions, all of which will receive
their final explanation by being brought into connec-
tion with this.
Observe the continuity given to the whole of
philosophy by this conception. There is no longer a
mind, an immaterial substance, with its several dis-
tinct and ultimate faculties, of which no further
account can be given, but which, with the mind, are
employed to explain the genesis as well as to classify
the characteristics of the phenomena of consciousness.
But there is a single broad and ever broadening
stream of consciousness, the phenomena of which,
sensations, emotions, reasonings, volitions, and so on,
are given by observation, analysed by experience,
and classified under the ultimate distinction of con-
sciousness simple and reflective.
Here too, as so often happens, the poets have
anticipated us:
“The essence of mind's being is the stream of thought,
Difference of mind's being is difference of the stream;
Within this single difference may be brought
The countless differences that are or seem.”l
? From an exquisite poem in the volume entitled Studies of
Sensation and Event. By Ebenezer Jones. London, 1843.
102
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH. II,
And there is no question possible concerning the
origin of consciousness as a whole, or, what is the
$ 1.
The method of same thing, of consciousness so far as its nature is
Reflection,
concerned. This question is possible only concern-
ing a particular consciousness, a part of the whole.
And then this question, concerning the origin or con-
ditions of existence of a consciousness, is subordinate
to, and a part of, the larger question concerning the
nature of consciousness; since any particular con
sciousness is a part of the subjective aspect of the
universe, and any objects which are its conditions of
existence are a part of the objective aspect. These
two aspects of the universe, however, are inseparably
connected by reflection as aspects of each other; and
there is no universe other than these two aspects
themselves.
We shall find as we proceed, that many vexed
questions, which baffle the merely scientific method
based on direct consciousness, are readily solved and
set at rest by the application of this distinction, that
is, by the philosophical method which recognises and
applies it. Philosophy alone can solve the problems
of philosophy. But reserving all such questions, it
is requisite in the first place to show what reflective
consciousness is, wherein it differs from the primary
and the direct, and why it is a valid basis for
philosophy. There is a true and a false, or rather
many false ways of regarding reflective consciousness.
No one denies its existence; that is not possible.
But the interpretation of the facts which constitute
it, that is, its analysis and the consequences of that
analysis, can be variously assigned. Hence the need
of repeated analysis by different persons. Philoso-
phers have usually erred on the side of the too much,
M
.
>
IN.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
103
CH. II.
§ 1.
scientists on the side of the too little. Ferrier, for
BOOK I.
instance, to cite the most illustrious name in modern
British philosophy, thus begins his Institutes of the method of
Metaphysic: “The Primary Law or Condition of
all Knowledge. -Along with whatever any intelli-
gence knows, it must, as the ground or condition of
its knowledge, have some cognizance of itself.”l. Here
Ferrier, errs on the side of the too much. He denies
that reflective consciousness is in any sense derivative;
he derives, on the contrary, all other consciousness
from reflective, in the words “as the ground or con-
dition of its knowledge." Besides, which, he does not
actually draw the distinction between simple and
reflective consciousness, but leaves it to be divined
and inferred, merely making self-consciousness the
ground of all other, and allowing both to appear as
united in one act of knowledge.. Other criticisms
which might be made on this proposition I pass over.
But observe, that it is the plain adoption of this
principle of self-consciousness, however misconstrued
and unwarrantably enlarged, which makes Ferrier a
philosopher as distinguished from a scientist.
I come now to another imperfect way of regarding
reflection, in one respect similar, in another opposite,
to Ferrier's ; it is that taken by Mr. Lewes. Mr.
Lewes has a hold of the true metaphysical doctrine
in this matter; he sees clearly that reflection is
derivative; and partially he sees that it does not
separate the subjective and objective aspects. But
though he adopts the metaphysical distinction, he
handles and employs it like a scientist. By which
I mean, that he treats the universe, in which the two
aspects are discerned, as a thing for consciousness to
1 Section I. Prop. I.
104
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH, II.
Reflection.
stand and look at, as what I call an object of direct
consciousness; just as if he had taken (what of course.
$ 1.
The method of I am not supposing was really the case) my diagram,
given in Time and Spacel to aid comprehension, as if it
was a picture, as if the universe of thought was a ball,
half subjective, half objective. He does not apparently
see, that the act of discerning the two aspects in any
phenomenon is itself the subjective aspect of the phe-
nomenon as a whole; but he treats the phenomenon
as having its subjective aspect in itself as an element, or
as he says a factor; thereby retracting the method of
distinguishing the aspects, while retaining its result
and treating the object with two factors as an object
of direct and not reflective consciousness.
The matter is mainly dealt with in the First Chap-
ter of the Problem entitled The Principles of Certitude,
and there we find him saying, “The conception here
brought forward insists upon the external Real as the
complementary factor of the internal feeling." And
again, “ Objective factors (not otherwise to be speci-
fied) existed as permanent possibilities, which might
become Reals when combined with subjective fac-
tors."3 Again, “The world arises in consciousness-
not as the product of the subject only, but as the pro-
duct of object and subject."4 Apparently, then,
there is reflective consciousness with its twofold
aspect, because there are objective and subjective fac-
tors before consciousness arises. And this view of
Mr. Lewes' meaning is confirmed farther on. “And
what is this "greeting of the spirit'? The metaphor
expresses that reaction of the sensitive Organism
1 At p. 52. in § 11. Elements and Aspects of Phenomena.
2 Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 13.
3 The same, p. 14.
4 The same, p. 15.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
105
BOOK I,
CH. II.
The method of
Reflection,
upon stimulus, which is one necessary factor in every
phenomenal result, since every phenomenon is at
once object and subject.”!
Then again, philosophers are said to puzzle them-
selves with the problem, “What is the connecting link
between these opposites ? What is the bridge over
which the object passes into subject, and cause into
effect? There is no bridge. The object is object-sub-
ject, the cause is the effect, the effect is the causatum
(see Problem V. Chap. II.), the natura naturans is
natura naturata, viewed under opposite aspects.”2
Viewed, Mr. Lewes says, under opposite aspects.
But how comes it to be so viewed, and by whom?
My answer is-by reflection, which first perceives and
then holds together the two aspects, not taking first
one, then the other, like the two sides of the same
ball.
ne
But Mr. Lewes does not see this reflective action.
He supposes us either to separate or else to unify.
“The separating intellect detaches the Cosmos from
the universal Existence, and then detaches Conscious-
ness from the Cosmos, as it detaches a particular from
an universal. The identifying intellect reverses this
procedure, and sees in the primary fact of Feeling
an implicit unity of the two Aspects which are ex-
plicit in Abstraction.” “The Twofold Aspect is
therefore the alternation of abstractions. 4 Alter-
natión observe. “But all these are abstractions which
Reflection restores to their real unity.94 And again,
“The best modern metaphysicians, with rare excep-
tions, are now agreed that whatever may be the
case with ultimate existences, the phenomena we deal
1 Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 38.
3 The same, p. 19.
2 The same, p. 18.
4 The same, p. 22.
106
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH. II.
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with are bipolar, on the one side objective and on
the other subjective ; and these are the twofold as-
The method of pects of reality.”
Reflection.
Notwithstanding, then, that Mr. Lewes has laid
hold of a piece of metaphysical insight, he does not
follow the method by which that insight was ob-
tained. He is still scientist in the application of it,
though the principle applied is metaphysical. Both
things are requisite to a satisfactory treatment of
philosophical problems; that is to say, both the
principle and the method. What Mr. Lewes does
not see is this, that reflection is a principle which dis-
tinguishes, and therefore enables a separation of, the
two aspects ; but that it is not reflection, but direct
perception, which either separates into two objects,
or unifies into a single object, the aspects so distin-
guished. Hence the difference between metaphysic
based on reflection and science based on direct per-
ception.
The case stands thus, as I shall very soon proceed
to show. Reflection, arising in primary conscious-
ness, is the first to perceive and distinguish, without
separating, the subjective and objective aspects.
Next, ordinary thinking creates, by uncritical pro-
cesses founded on this distinction, a world which
appears to consist of Persons and Things, that is,
of separate subjects and objects. Thirdly, science
adopts and perpetuates this conception, only making
the reasoning about the separate objects more exact,
by measuring and verifying. Finally, analytic phi-
losophy, or metaphysic, returns to the inseparable
character of the two distinct aspects. The discovery
of Reflection as a process of consciousness, and the
1 Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 35.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
107
BOOK I.
CH. II.
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analysis of that process, itself performed by an exer-
cise of reflection, are the whole gist of modern phi-
losophy. And philosophy for this reason comes later the method of
to its maturity than science, its object-matter being
more recondite.
But what Mr. Lewes wants to do is this, to return
in philosophy, not to the inseparable character of the
two distinct aspects and to the method which so
considers them, but to the undistinguished unity of
primary, pre-reflective, consciousness; and to return
to this as if it was an object of direct perception, a
single existent, a conception of it which really pre-
supposes reflection ; he wants to have, in his concep-
tion of the universe, the unity of primary conscious-
ness along with the definiteness of direct, two incom:
patible things, since primary consciousness is only
one by virtue of being indeterminate. It is impos-
sible for us actually to return to the state of primary
consciousness; it is impossible for us logically to
acquiesce in the separations of direct consciousness ;
the only course open to us in philosophy is therefore
to accept the position of reflecting beings.
$ 2.
§ 2. I must now ask the reader's best attention Its relation to
primary and
to the analysis of the “ moment" of self-conscious- direct modes.
ness or reflection, and the relation in which it stands
to both the primary and the direct states of con-
sciousness. This is the first task. Next comes its
relation to the two fundamental modes of conscious-
ness known as Perception and Conception, which are
common to the three modes, primary, reflective, and
direct. And thirdly, I shall attempt to show farther
108
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
Ch. II.
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bluUITOU.
primary and
direct modes.
OL
the bearing of this double result upon the questions
of the validity and the limitations of the philosophical
Its relation to method.
The first thing to be done is precisely to deter-
mine the thing to be analysed. I do so in this way.
We all know what is meant by saying—I find myself
having feelings and thoughts, and in the presence of
objects around me. This total state of mind clearly
contains the object to be analysed, the moment of
self-consciousness itself. And first I observe, that
there are in it three things, the person having the
feelings and thoughts; the objects around him; and
the feelings and thoughts themselves.
Now it is a well attested fact of observation, that
infants have feelings and thoughts without having
the perception of themselves as persons. There may
be a series of feelings and thoughts in what is after-
wards perceived as a person, which are not referred
by the subject of them to himself as their possessor.
A series of feelings and thoughts is therefore a con-
dition of the perception of self, and can exist inde-
pendently of that perception.
But it is not so evident that a series of feelings
and thoughts can exist independently and as a con-
dition of the perception of the other member of our
analysis, the objects around us. Objects as such are
often held to be immediately perceived, in the sense
that no feeling and no thought can exist at all unre.
ferred to an object, although at a later period the
person, or subject, takes the place of the object for
some feelings and thoughts, which are thence called
merely subjective.
What proof can be given that this is the case,
what proof is there that independent objects around
re-
CE
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
109
CH. II.
us are given to perception in and with any and every
Book I.
series of feelings and thoughts? It clearly cannot
$ 2.
be regarded as a self-evident truth. For, first, the Its relation to
primary and
analogy of the case of the person is against it; and direct modes.
secondly, we can clearly represent to ourselves the
possibility of the opposite alternative; we can clearly
represent to ourselves a series of feelings and thoughts
existing without their being referred to objects at the
time, by the sentient being; although he may after-
wards perceive that objects were their condition of
existing.
The gradations in the scale of sentience, too,
speak loudly for this opposite alternative. Low
organisms may clearly have feelings of heat and
cold, pressure, light, and so on, without referring
these to independent objects around them. Organ-
isms better endowed have more complicated series of
feelings; comparison of feelings becomes possible;
groups of feelings can be put together and distin-
guished from other groups. But this is a process
not of feeling only but of thought; and still it has not
been necessary to suppose any reference of these
feelings, groups of feelings, or comparison of feelings,
to independent objects.
If, then, we would avoid any unfounded assump-
tion in our analysis, that is, any admission into our
analysis as ultimate or unanalysable fact what is
really analysable, we must begin by assuming no
more than the series of feelings and thoughts per se,
unreferred (by their subject) either to objects or to
self. That is to say, we must begin with the third of
the three things distinguished at the outset in the
object-matter to be analysed. The series of feelings
and thoughts per se is the groundwork of the whole;
C
110
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
Воок І.
CH. II.
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direct modes.
this is what I call primary consciousness; and this
must be submitted to further analysis in order to see
Its relation to whether it will or will not furnish us with an account,
primary and
or become the analysis, of the two other members of
our object-matter, namely, objects and self. If it
will, we may rest assured that we have reached the
final and true account of those perceptions ; since
any other explanation would involve some violent or
unfounded hypothesis, as, for instance, of a special
faculty of thought or of intuition, for giving us ob-
jects or persons per se, or of a special revelation of
them to consciousness.
I say it is the groundwork of the whole, because
it is clear that both objects and the self are closely
mixed up with the feelings and thoughts of primary
consciousness. Neither objects nor self ever appear
per se, but always in connection with these feelings
and thoughts. One is the object, the other the sub-
ject, of those states of consciousness. These are the
known data, to which they are referred. In some
way or other the perception of independent objects
and the perception of a percipient subject supervene
upon, or are developed out of, these primary states.
There is no other alternative. For since neither ob-
jects nor self are given alone, per se, and also are not
given along with the primary states originally,-
there must be a time or “moment” of change, in
which primary states of consciousness receive a modi-
fication and pass into states either of self-conscious-
ness, or of consciousness of objects, or states which
are both together; in which, therefore, these latter
states are subsumed under primary consciousness, as
a modification or case of it.
In what, then, does this modification consist ?
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS:
111
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What does the perception, in its lowest terms, con- BOOT
sist of, which contains, in however incomplete and
undeveloped a shape, the differentia of reflection ? Its relation to
primary and
Or, to put the same question as one of history, so as direct modes.
better to keep before the mind the previous condition
of primary states,—What is the first and simplest
reflection which arises in the primary consciousness
of an infant?
The moment of reflection being isolated and
mentally passed in review by these questions, the
answer, which is given by introspection, is simple.
It is this: These thoughts and feelings are not only
thoughts and feelings, but bundles of constantly con-
nected thoughts and feelings, that is, “things.” The
connection between them belongs to them. Therefore
they are things, as well as, and without ceasing to be,
states of consciousness. They have a double aspect; that
which was undistinguished has, I now see, a distinc-
tion into consciousness and object of consciousness.
If an infant could speak proleptically, could use a
post-reflective and philosophical language, it is thus,
I imagine, that he would express his first reflective
perception. In short, connected stability in feelings,
which do not on that account cease to be feelings,—this
is the thought or perception which is the transition
from primary to reflective consciousness. The per-
cipient's own limbs and body are most probably the
particular case in which this reflection arises, or about
which it is made, in the history of the individual.
But the perception is the same, whether we imagine
it in its first historical instance, or take it from actu-
ally remembered experience of our own, in later
instances, when it is mixed up with other experi-
ences. Our consciousness of things is the perception
112
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.'
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Its relation to
primary and
VO
Воок І. that the feelings and thoughts composing them are felt;
CĦ, II.
our consciousness of self is the perception that those
feelings and thoughts are feelings and thoughts. The
direct modes. same perception, about the same states of conscious-
ness, is at once a perception of the existence of things
and of the existence of feelings and thoughts. In
primary consciousness there were thoughts and feel-
ings, but there was not the perception either that they
were things, or that they were thoughts and feelings.
But now observe this most important circum-
stance. Language like that which I have supposed
the child to use is not only not the language in which
the first reflection is expressed at the time, but it is
not the language held at all, even after reflection
has arisen, not the first actual post-reflective lan-
guage. The first reflection is a perception already
left far behind, when the child comes to express him-
self in language. It is a forgotten condition of those
states of consciousness, of those perceptions, which
are the first to be expressed by him. When he learns
to say “I' and 'me,' he has already learnt that percepts
are things; and his 'me' is a thing among things, a
percept among percepts. His earliest post-reflective
language is language expressing, not reflection, but
direct perception which has supervened upon it. If
he could speak analytically, his earliest post-reflective
language would be: This thing or group of per-
cepts is ‘me;' those other things or groups of per-
cepts are 'my' percepts. For this reason, that his
own body has been by him classed with and separated
from other surrounding groups of percepts, that is,
feelings and thoughts, by primary consciousness, be-
fore the particular perception arises that one of these
groups, his body, has the feelings which constitute
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
113
CH. II.
N
BOOK I.
that and the other groups of percepts. This percep-
tion it is which is indicated by calling 'me' that group
to which the others belong, or round which they Its relation to .
y primary and
seem to cluster, and which is always present when direct modes.
any of the others are. The child's earliest post-reflec-
tive language is therefore that of direct or separative
perception from the very first; and it is only philo-
sophy which traces, by analysis of consciousness, the
reflective perception which has preceded and made
possible his direct or separative perceptions, inter-
vening between them and his primary consciousness.
We must be on our guard against the fallacy of
incidental circumstance, the rata ovulacanzos, in this
matter. When Ferrier says, “ Along with whatever
any intelligence knows it must have some cognizance
of itself;" or when Jacobi says, in a passage quoted
by me in Time and Space, “I experience that I exist
and that something external to me exists in the same
indivisible instant;'"1 the cognisance or the experi-
ence of the “I” is incidental and posterior to the real
moment of reflection, which gives the distinction be-
tiveen feeling and thing felt. We experience that they
are feelings, but not that it is I who feel them. For
this there inust be a supervening direct perception,
which unifies the feelings into an I or self, as the
Subject of them. The feelings and things felt are
perceived at once, by reflection in the same indi-
visible moment; and the feelings are what will after-
wards be called I. But that the feelings, the subjec-
tive aspect, are a Subject, an I, or a Self, this is not
perceived in that indivisible moment; but is the pro-
duct of direct separative perception combined with
1 David Hume. Ein Gespräch. Werke, Vol. II. p. 175. ed.
1812-1826.
VOL. I.
114
PRİMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
primary and
Book. it. The true meaning of Subject and Object is,
$ 2.
accordingly, subjective and objective aspect; that is
Its relation to what they are known as, in reflection alone.
direct modes:
Let us now endeavour to trace the method by
which this direct and separativë perception springs
from the distinction of aspects drawn by reflection.
Primary consciousness suffices to separate groups or
bundles of percepts, existing simply as states of con-
sciousness, from one another, and the body of the
observer is one of these groups. It is that group
round which the rest seem to cluster, which is pre-
sent when any of the rest are, and which is also pre-
sent when feelings are experienced which have no
visible and tangible existence outside the body, or at
any rate only an imägined one; I mean such as heat
and cold, internal bodily sensations appetites, de-
sires, and emotions. Upon this state of perception
reflection supervenes, whereby feelings and thoughts
are distinguished as being at once feelings and
thoughts as well as what we afterwards call “things.”
Two analyses have then to be combined, that given
by primary consciousness into separate groups, and
that given by reflection of every group into insepar-
able aspects. Some hypothesis has to be found which
will render easy the holding together of these two
analyses. This takes place inevitably, in obedience
to the Law of Parcimony, which is the ultimate prac
tical law, or motive, of all reasoning, the universal
tendency to simplify different facts or theories by
reducing them to a single common fact or theory.
The hypothesis adopted is, that all feelings belong
to the body, and that this “thing,” which is already
separate from other things," is different in kind
from them, inasmuch as it is the abode and source
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
115
Воок І.
CH. II.
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of feelings; in other words, the body becomes a "per-
son.” The objective and subjective aspects are thus
separated as well as distinguished; and this state of its relation to
the matter is that which is expressed by the earliest
direct modes.
post-reflective language. This separation of the as-
pects is complete, when even the 'me' is analysed,
the body, which was part of it, again classed with
" things," and an immaterial substance, the soul or
mind, imagined as the subject of the feelings and the
bond of their union.
We have, then, the separation between groups of
percepts, given by primary consciousness; and we
have the distinction between percepts and things,
given by the first exercise of reflection. The attempt
to combine these two kinds of perception, to put
together the distinction between percepts and things
and the separation between groups of percepts, results
in the grouping of percepts together in the iminaterial
soul, and the grouping of things together in the ex
ternal world; that is, résults in direct or separative
consciousness.
What has now been proposed as the analysis of
primary, reflective, and direct consciousness, applies
alike to the infancy of the individual and to the
infancy of the race. The difference is that the
course of development taken by the race, that is, by
individuals in the infancy of the race, is repeated by
individuals in the maturity of the race under the
guidance and teaching of seniors belonging to that
maturity. But the separation of Persons and Things
is the theory attained and held alike by all. It is
the point of view from which the sciences start as
their basis, and which they do not attempt to tran-
scend. Direct and separative consciousness is the
116
PRIMARY, RETLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
Boom
1.
§ 2.
Tts
lation to
primary and
direct modes.
presupposition common to all the methods they em-
ploy.
Psychology alone of the sciences is led to reverse
some of the later steps of the hypothesis, the forma-
tion of which I have traced, those steps by which an
immaterial substance is substituted for the body of
the observer. In this reversal of the popular hypo-
thesis, psychology of course is opposed to the up-
holders of the unreversed hypothesis, the theory of
an immaterial substance. But it is still bound to the
theory of some substance being requisite for the
support of consciousness, though it finds this in the
bodily organism, or rather in certain parts of it. It
stands in the last resort upon the same basis as the
immaterial substance theories stand, namely, upon
the assumption of direct separative perception, and
consequent separateness of consciousness and its
objects. Both assume the existence of “things,"
and of “things” immediately perceivable by “per-
sons” or conscious beings.
But here is the point in which psychology and
philosophy differ; for in tracing consciousness back
to its sources we come to states of it which are
primary, undistinguished into objective and subjec-
tive; and the question is, how such states pass into
those in which objective and subjective aspects are
not only distinguished but separate. Psychology
assumes a world of “things," and supposes these
to impress another thing," the sensitive organism,
with primary feelings; but, since these feelings are
not, at the time of being impressed, the subjective
counterparts of the "things” which are held by
science to have impressed them, some theory is re-
quisite as to how they have become so; in other words,
(9
)
n
MT
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
117
CH. II.
& 2.
how the world of "things," as we know it by science,
BOOK I.
has grown up out of the world of primary feelings
as we knew it at the beginning of our knowledge. Its relation to
primary and
What I maintain then is, that, unless we assume direct modes.
the 5 things" to be absolute existences, and the
“persons” to be absolute existences perceiving them
(which is the popular hypothesis), the passage from
the primary feelings to the subjective counterpart of
the objective “ things” is only possible by supposing
a reflective distinction of aspects supervening on the
primary feelings, and preparatory to the separation
of aspects in direct perception. In other words, the
separation of aspects is impossible without a prior
distinction of them as inseparables; and any other
process lands us, sooner or later, in the hypothesis of
absolute separate existences, which is the very same
crude hypothesis from which both psychology and
philosophy began by attempting to escape.
The order, also, in which primary, reflective, and
direct, consciousness follow one another cannot be
changed; the primary states must be the first, and
reflective the second; and the direct cannot come
before the reflective. For if the direct states are not
the first ---and they cannot be so except on the sup-
position of absolute existences,—then neither can
they spring immediately from the primary states, in
which everything is both “feeling” and “thing”
indistinguishably; since this would be to reverse
the datum from which they are supposed immediately
to spring, by denying “things” to be “feelings,"
which nevertheless they are in primary conscious-
ness. There would be a direct contradiction between
antecedent and consequent.
Nor is the experience of feelings which have no
118
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
Воок
Ch. II,
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Its relation to comment fan
i
nd me
primary and
direct modes:
visible and tangible existence outside the body, which
we have met with above,1 by itself sufficient to
account for direct separative perception, as might
possibly at first sight be supposed. It might possibly
account for a separate subjectivity in the body, but
not for a separate objectivity in the things outside
the body. For these things were originally feelings
as much as any other class, and the question is, How
did they cease to appear so? This transition must
have taken place consciously, there must have been a
conscious renunciation of the belief in the subjectivity
of “things,” as being a mistake; a renunciation made
in order to have an hypothesis to reconcile the two
analyses; this hypothesis being that of Persons and
Things. But to say that the transition took place
consciously is to say, in other words, that an inter-
mediate stage of reflection intervened, an inter-
mediate perception of the two aspects as inseparable,
although without the further knowledge that they
were for ever inseparable, a knowledge reserved for
philosophy.
When at length the whole process is completed,
when direct consciousness has supervened upon re-
flective, then these two modes replace primary con-
sciousness, which was the original of them both, take
up into them and contain its states as part and
parcel of themselves. There is primary, undistin-
guishing, consciousness no more; there exist in its
stead the two modes, reflective and direct; reflective
which envisages both aspects together, direct which
envisages one aspect only, as separable from, and
therefore also (since it is always in connection with
it) as conditioning or conditioned by, the other
1 At page 114
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS,
119
CH. II.
on to
aspect. And of the two aspects, thus considered as
BOOK I.
separable, the subjective is, or rather contains, the
$ 2.
conditiones cognoscendi of all the parts of the objec- It
primary and
tive; and the objective contains the conditiones exis- direct modes,
tendi of all parts of the subjective. In science and
philosophy we have no longer to do with the primary
states of consciousness alone, which are a thing of
the past, except as furnishing the content of the
actual states, those of direct and reflective conscious-
ness, which have sprung from and replaced them,
and as supplying the proof of the relation between
them. This is why, in Chapter I., I spoke only of
the contrast between direct and reflective conscious-
ness; because there I was engaged only upon the
contrast between science and philosophy, of which
this is the basis. And the same must, in philosophy,
continue to be our main point of view; for, though
the primary mode of consciousness still exists, it
exists as continued into and combined with one or
the other of the two modes direct and reflective.
And it is its combination with direct separative per-
ception that gives plausibility to absolutist tenets.
Mr. Spencer will furnish an illustration of this.
In his Chapter on the Corollaries of the Universal
Postulate,1 having first called on his reader to "ex-
pel from his consciousness everything that can be
expelled : so reducing his consciousness to its pre-
speculative state,” he proceeds: “Now let him con-
template an object,--this book, for instance, Reso-
lutely refraining from theorizing, let him say what
he finds. He finds that he is conscious of the
book as existing apart from himself. Does there
enter into his consciousness any notion about sensa-
i Principles of Psychology, Vol. II. p. 437. 2nd edit.
120
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
Book I.
CH. II.
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primary and
direct modes.
tions? No: so far from such notion being contained
in his consciousness, it has to be fetched from else-
Its relation to where, to the manifest disturbance of his conscious-
ness. Does he perceive that the thing he is conscious
of is an image of the book ? Not at all : it is only by
remembering his metaphysical readings that he can
suppose such image to exist. So long as he refuses
to translate the facts into any hypothesis, he feels
simply conscious of the book, and not of an impres-
sion of the book---of an objective thing, and not of a
subjective thing. He feels that the sole content of
his consciousness is the book considered as an ex-
ternal reality. He feels that this recognition of the
book as an external reality is a single indivisible act.
Whether originally separable into premisses and in-
ference or not (a question which he manifestly cannot
here entertain), he feels that this act is undecompos-
able. And, lastly, he feels that, do what he will, he
cannot reverse this act—he cannot conceive that
where he sees and feels the book there is nothing.
Hence, while he continues looking at the book, his
belief in it as an external reality possesses the highest
validity possible. It has the direct guarantee of the
Universal Postulate; and it assumes the Universal
Postulate only once.”
There cannot be a better description of the state
of consciousness which I have called direct separative
consciousness than this, nor can there be a stronger
proof how completely direct consciousness has taken
the place of primary in scientist theories. I need
hardly, perhaps, stop to point out that, in the third
line of the above passage, a notion about the book,
namely, that it exists apart from the observer, is
mixed up by Mr. Spencer with the perception of the
ca
everse
RSS
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
121
CH. II.
YU
book itself, as if it were a part of the observer's im-
Book I.
mediate consciousness of the book. But this notion
$ 2.
is as little a part of that immediate consciousness as Its relation to
primary and
the notion that it is an image, or that it is connected direct modes.
with sensations. After this, no one who knows any-
thing of the besetting difficulties of these questions
will be surprised, that Mr. Spencer finds it necessary
to “ transfigure” the “crude realism” which believes
it perceives a real book, into a realism “which simply
asserts objective existence as separate from, and in-
dependent of, subjective existence;"1 into a realism
which “affirms neither that any one mode of this
objective existence is in reality that which it seems,
nor that the connexions among its modes are objec-
tively what they seem;"?1 into a realism to which the
Object is the unknown permanent nexus which is
never itself a phenomenon but is that which holds
phenomena together;"2 in short into a realism to
which the Real is the Unknowable. The means, too,
by which this transfiguration is effected will be at
once obvious. A notion about the object of percep-
tion, the book for instance, is first mixed up with
that percept; and then this percept is dropped, while
the notion about it is retained. The notion “objec-
tive existence" slides into the percept, “book;" the
percept "book” slides out of the compound so effected;
and the notion“ objective existence” remains alone.
It will be instructive to see, in another instance,
how an earlier writer of the same school of objective,
or non-Idealist, absolutism, an absolutist of pre-
Kantian type, arrives at his conclusion of a reality
behind phenomena; I mean the acute, suggestive,
1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. II. Chap. XIX. p. 494. 2nd edit.
2 The same, Vol. II. Chap. XVIII. p. 484. 2nd edit.
122
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH II,
$ 2.
direct modes.
AT
and often profound, Herbart, Open Herbart's
General Metaphysio, at the first Chapter of the Onto-
logy. He there shows, what is quite irrefragable, that
the data of all knowledge are actual feelings, Empfin-
dungen, and that the authority of these data cannot
be either lessened or increased. The question is, what
this authority imports ? He then proceeds, “ The
forms of experience (be they contradictory or not)
cleave to the feeling. But the feelings are not things
but states. The matter of the data consists of feel-
ings; therefore no things are given, nothing real is given.
What do we know, then, of the real ? Nothing. We
will therefore make the assertion; Nothing exists.
There is no existence."!
But this nihịlism, he proceeds to show, is totally
untenable. It can be asserted in words, but it cannot
be retained in thought. We can find the way from
the world to nothing, but we cannot find the way
back, from nothing to the world. In fact it is clear,
that, if nothing exişts, then also nothing must ap-
pear." There is, then, a real existence behind phe-
nomena; “ so much phenomenon,so much indica-
tion of the corresponding real existence, (Wieviel
Schein, soviel Hindeutung aufs Sein.)3
Where lies the error, if any, in this reasoning ?
In this, that he assumes that there must be things as
a reality. When he says: “ The matter of the data
consists of feelings; therefore no things are given,
nothing real is given,” the true conclusion (but for
this assumption) would have been,—therefore the
feelings are the real. Instead of this, as he will have a
ground of phenomena, he draws, first, the conclusion
1 Allgemeine Metaphysik, $ 199. Werke, Vol. IV. p. 69.
2 The same, p. 69. 3 The same, p. 70.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
123
$ 2.
of total nihilism, and then, from the absurdity of this,
BOOK I.
CH. II.
the conclusion of a real existence behind phenomena.
His whole reasoning rests on the pure assumption,
Its relation to
primary and
that there must be a thing-like ground of phenomena, direct modes,
something answering to the popular impression con-
nected with the word real. He is mastered by a
name.
Herbart's next proceeding is to distinguish, in the
conception of “the existent which is the ground of
the phenomenon," two things, our knowledge that it
exists, and its own unknown quality. “The unknown
is the quality; but our conception of the existent
consists of something known and something unknown,
its existence and its quality.”1 So far as the first of
these two elements of our conception of the existent
goes, Herbart is no doubt wholly in the right. He
bases himself on Kant's true doctrine of existence not
being a property or characteristic in existents, but
something said about them, a positing, Setzung, as he
calls it. And this notion, though not adequate, inas:
much as it gives room for the Idealist doctrine that
the existence of things is due to the positing of them
by the percipient, yet is not incompatible with the
truth that existence is a reflective and not a direct
perception. · As Herbart puts it, “Here remains
merely the conception of that the positing of which is
not reversed (aufgehoben). The recognition of the
not-to-be-reversed is the conception of existence.”2
The error of Herbart's assumption shows itself
in the second element of his conception of the ex,
istent, its unknown quality. There is really no need
to think of any particular quality, in the things
· 1 Allgemeine Metaphysik, $ 200. p. 70.
. ?The same, $ 201. p. 72.
124
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
ion to
ben:
Book I.
which are thought of as existing, attaching to them
CH. II.
$ 2.
as existing, over and above their quality as pheno-
us negatiom do mena. This they must have, for they must be feelings;
direct modes.
when we are aware of anything as a feeling or com-
plex of feelings, then we can think of it as existing
with that feeling as its quality. But Herbart is led
(as we have seen) to a quality belonging to existing
things as existents, over and above the feelings which
are phenomenal. This quality of existents as such,
though unknown, is with him essential to their exist-
ence. He repeats the phenomena of the phenomenal
world in a supposed real world which is its ground.
“If we are now asked: How are we to manage so as
to posit anything as existent? our answer is: Posit it
in the same way as you are used to posit the things
in the world of sense, when you are seeing them or
handling them, or perceiving their sound or taste.”1
There is this difference between Herbart and
Mr. Spencer, which is practically immense. Herbart
proceeds to construct his noumenal world of real
existents, and to explain in detail the phenomenal
world by means of them; but Mr. Spencer, satisfied
with proving the existence of his, and its causal
relation to the world of phenomena, devotes almost
the whole of his philosophy to this latter world, with-
out troubling himself farther with the noumenal,
which he represents as unknowable; merely adding,
that our consciousness of Nature under its unknow-
able aspect constitutes religion, as our consciousness
of it under its knowable aspect constitutes science.2
But Herbart's whole philosophy consists in ex-
1 Allgemeine Metaphysik, ş 201. p. 74.
2 For these expressions see his First Principles, p. 106. 3rd
edit.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
125
BOOK I.
CH. II.
$ 2.
primary and
ny
plaining the phenomenal by means of the noumenal
world. As he says in a remarkable passage of his
Psychology as Science, 1 “It is only necessary for this Its relation to
purpose” [of attaining real knowledge] “ to find the direct modes.
conditions under which alone the phenomenal world
can be phenomenal (die Erscheinungswelt erscheinen
kann); in such wise that it would not be pheno-
menal, if these conditions did not exist." An im-
portant only; for whence but from the phenomenal
world itself are we to draw our conceptions of what
these conditions may be, nay even of what is meant
by conditions at all? The noumena alleged by the
theory, be they what they may, will be just as pheno-
menal as the phenomenal world which they are called
in to explain, only without their concreteness; they
will be abstractions of some sort or other, points
without magnitude, lines without breadth, positions
without space, forces without matter.
And even if the existence of such real noumena
is admitted, they become useless for purposes of
explanation in the very moment that they are seized
by thought. Space and Time, as Herbart allows,
are " the form of orderly holding-together in thought
generally, be the object what it may."? Now, as he
presently says, “every Real considered in itself alone
is an Absolute ; therefore, and for no other reason,
the Real, in itself, is not in time, not in space.” That
is to say, in the very moment of seizing the Real, it
vanishes from “ the form of orderly holding-together
in thought;" vanishes, therefore, from any theory or
hypothesis into which we may have introduced it.
1 Psychologie als Wissenschaft, $ 31. Werke, Vol. V. p. 292.
ed. 1850.
% The same, $ 102. Werke, Vol. V. p. 507. ed. 1850.
126
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVÉ, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK İ: $ 3. I now turn to the second question proposed
CH. II.
above (p. 107); the relation of primary, reflective,
$ 3.
Its relation to and direct consciousness to the functions of percep-
Perception and
Conception. tion and conception. All consciousness, since it
occupies time, is a continuous process, and one con-
sisting of a series of states of consciousness, in which
respect the discreteness of the process consists. Any
single state in this series may be considered alone,
and as so considered it is taken statically, as if at
rest, although it is in movement since it occupies
time. · Any portion of the series, long or short,
simple or complex, may be considered in this way,
and so regarded it is a percept. But fix on any such
portion by attention, for the purpose of connecting it
with another portion, and it becomes a concept; an
expectant percept or inchoate concept, until com-
pleted by the connection of the new portion. This
completion effected, the whole is a concept in respect
of its consisting of two portions connected together
by thought; but is a complex percept, if considered
as a single thing not yet brought into connection, by
thought, with other percepts. It bears a double cha-
racter, being a concept in respect of its containing a
connection of thought, and a percept in respect of its
non-connection by thought with other percepts.
The percept, then, is a more rudimentary state of
consciousness than the concept; single percepts are
the lowest empirical things in the analysis ; a single
1 It is not intended to imply that the term function is exclu-
sively appropriate to perception and conception. All consciousness
is a function of the organism ; and so also, derivatively, are its
modifications or determinations. Here the term is used to mark
that there is an important difference between perception and con-
ception, on the one hand, and primary, reflective, and direct con-
sciousness on the other, which are properly called modes.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
127
$ 3:
inchoate concept is a percept plus the purpose of con-
Book I.
Book
CH: II.
necting it with another percept, and a single complete
concept is the connection between at least two per- Its relation to
Wo Por Perception and
cepts. Thus perception may be regarded as a pri- Conception.
mary function, of which conception is a derivative,
and a derivative of a particular kind.
The priority of percepts to concepts is a promi-
nent doctrine with Mr. Lewes, stated of course in his
own way; and the importance which he attributes
to it, great as it is, cannot be considered excessive.
The distinction originated with Aristotle, and is one
of the corner-stones of philosophy. I shall devote a
separate Chapter to its examination ; but for the
present purpose it is sufficient to say, that conception
is that act in reasoning, (reasoning being a volitional
action), wherein we pass on from one percept to
another, thus either comparing, or separating, or
combining them. Percepts are presupposed in con-
ception, conception moulds or groups them, and the
result is a more complex percept. Percepts are of
all degrees of complexity, and the conceptions which
are their connections equally so. A percept brought
in this manner into connection with another percept
is a concept; perception being the act of having per-
cepts, conception the act of connecting then. Con-
cepts are thus percepts in movement under the guid-
ance of volition, and volition is the feature which dis-
tinguishes chains of conception from chains of per-
cepts or images in spontaneous redintegration.
Now the stage upon which these operations täke
place, the mode of consciousness to which they belong,
makes no difference in the functions of perceiving and
conceiving relatively to each other. The same rela-
- See Problems, &c. Vol. I. pp. 101. 136. Vol. II, pp. 16. 69.
128
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
Its relation to
Perception aud SCOUSTICSS.
Allu 101
BOOK I.
CH, II, .
tion holds good between them, whether they occupy.
the stage of primary, of reflective, or of direct con-
a sciousness. And for this reason, that they arise from
Conception.
the deepest and most universal feature of conscious-
ness, that of its occupying time. A percept is a
portion of time filled with consciousness, a concept
is this portion, grown, passed into the next portion.
The movement of time, distinct with feelings, gives
us necessarily both percepts and concepts ; percepts
so soon as we attend to what we feel, and concepts so
soon as we attend to the connection of what we feel
at one moment with what we feel at the next moment.
All these conditions are found alike in primary, re-
flective, and direct consciousness.
When reflection first arises, it arises as a percep-
tion completing a conception which begins in primary
consciousness. It is the perception of the double
aspect in what was up to that time undistinguished.
A movement.begun in primary consciousness is com-
pleted in reflective, by a new character being ob-
served in what we, after that observation, call its
object. Primary consciousness ends by a concep-
tion, which is also in its completion the beginning of
reflective consciousness, and the first perception in
it. As a perception its content may be expressed by
a proposition in which subject and predicate are co-
extensive and convertible terms, a proposition in
which the subject is reflected back again in the pre-
dicate, and the predicate in the subject. Reflected,
observe, figuratively speaking. Not all convertible
propositions are judgments of reflection in the sense
of self-consciousness ; but on the contrary, these
judgments are cases of convertible propositions.
The particular reflection that states of consciousness
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
129
BOOK I.
are things, or that the Subject is its Objects, consti- Book I.
tutes, as we have seen, the reflective mode of con-
$ 3.
sciousness; and this reflection is expressible as a Its relation to
Perception and
convertible proposition, or one the terms of which Conception.
are coextensive. Thus convertible propositions are
a wider class than propositions of reflection or self-
consciousness. At the same time these are the final
test of those, owing to their ultimately subjective
character. Perception, then, is the rudimentary
function in reflection as well as in primary con-
sciousness; and reflective conception is a derivative
from it. The same might easily be shown to hold
good in direct consciousness also.
We have, then, the three modes of consciousness,
primary, reflective, and direct, acting one and all in the
two functions of perception and conception, and with
the same content in all, though under different shapes.
There is nothing in reflective consciousness which
was not potentially in primary, and nothing in di-
rect which was not potentially in reflective. And
of these, the higher in potentiality and earlier in
time governs the lower and later; governs it in the
sense of being a prerequisite or condition which
cannot be transcended; a limitation or condition sine
qua non, of the lower and later. Reflection presup-
poses primary consciousness which it cannot tran-
scend; and direct consciousness presupposes reflective
with the same limitation. But the limitation is by
no means of the same kind in every respect, in the
two cases. Primary consciousness is a mere matter
or oan to reflective; but reflective is a law to
direct, a law which we see cannot be overleapt
or disobeyed, when once philosophical analysis
has made us aware of its existence, a law which
VOL. I.
130
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH. II.
$ 3.
Its relation to
Conception.
WO
we then see we have always been obeying though
unconsciously.
In the same way, perception gives the law to con-
ception. There is nothing in conception which was
not potentially in perception; a conception may itself
be the means of discovering new features, which will
be verified by, that is, actually found in, perception.
And this is the true shape of the Aristotelian dictum
repeated by Locke, Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in
sensu.
The primary function, then, perception, in the
reflective mode of consciousness, or briefly reflective
perception, is that mode or function of consciousness
which is the ultimate arbiter of all others, the bar at
which they all stand. In this mode, objects are en-
visaged as they are to the Subject alone, as they are
in their subjective aspect which is coextensive with
and inseparable from their objective; and at the same
time as they are in themselves, in their nature or
analysis, and not in their connection with other ob-
jects in consciousness, which is their genesis or their
history. As percepts they are looked at straight and
for themselves; as percepts of reflection they are
looked at in their subjective aspect, or as they are
immediately known to the observer ; and thus the
nature of the thing perceived, as it is per se, is, in
reflective perception, identically the same as that
nature which is immediately known to the observer.
We have long had the distinction between per
cepts and concepts, and also the corresponding one
between the acts of perceiving and conceiving; and
philosophy has long been familiar with them, under
these or other names. But it may be asked, have
we any names to apply to percepts and concepts as
are
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
131
CH. II.
themselves objects of reflection, or, what is the same Book I.
thing, to their subjective aspect in contradistinction
$ 3.
to their objective? If reflective consciousness has Its relation to
percepts and concepts, the mind must have attitudes Conception,
towards them as objects, some nameable attitudes
corresponding to them. We are continually reflect-
ing on our percepts and our concepts, and making
although states of consciousness. In
making them objects the mind supplies them with a
subjective aspect, yet in so doing always keeps to the
lines laid down by its original character of being
feeling in time, the lines of perceiving and conceiving.
Is there, then, any name expressing this reflective
action of the mind, the subjective side of the result
expressed by “percept” and “concept”? Percepts
and concepts are not found ready made in nature,
they are consequences of certain mental operations
which nature's laws determine. Yet particular per-
cepts and concepts come partly from volition ; inter-
est attracts our attention to some things instead of
others; and the percepts we begin with in any train
of reasoning are thus determined. It would seem
that this subjective side of the result, that in which
volition has some share, requires naming as well as
the objective side. The process common to both is
named already, perception and conception. But the
subjective side of the result, the mental attitude to
percepts and concepts, has this no name? It ought
to have, if what was said above of the continual
regress into subjectivity, the continual development
of reflective consciousness, is true. And what is more
important than the naming them, the distinguishing
them consciously as the subjective aspects of percept
and concept, is essential to their adequate employ-.
VY
17
132
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
$ 3.
Wa
BOOK I.
ment. They ought to be brought forward, and made
CH. II.
to play a part as fundamental in modern philosophy,
Its relation to as their objective aspects, percept and concept them-
Perception and
selves, have played, and would continue to play
alone, were they not, in the regress of reflection, sup-
plemented by their subjective aspects.
It is to these subjective aspects of percepts and
concepts that the old names, First Intentions and
Second Intentions, in the new meaning which I gave
them in an earlier work, properly apply. These
names express attitudes of the mind, of which per-
cepts and concepts are respectively the objects. I
was not sufficiently alive to this, when I made First
and Second Intentions one of my bases in Time and
Space. I connected them indeed with percepts and
concepts, and showed the compatibility of the two
pairs, as will be seen more particularly from the
second passage cited; but the notion of the one pair
being the opposite aspect of the other pair, and neces-
sarily arising as such in reflection, did not occur to
me. Nevertheless it flows as a legitimate conse-
quence from what I there said ; and in this way
throws back light on the method of that former work,
and renders it an indirect support. It shows that I
was really working on the basis of reflective con-
sciousness; and my procedure there may serve as an
instance of what I now call philosophical method as
distinguished from scientific.
1 Time and Space, § 10. and § 46.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
133
ance
f verification
$ 4. Having thus analysed reflective conscious-
BOOK I.
Ch. II.
ness and shown its connection with primary and
$ 4.
direct, as well as with the functions of perceiving Its i
as sole source
and conceiving which are common to all, I now come of
to the final part of my task, and shall endeavour to
show the bearing of this double result on the validity
and the limitations of the philosophical method. This
bearing depends on the character of reflective per-
ception; as perception (not conception), it is that
mode of consciousness in which all final verification
of facts as well as theories is performed; as reflection,
as recalling and repeating the phenomena of primary
and direct consciousness, it is restricted to those
phenomena for its contents, and is not a mode or an
organ of new or transcendent discoveries. It is a re-
examination of the phenomena of primary and direct
consciousness, under the guidance of the principle
of examining their objective and subjective aspects
in conjunction with each other, which is a method
only possible in reflection. Reflection first makes the
discovery of the double aspect and then applies it,
and the continued and methodical application of it
is metaphysic.
All final verification of facts is thus performed by
reflection. Scientists on the contrary maintain, that
all final verification of facts is performed by direct
observation. The reason of this contradiction is,
that the finality point is differently placed by the
two disputants. Scientists stop short at a final point
which is not really final; and by really final I mean
not an absolute end, but the furthest point attainable
by us. But even here there is a difference between
scientists themselves. One class, the stricter or more
positivist among them, would urge that, having once
am
134
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
Book I.
Ch. II.,
$ 4.
Its importance on non tont
as sole source
of verification.
7974 nno
YYY
arrived at an agreement as to the denotation of the
terms, say, for instance, matter, motion, and force,
we can test any propositions involving these terms
by means of observation and experiment; the facts
directly observed either will or else will not answer
to our predictions; and thus direct observation veri-
fies the truth or falsity of the propositions. Their
finality point is placed at the agreement already
arrived at about the things as denoted by the terms
which they use; and they refuse to go any farther;
it is enough for all purposes of science, for all pur-
poses of practice, to start from an agreement as to
the denotation; the facts, they say, are what concern
us; why enter upon a futile question as to the nature
of the things which the terms denote ?
Another school, that for which Mr. Lewes has
declared, urges on the other hand, that the connota-
tion of such terms as these must be examined, the
nature of the things denoted by them. Only thus,
they maintain, can the belief in fictitious entities
underlying them be destroyed; a belief which, as
Mr. Lewes well urges, is not confined to metaphysi-
cians, but is equally rife among physicists and physi-
ologists, being founded on the tendency to suppose a
separate entity wherever there is a separate name.1
He argues therefore, irresistibly as I think, that it is
requisite to examine and analyse what we really
mean when we use such terms as matter, motion,
force, and so on. Nor does he merely argue that it
ought to be done, but he has done it. His two
“Problems," IV. Matter and Force, and V. Force
and Cause, in Vol. II., leave little, if anything, to be
1 Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 223.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
135
portance
sen-
desired in exhaustive demolition of entities lurking
BOOK I.
CH, II.
under these names.
$ 4.
Wherein, then, it may be asked, is there cause for Its ir
as sole source
dissatisfaction here? Is not everything performed of verification,
here, by way of analysis, that can be performed ?
How can Mr. Lewes be said to place his finality point
too near? In this, I reply, that he does not recognise
the nature of the method which he himself employs
in this analysis, consequently cannot generalise it,
consequently does not see that it is not a scientific
but a metaphysical method. In examining into what
we mean by such terms as matter, motion, force, he is
really exercising reflective consciousness. He is com-
paring representations, remembered states of presen-
tative consciousness, either with actual presentations,
or with representations of them as such. In other
words, the moment we begin to enquire into the
meaning of an agreed on denotation, we begin to
reflect; we begin to repeat the process by which that
agreed denotation was itself arrived at; we go back
into the analysis of the denoted thing, not as it will
act and be acted on by other similarly denoted things,
but as it is perceived and conceived by us; we are
analysing it into its subjective elements.
The reason and necessity of this process are evi-
dent; it depends on this, that names are agreed
on to denote objects of common enquiry, before the
reasons, for which each party to that agreement uses
the names, are agreed on ; in other words, the conno-
tation of the names is still unsettled, different persons
having possibly different connotations in view for the
same name. And in this way the agreement on the
connotation of names involves a more searching ana-
lysis of the nature of things. This question cannot
LL
136
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
CH. II.
$ 4.
as sole source
YT
11n
Ut
Book, I. be settled at once, by asking what the name originally
connoted; for this is the main question itself in
Its importance another form, and is the very thing not originally
of verification. agreed on
I will take an instance from Mr. Lewes' argument
against Primary and Secondary Qualities of Matter :1
“Having these points clearly fixed, let us begin our
investigation of the Properties of Matter by interro-
gating Experience, and enumerating what are the
special feelings grouped in the abstract symbol.
The positive qualities are, of course, all those quali-
ties which we perceive in substances. To Perception,
Matter is those qualities, and it is nothing else. We
need not here consider the argument which proclaims
that Matter is something underlying and not iden-
tical with these qualities; our present purpose is
with the qualities themselves. The object now held
in my hand, seen and felt by me as coloured, figured,
resistant, rough, smelt as fragrant, tasted as acid-
sweet, I and my fellow-countrymen call a straw-
berry, and all men consider to be a substance, or
portion of Matter. Reflecting on my experiences of
other substances, and comparing these with the straw-
berry, I notice that it differs from them and agrees
with them in the kind of feelings excited, and in the
degrees of excitation. I class these feelings, and
call the one set particular qualities, the other set
general qualities; and on further comparison I find
that, of the general qualities, some are universal.”.
Now without in the least insisting on the use of
the word reflecting, in the above passage, which I
cannot suppose is intended to be used in my technical
sense of it, I think it is clear that the interrogation
1 Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 272.
Ca
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
137 .
CH. II.
§ 4.
as sole source
of experience described involves what I mean by Book I.
reflection. For it includes 1st, the identification of
feelings with qualities, and 2nd, the representation in Its importance
memory of former presentations, and subsumtion of of verification.
them under that identification. The reflection con-
sists in the identification of qualities with feelings;
the generalisation extends the range of one such case
of identification to all. And the result is, that all
qualities of matter are feelings or relations of feel-
ings. The word strawberry is the denotation, of
which the connotation is sought; but sought, not in
terms of its connections with other objects, but in
terms of its meaning for consciousness.
This same method which Mr. Lewes employs,
without recognising its true nature, is applicable,
when fairly recognised, to other cases which he has
left among the puzzles which are the legacy of
science to philosophy. And this is why I have
thought it necessary to insist so much on the present
point. Mr. Lewes has overstepped the magic line
of demarcation between science and philosophy, with
out knowing that he has done so; by the aid of an
unacknowledged metaphysical principle he has suc-
ceeded in solving some of the problems of philosophy,
and there is no course left for him, if he would solve
the remainder, but to recognise and apply that same
principle again ; and I hope to show in future Chap-
ters that it is fully adequate to their solution. But
then what will become of his pretension to solve such
problems without recourse to metaphysical and solely
by scientific method ?
We can now see the truth with regard to the
contradiction with which we began: 6 All final veri-
fication of facts is performed by reflection;" and "All
138
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
CH. II.
Book I. · final verification of facts is performed by direct obser-
vation.” On the one hand reflection is clearly in-
Its importance cluded in it; on the other direct observation. But
of verification, reflection is the method, and includes direct observa-
tion as the means. This is the solution of the contra-
diction. Reflection is in science, not exclusive of but
superinduced upon direct observation; it is a riper
mode of consciousness in which direct observation
becomes a means and an instrument; the whole, of
which the less ripe mode is a part. The importance
of the instrument to science, together with the onto-
logical dreams fathered upon reflection by too many
philosophers, have blinded both philosophers and
scientists to the true state of facts.
The errors of those who adopted the principle of
reflection, the “too much” of ontologising philoso-
phers, are no argument against the principle itself.
The principle becomes gradually clearer and more
definite, sifted gradually from its accretions, in and
by its continual application to questions of specula-
tion. Two periods in the history of its development
in individuals may be broadly distinguished, the first
beginning with the dawn of self-consciousness, the
second beginning, where it arises at all, with the
recognition and application of the fact of self-con-
sciousness to the facts and problems of existence. In
both periods there is a growth and development of the
principle. We are not philosophers when we first
become reflective; we are not full-grown philosophers
when we first begin to apply reflection to philosophi-
cal questions.
The same two periods may be distinguished in the
history of philosophy itself. The principle appears
very early in Greek speculation, with Parmenides.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
139
BOOK I.
CH. II.
as sole source
O
ar
eve
But such statements of it as he gives, το γαρ αυτό νοείν ΒοσκΙ:
COTÍV Te nach eivab, for instance, are to be paralleled with
$ 4.
the dawn of reflection in individuals, for individuals Its importance
are not philosophers merely in virtue of their self- of verification,
consciousness. The principle must be recognised,
and not only recognised but applied after recognition.
Then only do individuals, then only does the race,
begin to philosophise. Aristotle clearly recognised
the fact of self-consciousness; for instance, in the
words: nai atros de autò Tóte dóvatai vosūv. He re-
cognised also the continued exercise of it, νόησις νοήσεως,
as the highest intellectual energy; but he did not
recognise, still less apply ít, as the evidence and the
only evidence of existence.
Nor must we suppose that this fact was less fami-
liar to the mediæval schoolmen. We have, for instance,
a remarkable passage of Scotus Erigena; put however
into the mouth of the Discipulus, not the Magister, of
the dialogue: "Scio enim me esse, nec tamen me
præcedit scientia mei, quia non aliud sum, et aliud
scientia, qua me scio; et si nescirem me esse, non
nescirem ignorare me esse : ac per hoc, sive scivero,
sive nescivero me esse, scientia non carebo; mihi
enim remanebit scire ignorantiam meam. Et si omne,
quod potest scire se ipsum nescire, non potest ignorare
se ipsum esse; nam si penitus non esset, non sciret
seipsum nescire: conficitur, omnino esse omne, quod
scit se esse, vel scit se nescire se esse."'2
Although it is clear that Erigena is here most
1 De Anima, III. cap. 4.
2 De Divisione Naturæ, Lib. IV. Sect. 9. Fol. 776. B., ed. H. J.
Floss, 1853. In the Migne series. And see another passage to the
same effect, and in the mouth of the Magister, Lib. I. Sect. 48.
Fol. 490. B., cited by M. Hauréau, Hist. de la Phil. Scol. p. 183.
ed. 1872.
140
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH. II.
of verification
1. forcibly and explicitly enunciating the Cartesian
Cogito ergo sum, before Descartes; it must yet, I
§ 4.
Its importance think, be admitted on the other hand, that it was not
as sole source
n. till Descartes erected the clearness and distinctness of
the evidence with which he perceived that his own
consciousness involved his own existence into a norm
of certitude, that consciousness as such was distin-
guished from all its objects, and that thereby philo-
sophy was distinguished from science; and it was
not till he proceeded, as he immediately did, to en-
quire into the conditions of that evidence, and to
separate the immaterial soul, as the subject of
consciousness, from the material or extended world,
of which the living body was a part, that the basis of
a physiological and scientific psychology was laid.
Psychology was not the discoverer of the principle
of reflection, but a creature of it; it is not a principle
of psychology but of philosophy. Nor indeed has
psychology hitherto discovered either what physio-
logical process is the condition, or what special por-
tion, if any, of the nervous organism is the seat, of
reflection; the discovery is reserved for the future.
The philosophical character of the principle is also
shown by its range, even as employed by those who
do not recognise its nature; since it is employed, as
we have seen it is by Mr. Lewes, to prove proposi-
tions about matter and force, that is, about the
objects of the external world at large, the objects of
all the physical sciences. The principle of reflection
is a golden thread running through the whole of
1 De Methodo, Sect. IV.“ Post hæc inquisivi —- distincte per-
cipimus."
2 Principia Philosophiæ, Pars I. Sect. 11. 12. Pars II. Sect. 1.
Pars IV. Sect. 189. And the Passiones Animæ, Pars I. Art. 2. 3.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
141
BOOK I.
CH. II.
tance
as sole source
thought, and is thus the peculiar basis and instru-
ment of philosophy, as direct consciousness is of the 54.
special sciences. Just because it is employed in its i
every science, being the basis of one of their pro- of verification.
cesses, and that the most essential, the process of
verification; just because it aids to perform this
essential function in them; we are entitled to argue
the validity of the method which it furnishes to
philosophy, which is nothing but the one general
enquiry which is based on and completes the results
of the special sciences taken collectively.
Let us now glance at an objection which may be
raised to the validity of the philosophical method,
the method of reflection or subjective analysis. There
is nothing which thoroughgoing scientists so much
dislike as the word subjective. It is unfortunately
the only thing which philosophers cannot gratify
them by renouncing. Scientists take hold of the
admitted truth, that immediate certainty is only for
the individual mind, which is immediately certain of
its own feelings, but has no such immediate certainty
of the feelings of other minds. And they argue that,
so long as we keep to subjective analysis, we are con-
fined within the limits of the individual's feelings, and
cannot reach any knowledge which is valid and known
to be valid for other individuals, or which, in other
words, has objective validity. It is only, they say, those
propositions which can be communicated and made in-
telligible to others that are the vehicles of a common
knowledge, valid for all men, and therefore properly
called objective. In other words, they argue that pure
subjectivity is pure individualism, and therefore is
possibly wholly chimerical, and at any rate cannot be
brought to a test of whether it is chimerical or not.
142
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH. II.
$ 4.
as sole source
of verification.
My answer to this reasoning is that it either
proves too much, or else proves nothing, according
Its importance to the meaning attached to the term validity. It
proves too much, for the objector's purpose, if we
take validity to include subjective and immediate
certainty, for then the special and positive sciences
will not have validity, unless a basis of subjective
and immediate certainty is made out for them by the
philosophical method. In this case, the sciences re-
quire something which only philosophy supplies,
namely, the full proof of the validity of their know-
ledge. On the other hand, it proves nothing, if we
take validity to consist in the knowledge being com-
municable to, and tenable by, all men, for this is not
the exclusive characteristic of the special sciences,
but is possessed by the truths of philosophy also.
No difference is then made out between philosophy
and science. In adopting the latter definition of
validity, scientists adopt too low a standard of it, in-
asmuch as they renounce the demand for immediate
certainty. Philosophy, on the contrary, shows how
a basis of immediate certainty is obtained for the
communicable objective knowledge of both itself and
science. It aims at securing validity of a higher
order than science contemplates as being even pos-
sible.
In proceeding to develop this answer more at
large, I remark in the first place, that the scientist
reasoning unwarrantably separates the two aspects,
objective and subjective, not satisfied with distin-
guishing them; and it is only by this separation that
subjectivity can be identified with individualism.
