ENGLISH PSYCHOLOGY.








ENGLISH PSYCHOLOGY
TRANSLATED FROMJ TIHE FRENCIH OF
TH. RIBOT
HARTLEY —JAMES MILL-HERBERT SPENCER
A. BATN-G. tI. LEWES —SAMIUEL B3AILEY
JOHN STUART MILL
NEW  YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
549 & 551 BROADWAY.
1874.
— ~ —--








CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
I. Past and future Philosophy-2. Two meanings of the word
Philosophy-3. Why the Sciences become independent-4.
That Philosophy will become Metaphysics; Poetry and Metaphysics-5. Psychology as an independent science-6. Object
and method of ordinary Psychology-7. Object and method of
experimental Psychology-8. Divisions of Psychology; general,
comparative, teratological Psychology,-science of characteristics-9. Object of the work,....
HARTLEY,..                             35
MR. JAMES MILL,......44
CHAPTER I.-SENSATIONS AND IDEAS.
Sensations and Ideas. —I. The association of ideas-2. Language-3.
Memory, imagination, classification, abstraction —4. Belief,.  47
CHAP. II.-ABSTRACT TERMS.
Genteral terms. —I. Of general terms —2. Space, time, movement, the
infinite,...........  62
CHAP. IIl. —THE FEELINGS AND THE WILL.
Feelinzg and Will. —I. The insufficiency of English Psychology on this
point-2. Feelings-3. Free-will,                          67




vi                           ConZenfts.
PA CE
MR. JOHN STUART MILL,... 
CHAPTER I.-OF METHOD IN PSYCHOLOGY.
Of Aet/hod in Psychology.-I. The aim of psychology-2. Method of
psychology: positivists, metaphysicians, and associationalists3. The science of character, or Ethology,...     8I
CHAP. II.-PSYCHOLOGY.
Psychology.-I. Consciousness-2. Exterior perception-3. Association
of ideas-4. Causality —. Necessary truths-6. Reasoning7. Will,.......... 92
CHAP. III.-PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF MATTER AND
OF MIND.
Pychological Theory of Mlttler and Mlind. —I. Matter-2. Mind3. The phenomenism of Hume and Mill,..    II3
MR. HERBERT SPENCER,.. 124
CHAPTER I.-THE LAW OF EVOLUTION.
The Law of Evolution. - I. Progress consists in the passage from
the homogeneous to the heterogeneous: its law-2. The hypothesis of the nebulus-3. Living organism and social organism
-4. The genesis of science-5. The knowable and the unknowable,.                           130
CHAP. II.-PSYCHOLOGY.
Psychology. —r. The principles of psychology-2. Continuity and
correspondence. Progress of correspondences, their co-ordination and integration-3. The law of intelligence-4. Unity of
composition of psychological phenomena. Consciousness reduced to a double processus of assimilation and dissimilation5. Summary —6. Is Mr. Herbert Spencer a Positivist?.. 148




Cont/enis.                          vii
PAGE
MR. BAIN,..  94
CHAPTER I.-OF THIE SENSES, THE APPETITES, AND
THE INSTINCTS.
Th/e Sensations. —I. Muscular Sense-2. Sight and Touch-3. Instinct,
germ of Will,...... I98
CHAP. II.-INTELLIGENCE.
Jiddf/n;lzce.-I. Association of Ideas-2. Of Consciousness-3. Aso.
ciation by contiguity: exterior perception —4. Association  by
resemblance: scientific processus-5. Compound association6. Constructive association, or imagination,.2IO
CHAP. III. —THE EMOTIONS.
The Feelings.-I. Judgment of Mr. Herbert Spencer-2. Classification
of the emotions-3. 2Esthetic feeling: of laughter-4. Moral
feelings..., 225
CHAP. IV.-WILL.
i!ill.-I. Division of the subject-2. Of the germ of the will-.
3. Growth of the voluntary power -4. Motives and resolution5. Free-will-6. Conclusion,..., 242
MR. GEORGE HENRY LEWES,. 255
CHAPTER I.-THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
ZThe Ztilooy of P4hiosoqhy.-i. Characteristics of his History-2. His
philosophy-3. The ancients: Sophists, Plato,the Academicians:
of exterior perception-4. The moderns: Descartes, Hobbes,
Berkeley (Idealism and Realism), Cabanis, Gall; French Eclecticism,...                                                257




viii                         Conzenis.
CHAP. II.-PSYCHOLOGY.
PAGE
Fsychologoy-I. Physiology of common life-2. Organism and mechanism-3. Consciousness; its various forms-4. Discussion of the
current doctrine of reflex actions-5. Of sleep and heredity,. 29I
MR. SAMUEL BAILEY,...                      315
CONCLUSION,..... 323




ENGLISH PSYCHOLOGY.
INTRODUCTION.
I. Past and future Philosophy-2. Two meanings of the word Philosophy3. Why the Sciences become independent-4. That Philosophy will
become Metaphysics; Poetry and Metaphysics-5. Psychology as an
independent science-6. Object and method of ordinary Psychology7. Object and method of experimental Psychology-8. Divisions of
Psychology; general, comparative, teratological Psychology,-science of
characteristics-9. Object of the work.
To the question, What was philosophy in the beginning? a reply
is easy. It was universal science. It would be more difficult to
answer an inquiry as to what it is to be in the future; and yet
the study of the past, End certain inductions founded upon history,
may perhaps enable us to foretell its destiny.  At its origin philosophy has for its object the universality of things, the All, and
philosophy, like its object, is One; outside it there is no idea of
distinct and independent sciences. It resembles those rudimentary
organisms in which the physiological distribution of labour has
not yet taken place.  The slow and continuous labour of life, a
natural tendency towards progress, will bring the sciences out of
philosophy, as the organs are brought out of the embryo.  Let us
follow the march of this development in the past; it may cast a
light upon the future, and afford us a glimpse of it.
The first branch which became detached from the common tree,
and entered upon a separate life, is the science of numbers and of
sizes-Mathematics. The Pythagorean school confounded mathematics with philosophy, but two centuries later they became
clearly separate. Plato did not admit that a man might be a




2                 Enzglish Psychology.
philosopher without having been a geometrician, but thenceforth
geometry did without philosophy.  The nature of mathematics
explains this. Among all the sciences, not one has less need to
disquiet itself concerning facts and experience. If, at their origin,
mathematics were empirical, as they probably were, they-speedily
elevated themselves to the abstract notions which form their bases,
and found their true method. In the third century B.c. there
existed in'Greece an order of precise, rigorous sciences, recognised
as such, and perfectly distinct from philosophical researches. We
are about to trace the continuation of the first example of this
emancipation of the particular sciences.
Many ages had to elapse before a new science was to achieve
its autonomy. The ancient philosophy, which reached its greatest
height in Plato and Aristotle, still remains the universal science,
or nearly so; in it metaphysics follow physics, politics follow
morals, studies in physiology were weighed with studies in psychology (Timaeus, De Anzi;mu); it is still the science of all that is;
it studies man, nature, and God. Thus it remains in the Middle
Ages; outside of philosophy, there is nothing but mathematics
and that which relates to them, and the tArfs, such as medicine
and alchemy.  But now we find a new science growing up, aided
by calculation and experience, which accumulates facts and seeks
out laws, which observes instead of reasoning, and which speedily
finds itself strong enough to assert its independence. This
science is called physics. It was a slow and progressive emanation, whose facts are nearer to us, and better known, so that we
can follow them. Galileo, though breaking away from Aristotle,
is still a' philosopher.' He boasted of having devoted'more
years to philosophy than months to mathematics,' and his doctrine
is declared' absurd in philosophy' in the judgment of the Inquisition. Descartes held that philosophy is'a tree whose root is
metaphysics, and whose trunk is physics.' His system of physics,
like that of Newton, is explained under the title P]riniczia Pihilosoh izce.  Philosophical instruction, which from its nature can
only follow-workers and inventors from afar, comprised physics
until the end of the eighteenth century. The disruption was not
rude; it took place because it was inevitable. When the domain
of a science is actively utilized, when every corner of it is explored




Zixtrodzcction.                     3
and turned over, when its object and its means are thoroughly
understood, then that science has won her right to independence
by success.
But thenceforth philosophy could no longer claim as its object
everything which exists: man, nature, and God. Physics and the
kindred sciences wrest from it nature; shall man and God be
left to it.
The science of language is a purely human science, cultivated
by philosophers at first rather by chance, but whose importance never escaped their notice. - Plato gives a sketch of it in his
COralyhus. The Epicureans and the Stoics, two schools which had
then fallen into decadence, had written largely on this subject.
Among moderns, we need only'recall the names of Leibnitz,
Locke, Condillac, and their disciples. Less than a century ago,
the science of language was at that point, when the discovery of
Sanscrit enabled it to find its true method and line, and to
establish itself as an independent science. Since then, it has
collected facts, defined laws, classified languages, determined
roots; it.is- constantly advancing in its almost chemical analysis
of words; it has its own vocabulary, its distinct parts, its phonetics,
its morphology, etc. It is singularly jealous of its independence.
It will have nothing in common with metaphysics, but repels such
relation as a crime. Here then is a purely human science
detached from the common trunk.
In later times the science of morals has likewise claimed its
independence.  The task of some of our contemporaries has
been to constitute the theory of the rights and duties of
man, without asking the  aid either of religion or philosophy; to invest morals with the rank of a primary science,
arising from  itself alone; to release it from the preliminary
necessity of a metaphysical doctrine whose mere consequence it
should. be. This undertaking has found many partisans and
many enemies., Without entering into the question of the value
of this attempt, let us state the fact that the science of morals,
fearlessly asserts its independence, and claims a separate domain
of its own.
This would be the place in which to show that psychology has
the same tendencies; to show that its most recent transformations




4                  Enzglishk Psychology.
have set it free from the yoke of metaphysics, and that it also
demands its autonomy. But the subject is to be treated at length
in a later portion of this work.
Is it necessary to call attention to the fact that physiology is
independent of philosophyl The truth is, that their relations
never were close.' Physiology is, above all, born of experience.
It has been science springing from an art, rather than a particular
science  arising from  general science.  Medicine, which  has
existed always and everywhere, has not been able to dispense
with the study of the living body.  Thus, physiology was, in the
first place, a means, before it became a science with a self-contained
object.  In this it resembles chemistry, born of certain practical
inventions and of the mysterious researches of the Middle Ages
into the transmutation of metals, which were not altogether discovered from  philosophers, as the name'hermetic philosophy,'
so frequently employed to designate those researches, proves.
Besides, the popular imagination readily confounds the philosopher with the alchemist, placing him in one of the dark vaults
which Rembrandt has painted, surrounded by books, furnaces,
and crucibles.
In short, all the special sciences which now exist have been
derived from  a double source,-from  philosophy and from  art.
These latter, whose origin is the more humble, are not the least
sound or fruitful.  In comparing the facts accumulated by expIerience, they have been able to eliminate accidents, to separate
that which is fixed and permanent, and to define its laws; that is
to say, to arrive at precise knowledge, and'at that essential
character of science which is to foresee.' As for the independence
of those sciences which have already come out, or are tending
towards coming out from philosophy, we have seen it produced
naturally, by unceasing and unwitting work, and the severance
results from the very nature of things.  An exact and positive
science cannot limit itself to vague affirmations, it must prove
and verify its assertions, it must weigh the most minute details;
a chemist will not hesitate to devote several years to the study of
1 Nevertheless, Aristotle did much for anatomy and biology; and among
the predlecessors of Iippocrates his learned translator names the cpoVto6XyoL.




I1z1rocdzclonz.                       5
a single body and of its compounds; a zoologist would do the
same for some humble infusoria visible only under the microscope.
It is necessary to specialize one's-self, as the present phrase is,
to insure the progress of science. But a result of this endless
analysis is that each particular science becomes a world. In
fact, greatness is a relative thing.  If chemistry be only a small
item in the total of human knowledge, it is immense when compared to a simple study of azote and its compounds. How can
we be surprised that it amply suffices to the labourers in it, and
that they seek for nothing beyond its horizon. It is the same
everywhere.  Beyond this, even; that interior process which
resolves philosophy into particular sciences resolves them again
into sub-sciences, physics into thermology, optics, acoustics;
biology into physiology, etc. etc. In this labour of decomposition, which has no assignable limits, each step in analysis leads
further away from the primitive unity.
II.
Let us now inquire what remains to philosophy after those
successive subtractions.   W-hat are its pretensions, it limits, its
object? If we examine the different senses in which the word
philosophy is used in correct language, discussions, or books, we
shall be struck by-the various acceptations to which it lends
itself, and by the confusion which it may produce. A man who
describes, analyses, and classifies the phenomena of thought like
Mr. Herbert Spencer or Mr. A. Bain is called a philosopher. A
man who regulates morals,.lays down prescriptions, proposes an
ideal of conduct, is equally a philosopher. Do you place logic
among the recent discoveries of science, as Mr. Stuart Mill has
done, or discourse upon the attributes of God, or search into first
causes? —the same title is bestowed upon you. A high philosophical bearing is justly acknowledged as belonging to a theory
like that of the unity of physical forces, which establishes their
correlations and transformations.  HIere are different significations, and we may add to them many others. Whence this
confusion? It seems to us to originate thus: Two very different
things may be meant by philosophy; that which is, and that
which tends to be; the first consisting of a rather incoherent




6                Ezg~lish Psychol/ggy.
assemblage of four or five sciences; the second offering a precise
rational signification, having a determinate object, and limits
assigned by experience.
In the ordinary sense of the word this is philosophy. It is a
study which comes from the human mind and from its various
manifestations, which, by the faculty of reasoning, is led up to
logic, and, by the faculty of willing and acting conformably to a
law, is led up to morals, and from thence mounts up to the first
cause of all things, to God; it is completed by some metaphysical researches into the essence of the soul, the nature of certitude, and the fundamental principles. of morals. Can this be
rightly designated a science having an object?  If you ask what
is the object of physics, astronomy, chemistry, anthropology, the
reply is easy and ready. -But has philosophy an object, or
objects, or portions of objects? It has one, in the first place,
with which no other science occupies itself. That object is God.
Must we add to this, Man?  Assuredly not man as a whole,
for anatomy, physiology, in short the biological sciences, have
taken a share in him for themselves.  A portion of man then,his soul. This is also to be contested.  History, in its extended
sense, the science of language, jurisprudence, even  political
economy, claim their share of that.  It comes to this, then, that
the object of philosophy is God, pzlus a certain portion of man,
-an object, p2us a portion of an object.  How can it henceforth
claim the title of a primary and universal science? How, above
all, can it arrive at unity?:  That would be possible only according to the idealist solution, which holds that God, nature, history,
everything, has no reality except in human thought.
This is what philosophy actually is. But what does it tend to
become     If we admit, as facts constrain us to admit, that the
special sciences detach themselves from it, as time goes on, at
uncertain intervals,-if it be granted that this rupture is naturally
produced by the accumulation of facts, the incessant progress of
analysis, and the necessity of specialization,-if we remark that
psychology is already almost independent, that morals desires to
become so, and that logic is only a portion of psychology, we
foresee the possibility of new sciences, more or less distant, and
a further impoverishment of philosophy, at least in appearance.




IAiiroduzic/izo.                   7
Its actual incoherence appears to us to be caused by its containing, besides general science, special sciences,. which are
regarded as an integral part of itself.  It resembles those beings
which are reproduced by division, or cutting into pieces, and
which, at certain moments, present the strange spectacle of three
or four individuals still adhering to the, common stem.
III.
In order that we may understand what philosophy tends to
become by the progress of human knowledge, let us see what is
produced in the special sciences when they detach themselves.
Let us suppose mathematics cultivated by the philosophers, not
as a special science, but as forming a portion of philosophy; this
is what would happen. The method of all philosophic minds is
to give the precedence to questions of principles over everything
else; they will therefore begin by examining axioms, discussing
the legitimacy of method, investigating quantity, measuring time
and space, at the risk of never believing themselves sufficiently
certain to begin. Tliey may even lose themselves in strange
systems of numbers, like the Pythagoreans and Plato.  Mathematicians go to work differently. They do not trouble themselves to reconcile Newton with Leibnitz, or Locke with Kant,
on the nature of time and space; they accept axioms without
discussing them, on the guarantee of common sense only, but
they go on. The constitution and development of this science
depended upon the condition that they should lay aside at the
outset a number of unresolved questions, abandoning them to
discussion by the philosophers.
It is the same with physics.  Before Galileo, physics were
merely metaphysics with some roughly explained facts over and
above. In Aristotle's works the one is hardly to be distinguished
from the other,-they succeed and supplement, and naturally
suppose each other. What is matter?  What is nature?  Does
it comprehend mattde andform? What is motion? Is it infinitely
divisible?: What;is power, and what is action? Does the external
world exist? What is the worth of our senses?  May wre trust
them? All these questions are put aside by the physicist.  He
accepts the faith of common sense in the material world, and the




8                 EEzglbsh Psychology.
senses which reveal it to us; he deals not with the essence, but
with the facts and their laws; he controls the testimony of the
senses without discussing it.  He relegates to philosophy all
researches into the ultimate reasons of things; let philosophy
solve them, if it can. Even chemistry, which in analysis descends to quite the last elements, does not go beyond the study
of secondary causes.
In the science of language, the question dear to philosophy
is that of origin. Put forward in the time of Democritus, it
has been again debated in our days by the theological school
of De Maistre and De Bonald. But when linguistics was definitively constituted a special science, this question of origin
was laid aside, and though it appears obscure rather than insoluble, it is banished from the positive study of languages.
The linguist accepts the existence of various idioms and dialects as a fact; he classifies them, traces them, and explains
their radiations, but the question of origin he regards as hazardous or at least premature.
The study of economical facts is gaining in importance every
day; in France especially, notwithstanding the strong prejudices
against it. The dissent of the economists does not hinder the
science from establishing itself, little by little, and destroying
the pretended axioms of common sense by solid reasons. But
political economy holds by facts, and though it presupposes
philosophical principles, it does not discuss them. Locke, in
his Essay on Civil Government, did not separate this science
from the other methods of being of social life. Boisguillebert gave
it a more distinct position; at length Quesnay and Smith constituted for it an independent domain, and since that time its
independence, with respect to metaphysics, has increased daily.
It would be easy to multiply proofs by mentioning other
sciences; for instance, to show that biology deals only with
manifestations of life, but resolutely sets aside all theories on its
natzuie and oriznz; —it places them outside scientific knowledgethat biology regards vitalism, animism, organism, etc., merely as
ingenious, unverified systems.
It appears still more unfortunate for philosophy, that from the
moment at which any science shakes itself free from metaphysical




IZzlroducizb o.                   9
researches, it immediately begins to make progress. This is
exemplified by mathematics, with Archimedes and Euclid; astronomy, with Kepler and Copernicus; physics, with Galileo,
Huyghens, and Newton; chemistry, with Lavoisier; biology, with
iBichat and contemporaries; the science of language with Bopp
and Max Muller.  And yet this is not in reality surprising; there
are very plain reasons for it: in the first place, because the
geniuts which was expended in solving the insoluble and finding
the undiscoverable is now devoted only to purely scientific
researches; and in the second, because the aim of science is
changed; theories are now subordinated to facts, and not facts
to theories; systems pass away, but experiences remain.
Thus then, everywhere and always, particular sciences which
have a special object are only constituted by leaving a balance
of unsolved questions aside at their outset. Exactly speaking,
they have no commencement; they come out by chance, as they
can; no one knows from whence they come, nor whither they
go; but on the other hand, every one knows what they are. To
those who judge them as philosophers, their point of departure is
ruinous, ill established, not discussed; but if philosophy condemns, experience absolves them.  And even logic does the
same, by proving that thus they ought to proceed. Now we can
understand under what conditions the particular sciences still
adherent to philosophy will be able to render themselves independent of it.- They must start from some postulate, from certain
rational or experimental truths; they must not stop at questions
of principles, and they must leave discussions to philosophy.
Morals, for instance, will not seek beyond that which is good in
itself. Psychology will not ask what the soul is; it will interdict
all excursions into the region of primary causes. This is the
absolute condition of their existence as exact sciences capable of
progress. Those who have reproached these attempts at emancipation with an absence of foundation, who have said to morals
and to psychology:' It is anti-philosophical to endeavour to do
without preliminary metaphysics; your commencement is arbitrary; your data are affirmed, not discussed; you are not fixed
upon principles' —how have they failed to see that this was a
logical necessity, and that debates on principles prevent arrival at




I o               Ezgrlish Psycholoogy.
consequences? How have they failed to see that their reproaches
might as well be directed to geometry, to physics, fo chemistry,
in short, to all the actually constituted sciences?. Will they
oppose the gratuitous difficulty that that which.is possible for the
study of nature is not possible for that of man; that we may do
without first principles ininvestigating matter and its properties,
but that we cannot dispense with them when we are concerned
with mind and its manifestations? Not only would this assertion
be devoid of facts, but it would be in contradiction to the facts.
For, among the number. of the sciences which are called moral —
that is to say, whose objects are the manifestations of human
thought and will, do we not place the science of languages, law,
political economy, which interdict as much as possible, and every
day more strongly, all metaphysical discussions?
IV.
We can now perceive what philosophy tends to become, and
what a transformation the continuous coalition of the sciences
must inevitably oblige it to undergo. Universal in its origin,
philosophy will in the future be still universal, but in another
manner.  Formerly, it contained  everything-principles and
consequences, causes and facts, general truths and results. It
now presents the strange spectacle of a science, universal on
certain sides, particular on others. At a later date, it will contain only the general speculations of the human mind upon the
first principles, and the last reasons of all things.  t will be
metaphlysics and nothzing more. That which will thus occupy
the philosophers, and constitute their own domain, will be that
unknown upon which every science establishes itself, and.which
it then abandons to their disputes. In that there will still be an
eternal source of discussion and research; and, as they will extend over the whole field of human knowledge, of all sciences
which exist, or which shall come into being, philosophy will
remain universal. Nor is this all. The progress of particular
sciences leads them necessarily to wider and wider generalizations, supported upon facts indeed, but which frequently outrun
them-such are the hypotheses which explain so many phenomena, summarize so many laws, have resisted so many verifica



tions, that they are almost demonstrated truths.  In these will be
fother materials for future philosophy. The law of universal
attraction, and that of the correlation of forces, enable us to foresee what the sciences may discover by the accumulation of facts,
by calculation, and exact methods. Let us suppose some analogous discovery in chemistry. Let us admit that some of its mysteries are stolen from life, and that biology finds its Newton.
Let us hope for some generalization in the phenomena of
thought, which shall associate them  with those of life; that
history will, in part at least, yield up its secret to us. Let us add
all the great views which we cannot forestal, all that the sciences
yet unborn shall reveal to us; can we then believe that method
will be wanting to philosophical minds, that is to say, to minds
engaged upon the general whole? Let it not be said either that
there is a contradiction in maintaining that the progress of the
sciences brings them back to philosophy, after its having been
stated that it detaches them from it. All science is contradicted
by the double action of analysis and synthesis.  It arrives at
precise, active, verified knowledge, only by constantly descending
towards the infinitely little; it distinguishes, separates, divides,
seeks out exceptions and differences. But a heap of well-established facts is not a science; the relations remain to be appreciated, the resemblances to be grouped, the laws to be reached
by induction, the whole to be sought out. There must, therefore,
be two orders of problems in philosophy, identical at bottom:
those from which sciences spring, and those which are their
result. Philosophy will be always sounding this double ignorance. The entire collection of human knowledge resembles a
great river flowing full between its banks, under a sky glowing
with light, but whose source and mouth are unknown, which
springs and dies in the clouds. Bold spirits have never been
able either to solve this mystery or to forget it. There are always
some sufficiently intrepid to throw themselves resolutely into this
inaccessible region, whence they return blinded, giddy, and
relating such strange things that the world holds them to be
hallucinations.
Is philosophy, thus understood, to remain a science?  How
can it so remain, if everything which is scientifically to be known




1 2               Eznglisih Psychology.
is taken away from it, if, wherever there are facts to be observed,
laws to be sought into, rotations to be calculated, some particular
science constitutes a domain of its own, and leaves to philosophy
such questions only as it cannot solve?  How can there be a
science where there is no measure or verification possible?2
Metaphysics is a collection of truths outside and above all demonstration, because they are the foundation of all demonstration; it
is negatively determined by the collective action of all the
sciences, which eliminates everything that outruns them. Besides this, metaphysics is subjective, and science ought to be objective. That which is demonstrated, established, formulated in
laws, is invariably acquired' independently of time and place.
Mathematical truths are the same for the Hindu and the Greek,
the Italian and the Englishman.  Science does not reflect the
genius of a race, it is the work of an impersonal spirit. There is
no such thing as French physics as opposed to English physics;
that which was true for Galileo is true for Ampere and Faraday.
This must be so, since the affirmations of science are capable
of verification, since science fashions the human mind after nature,
instead of fashioning nature according to the arbitrary conceptions of the human mind.  In metaphysics the contrary is the
case; the work is personal, it is impressed with the character of
an individual, or at least of a race.  It is local and ephemeral,
for the individual communicates his fragility to his work.
It has been ingeniously said'that metaphysicians are poets
who have missed their vocation.' 1 The more one thinks of it,
the more just the saying appears.- When philosophy shall have
become that which it ought to be, when nothing will remain to it
but the general, the abstract, the ideal, then it will be seen clearly
by every one to be the work of art rather than of science; to
be, to some, tiresome ill-written poetry, while to others it is
elevated, powerful, truly divine.
Why should we not already face this truth, which is only paradoxical to those who stop at appearances?  If you are not one
of those dull minds which cannot conceive anything above the
1 M. Vacllerot, La fie'laphysique ct Ia Science, vol. i. p. 5. He disputes
this opinion.




most vulgar reality, if you are searching for something under
facts and above them, you enter into an ideal world. The poet
conceives it to be in the image of ours, but more beautiful, more
harmonious; life in it is wider and has more flavour; he contemplates living forms, visible, palpable, concrete, more real to him
than reality itself. To the metaphysician it is quite different.  It
is a region of abstract truths, of laws and formulas, accessible
only to pure spirit, the mysterious domain of the impossible and
the invisible, where the principles of all things reign, like the
mothers of the second Eazst,I'who are enthroned in the infinite,
eternally solitary, their heads encircled with the images of life
active, but without life.' Both are creators in their several ways;
one because he understands the handling of colours, words, the
picturesque forms which give life and drapery to ideas; the other
because he believes that he has seized the hidden springs which
make the world move, the fruitful formulas which translate the
laws of the universe, and whence the flow of phenomena issue as
from an inexhaustible spring.  Hence those philosophical constructions which resemble great poems.  Hence it is that, in general, metaphysics and the high order of poetry meet and mingle,
as in the Paradise of Dante.  Each reflects the genius of a
people. In India, the Blagavad-gila is the episode of an epopee.
The reserved and, at bottom, little subversive Cartesianism, in
which, as Ritter says (HIistoire de lZ  P/ilosoh/zie Jlfodertce,
vol. i.) -'the thought of the limitation of our knowledge evidently dominates,' resembles the sober and measured poetry of
the seventeenth century.  Hegel's Logic borders on Faust.  Who
was more of a poet than IPlato and Plotinus l We should go
through the whole history of metaphysics, in order to show how
closely it resembles poetry.  They shared between them  the
ardent minds of the Renaissance, of which Giordano Bruno is the
most complete type. When Hegel maintains (GescA. d. PZi,.,
P. 194, vol. iii.)' that the mystics only knew how to philosophize,'
does he not say that the higher metaphysics reaches the more it
resembles an effusion or a reverie? They who, like Aristotle, seem
to have nothing of the poet about them, arrive at astonishing conceptions-that of a world which, in its ultimate depths aspires to
good, is (rawn by love, moved by a'metaphysical Newtonism.'




1 4               English Psychology.
A great German poet, Heinrich Heine, has said of the driest of
metaphysicians:' The reading of Spinoza lays hold of us like the
aspect of great nature in its living calm; it is a forest of thoughts,
as lofty as the sky, whose crowned crests undulate harmoniously,
while their indestructible stems plunge their roots into the eternal
earth. In his writings one feels a breath which moves one in an
indefinable way; it is as though one were breathing the air of the
future.' Metaphysicians are poets, whose aim is the reconstruction of the synthesis of the world.
Are these great cosmogonic epopees to disappear?  Will the
repeated experience of their insufficiency condemn them hopelessly? Is philosophy to continue to give us poetry for science,
to drape its fictions in undecipherable formulas, and to announce
to the world for the hundredth time that it has found the key to
its enigma?
Why not?  There are many in these days who think that the
human mind ought to renounce those researches, to put. them
aside like the toys of childhood. This seems neither desirable
nor possible. If positivism limited itself to stating that metaphysics could not be seriously regarded as a science, because it
affirms but is unable to verify or demonstrate, no contradiction
could be offered without shutting our eyes to evidence. When
positivism applies itself to the elimination of all metaphysics from
experimental sciences, it also does a service, since it follows the
rules of a good method, separating the knowable from the unknowable; preventing us from sacrificing everything to hypothesis;
from bending facts to theories; from letlin ggo the substancefor the
shadow. But to condemn all researches into ultimate reasons as a
vain and dangerous illusion,-to consider all time lost which was
consecrated to them,-to desire to cure the human mind of them,
as if of a chronic infirmity, is in reality to lessen the human mind.
The importance of studies is not measured by their success. To
seek without hope is neither senseless nor vulgar,-one may discern without finding. The true nobility of human intelligence consists less in the results which it obtains, than in the end which it
proposes to itself, and in the efforts by which it essays to attain
that aim.  Experience is much, but it is not all. And, besides,
who shall prove to us that facts are of more value than ideas,




lntrozuction.                    15
discoveries than researches?  Philosophy must ever remain an
eternal attempt upon the unknown. It will never find the last word
of all things; and that is well, because it may be said, without any
paradox, that if metaphysics were to give all it promises, it would
be better to force it to keep silence. Let us suppose all our
questions concerning God, nature, and ourselves, finally answered,
-what would remain for human intelligence to do? This solution
would be its death. All inquiring and active minds will be of Lessing's opinion on this point: —' There is more pleasure in coursing
the hare than in catching it.' Philosophy will keep up its activity
by its magical and deceiving mirage. Were it never to render any
other service to human intelligence than that of keeping it always
on the alert, of elevating it above a narrow dogmatism, by
showing it that mysterious beyond, which surrounds and presses
upon it in every science, philosophy would do enough for it.
V.
Now  let us approach the proper object of this studypsychology; the preceding remarks are merely prefatory. Our
purpose is to show that psychology may be constituted an
independent science, to investigate the conditions of such constitution, and to see whether that independence is not an accomplished fact among several contemporaries. At first sight, I
know, this proposition may appear unacceptable.  Is not psychology the basis of philosophy, and the object of its most
constant if not most ancient study? How can they be separated?
There is an equivoque in this which must be removed. Psychology,
like every science, like physics, chemistry, or physiology, contains
ultimate, transcendental questions,-questions of principles, of
causes, of substances. What is the soul? whence does it come?
whither is it going? These are purely philosophical discussions.
But there is more than that in psychology. There are facts of a
special nature, difficult to observe, still more difficult to classify,
but which do not the less constitute the most solid and the most
indisputable portion of the science.
It is the tpure and simnpe study of these facts which can conslztzite
an independent science. I observe that, since Wolf, a distinction
is commonly made between an experimental psychology which




X6                 Englishz Psychology.
occupies itself with phenomena only, and a rational psychology
which occupies itself with substance only. But as, according to
Wolf and those who follow him, these two studies are the complementary parts of one same whole, to our mind this experimental
psychology alone constitutes all psychology; the remainder belongs to philosophy, or metaphysics, and is, consequently, outside
of the science.
HIaving laid this down, we propose, in the following pages, to
examine the current conception of psychology, particularly in
France, and to see to what results it leads.  We shall then
investigate purely experimental psychology, in what it consists
and how it proceeds; and finally, we shall endeavour to sketch
its divisions.
VI.
Let us turn to the most accredited treatises on psychology for
a definition of that science.'Psychology,' says Jouffroy,l' is
the science of the intelligent principle, of the man, of the mze.'' Psychology is that part of philosophy whose object is the knowledge of the soul and of its faculties, studied by the single means
of consciousness.'-(.Dict. des Sciences P/hi., Art. Psychol.)
The first criticism to be made upon these definitions is, that
they confound two very different things, psychological phenomena
and their substratum; or, as Kant would say, phenomena and
noumena. Without going into the question whether we actually
have a knowledge of things in ourselves, we must at least grant
that it is very vague, since there is no common accord on this
subject, and that it is not scientific, since it cannot be verified.
I am not ignorant that of late years it has been repeated, after
Maine de Biran and Jouffroy, that'the soul knows itself, lays
hold on itself, immediately.' But not only have these psychologists passed twenty or thirty years in study before they discovered
this izmedzcte aknoweg-e (which is sufficiently surprising),-their
discovery does not seem to advance us much; because, when we
1lAelaSges P'zil7soph., p. I9I.  HIe even endeavours to establish that
psychology is the science of the whole man, physiology occupying itself with
the animlnl only.




lntrodzuclzon.                        7
have long and scrupulously sought what this intimate essence
thus revealed is, we succeed only in finding such vague expressions as'absolute activity,''pure spirit outside of time and
space,' whence we may conclude that still the clearest part of our
knowledge consists in phenomena. The fault of the current
definition, then, is that it confounds two essentially distinct things,
psychological facts with ontological speculations.  Hence it
happens that the study of facts, which is fruitful, is so often
abandoned for the construction of theories, which is sterile and
slow,-useful observation forsaken for the rash and ruinous process of hypothesis.
Nor is this all. We are told that psychology is the science of the
human soul. That is a very narrow and incomplete idea of it.
Is biology ever defined as the science of human life?  Has physiology ever believed, even in its infancy, that its only object, was
man? Have they not considered, on the contrary, that everything which has organized and manifested life belongs to them,
-the infusoria, as well as man?  Now, unless we admit the Cartesian opinion of animal machines-which has no longer, to
my knowledge, an adherent,-we must acknowledge that animals
have their sensations, their sentiments, their desires, their pleasures, their pains, their character, just like ourselves; that there
is a collection of psychological facts which one has no right to
subtract from the science. Who has studied those facts?  The
naturalists, and not the psychologists. If we were to go further,
we might.hhow that ordinary psychology, in restricting itself to
man, has not even included the whole of mankind; that it has
taken no heed of the inferior races (black and yellow), that it has
contented itself with affirming that the human faculties are identical in nature and various only in degree, as if the difference of
degree might not sometimes be such as to be equivalent to a
difference of nature; that in man it has taken the faculties
already constituted, and rarely occupied itself with their mode of
development; so that, finally, psychology, instead of being the
science of psychical phenomena, has simply made man, adult,
civilized, and white, its object.
We have seen how psychology understands its object, let us
now see how it understands its method. This consists entirely
2




18                Etnglish Psychology.
in reflection, or interior observation. Assuredly, no one believes
more firmly than we do in the necessity of this mode of observation; it is the point of departure, the indispensable condition of
all psychology, and those who have denied it, like Broussais and
Aug. Comte, have so completely gone against evidence, and
given the game to their adversaries, that their most faithful
disciples have not gone so far with them.  It is certain that the
anatomist and the physiologist might pass centuries in studying the
brain and the nerves, without ever suspecting what a pleasure or
a pain is, if they have not felt both.
No testimony is so valuable on this point as that of consciousness, and we are always brought back to that saying of an anatomist,-' In the presence of the fibres of the brain, we are like
hackney coachmen, who know the streets and the houses, but
know nothing of what takes place inside them.' It is also certain
that the objections made to this method of observation have been
very well discussed. But is it true that interior observation is
the unique method of psychology? that it reveals everything,
that it suffices for everything. Taken in its rigorous meaning,
this doctrine would lead to the impossibility of the science.
For, if my reflection apprises me of that which passes in me, it is
absolutely incapable of enabling me to penetrate into the mind
of another. A more complicated process is necessary for that.
We are talking; a man present at our conversation joins in it
with an absent manner, says a few words with evident effort, and
forces a smile; I conclude from all this that he is a prey to some
hidden trouble. I may soon divine its causes if I have a penetrating mind, and if I am acquainted with this man and his antecedents. But this psychological discovery is a very complex operation, of which the following are the stages: perception of signs
and gestures, interpretation of those signs, induction from effects
to causes, inference, reasoning by analogy. It has nothing in
common with interior observation except that aptitude for knowing others better which comes from knowing one's-self better.
Thus, one of two things is the case: either psychology is limited
to interior observations, and these being completely individual, it
has no longer any scientific character; or else it is extended to
other men, it searches out laws, it practises induction, it reasons,




ZInroduc/ioz.                       I 9
and then it is susceptible of progress; but its method is to a great
extent objective. Interior observation alone is not sufficient for
the weakest psychology.
Another defect of the ordinary method is, that it has led, as
might have been foreseen, to abstraction. It has led -philosophers
to study the phenomena of mind rather as logicians than as
psychologists, rather as reasoners than as observers. One of its
chief consequences has been the current doctrine of faculties.
It may be said, in many respects to be useful, to be necessary.
Psychology has facts to classify, like physics or botany; it separates those which are different, it unites those which are like, and
thus it forms groups; to each group it assigns a name, which, like
the terms heat, light, magnetism, designates the uwnknown causes
of known phenomena. But the almost inevitable danger of this
method is to personify causes, to erect them into distinct and independent entities; we forget that these are only abstracts, convenient formulas for the explanation of the science, which have
no value unless they are referred back to the concretes whence
they have been taken, that therein consists all their value, all
their reality. The history of ancient physics, embarrassed by
substantial forms and occult causes, shows us how the clearest
minds yield to the temptation to realize abstractions.  Hence, in
psychology, we have a first result, which consists in the substitution of a verbal study, that of faculties, for a real study, that of
phenomena.  Discussions on free-will might well be of that
nature, the problem being perhaps inextricable only because it is
ill stated. - Thus the time which might be devoted to observation is lost in idle disputes, and in place of impartial observers,
parties are formed, who push their hypotheses to extremes, and
who are perpetually contending for chimeras, because phantoms
can neither be killed nor imprisoned. A third result is to dissimulate the unity of composition of psychological phenomena.
Mental life has its degrees, and, so to speak, its stages; they are
only separated by vague limits made out by the doctrine of faculties to be fixed and absolute. Ad. Garnier says very justly that
in order to attribute facts to diverse causes, it is necessary that
the facts should be not only different, but independent of phenomena, not only very different from, but even olppose(l to, each




20                Eng'lish Psychologv.
other, as the ascent of gases to the fall of bodies; yet capable of
having an idlentical cause. But we look in vain for this character of independence in psychological phenomena; we find them
confounded, mixed up together, and reciprocally supposing each
other. One of the philosophers of whom we propose to speak in
this volume, Mr. Samuel Bailey, has acutely criticised the mixed
phraseology which is inherent in the method by which faculties
are erected into entities, distinct from man himself:-' The faculties have been represented acting like independent agents, giving
birth to ideas, passing them on to each other mutually, and
transacting their business among themselves. In this kind of
phraseology the mind often appears like a sort of field, in which
perception, reason, memory, imagination, will, conscience, the
passions, produce their operations, like so many powers, either
allied or hostile. Sometimes one of these faculties has the
supremacy and the others are subordinate; one usurps the
authority and the other yields, one explains and the others listen,
one deceives and the other is deceived. Meantime the mind, or
the intelligent being himself, is completely lost to view in the
midst of these transactions, in which he does not appear to have
any part. At other times we are- shown these faculties treating
with their proprietor or master, lending him their services, acting
under his control, or his direction, furnishing him with evidence,
instructing him, enlightening him by their revelations, as if he
himself were detached and apart from the faculties which it is
said he possesses, commands, and hearkens to.' The same
remarks may be made upon the senses; the organs of the senses
are no doubt distinct from the mind, but the senses themselves
are not so. When a man sees or hears, it is he, it is the conscious being, who sees or hears. To say that the senses see and
hear is to make entities of them, whereas in reality there are
simply certain mental affections produced.
Hobbes, Locke, Leibnitz, Hume, have more than once criticised
this inexact language without however succeeding in avoiding it
themselves.  Bailey quotes numerous examples, among which
Kant would be the most flagrant, if M. Cousin had not written.
According to German philosophy, the major of a syllogism refers
to the understanding, the minor to the judgment, the conclusion




Zntroduclion.                      2 I1
to reason.'Thus,' says Bailey,' the intelligent being, like a
constitutional monarch, governs regularly by means of his ministers; the Understanding being the Secretary of State for the
Home Department, the Faculty of Judging being the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and the Reason the First Lord of the
Treasury.'
Is it always possible to avoid these expressions?' No.' And,'
continues Bailey,' I have no more objection to make to the employment of the term " faculties " on ordinary occasions than to
the habit which one of my friends has of measuring distances
with sufficient exactness by the number of his own strides.  But
the methodical "investigation" of the facts of consciousness
demands as much exactness and precision as any researches
into physics or mathematics; and the method of "faculties"
resembles that no more closely than my friend's calculation
resembles a carefully drawn up trigonometrical plan.' "
It would be no more reasonable to abandon the use of such
terms as will, reason, memory, etc., than to cease to use the
words much, little, some. But what would we think of a statistician who, instead of saying that in such and such a country
each marriage produces on an average four children, and that
three-fifths of the population know how to read and write, should
content himself with announcing that these marriages produce
some children, and that the people who can read and write are
numerous.  The quantitative determination is the important
matter.  A criticism of'imaginary operations,' almost entirely at
the expense of M. Cousin, leads the author to conclude, that'the predominance of those imaginary facts in metaphysical
(psychological) works shows that humanity in point of mental
philosophy has arrived at the period at which, in physics, people
talked of the transmutation of metals, the elixir of life, the
abhorrence of a vacuum by nature, and other similar things.':1 aillcy's Zellers ot the PIhiosophy of the Iumatn 2Mind, vol. i. Letter 3.
2 Ibid. Letter 5.




22                EziglishZ Psychology.
VII.
Psychology, understood in its ordinary sense, is then a study
more occupied with abstractions than with facts, founded upon a
subjective method, and full of metaphysical discussions. Let us
now see what psychology might be, conceived of as an independent science.
We have seen that in every order of knowledge, when the
number of facts and accumulated observations is tolerably large,
there comes, by the very nature of things, a tendency to anatomy, and that the new science, leaving to metaphysics the care
of discussing the first principles, constitutes itself on its own
basis, sufficiently solid for its purpose, though often utterly insecure to those who examine it in the light of philosophy.
In a word, the conditions of independence are simply the
constant study of facts and separation from metaphysics.
Are there enough materials yet accumulated to constitute an
experimental psychology? They are so numerous that no one
has yet been found to classify them, to set them in order, and to
reduce them to a system. The progress e&{ physical and natural
sciences, of linguistics, and of history, has. reached unexpected
facts, suggested novel appreciations, at least to those who have
no taste for a stagnant and scholastic psychology, studies on the
mechanism of the sensations, on the conditions of memory, on the
effects of the imagination and the association of ideas, on dreams,
somnambulism, ecstasy, hallucination, madness, and idiocy, researches hitherto unknown into the relation between the physical
and the moral, a new conception of moral (psychological) nature,
of humanity, resulting from a profounder study of history and of
races, languages serving, as it were, for a petrified psychology.
An effort has been made of late to subject psychological acts
to the precise control of measure. That is, in two words, what
we find in thousands of books, memoirs, observations, or experiences; an immnense mass of facts which still awaits its Kepler or
its Newton. Let us now bring these experimental data into connexion with the little which antiquity has left us on this subject
(Aristotle: Tr-eatise on the Soul, Sensation, Mlnemory, Sleep, etc.).
Then let us bring the ontological psychology of our time into con



Inztroduction.                       23
nexion with the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle. Where is
the progress?
Does psychology tend to separate itself from metaphysics?
Instead of deciding this question, I prefer to place certain facts
before the reader. In the seventeenth century, the science of
the soul was called metaphysics. There is no other word in
Descartes, nMalebranche, and Leibnitz.  Locke and Condillac
employ the same language.  Nevertheless, the word psychology,
invented by the obscure Goclenius, was used by Wolf as the title
of a work. The Encyclopmedists, while continuing to use the
term  metaphysics, limited its sense.' Locke,' says d'Alembert
in the preliminary discourses of the Encyclopaedia,'reduces
metaphysics to what it ought to be, the experimental physics of
the soul.' The Scotch employ it with reserve, and prefer the
expression'philosophy of the human mind.' In short, the word
psychology is coming into current use, and is common in
France, Germany, and England. If it be further observed that
in the two last-named countries psychology is cultivated as an
independent science, and expurgated of metaphysics by writers
who not only do not riitke any explicit profession of positivism,
but are even in complete disagreement withl that doctrine on
several points, I think it will be granted that this anatomy is
more than a mere tendency, that is in many respects an accomplished fact.'
The psychology in question here will then be purely experimental; it will have no other object than phenomena, their laws, and
their immediate causes; it will concern itself neither with the soul
nor its essence, for this question, being above experience and
1 Lewes's iHist. of P/tilosof~hy, vol. ii. p. 225; Ribot, note, p. 29.'Several writers have remarked the enormous predominance of psychological
inquiries from Spinoza to Fichte; but the reason of this turn in the direction
of philosophy has not, I think, been recognised. The fact is patent, the
connexion of the predominance of psychology with the necessary decrease
of ontology required explanation; the more so as psychology occupied but
little attention in the ancient and medieval schools. I believe that the iimportance acquired by psychology, especially in its treatment of the origin and
scope of human faculty, was the natural result of the same objective tendency
which had given prominence to the inductive method.'




24                Eznglish Psychology.
beyond verification, belongs to metaphysics. If it seem paradoxical that psychology, which is the science of the soul, does
not occupy itself with the soul, let it be remarked that biology
and physics do not any longer occupy themselves with life and
matter; that while they did so they made no progress; and that
psychology has only been enriched by the facts of experience,
for its metaphysics has not perhaps made one step since Aristotle.
Shall this psychology be spiritualist or materialist. We reply
that such a question has no meaning, and might as well be asked
in regard to experimental physics. Spiritualism and materialism supply a solution of the question of substance, which is
reserved to metaphysics.  It is possible that the psychologist
may, in the pursuit of his studies, incline to one of the two solutions, or to another, as the physiologist may incline to mechanism
or animism, but these are personal speculations which he does
not confound with science. Psychology will have its metaphysics
like the other sciences, while remaining entirely distinct from it.
This no doubt makes it incomplete, but that is the cost of
progress. If psychology desires to be both psychology and
metaphysics at the same time, it will be neither. In this it will
resemble the other sciences which all eliminate questions of
origin and of end, referring them to metaphysics.  Philosophy
exists that they may be discussed.
The method to be employed is at the same time subjeclive and
objective. Discussions between those who will admit nothing
but interior observation like Jouffroy, and those who recognise
nothing but exterior observation like Broussais, resemble indecisive battles, after which both the combatants claim the victory.
The former triumphantly produce their analysis and defy their
adversaries to divine, without the aid of reflection, what it is to
feel, to desire, to wish, to abstract. The latter reply that the
dialogue of the ego with the ego cannot last long, and that they
prefer to cultivate the fertile soil of experience. On both sides,
the question is only half understood. Each of these systems has
need of the other. In the ensuing essay on Mr. Herbert
Spencer we shall see how they complete each other reciprocally,
the subjective method proceeding by analysis, and the objective
method by synthesis; the interior method being the most neces



I/zlroduzc/zoit.                 25
sary, since without it we do not even know of what we are talking
the exterior method being the most fruitful, since the field of its
investigation is almost unlimited.
But in what does this objective method consist I In studying
psychological facts from the outside, not from the inside; in the
internal facts which translate them, not in the consciousness
which gives them birth. The natural expression of the passions,
the variety of languages, and the events of history are so many
facts which permit us to trace the mental causes that have produced them: the morbid derangement of the organism which
produces intellectual disorders; anomalies, monsters in the
psychological order, are to us as experiences prepared by nature,
and all the more precious as the experimentation is more rare.
Study of the instincts, passions, and habits of the different
animals supplies us with facts whose interpretation (often difficult)
enables us by induction, deduction, or analogy, to reconstruct a
mode of psychological existence.  In short, the objective method
instead of being personal, like the simple method of reflection,
lends to facts an impersonal character; it bends before them; it
moulds its thrones upon the reality. Among other advantages, I
propose to mention only two: it introduces the idea of progress
into psychology, it renders a compared psychology possible.
The idea of progress, of evolution, or of development, which of
late has become preponderant in all the sciences which have a
living object, has been suggested by the double study of natural
sciences and of history.  The scholastic ideas of the immutability
of the forms of life, and the uniformity of the epochs of history
have given place to a contrary conception. The doctrine of
HIeraclitus has been revived and confirmed by the experiences of
twenty centuries; all melts, all changes, all moves, all becomes.
Physiology, linguistics, religious, literary, political and artistic
history bear testimony in favour of development. This idea,
without which only an erroneous conception of life and history
can be obtained, has remained inexplicably absent from ordinary
psychology. And, nevertheless, it is not possible that the effects
should differ incessantly, and  the cause remain motionlcA.
History being the result of two factors,-human activity and
nature,-in which it displays itself, the source of change must




26                 Enzglish Psychology.
needs be in either one or the other, and, as it is not in nature,J it
must be sought for in the human soul, and in its dynamic tendencies. If it be pretended that the psychologist ought to set aside
all these accidental variations in order to arrive at the final and
absolute condition of mental activity, then a concrete study must
be turned into an abstract study, an entity substituted for a
reality; as if a zoologist should take the ideal type of animality
as the basis of his researches. Psychological phenomena are
treated as pure mechanics treats bodies, motions, and forces.
Spinoza is imitated without acknowledgment.' I will analyse
the actions and the appetites of men as if-it were a question of
lines, planes, and solids.'-(Et/tics 3.) 2
Whence comes this'result, if not from the exclusive employment
of the subjective method, which cannot lay hold of development
in psychological facts. The same method renders every attempt at
comparative psychology impossible, because, if there are no other
processes to follow than that of reflection, the psychical phenomena
of the various races of animals cannot be studied. It is true that the
method of interior observation being strictly personal, as soon as
the results of it are applied to others, it is violated; the process
becomes objective, and the most decisive step is taken. But
other prejudices which need  not be examined here oppose
themselves to the extension of this study to. animals. Hence
resulted an enormous lacune in the science. The physiologist
who should have experimented upon vertebrates only, would
refuse to recognise in other animals those functions which are
proper to the animal, because they are more simple and more
obscure in them.  But modern naturalists have traced the fundamental functions in even the lowest mollusca anti zoophytes.
T'he acts are less numerous, less complicated, but the function
exists for all that.  Thus, while in almost all animals the chemical
1 Nature also contributes; but at second-hand, by stimulus. On this point
see Herder, and Buckle, Civziisation of Englawnd.
2 It is certain that the elimination of what is variable and accidental is
necessary to constitute the science, and to determine the general conditions,
blivi then the statical study must be completed by the dynamical, as will
appear hereafter.




[u troduclo it.                      27
process takes place in the interior of the stomach, sometimes, as
in the case of the hydra, the creatures seem to be entirely transformed into stomach; while in the case of others, the act is
performed outside, between the numerous appendices which
serve at once for mouth and arms. All naturalists are agreed
that no study has been so fruitful for them  as that of anatomy
and of comparative physiology; that the knowledge of the rudimentary organs enables them  better than anything  else to
understand the organs and the functions.  Nothing like this has
been attempted, or at least accepted, in ordinary psychology; the
idea of a comparative method is hardly beginning to dawn. If it
gains some adherents, the result will show what it is worth and
what it gives.  But even if this superior psychology should add
nothing to our knowledge of man, it will remain none the less
indispensable to it, since it is clear that psychology must embrace
all the psychological phenomena.
Thus understood it will lose the abstract character which
frequently makes it resemble logic, to which, indeed, it is proper
to proceed ili abstractco; to take the fully constituted, adult mind,
and to study its mechanism, it cannot and ought not to attach
itself except to the invariable groundwork;1 while psychology
studies the phenomena and the faculties in their origin, their
development, and their transformation.  Psychology must also
keep clear of morals, because it- is one thing to prove that
which is, and another to prescribe that which ought to be,
to  abide  by facts  or to seek an ideal.  The  psychologist
differs from the moralist, as the botanist differs from the
gardener. For the one there are no vegetables either good or
bad, they are all equally an object of study; for the other there
are noxious or parasite plants, which must be extirpated and
burnt; his rapid justice is concerned rather to condemn than
1 See Cournot's Fundamental Ideas, vol. i. p. 213, ef seq. The author
distinguishes two orders of sciences: those which relate to the ideas of order
and of form, and those which study the functions of life, and make perpetual
use of the idea of force. The former serve as a basis for the latter. Thus
logic is opposed to psychology, etc. The obscurity of the idea of force
accounts for the inferiority of these latter sciences.




28                English Psychology.
to know. Moral preoccupations have done harm to psychology
more fiequently than we think, by preventing it being seen as
it is.
VIII.
Psychology, as understood in its widest sense, embracing all
the phenomena of mind in all animals, and considering them,
not only under their adult form, but in the successive phases of
their development, offers an almost boundless field for research.
Hence it is striking to observe how summary all the hitherto
most accredited treatises upon Psychology are. If we subtract
historical digressions, what, in many instances, remains? We
shall be still more impressed by this brevity if we compare
psychological books with those of naturalists, which are laden
with details. Whence arises this difference, if not from the method
employed?  The latter collect facts with indefatigable patience,
noting exceptions and differences, the former consisting only of a
vague sketch, and some abstract formulas. And yet, has not
that principle which thinks, feels, acts, and wills, in animated
beings, almost infinite varieties, which are to be revealed only by
the most minute investigation? Can we believe that a human
soul may be described more briefly than a plant?
As the inevitable result of progress in every science is to produce division and subdivision of labour in it, we may safely
predict that an extended and truly complete psychology will sever
itself into many branches, and form sub-sciences, which shall
become the objects of special study. It would be rash to indicate those divisions beforehand, but perhaps we may foresee
some of them. Mr. John Stuart Mill, in the weighty pages which
he has devoted to method in psychology, after having pointed
out that the object of this science is' the uniformities of successions,' bids us remark that we can conceive an intermediate
case between the perfect science and its extreme imperfection.
Such is the theory of the tides; when we consider the general
causes of this phenomenon only, it can be predicted with certainty, but local or accidental circumstances (such as the configuration of the coasts or the direction of the wind) modify it, so




In/rodlcth/oi.                    29
as to render the result of the general calculation inexact.'The
science of the tides is not yet an exact science, not because of a
radical impossibility relating to nature, but because it is very
difficult to establish desired uniformities with precision. The
science of human nature is of the same kind.'
Mr. Stuart Mill divides psychological studies into two great
classes: of the one part, those which are exfperimental, of the
other part, those which are dcductive.
Experimental psychology, founded upon observation, establishes tl\e facts from which it draws its laws, and' constitutes the
universal or abstract part of the philosophy of human nature.'
Deductive psychology, which constitutes ethology, or the science
of character, supposes the preceding. It examines into how the
general laws of psychological facts produce such variety of
national or individual character, by their meetings, their comnbinations, their crossings.
If, following these indications, we endeavour to trace the
divisions of a truly scientific psychology, this is what we shall
find it ought to contain.
Firstly, we may comprehend in the term  Gcenzeral Psychology
the study of the phenomena of consciousness, sensations, thoughts,
emotions, relations, etc., considered under their most general
aspects. This study, which ought to serve as a point of departure and a basis for all the others, is the only one which has
hitherto been cultivated by the psychologists. It is, besides,
clear that general psychology ought to profit by all the discoveries due to its subordinate parts. It would complete itself,
firstly by Comn1arative Psychology, whose object anid importance
we have already endeavoured to show, and afterwards by a study
of anomalies or monstrosities, which might be called Psychzological Teratology. It is unnecessary to delay here in order to demonstrate the usefulness of the study of deviations towards the
complete understanding of phenomena, but the indifference of
psychology on this point is truly remarkable.  With the exception of Diderot's Letire sur les Avzeugcs, which does not fulfil its
promises, the pages of Dugald Stewart upon James Mitchell
(Elenlents of the P/hilosophay of the Human AI~ind, vol. iii.), and




30                    English Psychology.
some scattered observations, psychology has completely shut its
eyes to exceptions and anomalies.l
It is the physiologists who have drawn the conclusions to
whiich it led from the curious history of Laura Bridgeman, conclusions totally contrary to the doctrine of transformed sensations, and which, founded upon the facts, had not the vague character of the ordinary arguments. A deaf man, a blind man, a
man originally deprived of any sense, is he not a ready-made
subject for observation, one to whom one of the strictest processes of method, the  differential, may be applied?  Have
studies upon mladness, though still very incomplete, been altogether sterile hitherto.
If we now pass from abstract to concrete psychology, if, quitting
analysis for synthesis, we deal no longer with general but with
derived laws; if we try to determine how these laws by crossing each other determine psychological varieties, we shall meet
with a new  science, that of characlter, or, as Mr. Mill calls it,
Ethology.  We can understand how ordinary psychology, which
has little taste for facts, and an habitual tendency towards
abstraction, has neglected this study. Phrenology and Cranioscopics, which have been suffered to sleep, understood its importance better. The science of characters constituted a practical
or applied psychology, whose utility in education, in the con1 The philosopher of whom we have already spoken in reference to the
faculties, proposes to classify as follows all studies whose object is man, which
he designates under the name of Antiropoloy --
I. Researches relative to man as an individual.
I. Relative to Organism: Physiology and Anatomy.
2. Relative to mental operations and affections: Psychology.
3. Relative to the connexion between the phenomena of organism with the
phenomena of consciousness (comprising Cranioscopics and Physiognomy).
4. Relative to the individual character.
II. Researches relative to humanity: its origin, races, progress, and
civilisation.
III. Researches relative to the connexion between humanity and
superior beings, or theology.
SA^IMUE. BAILEY, Ld/'ers on the Philosophy of the 1Zmnan 111tn, vol. ii.
Iletter 20.