Admitted that immediate certainty is only for the
individual mind, still there cannot be an immediate
TO
er n
DO
1
YY
I
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
143
BOOK I.
CH. II.
$ 4
innocuito on Its importance
as sole source
of verification.
certainty in the individual mind which is not an
equating or an identifying of an objective with its
subjective aspect. This identifying of opposite or its
distinguished aspects is what immediate certainty of
consists in. This is verification, and this is per-
formed only in individual minds.
But now comes the question, How can the indi-
vidual be sure that the objective aspect, which he
has thus identified with its subjective aspect in his
own mind, is identified or identifiable with an objec-
tive aspect, similarly identified with its subjective
aspect, in another mind; how can be know that an
object for him is an object for others, is a common
object, or, as the scientists put it, is really objective.
This question science passes over, content to begin at
a lower point, namely, with facts which have already
got, somehow or other, that is, which are assumed to
have, this kind of objectivity; and just this question
it is which philosophy attempts to solve.
Now, however the knowledge of this kind of ob-
jective validity may be attained (a point which I shall
come to shortly), at any rate it cannot be given im-
mediately by subjective observation alone. Here is
the place to apply the admitted truth, that subjec-
tive observation is confined to the individual himself.
Whatever claims may have been made on this point,
as, for instance, that we know immediately certain
particular truths to be valid for all intelligences, or
that we have an immediate intuition that some truths
not only are but must be true eternally,all such
claims must be given up. It is not on this point, on
the question how we know our objects to be objects
common to other minds, that subjective observation
can be appealed to. For clearly subjective observa-
144
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH. II.
UU
im
HULU
L
ULLIT
tion, where it has immediate certainty, is reflective;
and to attribute this knowledge to it is to suppose it
$ 4.
Its importance not reflective but direct; it is to assert reflective
as sole source
of verification.
· knowledge between separate minds, a contradiction
which it is the business of philosophy to expose, no
matter whether in the mouth of scientist or philoso-
pher. Scientists, then, may dispense with attacking
this position of their brother scientists, which has
been surrendered to them, unless they should be
writing ad populum.
The immediate certainty of objective knowledge,
where objective means common to all individuals, is
not what metaphysicians mean by the phrase; for
objective means, with them, objective aspect of an in-
dividual's subjective knowledge; neither is it what
is intended when reflection is said to be the ultimate
process of verification.
But now for the question how the transition is
effected from the individual's knowledge to a know-
ledge common to him with other individuals, how
he knows that his object is their object. In the
first place I remark, that this question does not con
cern the philosopher more directly or closely than
it concerns the scientist. Indeed in one respect it
seems to concern the scientist more closely, because
he maintains that this community of the objects is
the distinguishing mark of science, (we have seen
that it begins with the assumption of it), and gives
it a claim to validity which is wanting to philo-
sophy. But the truth is that it concerns both
alike, inasmuch as it is a necessary feature in all
knowledge, so far as that knowledge is systematic
and available for use. I remark farther, that it is
the proper function of philosophy to point out the
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
145
Воок І.
CH. II.
54
amore nnimonily the Its importance
as sole source
of verification,
answer to this question, inasmuch as it is a ques-
tion approachable only by methods of subjective
analysis, a question which concerns primarily the
“ how” of knowledge, and not the "how" of things.
And thirdly I remark, that it would be of no prac-
tical consequence to the special sciences, though this
question were not answered at all ; they would be
equally useful and equally applicable. In these two
respects, then, the question concerns philosophy more
than it concerns science.
• How do we know, in what way do we reach a
legitimate certainty, that our objective aspects are
the same as those of other individuals? The answer
is extremely simple. It is by inference from what
we perceive other individuals do or say or look like,
in presence of ourselves and our objects at once. We
perceive them doing and saying just what we do and
say in the same circumstances ; in short, re-acting
just as we perceive ourselves doing ; our own re-
action follows from our own feelings; we infer similar
feelings in them, and similar feelings corresponding
to the same objects. Such, in general terms, is the
process; so simple and so obvious, that many will
be surprised to find it claimed as philosophical, and
special importance attached to it. But the ques-
tion is, what is its analysis? It is inference, resting
on subjective observation, not knowledge imme-
diately given by subjective observation. Subjec-
tive observation, tested by reflection, is here em-
ployed to interpret a class of objects, namely, other
individuals, their sayings and doings, and to infer
of another class of objects that they are common
objects to us and to the other individuals.
When, therefore, a scientist urges, that science.
VOL. I.
ame
LY
146
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH. II.
§ 4.
as sole source
begins with facts agreed upon, predicts facts which
have a definition, and verifies the prediction by the
Its importance occurrence or non-occurrence of the fact as defined;
of verification. and contrasts this capability of verification with the
incapability of verification which, as he maintains,
distinguishes subjective observation; the reply must
be made, that this agreement as to facts and their
definition presupposes a long continued process of
attaining the agreement, in which process subjec-
tive observation has been employed at every step.
Nor is there any difference in this respect be-
tween physical objects and mental ones, such as
images, thoughts, and emotions. The only differ-
ence is one of degree in remoteness or in complexity;
physical objects have been the first to be described
and defined, because they are objects of so many
different and for the most part external senses ;
mental objects have been later and less perfectly
described and defined, because they cannot be seen
by the bodily eye, or touched by the bodily finger,
while present to the consciousness of one individual
or of several. But the same process of attaining
agreement respecting them, of becoming certain that
our objects are the same as those of other persons, is
employed in their case also.
The method in the case of mental objects is
this;-we point the thing out by means of its con-
nections or its accompaniments; grief, for instance,
we point out as the mental feeling which arises in
such and such circumstances, or as similar to such
feelings, dissimilar from other such; just as we point
out a physical object by its connections, as this
apple which I hold in my hand.' Names are given
and agreed upon, in the two cases, in manners pre-
es
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
147
CH. II.
as sole source
cisely similar. We build the names for mental objects Book I.
out of the names for physical, just as we point out the
$ 4.
mental objects by means of the physical circumstances Its importance
attending them. In no case do we come to a name of verification.
with an agreed connotation as ultimate; always the
ultimate agreed name is denotative or designative,
that is, it is used as a denotation, having indeed
another meaning which is not named, its meaning to
the individuals separately; its connotation to them,
which constitutes it a general term. The name
acquires its agreed meaning by convention, being
originally a sound attached in common by several
persons to feelings (which are its connotation to
each of them individually) arising from the same
object. The true or agreed connotation of the
name is then arrived at by analysis of the object
which, when first attached, it was employed to denote.
The two processes, then, analysis of physical and
analysis of mental objects, cannot be sundered. Sub-
jective observation underlies them both, and reflec-
tion verifies them. The attainment of agreement in
defining objects common to all observers is the pre-
requisite of science; wherever that is done, whether
in physical objects or in mental, as in the case of the
moral sciences, there and at that point science begins.
But the method by which that agreement was attained
is not finished and done with, because a science or two
has been founded by means of it. The whole of pos-
sible knowledge must (per impossibile) have been re-
duced to science, before that could be the case ; and
even then the logical primacy of reflection would
continue, though its productive energy would have
ceased.
Observe, then, the fundamental difference of
WO
148
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH, II.
method necessitated by this difference of the two
starting points of science and philosophy. Science
$ 4.
Its importance starts with an agreement already attained as to what
as sole source
of verification, object shall be called by what name, that name being
a denotation; and its aim is to find what relations
obtain between this object and others similarly
agreed upon and denoted; and relations, too, are
objects agreed upon and denoted in the same way.
Its process is, in this respect, synthetic or construc-
tive, and its ultimate units are the denoted objects
and their denoted relations. Philosophy on the other
hand starts with a subjective observation of objects,
whether these have been already agreed upon and
denoted, or before they have been so; not however
with the purpose of changing denotations which have
been agreed upon, but with that of fixing or enlarg-
ing their connotation; and if no denotation has been
established, then of choosing one with a suitable con-
notation attaching to it. Its method therefore is
analytic; and analytic without assignable limit.
The terms self, “ego,' 'I,' are themselves denotative
terms, and as such submit to the same process of
analysis providing them with a connotation, as the
units of physical and of psychological science submit
to. This subjective and analytic procedure of phi-
losophy is what causes a phenomenon which has been
often noticed, particularly by J. S. Mill in a famous
passage of his Logic, that the great disputes in phi-
losophy have so often taken the form of disputes
about the definitions of terms, the definition of Jus-
tice for instance. The very nature of philosophy is
to enquire constantly about the meaning of terms,
and to do so by analysis of the objects which we
represent to ourselves when we use them.
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
149
portance
as sole source
BOOK I.
This is why I said at the beginning of Chapter I.,
CH. II.
that distinctions not definitions must always be the
§ 4.
true starting point in philosophical method. Sub- its siune
stantially the same thing has been clearly seen and of verification.
forcibly expressed by Herbart, and that too in the
very first sentence of his General Metaphysic, so
forcibly as perhaps even to overstate the case against
himself as metaphysician. “Metaphysic,” he says, "has
no foundation truths ; it has foundation errors instead.”
„Mathematic has its axioms and definitions as basis;
but metaphysic begins the world penniless. It has
to discover by careful observation of the chaos, what,
if any, is the real law of thought and clue to truth.
Facts subjectively observed are all it has to trust to.
On the whole, then, I conclude, that we have in
philosophy a valid method, based upon a valid prin-
ciple, that of reflective consciousness. "A thing is
what it is known as, this is the principle in its
objective formula ; the objective and subjective
aspects are inseparable, this is its subjective for-
mula, expressing the way in which the same truth
appears in reflection itself. This is no truth of
science. When have we not heard scientists reply to
this or similar statements, ‘But you don't know the
things; or “The question is what things are known
as"? When have we not heard scientists tax the
method of subjective observation with being chi-
merical and incapable of verification; and scornfully
advise a preliminary agreement on the meaning of
terms employed by it ? Scientists have neglected
the principle of reflection, from its being too obvious,
too familiar. They have “idolised” verification, with-
out seeing that the method of subjective observation
1 Allg. Metaphysik, Einleitung: Werke, Vol. III. p. 66.
150
ON
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I. did not require verification only because it was verifi-
CH. II.
cation, was itself the operation of verifying, was the
§ 4.
Its importance
performance of that which they demanded that it
as sole source Pu
of verification.
should appeal to as a test. They idolised verification
without having analysed it. They left their pro-
cesses in the concrete as well as their terms, their
methods as well as their objects.
And now comes Mr. Lewes and, employing this
method without acknowledgement, claims to have
solved the problems of philosophy by the methods
of science. Science, which has so long disdained the
labours of philosophy, at last silently appropriates
them. Is this an acknowledged method of Positivism?
I know not how the proceeding can be, I do not say
justified, but explained, except by the influence of a
certain fallacy which invests itself in countless forms,
the fallacy of attributing all virtues to what we hold
dear, all defects to what we dislike. Scientists hold
science so dear that they attribute all truth to science,
all error to what is not science. Whatever is true,
whatever shall be hereafter proved true, must they
think belong to it, its claims are imprescriptible.
True enough, if scientific philosophy is included in
science; but not true of science as separate from
philosophy. As between philosophy and science,
some truths belong not to science but to philosophy.
Of this number is the principle in question.
So far, then, as to the validity of the method of
reflection as a method of philosophy. I now turn to
its limitations. These are drawn from the phenomena
of primary consciousness, appearing as they do in the
objects of direct, which it is the office of reflective to
criticise. Reflection is no "faculty,” independent,
with laws and methods of its own, bringing into our
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
151
Its importance
e source
verification.
horizon as it were a new kind of feelings. It is a BOEI
remoulding of the feelings already given in primary $4.
consciousness. This very relation of it to primary,
which furnishes all the matter of direct, consciousness, of
which gives it the power of control and makes it the
medium of verification, also fixes its limitations and
defines its sphere.
First as to its origin out of primary consciousness.
It arises in redintegration or representation of feel-
ings. Feelings again are different modes of sensi-
bility; there are feelings of external sensibility and
of internal, and there are also sentiments, emotions,
and passions, all of which are sensibility of a more
complex kind; and there is a class of feelings which
include a sense of effort or tension, among which
desire, volition, and choice, are to be named, along
with the more complex feelings into which, these
enter as constituents.
It is most important to remark that reflection is
not inner sense, or inner feeling, as some of these
modes of sensibility have been named. This way of
looking at the matter would simplify it most con-
veniently, if only it were in accordance with the facts
which I have insisted on in this Chapter. What can
be more attractive than the following apparently
plain statement of Czolbe:1 6 The single domain of
our consciousness divides itself into two halves, the
perception on one side of the external world, on the
other of our own person. If our attention is fixed on
the first half, we have world-consciousness, if on the
second self-consciousness.” Self-consciousness is then
explained as being no special mode of consciousness,
but consciousness with a particular object, namely,
1 Grundzüge einer Extensionalen Erkenntnisstheorie, p. 40.
152
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
Ch. II.
84
inner experiences in connection with the external
perception of our bodily figure.
Its importance This is an instance of the direct mode of philo-
as sole source
erification. sophising, against which I have contended. Were
this the truth, reflection would be a mode or among
the modes of primary consciousness. It would then
be, not a mode of control or verification, but an
original source of facts, that is, of feelings and phe-
nomena. That which is now our safeguard would
then become something to be guarded against. Inner
sensibility in all its modes must be submitted to re-
flection, and each class of them watched in its different
phases and its different connections.
Next comes the question as to the sphere of
reflection and the limitations of its control. Mr.
Lewes' Chapter on Intuition and Demonstration, in
which he argues against the so called Intellectual
Intuition, furnishes an excellent instance of this con-
trol being exercised by reflection. Having enume-
rated examples of sensible intuitions, space, time,
motion, quantity, &c.; of rational intuitions, sub
stance, cause, equality, &c.; and of moral intuitions,
freedom, responsibility, duty, &c.; he proceeds :
“The validity of all these intuitions depends on their
reduction to identical propositions; in other words,
whether the relations are what we see them to be.
The possibility of error lies in the possibility of our
supposing that we see what we only infer.” And
again of the demonstrations by which intuitions are
brought to the test : “ Demonstration is not an in-
strument of discovery, but a means of control. Intui-
tion is seeing ; Demonstration is showing. What is
t is shown, may be illusory; they are
1 Problems, &c. Vol. I. p. 368. et seqq.
see
re
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
153
Book I.
CH. II.
$ 4.
do not Its importance
as sole source
of verification.
rem
seen
>
1
only proved to be objectively valid when each infer-
ence has been reduced to its corresponding sensible.”l
All this is excellent and admirable. I do not
remember to have seen anywhere the essential fea-
ture, in which the verification of intuitions consists,
more closely and clearly delineated, the purging of
the imagination from false inferences, wrongly sup-
posed to be immediate objects of perception. All
I would remark is, what Mr. Lewes omits, that the
demonstration here described is a process of reflective
consciousness, not of direct merely; that the “iden-
tical propositions” he speaks of are identical proposi-
tions of a particular kind, namely, of reflection, and
that this is essential to their verifying, or ultimately
demonstrative, power.
I will now anticipate a reply which will probably
be made by scientists to the foregoing argument.
Granted, they will say, that the process of verification
which you describe is a reflective one, still reflective
processes are just as liable to error as direct; the
question is, what is the criterion of truth in such
processes, whereby it is distinguished from error.
This criterion, they will urge, is the direct observa-
tion contained in them, and nothing else. Not there-
fore the fact that the process is a reflective one, but
the fact that direct observation is brought to bear
upon theories and imaginations, is the important fact.
It is of no consequence, except as matter of idle
curiosity, that the process in which this test is
brought to bear may be styled a reflective process.
Putting aside a possible ambiguity which might
sometimes lurk in the word direct, in arguments of
this kind, and supposing the word to be used, not for
1 Problems, &c. Vol. I. p. 380.
.
154
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
CH. II.
$ 4.
Book I. immediate observation, but in the technical sense in
which I have used it throughout, I should reply as
Its importance follows. Direct observation, you say, is the im-
as sole source
of verification portant fact. Important, I ask, in respect of what?
It is important in respect of the particular conclusion
reached, in each case of the reasoning being applied;
it is important if we regard the reasoning as an in-
dividual instance. But if we regard the validity of
the reasoning as a general process, or in respect of
the conclusive power which it has in all cases alike,
then the circumstance that it is a process of reflection
becomes equally important with the circumstance
that it brings direct observation to bear upon imagi-
nation. For the fact that a thing is what it is known
as, or the inseparability of the objective and subjec-
tive aspects of a thing, which is the principle of reflec-
tion, is the final principle which may be exhibited as
a common major premiss in case of need, which is
common to all the several cases of verification.
I do not say that this circumstance is more import-
ant than, but of equal importance with,. the circum-
stance of direct observation being brought to bear.
Both are equally important in considering the validity
of the process of verification as a general process.
The attempt to give exclusive importance to the
latter circumstance is but a more subtil form of the
above noted prejudice of scientists in favour of
science. The scientist mind asks what we can prove,
busying itself with the objects alone, and neglecting
the general question of the theory of proof, which
turns upon the nature of the relation between the
objective and subjective aspects. This narrow judg-
ment, as it seems to me, needs correcting by intro-
ducing the more general and deeper question of the
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
155
as sole source
connection of knowledge with fact. And this mode of Book I.
viewing the case is the only mode in which the other
$ 4.
problems of philosophy can be finally solved. For
their settlement depends upon bringing into view the of verification.
nature of the conclusive power which reasoning in
general, as a process of thought, possesses. The
theory of proof depends upon the phenomena of
reflection, and therefore is a part of analytical philo-
sophy, or as I call it metaphysic, and not a part of
non-philosophical science.
Herein lies also the answer to another objection
which I cannot but anticipate. You say, it will be
urged, that Mr. Lewes practises, as Locke and others
whom you call psychologists, as well as all men even
in the physical sciences, practise, and always have
practised and applied, reflection. Is not this the
essentially important thing? Why demand that they
should recognise it as their method, as well as practise
it? The answer is, Because without recognition it
cannot be made the most of. It is the recognition of
the return to unity involved in reflection which
enables us to use reflection as a final court of appeal,
in deciding philosophical questions; which in fact
develops reflection into a reflective method. The
conscious application of the reflective process consti-
tutes the reflective method, the method of philosophy
as distinguished from the method of science.
It is this implication of reflection with the pro-
cesses of science which makes it difficult to disentangle
philosophy from science, which makes it possible for
Mr. Lewes to represent the philosophical process as a
scientific one. Reflection per se is common to both.
It is only when we again reflect upon the process of
science, that we distinguish the part played by reflec-
156
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH. II.
$ 1.
Its i
portance
as sole source
of verification.
tion in it; and then only do we find ourselves in
possession of the ultimate principle of verification, and
become aware of what that principle consists in. For
we have in the distinction of objective and subjective
aspects, inseparable, and equated with each other, a
perception which embraces all possible cases or kinds
of objects, at the same time that it is a final percep-
tion in each case. No more perfect agreement can
exist than that between the subjective and objective
aspects of the same thing. It is at once the key stone
of the connection of objects in reasoning, and the
key stone of the method which connects them. But
to be used in this way and for these purposes, it must
be recognised for what it is, a method of methods,
criticising all by the application of its one distinction
of subjective and objective aspects.
The implication of a higher and more complex
mode of consciousness with lower modes is a general
fact which must never be lost sight of. The higher
is not exclusive of the lower, but a modification of it,
a new mode superinduced upon it. Reflection is not
exclusive of direct consciousness, but, having been
superinduced on primary, is inclusive of direct. And
similarly, or rather consequently, philosophy, which
is the application of reflection, is inclusive of science
which is the application of direct consciousness. If
this has been forgotten or not perceived by scientists,
it has been equally misconceived by those philo-
sophers who have turned reflection into a mode of
thought directly furnishing us with special kinds of
intuitions. The theory of an intellectual intuition of
this sort is not fully combated, unless you can show
on what basis of fact the mistake arose. It is not
finally conclusive to argue, as Mr. Lewes does, that
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESSON
157
.
BOOK I.
CH. II.
ance
CU
we have no grounds of experience for the existence
of such a faculty; for the faculty is only imagined
because of some experience which is thought to be It
as sole source
explicable in no other way than by supposing it. of verification.
You must attack the alleged experience itself. You
must analyse the experience, and having done so, you
may then be able to show that its features are trace-
able to known functions of consciousness..
Intellectual Intuition is in this way traceable to
two things, and explicable as a misinterpretation of
them; first, to the fact that reflection has percepts
(as well as concepts), and secondly, to the fact of
subjectivity in reflection. These facts are perfectly
compatible with the theory of reflection here main-
tained, with the validity of reflection and its deriva-
tive position with regard to primary consciousness,
its controlling position with regard to direct; with
its function as the basis of philosophy, and with
its limitation to the possible phenomena of science.
But it is not extraordinary that these facts should
have been differently interpreted by minds subject
to the strong reaction against the accidentalism, if I
may call it so, of the eighteenth century, and dissatis-
fied with the bulwark which the Critical Philosophy
professed to raise against it. A strong bias, distort-
ing the facts of reflective consciousness, -that is the
history not only of intellectual intuition, but of the
whole of that philosophical movement of which it was
one feature. The only reply to it is to be found in
a more searching and, if possible, an undistorted
analysis of the facts of consciousness.
But the theory of intellectual intuition has by no
means the importance which Mr. Lewes attributes to
it. He seems to have forgotten that the theory, as
eem
158
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
of verification,
BOOK: held by Schelling and others, was definitively aban-
$ 4.
doned by Hegel, the final exponent of the post-Kantian
nice method of idolising the faculty of reflection, who re-
as sole source
placed percepts by concepts, and the process of per-
ceiving by that of conceiving, with its single law of
Contradiction. It was in the Phänomenologie des
Geistes that this substitution was made; and we may
see from the preliminary announcement of the scope
of that work, at the very beginning of its long Pre-
face, that the abandonment of intellectual intuition
was a cardinal point of the whole. “If the true
exists only in, or rather as, that which is named now
intuition, now immediate knowledge of the absolute,
religion, being, -not in the centre of the divine love
but the being of that centre itself,—then from that
point of view, we should require not the form of the
concept but its very opposite, in order to expound
philosophy. The Absolute is then proposed not to
be conceived (begriffen) but felt and intuited ; not
the concept but the feeling and intuition of it are to
be its spokesmen and to be expressed.” Hegel then,
who builds solely with the “form of the concept,” is
untouched by Mr. Lewes' objection, that a special
faculty, such as intellectual intuition, is required for
acquainting us with the Supra-sensible, since he
breaks with all such faculties, and yet constructs, if
not what he calls a supra-sensible world, yet one
which includes all that Mr. Lewes calls the supra-
sensible.
Now it is not only against intellectual intuition,
but also against Hegel's construction which dispenses
with it, that the conception of reflective conscious-
ness, for which I contend, proves its validity. The
1 Werke, Vol. II. p. 7.
n
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
159
BOOK I.
CH. II.
cance
as sole source
of verification.
doctrine that reflection is derivative and analytic (as
well as subjective),-derived ultimately from primary
perception and analytic of percepts,-brings us back 1
to the real and actual world, the world of science,
and prevents those flights which are the consequence
of taking the bare logical principle of contradiction
as the source of existence.
Let us hear one of the most recent disciples of
Hegel on this point, Mr. Green, whose General Intro-
duction to Hume I had occasion to appeal to in the
foregoing Chapter. “That which happens, whether
we reckon it an inward or an outward, a physical or
a psychical event,—and nothing but an event can,
properly speaking, be observed,—is as such in time.
But the presence of consciousness to itself, though as
the true spunctum stans' (Locke, Essay II. Chap.
XVII. Sec. 16) it is the condition of the observation
of events in time, is not such an event itself. In the
ordinary and proper sense of 'fact,' it is not a fact at
all, nor yet a possible abstraction from facts.”1 The
presence of consciousness to itself not an event in
time, but the condition of observation of such events.
Here is the conception to which I oppose the doc-
trine that self-consciousness is derivative and analytic.
The opposition of this to the Hegelian doctrine brings
out its true significance, the true significance of them
both. But Hegel's doctrine is not met by a denial
of intellectual intuition. .
How it stands with the presence of consciousness
to itself, will be better seen when we come to the
analysis of elements in primary consciousness. Mean-
time, an Hegelian might ask me, why, seeing that
reflection is a derivative of primary consciousness,
i General Introduction, $ 142. (Vol. I. p. 121).
17
160
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
BOOK I.
CH. II.
as sole source
and conception a derivative of perception, I deny of
the one derivative what I claim for the other, the
Its importance character or function of giving ultimate truth? why
of verification. I claim this character for reflection, while denying it
to conception ? My answer is plain. In the first
place, this character is claimed, not for reflection in
the rough, but for reflective perception, the union of
the reduplicative mode of consciousness with percep-
tion its primary function. In union they are a mode
of final analysis. In the next place, there is a great
difference between reflection in the rough and con-
ception, notwithstanding that both are derivative.
Conception as a process per se, the movement in con-
ception taken alone, does not analyse, but combines.
It leads back to percepts, and ends as it began with
them; with percepts corrected and enriched, but still
with percepts. It leads back to a primary of the
same kind as that from which it was derived. Re-
flection on the contrary does not lead back to primary
consciousness, which was its original. Reflective and
direct consciousness replace and supersede their pa-
rent. Reflection, then, though derivative as concep-
tion is, yet in its union with perception is ultimate.
Hegelians of course will never allow that con-
ception is derivative at all. The primary character
of conception is their fundamental position. And
since the nexus of phenomena is one of the chief
things to be accounted for in philosophy, or in other
words, since philosophy has to interpret in subjective
terms the actual connection between phenomena
which we perceive objectively; and it is admitted on
all hands that conception combines percepts; it fol-
lows that, if it cannot be shown that relations are
given in and with the minutest fragments of percepts,
ULIUU
VLU
11
IT
PRIMARY, REFLECTIVE, AND DIRECT CONSCIOUSNESS.
161
: Ch. II.
17
as sole source
of verification.
Y
the minima sensibilia, then we must attribute the Book T.
nexus of phenomena (subjectively speaking) wholly
$ 4.
to conception, and then also we must hold, with its importance
Hegel, that conception is not derivative but primary.
But it can be shown. The minutest fragments
of percepts, of perceived or represented sensations,
occupy either time or time and space together; and
these time and space elements, being common to all
such fragments, connect them together and are the
common bond of union between them. They are the
continua, of which the differences of feeling are the
discreteness. Not the logical law of Contradiction,
under which percepts are connected and concepts
formed, but the perceptual elements of Time and
Space, are the nexus which makes the world organic.
Be this however as it may, (and the present Chapter
is not the place to redargue the basis of Hegelianism),
the question is at any rate one which must be dis-
cussed before the tribunal of Reflection, or in other
words, as a question of reflective and not of direct
consciousness. It is moreover a question of analysis.
In vain will Hegelians appeal to reflective analysis to
destroy Locke, Berkley, and Hume, and reject its
authority when appealed to against Hegel. Reflec-
tive analysis is the true Dialectic.
VOL. I.
CHAPTER III.
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
BOOK I.
CH. III.
$ 1,
Self-contradic-
tory nature of
Things-in-
themselves.
§ 1. To the days of Jacobi, Fichte, and Schelling,
belongs, as Herbart! tells us, the couplet :
Da die Metaphysik vor Kurzem unbeerbt abging,
Werden die Dinge-an-sich jetzo sub hasta verkauft.
Which may be rendered, duly preserving the elegant
smoothness of the original:
Oyez! Things-in-themselves to be sold by public auction !
Since Metaphysic is dead ;-dead without leaving an heir.
Poetry is catching, and it is but natural that such
an effort as the above should call forth an equally
poetical reply. Here it is :
What though Things-in-themselves have been dispersed by an
auction ;-
Who was the auctioneer ?—Why, Metaphysic herself.
The meaning and the justice of this reply will
immediately become apparent, for the fact is that
this whole question lies in a nutshell. The applica-
tion of the distinction, explained in the foregoing
Chapter, between direct and reflective consciousness,
clears up the whole position, and in this way. When
1 Allgemeine Metaphysik, $ 94. Werke, Vol. III. p. 261.
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
163
CH. III.
elf-contradic-
m
we approach external phenomena by the direct Book T.
method, asking what and how much we can make
$ 1.
out about them, we come at last upon a residuum Se
tory nature of
about which nothing can be made out, we reach the
Things-in-
themselves.
limit of our possible knowledge by the means at our
disposal. This residuum is the supposed Thing-in-
itself, while all that we can make out about the
phenomena is knowledge, is phenomenal. If our
direct enquiry has been statical, that is, into the
analysis of the phenomena themselves, the residuum
appears in the shape of a substance, or substratum,
of phenomenal attributes, qualities, or properties. If
the enquiry has been dynamical, that is, into the
causes, conditions, or genesis, of the phenomena,
then the residuum appears in the shape of an un-
knowable First Cause. But in either case the re-
siduum is found because of our own assumption; we
have put it into the phenomena by adopting the
direct method of enquiry.
The same is the case if we take internal phe-
nomena, states of consciousness, as our objects, and
approach them by the direct method, which is the
method of psychologyIf the enquiry is statical, we
come to a residuum in the shape of a substance or
substratum of states of consciousness, we come to
what is called a Soul, or Mind, or Spirit. If the
enquiry is dynamical, we come to the residuum in
the shape of a power, an agent, that is, a Self or an
Ego. Again the residuum is found in the phenomena
solely in virtue of our assumption in choosing the
direct method of enquiry.
The difference of the object matter, external phe-
nomena in the one case, internal in the other, makes
no difference to the result in question, which depends
164
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
Book I.
CH. III.
tory nature of
themselves.
S
upon the adoption of the direct method. For if we
enlarge the field of enquiry by putting together the
$ 1.
Self-contradic- two former fields, and taking internal and external
Things-in- phenomena together, the result is just the same, so
long as we do not change the method. We then get,
on the statical line of enquiry, to a residuum which
is the supposed absolute substance underlying both
orders of phenomena, e.g. Spinoza’s Substantia with
its attributes, the two known to us being extension
and thought; or we get, on the dynamical line, to a
supposed Force or Power, evolving eternally, but
not exhausting itself by evolving, both orders of
phenomena at once.
Things-in-themselves, then, are the necessary re-
sult of enquiries pursued on this method, because the
adoption of the method involves the assumption of
an existence separable from and independent of our
knowledge of it. We only find in it at last what we
imported into it at first. We choose to adopt the
attitude of enquiry into a ready made Existence, and
then are surprised to find, when we have discovered
all we can about it, that the ready made existence
still remains partially unapproachable, still continues
to be a ready made existence; are surprised too by
the logical contradiction in which we are entangled,
namely, that of affirming an Existence about which
we have no knowledge.
“Before they were aware, he led them both
within the compass of a net,"—the Flatterer being,
in this case, the flattering delusion that philosophy
can be mastered by the methods of science. Un-
aware that philosophy has a method of its own, a
method elaborated by the toil of many generations
of philosophers, the eager scientists, deluded by the
In
UU
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
165
BOOK I.
CH. III.
$ 1.
elf-contradic-
tory nature of
success of their own methods within their own do-
mains, expect to enter on the heritage of philosophy,
and with their methods to reap the fruits where $
another method has digged and planted and watered.
But before they are aware they find themselves en-
closed within the compass of a net; one and all, one
after another, in they march;
themselves.
“Mixta senum ac juvenum densentur funera. Nullum
Sæva caput Proserpina fugit.”
YIT
One insoluble contradiction awaits them all, one fate,
one absurdity, the ancient puzzle of the Thing-in-
itself, which in one and the same breath they must
affirm to be unknowable and affirm to be known to
exist. In vain they toss and struggle. Their method
is able to get them in, hut powerless to get them out.
There is nothing for it but to await their extinction
and abuse philosophy.
But now let us turn to the simple solution of the
puzzle by the method of reflective consciousness, the
method of philosophy. This method consists, as the
foregoing Chapter has shown, in asking what is the
meaning or connotation of terms in their relation to
consciousness alone. Simply applying this to the
term Existence, the answer is obtained in quite gene-
ral terms, Existence means presence in conscious-
ness; esse means percipi. Now if that is the meaning
of the term existence, it is clear, first, that there can-
not be an unknowable existence, and secondly, that
we cannot frame the notion of such an existence,
because the two terms which compose the notion de-
stroy one another; when you have fixed one, the
other has gone. The contradiction between the two
terms applies to the notion equally when taken ob-
neans
166
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
BOOK I.
themselves.
1
Bookl. jectively as when taken subjectively, equally to exist-
ence as thing, and to existence as thought. Accord-
$ 1.
Self-contradic ingly, in the phrase unknowable existence, one of the
tory nature of
Things-in- terms is a word without a meaning, a word not stand-
ing for a thought or a thing.
But what comes of the application of this result
to the former one, to the conclusion reached by the
direct method, to the existence there discovered be-
yond the limits of possible knowledge? True, it may
be said, the reflective method convicts the conclusion
reached by the direct method of involving a contra-
diction; we grant so much; but the question is, can
it go beyond this, can it show what is the truth as
well as what is the error in that conclusion? I reply
that it can. The unknowable existence affirmed by
the direct method is not unknowable strictly; it is
only supposed to be unknowable so long as we for-
get or neglect the reflective result, the meaning of
the term existence. There is an existence unknow-
able in certain most important respects, in all respects
which science busies itself with; that residuum is a
scientifically unknowable; but it is not a philosophi-
cally unknowable, since this residuum being known
to exist is known to be possibly present to conscious-
ness, a percipiendum as well as an existent. Science
merely goes too far in its assertion that there is be-
yond science an unknowable existence; there is such
an unknowable existence for science, but not for phi-
losophy; the reflective method which equates the
objective and subjective aspects goes beyond the
limits of science, goes as far as existence goes. Ob-
serve too that, in saying there is an unknowable
existence for science, we limit and restrict the term
unknowable existence; it is then no longer strictly
111
WU
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
167
CH. III.
BOOK I.
unknowable. Science goes too far in affirming it,
and in doing so is wrong in point of fact. It might
$ 1.
havond Self-contradic-
have gone too far in assertion, that is, gone beyond
tory nature of
Things-in-
its legitimate evidence, and yet have been right in
themselves.
what it asserted. But it is wrong as a matter of
fact. There is no unknowable existence. The me-
thod of reflection equates existence with perception.
There are accordingly two regions of thought and
existence, one which science and philosophy have in
common, the other which philosophy going beyond
science occupies alone; and both regions are alike
phenomenal. However little we may know of the
supra-scientific region, we are not in a region of
Things-in-themselves. Thing-in-itself is a word, a
phrase, without meaning, flatus vocis. It is only for
science that it is an illusion, an existent opposed to
phenomena. True, we may people the supra-scien-
tific region with phantasms, we may falsely and
groundlessly imagine all sorts of beings in those
quarters, but they will all be phenomena, as much
phenomena as are the immediate presentations to
sense, as much phenomena as if they lived by bread.
Not only, then, is the Thing-in-itself abolished by
reflection, but the distinction between Thing-in-itself
and Phenomenon is abolished with it. Everything
is phenomenal; everything is relative; in the parti-
cular sense of relativity, that of having a subjective
in relation to an objective aspect. The question so
often proposed—What is the Thing-in-itself, is really
a non-sense. It intends, no doubt, to ask (and the
question is perfectly legitimate) what is the nature
of this or that existence in the supra-scientific but
intra-philosophic region? If so meant and so under-
stood, it may often be an useful and important ques-
omen
168
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
CH. III.
tory nature of
Book T. tion. But supremely important is it to remember
that Things-in-themselves are a misnomer, words
$ 1.
Self-contradic without meaning. The proper definition of a Thing-
Things-in- in-itself is :-a thing known to exist without any
themselves.
knowledge of what it is being possible; which defini-
tion sufficiently shows the self-contradiction involved
in the term.
I turn now to a feature of the question which is
of the greatest importance, the perfect generality of
the result arrived at. Although an individual rea-
soner in no way transcends his own individual con-
sciousness, yet he reaches a result which is true of
all phenomena and under all relations; that is to
say, he reaches a result which is true of phenomena
qua phenomena, whether they are phenomena in
presentation or in representation, in perception or in
conception, in memory or in imagination, and whether
they are objects to the individual's own conscious-
ness or to the consciousness of other individuals. The
truth reached is this, that phenomena qua pheno-
mena are the whole of existence, and at the same
time the whole of consciousness. There is no Thing-
in-itself beyond them. And the term phenomenon is
a term expressing at once the double aspect, subjec-
tive and objective; the subjective aspect of existence,
the objective aspect of states of consciousness.
The term Noumenon, which is employed to denote
Thing-in-itself as opposed to phenomenon, by con-
noting its merely conceptual character as opposed to
its perceptual, bears witness itself against the doc-
trine which it is used to expound. For it introduces
a distinction into consciousness, and while discarding
the objects of one function retains those of another,
-noumena, the objects of conception. It retains
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
169
Bouk I.
CH. III.
§ 1.
tradic-
tory nature of
Things-in-
themselves.
L
these objects in consciousness generally, excluding
them from perceptive consciousness; they are still
phenomena, because they are still objects with a sub-
jective aspect.
Objects of representation again, as opposed to ob-
jects of presentation, are still phenomena in the same
sense; so also are objects of memory; so also are ob-
jects of imagination. In fact objects of memory and
of imagination are represented objects ; memory and
imagination being determinate modes of representa-
tion. It is not presentations only, that is, immediate
feelings while actually felt, that are phenomena.
In short the term phenomena is perfectly general;
it has a connotation, union of the two aspects, and
whatever answers to this connotation, no matter what
may be the particular mode in which it answers to it,
is included under and is denotable by the term. The
accidents of the object so defined, -phenomenon, the
union of the objective and subjective aspects,—an
object be it noted of reflective consciousness, inas-
much as reflection discovers the connotation of the
term denoting it, the object unanalysed being given
by primary consciousness,—the accidents may be
here disregarded. We are not now occupied with
any of the modes of phenomena, but with phenomena
themselves merely as such.
But it may possibly be thought that, when we
take account of the other distinction mentioned
above, namely, phenomena as objects to the indi-
vidual reasoner's own consciousness and phenomena
as objects to the consciousness of other individuals,
we cannot maintain the result here reached in its
generality, without transcending the individual's own
consciousness; or else that, on the other hand, if we
170
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
Book I.
CH. III.
Self-contradic-
themselves. Puu
TI
refuse to make a statement which transcends this
consciousness, then, since we limit our statement
$ 1.
adice about phenomena to one class of them, namely, the
tory nature of a
Things-in phenomena of our individual mind, we must renounce
the claim of perfect generality for the result. For
instance, Professor Clifford writes:1 “Herein is a
distinction between Self and Not-self, which is far
deeper than that between Subject and Object; the
distinction between You and Me. My conception of
your conciousness is a symbol that differs from all
objective symbols in this ; that they can be ex-
pressed in terms of my feeling: this never can. In
the primary sense of the word object, then, I know
directly one object, this table, which is in my con-
sciousness; I infer symbolically a number of similar
objects in the consciousness of other men. Out of
all these there now arises a still more symbolic con-
ception; the table, as object in the consciousness of
man.”
· In what sense the distinction between the con-
sciousnesses of two individuals is “deeper” than that
between Subject and Object, is not made clear in this
passage. Let us see what it really is. The former
is a distinction between separables, the latter between
inseparables. The former is a cleft, the latter a bridge
over it. In this sense no doubt the former is the
deeper of the two. But it does not go deeper into
the analysis of the phenomena. A distinction which
bridges a cleft must in analysis be deeper than the
separation which makes the cleft, for it brings to
light a circumstance of sameness where only differ-
ence had been observed before; it furnishes an
answer, where the other had proposed a question.
i The Academy, for Feb. 7, 1874.
INT
111
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
171
Book I.
CH. III.
Professor Clifford in this passage takes the Sub-
ject to mean the individual Subject, and the Object
$ 1.
to mean (1) the object of that single individual, and Self-contradic
tory nature of
(2) the object of human beings collectively. And Things.in
then he is perfectly right in holding that this second
object is doubly symbolical, as he calls it. First I
have to get your table, and then mankind's table. But
I must begin with my own imperfect and rudimentary
table. That is the first step of all; and that furnishes
me with my conception of your rudimentary table,
and finally of mankind's perfect one, which is Pro-
fessor Clifford's Object in the second sense. Without
my table to begin with, I should be totally unable to
reach yours and then mankind's; totally unable to
get across the “deeper distinction” between You and
Me; your table, and consequently you, would to me
be non-existents. At the same time, when by aid of
my table and comparison combined I have reached
mankind's table, then mankind's table becomes my
table and my object, just as much as my merely
individual table was originally. The distinction be-
tween Subject and Object as I draw it, in the indi-
vidual, survives, as it originated, the whole process;
is last as well as first in it, and includes under it the
steps from my object to yours, and from yours to
mankind's.
It is, therefore, a mistake to suppose that a greater
difference exists between my consciousness and yours
than can be bridged by, that is, shown to be a case of,
and so subsumed under, the distinction between ob-
ject and subject in a single, say my, consciousness.
For it is not the fact that “my conception of your
consciousness is a symbol that cannot be expressed
in terms of my feeling.” This would be true only if
DI
172
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
$1.
in-
TY
Book I. we took “my feeling” to mean my presentative feel-
CH. III.
ing. To you that consciousness is presentative which
Self-contradic- to me is representative; that is, I represent to myself
tory nature of
what I imagine you to be feeling presentatively. And
themselves.
I express it to myself as so represented in terms of
my feeling, in terms which derive their significance
solely from feelings which I have myself presenta-
tively experienced. True, I cannot have your pre-
sentations as subjective presentations of my own, but I
can have them as representations of the imagination,
which is to have them as my objects.
On the other hand, it is not the fact that all “ob-
jective symbols” can be expressed in terms of my
feeling, unless we take “my feeling to include re-
presentations. There are some objects which cannot
be presentations either to you or to me, but are in-
ferences only, representations of imagination ; the
atoms, or shall we say vortices, of the ether, for in-
stance, or the far side of the moon. The change in
physical conditions which would be requisite to en-
able me to have your feelings as presentations of my
own, say a perfect nerve communication between my
brain and yours, is not surely a much more violent
hypothesis than would be the hypothesis of a change
which should enable me to see the far-side of the
moon or the atoms or vortices of ether. The impossi-
bility of my having your feelings does not affect their
nature as phenomenal in point of kind, but merely
the mode of their phenomenality to me.
Professor Clifford's doctrine, then, involves taking
the term “my feeling” in two different senses at once.
For in order to include all objective symbols under
what can be expressed in terms of " my feeling,” the
term must be understood in the large inclusive sense
200
O
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
173
CH. III.
no)
which is the proper one; and in order to exclude
BOOK I.
“my conception of your consciousness” from the
$ 1.
same category, the same term must be understood in Self-contradic-
tory nature of
a narrow and improper sense.
Things-in-
themselves.
We are in this dilemma, either an individual
Subject has some knowledge of other people's feel-
ings, and then they are part of his object, and the
same in kind, qua phenomena, with his own, or else
he has no knowledge of them at all, that is, they are
non-existent to him. The former alternative is con-
fessedly the true one. Therefore, however imperfect
the Subject's knowledge of other people's feelings
may be, he knows at least this; that they are the
same in general kind as his own, namely, phenomenal.
If assumed at all, they are phenomenal to him; and
again, if assumed at all, they are assumed as phe-
nomenal to the immediate Subjects of them. In
both ways they are phenomenal in point of kind.
The distinction, therefore, between my feelings
and yours can never be a foundation or basic distinc-
tion in metaphysic, which treats of the nature of
things, because it is not a difference of kind, but is
merely one of time, place, and circumstance. It is a
distinction in science, the science of psychology, pre-
supposing at least one individual Subject already
existing, separate from other individual Subjects real
or supposed. The separation of individual Subjects
is the first step in psychology; and here no doubt
the separation between conscious individuals, con-
scious centres of presentation, is a most important
fact. For, as I have shown in the foregoing Chapter,
verification depends on presentation repeated in re-
flection, and therefore, since presentation is always
individual, verification is always an individual process.
174
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
§ 1.
BOOK I.
The same circumstance also in ethical matters de-
CH. II.
termines the supremacy of conscience. The converg-
Self-contradic ence and agreement of individuals is the discovery of
tory nature of
the single true world among the many real ones.
themselves.
We do not need the supposition of a single world-
consciousness corresponding to the single true world.
For, since the presentative differences of conscious
individuals can be bridged in representation, the har-
mony of all individuals is equivalent to a single indi-
vidual;—much as if all clocks in the world were right
by one another and the sun, which they might con-
ceivably be, without a world-clock other than the
world itself.
Quite recently Professor Clifford has published a
paper in which his views on this subject are drawn
out more fully. He there coins the word eject to
mean “your feelings," as opposed to object or pheno-
menon which means “my feelings.” “These inferred
existences,” he says, “are in the very act of inference
thrown out of iny consciousness, recognised as outside
out of it, as not being a part of me." And an object
of the consciousness of mankind collectively, e.g.
this table, as an object in the minds of men,” is dis-
tinguished by the title of social object. There are
three things to be distinguished, the individual ob-
ject, the social object, and the eject. And of his
instance of the social object he says, “This concep-
tion symbolises an indefinite number of ejects, to-
gether with one object which the conception of each
eject more or less resembles."
These words will serve to reveal what I think is
1 On the Nature of Things-in-themselves. In Mind, No. IX.
p. 57. Jan. 1878.
2 The same, p. 58.
3 The same, p. 59.
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
175
BOOK I.
CH. III.
$ 1.
Things-in-;
themselves.
the lurking fallacy. It is not the case that a concep-
tion like this table as an object in the minds of
men” symbolises ejects ; it symbolises the speaker's Self-contradic-
tory nature of
representation of them. And if it should be replied,
that this is provided for by the words “ together with
one object, &c.," then I answer, that a mere together is
not enough; the object in the speaker's own mind,
the "individual object,” supplies him with the whole
interpretation of what those ejects are, as well as
with his whole grounds for assuming their exist-
ence. He knows nothing whatever of the ejects,
except as part of some “individual object,” or ob-
jects, of his own.
But it will be said, the ejects exist all the same,
and if they did not exist, the individual object would
never be completed or moulded into the social ob-
ject. Very true, they exist, and the signs they give
of their existence are what enable the individual to
develop his individual object into a social one. But
this is entirely irrelevant to the question of what the
ejects are; it is not a point of metaphysic but of
psychology; affects the history of individual and
social development, but does not touch the nature of
consciousness, whether in this individual or in that.
If the ejects exist, still they are in their nature phe-
nomenal. That I can only infer their existence,
makes no difference in this respect. If I do infer
them, they are phenomenal to me. If I do not infer
them, still they are phenomenal to you.
But what inextricable confusion is introduced
into philosophy by thus mixing up the psychological
point of view with the metaphysical. The question
of nature, of kind, of the ti totiv, of a thing, is shelved
and replaced by a question as to whence it comes and
176
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
BOOK I.
CH. III.
Self-contradic
11
whom it belongs to; and then a difference in respect
of this incidental circumstance, namely, whether a
$ 1.
Self-contradic feeling is mine or yours, is made the ground of in-
tory nature of
Things-in- ferring difference and even opposition of kind be-
themselves.
tween them.
For what can be more opposed in kind than
Things-in-themselves and Phenomena?. Now it is
the main drift of this paper of Professor Clifford's to
at what he calls ejects, (opposed it will be
remembered to objects, which are phenomena), are
Things-in-themselves. “Consciousness," he says,
meaning I suppose other people's, “is a complex
of ejective facts,—of elementary feelings, or rather
of those remoter elements which cannot even be
felt, but of which the simplest feeling is built up."1
Presently we read, “ Hence a feeling (or an eject-
element) is Ding-an-sich, an absolute, whose existence
is not relative to anything else. Sentitur is all that
can be said."2 These elements of feeling are then
called Mind-stuff. “A moving molecule of inorganic
matter” (which is an object, a phenomenon, interpret-
able in terms of my feeling'] “does not possess mind
or consciousness; but it possesses a small piece of
mind-stuff.” The elementary feeling, then, which is
Ding-an-sich is not matter. Neither is it conscious-
ness;-unless it be (shall we say ?) an unconscious
variety. I should like too to hear how it differs
from spirit. However, I am not here concerned with
the theory of Mind-stuff. For aught I know, there
may be many other objects of consciousness besides
matter. My wonder is to find any one ambitious of
al
In Mind, No. IX.
i On the Nature of Things-in-themselves.
p. 64. Jan. 1878.
2 The same, p. 65.
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
177
CH. III.
tory nature of
themselves,
TTT
y
having Things-in-themselves as an item in his philo-
BOOK I.
sophical system. Mind-stuff may possibly be a fact;
$ 1.
but if so, it must certainly be phenomenal and stand Self-contradic-
in relation to other facts. The reason for which is, Things-in-
that the condition precedent, or origin, of things,
conceive it as you will, is a question of science,
whether physical or psychological, and is subordi-
nate to the question of nature, which is the ques-
tion of metaphysic,--what that condition is con-
ceived as being. For we cannot know that any-
thing exists, without having some knowledge of
the thing itself, that is, of some of its attributes or
characteristics. Otherwise we should have to con-
ceive it as an existent Nothing. And this is precisely
what a Thing-in-itself is:
$ 2:
Kant's theory
of tliem.
§ 2. What has now been said might appear suffi-
cient to bring the present discussion to a conclusion;
since the distinction between Things-in-themselves
and Phenomena has been fully exhibited. The whole
question lies, as I said, in a nutshell. But it will
perhaps be well, seeing the embarrassment which the
point occasions to philosophising scientists, and the
importance which it has assumed in the eyes of a
demi-semi-Kantian public, to say something of the
shape which the Thing-in-itself assumed in Kant's
hands, and on the subsequent fate of that theory of
it, of which Kant was the author.
The locus classicus on the point is that chapter in
the Critic of Pure Reason entitled “On the ground of
distinguishing Objects generally into Phenomena
and Noumena." It is the locus classicus because it
VOL. I.
178
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
BOOK I.
CH. III.
$ 2.
Kant's theory
of them.
-
gave precision to the notion of Things-in-themselves,
by basing it upon a theory of the nature and laws of
consciousness. It demonstrated, from that theory,
that the Thing-in-itself, which before had been a
mere Unattainable, had a necessary existence, at the
same time that it was necessarily unknowable. The
Thing-in-itself before Kant is very different from the
Thing-in-itself after Kant. It developed into a nui-
sance. Prior to Kant we meet with it continually.
Aristotle has υποκείμενα άνευ αισθήσεως, ά ποιεί την
alo onowv.1 Still it was not definitely presented as
something completely and entirely unknowable. A
sort of half unknowability is the shape in which it
appears, in those instances which Sir W. Hamilton
quotes as Philosophical Testimonies to the Limitation
of our Knowledge; including indeed Kant among
the rest, yet apparently without a suspicion of Kant
difference from all his predecessors on this point.
For side by side with the unknowable, prior to Kant,
we meet also with expressions of the adequacy of
knowledge to existence; adequacy, that is, in some
respects. For instance, in Aquinas we have the fol-
lowing: “Est enim proprium objectum intellectus
ens intelligibile, quod quidem comprehendit omnes
differentias et species entis possibiles; quidquid enim
esse potest intelligi potest." And to come to Kant's
immediate predecessor, Wolff, we find him saying :
“Ens omne, quâ tale, cognoscibile.''4
But Kant it was who put the old notion of the
Thing-in-itself on a new footing; and, since he
Te
LEVU
1 Metaph. 1. v. p. 1010, b. 32.
2 Discussions, App. B. pp. 634-649. 2nd edit.
3 Summa Phil. Contra Gentiles, Lib. II. cap. 98.
4 Logica, $ 28.
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
179
CH. III.
$ 2.
of them,
mi
PS!
1
deduced it from his theory, therefore the counter
demonstration of the non-existence of the Thing-in-
itself involved the fall of his theory. This in fact Kant's theory
was the point at which the expansive force of the
method of reflection, admitted by Kant under the
name of Apperception, shattered the fabric of the
Critic of Pure Reason, as was noticed in Chapter I.
But now let us see what Kant's doctrine really is.
The main points of the Chapter mentioned above?
may be given briefly as follows:
The transcendental use of a Concept (under any of
the Categories or principles of Synthesis) is in apply-
ing it to Things generally and in themselves (p. 226).
Ontology lays claim to give a doctrine of things
generally (p. 231).
It must give place to an Analytic of the Pure
Understanding (id. id.).
The pure categories, taken alone, have a tran-
scendental significance, but no transcendental appli-
cability (p. 231-232).
In the mere consideration that it is requisite to
an Object that it be in relation to our Intuitive facul-
ties, as well as to our Understanding, lies the dis-
tinction between Phenomena and Noumena, and the
necessary assumption of the existence of the latter as
correlates of the former (p. 234). [Here we have the
necessity of the existence of Noumena, founded on
the duality of the faculties, intuition and under-
standing.]
From this follows naturally the mistake, that,
since we can form the concept of an Object generally,
(i.e. not limited to be in relation to our intuitive
1“On the ground, &c." Kritik d. R.V. pp. 224-240. Harten-
stein's edit. 1853, which is from the Second Edition of the Critic.
180
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
BOOK I.
CH. III.
§ 2.
faculties), the same categories which helped us to
form this concept must help us also to determine it,
Kant's theory and so to think the Noumenon as such and such in
of them.
reality and in itself (p. 235). Here we have the
non-necessary but natural mistake about the nature
of the Noumena.]
In consequence of this distinction we have Nou-
mena distinguished into:
1. Things so far as they are not objects of our
sensible intuition ;-Noumena in a nega-
tive sense.
2. Things so far as they are objects of a non-
sensible intuition ;-Noumena in a positive
sense (p. 235-236).
Since we have no such cognitive faculty at all as
Intellectual Intuition, Noumena for us must always
mean Noumena in the negative sense (p. 236).
Problematic Concepts are such as, though con-
taining no contradiction, and even hanging together
with other cognitions and being conterminous with
given concepts, yet cannot have their objective reality
shown. A Noumenon, always in the negative sense,
is an instance of such a Limit-Concept, and Pro-
blematic Concept, and thus is of merely negative use.
Yet it is not arbitrarily feigned, but is brought in
by the limitation of our sensibility, without adding
anything positive beyond the range of sensibility
(p. 237).
The Noumena here defined are very different from
the mundus intelligibilis, the world as thought or rea-
soned, in other words, the system of laws of nature.
The distinction of mundus sensibilis and intelligibilis
does not belong to the system of the Critic, and leaves
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
181
the question of Noumena quite untouched. That Book I.
Ch. III.
question is, Whether there are Noumena as legitimate
$ 2.
objects of thought beyond the range of the mundus Kant's theory
intelligibilis ; and this question we have answered in
the negative (p. 238-239).
of them,
as
The above abstract from Kant's famous Chapter
gives the whole theory of Things-in-themselves, as it
exists for Kantians at the present day. We can see
from it the supposed logical basis of the belief in
those Things. The existence of two faculties, intui-
tion and thought, or in modern and more philosophi-
cal terms, of two functions, perception and conception,
of which one, conception, is held to be wider in its
range than perception,--this relation between the two
functions gives a reason to the belief in Noumena,
which are the objects of conception in that part of its
range which is larger than the range of perception.
But the duality of function alone would not suffice to
maintain the belief, nor yet I think would the in-
verted relation of the two functions, as to range,
suffice to maintain it, if the process of reflection was
duly generalised, and the supposed Noumena by this
means included, not indeed in the field of a deter-
mined faculty of intuition or function of perception,
but in the less determined field of objects of con-
sciousness generally. Kant's Noumena in a negative
sense are what I have called above noumena per
accidens, noumena in a certain limited respect, un-
knowables in respect of perception. And this notion
of noumena per accidens is given only by reflection.
182
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
BOOK I.
CH. III.
$ 2.
Kant's theor
of them.
There are, then, two ways in which we may
endeavour to extricate ourselves from Kant's posi-
tion. One is that which I have already taken, by
generalising the process of reflection, and thus equat-
ing the objective and subjective aspects; which me-
thod leaves of course a number of respects in which
objects may be unknown to us, while maintaining
one respect at the least, in which all objects must
be known to us, namely, as existing phenomenally,
though without further determination of their mode
of existence. Existence is, on this view, the object
of a representation. For reflection is restricted to be
reflection on primary states of consciousness, and
these are exhaustively divided into presentation and
representation.
The other way of extrication consists either in
equating the two functions whose discrepancy gave
rise to the supposed demonstration of noumena, or
else in deducing one of them from the other. I am
not acquainted with any system which has followed
the first of these alternatives. But the second alter-
native divides again into two branches, according as
perception is held to be a derivative of conception,
or vice versa. In both of these two branches a funda-
mental unity of process in consciousness is obtained.
But both branches rest upon an application of the
method of reflection, and are in fact supplementary
to the first way of extrication. They presuppose the
consideration, that the source, the thinking-principle,
which throws up the categories, so to speak, and
works in and through them,--they being the creators
of the Thing-in-itself,—must be adequate subjectively
to that Thing-in-itself objectively, must be a correlate
of it. But this source is the Apperception (empirical
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
183
ant's theo
of them.
or transcendental) indicated by the words Ich denke.1
BOOK I.
CH. III.
Therefore the Thing-in-itself is not without some
$ 2.
adequate subjective correlate, that is, is not what it Kant's theory
was taken to be, a Thing-in-itself.
The first of the two supplementary branches is
represented by Hegel. His law or process of Identi-
fying Contradictories, with the Concept as absolute
Basis,” which is described by Hegel as the Concept of
the Concept itself, der Begriff des Begriffes, is the
representative and substitute for Kant's transcend-
ental Apperception working in and by the Categories
of the Understanding; it is that single process, or
single force, which I have just described as throwing
up and then working in and by the categories. And
being concrete, a concept which throws up concepts,
as well as a law of their identification, it includes per-
cepts as part of itself. Elsewhere I have criticised this
theory, and endeavoured to show that it is not com-
patible with a true analysis of consciousness. I will
now remark only upon its genealogy,—which may
be thus deduced. The Conception in concepts comes
directly from Kant's transcendental apperception, the
concepts from his categories. The categories are the
descendants of“ innate ideas.” These again spring
from the Realist interpretation of Aristotle's Univer-
sals; and these universals, so interpreted, are an
attenuation of the Platonic Ideas, which had a sepa-
rate existence beyond and beside the things of which
they were predicable. If anything could have esta-
blished the truth of the absolutist tradition, in the
1 See Hegel, Die subjective Logik. Vom Begriff im Allgemeinen.
Werke, Vol. V. p. 14.
2 The same, p. 5.
3 The saine, p. 12.
184
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
BOOK I.
CH. III.
$ 2.
Kant's theory
of them.
teeth of facts, it would have been the subtil genius of
Hegel.
Of the second supplementary branch, that which
reverses, Hegel's theory, and subsumes conception
under perception, I shall not now speak. It is the
theory which I hold to be the true one, and in future
Chapters I shall devote considerable space to its con-
sideration. Unity of function in consciousness is at-
tained by both theories; both go to the extreme limit
of consciousness and of existence; both leave enor-
mous tracts of unknown existence within those limits;
both hold Things-in-themselves to be flatus vocis.
But Hegel's theory does not separate the analytic
from the constructive branch of philosophy, and con-
sequently does not distinguish between the science of
the actual world and the philosophy of hypothetical
worlds. Both branches are by him included, undis-
tinguished, in one and the same philosophy, Hegel
at once overrides science and gives the analysis and
genesis of both worlds at one and the same time, by
one and the same theory. It is in this, and not in its
inclusion of the Thing-in-itself, that Hegel's preten-
sions are exorbitant. He makes philosophy remove
its neighbour's landmark, by first making it over-
look a landmark of its own, the distinction between
analysis and genesis.