Izn trodztclzio.                    3 
duct of life, and even in politics, is evident.  No doubt this
science will always partake considerably of the nature of art; but
will it not be sufficiently exact to render its employment legitimate?
The naturalists have discovered -certain organic correlations, on
which they rely for the reconstruction of an animal from a few
fragments. They know that there is a relation between the foot
and the jaw, that the tooth of a carnivorous animal indicates a
bony structure, consequently a skeleton, a cerebro-spinal axis,
etc., etc. Might not psychological conditions be equally arrived at? Let us suppose that by an accumulation of sure and
varied experiments, we were enabled to establish for instance,
that a certain manner of feeling supposes a certain variety of
imagination, which, in its turn, supposes a certain mode of judging and reasoning, which again supposes a certain method of
willing and acting, and that this determination should be as precise as possible; surely by the aid of a single fact it might be
possible to reconstitute a character, since the problem  would
reduce itself to the following: Given a number of the series, to
find the entire series.
It will be granted that this hypothesis is in no way chimerical, it. ve will only remark that penetrating minds effect such a reconstruction instinctively, by a swift and sure intuition, though there
is nothing scientific in it; that there exists a particular art which
is called the knowledge of men. The question is, whether this
Art may not become a Science; that is to say, whether, instead
of being arbitrary, it may not be formulated into laws applicable
to a great number of cases, and verified in the great majority.
When this shall have been successfully done, Ethology will be
constituted.
It seems that Ethology might be divided into an ethology of
of individuals, an ethology of 5eoiles, and an ethology of ruaces.
Indivildual ethology, the most important and the most concrete
of the three, would seek after the psychological differences resulting from difference of sex and temperament. It would. determine the psychological characters which distinguish those various
forms of mind which we designate under the names of poet,
geometrician, industrial, warrior, etc. etc., thus limiting its study
to that of a certain number of types.  Among psychologists




32                 English Psychology.
I know only Dugald Stewart who has attempted this task (Appendix to his PhiZosop/zy of the  Ihimanl  Minid, vol. iii.), in
incomplete and vague essays, whose diffuseness is not their
least defect.
The ethology of peoples and races would derive its materials
from linguistics and history. It is easy to see that ethology is
not in any way confounded with history. There is as much
difference between defining the character of a people and
relating its history, as there is between drawing a man's likeness
and writing his biography. The history of a people and the
biography of a man are not only composed of that which comes
from them, but also of the action of exterior circumstances upon
them. Ethology eliminates this latter element, and takes no
account of it, except in so far as it serves to elucidate the
character. Ethology would not propose to itself simply a statical study of characters, it would endeavour to determine the
phases which they undergo, and to follow them throughout their
evolution.
Such, keeping in view phenomena only, and without speaking
of the metaphysics of psychology, is the framework of one division
of that science. But so long as it shall not be subdivided, it will
be impossible for it to embrace the whole of its domain; it will
not get beyond the brevity and meagreness of the ordinary
treatises.' And yet, when we consider the immense variety of
facts and questions contained in it, the task seems inexhaustible;
infinite perspectives spread themselves before the seeker, and
we find that there is so much to do that we venture to say
nothing has been done.
It seems to me that the best we can hope for psychology is
that it may be entering upon that period of apparent disorder
and real fecundity, in which every'question is studied separately,
and excavated to its utmost depths. A good collection of monographs and memoirs upon special points would be perhaps the;
best service which could now  be rendered to psychological
1 The only work, within our knowledle, in France, in which the insufficiency of ordinary psychology and. its neglect of many important questions
are treated, is in Vacherot's Essais de Phidosohzie Critiquc, p. 152 cd say.




ZItroailclion.                         33
studies.  No doubt all this is not a science, but without all this
there is no science. Such a method would possess not only the
advantage of substituting better tendencies for those which
actually exist, the study of facts for hypothetical generalizations,
it would also offer a task within the reach of all. In this work of
detail each might share according to his measure and his strength.
Many who could not be architects might cut stones skilfully
enough. A hundred workers might perhaps wear themselves out
over one obscure point.  What matter, if a result be obtained?
The science will accept their work, and forget their names. It
will assume its true character —impersonality.  MuIlti ptcr/Ollzibuit, sed auSelbiltr sciel/fia.
Ix.
We have only a few more words to say, relative to the aim of
this work. Since the time of Hobbes and Locke, England has
been the country which has done the most for psychology.. In
our own time two currents of doctrines have been produced there:
on one side the ajrriori school, represented by Sir W. Hamilton,
Dr. Whewell, Mr. Mansel, Mr. Ferrier,L etc.; on the other, the
a poslcriori school (Associationz-Psyc/zhoogy), which numbers among
its adherents James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Messrs. Bailey, Herbert Spencer, Bain, Lewes, and several others.' A complete
1 Professor Ferrier, of the University of St. Andrews, has published institiues of MAetaphysics in thirty-three propositions:'one of the most remarkable
books of our time,' says Mr. Lewes (a positivist),'but which resembles a
solitary obelisk in a vast bare plain.' It is remarkable that Professor Feirier
distinguishes experimental psychology very clearly from psychology metamorphosed into metaphysics.' In case,' he says,'it may be thought that
psychology has not been sufficiently spared in this work, let it it be remarked
that it is only in so much as psychology ventures to treat the fundamental
question of knowledge, and to introduce itself into the region of tprima
pliloso'plhia, that it has been criticised and its insufficiency shown.  In its
own sphere, i.e. the study of mental operations, such as memory, the association of ideas, etc., the labours of psychology ought not to be disdained in
any respect.'-Institutes of Aetlpazysics, p. I I6.
2 Sir H. Holland, Chaaplers on Mlentalf  Phsiology; Dr. Noble, Ma/dical
Psychology; Brodie, Psyhoolog'ical Enuhiries; Dunn, 2P~hsioloaical P'syrcho.
1ogy, etc.; Morell, An In/trohuculion to MAfental'Philosoplhy; Maudsley, P'atho.
loy and t'hyizolog)j of A/iimd; Murphy, Iftabit and  t/dlitnce, etc. etc.




34                Enzglish Psychology.
study of English contemporary psychology would necessarily
comprehend both these schools. At present we shall only endeavour to make-known the second. As it is unknown, or very
nearly unknown, in France, and as it seems to hold the first
rank, in virtue of the celebrity of the names which represent it, of
its harmony with the general tendencies of the age, and the most
recent discoveries of the natural and physical sciences, and of
the originality of its researches and results, we believe that it
must be useful to make known its doctrines, and that this'work
ofpure exposition cannot be displeasing either to those who accept
or to those who repel them.




HAR T LEY.
IN  considering  English  contemporaneous psychology, the
theories of Hartley have only a retrospective interest. Thus we
give him in this instance the place of a precursor merely, for all
that is to be found in his work is either left behind or forgotten.
Nevertheless, it seems that he has not been done sufficient justice.
On the appearance of his Observatzions on Man, his Frame, his Dutey,
and his Ext.ectat/ios (I748), the book had but moderate success.
Hartley had preceded its publication, sixteen years previously, by
that of a brief Latin treatise, entitled Con/Vecturie lzgcdam de Sensu,
Aco/h, et Idearumn Generatione. This little work has been republished by Dr. Parr in his fe2/etaphysical Facts by ErnglZish Ehiiosophers of the Ezihteenth Century (183 7). But the public, Hartley's
contemporaries, seem to have been indifferent to this new manner
of conceiving the mechanism of mind. On the other hand, the
Associaion-Psychology, whose theory we propose to explain, is so
superior to Hartley, that it is easy to see why that philosopher has
almost fallen into oblivion. Nevertheless, as it is a fact that the
original idea of associational-psychology is in Hartley, it will be
interesting to explain it briefly in this place, were it only to enable
us to measure the way which has been made since the Observations on AMan.
Hartley is a plain, lucid, methodical writer,-perhaps he is a
little too methodical. He proceeds by geometrical method, by
propositions, corollaries, and scholia. He divides, subdivides,
and distinguishes in a manner worthy of a scholastic. Without
losing ourselves in all these subdivisions, let us examine some
general points.
The whole of Hartley's system may be resolved into two principal theories:I. The theory of vibrations, by which he explains all nervous




36                 Eng-z'sh Psyckol/oy.
phenomena, and consequently the relations of the physical and
the moral.
2. The theory of association, by which he explains all the
mechanism of mind, and all psychological phenomena without
exception.
The first is borrowed from  Newton's Optics and Pr-izczpia
P/iioso phie. The second, from Locke's doctrine of the association of ideas, contained in the Essay on the  ouman Uziderslanding.
The following is the explanation of what both consist in.
In order to understand what is new and original in the physiological portion of Hartley'sv work, we must recall the current
universally received ideas of his epoch.
The physicists of the two last centuries habitually resorted,
for the explanation of phenomena whose nature was imperfectly
known to them, to the intervention of special electric fluids, so
defined as to explain those phenomena. Thus they imagined
two electric fluids, the one positive, the other negative, and they
represented heat, light, -aand magnetism as other imponderable
fluids. They even tried to explain nervous action by the intervention of a new fluid, circulating in the nerves, as if in tubes,
and which would be thus conducted from the nervous extremities
to the brain.
This doctrine had obtained great credit when Hartley, struck
with the important part which the discoveries of Newton attributed to vibrations in optics, and particularly in vision, conceived
the idea that an analogous phenomenon must be produced
in the cerebro-spinal system. He drew attention to the fact
that since a luminous ray, falling upon the eye, determines
vibrations in the retina, these vibrations must be propagated by
the fibres of the optic nerves, until they reach the brain, in order
to produce the sensation of vision, and that they may last for a
long time; the same being the case, not only in the sense of
sight,' strictly speaking, but in the entire nervous system, so
that that portion of our organism is in a state of continuous
vibration.
But how are these vibrations effected, and in what (lo they




Hartley.                        37
consist?' They are motions backwards and forwards of the small
particles, of the same kind as the oscillation of the pendulum,
and the trembling of particles of sounding bodies. They are
excited, propagated, and kept up, partly by ether, partly by
uniformity and continuity of the brain, spinal marrow, and
nerves.'
We perceive that H artley makes his explanation depend on the
hypothesis of the ether, as established by Newton.'Let us
suppose the existence of the ether, with its properties, to be
destitute of all direct evidence, still, if it serve to explain and
account for a great variety of phenomena, it will have an indirect evidence in its favour by those means.' We must then
conceive the nervous system as penetrated with this elastic compressible substance, apt to receive vibrations.' It will therefore
follow that the nerves are rather solid capillamenta according to
Newton, than small hubuli according to Boerhaave.'  Hartley
attaches the phenomena of light, heat, sound, attraction, and
electricity to his hypothesis of vibrations, very ingeniously.
Thus, the impression of any object upon our organism, disturbance of the nerves, vibrations, transmission of those vibrations
to the brain, permanence of vibrations after the sensible object
hlas disappeared, is a summary of the physiological hypothesis of
Hartley.
We shall not stop to show how insufficient such physiology is.
WTe will only remind our readers that, at that time, the anatomy of
the brain and of the nervous system hardly existed. Thus Hartley
believes that it is the white substance of the enceplhalus which presides over the psychological functions, whereas we now know that
the grey substance is much the more important of the two.
Nevertheless, we cannot deny that he is right upon a number
of points. His hypothesis of vibrations, independently of all
theories upon ether and its nature, agrees with the tendencies of
modern physics and physiology, which incline to refer everything
to movements.  Recent researches have shown that there is no
nervous fuid, or nervous circulation, such as Hartley's contenmporaries believed in, but that impression travels in the nerves in
anlintermittent manner, like the electric current in a conducting
wxire. Certain physiologists of our time conceive the mechanism




38                Enzglish Psychology.
of thought as a communication of vibrations having their seat in
the grey substance of the brain.' The initial movement can
transmit itself from one cell to another in every possible direction;
hence the variety of associations. Thus, then, without pronouncing upon the value of Hartley's hypothesis, we may say that the
scientific theories which have been professed for a century are far
from being unfavourable to him.
II.
Now let us approach the psychological study, with which we
are more directly concerned.
We have seen that the impression of exterior objects causes
vibrations, by means of the ether, which produce sensation.
Now,'sensory vibrations, by being often repeated, beget in the
medullary substance of the brain a disposition to diminutive
vibrations, which may also be called vibratiuncles, or miniature
vibrations, corresponding to themselves respectively.'  These
vibratiuncles, which are vestiges of the primitive vibration, may
be called'simple ideas of sensation.'  The vibratiuncles then
produce Ideas.
Hitherto we have explained only the simple elements of
thought; we must now enter upon its conditions and complex
operations. Here comes in the law of Association.'Any associations, A, B, C, etc., by being associated with
one another a sufficient number of times, get such a power over
the corresponding ideas, A, B, C, etc., that any one of the sensations A, when impressed alone, shall be able to excite in the
mind B, C, etc., the ideas of the rest.' (Prop. x.)'Any vibrations, A, B, C, etc., by being associated together a
sufficient number of times, get such a power over a, b, c, etc., the
corresponding miniature vibrations, that any of the vibrations A,
when impressed alone, shall be able to excite b, c, etc., the miniature of the rest. (Prop. xI.)
Thus, then, it is by means of association that simple ideas
merge into complex ideas, and concur in their composition.
1 Luys, Rcc.herce's sur le S.'stelme;nerz.'ux, cre'rio-sjihtal, Paris, I865.




Hartley.                      39
After having explained man as a tzizkzizg and feehing being, he
remains to be explained as an active being,-that is to say, capable
of movement. Here also everything reverts to vibrations, vibratiuncles, and association.
In the first place,'IThat propensity to alienate construction
and relaxation which is observed in almost all the muscles of the
body, admits of a solution from the doctrine of vibrations;' the'motory vibrations,' which contract the muscles, account for
automatic movements.
If we admit that the motory vibrations leave vibratiuncles after
them, exactly as sensory vibrations do, we- may, by the aid of
these motory vibrations explain voluntary and semi-voluntary
movements. They. are rendered possible by an association of
the primitive motory vibrations.  Hence the whole doctrine of
association may be confirmed in the following theorem:-' If any sensation A, idea B, or muscular motion C, be associated for a sufficient number of times with any other sensation
D, idea E, or muscular motion F, it will at last excite d, the idea
belonging to the sensation D, the very idea E, or the very muscular motion F.' (Prop. xx.)
We can now arrive at a collective view of the entire doctrine,
and see how all is explained by two things only, vibrations and
association.
To simple vibration corresponds sensation.
To associated vibrations complex sensations.
To the vibratiuncle, the simple idea.
To associated vibratiuncles, complex ideas.
To the motory vibrations automatic movement.
To motory vibratiuncles, voluntary and semi-voluntary
movements.
Such are the general laws which, according to I1Iartley, regulate
and explain all the mechanism of the human mind. It' only
remains for us'now to say how he explains the various faculties,
senses, memory, imagination, understanding, affections, and will, by
attachingthem to the law of association.
I. There is no occasion for us to linger over his analyses of
the senses.  He distinguishes the general sense or feeling, which




40                 Englzish Psychology.
is nothing but touch, from the four special senses, and applies
himself to explain all by vibrations and associations.
2. Memory is that faculty by which traces of sensations and
ideas come, or are recalled, in the same.order and proportion,
accurately or nearly as they were once presented. The relations
between memory and the association of ideas are so evident, so
universally recognised, that it is useless to dwell upon them.
3. It is the same with regard to the imagination.'When ideas
and trains of ideas occur, or are called up in a vivid manner, and
without regard to the order of former actual impressions and perceptions, this is said to be done by the power of fancy.' Odd
and extravagant associations explain reverie, dreaming, mental
alienation, and all their cognate phenomena.
4.'The understanding is that faculty by which we contemplate mere sensations and ideas, pursue truth, and assent to or
dissent from propositions.' This faculty, in all its essentials,
reduces itself to judgment, and, as Hartley says, to proposition,
and leads itself back to an association of ideas.
Propositions (affirmative and negative) are of two kinds,
rational and practical.
The former are those who have for their object mathematical
truths: now, in this case, what is the process followed when I
say 2X2 24, or I2XI2=I44? My rational assent to the proposition may be defined as a readiness to affirm it to be true,
proceeding from a close association of the ideas suggested by the
proposition, with the idea or internal feeling belonging to the
word truth.
The latter are those which have for their object natural bodies.
Hartley's thought may be differently expressed, by saying that the
objects of the one are abstracts, and the objects of the other
are concretes. The former consist in associating a sensation or
a group of sensations given by experience to another sensation,
or group of sensations, equally given by experience. For instance: gold is ductile, or soluble in aqua regia. As we see,
then, the fundamental operations by which we find scientific or
vulgar truths, are brought back by final analysis to associations,
to the fusion of simple elements.
5. Hartley afterwards shows how the passions, ie. the moral




Iai'rltey.                     4 
life of man, have their point of departure also in an association of
ideas. They set out from  two fundamental phenomena-pleasure and pain. But complex sentiments proceed from these
simple conditions, by fusion and association.
The passions result from certain sentiments, certain emotions
which have been once or several times united to ideas or to
circumstances which have the power to reawaken them by the
very principle of association.
Let us take fear, for example. We may observe any day that
a child is not afraid of a thing except from the moment that
that thing has been made to him the real or apparent cause of
suffering or punishment. He is not afraid of fire until he has
been burned; or of a dog, until the dog has bitten him. In the
same way, the passion of love is born of the association of agreeable circumstances with the idea of the object which produces
this love.
Our passions may also be all reduced to the sentiments of fear
or of affection, varying according to the relation which subsists
between their objects and ourselves. In its origin, every passion is always interested, that is to say, it is engendered by an
association of ideas founded on pain and on pleasure. But, in
consequence of our associations, our passions, in becoming more
complex, assume a disinterested character. It is thus that the
child loves his mother or his nurse. The idea of that passion
associates itself with the various pleasures which she has caused,
him, which he has experienced in her presence.
Hartley classifies our passions in rather an arbitrary way, which
is also a little confused, under the following titles:The pleasure and pain of imagination, of ambition, of selfinterest, of sympathy, of theopathy, of moral sense.
When he discusses the instincts, he is weak. He shows, however, that they lead back to association. Theirpoint of departure is automatic; the muscles have at first been contracted
involuntarily, then this involuntary action has associated itself
with the cerebral disturbance which has accompanied it; in other
words, the idea unites itself to motion, and motion follows it
immediately and mechanically.
6. A mechanism so strict as Hartley's leaves no place for




42                Enzgl~isk Psyc/zology.
free-will, and he is too rigid a logician to permit it to enter by an
inconsequence. Thus, in the ordinary sense of the word, he
absolutely rejects it.
Free-will, he says, may be understood in one of the two
following senses: —I. A power of doing either the action A, or
its contrary a, while the previous circumstances remain the same.
2. A power of beginning motion. Both one and the other of
these two senses are perfectly incompatible with the hypothesis
of the mechanism of the mind.'But, if by free-will be meant anything different from these two
definitions of it, it may not perhaps be inconsistent with the
mechanism of the mind here laid down. Thus, if free-will be
defined as the power of doing what a person desires or wills to
do, of deliberating, suspending, choosing, or of resisting the
motives of sensuality, ambition, -resentment, free-will, within
certain limitations, is not only consistent with the doctrine of
mechanism, but even flows from it; since it appears from the
foregoing theory, that voluntary and semi-voluntary powers of
calling up ideas, of exciting and restraining affections, and of
performing and suspending actions, arise from the mechanism
of our nature. This may be called free-will in the popular and
practical sense, in contradistinction to that which is opposed to
mechanism, and which may be called free-will in a philosophical
sense.'
Hartley even maintains that the hypothesis of free-will, reducing itself to the admission of effects without causes, ruins
thereby the principle of causality, and consequently, the existence'of the First Cause.' This constitutes the second portion of his
book, into which we shall not follow him'.
We do not wish to dwell here upon a philosopher who is inteiresting, only because he was the first of a school which has gone
far beyond him.
His merit consists in two principles. He has clearly perceived
that all the operations of the mind are reducible on final analysis
to the law of association. He has said this very plainly, and he
has tried to demonstrate it. Before him, nothing comparable
was to be found in Locke, or even in Hobbes. He has perceived
that the question of the relations between the physical and the




IIta rt ey.                    43
moral seem to lead back to this question:-how is a nervous
vibration united to a sentiment? This was much in his age, at
an epoch in whichl the importance of the nervous system was too
often misunderstood, when questions of this kind were put under
the form of a strange or unintelligible hypothesis. Thus, he has
perceived the fundamental law of psychology, and the fundamental fact of the relations of the physical and the moral.
On the other hand, he has the defects of his time, a somewhat
superficial clearness, a talent for simplifying things which leads
him to suppress difficulties. We are astonished to see how simple
the complicated mechanism of the human soul becomes in his
hands. All this comes from  a defect of method. Hartley,
though a physician, had the tendencies of a geometrician rather
than a naturalist. Not with impunity did he borrow his principles from Newton. All his parade of demonstrations, of
scholia, and of corollaries, shows that he is much more occupied
in setting forth his theory in fine logical order, than in illustrating
it by facts. After his day, the method of the natural sciences
remained to be applied to psychology; but, though he did not do
this, he prepared the way for its being done.




MR. JAMES MILL.'THE  sceptre  of psychology,' says Mr. Stuart Mill,' has
decidedly returned to England.' We might go further, and
maintain that it has never departed thence. No doubt, psychological studies are now cultivated in England by first-class men,
who, by the solidity of their method, and, which is more rare, by
the precision of their results, have- caused the science to enter
upon a new epoch; but this is rather a redoubling than a renewal
of its brilliancy. Since the time of Locke, and even before it,
the empirical study of the facts of consciousness has always
been in favour among the English; no people have done so
much for psychology considered apart from metaphysics. If,
indeed, we look at the three or four peoples of modern Europe
who only have had  a  philosophical development, with the
exception of Germany, apt at everything, though loving metaphysics above all,' we shall see that in Italy experimental psychology is poor, almost nil, because that light, imaginative
race, whose life is all outside, have an instinctive repugnance to
it; that in France it soon turns to logic, because we have too
little taste for patient observation, for exceptions, for accumulated
facts, and that we are too fond of compartments, divisions, and
subdivisions, order, symmetry, brief and decisive formulas. In
England it is natural; it is the simple result of that disposition
to the interior life, to that falling back upon one's-self, whence come
poetry and romance of the order which we call intimes.  The
Among the contemporary German works in which psychology is more or
less considered as'a natural science,' we may quote Wundt, Vorlesunlgn
iiber die 2Iensclhen utnd T7hierseele; Waitz, Zehrbuch derPsychologie als Natzurwissenschaft; Fechner, Elemente der Psychokjhysik; Lotze, fIfedicinische Psyclhologie, and the psychologists of the school of -Ierbart, Drobisch, Wolkmann,
etc. etc.




Mr. 7ames Anill.                    45
English contemporary school is therefore the continuation of an
uninterrupted tradition; allied, through Brown, to the Scotch
school, linked through James Mill with Hartley and Hume, and
holding especially by the latter.
As we are now occupied with contemporaries, we shall not go
further back than the nineteenth century. As our object is the
experimental school, we shall lay aside some illustrious names,
such as Hamilton, Mansel, Ferrier, etc., those of metaphysicians
or logicians rather than of psychologists.
James Mill, the first on our list, would seem to be excluded by
the date of his death (I836).  But some of our contemporaries
acknowledge him as a precursor. A new edition of his Analysis
of the Phenomena of the Hi;uman Mind has appeared lately, enriched with full critical notes by Mr. John Stuart Mill, -his son, and
Mr. Bain, completed in all which concerns linguistics by a philologist, Mr. Andrew Findlater, and in all that concerns erudition
by Miir. Grote. The date of this book makes it curious. It is too
new, and yet not new enough to obtain a great success. It is a
transitional work which is not well understood until after. Clear,
lucid, methodical, well put together, the book errs from want of
width and insufficiency of development. Now, opinion does
not understand, and above all does not accept a doctrine except
by dint of hearing it repeated. Contemporary labours, directed
in the same sense, but less concise, and more familiar with the
sciences, seem to have lent to his a retrospective value.
The Analysis proceeds much more from Hartley than from the
Scotch School. No declamation, no recourse to eloquence; it
says, with Hobbes,'khilosophia vera, oralionis non modo fucum,
sed eliam omnia fere ornamenta ex.jrofesso reficit.' No appeal
to prejudices or to common sense; no explanation by faculties which are invented to solve difficulties.  He particularly
dreads'the mystic,' and'the mysterious.' His explanation of
the phenomena of mind is very simple, too simple indeed, for we
find in it the logician rather than the psychologist. He reduces
everything to sensations, ideas, and the associations of ideas. In
the psychical world there is only one fact, sensation, only one law,
association.
What is his method? He does not tell us that; but he almost




46               Enzglish Psychology.
always proceeds subjectively. In this respect he belongs to the
eighteenth century. We do not find in his works any trace of a
comparative psychology. He also belongs to this century by
his tendency to consider phenomena only in adult minds, and
among a civilized people. Carrying the practical spirit of his
nation into psychological studies, he thinks, with reason, that
education would be more enlightened and more systematic if
psychology were more advanced; and that a good analysis of
the phenomena of mind ought to serve as the basis of three
practical treatises, —one Logical, to lead us to the true, one Moral,
to regulate our actions, one Emotional, to develop the individual and the species.
Mr. James Mill, who was at least as well known an historian
and economist as philosopher, has left a History of British India,
which is considered a powerful and fine work,l and Princihles of
Poizitcal Economy, inspired by Smith and Ricardo, which competent judges regard as a solid book, a little difficult because it is
so excessively concise,'too abstract, perhaps, to be of popular
utility.'
Some details borrowed from the recent Preface to his works will
make the reader acquainted with the man:-'Though, like all who value their time for higher purposes, he
went little into what is called society, he helped, encouraged, and
not seldom prompted, many of the men who were most useful in
their generation. From his obscure privacy he was during many
years of his life the soul of what is now called the advanced
Liberal party; and such was the effect of his conversation, and of
the force of his character, on those who were within reach of its
influence, that many then young, who have since made themselves honoured in the world by a valuable career, look back to
their intercourse with him as having had a considerable share of
deciding their course through life..... As a converser Mr.
Mill had few equals; as an argumentative converser, in modern
1 Mr. John Stuart Mill says in his Preface, that by his labours as Administrator of the East India Company, James Mill did much good, and prepared
the way for much more, to the millions for whose good or ill government
England is responsible.