We can now see the position occupied by those
various theories in the constructive branch of philo-
sophy which were enumerated in Chapter I.1 They
may not be Ontological, that is, they may make no
claim to override or obliterate the distinction of
objective and subjective aspects; or to explain why
there is existence, or why there is consciousness;
1 Above, p. 77.
1
n
L1
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
185
$ 2.
of them.
thus assuming that this distinction can be tran- BOOKT.
scended. They may keep strictly and fairly within
phenomenal limits, while going to the full length of K
the tether, the full extent of existence and of con-
sciousness. They may, to put the thing in other
words, pitch upon some feature or features, in known
phenomena, as the central ones, as those which afford
an explanation of the rest, or from which the rest may
be deduced. No objection may lie against them on
the score of being transcendent or ontological. But
at the same time it must be remembered that, unless
such theories are framed with a distinct knowledge
' and admission of the ground on which they stand, of
the province of philosophy to which they belong,
namely, to the constructive branch, and of the res
quirements of that province, namely, that any theory
in it must be based on a previous metaphysical
analysis in the analytic branch,--they will not and
cannot be accepted as true hypotheses of the nature
of existence beyond the reach of science. It will be
said that this is to include all past theories in one
sweeping condemnation. I do not deny it. Time
has already condemned them as complete theories.
Time is only now bringing to light the conditions
upon which alone such theories can be legitimately
and securely framed. But this is very far from con-
demning those theories as unprofitable, or their authors
as dreamers. Without them where should we be ?
Ubinam nescientiæ quæso ? No, it is precisely in the
questions of the constructive branch of philosophy
that the sharpest stimulus lies to the study of philo-
sophy at all. The Why, Whence, Whither, of this
transitory world, which is but a minute portion of
the world which is possibly actual, or actual to other
186
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
Book I.
CH. III.
intelligences than ours, are the very questions in
which we take the deepest interest. Let metaphysic
§ 2.
Kant s theory once give us the What of this actual world of ours,
and science its How ;-then we shall be in a position
to frame with advantage our first legitimate though
imperfect solutions of its Why, Whence, and Whither:
of them.
$ 3.
Scientist
theories of
thein,
§ 3. Having thus seen how philosophy deals with
the question of Things-in-themselves, let us now see
how it is sometimes dealt with by philosophical
scientists. It is just one of those test questions which
show a writer's capacity or incapacity for philosophy.
It is so because its answer depends so directly and
immediately upon the method of reflection. Grasp
and apply that method, and you solve the question at
once; ignore it or misconceive it, and all solutions
are apparent only. This method, as we have seen,
gives us things considered as existing in place of
things as they exist; it gives us percepts instead of
things independent of perception ; things in their
objective aspect instead of things in themselves. The
Unknowable, or Thing-in-itself, becomes a word with-
out a meaning; for all its meaning now belongs to
things in their objective aspect, namely, to that por-
tion of them which is a residuum after following up
an analysis as far as possible on any particular line.
This residuum is never an unknowable. It is the
continuation of the known into the unknown. Its
ultimate laws must be conceived as the same with
those of the known. Hence it is no source of the
miraculous. But call it unknowable, and it at once
becomes lawless, the possible nay inevitable source
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
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of miracles. Call it, however, what you will, you
cannot say anything about it without making it rela-
tive, continuous with the known, and subject to some
of the laws of the known. Therefore, that which
was thought to be the unknowable, the thing-in-itself,
becomes partially known, and belongs to the domain
which I have called the constructive branch of phi-
losophy.
Let us now see how Mr. Spencer deals with this
question. Let us take his Chapter on Transfigured
Realism. The concluding paragraph runs as follows:
“Finally, then, we resume this originally-provisional
assumption but now verified truth. Once more
we are brought round to the conclusion repeatedly
reached by other routes, that behind all manifesta-
tions, inner and outer, there is a Power manifested.
Here, as before, it has become clear that while the
nature of this Power cannot be known--while we
lack the faculty of framing even the dimmest con-
ception of it, yet its universal presence is the abso-
lute fact without which there can be no relative facts.
Every feeling and thought being transitory—an en-
tire life made up of such feelings and thoughts being
also but transitory-nay the objects amid which life
is passed, though less transitory, being severally in
course of losing their individualities, quickly or slowly;
we learn that the one thing permanent is the Un-
knowable Reality hidden under all these changing
shapes.”
Here we have what is Unknowable characterised
as Power, as Reality, as an absolute fact, as univer-
sally present, as the one thing permanent. Five
terms, which, since they are applied to what is un-
1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. II. pp. 489-503. 2nd edit.
188
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knowable, must be words without meaning. Does
Mr. Spencer know the unknowable, or does he not?
Apparently it is a knowable unknowable that exists
for him.
This conclusion will not surprise us, when we
consider his description of the Realism which he
holds, since this description shows plainly enough
how he comes by it. - The Realism we are committed
to is one which simply asserts objective existence as
separate from, and independent of, subjective exist-
ence."1 Simply asserts the direct denial of the fact
given in every exercise of reflection, which is the
non-separation of the objective and subjective aspects
of existence. Can we have a more evident proof
than this, of the necessity of adopting reflection as
the basis of philosophical method ?
I have no doubt that what Mr. Spencer intends to
inaintain by his doctrine of Transfigured Realism,
(since he cannot intend a contradiction), is perfectly
true and sound. When he says of the unknowable
reality, in the first cited passage, that “we lack the
faculty of framing even the dimmest conception of
it,” he has in his mind scientific conceptions only, he
means such a concrete conception as could be directly
verifiable in science; he puts out of view the hypo-
thetical, highly abstract, conceptions of philosophy.
But this only shows how inadequate to philosophy
scientific conceptions and scientific methods are, when
taken alone; how inevitably they lead to self-contra-
dictions when employed to solve philosophical pro-
blems,-contradictions which are then supposed to
be inherent in the laws of consciousness itself; and
therefore how necessary it is to keep clearly drawn
1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. II. p. 494. 2nd edit.
THINGSUT
189
-IN-TIIEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
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theori
see
the distinction between the two domains and the two
methods, of philosophy and of science. What Mr.
Spencer intends by his Unknowable Reality is not, as
the word unknowable suggests, Kant's Thing-in-itself;
but, as partially knowable, it is the object of what I
have called the constructive branch of philosophy,
and corresponds to Mr. Lewes' Supra-sensible and
Metempirical. This at least is the way I should find
out of the contradictory notion which as we have
seen Mr. Spencer has framed of it.1
Mr. Lewes' self-contradictions on this subject are
so remarkable that the assertion of them would not
and ought not to be credited, unless supported by a
very considerable number of citations. There is un-
fortunately no lack of passages to be cited. Mr. Lewes
is so ill-disposed to Things-in-themselves et id genus
omne, that he coins a new word to stigmatise them,
a term of contempt as he is careful to inform us,2
namely, the Metempirical; and for the delusive science
that has not shaken itself free from them, the term
Metempirics. “ Physics and Metaphysics deal with
things and their relations, as these are known to us,
and as they are believed to exist in our universe;
Metempirics sweeps out of this region in search of
the otherness of things: seeking to behold things, not
as they are in our universe--not as they are to us--
it substitutes for the ideal constructions of Science
the ideal constructions of Imagination.”3
1 An extremely able criticism of Mr. Spencer's Theory of the
Absolute, from the same reflective point of view as my own, is to
be found in Mr. Alfred Barratt's Physical Ethics, 1869. App. I.
p. 299.
2 Problems of Life and Mind, Vol. I. p. 17.
3 The same, Vol. I. p. 18. See also p. 27-28.
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Well, this notwithstanding, we shall find Mr.
Lewes holding, first, that the metempirical exists,
though it is unknowable; secondly, that the metem-
pirical does not exist at all, and thirdly, that the
metempirical both exists and is partly knowable. I
shall group the passages which I cite in support of
these assertions under these three heads.
1. Passages in which the existence of the “metem-
pirical” is asserted, though unknowable.
“Kant displayed great ingenuity in proving that
the empirical and metempirical worlds (by him called
the phenomenal and noumenal) having nothing in
common, no conclusions formed respecting the one
could have any validity when extended to the other.
Why then did he continue to coquet with Metem-
pirics, after having struck such blows at its founda-
tion ?” To identify the metempirical with Kant's
noumenal (supposing this to be really intended)
would be to assert the existence of the metempirical,
though unknowable, since that is the character of
Kant's noumenal. The present passage is not decisive
on the intention. We shall shortly come to one in
which the identification is much more explicit.
At Vol. I. p. 28. the “Supra-sensible” is identified
with the “otherness of things;" and it is said, that
the knowledge of it, even if gained, would still be
"relative, phenomenal.” Again at Vol. I. p. 29 31.
the metempirical is identified with the unknowable;
and at p. 31. it is said, that conjectures in that region
“may be approximately right, or absurdly wrong."
I argue, then, that, if they may be approximately
right, this involves the supposition of an object-
1 Problems of Life and Mind, Vol. I. p. 19.
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matter for them existing. At Vol. I. p. 33. questions
about the metempirical are said to be “adjourned,
not suppressed.” At Vol. I. p. 252. we read, “I am
far from implying that a Supra-sensible does not
exist.” And at p. 253, the field of speculation is
divided “into the Sensible World, the Extra-sensible
World, and the Supra-sensible World: a division
corresponding with our previous distribution of posi-
tive, speculative, and metempirical.”
At Vol. I. p. 182-3. we have a still more distinct
assertion of the existence of the supra-sensible and
unknowable. It occurs in the section headed Rea-
soned Realism, which is a discussion anticipatory of
one more complete, probably that which appears in
Prob. VI. in the second volume. “The Reasoned
Realism of this work denies altogether the assumed
distinction between noumenon and phenomenon-
except as a convenient artifice of classification by
which the unknowable otherness of relations is distin-
guished from the knowable relations: that is to say,
noumena standing for things in their relations to
other forms of Sentience (if there are such) than our
own; and phenomena standing for things in any con-
ceivable relations to Sentience like our own. Getting
rid of the Ding an sich, or noumenon, as a phantasm
that has no existence for us, consequently cannot
come within our perceptions, nor within any theory
of perception, and is therefore altogether banished
from the sphere of knowledge, we are led through
our psychological analysis back to the synthetic
starting point-namely, that the external world ex-
ists, and among the modes of its existence is the one
we perceive.”1
Problems of Life and Mind, Vol. I. p. 182-3.
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Kant's position precisely, limit-concept included,
as it appears in that Chapter, analysed above, on
phenomena and noumena. I do not say that Mr.
Lewes reaches his position by the same steps as
Kant, but merely that his position is identical with
Kant's when reached. The position is—that an Un-
knowable is known to exist, Kant's noumena in nega-
tive sense. But Mr. Lewes does not seem to be
aware of the distinction between noumena in nega-
tive and noumena in positive sense; and when he
argues against their knowability seems to have the
latter in his mind. Mr. Lewes expressly repudiates
Kant's doctrine of mental forms, in a passage of
which the following is a part: “But as the sentient
Organism develops, the external Order emerges; not
because this Order is the creation of the Organism,
stamped upon the chaos, but because this Order is
assimilated by the Organism, --selected, according to
its shaping reactions, from the larger order of the
Real.”l Observe, the larger order of the Real; just
as above, “among the modes of its existence."
At the end of this section on Reasoned Realism,
we come to a passage, already cited in a former
Chapter, in which the two senses of the word Object
are noticed, being, in the first sense, the other side of
the Subject, in the second, the larger circle which in-
cludes it.
Other passages which assert the existence of the
Supra-sensible are: Vol. I. p. 370-1. where mystery
is said to be not excluded from the universe but only
from science; Vol. II. p. 1. “The Universe is mystic
to man, and must ever remain so; for he cannot tran-
1 Problems of Life and Mind, Vol. I. p. 184.
2 The same, Vol. I. p. 189.
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
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scend the limits of his Consciousness, his knowledge
being only knowledge of its changes;" Vol. II. p. 8.
“ Unexplored remainders lie beyond every limit."
Again, Vol. II. p. 247. “whatever lies outside this
range” (viz. : sensible and extra-sensible experiences,
individual and social] “may belong to the Universe,
but not to our Cosmos, not to the knowable Universe,
and it is therefore rejected from Research.” At Vol.
II. p. 364. again, there is a remarkable passage: "We
must not blow hot and cold with the Unknowable.
We must not pretend to any knowledge whatever of
it. If we are compelled to admit an existence which
is inaccessible” (well, what follows on this Kantian
admission ?] “we are not thereby compelled to doubt
the validity of our relative knowledge.” I shall recur
to this passage again. But meanwhile, note the con-
ception that the relativity of knowledge implies an
existence beyond the reach of that knowledge, a con-
ception belonging to direct, not to reflective, con-
sciousness.
2. Passages which deny the existence of the “me-
tempirical.”
The only passage in Vol. I. which I have been
able to find is at page 362. “Speculation craves for
a vision of the thing, or event, in itself-i.e., unre-
lated : in other words as it does not and cannot
exist." Does not and cannot exist.
In Vol. II. at page 20. “ Philosophers” are said
to be repeatedly misled into the belief that their arti-
fice has “its parallel in reality," and assign “a
reality to negative conceptions.” At p. 21. a dis-
tinction is drawn between the correlatives which
are logical and the correlatives which are real;” and
VOL. I.
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THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
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at page 22. it is said, that "between Non-Being, Pure
Space, and the Ding an sich, there is no intelligible
difference, except such as each borrows from its cor-
relative."
At Vol. II. p. 26-27. "Nothing exists in itself
and for itself; everything in others and for others;
ex-ist-ens-a standing out relation. Hence the search
after the thing in itself is chimerical: the thing being
a group of relations, it is what these are.”
But there is yet a more direct denial of the exist-
ence of the Thing-in-itself; it occurs in Prob. VI.
Ch. II. a chapter referred to at the passage which has
just been cited: “Its existence is not to be granted.
It is a fiction and we know its genesis."1 Nothing
can be more distinct than this denial; and I will add,
that if this second series of passages was all that
Mr. Lewes had said on the subject, it would, though
very incomplete, have given no cause for positive
dissatisfaction.
3. Passages in which the “ metempirical” not only
exists but is also partially knowable.
At Vol. II. p. 12. “We postulate an indefinite
Unknown.” An unknown, not an unknowable; but
then indefinite. At p. 124. “The reader sees that I
am here speaking of Nature not as presented and re-
presented in Sense and Thought, but as the pure
Existence, the ultimate Reality, believed by all
except idealists to exist independently, though only
felt and known under subjective conditions: the
postulated macrocosm which in us is a microcosm;
the Universe as distinguished from our Cosmos; or,
to word it differently, the Sum of Things, as logi-
i Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 439.
n no cau
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
195
:
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UNA
es.
cally distinguished from that portion which is com-
prised in our feelings.” But how can this be believed
to exist, unless it is in some way or other comprised
in our feelings”? What justifies us in “ postulating"
it? No answer from Mr. Lewes, nor is a satisfactory
one possible on his method, unless the following
should be thought so: “Our Cosmos is indeed the
Cosmos of Feeling; but we postulate an universe of
Being; and the warrant for this postulate is the ex-
perience of ever-fresh accessions from the Unknown
to the Known." But according to the passage just
cited from page 124. it is “the pure Existence, the
ultimate Reality;" “Nature, not as presented and
represented in Sense and Thought” (that is, the Un-
knowable), which is postulated. It seems that the
indefinite unknown and the unknowable must be
much the same thing to Mr. Lewes. Accordingly
we need not be surprised to read at page 252.
“Much that is transcendental to-day may become
empirical to-morrow; * * * the horizon of Ex-
perience is a movable and moving boundary. But so
long as such transformation is not effected, whatever
is metempirical is excluded from research.” Until we
know something definite of a thing, that thing is held
to be not unknown but unknowable, for that is meant
by "metempirical,” as we have seen. Yet the ad-
mission that it may become known to us, is this
consistent with its unknowability?
At Vol. II. p. 292-3. there is an instructive pass-
age: “When therefore it is argued that the crea-
tion of Something from Nothing or its reduction to
Nothing is unthinkable, and is therefore peremp-
torily to be rejected, the argument seems to me
1 Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 235.
G
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defective. The process is thinkable but not ima.
ginable, conceivable but not provable.” That is to
say, conceiving or thinking has a wider range than
perceiving or imagining. This is strange doctrine
from Mr. Lewes, who has argued that conception
depends upon and is symbolic of perception. This
larger relation of concept to percept is the strong-
hold of Kant, of Hegel, and of Mr. Spencer. But
with so much variation in Mr. Lewes' conclusions, we
must not be surprised at some little variation in his
premisses.
Mr. Lewes' Prob. VI. is that which contains his
chief argumentation against Mr. Spencer. In the
first Chapter of that Problem he says: “The con-
tention of those who declare the Absolute to be un-
knowable is, that beyond the sphere of knowable
phenomena there is an Existent, which partially ap-
pears in the phenomena, but is something wholly
removed from them, and in no way cognisable by us.
This may be so; but we can never know that it is so."?
Strange as it may seem, this contention, so precisely
like what Mr. Lewes has himself maintained in pass-
ages already cited, is what he now addresses himself
to dispute. Well, he does dispute it, and disputes it
successfully in my opinion. He shows what he as-
serts at page 425.—“ that our knowledge of the Abso-
lute, so far from being hopeless, is wide, varied, and
exact;" meaning that our empirical knowledge is a
knowledge of the Absolute. But the question of
course is,—What of the Supra-sensible part of the Ab-
solute? Does Mr. Lewes say or imply, that we have
any knowledge of this? I will add two more passages
1 Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 16. et seqq.“ The twofold aspect.”
2 The same, Vol. II. p. 430.
rem
U10
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to those already cited, in proof that he does. The
first is from page 453. “I foresee an objection which
some of my readers may raise, namely, Is not the
Absolute the unknown quantity of which phenomena
are the functions? It is thus conceivable. But ob-
serve, when y is said to be a function of x, and varies
with it, we assume a knowledge of the variations of
X, although ignorant of its numerical value. That is
to say, unless X is akin to y in following the same
numerical laws, we cannot operate on it through y."
By analogy, then, the supposed unknowable part of
the Absolute is akin to its knowable and known
parts. There is a continuously varying connection
between them. This is again stated in the conclud-
ing passage of the Problem, page 502-3. “Existence
--the Absolute—is known to us in Feeling, which in
its most abstract expression is Change, external and
internal. * * * There is no real break in the
continuity of Existence; all its modes are but dif-
ferentiations."
се
Mr. Lewes has thus got nimself and his readers
into a very prettily complicated labyrinth, and without
any suspicion that it is one. Let us see, if we can, by
what steps he was probably led on into its mazes. The
first error was, I imagine, the adoption of the usual
Nominalism, common in English philosophy, as a
sufficient basis; that is, he begins by considering
what sorts of knowledge can profitably be entered on.
The supra-sensible, his “metempirical,” is clearly to
him unprofitable and vain. But he does not dream
as yet of denying its existence. He is bent solely
on proving its unknowability. He therefore accepts
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THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
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unhesitatingly the aid offered by identifying it with
Kant's noumenon. But having admitted it to exist,
he is logically compelled to assert something about
it; it exists, and therefore cannot be unrelated, for to
be unrelated is not to exist. It exists then, and in
relation, is partially known to us, and continuous
with the known. This contradicts his original asser-
tion of its unknowability. At the same time, as
identified with Kant's noumenon, it is for Mr. Lewes
unrelated, a fiction, a member of a merely logical dis-
tinction of correlatives. Hence it exists and does
not exist; it is unknowable and yet partially known.
The identification of the supra-sensible with Kant's
noumenon seems to me the thing which has wrought
the mischief. Kant's remark about the mundus sen-
sibilis and intelligibilis might have served as a warning
against this; and so might his distinction between
Noumena in a negative and Noumena in a positive
sense.
In short, to identify the things of the Unseen
World, Mr. Lewes' Supra-sensible and Metempirical,
with Things-in-themselves involves contradictions.
Whatever exists is phenomenal; and things-in-them-
selves are a fiction. But this is not to remove the
natural limitations of human knowledge. Abolish
the things-in-themselves, and what remains is a dis-
tinction within the phenomenal universe, falling
between its seen and its unseen portions.
There is accordingly but one way out of that
maze of contradictions; it is to assert both existence
and partial knowability about everything, including
even the "supra-sensible” and “metempirical,"
though we need not adopt these names as descrip-
tions; and at the same time to draw a clear and firm
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
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distinction between what is designated by those
names, which is in truth the content of the unseen
portion of the universe, the object-matter of the con-
Structive branch of philosophy, on the one hand,
and Things-in-themselves, as a pure delusion, on the
other.
This is the position to which the method of philo-
sophy, the method of reflection, leads. This method
alone really abolishes the Ding-an-sich, at the same
time abolishing the distinction between phenomena
and noumena. That which was the Ding-an-sich
becomes phenomenal, and the Ding-an-sich becomes
a phrase without meaning, a fiction, a non-entity.
That which was its entity, that which was denoted
by it, is now brought within the phenomenal. The
distinction itself has vanished. You cannot keep it,
otherwise than as the record of a mistake, and at the
same time deny the existence of noumena. There
are, as Mr. Lewes well points out, merely logical dis-
tinctions ; there are logical correlatives, the existence
of which, except their momentary and untrue exist-
ence as fictions or attempts at thought, is not implied
by drawing the distinction which sunders them; and
phenomenon and noumenon are a pair of this sort. To
draw a distinction at all involves assuming that the
terms have a meaning, and the things an existence,
for the purpose of argument. We shall see more about
this process when we come to the question of the logic
of possibility and apagogic proof. If either of the
terms assumed for argument's sake is found, on exa-
mination, to have no meaning at all, to involve a self-
contradiction, it is then emptied of all connotation,
and the thing found not to exist. To empty it of all
meaning is therefore to abolish and retract the dis-
e
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tinction itself. It is a logical artifice which has
served its purpose.
Another instance is the distinction between Being
and Non-Being ; it is the way in which we express
that Being cannot be transcended. Nor can the use
of such distinctions as these be set down to our con-
ceiving what we cannot imagine. We can neither
conceive consistently nor imagine consistently Non-
Being; but we can try to do both, and mark our
effort by words. Words are an instrument which go
both beyond consistent thought and beyond consistent
images; like certain symbols in algebra, those for
imaginary quantities. Absolutists like Hegel may
build these “attempts” into their system, on the
ground that language is a derivative of thought. So
it is, and of wrong thought as well as right. You
cannot build Non-Being into your system without
building self-contradictions into it. And why? Be-
cause you are taking the pure form or principle of
thought, contradiction, taking it as pure form, and yet
ascribing to it a content as such; thus beginning with
a concrete contradiction, a thing which it is the sole
use of the pure principle of contradiction to avoid.
Non-Being and Noumenon have, it is true, for the
moment of distinction, a real existence; but it turns
out that this existence is self-contradictory; a real
contradiction,-an untrue existence; and the reality
is the guarantee of the falsity. Mr. Lewes is there-
fore on the right track in the second series of
passages, where he denies the existence of the Thing-
in-itself. But then why does he identify it with the
Supra-sensible ?
Existence is the correlate of consciousness, both
terms being taken in their largest and most general
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
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1
sense. . All definite knowledge is a part of this large
consciousness, and its objects of this large existence.
But this simple key to the puzzle of noumena is not
grasped by Mr. Lewes. Indeed, it is the very pur-
pose of his book to substitute for it the method of
science in dealing with the problems of philosophy.
It is, then, from no desire to convict a distinguished
writer of inconsistency, that I have brought the
details of it to light, but in order to show the neces-
sity of the true philosophical method by contrasting
its success with the failure of that method which is
proposed as a substitute. And I will appeal to the
candour of Mr. Lewes himself, whether it is not
equitable, to say nothing of the necessity of the case,
that one who has passed over into the metaphysical
camp only to surrender it to the scientists, his former
comrades, should furnish if possible from his own
writings the proof, that the contemplated surrender
has not hitherto at least been effected. The question
of Noumena, or Things-in-themselves, is one of the
most fundamental in philosophy, as well as one which
most constantly recurs. No one who has not the key
to its solution can pretend to have the key to philo-
sophy generally. This question once solved, but not
before then, we may have a legitimate confidence in
approaching the remainder.
There is no doubt a very real and tangible
difference between Mr. Lewes' doctrine and Mr.
Spencer's. To the latter, the unknowable real is
more real than phenomena; to the former it is not
so. To the latter, phenomena depend for their exist-
ence upon the unknowable real, to the former not so.
And Mr. Lewes at least holds that while his unknow-
hle real does not in any way affect the validity of
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actually acquired knowledge, Mr. Spencer's does so;
also, while Mr. Spencer conceives his unknowable as
the Object of Religion, that of Mr. Lewes is not
capable of affording religion a basis.
It seems, however, to matter comparatively little
whether we regard the “indefinite unknown” as
lying beyond the sphere of our actually known pheno-
menal world, or as lying behind it, in the character
of a substrate or cause. I mean, it matters little in
respect of the worth and validity of our actually
acquired knowledge, our knowledge of the mundus
sensibilis et intelligibilis. For consider how very
minute a portion of the indefinite unknown this mun-
dus sensibilis et intelligibilis must be; and how much
the character of its laws must depend upon their
connection with the laws of the larger universe, even
though the content of those known laws may remain
true for ever, so far as it goes. “The validity of our
relative knowledge” which Mr. Lewes is so anxious
to save, in a cited passage 2 to which I said I should
recur, is not saved more effectually on his theory
than on Mr. Spencer's, nor, I will add, than on the
philosophical theory which includes the “supra-
sensible.” All three theories really include the things
which two of them profess to exclude by calling
them the Unknowable and the Metempirical. And for
all three theories alike these things are the vaster,
the preponderating, portion of the universe of exist-
ence, infinite where that is infinite, unknown where
that is unknown, but continuous with the limited
and finite portions of existence, and with that which
constitutes our seen world.
1 See Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 451-453.
2 The same, p. 364. cited at p. 193.
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
203
BOOK I.
CH. III.
$ 3.
Scientist
theories of
them.
If it is remarkable that Mr. Lewes should suppose
himself to differ so profoundly from Mr. Spencer, it
is still more remarkable that he should suppose him-
self to differ at least as profoundly from Kant. “All
modern Metempirics is either Kantian, or founded
upon Kantian principles,” he writes, and proceeds to
criticise “Kant's fundamental positions.” The dif-
ferences are no doubt great; but there is this over-
whelming similarity, that both begin by distinguishing
Phenomena and Noumena, then assert the existence
and unknowability of Noumena, and end by bringing
them back into knowledge again. Mr. Lewes has
added the term Metempirical.
Kant's originating error with regard to Noumena
was not, as Mr. Lewes seems to think, in phenomenal-
ising them after introduction, but in introducing
them at all. Once admitted, there is no help for it but
to furnish them with predicates of some sort. This
originating error Mr. Lewes shares, and consequently
in spite of his disclaimers of the possiblity of knowing
anything about them, disclaimers not a whit stronger
than Kant's in the Critic of Pure Reason, he also
shares the error (if it be one) of phenomenalising
them after their introduction. Mr. Lewes, however,
has not Kant's excuse for their introduction. They
flowed almost inevitably from Kant's general analysis,
or diagnosis, of consciousness; he has the great merit
of giving a theory of them based on that analysis,
and thus bringing their nature out into the light, and
rendering their existence or non-existence a verifiable
assertion. And I have already pointed out that their
non-verification entailed, by a reductio ad impossibile,
the ruin of Kant's analysis of consciousness, from
1 Problems, &c. Vol. I. p. 437.
204
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
$ 3.
them,
2
LU
Book, I. which they flowed by a necessary consequence. But
CH. III.
Mr. Lewes denies Kant's analysis of consciousness,
Scientist and yet introduces Noumena,-gratuitously encumbers
theories of
himself with them. Why, if I may repeat the re-
mark, did he not-take the warning which Kant gives
in the Chapter of the Critic analysed above, that the
distinction between phenomena and noumena has
nothing to do with that between the mundus sensibilis
and mundus intelligibilis, which latter distinction does
not belong to the system of the Critic ? It is to these
that Mr. Lewes' Sensibles and Extra-sensibles cor-
respond; and in this series his Supra-sensibles make
a third member. Mr. Lewes, then, should either have
said nothing about Noumena, Things-in-themselves,
at all, or else, if he was bent on solving that problem,
should have approached it by the philosophical me-
thod.
But it will perhaps be replied to this criticism,
that, quite independently of Kant's theory or any
theory at all, there does arise in the understanding
the fallacious notion of Things-in-themselves, and
that this notion is most difficult to explain and eradi-
cate. The notion of Things-in-themselves have then,
as a matter of fact, not that origin which Kant's
theory assigned to them, but some other probably
more simple origin. To combat the notion, therefore,
it is requisite to show what its origin really is, and
why it is fallacious. This is perfectly true, and for
this very reason it was that the present Chapter
began with a diagnosis of the origin of the notion;
and thus too Mr. Lewes, to whom Kant's account of
its genesis is equally baseless, gives an account of the
way in which he supposes it really to arise in the
mind. It comes, he says, from the tendency to ima-
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
205
B004.1.
$ 3.
Scientist
theories of
them.
LI
gine single things wherever we have single names,
and in the case of concrete things to personify or sub-
stantialise the abstract thing apart from its qualities
and properties. “We abstract this Also, personify it,
assign it an imaginary substance, and assume that the
Possibility is a Reality apart from all conditions.”>1
If then we can show that this Thing-in-itself, so
formed, is a non-entity, à fiction; which we can do
by analysing the several cases in which it is supposed
to exist, and by showing that there is nothing in the
thing analysed that is not fully accounted for by the
members of the analysis when performed; that is, by
showing that we have exhaustively analysed the thing
without residuum; then we shall have destroyed the
fiction beyond hope of recovery, and have solved the
so-called problem of Noumena.
This is a way which Mr. Lewes has actually taken
in two instances at least, and with very marked suc-
cess. The two instances, as I have before remarked,
are Matter and Force, in his two Problems of Vol. II.
entitled Matter and Force, and Force and Cause. This
method of beating the Thing-in-itself in detail is
effective where it is possible. But it is not always
possible. In analysing matter and force we have all
the strength of modern science to aid the investiga-
tion. When it is entia rationis, “extra-sensibles,"
that have to be analysed, it may not be so easy to
apply this method. But though we have the aid of
science, still even here the method is not that of
science but of philosophy, the method of reflection.
Follow Mr. Lewes at each step of his brilliant analysis
in these two Problems, and you will find him con-
tinually asking what is the meaning of this term and
1 Problems, &c. Vol. II. p. 440. And see the whole Chapter.
VD
206
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
Book I.
CH. III.
$ 3.
Scientist
theories of
them,
that, what do we feel when we have this or that
experience, what are the distinguishable elements of
this or that perception. He is not testing facts by
experiments in the laboratory, but testing concepts
by comparing them with percepts, or, as I should
say, testing second intentions by comparing them with
first intentions.
But effective as this mode of operation is, and has
been shown to be by Mr. Lewes' able and successful
application of it, yet it is not a mode of operation
which can solve the general question of Noumena.
You may prove that there is nothing answering to
this or that particular Noumenon, the noumenon
Matter, or the noumenon Force; but you will be far
from having shown that there is nothing answering
to the combination of Object and Subject. Mr. Lewes
has attempted this, but as it seems to me, and as I
have tried to show, without success. His Object-
Subject gives a “Monism;" and then even this is
only a part of the larger total of Existence. To
solve the general question, and explode Noumena
altogether, the recognition of the philosophical method
is requisite. And it is so for this reason, that the
root of the evil lies much deeper than Mr. Lewes
supposes. It is no mere tendency to personify groups
of qualities expressed by single names; no tendency
to substantialise abstractions by itself alone, though
this is also a powerful contribuent. This is a kind
of error which can be rectified when it is once clearly
exposed. It will not account for the tenacity with
which carefully elaborated theories, like that of Mr.
Spencer for instance, are held and insisted on. No;
the tendency to believe in Things-in-themselves must
i Problems, &c. Vol. I. p. 122.
M
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
207
BOOK I.
CH. III.
$ 3.
Scientist
theories of
them.
have a far deeper seat than this; a seat no less deep
than the tendency to be satisfied with the method of
direct instead of reflective consciousness. And if this
is the origin of the notion, it is clear that no beating
it in detail can be a sufficient defeat. For you will
have combated an effect, a symptom, of the notion,
and not the notion itself, which is not many but one.
The method of reflection alone, which is the method
of philosophy, combats the notion itself, by showing
the contradiction involved in it, and pinning it down
to its definition an unknowable existent. But from
the extreme generality of this process, supplementary
disproof in detail of particular cases of noumena is
practically indispensable. Such particular and a pos-
teriori disproof as Mr. Lewes has given, in the cases
of matter and force, is valid on any theory of the
origin of the notion of Things-in-themselves. It is
not to be mixed up with the general question, to
which the origin of the notion is a vital point. If
the account of Things-in-themselves which I have
sought to establish be the true one, the belief in them
will not disappear from speculation except where and
so far as the method of direct perception is combined
with, and in philosophical questions subordinated to,
the method of reflection.
§ 4. But it is time to clothe these dry bones of $4.
Scope of the
analysis with the flesh and blood of human interest, whole question.
and to consider what is, in outcome, the drift and
scope of the whole question as to Things-in-them-
selves. It is this. The question really means, What
is the ultimate and most secret source of being; what
208
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
CH. III.
Book 1. is the power in virtue of which existents severally,
and even the seen world as a separate whole, exist ?
$ 4.
Scope of the The attempt to answer this question by subordinating
whole question.
it to the distinction between Things-in-themselves and
Phenomena, and then asking what are Things-in-them-
selves, was radically vicious, because the distinction
itself was false. The attempt to answer the question
suffered from an incurable logical vice, but the question
itself was legitimate. The source of being, the cause
or power by which existents (severally taken) exist,
are all terms which have a phenomenal meaning,
though it may not be one which it lies within the
grasp of human faculties to determine more precisely
than is already done by the questions themselves.
Suppose an answer to have been obtained ;—the
source, the power, now determined, will not be a
Thing-in-itself, but a Phenomenon, an existent with
a subjective aspect. By obtaining the answer and
determining the source in question, the field of direct
consciousness will have been enlarged by ground
which was previously covered only by reflective; a
possibility of thought will have become an actuality
of knowledge. By denying the existence of the Un-
knowable, of Things-in-themselves, we are not
restricting the field of existence but redistributing
it. Reflective consciousness includes what was called
unknowable existence.
Many people argue for Noumena' thus: Pheno-
mena cannot exist unless Noumena do, for they are
relative terms; phenomena therefore suppose noumena.
My view on the other hand is, that what were thought
to be noumena are by reflective analysis shown to be
really phenomena. True, the terms are relatives;
but they indicate now, after analysis, the history of
ST
me
I
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
209
Book I.
CH. III.
$ 4.
Scope of the
whole question
the single class, phenomena, which has the other class,
noumena, subsumed under it. The terms must still
be used as relatives, in order to show that in the
W
“existence,” which now contains both, phenomena
are not classed as a case of noumena, but noumena as
a case of phenomena. Take an illustration. Moun-
tains and valleys are relative terms. Suppose a
levelling of the country. The distinction will equally
disappear, whether the valleys are brought up to the
mountains, or the mountains down to the valleys.
In the first case we shall have a table land, in the
second a low lying plain. The sea level is the com-
mon standard in respect of which the plain and the
table land are now compared. Such a common
standard exists also in the case of phenomena and
noumena; it is the principle of reflection. The term
phenomena has a meaning with respect to this prin-
ciple, quite irrespective and independent of the ex-
istence and meaning of the term noumena. It means
existence with a subjective aspect, things seen or
known. Phenomena, then, do not in the least depend
for their existence on noumena, notwithstanding that
the terms are relatives. They are the table land to
which the valleys have been brought up, mountains
and valleys, as they were, being alike abolished.
It was Kant who, by following out his transcend-
ental point of view, made the transition to the new
conception possible. He gave a theory of the abso-
lutist or realist notion which lurked in the direct
method of regarding existence. He forced this lurk-
ing absolutism, this lurking realism, to appear in the
shape of the Thing-in-itself. The realism, which had
been held in solution was suddenly precipitated, and
what was it? A contradiction in terms.
VOL. I.
e
210
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
BOOK I.
CA, III.
The philosophical world was in an uproar. How
was it to deal with its troublesome present, the Thing-
$ 4.
Scope of the in-itself? For Kant did not know. He had raised
whole question.
the ghost but he could not lay it, because he was not
closely enough acquainted with the nature of the
summoning spell which he had himself used.
The years which followed the publication of the
Critic of Pure Reason, from 1781 to the end of the
century, are the period in the history of philosophy
which is the most practically interesting to us at the
present day. It witnessed the striking out of the
three directions in which progress from Kant in re-
spect of Things-in-themselves was possible. There
were but three; for Herbart's Realism, though founded
on Kant's conception of existence, was really a retro-
gression to pre-Kantian ideas; because the concep-
tion of existence as mere positing (Setzung) misses
its essential element, the reflective character of the
positing, and is nothing but an assertion of that very
contradictory notion which Kant himself had ren-
dered untenable.
Of the three courses which were really open, the
first was to accept the self-contradictory Things-in-
themselves, and boldly affirm them as the objects of
Belief though not of Knowledge. This was Jacobi's
line. The second was to take Kant's diagnosis of
consciousness as it stood and carry it out into a con-
structive philosophy. This was Fichte's course, in
which he was followed both by Hegel and by Schel-
ling, each with characteristic differences. This also
was the course taken by Schopenhauer, basing him-
1 See Herr Kuno Fischer's admirable account of the develop-
ment between Kant and Fichte, in his Geschichte der neuern Philo-
sophie, Vol. V. pp. 1. to 212.
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
211.
Воок І.
CH. III.
$4.
Scope of the
whole question.
self, however, on a different principle from theirs,
namely, on the active element in consciousness,
the Will, as opposed to the perceptive or intel-
ligent element. The third course was to carry on
the critical and analytical methods of Kant to still
further results; and this was done by Salomon Mai-
mon, who for this reason is Kant's true successor in
the field of Metaphysic, the analytical branch of phi-
losophy. Maimon is the first and greatest of modern
metaphysicians. To him we owe the preservation of
the continuity of metaphysical tradition, its conti-
nuity with Kant, the last of the great founders.
The Thing-in-itself had to be dealt with ; that
self-contradictory source of being had to be accom-
modated. Now the world was naturally in a hurry,
as it always is. It wanted some tenable theory for
immediate use. It could not afford to bave its intel-
lectual basis of life in a state of dissolution. A source
of being it must and would have, honestly if it could,
but a source of being. Who prevented it? Only
Kant. Well, then, either through Kant or in spite
of him a source of being must be obtained. In spite
of Kant, said Jacobi, that is, as an object, independent
of us. Through Kant, said Fichte, that is, as a sub-
ject, as our Self. Fichte's “absolute ego” is an “ego
in itself,” an Ich an sich. He identified subject with
object, thus satisfying the claims of reflective con-
sciousness; and he identified this identity with the
source of being, that is, with the Thing-in-itself. The
ego, in short, was all that the Thing-in-itself professed
to be, namely, a source of being, -and at the same
time was purged of its self-contradiction, inasmuch
as it was also the source of knowledge.
It was a masterpiece of inventive genius, this
212
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
BOOK I.
CH. III.
$ 4.
clumping together the two aspects, subjective and
objective, and then cluniping (together with them)
Scope of the the analysis and the source of existence; making the
two aspects serve as an analysis in their character of
opposites, and as a source in their character of iden-
ticals. It is a repetition of the clumping trick of
Leibniz and of Spinoza, only on a more complicated
stage. As Leibniz clumped force and consciousness
in his Monads, and Spinoza extension and thought
in his Substance, so Fichte activity and self-con-
sciousness in his Ego. And it is essentially the same
conception which lies at the root of Hegel's theory;
only that his “Absolute Mind” is generalised, instead
of remaining, as in Fichte, a plurality of individuals.
As Hegel says in the Preface to his Phänomenologie,
“Everything depends,-according to my view, which
must justify itself only by the complete exposition of
the system itself,—everything depends on appre-
hending and expressing the True not [only] as Sub-
stance but equally as much (ebenso sehr) as Subject.” I
In both Fichte and Hegel the “ Absolute” is a pro-
cess working by the logical law of contradiction; ob-
jective and subjective at once, existence and the
source of existence at once. Fichte's theory is Leib-
niz', Hegel's Spinoza's, in motion.
It was a masterpiece of inventive genius. But it
was not analysis, and it was not “ Criticismus." In
contrast with this ambitious new Ontology, and in
contrast also with the old ontology of Jacobi, Mai-
mon's humbler and more patient analysis might well
appear, what he himself called it, a “critical scepti-
cism.” It was scepticism in respect of that Thing-
in-itself which Kant again brought in by means of
1 Werke, Vol. II. p. 14.
TIIINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
213
BOOK I.
CH. III.
§ 4.
Scope of the
whole question
the Practical Reason; and it was scepticism in
respect of that Thing-in-itself which Reinhold found
in Kant and made the basis of his Elementarphiloso-
phie. It was scepticism also in respect of the old
absolutism, the pre-Kantian realism, which Maimon
finally evaporated, by driving home the proof of the
non-existence of the Kantian Thing-in-itself, the last
form in which that old absolutism had taken refuge.
Scepticism in respect of nonentities, it is the very
reverse of scepticism in any serious meaning of the
term. Maimon is sceptical, much as a Wiclif or a
Luther is irreligious. He leaves unexplored but not
self-contradictory the vast fields of possible existence
and knowledge, of which we may well suppose our
actually known world to be a portion, and on which,
in that case, it must be conceived to depend as part
of its conditions of existence.
Our actual phenomenal world is a part of a larger,
but still phenomenal, world which we must conceive
as possible, possible in our view, but actual to other
modes of consciousness than ours. In other words,
what was the Thing-in-itself has been phenomenalised
and relegated to this possible world, has become an
object of the constructive branch of philosophy. The
notion of Thing-in-itself being abolished, the things
to which it was applied are included under another
notion, that of the Unseen World. The things are
real phenomena; therefore, to abolish the one notion
is to call the other into existence.
Let us note how this change has been effected.
It is by a change from that feature of Kantianism
which regarded objectivity as given by the Cate-
gories, to one which regards objectivity and subjec-
tivity alike as determinations introduced into pri-
214
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
Book I.
CH. III,
$ 4.
mary consciousness by reflection. Objectivity is
given not by thought but by reflection. Therefore
Scope of the instead of the Thing-in-itself which is an “empty
whole question.
object,” a contradiction in terms, we have a pheno-
menon which is beyond the range of direct, but
within the range of reflective, consciousness. It is
quite true that the same mode of consciousness which
gives objectivity is also the condition of the notion
of a source of being; but this mode of consciousness
is, not thought as opposed to perception, but reflec-
tion as opposed to direct consciousness. Reflective
perception gives objectivity; and reflective concep-
tion supervening upon it gives rise to the notion of
a source of being, a question as to the source of the
objective and subjective percepts.
It is evident that questions like that which has
now been handled can be answered only on “criti-
cal” principles, by what Kant called the critical and
transcendental, but what I, not holding his theories,
prefer to call the analytical and metaphysical, me-
thod. The method and furniture of consciousness.
its structure, content, and mode of operation,—these
are the fundamental objects of philosophical enquiry;
and to these I propose to proceed in future Chapters.
It is to analysis of this kind that we must look for an
explanation not only of what may prove to be true,
but also of theories and imaginations which have been
supposed to be true, concerning the filling up of that
region of philosophy which constitutes its construc-
tive branch; an explanation of the various shapes
into which the problems of how the world came to
exist, and the like, have been thrown by the human
mind. From human nature, in its experiences inward
and outward, and from no other source, flow all pos-
THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES AND PHENOMENA.
215
ave been
someone else
DI
sible theories of the supernatural. All the fancies
BOOK I.
CH, III.
that have ever obtained credence among men are expli-
§ 4.
plicable, if at all, by this means. They have been Scope of the
whole question.
pictures drawn upon the dark background of the Un-
known; and their incredibility, where they are in-
credible, does not arise from their background being
unknowable, (which it is not), but from the fact, of
opposite significance, that we are gradually coming
to know more and more of the conditions requisite
to their formation, in coming to know more and
more of the nature and functions of consciousness.
BOOK II.
ANALYSIS OF ELEMENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
$ 1.
$ 1. PHILOSOPHY cannot be defined, or have its field Book II.
CH. IV.
marked out for it, by the problems which it can solve
or reasonably attempt. Like every other distinct The Problems
of Philosophy.
branch of knowledge, it is defined only by its me-
thods and its objects. The questions or problems
which it may be enabled to solve concerning those
objects, and by following those methods, are another
thing. But when we have once got our definition
of philosophy by object and method, which has been
sufficiently done in Chapters I. and II., then we are
in a position to see what are the main problems, the
solution of which it may reasonably propose to itself.
And the enumeration of these main problems will
serve to give a greater definiteness and unity of pur-
pose to a philosophical work.
The main problems of the analytical branch of
philosophy, that is, of metaphysic, are I conceive
two. The first is that of Things-in-themselves. The
solution of this has already been given, in the fore-
going Chapter, a negative solution, dissolving the
illusion, and showing that there is no Thing-in-itself,
because there is no existence beyond consciousness.
It is a solution which depends purely on the pheno-
220
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
$ 1.
Book II.
CH. IV.
menon of Reflection. Without going farther than
that phenomenon, we are enabled to solve this first
The Problems problem of metaphysic.
of Philosophy. P
The second problem is identical in purpose with
that which Kant proposed to himself, and which he
formulated by the question, “How are synthetic
a priori judgments possible ?” It is by no means
necessary that we should formulate the problem in
the same terms as Kant did; but it is indispensable
that we should by some means or other envisage the
question as definitely as he did. It is the question in
which the chief interest of philosophical speculation
lies; we may have a genuine philosophy which fails
to give the true solution, but such a philosophy,
though genuine, will be barren of its richest fruit.
Not to set this problem definitely before us would be
to turn philosophy aside to false or fruitless issues.
The problem may be designated as that concern-
ing the strict and inviolable necessity of the Law of
Uniformity of Nature; of the principle of Ratio Suffi-
ciens; or of the Law of Causality; to find if possible
a metaphysical basis for the sciences, what Kant
called a synthetic a priori law for nature, one which
does not depend, in the last resort, upon the order
of experience in phenomena, but which, having an-
other source independent of that order, goes beyond
the certainty derived from experience, and procures
a certainty that the uniformity of nature not only
never has been known to be violated, but that it
never could have been and never can be violated.
Of course, if we fail in demonstrating this in-
violable metaphysical certainty of the Uniformity of
Nature, we do not therefore renounce the lesser em-
pirical certainty of it, which comes from experience,
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
221
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 1.
and with which men of science'are, for the purposes
of science, content. That experiential certainty stands
firm on its own grounds. But what philosophical The Problems
enquiry aims at is, to discover a proof, by subjective
analysis, of a greater certainty in the law, of an in-
violable uniformity in nature, of what may properly
be called an absolute uniformity, if only the word
absolute is used as opposed to incomplete or partial,
and not as opposed to relative or phenomenal.
I shall offer a positive solution of this problem in
a future Chapter. It cannot come now; for it de-
pends not on the phenomenon of reflection only (like
that of Things-in-themselves), but upon the formal
elements in consciousness, and especially upon the
Postulates of Logic, the principles of analytical
thought, in conjunction with the phenomenon of re-
flection. When these have been examined, I shall
attempt to show that, taken together with the pheno-
menon of reflection, they give us proof of the absolute
certainty and inviolability of the uniformity of nature.
In other words, I shall demonstrate the equivalent
and more than the equivalent of Kant's so-called
synthetic principle of causality, without recourse to
any synthetic a priori forms of thought. I say I
shall demonstrate this; but neither empirical thought,
nor the argument against what is commonly called
the miraculous, will take much by the demonstration.
Only one proof more will be added of the thorough
distinctness, although in close interdependence, of the
two domains of science and philosophy.
These two problems are the main questions of
metaphysic. A third problem, belonging to the con-
structive branch of philosophy, may be mentioned
here. This problem concerns the nature of the con-
222
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
§ 1.
Col. IV. nection between the seen and the unseen worlds; and
the final Chapter will be devoted to its consideration.
of Philosophy. The object-matter of my constructive branch of phi.
losophy corresponds generally to Kant's übersinnliches,
the problems of which are according to him three,
God, Freedom, and Immortality. I do not take these
precise problems, nor in precisely the same way.
Still the problem of the constructive branch, being
taken as the connection between the seen and the
unseen worlds, may be said to constitute the great
interest and final purpose of metaphysic itself, not
that metaphysic treats the problem, but that it fur-.
nishes the only means by which it can be treated;
metaphysical analysis supplies the materials for con-
structive synthesis. It is fully in accordance with
this, when Kant gives two definitions of Metaphysic,
the first drawn from its final purpose: “The science
which carries us from the cognition of the sensible to
that of the super-sensible, by Reason;" and the second
a school-definition, as he calls it, drawn from what is,
not aimed at by, but actually done in, metaphysic:
“The system of all principles of pure theoretical rea-
son-cognition by means of concepts; or more briefly,
—the system of pure theoretical philosophy.”1
§ 2.
Alignment
with Hume,
Kant, and
Maimon,
§ 2. I have thought it best to premise the fore-
going remarks, because we are now entering on an-
other division of the subject, and they will serve to
throw light back on the path we have traversed, and
forwards on the path to come. We are now coming
1 Fortschritte der Metaphysik seit Leibnitz. Kant's Werke,
Vol. I. pp. 488. 490. Ros. u. Sch. ed.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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CH. IV.
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with Hume,
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Maimon.
1
within hail of the knottiest portion of the work, that
where the reader who has courage to enter on it with
me must make up his mind to bear the real burden
and heat of the day. But I have still many remarks
to make, before I actually enter on that knotty bit of
analysis, which is the real subject of the Chapter.
The analysis of primary, reflective, and direct,
consciousness, in Chapter II., was the justification of
the object and method of philosophy, as set forth in
Chapter I. Three modes of consciousness were dis-.
tinguished one from another; and the special object-
matter of one of them, the reflective mode, was
shown to be the special object-matter of philosophy;
and this special object-matter of philosophy was
shown to consist of two opposite, co-extensive, and
inseparable aspects, objective and subjective, or, when
named each for itself, existence and consciousness. And
the reflective mode of consciousness, or briefly Reflec-
tion, is that which not only draws the distinction
between the three modes, itself and the two others,
but also distinguishes the two aspects in its own
special object-matter. Reflection is the mode of con-
sciousness employed both in the foregoing analysis,
and in that which is now to follow.
But in what is now to follow, reflection will devote
itself to the analysis of its special object-matter, that
is to say, to the analysis of the subjective aspect of
existence, to the analysis of consciousness, not of self-
consciousness. It will abstract to a great extent from
the distinction of the three modes of consciousness,
as having been already treated, and as containing its
own warrant of legitimacy; and will analyse the dif-
ferent processes of consciousness and some also of its
different states, or kinds of content, from its own
224
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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reflective point of view. It will take those states and
processes as they are in consciousness alone; in other
words, they will be states and processes belonging to
the primary and not to the direct mode. For the
direct states and processes are nothing more than the
primary, with the added hypothesis of a ne:cus or
substantia behind them which makes them separate
objects. And any and every hypothesis of this
nature it is the very purpose of philosophy to ex-
clude at first from its object-matter of investigation,
in order that the origin and nature of the nexus or
substantia may be seen, what it consists of, and
whence it comes into the phenomena. The states
and processes of primary consciousness are, then, the
object-matter of the following analysis.
Observe the significance of this method, and this
choice of object. My theory, like Kant's, lays Apper-
ception, Anglicè Reflection, at the basis of philosophy;
but it is without the causal efficiency which it had in
Kant. Its metaphysic is without the notions of sub-
stance and cause, as notions to begin with. The
genesis of those notions can be traced, and themselves
shown to have a phenomenal, not a noumenal, an
originated not an originating, character. But with
Kant the Transcendental Apperception was origina-
tive; it was cause and consciousness in one. In the
first edition of the Critic of Pure Reason this is very
clear. The productive imagination” works by
synthesis, is a synthetic faculty. It depends on the
transcendental unity of apperception working in the
twelve modes or forms of unity, called the Categories.
The transcendental apperception, which unified
everything in consciousness, was a creative source,
quoad nos ;-a fountain that "flung up momently the
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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Cau
sacred river" of consciousness, forming into a stream
the scattered waters of sensation inner and outer.
Kant's theory, then, clumps into one thing the two
separate moments of consciousness and cause. And
this is his Transcendental Apperception.
. But it will be asked, fairly and indeed necessarily
asked,—Where do you look for the cause, the sub-
stance, the agent, the conscious thing, (call it what
you will), of consciousness? If you refuse to put
together cause and consciousness into one thing, you
can have no conscious Soul or Mind, as well as no
conscious transcendental apperception or Ego. Or,
in order to place the causal nexus somewhere, do you
call the Soul, or the Ego, a series of conscious states
becoming conscious of itself as a series ? For, if you
do, you will only be again attributing causality to
consciousness, in the words “becoming conscious,"
and it will be just the same essentially, as if you
fairly adopted the expression Soul or Ego or Trans-
cendental Apperception.
I fully admit the necessity of the question, and
the justice of the last remark. And my reply is this.
I put the enquiry into cause, agent, source, force, or
however may be expressed the notion of what makes,
into a separate, and a subordinate, department of the
enquiry. I place first subjective analysis, an enquiry
into the nature, the ti fotiv, of things; and secondly
and subordinately I place the enquiry into the genesis
and the history, the rãs Tagayivetai, of things. The
first enquiry is a branch of philosophy; the second
and subordinate one is a branch of science; the first
is, in the case of consciousness, metaphysic, the second
psychology.
This premised, (and the distinction between
VOL. I.
226
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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Nature and History is one of the most fundamental
in my whole theory), I proceed with my answer.
The nominal definition I would give of the soul or
mind is—a series of conscious states among which is the
state of self-consciousness. And the agent or substance
which becomes conscious, or in which resides the
force of becoming so, or which has the states of con-
sciousness, is not the series or any one or more of the
states which compose it, but (in man) the brain or
nerve substance. When we draw the above necessary
distinction between nature and history, then the ques-
tion so often put--Materialist or Idealist? is to be
answered, in the first place, by the farther question,
-Do you mean in philosophy or in psychology?
For the two domains are essentially different; and
those who answer this question with me will probably
reply also with me to the first question :-Idealist (or
rather Reflectionist) in philosophy; Materialist in
psychology, and indeed in all the sciences. The
causes and the genesis of this and that individual
conscious being, as well as of each and all the states
and processes of his consciousness, depend upon
matter in motion. And if you tell me that matter in
motion is nothing but sensations in coexistence and
sequence, I reply, that this is an analysis of the
nature of matter, not an account of its genesis or
history. The first cause that we can discover, any.
where, is matter in motion; and, that we can analyse
this cause subjectively, only shows the truth of my
assertion that the domain of genesis, of history, of
science, is subordinate to the larger domain of nature
and philosophy. I do not profess to assign the prior
condition, the substantia or cause or agent, of con-
sciousness at large. I exclude that question from
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION
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Kant, and
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metaphysic. And I say that, if a prior condition of
that combination of states of consciousness which we
call matter could be assigned, (which smaller ques-
tion is not necessarily unanswerable), it would be by
an insight into the Unseen World, by a theorem
belonging to the Constructive Branch of philosophy.
Materialism, then, which is worthless as philosophy,
inasmuch as it gives no account of what matter and
motion are, or in what the efficiency of physical
causation consists, is the only sure standing ground
in science, where the problem is, assuming these phe-
nomena as given, to measure, weigh, and predict,
their sequences and coexistences.
Now, to take consciousness and its phenomena to
examine, as if they were objects of direct, and not, as
they are, of primary and reflective consciousness, is
to treat them as objects of science and not of philo-
sophy, is to clump together in them causality and
consciousness, is to assume that they have force or
causal efficiency in them. This would lead, and has
led over and over again, to an a priori psychology.
And with an a priori psychology (to say nothing of
an a priori philosophy) metaphysic has henceforth
nothing to do. Fortunately we possess a genuine a
posteriori experimental psychology, a true science,
which is daily yielding results of the highest value to
many able and distinguished investigators. Fortu-
nately for the world, and fortunately also for meta-
physic; for metaphysic will derive from that psycho-
logy an independent support and verification.
So much as to the absence of causal efficiency
from my metaphysical theory. Another point which
1 See the admirable remarks in Lange, Geschichte des Material-
ismus, Vol. II. p. 7, and frequently, 2nd edit. 1875:
an
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may throw valuable light on my method is the fol-
lowing. I lay reflection at the basis, as Kant laid
apperception, but with me it does not work through
any a priori forms of unity. There are, in my theory,
inseparable formal elements, as well as inseparable
material elements in consciousness; time and space,
as well as feelings. But these formal elements are
not attributed to the mind or to the ego, or to "the
within” in contradistinction from “the without,” in
any way. They and the material elements alike
come forward as inseparable elements of analysis in
the states of primary consciousness. They are found
there by reflection. Their being found there, and
not put there, by reflection is what constitutes reflec-
tion derivative and not primary.
But with Kant, not only is apperception a source
of causal efficiency (as we have seen), but it works
in and through certain a priori forms of its own, prior
to the matter” which it receives from without.”
Kant thus separated the inseparable elements. Ac-
cording to him there are sensible impressions com-
ing from without, and these, when perceived, are
perceived always in the a priori forms of intuition,
springing from within, Tine and Space. Observe
the theory. We always perceive the sensation and
the form together. And yet we are to assume that
they are originally separate, having separate sources.
But even then, this union of sensation and form
is not cognition. By itself there is no “unity” in it,
6 Unity” is first introduced into intuitions by apper-
ception working through the Categories, which are a
priori forms of thought. There is an act of synthe-
sis, originating in the transcendental apperception,
as the condition of all cognition. What I mean to
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| CH. IV.
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1 .
insist on is this, that in Kant there is not only a
causal efficiency ascribed to the apperception, but also
an elaborate machinery of transcendental forms,
namely, forms of intuition, forms of thought, and
principles of judgment,-in and by which this causal
efficiency operates; and moreover that in one import-
ant respect this machinery of forms is separate from
the matter with which it is inseparably combined, so
far as consciousness goes; I mean in respect of its
belonging to and springing from that which is causal
in the apperception, while the “matter” springs from
some source or other not included in that causal
agency.
To all such a priori theorising as this my theory
bids a long farewell. Reflection is with me, as it
was with Kant, the basis of the whole of philosophy,
but-and here is the important difference--not as
the causa existendi of consciousness, not (which soon
developed itself out of Kant) as the causa existendi
of existence, but as a particular kind of causa cognos-
cendi, namely, as the perception of the ti toth, the
analysis of the essentia, of consciousness and its states.
Reflection is reëxamination of the states of conscious-
ness from which it is derived, of that series of states
of which it is a prolongation. This is the signifi-
cance of its relation as a derivative from primary
consciousness.
The change which I make is simply this, -I ex-
plain the distinction between Object and Subject by
referring it to the moment of reflection instead of to
the Subject of reflection, as Kant did, thereby ex-
plaining a thing by itself. Kant's philosophical Co-
pernicanism, to adopt his own comparison, led him
* Preface to the Critic of Pure Reason, 2nd edit.
230
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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straight into this inconsequence. Cognition that has
a priori forms is already a cognition-faculty, a Sub-
$ 2.