MIr. yam mes Mill.                    47
times, probably none. All his. mental resources seemed to be at
his command at any moment.' "
At the outset of his philosophic life, Hartley's doctrine took
strong hold of his mind. He applied himself to its completion
and extension; he is, as Mr. Stuart Mill says, the second founder
of the psychology of association.' I am far from thinking that the more recondite specimens of
analysis are always successful, or that the author has not left
something to be corrected as well as much to be completed by
his successors. The completion has been especially the work of
two distinguished thinkers in the present generation, Professor
Bain and Mr. Herbert Spencer, in the writings of both of whoni
Association-Psychology has reached a still higher development... What there is in the work that seems to need correc*tion, arises chiefly from two causes. First, the imperfection
of physiological science at the time at which it was written....
Secondly, a certain impatience of detail. The bent of his mind
was towards that, in which also his greatest strength lay, in seizing the larger features of a subject-the commanding laws which
govern and connect many phenomena.... From this cause (as it
appears to me) he has occasionally gone further in the pursuit of
simplification, and in the reduction of the more recondite mental
phenomena to the more elementary, than IPam able to follow him.' 2
We think that the majority of our readers will agree with Mr.
Mill when they shall have perused the following analysis.
CHAPTER I.
SENSATIONS AND IDEAS.
Senrsations and ideas.- r. The association of ideas-2. Language-3. Memory,
imagination, classification, abstraction-4. Belief.
EVERY one who has read Hume's Essays will remember that
this philosopher explains all by three things,-impression, idea,
1 Preface to the Works of James Mill, by John Stuart Mill, vol. i. p. xv.
2 P. xv. vol. i., Preface by John Stuart Mill.




48                English Psychology.
and the union of ideas. The primitive phenomenon is impression,
or, as it is commonly called, sensation; idea is a feebler copy of
this; then ideas associate themselves, unite, and there result complex or aggregate phenomena.  Mr. James Mill admits only
sensations, ideas, and associations of ideas.l
He classes our sensations under eight heads, —Smell, Hearing,
Sight, Taste, Touch, Sensations of disorganization in some portion
of the body, Muscular sensations, Sensations of the alimentary
canal.  As we shall see hereafter, contemporary psychologists
generally reduce the last three groups to two, —muscular sensations, organic sensations; the former relating to the muscles,
and which reveal tension or effort, the latter relating to the good
or bad condition of the organs. But it is important to remark,
that our author has seen more clearly than.the Scotch school,2
which, adhering to the traditional five senses only, could not
achieve more than a curtailed analysis of the sensations.
Thence came the impossibility of any scientific explanation of
exterior perception; for had not this school neglected the
analysis of the muscular sense, which reveals to us resistance;
that is to say, the fundamental sensation of exteriority  Thus
James.Mill is right when he says,' there is no element of consciousness which demands more attention than this, though until
of late it has been deplorably neglected.'
It is a peculiarity of our constitution that when our sensations cease through the absence of their objects, something remains. After having seen the sun, if I shut my eyes I no longer
see it, but I can think of it.  That which thus survives sensation I call'a copy, an image of the sensation, sometimes a
representation or a trace of the sensation.' This copy is the
idea.3
The general faculty of having sensations is called sensation:
the general faculty of having ideas is called by the author
Ideation.   As the'idea is the copy of the sensation, and as
See LEssay.s 2 and 3.
2 That of Reid, Dugald Stewart, and their contemporaries.
8 nalysis, etc., vol. i. ch. ii. p. 52.




IMr..ances Mil/i.                      49
there are eight groups of sensations, there are eight groups of
ideas of which it is easy to find examples.'
We know the simple sensations and those secondary sensations, which are their images. These are the two primitive states
of consciousness. From thence all those combinations whose
varieties are innumerable result; they are produced by the association of ideas.
All the philosophers of whom we treat regard the phenomenon
of association as one of the most general laws of psychology,
and even as the fundamental fact to which they endeavour to
bring back everything in our mental life. This doctrine, known
in England by the generic name of Association-Psychology, is
only in its beginning in James Mill's works, but supported by
the preceding studies of Hume and Hartley, it is presented in a
clear and decided form, as we shall presently see.
Association is so general a fact that our whole life consists in
a succession of sentiments (train of feezings).  Can an order be
discovered in this? Let us remark, in the- first place, that association is produced as well between sensations, as between ideas.
Assiciation between the sensations ought to take place
conformably to the order established between the objects of
nature; that is to say, according to a synchronic order or according to a successive order.  Synchronic order, or that of
simultaneous existence, is order in space; successive order, or
that of anterior and posterior existence, is order in time. The
taste of an apple, its resistance in my mouth; the solidity of the
earth which carries me, etc., this is synchronic association.  I
see a bombshell thrown, I follow it with my eyes, I see it fall,
and cause destruction, this is successive association.
As our ideas are derived, not from the objects themselves, but
I Mr. Stuart Mill calls attention in Note 24 to the fact that the idea, being
the copy of the sensation, it may be asked whether there is not also a copy
of the copy, an idea of the idea. My idea of Pericles, or of an existing
person whom I have never seen, corresponds to a real existing object, or one
which has been existent in the world of sensation. Nevertheless, as my idea
is derived not from the object, but from the words of another person, my idea
is not a copy of the original, but a copy of the copy of another; it is the idea
of an idea.




50                  Ezngishz Psychology.
from our sensations, we may expect from analogy that their
order shall be derived from that of the sensations, and this most
frequently occurs.' Our ideas are born or exist in the order in
which the sensations, of which they are the copies, have existed.'
Such is the general law of the association of ideas.'
When sensations are produced simultaneously, ideas are also
awakened simultaneously; when sensations have been successive,
ideas spring up in succession. The causes of association seem
to be two in number: the vivacity of the associated sentiments,
and the frequency of the association.
Association takes place not only between simple, but between
complex ideas, which melt together so as to form an idea which
appears simple. Such are our ideas of most familiar objects;
the idea of a wall is a complex idea resulting from the already
complex ideas of bricks and lime.
Hume, as we know, had said that our ideas associate themselves
on three principles: contiguity in time and space, resemblance,
and causality.  The author, who admits the first principle only,
contiguity in space (synchronic order), and contiguity in time
(successive order), endeavours to bring the two others into this
one, an attempt at simplification which, in the judgment of Mr.
John Stuart Mill,'is perhaps the least happy in the whole work'
(Note 35)II.
Before approaching imagination and memory, which, it would
seem, ought immediately to follow, we shall find a study of
words, parts of speech, the act of naming,; which appears to us
the most antiquated portion of the book.
It is remarkable that English contemporary psychologists,
who have profited so largely by the recent progress of physiology, have borrowed nothing from linguistics.  It may be main1 Vol. i. ch. iii.
2 In the tribunals, says the author, it is observed that ocular and auricular
witnesses always follow the chronological order in t r narratives; that is to
say, the order of their sensations, whereas those wlo invent seldom observe
that order.




Mr. yames Mil.                     5I
tained that that science is as yet neither sufficiently mature nor
sufficiently well co-ordinated; but it is incontestable that it has
much to reveal to us concerning the constitution, and above all
the development, of the human soul. It will become one of the
elements of that objective and inductive method which tends to
prevail in psychology.  Maupertuis, in his Refexions phizosopphziues stir l'origine des Languzes, speaks of the utility of studying
the languages of the savages,' which are conceived on a plan of
ideas so different from our own.' It has been done, and we can
readily believe that comparative philology will reveal things to
us, of much more intimate and delicate bearing upon the mechanism of the soul and its variations, than physiology.
From  the time of Aristotle, who said,'We do not think
without images, and words are images,' until the almost contemporary group of the ideologists, the sensualist school has always
understood the importance of language. James Mill is of their
school on this point; his general Grammar resembles that of
Condillac or of Destutt de Tracy. His authorities are Hornme
Tooke and Harris. A long exposition of doctrines which have
been left far behind since the author's time, would be useless
here. A few words will suffice.
After having spoken of the simple states of consciousness, we
must pass, he says, to the complex states. But all these imply,
in some manner, the'process of naming.' We must, therefore,
first see in what this' artifice' consists. It consists of' inventing'
signs or marks which we impose upon sensations and ideas.' Substantive' names are marks of ideas or of sensations; adjective names are marks placed upon substantive names, or marks
upon marks, in order to limit the signification of the substantive,
and instead of marking one great class, to mark a subdivision of
that class. Example: a' great' man. The verb is also a mark
upon a mark.
Three different sorts of marks renderpredication or affrnmtzion
possible.'I have the name of the individual, John, and the
name of the class, man. I can place in juxtaposition my two
names, John, man. But it is not sufficient to effect the communication which I desire to make, that the word' man'is a mark
of the idea of which'John' is a mark, and a mark of other ideas




52               EkInglish Psychology.
with those; that is, those of which James, Thomas, etc., are the
marks. In order to execute my design completely, I invent a
mark, which, placed between my marks John and man, fixes the
idea that I wish to express, and I say, "John is a man."  In
every language the verb which denotes existence, has been
employed to respond to the design of adding the copula in the
affirmation.'
The method of the author, which is that of the eighteenth century, is unacceptable on several points, and is now generally
rejected. It has the primary defect of explaining natural things
artificially, of believing in too much regularity in the march of
the human mind, of not allowing a sufficient place to its spontaneity.  It has no feeling for that which is primitive, for that
far distant epoch when the senses and the imagination predominated, and when the mind seized only upon living and concrete
things.l It treats language after the fashion of logic, and not
of psychology. A second defect is, that these explanations are
at most applicable only to the family of Aryan languages. We
cannot see how the theory of'marks of marks' can be applied to
the agglutinative or monosyllabic languages.
Thus Mr. A. Findlater makes important reservations in the
name of comparative philology (Note 53). This theory of affirmations, he says, is in conformity with the phenomena of the
family of languages known as Indo-European.  Logicians, in
fact, in treating this subject, have never taken into consideration
any other languages than Greek, Latin, and the modern literary
languages of Europe. It may then be presumed that this theory
would not apply to languages of a totally different structure.
The mental process must, no doubt, be the same in all, but the
means are new and without precedent. If the naturalists had
wished to construct a type of animal organism without having
ever seen anything but vertebrae, their theory would certainly
have failed in its generalization.  In the same way, the current
theory of affirmation, considered by the light of a more and more
profound knowledge of the organism of speech, seems to attach
1 On this point see Renan, De'orzigine du Langage; Max MUller, Science
of Language, vol. ii. chiefly.




Mir. _7ames  dill.                     53
an exaggerated importance to a power of affirmation presumed
to be inherent in verbs, and particularly in the verbs of existence.
It is now a well-known fact, that in the monosyllabic languages
spoken by a third of the human kind, there is no distinction
between the parts of speech. The substantive verb is wanting in
many languages. Among the Malays, the Javanese, and in the
peninsula of Malacca, pronouns or indeclinable particles take the
place of the verb to be. The affirmative faculty belongs so little
exclusively to the verb, that the pronouns and the articles very
often express affirmation, as may be proved by numerous examples,
especially from the agglutinative languages. As for the other verbs,
comparative grammar finds no trace of a substantive verb forming part of their structure.
It is now an accepted doctrine of philology that the root of a
verb is of the nature of an abstract name, anwd that it becomes a
verb sinly by the additzon of a pronominal affix.' And Mr. Findlater concludes, that if this analysis of the verb is correct, affirmation of existence did not find expression in the early periods
of language: the real corua, joinin;g the subject with the predicate,
was the priOposition contained in the obiigue case of the pronozminal
III.
After this excursion into the domain of philology, let us return
to purely psychological analysis, with imagination and memory.
Consciousness is the name of our feelings taken one by one,
imagination is the name of a succession of sentiments or ideas.'The phenomena classed under this head, are explained by
modern philosophers upon the principles of association.' Dugald
1 Findlater, according to Garnett, gives an example of a declension, a conjugation of a verb in Wotiak, by means of pronominal affixes:Pi-i,  son of me.        Bera-i,  woard of me.    (I speak)
Pi-ed, son of thee.      Bera-d,  word of thee.
Pi-ez, son of him.       Bera-z,  word of him.
Pi-mi, son of us.        Bera-my, word of us.
Pi-dy, son of you.       Bera-dy, zuword ofyou.
Pi-zy, son of them.      Bera-zy, zoord of them.




54               Ezglishz Psyc/ology.
Stewart has given a technical sense to the word Imagination,
without deriving any advantage from it: he restricts it to the case
in which the mind creates, forms new combinations.
Imagination, then, consists in a succession of ideas, but great
is the diversity of these successions.  They are different in the
shopkeeper, occupied with purchase and sale, from those of the
lawyer, occupied with judges, clients, and witnesses; they mean
one thing in the soldier, another in the metaphysician.  The
author ingeniously brings out the character by which the associations of ideas of the poet differ from all others while appearing to
resemble them.'The ideas of the poet are ideas of all that is most lovely and
striking in the visible appearances of nature, and of all that is
most interesting in the actions and affections of human beings....
There is also nothing surprising in this, that, being trains of pleasurable ideas, they should have attracted a peculiar degree of
attention, and in an early age, when poetry was the only literature,
should have been thought worthy of a more particular naming
than the trains of any other class...-. In the case of the lawyer,
the train leads to a decision favourable to the side which he
advocates.  The train has nothing pleasurable in itself. The
pleasure is all derived from the end.  The same is the case with
the merchant. His trains are directed to a particular end. And
it is the end alone which gives value to the train. The end of
the metaphysical and the end of the mathematical inquirer, is
the discovery of truth; their trains are directed to that object;
and are, or are not, a source of pleasure, as that end is or is not
attained.  But the case is perfectly different with the poet.  His
train is its own end. It is all delightful, or the purpose is
frustrated.' 1
Memory, according to the opinion of all who have studied it,
is a complex faculty.2  Into what has it been resolved I According to the author, it contains only ideas and associations of
ideas.3
In the first place, it is certain that ideas constitute its fundamental portion; for we do not recall anything to ourselves except
1 Mill's Analysis, vol. i. p. 242.  2 Chap. vii.  8 Chap. x.




Mr. 7ames gqlA.                 55
by an idea, and in order that there may be memory, it is necessary that there should be an idea.
But how is the idea, which forms a portion of the imagination,
produced? By association. It is easy to prove it. We have
been acquainted with a person of whom we have not thought for
a long time; a letter from her, a remark which she liked to make,
and which is repeated in our hearing, these are circumstances
associated with the idea of the person, and which recall her to our
memory. In the same way, when we try to remember something,
we run through different series of ideas, with the hope that one
or the other will suggest to us the idea which we seek.
So far, then, there is no difficulty. In memory there are ideas,
and these ideas are bound together by association. And yet, the
memory is not the same thing as the imagination.  There is in
memory all that there is in imagination, with something more.
What is this additional element?  Let us remark, in the first place,
that there are two cases in memory, the case in which we recall
sensations, and the case in which we recall ideas. I remember to
have seen George III. deliver a speech on the opening of Parliament: memory of sensations. I remember to have read the
report of the sitting in which Napoleon I. opened the French
Chambers for the first time: memory of ideas.
In both one and the other case, the recognition of the remembrance as belonging to the past, is a very complex idea, which
consists of three principal elements:-. A state of actual consciousness, which we call the remembering ego; 2. A state of
consciousness, which we call the perceptive or conceptive ego;
3. The successive states of consciousness, which fill.up the interval between those two points. Thus, as we follow the author, we
thread rapidly in our thought the series of the states of consciousness, intermediary between the moment of the remembrance and
the moment at which the event took place, and it is by this rapid
movement that a fact appears to us as past, and consequently
that memory differs from imagination.  Everything then reduces
itself to an association of ideas, since there is only the idea of the
present ego (the ego which -remembers), the idea of the past ego
(the word which one remembers), and the idea of a series of
states of consciousness which fill up the interval.




56                Enzglish Psychology.
This explanation of memory is simple and ingenious; unfortunately it is not without difficulties. The difference between
imagination and memory will probably continue to embarrass
philosophers for a long time to come, says Mr. Stuart Mill (Note
94), without inquiring whether, as the author has it, we really
repeat in our thoughts, though briefly, the whole intermediate
series.   To explain memory by the ego, strongly resembles
explaining a thing by that thing itself. For what notion can we
have of the ego without memory?' The fact of remembering,
that is to say, of having an idea combined with the belief that
the corresponding sensation has been actually felt by me, this
seems to be the' elementary fact of the ego, the origin and the
basis of that idea.'
We will now pass on to the operations which abstract and
general notions give us; classification and abstraction.
Classification is the process of the mind by which we gather together the objects of our senses and of our ideas into certain aggregates called classes.l But, in what consists this process, by which,
forming individuals into classes, separating such and such from
others,'we consider them under a certain idea of unity as being
something in themselves'? It has been regarded as a' mysterious'
thing, it has been'explained mysteriously,' expounded into a'mystic jargon,' and has caused ages of warfare between the
realists and the nominalists. Mr. James Mill explains it solely
by means of the word, and of the association of ideas; as
follows:-' The word man, we shall say, is first applied to an individual;
it is first associated with the idea of that individual, and acquires
the power of calling up the idea of him; it is next applied
to another individual, and acquires the power of calling up the
idea of him; so of another and another, till it has become associated with an indefinite number, and has acquired the power of
calling up an indefinite number of those ideas indifferently.
What happens?  It does call up an indefinite number of the
ideas of individuals, as often as it occurs; and calling them
up in close connexion, it forms them into a species of com1 Chap. viii.




Mf r. 7yames Mill.                    57
plex idea.... It thus appears that the word manz is not
a word having a very simple idea, as was the opinion of the
Realists, nor a word having no idea at all, as was that of the
Nominalists; but a word calling up an indefinite number of
ideas, by the irresistible laws of association, and forming them
into one very complex and indistinct, but not, therefore, unintelligible idea.' 1
It is with the object of naming, and naming with a greater
facility, that we form classes; and it is resemblance which,
when we have applied a name to an individual, leads us to apply
it to another and another, until the whole forms an aggregate,
bound together by the common relation of the aggregate to one
single and same name. The great peculiarity of this theory, as
Mr. Grote remarks with regret, is that it does not employ, or
even name abstraction. It sees in classification only a common
name, associated with an indefinite and indistinct aggregate of
concrete similar individuals.  This is a novelty. But the former
philosophers,'who thought that abstraction is included in classification, were, in my opinion, right,' adds Mr. Grote,'if we consider classification as a great operation. An aggregate of concretes is neither sufficient to constitute a class in the scientific
sense, nor useful in the march of reasoning. We require, besides,
ajarticular manner of considering the aggregate (a phrase which
Mr. James Mill calls mysterious, but which it would be difficult
to exchange for more intelligible terms); one or several elements
of a complex idea must be separated from the rest, which has
received the name of Abstraction.'
This latter process, regarded by the author as subsidiary, is
defined by him, and by every one else, as the act or separating
a portion of that which is contained in a complex idea, in order
to make of it an object to be considered in itself.2  Reducedalmost entirely to a process of notation by means of words,
abstraction does not seem to us to be treated in proportion to
its importance.  Association-psychology is in general more engaged with the means by which the mind adds its ideas and
Mill's Analysis, vol. i. pp. 264, 265.
2 Vol. i. chap. ix. p. 294.




58                   English PsycholQogy.
forms them into couples and into masses, than with the processes
of decomposition which it applies to them. Nevertheless the
mind employs not only addition but subtraction.   If it composes it also decomposes; if it unites the similar, it divides the
dissimilar.'How  No clear answer on this point.
IV.
We shall now  see how  the author of the Analysis employs
association of ideas to explain various states of consciousness,
which he comprises under the common name of belief.'
It is difficult to treat separately of memory, belief, and judgment; for a portion of mernory is contained in the term  belief,
as is a portion of judgment. The different cases of belief may be
classed under these heads: belief in events or in real existences;
belief in testimony; belief in the truth of propositions.
I. Belief in real events or existences, may have for their object
the past, the present, the fiztre.
(I.) Let us begin witih the belief which has a present fact for its
object.
Here is a first case: that in which the fact is actually and
immediately present to my senses. I believe that this is a rose.
This belief implies, in the first place, belief in my sensations, and
to believe in my sensations is purely and simply another mode
of saying that I have sensations. But to believe in external
objects, is not simply to believe in my present sensations. It is
that, and something more. It is that something more which is
the object of our search. In seeing a rose I have the sensation'We collect in the following table the various forms of belief, classified
andl explained by the author:I:!,                    ( Present to the senses: Ex. There is a rose.
[i. Real fa-ts. 5 Actual. - Not present to the senses: Ex. St. Paul's.  I. Real facts.                Church exists.
Past.   Ex. I have seen a certain theatre burning.
Future. Ex. It will be daylight to-morrow.
2. Testimony. Ex. The great fire of London.,.  I,     ( Identical: Ex. Man is a reasonable
3. The truth of propositions.  animal.
L                          (LNon-identical: Ex. Man is an animal.




Mr. 7ames Mill.                      59
of colour, but I have, besides, that of its distance, and its figure
or form. Those ideas, which are due to touch, are associated with
that of colour. Others, such as scent, taste, and resistance, may
associate themselves with these. My idea of a rose is thus formed
by the fusion of several ideas, among which one or two are predominant (colour and figure).  Now  I consider my sensations as
an effect, and I believe in something, which is their cause, and
it is to that cause, and not to the effect, that the name of objects
is appropriated.' To each of the sensations which we have of a
particular object, we join in our imagination a cause; to these
various causes we join a cause common to all, and we mark it
with the name of substratumr.'   In short, we experience clusters
of sensations; these sensations awaken the idea of antecedents
(qualities) which awaken the idea of an antecedent common to
all qualities (the substratum) and the substratum with its qualities we call the object.2 Thus then in our belief in external objects there are two things: first, a cluster of ideas melted into a
whole by association; and then the idea of an antecedent (cause)
of this whole.
This belief then implies a theory of cause, which the author
states very simply.  Let a fact be B and an antecedent A: if
their association is given as inseparable, and the order of their
associations as constant, we shall say that A is the cause of B.
Here is a second case: that in which the fact is not actually
present to my. senses.  I believe that St. Paul's, which I have
seen this morning, still exists, which is equivalent to saying that
if I, or one of my fellows, were placed in a certain part of London,
we should have the sensation of St. Paul's Cathedral. This belief implies the remembrance whose nature has been examined
under the title of memory, and then an extension of past facts
into the future, which we shall study presently.
(2.) The belief which has for its object a past fact attaches itself
to memory. When I say that I recall the burning of Drury Lane
Theatre, my saying that I recall that incident, and that I believe
it, is exactly the same thing; these are two indiscernible conditions
of consciousness.
1 Vol. i. p. 35I.                    2 Vol. ii. p. IoO




60                Enzglishz Psychology.
(3.) The belief which has future facts for its object is the groundwork of that process of the mind which is called induction. The
author thinks that it also may be resolved into a simple association.'The anticipation of the future by means of the past, far
from being a phenomenon suigeneris, is included in one of the
most general laws of the human mind.'. When, therefore, Dugald
Stewart and others exalt it into an object of admiration, into a
prodigy, into a thing which is not included in any general law,
and that they tell us it can only be referred to an instinct; which
is equivalent to saying to nothing at all-the term  instinct
merely signifying, in every case, our ignorance,-they only show
their powerlessness to bring the phenomena of mind under the
great comprehensive law of association. They seem to have had
a most inexplicable and most anti-philosophical aversion to admit this law in its wide meaning; as if the simplicity, by virtue of
which a certain law is included in a higher law, and so on, even
to a small number in which all appear to be included, ought not
to be found in the world of mind, as it is found in the world of
matter.'
Whatever may be thought of the following explanation, it must
at least be acknowledged that-the author has seen very clearly
that a theory of induction is in fact a theory of cause.'We cannot, he says, have an idea of the future, because, strictly
speaking, the future is a non-entity, and we cannot have an idea
of nothing. When we speak of the future, we speak in reality of
the past. I believe that the sun will rise to-morrow, that there
will be vehicles in the streets of London, that the tide will be full
at London Bridge, etc.; these are ideas of the past.' Our idea
of the future and our idea of the past is the same thing, with this
difference, that in the one case there is anticipation, and in the
other there is retrospection.' What is this anticipation?
The fundamental law of association consists in this, that when
two things have been frequently found together, one recalls the
other. Among these habitual conjunctions, there is none which
interests us more than that of the antecedent and the consequent.
But among the numerous antecedents and consequents which
Vol. i. pp. 376, 377.




Mr. f7anmesfAi/.                          6 I
form the matter of our experience, some present them in a constant, others in a variable order. Thus, I have seen a crow flying
from the east to the west, as well as from the west to the east.
On the contrary, a stone thrown into the air will not go from low
to high as well as from high to low; it follows an immoveable
direction. Thence an association of ideas whose order is also
invariable. Thus the idea of every fact awakens the idea of constant antecedent (which produces it) and the idea of constant consequents (which it produces).  This great law of our nature shows
us immediately in what manner an idea of the future is produced.
Night has always been followed by morning. The idea of night
is followed by that of morning; the idea of morning by that of
the incidents of the morning (the vehicles in the streets -of London) and of the entire day. Then there is the idea of to-morrow,
to which another to-morrow succeeds, and an indefinite number
of those' to-morrows' compose the complex idea of the future.
But, it may be said, that is the idea of to-morrow, and not
belief in to-morrow; tell us, what is that belief? I reply, that not
only you have the idea of to-morrow, but you have it in an inseparable manner. Now it is to this case of indissoluble association of ideas, and to nothing else, that you apply the name of
belief.
2. There is no occasion for us to linger over belief in testimony.
It also belongs to association. In short, I refer all the words
(written or spoken) of my fellows to the facts and ideas which
they represent: this is an association. Now, our belief in facts
is founded upon our own experience, and this form of belief has
already been explained.l
3. A third class of beliefs is that in the truth of propositions,'in other words, in verbal truths.' The process by which this
belief is produced is calledjzfiudgent.  Proposition is the form of
This explanation of belief in testimony does not seem satisfactory.' The belief in testimony is derived from the primary credulity of the mind, in
certain instances left intact under the wear and tear of adverse experience
Hardly any fact of the human mind is better attested than the primitive disposition to receive all testimony with unflinching credence. It never occurs
to the child to question any statement made to it, until some positive force on
the side of scepticism has been developed.'-Bain's A otes to Aznalysis, p. 386.




62                 Enzgis/  Psychology.
affirmation.'Affirmation essentially consists in applying two
marks to the same thing.  Example: Man is a reasonable animal.,''Or else names of which one has less and the other more extension, are applied to the same thing. Example: Man is an
animal.'
In the first case, the equivalence of the two words is acknowledged by association: man and reasonable animal are two words
for one same condition of consciousness; they are associated as
marks with a same group of ideas.
In the second case, the association is more complex; that is
all the difference. Man is the name of a cluster of ideas suggested by association (see on this subject, classificaion); animal
is'also the name of a cluster which includes the first cluster and
others besides.
Thus, sensations, ideas, associations of ideas; the whole varied,
complicated, aggregated, crossed, grouped in a thousand ways, —
this is the whole mechanism of the human mind.
CHAPTER II.
ABSTRACT TERMS.
Ceneral terms.-i. Of general terms-2. Space, time, movement, the infiiite.'SOME words which require a, special explanation,' is the title
of a long chapter in the Analysis,l devoted to the obscure and
disputed questions of time, space, motion, etc.'I Under, this
modest title,' says Mr. John Stuart Mill,' this chapter presents us
with a series of discussions on some of the most profound and intricate questions in the whole of metaphysics. The title would
give a very incomplete idea of the difficulty and importance of
the speculations which it contains. It is almost as if a treatise
upon chemistry had been given, as an explanation of the words
air, water, potass, sulphuric acid, etc.'
I Chap. xiv. pp. I to I 76, vol. ii.




Mr. 7amnes Mill.                       63
It is really a study of the origin and the mode of the formation of
the most general ideas, which we find under this title. The transition period to which the work belongs makes itself particularly
evident in this portion of it: the author is still wavering between
the too verbal method of the eighteenth century, and the more concrete analysis, which shall be that of his successors. We find in
it, in the condition of sketches, and of foreseen solutions, a number of explanations which have been given in a clearer and more
complete manner by contemporaries.
One of its principal merits, in our opinion, is that it endeavours
to show that certain abstract terms appear to be inexplicable,
only because they are too distant from their concretes.  Perhaps
it has never been sufficiently borne in mind that abstraction has
its degrees, as number has its powers: red is an abstract, colour is
more abstract, aftribute is still more abstract.  This growth in
abstraction, very easy to prove in this instance, is not always so.
But if philosophy should arrive at noting the ascending degrees
of abstraction with sufficient exactness, as arithmetic determines
the growing powers of a number; if it should succeed, as far as the
nature of things permits, in doing for quality that which has been
done for quantity; if it should succeed in resolving the highest
abstractions in inferior abstractions, and these into concretes, it
seems to us that many vain questions and factitious difficulties
would disappear.  Here and there some such attempts are made
by our author, but they are very incomplete. Now, so long
as precise verification shall be wanting, sensualism will in vain
claim for itself simplicity, truthful-seeming, and above all, that
most scientific characteristic, the elimination of everything supernatural; the question will always remain an open one between its
adversaries and itself.
II.
Under the name Relalive Terwms, the author treats of the
various ideas of relation.  Their essential character is to exist
only by couples or pairs, such as highz,-  and low, like and un/ike,
antecedent and consteuent.  These couples are suggested to us by
association.




64               English Psychology.
Under the name' P'rimitive Teirms, he treats of the ideas which
are generally called negative.
As it is almost impossible to analyse exactly an analysis, we
shall not try to follow the author in his examination of the ideas of
resemblance and difference, antecedent and consequent, position
in space, order in time, quantity, quality, etc. We shall find the
substance of all this when we have to deal with the other philosophers. Thus Mill seems to have partly seen that which Bain
and Spencer will hereafter show us more clearly, that the fact of
primitive consciousness consists, in the first place, in the perception of a difference, and then in the perception of a resemblance.
Let us restrict ourselves to the important ideas of space, infinite,
time, and motion.
Space. —Let us remark, firstly, that concrete terms are connotative, abstract terms are non-connotative; that is, to say, that
concrete terms, in expressing one or several qualities which
is their notation, or principal signification, connote the object to
which these qualities belong. Thus the concrete'red' always
connotes something which is red, such as a rose. Now, how is
the abstract formed? It is formed of the concrete, and it notes
precisely that which is noted by the concrete, but rejecting the colnnotation. Thus, in red, take away the connotation and you have
redness; in hot, take away the connotation and you have heat.
Red signifies something red, redness signifies redness without
something. There is the same difference between the concrete
extended and the abstract extension. What the concrete extended is with its connotation, the abstract extension is without
that connotation. We have then to explain in what this connotation consists.  When we say, extended, signifying something
of extent, we mean one or other of these three things,-a line, a
surface, a volume. We owe these ideas to different sensations,
among which we must count in the first place those due to touch
and to muscular action. The sensation or sensations which we
mark by the word resistant, seem to be the only ones connoted
by the word extended. Thus the essential connotation of the
concrete'extended'is resistant, and nothing else. It is true
that those who enjoy the faculty of seeing, cannot conceive of a
thing as extended without conceiving of it as coloured; they




r. y7amnes Mill.                      65
unite the visual qualities to the tactile qualities, which even become predominant by association.  But for the man who is born
blind there exists only the sensation of the tactile qualities, that
is to say, resistance.
Now, we can understand what extension is in all its cases.
Linear extension is the idea of a line without the connotation; that
is to say; without the idea of resistance. Extension in superficies
is the idea of a surface without the connotation (resistance).
Extension in volume, is the idea of a volume without the connotation (resistance).  But a volume without resistance, what
is it. The place for a volume.  And this place, what is it? A
portion of space, or, more exactly, space itself without limit.
Zfiz'ite.-The idea of infinite is comprised in that of space.'When the word infinite is not employed metaphorically, as
when we speak of the infinite perfections of God (in which case it
is not a name of an idea, but a name for a lack of ideas), it is
applied only to number, extension, and duration.'
We augment numbers by adding one to one, one to two, etc.;
and by giving a name to each aggregate.  It is the association of
ideas that constitutes this process. Number is limited, consequently not infinite.  Number is the negation of the infinite, as
black is the negation of white. The word infinite, in this case, is
only a mark for that condition of consciousness in which the idea
of one more is intimately associated with every number that
presents itself. In short, the abstract term is the particular idea
without the connotation.
We also apply this word to extension by the same process. A
strict irresistible association of ideas makes us conceive of the
continuous increase of a line, of a surface, of a volume.'That
which we call the idea of an infinite extension, and which some
call th/e necessary idea, simply signifies that the idea of an
additional portion is necessarily awakened; that is to say, by indissoluble association, and that we cannot prevent it.'
The idea of infinite, which has been called a simple idea, is in
reality an extremely complex idea. But the association which is
its foundation is so close that it appears to us a unit.
Tznme.-Space is a comprehensive word, comprising all positions, or the totality of the synchronical order. Time is a corn4




66                Englisgs    PsycIzology.
prehensive word, comprising all successions or the totality of the
successive order.
The idea of time is an idea of successions; it consists in that,
and nothing more. Let us now recall how a concrete may be
changed into an abstract, by taking away the connotation, and let
us apply this doctrine to the case of successions. When a man
recalls the peculiarities of a battle in which he commanded, a
succession of sensations or ideas cross his mind. In this succession, as in every other, there are always ideas, past, present, and
future. Take away the connotation of'something present,'' something past,' and of' something future,' and you have past,
present, and future. But these three things are time. It is an
abstract term, covering the signification of three distinct abstracts.
Motion. —The word' motion' is abstract of I moving.' What
we have to look for, are the sensations by virtue of which we call
a body'moving,' motion being simply moving without the connotation. In the'idea of a moving body we find the following elements: the idea of a line (for a body always moves according to
a line, right or otherwise), and the idea of succession. All these
ideas are complex, some of them are very complex. United in
one idea (motion), they compose one of the most complex of our
ideas.
It is important to observe that, though it is most frequently the
eye which informs us of motion, it is not from the- sensations of
sight that the idea of motion is derived. It is only by an association of ideas that we imagine that we see motion. This idea
comes to us, like that of extent, firom the muscular and tactile sensations. A man born blind has the idea of motion just as we
have it. Our ideas of extension and of motion are derived, without any doubt, from the action of our own body.
I touch something, and I have the sensation of resistance, the
idea of resistance being that which is fundamental in every aggregate to which we give the name of object. In this case there are
two things: the object touched, the finger which touches. Here
is another case: I lent an action to my finger in touching the
object. This action implies certain sensations; I combine them
with the object and with my finger, and thus I have two ideas:
the object extended, the finger moved. Our idea of a moving




Mr. _7ames Mill.                      67
body consists of a series of successive sensations; a sum in which
the present condition is united, thanks to memory, with all the
anterior conditions.  And when we have familiarized ourselves
with the application of the term moved, as a connotative term to
various objects, it is -easy, in the -various cases, to suppress the
connotation, and thus we have the abstract-motion.'
CHAPTER.III.
THE FEELINGS AND TIHE WILL..Feelin g andl Will. —I. The insufficiency of English Psychology on this point -
2. Feelings-3. Free Will-Mr. John Stuart Mill.
THE doctrines of the English experimental school on the psychology of the feelings, the emotions, the affective phenomena in
general, do not seem to be so precise or so complete as upon the
question of sensations and ideas. By some it is not handled at
all, by others, for instance Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. John
Stuart Mill, it has been as yet barely touched. Two only have
attempted to treat it profoundly —our author and Mr. Bain. The
work of the latter, probably the fullest and deepest which has yet
appeared on this subject, seems to us nevertheless the weakest
portion of his labours.2
whence arises this inferiority?  Must we believe that among
philosophers there exists a certain tendency to neglect the affective phenomena and to study the psychology of the mind more
than that ofthe heart? May we not think tiat it is rather the complexity, the heterogeneousness of these phenomena which renders
their analysis so difficult? Judgment, reasoning, abstract conception, association of ideas, are facts naturally simple and above
Mr. John Stuart Mill points out that this explanation is to be found in
other words, but identical in meaning, in the works of Messrs. Bain and ierbert Spencer.
See chap. iii., Mr. Bain.




68                Engglish Psychol ogy.
all homogeneous.  But a passion, a feeling, an emotion, most
fiequently comprehends very various elements; firstly, physiological phenomena, variable according to organization, temperament, sex, etc., but which nevertheless play a preponderating part,
and afterwards a condition of pleasure or pain, which is, properly
speaking, the affective element; finally, an idea, a notion; for the
sensible phenomenon cannot be absolutely separated and detached from all knowledge; a pain envelops the idea of that
which causes it, an emotion implies the knowledge of its object.
The ideal of psychology would evidently be to be able to explain
all sentiments by a double method of synthesis and analysis; to be
able to trace back a complex emotion to one more simple, and
thus to arrive gradually at an irreducible fact; or, on the contrary, to start from the simplest affective phenomena, and to show
how, by addition, aggregates of more and more complex emotions
are found, and thus theoretically to reconstitute the reality. But
we are very far from that ideal. The fundamental irreducible
emotions are not yet even determined. Mr. Bain gives nine.
We shall see hereafter what this classification is, and what may
be thought of it. Mr. Herbert Spencer, who has been especially
occupied with the question of method, takes the point of view of
comparative psychology. He wishes to have the most general
emotions determined; in the first place, those which are common
to all animals; secondly, those which are common to us and to
the inferior races; then those which are proper to us, and the
order of their evolution. Our author, exclusively occupied with
the human point of view, has chiefly sought to show how the
complex emotions come by association from the simple emotions.
The method then remains the same, and the doctrine of association is also at the bottom of the study of the feelings. The mode
of exposition is clear, lucid, simple,-perhaps simple to excess,
which is very near inexactness;-for, though clearness and simplicity are eminently philosophical sentiments, when we see that an
author replies to a complex question by a precise formula, and
pretends to embrace all phenomena, and to clear up all obscurities, it is well to be on our guard against some errors.
An exposition of the physiological conditions of the sentiments
and the emotions is wanting in this work. We also look in vain




Mr. 7ames Mlil.                     69
for a study of the appetites and the instincts, and the chapter on
the Will suffers accordingly. In our opinion these deficiencies are
partly explained by the epoch at which the book appeared. Later
psychologists have largely supplemented it.
II.
The phenomena of thought, says the author, have long been
divided  into two classes: intellectual faculties, and active
faculties. In the first, sensations and ideas are considered as
simply existing; in the second, they are considered as exciting
to action.
We have seen that those of the first class may be formed into
more or less complex groups, and that they succeed each other,
following certain laws. Those of the second class are equally
capable of being formed into groups, and of succeeding each
other, following- certain laws.'So far, then, there is an agreement between the two classes of phenomena. It remains for us
now to seek the differences proper to the last.'
All our sensations are agreeable, disagreeable, or indifferent.
We desire to prolong the first; to put an end to the second; as
to the third, we do not seek either to prolong or to abridge
them. The author limits himself to saying that the indifferent
sensations are'probably the most numerous, without studying
them.
Pleasure and pain,-these are the two primitive facts. But
the facts are causes, and these causes are of two sorts: proximate
and distant. The bitter medicine which I swallow is the immnediate or proximate cause of my sensation of disgust: the sentence of the judge is the distaat cause of the execution of a
criminal.
This is not all. We have seen that all sensations may be preserved and reproduced by the mind, and that these mental reproductions of sensations are called ideas. So every sensation of
pleasure or of pain may be reproduced by the mind, and thus
ideas of pleasure and pain be formed.
An idea of pleasure or of pain is a very clear condition of
a Vol. ii. chap. xvi.




70                  Lizglish Psychology.
consciousness, familiar to us all. But the idea of a pleasure is
not a pleasure, and the idea of a pain is not a pain. The idea
of burning one's hand does not cause pain, the idea of eating
sugar does not cause pleasure. The idea of a pleasure is called
desire, the idea of a pain is called aversion.  Agreeable or disagreeable sensations, and the ideas of those sensations, are not
only actual. They may be related to the past by memory, to
the future by anticipation. We know. the mechanism of memory.
As for' the anticipation of the future, it consists in the same
series of associations, with this difference, that in the memory
the association of states of consciousness which converts the
idea into memory goes from the consequent to the antecedent,
that is to say, backwards; whereas, in the case of anticipation,
association goes from the antecedent to the consequent, that is
to say, forwards.'
When an agreeable sensation is conceived of as future, but
without one's being certain of it, this state of consciousness is
called  Tope; if one is certain of it, it is called joy.  When a disagreeable sensation is conceived of as future, but uncertain, that
state of consciousness is called fear; if it is certain, it is called
sorrow.  An agreeable sensation, or the idea of that sensation;
joined to the idea of the cause which produces it, engenders
affrection or love for that cause. ~ A disagreeable sensation, joined
to the idea of its cause, engenders antz2iathy or hatred for that
cause.2
The causes of our pleasures and of our pains-are, as we have
already seen, proximate or remote. According to the author,
the immediate causes are much the less interesting. This apparent paradox is the necessary result of one of the most general
of the laws of our nature; those immediate causes never having
a very extensive field of operations, the idea of them is associated
with only a limited number of pleasures or pains. Compare,
1 Vol. ii. chap. xx.
2 Love is nothing but joy accompanied by the idea of an exterior cause.
I-Iate is nothing but sadness accompanied by the idea of an exterior cause.
Spinoza, Ethics, iii. prop. I3. Compare the Third Book of the Ethics with
Mill's Analysis, props. 13, I4, I6, I7, i8, I9, and Appendix to Book II.




rY. yanmes Hillz.                      7 
for example, an immediate cause of pleasure, food, with a remote
cause, money, and you will see that the latter plays a preponderating part, because it is an instrument calculated to procure for us almost every pleasure.'When the idea of one
object is associated with a hundred times more pleasure than
another idea, it is generally a hundred times more pleasant.'
Thus the author confines himself almost entirely to these remote
causes, which he ranges under three heads:I. Riches, power, dignity, and their contraries.
a. Our fellows: relatives, friends, fellow-citizens, etc.
3. Objects which are known as beautiful and sublime.
These remote causes of our pleasures and our pains may be
called egoistical causes, social causes, and aesthetic causes. Let
us examine them.
One remarkable thing is, first of all, to be noticed: the three
above-named great causes of our pleasure agree in this, that
they are all the means of procuring for us the services of our
fellow-creatures, and themselves contribute to our pleasures in
hardly any other way.  It is obvious from this remark, that the
services of our fellow-creatures are the great cause of all our
pleasures; since wealth, power, and dignity, which appear to
most people to sum up the means of human' happiness, are
nothing more than means of procuring those services.  This is
a fact of the highest importance, both in morals and in philosophy.'
r. The author easily shows that wealth is a means of procuring
the services of others, by remunerating them; that power is a
means of bending them  to submission through hope or fear;
that dignities procure for us their respect, not only in outward
appearance, but as manifested by their actions.2
It is, in the first place, however, to be observed, that wealth,
power, and dignity afford, perhaps, the most remarkable of all
examples of that extraordinary case of association where the
means to an end, means valuable to us solely on account of this
end, not only engross more of our attention than the end itself,
but actually supplant it in our affections.
X Mill's Analysis, vol. ii. p. 207. 207.2 id. p. 2I5.




72              ESgrlz's/ Psyc/olzogy.
How few men seem to be at all concerned about their fellowcreatures! How completely are the lives of most men absorbed
in the pursuit of wealth and ambition! With how many men
does the love of family, of country, of mankind, appear completely impotent when opposed to their love of wealth, or of
power i This is an effect of misguided association, which requires
the greatest attention in education and morals.
2. Wealth, power, and dignity being the source of such powerful affections to our fellow-men, it would be surprising if our
fellows themselves were not a source of affections to us. They
are a cause of various pleasures, whether individually or in groups.
Friendship, Kindness, Family, Country, Party, Humanity, such
are the six somewhat confused titles under which the author
classes them. The object of his analysis is to show that our
strongest sentiments are aggregates, and that hence is their
strength; that they are formed by juxtaposition, or, as it is better
expressed, by the fusion of the simple sentiments; that affection
being the result of a pleasure, a profound affection results from
a great sum of pleasures experienced. In order to understand
this doctrine more clearly, suppose an unknown person to render
you a small service,-he causes you a pleasure, and the idea of
this pleasure makes the unknown person an object of affection
to you-an affection as slight as the pleasure caused. But if
you come to know this man better, so that his mind, his heart, his
society, his confidence, all become to you the cause of so many
pleasures, and that these are repeated during many years, a
strong affection will be produced, the result of a crowd of sentiments of affection, which are themselves the result of a crowd
of sentiments of pleasure. Everything is thus explained in final
analysis by association.
Let us now see how the author accounts for one of our most
general sentiments, the love of parents for children."
In the first place, it is well known that the pleasures and pains
of others affect us; that is to say, associate themselves with the
ideas of our own pleasures and pains. This phenomenon has
Vol. ii. clh. xxi. section 2.




IMr. 7ames Miii.                    73
been correctly called syvmyatzhy. Now, a child can, like every
other person, excite this sentiment in us.
Moreover, a man regards his child as.a cause, much more
certain than any other, of pleasures and of pains. To him his
child is an object of great interest; in other words, a succession
of interesting ideas,-ideas of pleasure or of pain,-associate
themselves with him. The vivacity and simplicity of a child's
expressions, of his ways and attitudes, give him a special power
of awakening our sympathy. As the child is, besides, in a state
of-entire dependence on his parents, who must incessantly watch
over his safety, the idea of him is therefore constantly associated
with those of pleasures and of pains, in addition to which it
awakens an idea of power which is always agreeable. Another
source of pleasant association is the following: It is a fact of
daily experience, that we come to love a person to whom we
have frequently done good. This is not only true in the case of
our fellows, but also in that of animals. By the mere fact that
they have been the object of repeated acts of kindness on our
part, they become an object of affection to us. The idea of
those individuals, united to that of the pleasures which we
experience, form a composite idea, an affection.
Every time a man is placed in the circumstances which produce these associations, he feels the paternal affection even when
parentage does not exist; as in the case of a husband, who, being
ignorant of the infidelity of his wife, loves the child of another
man as though he were his own son.
In very rich and in very poor families, circumstances are but
little favourable to those associations from which the affection of
parents results.
In the case of extreme (not moderate) poverty, the circumstances which lead to the association of the idea of the child
are either wanting, or are neutralized by the necessity for ceaseless toil, for being but little occupied with him, etc.
In the case of extreme opulence, parents are engrossed by the
pleasures and obligations of society, etc. As they attend but
little to his education, they can associate but few pains or pleasures with his idea. Thence comes an imperfect affection.
3. Objects called beautiful or sublime, and their contraries,




74                    Englishz Psychology.
are a third source of pleasures or pains to us. These amsthetic
emotions 1 are also referable to an association. Regarded as a
whole, feeling for the.sublime and for the beautiful appears perfectly simple.' It is by taking-:their stand on these appearances,
many, even eminent, philosophers have argued that a particular
sense was necessary to explain their existence. This apparent
simplicity is only an example of that mode of association which
unites several ideas so closely that they appear to be no longer
several ideas but one alone.
A sound, a colour, any object is called beautiful or sublime,
according to the ideas which it awakens in us by association.
Thus the sounds which associate themselves with ideas of power,
majesty, and profound melancholy, are generally sublime;
such as the roar of a tempest, the fall of a cataract, the tones of
the organ.  Sounds of another kind. produce the feeling of the
beautiful,-a water-fall, the murmurs of a stream, the bells of a
flock of sheep.3
1 It is the custom of English philosophers to comprehend in their study qf
the affective phenomena that of the pleasures and pains which are caused us by
the beautiful and the ugly, by good and evil. They thus include,Esthetics
and Morals among their psychological ground-work. The feeling of the
Beautiful and that of the Good admits of manifestations as varied and important as those of the Fine Arts, Manners, Legislation, etc., and we cannot be astonished at the importance accorded to them. But should not the
same be granted to the religious sentiment? Our author does not mention
it. Mr. Bain, generally so thorough in his treatment, disposes of it in two
pages (Emotions and Willt, ch. vi.)  The Germans study this point.  See
Wundt, vol. ii. p. 218 to 3II.
2 Vol. ii. chap. xxi. p. 250.
8 The author, who relies here upon Alison's theories, does not say in what
the associations consist which awaken the feeling of the Beautiful. The examples given seem rather to refer to the Agreeable. Mr. John Stuart Mill
(Note 48) directs us to Mr. Ruskin on this pqint, saying that he supplies
unconscious evidence in favour of the theory of association.  According to
Mr. Ruskin,'we call all those objects beautiful and.sublime which express
these ideas:-Infinite, Unity, Repose, Symmetry, Purity, Measure, Adaptation to an end.' Is not this saying that the things which excite the emotion
of the Sublime and Beautiful, are those which are naturally associated with
certain ideas profoundly rooted in us?' The above list is neither exact nor
complete; but that does not affect the correctness of the doctrine.




Mr. yamnes Mill.                     75
White pleases us, because it recalls day and light; black displeases us, because it reminds us of darkness. These associations.
vary according to different countries, and are not absolute. In
China, white is the colour of mourning, and consequently is far
from being considered beautiful. In Spain, black is liked, because it is the colour of the garments worn by the grandees.l
A more true and weighty remark than the preceding is, that
those who do not associate any agreeable idea with sounds or
colours have no feeling for the beautiful.'Children wait long
before they evince any sensibility to the beauty of sound. And
the majority of men are totally indifferent to a great number of
sounds which we call beautiful. To the peasant the curfew marks
simply the hour of evening, the sheep-bells are merely a sign
that there is a flock in the vicinity, the noise of a cascade only
announces a fall of water. Give him the associations which
cultivated imaginations join to these sounds, and he will infallibly feel their beauty.' 2
III.
When the idea of an action emanating from us (cause) associates itself with the idea of a pleasure (effect), a particular state
of mind is produced, characterized by tendency to action,
and which is properly called motive. A motive is the idea of a
pleasure which may be attained; a. particular motive is the idea
of a particular pleasure which may be attained (Fraggmewt oin
AiPackinlosh, Note 49).  Motive, according to the author, means
aim, end, term.
Not only pleasures and pains, but also the causes of pleasures
and of pains, become motives of action. These causes, associating
themselves in our mind with the pleasures and pains which they
produce, become, in the first place, agreeable or disagreeable in
themselves; afterwards, associating themselves with such of our
actions as may put them into execution, they become very strong
motives. Thus it is that wealth, power, dignities, our fellows, the
l Might it not just as -well be said that black is the colour of the garments
of the grandees, because Spaniards like black?
2 Vol. ii. p 240.




76                 Enzglish Psychology.
beautiful and sublime objects which, as we have seen, have become affections through association, become also motzives.
We can now explain the phenomena classed under the titles
moral sense, and moral faculties or affections. Although many
of the psychologists with whom we are engaged have a marked
tendency towards sketching a treatise on morals, we shall be very
brief on this point, for though psychology touches upon Morals,
it is not Morals.'
The actions from which men derive advantage, have all been
classed under four titles,-Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Beneficenceo
In the present state of education, the praise and blame of most
men are very erroneously bestowed, with great precipitation, commonly in excess upon small occasions, with little regard to its
justice; blame being very often inflicted where applause is due,
and applause lavished where blame ought to be bestowed. When
education is good, no point of morality will be reckoned of more
importance than the distribution of praise and blame; no act
will be considered more immoral than the misapplication of
thCem.2
Motives lead us to the Will.
The work on the Will, though very insufficient in many respects,
is valuable, especially on account of the questions which it indicates, and the method which it inaugurates. When we compare
two Analyses of the Will, one written by Mr. Mill, the other by
Mr. Bain, with an interval of thirty years between them; when we
see how far the last surpasses the first in the amount of facts
observed, in precision, in descriptive exactitude, we are forced to
conceive a good opinion of the experimental method in
psychology,- of a method which, taking up the task where the
forerunners had laid it down, profits by acquired results, by the
progress of years, by discoveries, ever adding to them, and thus
causes the science to grow, instead of constantly beginning over
again.
One of the principal merits of the author of the Analysis
1Mill's Analysis, vol. ii. p. 280, line i5.
2 Vol. ii. p. 300, line I6.




Mr. j.7ames Mi'.                     77
is that he saw the necessity for studying the development of
voluntary power.'  He understood the falseness of the idea of
a Will being, so to speak, armed at all points, whose first act
would be to command imperiously, and to be instantly obeyed.
He had endeavoured, though imperfectly, to show the first efforts
and the first conquests of the Will. He may be reproached with
errors in his choice of examples, with confusion between voluntary acts and acts which are purely reflex, into which a more
advanced physiologist would not have fallen; but the fundamental
fact remains, that he-perceived the method.
The author, though not absolutely silent on the subject of freewill, barely touches it, and does not use the word at all. No
doubt,'an Analysis of the phenomena of the human mind,'
ought to limit itself to facts; but liberty, whether one regards it
as real or illusory, is also a question of fact, and it is not possible
to relegate it to the domain of Metaphysics.
In the only passage in which he touches the question (ch. xxiv.
p. 328), the author says that a false conception of the idea of
cause has obscured the' controversy' on that state of the mind
which we call will.  Will was invariably and with reason regarded as the cause of action; unfortunately an element which
has been found to be entirely imaginary, was also always regarded
as making a portion of the idea of that cause. In the sequence
of events called cause and effect, a third thing was imagined,
called force or power, which was not the cause, but emanated
from it. A recent philosopher 2 has shown incontestably that
cause and powner are one; and thus everything is reduced to
inquiring into'What is the state of mind which immediately
precedes an act.'
We will not analyse this chapter on the Will, as it is our chief
aim to make results known, and we shall find them more fully
stated by Mr. Bain.
1 We find the study carried out by Mr. Bain.
2 The philosopher to whom the author alludes, without naming him, is
Thomas Brown, in his Znquiiy into the Relation of Cause and EFict.