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between Object and Subject already drawn, and in-
stead of coinciding with that distinction, as the mo-
ment of reflection does, which is the perception of it,
it coincides with one or other of the two membra
distinctionis. Nor is this all; it coincides now with
one, now with the other; for, as an existent, cognition
is an Object, as faculty of cognition it is a Subject.
Kant's Copernicanism first made consciousness, in-
stead of objects, causal ; and then made it an object,
because causal.
Existence is thus thought, according to Kant, by
virtue of an a priori form in the cognition-faculty of
an existent; an explanation of existence which assumes
the very notion to be explained. Reflection, on the
other hand, gives some further account of the notion
itself, though throwing no light whatever on the
question how the thing, existence itself, arises. The
genesis of existence at large is a contradiction in
terms.
Reflection, then, can only be the central point of
philosophy in the character of a moment or special
state of consciousness, as identified with the distinc-
tion between Subject and Object, and not with the
supposed Subject which draws that distinction. Other-
wise you merely assume existence to account for
existence, and are then forced for mere consistency's
sake to theories like Fichte’s, the sich-selbst-Setzung
of an Absolute Ego, simply in order that there may
be some difference between what you account for and
what you rely upon to account for it.
The notion of Existence being Positing, Setzung,
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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comes forward very early in Kant. It is to be found
in his Einzig möglicher Beweisgrund, &c. 1763. “The
conception of Positing or Setzung is perfectly simple,
and the same thing Teinerlei] as that of Being in ge-
neral.” *** “If we contemplate not the relation
(of positing) merely, but the thing posited in and
for itself, then this Being is equivalent to Existence
[Daseyn].”1 The formal machinery of the Critic of
Pure Reason is a theory carrying out this notion.
Fichte adopted the term, Setzung, thought and word,
and his Wissenschaftslehre is nothing but the theory
of the positings, Setzungen, of the Absolute Ego, guided
by the purely logical principles of Contradiction and
Identity. Hegel generalised Fichte's Absolute Ego,
made it one and universal instead of many and indi-
vidual, preserving the same method of purely logical
movement, the movement by Contradiction, as in
Fichte. This seems to me more nearly the “Secret
of Hegel" than anything which Mr. Stirling has told
us of it. It goes, for instance, more closely to the
root of the matter, than merely tracing the Kantian
Categories in Hegel's Logic, though that, too, is true
and valuable. It is through Fichte that Hegel's filia-
tion to Kant must be traced.
The precise source of the peculiar post-Kantian
absolutism is to be found in Kant's identifying re-
flection with the Subject of reflection, instead of with
its object, the distinction which it perceives between
Subject and Object. Substance, agent, force, some
conditio existendi in short, was thus identified with
the Subject. This was the Ding-an-sich, the Abso-
lute, and it mattered comparatively little whether it
was called Will, as in Schopenhauer, or Mind (Geist)
Werke, Vol. I. p. 173. Ros. u. Sch. ed.
nor
232
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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UL
as in Hegel. The Subject was taken as an object of
direct, instead of reflective, consciousness. It was
taken as “ the mind” in psychology may fairly be; a
way not competent to philosophy. Philosophy and
Psychology cannot on Kant's basis be distinguished;
the latter is swallowed up by the former. What my
theory does is to make possible a differentiation of
the two, to mark off questions of nature and analysis
for the one, questions of history and genesis for the
other. The old strife “ Psychologist or Ontologist” is
ended, for in place of Ontology we have Metaphysic.
There were three fontal things in Kant, which it
will be well to bring into a clear light. There was
first his fontal error of thought, besides his severa
errors of fact, which consisted in confusing logical
conditions, conditions essendi, with conditions of ex-
istence, existendi. This we have already seen in the
case of apperception, the Ich denke. We know the
pure or transcendental apperception only as a strain
or thread in empirical apperception, namely, as the
abstract fact of consciousness, in the whole or con-
crete moment of self-consciousness, the dass ich bin,
or dass ich denke. This abstract thread or strain
Kant raises to the rank of a prior condition of self-
consciousness. The same mistake occurs again in
the case of the Categories, and again in the case of
Time and Space.
Secondly, this logical error is involved in the
fontal thought which led Kant to his theory, and
of which that theory is the expression, namely, that
for all necessity there is required a transcendental con-
dition in the conscious Subject.
1 See Kritik d. R.V. First edition. Einleitung, 2nd paragraph.
Also Einleitung to the Prolegomena gc.
cas
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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BOOK II.
CH. IV.
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with Hume,
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Maimon.
. The third fontal thing in Kant is the Appercep-
tion itself, both pure and empirical. It is fontal as
being the central point of the theory which he devised
to express his fontal thought, involving his fontal
error.
For Kant's hypothesis to account for the (sup-
posed) necessity in certain cognitions, the hypothesis
of a transcendental condition, I substitute an exami-
nation of the phenomena of primary consciousness.
I go to the facts instead of an hypothesis. And with
this result, as will I hope appear, that I find inse-
parable elements where Kant found a priori forms.
This justifies a conclusion in many ways similar to
Kant's, for inseparable elements, when inseparable
from consciousness at large, as well as from each other
in consciousness, are as necessary, being as universally
present, as if they sprang from an original constitu-
tion of the Ego, or from an original constitution in
the world, or in the Thing-in-itself. I am led by my
analysis to justify the conceptions of necessity and its
objective aspect, universality, though not by the same
means as Kant did, nor yet in respect of quite the
same phenomena.
The question is, whether any a priori furniture in
the mind is requisite to account either for cognition
at large, or for a class of cognitions which are sup-
posed, or may turn out to be, necessary cognitions.
And here again is seen the significance of my distin-
guishing and fixing upon the phenomena of primary
consciousness, as the proper field of observation.
Everything depends on what we take as the data, in
proceeding to ask how cognition arises in, or is super-
added to, the data. What states or processes of
consciousness are to be held anterior to or below
234
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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cognition ? When you have fixed your data anterior
to cognition, you can more readily see what is to be
added to them, in order to bring out the result cog-
nition. The distinguishing the data is itself a part,
and possibly the most important part, of metaphysical
analysis. For it may, and I think it will, be found,
that these data comprise phenomena which are a
sufficient account not only of the origin or forma-
tion of cognition, but also of the necessity in certain
cognitions, so far as that necessity is an established
fact.
It is in this question of the data that psychology,
or rather the method proper to psychology but foreign
to metaphysic, has done so much harm. I mean
especially the rough classification of supposed facul-
ties of the mind. The injury is not done so much by
a theory of the mind as an entity, and of its faculties
as separate powers or functions of that entity, as by
the mere fact of the enumeration of separate func-
tions, made mostly for some practical purpose, and
then adopted as if the distinction were founded in
the mental constitution itself. A mere enumeration
of faculties or functions (it matters not which), such
as Sense, Imagination, Judgment, Memory, Reason,
Will, &c. &c., does violence to the facts of conscious-
ness considered as mere phenomena, by forcing them
into a priori classes, apart from their natural and
actual relationships. We must learn to use all such
terms as terms of denotation only, without assuming,
tacitly and without proof, that they correspond to
permanent divisions in the nature of the phenomena;
we must use them as preliminary and provisional
terms, as counters not as coin.
Kant is an arch-offender. Where is the justifica-
mes
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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UUU
tion for his saying dogmatically, at the outset of the
Transcendental Logic: “Our cognition springs from
two fundamental sources in the mind, the first of
which is to receive Vorstellungen (Receptivity to im-
pressions), the second the faculty of cognising an
object through these Vorstellungen (Spontaneity of
concepts); through the first an object is given to us”
[observe the assumption that the “object” exists, and
is given to us through the Vorstellungen] “ through
the second this object is thought in relation to this
Vorstellung (as a mere Bestimmung of the mind).”
* * * “Neither can these two faculties or capa-
bilities exchange functions. The Understanding is
incapable of intuiting anything, the Senses of think-
ing anything. Only from their combination can
cognition arise."1 The analysis and classification of
faculties is thus made to give an independent support
to the analysis and classification of mental states and
processes which are their products; a support in this
instance not warranted by the facts. A separate
faculty of receptivity, and a separate faculty of spon-
taneity, are fictions.
The influence of this separation of faculties, one
of which is spontaneity, is felt in the classification of
what I have called their products, the various mental
states and processes. In the list of these, the most
general of all, says Kant, is Vorstellung, which he
translates repræsentatio.2 Everything comes under
Vorstellung ;-perception, sensation, cognition, intui-
tion, concept, and idea. Even sensation is a special
mode, a differentiation, of it. But it is clear that
1 Kritik d. R.V. 2nd edit. Einleitung to Transc. Logik, pp.
86. 87. Hartenstein, 1853.
2 Id. id. p. 280,
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there must be a sense in which sensation, at least,
must precede and be more general than Vorstellung,
if repræsentatio gives Kant's meaning correctly. There
must be a first instance before there can be a second,
a præsentatio before a reproesentatio. There must be
sensation as a datum, before there is sensation as a
species of Vorstellung, that species of it which Kant
defines in the above passage as "a perception" [i.e. a
Vorstellung mit Bewusstsein] “which relates solely to
the Subject as a modification of its state.”
But from sensation as a datum, notwithstanding
that it too is subject to the forms of time and space,
as the ways in which alone we are sensibly affected,
Kant turns systematically away. It does not lie in
his road to examine it, convinced as he is from the
first, that it will not conduce to prove his point of
a priori forms of spontaneity. “The combination
(conjunctio) of a manifold generally can never come
to us through the senses, and therefore also cannot
be contained along with [their content] in the pure
form of sensible intuition; for” [mark the reason] “it
is an act of spontaneity in the Vorstellungskraft.”l
Here is Kant's chief, and totally unwarranted, assump-
tion. True, that combination which is an act of spon-
taneity (if there be such a thing) cannot come to us
through the senses, or through their pure form ; but
there may be a “ combination of a manifold” origin-
ally given in the sensation, and it is difficult to see
how “a manifold,” which is in the "form" of time, or
in the “ forms” of time and space, can be otherwise
than a combined manifold. It would not be a mani-
fold if it were not combined, seeing that it is in time,
see
1 Kritik d. R.V. 2nd edit. § 15. p. 122.
Hartenstein, 1853.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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or in time and space together. The form is the com-
bination, the together, of the manifold.
Kant does not ignore this, but he systematically
disregards it, and for the reason I have alleged.
Thus we find him putting aside as empirical and con-
tingent the phenomena of coexistence and sequence
in sensations. “The 'transcendental unity of apper-
ception is that unity through which all the manifold
given in an intuition is united into a concept of the
object. It is therefore called objective, and must be
distinguished from the subjective unity of conscious-
ness, which is a determination of the inner sense,
through which that manifold of the intuition is empi-
rically given to such a combination. Whether I can
be conscious empirically of the manifold as together
or in sequence, depends on circumstances or empirical
conditions. Hence the empirical unity of conscious-
ness, through association of Vorstellungen, itself con-
cerns a phenomenon and is entirely contingent.”1
And these are the terms in which he speaks of
the “reproductive imagination" as he calls it, a few
pages farther on: “So far, then, as the imagination
is spontaneity, I call it also sometimes the productive
imagination, distinguishing it thereby from the repro-
ductive, the synthesis in which is subject solely to
empirical laws, namely, those of association, and
which therefore contributes nothing to the explana-
tion of the possibility of a priori cognition, and on
that account belongs not to transcendental philo-
sophy, but to psychology."2 .
-- But to psychology! The first data of cog-
nition, the simplest and most universal of all conscious
1 Kritik d. R.V. 2nd edit. § 18. p. 127-8. Hartenstein, 1853.
2 Id. id. § 24. p. 135.
DV
1
238
:
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states and conscious processes, belong not to trans-
cendental philosophy, but to psychology!
“ Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridæ.”
For note that by psychology Kant cannot mean his
" rational” but his empirical” psychology, not his
“metaphysic of thinking Nature,” but a part of
“applied philosophy,” a branch of knowledge which
“must be wholly banished from metaphysic, and is
wholly excluded therefrom by its very idea."Could
anything more plainly show the incompetence of the
transcendental philosophy to lay down the bases of
philosophy at large? Could anything more forcibly
bring home the necessity of instituting an enquiry on
broader principles, an enquiry which shall embrace
all the phenomena of consciousness, all its states and
processes, from the least to the greatest; above all an
enquiry that shall not be directed to establish a fore-
gone conclusion, or support a favourite hypothesis ?
Neither my position nor Kant's can be fully under-
stood without understanding that of an earlier philo-
sopher, who was the determining condition of Kant,
I mean Hume. Hume was no purposed sceptic, but
his reasoning led him into contradictions which made
all philosophy impossible. No one can insist on this
more forcibly than Hume himself, in the conclusion
of the First Book of the Treatise of Human Nature.
He sees the contradictions, he sees also a necessity of
falling into them. There must be something radi-
cally unsound in self-contradictory positions of this
kind. Whether the error can be discover
when discovered removed by logic, and a true theory
established instead, is another matter.
1 Kritik d. R.V. 2nd edit. Methodenlehre, p. 600. Hartenstein,
1853.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
239
BOOK IT.
CH. IV.
§ 2.
Alignment
with Hume,
Kant, and
Maimon.
d
.
On
The character of Hume's writings is very peculiar.
In some respects he is a true metaphysician, and his
method is the method of reflection. It is so as far as
the analysis of aspects goes. Phenomena are with
him everything. There is no Thing-in-itself in Hume.
Impressions and Ideas are existence; existence, objec-
tively, means impressions and ideas. He belongs to
the English school of philosophy, and is the imme-
diate successor of Locke and Berkeley. He treats
all existence on the very same principles on which
Berkeley treated matter." He asks on every occa-
sion, What do we mean by such and such words and
phrases ? He goes to reflective consciousness for the
answer.
But there his reflective method ends. He does
not perceive that he is adopting the reflective method,
nor what its nature is, and consequently he does not
push it far enough, does not make all the use of it
possible. It dominates him, not he it; and there
soon comes a point where he lets it escape him, and
falls back into the direct method. That point is
where he comes to what I call the analysis of ele-
ments, the analysis which we are entering on in the
present Chapter. Here it is that Hume ceases to be
a metaphysician and becomes a separatist; here it is
that he mixes up his scientist with his metaphysical
theories; and this mixture is the substance of his
scepticism. Let us see how this is brought about.
There are three fundamental conceptions which
lie at the basis of Hume's philosophy of the Under-
standing:
DU
ist. The dependence of Ideas on Impressions;
or, as I should say, of representations on
240
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
Book II.
CH. IV.
$ 2.
Alignment
with Hume,
Kant, and
Maimon,
presentations. This is the basis of his
phenomenalism; this is what is truly
reflective and metaphysical.1
2nd. The indistinguishable or atomic character
of simple impressions and ideas. This is
an assumption; and this it is which, in
combination with the third principle,
leads to his sceptical results, and consti-
tutes what I may call his subjective
atomism.2
3rd. The doctrine that whatever is distinguish-
able is also separable, and whatever is
separable is also distinguishable.3
Hume's assumption is, that impressions come to
us originally in separate indivisible drops, so to
speak; in other words, he assumes them to be what
I call objects of direct perception. “Simple percep-
tions or impressions and ideas are such as admit of
no distinction nor separation. The complex are the
contrary to these, and may be distinguished into
parts."4 And again, “Every simple idea has a simple
impression, which resembles it, and every simple im-
pression a correspondent idea."4 And what he thus
finds separate he keeps so, by means of his third
principle, the separability of whatever can, and con-
sequently the inseparability of whatever can not, be
distinguished. For the third principle is nothing
1 Treatise of Human Nature. Book I. Of the Understanding.
1739. In Messrs. Green and Grose's edition of 1874, Vol. I. pp. 312.
370, 375. 385.
2 Id. id. Vol. I. pp. 337-8. 344. 345. 349. 375. 403-4. 436.
450. 463. 474-5. 517-8. 528.
3 Id. id. Vol. I. pp. 326. 332. 333. 343. 344. 359. 518.
4 Id. id. Vol. I. pp. 312. 313.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
241
Book II.
CH. IV.
$ 2.
Alignment
with Hume,
Kant, and
Maimon.
1
JU
more than insisting on the significance of the sup-
posed fact stated by the second. If it should tura
out on further analysis, that there are no such things
as simple perceptions in which no distinctions are
found, but that every percept, however near it may
approach simplicity; is never perfectly simple, then
the doctrine founded on this supposed fact will fall
to the ground; for there will be discovered cases of
distinguishable things which are nevertheless in-
separable. It may turn out that Hume is right after
all; but it requires a further analysis than he gives
us to show it.
• In conjunction with these two principles, his first
principle, however sound in itself, goes but little way
towards a system of philosophy. It does but show
the need for one, and bring the problem out in its
true difficulty. We shall see this plainly from the
following passage: “When any object is presented
to us, it immediately conveys to the mind a lively
idea of that object, which is usually found to attend
it; and this determination of the mind forms the
necessary.connexion of these objects. But when we
change the point of view, from the objects to the per-
ceptions; in that case the impression is to be con-
sidered as the cause, and the lively idea as the effect;
and their necessary connexion is that new deter-
mination, which we feel to pass from the idea of the
one to that of the other. The uniting principle among
our internal perceptions is as unintelligible as that
among external objects, and is not known to us any
other way than by experience. Now the nature and
effects of experience have been already sufficiently
examin’d and explain’d. It never gives us any in-
sight into the internal structure or operating prin-
VOL. I.
242
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK JI.
CH, 1K.
$ 2.
Alignment
with Hume,
Kant, and
Maimon.
Sno
ciple of objects, but only accustoms the mind to pass
from one to another."1
There is the point upon which Kant joined issue.
Both Kant and Hume adopt the subjective and re-
flective method; but Hume appeals to experience,
and discovers no causal or constitutive nexus between
phenomena ; Kant discovers, in the transcendental
apperception as we have seen, a synthetic spontaneous
power which constitutes cognition and is the con-
dition of experience itself. Such is the issue; and to
me it seems that, notwithstanding Kant's analysis
goes far deeper than Hume's, the issue itself is not
thereby decided. In the end Kant makes the assump-
tion of an entity, or a force, which Hume has already,
by anticipation, shown to be a derivative of expe-
rience, and therefore not a legitimate explanation of
it. “All ideas are derived from, and represent im-
pressions. We never have any impression, that con-
tains any power or efficacy. We never therefore
have any idea of power.” 2
Kant in fact overshot the mark. Yet at the first
outset of the Critic, in its later form, in the Intro-
duction to the Second Edition, there is a passage in
which he is within an ace of discovering where the
true knot of the question lay. All our cognition
springs from, and must be based upon, experience,
said Hume. No, replies Kant; all our cognition be-
gins with experience, but it does not all spring out
of it, and therefore is not entirely based upon it.
In the corresponding passage of the First Edition he
nev
1 Treatise of Human Nature. Book I. Of the Understanding.
1739. In Messrs. Green and Grose's edition of 1874, Vol. I.
p. 463. $ On the idea of necessary connexion.
2 Id. id. Vol. I. p. 455. $ On the idea of necessary connexion.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
243
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
aw
$ 2.
Alignment
Kant, and
Maimoni.
had said, “Experience is undoubtedly the first pro-
duct brought forth by our Understanding, in work-
ing up the raw material of sensible impressions.” One
only wonders how Kant either missed the discrepancy
between his own meaning of the term experience and
Hume's, or, seeing it, how he allowed its significance
to escape him. The discrepancy is this. Hume
meant by experience all our impressions and ideas
without distinction, all the content of consciousness.
Kant meant by it our ordered experience as we find
it when we begin to philosophise, the ordered expe-
rience of the ordinary understanding. Hume's use
of the term was much the larger. But both uses
tacitly involved the assumption that there was, as a
fact, a portion of experience in the larger sense, which
was chaotic and not orderly, instead of simply raising
the question whether this was the fact or not.
True, Hume's larger use of the term gave him
this advantage, that it justified the answer which I
have said above he might have made to Kant. For
nothing could possibly lie beyond experience, jenseit
der Erfahrung, in Hume's large sense of the term.
At the same time Hume's further assumption, of the
separateness of impressions, was itself a narrowing of
his large conception of experience, and tantamount
to an assumption concerning its orderliness.
The true objection to Hume should have run
somewhat as follows:- You are really including an
orderliness in your term experience, and you are
assuming that it is a contingent orderliness ab extrů,
though you think you are making no assumption at
all. You are only entitled to assume experience,
undetermined as to whether it is chaotic or orderly.
Orderliness is a feature which requires accounting
244
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 2.
Alignment
with Hume,
Kan
Maimon.
for. You must analyse experience without assuming
either an original orderliness or an original chaos,
and then you will possibly see in what its orderliness
consists, as we find it when we begin to philosophise.
That orderly experience may have a source beyond
itself, and yet not beyond experience at large. You
must see whether experience is ever chaotic, ever
not-orderly.—The question between a transcendental
and a phenomenal source of real cognitions, as well
as between their necessary and their contingent cha-
racter, would thus have been fairly raised. For, if
it turned out that experience in the large sense was
always and in all its parts orderly, and never chaotic,
then the source of necessary cognitions would have
been found in that orderliness, within and not beyond
experience. But Kant, instead of making this kind
of objection to Hume, made an opposite kind of
assumption. Whereas Hume had assumed that ex-
perience, in the large sense, had a contingent order-
· liness, Kant assumed that a portion of it, which he
excluded from experience in his sense, was originally
chaotic, and then he derived its orderliness (where it
existed) from a transcendental source.
Hume's assumption of the separateness of im-
pressions prevented him from finding any real nexus
in the supposed nexus of experience. He began with
ordered experience as a given fact, and this dissolved
its apparent necessity. Kant on the other hand
assumed a transcendental principle expressly to ac-
count for ordered experience and its necessity; but
this principle was really a product of that ordered
experience which it was called in to account for.
The power, which it assumed as the condition, was
really the product of ordered experience. Nothing
el
T
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
245
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 2.
Alignment
with Hume,
Kant, and
TIT
guaranteed the existence of the power, unless it could
be found in ordered experience itself. And this it
could not be so long as Hume's reply could be justified
by his large use of the term experience, and was not
invalidated by discovering the fallacy of his analysis.
Salomon Maimon is the only philosopher, so far
as I know, who has seen the problems of philosophy
from the same point of view as Hume and Kant.
He aligns himself with them, so to speak. The simple
straight-forwardness which enabled him to take this
view, when all the world around him was carried
away with the Kantian torrent, marks him in my
estimation as the greatest philosopher since Kant.
His mind was steadily fixed on the single purpose of
philosophical truth. He thus saw not only what
Kant had said and done, but what had conditioned
that saying and doing. Germany, as if actuated
by an implicit belief that Philosophy is of the Ger-
mans, soon began to regard its Kant like a revelation
from heaven. And this they are still doing. “Go
back to Kant,” is their cry; “Kind, beť ein Vater-
unser.” Good; but not enough. They must go back
to Hume as well. As it is, they align themselves
with Kant and Leibniz, not with Kant and Hume.
· This is why I said in the first Chapter, that a greater
philosophy could arise in the line of Locke, than can
ever arise in the line of Leibniz. The post-Kantian
philosophy of the absolute, in all its branches, is a
mere episode in the general history, a side current
from the main stream, of philosophical thought.
Not the great and famous of the Universities, not
the theologians, not the state-philosophers, not the
acụte psychologists, not the imaginative ontologists,
but Maimon the Polish Jew, with his unobtrusive
246
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 2.
Alignment
with Hume,
Kant, and
Maimon.
analytic genius, has been the real hander on of the
torch of truth.
I say this without meaning to assert that Maimon
reached a position which was theoretically satisfac-
tory. He characterises his own philosophy and
method as “sceptic-critic.” In fact, he carries on
the critical strain in Kant, just as Hume carried on
the critical strain in Berkeley. Maimon's tendency
therefore is to redress the balance, to turn it in
Hume's direction. He retains the conception of the
Transcendental, and he retains the Kantian Catego-
ries, but excludes causality from the list. Real
cognition, according to Maimon, is confined to mathe-
matical objects, not extended to sequences of empi-
rical objects in time. Everything is excluded from
real and necessary cognition, which does not fall
under the Satz der Bestimmbarkeit, (Determinability),
which is the central principle of Maimon's system.
He was here no doubt on a true track. My only
wonder is that he did not see how much he had in-
cluded in real cognition; that, in including mathe-
matical objects, he had virtually left nothing ex-
cluded; that he still continued to call himself a
sceptic at all, though not a Humian sceptic.1
I follow, then, in the train of Maimon, and like
him I ask What are the facts? We have seen that
Hume, starting from the assumption that percepts are
from the first separate from one another, arrives at
the conclusion that there can be no necessary con-
nection between them in thought. Thought is, with
1 See Maimon's Versuch einer neuen Logik, Berlin, 1798, 2nd
edit. p. 190-3. for his “sceptic-critic" position. Also a general sum-
ming up of his views in the Briefe an Enesidemus, in the same
' vol. p. 322. et seqq. and again at p. 425-438.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
247
BOOK IL.
CH. IV.
$ 2.
Alignment
with Hume,
Kant, and
Maimon.
him, a particular de facto process, like eating and
sleeping. It will perhaps be said—What would you
have more? Is not perception itself a de facto pro-
cess? Is necessity higher than fact? The conception
is impossible; necessity itself has no other than a de
facto existence.' Most true. But what we want
more in thought, than what Hume allows to it, is,
that it shall not lose any of the necessity which
belongs to perception as a de facto existence. We
want to have thought shown to be not a particular
but an universal process; not a contingent process,
but one equally universal and equally necessary with
perception. We want to have the nexus of thought
between percepts made, in its nature, as indissoluble
as that which holds a single percept together. Cer
tainty is a thing which has two terms. The nexus be-
tween them must be as real as the terms themselves.
That is the condition of escaping from scepticism.
We have seen Kant, in order to escape from the
scepticism into which Hume was led, endeavouring
to secure this nexus by the fiction of a transcendental
constitution of the thought-faculty, a power of syn-
thetic combination which was the prior condition,
not only of framing a nexus between percepts, but of
framing percepts themselves. Hume’s “impressions,”
as well as his sequences of impressions and ideas,
were to be made, made originally, by this power
The de facto trains of association which pass through
consciousness, which according to Hume were the
basis and condition of reasoning, were now to be
themselves referred to an a priori source. The par-
ticular de facto process was again to become a neces-
sary one, in virtue of its origin in the transcendental
apperception.
we
er.
248
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
Воок ІІ.
CH. IV.
$ 2.
Maimon.
Now this was taking the seat of the symptom for
the seat of the disease. The symptom was weakness
Alignment in the combining power of thought. Then, argued
with Hum",
Kant, aid
Kant, let us strengthen the thought-faculty; Hume
has overlooked the circumstance that a faculty of
synthesis has presided at the construction of his
“impressions,” which he takes to represent objects.
The thought-faculty is the object-making faculty.
But let us go to the facts. Perhaps it will appear
from the analysis of Hume’s “impressions," from the
analysis of percepts, that the nexus which binds per-
cepts together in thought and the nexus which holds
a single percept together are one and the same; that
the former is only the latter modified ; that no
thought-faculty need be assumed, in order to give to
the process of thought the same necessity and univer-
sality as perception itself possesses. The analysis of
perception must decide.
$ 3. § 3. I enter now, without further prologue, upon
Analysis of
minimă of con- the promised analysis of the phenomena of primary
sciousness.
consciousness. I go straight to the facts, without
saying I go to perception, or sensation, or thought, or
any special mode at all. What I find, when I look
at consciousness at all, is, that what I cannot divest
myself of, or not have in consciousness, if I have
consciousness at all, is a sequence of different feel-
ings. I may shut my eyes and keep perfectly still,
and try not to contribute anything of my own will ;
but whether I think, or do not think, whether I per-
ceive external things or not, I always have a succes-
sion of different feelings. Anything else that I may
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
249
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
e OUI
have also, of a more special character, comes in as
part of this succession. Not to have the succession.
$ 3.
of different feelings is not to be conscious at all. Analysis of
minima of con-
This fact, the succession of different feelings just sciousness.
described, is what I am going to examine. I use the
names describing it purely denotatively, to designate
the phenomenon which I mean to have before me.
And now I add, that this phenomenon seems big
enough for the first section of the enquiry, and for
the present Chapter. It contains the data simply.
What I am not going to include in it is the modifica-
tion of this succession by a conscious act, what Kant
called spontaneity. That will come in the next
Chapter. There is a great deal included in the
large term, succession of different feelings, which we
shall have to bring out into distinctness. This will
of course require acts of conscious thought on our
part; it has already required one to mark out the
object itself. But acts of this kind are not to be now
examined, are not to make part of our present object-
matter. I am going to state one by one what fea-
tures I find in those phenomena which are described
by the words a succession of different feelings, without
taking account of other features in them which
are not described by those words. And I shall first
attempt to do this by taking a supposed single case,
artificially isolated, and reduced to its lowest terms,
a minimum of consciousness. Then will follow a
second part of the analysis, in which the succession
will be treated in portions of considerable length.
First, then, for the analysis of minima...
1. The first point to be noticed in this pheno-
menon is the difference of the feelings. The minimum
of consciousness contains two different feelings. One
250
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 3.
Book II. alone would not be felt. The second brings the first
into consciousness together with itself. Still it is not
Analysis of a case of what is sometimes called “latent conscious-
minima of con- 9
sciousness. ness," not a case where the first of the two feelings is
below the threshold of consciousness until followed
by the second. Neither of them is distinctly in con-
sciousness before the other. But of this apparent
simultaneity there are two cases: the first is that of
a real simultaneity, the two sub-feelings are really
parts in coexistence, not in succession; the second is
that in which one of them is felt as growing fainter
(called going when referred to its place in succes-
sion), the other as growing stronger (called coming
when referred to the succession). The simultaneous
perception of both sub-feelings, whether as parts of a
coexistence or of a sequence, is the total feeling, the
minimum of consciousness, and this minimum has
duration. There is duration not only in the case
where the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem
together, or in other words the change from this to
that including both, is the minimum of conscious-
ness; but also in the case of coexistence of the
sub-feelings as simultaneous portions of the whole
minimum.
Looking at the minimum of sequence alone and
isolated, we should not know that what we call the
first of the two sub-feelings came first in order of
time at the moment of consciousness; we know this
afterwards, when we have had many such changes,
forming parts of one continued train. Time-dura-
tion, however, is inseparable from the minimum,
notwithstanding that, in an isolated moment, we
could not tell which part of it came first, which last.
In both cases of minima alike, those of coexistence
ce
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
251
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
and those of sequence, one sub-feeling is as it were
relieved against the other, and this relief it is which
$ 3.
brings both into consciousness.
Analysis of
minima of con-
Whatever is paradoxical in this description arises sciousness.
from the necessary use of language, which is all
formed of words of second intention, to describe
phenomena in their first intention. We have to
correct one statement by its apparent opposite, in
order to convey a picture of states of consciousness
existing before those distinctions, which our state-
ments involve, were drawn or perceived. We have
no other means of depicting the earliest states of pri-
mary consciousness, and the same holds good for de-
picting states of consciousness artificially isolated for
the purpose of analysis, the minima of consciousness.
We do not require to know what difference is, or
what similarity is, in order to be sensible of difference
or change of feeling. We feel the thing, without
knowing the thought, or name, of the thing. Or to
put the same thing in technical language, --we know
difference or change in its first intention, but not in
its second. And just the same may be said of the
time sequence involved in the minimum of conscious-
ness. We do not require to know that the sub-
feelings come in sequence, first one, then the other;
nor to know what coming in sequence means. But
we have, in any artificially isolated minimum of con-
sciousness, the rudiments of the perception of former
and latter in time, in the sub-feeling that grows
fainter, and the sub-feeling that grows stronger, and
the change between them.
And therefore it cannot be argued that, because
in a minimum of consciousness, taken alone, there is
no distinct perception of former and latter, (if there
252
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
$ 3.
sciousness.
BOOK II.
were, it would be no minimum), therefore the per-
| CH. IV.
ception of sequence is not a datum, but an addition
Analysis of made by imagination or inference. For the minima
minima of con-
of consciousness are not data as minima, nor does
consciousness come to us in distinct minima origi-
nally; but we it is who reduce it to minima arti-
ficially. And the very distinction of a minimum, so
made, cuts it off from the continuous stream which
it is part of, treats it statically, and thereby involves
the assumption that its sub-parts are simultaneous
But this simultaneity of sub-parts, being introduced
by our method, must not be reckoned to the thing
analysed. We must keep that clear of the assump-
tion due to this source. And then we find, what
alone we can expect to find in a minimum, that
there are in it the rudiments of former and latter
states of consciousness, in its sub-feelings.
2. In the next place I remark that the rudiments
of memory are involved in the minimum of conscious-
ness. The first beginnings of it appear in that mini-
mum, just as the first beginnings of perception do.
As each member of the change or difference, which
goes to compose that minimum, is the rudiment of a
single perception, so the priority of one member to
the other, although both are given to consciousness
in one empirical present moment, is the rudiment of
memory. The fact, that the minimum of conscious-
ness is difference or change in feelings, is the ultimate
explanation of memory as well as of single percep-
tions. A former and a latter are included in the
minimum of consciousness; and this is what is meant
by saying that all consciousness is in the form of
time, or that time is the form of feeling, the form of
sensibility.
Y
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
253
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 3.
o minima of con-
Crudely and popularly we divide the course of Book II.
time into Past, Present, and Future; but, strictly
speaking, there is no Present; it is composed of Past Analysis of
and Future divided by an indivisible point or instant. sciousness.
That instant, or time-point, is the strict present. What
we call loosely the Present is an empirical portion of
the course of time, containing at least the minimum
of consciousness, in which the instant of change is
the present time-point. The stimulus or shock given
to the nerve, or the change between two intensities
of stimulus, which is the psychological condition of
the feeling, corresponds to the instant of change
between the two sub-feelings constituting the mini-
mum; and if we take this as the present time-point,
it is clear that the minimum of feeling contains two
portions, a sub-feeling that goes and a sub-feeling that
comes. One is remembered, the other imagined.
The limits of both are indefinite, at beginning and
end of the minimum, and ready to melt into other
minima, proceeding from other stimuli.
Time and consciousness do not come to us ready
marked out into minima; we have to do that by
reflection, asking ourselves, What is the least empi-
rical moment of consciousness ? That least empirical.
moment is what we usually call the present moment;
and even this is too minute for ordinary use; the
present moment is often extended practically to a
few seconds, or even minutes; beyond which, we
specify what length of time we mean, as the present
hour, or day, or year, or century.
But this popular way of thinking imposes itself
on great numbers even of philosophically minded
people, and they talk about the present as if it was a
datum, as if time came to us marked into present
254
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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CH. IV.
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minima of con-
periods like a measuring tape. It is an instance of the
separatist fallacy of using direct instead of reflective
Analysis of methods in subjective analysis; present periods are
sciousness. taken as so many separate objects, simply because we
are accustomed to mark time off into past, present,
and future, for practical purposes. And when this is
done, then some hypothesis is inevitably required,
to explain how what is so sundered is to be re-united,
in order to conform to facts.
It is thus for instance that Mr. Ward finds it
necessary to assume a faculty of Intuition, in order
to explain how memory can be trustworthy; in other
words, he endows us with a faculty of memory, a
faculty capable of passing intuitive judgments which
carry with them their own evidence of truth. I refer
to his argument against the “experience” school of
philosophers, selecting Mr. J. S. Mill as its repre-
sentative, in the Philosophical Introduction to his
work on Nature and Grace. In that argument Mr.
Ward says: “You make use of your own past experi-
ence, —you make use of other men's experience, -as
part of the foundation on which you build. How
can you even guess what your past experience has
been? By trusting memory. But how do you prove
that those various intuitive judgments, which we call
acts of memory, can rightly be trusted ? So far
from this being provable by past experience, it must
be in each case assumed and taken for granted, before
you can have any cognizance whatever of your past
experience.” And in farther testing a case of memory
we find : “ The question which I would earnestly beg
Mr. Mill to ask himself is this ;-what is my ground
for believing that I was cold a short time ago? “I
1 On Nature and Grace, London, 1860, p. 26.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
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sciousness.
com-
have the present impression of having been cold a BOLIVI.
short time ago;'--this is one judgment. “I was cold
a short time ago;?—this is a totally distinct and mining of con.
separate judgment. There is no necessary, nor even
probable, connexion between these two judgments,-
no ground whatever for thinking that the truth of
one follows from the truth of the other,-except upon
the hypothesis, that my mind is so constituted as
accurately to represent past facts. But how will
either 'sensation' or 'consciousness,' or the two com-
bined, in any way suffice for the establishment of any
such proposition ?"1
The answer is easy. Sensation and consciousness
will not suffice, when an arbitrary and unphiloso-
phical separation is made between past and present;
they will suffice, as future analysis in the proper place?
will show, when they are examined by the method of
reflection.
3. It will be noticed that I have employed the
word Perception. I mean to use that term to express
all that we have now found to be involved in the
succession of different feelings, as it has now been
described; I use it to signify any empirical portion
of this train of conscious states, whether that por-
tion is a minimum of consciousness, or larger than a
minimum, or the whole train. But I do not include
in it any means by which one portion of the train is
marked off from another. I assume that this can be
done, that we are familiar with its being done, and
that we can contrast the train in which it is not done
with the train in which it is done. If we suppose,
for argument's sake, that the train is marked off into
i On Nature and Grace, London, 1860, p. 28.
2 In the present Chapter, p. 274.
256
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 3.
Analysis of
minimă of con-
sciousness.
PUS.
QYTT
distinct portions, it is we who so mark it off; and I
abstract from this circumstance of its being so distin-
guished into determinate portions in calling the whole
-perception, or a train of percepts.
Perception means one thing in metaphysic, at
least as I now define it, and another thing in psy-
chology. In psychology it means sometimes a de-
finite, marked off, portion of the train of sensations
together with the reason for marking them off as
separate, i.e. together with their nexus inter se ;
and sometimes it means a portion of the train of
sensations so marked off and referred to an object
external to the mind or train of sensations. In the
first of these two senses, perceptions pre-suppose a
process of thought, by which the nexus is discovered
or supplied; in the second, they pre-suppose also
that reflection has taken place, so as to distinguish
objects from the subjective train of sensation.
It is in the second sense that the term perception
is employed by Professor Delbeuf, in a recent work."
“Si de plus l'être est connaissant, s'il est doué d'in-
telligence, ce mot étant pris dans le sens le plus étendu
qu'il puisse avoir de manière à s'appliquer aux ani-
maux même inférieurs, il aura des perceptions, c'est-à-
dire qu'il rapportera sa sensation à une cause en
général autre que lui, et qu'il attribuera à cette cause
une qualité, qui sera celle de lui procurer une sensa-
tion déterminée."
This use of terms is perfectly legitimate in psy-
chology, and the best adapted for its purposes. For
psychology begins with its whole object-matter already
divided into conscious beings and their environment,
and enquires into the relations which obtain between
1 Théorie générale de la Sensibilité, 1876, p. 5.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
257
Book II.
CH. IV.
§ 3.
is of
minim
of con-
sciousness.
the two divisions. It aims too at quantification, or
measurement, of the stimuli from without the organ-
ism, of the reaction of the organism from within, of
the intensity and duration of the conscious states,
and of the relations of these to each other. It is best
for it, then, to take sensations as single states of
consciousness, not distinguished into inseparable ele-
ments; and next to go to perceptions, as that kind or
that case of sensations, where the notion of stimulus,
or object which is the source of the stimulus, becomes
part of a group of sensations. The train of sensa-
tions is a datum both in metaphysic and in psycho-
logy; but metaphysic treats it in one way, because
its aim is analysis of conscious states; and psychology
in another way, because its aim is the determination
and measurement of the conditions which produce
and modify it. When psychology analyses states of
consciousness simply, it is in subordination to that
method.
Thus, to take another instance, Herr Professor
Wundt devotes one whole section to the Empfind-
ungen ; the next to the Vorstellungen ; the next to Be-
wusstsein and interaction of Vorstellungen; the next
and last to the Bewegungen. And in justifying this
procedure he says: “In beginning the consideration
of the inner processes with their simple phenomena, we
find ourselves constrained at the outset to confess that
the Simple itself never offers itself to our observation,
but must be always first separated from the com-
paratively intricate relations which it enters. Those
psychological elements, which indubitably hear the
character of being the most simple phenomena, are
1 Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie, 1874, p. 273.
See also p. 365 and 522-3, as to sensations of sight.
VOL. I.
PSN
S
258
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 3
sciousness.
OLU
n
the pure Empfindungen. We mean by them the most
original states which the human being finds in him-
of self, separated from all references and relations which
minima of con- und Pa
the developed consciousness always brings about.
Conceived in this abstract way, Empfindung pos-
sesses solely and alone Intensity and Quality, as closer
determinations. On the other hand its time duration
remains, at first, out of our consideration, because the
time-intuition first develops itself in the interchange
of Empfindungen and Vorstellungen. Similarly we
abstract wholly and entirely from the space relations,
in which certain Empfindungen are always given to
our self-observation, because these relations, as will
be seen later on, always arise out of the interaction of
a plurality of Empfindungen. Pure Empfindung so
defined is therefore nothing more than an inner exist-
ence, variable in strength and quality, which we may
perhaps make clear to ourselves by the fiction of a
Condillac statue, supposed to be just entering on
activity.”
On this I remark, that the method of treatment,
the method of abstracting purposely at first from
everything but quality and intensity in feelings, puts
out of view the question whether as a matter of fact
time duration is an original element in those feelings,
and contained in their minima; for the “time-intui-
tion” (Zeitanschauung) may very well not only de-
velop itself but even originate in the interchange of
Empfindungen and Vorstellungen, and yet duration be
an element in the minimum of sensation. The former
question depends on how you define time-intuition.”
Wundt takes? Wahrnehmungen and Anschauungen as
two names, (the first with an objective, the second
1 Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie, 1874, p. 464.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
259
VIUNO PUTOVOLwinyuru
Book II.
CH. IV.
s of
with a subjective reference), of those Vorstellungen
which have real objects. And Vorstellung he takes 53.
to mean a picture (Bild) of an object produced in m
minimă of con-
consciousness. So that time-intuition must mean sciousness.
with him a time-picture produced in consciousness.
And a time-picture no doubt must originate in con-
sequence of a considerable number of single sensa-
tions.
But the question remains, whether or not these
single sensations contain perceived duration in them.
If they do not, whence comes time duration into con-
sciousness ? If they are not the source, what is? I
can imagine only three answers;-either an a priori
form in the mind; or an otherwise unknown consti-
tution of things-in-themselves; or resting content
with the fact as an ultimate fact of experience. Now
Wundt puts together percepts out of sensations; a
perception is a whole of which sensations are the
parts. “Die Vorstellung ist im Vergleich mit der
Empfindung ein Zusammengesetztes. Sie enthält
Empfindungen als ihre Bestandtheile.” He adopts
then the first of the two definitions of perception
mentioned at p. 256, as Delbouf adopts the second.
How then does Wundt explain to us the compo-
sition of perceptions out of sensations? " This com-
position,” he tells us at the same place, “can proceed
in a double manner; first in the form of an arrange-
ment of sequence in time (einer zeitlichen Aneinander-
reihung), and secondly as an ordering in space (als
eine räumliche Ordnung). Both combinations rest
upon special applications of the general law of rela-
tion.” But can any one frame a notion of a law of
relation which does not presuppose duration, se-
1 Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie, 1874, p. 465.
260
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
quence, and coexistence? If it does so, it cannot be
called in to account for them. And yet Wundt pro-
$ 3.
Analysis of ceeds: “Where the sensations combine themselves in
minima of con-
sciousness. the time form, succession and simultaneity are the re-
sult (ergeben sich) as the essential distinctions of the
perception.” This“ general law of relation,” as an ex-
planation of the existence of time and space relations,
seems to me to have no more justification than Mr.
Ward's “intuitive memory.”
I conclude, then, that the psychological method
has led Professor Wundt so to isolate the sensations
as to render their combination into perceptions inex-
plicable, unless it were by recourse to a transcend-
ental thought faculty, so long as we continue in that
method. He has made a cleft between sensations
themselves, and between sensations and perceptions,
which he offers no means of bridging. There is
nothing but the statement that it must be bridged,
because it is not found in experience. For this is
what the following passage seems to amount to:
“ Pure sensation (Empfindung) is an abstraction
which never comes forward in our consciousness.
Consciousness possesses only perceptions (Vorstell-
ungen): the sensations are in it always arranged
according to the general forms of intuition, time
and space. Nevertheless we are compelled by an
overwhelming number of psychological facts, which
have been explained in the preceding section, to sup-
pose the existence of pure sensation, and to assume
that perceptions everywhere form themselves, by a
psychological synthesis, out of sensations."1 I am
not convinced of the necessity, because I find sensa-
tions always combined with rudiments of time or of
1 Grundzüge der Physiologischen Psychologie, 1874, p. 711-12.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
261
TT
Book II.
Ca. IV.
$ 3.
Analysis of
is of
sciousness.
time and space, which I call the formal element.
de
These rudiments it is from which they are never
found pure. A state previous to perception, in which
sensations exist pure, is a fiction.
4. I next come to the feature in the succession of
different feelings which furnishes the title to the
present Chapter, presentation and representation.
We have the train of conscious states passing before
us, through a time-point which marks the centre of
that portion which we call the empirical present mo-
ment. We may figure it to ourselves by walking
along a pavement, and watching the slabs seeming to
meet us and pass away under our feet behind us.
Every state called a presentation is an empirical
present; but not every empirical present is a presen-
tation. The content of an empirical present may
be wholly representation, consisting wholly of old,
recalled, or re-moulded, presentations. It may also
consist of wholly new presentations. And it may
also consist partly of one and partly of the other;
and this is by far the commonest case. It is more-
over very difficult, often impossible, to separate, in
an empirical present moment of mixed presentation
and representation, what is new and what is old.
Each impression on the senses as it comes is new;
but the framework into which it falls, the figures of
things, are old; and how much precisely belongs to
the one, how much to the other? The only purely
subjective criterion between a new and an old con-
tent of perception, the only criterion, that is, which
does not rest on prior extraneous knowledge of the
source of the sensations, is, I believe, their vividness,
There is a certain vividness or intensity about what
we actually receive through the senses, which is
we
e
.
262
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
minima of con-
sciousness.
wanting to what we re-receive through memory or
imagination.
But, judged by this test, presentation is not con-
fined to sensations. Emotions also are presentations
sometimes. There is a peculiar vividness also in the
imagery of some dreams, which seems to mark it as
new and not a mere re-moulding. Besides this there
is often in dreams an emotional vividness, one attach
ing to the emotionally pleasureable or painful character
of their imagery, a freshness in its contained feeling,
as if the cerebral machinery which reproduced it were
acting as stimulus to a distinct organ of internal and
emotional sensibility.
The distinction between presentations and repre-
sentations, then, does not lie solely in the circum-
stance of presentations being present to consciousness
for the first time, that is, of being new and not old.
This alone gives no distinction of kind. Every state
of consciousness is different in some respect from
every other; and in that respect will be new and not
old. A state of consciousness must have some other
mark, besides that of being a present moment and in
some respect new, in order to be classed as a pre-
sentation. It does not get this other mark simply
from the element of feeling (sensation or emotion)
which it contains; for representations contain this
element of feeling, and cannot exist without it. But
the criterion of presentations is drawn from a parti-
cular class or kind of feeling,—the feeling of vividness
which accompanies some states of consciousness and
not others, a peculiar feeling not confined to sensa-
tion, but attaching also to emotion. I do not say
that this vividness renders the emotions and dream
images to which it attaches indistinguishable from
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
263
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 3.
1
sciousness.
presented sensations; far from it. But I say that B
they are alike in possessing one peculiar feature,
vividness, which is the sole purely subjective criterion manalysis ofm
of presentations.
That newness, freshness, and vividness are not
confined to sensations alone, is shown by the case of
ordinary rhetoric, when we vary our expressions in
order to heighten their effect. We stimulate the
imaginative emotion by exhibiting the mental picture
in new lights, just as we examine an object of sight
by changing the incidence of its rays on the retina,
or as we play a passage of music over again in a
different octave. In all these cases alike we obtain
new and fresh feeling, by bringing the nervous organ
of feeling into contact with the object in a new way,
by setting up new changes in it, calling untired por-
tions of it into action. But the kind of feeling ob-
tained remains the same, is old and not new.
And now as to the bearing of this distinction.
Its importance is of the highest order, for it is pre-
sentations alone that afford the ultimate verification
for all opinions and hypotheses. The newness of pre-
sentations gives them rank as an independent source
of truth. Newness not in kind, but in time. Old-
ness of kind and newness in time,—that is, in other
words, a repetition, a fresh instance, a verification of
a reinembrance. A reversal of the order of first
experience, from presentation to representation; a
reversal which repeats the process backwards from
representation to presentation.
True, it is a distinction between empirical mo-
ments of time, not between inseparable elements; for
a presentation is an empirical portion of the train of
consciousness. But this does not detract from, on
264
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
IV. the contrary it adds to, its practical importance as a
CH. IV.
$ 3.
test. It may be itself justified by analysis, but in
Analysis of order to be employed it must be empirical and imme-
minima of con-
sciousness. diately available.
To see farther the bearing of this distinction, we
must have recourse to the psychological distinction
between the organ and its environment. We then
may divide presentations into those of external and
those of internal sensibility, and to the latter will
belong all those cases where remembered or imagined
feelings are reproduced with the special vividness
which we have seen to be the subjective criterion of
presentations. Reflection itself is a case of this branch
of presentation. It is a case of presentation arising
in redintegration,-redintegration being the name for
the train of consciousness as a train, and so far as it
is not interrupted by feelings coming from without
the nerve organism. To the fact of its being pre-
sentation reflection owes its verifying power; its
character of a court of final appeal in all cases of
interpreting facts. If the presentations of perception,
including those of emotion as well as those of sense,
are the first source and final verification of facts
simply, those of reflection, which is thought as well
as perception, are the final verification of what
those facts are, what they consist of, what they mean.
The one may be compared to acts of parliament,
the other to judicial decisions interpreting them.
It must not be forgotten that presentation alone
is not verification. More than that is required for
verification. The fact again presented must be con-
stant, or at least capable of being presented repeatedly.
Oldness of kind, with newness of time; repetition of
the instance, and as often as doubt may arise con-
ean.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
265
C
$ 3.
cerning it;_that is at least the ideal of verifiability. BOOK II.
Emotions may be presentations; dreams may be pre-
sentations; but the question is—are they renewable, „Analysis on
are they renewable at pleasure? No. Then they sciousness.
are not verifications.
5. It is perhaps hardly necessary to state for-
mally, what has been assumed all along, that the
succession of different feelings includes every possible
variety of feeling, all the different kinds of sensation,
all the different kinds of emotion, and all the different
kinds of pleasure and pain which arise either in the
one or in the other. We never have a feeling of any
kind but as part of the succession.
But there are two kinds of sensation which are
so peculiar, and from the formal element which they
contain so important, as to require to be separately
mentioned; the senses of sight and touch, including
in the latter the sense of resistance, pressure, and
effort. The sensations of these senses are part of the
train of consciousness, and therefore are in time; but
they also have extension, that is, occupy two at least
of the so-called dimensions of space. There are cer-
tain sensations of both kinds which cannot be felt
except in and with extension. The space element,
superficial extension, is inseparable from these sensa-
tions. Imagine or try to imagine them without
superficial extension, and you abolish the sensation
at the moment you abolish the extension. Their in-
separability from superficial extension stands the test
of presentation. No one has ever seen a mathe-
matical point; no one has ever touched one. On this
account these sensations are said to be in the form
of space, just as all sensations, these included, are in
that of time.
266
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
is of
10
US.
BOOK II.
The importance of these two senses, and espe-
CH. IV.
cially that of touch in the large meaning here in-
$ 3.
Analysis of tended, is enormous. Physiologically it is the
sciousness. groundwork of all the rest ; psychologically its
notices are the test of theirs. Of the two, touch is
the most irresistible in its evidence, sight the most
explicit and delicate. Touch is the text, sight is the
comment. Touch gives the meaning, sight interprets
it. Touch is force, sight subtilty.
But neither the minima of sight nor those of
touch involve more than superficial extension; they
do not involve solid extension, the so-called third
dimension of space. Solid space is not given in or by
isolated perceptions of sight or touch. It is built up
out of presentations and representations together, by
means of a reasoning process, and it involves the
· perception of motion. Motion is to the perception of
solids what change is to perception generally. Mo-
tion may be defined as change in percepts of sight,
touch, or both.
It is a much discussed question, what part is
played by the two senses of sight and touch in giving
us our perception of solid bodies, and of space in
three dimensions; and whether either of the two
senses, without the other, is sufficient for that pur-
pose. The question relates to the precise genesis and
history of our perception of matter in the ordinary
sense of the term); and is of the highest interest.
For matter and motion are the two conceptions which
together are the basis of all physical science. Every-
thing is scientifically explained, when it has been
accounted for either as being itself a case of matter
in motion, or as depending upon one, by being re-
ferred to laws of material motion which are already
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
267
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 3.
Analysis on.
sciousness.
known. There is no efficient known cause in exist-
ence, other than this. Of course this does not imply
that either matter or force is an ultimate entity.
But here I make my bow to the question. It is
necessary to indicate the place it holds in philosophy,
and to show at what point the conceptions of space
in three dimensions, and of solid bodies, conceptions
which in all probability are simultaneous, come into
human experience. We find ourselves already in a
world of solid bodies and solid space, on emerging
from infancy and beginning to be conscious of our-
selves. We find ourselves in a world of sensations
already formed into coherent aggregates, “remote
objects” as I called them in a previous work.1 How
was this finding brought about, how much was ele-
mentary, how much hereditary, how much acquired
by the individual ? And in the case of the race, ---
how much was elementary, how much acquired ?
What moreover is the part contributed by the several
elements, that is, the two senses in question, and
their doubly elementary constitution ? These ques-
tions are mainly psychological; certainly can only be
settled by psychological methods. Metaphysical ana-
lysis may be useful in preparation of the question,
but the solution is not hers. It is a question of
genesis, where physical and physiological considera-
tions are supreme.
It will I know be objected that, seeing space in
three dimensions, or solid space, is not a datum but
a result, coeval with that of solid matter, the meta-
physician has no right to speak of a space element in
all consciousness, but is misleading his readers unless
he restricts himself to speak of a superficial-extension-
1 Time and Space, ş 26.
VY
268
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
mine
f con.
sciousness,
element, or at any rate of an extension-element, in
consciousness. But I hold that the metaphysician is
$ 3.
Analysis of
fm perfectly justified in using the term space-element, in
order to make clear to what the formal element in
sight and touch sensation belongs, and of what it is
finally, and not proximately merely, the rudiment.
Proximately it is the rudiment only of superficial
extension ; but finally it is the rudiment of space in
the largest sense of the term.
Space is a perfectly general term, including under
it metaphysical, or unfigured, as well as mathematical,
or figured space. To renounce this use of space as a
general term would be to admit that there is no space
but mathematical, figured space; in other words,
that an empirical ens imaginarium was an ultimate
source of consciousness. But it is I think indisput-
able, that mathematical space is not such an ulti-
mate source, but that it is a case of a larger and more
elementary conception, namely, spatial extension at
large, without any mention being made of dimen-
sions, or directions of measuring or traversing it.
Metaphysical space is abstract capacity, Giordano
Bruno's res quodam nata repleri. All that we posi-
tively know of it is adequately represented by what
are called its three dimensions, which include all
which are known to us. And therefore it may often
happen that abstract capacity may be explained to
mean space of three dimensions, this latter being
taken as the denotation of the former, to give defi-
niteness to our meaning. But it is not to be inferred
that this abstract capacity is wholly and necessarily
exhausted by the three dimensions. Space of three,
or of n, dimensions is already mathematical space;
for dimensions are only given by means of a distinc-
ne
ens ons are
દશT
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
269
§ 3.
minima of con-
tion introduced into abstract capacity, that is, by the Book II.
CH. IV.
addition of a difference of feeling.
All mathematical construction of space lies within Analysis of
or below this large conception of metaphysical space. sciousness.
Whether we adopt or reject what is called “Euclid's
Postulate” is entirely indifferent to metaphysic. If,
rejecting it, we construct a space bounded either by
a spherical or by a pseudo-spherical surface, then we
have the infinite extension of metaphysical space
beyond it and containing it; beyond it on all sides
in the case of spherical surfaces, and beyond it on
some sides in the case of pseudo-spherical. All
figures of space are finite. A closed figure is a finite
figure; and at whatever part a figure is closed, at
that part it is bounded, and has space beyond it.
Now the word extension alone does not convey
this large general notion, it requires spatial to be
added to it; or in brief to be spoken of as space. I
maintain, then, that I am perfectly justified, inasmuch
as the suggestion thereby made is true, in using the
term space element for the formal element in visual
and tactual perception.
6. Lastly I have to observe the relation between
what I call the formal and the material elements in
the succession of different feelings which we are ex-
amining. The minima in that succession are per-
cepts, and these percepts are the ultimate empirical
objects of metaphysic, and are analysable into the
inseparable metaphysical elements, feeling and dura-
tion in all cases; feeling, duration, and superficial
extension besides in some cases. These elements of
time, space, and feeling, are the metaphysical ulti-
mates of analysis. But the percepts as produced by
shocks, stimuli, or changes in the relation between
SLO
YT
270
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
CH. IV,
minima of con-
Book II. nerve-forces and stimuli, and in this way quantifiable
and measureable, are the ultimates of psychology.
$ 3.
Analysis of The two features “produced by” and “measureable”
sciousness. show them to be the object of a science, psychology.
Feeling, in all its kinds, and however named, e.g. a
sensation or an emotion, means in metaphysic not
the same thing as percept, but the inseparable mate-
rial element in percepts.
But along with this analysis of percepts into their
metaphysical elements, the foregoing examination
has shown that there are elements of another kind in
the minima of consciousness. There are in every
minimum two sub-feelings, as I have called them,
one on each side of the present instant, the time-
point, which is the instant of change between them.
These are elements of another kind from those which
I call the metaphysical elements. They are properly
parts, not elements. Very minute parts it is true, so
minute as not to be perceptible alone, but only in
conjunction. Still the difference between them and
the whole they compose, and also between the parts
themselves, is a difference of degree, not of kind.
They are former and latter in time; and the im-
perceptibility of each part alone shows only that
time is more minutely divisible in thought or imagi-
nation than it is in actual presentative perception.
If the acuteness of our perceptive powers were in-
creased, we should be able to perceive smaller mini-
ma, which would then have smaller parts or sub-
feelings, than at present. We should then also
perceive minuter differences of feeling than we do
now, have a richer world of sensation and emotion
than we have now, even without supposing any new
sense or new emotion added to our list.
ne
m
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
271
CH. IV.
s of
f con-
anai
The difference between the time and space ele-
Book II.
ments of percepts, on the one hand, and the feeling 53.
element on the other, is not a difference of this sort ; min
it is a difference of kind. These two sorts of elements sciousness.
are irreducible one to the other. Cut the train of
consciousness where you will, you find these two
sorts of elements, inseparable, irreducible to each
other, and simultaneously present; not as former and
latter, or escaping consciousness only from their
minuteness. They are the ultimate analysis of con-
sciousness ratà pégn and not, as the sub-feelings are,
natà néan.
The question has been raised whether the time
and space elements are properly called formal, and
the feeling elements material; whether, even if these
names are retained, their application should not be
inverted. But I think that, even if Kant's usage were
not alone decisive on a point of this sort, there are
sufficient reasons for the names and their applica-
tion as at present. The time and space elements,
duration and extension, are that which becomes order
and figure when distinguished by differences of feel-
ing. They are order and figure in their rudiments,
are the condition of time and space relations between
feelings, are that from which form and relation come.
Feeling on the other hand is that which fills and
divides duration and extension, that which makes a
plenum of their vacuum.
This applies to consciousness generally, and there-
fore in metaphysic I think it most appropriate to
keep to the present usage. But when we come to
the sciences, mathematic and those which depend
upon it, then we come also to a specialised kind of
time and space; and here it may possibly be proper
272
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
S of
ESS
sciousness.
to change the application of the terms. In geometry
we have to do with figured space, in calculation with
Analysis of discrete time. The figuration and the discreteness
are derived from feeling, the material element in con-
sciousness. And the object-matters which result,
figured space and discrete time, are no longer meta-
physical elements of consciousness, but empirical ob-
jects, entia imaginaria, the substrates of more special-
ised figures, numbers, and proportions. So also in
the physical sciences, in which come forward addi-
tional determinations of the same substrates, by means
of the presence of some kinds of feeling and the ab-
sence of others. Space and time, so determined, are
physical objects. Thus Maimon says:1 “With me,
then, empirical objects given as outside one another
are nothing else than space determined by empirical
marks (Merkmale). Space is therefore the matter,
the determinable (bestimmbare), and the marks of the
empirical objects which occupy it are the form, or
particular determination of the space.” But Maimon
adds, that since the critical philosophy has already
fixed the meaning of the expressions, matter and
form, he will use expressions of his own instead of
them, namely, the determinable and its determination.
If we draw the distinction for which I contend
between science and metaphysic, then I think we
may retain Kant's usage for metaphysic, while adopt-
ing Maimon's for science. The time and space ele-
ments will still be the formal, feeling the material,
element in consciousness generally, yet without attri-
buting to either kind an a priori or transcendental
character, as conditions existing previous to percep-
tion.
1 Die Kategorien des Aristoteles : Propädentik, p. 248.
n
1111
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
273
CH. IV.
$ 4. The foregoing six heads complete the first Book II.
part of my promised analysis, which has been an
$ 4.
analysis of the succession of different feelings into its Analysis of the
train of
inseparable or strictly metaphysical elements. An percepts.
other analysis has still to be given of the same suc-
cession, considered as a sequence of empirical percepts
passing through consciousness, as a train of redinte-
gration. I no longer take the minimum, the smallest
fixable portion of the train, to see what elements it
comprises; but I take the whole train as consisting
of different empirical portions, and see what are its
characteristics as a train. I still make abstraction,
as before, of any specialty in the mode in which the
train becomes distinguished into portions; that is to
say, of any kind of difference other than the perceived
differences in feeling already spoken of. We cannot
help having a train of different feelings ; I abstract
from all volitional modification of the train. In other
words, I take as object of analysis trains of spon-
taneous, not voluntary, redintegration.
This second analysis falls into two divisions, 1st,
the nature of the nexus between an empirical present
and an empirical past or future, which may be called
the Problem of Memory; and 2nd, the nature of the
order of sequence between empirical states of con-
sciousness generally, which may be called the Pro-
blem of Association.
I. The Problem of Memory. The train of re-
dintegration is a sequence of empirical differents.
The percepts come in a series. But among them
there are some which seem to be repetitions, to be the
same that we have had before, either in a different
train of redintegration or earlier in the same train.
Now since the train is in perpetual change, move-
VOL. I.
ve-
274
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
CH. IV.
$ 4.
of the
train of
percepts.
ment into the Past, two questions arise, 1st, How can
there be such a thing as repetition ? and 2nd, sup-
posing there were such a thing, how can we ever
know that it is a repetition, that the percept we have
now is the same that we had then? This second
question is the one urged by Mr. Ward, in the pass-
age quoted above.
There is, however, a question prior to both, which
must be treated first. Until we know what we mean
by repetition and sameness in redintegration, we can-
not even enquire how they are brought about; and
the analysis of what we mean by these terms will tell
us what sort of evidence we are to expect for their
possibility, which is the second question. And then
will come the first question, how repetition and same-
ness are possible.
What we find, then, in redintegration is, to take
Mr. Ward's instance, a present impression of having
been cold a short time, say half an hour, ago. There
is a present representation of cold, and a present
representation of half an hour ago, that is, of the
surroundings of a present representation of cold,
which are not the surroundings of present presenta-
tions. The present representation of cold appears
in two surroundings, those called now, and those
called half an hour ago; or, in other words, there
are two present representations of cold, present side
by side in consciousness, each with its own surround-
ings. The two present representations of cold are
indistinguishable in point of quality or kind; but
they are in two different surroundings. That is what
we mean by sameness in kind, and difference in num-
ber. It is also a case of repetition, for the two sur-
1 At page 254-5.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
275
roundings are not only different, but different as Book II.
former and latter in time. It is clear, too, that there
might be sameness in number and difference in kind, Analysis of the
if the difference lay in the quality without any differ- percepts.
ence in the surroundings. But this would not be a
case of redintegration of empiricals; the sameness in
the surroundings restricting us to a single portion of
the stream of consciousness.
This, then, being what we mean by sameness
and by repetition, namely, feeling indistinguishable,
formal setting different, —it is clear what sort of
evidence is required to show that repetition has really
taken place in redintegration. The feeling must, in
the moment of memory, be capable of being twice
brought into consciousness, once in each of its two
surroundings. The moment of memory is a moment
of superposition of one instance of the feeling on the
other.
The continuity and discreteness of the formal
element in consciousness at once connect, and hold
apart the various empirical portions of its stream.
Together they are a condition both of sameness and
difference in empiricals. Without continuity in the
formal element, the empirical states of consciousness,
even supposing them to exist, could not form part
of a single whole; without its discreteness, they
would fall together into a chaotic mass. They are a
condition of having redintegration at all. And there-
fore I said above that future analysis would show,
that sensation and consciousness suffice to explain the
validity of memory, if only they are examined by the
reflective method, and not arbitrarily divided into
separate empirical states.
1 At page 255.
276
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
BOOK II.
. We are now prepared for the first question, What
CH. IV.
are the conditions of repetitions taking place in re-
$ 4.
Analysis of the dintegration ? Evidently, for one thing, a continua-
train of
percepts. tion of the conditions for presentations taking place.
The nerve process which has subserved a presentation
can be set on foot again by a new stimulus, which
may come either from another part of the nervous
organism, or from the world outside the organism ;
and in either case we have two nerve processes super-
posed, exactly similar in point of the quality of feel-
ing which they subserve. The two nerve processes
subserve the two representations, which are the con-
tent of the perception of sameness.
This may be illustrated by the explanation some-
times given of what is called illusory memory. This
phenomenon is where a man, while having actual
presentation of a scene or an event, in which he takes
part, has the strong impression of having seen or
done the very same things before, and yet knows, by
reasoning, that he never has seen them or done them.
This strong impression is sometimes explained as a
case of doubleness in the organs subserving percep-
tion, a double set of images being brought into con-
sciousness, and not perfectly simultaneously, whereby
they are prevented from coalescing into a single
object, as the images in the stereoscope do.
Now wherein lies the illusion in the case of illu-
sory memory? In this that, while the images are
two, the surroundings are one and the same, at least
are not perceptibly different. The Subject of illusory
memory, sensible of two images, refers them to dif-
ferent times, or to different times and places, just as
he would do with phenomena of ordinary memory.
He refers one of them to the past, the other to the
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
277
Book II.
| CH. IV.
$ 4.
train of
present, instead of referring both to the present, as
he would do if he was aware of the unequal action
of his nervous organism in the particular case.
Analysis of the
It may possibly be imagined that since reasoning percepts.
is involved, at least apparently, in cases of illusory
memory, and certainly in many comparatively simple
cases of ordinary memory and perception, as for in-
stance where we either see, or remember seeing, a
set of feelings and the class to which they belong
together, as a ship, or a house,-it may be imagined
that therefore every case of memory, which is equi-
valent to saying' every case of perception, involves
reasoning. Unconscious reasoning, or unconscious
inference, is the way it is sometimes expressed. And
this theory is own brother to, if not identical with,
the theory of a transcendental reasoning faculty, to
perform the unconscious reasonings.
Now no reasoning process can, as such, be un-
conscious. True, a conscious reasoning process may
become habitual and be performed unconsciously;
but then it ceases to be a reasoning process. It be-
comes a process of complex perception. Unconscious
reasoning is a contradiction in terms. But it may be
said, This is all we contend for. Has not conscious
reasoning entered into all perception originally, and
left habits behind it, which then, being thenceforth
unconsciously performed, are properly called percep-
tion and not reasoning ?
This is undoubtedly the fact in a very large
number of cases. But it cannot be extended to all.
It is no pre-requisite of perception or of memory
altogether. Just as the notions of time and space
presuppose time and space elements in perceptions,
so a reasoning process presupposes a perceptive pro-
UNC
278
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
Book II.
CH. IV.
$ 4.
cess to begin with, or else we could give no account
at all of the reasoning process. Observe, since I am
alysis of the not tracing the history of conscious development, but
percepts. analysing it, I must not be understood to assert that
volition is not found among the earliest states of con-
sciousness; but my meaning is that, whenever it ap-
pears, it has before it a previous state of spontaneous
redintegration, out of which it springs by a single
modification which will be examined in the following
Chapter. And so we find that in memory there are
elementary trains of redintegration, which do not in-
volve reasoning at all. And this involves the priority
of spontaneous to voluntary redintegration, which is in
other words the priority of perception to reasoning.
Let us examine the case as one of memory. In
remembering that I was cold half an hour ago, I do not
argue that one of the representations of cold must be
in the past, because it does not fit into present sur-
roundings; this would imply that I had an a priori
knowledge of past and present time; but I perceive
the two representations of cold at once, in their dif-
ferent surroundings, as portions of a connected train,
the intermediate members of which can be brought
back into memory also. It is simply a lengthening
of a minimum of presentation, such as was analysed
above. The minimum of presentation was there
said to contain the rudiments of memory. It can be
no case of reasoning, for where are the premisses ?
And if it is said to be a case of induction, which is a
process of reasoning, I answer that induction is not
a process of reasoning alone, but is a method, consist-
ing partly of perception and partly of reasoning; and
that the elementary cases of memory are the per-
1 In $ 3.
W
%
.
en
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION..
279
CH. IV.
$ 4.
ас
YTY
ceived facts which are the basis of the method of BOOK II.
induction, and the premisses of the reasoning process
which completes it. It is of the essence of induction Analysis of the
train of
to lay percepts at the basis of reasoning, and not to percepts.
use reasoning, without percepts, to form a basis for
itself.
In conclusion I will observe, that the foregoing
account of memory is a combination of a metaphy-
sical analysis of its phenomena with the (very imper-
fect) assignment of its physiological conditions; and
that the chief burden of explanation is borne by the
metaphysical analysis. The physiological part of the
account, taken alone, however perfect our knowledge
might become, would be quite insufficient as an ex-
planation, because it assumes the meaning of same-
ness and repetition to be known, and assumes farther
that nerve matter and nerve processes exist as per-
manent realities, which they cannot do except on the
supposition that sameness and repetition are valid
conceptions; for they are portions of the visible and
tangible world, which cannot be thought or spoken
of without sameness and repetition being thought as
part of them. The physiological part of the account,
then, is subordinate, being restricted to the task of
assigning the genesis and history of the phenomena
in question, but incapable alone of exhibiting their
nature and making manifest their logical consistency.
II. The Problem of Association. This question
relates to the general features or nature of the order
in which the empirical portions of a redintegration
tend to follow each other, when left undisturbed by
volition or conscious purpose. In a question of this
large kind, the imperfection of the record makes the
problem especially obscure and difficult. I mean by
280
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
train of
BOOK II. the imperfection of the record the fact, that many
nerve processes take place without being attended
§ 4.
Analysis of the by consciousness at the time, the threshold of con-
percepts. sciousness not being passed, though doubtless they
are not without their effect in modifying future states
of consciousness when they arise, by entering into
and modifying those nerve processes which are
attended by consciousness. We have every reason
to believe that, while every state of consciousness
depends at the time of its arising upon nerve pro-
cess, it is not the case that every or nearly every
nerve process is attended at the time with con-
sciousness.
This problem also falls into two parts, first, the
analysis of the order obtaining in redintegrations as
sequences of conscious states; and second, the par-
ticular condition in nerve processes which determines
that order to be what it is.
The first part of the question falls again into
branches; the first of which concerns the direction
of the sequence, in respect to first and last. Is the
direction of the sequence in representative redinte-
gration necessarily the same as in presentation, or
may it vary; may not the order of sequence in pre-
sentation be reversed in representation ? Experience
tells us at once that it may be reversed. We are not
restricted in memory, and still less in imagination,
to repeat the phenomena in that order of sequence
in which they occurred in presentation.
Let us put the matter into schematic form, by
throwing it into a sort of general mental diagram.
Suppose I have a series of presentations which I will
call Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, in that order. Then
suppose that something which I hear recalls into
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
281
CH. IV.
$ 4,
ISMA
consciousness Blue; and this must be by a stimulus Book II.
from within the brain; then the representation Blue
may call up Yellow, Green, Red, the stimulation Analysis of the
· train of
proceeding froin Blue. The order of representation percepts.
reverses the order of presentation.
Just the same will happen if Blue is called back
into consciousness by a new presentation. It will
recall Yellow, Green, Red, in that order, as in the
previous case.
But if Red is the starting point of the representa-
tive series, whether called back from within or from
without, the sequence of representation will be in
the same direction as the sequence of presentation.
The direction of the sequence in representative
redintegration is therefore in great measure inde-
pendent of the direction of the sequence in presenta-
tion. What is first in the one may be last in the
other. We may picture the redintegrations flashing
as it were from point to point along any of the lines
of nerve communication in the brain, or in the whole
aggregation of organs which compose the nerve
organism. The order of revivification may be quite
different from the order of original vivification. But
the standard of comparison in respect to first and
last is always the order of presentation. When we
say that Red, for instance, is really first, and Blue
last, we mean that they were so in presentation.
There is no other standard possible.
The domination exercised by the direction of
presentation over that of representation is shown by
some phenomena of purely representative imagina-
tion, as in dreaming, where we always construct the
story as if it were a presentative history, notwith-
standing that the order in which the representative
282
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
Book II.
C. IV.
images really take place in the brain is different or
reversed. In the Theory of Practice? I quoted a
$ 4.
Analysis of the striking dream related by M. Maury, in which this
train of
percepts. unconscious reversal of the representative into the
presentative order was made evident.
There is no absolute first and last in time, just as
there is no absolute up and down in space. Still the
determinations of first and last, of up and down, are
not given in the first instance by reasoning, but by
spontaneous redintegration, and afterwards inter-
preted by reasoning. We have them in their first in-
tention in spontaneous redintegration. It is the order
of presentation that we call the real order, when we
have contrasted it, by reasoning, with the order of
representation. There is nothing more ultimate than
the order of presentative perception. And this order
is the final criterion of first and last in perception
generally, just as the presentations of touch are the
final criterion of up and down, front and back, right
and left, in spatial perception. Notwithstanding the
inverted incidence of visible objects on the retina,
we see them upright because we identify the spot
touched with the spot seen. So in dreaming, we
experience the incidents in historical order, notwith-
standing that they may have occurred to conscious-
ness in any order, and the actual order may in some
cases be pointed out..
Turning next to the second branch of the ques-
tion, we find that it relates to the actual order
in which spontaneous representative redintegration
takes place, abstracting from presentations, and from
the different direction of the sequences in respect to
first and last. It is the “Laws of Association of
1 Vol. I. p. 445. note.
Tes.
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
283
BOOK II.
| CH. IV.
$ 4.
is of the
train of
percepts.
Ideas” that we have to investigate. The old laws of
association as given by Hume, namely, Contiguity in
time and place, Similarity and Contrast, and Cause A
and Effect, are manifestly insufficient. What we
want is, not a conflict of laws, but a single law, under
which more special laws may be grouped as cases.
And now let us look at the facts.
The first law is plainly nothing else than this,
that the redintegration itself is a sequence at once
continuous and discrete, continuous in one respect,
discrete in another. This law depends upon the
analysis of minima, given above. But the next
question is, What determines this sequence to take
place in one order rather than in another; what is
the second law of redintegration ?
We are perfectly justified in putting aside and
abstracting from the interference of fresh presenta-
tions of sense, in considering only the order which
representative redintegration tends to take when left
to itself. It is indispensable to do this, because other-
wise we should not be examining spontaneous but
enforced redintegration, not the course of conscious-
ness and its organism left to themselves, but the
course of consciousness and its organism and the
world external to the organism together. It is, then,
within purely representative redintegration that the
second law must be sought. And here I shall con-
tent myself with briefly stating the result to which I
came in my two former works;t to reason it out over
again would lead me into a discussion out of all pro-
portion to the present work. As before, I put for-
ward the following as an hypothesis only, as a pre-
1 Time and Space, $$ 28. 29. 30. The Theory of Practice,
Vol. I. § 53.
284
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
Book II. liminary analysis still requiring completion and veri-
fication.
$ 4.
Analysis of the It seems to me, then, that the order of sequence
train of
percepts. in trains of spontaneous representative redintegration
may be conceived as a resultant of two sets of
features in the feelings which compose the redinte-
gration, one of which sets is subdivisible into two
again.
The first or double set consists of feelings as
marked by, 1st vividness, 2nd frequency. First, a
great degree of vividness or intensity in a feeling
makes it more likely to recur again; and those feel-
ings which are most vivid tend to recur most fre-
quently. Secondly, the oftener a feeling has been
experienced in the past, the more likely it is to be
experienced in the future; past frequency, counting
from any moment, is a mark that greater frequency
may be expected after that moment. This is what
we call Habit. And we may include habit among
the fundamental features of spontaneous representa-
tion without violating logic, because we are not con-
sidering the origin of the order of redintegration, but
merely its analysis. If spontaneous representation
were a self-contained and independent phenomenon,
not influenced by presentations, then the circum-
stance of frequency of recurrence in its feelings
would not be an ultimate fact in it, but would
have to be traced to some further source. But as
it is, spontaneous representation has one source at
any rate in presentations, from which we are only
artificially isolating it; and the connection of spon-
taneous representation with presentation is not now
our object. Both vividness and frequency have their
ultimate source in presentations; but we are now
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
285
CH. IV.
- -
considering them only as occurring in representative
BOOK II,
sequences.
$ 4.
The second set consists of feelings of some specific Analysis of the
pleasure or interest. And this set supplies the coun percepts.
terbalancing tendency to the other set with its two
branches, vividness and frequency. While vivid feel-
ings and habitual feelings tend to perfect uniformity
in redintegrations, feelings of pleasure and interest
tend to variety, to deflect the habitual current of
percepts.
Between them, these features determine the order
of the redintegration. But of course they mix in the
most various degrees, and are combined with other
feelings of the most various kinds. Some feelings
may be habitual without being vivid or pleasureable;
others may be pleasureable but not vivid; and so on
in endless variety. If a feeling is at once extremely
vivid, habitual, and pleasureable, its chance of recur-
rence is enormous, and as a motive it is almost irre-
sistible.
So much as to the subjective analysis of sponta-
neous redintegration. Now for the second question
concerning it, namely, the physiological conditions
which would enable us to give its psychological ana-
lysis. In the first place, the nerve processes sup-
porting representations must be the continuations of
those which support presentations. This has been
already remarked, under the problem of memory.
The necessity is the same in both cases.
But when we come to the more special modes of
action which characterise the nerve or brain pro-
cesses, underlying redintegrations which are supposed
isolated from new impressions of sense presentation,
the state of physiological knowledge gives us but
Cur-
neou
286
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
CH. I.
теа)
BOOK II. little if any light. Here, in fact, we know the sub-
jective phenomena better than their objective condi-
$ 4.
Analysis of the tions. And here, accordingly, metaphysical analysis
train of
percepts. may fairly be taken as a guide to psychological, by
directing physiological research.
What I mean is that, supposing the analysis of
spontaneous redintegration, given above as hypothe-
tical, to be correct, it tells the psychologist what
questions to put to the facts of physiology which he
examines. He must look for nerve processes which
are the conditions, severally, of the phenomena of
vividness, of habit, and of specific pleasure or inter-
est. If it is permitted to anticipate the results of
such an examination, there is one result at any rate
which I am not alone in thinking highly probable;
it is that the nerve processes which underlie the feel-
ings of pleasure or interest are identical with those
which are the main or positive factors in the healthy
growth and development of the organism. The mere
sense of bien-être implies and depends upon a healthy
organism; and, if the present hypothesis is correct,
we should but have discovered the earliest and most
rudimentary manifestation, within consciousness, of
the great law which runs through the organic world,
moral and physical, that a sound mind is inseparably
dependent on a sound body.
For when we analyse redintegration, which is
consciousness in forward moving action, it is not only
memory and imagination of which we are tracing
the rudiments. The laws of association, being laws
of consciousness in action, give us also the rudiments
of the Will. Spontaneously, if the present hypothesis
be correct, the conscious healthy organism seeks
pleasure and avoids pain, and this action is identical
PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION.
287
with the action of self-preservation and healthy Book II.
growth, such as might take place without conscious-
§ 4.
ness, and such as does take place in the vegetable Analysis of the
train of
world. The spontaneous play of feelings in redinte- percepts.
gration, the spontaneous interaction between vivid
and habitual feelings, on the one side, and pleasure-
able feelings on the other, is a state prior to volition,
containing the rudiments out of which it springs by
a certain superinduced modification. Volition is
conscious choice between those same feelings which
compose the current of spontaneous redintegration;
is that same action modified by a reaction of the or-
ganism itself; how modified and to what result, we
shall partly see in the following Chapter.
CHAPTER V.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
CH. V.
process.
Book II. § 1. THE step which we are now to take is one which
carries us at once into the very heart of metaphysical
$ 1.
Analysis of the controversy. We have again to apply reflection, as
conceptual
in the preceding Chapter, and again to make pri-
mary consciousness, its states and processes, the main
object of examination. At the same time we shall
have to take into account those of direct, and still
more those of reflective consciousness, because the
act or moment of conception in primary conscious-
ness is the moment in which reflection itself arises,
and it will be necessary to contrast the two cases, of
conception with and conception without, or previous
to, reflection.
In the last Chapter abstraction was made from
the means by which the succession of different feel-
ings was broken up into portions. It was taken as a
train of percepts, presentations and representations
together; and every part of the train, whether taken
to consist of pure presentations, or pure representa-
tions, or of a mixture of both, was called a percept.
The name for such trains of percepts, consisting as
they must do to a very great extent of representa-
nan
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
289
§ 1.
conceptual
tions, is redintegration. And hitherto we have been Book II.
occupied solely with that kind of it which, to distin-
guish it from the volitional kind which is next to be Analysis of the
examined, may be properly called spontaneous re- process.
dintegration. Conception is, it will be seen, a case
of voluntary redintegration.
Observe a feature of the method which is com-
mon both to the foregoing and to the present en-
quiry. It is the combination of the statical and the
dynamical way of treatment. In the foregoing ana-
lysis of the succession of different feelings, we began
by considering the minima, and took these portions
statically; but we found that they all and each con
tained a succession, a process, that is, might be treated
dynamically. In the present case, we begin with the
notion of process, and treat the train of percepts as
a redintegration. We shall find that it will break
itself up into portions, not the same in kind as those
with which it begins, but into statical portions of an-
other kind. We never get beyond these two ways
of treating phenomena, the static way and the dyna-
mic. Together they are exhaustive. It is so in the
sciences, for instance, in mechanic. Statics treat the
same mechanical phenomena as dynamics, but mak-
ing abstraction of time; and that is the difference be-
tween the two branches. The reason why statics
and dynamics are felt to be an exhaustive treatment
of mechanical phenomena is, that consciousness itself,
in its utmost simplicity, moves in the same rhythm.
The first question which occurs in regard to re-
dintegration has been already answered in the last
Chapter, namely, what distinguishes one state of
consciousness in the redintegration from another, or
where does one state end and another begin ? The
VOL. I.
290
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
CH. V.
1
process.
е 10
answer was, that wherever there is a difference of
feeling there is a difference of state. Until a differ-
$1.
Analysis of the ence of feeling occurs, a state continues one and
conceptual
uninterrupted. The chain of consciousness in redin-
tegration is a sequence of Differents.
. The next question, to which we now proceed, is
this: What breaks up this continuous stream of
differents into separate portions, some of greater, some
of less, complexity, and forms out of it that congeries
of objects which we call the world ? There are two
alternatives usually proposed as answers to this ques-
tion, or rather as directions in which to look for the
answer. The first is, that “we,” the ego, must have
a power working in a method by which the trans-
formation is effected. The second is, that somewhere
in the objects themselves there exists a force, and a
law of that force, which is prior both to the con-
tinuous stream and to the objects as we conceive
them, a force and a law inaccessible to us, which
produces both the stream and the objects.
Without dwelling upon what is unsatisfactory in
each of these modes of finding an answer to the ques-
tion, I confine myself to remarking that both answers
are answers to the question of genesis, and not to the
question of nature. The answer which I shall give
is an answer solely to the latter question. When I
ask, “ What breaks up the continuous stream," I do
not mean, “What power or force breaks it up;” I
mean, What feature in the continuous stream itself is
the invariable antecedent or condition of its being
broken up into separate portions or objects ?
Taking the question in this sense, we shall find
that there is such an invariable antecedent comprised
in the continuous stream of redintegration. We find
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
291
process.
that we attend to some states and disregard others in
BOOK II.
Bo
Ch. V.
the chain, and that this modifies the chain. I use
§ 1.
the words we and attend denotatively, and in no other Analysis of the
way; they do not imply an ego or an agent; they
are the only means I have of pointing out to my
readers the particular phenomenon I intend. The
fact or moment of attention is that which distin-
guishes voluntary from spontaneous redintegration.
For attention, when guided by a purpose, is an
exercise of volition. “Preliminary to every act of
thought,” says Mansel, 1 66 is an act of Will, attention, in
which the mind contemplates exclusively a certain
number of the attributes given in an intuition to the
neglect of the rest. By thought these attributes are
regarded in their relation to objects.” And in a
footnote he speaks of the voluntary element of atten-
tion" as “an element neglected by the Kantian as
well as by the sensational school, and only fully
appreciated since the reaction against the latter, com-
mencing with the lectures of Laromiguière.”
Let us see, then, in the first place how this moment
of attention is introduced into the chain of spontaneous
redintegration. We are not conscious of the minima,
analysed in the last Chapter, in the first instance.
The train does not come to us broken up into separate
minima. That is an artificial division introduced by
the analyst. The train comes to us in masses; mostly
containing many different feelings; it is therefore not
mere difference of feeling that breaks the continuity
of the train, or suffices to constitute a separate portion
of it. The greater differences only can do this, the
more striking contrasts of feeling. It is precisely these
Letters, Lectures, and Reviews, p. 48. Recent extensions of
Formal Logic.
292
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book II. to which we attend in the first instance, that is,
CH. V.
before we have any pre-conception as a standing
$ 1.
Analysis of the element in the train, and acting to modify its course
conceptual
process. by giving an intensity to particular feelings, which
they would not have by themselves. A flash of light,
a loud sound, and so on, intervening in the redinte-
gration, arrest the attention, as it is called; we pause
to say, what is that? We dwell upon it and keep it in
representation, long after it has died out of presenta-
tion, that is, has ceased to be actually seen or heard.
The reaction, expressed in the what is that? is the
precise moment of attention. Not the tension or
sense of effort, or nerve-sensation, which accompanies
the flash or the sound; but the reaction upon it. But
this reaction is conditioned and determined by a mere
difference of degree, a difference of greater and less
in feeling. The reaction, the attention itself, is the
beginning of a difference of kind between those states
which precede and those which follow it.
. Consciousness itself appears to involve some re-
action on our part, on the part of the organism.
Otherwise we should be having feelings which nobody
felt. To feel is to react. Pure passivity is as impos-
sible a notion as pure activity. But it does not
follow that we are conscious of the reaction as such.
This reaction may be accompanied by a feeling which
as a distinct feeling is faint at first, then rises and
strengthens till it reaches the threshold of distinct
consciousness; a feeling accompanying every other
more special feeling, and taking a colour from it.
When it rises to the threshold of consciousness, it is
nerve-feeling, sense of tension or effort, or in German
Innervationsgefühl.
But when this nerve-sense rises to a particular
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
293
BOOK II.
CH. V.
degree of intensity, or stands in a particular contrast
with other feelings, it is found to undergo a modifi-
$ 1.
cation; from being a nerve-sensation it becomes a Analysis of the
Tu becomes a conceptual
sensation of attention ; it is as if the reaction of the process,
nerve or nerve organism was felt as a reaction. And
no doubt there is, underlying it as its physiological
condition, a different and farther reaching nerve-
action than when we had the simple nerve-sensation
alone in consciousness. There no doubt is a new
action set up in, and beginning from, the central
part of the nerve-organ affected; and not simply a
reaction of the nerve on its stimulus, which we must
conceive as requisite to sensation alone. There is, in
short, one threshold of consciousness, and another of
reactive consciousness, marked by attention. And
this second threshold is a stage in the rising intensity
of the particular kind of sensation known as nerve-
sense or tension; a moment which is at once a
heightening or intensifying of the feeling, in which it
occurs, and a beginning of a process, new in point of
kind, the process of reasoning, since it is a moment
which supervenes upon and mixes with a succession
of different feelings.
Carrying on the analysis of voluntary redintegra-
tion still farther, we observe two main and generic
classes of purposes, the pleasure of feeling and the
pleasure of knowing, which guide the attention, by
determining its kind or direction. In saying What
is that, at a flash or sound, we have a case of the
pleasure of knowing. Dwelling on a pleasant sen-
sation, as in tasting flavours, is an instance of the
pleasure of feeling. Vividness in a feeling compels,
pleasureableness attracts, the reaction of attention.
All volition consists in this sort of reaction. What
294
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK JI.
CH. V.
process.
2
are usually set down as a third class of volitions,
volitions to act, constitute really the general class to
Analysis of the which the other two, volition to feel or enjoy, and
conceptual
volition to know, are subordinate classes. There are
two kinds of volition, and all volition is action. Vo-
lition to feel is practical, volition to know theoretical,
intelligence. To attend in order to know is the kind
of voluntary act which distinguishes Reasoning, as a
mode of voluntary redintegration, from spontaneous
redintegration the common source of both practical
and theoretical intelligence.
And now let us see what modification the moment
of attention introduces into the chain of spontaneous
redintegration. It gives us the distinction between
percept and concept as determinations of the chain;
it gives us the chain no longer merely distinguished
into portions by difference of feeling, but distin-
guished into portions, not the same as might have
arisen without it, each of which has a double cha-
racter, an actual character and an expectant cha-
racter, actual as it is perceived in and by itself,
expectant as it waits for the completion of its rela-
tionship to other portions. In its actual character
every portion of the chain is a Percept; in its expect-
ant character it is a Concept.
Observe, the fixing of attention on a single portion
effects a change in the character of the whole chain.
The fact is not that one portion becomes a concept,
while the rest remain percepts ; nor yet that the
chain now consists of concepts that are not percepts,
instead of percepts that are not concepts; but every
portion is now both percept and concept, according as
it is taken in relation to other portions or out of such
relation. As I have elsewhere expressed it, objects
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
: 295
considered in their relation to consciousness alone Book II.
are percepts, while objects considered in a certain
§ 1.
kind of relation to other objects of consciousness are Analysis of the
conceptual
concepts. This distinction is perfectly general, in
process.
the sense that it is applicable to any portion of the
chain of redintegration, however large or however
small. Reduce the portion to a minimum, you have
a percept if you take it in relation to consciousness
alone; and a concept if you take it in relation to
other objects in the redintegration. Enlarge it to
a maximum, the same holds good, for all maxima are
relative, none absolute and final.
It is, then, by attention modifying spontaneous
redintegration that the distinction between percept
and concept arises. Let us now consider more closely
how attention operates to that effect. Spontaneous
redintegration gives us a chain of percepts or dif-
ferents, percept following percept. Here it becomes
necessary for us to apply the distinction between the
two modes of primary and direct consciousness, as
drawn in Chapter II., because the course followed by
conception is very different in the two, and the terms
in which it has usually been described relate only to
its operation in the latter, the supposition being made
that “objects” are already given to us before con-
ceptual redintegration begins. But the fact of the
case is, that “ objects” are first formed by means of
conceptual redintegration, in its first mode or stage
of primary consciousness. Experience does not give
us “objects” ready made, any more than it gives us
numbers ready counted, spaces ready measured, or
matter ready weighed. We have to do all this for
ourselves; and the early period of an infant's life,
his period of primary consciousness, is occupied in
296
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
process.
BOOK II. the formation, subjectively, of his world of " objects,"
CH. V.
which he does by means of attention modifying his
$ 1.
Analysis of the trains of spontaneous redintegration, and testing
conceptual
chem by presentations. I take therefore in the first
place the operation of attention on redintegration in
primary consciousness.
The fundamental law of all reasoning considered
as an action is the Law of Parcimony, because it is
the practical law of all voluntary effort to do the
most we can with the least effort we can. The law
of parcimony is the parallel, in consciousness, of the
law that movement takes place in the line of least
resistance in mechanic. When reasoning is the ope-
ration in question, this practical law becomes special-
ised, namely, to group as large a content as possible
under the fewest heads possible, for Frustra fit per
plura quod fieri potest per pauciora, which is the law
of parcimony. This explains why, supposing we have
the power to do so, (and it will presently be seen in
what this power consists), we actually do always
group similars together, and dissociate them from
dissimilars.
So that, as Professor Bain truly says, “The
primary attributes of Intellect are (1) Consciousness
of Difference, (2) Consciousness of Agreement, and (3)
Retentiveness." And when he adds, “ Every properly
intellectual function involves one or more of these
1 It was my friend, the late James Hinton, who first pointed
out to me, that infants pass the earliest years of their life in learn-
ing to use their senses and forming their world of objects, that it is
a period of great intellectual activity with them, an activity which
we may often obstruct by interfering too much with our namings
and explanations of things. And the importance of the remark
struck me as fully.warranting the stress he laid upon it.
? Mental and Moral Science, Book [I. p. 82. 2nd edit. 1868.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
297
$1.
.
attributes and nothing else,” all that is wanting here Book II.
is to draw the statement closer, dropping the “one
or more ;" for all the three attributes are involved in Analysis of the
conceptual
every intellectual operation. Every such operation process.
may be described, in consequence of the analysis in
the foregoing Chapter, as a consciousness of agree-
ment and difference in a redintegration.
In the next place, let us suppose that some mem
ber of the chain of redintegration, some perceived
sensation, attracts our interest and forces us to dwell
upon it. We can dwell upon it and go on with the
redintegration at the same time, that is, combine with
it a new redintegration, by two expedients only, either
we reject everything that is dissimilar from it, retain-
ing everything that is similar, or else we reject every-
thing that does not stand in immediate connection, of
time or place, with it, retaining everything that does
stand in such connection. The first expedient gives
us, as the result of the redintegrations formed by it,
general objects, or concepts, e.g. red as standing for
and containing all the red sensations which we have
perceived; the second expedient gives us matters of
fact, e.g. that a red sensation has stood in immediate
connection with another sensation, say a hardness,
(as in the case of the infant's coral).
These two methods coinbined, and repeated in
various combinations, every day and all day long, in
primary consciousness, give us at last our world of
things or objects. There is a double source of the
total perception of the world of objects, the two ex-
pedients which give us, one general objects, terms, or
concepts, the other matters of fact. Red and Hard
and so on are general objects; the combination of
this red with this hard, (by which I do not mean this
11
ex
298
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
CH. V.
81.
process,
IV 0
1. red thing, this hard thing, but this particular case of
redness, of hardness), and so on, are matters of fact,
Analysis of the things, existent objects. Observe the difference be-
conceptual
tween the two sources. Both are in accordance with
the law of parcimony, but only the first, the expe-
dient which gives us general objects, is in conse-
quence of it. We should be forced to combine red
with hard, whether there was a law of parcimony or
not; the combination is a matter of fact, which we
have no control over. But to group this red with
that red is, though equally a necessity, yet a necessity
solely of consciousness itself, a necessity of doing in
the easiest way what we want to do. It is a case of
causality by a final cause, a purpose, a wish, or a need.
I now come to the case of direct consciousness, in
which objects are supposed to be already formed, and
we are in presence of a world of objects such as grown-
up people find it. The method of reasoning which
we employ upon this world is essentially the same as
before. Only, instead of taking a sensation as the
thing fixed by attention in redintegration, we take
an “object” of which we already know a good deal.
The same law of parcimony governs our procedure,
the same two expedients offer themselves. Only, as
our starting point is no longer simple but complex,
an object not a sensation, the course of reasoning is
modified correspondingly. We can hold the object
before us and yet continue to redintegrate in three
ways. First, we can redintegrate all the modes of
the general qualities which constitute it; we can
analyse the object into its qualities. Secondly, we
can redintegrate it with similar objects. Thirdly, we
can redintegrate it with its conditions or its condi-
tionates, that is, its coexistents, its sequents, its
1
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
299
BOOK II.
CH, V.
§ 1.
f the
conceptual
process.
antecedents. Carry this third mode of reasoning out,
and you have the various physical sciences.
Observe here again the double source of the rea- Analysis of the
soning. The first method is partly a consequence of
the law of parcimony, inasmuch as the qualities have
been grouped together, in the first instance, only by
that law; but as to their grouping together in the
object examined, that is a matter of fact independent
of that law. The second method is purely a conse-
quence of the law of parcimony. The third is purely
a discovery of matters of fact.
Let us now go once more over the same ground,
and examine these same two cases, primary and
direct, of voluntary redintegration, but in a somewhat
different respect. Instead of taking ngle members
of the chain of differents to become the expectants,
let us suppose that two or more such differents are
taken; that is, that a change or passage from one to
another, that is to say a relation, is taken as the ex-
pectant unit. The object is different from what it
was in the first way of taking it, but the way of deal-
ing with it is just the same as before. In primary
consciousness we are dealing with a change or
sequence of feelings, in direct consciousness with a
change or sequence of “things.” In the first case, we
have again the same two ways of regarding them,
either to classify such sequence with similar sequences,
or to combine it with the sequences, or with the feel-
ings, which are connected with it in time or place.
In fact this is one of the methods which contribute to
the formation of the notion of “things,” and together
300
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book II. with the first method is the antecedent, in our mental
CH. V.
history, of the mode of direct consciousness, or con-
§ 1.
Analysis of the sciousness of objects or things as existent.
conceptual
process. In the second case, relations of direct conscious-
ness, we have a sequence or change of objects or
things before us. The same three methods are open
to us here. Either we analyse such a change into its
component changes; or we classify the kinds of change
in objects, the modes of their motion; or we combine
the change with its antecedent, coexistent, and con-
sequent changes.
The two ways of taking the redintegrations are
respectively statical and dynamical. One gives us the
kinds of feelings and the kinds of things; the other
gives us the kinds of changes and the kinds of motion
or force, for what is force but the relative motions
(or tendencies to motion of masses or things ?
We have now before us the analysis of concep-
tion, in its origin from perception, in both the primary
and the direct modes of consciousness. It remains to
draw some conclusions respecting both, which the
analysis warrants.
In the first place we see that the whole redinte-
gration is made to change its character by the intro-
duction of attention. Notwithstanding that we do
not and cannot change its content at our will, in the
sense that we can choose what content it shall offer
us, yet since we can and do reject what it offers, until
it offers what suits our purpose, and this offering is
our power of modification spoken of above, the whole
?p. 296.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
301
81.
of the
C
chain formed in this way is a voluntary remoulding
Book II.
CH, V.
of the whole chain of spontaneous redintegration, the
whole chain of mere differents as we had them in Analysis of the
conceptual
perceptual redintegration. We have, so to speak, cut process.
up the chain into lengths and piled similar pieces
together. We have done the same with the chain
considered as a series not of links but of changes
between links. We have got the chain in pieces
which are now connected together, not as they are
given to us in perception, but in an order of thought,
the connection of which consists in similarity and
graduated differentiation, determined ultimately by
the facility with which we can hold a large content
of consciousness together with little effort, determined
by the law of parcimony. This new nexus between
the links of the chain of redintegration is the concep-
tual order, the order of thought, as opposed to the
perceptual order, which is the same (in kind of nexus)
as that of nature, of which it is an imperfect and par-
tial reproduction. But the content of the two orders
is the same, there is no content in the order of thought
which is not a derivative of something or other in the
order of perception.
In the next place I observe that this analysis
shows us, that the elements of Time and Space are
not got rid of in the conceptual order, but reappear
in it. A concept is a provisional image, expectant of
its detail or of its accompaniments; if the image is
of a visible and tangible object, or of sometb
takes place in one, then that image has parts of ex-
· tension, just as much as the visible and tangible
object of which it is a representation. If an event
requires time for its accomplishment, then the provi-
slonal image, or concept, of that event includes time;
302
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
CH. V.
Book II. and that not merely in the sense that our brain
requires time to think it, but that the image is an
$ 1.
Analysis of the image of an event objectively in time. It is very
conceptual
process. necessary to insist upon this presence of time and
space elements in the conceptual order as well as in
the perceptual, because, whether from a habit of
understanding by Time and Space only mathematical
time and space, time marked out into lengths and
space into figures, disregarding time and space as
elements of consciousness, that is, in their meta-
physical acceptation, -or from whatever other reason,
--nothing is more common than to hear of things
which are said to be out of Space and Time, have
nothing to do with them, but are beyond them alto-
gether; such, for instance, as Eternity, the Moral
Law, Hegel's True Infinite and Absolute Mind, or,
as we saw in a previous Chapter,2 “the presence of
consciousness to itself.” Of all loose talk in philo-
sophy, none seems to me looser or more unjustifiable
than this.
Thirdly, I remark that, while for the purposes of
our knowledge we transform the perceptual into the
conceptual order, the perceptual order does not cease
to exist, but is the order into which we must re-,
transform the conceptual, whenever we verify our
reasonings. If the object-matter is physical, we
verify by observation or experiment, that is, by sense
presentations. If it is mental, we verify by repeating
1 As an instance of what I mean, take Mr. Spencer's expres-
sions : “that consolidated abstract of relations of co-existence which
we know as Space, and that consolidated abstract of relations of
sequence which we know as Time.” Principles of Psychology,
Vol. I. p. 183. 2nd edit.
2 Above, p. 159.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
303
CH. V.
process.
Ula
the original redintegrations. In both cases we verify
Book II.
W YDAY
by a reference to the perceptual order. We bring
$ 1.
the conceptions we have formed to the test, by com- Analysis of the
conceptual
paring them with the perceptions they spring from,
and this we do in Reflection upon them.
The next remark relates to one of the “two ex-
pedients” which are common to both primary and
direct conception, to that one by which, holding fast
the first concept by attention, we redintegrate it with
its coexistents, sequents, or antecedents, in time and
place. Of this method it is to be remarked, that it
is a return to the perceptual order from the concep
tual, and through the moment of conception. The
redintegrations are no longer spontaneous but volun-
tary, and yet the objects which they give us, the suc-
cessive members of the redintegration, are percepts
and occur in the order of perception. They come
before us as matters of fact, occurring in the same
order as things and occurrences in presentative ex-
perience.
By adopting this, the second of the two expedients,
what we have done is, that we have in one respect
reversed the choice made of the conceptual order by
the act of attention; we have first adopted the con-
ceptual order by an act of attention, and then chosen
to have objects as percepts and in perceptual order,
notwithstanding that act. Of their double character,
as percepts and as concepts, we have chosen the per-
ceptual to have them in.
The voluntary redintegration which thus arises
has two main branches; one is active, recollecting,
Memory; the other is active, productive, Imagination.
Both are very different, from the memory and the
imagination in spontaneous redintegration. They
Це
ex
304
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
process,
Book II. are governed by volition and purpose, and proceed
by rejecting whatever spontaneous redintegration
§ 1.
Analysis of the offers, if it does not square with the guiding purpose
conceptual
process. of the volition.
In the recollecting memory, the purpose is to
reproduce exactly the order of sequence and coexist-
ence in which the object, with which we start, actually
occurred to us. Or it may be to fill up with a dis-
tinct representation a place in that order which is left
empty, and the object of which is said to be forgotten.
This is the phenomenon of hunting for a forgotten
circumstance, name, or image; and it is clear from
the present analysis, how it happens that we have a
general and partial knowledge of what it is we want
to remember, before actually remembering it. We
have the empty place of it in the redintegration, and
this gives us a general knowledge of what it is.
In the active and productive imagination, we are
also guided by a purpose. It is to complete a picture
which has never been actually presented to us, but
which either might have been presented to us or to
others, or which we think was the picture which
must have been presented to a spectator suitably
placed and suitably endowed, or in other words, the
real order of phenomena and events. To discover
this real order, which has never been actually pre-
sented to us, is the guiding purpose of the scientific
imagination, the functions and importance of which
have been so well insisted upon by Professor Tyn-
dall.? Its function is to frame hypotheses and observe
and bring together facts which either support or con-
travene them, guided by volition and basing itself
1 On the Use and Limit of the Imagination in Science. Long-
mans, 1870. See pp. 18 and 54.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
305
conceptual
upon facts already known. In other words its method Book II.
CH, V.
is Induction. An imagined order in which the facts
§ 1.
already known find their place and their explanation Analyšis of the
is a scientific hypothesis; and the new facts ranged process.
with the old under the hypothesis are an induction,
and result in an inductive generalisation. This
whole process is by no means outside of the syllo-
gistic method; but I reserve the explanation of the
way in which it comes under that method, till more
has been said on the nature of Propositions. It is
obvious that the range of the scientific imagination
extends to the moral sciences and to history, as well
as to the physical sciences. I shall have occasion to
recur to this whole subject in the following Chapter.
The poetic imagination differs from the scientific
solely in the kind of purpose which guides its redin-
tegrations. That purpose is of an æsthetic and
emotional character. Compared with the scientific
imagination, it is fictive, not restricted to the imagi-
nation of facts as they must actually have been, but
of such facts as would satisfy the desire for beauty
and imaginative pleasure.
But in both kinds of productive imagination, as
well as in recollecting memory, the order of redin-
tegration is perceptual, the images occur as they
occur in presentative experience, as matters of fact
and events of history. The conceptual order is
abandoned for the perceptual. But it is only by
going through the moment of conception, by which
spontaneous is transformed into voluntary redin-
tegration, that this voluntary perceptual order is
reached ; and the traces of its having been passed
through are left indelibly behind it in language. .
1 Below in this Chapter, $ 8.
VOL. I.
emo
306
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
CH. V.
Language witnesses to this fact in the circum-
stance that all names for things and relations and
Analysis of the even
the events are general terms. Even proper names, the
conceptual
process.
names of individuals, are originally no exception, for
these have been drawn from some characteristic of
the person named, such as his appearance or his
home, and it is only by a tacit convention that the
term is restricted to him and him alone. Proper
names are an instance, and the only one in language,
of terms of first intention; and they are originally
terms of second intention limited by an individual
application. They now designate without connoting,
though originally they, too, connoted. There are,
then, no such things as singular names; there are
only general names limited. In the sun, sun is a
general name limited by the. So in giving an indi-
vidualised picture, as in poetic descriptions, the only
way possible for doing so is by using general terms
to limit each other. For instance:
“Still as, while Saturn whirls, his stedfast shade
Sleeps on his luminous ring."1
All the words here, substantive, verb, adjective, pro-
noun, preposition, and conjunction,-all are general;
the only exception being the proper name, Saturn, a
name given for the sole purpose of avoiding a name
with a general connotation, but nevertheless a name
applied only to that planet which has that particular
place, orbit, mass, &c., which are only found together,
that is, limiting each other, in a single instance.
Voluntary perceptual redintegration, then, depends
on the conceptual order having been first adopted, and
then abandoned by a further volition. The concep-
1 Tennyson, The Palace of Art
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
307
Ch. V.
process,
tual order, too, must have been followed to a consider- Book II.
able extent before productive imagination can operate
$ 1.
to much purpose. Its operations presuppose a certain Analysis of the
work of analysis and classification, evidenced by nam-
ing, to have been previously performed. But this
work is done by keeping to the first of the two ex-
pedients;” that is, by keeping to the conceptual
order. This alone is reasoning in its stricter sense,
as opposed to voluntary imagination and memory.
These supply. it with its pabulum, in the shape and
order of matters of fact, images represented in the
same kind of order as presentative experience.
It seems as if this circumstance, I mean the priority
of conception and the conceptual order to the process
of voluntary imagination and memory, was the fact in
Kant's mind, when he made his reproductive depend
upon his productive imagination, which latter was a
faculty of spontaneity (as he called it) working in and
through the Categories. Within voluntary redinte-
gration, it is clear, that conception precedes and
dominates perceptual imagination and memory. But
Kant, as Hume before him, seems to have passed by
unperceived the immensely important distinction
between spontaneous and voluntary processes in the
sense which I give to these terms). He neglected
the whole domain of spontaneous redintegration, and
began his account of consciousness lower down the
stream, with voluntary processes ; to which he pre-
fixed a sort of porch, as it were, by his theory of the
raw material of sensation or feeling offered to the
understanding, in the forms of time and space.
Hume's three laws of association, too, causation, con-
tiguity, and similarity or contrast, square fairly well
with the phenomena of voluntary productive imagi-
lomme
308
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
CH. V.
OK II. nation as now described. But they offer no account
at all of the modes of association in 'what is really
$ 1.
Analysis of the spontaneous redintegration.
conceptual
process. One more remark before quitting the subject. All
voluntary processes, when they have become habitual,
may be set in activity in the shape of spontaneous
processess, that is, without new effort. Spontaneous
redintegrations are not only previous to voluntary,
but come after them also. They repeat voluntary
processes spontaneously. What we have acquired, in
brain activities, we have added to our store of spon-
taneities. Thus dreams give us back images and
trains of images, which would be quite inexplicable
but for this spontaneous reproduction of conscious
states, acquired originally by means of voluntary re-
dintegration. Dreams also show traces, and this has
always struck me as a most remarkable fact, of con-
ceptual processes as such. This is when we seem to
know such and such a fact concerning a dream
personage, without in the least having an image of
that fact or of his having been concerned in it. We
seem to have a purely conceptual dream memory, as
well as one for imagery. Probably this is connected
with the memory for words.
mem
§ 2.
Extension and
Intension,
a $ 2. I now return to the consideration of reason-
ing in its stricter sense, the conceptual order main.
tained by following the first of the “two expe-
dients," namely, redintegration with similars. And
I follow up this true conceptual process as it is per-
formed in the direct mode of consciousness. . For
in this mode, as it has been shown, there are two
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT,
309
$ 2.
Extension and
Intension,
ways of performing the redintegrations, one by BOOK II.
analysing the units, the other by grouping them with
their similars ; only the latter of which comes forward Extension and
in the primary mode. We shall thus embrace both
methods, and exarnine them together.
In the direct mode of conception, complex objects
or existents are taken as the expectant units. In
analysing them they are resolved into a number of
special modes of general concepts, which general
concepts are reached and formed, in the first instance,
by conception in primary consciousness. To ana-
lyse an object of direct consciousness is to perform
redintegrations in primary consciousness. Every
existent can be so analysed. A peach, for instance,
is a special mode of solid extension, a special mode
of colour, of hardness, of flavour, &c. The combina-
tion and interpenetration of these special modes are
the existent, the peach.
But observe, this combination and interpenetra-
tion of special modes of colour, hardness, &c., is in
perceptual order, not in conceptual. It constitutes
the Intension of the peach. The peach is not the
combination and interpenetration of a certain number
of general concepts, but of a certain number of
special modes of these, and so much specialised as to
be singular. These singular modes are given imme-
diately by presentative perception, by sense; and
their combination and interpenetration is shown to us
in experience, not explained to us in thought. We
see and feel the complex object. In other words, we
have the object analysed in perceptual order.
When we want to analyse it in conceptual order,
we get not the singular modes given to us in sense,
but the general modes distinguished and sub-distin-
VY
310
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
$ 2.
Extension and
Intension.
Book II.
CH. V.
.: guished, down to describing as nearly as possible the
singular modes in terms drawn from their similars.
nd Each singular mode itself is unreachable by any such
description; it is merely nameable, and that by a
name taken as a proper name or in its first intention.
Sense gives the meaning. The intension is the mean-
ing as we see it and feel it in perceptual order.
From this I distinguish the extension, by which I
designate the meaning as we try to grasp it by the
sub-distinctions and counter-distinctions under and
between the general modes, colour, hardness, &c.;
the common ground left by intersection, as it were,
of all the general modes, the special modes of which
combine in the peach. The extension is coextensive
with the intension. It gives in conceptual order just
what the intension gives in perceptual, but it does
not give it equally well; the living sensation is lack-
ing to it, and so is that minuteness of individualisa-
tion which we have no sufficient store of similars to
entrap.
We have, then, before us two things, the per-
ceptual order of intension and the conceptual order
of extension, replacing the simple distinction of per-
cept and concept. And this is the field of one of the
most instructive controversies in philosophy. The
scholastic doctrine known as Realism was, that the
extension was the substantial reality, the intension
its phenomenal image. This at least was the realism
worked out in its completest shape by Duns Scotus.
$ 3.
The Realistic
§ 3. It is necessary at this point, or at any rate
Controversy. it will be advantageous, before continuing the ana-
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
311
CH. V.
to intornose BOOK II.
lysis of reasoning in the stricter sense, to interpose
some account of the great dispute between realism
and nominalism in the scholastic times. This con- The Realistic
Controversy.
troversy, with the results reached by the thorough
discussion of the questions involved in it, was the
great contribution of Scholasticism to the develop-
ment of philosophy, constituting the initiation into
philosophy of the nations of northern Europe. With-
out some comprehension of it, no full understanding
of the relation of the conceptual to the perceptual
order is attainable. I shall base myself entirely on
the recent great work of Dr. Carl Prantl,- as by far
the most accurate, complete, and philosophical ac-
count of these matters that I know of, a work which
deserves the sincere gratitude of all students of philo-
sophy. At the same time the purposes of the present
Chapter make it impossible for me to avoid giving
some additional interpretation of the facts, for which
Dr. Prantl is by no means to be held accountable.
Three periods must be distinguished in the his-
tory of this question, the same three which Prantl
distinguishes in the history of Logic as a whole. The
first extends from Isidore of Seville, in the seventh,
to the end of the twelfth century; the second from
the end of the twelfth century, when the newly ac-
quired acquaintance with Byzantine and Arab authors,
and with other works of Aristotle besides the Organon,
began to make itself felt in Western Europe, to the
end of the thirteenth or early part of the fourteenth
century; and the third from the early part of the
fourteenth century to the middle of the fifteenth,
when Scholasticism gradually gives way to modern
1 Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande. Leipzig 1855 to 1870.
Four vols. have at present appeared.
312
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book II.
C#. V.
$ 3.
The Řealistic
Controversy.
science and philosophy. The chief names in the first
of these periods are those of William of Champeaux,
Roscelin, and Abélard; of the second, Albertus Mag-
nus, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus; of the
third, William of Ockham, and Gerson; though, as
Prantl carefully points out, we must not consider a
few names like these as adequately representing the
rest, or exhausting the profusion of doctrines, and
systems of doctrines, which interlaced each other
with endless variety of agreement and difference.1
It is to the first of these periods, ending with the
close of the twelfth century, that the question be-
tween Nominalist and Realist in its strict shape
belongs. That question concerned the reality of
Universals, that is, of general terms or concepts.
Those who maintained that there were realities, out-
side the mind, answering to terms that were general
and not singular, were called Realists. Those who
denied it were called Nominalists. There was no
essential difference between Nominalism and what is
sometimes called Conceptualism. To exist only in
the human mind, and not out of it, was to be a con-
cept. "Et tale esse in intellectu universalia habere
dixerunt illi qui vocabantur nominales.”2 There
were no doubt different ways of exhibiting the com-
mon nominalist doctrine, some of which might lay
the greatest stress on the words, and others on the
thoughts; but these differences were as nothing to
the great difference which turned on the question,-
real or not real apart from the intelligence. No
vere
i See Work cited, Vol. II. pp. 4. 118 et seqq. 261. Vol. III. pp. 1
et seqq. 100. 330. Vol. IV. pp. 1. 147-50. 186. 193.
• 2 Quoted from Albertus Magnus : Prantı, Vol. III. pp. 94. Note
377.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
313
BOOK II.
CH. V.
$ 3.
listic
77
le
nIT
LIII
nominalist ever dreamt of asserting that general terms
had a meaning apart from the general thoughts or
concepts of the mind. Nor is it easy to see how it Controvers
could be asserted without falling at once into an em-
pirical absolutism, in which ready-made words stood
in direct relation to ready-made things. The moment
words are admitted to have their meaning from con-
vention, that moment thought is interposed as inter-
mediary between words and things.1
When we come to the second period, we find this
conceptual Nominalism in possession of the field, and
at the same time new questions, arising from the
solution of the old ones, being debated. It being
admitted that singulars, individuals, were the only
realities (out of the human mind. or intelligence), the
next question related to the determination of indi-
viduals ;--what constituted an individual? This was
the question of the Principium Individuationis. The
protagonists in this discussion were Albertus Magnus
and St. Thomas Aquinas on one side, Duns Scotus
on the other. The former placed the principium in-
dividuationis in the matter of the individual thing,
thereby holding, it was thought, by Aristotle; the
latter in its form; matter and form being taken in
reference to thought.
But the matter” of the Thomists was not form-
less matter; it involved form, though not the form
of thought. It was capable of being the principium
individuationis only when it was already “materia
signata,” that is, matter “quæ sub certis dimensioni-
bus consideratur.” The Thomist solution consisted
in saying that real presentative percepts had in them
For passages bearing on the first period, see Work cited, Vol.
II. pp. 8. 35-7. 118 et seqq.
314
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
CH. V.
$ 3.
The Realistic
Controversy.
KIT. the principium individuationis; it did not say in
what this principium consisted. It showed where
stic the solution was to be looked for, but stopped short
of finding it. Taken as a solution it was empirical
absolutism. Matter was individualised from the first.
On the other hand, the “form” of the Scotists
was already a form of thought, a concept, although
individual; it was a “thisness,” hæcceitas, and there
were necessarily as many hæcceitates as there were
individual things. 1
The Scotist solution of the question of individu-
ality was one which started at any rate within the
conditions of the former Realist problem ; for the
hæcceitas was individual, and yet at the same time
it was a form of thought, of conception, an ovoía of
essence, not of existence. It crowned, so to speak,
the edifice of the essentia, and was the last and com-
pleting conditio sine qua non of the positive existentia
of the thing in question. The existentia of the in-
dividual was a positio, a Setzung as Kant would say,
supervening directly upon the hæcceitas...
In this way Scotus virtually reversed the nomi-
nalism with which he began; the Thomists on the
other hand remained within its results. In looking
to materia signata for the principle of individuation
they were placing reality in percepts, whereas Scotus
placed it in concepts. They kept to the Aristotelian
course, he reverted to the Platonic.
These were the two answers given to the ques-
tion of the second period, which itself was the logical
consequence of the question of the first period. That
first question was — Have universals, as such, any
1 Work cited, Vol. III. pp. 96-7. 100. 114-5. 119. 128. 182.
184. 189. 213. 214. 217-9.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
315
BOOK II.
CH. V.
$ 3.
real existence apart from the mind ? Answer,
No. The second question was-Are or are not uni-
versals, as objects of thought, the condition of indi- The Realistic
Controversy.
viduality, that is, of reality, in individual things ?
The same question in fact revolved, on a higher plat-
form. Only individuals, not universals, have a real
existence apart from the mind. Good. But is there
not such a thing as an individual concept? And is
not this the condition of an individual thing?
Now the ideal limit, as we have partly seen already
and shall see more fully presently, of the process of
conception, by intersection of concepts and rejection
of what is not common to all, is the individual. But
this ideal limit, supposing it reached, being an indivi-
dual, could not also be an universal. At the limit
you cease to have an intersection of universals, and
you have, instead of it, an individual represented
percept. Scotus wanted to keep both ; the hæcceitas
as individual concept (a contradiction in terms), on
one side the limit, and the individual percept, hoc res,
on the other.