AIR. JOI-N STUART MILL.
AMR. JOHN STUART MILL is well known in France. His reputation as an economist; his works on politics and social questions; his various translations; an analysis of his Logic, which
the author M. Taine in his Etlude sur Stuart Mill pronounces'masterly;' the attacks of his numerous adversaries;-all these
have contributed to spread abroad his fame. No name has been
more frequently quoted among us in contemporary polemics.
Unfortunately for philosophy, many of those who have spoken of
him, seem to have known him only vaguely and at secondhand. They have contented themselves; in general, with making
him out to be an adherent of Auguste Comte, and classing him
among the'positivists,' which is merely a quick and ready
mode of judging a cause without hearing it.
The word positivism, which is so frequently used in these days,
is a very vague term, with an apparent precision about it; it is
applied to ways of philosophizing which are in reality quite
different, and it confounds with the pure disciples of Comte
men who have more than once insisted upon their independence
of thought.
Strictly speaking, there ought to be only one positivism, that
of Auguste Comte, as there can be only one true Cartesianism,
that of Descartes, or one true Kantism, that of Kant. But, since
the doctrine of Comte, taken in' its totality, is, as every one knows,
rather incoherent, since his religion and his politics have done
nothing but furnish arms to his opponents, and grieve his admirers, it is easily to be understood that another positivism than
his has been formed. This positivism, which may be called
orthodox, eliminating the subjective portion of the founder's work,
restricts itself to some rigorously fixed fundamental principles,




JM1r. 7ohn Stzarlt M/ill.                 79
which it declares invariable; such as the suppression of all
researches beyond phenomena; the law of the three conditions,
theological, metaphysical, positive; the division of the sciences
into concrete and abstract; and the hierarchical classification of
the abstract sciences according to their order of increasing complexity and decreasing generality, thus, mathematics, astronomy,
physics, chemistry, biology, sociology. Any one who does not
admit these principles, with all that logically flows from them,
is rejected by the School.
Mr. Mill is of the number. If he admits the law of the three
states (Comte anid Positivismz, p. 33); if he eliminates all transcendental researches, it is because he holds that' the positive mode
of thinking is not necessarily a negation of the supernatural.' He
thus restores to sentiment or to individual faith that which he cuts
off from science. On questions of origin, he says, the philosopher
is free to form any opinion he pleases; this is not one of the points
on which agreement is necessary,' but it is a mistake on the pnarl
of M. Comte to leave no open questions.' As for the classification
of the sciences, a capital point with this school, Mr. Mill, while
doing justice to Auguste Comte, reproaches him for his omission
of psychology and all belonging to it, logic, the theory of the
criterion, etc., for his disdain of political economy,-in sh6rt, he
declares that he has failed in his most ambitious work,< saying'that he has not created sociology' (ibid. pp. 70 and  30o), which
in the absence of a psychology could not but be imperfect. We have
nothing to do with this discussion. Btit does it not seem strange
that Mr. Mill, while differing so materially from the mi, should be
classed by public opinion, at least in France, among the positivists l Whence arises this confusion? We account for it thus.
A general tendency, a method of investigation, a mode of
thought which may be described as scientific, and even empirical, is common to many of the fine intellects of the seventeenth century. It consists in circumscribing as closely as possible the domain of hypothesis, and of admitting as an object of
science only that which may be observed as a fact, or formulated as a law, and verified. This mode of thought, the work
of several generations of philosophers and savants, and among
whose promoters Mr. Mill names Bacon, Descartes, Newton,




8o                English Psychology.
Hume, Kant, Bentham, and even Hamilton, existed before positivism, and is not in any respect the creation of Auguste Comte.
The foundation of M. Comte's philosophy is in no way
peculiar to him, but the general property of the age, and far as
yet from being universally accepted, even by thoughtful minds.'The philosophy called Positive is not a recent invention of M.
Comte, but a simple adherence to the traditions of all the great
scientific minds whose discoveries have made the human race
what it is. M. Comte has never presented it in any other light.
But he has made the doctrine his own by his method of treating it.1
Positivism is, then, a form of the modern scientific spirit, but
it is only a particular form of it, it is only a wave of the great
current, it is one species in the genus. Everything which the
scientific mind supposes, exists in positivism, but with something
more,-these are the fundamental principles which constitute the
crMedo of the school.  Between the positive mind, and positivism,
we, for our part, discern as much difference as between the philosophic mind, and philosophy, that is to say, between that which
remains and that which passes away. But as positivism is very
categorical in its negations, very decided in its dogmas, very clear
in its formulas, it is more imposing than the less affirmative
method of the purely scientific mind. Thence the general confusion which so often makes of a savanI or a philosopher a positivist in spite of himself.
On the contrary, that which constitutes, in our opinion, one of
the principal merits of Mr. Mill, is liberty of investigation, without which there is no philosophical spirit; the taste for polemics
and discussion which makes him rank so high the dialectics of
a great idealist-Plato-which he values above all as a method
of research; the largeness of mind which accepts all objections,
the philosophical good faith with which he plainly declares what
is, in his opinion, the value of each of his solutions, without concealing its incompleteness and insufficiency.
M. Littre objects to Mr. Mill's psychological and logical point
of view, as opposed to the objective point of view of the positive
1 Mill's Agzusle Condte and 1'osiivisrn.




Mr. 7yokz;  Stllart Aillz.               8I
school.  He also objects to his definition of philosophy as'the
science of man as an intelligent, moral, and social being.' To
us, who have only to treat of the psychologist, this is a good
augury.  Continuing the tradition of James Mill and of Brown,
but adding to them the results of half a century of progress, he
recognises them for his masters, and not Comte, from whom he
has been supposed, by a retrospective illusion, to derive his inspiration.  He says, in his Examinazltion of Ifamilton's Pziilosot2hy
(ch. xiv. p. 266, note 2),' More than half of my System of Logic,
comprehending all its fundamental doctrines, was written before
I had seen the Course of Positive Philosophy.  My work is
indebted to Comte for several important ideas, but a short list
would exhaust the chapters and even the pages which contain
them. As to the general doctrine (that which eliminates first or
final causes), it was familiar to me in my childhood, thanks to the
teaching of my father, who had learned it where M. Comte
learned it, that is to say, in the method of the physical sciences,
and the writings of former philosophers.  Since Hume, this doctrine has been the common property of the philosophic world.
Since Brown, it has entered into popular philosophy.'
A declared partisan of the psychology of association, lMr. Mill
has not explained his doctrine under a systematic form, like James
Mill, Herbert Spencer, or Mr. Bain.  Let us now try to collect
the doctrines scattered through the Logic, Hamilton's Philosophy,
and the Disseirlations, and to explain them  under these three
titles: Method in Psychology, Psychology strictly so called, the
psychological theory of Mind and Matter.
CHAPTER I.
OF METHOD IN PSYCHOLOGY.
Of Melhod in Psychology. —. The aim of psychology-2. Method of psychology: positivists, metaphysicians, and associationalists-3. The
science of character, or Ethology.
I.
IN every science method is of capital importance; it is all the
more so in proportion as tle science is less advancedj and more




82                Enzglish Psychzology.
hesitating in its march.  This is the case with psychology, and
it is not rash to say that the insufficiency of its progress has been
the inevitable result of the method generally employed. Mr.
Stuart Mill, who justly calls attention to the little advance made
in the method of the moral and social sciences, has resolutely
attacked that of psychology; he returns to the charge several
times,' and he makes l:is thoughts on this point perfectly clear.' Psychology,' he says,' has for its aim the uniformities of succession; the laws, whether primitive or derivative, according to
which one mental condition succeeds another, is the cause of
another, or at least the cause of the coming of another.'
It is a common opinion that the thoughts, sentiments, and
actions of sensible beings cannot be the object of a science, in
the same sense as the beings and phenomena of the exterior
world. That opinion rests upon a confusion; all science is confounded with exact science. But we may conceive an intermediate
case between the perfection of the science and its extreme imperfection. For example, a phenomenon may. result from two
sorts of causes,-from major causes accessible to observation or
to calculation;-from minor, secondary causes, which are not constantly accessible to exact observation, or even which are not so
at all. In such a case, we may account for the principal part of
the phenomenon, but there will be variations and modifications
which we cannot completely explain.
This occurs in the theory of the tides. There are the major
causes, the attraction of the sun and of the moon,-all that depend
on that attraction may be explained and predicted for any portion
whatever, even an unexplored portion, of the earth's surface. But
there are also secondary causes,-the direction of the wind, local
circumstances, the configuration of the bottom of the ocean, etc.,
-which have a great influence on the height and the hour of
the tide, and which, in most cases, cannot be calculated or
predicted. Nevertheless, not only is it certain that these variations have causes which act in accordance with perfectly uniform
laws,-not only is the theory of the tides, therefore, a science
like meteorology, but it is more practically useful.  For the
1 See L;g'ic, vol. ii. book 6, and Diss7'rlafiots andz Discussiols, vol. iii. p. 97.




Mr. 7ohz Sluarl MI/il.                   83
general laws of the tides may be established, and previsions which
shall be almost entirely correct may be founded upon these laws.
This is what is meant, or ought to be meant, when sciences which
are not exact sciences are spoken of. Astronomy was a science
before it became an exact science. It has only been exact since
it has explained not only the planetary motions, but also their
perturbations.
The science of the tides is not yet an exact science, not
by a radical impossibility in its nature, but because it is very
difficult to establish the derivative uniformities with precision.' The science of human natlue is of the same kind.' It is far from
being of the same exactness as our present astronomy, but there
is no reason why it should not be a science like that of the stars,
or even such as astronomy was, while as yet its calculations included only the principal phenomena, and not the perturbations.
I. The phenomena with which this science is conversant being
the thoughts, feelings, and actions of human beings, it would have
attained the ideal perfection of a science, if it enabled us to foretell how an individual would think, feel, or act throughout life,
with the same certainty with which astronomy enables us to predict the places and the occultations of the heavenly bodies. It
needs scarcely be stated that nothing approaching to this can be
done. Hence, even if our science of human nature were theoretically perfect, that is, if we could calculate any character as we
can calculate the orbit of any planet, from given data, still, as the
data are never all given, nor ever precisely alike in different
cases, we could neither make positive predictions, nor lay down
universal propositions.' "
But the approximative generalizations are sufficiently exact for
practical life; that which is only probable when it is affirmed
of individuals taken at hazard, is certain when it is affirmed of
the conduct of the masses; and therein lies the utility of psychology.2
Thus the aim of psychology is fixed: its object is the phenomena of mind. Its character is determined; it is (or may be)
1 Mill's Logic, ed. i856, p. 421.   2 Logi, b. vi. ch. iii.




3q4              English Psychology.
a science; not exact, but approximative, and sufficient for practical
purposes. Let us now see the method of it.I
Two entirely opposite schools have contributed to its deviation
from the right way,-on one side, that of Auguste Comte; on the
other, that of German metaphysics. Mr. Mill writes thus of the
former:M. Comte claims for physiologists alone the scientific knowledge of intellectual and moral phenomena. He totally rejects
psychological observations properly so called, the internal consciousness. He thinks that we have to acquire our knowledge of
the human mind by observing others. How can we observe and
interpret the mental operations of others without previously knowing our own? He does not tell us this. But he considers it evident that the observation of ourselves by ourselves can teach us
only very little concerning feelings, and nothing on the subject of
understanding.' It is not necessary,' adds Mr. Stuart Mill,'to
refute a sophism at length, whose most surprising part is, that it
should have imposed on any one. Two answers may be made to
it:-I. M. Comte may be referred to the experience as well as
to the writings of the psychologists as a proof that the mind can
not only be conscious of more than one impression at a time, and
even perceive a considerable number (according to Hamilton),
but even lend them all attention.  2. It might have occurred to
M. Comte that it is possible to study a fact by means of memory,
not at the instant in which we perceive it, but the moment after,
and this is, in reality, the mode by which we acquire the best of our
knowledge of intellectual actions. Besides, in fact, we know what
passes in ourselves, whether thanks to consciousness or thanks to
memory, but in a direct way in both cases, and not (as happens
about what we do in a state of somnambulism) by their results.'
This simple fact destroys the entire argument of M. Comte.
Everything of which we have direct consciousness we can observe.
The successions, therefore, which obtain among mental phenomena, do not admit of being deduced. from the physiological
laws of our nervous organization; and all real knowledge of them
must continue, for a long time at least, if not for ever, to be
1 Logic, loc. cit.




Mr. 7yohn Stuart  /ill.                 85
sought in the direct study, by observation and experiment, of the
mental successions themselves. Since, therefore, the order of
our mental phenomena must be studied in those phenomena, and
not inferred from the laws of any phenomena more general, there
is a distinct and separate science of mind.
The relations, indeed, of that science to the science of physiology must never be overlooked or undervalued. It must by no
means be forgotten that the laws of mind may be derivative laws
resulting from the laws of animal life, and that their truth therefore may ultimately depend on physical conditions.'... But on
the other hand, to reject the resource of psychological analysis, and
construct the theory of the mind solely on such data as physiology at present affords, seems to me as great an error in principle,
and an even more serious one in practice. Imperfect as is the
science of mind, I do not scruple to affirm that it is in a considerably more advanced state than the portion of physiology that corresponds to it; and to discard the former for the latter appears to
me an infringement of the true canons of inductive philosophy.
Thus, then, we have direct observation clearly established
against positivism.' Let us now see how our author combats the
opposite school, the metaphysicians, German or otherwise, whom
he calls, in general terms, philosophers a tpriori.
The dispute between the a prioori philosophers and the a 2posteniori philosophy, he says, goes far beyond the bounds and the
bearing of psychology, and is especially concentrated on the field
of ontology.  I have no intention of declaring myself a partisan
of either, both having done much for humanity, both requiring to
be known by whoever purposes to approach philosophical questions, each having largely profited by the criticisms of the other.'By concentrating the question simply on the ground of psychology, we find that the difference between the two philosophies
consists in the different theories which they give of the convzle
p/heiomzeina of the humanz  mind.'
Experience is not the exclusive property of one of them. They
both depend on it'for their materials. The fundamental difference has reference, not to the facts themselves, but to their origin.
1 See Logic, book vi. chap. iv., and Comte and Zosilivlzsnm, p. 67.




86                English Psychology.
We may say briefly and generally that one of these theories considers the most complex phenomena of the mind as being the product of experience, whereas the other considers them as original.
A priori psychology maintains that, in every act of thought,
even the most elementary, there is an element which is not given
to the mind, but which is furnished by the mind, in virtue of its
own faculties. The most simple of all the phenomena, an exterior
sensation, requires, according to it, a mental element to be a perception, and thus to become, instead of a passive and fugitive
condition of our being, a durable object exterior to the mind.
The notions of extent, solidity, number, force, etc., although
acquired by the senses, are not copies of impressions made upon
the senses, but creations of the laws oi our minds put in action
by sensations. Experience, instead of being the source and the
prototype of our ideas, is itself a product of the forces proper to
the mind, elaborating the impressions which we ireceive from
without; it contains a mental as well as an external element.
Experience, invoked in vain to account for our mental laws, is
only possible by those laws.  Now, if experience does not
explain experience, a' fortiori it does not explain the ideas of
moral, szperO-sensible things; experience is their occasion, but not
their source.
A posteriori psychology, on the contrary, while it recognises the
existence of a mental element in our ideas, and admits that our
ideas of extent, solidity, time, space, virtue, are not exact copies
of impressions made upon our senses, but a product of the labour
of the mind, does not consider this production as the result of
particular and impenetrable laws, which cannot be accounted for.
It thinks, on the contrary, that that is possible. It thinks that the
mental element is a fact, but not an ultimate fact. It thinks that
it may be resolved into simpler laws and more general facts, and
that it is possible to discover the process followed by the mind in
the construction of these great ideas; in a word, that their genesis
can be determined.
Let us define the difference between the two Schools of psychology by an example. The transcendentalists examine our
ideas of space and time i they find that each contains in itself in
an indissoluble manner the idea of the infinite.  Naturally we




Mr. 7o/zn Stuartl M[il.                 87
have no experimental knowledge of the infinite; all our ideas
derived from experience are ideas of finite things. Nevertheless
it is impossible to conceive of time and space otherwise than as
infinite, and it is impossible to derive them from experience;
these are the necessary conceptions of the mind. The a posteriori
psychologist, on his side, sees clearly that we cannot think of
time and space otherwise than as infinite, but he does not consider
that as an ultimate fact. He sees in it an ordinary manifestation
of one of the laws of the association of ideas,-the law that the
idea of a thing irresistibly suggests the idea of another thing with
which it has often been found by experience to be intimately
united. As we have never had any experience of a point in space
without -other points beyond it, nor of a point in time without
other points which follow it, the law of inseparable association:
causes us to be unable to think of any point in time or space,
however distant, without immediately imagining other points yet
more distant. This explains their infinitude without introducing'necessity.' It may be that time and space have limits, but in
our present condition we are totally unable to conceive of them.
If we could reach the end of space, we should be apprised of it
no doubt by some novel and strange impression of our senses, but
of which we cannot at present form the very slightest idea.
The preceding example brings out clearly the two principal
doctrines of the most advanced i JosFeriori psychology:I. That the most abstruse phenomena of the mind are formed
of more simple and elementary phenomena.
2. That the mental law by means of which this formation takes
place is the law of association.
The most complete and scientific form of c} posteriozi psychology, is that which considers the law of association as the supreme
principle. Its great problem is to determine, not how far this law
extends —for it extends to everything: ideas, emotions, desires,
volitions, etc.,-but how many mental phenomena it is capable of
explaining, and howit explains them. On this part of the subject
there are differences of doctrine, and the theory, like every
theory in an incomplete science, progresses steadily.l
Z Loc. ci!. p. IoS.




SS                 EigliZsh Psychology.
This manner of interpreting the phenomena of the mind, continues Mr. Mill, has been often stigmatized as materialist.  in
order to see what justice there is in the accusation, we have only
to remember that the idealism of Berkeley is one of the developments of this theory. If there be materialism in endeavouring to
determine the material conditions of our mental operations, all
somewhat comprehensive theories of the mind may, in that case,
be taxed with materialism.  We shall probably never know
whether organization alone can produce thought and life; but
we know, beyond doubt, that the mind employs a material organ.
Now, this admitted, what materialism is there in following out the
physiological explanations so far as they can lead us? I
It is certainly true that associative-psychology represents several
of the superior mental conditions as being in a certain sense the
development of inferior mental conditions. But in other similar
cases, as the author acutelyremarks, the wisdom and the marvellous
art of nature which draws the better from the worse, and good from
evil, have been magnified.  Besides, ifthose, the most noble portions of our nature, are not original, they are not therefore factitious
and non-natural. The products are as much a part of human
nature as the elements which compose it. Water is as much a substance of the external world as hydrogen and oxygen. It is only
for vulgar minds that a great and beautiful object loses its charm
in losing something of its mysteriousness, in unveiling a portion
of the secret process by which nature has engendered it.' 1
Mr. Stuart Mill requires us to be exacting with respect to explanations founded on association: we must not limit ourselves to
semblances of analysis. Now nothing is more useful in getting at
the bottom and into the intimate essence of complex facts, than
the examination of exceptions and rare cases.  Children, young
animals, persons deprived of certain senses, those who, born blind,
have recovered their sight, persons who have grown up in solitudcie
like Caspar Hauser, furnish numerous sources of information,
which are unhappily but rarely used.
In short, two kinds of investigations are equally necessary ior
Loc. cit. p. III.
2 i1IJCilncs (dc l'.cadrTmic dcs &iSLc,'s.,V'ai'i, tonm. i. I833.




Mr. yohn S/tuar  Mill.                    89
the study of the phenomena of mind, and for that of material
phenomena; the first, of which Newton's generalization is the
type, applies itself, not to successions of phenomena, but to complex phenomena themselves, and resolves them into simple elements, just as chemistry resolves compound bodies. The first
analyses laws into simpler laws, the second analyses subtances into
simpler substances.'
III.
After having determined the object and the method of psychology, we have to seek whether there be not an Art-to which this
science may serve as a basis, —whether there be not some derived
science applicable to practical life, which supposes, as primary
science, a general knowledge of the phenomena of the mind.
Every science, as soon as it is firmly constituted, comes naturally
out of pure theory, and leads to practical consequences, whether
they be sought for, or only found. And, in our opinion, there is
no greater proof of-the long lingering of psychology in its infancy, than the striking fact that no application, no useful art, has
proceeded from it. Thus it was for centuries with physics and
chemistry, thus with the biological sciences, whose results are
even yet but dimly foreseen; nevertheless who can fail to understand that if the fundamental laws of the mind were discovered,
if the circumstances which modify them were known, if, in a
word, we knew the essential and the accidental, as in the case of
the tides, already quoted by Mr. Mill, if we could reconstitute
a psychological situation by synthesis, as we can calculate an
astronomical position, if we were capable of foreseeing, —an
important secret would be made known to men, available for
their aid in education, politics, all the moral and social sciences,
and that psychology would be the basis of those sciences, even
as physics is the basis of the sciences of matter.
The possibility of this art, or, if we prefer so to style it, this
derivative science, founded upon psychology, is entertained by
only a few minds.2  We shall see that Mr. Mill defines its nature
1 Stuart Mill, Preface to James Mill's A4iznaysis, ). 6..2 IMr. Bain has published a volume Oiz Mte Study ofa Characler, including an
estimate of phrenology.
5




90                English Psychology.
and its method. Let us say at once that he designates it Ethology, or the science of character, and that he assigns to it, as a
process of investigation, the deductive method with verification.'
The object of psychology is the general laws of human nature,
the object of ethology is the derivative laws. Psychology occupies itself with genus, ethology with species and varieties.
We employ the name psychology for the science of the elementary laws of mind; ethology will serve for the ulterior science
which determines the kind of character produced, in conformity
to those general laws, by any set of circumstances, physical and
moral. According to this definition, ethology is the science
which corresponds to the art of education, in the widest sense of
the term, including the formation of national or collective character, as well as individual....  Ethology may be called the
exact science of human nature.' 2
But it is only exact in the affirmation of tendencies, not of facts.
It declares, not that such a thing will always happen, but that the
effect of a given cause will be such, so long as that cause shall
operate without interruption; for instance: it is a scientific proposition that muscular strength lends to make men courageous,
but not that it always does make them so; that experience tends
to produce wisdom, but not that it always does produce it.
While psychology is entirely or principally a science of observation and experimentation, ethology is an entirely deductive
science. The relation of ethology to psychology is analogous to
that of the different branches of physics to mechanics. The
principles of ethology are, properly speaking, the axioomnat media
of the science of the mind. These principles are distinct, on the
one hand, from empirical laws resulting from simple observation,
on the other, from lofty generalizations. As Bacon has boldly
pointed out, the axiomatta media of any science constitute the
principal value of that science. Inferior generalizations, so long
as they have not been explained and reduced to the axionatla
media, whose consequences they are, possess only the precarious
value of empirical laws; and the most general laws are too general to explain individual cases.
1 zoic, lbk. vi. ch. v.     2 Thid. vol. ii. pp. 445-6, 4th ed.




Mir.  oyZoh  Sluarit Mi.               9g
Mr. Stuart Mill shows very clearly that the deductive method,
zwit/ verziefcaion, is the only one applicable to ethology.  Natural
laws, he says, can only be determined in two ways: by deduction
or by experience. Are the laws of formation of character approachable by the experimental method  Evidently not. In
fact, this method has two principal processes, experimentation
and observation.
x. Is experimentation possible? It might be for an oriental
despot, but even if he ventured to attempt it, how much advance
would be made? It would be necessary to rear, from infancy to
maturity, a number of human beings, to note each sensation or
impression experienced by the subject, or to note the causes and
what he thinks of them. A single apparently insignificant circumstance which might be neglected would suffice to vitiate the
experiment.
2. Is observation possible?  If it be not possible to know influential circumstances with entire certainty when we arrange them
ourselves, aforliori we cannot know them  in cases beyond our
control. We can only make observations wholesale anzd i, the
Zlumlp, that is to say, we can only aim at a purely approximative
generalization.   There remains, then, the deductive method,
which starts from laws.
In other words, mankind have not one universal character, but
there exist universal laws for the formation of character. And
since it is by these laws, combined with the facts of each particular case, that the whole of the phenomena of human action and
feeling are produced, it is on these that every rational attempt to
construct the science of human nature in the concrete, and for
practical purposes, must proceed.'
Ethology is still to be created.  ]But its creation has at length
become practicable;... though little has yet been done, and
that little not at all systematically, towards forming it.2
The progress of this important science will depend on the employment of a double process:I. Given a certain particular circumstance, to deduct theoretically from it the ethological consequences, and to compare
them with that which our common experience teaches us.
1 Lroi5, vol. ii. p. 440, 4th edit.  2 Ibid.. p. 450.




92               English PsyczolZogy.
2. To perform the inverse operation, that is to say, to study
the different types of human nature, to analyse them, to note the
circumstances in which these types predominate, and to explain
the characteristic features of the type by the peculiarities of the
circumstances.
It is hardly necessary, says Mr. Mill inr conclusion, to repeat
that in ethology, as well as in every other inductive science, verification aposteriori ought to go'pari passzu with deduction a priori,
the conclusions of the theory deserving no confidence except so
far as they are confirmed by experience.  The agreement between
these two kinds of proofs is the sole sufficient basis of the principles of a science thus noted in facts, and relative to phenomena
so complex and so concrete as those of ethology.
Thus a general, abstract science, founded on observation and
experience, having for its object the fundamental phenomena of
the human mind, and a special science, having for its object
varieties of character,-such is the almost inexhaustible and
almost entirely novel task which Mr. Mill has assigned to futurepsychology.
CHAPTER II.
PSYCHOLOGY.
7I',r-olo,,,y.-I. Consciousness-2. Exterior perception-3. Association of
ideas-4. Causality —5 Necessary truths —6. Reasonin1g-7. Will.
I.
WTE comprise under the following titles, Conscience, Perception,
Association, Idea of Cause, Necessary Truths, Reasoning, Will,
the principal psychological studies of Mr. John Stuart Mill.' If the word spirit means anything, it signifies that which feels.'
The phenomena which manifest it are sensations, ideas, emotions,
and volitions.1  Consciousness is an intuitive knowledge which
constitutes the foundation of our mental conditions, which exist
only in consciousness and by consciousness; to have an idea, to
have a sensation, is in reality to have the consciousness of an
Logic, book vi. ch. iv.




Jlr. 7yohn Stuart Alll/.                  93
idea, of a sensation.' The verdict of consciousness is without
appeal.  Scepticism, which should dispute it (if such there be)
would not be admissible; because in denying all consciousness
it would no longer deny any.  But we must not confound the
knowledge which is intuitive, and consequently without appeal, of
consciousness, with the reasonings, inductions, and interpretations
of the facts of consciousness, which are fallible, and which
demand verification.
Are there, beside the phenomena of which we have consciousness, unconscious mental modifications. Sir William  Hamilton
is probably the first of the English philosophers who has declared
for the affirmative, without limiting himself to the specious pretext that an unconscious action or passion of the, mind is unintelligible. This hypothesis of unconscious activity, which has
since made much way in England, in Germany,2 and in France,
was sustained by HIamilton on three sorts of facts:I. We know a science or a language, etc. They exist i.. us in
the latent state, so long as we do not make use of them.
2. Certain abnormal conditions, such as madness, delirium,
somnambulism, reveal to us knowledge, or habits of action which
we have no consciousness of possessing in our normal state.
3. In our ordinary life, every visible object is composed of
very small portions, or minimza visibilia. But each minnimum
visibile is composed of still smaller portions, of which each singly
is to the consciousness as zero. It is the same as regards the
minimum audibile.  Finally, certain associations of ideas cannot
be explained except by the intermediary associations which are
produced without unconsciousness.
Mr. Mill, after having criticised the interpretation of these
facts given by Hamilton, explains them by physiology:-' I am
myself inclined to agree with Sir W. Hamilton, and to admit his
unconscious mental modifications, in the only shape in which I
I An Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, chaps. viii. ix. We
shall find hereafter, in Spencer and Bain, a complete and remarkable theory
of consciousness, brought back to two primitive acts: the perception of a difference, the perception of a resemblance.
2 Wundt, Vorlesungen iibe;r die.Icnschen unnd T7Verseele, i863.