The fact of the conceptual order being the obverse
aspect of the perceptual, while the nature of the con-
nection between them was not fully perceived,
enabled the Doctor Subtilis to turn the Nominalist
position. The Thomist Nominalist doctrine, though
on the right road, was no solution of the question of
individuality. It was a mere assertion that materia
signata was individualised. Now Scotus did offer a
solution, though one which reversed the admitted
doctrine that presented percepts were the realities,
by making thought appear as the source of indivi-
duality, individuals being granted to be real.
The third period opens with William of Ockham,
316
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book II.
Ch. V.
$ 3.
The Realistic
Controversy.
VITY
and the controversies which he initiated continue
down to the end of Scholasticism. Ockham distin-
guished all such questions as those of principium indi-
viduationis as metaphysical and not logical questions;
and he took up the apparently “practical” position of
being a pure logician. He busied himself chiefly with
the terms employed in logic, and the proper name for
him and his followers no doubt is, as Prantl also
shows that it was among his contemporaries, not
Nominalists but Terminists. At the same time he
was compelled to go into the very same questions as
the metaphysicians, by the necessities of the logical
use of terms, the suppositio and proprietates termi-
norum; and accordingly, plunging into metaphysical
questions, he took up a position of antagonism both
to Scotists and Thomists, and that as well in respect
of questions relating to the existence of universals, as
of their special question of individuation.1
What was this position? It was nothing else
than applying his famous “razor,” Frustra fit per plura,
fc., to the hæcceitas of Scotus, while rejecting the
empirical absolutism of the Thomists, by appealing to
subjective analysis of the actions of the mind. As
against Scotus he said,- Your form of thought is
superfluous. We can almost imagine he is stating
Kant's problems as he raises the question against
Scotus: “Manifestum est in intellectu esse actum in-
telligendi et etiam habitum, sed utrum species aliqua
prævia actui sit ponenda in anima vel non, est dubium
Utrum etiam præter actum intelligendi sit aliquis
conceptus formatus per actum intelligendi vel etiam
sit aliquis conceptus habens tantum esse objectivum,
est dubium. Utrum etiam sit aliqua species in intel-
1 Work cited, Vol. III. pp. 327. 334-7. 343-5. 349-60.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
317
Воок ІІ.
Сн. V.
$ 3.
The hiealistic
Controversy.
lectu, quæ non posset esse sine actu intelligendi, est
te8ca, so
dubium.” These questions, dubia, he then answers
in the negative by his Frustra, foc.1
As against the Thomists he said, -Not things,
materia signata, but states of consciousness, first and
second intentions, are the ultimate realities with
which we have to do. “Ex quo patet, quod intentio
prima et secunda realiter distinguuntur, quia intentio
prima est actus intelligendi significans res, quæ non
sunt signa; intentio secunda est actus significans
intentiones primas."2 And again, “Patet ex dictis,
quod tam intentiones primæ quam secundæ sunt vere
entia realia et sunt vere qualitates subjective exist-
entes in anima.”2 Subjective, that is, in the mind as
their Subject and real substrate ; what we should
use the very opposite word to express, viz., objectively.
But it must be admitted that Ockham threw no new
light on the special question of individuation.3 .
It was a great advance to distinguish Logic from
Metaphysic, as Ockham did, and then to enquire into
the action of the mind and the consequent proprietates
terminorum. It was practically carrying out Aris-
totle's continued query, tí onuciver; But in the hands
of Ockham's successors, this distinction became the
beginning of decay, for they changed it into a divorce,
and then pursued Logic apart from Metaphysic. So
pursued, logic became what Prantl calls it, a rank
jungle, the work no doubt of acute men, the Booles
and De Morgans of logical technicality, but for all
that only the better calculated to rouse Bacon's indis-
1 Work cited, Vol. III. p. 335. note 758. and p. 338. note 768.
? For both passages see last citation.
3 See the passage bearing on this point in Prant), Vol. III.
p. 359-60. and esp. note 815.
318
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Воок
CH. V.
I.
$ 3.
The Realistic
Controversy.
criminating indignation against the whole Aristotelian
science, which it professed to represent.
The word Realism, then, in Scholasticism, has
according to these remarks three different meanings;
1st, it is properly opposed to the conceptual Nominal-
ism of the first period; 2nd, it has acquired a meaning
the exact reverse of what it ought to have, in being
applied to mean the Thomist doctrine as opposed to
the Formalism of the Scotists. The Thomists held
what may be called a perceptual realism, which is a
contradiction in terms if realism implies reality of
universals. The Formalists were the true realists in
this sense; and seeing that the Thomists, in their
search after the principium individuationis, stopped
short at“ materia signata," already an empirical and
individual thing, the proper name which marks their
position is not realism, but empirical absolutism.
3rd, Realism is employed to indicate metaphysical
doctrines whether of a Thomist or Scotist character,
as opposed to the purely practical logic of Terminism,
in the third period.
Nominalism, on the other hand, has but two senses;
first, as opposed to the Realism of the first period;
secondly, as equivalent to Terminism and opposed, as
a matter of practice not of theory, to Metaphysic in
the third period. In both senses it is identical with
Conceptualism. It is the golden Aristotelian strain
running through the whole history of Scholasticism,
and working itself out with increasing clearness and
distinctness by its combats with a Platonic absolutism
on the one side and an empirical absolutism on the
other.
Never can I concur with Dr. Prantl's refusal to
recognise the independent speculative ability of the
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
319
Book VI.
$ 3.
The Realistic
Controversy.
TYT
Schoolmen. They were no mere reproducers of the
new matter brought to them from time to time by
Arab and Byzantine commentators. Had they been
mere reproducers, there would have been no develop-
ment such as we see it in the three periods just
sketched. Their work was indeed left incomplete,
but it was the incompleteness of living growth, of a
development in two directions, modern philosophy
and modern science, which again divided into various
living branches. This division of the single stream
of Scholasticism into the several currents of philo-
sophy and the sciences, at the epoch of the Revival
of Learning, was the euthanasy of Scholasticism and
the beginning of the modern era. Scholasticism itself
gave the initiatory movement to philosophy, in Ock-
ham's distinction of Metaphysic and Logic. The
movement in developing modern philosophy, though
not in developing sciences, came from within, as a
natural event in the living growth. The sciences
had at least one root totally independent of scholas-
ticism.
Ockham's conceptual metaphysic was the basis of
the modern philosophical development, not in giving
rise to a Terminist logic wholly divorced from philo-
sophy, but in so distinguishing and connecting logic
and metaphysic into a philosophical system as to leave
room for physical discoveries to take their proper
place within its ample lines; applying, not the tenets
of Aristotle to support a foreign theology, but the
principles of Aristotle to establish a reformed philo-
sophy. The true successors of Ockham are not to
be found among the Terininist logicians, but in men
like Cusanus, Gerson, Telesio, Bruno, who remained
faithful to philosophy as a whole. The question of
n
320
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
II.
CH. V.
$ 3.
The Realistic
Controversy.
Universals, however, received its solution from Ock-
ham; and this it was which once more placed Aris-
The Realistic totle at the head of the philosophical development,
and determined the continuity of modern with Greek
philosophy.
We do injustice to the Schoolmen if we consider
them as the makers of the Scholastic philosophy out
of the materials brought to them from Greek sources,
without adding that they worked under the abnormal
and unfavourable condition of having a creed, that is
to say, an absolute philosophical system imposed upon
them to begin with, into harmony with which all
their materials, as well as all their reasonings upon
them, must be brought. Their philosophy put forth
its leaves and branches under superincumbent pres-
sure. This condition, their tutelage under the Church,
was imposed upon them by the course of general his-
tory, the events that composed the breaking up and
resettlement of the Roman Empire, after the irrup-
tion of the Northern nations. At length the thought-
life pierced the superincumbent crust. The history
of Scholasticism is the history of that struggle of the
life of thought, partly to break through, partly to
assimilate, the absolute creed of the accepted onto-
logical theology.
Of course the theological, as well as the philo-
sophical, view had its partisans. But just because
both were included in Scholasticism as a whole, and
because neither can be taken as standing for the
whole, therefore we must look elsewhere for guidance
in our judgment of Scholasticism. We must look at
the result to which it led, its total outcome; and
with this alone Scholasticism must be credited. This
outcome was the division, made possible by Ockham,
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
321
Book II.
CH. V.
8.3.
of the single stream into the several branches which
constitute modern philosophy, and the reconquest by
philosophy of the position, in respect of the new-born
sciences, originally won for it by Aristotle.
The Realistic
$ 4.
Extension,
Intension, and
Comprehen-
sion,
chSO
$ 4. I now turn at length to the second of the
two chief ways of forming the conceptual order in
direct consciousness, the way not of analysing, but of
grouping a thing, as a whole, with its similars, which
is the process of reasoning, strictly so called. The
concept which is expressed by the name of the class
of existents formed in this way is a general concept,
if it is a provisional image expectant of its further
determinations; for then it is a legitimate extension
of the method of forming conception in primary con-
sciousness, by which Red, Hard, &c., stand as short-
hand expressions for special feelings of red and hard.
It then belongs to the conceptual order, and all its
distinctions and sub-distinctions are its extension, as
all the corresponding existents, analysed into their
components in order of perception, are its intension.
“Man” is a general concept, the intension of which is
not “all men,” but all men analysed into the count-
less most special modes of consciousness in and as
which men are objects of perception.
But if“man” is taken, not as a provisional image,
but as a short-hand expression for all men,” not
adding that “all men” are analysable again, but
stopping short at them as ultimate existents, then it
is a mere collective term, it remains an existent, a
percept, and has not become a concept at all. Its ana-
lysis has still to be performed. I shall call terms of
VOL. I.
322
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
sion,
Book 11. this sort collectives, and, instead of speaking of their
CH. V.
intension, shall speak of their comprehension, meaning
stension, the existents which they are supposed to include.
Intension, and v
Comprehen-
The remarkable point about this way of taking
general terms, not as concepts but as collectives, is,
that intending to be thoroughgoing Nominalism it
is most decided Realism,-Realism, I mean, in the
Thomist sense, that is to say, empirical absolutism.
It denies the realness of “man,” but it asserts the
realness of “this man.” It leaves unanalysed the
Thing-in-itself in every apparent individual. Indi-
viduals, singulars, are no doubt the only reals. But
this means, not individual men or individual“ things”
of any sort, but individual percepts; anything as a
percept or in order of perception, as opposed to any.
thing in order of conception or as a concept. Per-
cepts are the real Existents. It must be observed
too, and the remark is not unimportant, that it is not
strictly true to say that we perceive singulars or in-
dividuals at all. Strictly we must say, we perceive
what are afterwards called singulars or individuals;
afterwards—that is, after conception has supervened.
The distinction between General, Particular, and
Singular, is a conceptual distinction.
efine the three things, the relation
of which to each other has now been given, as follows:
Intension of a term;—the percepts constituent
of it as a percept.
Extension of a term;—the common intersection
of the concepts of its definition, or of the
concepts constituent of it as a concept.
Comprehension of a term;the individual per-
cepts to which it is applicable.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
323
BOOK T..
§ 4.
Extension, a
Comprehen-
SV
sion,
For instance, the term Triangle. Its intension is—a
certain mode of combining three lines which we know
when we see it. Its extension is-a surface figure
described by three lines. Its comprehension is—all
the instances of such a figure, no matter what their
other characteristics are.
The intension and extension of any term are,
ideally, exactly coextensive; that is, it is the aim of
science to make them so, whichever of the two we
begin with; and in the attempt we increase our
knowledge of both. For the intension of a general
term, triangle for instance, is a Schema, diagram, or
provisional image. Its extension is what is deter-
mined in common by two or more general terms
which are its definition. As we add new general
terms we determine more strictly what is common to
all of them; at the same time we add a feature to the
diagram which is the intension; we fill it up with a
detail. The limit of completion of the detail of the
extension is the point where the common object of
the general determinations ceases to be a general, and
becomes a singular, object; ceases to be a concept
and becomes again a percept. And this limit may be
represented in the extension of the general term by
imagining the common intersection of the general
terms composing it vanishing to a point, by the con-
tinued addition of new general terms, each diminish-
ing the common intersection. The extension and
intension of a term, then, vary together. And at the
limit, the completed concept being also a completed
percept, percept and concept may be regarded as
obverse aspects of each other. Facts of this kind it
was a special merit of Hegel to discover; and here it
is that his analytical powers have been most fruitful.
324
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
CH. V.
8 4.
Extension,
Intension, and
reben-
sion.
Como
He may be said to have couched our eyes for their
perception.
But the comprehension of a term varies, and em-
braces much or little, according as that term has its
extension and intension poor or rich. The fewer
features there are in the extension and intension of a
term, the larger number of existents there are to
which that term is applicable, out of the whole num-
ber belonging to the same syngeny, or scala generum.
And the greater number of features in the extension
and intension, the smaller the number of existents in
its comprehension, always within the limits, or com-
pared to the individual existents covered by other
terms, of the same scala. From all individual tri-
angles which are the comprehension of the term tri-
angle, the determination rectilinear triangle, which is
an enrichment of the extension and intension, cuts
off all curvilinear triangles, and lessens the compre-
hension.
The distinction between the comprehension and
extension of general terms throws some light on the
question of natural species, which has been recently
so much debated. The genera, species, and varieties
of organic beings are wholes of comprehension; col-
lective wholes, of which the individuals are the parts.
They are groups of individuals, which may have
greater or less permanence in nature, and be more or
less strongly marked out from other groups. But
the notion of Type is a different matter; and this
seems to me to involve some “realist” philosophical
theory, inasmuch as it appears to be based on the
extension of general terms, and to require the exist-
ence of the extension prior to the existence of the
individuals in which it is exemplified.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
325
Book II.
CH. V.
se
$ 5.
The Logical
The
Categories.
$ 5. The conceptualising process, it will be ob-
served, lands us in the Aristotelian distinction of
genus, differentia, and species, which may be properly
called the logical categories. These categories are
not found ready made in thought, but are products
of the process of conceptualising the chains of per-
ceptual redintegration, by attention, under the law of
parcimony. For this process, as it has now been
analysed, carries with it and involves the arrange-
ment of the concepts, which it produces, into classes
of similars, distinguished each by some difference,
answering to Aristotle's Étegórns TOū yévous, and each
of these classes is again distinguishable into two or
more sub-classes by another difference, that is, by a
circumstance or feature belonging to one part of it,
and not to another, answering to Aristotle's dia poga
EIDOTOIÓS. A class so distinguished into two, or more,
sub-classes is what is called a genus ; the circumstance
which distinguishes it into two sub-classes is called a
differentia, and the sub-class which possesses it a
species, of the genus in question; and every species is
said to be defined by its proximate genus and differ-
entia.
This process of definition by proximate genus and
differentia is evidently nothing more, and nothing
less, than the process of classification reduced to its
lowest terms, and in its strictest form. It draws
tight, as it were, the lines by which we describe the
common intersection of general terms in a term of
extension. For it reduces the intersecting terms to
two, and requires that there should be no general
term interposable between them, or in other words,
that the difference which completes the definition
shall be a difference in its proximate genus; or term
ATT
326
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
I.
CH. V.
$ 5.
The Logical
Categories.
IN
which begins the definition. At the same time it is
perfectly general and universally applicable; for the
difference which distinguishes genus from genus is
obtained by a mere repetition of the same process as
that by which species is distinguished from species
within the same genus. The same concept which is
genus to the species below it is, in its turn, species to
a higher genus, until we come to one of the few
determinations, different from one another, which
are not themselves formed by differentiation of a
higher determination except that of existence itself
as a general term, the opposite aspect of which is
consciousness.
The distinguishing between the two orders per-
ceptual and conceptual, the putting categories of logic
side by side with categories of perception, and re-
solving one into the other in all processes of reason-
ing,—all this, which is the foundation of Logic, is
due to Aristotle. Analytic means, with him, the reso-
lution of percepts into concepts with demonstration
of their equivalence. To bring the theory of Syllo-
gism and the theory of Demonstration in Necessary
Matter (Apodeixis) to this analytical test is what
justifies the title of The Analytics being given to the
two treatises famous under that name. The founda-
tion of this analytical treatment is laid in the Topics,
where the two orders, with the categories belonging
to each, are placed side by side, and those of the one
shown to be predicable of those of the other. He
there first distinguishes and defines four logical cate-
gories, őgos, idov, révos, ouußeßanos, as constituting
This is clear from many passages and particularly Anal. Post.
A. 22. p. 84, a. 7. Royıxãos pèy oğv én toutWW . . . . Wote naÌ ŠTÀ TÒ
zátw.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
327
BOOK II.
Book II.
$5.
The Logical
Categories.
between them the content of propositions. He then
proceeds to give the perceptual categories, the well-
known ten, in which the logical categories are found,
and of which they are predicable.2 And this rela-
tion of the two lists of categories to each other is the
foundation of the whole of Aristotle's logic, not only
of its dialectical, or general, but also of its apodeic-
tical or specially scientific branch; the theory of syl-
logism, or purely formal method of reasoning, being
common to both.
There is no doubt a great difference between Aris-
totle's list of logical categories and that list of three,
genus, differentia, species, which I now call by that
name. Aristotle's four were, in truth, not purely
logical as opposed to perceptual categories. They
were the first step, imperfect it is true but still an
altogether decisive step, towards a purely logical
enumeration. To him, the yévos, idsov, and ögos, of his
list were general perceptual characters found in
nature, not characters made general by being fixed
on in reasoning. But the step of distinguishing
general characteristics in predication, from general
characteristics in perception, was a step sufficiently
decisive to prevent logical minds from falling back
upon the old undistinguishing position, the Platonism
Con
LULUI
Top. A. 4. p. 101, b. 17. IIẽ đa 6% porn, tg xa cũy Toá3A70%.
ή γένος ή ίδιον και συμβεβηκός δηλοί και γαρ την διαφοράν ώς ούσαν
γενικήν ομού τη γένει τακτέον. έπει δε του ιδίου το μεν το τί ήν είναι
σημαίνει, το δ' ου σημαίνει, διηρήσθω το ίδιον εις άμφω τα προειρημένα
μέρη, και καλείσθω το μεν το τί ήν είναι σημαίνον όρος, το δε λοιπόν
κατά την κοινήν περί αυτών αποδοθείσαν ονομασίαν προσαγορευέσθω ίδιον.
A.T.A.
2 Top. A. 9. p. 103, b. 20. Med TOIVUV TRŪTA de dropiocola Tů
γένη των κατηγοριών, εν οίς υπάρχουσιν αι ξηθείσαι τετταρες. έστι δε
TAÕTA rdv àpiduòv oéndi, TÍ ¿OTI, Trobòv, ... 7.7.1.
328
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
$ 5.
e
Book II. which Aristotle thus left behind him. No matter
Ch. V.
that. Aristotle still thought that “things” were classed
The Logical by nature into genera, yén Tây Övrwv, and had their
Categories.
own specific differences from the same natural source.
Not what Aristotle thought he was doing, but what
he really was doing,—this was the important thing.
And what he really was doing was this, he was
formulating the process of volitional perception, and
bringing it as a new process to bear upon and modify
the process of spontaneous perception in redintegra-
tion. He could not bring in the determinations
proper to general propositions without bringing in
determinations proper to conception, for such propo-
sitions are only possible as expressions of a conceptual
process.
Although Aristotle had risen out of the Platonic
conception of xwgrotà ciòn, and had seen that the ciòn
were not prior to, but inherent in, the objects of
experience, he yet had not risen above the concep-
tion of those objects of experience being marked off,
in nature, by their inherent siòn, from one another;
and thus his attempt was to refer each phenomenon
to the ultimate class of objects in which nature had
placed it, and of the laws of which nature had made
it the exponent. Hence with him genera of existents
are the true ultimates; are not cases of one highest
genus, existence, or unity. The universe is with
him a collection of genera of existents, existing in and
exhibited by individual existents.
Had Aristotle seen that the highest genera were
determinations and not existents, he would have
given a shorter list of the various contents of propo-
sitions; we should have had two only out of the four
which compose his list, namely, ίδιον and συμβεβηκός.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
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BOOK II.
Ch. V.
$ 5.
The
Categories.
For predicables, in their character as predicables, fall
according to him into two classes only, those which
are predicable convertibly with their subject, and
those which are predicable cf it but not convertibly.1
The rorov and őpos belong to the first class; the yevos,
διαφορά, and συμβεβηκός, to the second. And this no
doubt is the true ultimate distinction between predi-
cables; either they are larger than their subject in
order of extension, or they are coextensive with it.
A predicate either To Théov aéYETUI TOŨ ÚTOKEILévov, or
else & TinaTNYOpsītob, TOŨ ÚTOZEIuévov. It cannot be less
than its subject in extension, for then it would not be
predicable of the subject as a whole, but only of a
part of it.
There is another sort of obscurity which invests,
not Aristotle's mode only, but every mode of distin-
guishing and combining the perceptual and concep-
tual orders. It is this. Language has only one mode
of expressing both orders of redintegration; for it is
itself an outgrowth or an accompaniment, or rather
it is at once an instrument and a product, of the con-
ceptual order. Language throws everything into the
conceptual order; you cannot speak but in general
terms. “The day is fine;"-day, general term; fine,
general term. Apart from proper names to some
extent, as remarked above, and we may add also
from interjections and imitative sounds, all language
is conceptual. Hence what is really first in genesis,
the perceptual order, is last in analysis, is what has
to be discovered by painful interrogation of what has
sprung from it, the conceptual order. First and
second intentions, this apparently barbarous and
1 Top. A. 8. p. 103, b. 7. åváyun gàp Tãv to Tepí TIVOS KATNyopoú-
μενον ήτοι αντικατηγορείσθαι του πράγματος ή μή. κ.τ.λ.
ren
e
330
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book II.
Ch. V.
$5.
The Logical
Categories.
scholastic distinction, is one of the most essential in
philosophy. First intentions,—the attitude of our
minds in having percepts; second intentions,—the
attitude of our minds in having concepts. .
Nothing is more common than to hear the argu-
ment,—“Does not language itself show,” &c. But
this argument is hardly ever so decisive in its effect,
its legitimate effect I mean, as it is supposed to be.
There are many things which language may be
brought in to show; many which it may not. It is
evidence, but evidence which requires careful sifting.
And there is one sort of things which language alone
can never tell us; it cannot tell us what things it is
decisive evidence for and what things not. In fact,
it is evidence and not verdict.
Still, though language gives us no direct means
of distinguishing these two attitudes of mind in the
present case, it lends us most important aid towards
it. For it gives us a class of words which may be
used to express, not indeed the attitude of mind in
percepts of all kinds, but at least in percepts which are
most elementary, the elements in fact of "things.”
It gives us adjectives in distinction from substantives.
Grammar in fact gives us a most important clue in
this matter. For suppose that, following Aristotle, we
distinguish things at large into substance, attribute or
modification of attribute, and the whole formed of
them,-ovoid, oouleßnnos, and cúvorov, -we shall find
that, instead of this triple distinction, grammar knows
only a double one, substantive and adjective. In
fact, substance is superfluous. Every synolon may be
resolved into its attributes; substance is merely an
attenuated repetition of synolon, an imagined reflex
of it or cause of it.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
331
Book II.
$5.
The Logical
Categories.
UL
Now although it is true, that all adjectives that
have a meaning are general terms, and have their
signification dependent on their relation to other
things, yet we may employ them in preference to
substantives to indicate the feeling which we experience
in presence of a thing, in contradistinction from the
thing itself. “The day is fine;"—the day makes
this particular impression on me,-this would then
be the sense of these words, instead of—the day is
one of those days which has little or no rain. Of
course I do not mean that only such words as are
called adjectives in grammar can be predicates, but
that predicates of categorical propositions do, as
such, stand in that relation to their subjects which
grammar expresses as the relation of adjective to
substantive. We thus get a term in its first inten-
tion in the predicate. The importance of this will
be seen in treating of propositions, which is the
branch of the subject next to be handled.
$6.
§ 6. The order which a spontaneous redintegra-
3rd Propositions
tion is made to take under attention for the purpose and Reasoning.
of knowledge is the conceptual order, and if expressed
in words is expressed as a series of Propositions. It
must not be imagined that there can be a series of
concepts which are not percepts, or (in the conceptual
order) a series of percepts which are not concepts;
for a concept is a modified percept ; and according
to the strength of the volition to know, that is, to
perceive the nature and the relations of the several
1 This is not a new doctrine. See Mansel's Letters, Lectures,
and Reviews, p. 22. The Philosophy of Language.
332
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Воок ІІ.
CH. V.
$ 6.
Propositions
und Reasoning
terms, is the distinctness of the conceptual character
of the series more or less marked. If this volition is
weak, we still have the conceptual character present,
though not marked ; it is preserved and evidenced by
the language itself which is a conceptual product. Of
this character are the propositions of common conver-
sation. If again the volition is to have the perceptual
character of the terms brought out, to have a series
of images in the mind for their own sake, then we
have a series of propositions of a perceptual character
distinctly marked, such as are found in works of
poetic and scientific imagination, and of narrative.
We are concerned here only with the first of these
three classes of series of propositions; with that in
which the conceptual character is strongly marked ;
with that kind of propositions which is employed in
reasoning and in logic.
Every categorical proposition of this kind begins
with a percept changed into a concept, and ends with
a concept which can be changed into a percept again.
The first of these is the subject, the last the predicate,
of the proposition. Between them comes the copula,
which marks the point of transition from one to the
other, taking the place of the point of change between
the differents of which the spontaneous redintegration
consisted. The copula has no content of its own, but
it bears a double character, in virtue of the volition
to know, which puts it in the place of the point of
change between differents ; either it is affirmative or
else it is negative, signifying either that the predicate
does coalesce into a single image with the subject, or
else that it does not. If it does coalesce, we have an
affirmative proposition, an enriched image, the subject
combined with the predicate. If it does not coalesce,
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
333
BOOK II.
CH. V.
$ 6.
Propositions
and Reasoning.
we have a negative proposition, by which our know-
ledge is enlarged but not our image enriched; a way
of error has been explored and marked.
This proceeding, which is called Judgment, judg-
ments being what are expressed by propositions, is
the whole of the reasoning process. There is nothing
more than this process of judgment in the whole
process of reasoning, in various forms it is true, and
variously combined; but still no more than this
process of judgment.
Hypothetical judgments, one of the two main
kinds of judgments, the other being the Categorical,
are judgments expressed by propositions where a
proposition (or propositions) takes the place of the
subject, and a proposition (or propositions) takes the
place of the predicate; and the place of the copula is
filled by the formula "if-then,” “if the subject,
then the predicate.”
An affirmative categorical proposition has a result,
an enriched image; this may be expressed either by a
new term, or by the proposition which affirmed it.
Hypothetical propositions are merely forms either of
expressing complex terms in the shape of the propo-
sitions which affirm them, and for combining these
terms in a new proposition, or, in the case of negative
categorical propositions, of employing their negative
result as the condition of a new proposition.
Negative hypothetical propositions there are none.
There are hypothetical propositions in which the
consequent and the antecedent, either or both, may be
negative, but the bond between the two is always
affirmative. The reason of this is, that, time being
adopted as the mould into which the judgment is cast,
a separation of the two complex terms, which are its
334
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
CH. V.
$6.
BOOK II. antecedent and consequent, from each other in time
being assumed, then, unless an inner connection
Propositions between them was asserted by the proposition, there
and Reasoning.
would be no proposition at all. The notion of causal
connection, of dependence, or condition, therefore, lies
at the root of judgments which have the hypothetical
form, and such judgments are always affirmative. It
is a consequence of this separation of terms in time,
that the syllogisms which are built upon hypothetical
propositions are syllogisms which are without middle
terms. There is no coalescence of terms, and no use
for a means of coalescence or middle term.
To return, then, to the plain categorical proposi-
tion, which is the foundation of the whole, and to
which all other varieties may be reduced in the last
resort. The percept fixed upon to serve as the sub-
ject in an affirmative categorical proposition is trans-
formed into a concept by that act. It becomes an
expectant, yet without ceasing to be an existent. It is
a determinate percept expecting a further determina
tion, which the predicate will give it. When this
predicate is offered by spontaneous redintegration it
is in the shape either of some attribute of the subject,
or of some relation in which it stands to other per-
cepts. In either case it is an addition which is not
merely attached to, but one which modifies, the sub-
ject, an addition which works a change in the subject,
and makes it different from what it was before to the
reasoner. The predicate stands to its subject in the
same relation as adjectives stand to substantives.
The coalescence of images in redintegration, which is
the substratum of reasoning, is the fact which deter-
mines this adjectival, attributive, or modifying, rela-
tionship of predicate to subject. Unless we suppose
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
335
Book II.
CH.V.
$6.
consciousness to have come into existence equipped
with a furniture of classes and sub-classes ready for
application in processes of reasoning, we must explain
the perceived nexus between phenomena from the
nexus in spontaneous redintegration; the character-
istic, however, of the nexus between phenomena, even
in cases of greatest difference, namely in conception,
where the natural or spontaneous order is arbitrarily
broken for the sake of knowing,--the characteristic
of this nexus is, that it is not a nexus between sepa-
rates, but a coalescence between differents, where the
first member is carried over into the second and re-
appears in it modified. We do not lose sight of the
rose, when we predicate that it is red; but we have
before us a red rose.
Accordingly, it is not a final account of the im-
port of predication to say, that “the rose is red”
means “the rose belongs to the class of red things."
For we have to explain how we come by our class of
red things, how we come by our notion of class at all.
Classes are formed by means of predication; pre-
dication does not take place by means of classes.
Classification is a result and not a condition of predi-
cation.
But what is the origin of the mistake, the fatal
mistake, of considering classes as a condition of pre-
dication? It is the stopping short in reflective
analysis of consciousness, and, instead of analysing
its direct into its primary mode, beginning with
" things” as objects of direct consciousness, as if they
were the ultimate data of experience; a distinction
fully drawn out in the present Chapter. And a class
of red things is as much an object of direct conscious-
ness as a single red thing is, although its members
336
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
CH. V.
TV
are scattered up and down the world, and not con-
centrated in one spot as the qualities are which com-
§ 6.
Propositions pose a single thing.
and Reasoning. puod
This starting with “ things” as the ultimate is the
basis of all separatist logic. For instance, we find it
so in the extremely able and important work of Pro-
fessor Jerons, where it is the basis of his main and
distinctive logical doctrine, “the substitution of
similars.” He there says:1 “The simplest and most
palpable meaning which can belong to a term consists
of some single material object, such as Westminster
Abbey, the Sun, Sirius, Stonehenge, &c. It is pro-
bable that in the earliest stages of intellect only con-
crete and palpable things are the objects of thought.”
“Things” being supposed to be given originally “in
this separate condition, it follows that the first prin-
ciple of reasoning must contain an explanation of
their combination in thought. Accordingly, Profes-
sor Jevons furnishes us with such a principle, in the
Substitution of Similars. I select what seems to be
the chief statement of this principle. “The funda-
mental action of our reasoning faculties consists in
inferring or carrying to a new instance of a pheno-
menon whatever we have previously known of its
like, analogue, equivalent or equal. Sameness or
identity presents itself in all degrees, and is known
under various names; but the great rule of inference
embraces all degrees, and affirms that so far as there
exists sameness, identity or likeness, what is true of one
thing will be true of the other."2 Of course I am not
going to argue against this principle. I mention it
1 The Principles of Science. London, 1874. Vol. I. p. 29. and
see again p. 31.
2 Same place, Vol I. p. 11.
en
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
337
BOOK II.
Ch. V.
$ 6.
Propositions
and Reasoning
IVIIN
o
only in order to show its filiation from the separatist
separatist
theory of perception, the assumption of palpable
“things” as the perceptual ultimates. And this I
have mentioned only because I hold it to have origi-
nated the mistake of considering classes as a condition
prior to predication, to which subject I now return.
The effect of this mistake has been to substitute
the Comprehension of terms for their Extension, and,
as a consequence of this, to burden the world with an
useless two thirds at least of Formal Logic. For
when general concepts, instead of being taken as the
units of thought, were taken as collectives, that is, as
analysable into the individuals which made up their
comprehension, (instead of analysable into the qualities
which made up their intension, which would have
brought them back at once to the test of immediate
experience), then of necessity arose at once a system
of quantified predication. For the quantity of propo-
sitions, universal, particular, and singular, according
as the subject contained all, or some, or only one, of
the collective term, became the most prominent fea-
ture in thought. The whole doctrine of the Figures
and Moods of syllogism, and of Opposition and Con-
version of propositions, followed necessarily on the
distinction in their quantity. It was but a logical
and legitimate extension of this same erroneous prin-
ciple, when Sir William Hamilton introduced a quan-
tified predicate as well as a quantified subject. And
the denaturalisation of the meaning of the copula, if
not a consequence of quantified predication, was yet
a closely allied error, and one which harmonised per-
fectly with the other.
VOL. 1.
338
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book II.
Ch. V.
$7.
The Logic of
Aristotle.
$ 7. It will be worth while to interpose a few
remarks on the scope and origin of Formal Logic in
the hands of Aristotle. It had two originating cir-
cumstances; first, the prevalence of oral discussion
and argument on all kinds of subjects, second, the
importance attributed to Dialectic by Plato as a
means of discovering truth. Aristotle, true metaphy-
sician as he was, and bent on doing thoroughly the
work that lay immediately before him, set himself to
analyse this process at once of thought and of argu-
ment with others. Let us see, he must have said to
himself, what it is that we are doing when we reason
with ourselves or with others. The result was to
distinguish, as we have seen above, the logical cate-
gories, όρος, ίδιον, γένος, and συμβεβηκός, from the per-
ceptual categories, his well known ten, the yévn Tây
κατηγοριών, εν οις υπάρχουσιν αι ρηθείσαι τέτταρες.
The functions of Plato's eion were now distributed.
With Plato they were causal as well as analytical of
the phenomena, τα πράγματα. They were γένη των
ővtav, as well as logical, as well as perceptual, cate-
gories; three functions were performed by them.
With Aristotle the causal function was left in the
agáypatu themselves, but as analysed into the yévn
Tāv natnyogiõv, while the analytical function was attri-
buted to the logical categories. Instead of there being
ciòn Tagà tà tecypatu, as with Plato, there were now
είδη κατα των πραγμάτων, predicable of the phenomena
by reason of features found in the phenomena ;
features of the extension, or logical order, because
expressing features of the intension, or perceptual
order. Two functions out of Plato's three were thus
accounted for; but the third remained, the function
1 Topica, A. cap. 4 to 9 inclusive, B. 101 b. 11, to p. 104.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
339
BOOK II.
CH. V.
of the ciòn as gevn Tây Övrwv, the function of explaining
why the Team and themselves were what they were;
$7.
and this was a problem which Aristotle left unsolved, The Logic of
Aristotle.
and which, it may be added, is still the problem of
modern science and philosophy.
But this great result of genuine metaphysical
analysis was equally applicable to phenomena 'con-
sidered as facts and laws of nature, and to phenomena
considered as object-matter of discussion and argu-
ment. In the first case, it had a restricted appli-
cation, namely, to facts which were nad Útd, nabórov,
and natè TAUTÓS, to what Aristotle called necessary
matter,1 by which he meant things and events in
which was involved a real and regular causation; and
this causation it was the purpose of Apodeictic to
trace. In other words, Dialectic as applied to the
demonstration of laws of nature became and was
Apodeictic; and the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle
is accordingly a treatise on the conditions and me-
thod of discovering and demonstrating the laws of
nature.
The major premisses of apodeictic syllogisms were
propositions stating definitions, that is, the ovoid, the
genus and differentia, of the term which was the sub-
ject of the proposition; this definition, the draigeois
of the term defined, was also its analysis, &vatore, in
perceptual order of intension; and therefore it con-
tained the cause why the particulars, embraced by
the term defined, had the properties expressed by
the definition.2
1 Anal. Post. A. cap. 6. p. 74 h. 5.
? Id. B. cap. 14. p. 98 a. 1. IIpòs dè To Š XELV TÀ, TT poßinpata
εκλέγειν δε τάς τε ανατομάς και τας διαιρέσεις, ούτω δε εκλέγειν,
υποθέμενον το γένος το κοινόν απάντων, οίον ει ζώα είη τα τεθεωρημένα,
340
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BO, K II.
CH, V.
: $7.
This definition was the middle term of the syllo-
gism, and its definitum the major term; and in the
The Logic of
f major premiss the major term was predicated of its
Aristotle.
definition, the two terms being convertible. And
the demonstration consisted in bringing the minor
term under the definition of the major term, and
therefore under the major term itself.1 Thus was
obtained an apodeictic syllogism in Barbara, e.g.:
Trees that dry their sap are trees that shed
their leaves,
Broad leaved trees are trees that dry their sap,
.. Broad leaved trees are trees that shed their
leaves.
The definition in the middle term contains the cause
of the shedding of the leaves. It is not only its
causa cognoscendi but also its causa existendi ; and in
fact the coincidence of these two causæ is one essential
characteristic of Apodeictic.?
Apodeictic syllogisms, then, expressed at once a
fact and the reason for it; or, in other words, de-
monstrated a fact by pointing out its cause; this
cause being found in its perceptual analysis. Facts
alone, without their reasons, were not the object-
matter of apodeictic, however complete or exhaustive
the enumeration of instances might be. “All swans
are white,” even supposing it to be strictly true,
could not be a major premiss in apodeictic. The
fact that the planets move round the sun in ellipses
are
ποία παντί ζωω υπάρχει. * * * δήλον γαρ ότι έξομεν ήδη λέγειν
το διά τι υπάρχει τα επόμενα τους υπό το κοινόν, οίον διά τι ανθρώπω ή
TTW ÚTápmel. .7.1.
i Anal. Post. B. 17. p. 99 a. 1-4. Also p. 99 a. 16-29.
2 See Anal. Post. A. 2. p. 71 b. 19.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
341
Ch. V.
TA
would not be a major premiss in apodeictic; but,
Book II.
introduce gravitation into the definition of planets,.
$7.
and you would get such a premiss at once.
The Logic of
Aristotle.
In apodeictic, then, we stand on a very different
footing from the formal syllogisms of quantified pre-
dication set forth in the Prior Analytics. We are
moving in concrete object-matter, just as in Dialectic,
but in a specialised, restricted, kind of object-matter.
The analysis of terms in order of extension and in
order of intension is what we have to do with; not,
with their statement in propositions in order of com-
prehension. The syllogistic method belongs to both
dialectic and apodeictic, but formal syllogisms in
order of comprehension suit dialectic only. Even
formal syllogisms in the First Figure, which Aristotle
says is the most akin to science, μάλιστα επιστημονικόν,
are inadequate to apodeictic logic, for their major
premisses give no indication, by their form, whether
they express a mere universal fact, such as “all
swans are white,” or an duesos ágxò of demonstration,
a true nabórov, a definition founded on perceptual
analysis. The obtaining of the apegou ágxai is the
real difficulty and problem in Aristotle's Apodeictic,
as it is in modern science. These are obtained, as
Aristotle shows, by Induction, štoywyn. And I shall
presently make it evident, that this process, too, falls
under the general syllogistic method.
We can now see clearly how it was that collectives
were brought into formal logic. It was because logic
was formulated to bring to rule, and therefore to be
immediately applicable to, any and all sorts of oral
discussion. Now oral discussion could not move at
1 Anal. Post. A. 14. p. 79 a. 17.
2 Id. B. 19. p. 99 b. 15.
342
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
CH
V.
Th
Book II. all without using the phrases - all” and “some," or
their equivalents, because it dealt with the ready-
The Logic of made objects of direct conscio
Aristotle.
Aristotle wanted to formulate oral discussion, he
necessarily had to formulate the modes of speech
which oral discussion employed. This is the origin
of quantified predication in formal logic. It mattered
not that the analysis on which the whole was founded,
that of the logical and perceptual categories, showed
or would have showed, if pushed to its legitimate
issue, that collectives as general terms were a self-
contradiction ; they had to be formulated in logic,
because they were forms of common speech.
We may see, then, that Aristotle's syllogistic sys-
tem was an instance of what I remarked in Chapter I. ;1
it was a system which acted as a means of testing
and verifying an analytical theory. The system held
water, was practically sound; therefore the principles
upon which it was based, and from which it neces-
sarily followed, under certain proper restrictions,
were true; for had they not been so, the system
would not have held water.
But unfortunately the system being admitted to
be true, and true as a test of the correctness of all
reasonings and discussions, was taken as a result
valuable in itself, valuable as a means of carrying on
discussions, and even of discovering truth in the
phenomena of nature. It was considered as some-
thing to be worked at, elaborated, carried to minute
complexity. It was forgotten that one half of its
work was done once and for all, in that it had served
as a test of the analytical principles which gave it
birth, and that, in the other half of its work, namely,
1 At page 32.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
343
BOOK II.
CH. V.
$7.
YY
reas
regulating oral discussion, its merit consisted not in
its complication but in the very reverse, in its sim-
plicity and ready applicability. No one ever did or Theristerie
ever. will use formal logic as a primary method of
reasoning or argument; but only as a test of primary
methods. If it were a primary method, then no
doubt the more there should be of it, the better it
would be; but being only regulative and testing, the
less the better, provided the work of regulation can
be efficiently performed.
$8.
Induction and
Syllogism.
$ 8. Here is the place to solve two cognate diffi-
culties which have given rise to objections against
syllogistic logic, first, the question of the relation of
induction to syllogism, secondly, the supposed petitio
principii involved in syllogisms. Both are solved by
the distinction now explained between syllogisms
which are composed of quantified propositions, the
terms of which are collectives, and syllogisms which
treat concepts as units of proposition, the terms of
which are analysable by their intension, not by their
comprehension. The objections raised against syllo-
gism on both difficulties seem to me unanswerable,
so long as we understand, by syllogism, syllogisms
composed of quantified propositions; but are easily
disposed of when we take syllogism in its true sense,
as syllogistic process treating concepts as units.
First, then, as to the relation of induction to
syllogism. Aristotle maintains in the concluding
Chapter of his Posterior Analytics, that the ulti-
mates, the pool açxai or major premisses, of apo-
1 Anal. Post. B. 19. p. 99 b. 15 et seqq.
344
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
CI. V.
As a
$ 8.
CT
Book II. deictic syllogisms are gathered from experience by
an exercise of intelligence, voūs, working by the
Induction and method of induction, êT cywyn. Induction, then, is a
Syllogism.
process outside of, and prior to, apodeictic syllogism.
But in the Prior Analytics? he brings induction
under syllogism, by assigning a syllogistic form for
the inductions by which these apodeictic agxai are
obtained. Which, then, of the two is really prior,
and the condition of the other? Does induction
move by the laws of syllogism, or does it supply the
major premiss in every syllogism used in science ?
Grote, the distinguished historian of Greece, in
his extremely valuable work on Aristotle, argues
strongly against the validity of Aristotle's Inductive
Syllogism, concluding his argument thus: “We thus
see that this very peculiar Syllogism from Induction
is (as Aristotle himself remarks) the opposite or
antithesis of a genuine Syllogism. It has no proper
middle term; the conclusion in which it results is
the first or major proposition, the characteristic fea-
ture of which it is to be immediate, or not to be de-
monstrated through a middle term." According to
this, then, induction must be held as an independent
process and a prior process to syllogism; syllogism a
posterior process dependent on induction. And an
induction is representable as a syllogism only by
the assumption that the individual cases examined
are all, or in some way equivalent to all, the cases
contained under the class name which is taken as
the middle term.
In the first place, it must strike every one as
curious, that Aristotle himself should have made the
1 Anal. Prior. B. 23. p. 68 b. 15 et seqq.
2 Aristotle, Vol. I. p. 268-274. and the note.
LL
IS
University
MICHIGAN
GENERAL
FRAL LIBRA

PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
345
BOOK II.
CH. V.
$ 8.
V
same remark as his critic makes in refuting him; the B
proof of the invalidity of the inductive syllogism
consisting simply in exhibiting and enforcing what Induction and
Syllogism.
the introducer of the syllogism himself remarks con-
cerning it. It is obvious on the face of the passage
in Aristotle, that there is a sense in which syllogism
is the opposite of induction, and another sense in which
they agree. I cannot help wishing that Grote had
devoted his great powers, not to refutation, but to
discriminating these two senses, and thus clearing up
a point which Aristotle had left obscure.
Again, when Grote remarks, “ Accordingly, Aris-
totle directs us to supplement these premisses by the
extraneous assumption or postulate, that C the
minor comprises all the individual animals that are
bileless,"l_although he quotes the words de dě vosiv
TÒ T, 2.7.2.,-he does not observe that vosiv is the
technical word for the mental function employed in
induction, Ém cywyn, and that therefore the premisses
cannot be said to be supplemented by an extraneous
assumption or postulate, because this supplementing is
precisely the differentia of the inductive from the
ordinary syllogism. If there is an assumption at all,
it belongs to the induction ; and if induction does
not warrant the extension of the terin C to all the
individuals, it is not warranted at all. What Grote
calls an “extraneous assumption" belongs to the
inductive syllogism, not qua syllogism, but qua in-
duction; belongs to its inductive character.
My solution is the following. So long as we
have in view quantified syllogisms only, syllogism is
nothing more than a setting forth of the results of
1 Aristotle, Vol. I. p. 272.
2 Anal. Post. passage above cited.
316
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
CH. V.
$ 8.
Book II. induction. But what if we take syllogism as a pro-
cess of reasoning by unquantified propositions, each
Induction and term of which is taken as an unit and is analysable
Syllogism.
by its intension? Let us turn to the account above
given of induction as the method of scientific imagi-
nation. Two things must be distinguished; there
is induction a method of investigation, and there are
the several acts of observation, the facts observed
brought together one by one, from which the method
takes its name induction, ÉTayarn, or fact upon fact.
The observation of a single fact is not, but the obser-
vation of two facts together is, an induction. Induc-
tion as method depends on the use of hypothesis by
imagination; but the analysis of that method is into
acts of induction, i.e., acts combining two severally
observed facts. It may be usefully remarked also,
that Aristotle's voūs, the mental function by which
êtuyayoi is performed, is the equivalent, in his theory,
of hypothesis in the modern theory of the method of
induction. The modern theory and Aristotle's are
therefore in complete accordance with each other.
Now I say that the combining two severally ob-
served facts is a process of reasoning which is syllo-
gistic in its nature; it cannot be expressed but by a
complex proposition, which, being complex, may be
analysed into the three propositions of a syllogism.
Suppose I have a piece of Iceland spar before me. I
observe that it is a crystal, observation 1; I then
observe its double refraction, observation 2; I then
say, this is a crystal having double refraction. The
Iceland spar is the middle term of a syllogism in
Aristotle's Third Figure, but one which consists of
unquantified propositions.
1 Above in this Chapter, p. 305.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPTTU
347
.
Book II.
CH. V.
This piece of Iceland spar has double
refraction . . . . Bis A
This piece of Iceland spar is a crystal . Bis C
Therefore this crystal has double refrac-
tion . . . . .. Cis A.
Induction and
Syllogism.
Of course all that is made out by this syllogism
is this fact and no more, that an individual piece of
crystal has double refraction. But observe, it not
only records the result of a double observation, but
it expresses in terms and propositions the making
and the combining of the observations themselves.
The distinct expression of the observations follows
from the observations themselves being distinct while
being made. The syllogism does not register (to use
J. S. Mill's word) the induction only, as a whole,
that is, its result, but it registers each observation in
it as it is made. It is immediate to the observations.
One distinct observation cannot be combined with
another distinct observation except by a mental pro-
cess moving by the Postulates of Logic. I conclude,
therefore, that induction is a case of syllogism, or
general syllogistic reasoning, when you take both syl-
logism and induction in their true sense, and ana-
lyse the lowest and simplest acts of each.
The same distinctions and the same criticism are
applicable to deduction as to induction. There are
deductive acts and a deductive method. Every syl-
logism is a deductive act; the name simply expresses
the relation which the conclusion bears to the pre-
misses. But deduction as a method rests on a previous
process or method of induction, and begins from its
result, as a major premiss. It then follows a course,
the direction of which is the opposite to that taken
ces
348
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK JI.
CH. V.
$ 8.
Induction and
Syllogism.
by induction, coming down to particulars from
generals; not however to the same particulars as those
upon which it was founded, but to new ones which
have the same features as the original ones, but dif-
ferently combined, or in different circumstances.
Deduction also is syllogistic; not identical with it,
but a case of it. The identification of it with syl-
logism is tantamount to including induction under it;
and then, since all major premisses, in Aristotle's
Apodeictic at least, are obtained by induction, deduc-
tion is made to obtain (illogically) its own major
premisses. Neither deduction nor induction is the
whole of syllogism ; but both are cases of it. Infer-
ence in every shape is syllogistic, and there is infer-
ence in both the methods because there is inference
in the acts composing both.
And now comes the question as to petitio principii
in all syllogisms. Here again, supposing syllogisms
of quantified propositions to be spoken of, I cannot
but agree with what J. S. Mill says, in his Chapter
on the Functions and Value of the Syllogism, “It
must be granted, that in every syllogism, considered
as an argument to prove the conclusion, there is a
petitio principii."1 To take Mill's instance,
All men are mortal,
Socrates is a man,
.:. Socrates is mortal;
plainly, until we know that Socrates is mortal, we do
not know that All men are mortal, and to assert this
as the ground of proof that Socrates is mortal is to
assume what you profess to prove.
But the same answer must be made here as in
1 Systen of Logic, Vol. I. p. 205. 6th edition.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
349
Book II.
CH. V.
$ 8.
the former ease. The objection applies only to
quantified syllogisms. If we take the terms as units
analysable into their intension, the petitio principii Induction and
disappears. Replace “all men” as a collection of in-
dividuals by “man” meaning, say, “existents that
are rational and corruptible;" understand by “mor-
tal” the feature of “ sooner or later ceasing to live;">
and the syllogism stands as the expression of a double
observation,
To be rational and corruptible is sooner or
later to cease to live,
Socrates is rational and corruptible,
Therefore Socrates sooner or later will cease to
live.
It is not requisite that the case of Socrates should
have been examined in order to our assurance that
composita solvuntur. The appearance of its being
requisite comes solely from the form, by collectives
being used as terms; for “Socrates” is requisite as a
component of the term “all men.”
Quantified syllogisms are not the legitimate ex-
pression of the syllogistic process. The separatist
logicians have here a clear victory over Aristotle.
And since he also represents the syllogistic process as
an account of the mental process in all reasoning,
which it truly is, the separatist logicians seem to have
discovered a flaw inherent in the process of reasoning
itself. Hence their inclination to set up an Induc-
tion which is not syllogistic, as the rival of syllogism,
which they characterise as deduction, and to establish
that all reasoning, all real inference, is induction.
Mill classes together Syllogism, Ratiocination,
and Deduction, opposes them to Induction, and
LA
350
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book 11. then ascribes the whole of real reasoning, the whole
CH. V.
illative force or cogency of it, to induction; syl-
$ 8.
Induction and logism, ratiocination, and deduction, having the
functions of registering and interpreting its results.
Inference resides not in deduction, but wholly in in-
duction. Induction is not so named because it is a
process which includes the observation of new facts;
(so at least I understand Mill); but because it is a
process which infers new truth from facts taken as
given. “In every induction,” he says, “we proceed
from truths which we knew, to truths which we did
not know; from facts certified by observation, to
facts which we have not observed ; and even to facts
not capable of being now observed; future facts, for
example ; but which we do not hesitate to believe on
the sole evidence of the induction itself.” 2
Induction, then, according to Mill is inference,
and yet is not syllogistic. But how inference can be
other than syllogistic, if it is a sequence of thought,
or conception, or reasoning, expressible in proposi-
tions, I am unable to see. There is an inferential
and syllogistic process underlying the methods both
of induction and deduction, because it enters into
every act of combination composing both; and these
two methods may be properly contrasted as the two
parts, former and latter, of the whole process of dis-
covery and proof, induction leading up to general
truths, and deduction down to new cases under them.
And the whole being thus an inferential or syllogistic
process in both its parts, the inductive method is
farther distinguished from the deductive, first by its
0
1 System of Logic, Vol. I. pp. 208. 216. 218. 220. 229. 236.
247 (most important passage). 6th edit.
2 The same, Vol. I. p. 185. " See also pp. 321. 343.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
351
being guided by hypothesis, and then by its includ- Book 11.
ing the observation of new facts, facts not comprised
$ 8.
in framing the hypothesis, along with the old facts Induction and
Syllogism.
which were so comprised, and inferring finally a new
general proposition expressing the combination of
the new with the old facts.
. After reading Mill's theory subordinating deduc-
tion to induction as its mere interpretation, and at-
tributing the whole inferential force to induction, it
will be instructive to turn to another distinguished
separatist logician, and find Professor Jevons taking
the opposite line, subordinating induction, and treat-
ing it as “simply the inverse employment of deduc-
tion."1 This, he effects, too, on the same condition,
so to speak, on which Mill effected the very opposite,
the condition, namely, of first emptying induction of
its characteristic, which is its going on to the observa-
tion of new facts. By induction he means a process of
inference, not including new observations. Neither
in inductive nor in deductive reasoning can we add
a tittle to our implicit knowledge, which is like that
contained in an unread book or a sealed letter."2
Again, “The process by which they” (the general
truths to be ascertained by induction]" are reached
is analytical, and consists in separating the complex
combinations in which natural phenomena are pre-
sented to us, and determining the relations of sepa-
rate qualities. Given events obeying certain unknown
laws, we have to discover the laws obeyed."3 He
supposes Nature to give us phenomena in batches, as
it were, constituting problems ready stated for us.
1 Principles of Science, Vol. I. Preface, p. vi. also pp. 13-15.
2 The same, Vol. I. p. 136.
3 The same, Vol. I. p. 140.
in
TO
352
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book II. “ The effects are now given and the law is required.”l
Several other passages contain the same doctrine.?
$ 8.
Induction and In the last of these passages, indeed, Professor Jevons
Syllogism.
speaks of observation of facts as one of the three
“ steps in the process of induction.” But it is only
observation of “the particular facts under considera-
tion,” the “facts in question,” and which we begin by
“ being in possession" of. Professor Jevons, then,
while inseparably connecting induction with deduc-
tion, does so only by divorcing induction from new
observation. But by adopting my distinction it is
made clear, that the method called induction includes
both inference and new observation; while each
separate act of induction is expressible only as a pro-
position, and therefore, being also complex, contains
an inference, namely, the combination of two facts
not originally seen together.
In fine, the syllogistic process is not identical
either with deduction or with induction, but is com-
mon to both. It is a process the principles of which
are involved in every judgment and every proposi-
tion; and therefore it is that it is inseparable from:
methods of reasoning, by whatever names they may
be called, or whatever their other differences. As a
process it is the continuation of the process of judg-
ment, one judgment in combination with another,
just as terms are combined in judgments. What the
copula is in categorical propositions, that the middle .
term is in categorical syllogisms. Syllogism is there-
fore a far more abstract and elementary process than
either induction or deduction, though it is common
to both, and serves to distinguish both alike from
1 Principles of Science, Vol. I. p. 140.
2 The same, Vol. I. pp. 167. 168. 250-1. 262. 307-8.
T
1
UC
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
353
CH. V.
TE
v and
simple observation or perception. The mark which Book II.
distinguishes reasoning from perceiving is specially $8.
characteristic neither of deductive nor of inductive Induct
reasoning, but consists in the act of attention which
modifies percepts into concepts, and in its expression,
the Postulates of Logic.
$ 9. But to return to the main thread of our $9.
- Meaning of the
analysis. The copula means coalescence or non Copula.
coalescence. This is the true and also the Aristo-
telian doctrine. It is untrue and anti-Aristotelian
to hold that the (affirmative) copula means either
identity, equality, or convertibility. The word “is”
in propositions cannot have the same meaning as the
sign =, in mathematic. Mathematic has one predi-
cate only, with its contrary, in its whole range of
demonstrations; it predicates equality or non-equality,
it affirms or denies equality, between all the quanti-
ties, whether of number or magnitude, which come
before it. For its definitions, indeed, for its classifi-
cations of kinds of quantity, it seeks the aid of logic,
and the mathematician becomes a logician; but in its
demonstrations, in its calculations, it has no predi-
cate but equality. This is to say, in other terms, that
to measure and to calculate is the purpose of mathe-
matic. Accordingly, having but one predicate, there
is no harm but rather good, (since it facilitates calcu-
lation by keeping the two terms, compared
of equality or inequality, each for itself before the
inind), in throwing this one predicate into the copula,
and using =, where the general reasoner or logician
uses “is.” But logicians, whose purpose is not to
VOL. I.
AA
354
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book II.
measure or calculate, but to analyse all the relations
CH. V.
and modes of things, in respect of their kind and the
$ 9.
Meaning of the manner of their relationship, should at least, before
Copula.
adopting this device and importing the predicate of
equality into their copula, have paid more attention
than they seem to have done to Aristotle's distinct
denial of the possibility of so doing and to the whole
structure of his logical system.
Propositions which assert identity or equality
between subject and predicate, in which therefore
the terms are convertible), e.g., All A is all B, are
really not one proposition but two; the two being
All A is B, and All B is A;—which is an old remark.
It is indeed true, that there are propositions whose
terms are convertible. But there is no mark in the
form of the proposition itself to indicate whether the
terms are so or not. And this being so, every propo-
sition must, in Logic, be taken to mean the least that
it can mean; and the distinction between concrete
propositions whose terms are, and those whose terms
are not, convertible is not a distinction in pure Logic,
but is the first distinction of Method based upon Logic.
Those who adopt identity, equality, or convertibility,
as the meaning of the copula, are adopting the dis-
tinctive mark of Aristotle's method of Apodeictic, in
which the major premisses are definitions, and ex-
tending it to embrace Logic with all its methods, as
a whole. They thus leave Logic itself in the air, base-
less, that is, with its principle and method unanalysed,
and yet capable of analysis and demanding it. Nor
yet in doing this do they escape from the ambiguity
just mentioned, which they signalise in the use of
1 De Interp. 7. p. 17 b. 12. And see Anal. Prior. A. cap. 2.
p. 25 a. 7.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
355
CH. V.
0
the word “is.” The same ambiguity attaches also to Book II.
the sign =. Thus Professor Jevons says: “I con-
$9.
ceive that the sign = always denotes some form or Meaning of the
Copula.
degree of sameness or equivalency, and the particular
form is usually indicated by the nature of the terms
joined by it.” If you adopt a copula meaning iden-
tity or equality, you will of necessity require some
distinctive form to show when only a partial identity
is intended. And accordingly Professor Jevons in
such cases repeats the subject in the predicate, so as
to divide the whole natural range of its meaning and
restrict it to a part equal to the subject. For in-
stance, where ordinary logicians say “Man is mortal,"
or A is B, Professor Jevons says “Man is man mortal,”
or A= A B.2
Aristotle, although he made use of collectives
and quantified his propositions, yet had not so far
lost sight of the true analysis of conscious thought
as to mistake the meaning of predication, and quan-
tify his copula by making it mean equality; he did
not take either this step, or even that of quantify-
ing his predicates, towards the final consummation
of mathematicising logic. But the introduction of
quantity at all into propositions, (owing as I have
shown to collectives being substituted for concepts,
and comprehension for extension, and this to de-
fective analysis stopping short at objects of direct
consciousness), has worked like a leaven in the
science which Aristotle founded, and we see the fruits
of it at the present day in the writings of able mathe-
maticians, like the late Professors Boole and De
Morgan, and even in the work above cited of Pro-
1 Principles of Science, Vol. I. p. 19.
2 The same, Vol. I p. 47. 48.
356
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
$ 9.
UT
ter
Book II. fessor Jevons, notwithstanding his distinct belief that
CH, V.
he is reversing Boole's procedure, and subsuming
Meaning of the mathematic under logic, instead of logic under mathe-
Copula.
matic.1
No system of logical formulas, however completely,
minutely, and accurately adapted to represent the
classes and distinctions of things and of relations
discovered in objective phenomena, can supply—I do
not say a means of discovering—but a test of the
truth of discoveries when made, unless the logical
formulas are also, and independently, expressions of
the subjective process of thought employed in the
discovery, unless, therefore, they give back primarily,
not the distinctions found in the things, but the steps
and nexus of steps in the progress of the mind to-
wards finding them. Except from this independence
of origin, logical laws have no testing power at all.
They are mere repetitions of, stamps impressed by,
the facts which they are supposed to test. They are,
in other words, special sciences repeated, mathematic
in guise of logic. The special sciences, and mathe-
matic at their head, have an objective logic of their
own, drawn from the distinctions of the object-matter
which they investigate. We speak, for instance, of
the Logic of Political Economy. It is a form of ex-
pression suitable to the truths of a science while yet
in process of being systematised.
Now I do not deny that an artificial system of
logical formulas may be invented, founded it may
be on the principle of identity or equivalence of As-
pects, namely, of definition and its definitum, as in
Aristotle's Apodeictic, which is a reflective principle,
very different from the Postulate of Identity, A is A;
1 Principles of Science, Vol. I. pp. 83. 130. 173.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
357
$ 9.
1
BOOK II.
nor that such a system may be capable of rendering,
Ch. V.
and rendering better, all the services performed by
Aristotle's quantified Logic. Perfect identity of Meaning of the
definition and definitum may be laid at the foundation,
and partial identities referred to it as its cases; which
is done by Professor Jevons when he uses the sign =
for the copula. For his formula “ All men are mortal
men," A = A B, means after all just the same as the
old formula “ All men are (contained under the class)
mortals,” or A is B. But what I deny is, that we
should have, in such a system, an expression of the
process of thought as a subjective action; on the con-
trary, we should have in it a mode of reasoning, and
not reasoning itself, although it would be a mode
applicable to an object-matter equally wide as that
of mathematic. At any rate I should strongly doubt
the“ supreme importance”l of teaching such a logic
as this. I should suppose rather that any one who
had once shaken off the Aristotelian quantified system,
as practically an incumbrance, either in ordinary
matters, in science, or in philosophy, would be in no
hurry to lay his neck under the yoke of any substituted
similar; just as I imagine that those who have once
been freed from the tyranny of Romanism would
long and seriously hesitate, before submitting them-
selves to the domination of a scientific Priesthood of
Humanity.
e now
There is, besides, one important direction in which
such an artificial system as I have now described
would be of no use whatever, I mean in order to
analyse our own meaning in the use of words. For
such a system supposes every word used to have its
meaning fully known already, and begins only when
i Principles of Science, Vol. I. p. 129.
358
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Воок І.
I.
CH. V.
$ 9.
Copula.
2
rea
that meaning has been ascertained. But the process
of thought subjectively is occupied at least as much
with the analysis of the significance of words to us, as
with the relations of the things, for which they stand,
to each other. There is meditation in thought, as
much as there is calculation in it. The system sup-
posed provides only for the latter ; its words are
calculi or counters; their subjective analysis is taken
as performed; its logic is a reasoning “from the
teeth outwards."
There has always, since the days of Erigena, been
a healthy feeling of the uselessness and oppressiveness
of formal logic. But there was so much indisputable
truth supporting it as its root, and carried upwards
into its organisation, that in spite of the increasing
disgust it persisted in surviving. I think I have now
pointed out the exact spot upon which the cancer has
fastened,—the quantification of propositions, in conse-
quence of substituting comprehension for intension
and extension. If I should prove right in this
opinion, Formal Logic will soon have to be reformu
lated, and within much narrower limits.
The logical branch of metaphysic, however, which
we may fitly call Metalogic, will have received, by
the same stroke, an important development. The
analysis of thought as a process will have been ex-
hibited in its true relation to the analysis of per-
ception. And an answer will have been given not
only to the mechanical, unanalytic, unphilosophical,
error of the direct consciousness, or separatist, school,
which is pre-eminently English, but also to the views
of an opposite school, which is pre-eminently German,
that which, while seeing the true nature of the process
of thought, in point of its being analytic of all
nu-
W
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
359
BOOK II.
CH. V.
MT
existents or ready-made things, yet refuses to see the Book II.
derivation of this process from perception, the de-
'$ 9.
pendence of the conceptual order on the perceptual, Meaning of the
of which it is a modification. I am speaking, of
course, of Hegelianism.
The great merit and achievement of Hegel, as I
have remarked elsewhere also, was to show the true
method of the process of thought, its movement by
means of contradiction, of the combination of subject
with predicate, two differents made provisionally into
contradictories, in the proposition. But as Hegel
wanted not only to analyse thought, but also to ex-
plain how there came to be an Universe, he had to
introduce the “Real” or “Substantial” element, Aris-
totle's ovoid, into his system somewhere or other. Like
all genuine “Realists,” he introduced it into things,
not in their character of Percepts, but in their cha-
racter of Concepts; and the system became in conse-
quence a piecing together of those scattered portions
of the chain of redintegration, into which conception
breaks it up, and that not in a perceptual order, but
in a conceptual ; the fact of movement and sequence
being assumed to belong to concepts in virtue of
their property of Negativity; notwithstanding that
movement and sequence are characteristics of presen-
tation and spontaneous redintegration in order of
perception, which is a condition upon which their
modification into a conceptual order depends. It
pieced them together into a chain of concepts be-
ginning from the poorest and most general in con-
tent, and ending with the richest, for we have seen
that, in categorical affirmative predication, the sub-
ject is modified by the addition of the predicate and
1 See above, p. 301.
360
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book II. is enriched by a new attribute. The Universe was
CH, V.
thus represented as a single vast Scala Generum, and
Meaning of the the problem posed in Aristotle's Apodeictic was pro-
Copula.
fessedly solved by Hegel's Dialectic. Aristotle never
could, or rather he never did, in those writings which
have come down to us, give a complete List of Genera.
He probably allowed himself to be too much ham-
pered by Percepts, commonly called Facts. But when
all Perception had once “gone up” into a real and
concrete Concept, there was no insurmountable diffi-
culty in rolling the conceptual snowball, until it
gathered all that experience had to offer.
Hegel is in this respect the true successor of Duns
Scotus. But he is more also. Inasmuch as he be-
longs to the modern period, the period of Reflection
in philosophy, he is enabled to give an “absolute”
colour to his realism, because reflection is all-embrac-
ing, being the perception of the double aspect. He
is more than Platonic, he is Neo-Platonic. He is
thus the successor of that earlier and perhaps greater
Scotus, Scotus Erigena. For though Erigena has
been fairly called a Nominalist, yet he was a Nominal-
ist of a transcendent type. Real existence, for him,
lay neither in percept nor in concept, but beyond
them both; it was ÚTERObolov, transcendent existence.1
The method by which he found himself enabled to
treat of things which surpassed all our cognitive
faculties was the logical distinction with which the
De Divisione opens, namely, between things that are
and things that are not. Hegel's method is precisely
similar; and therefore it is that Hegel stands as the
i De Divisione Nat. Lib. I. $ 25. “Et hoc dignum quæsitu
video .... sed etiam intellectui esse." See also Prantl, Work
cited, Vol. II. p. 20 et seqq.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
361
representative, in modern times, of the Neo-platonists
Book II.
CH. V.
of antiquity and of the strict Platonic Realists of
$9.
scholasticism.
Meaning of the
Copula.
Modals.
CO
ess
§ 10. There remains, in order to complete the the shootive
whole subject of the present Chapter, the considera- Categories or
tion of percept and concept in the reflective mode of
consciousness. The analysis which we have just
made of them in the primary and direct modes is
itself an exercise of reflection in both perception and
conception. For without a return of consciousness
upon itself we could neither have distinguished an
object from our perception of it, and have thus re-
placed objects by percepts, nor have distinguished
the trains of objects as percepts from the reasoning
about them as concepts, that is, have distinguished
the conceptual from the perceptual order. What we
have now to do, therefore, is, by yet another return
of consciousness upon itself, to say what it is that we
have been doing in drawing these distinctions, to
describe in general terms wha
and conception consists in.
When we consider that a concept contains the
moment of the onward movement in thought, that
is, in redintegration accentuated by attention, while
a percept in thought contains only a single member
of the train which is its content, it is clear that a
reflective concept must contain this moment of on-
ward movement in trains consisting of reflective
percepts. But a reflective percept, as shown in
Chapter II., is nothing more or less than a percep-
362
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
CH, V.
.
tion of the double aspect, subjective and objective, in
objects. The forward movement of a train of such
$ 10.
The Reflective
ve percepts in thought is reflective conception, and gives
Categories or Pupun tuvumu
Modals.
us the conceptual order in the reflective mode. The
difference between simple conception and reflective
is, that the train of reflective percepts, out of which
reflective conception is generated, is not spontaneous;
there is no spontaneous redintegration of reflective
percepts, as there was of simple percepts; and for
this reason, that reflective percepts suppose a long
previous train of primary conception before they are
reached, and are never held fast but by an exercise
of attention. Reflective perception is itself a result
of reasoning applied to primary percepts.
Reflective perception is the perception of the
double aspect, subjective and objective, in percepts;
reflective conception is the reasoning with those per
cepts, is simple conception plus the double aspect in
the percepts and concepts which are the content of
the train. But simple concepts have no other second
aspect, except their aspect as percepts. They give
back, in consequence of attention, percepts modified.
Percepts passing through reasoning come out con-
cepts. The objective aspect of concepts is mediate,
that is, belongs to them in right of their being
modified percepts. It is the double character of its
content, and not any difference in its process or law
of movement, that distinguishes reflective froin simple
conception. The reflective mode of conception works
with richer and finer materials, but does not deal
with them on different principles from those of con-
ception in the primary and direct modes. Its object-
matter is double in point of aspect; that is the whole
difference.
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
363
CH. V.
Modals.
In reflective conception we begin with no less,
Book II.
and we end with no more, than the perception of the
$ 10.
double aspect, subjective and objective, in every- The Reflective
Categories or
thing. Just as the simple conceptual order began
by modifying percepts into concepts, and ended by
retransforming concepts into percepts again, so re-
flective conception begins with double percepts and
ends with double percepts, being itself the process
between, the comparison of concepts which can be
transformed into reflective percepts at any stage of
the proceeding. There is nothing in the process of
reflective conception per se to distinguish it from the
process of simple conception. Its content only, that
is, the matter of its judgments and propositions, is
different, being double, consisting of reflective per-
cepts, not of percepts simply.
The subjective and objective aspects together are
the proper object of reflective perception. This is not
the only case of double or obverse aspects, but it is
that upon which the perception that others are double
depends. Double or obverse aspects are the result
of perceiving the equivalence, identity, coextensive-
ness, or logical convertibility, of two or more differ-
ent terms or objects. One instance of this we have
already had in the case of percept and concept, which
are obverse aspects of each other, though not sub-
jective and objective aspects respectively. They are
obverse at the limit where the extension of a general
term becomes ideally perfect; and the perception
that the perceptual and conceptual orders are ob-
verse aspects of each other is a special case of reflec-
tion, which itself is the perception of the subjective
and objective aspects. It is a consequence of this,
that the concept, or extension, is sometimes con-
al
364
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
BOOK II.
$ 10.
tive
Categories or
Modals.
LY
sidered as the objective aspect of the corresponding
percept, or intension.
It is quite possible to perceive identity or equiva-
lence in simple conception, without reflection. Two
movements of conception, forwards and backwards,
that A is B and that Bis A, put together are sufficient
for this. When the A and B are respectively feeling
and felt, or perception and thing perceived, then we
have reflective perception, or perception of the sub-
jective and objective aspects, an identity of a parti-
cular kind, and the verification of all the rest, which
may be subsumed as cases under it. And it is pro-
bable that the circumstance of reflective perception
being a single moment with a double aspect has been
the cause of that mistake, mentioned above, of sup-
posing that all judgments, which have convertible
terms for their object-matter, are single judgments
expressible by single propositions, as, All A is all B;
a mistake which might have been obviated by dis-
tinguishing the terms of a judgment from the move-
ment between them.
Thus the perception of equality is not reflective
perception, but is a perception analysable by a
double movement of conception, from A to B and
from B to A. When we say “ A is equal to B,” we
really make two propositions, not one; and “equal
to” is really part of the predicate of the propo-
sition. Mathematical equality again is not by any
means the same thing as logical convertibility. This
latter is not merely a measured equality, a sameness
in point of magnitude, but includes an equality of
kind as well; it is an equivalence between differ-
ents. A special kind of equivalence between dif-
ferents, namely, a sameness in point of measured
PERCEPT 365
PERCEPT 0
.
AND AND CONCEPTCh. V.
$ 10.
mol
quantity, is that which is intended by mathematical Book II.
equality.
The perception of equality is afterwards farther The Reflective
Categories or
explained by subsuming it as a case, falling under Modals.
the more general concrete case of the perception of
identity, in kind as well as in magnitude, coexten-
siveness of differents, or logical convertibility of dif-
ferents. Equality is an identity of a particular kind,
identity in respect of magnitude. But there is a
more elementary identity still, and one which also
precedes reflective perception. There is the identity
which, in expression, is mere tautology; the identity
expressed by the Postulate, A is A. There is differ-
ence even here, the difference between the times of
recurrence of A. This identity, as we shall see in
the next Chapter, is an essential requisite of the
conceptual order, in primary as well as in reflective
consciousness. It must not be confused either with
concrete general identity, or with reflective identity,
in perceiving the subjective and objective aspects,
or with the special identity of magnitude, which is
equality. It is the primary source of all. The per-
ception of equality does not presuppose the perception
of reflective identity, any more than the perception
of identity in point of kind presupposes it. On the
contrary, these two identities are both pre-requisites
of reflective identity, identity of perception and thing
perceived. We perceive equality, and sameness of
kind or quality, without perceiving that they are
cases of identity in general. But probably the first
perception of total identity of differents is the identity
of reflective perception, the identity of the subjective
and objective aspects, at the moment when reflection
arises out of primary consciousness.
366
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
Book II.
CH. V.
$ 10.
Categories or
Y
UL
We can now see the advantage derived from ana-
lysing redintegration into the processes of perceiving
The Reflective and conceiving; which advantage consists in this,
Modals.
that we can break up reflective perception itself into
its component movements. And the analysis of con-
sciousness into its modes, primary, reflective, and
direct, is in its turn controlled by that into percept
and concept, just as, in another respect, we have seen
this latter analysis controlled by that into the three
modes.
The question next arises, In what shape does
conception give us back the reflective percepts ?
Simple conception gave us back simple percepts in
the shape of concepts, definitions, and the generic
scale. What corresponds to this in the case of the
reflective percepts ? Conception is characterisation.
What character do the reflective percepts bear, when
they are conceived or treated as concepts? It must
be such a character as to leave them still reflective,
that is, having still their double aspect, subjective
and objective. At the same time it must be a cha-
racter not drawn from without, from any mode of
consciousness beyond or above reflection, for we know
of no such mode. In other words, it cannot be a
characterisation of the whole order of reflective per-
cepts, but of some parts or features of it compared
with others; a distinction of classes of reflective
percepts.
There is only one feature in reflective percepts
which satisfies both these conditions, and which can
therefore serve as the point of distinction and com-
parison. It is the feature of Time. Time belongs
both to the objective and the subjective aspect of all
percepts; time is within reflection, and does not be-
P
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
367
BOOK II.
CH. V.
long to any (supposed) mode of consciousness beyond Bo
it. But also it is evident that no ready made, and
$ 10.
therefore, for the present purpose, arbitrary, distinc- The Reflective
Categories or
tions in time can be the basis of comparison. . It is Modals.
time itself in its utmost generality. Such a distinction,
for instance, as time past, present, and future, which
is a merely popular and empirical distinction, taken
alone, would be quite irrelevant to the purpose.
We want to characterise different modes of exist
ence, or of perception, by their time relations. And
we have, to start with, the general perception that
all of them must have the double aspect, subjective
and objective. Conception, however, is reasoning;
we want to characterise in order to attain real know-
ledge; we start then with that kind of percept which
is immediately perceived, with percepts such as we
have them in presentations. We generalise presenta-
tions. All true knowledge, all real existence, must
be capable of being the object of presentative per-
ception to some consciousness or other. This is the
notion of Real Existents, or (subjectively) Actual
Percepts.
But what of the content of the rest of Time, other
than that of any given presentation? Two things are
certain with regard to it, first, that any particular
portion of it, as compared with actual percepts, is
uncertain; second, that, if any portion is real, it will
on appearing in actual consciousness have such fea-
tures as all actual percepts have, duration being one,
whatever the rest may turn out to be. The first
consideration gives us the characterisation of Con-
tingently existing things, or (subjectively) Possible
Percepts. The second gives us that of Universally
existing things, or (subjectively) Necessary Percepts.
C
368
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
The R
lective
Book II. Whatever may or may not be, according to our pre-
CH. V.
sent knowledge, is, when conceived as an object so
$ 10.
The Reflective far as it is known, contingent. Whatever must be
Modals. perceived or thought, no matter what else is per-
ceived or thought along with it, is, when conceived
as existing, that is, in its objective aspect, universal,
omnipresent.
We have accordingly what are called the Modal
Categories, which I have attempted to show are
Categories of Reflection, thus accounting for their
double character. We may arrange them in a
tabular form, and in generalised terms, thus:
The Modal Categories or Categories of Reflection.
SUBJECTIVE ASPECT. OBJECTIVE ASPECT.
Actual . . . . . Existent.
Possible. ..Contingent.
Necessary. ..Universal.
It is a list of the most general classes of reflective
concepts; and it has the advantage of exhibiting the
derivation of the Modals, as they are called, from the
reflective mode of consciousness, as well as that of
keeping them clear of the confusing admixture of their
own contraries. Modals, it is true, like every other
kind of concepts, have their contraries; but why mis
up these with the question of their nature? It is
common to all contraries to be formed by means of
the process of contradiction, as I hope to show in the
next Chapter; and a concept is never fully under-
stood until it is contrasted with its contrary; and
therefore the present list is by no means final. But
why Modals alone should never be exhibited except
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
369
$ 10.
otive
Modals.
as part of a table of contraries I have never yet been BOOK II.
able to discover, unless it be a blind following o
Aristotle's example in his De Interpretatione ; where, I
ug Categories or
however, this arrangement is quite in place, being
dependent on the analysis of logical propositions;
-combined always with an insufficient analysis of
the phenomena of reflection.
The modal or reflective categories are the highest,
or most general, notions which we can form of the
universe at large; and the importance which they
derive from their reflective origin will be recognised,
if we remember what the scope of reflective con-
sciousness is, compared with that of direct, of philo-
sophy as compared with science. It is this, that
they help to fill up the empty cadres of reflection,
where empirical knowledge stops. In the construc-
tive branch of philosophy, they afford a framework
upon which any notions or imaginations, which we
may indulge, must be stretched. They fill infinity,
while they penetrate and pervade our present actually
phenomenal world; which stands to them, as we
cannot but think, in the relation of instance to rule,
of case to general law.
For it should not pass unobserved, that the list of
modals now given does not give them as contraries
in any way. It does not disentangle them, each
from its own contrary, only to bring them into the
position of contraries to each other. There is no
antagonism between them. It is the conceptual point
of view, the reasoning for the purpose of knowledge,
by and from which they are distinguished. They are
no more fixed determinations of supposed absolute
things, than are the genus, differentia, and species of
simple conception. They are mobilised forms of
VOL. I.
BB
T
370
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
II thought for laying hold of the universe of reflection,
Ch. V.;
as simple concepts lay hold of the world of primary
§ 10.
The Reflective and direct perception. And they are as completely
Categories or
Modals. and as inevitably derived from reflective, as the
simple categories are from primary, perception.
I will give an instance for the sake of obtaining
definiteness for my meaning, at the cost of a little
anticipation. Take the question of Freedom of Will
in choosing. Freedom is a phenomenon belonging to
reflection; the perception of being free to choose, or
to will, arises only in and with the perception of
self. It is a case under the general notion of Possi-
bility; we can act or not act in a particular way.
We thus have to consider freedom in conjunction
with the other two categories of Actuality, or Real
Existence, and of Necessity or Universality. And
the question is—What freedom is in analysis or con-
notation, what more it is than that perception of
being free, which is a phrase denoting what we in-
tend to speak of.
This question is soluble by distinguishing, by a
further modification of the distinction drawn above
in this Chapter, two ways of regarding the course of
time with its moving content of conscious states ;-
1st, transversely or statically; 2nd, longitudinally or
dynamically, from the present moment forwards into
the future. In the first, or transverse, way of re-
garding the course of time, everything is necessary,
a case of universally applicable laws or general facts.
It is from the second point of view that things appear
contingent, and our own action as free. But if we
consider in the next place, that this appearance must
be capable of being harmonised with the first appear-
ance, and consider also the fragmentary and partial
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
371
BOOK II.
Ch. V.
§ 10.
character of the view obtained by the second method,
(which it is, because, while immense tracts can be
embraced by the first, only the next moment or two The Reflectiv
v Categories or
can be seen by the second), -we are led to conclude Modals.
that the Truth of things is given rather in the trans-
verse or statical view, and that consequently universal
law or necessity is the truth of things and of actions.
We can then assign its true meaning to the sense of
freedom, as well as of contingency; namely, that
what we choose now is not cause but evidence of what
the end will be to which it leads, or the whole to
which it belongs; and that like the contingent event,
so also the contingent act, or choice, is merely the
coming into consciousness of the pre-existing order
which was before hidden from us. We are part of
that order; our choice is its actuality. In short we
may regard the whole Universe, statically, as an
eternal Now; or we may regard it, dynamically, as
an eternal nexus of conditions and consequents; or
we may vary slightly these methods and regard, first,
the course of time at a single moment transversely,
which gives us that moment as being ; and secondly,
longitudinally, which gives us that moment as
action.
I will give one other instance in illustration of
the bearing of reflection generally upon the construc-
tive branch of philosophy. Man, in the infancy of
the race, began by looking at all nature, all objects,
as personal and conscious, like himself. He has
ended, up to the present time, by eliminating per-
sonality and.consciousness from everything but God
(i.e. the supposed Unknown or Beyond of expe-
rience) and himself. Will he proceed to eliminate it
from God? Can he eliminate it from himself ?.
372
PERCEPT AND CONCEPT.
BOOK II.
CH. V.
Clearly not the latter; there must be a subjective
aspect. But if a subjective aspect at all, then neces-
$ 10.
Reflective sarily of everything. Personality and consciousness
Categories or
Modals. return into all nature again; but they return in the
shape of a characterisation, a determination of reflec-
tion, not of direct perception, not in the shape of an
immaterial substance or agent, nor as seated in any
other centre than man.
So far is the result of reflective analysis. But when
we go on to the questions of history and of origin,
and ask Whence, then, has man his consciousness, how
came he to be its seat? the answer must be in some
form or other), From that Nature of which he is a
part, and which is in part the object of his direct, as
well as of his reflective, perception. Man and Nature,
then, are of a piece, and man is the seat of conscious-
ness. Inevitably the question arises,-Is not nature
so also, though man may have no direct perception of
the fact? This is the main question of the Construc-
tive Branch of Philosophy.
CHAPTER VI.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
$ 1.
tion,
UU
C
are
§ 1. It is far, nay incomparably, more needful at the Book II.
present time to work at the dry detail of metaphysi-
cal analysis, the foundations of analytical philosophy, The Principle
Pays of Contradic-
than to indulge in speculations, however interesting
their questions or dazzling their replies, in the domain
of constructive philosophy. Metaphysic is a pressing
need. Why are mankind everywhere at war with
one another on questions of religion ? Not because
there are not religious men on this side or on that ;
not because dogmas, being indifferent (which they
are not), are taken as essential; not because religion
is mixed up with motives of personal and party
interest, vanity, and ambition; but mainly and funda-
· mentally because religious men themselves are ignor-
ant of the analysis of human nature, including the
mode in which religion belongs to it, and the relation
which it bears to its brother elements in it. Until
we have an accepted metaphysic, religious concord
is impossible.
Again, what are the internal causes which chiefly
hasten, even if they do not alone produce, the decay,
old age, and death, of nations which have once
374
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
§ 1.
· enjoyed a vigorous prime? There comes a time in
the life of prosperous nations, when the mass either
The Principle of the whole population or of the governing classes
of Contradic-
tion.
find themselves in a condition of ease and affluence,
and turn their thoughts to individual enjoyment.
Their life of hardship and effort, the direction of
which was determined by the necessity of struggling
with some external force, is changed into a life the
direction of which they have to choose for themselves.
I speak of the individuals composing the mass either
of the whole population or of the governing classes,
who give its stamp to the whole tone of society, and
direct the activity of the whole. Every such period
in a nation's life is a period of crisis. A Choice of
Hercules has to be made. If such a period coincides
with one in which old religious dogmas are falling
away, and religious sects are falling asunder, the crisis
is doubly critical; for a main circumstance that would
otherwise have guided the choice is absent. If self-
knowledge is important to an individual in every case
where he has to make his own choice in direction of
life, an agreement on the true principles of conduct,
founded on agreement on the true analysis of human
nature, is no less important to a nation. Not that this
supplies the place of religion, but that it enables
religion to be generally efficacious, when otherwise it
would be paralysed through religious dissensions. I
think I do not overrate the importance of the services
which a true metaphysical analysis might render,
though mediately and remotely. In medicine, a
sound diet is not to be despised, merely because it is
not a panacea.
Taking leave, then, of speculations like the last of
the two brought as illustrations at the conclusion
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
375
$ 1.
awan with the moment The Principle
of Contradic-
tion.
of the foregoing Chapter, I return to the main course
BOOK II.
Course Ch. VI.
of the series of distinctions which are the purpose of
the whole. We may, in accordance with the proof :
given in the foregoing Chapter, define reasoning, or
the conceptual order, as the forward moving sequence
of conscious states in redintegration, subject to the law of
parcimony, that is, modified by the volition of re-
ducing them to the order which is the simplest in
form, and at the same time the richest in content.
In this sequence, we have at the outset to dis-
tinguish the time which belongs to the sequence
itself from the times, or from the times and spaces
together, which are occupied by the images which
compose the sequence. These may sink into points
or swell into infinity; at the same time they are strung,
so to speak, on a line of time, by the mere fact that
they follow one another in thought. I may think
now of the earth's orbit, next of a bee's wing, next of
the beauty of a just action. All these images become
concepts in thought. Their relations to other images,
and the relations of their constituent parts to them
and to one another, are what we mean to express by
ranging them in the generic scale. The generic scale
and all its parts is a consequence not a condition of
predication, as was shown in the last Chapter; it is so
because its formative general categories, the categories
of logic, genus, differentia, and species, are themselves
formed by attention, comparison, and judgment. These
logical categories are necessary to thought; to attend
to and compare percepts is to turn them into concepts,
and to subject them to a generic scale. But the
genera, differentiæ, and species, which are at any time
the content of this scale, are changeable in the highest
degree; not being, as they stand, the order of nature,
LI
376
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
tion.
BOORVII. but depending on the degree of our insight and
$1.
knowledge from time to time. The logical categories
The Princinle
Perinciple are mobile in applicability, fixed in their own nature;
of Contradic-
indifferent to their content, necessary in their form.
It is to the line of time upon which these sequences
of concepts are strung that the point of division and
connection belongs, which in propositions is marked
by the copula, the point fixed by attending to some
feature in the redintegration. Without this point
there would be no concepts, no comparison, no judg-
ment, no predication, no thought, no reasoning. The
first step in making a comparison or determining a
relation is to form a concept, to fix on what you are
going to compare and to distinguish it for that pur-
pose from everything else. This is the work of at-
tention. You call it, suppose, A. Then A, because it
is expectant, is a concept. And by A you mean A,
and nothing else. But you proceed to fulfil the pur-
pose for which you fixed upon it, and to compare it
or bring it into relation with something else. This
something else is something or other offered by spon-
taneous redintegration, which has been previously
separated from A by attention. A which was, in
attention, not not-A, now, in predication, is not-A,
namely (suppose) B. The proposition expressing
the judgment, A is B, arises by overleaping the point
of Contradiction, the point fixed by attention to dis-
tinguish A from not-A.
The facts which have been just described make
up what is known as the Principle of Contradiction.
The principle of contradiction is a short-hand expres-
sion of these facts, of the nature and significance in
logic of attention and volition in reasoning. The
principle of contradiction is thus the ultimate basis of
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
377
CH. VI.
tion.
logic; it is so, because attention in redintegration is BOOK
so. This latter fact is the psychological basis of the
$ 1.
logical principle. The principle itself has moreover The Principle
been formulated in logical terms, and expressed as
consisting in the Three Postulates of Logic; Postu-
lates not Axioms, because they are volitional in
origin, and define a method, not an already existing
object-matter. They may be formulated as follows:
THE POSTULATES OF LOGIC.
1. Identity. 2. Contradiction. 3. Excluded Middle.
e.g.
e.g.
A is A A isn't not-A Everything is
or
either A or else
No A is not-A.
not-A.
e.g.
Incapable of existing without content, but at the
same time completely indifferent to any particular
content, these postulates, expressing the principle of
contradiction, are the leverage of conative conscious-
ness, the point of resistance in the machinery by
which it works.
The consequences which flow from this principle,
the modifications and distinctions which arise from
it, and not from the particular kind of content in or
upon which it works, these are the object-matter of
Logic as a science, the machinery of Logic as an
organon. These and these alone constitute formal
logic. They are established and justified, as in the
present Chapter, by Metalogic, a branch of metaphysic
or analytic philosophy. They will be deduced from,
or shown to be consequences of, the principle of con-
tradiction. This and the postulates which formulate
it cannot be demonstrated, but must be and are as-
sumed as self-evident. They can be pointed out and
378
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
tion.
Book II. analysed as facts, facts universally present in a par-
ticular kind of action, namely, reasoning, and there-
$ 1.
The Principle fore necessary to that kind of action. As facts, they
of Contradic-
are perceived as inherent in reasoning; as truths,
they are assumed as self-evident and incapable of
demonstration. You must either reason by their
means or not at all. And the truth of the whole con-
tent of formal logic depends on the truth of this
assumption.
It is the indifference of formal, or as it is often
called general, logic to every kind of content sepa-
rately, though not to content at large, which makes
it more abstract and general than any other science.
It stands above the mathematical sciences in this re-
spect. Its object-matter is the formal element of all
consciousness, time, divided only by the point of
contradiction, which is marked by the copula. It is
clearly a pre-requisite of Geometry, and not only so,
but the object-matter of geometry is far more special
and concrete; it is the configuration of space, space
already divided by difference of feeling, magnitude
of a particular kind. Logic is also a pre-requisite of
Arithmetic, for it is prior to Number. You cannot
have number till you have divided or distinguished
an A from everything else, say from B. When you
have distinguished A from B, you can call A one, and
B two. But the act of distinguishing them precedes.
Time must be distinguished into moments by atten-
tion before those moments are marked as first second,
third, and so on. The act of attention may give us
the moments as former and latter, preceding and
following, but mere sequence in time is not number.
It is a condition of it, a step towards it. In order to
have number, all other features of the sequence, ex-
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
379
CH. VI.
$ 1.
tion.
1
cept that of times of occurrence, must be consciously
Book II.
excluded. Number is simply and merely the discrete-
ness of quantity, i.e., multitude. Algebra, again, The Principle
though in point of method more general than Arith
metic, is not more abstract in respect of its consti-
tuent elements. Its methods enable you to treat of
numbers, and affections of number, under general
denominations, that is, symbols, which may or may
not prove to have actual numbers corresponding to
them; but the full notion of discrete quantity, multi-
tude, and measure of multitude, is always involved.
It is not more but less general than arithmetic, in
respect of complexity of content. It adds determina-
tions of number to those already employed in arith-
metic.
Our starting-point, then, is the Principle of Con-
tradiction, formulated as the Postulates of Logic; and
their pre-supposition, the object-matter into which
they are introduced, is the train of differents in re-
dintegrations in perceptual order, or the sequence of
different images composing perceptual redintegra-
tions. Observe that in these redintegrations we have
only differents; the images are different from one
another, they are not contradictories, nor contraries,
nor privatives, nor negatives, nor relatives. It may
be said perhaps that they are relatives, since they are
differents ; difference being a certain sort of relation.
But this apparent inconsistency arises from our being
compelled to use general terms in speaking of every-
thing, even of things in their first intention. I mean,
we are compelled to call different things different, even
when we speak of them before they have been thought
as different. We often remember that, in dreams,
different images have replaced one another without
380
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
$1.
tion.
U
our having been conscious of the moment of change
from one to the other; the reason is, that in these
of Contradic-
tiradple dreams we are not reasoning but merely redintegrat-
ing, though possibly redintegrating the results of
reasoning; the moment of volition is wanting in the
connection of the different images. It is a difference
of this kind that is involved in the perceptual trains
of redintegration before the introduction of the point
of contradiction. To think of two things as different
is not merely to perceive difference; it is something
more; it is to bring them under a relation in thought.
But relation in thought depends upon the introduc-
tion of the point of contradiction. Without this,
there is no connection in thought, there is only con-
nection in fact, between them.
When we have formed such categories as different,
relative, contrary, and so on, we apply them to every-
thing, even to the perceptions which are their pre-
requisites. The very universality of their applica-
bility, which is their glory and the justification of
thought as an exhaustive process of reaching truth,
is a misleading circumstance if we take these cate-
gories as ultimate and inexplicable, and do not sub-
mit them to a careful analysis. And language itself,
consisting as it does of terms already generalised,
tends to blind us to the difference between first and
second intentions, to the double source of our general
terms.
That source of them which immediately concerns
us is the point of contradiction, and its introduction
into trains of differents. We fix upon one of these
differents by attention, A, and the first thing that
arises is a single proposition, a negative one:
A isn't not-A.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
381
Воок ІІ.
CH. VI.
I TIPI
ha
This gives us the contradictory terms, A and not-A,
by virtue of the postulate of Identity, A is A; for we
$ 1.
have A is A, and not-A is not-A; and by the third The Principle
of Contradıc-
postulate, there is nothing that is not either A or else tion.
not-A. The three postulates hang together. State
one and you state all; contradict one and you con-
tradict all. But it is from the second postulate, the
postulate of contradiction, that contradictory terms
arise. In order to explain what contradictory terms
are, we have to go to the postulate of contradic-
tion.
In the next place it is to be observed of these con-
tradictory terms, that the negative one, not-A, has no
content. There might have been in its stead a term
with a positive content, and then the proposition
· might have been an affirmative one, A is B. But as
it is, in the proposition, A isn't not-A, the term not-A
has literally no content. All its possible content is
in its contradictory, A. But A is excluded from it in
toto. This is only to say, in other words, that there
are no such things as wholly contradictory percepts,
or that contradictory terms, as such, are solely cate-
gories of thought, not of perception; for though A
may exist, and indeed is assumed to exist, and have
a positive content, yet it does not exist as a contra-
dictory unless its contradictory also exists; and this
it does not, not-A having no content. Of two wholly
contradictory terms, the one is thought as existent,
the other as non-existent. The reason of the restric-
tion, wholly, will be seen when we come to treat of
Contraries.
In the next place it is to be noted, that the posi-
tive content is in the subject and not in the predicate
of the proposition, A isn't not-A. A is a percept, an
382
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
$ 1.
of Contradic-
tion.
existent, what in Grammar is a substantive. The
contradictory term to it, not-A, is a non-existent, is
not a percept, having no content. To state the exist-
ence of not-A, as a contradictory term to A, you must
employ the contradictory proposition to A isn't not-A,
viz.: A is not-A, which exhibits the absurdity. Or if
by an Hegelian turn of expression' we adopt the con-
verse of the proposition, and say Not-A is A, this can
only be a true proposition in the sense that A is an
element in the logical term not-A, while the appear-
ance of existence, of perceivability, in not-A is given
to it solely by its being put in the place of subject of
the proposition, as if we knew it independently of its
predicate. This proceeding contains the substance of
Hegel's method. The negative member of a pair of
contradictory terms, which is a pure creature of logical
method, analogous to imaginary quantities in mathe-
matic, is treated by Hegel as if it were a concept
with a perceptual content. The “ Nichts” at the be-
ginning of the Logik is the first instance of it. But
this can delude us only so long as we are unaware of
the double source of terms of thought, the perceptual
and the conceptual, and of the mode in which they
are combined in reasoning.
Two things, then, derive immediately from the
postulates, contradictory terms, A and not-A, and
contradictory propositions, A isn't not-A, and A is
not-A. And just as there is no perceptual content in
the negative contradictory term, not-A, so also there
is no truth in the contradictory proposition which
affirms that negative contradictory term of its own
contradictory; there is no truth in it because it con-
1 E.g. “ Nicht ein Dieses ist ein Allgemeines der Reflexion."
Subj. Logik. Das Singulare Urtheil. Werke, Vol. V. p. 91.
24
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
383
BOOK II.
tradicts the postulates. The principle of contradic-
CH, VI.
tion is the logical source of truth.
$ 1.
I subscribe, then, but with the reservation ex- The Principle
pressed above by the word wholly, to Herr Pastor tion.
Knauer, when he says in his most philosophical little
treatise Conträr und Contradictorisch, that there are
no such things as contradictory concepts, but only
contradictory judgments. “Contradictorisch sind
auf assertorischem Boden nur die Behauptungen von
Existenz und von Nichtexistenz.” And again, "nur
wenn ein und derselbe Begriff ab- und zugesprochen
wird, findet wirklich die Contradiction statt.” To
say that there are no wholly contradictory concepts
but only judgments, and to say that the term contra-
dictory in toto of another term having a positive con-
tent has itself no positive content, are one and the
same thing. I think nevertheless that it is rather a
roundabout way of arriving at this, to deduce it from
the Kantian table of Categories, by referring it solely
to the moment of Modality. The analysis of the pro-
cess of judgment seems to me a far more direct and
conclusive way.
Knauer's criticism of Hegel's views on contrary
and contradictory concepts is also excellent. Hegel
admits the existence of contradictory concepts, but
says that they, as well as contrary concepts, are
determined in a superficial manner by ordinary logi-
cians. His own view is, that they are moments in
the evolution of the Concept; belonging to that stage
ofit when it appears as the General Concept (allgemeiner
Begriff), and expressly visible in the particular form
of Judgment which exhibits the general concept,
i Halle, 1868, pp. 86. 87. 88.
2 Work cited, pp. 119-121.
OWO
384
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Book II.
$ 1.
The Principle
of Contradic- t
tion.
u rity
and a su
namely, the Disjunctive Judgment. The disjunctive
judgment, with Hegel, is the exhibition of what we
commonly call a genus and its several species. And
contradictory is the term applicable to the several
species as they are exclusive of one another; contrary
the term applicable to the same species as they are
identified with one another in the genus.
If it should excite surprise that this is all that
Hegel has to say upon so fundamental a point in
philosophy and logic as the nature of contradictory
and contrary opposition, the explanation is simple.
It was precisely the point which Hegel's theory made
of no importance. It is a pre-supposition of his
theory that this point is not fundamental. The
evolution of the concrete concept is his fundamental
idea; it evolves itself by Entgegensetzung, a concrete
opposition containing undistinguished the purely
logical opposition of contradiction, and the opposi-
tion of content which is contrariety. The former
opposition gives the motive power, the latter the
order and arrangement, of the evolution. Thus the
pure Nothing, Nichts, at the beginning is logically
opposed to the pure Being, Sein; hence the movement
between them. There is no opposition of content, no
difference of content at all, between them, until they
are conceived together; then they are perceived to be
different in content, but at the same time to be a
process, a Werden, not (either of them) a state or
thing. The whole makes one indistinguishable pro-
cess of opposition or becoming, Entgegensetzung or
Werden. To analyse this process, to show what is
due to perception, what to conception, what part of
1 Hegel, Subjective Logik. Werke, Vol. V. pp. .54-55 and
p. 104.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
385
of Contradic-
the opposition is due to content, and what to logical
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
contradiction, would be to destroy it as a theory of
§ 1.
the universe. It supersedes the principle of analysis The Principe
by the principle of concretion. The Hegelian logic is tion.
radically different from the Aristotelian, the Aristo-
telian resting on an analysis which the Hegelian
obscures and obliterates.
We
§ 2. It is next in order to follow up the question
Contradiction
of contradictory terms, and to see how we pass over in Predication.
the logical point of contradiction in propositions, and
apply the method of contradiction in positive predi-
cation, without contradicting the postulates by which
we move. We have A distinguished from not-A as
its contradictory term. How get beyond the ap-
parently closed circle of the postulate of Identity,
A is A? It is experience, brought again before us in
perceptual redintegration, that decides the question.
A is a concept, an expectant; but apparently expect-
ant of nothing, or with its expectations deceived,
since by the postulate of identity A is nothing but A.
But everything depends upon what we mean by A,
what its perceptual content is. A, to use Aristotle's
phrase, σημαίνει τι, and the question is, τί σημαίνει και
Suppose A to be a singular existent, since it has
been already shown that percepts are treated as sub-
stantives by being used as subjects in propositions;
suppose it is the Hat on the table before me. We
have it in a proposition thus:
The Hat is
VOL. I.
CC
386
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Book, 11.
CH. VI.
$ 2.
Contradiction
in Predication.
0
Aye, What? It is well to leave a blank. It is plain
that it can be nothing but The Hat. Yes. But it
may be, nay must be, aye is—The whole Hat. Pre-
cisely so, the hat, the whole hat, and nothing but the
hat. We have before us a content of perception, and
the next moment of the proposition, its predicate,
consists of that content or part of it. The hat has
qualities in it, and relations between these, and re-
lations to other objects outside itself, and to various
percipients, and to various times and places. It is a
portion of the perceptual universe in connection with
other portions. These qualities and relations are
parts of the whole hat, determinations of the hat to
be in every particular what it is; and they furnish the
predicates of the hat as subject. The copula, is, ex-
presses the coalescence, that is, the uniting into one
image, of the predicates with one another and with
the hat. Our perception of what the hat is and what
its relations are, as percepts, determines our choice
of the predicates; is their conditio existendi as predi-
cates; while conversely their application as predicates
is the conditio cognoscendi in our logical or reasoning
cognition of the hat. The subject determines its
predicates in perceptual order, in virtue of its being
a percept; the predicates determine the subject in
conceptual order, in virtue of their being concepts.
The determinations too, which are expressed as pre-
dicates, are all adjectival determinations in the first
instance, whatever tricks we may play with them
afterwards. I mean that, as given by experience,
they are adjectival. In saying, e.g. the hat is a cover
for the head, we do not mean, at least if we merely
repeat experience, the hat is one of the class called
covers for the head. We mean the hat stands in a
CONTRADICTION VIL
387
AND CONTRARIETY.
certain relative position to the head.' The imagery
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
before us consists of a hat and a head, and not of all
$ 2.
sorts of covers for heads. Yet with all this fulness . Contradiction
Con in Predication.
of predication we have not contradicted the postu-
lates; we have merely determined their content in a
particular case. All these predicates are not not-A
but A. They never were not-A; they were not
thought at all; they lay in the indetermination of
experience either newly given or registered in
memory. They come from perception and are
ranged and ordered by conception; they are not
creations of The Concept.
Contradictory
propositions.
§ 3. We have now to follow up the principle of $
contradiction in its application to concrete predica- and Contrary
tion, in such propositions as those just described.
In the first place, what is the circumstance which
differentiates predication of this sort from the ab-
stract propositions in which the postulates are ex-
pressed ? It is this. In the postulates, the contra-
dictory or identical terms appear as subject and
predicate of the same proposition. Those terms
are A and not-A, and the predicate not-A is the
contradictory of the subject A. But the concrete
proposition, A is B, is a determination of the subject
by the predicate. Its contradiction therefore must
be a contradiction of that determination. The thing
affirmed by the original proposition must be denied
by its contradictory proposition. Again, since it is
the characteristic of the negative member of a pair
of contradictory propositions (just as in the case of
contradictory terms) to have no perceptual content,
388
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
and Contrary
propositions.
Book II. as in A isn't A, which is the contradictory of A is
CH. VI.
A, it follows that the concrete contradictory proposi-
$ 3.
Contradictory tion, of which we now speak, must affirm nothing in
denying its original, affirmative, contradictory. It
must not determine in any way the subject common
to both.
Accordingly we have, as concrete contradictory
propositions, such propositions as:
This black hat is heavy,---
This black hat isn't heavy;
where nothing whatever is affirmed of this black
hat,' the common subject, by the negative member of
the pair of propositions. The determination - heavy'
is denied of it, and nothing more. If however I were
to take the contradictory term to the predicate 'heavy,'
namely, 'not-heavy,' and affirm this term of the sub-
ject, as in "This black hat is not-heavy,' I should get,
not the contradictory of the original proposition, but
the affirmation of another determination, opposite and
exclusive of the former. I should affirm that this
black hať had a determination, and that this deter-
mination was the exclusive opposite of 'heavy. I
should get a contrasted, or possibly a contrary, but
not a purely contradictory determination.
By contradictory terms, then, I mean contra-
dictories in toto, contradictories as existents, as sub-
stantive percepts one of which exists and the other
exists not. And it makes no difference what the
content is, so long as that content is taken as an
existent. Its non-existence, that is, its non-existence
as a percept, is stated or expressed by the negative
contradictory term: A--not-A; This black and
heavy hat--not this black and heavy hat.
1
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
389
CH. VI.
$ 3.
owo.
But take the contradictory terms as determina- BOOK IT
tions of an already existing percept, as adjectives of
a substantive, and you make those contradictory Control testery
terms into contrary terms. Contrary terms are con- propositions.
tradictory determinations of a subject, or existent,
supposed to be given and admitted. This is their
differentia from contradictory terms, which may be
called their genus.
Briefly, then, we may define contradictory cate-
gorical propositions as those in which, subject and
predicate being the same, the copula is affirmative
in one and negative in the other. Contrary cate-
gorical propositions may likewise be defined as those
in which, the copula remaining affirmative, the pre-
dicates are contradictory determinations of the sub-
ject. And the practical criterion is, that the negation
in contradictory propositions lies in the copula,
whereas in contrary propositions it is attached to the
predicate. For instance:
This black hat is heavy. Contradictories. Nothing is affirmed
This black hat isn't heavy. ſ by the negative proposition.
This black hat is heavy. Contraries. The subject is affirmed
This black hat is not-heavy. ) to be something but not heavy.
The foregoing account of this matter differs
widely not only from Hegel's but also from that
usually given, and rests upon the principle of con-
cepts being the units of thought, and upon their
being treated as units in the real and actually em-
ployed process of thinking and reasoning. The
account usually given rests, on the other hand, on
the quantification of propositions as universal and
particular, and their classification under the well
390
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Book II.
CH. VI.
$ 3.
Contradictory
and Contrary
propositions.
known logical symbols A. E. I. 0. Contradictory
propositions are, according to this, those which differ
both in quantity and quality, contrary and sub-con-
trary those which differ only in quality; the quality
of propositions meaning their affirmative or negative
character, and quantity meaning the “all” or “some"
of the collective terms which are their subjects. Pro-
positions where the negation attaches to the predi-
cate, as in the hat is not-heavy,' are not provided
for by this scheme, and are then classed apart as
expressing what are called “infinite” or “unlimited”
judgments,-a class at once useless and confusing.
This account of contrary and contradictory pro-
positions recognises to some extent the true principle,
that a negative contradictory proposition makes no
affirmation of its own, but confines itself to denying
its affirmative contradictory. But the controversial,
discussional, origin and purpose of the formal logic,
to which this account belongs, are betrayed by the
limited use made of this principle. A and O are
contradictory propositions, — say, 'All swans are
white,' and 'Some swans are not white. This nega-
tive contradictory, 'Some swans are not white,' is
not the contradictory of 'All swans are white,' except
inasmuch as the fact which it states enables us to
deny it. It is not the contradictory, but a premiss
enabling us to deny all swans are white;' some one
has seen swans which are not white, and therefore
all swans are white' is untrue. Such an account of
contradictories and contraries leaves the nature of
contradiction itself entirely unexplained.
Contrary propositions depend on concrete predi-
cation determining a subject by predicates; and just
as contrary terms come from contradictory terms by
SW
n
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
391
honne in the monulo
Contradictory
and Contrary
taking the latter as determinations instead of as sub- BOOK IT.
| CH. VI.
stantives, so contrary propositions come from con-
tradictory propositions, not by a change in the copula, go
but by a contradiction within the predicate or deter- propositions.
mination of the subject. This distinction of pairs of
propositions into contradictories and contraries ex-
hausts the division of propositions in this direction
and in their character of propositions. The essence
of a proposition lies in the copula, the nexus of
judgment. When the ground of division is removed
into the predicate, all further division of propositions
is not a division of them in their essence but in their
accidents. We have propositions divided, first, in
respect of their essence, their copula. This gives us
the two classes of contradictory and contrary propo-
sitions, contradictory where the copula is different,
and the propositions respectively affirm and deny an
existent as substantive; and contrary, where the
copula is the same, a determination is expressed in
both cases, and the determination affirmed by the
one is denied by the other.
Relatives.
$ 4. It remains to follow up the division of pro $ 4.
Contraries,
positions into the distinctions offered by the mode of Privatives, and
determination of the predicate; the logical distinctions
be it observed, which depend, not solely on the per-
ceptual differences observable in the object-matter,
but on these under the action of the principle of
contradiction, or in their character of contradictory
determinations. The heads under which these dif-
ferences will be found to fall are the true logical ma-
chinery in actual employment and of practical use.
392
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
Privatives, and
YU
1. More will have to be said, farther on, concerning the
principle and method by which this machinery itself is
$ 4.
Contraries.created. But for convenience of exposition I postpone
Relatives. this, until the Modal Categories have been examined.
The ascertainment of these distinctions is in one
respect more simple than the part of our task which
now lies behind us, the discrimination of the proper-
ties of terms from the properties of propositions. We
have no longer to drive four-in-hand, so to speak;
contradictory terms and contradictory propositions
together; we are reduced to a pair, contradictory
terms in their character of determinations of given
existents, i.e. Contrary Terms.
At the same time, this division of the subject is
not without obscurity, which has indeed lasted from
the days of Aristotle. Here, as so often elsewhere,
Aristotle laid the foundations. But his special trea
tise on the subject, his εκλογή Or διαίρεσις των εναντίων
has not come down to us.1 Still a great deal, and
that bearing on the logic of the case, is found in
what we have; more particularly in the First Book
of the Physica Auscultatio, and in Books T and I of
the Metaphysica.
This division of the subject, besides, corresponds
to what Kant called Construction of Concepts, a divi-
sion which he excluded under that title from Meta-
physic altogether, and treated as a mere application
of concepts to intuition ;2 and which it was Maimon's
1 See Bonitz; Comm. on the Metaphysica, Book T. p. 1004
a. 2.
2 Preface to 2nd edit. of the Critic of Pure Reason, p. 18. Har-
tenstein, 1853. See also Fortschritte der Metaphysik, Werke, Vol. I.
p. 490. ed Ros. u. Sch. Prolegomena gc. Vol. III. p. 23. 36. Logik,
Vol. III. p. 184-5, same edition.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
393
Book II.
CH. VI.
$ 4.
Contraries,
Privatives, and
Relatives.
achievement to bring back into metaphysic again, by
means of his doctrine of Determination (Bestimm-
barkeit).1
Contradictory determinations of given existents,
i.l., contraries,-how can they exist? In the first place
it is clear that they cannot exist in the same existent,
at the same time, and in the same respect. For the
principle of contradiction forbids it. Let us take
separately these three well known requisites of con-
tradictory determinations, and first the requisite of
being predicated in the same respect. This requisite
of contradictory determinations forces us back upon
experience, upon the perceptual redintegrations. It
compels us to give an analysed content to the objects
or images thought under the distinction of this' and
not-this. For instance, in “This black hat is heavy,'
and "This black hat is not-heavy,' "heavy and not-
heavy' are not contraries if one is said in respect of
some standard of heaviness in things possessing weight,
and the other in respect of heaviness altogether, of
ponderables in contrast to imponderables. The filling
up, or the content, of the distinction drawn by con-
traries comes from the perceptual redintegrations, the
logical analysis of that content is performed by
drawing the distinction itself, whereby the perceptual
classification of predicable determinations is trans-
formed into a conceptual classification of contraries
in various respects.
We have before us, then, the Differents of per-
ceptual redintegration. The first step towards estab-
lishing a pair of contraries is to think a difference
Versuch einer neuen Logik. Grundsätze des reellen Denkens,
pp. 184 to 190. 2nd edit. 1798.
4 Dici de eoclem, eodem tempore, et secundum idem.
394
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
$ 4.
Con
Privatives, and
Relatives.
between two differents of perception by supplying in
thought the respect or feature in which they differ.
This is what we have already described. For we
make a species by combining a positive differentia
with a genus. But different species are not therefore
contraries. A species is constituted by its own
differentia, irrespective of other species, notwith-
standing that all have a perceptual content. Two
positive species have each its positive differentia; but
for two species to be contraries, their differentiæ must
be contradictory as well as positive, or in other words,
the two species must be contradictory in respect of
one and the same feature of the genus. And we have
no longer merely to predicate a single characteristic
of an existent; but we have to predicate one of two
contradictory characteristics, both of which are
positive. The not of contradiction falls within the
predicate itself; the respect in which one different
differs from another divides the whole expected and
attendant predicate into two parts, each with a
positive content, one of which is something which the
other is not, and consequently only one of which can
be the true predicate or determination of the subject.
From this point a course is open to us which at
first sight might appear likely to lead to contraries.
We might pick out those differents which are most
strongly contrasted perceptually. The most general
modes of contrast are two, quantity and quality, or
degree and kind; but these have each a great variety
of modes under them.. Take first contrasts of quality
We then obtain a class of differents which are the
most strongly contrasted with each other, when
referred to a common respect. They would stand as
opposite extremes to each other, having between them
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
395
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
a
Contraries,
Privatives
Relatives.
and
any number of differents less strongly contrasted, as
for instance, ‘Black-Grey-White. This kind of
contrast, then, is one which admits of degrees; it is
not absolute at the turning-point, the not, as in con-
tradictories, “to be-not to be. The turning-point
may possibly exist, but owing to the qualitative
character of both opposites, it is difficult to determine
at what precise point of the intermediate percepts it
is to be placed. The extremes alone are perfectly
distinct. The use of contrast in logic is expository,
to explain what anything is, by placing it side by side
with the positive things which it is not. And in con-
trasting any two things, the general respect in whịch
they differ, the genus of which they are differentia-
tions, should always be stated.
But quality and quantity themselves, it may be
said, form a contrast, and modes of the one may be
contraries of modes of the other. True, quality and
quantity are a contrast, but they are not contraries;
and for this reason. Each has a positive differentia
of its own, namely, the material element in conscious-
ness, and the formal element. Feeling is the differ-
entia of quality, Form of quantity. And, so far from
these being mutually exclusive in one and the same
empirical existent, they are mutually requisite, and
each involves the other. There is no existent which
has not both of them. They are ultimate elements
of existents, and stand higher than their determina-
tions as contraries; and they are common to both the
members in every contrariety, as well as in every
other contrast but that between themselves.
Both these ways give us only perceptual contrasts,
not logical contraries, or contradictory determinations.
It is essential to the latter, not only that the exclusion
le
396
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
§ 4.
Privatives, and
Relatives.
BOOK Jl. between them should be mutual, that is, the affirma-
tion of one involve the negation of the other, or that
Contraries: both should be unable to be true together; but it is
essential also, that the negation of one should involve
the affirmation of the other, or that both should be
incapable of being false together. And this, notwith-
standing that the content of both is positive, or a
perceptual determination of an existent. More than
contrast goes to contrariety.
This we must seek under the remaining head,
that of quantity alone. It will be plain from what
has now been said, and since we are driven to percepts
to furnish us with the basis of contrariety, that the
possibility of such contradictory determinations de-
pends on the possibility of making an exhaustive
division of any given existent, opposite determinations
of which shall be contradictory of each other, or such
that the negation of one of them involves the affirma-
tion of the other. For only on the supposition of the
existent itself, and of its exhaustive division into two
parts, will it follow that, if the existent is not de-
termined in the one way, it must be determined in
the other way.
Thus black and white are not contraries. For to
say that a thing is not-black, unless you mean by
not-black some positive colour, is only another and
a confusing way of saying “It isn't black;' the nega-
tive really attaches to the copula. And if we do mean
some positive colour by it, then it is only a contrast
to white,' and its negation does not carry with it the
affirmation of white,' any more than when it does
not signify a positive colour.
The question then is, What makes it possible to
divide any given object exhaustively? We shall now
1L
CU
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY,
397
CH. VI.
Contraries,
be at no loss for an answer. It is only in virtue of
Book II,
their formal element, time or time and space together,
that objects can be so divided. Time and space alone
U opaco a no Privatives, and
are capable of an exhaustive division, without resi- Relatives.
duum. But this division must be applied and en-
forced by conception, that is to say, the point of
division of a percept must be made coincident with
the moment of contradiction.
Here it is that we again reap the fruit of that
fundamental fact in philosophy, which has been so
often insisted on in the previous Chapters, the inse-
parability of the formal and material elements in all
consciousness, and in all empirical objects. The
exhaustive divisibility of time and space, the formal
element, enables us to conceive empirical objects as
exhaustively divided, without leaving any third alter-
native, any medium or indifferent ground between
the two extremes. For we take objects, as existents,
with a very high degree of generality; we need not
much specialise them in order to be certain of their
real existence. There are certain features which all
existents must possess, and these features it is which
both assure the reality of the particular existent sub-
jects, and enable their exhaustive division, so as to
give us their opposite determinations as predicable
contraries.
The perception of contraries comes, then, not
from any a priori furniture of the mind; it comes
from experience, but it is an experience universal
and uniform, an experience moreover ingrained in us
by heredity, just as the fundamental fact is ingrained,
from which it springs, I mean the inseparability of
the formal and material elements. We find in fact
that there are certain alternative distinctions which
III.
T
.
398
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
CH. VI.
Privatives, and
Relatives.
Book II. all men draw, and use unhesitatingly in reasoning,
as incapable of a third alternative. These are all
$ 4.
Contraries, cases or modifications of that one fundamental fact;
and these distinctions are drawn and applied in the
case of empirical objects, because those objects are
subject to the laws of the formal element which they
contain. Thus it is that those alternative distinc-
tions, which we call contraries, have the same source
and the same reason as those primary empirical
truths which are the axioms of mathematic pure and
applied. But for the present we have not to do with
these; it is not in their axiomatic shape, but in their
shape as contraries, that we have to do with the
primary consequences of the inseparability of form
and matter.
The divisibility without residuum of time and
space, enforced by the conceptual moment of contra-
diction, is the source of contrariety. And this is
shown by what has been already remarked, that
qualities or feelings per se, or in their character as
feeling, escape classification as contraries; it is only
as involved with the formal element that they fall
under it. They form perceptual contrasts; and these
contrasts, when ranged in series, and imagined as
carried to a common ideal limit, are sometimes named
as contraries. Pleasure and Pain; Black and White;
Sad and Merry; Good and Evil; are instances. But
these alternatives have an artificial character; we
have to make some scheme or scale, some tree or fan
or spectrum or sphere, to range them in; and it is
also requisite that the series to which they belong
should be imagined as ideally complete, and also that
the middle state of indifference should be reduced to
a point, before the extremes can be taken as repre-
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
399
BOOK II.
| CH. VI.
be
$ 4.
annetta
saadable
Contraries.
Relatives.