94                  English Psychology.
can attach any very distinct meaning to them, namely, unconscious modifications of the nerves.' 1
In the case of a soldier wounded in battle, and prevented
by the heat of the action from feeling his wouhd, the most probable hypothesis is, that the nerves of the wounded part have
really been affected; but that the nervous centres, being much
occupied with other impressions, the affection does not reach
the centres, and that consequently the sensation does not take
place.' So also in respect to latent association, if we admit (and
physiology is making it more and more probable) that all our
sentiments, like all our sensations, have for their physical antecedents a particular state of the nerves, we may easily believe
that the association between two ideas can appear to be interrupted, only because it is physically continued by organic conditions of the nerves succeeding each other so rapidly that the
state of consciousness appropriate to each of them  cannot be
produced.2
II.
In all probability the notion of the ego and the non-ego are not
produced at the outset.  We have not the notion of the non-ego
until after we have experienced a number of sensations according to first laws and in clusters; and it is not credible that the
first sensation which we experience should awaken in us the
notion of an ego.3 The opposition of these two terms, ego and
non-ego, subject and object, spirit and matter, reduces itself to
the opposition of sensation considered subjectively, and sensation considered objectively.  There is, on one side, the series of
states of consciousness (of which sensation forms part), which
is the subject of sensation.   On the other side, there is the
1 Mill's Hamilton's Pdilosotply, p. 285.
2 We refer to Leibnitz those who might be tempted to discover materialism
in this mode of explanation.' All that association makes the soul of Cesar to
do, is also represented in his body; there is a certain condition of body which
responds to even the most abstract reasonings.' It is true that Leibnitz does
not say that this state of body is the antecedent of it; that would have been
in discord with his pre-establishled harmony.
3 An Examinalion, etc., cllap. xiii. p. 258.




Mm. yohlz Sluart Mill.                      95
cluster- of permanent possibility of sensation, partly realized in
the actual sensation action, and which is the object of the sensation.'
Among our sensations we are in the habit of considering some
subjectively, and others objectively.  In the first case, we consider them principally in their relation to our various sentiments,
and consequently to the subject, which is the sum of them. In
the second case, we consider them  principally in their relation
to one or several clusters of that possibility of sensation which
we call the object.'The difference between these two classes
of our sensations answers to the distinction drawn by the majority
of philosophers, between the second qualities and the first qualities of matter.'
According to Mr. Mill, the first qualities are resistance, extent,
and figure. These are the three principal elements of all the
groups; wherever they are, there is a. group; every other element
of the group presents itself to our thought, less for what it is,
than as a mark of those three elements. In that group of permanent possibilities of sensation which we call object, the permanent possibility of tactiles 1 and muscular sensations forms a
group within a group, a sort of interior nucleus, conceived of as
more fundamental than the rest, and on which all the other
possibilities of sensation contained in the group seem to depend.
This nucleus, sometimes considered as cause or substance, is
our first conception of matter, which thus reduces itself to resistance, extent, and figure.
The most fundamental of these three properties is resistance,
which is given to us by muscular sensations.  As the sentiment
of resistance is invariably accompanied by tactile sensations,
by the contact of our skin with some object, it results, in
virtue of the law of inseparable association, that the sensations
of contact and resistance  become inseparably united.   An
object which touches our skin, even without pressure, and without causing any muscular reaction, is spontaneously referred to
some external cause. By association, our sensations of touch
have become rcpresentatizves of the sensations of resistance, with
-"-or details on this point, see chap. iii. following.




96                 English Psycshology.
which they habitually co-exist; as the different shades of colours,
and the muscular sensations, which accompany the various movements of eye, become represenZatives of the sensations of touch
and locomotion.
The second of the fundamental qualities of the body is extent;
a notion which was for a long time considered irreducible by
the intuitive school of Reid and Stewart, but whose origin has
been explained by the psychological analysis of the experimental
school.  We shall leave the care of expounding it to Mr. Bain
and Mr. Herbert Spencer. Mr. Mill is in perfect accord with
them, and quotes them at length.  We must limit ourselves to a
brief summary of the doctrine.
The sensation of muscular motion, unimpeded, constitutes our
notion of empty space; the sensation of muscular motion, impeded, constitutes our notion of full space or extent. The idea
of space is derived from a phenomenon which is not synchronized
but successive. If we find this difficult to believe, it is because
the eye, in contributing to produce our actual notion of extent,
alters its character very much, and prevents us from recognising
that the notion of extent has been, in its origin, successive.
In order to establish it categorically, it would be necessary to
find a born blind psychologist, as there have been born blind
geometricians and mathematicians. His declarations and interpretations would be decisive. But, in default of such a case, we
have an analogous one, that of a man born blind, whom Platner,
a philosopher and physician of the last century, attended and interrogated.l  Platner tells us:-'This observation, I say, has convinced me, that the sense of
touch, by itself, is altogether incompetent to afford us the representation of extension and space, and is not even cognisant of
local exteriority; in a word, that a man deprived of sight has
absolutely no perception of an outer world beyond the existence
1 Platner began this study in 1785. For a century the blind man of
Cheselden has been cited in all the treatises on pyschology. Mr. Mill, besides
the blind man of Platner, quotes two others, one who was operated upon by
Dr. Franz of Leipsic in I84I, the other more recently, and who is mentioned
by Professor Fraser in the North British Review.




Mr. 7ohi  Shuart.il'l.                    97
of something effective, different from his own feeling of passivity,
and in general only of the numerical diversity-shall I say of
impressions, or of things? In fact, to those born blind time serves
instead of space.  Vicinity and distance means in their mouths
nothing more than the shorter or longer time, the smaller or
greater number of feelings, which they find necessary to attain
from some one feeling to another.'1
In short, the idea of space is at bottom  an idea of time, and
the notion of distance; or extent is that of a movement of the
muscles continued for a greater or lesser duration.
Iii
We have already seen how complete is Mr. Mill's adhesion
to Associative psychology.  The law  of association is, in his
opinion, the most general which rules psychological phenomena.'That which the law of gravitation is to astronomy, that which
the elementary properties of the tissues are to physiology, the
law  of the association of ideas is to psychology.'2  It is the
ultimate fact to which everything returns, the most general mode
of explanation, the most powerful instrument of the experimental
school in its psychological investigations.s
Although we do not find in Mr. Mill's works so elaborate a
study of association as in those of Mr. Herbert Spencer, and
especially of Mr. Bain, we shall hereafter see that he reduces the
fundamental idea of cause to an inseparable and unconditional
association, and that he founds on cause, that is to say, on an
association, the entire theory of reasoning.
The first law of association is, that similar ideas tend to awaken
each other.
The second law is, that when two impressions or ideas have
been experienced simultaneously, or in immediate succession,
one. tends to awaken the other.
1 Mill's Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy, p. 232.
2 Comte and Positivism, p. 53.
3 Mr. Mill quotes the Eltude sur Passociation des idles, by M. Mervoyer, as
the only work on this subject which has appeared in France. M. Renouvier,
in his Annee phiZosophique, s868, recently published, promises a criticism in
detail of' Associationalism.'




98                 English Psychology.
The third law is, that a greater intensity of one of these impressions or of both is equivalent, in order to render them likely
to excite each other, to a greater frequency of conjunction.'
Now or later, psychology ought to be able to explain the most
complex phenomena by means of the laws of association. But
its task is rendered very difficult, because the combined action of
different causes sometimes produces combinations in which it is
difficult to find the constituent elements.  In fact, when a complex phenomenon is the result of several causes, two principal
cases may present themselves: that of the mechanical, that of the
chemical laws. In the case of the mechanical law, each cause
is to be found in the effect, as if it had acted singly. The effect
of concurrent causes is exactly the sum of the separate effects
of each.  On the contrary, the chemical combination of two
substances produces a third whose proportions are completely
different from each of the two others, whether taken separately or
together.
The laws of the phenomena of mind are analogous, now to
mechanical, again to chemical laws. As an example of mental
combination, we may give the colour white resulting from the
rapid succession of the seven colours of the prism before our
eyes.  The idea of an orange, on the contrary, really results
from the simple ideas \of colour, form, taste, etc., because, when we
interrogate our consciposness, we can discern all these sentiments
in our idea. There are cases of mental chemistry in which it is
more exact to say that simple ideas produce complex ideas, than
to say that they compose them.2 The knowledge of the constituent
elements of a complex fact in psychological chemistry, no more
dispenses us from studying the fact itself, than the knowledge of
the properties of oxygen and sulphur dispenses us from studying
those of sulphuric acid.
Mr. Mill (Lorgic, iii. I3; vi. 4) explains two great varieties of
mind by two different modes of association.
Simzduatneous (or synchronical) associations predominate in
persons endowed with keen organic sensibility; because it is an
acknowledged fact that all the sensations or ideas experienced
1 Logic, book vi. ch. iv., and book iii. ch. vi.  2 Zbid.




Mr. 7oohk   S/tarzt     Mdl.               99
under a strong impression are intimately associated with each
other. Now this predominance of synchronical associations produces a tendency to conceive of things under concrete forms,
highly coloured, rich in attributes and details; a disposition of
mind which is called imagination, and  which is one of the
faculties of the painter and of the poet.
Successive associations predominate in less impressionable
people. If they possess lofty intelligence, they will apply themselves to history or the sciences rather than to an art. The
result of their inferior sensibility will be love of science, or of
abstract truth, and lack of taste and warmth.
Let us now consider associative psychology in antagonism with
"the notion of cause.
IV.
If the theory of consciousness and of exterior perception is the.
basis of all psychology, the theory of cause is the key of all
philosophy; it even opens up to us regions into which we are
not bound to penetrate. Let us keep to psychology.  Thus Mr.
Mill declares that he does not concern himself with the first or
metaphysical cause of anything whatever.''The causes with which I concern myself are not efficient but
physical causes. They are causes in that sense alone, in which
one physical fact is said to be the cause of another. Of the
efficient causes of phenomena, or whether any such causes exist
at all, I am not called upon to give an opinion. The notion of
causation is deemed, by the schools of metaphysics most in
vogue at the present moment, to imply a mysterious and most
powerful tie such as cannot, or at least does not exist, between
any physical fact and that other physical fact on which it is invariably consequent, and which is popularly termed its cause;
and thence is deduced the supposed necessity of ascending
higher into the essences and inherent constitution of things to find
the true cause, the cause which is not only followed by, but
actually produces, the effect.2
I Logic, book iii. ch. v.
2 Ibi(z. vol. i. p. 359, 4th edition.




100                 En  lish Psychology.
But Mr. Mill, as we may suppose, denies himself this excursion.
In his Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy,' he has sharply
criticised that philosopher's theory of causality. According to
Hamilton, the idea of cause is not a principle suigeneris of our
intelligence: it is explained by the impossibility of our conceiving
of anything as absolutely commencing.  It comes back to the
axiomEx nihzzio ni4l, in nihZilZZ nilZPosse reverti.
It is because we cannot conceive of nothing becoming something that we are always asking the cause of every effect, that is
to say, that from which the effect draws its existence, and is only
a transformation. If we examine Hamilton's doctrine, we shall
see that, pushed to its ultimate consequences, it would end in
giving to all phenomena an eternal substratum whose causes
and effects would be only manifestations in time; that is to say,
that it is completely opposed in spirit and tendencies to empiricism, whereas Mr. Mill acknowledges nothing but empirical
causes.
The phenomena of nature, he says, hold two different relations
with respect to each other, simultaneousness and succession.2
Causality belongs to the category of relations of succession; but
every relation of succession is not a relation of causality; in
order to be so, it must fulfil essential conditions which we are
about to determine.
Certain facts succeed and, as we believe, always will succeed
certain other facts.  The invariable anttecedent is called cause, the
invariable consequent is called effect. The relation of cause to
effect is ordinarily placed between a group of antecedents and a
group of consequences, although, in general, by a quite arbitrary
process, one of these antecedents is set apart under the name of
cause, the others being called simply conditions. Thus a man
eats of a certain aliment, and dies of it; it is said that this aliment is the cause of his death.  But the true relation of causality
is between the totality of the antecedents (the special constitux An Examination, etc., ch. xvi. p. 340.
Logic, loc. cit.




Mr. johnZ Stuarl Mill.                 I01
tion of body, state of health, state of the atmosphere, etc.,) and
the totality of the consequences (phenomena which constitute
death). In the exact language proper to philosophy the cause
is' the sum of the positive and negative conditions taken together, the total of the contingencies of every nature which the
consequence invariably follows, when they are realized.'
This definition of cause is, however, only partial. Invariable
sequence is not the synonym of causality; the sequence must
also be unconditional. There are sequences as uniform as possible, which are not considered for that reason as cases of causality:
thus,- night invariably succeeds day,.but probably no one has ever
believed that the night is the cause of the- day.   This succession is not unconditional; the production of the day is subject to a condition which is not the anteriority of the night, but
the presence of the sun. This is what authors wish to express
when they say that the notion of cause implies the idea of
necessity.
Necessity signifies unconditionality. The cause of a phenomenon
may therefore be defined as. the antecedent, or the collection of
antecedents, of ZJwhich the pAhenoenon is invariably and unconditionally the consequent.
But, to say that a case of succession is necessary, unconditional, in other words, invariable in every possible change of
circumstances, is not this to acknowledge in causation an element of belief not:derived from experience? By no means; it is
experience itself which teaches us that such a succession is conditional, and that such another is not; that the succession of day
and night, for example, is a derived succession, dependent on
something else; in a word, experience, without anything to go
beyond it, explains our ideas of causality.'
As for the theory.which perceives in our voluntary activity the
sole source of this idea, and which even maintains that it is that
voluntary activity which reveals to us what is an egcient cause,
Mr. Mill replies that he sees in the will only aphjisical cause like
any other; that it is the cause of our corporeal actions, in the
same manner as cold is the cause of ice, and a spark is the cause
Logic, book iii. ch. v.




102               Enzgish  Psychology.
of the explosion of powder. Volition is the antecedent, the
motion of our limbs is the consequent; but we have not
direct consciousness of this sequence in the sense which the
theory requires.  Mr Mill, agreeing with Hamilton, bids us
observe that'it is refuted by the consideration, that between
the overt fact of corporeal movement of which we are cognisant,
and the internal act of mental determination, of which we are
also cognisant, there intervenes a numerous series of intermediate
agencies of which we have no knowledge; and, consequently,
that we have no consciousness of any causal connexion between
the extreme links of this chain, the volition to move, and the
limb moving, as this hypothesis asserts.' 2
V.
Thus then this fundamental idea of causality, implied in the
most ordinary actions as in the loftiest knowledge, the basis of
all science, the' hidden root' of all induction; that is to say,
according to our author, of all reasoning, is explained by experience pure and simple; it is only. invariable and unconditional
succession.  Mr. Mill even refers axioms and necessary truths to
experience.
Let us observe, in the first place, that there are two sorts of
general propositions, those which, according to everybody's
belief, are born of experience and do not go beyond it, being no
more than experience generalized (Example: All men are mortal); and those which, although suggested by experience, seem to
go beyond it by their character of necessity (Example: Two
parallels are everywhere equidistant). According to Mr. Mill,
these latter propositions are neither truths a priorli, as -the
rationalists would have them, nor are they mere words, as the
nominalists with Hobbes at their head would have them.
What are they then? Empirical propositions.  This is how he
establishes it.
The reasons brought forward for granting a particular origin.1 Mill's Lqgic, book iii. chap. v.
2 Ibidt. book iii. vol. i. p. 389, 5th edition.
I3 Ibid. book ii. chap. v. vi. vii.




Mr. yohaz    Stzarit AllI.                103
to these truths reduce themselves to two: they are apriori; they
are necessary.
Axioms are not a pirior-,; they are experimental truths, generalizations of observation.  The proposition,'two  right lines
cannot enclose a space,' is a deduction resulting from the testimony of the senses. No doubt experience gives us only an
actual knowledge of this truth, and thence it seems insufficient
to found an axiom; but, let us observe, that the imagination
supplies for it; we make for ourselves a mental image of two
lines, and we see that as soon as they meet each other they
cease to  be right lines.  It is, therefore, upon an  internal
production and reproduction of experience that the truths called
d priori rest.
Then there is the character of necessity.  What is a necessary
truth?l It is a proposition, the negation of which is not only
false, but also inconceivable.  Mr. Mill categorically rejects this
criticism of inconceivability.' He absolutely denies that we can
say such a thing is not, since it is inconceivable by us. And, he
adds, he has only to open the history of the sciences in order to
justify his assertion.  A number of propositions have been held
to be inconceivable, which have now passed into science as uncontested truths, such as the existence of the antipodes, and the
existence of gravitation, which the Cartesians repelled, because
they regarded motion without contact as impossible. The inconceivability of the negative is but a. case of inseparable association.  We experience the greatest difficulty in uniting two
ideas for the first time; then, by habit and repetition, they
become so' thoroughly associated that their disunion appears inconceivable, even  to  enlightened  minds.   Axioms are then
experimental truths of which there is superabundant evidence,
Nwhose basis is experience, and whose criterion is verification.'They are only a class, the most universal class, of inductions
1 Mr. Mill has maintained, on several occasions, and without any variation,
that the truth of a proposition is not sufficiently established by the inconceivability of its negative. On this point he combats Messrs. Spencer and
Lewes. —See Mill's Logzi, and An Examination, etc., Spencer's Principles of
Psycholog), and Lewes's tHistory of Philosopvhy.




Io4                Enzglish Psychology.
from experience, the easiest and simplest generalizations of the
facts furnished by the senses and the consciousness.' 
VI.
The preceding discussion has led us to the confines of logic,
beyond which we will not go.  Not that we hold the barrier to
be impassable; it is even a little conventional, seeing that logic
is contained in psychology, as the part is contained in the whole.
We regret that Mr. Mill, with his great philosophical authority,
should not have treated in some of his works of the relations
between psychology and logic. This question is not so idle as it
may appear; because clearly to determine the relations between two neighbouring sciences is to define their object with
precision, afterwards to define their method, and so to render
their progress possible. It is so much the more important because psychology, which is hardly constituted as an independent
science, has hitherto been absorbed, now by metaphysics, and
then by logic, the one debating substances and first causes, and
the other considering human faculties iz abstracto only, the
science of facts, experimental psychology, was stifled, or merely
vegetated.2
If, placing ourselves at the point of view of the school which
we are considering (or even of any other, provided it gives a
large share to facts), we examine the relations of psychology to
logic, we shall see that logic is only a branch broken off
from psychology.  In fact, the latter has for its object the facts of
consciousness, their immediate causes and their laws; it ought to
embrace them all, whilst logic.occupies itself only with the single
faculty of inference and its mechanism. Besides, psychology ought
to study our faculties in the entire series of their evolution, in their
variations, ethnological or otherwise, whilst logic considers the
faculty of reasoning only under its adult, impersonal, scientific
form, and rejects the exceptions. Psychology is concrete, whilst
logic, even when understood in the modern fashion-that is to
say, stripped of scholastic formalism-remains abstract; a me1 Logic, book ii. chap. vi.
2 Among ancients, Aristotle must be excepted. I-e frequently proceeds
as a naturalist, and his psychology is astonishing, considering the epoch.




Mr. 7yohn Stuarit  Mill.                   05os
chanism of reasoning being much more important to it than the
matter to which it is applied. Logic is, then, only a small
portion of psychology. Nevertheless it constitutes, as it is justly
entitled to do, a science apart, because it can be studied separately, and because, by reason of the simplicity of its object, it is
much more advanced than psychology.
We shall, therefore, lay logic aside, although we are now
dealing with one of the most celebrated logicians of the nineteenth century, and we shall explain his psychological theory of
reasoning only.
On this point the opposition of empiricism and idealism is
remarkable. Idealism, which considers deduction as the fundamental operation, because it starts from the general, sees nothing
in induction except an operation which brings it back thither.
For empiricism induction is everything, because it starts from the
facts, and is the experimental process; deduction supposes it,
and is in many other respects no other than verification.l We
shall not therefore be surprised at the preponderance which Mr.
Mill assigns to the inductive process.
In order to reason, that is to say, in order to go from what
one knows to what one does not know, a point of departure, a
foundation, is necessary. This point of departure, says Mr. Mill,
is the particular.' To infer or reason is the process of the mind
by which one starts from known truths to arrive at others really
distinct from  the first.'-(Logic, B. ii. p. I.)  It is generally
divided into two kinds, induction and syllogism.  But there is
a third kind of reasoning, distinct from the preceding two,'and
which, nevertheless, is not only valid, but is the foundation of
the two others.' This is inference, whzich goes from  /theparticcu/-La
to the paricIZar.
Let us consider the first mode of reasoning. Logicians err in
considering the dictium de omni ct multo as the basis of all reasoning; in reality,' every inference is from the particular to the particular.' 2' Not only may we reason from particulars to particulars
without passing through generals, but we perpetually do so reason.'
See Ravaisson, La P/zilosophie en France anu XIXme Scle, ~ I5, 33.
2 Logic, book ii. chap. iii.




Io6               English Psychology.'All our earliest inferences are of this nature. From the first
dawn of intelligence we draw inferences, but years elapse before
we learn the use of general language. The child, who, having
burnt his fingers, avoids to thrust them  again into the fire, has
reasoned and inferred, though he has never thought of the
general maxim, Fire burns.... He is not generalizing; he is
inferring a particular from particulars. In the same way also
brutes reason.' 1
Mr. Mill thinks that, when we draw consequences from our
personal experience, we conclude more often from  the partiticular to the particular, than by the intermediary of a general
proposition.
Among the higher order of practical intellects, there have
been many of whom it was remarked how admirably they suited
their means to their ends, without being able to give any sufficient reasons for what they did; and applied, or seemed to
apply, recondite principles, which they were wholly unable to
state. This is the natural consequence of having a mind
stored with appropriate particulars, and having been long accustomed to reason at once from  these to fresh particulars, without
practising the habit of stating to one's-self or to others the corresponding general propositions.2
General propositions are simple registers of inferences already
effectuated, and of short formulas for the formation of others.3
We store up our experiences in them, as it were, that we may
use them at need. Reasoning from the particular to the parti6uiar bring us then naturally to induction.
Induction is, in fact, the mode of reference which goes from
the particular to the general, from the known to the unknown.
It may be defined as a generalization of experience,4 or as' the
means of discovering and proving general propositions.'  Its
foundation is not, as the Scotch pretend, our belief in the uniformity of the course of nature, seeing that this belief itself is an
example of induction, and of an induction not the- easiest or
most evident, since, before we reach it, we must have con1 Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 2I2, 4th edition.  2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 213.
3 Ibid. book iii. chap. iii.         4' Ibid. book iii. chap. iii.




3Mr. 7o~zn StZart Mill.                   I07
ceived the particular uniformities, wvhose general uniformity is
the resultant and the synthesis.  What then is the foundation
of induction? It is the idea of causality.' The notion of cause
is the root of all the theory of induction.' 1 We have already
seen that, according to Mr. Mill, cause is the invisible antece-,
dent, and that the relation of causality is unconditional succession. Hence, if two facts or groups of facts are such as experience has shown them to us, up to this time (without any
known exception) in a relation of irreversible and unconditional
succession, it results from this, that one of the terms gives the
other, with which it is indissolubly united; that if we hold the
cause, we can infer the effect; that, if we know the effect, we
can infer the cause; and that the passage is thus legitimately
performed between the known and the unknown; and that, besides, the uniformity of causes supposing that of effects, and vzce
versa, we pass thus from the particular to the general.' The inductive process is essentially an inquiry into cases of
causation.... If we could determine what causes are correctly
assigned to what effects, and what effects to what causes, we
should be virtually acquainted with the whole course of nature.
All those uniformities which are mere results of causation, might
then be explained and accounted for, and every individual fact
or event might be predicted..... To ascertain, therefore, what
are the laws of causation which exist in nature, to determine the
effects of every cause, and the causes of all effects, is the main
business of induction.' 2
Deduction is thus relegated to a secondary rani.  Whilst certain logicians see in it the universal type of reasoning, and think
that every discursive process is reduced by final analysis to the
drawing of ideas one from the others, Mr. Mill says,' the employment of the syllogism is in reality only the employment of
general propositions in reasoning.' Now, a general proposition is
only a memorandum, a' condensation' of a number of instances
drawn from particular cases.'We can reason without them, and
we do so, in the more simple cases; they are only necessary to the
- advance and progress of the reasoning. They simplify it, and permit
1 Logic, book iii. chap. v.   2 Ibid vol. i. p. 407.




Io8                 Enzgish Psyc/zology.
its validity to be verified.' 1  Mr. Mill, although he refuses to re— cognise deduction as a fundamental process, gives it a high
place, holding that several sciences have hitherto made but
little progress, because they have used induction in place of
deduction.2
In short, reason, in its lowest degree, is, properly speaking,
nothing but an association of ideas; for we cannot see anything
else in the inference from the particular to the particular. It is
because the ideas of a lighted candle, a burnt finger, and pain,
are associated with one another, that later on one recalls the
other.3 True reasoning is produced only when we seize, in place
of fortuitous successions, constant and unconditional successions, that is to say, relations of causality.4
VII.
Mr. John Stuart Mill has' repeatedly and extensively treated
the question of liberty.5  Is he a fatalist?  Is he a partisan of
free-will?   He  is neither one nor the other.   He  believes
that the question is wrongly put, and the same opinion is professed, though in different terms, by the whole of the school
which we are now considering.
The partisan of necessity says: Volition is an effect; like every
effect, it has its cause-motives are this cause.  Who can doubt
1 Logic, book ii. chap. iii.                   2 Ibid. ch. vi.
3 Leibnitz called the inference from the particular to the particular an empirical consecution. As, for example, that of a Dutchman who goes into a
tavern in Asia, and expects to be served with Dutch beer. —De Aniima B.Irn.
toauum, vol. ii.
4 -Upon the general character of Mill's logic, and its relations to the theories
of Hobbes and Hume, see Ravaisson, op. cit., p. 63. Reason, he says, does
not consist in Mr. Mill's drawing one thing from another thing, but simply in
recalling how near to one thing another thing approaches, otherwise said to
reproduce in a different order that which has been the result of observation and
induction. Induction itself, in which all reason is resolved, consists but in
mechanically adding to the succession of facts which experience offers, similar
successions. It is an instinctive operation, by which we pass from one particular fact to another particular fact, without which there fails to be any kind
of reasoning.
Lo'ic, book vi. chap. ii. An Examination,. etc., chap. xxv.




Mr. 7Yohzn ShtZart Mliz.                og09
that, if we thoroughly knew the character of an individual, and all
the circumstances which act upon it, we could predict the
resolutions of that individual with certainty?  The partisan of
liberty says: In the first place I have on my side the intimate
sentiment of my free-will; and then my projects, my plans, even
the most ordinary actions of my life show me that I am not the
slave of necessity, that I do not act like an automaton, but that I
participate.
These two doctrines are partly wrong and partly right. The
confusion and disagreement arise from an erroneous theory of
causality, which considers the relation of cause to effect as necessary, which imagines a mysterious constraint exercised by the antecedent upon the consequent, which could not exist, in fact,
without destroying free will.'We are certain that, in the case of our volitions, there is not
this mysterious constraint. We know that we are not compelled,
as by a magical spell, to obey any particular motive. We feel
that if we wished to prove that we have the power of resisting
the motive we could do so (that wish being, it need scarcely be
observed, a new antecedenz), and it would be humiliating to our
pride, and paralysing to our desire of excellence, if we thought
otherwise. But neither is any such mysterious compulsion now
supposed by the best philosophical authorities to be exercised by
any cause over its effects. Those who think that causes draw
their effects after them by a mystical tie, are right in believing
that the relations between volitions and their antecedents is of
another nature.' 1
The error of the necessitarians consists in understanding by
the necessity which they recognise in our actions, anything more
than a simple uniformity of succession which permits them to be
foreseen: they have, at bottom, the idea that there is a much
stricter bond between volitions and their causes.2
The error depends almost solely upon the associations suggested by the word necessity, and it would be avoided by abstaining from the use of a term so completely inappropriate to
express the simple fact of causality. This word, in fact, implies
xMill's Log'ic, vol. ii. p. 4 1, 4th edition.  2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 420.