TY
sentatives of contrary alternatives, one of which must
exist if the other does not.
Again, there is no contrary opposition possible
between the special senses, or other kinds of feeling,
e.g., between sight and hearing. We can neither
bring them into a single series, nor imagine inter-
mediates between them which should necessarily be-
long either to the one or to the other. They are
contrasted as modes of feeling; that is the general
respect in which they are at once opposed and united.
But the whole sphere or group to which these modes
of feeling belong cannot in respect of them be ex-
haustively divided. It is a fiction of the imagination.
The same may be said of the contrast between quality
and quantity, or of that, still more ultimate, between
matter and form, according to what has been remarked
above.
Four sorts of apparent contraries, then, must be
put aside as mere cases of contrast. First, the con-
trast between form and matter, or quantity and
quality. Second, those contrasts where a series of
intermediate feelings between two extremes, of the
same kind, can be imagined to exist, without any of
them being indifferent, as in pleasure and pain.
Thirdly, those where a group of different kinds of
feeling can be imagined, but cannot be completed in
imagination, nor rendered exhaustively divisible, as
in the case of the special senses. And fourthly, those
which have as their point of opposition only the mo-
ment of contradiction itself, the not-this in its various
shapes.
These last will be found to be mere negations of
some special modes of feeling, and as such are cases
under the general one of Conscious and Unconscious.
n
400
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
$ 4.
Relatives.
T
I. They have no more right to be called contraries than
black' and 'not-black’ have; notwithstanding that
Contraries, the names of many have a positive appearance, owing
Privatives, and
to the specialness of their existents; as for instance:
Visible and Invisible, and their obverse aspect, Light
and Darkness; Sound and Silence; Tangible and In-
tangible; Having Sight and Blind. It is not always
easy to discriminate this class from true contraries,
when they are very much specialised. Blindness for
instance is a name for the mere absence of sight in
an organism which one would expect to find capable
of it. But Death is a name for some positive modes
of motion in bodies, opposed to other positive modes
which are called Life. The criterion is, whether both
sides have a positive content, besides being contra-
dictory.
There remain only, as true contraries, those which
are applicable to all existents in their most ele-
mentary shape, and are derived from the exhaustive
divisibility of Time and Space, the formal element,
alone. These may be classed under three heads.
1. Those which are drawn from the division of
Time, and therefore apply to all existents
without exception, whatever their material
elements may be. Among these are:
Former . . . . . . Latter.
Simultaneous . . . . Sequential.
Static . . . . . . ...
Dynamic.
Continuous . . . . . Discrete.
One . . . . . . .
Many.
All . . . . . . .
Some.
Even . . . . . . . Odd.
Changing . . . . . . Unchanging.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
401
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
Determinate . . . . . Indeterminate.
Separable . . . . . . Inseparable.
Same . . . . . . Different.
Finite . . . . . . Infinite.
$ 4.
Contraries,
Privatives, and
Relatives,
II. Those which are drawn from the division of
Space, and apply to existents in space as well
as time. Among these are:
Extended . ..... Unextended.
Straight . . . . . . Curved.
Equal ....... Unequal.
Whole ....... Part.
Up . . . .
: Down.
Right . . .
. Left.
Forwards . . . . . .
. Backwards.
Uniform . .
Multiform.
Inner . . . . . . . Duter.
Rest ... . . . . Motion.
·
.
.
·
.
.
·
.
.
·
.
.
YY
III. Those which are drawn from the division of
tangible and visible objects in space and
time. Among these are:
Composition . . . . . Decomposition.
Active . . . . . . . Inactive.
Plenum . . . . . . Vacuum.
Cause . . . . . . . Effect.
Such are the classes into which logical contraries
seem most properly to fall, together with the most
general pairs of contraries under each. They are all
positive determinations of existents, and yet contra-
dictory of each other, being drawn from differences
in their formal element. Those of the third head are
differences which, roughly speaking, belong to Sir
VOL. I.
DD
402
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Relatives.
9
1
]
Book II. W. Hamilton's secundo-primary, which are Mr. H.
CH. VI.
sa. Spencer's statico-dynamical,2 properties of body. And
Privatives, and
esind the primary and static properties of those writers fall,
still speaking roughly, under my second head; their
secondary and dynamic under my first head. But no
exact correspondence is to be looked for between
these two classifications and the present one, founded
as they are on different considerations.
. The properties of body which give it a place under
my third head, and make it the subject of the third
group of contraries, are compounds of some of the
feelings which are grouped under the second head,
and these feelings do not lose their contrary deter-
minations on entering into combination. Neither do
feelings in space lose the contrariety which they have
as feelings in time. The mechanical properties of
body are subject to all the distinctions of its mathe-
matical properties, with others of their own besides.
The order in which I have placed these groups is
their order in analysis, in following the increasing
complexity of their formal element.
But when we take these three groups in order of
genesis, the properties belonging to the first and
second are consequences of those belonging to the
third. Some mechanical and molecular structure
and motion are the conditions of our having any
sensation or feeling at all. We then just reverse the
order of analysis; mechanical objects stand first, then
those called primary as belonging to body per se, and
lastly those called secondary as not themselves involv-
ing the perception of space, but only resulting from it.
1 Hamilton's Reid, Note D. Vol. II. p. 825.
2 Principles of Psychology, Part VI. Chap. XI. Vol. II. p. 136.
2nd edit.
II
SE
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
403
Воок 1
| CH. VI.
$ 4.
Contraries,
Relatives.
In either way of taking these groups, we possess
in them a framework large enough to embrace all
phenomena whatever, any feeling however complex
or however simple. There are no phenomena which
escape the grasp of the contrary distinctions grouped
in this way.
But in the next place, what precisely is the way
by which we come to the perception of these con-
traries ? It is this. We bring before us in percep-.
tual redintegration objects, say, in time; and by
mental inspection we see that the train of differents
is divided by any given point, exhaustively, into
former and latter portions, and that it has no other
determinations ejusdem generis. So in the case of
existents in space; we see in representation that a
line in space, if it deviates from a right line, must be
a curve. A “broken” line is not one line but many;
an angle requires two lines to form it.
Do I then call these contraries intuitive truths, or
eternal verities? Nothing of the kind. True, the
method of contrariety with its perception of con-
traries is a necessary process, standing on the same
ground as contradiction itself. But it does not
follow that all the contraries which we perceive by
this means are necessary also. We may be deceived
in our representation. True, some of these contraries
are the most certain facts known to us, and these are
the foundations of mathematic and the sciences. But
all have not the same degree of certainty. It may
turn out that the content of some of them is appar-
ent only, a fiction of the imagination, which it may
well be, without ceasing to be a positive or percep-
tual content. There may be contrariety between
fictions, just as much as between truths.
01
404
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Book II.
Contraries draw their content from perception,
CH. VI.
$ 1.
and we may possibly discover by reasoning that some
Contraries,
characteristics, which we perceive and name in the
Privatives, and
Relatives.
gross, or as they appear, owe that apparent character
to a want either of delicacy or of vigour in our
senses; whereby a truth of fact as known by reason
is torn apart from a truth of fact as immediately per-
ceived. The content of some contraries may thus be
destroyed as truth, though it still remains as appear-
ance. This happens in those contraries where the
material element enters into the determinations, as
well as into the division between them. For there
we can think farther than we can see; we can make
divisions in thought which we cannot follow in sense.
Compare, for instance, Changing and Unchanging
with Continuous and Discrete. Change means change
in feeling; the material element enters into the deter-
minations of the pair of contraries. Accordingly we
may discover, that Unchanging feeling is an appear-
ance due to the inadequacy of our senses. We can
represent matter changing, where we cannot present
it as changing. Continuity and Discreteness on the
other hand are determinations of the formal element
alone; and these are in thought as inevitable as they
are in presentation.
To take other instances, Rest and Inaction may
prove to be fictions, without on that account ceasing
to be positive members of a contrariety. In that
case, i.e., if we have reason to suppose that nothing is
ever at rest, or nothing ever inactive, the contrariety
will still remain as a record of past thought, and a
means of making present thought clear. For the ap-
pearance of rest and inaction would not be done away
with, by our knowing that it was an appearance only.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
405
BOOK II.
Book II.
§ 4.
Privative s, and
Contraries,
Relatives.
Lastly let it be observed, in this connection, how
closely, though unavowedly, contraries are involved
in fundamental propositions of science; for instance,
in Newton's First Law of Motion, which it would
seem impossible to state without assuming them:
“ Lex 1. Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi
vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus illud
a viribus impressis cogitur statum suum mutare.” The
Contraries are the very machinery by which, the
lines upon which, concrete thought moves, in framing
any scientific theory or system. They seem to give
its direction to thought itself.
The Categories of Genus, Differentia, and Species,
are formed in creating concepts out of percepts;
Contraries are categories formed in constructing con-
cepts. It is a continuation of the same process as in
forming genus and species, but the process modified.
We have in fact first made three concrete genera,
subordinate inter se; Objects in time; Objects in
space; Visible and Tangible objects. And the several
pairs of contraries are sub-genera under each. The
pair itself, not either member of it alone, is the sub-
genus. The distinction which it rests upon, the
respect in which its members are contrary to each
other, is inseparable from the two members' them-
selves, and together they characterise the phenomena
grouped by them; are in fact a genus. There are
no higher genera between these and the three to
which they respectively belong. For there is no
respect in which the contraries are contrasted, other
than that which receives its name from them. The
point of contradiction alone divides them. Language
indeed is flexible, and we may speak of one and many
being contrary in respect of number, or of number
406
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
CO
Book II. being difference of time in respect of one and many,
| CH. VI.
and not (for instance) in respect of former and latter.
$ 4.
p. Contraries.nd Again we may speak of up and down being contrary
Relatives. in respect of direction, and equally well of directions
being contrary in respect of up and down, direction
meaning only one or more of these distinctions. In
no case is there any respect extraneous to the con-
trariety itself, which serves it as basis. It is an
ultimate phenomenon in thought, immediately arising
on the application of the moment of contradiction,
not to percepts simply, but to percepts as predicable
in judgments.
I pass now to another branch. The determina-
tion of the respect in which a term is predicated, of
its secundum quid, lies at the basis of all logical con-
trariety. The two other requisites of contraries, the
de eodem and eodem tempore, furnish the next and final
division of them. For the whole list of contraries,
when each pair is referred to the same subject and
at the same time, is also a list of Privatives, determina-
tions the presence of either of which involves the
absence of the other, and the absence of either the
other's presence. In fact, Privatives is the name for
Contraries, when it is wished to indicate they are
contradictory determinations of the same thing at
the same time.
On the other hand, the whole list of contraries,
when the ultimate respect in which each pair is con-
trasted is held fast, but the members of it are referred
either to different subjects, or to the same subject at
different times,--the whole list becomes a list of Rela-
tives ; for still it is true that both the contraries in a
pair have a positive perceptual existence. Those
terms are relatives which would be privatives if re-
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY,
407
BOOK II.
CH. VI..
Relatives.
ferred to the same subject at the same time. Their
contrariety renders them intelligible, their removal
to different subjects, or to different times, renders p. Contraries, na
them capable of being truly predicated, both at once.
Without contrariety they would be unintelligible; to
understand a thing at all you must distinguish it
from what it is not; to understand it thoroughly you
must follow it up into contrariety; and the knowledge
of the one member of a pair of contraries is a neces-
sary ingredient of our knowledge of the other mem-
ber. The exact sciences are those which are built
upon contrariety; and the sciences not commonly
called so come near to deserve the name, just in pro-
portion as their phenomena can be exhibited as cases
of ultimate contraries; or, in other words, can be
brought under the laws of pure and applied mathe-
matic. Throwing contrasts into schemes, or diagrams,
is an attempt to bring them as near as possible to
contrariety.
As determinations, relatives are mutually neces-
sary. They may be defined as being those contra-
ries each of which, necessarily not being its contrary,
exists only when and so far as its contrary exists.
Or, in other words, relatives are contraries considered
as depending upon each other for their definition, and
upon each other's subjects as their condition of existing.
But it is necessary to repeat the remark which was
made about contraries, namely, that there may be
apparent as well as true relatives. One of the deter-
minations may be found imaginary, and the pheno-
mena once included in it transferred to the other.
The relation then remains only as the record of a
mistake; a fate which, it may be observed, is by no
means peculiar to contraries and relatives.
408
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Books.
Such is
Relatives.
BOOK II. Such is the relation between the three categories
CH. VI.
of contrariety,-contraries, privatives, and relatives.
§ 4.
Contraries, , A familiar instance may serve to exemplify it.
Privatives, and
Master and Servant are contraries, not indeed ulti-
mate, but still contraries, in respect of a common set
of actions, in which the two persons are interested.
One commands, the other performs, the same thing.
A man cannot be master and servant to the same
person at the same time and in the same respect;
master and servant are therefore privative terms.
They are also relative terms, because you cannot
have a master without being a servant, nor have a
servant without being a master. Whole and part;
cause and effect; half and double; antecedent and
consequent; and in fact all the list of contraries ; are
privatives and relatives also. Whether they are
privatives or relatives depends on how they are used.
As privative terms they are mutually destructive, as
relative terms they are mutually supporting and
mutually requisite.
• This analysis lets in a ray of light upon Spinoza's
Causa Sui, Aristotle's autã aitiov. It is a contradic-
tion in terms. As united in the same subject, cause
and effect are privatives. Only as separated are they
relatives. The Causa Sui is only the logical hyperbole
in which finite thought involves itself in trying to
think the infinite object. Spinoza chose to make this
logical hyperbole the basis of his system of philo-
sophy. It is surely better to discard such an hyper-
bole, and simply state the object to be infinite, without
involving oneself in contradiction by endeavouring to
state it in terms of finite thought. We then get simply
an Eternal Being, a Being endless as Time, instead of
a Cause-Effect Being, which is a contradiction.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
409
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
All scientific, as well as popular, thought moves
on the lines of the two categories of privatives and
$ 4.
relatives, which together exhaust that of contraries. Contraries,
• Privatives, and
They are the peculiar categories of science. The Relatives.
list of contraries, supposing it complete, would con-
tain all the scientific genera, from the highest to the
lowest; and the determination of what is at any time
the lowest known genus, in any branch of science, to
one of its alternatives is the latest particular positive
truth at that time discovered. Some, the highest,
genera, with their determinations, are discovered
already; others await discovery; and the former are
the basis and guide to the latter. Science does not
come into the field of discovery equipped with all,
but only with some few of the entire list of contraries,
and those are not separable, but involved in already
discovered facts. With these she attempts to dis-
cover new facts, which are the determinations of new
contraries. And there is one mark of contrariety in
every discovered and verified fact, namely this, that
it could not have been otherwise.
It is not, then, until we come to the two last cate-
gories of logic, privatives and relatives, that we come
to modes or determinations of thought which are
actually in use in scientific processes. Is this in-
volved in that; if not, what is; what other things
does this thing involve, or exclude, by its presence,
and what by its absence; how comes, i.e., what are
the necessary conditions of, this or that actual experi-
ence; what may we expect to find in consequence of
finding this circumstance, and what in consequence
of not finding it;-such are the sort of questions
which I imagine scientific men are constantly putting
to themselves, and using to guide experiment. They
YY
410
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Book II.
CH. VI.
Cor
Relatives.
are engaged, in other words, in more closely, minutely,
and fully, determining privatives and relatives. For
$ 4.
omtraries, a these categories are not classes made up and done
Privatives, and
with; they are fixed in their own nature, but indefi-
nitely flexible in their applicability and their content.
The more specialised an existent is, the more special-
ised also will be the contrary alternatives which may
be, and one of which must be, imagined as its deter-
minations. And the first step towards answering
any of the above questions concerning it is to imagine
alternatives affecting its subject.
There is a lacuna, as it seems to me, in this part
of Logic, as it is usually treated. It is not made
clear what precisely is the mental operation of making
scientific discoveries ;—making, not demonstrating
when made ; framing hypotheses, not testing them.
For Aristotle's syllogistic, or the several substitutes
that have been proposed for it, may stand as a suffi-
cient account of the latter. We are told, indeed, that
the process of discovery is tentative, and by means of
hypotheses; but the question is, what guides the ten-
tations, what is it to frame an hypothesis ?
It is now evident that it is an exercise of pro-
ductive scientific imagination, to which it will be
remembered that, in the foregoing Chapter, I pro-
mised to recur. It is a process of picturing not of
thinking; of construction not of analysis. To pic-
ture anything in time and space is to picture it sub-
ject to the Contraries; that is, not as chaotic, but as
a part of a completed picture of antecedents, conse-
quents, and coexistents, and as changing in corre-
spondence with their changes. The Contraries are
time and space relations, which are the formal laws
1 p. 305.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
411
Book I.
CH. VI.
-
la Indonner af
Contraries.
Privatives, and
Relatives.
rs
VII
proper to percepts, just as genus, differentia, and
species, are the formal laws proper to concepts.
I have already appealed to the testimony of
Professor Tyndall on this point. But it is not only
in physical science that the constructive imagination
is employed. It is employed equally in mathematic.
The facts of the case are, says Professor Sylvester,
" that mathematical analysis is constantly invoking
the aid of new principles, new ideas, and new methods,
not capable of being defined by any form of words,
but springing direct from the inherent powers and
activity of the human mind, and from continually
renewed introspection of that inner world of thought
of which the phenomena are as varied and require as
close attention to discern as those of the outer physical
world (to which the inner one in each individual man
may, I think, be conceived to stand in somewhat the
same general relation of correspondence as a shadow
to the object from which it is projected, or as the hol-
low palm of one hand to the closed fist which it grasps
of the other), that it is unceasingly calling forth the
faculties of observation and comparison, that one of
its principal weapons is induction, that it has frequent
recourse to experimental trial and verification, and
that it affords a boundless scope for the exercise of
the highest efforts of imagination and invention."
This passage, which occurs in an Inaugural Address
to the Mathematical and Physical Section of the
British Association, is accompanied, in the edition
from which I quote, by a note which gives a detailed
account of the steps which led to discovery in a par-
ticular instance; among which the employment of
i In a volume entitled The Laws of Verse. Longmans, 1870.
p. 108.
reco
n
412
CONTRA
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Воок ІІ.
| CH. VI.
Relatives,
constructive imagination is conspicuous. “To find
the true representation was like looking out into
§ 4.
Contraries, universal space for a planet desiderated according to
Privatives, and
Bode’s or any other empirical law. I found my
desideratum as follows: I invented a catena of mor-
phological processes which”—But I must refer my
reader to the description itself. Here, then, we have
the scientific imagination at work; here is a case of
Kant's construction of concepts.
Such is the point where, and the process by
which, general logical thinking becomes scientific
thinking, yet without ceasing to be logical. The
principle of contradiction, which is the sum and
substance of purely formal logic, enters into the
generals, particulars, and singulars, into which it has
already transformed percepts, and, again coöperating
with laws which it does not make but find, trans-
forms them into contraries, privatives, and relatives.
This gives us also the true sense of the distinction
between pure (or purely formal) logic, general logic,
and applied (or scientific) logic. The principle of
contradiction in forming genera and species gives
general logic; in forming contraries it gives scientific.
We have now analysed both operations, both combi-
nations. The mode of operation is essentially the
same; in both cases a difference is thought, in conse-
quence of having been perceived. It was shown that
thinking a difference was involved in framing genera
and species, classes of similars distinct from their
dissimilars. And it is but a further carrying out of
the same process, when, supposing such classes formed,
we either contrast the extremes of each class by their
difference of feeling, or else, taking a difference of
1 Chapter V. p. 297.
TY
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
413
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
Relatives.
form as a basis, oppose its members as true contraries
to each other. The difference between the two cases
$ 4.
is the following. In forming classes of similars, the preniraries
differentia which distinguishes them is a feature or
set of features belonging in each case to the single
class which it distinguishes, but throws no light on
what the differentia of any other species or class may
be. In contraries, on the other hand, the differentia
of one species gives a knowledge of the differentia of
the other and contrary species under the genus; only
two such differentiæ and consequently only two such
species of the common genus are possible. This is
the meaning of the old rule Contrariorum eadem est
scientia. We may call the contrast between ordinary
logical species differential, and that between contrary
species polar.
I subjoin a Table of Opposition.
The Principle of Contradiction gives rise to
Contradictory Propositions, and these to
Contradictory Terms.
Contradictory as Substantives.
The hat— Not the hat. .
Called simply Contradictories.
Contradictory as Determina-
tions or Adjectives.
The hat extended - unex-
tended.
Called simply Contraries.
Contraries which cannot exist
together, because referred to
the same subject at the same
time.
Called simply Privatives.
Contraries which depend upon
each other and require each
other's existence, because re-
ferred either to different sub-
jects or to the same at different
times.
Called simply Relatives.
414
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BUOK II.
§ 5. When we quit the simple categories of
CH. VI.
$ 5.
thought for the modal, we step from the domain of
Final determi- science to that of philosophy.
nation of the
The modal categories
Modal Cate-
are those of reflective thought, in contrast with the
gories.
simple categories which belong to simple, that is, to
primary and direct thought. This transition we
have to make here, just as we made it in the former
part of this whole subject, in the foregoing Chap-
ter. And just as we have found that the prin-
ciple of contradiction works a modification in the
simple logical categories of genus, differentia, and
species, by arranging their phenomena under other
simple categories, namely, those of contradictories,
contraries, privatives, and relatives, so we shall now
find that the same principle of contradiction, applied
to modals, will modify their phenomena in an analo-
gous manner, and will present us with a new table
of modals as the ultimate categories of philosophical
thought. Only with this difference, that whereas the
categories of Contrariety are not substituted for but
added to those of genus, differentia, and species, the
modal categories on the other hand, not having been
yet finally determined, will be replaced by a new list
of modals, under the action of the principle of contra-
diction. It will be remembered that the consideration
of the contradictories of the modals was reserved for
the present Chapter 1
The modals were found in the foregoing Chapter
to be these three, each having a double aspect:
The Actual. 'The Possible. The Necessary.
The Existent. The Contingent. The Universal.
The application of the principle of contradiction to
these categories will disclose à fundamental differ-
1 Above, Chapter V. p. 368.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
415
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
$ 5.
Final determi-
nation of the
Modal Cate-
gories.
ence between them. Let us suppose each of them to
have a contradictory. Thus:
The Actual
The Non-Actual or
or Existent. ]
contradictory
| Non-Existent.
The Possible
| The Not-possible to
or Contingent. )
contradictory
l be or not-to-he.
The Necessary
| The Not-Necessary or
or Universal.]
contradictory
| Not-always-existent.
Dropping, for brevity, the double nomenclature,
let us consider the three negative contradictories in
this list, the non-actual, the not-possible to be or not
to be, and the not-necessary. The non-actual, by
which is meant anything that is a representation
only, and not a presentation, may clearly, prima
facie, be either possible or necessary; that is, it may
belong to either of the two remaining positive cate-
gories. So also the not-necessary may be either
actual or possible. But what of the not-possible
either to be or not to be? It would seem to be
totally and for ever excluded from both the actual
and the necessary. I mean that the content of the
category contradictory of the possible (or contingent)
would be excluded from existence altogether; which
is not the case with the content of the other two con-
tradictory categories. Their content finds a place
in some positive category, either as actual or possible,
and either as possible or necessary. A further ex-
amination of this singular category is plainly required.
Now observe in the first place, that the alterna-
tive, (the affirmative and negative of both the sup-
posed contradictories, both the possible to be or not
to be, and the not-possible to be or not to be), the
alternative in each is a choice between contradictories,
to be—not to be, to be actually perceived not to be
na-
416
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Modal Cate-
gories.
BOOK II.
I. actually perceived. Now take first the contradictory
CH. VI.
of the Possible to be or not to be, viz. : the Not-
al determi- Possible to be or not to be. If the negative alterna-
nation of the
tive of this contradictory is taken, viz. : Not-possible
not to be, then the contradictory of the Possible be-
comes a case of necessity, Necessary to be; for the
possibility of not being is excluded. If the affirma-
tive alternative is taken, viz. : Not-possible to be, then
it becomes a case of impossibility, for the possibility
of being is excluded. The principle of contradiction
enters, as it were, into the kingdom of the Not-
possible to be or not to be, and divides it between
two contrary alternatives, the necessary and the
impossible.
Take next the positive member of the contradic-
tion, the Possible to be or not to be, itself. The
same breaking up takes place. Take the affirmative
alternative; if a thing is possible to be only (and not
also not to be), then it is a case of necessity, it is no
longer possible not to be; it is in via towards actual
existence; it is what is called potentially existing,
δυνάμει but not ενεργεία. Take the negative alterna-
tive; if a thing is possible only not to be (and not
also to be), then it is a case of impossibility, it is no
longer possible to be. The Possible also is, therefore,
a category composed of contrary alternatives.
Now we have seen that contraries cannot exist
together. There is therefore nothing to which the
category of Possible (or Contingent) applies. No
content of it exists; and, even supposing it to exist,
it belongs not to the Possible but to the Necessary.
But then, on the other hand, the Possible to be or not
to be, though it is composed of contrary alternatives.
and therefore cannot be regarded as a substantive
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
417
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
$ 5.
termi-
nation of the
Modal Cate-
gories.
TTT
en
LI
ses
existent, in the same sense as the actual and the
necessary can, yet is not excluded from reflective
thought altogether on that account. Experience tells
us that it is a category of which we make daily and
hourly use. We have seen in the foregoing Chapter
that it is a modal reflective category. Let us take
the Aristotelian method with it and ask Ti onucives ;
what do we mean when we call anything possible?
We mean that, on the one hand we do not know of
any evidence or argumentum against our supposing
it to happen or have happened, or of any efficient
cause, in order of existence, which should hinder or
have hindered it from happening; and that, on the
other hand, we do not know of any proof in favour of
its happening or having happened, or of any efficient
cause which must bring or have brought it to pass.
The Possible to be or not to be, therefore, expresses
the relation of a given representation to the present
state of our knowledge relevant to it; not, like the
actual and the necessary, the relation of objects to
consciousness simply. And it consists of a pair of
determinations of that relation, or that knowledge,
which in their extremes are contraries, but shade off
into many intermediate degrees of probability and
improbability. The field of uncertainty which lies
between what is necessary or conditionally necessary,
on the one side, and what is impossible or condition-
ally impossible on the other, is the field of the Un-
certain, or Possible to be or not to be; an uncertainty
attaching to particular states of knowledge, as such,
and determined in the direction of being, or in that of
not-being, according as our knowledge of the circum-
stances is greater or less, but always an uncertainty,
an open alternative, until at the limit, either way, the
VOL. I.
EE
418
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
CH. VI.
BOOK II. possible ceases and either the necessary or the impos-
so sible begins.
inal determi- Now let us note well what it is that has taken
nation of the
Modal Cate- place with the category of the Possible to be or not
gories
to be, under the action of the principle of contradic-
tion. It is this. We have discovered that it is no
determination of existence, no category with a double
aspect, subjective and objective, but a determination
of our partial knowledge concerning the Necessary.
Our partial knowledge is the substantive existent of
which the category of the Possible is the determina-
tion ;-our partial knowledge ;—that is, a portion of
the subjective aspect of existence, taken apart from
the objective, and then treated as if it was an object
itself. It is a case in which, as we now discover, we
have elevated an inability of consciousness to the
rank of a positive attribute of existence, have taken
our ignorance of facts for a “contingency” in the
facts themselves. For the alternative, to be or not
to be, is introduced by the partial character, the
imperfection of our knowledge at any particular time.
We know that whatever possible' has been, or shall
be, existent, is necessary. Assuming the alternative
to be concerning it, it must either be in the future
or have been in the past. This assumption it is
which renders its necessity conditional, makes it
what is called Potential, instead of simply necessary.
While to assume the alternative 'not to be concern-
ing it, is to make it impossible, and banish it from
existence altogether, with all its possible conditions.
The Potential or Conditionally-Necessary, there-
fore, steps into the place of the Possible or Contin-
gent, under the action of the principle of contradiction
on this latter category. Take any particular repre-
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
419
Final determi-
nation of the
gories.
LT
Y
sentation. If it ever exist, then it is necessary to be
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
actual sometime, it is necessary sub modo or con-
$ 5.
ditionally; the “condition” being the assumption Fin
that it exists sometime; its conditions existendi will
Modal Cate-
arise, and it will follow. But if it never exist, then
it is impossible to be actual at any time; its exist-
ence altogether is contradicted. We may call it the
conditionally impossible, and its conditions existendi
will not arise; it is a mere figment or mistake.
Next observe the further light thrown on the
two other modal categories by this change in the
Possible, and first on that of the Necessary or Uni-
versal. A second sense of the term necessary must
now be distinguished. Besides the sense in which it
is equivalent subjectively to universal, or everywhere
and always present to consciousness, there is now the
sense in which it means inevitable connection between
partial or particular objects, the nexus of thought
and the neicus of phenomena, the bond which holds
together a conditionate and its conditions, an effect
and its cause. And here, not in any ready made
and a priori form of thought, is the origin of the
notion of Causality. The inevitable connection be- .
tween cause and effect is the connection between the
parts into which a whole has been broken up; the
whole being the Necessary in the sense of the Uni-
versal, and the parts being the particular objects
which we happen at any time to know, and which,
in that character, we call the Potential or Condi-
tionally-Necessary. By reflection we know that
all things, taken generally, whatever they may be,
are necessary; but of particular things that are
not actual, we do not know that they are necessary,
because we do not know whether we have rightly
a
C
420
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
CH. VI.
Final determi
BOOK IT. defined them, whether the particular thing in our
thoughts now is a thing consistent with the rest or
ni- not; we do not know, to use a vulgar proverb, whether
nation of the hou;
Modal Cate-
we have got the right sow by the ear. All we know
gories.
is, that, if we have, it exists necessarily. It is the
partial and particular nature of our knowledge which
breaks up the Necessary into the Conditionally-Neces-
sary, yet without destroying its necessity; and this
breaking up it is, which places the sense of necessary
or inevitable connection side by side with the sense
of universal, from which it springs.
Next as to the Actual. The new light thrown on
this category consists merely in the new relations
which are made to appear between it and the two
other categories. Considered in the light of the
notion of inevitable connection, the Actual is a case
of the conditionally-necessary, just as this latter is a
case of the necessary. That thing, the conditions of
which have happened, is actual, is a presentation.
And this actual presentation passes into representa-
tion and again becomes a part of the conditionally-
necessary. It is as if a single facet of a multitudi-
nous-sided solid revolved into the light, and then.
onwards into darkness again. The order and con-
nection of the facets are the conditionally-necessary,
and the characteristics common to all the facets are
the necessary and universal. A thing may be neces-
sary or (objectively) universal, as well as actual, if it
is an element or aspect pervading all consciousness
or all existence. The necessary and the actual do
not exclude each other. And a thing is conditionally-
necessary if it is a particular something which has
had or will have an actual, presentative, existence
some time or other. It is actual when, and while, it
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
421
$5.
LU
exists presentatively. And this is the moment which BOOK II.
CH. VI.
we seize, the mornent of our conscious connection
with the universe, the basis and the test of all our Final determi-
nation of the
thoughts. The necessary itself is actually necessary,
Modal Cate-
gories.
for not only is the moment of contradiction an actual
moment, but Time, the general element of all con-
sciousness does not cease to be present now because
it is present always.
The character of the three Modal Categories, as
we have now determined them, namely:
The Actual,
The Conditionally-Necessary,
The Necessary,
is to be perceptual aspects of existence, or of con-
sciousness, not exclusive of one another, but still as-
pects which, as such, are partial. . They are percepts,
terms in their first intention, which nevertheless have
passed through the crucible of thought, and have
been formed by means of terms of second intention.
They characterise existence as it is known to us, and
- they each characterise the whole of it. They are the
*specially philosophical categories; while the simple
categories of thought, genus, differentia, and species,
with their derivatives, the categories of contrariety,
are common to science as well. All these simple
categories are applicable only to the second of the
modal categories, the conditionally-necessary. It is
the task of science to discover two things concerning
particular things which are not actual, 1st, What
particular things exist; 2nd, Whether this or that
particular thing exists; or in other words, (1) to
frame true definitions of particular things, and (2) to
discover whether the things defined by it exist. But
11
422
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
science does not investigate either the Actual or the
CH. VI.
$5.
Necessary. These it assumes, and devotes itself to
frutas determe- the partial, or Conditionally-Necessary.
Modal Cate-
gories.
Final determi-
he
$6.
The Logic of
Possibility.
en 1
СС
$ 6. Such is the way in which the principle of
contradiction operates upon both the simple and the
modal categories. But it remains to be seen more
precisely the mode in which this is effected. This, it
will be remembered, was postponed till after the ex-
position of the modal categories.1 There are in fact
certain categories of a purely logical kind, which we
have not yet examined, and which have always intro-
duced great confusion into this whole subject, in
consequence of neglecting the distinction between
the perceptual and conceptual orders. I speak of the
categories of the logically possible and impossible, the
possible and impossible to thought, as distinguished
from the possible (and impossible) to be or not to
be.
The question is, What is meant by the possible to
thought, as distinguished from the possible to be or
not to be? We have seen that there is no such thing
as the possible not to be; and that the possible to be
or not to be is, in truth, the potential or condition-
ally-necessary. But the possible to thought,—what
of that? Is that also conditionally-necessary? Every-
thing that we can construe to thought,-necessary?
No one can suppose it.
Again, the possible to thought appears to have its
contradictory in the impossible to thought; and the
impossible is defined as a thought which involves a
1 Above, at p. 392.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
423
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
$6.
The Logic of
Possibility.
contradiction. But the necessary is defined as a
thought, the contradictory of which involves a con-
tradiction; or, in other words, as the contradictory
of the impossible. Accordingly, the impossible ap-
pears to have two contradictories, the possible and
the necessary, which is absurd.,
The solution of these puzzles, and the establish-
ment of a short and simple Logic of Possibility, will
be effected by considering the moment of contradic-
tion. This moment may be said to be the second
centre of philosophy, the first being the moment of
presentative perception. They may be compared to
the foci of an ellipse; and what depends on the one
must not be confused with what depends on the other.
The moment of contradiction, we have seen, is
that upon which all thought, all conception, as dis-
tinguished from perceptual processes, hinges; and
this moment it is which is the moment of necessity,
or necessary connection in thought. But now I re-
mark, that it is this same moment which is the mo-
ment of possibility as well. For, being the moment
of contradiction, it shows that one of two alternatives
must be true and the other false, but it says nothing
whatever to determine which of the two is the true,
and which the false alternative. This determination
comes from another source altogether, from percep-
tion, which gives the content of both members of the
alternation. The moment of contradiction itself is
empty of all content, being merely the point of time
determined by attention. And consequently you
cannot have the moment of contradiction in con-
sciousness, without assuming, for that moment, that
either alternative may be true, as well as that one
must be true and the other false. This is what is
424
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
$ 6.
The
meant by logical possibility. You cannot have con-
tradictory alternatives posed, without the possibility
The Lopic of of either alternative being assumed, to begin with,
and so far as the logical principle of contradiction
goes. Otherwise, reasoning would be a process in-
volving foregone conclusions.
The possible to thought or logically possible,
then, may be defined provisionally as a concept which
neither itself, nor the contradictory of which, involves
a contradiction; but then it must be added that this
*logically possible exists only while we make the
proposition which expresses it, or as long as our state
of complete uncertainty exists. The logically pos-
sible has no existence other than as the object, not
of our certainty, but of our uncertainty; the unde-
termined state of our minds is objectivated in it;
and whenever a concrete concept, or concept with a
content, is called logically possible, it can only be
when it contains no mark whatever to show whether
it would be truly or falsely predicated in a particular
case. It would then be a case of the logically pos-
sible, because it would be a case of indetermination,
a supposed object of the moment of our logical indif-
ference or balancing.
In the next place it is to be observed, that exist-
ence, the stream of percepts, is pre-supposed in logi-
cal possibility, and does not enter into question. The
primary question is not whether this or that exists,
but whether this or that is so and so; for instance,
whether the hat is black or not, not whether it exists
at all. That something exists in consciousness at the
time is pre-supposed, and the question is—what exists
there. Is it black, is it white, is it a hat at all? The
circumstance that thought pre-supposes perception is
TIT
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
425
$ 6.
that which determines this restriction of the logically
Book II.
CH. VI.
possible. And we have to do, in the first operations
of thought about the logically possible, not with the The Logic of
Possibility.
existence or non-existence of substantive things, but
with their adjectival determinations, that is, with
contraries not with contradictories.
For let any one attempt to put to himself the
question of the possibility that Nothing exists,-he:
will find he cannot do it. While he is conscious at
all, he is conscious of existence. He will find that
he is imagining, not Purum Nihil, but merely a time
or space vacuum. Therefore it is that the moment
of logical possibility pre-supposes existence of some
sort or other; and in starting from this supposition,
we aim at determining what this existence is.
Here is the place, and here also it seems neces-
sary for obviating objections, to interpose an answer
to a singular argument of Mr. Herbert Spencer,
where he points out what he thinks “the contradic-
tion between the assertion that consciousness cannot
be transcended and the assertion that there exists
nothing beyond consciousness.” These assertions
seem to me identical, two ways of stating the same
thing. But Mr. Spencer proceeds: "For if we can
in no way be aware of anything beyond conscious-
ness, what can suggest either the affirmation or de-
nial of it? and how can even denial of it be framed
in thought? The very proposition that conscious-
ness cannot be transcended, admits of being put to-
gether only by representing a limit, and consequently
implies some kind of consciousness of something be-
yond the limit.”
1 Principles of Psychology, Part VII. Ch. 14. Vol. II. p. 444.
2nd edit.
426
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
The
:
Воок ІІ.
CH. VI.
By representing a limit, yes; but not a limit to
. consciousness. That is the very point in question.
Possibility.
ogic of Within consciousness arises the method of setting
limits, by means of contradiction. It is this method,
this use of contradiction, which “suggests affirma-
tion or denial," and enables “ denial to be framed in
thought.” But try to apply this method to con-
sciousness itself as a whole, and you find you cannot
do it; try to apply it to existence as a whole, and you
find you cannot do it. Now it is this inadequacy
of logical limitation to consciousness and to existence
which is expressed in the assertions in question.
The method of contradiction or limitation arises within
consciousness and existence, and its use pre-supposes
them. Mr. Spencer, I imagine, means to apply the limit
to consciousness, and then supposes himself to find
existence beyond it; I take him to be an objective ab-
solutist. On the other hand, it is equally illogical to
apply the limit to existence, and then find conscious-
ness beyond it, which is the way preferred by subjec-
tive absolutists. But to return.
In the respect now mentioned, the Logic of
Possibility does not differ from the positive logic
which we have hitherto been examining; both alike
pre-suppose perception and existence. But now a
remarkable difference between them must be noted.
The principle of contradiction is the common centre
or starting point of both; but we have seen that this
principle has two aspects, involving each other, that
of necessity and that of possibility. What I have
called the Logic of Possibility is based upon the
latter aspect of the principle; by which I mean that
we make use of the logical indifference, involved in
contradiction, in order to assume, for the purposes of
we
V
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
427
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
- anamneiand mory hry
$ 6.
The Logic of
Possibility.
argument, either member of a contradiction to be
true.
But this liberty is practically exercised only by
assuming to be true that member which we design to
disprove. For to assume the truth of what you are
about to prove is a petitio principii. Unless indeed
to this extent, that you use the assumption, not as a
premiss, but only as a guide to investigation by
further observation or experiment; or else that you
show the agreement of what you so assume with
otherwise known facts,-a process which is good as
corroboration, but cannot extend to demonstration.
For the known facts might possibly agree with and
be conditioned by other things as well as that with
which you will have connected them.
The special principle, then, of the logic of possi-
bility is the postulate of contradiction, just as that
used in concrete positive thinking, in framing and
using genera and species, is the postulate of identity,
the formula of assertion in which is, A is B, as e.g.,
The hat is black. The logic of possibility on the
contrary tests truth, not directly by asking what we
find in experience, but indirectly by excluding what
we cannot find there. The rock which serves it for
leverage is the notion of the Impossible to thought,
that is, the Self-contradictory. And its method is
the method of apagogic as distinguished from osten-
sive reasoning, a method by which we can test the
validity even of our primary perceptions, namely, by
coming back upon them through the assumption of
their contradictories, which are seen to lead inevit-
ably to conclusions which are false in fact. This is
the gist of apagogic reasoning, or the reductio ad
impossibile.
428
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
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The Logic of
Possibility.
a
y
The first category, then, which is established in
this use of the postulate of contradiction is that of
The Impossible to thought ; usually defined as that
which involves a contradiction; but which is truly
defined, in accordance with what has now been said,
as that which involves privative determinations, e.g., a
round square. Round and Square, as determinations
of the same figure at the same time, are privatives.
The next category is the contrary of this, The
Necessary to thought. It is usually defined as that
the contradictory of which involves a contradiction;
but is more properly now to be defined as that the
contrary of which involves privative determinations,
e.g., a curved circle. Why? Because its contrary,
an angular circle, is impossible.
The third category is the indetermination of both
the former, The Possible to thought. Its usual defini-
tion has been given, as provisional, above. But its
true definition as a supposed object is, that which
neither itself, nor the contrary of which, involves priva-
tive determinations, e.g., a round figure ; a square
figure.
More briefly, the Impossible is whatever cannot
be construed to thought, the Necessary whatever
must be in thought if any part of it is, the Possible
whatever can be construed to thought, but need not
be so, because its contrary can be construed to
thought equally well. These are the three categories
of the Logic of Possibility, and the basis of Apagogic
Reasoning.
Observe that in this scheme the Necessary to
thought and the Impossible to thought are true
contraries, and exhaust between them the whole field
1 Page 424.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
429
Book II.
CH. VI.
of the Possible to thought, which sinks to a mere
point of division without any content. They are
$ 6.
contraries in respect of being and not being, or of Thossibility of
existence simply.
But we may also consider the Possible to thought
as a concrete object, the balancing point objectivated,
and then the Necessary and Impossible to thought
are together opposed, as a contrary, to the Possible;
the respect in which this pair of contraries is made
being the respect of determination. It is a case of
the more general pair of contraries, the determinate
and indeterminate. But this way of taking the
matter rests on the fiction of making a supposed
object out of the mere point of indetermination.
The logic of possibility rests on keeping that point a
point merely; and its true contraries are the Neces-
sary and the Impossible to thought.
In fact we have, in the Logic of Possibility, the
subjective side of the method of thought by which
Contraries are formed. And all the pairs of con-
traries which were named above, or which can be
named and brought under them, are concrete cases
of the three categories of the logic of possibility, or,
what is the same thing, of its pair of logical con-
traries, the Necessary and the Impossible.
And now this question occurs ;-What is the re-
lation of the logically possible to the modal category
of the possible to be or not to be? We have arrived
at them by quite different routes, we have kept them
carefully distinct. But I shall be surprised if any one
can see, after all, any difference between them. They
seem to me identical. And for this reason. We
have shown that, in the logic of possibility, existence
is assumed, some content or other is assumed as
na
430
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
$ 6.
Th
Possibility.
JUU
h
existing. A round figure may exist, a square figure
may exist. The question only remains, whether they
can exist here and now, in this or that actual connec-
tion. The question about them is no longer what,
but whether they exist; the second of the two ques-
tions which can be asked about anything, the ques-
tion of its conditions either existendi or cognoscendi.
Possible to thought means, in its positive alternative,
construable to thought, possible per se; possible to
exist means, (supposing construability to thought),
having determining conditions to bring it about.
Now this is precisely what the Possible to be was
shown as; for it was shown to be replaced by the
Potential or the Conditionally necessary. We are
again on the old ground of the Modal Categories.
And the whole Logic of Possibility moves within the
limits of the conditionally-necessary, the partial as-
pect of existence, just as the logic of contraries,
privatives, and relatives, in its concrete and osten-
sive branch, was shown to do.
When we come to the second question relating
to anything possible to thought per se, namely, the
question whether and in what connection it exists, we
come to the further categories of the Probable and
Improbable. The thing de quo is then taken as
represented by its definition, and as such supposed
to be possible. The possible to thought is then
treated as the Contingent, as something which may
or may not exist, an event which may or may not
happen, according as circumstances favour or prevent
it, these circumstances being in their turn contingent
also. There are thus degrees of contingency, and
these degrees are degrees of Probability or Improba-
bility, that is, of more or less certainty or uncertainty
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
431
| CH. VI.
$ 6.
in our knowledge. And they are opposed to each Book II.
other as more and less, that is, as contrasts not as
contraries. They shade off into one another almost The Logic of
Possibility.
imperceptibly, as greater or less intensities of belief;
and apart from the degree of our knowledge about
the facts there is no contingency about them, but
everything is necessary or conditionally-necessary.
The contingent and its two main contrasts may
be thus defined :
Ore
The Contingent: Possibles to thought, the con-
ditions of which involve no privative de-
terminations, and the conditions of the
contraries of which involve none.
The Probable: Contingents for which some evi-
dence can be shown, or more weighty
than can be shown against them.
The Improbable : Contingents against which
some evidence can be shown, or more
weighty than can be shown for them.
The contingent, with its probabilities and im-
probabilities, is the particular portion of the logical
field which is occupied by what is known as the
Theory of Probabilities or Chances. The second of
the two questions which arise under logical possi-
bility, namely, not the question what things are
possible, but the question whether a definitely de-
scribed thing or event occurs or does not occur, -
this is the field of that theory. In it, the thing or
event de quo is always definitely envisaged, or, if it
is taken as a thing or event capable of happening in
several different ways, still these are definitely en-
visaged and distinguished from others. No question
arises about what the event or thing, or its modes of
432
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Book II.
occurring, are. These being supposed given, what is
CH. VÌ.
aimed at is to determine what are the chances for or
$ 6.
The Logic of against its occurrence, or its occurrence in a par-
Possibility.
ticular way; and according to these the otherwise
indefinite intensities of belief are determined, or
sought to be so. For instance, the chances for and
against A B living ten years more, the chances for
and against ten trumps in a hand at whist.
This is a part of logic in which mathematical
methods are perfectly legitimate. The nature of the
things dealt with being supposed known, all that
remains to deal with is their conditions. Of these,
again, whatever can be known by observation and
experiment belongs to what may fairly be called the
inductive basis of the doctrine of chances. What-
ever is inductively known is no longer thought of
as contingent. There remain for the calculation of
chances itself just the results of those minute or in-
tricate conditions which observation and experiment
cannot reach, as for instance, those mechanical mo-
tions which determine the throws of fairly-made dice.
These are no doubt laws of nature, but our know-
ledge of them is knowledge in the lowest stage of
empiricism, being in the form of statistics, that is,
facts stated without their conditions.
And now one general remark in conclusion of
this branch of the subject. It is, that, in virtue of
the facts upon which is based the Logic of Possi-
bility, philosophy has a certain negative voice in the
questions of positive science. For in its application
of this kind of reasoning, it bases itself ultimately
upon certain facts of consciousness which cannot be
1 See on this point Mr. Venn's excellent treatise, The Logic of
Chance, Chap. VIII. p. 184. 2nd edit.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
433
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
86.
The Logic of
The
1
denied or reversed, such for instance as the necessity
that colour should be extended. It makes its deduc-
m onitory
tions as to possibility, impossibility, and necessity,
from facts of this kind, from cases, I mean, of the
inseparability of the formal and material elements,
together with the principle of contrariety, which, as
we have seen, is that which enables the Construction
of Concepts. And the construction of concepts is the
basis of all scientific theory. This accordingly is a
point at which we see the nature and source of one
of the perennial contentions between science and
philosophy. For this negative voice has very often
been wrongly used, from mistaking for ultimate and
indissoluble connections those coexistences or se-
quences which were due only to association and
habit, or to superficial acquaintance with the phe-
nomena.
J. S. Mill was perfectly justified in insisting on
the many cases in which the assertion of inconceiv-
ability, as an argument against new doctrines, or new
facts of science, has been found false. But he is
surely going too far when he rejects the principle of
the inconceivability of the negative as the ultimate
test of truth. All my readers will be familiar with
Mr. Herbert Spencer's masterly proof of the opposite
doctrine, under the title of the Universal Postulate.
Nevertheless Mill's caution was needed, and particu-
larly, as it seems to me, in the case of some of the
doctrines which Mr. Spencer makes the Universal
Postulate to cover with its ægis. It is one thing to
see that a principle is true, and another to distin-
guish aright the cases which fall under it. And Mill
himself seems to concede all that I at least should
contend for, in the following passage from a Chapter
VOL. I.
FF
new
IVE
· 434
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
$ 6.
Book II. in one of the later editions of his Logic, a chapter
which is chiefly devoted to the controversy with Mr.
The Logic of Spencer. “In the few cases in which uniformity of
Possibility.
experience does amount to the strongest possible
proof, as with such propositions as these, Two
straight lines cannot enclose a space, Every event
has a cause, it is not because their negations are
inconceivable, which is not always the fact; but
because the experience, which has been thus uni-
form, pervades all nature. It will be shown in the
following Book that none of the conclusions either
of induction or of deduction can be considered cer-
tain, except as far as their truth is shown to be
inseparably bound up with truths of this class.”
Thought is no faculty ready furnished either with
ideas or with categories of its own a priori to ex-
perience. It takes its whole content from perception,
of the course of which it is a modification under the
action of attention. The ultimate facts of perception
are therefore also the ultimate facts of reasoning,
The content and nature of these facts are the inevit-
able and necessary basis of all trains of imagination
and argument. The “negative” which is “inconceiv-
able” is the negative of these facts. It becomes there-
fore of the last importance to discover by analysis what
the content and nature of these facts are, and which
are the facts that are strictly and truly ultimate.
And this is the only safeguard against that class of
mistakes which has sown so much discord between
science and philosophy, the mistaking mere effects of
association for ultimate facts the negative of which
is really, and not apparently only; inconceivable.
1 A System of Logic. 6th edition, 1865. Book II. Ch. VII.
Examination of some opinions, &c. Vol. I. p. 300.
Yn
SO
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
435
BOOK II.
BOOK II.
$ 7.
Concluding
remarks.
Concluding
OW
$ 7. And now I hasten to the conclusion of the
present Chapter. Philosophy has been called the
Science of the Possible, scientia possibilium. I think
I have shown in what sense this is a true title. It
has also always been held by its disciples to be a
doctrine of the necessity of things, of necessary exist-
ence. The sense in which it really is so has now
been made clear; it is in consequence of the function
of Reflection in consciousness, and of the modal
categories which are its self-made instruments and
furniture. I do not see what can escape the sweep
of these Modals. I see much which escapes that of
the simple categories of thought, for instance, the
determination of the term existence itself. Yet they
depend, as has been shown, upon the principle of
contradiction as one of their bases; their objective,
or more properly speaking, their complete and
exhaustive, validity depends on the complete and
exhaustive validity of that principle. Is or is not
the principle of contradiction, formulated as we have
seen by the postulates of logic, absolutely valid ?
This is one form of a question which requires another
opportunity than the present to enter upon in an ex-
haustive manner.
• Reserving this question for a future chapter, it
must be remarked in conclusion, that we have in the
modal categories the full and final explanation of the
great philosophical problem-In what does the nexus
of things consist? or, What is the causal relation
between them? Not that this nexus, this causality,
comes froin the modal categories, but that they show
us where it does come from, in showing us how the
notion of necessity is formed. It is the concept
which gives back, conceptually and reflectively modi-
le
436
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
Concluding
remarks.
fied, the continuity of Time. Simple conception breaks
up the continuity of the partial perceptual redinte-
grations, and classifies the pieces, each continuous
within itself though discrete from others. Reflection
brings back again the perceptual order, enriched by
conceptual knowledge, an order no longer partial but
forming a single chain of things and events, an
image or train of images figuring the entire course of
the known universe. For presentations are known
and characterised as actual in reflective conception.
Their meaning in perception is presentative percepts
or existents. The second list of modal categories
exhibits these actuals as cases of the necessary. And
they do not cease to be percepts when they pass into
representation. The nexus between them is the
same from the first; conception adds no new nexus,
though it breaks up the partial series of percepts,
and enables a completer series to take its place. The
nexus is the nexus of perception. The continuous
duration involved in percepts and in chains of per-
cepts is inseparable from them, and, when these are
supposed to be separated from one another, appears
as the inevitable nexus between them.
It is only on supposing things to be separate that
the question of their nexus arises. Once see that
things cannot be entirely separate, that time which is
continuous is common to all, and the question of
nexus is answered before it is asked. It is a case of
what should be called FERRIER'S theorem, from the
clear way in which it has been stated, and due
emphasis laid upon it by him, a theorem which, to
1 Institutes of Metaphysic. Epistemology Prop. III. Ontology
Prop. IX. with the Observations and Explanations. The clearest
and most separate statement of the principle is perhaps to be found
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY. .
437
CH. VI.
Conc
match with Ockham's famous razor, and also that it Book
may be seen for itself, independently of that use
$7.
which Ferrier makes of it, it may perhaps be permis- Concluding
sible to turn into Latin: Frustra quæritur quomodo
inter ea conjunctio efficitur quo non nisi conjuncta re-
periuntur. You can point the nexus out in the things
themselves; it is given when they are; you can show
in what it consists, but are precluded from asking
how it arises.
The notions of efficiency and force are only
requisite, and indeed only admissible, when we con-
ceive phenomena as separately existing things,
whether spiritual or material, rounded-off substances
like pie-crust patterns cut out by the cook. Then
indeed the continuity of thought makes itself felt, in
forcing us to ask what connects these rounded-off
things with one another. We have ourselves de-
stroyed the nexus, which we now seek to restore by
the fictions of efficiency and force. Physical, popu-
lar, notions idolised, a further enforcement and
elaboration of the separatist view of things, entities
made out of abstractions, these have long done duty
for philosophy; a supposed perfecting of the separa-
tist theory for the institution of the analytic; the
methods and divisions of science, founded on direct
perception, for the methods and divisions of philoso-
phy, founded on reflection.
The earliest origins of philosophy are illustrated,
at the end of the latter passage, p. 510. 2nd edit. 1856 : “ The con-
tradictory elements” (contradictory when taken separately, per se)
" are found by an analysis of the synthesis, but the synthesis is not
generated by putting together the parts obtained by the analysis,
because these parts can be conceived only in relation to each other,
or as already put together.”
438
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
BOOK II.
CH. VI.
$ 7.
Concluding
remarks,
Concluding
and its intuitions justified, by this analysis of the
modal categories and their reference to reflection.
For instance, let any one read by their light the
fragments which remain to us of Parmenides, and he
will see at once that the stwo ways," which Parme-
nides there contrasts, the “way of truth,” and the
“way of opinion," are, the first the method of reflec-
tion and philosophy, the second that of direct per-
ception and science. This explains what a distin-
guished literary critici has lately found inexplicable
in Parmenides, his proceeding to give an account of
“ opinion,” sa agos dóžav, immediately after insisting
that it is not the “way of truth.” For it is an ac-
count of what men have made of truth, of the modes
in which they have broken it up into rounded-off
things, constituted by negation, being negations of
everything else, having negation for their essence,
and yet proclaimed as substantive existents. This is
shown by the way in which Parmenides makes the
transition from the öv to the uni őv.2
ουδέν γαρ ή έστιν ή έσται
άλλο παρέκ τού έόντος· έπει τότε μοίρ' επέδησεν
οίον ακίνητον τ' έμεναι, τω πάντ' όνομ' έστίν
όσσα βροτοί κατέθεντο πεποιθότες είναι αληθή
γίγνεσθαί τε και όλλυσθαι, είναι τε και ουκί,
και τόπον άλλάσσειν, διά τε χρόα φανών αμείβειν.
On the other hand, it is the unity and necessity,
given as we now see by reflection, as opposed to direct
perception, that Parmenides proclaims as the attributes
of Existence, as the objects of the “way of truth.”
1 Mr. J. A. Symonds, The Eleatic Fragments. In Fortnightly
Review, August 1875.
2 Fragmenta Philosophorum Græc. Vol. I. Parmenidis Carm.
Rel. v. 96. Didot, Paris.
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
439
Borkull.
$7.
Concluding
remarks.
e
eye
The poem is full of eloquent passages in which the
conviction of this unity and necessity, of the infinity
and yet completeness of existence, of its continuity,
of the simultaneity and coexistence of its parts, is
asserted. Such passages must be read in the light of
later philosophical analysis; and only then will they
appear to have a meaning. We are not to attribute
to them, as their own, the meaning to which they
point, and which now throws back its light on them.
Parmenides is not a post-Kantian; and yet it is only
post-Kantians that can see the true meaning of Par-
menides. For his meaning and theirs is the same,
in respect that both insist upon the method of reflec-
tion in contrast to direct or separatist ways of thought.
Why separate, says in effect Parmenides, why seek
for a connection between things which, if you saw
them aright, are never otherwise than connected ?
Ferrier's theorem is virtually contained in the lines :1
παν δε πλέον έστιν εόντος •
τω ξυνεχές παν έστιν, έoν γαρ εόντι πελάζει.
And the doctrine of necessity in the lines which
immediately follow:
Αύταρ ακίνητον μεγάλων έν πείρασι δεσμών
έστιν άναρχον, άπαυστον, επεί γένεσις και όλεθρος
τηλε μάλ' επλάγχθησαν, άπωσε δε πίστις αληθής.
We find, then, in Parmenides the distinction
between the necessary, universally existent, perma-
nent, world, and the world of ever changing exist-
ences, of birth and death, of appearances and disap-
pearances; the one the world of truth, the other of
opinion. This distinction we now know is drawn by
reflection, and corresponds to the distinction between
1 Fragmenta Philosophorum Græc. Vol. I. Parmenidis Carm.
Rel. v. 80.
440
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
Book II.
CH. VI.
$7.
Concluding
what falls under its category of the Necessary and
Universal on the one side, and its categories of the
Actual and Conditionally-Necessary on the other side.
But again we find also in Parmenides, mixed up with
this, a doctrine which is untenable, namely, the dis-
tinction between the One and the Many, used as the
basis of philosophy; the theory is untenable, in con-
tradistinction from the method. And why? Just
because the distinction, as we now see, is one of
direct and not of reflective thought. This is merely
saying that the Eleatics had not obtained a perfect
grasp of that reflective method which they were, per-
haps, the first to institute.
Their two worlds undergo, then, in modern
thought a certain transformation. We now see their
inseparability. We can understand that their world
of transitory appearances, being the actual and con-
ditionally-necessary, is not a world of opinion, but is
the world of science; while their world of truth is the
world which specially belongs to philosophy. Nor is
there any essential difference between them. One is
not a phenomenal and the other a noumenal world;
but both are phenomenal. That which to us is Past,
and that which to us is Future, are necessarily ex-
istent, and are necessarily thought as existent by
reflection. But they are no Thing-in-itself on that
account. Nor does it make the least difference
whether we imagine the conditionally-necessary phe-
nomena coming into existence and leaving it again,
as they first begin and then cease to be actual pre-
sentations, or whether we imagine the whole neces-
sary phenomenal universe as existent, and illuminated
by a travelling gleam of consciousness, as by a sun-
beam falling upon successive spots in a landscape,
nom
CONTRADICTION AND CONTRARIETY.
441
Book II.
Cr. VI.
Concluding
remarks:
and exhibiting in presentative perception those objects
upon which for a moment it rests.
True, it is not easy to imagine in detail the mode
in which such arising into actuality takes place, or
the mode of existence of things before and after that
arising. These are problems of the Constructive
Branch of philosophy. Metaphysic has merely to
indicate and place them, to show their origin in the
modal categories, and the solution which they appa-
rently anticipate. For so much at least can be said
a priori concerning them, that the consciousness
which should see perfectly how that takes place,
which is the object of these problems, would be no
less infinite than the universe itself, would be a con-
sciousness to which all that is possible and all that is
necessary would be known in actual presentation.
END OF BOOK II.
LONDON :
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.

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