I I 0               Englishz Psychology.
much more than a simple uniformity of succession; it implies
irresistibility.  If it may be applied to the natural agents which
are, for the most part, irresistible, we can see how far its application to the springs of human action is inexact.' There are physical sequences which we call necessary, as death
for want of food or air; there are others which are not said to be
necessary, as death from poison, which an antidote, or the use of
the stomach pump, will sometimes avert.' 2
Human actions are in this category. In short, the question
never can be understood until the improper term necessity shall
have been suppressed.'The free-will doctrine, by keeping in view precisely that portion
of truth which the word necessity puts out of sight, namely, the
power of the mind to co-operate in the formation of its own character, has given to its adherents a practical feeling much nearer
to the truth than has generally, I believe, existed in the minds of
necessarians.' 3
Mr. Mill lays no great stress upon the proof of our free-will so
frequently drawn from consciousness. To have consciousness of
our free-will, he says; can only signify one thing: that I have
consciousness, before I decide, that I can decide in one sense or
the other.
But the use of the word consciousness, thus applied, may be
criticised in liraine.  Consciousness tells me that which I feel,
or do, but it does not tell me that which I may do.  Consciousness has not the gift of prophecy. We have consciousness of
that which is, not of that which shall or may be.
But this conviction that we are free, whether it be consciousness or belief, what is it?  It consists, I am  told, in this, that
although I decide, I feel that I might have decided in another
way. Take, for example, the alternative of assassinating or
not assassinating.  I am  told that if I decide on assassinating, I
have the consciousness that I should have been able to abstain
from doing so.  But have I the consciousness that I should have
1 Mill's Logic, vol. ii. p. 413, 4th edition.
I biW. vol. ii. p1 4G6, 4th edition.,4  Exant i/tliu, etc., chap. xxv. p. 564.




Mr. 7ohln Sluari Mill.                i I I
been able to abstain, if my aversion to the crime and my fear of
its consequences had been weaker than my temptation? If I
chose to abstain, in what case have I the consciousness that I
should have been able to choose to commit the crime? In the
case that my desire to assassinate should have been stronger
than my horror of murder. When, by an hypothesis, we represent ourselves to ourselves as having acted otherwise than we
have acted, we always suppose a difference in the antecedents of
the action.
Should it be objected, that in resisting I have the consciousness of making an effort, and that if the temptation lasts long I
am as sensibly exhausted by it as I should be after physical
exercise? To this Mr. Mill replies: that the battle between contending motives is not decided in a moment; that their conflict
may last a long time, and that when the strife takes place
between violent sentiments, it exhausts nervous force to an extraordinary degree. Now, that consciousness of effort, of which
we are told, is the consciousness of this state of conflict. The
conflict is not between me and a strange power which beats me,
or which I beat; it is between me and myself, between the self
which desires a certain thing, for instance, and the self which
fears remorse. The feeling of effort (a very inappropriate word
to be used here) is the result of the battle: it comes from the
conquered as well as from the conquerors.
The will cannot be touched without arousing the objection of
moral'responsibility, which, it is said, cannot exist without it.
Mr. Stuart Mill" has discussed it.
Suppose that there were two peculiar breeds of human beings,
one of them  so constituted from the beginning, that, however
educated or treated, nothing could prevent them from always
feeling and acting so as to be a blessing to all whom they approached; another of such original perversity of nature that
neither education nor punishment could inspire them with a
feeling of duty, or prevent them from being active in evil-doing.
Neither of these races of human beings would have free-will, yet
the former would be honoured as demigods, while the latter
would be regarded and treated as noxious beasts... kept
carefully at a distance,'and killed like other dangerous creatures,




I I2               English Psychology.
when there was no other convenient way of being  rid of
them.'
We see, therefore, that if the doctrine of necessity be pushed to
its most complete exaggeration, the distinction between moral
good and evil must nevertheless subsist.'We thus see that even under the utmost possible exaggeration of the doctrine of Necessity, the distinction between moral
good and evil in conduct would not only subsist, but would
stand out in a more marked manner than ever, when the good
and the wicked, however unlike, are still regarded as of one
common nature.' 2 And that he who has contrary tendencies is a
natural and legitimate object of aversion; and this, whether each
enjoys liberty or not.
Mr. Mill's doctrine, as we see, is, that even putting things
at the worst, absolute fatalism  would not suppress responsibility, that is to say, punishment.3  We should be born good or
evil, as we are born handsome or ugly, foolish or clever; but
then we should compassionate crime as we pity ugliness, we
should reprove it as we reprove folly, or should shut it up as
we shut up madness. Let us remember that Mr. Mill is not a
fatalist.4
The question deemed to be so puzzling is, how punishment
can be justified, if- men's actions are determined by motives,
among which motives punishment is one. A more difficult question would be, how it can be justified if they are not so determined. Punishment proceeds on the assumption that the will is
governed by motives. If punishment had no power of acting
on the will, it would be illegitimate, however natural might be
the inclination to inflict it. Just so far as the will is supposed
free, that is, capable of acting dgainst motives, punishment is disappointed of its object, and deprived of its justification.5
To conclude on this point, Mr. Mill distinguishes, relatively to
1 Milli's Examination of Hamilton's Philoso7zy, p. 509.  2 bid.
Responsibility means punishment, p. 570, ioc. cit. On this subject, see
Letter 25 of Of2erna PostZunma of Spinoza, addressed to II. Oldenburg.
4 Page 576.
s Mill's ZIamillon's 2`hiloso*i5zy, p. 510.




Mnr. 7ohn Stuarl Milld.                 I I 3
the influence of motives, three doctrines, of which he rejects two,
and accepts one:Fatalism pure and simple,-Asiatic fatalism, or that of CEdipus,maintains that our actions do not depend on our desires.  A
sovereign power, an inexorable destiny, governs all our actions.
Our love of good, and our hatred of evil, are of use to us as
regards our conduct. Fatalism which may be called modzfed,
maintains that our actions are determined by our will, our will by
our desires, and our desires by the joint influence of the motives
which present themselves to us, and of our individual character;
but that, this character having been made for us, and not by us,
we are not responsible for it, or for the actions to which it leads
us, and that we should in vain attempt to modify it.
In short, the true doctrine of the causality of human actions
maintains, against the two preceding doctrines, that not only our
conduct, but also our character, depends in fact upon our will;
that we can ameliorate it, by the use of proper means, and that,
if it be such that by its nature it constrains us to do evil, it will
be right to employ motives which constrain us to make an effort
to improve this bad character. In other words, we are subject
to the moralZ obligation to seek the amelioration of our monal
character.
The latter solution, which is Mr. Mill's, supposes in us not
only spontaneity but the possibility of regulating its development. But this directing power, this faculty of placing ourselves
in circumstances favourable to our perfection, what is it at
bottom. This is a capital question, it seems to us, and the school
which we are considering is very vague upon the point.
CHAPTER III.
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF MATTER AND OF MIND.
PsycAolog'ical Thcory of M1a/ter and liind.-I. aMatter-2. Mind-3. The
phenomenism of HI-ume and Mill.
WE do not enter, in this place, as might be supposed, into
metaphysics; at least there will be no question of matter or of
6




1 1x4             Eng-'ish Psychology.
mind, considered as substances. The'psychological theory of
mind and of matter,' which is the summary and the result of the
preceding, is opposed to the introspective theory of Reid, Stewart,
and the majority of the philosophers, inasmuch as the latter consider the subject and the object to be two fundamental terms,
irreducible, revealed to us by consciousness from the beginning
of life, while the experimental school hold that the notions of
matter and mind are complex, and formed at a later period;
and that, in consequence, by applying analysis to them, we may
discover and trace their genesis. The experimental school sees a
question of origin and embryological research where the rival
school sees only two facts to be stated, which are inexplicable by
any process. It proposes to establish that matter is nothing but
the permanent possibility of our sensations, and that mind is
nothing but the permanent possibility of our states of consciousness; thus approaching Berkeley on the first, and Hume on
the second point.
WVe begin with matter.'
The psychological theory of the belief in an exterior world
requires, in order to constitute it, some postulates, which are all
proved by experience.
The first postulate is, that the human mind is capable of expectation; in other words, that after having had actual sensations,
we are capable of forming the conception of possible sensations.
The second postulate is, that our ideas associate themselves
according to certain laws. Among the laws of the association of
ideas, those with which we are concerned at present are:I. There exists a tendency to think of similar phenomena
together.
2. There is a tendency to think together of phenomena which
have been experienced or conceived of as contiguous in time
or space.
3. The associations produced by contiguity become more
certain and more rapid by repetition; and thus inseparable or
indissoluble association is produced.
4. When association has acquired this character of inseparaAnt Examninadtion, etc., ch. xi.




IJ31r. 7oh/z  Stuarit Mfil             Ir 5
bility, not only do the two ideas become inseparable in consciousness, but the facts or phenomena which correspond to those ideas
finally arrive at appearing to be inseparable in existence. We
find numerous examples of this in the acquired perceptions of
sight. Thus, we see artificially that a body is hot or cold, hard
or soft, etc.
These postulates stated:' Perhaps it may be objected, that the very possibility of forming
such a notion of matter as Sir William Hamilton's-the capacity
in the human mind of imagining an external world which is anything more than what the psychological theory makes it —
amounts to a disproof of the theory. If, it may be said, we had no
revelation in consciousness of a world which is not in some way
or other identified with sensation, we should be unable to have
the notion of such a world. If the only idea we had of external
objects were ideas of our sensations supplemented by an acquired
notion of permanent possibilities of sensation, we must, it is
thought, be incapable of conceiving, and still more incapable of
fancying that we perceive, things which are not sensations at
all.' 1
And first, what do we mean by those words: an exterior world,
an external substance l  We mean that our perceptions have relation to something which exists, even when we are not thinking
of it, which has existed before we have thought of it, which should
exist even if we should be annihilated; we mean that things
exist, which neither we nor any man have ever seen, touched, or
perceived.  The idea of this something fixed, which is distinguished from our floating impressions by that character which
Kant calls permanence, is our belief in matter. Now, according
to the psychological theory, all that is only the form imposed by
the known laws of association upon our notions of contingent
sensations, obtained by experience.
I see a piece of white paper upon a table. I pass into another
room and I no longer see it, nevertheless I am persuaded that
the paper is still there, and that should I go back into that room,
I should see it again. I believe that Calcutta exists, although
1 Mill's I(lamilton's Fci/osoPAy, p. I99.




Ii6                 English Psychology.
I do not see it, and that it would still exist even thougll all its
inhabitants should be suddenly stricken with death.  Analyse
my belief, and you will see that it reduces itself to this: if I
were suddenly transported to the shores of the Hooghly, I should
experience sensations which would lead me to believe that Calcutta exists.  In these two cases (and they include the whole),
my idea of the exterior world is the idea of actual or possible
sensations.   These different possibilities are the most important
thing in the world for me. My present sensations a&re generally
fugitive and of little importance; the possibilities,'on the contrary, are peslemanent; which is precisely the characteristic which
distinguishes our idea of substance or matter from our idea of
sensation.
There is another important characteristic which adds to the
certitude or guarantee of these possibilities of sensation; it is,
that the sensations are not isolated but united in clusters. When
we thihk of any body or material object, we think not of one single
sensation, but of a varied and indefinite series of sensations
ordinarily belonging to different senses, but so united that the
presence of one generally announces the possible and simultaneous
presence of all the rest.  Consequently, the cluster, considered
as a whole, presents itself to the mind as permanent,-the principal characteristic which distinguishes our idea of substance or
matter from our idea of sensation.
In short, we do not only recognise fixed groups, but also a
fixed order in our sensations, an order of succession which, when
confirmed by experience, gives rise to the ideas of cause and
effect. But this invariable succession of antecedent and consequent takes place most frequently, not between an actual antecedent and an actual consequent, but between the groups of which
only one portion is actually present to us. Therefore, our ideas
of cause, power, and activity unite themselves not to sensations,
but to grozlps of possibililies of sensalions. The whole of these
sensations, considered as possible, form  a permanent, basis for
actual sensations; the relation of the possible sensations is considered as the relation of a cause to its effects, of a canvas to the
figures painted upon it, of a root to its trunk, its leaves, and its
flowers, of a subshalumlni to that which covers it.




,i3r. yoZoh   Stiart  Mill.            I I 7
Nor is this all. Having reached this point, we consider these
permanent possibilities as different from sensation. We forget
that they are founded in sensation, and we suppose that they are
intrinsically distinct from it. Now we discover that other human
or feeling beings formed their expectation or their conduct, as we
do, upon the possibilities of sensations. We see that they have
not exactly the same sensations as we have, but that they have
their possibilities of sensations like us; that everything indicates
that there is in them a possibility of sensations similar to ours, if'
indeed their organs do not differ from the type of ours. This
agreement between ourselves and our fellows finishes and completes our idea,-that groups of possibilities are the fundamental
reality of nature.
In a word, possible sensations, groups of sensations, order in
these groups, and agreement between our belief and that of our
fellows: in these consists our whole idea of matter.'Matter, then, may be defined a Permanent Possibility of
Sensation. If I am asked whether I believe in matter, I ask
whether the questioner accepts this definition of it. If he does,
I believe in matter: and so do all Berkeleians.  In any other
sense than this, I do not. But I affirm with confidence, that
this conception of matter includes the whole meaning attached to
it by the common world, apart from philosophical and sometimes
from theological theories.' 1'It may perhaps be said, that the preceding theory gives,
indeed, some account of the idea of permanent existence, which
forms part of our conception of matter, but gives no explanation
of our believing these permanent objects to be external, or out of
ourselves. I apprehend, on the contrary, that the very idea of
anything out of ourselves is derived solely from the knowledge
experience gives us of the Permanent Possibilities. Our sensations we carry with us wherever we go, and they never exist where
we are not; but when we change our place we do not carry
away with.us the Permanent Possibilities of sensation; they remain until we return, or arise and cease under conditions with
which our presence has in general nothing to do. And more
1 Mill's IZamillon's Philosqohy, p. 227.




I 118              Enzglish Psyc/ology.
than all-they are, and will be after we have ceased to- feel
Permanent Possibilities of sensation to other beings than ourselves.  Thus our actual sensations and the permanent possibilities of sensation stand out in obtrusive contrast to one
another; and when the idea of cause has been acquired and
extended by generalization from  the parts of our experience to
its aggregate whole, nothing can be more natural than that the
Permanent Possibilities should be classed by us as existences
generically distinct from our sensations, but of which our sensations are the effect.' 
II.
Let us now  apply this psychological theory to Mind.2  It is
evident that our knowledge of Mind is, like our knowledge of
Matter, entirely relative. We do not know what it is, outside
of the manifestations of consciousness.  We can neither know it,
nor imagine it, under any other form than the succession of
different states of consciousness.  It is none the less true that
our notion of Mind, like our notion of Matter, is the notion
of somet/i/g permanent, as opposed to the perpetual flux of
states of consciousness which we refer to it. This'permanent'
may be, as regards mind as well as matter, only a possibility. I
believe that my mind exists, even when it does not feel, does not
think, and has not consciousness of its existence. To what does
this reduce itself?-to believing in a permanent possibility Of these
conditions. Thus, then, our idea of mind is nothing more than
the idea of the series of our actual sensations, and of the infinite
possibilities of sensations which shall realize themselves under
appropriate conditions.
But, before going further, Mr. Mill, aware that the majority
of people hasten to the real or presumed consequences of a
doctrine in order to judge it, proposes to examine them. This
doctrine is accused, he says, of destroying our belief in the
existence of our fellows, in the existence of a supra-sensible
world, in God, and in immortality.
1 Mill's -amziltolZ's P/ilosojy,, p. I37.
2 AlZ ExaminaZlionz, etc., ch. xii.




Air. 7oh/    Szuactr  Mill.              I I9
On the first point, there is absolutely nothing in this theory
which can prevent my thinking that there are other beings like
me, whose minds like mine are only a series of sentiments. How
am I brought to believe that the beings whom I now see walking
about, whom I hear speaking, have sentiments and ideas,
that they possess a mind. Evidently it is not by intuition.
I go from the signs to the sentiments which they translate. My
own experience is the basis, of my induction. But this logical
process loses nothing of its legitimacy in the hypothesis that
neither mind nor matter is anything but a permanent possibility
of feeling.
The psychological theory of mind leaves my certainty of the
existence of my fellows exactly as it was before; and so it is as
regards the existence of God. Supposing that I consider the
Divine Spirit simply as the series of Divine thoughts prolonged
during eternity, this would assuredly be to consider the existence
of God as real as my own; this would be to do that which in
reality one always does, to infer the Divine nature from  the
human.  Belief in God has. therefore, nothing to gain or lose
from the present theory.
So it is in the case of immortality.  It is as easy to conceive of
a succession of sentiments, a thread of consciousness eternally
prolonged, as of a spiritual substance which always continues to
exist; and if there are any arguments in proof, they are as.capable of application to the one theory as to the other.
Thus these, the extrinsic objections, are disposed of. But the
theory which resolves mind into a series of actual sentiments,
with a basis of possible sentiments, contains intrinsic difficulties,
which it does not appear, says Mr. Mill, that psychological
analysis can resolve. In fact the thread of consciousness which
constitutes the phenomenal life of the mind is composed not
only  of present sensations, but also of expecartions and  of
recollections; it is not limited to the present, it embraces the
past and the future.' If therefore, we speak of the mind as a series of feelings, we
are obliged to complete the statement by calling it a series of
feelings which is aware of itself as past and future; and we are
reduced to the alternative of believing that the mind, or ego,- is




I20                Engl-ish Psychology.
something different from any series of feelings, or possibilities of
them, or of accepting the paradox that something, which ex
h/ypothesi is but a series of feelings, can be aware of itself as a
series.' 1
The truth is, adds Mr. Mill, that here we find ourselves brought
rface to face with that inexplicable which is necessarily to be
encountered when we touch upon ultimate facts. And he thinks
that if his method of explaining facts appears to be more incomprehensible than another, it is because it is less accommodated to
correct language, and consequently presents occasional contradictions in terms.'II think by far the wisest thing we can do, is to accept the
inexplicable fact, without any theory of how it takes place; and
when we are obliged to speak of it in terms which assume a
theory, to use them with reservation as to their meaning.' 2
III.
This theory of mind and matter, which in certain respects goes
beyond purely experimental psychology, appears to have given
rise to vehement discussion in England, if we may judge by the
great number of books, pamphlets, and articles in newspapers and
reviews which Mr. Mill quotes, discusses, and sometimes approves.
With that taste for free criticism, and that perfect loyalty which
are characteristic of him, he likes to quote his adversaries, to bring
certain objections into strong relief, and even to tell us plainly
what those are which he regards as insoluble.
We must first note some differences between the psychologic
theory of matter and that of mind. Mr. Mill gives the former
as complete, but he expressly-refuses so to characterize the latter.3
The one would be unreservedly accepted by an idealist, the
other is confined to absolute empiricism; the one touches upon
Berkeley, the other upon Hume.
What is there, notwithstanding, in common between the two
theories which the author ranges under the same name? There
is this: as the one reduces matter to a collection of attributes,
1 Mill's TiniZltonz'sP]ilosopJty, p. 2I2.   h'id. p. 2I3.
8 Ibid. Appendix, p. 245.




klr. 57ohnz Stuarit Mill.              121
and the other reduces mind, at least in appearance, to a collection of states of consciousness, it seems that all idea of substance. disappears. Now, this theory has a special name,
p/zenomenism. We find it in Hume; let us see if it is to be attributed to Mr. Mill.
The author, who complains of the reception his doctrine has
met with from  those'whose opinions were already formed,'
acknowledges that the least unfavourable judgment has been that
of the partisans of Berkeley or any other idealist. We do not
see, in fact, why they should not accept his theory of matter.
For, what does the idealist maintain? That all the reality of the
exterior world is in the mind which knows it; that we do not
know anything of matter except that which is told by our sensations and our ideas, —sensation revealing attributes, and idea
revealing the order of the attributes, the first being rather
ordinary consciousness, and the second scientific consciousness;
but that as the whole reduces itself by final analysis to states of
consciousness, we may maintain that the reality of matter is in
us. But this is in no sense to deny the existence of matter; it
is simply to say that we have a relative knowledge of it, and that
it is not the possible cause of our sensations and our ideas. But
Mr. Mill, as we have already seen, does not maintain anything else.
The debate concentrates itself upon the Ipsychological theory
of mind. Here the idealists abandon us, and the difficulty increases. We can admit, if necessary, that the exterior world is a
collection of phenomena without substratum; because there still
remains a mind which makes its synthesis, and serves as its
support. But if the mind" be also.reduced to a collection of
states of consciousness without any substance, we no longer find
anything solid to take. hold of, either in us, or out of us. Kant
saw in our idea of substance a certain way of uniting and aggregating phenomena, proper to the human mind; he did not deny
the possible existence of a substratum, of an inaccessible noumenon, a sort of mysterious stuff, on which phenomena are drawn;
but here the phenomenism is absolute. In fact, says Mr. Mill,
all the philosophers who have closely examined the question have
decided that there is no need of substance, except as the support
and the bond of phenomena. Let us, then, simply lay aside this




122              Enzglis  Psychology.
support out of our thought, and suppose that the phenomena
remain, and that they form the same groups and the same series,
thanks to some other agent, or even without any agent, if this rbe
not an internal law, and we shall arrive, without substance, at the
consequences in view of which substance was supposed. The
Hindus think that the earth requires to be sustained by an
elephant; but the earth sustains itself perfectly in space, without
being supported by anything. Descartes supposed a material
medium between the sun and the earth, to explain their reciprocal
action; but the law of universal attraction explains it much better than whirlwinds.
Still, when this first difficulty has been surmounted, there remains another more serious one, and this, Mr. Mill acknowledges,
he does not solve. You reduce the ego to a series of states of
consciousness, but there is something wanting to unite those
states to one another. If you have a necklace of beads, and
you remove the string, what remains I Separate beads, but no
longer a necklace.  Our author seems to admit that the bond,'the organic union,' which exists between past and present consciousness, in constituting memory also constitutes the ego.' I hold it to be indubitable,' he says,' that there is something
real in this bond, real as the sensations themselves; and which is
not simply a product of the laws of thought without anything
which corresponds to it. The precise -nature of the process by
which we know it is an ample subject for discussion... I do
not attempt to decide upon it. But that original element which
has no community of nature with anything answering to our
names, and to which we can give no other name than its own
without implying some false or unsteady theory, is the ego. As
such, I recognise in the myself-in my own mind-a reality different from that real existence as a permanent possibility, which
is the only one that I recognise in matter.'
It would be unjust, after having read the preceding, to confound this doctrine with that of Hume. The scepticism of the
Scotch philosopher led to such strange conclusions, that with him
there is nothing but the inexplicable, and he gets out of it with
App/endix to chaps, xi. xii.




Mr. y7ohz  Shitarl Mz'/.              I 23
the words'habit, belief, instinct.' In a world where there is, by
hypothesis, nothing but attributes and states of consciousness
without anything to unite them, there is really nothing astonishing but their harmony. Thus he acknowledges that, to him, the
production of ideas is a miracle.' There is, then, a kind of pre-established harmony between the
course of nature and the succession of our ideas; and though the
powers and forces by which the former is governed be wholly unknown to us, yet our thoughts and conceptions have still, we find,
gone on in the same train with the other works of nature. Custom is that principle by which this correspondence has been
effected.' 1
The same philosopher has said that' Physics, in its highest
perfection, can do no more than remove our ignorance a little.'
Might we not say that such metaphysic does but redouble it?
Mr. Mill, besides facts, admits order between minds. In addition, he grants to the bond which unites states of consciousness
as much reality as to the states themselves. If he is vague, he is
designedly so; it is because the obscure cannot be clearly explained. All considered, there is in his doctrine more solidity
than in pure phenomenism; and in any case we must not forget
that he means to leave the question open.
1 Hume's Essays,'Inquiry concerning Human Understanding,' section
v., last paragraph but one.




MR. HERBERT  SPENCER.
AMONG Philosophers, as among scientific men, there are
original and independent minds, of an order above those who
explain, comment upon, and develop truths already discovered
or foreseen, and make them known to all. These original minds
are, so to speak, creators, who are felt, on approaching them, to
be like men of another race, in power, depth, and unity of
thought. Whether their discoveries remain permanent acquisitions, or whether they only give a new aspect to insoluble problems, they are recognised in the sovereign fashion which is due
to them; they cannot touch any question without setting their
mark upon it.  Mr. Herbert Spencer appears to us to be
a man of this order. One of his countrymen, who is well
entitled to be critical, Mr. Stuart Mill, unhesitatingly places him
among the greatest of the philosophers, and says that the variety
and depth of his encyclopedic knowledge would permit him
to treat, as equal with equal, with the founder of the positivist
school himself; that he is not a disciple, but a master.'Mr. Spencer is one of the small number of persons who, by
the solidity and encyclopedical character of their knowledge, and
their power of co-ordination and concatenation, may claim
to be the peers of M. Comte, and entitled to a vote in
the estimation of hin.' 1
When we have studied his works very closely, we find ourselves impressed, not only by his superior science, by the
immense variety of his precise and positive information, now
1 Mill's Comte, p. 4I.




IMr. Hcrbert SpezceIr.                  125
almost indispensable to the philosopher, but especially by the
firmness of his thought, by his self-mastery, by his solidity of
method, and his lucidity of exposition. His mind is drilled and
disciplined by scientific research; he does better than descant
upon method, he practises it. He knows how to distinguish the
certain from the probable, and, as he says, the knowable from
the unknowable.  In everything he insists on seeing clearly, he is,
not content with chimerical solutions, and he never confounds
reasons with metaphors.
The philosophical mind is a certain manner of thinking, not
acquired, but developed by culture, which has its characteristic
traits, just like the poetic or the scientific mind. If there be a
definition which expresses its qualities and its defects, which
may be accepted by every one, and agreed to by all the schools,
it appears to be the following:It is the mind which generalizes. The ideal would consist in
laying hold, not only of the general formulas which simplify facts,
but on the facts which verify the formulas; in seeing laws in
facts and facts in laws. But this is an ideal, that is to say, what
we may hope for, but not attain.  In his study of psychological
phenomena, with which only we are now occupied, Mr. Herbert
Spencer has employed the fundamental processes of every
method, synthesis and analysis. In our eyes, one of the greatest
merits of this rare mind is his skill in handling these two different instruments, one of which distinguishes, divides, separates,
while the other collects, draws together, identifies.  It is with
great difficulty that these two modes of thought, each of which,
by its very nature, excludes the other, constitute a perfect equilibrium, so balanced that the talent of analysis may be exactly
-equal to the aptitude for synthesis.  In Mr. Herbert Spencer
synthesis predominates; he takes sensible pleasure in tracing
grand outlines, ini sweeping vast horizons, in  seeking  out'
simple and rich formulas, the large and comprehensive laws
from whence we dominate the innumerable mass of facts; and
this is his especial claim to the title of philosopher.  Never..
theless, he can also handle analysis so as to satisfy the most
competent and the most critical on this point.
A philosopher must have a method.  This is the point com



126               Enzfglis/h Psychololgy.
mon to all, from Plato and Aristotle down to Auguste Comte and
Hegel. In minds of that stamp, ideas fall naturally into order;
they think collectively, and not in detail, because each detail is
to them a portion of the whole which they are reconstituting. This
unity of method, this mode of systematic thinking, is common to
MIr. Herbert Spencer and to the great masters. Let us see then,
what is the governing idea of his philosophy, and the collective
conception to which all the rest is attached. The great English
naturalist, Professor Huxley, said on a recent occasion:-'The only complete and methodical exposition known to me
of the theory of evolution, is to be found in Herbert Spencer's
System of Pkii/osopay, a work that should be carefully studied by
those who desire to become acquainted with the tendencies of
scientific thought.'
The idea of evolztion or ofprogress; such is in fact the fundamental idea of our philosopher; he applies it to everything, and
he finds it everywhere. The formation of the worlds coming
forth from a primitive nebulus, according to the hypothesis of
Laplace, the unfolding of life, of thought, and of all which manifests it; science, arts, civilisation, all is explained by a progress.
The hypothesis of development is the substitution of mobility for
fixity, of becoming for being, but also of the relative for the
absolute. No more of stable existence. We cannot say of anything
that it is, in so far as that word implies fixity. And if everything
varies and is transformed, all existence is no more than a transition, a moment between that which is ending and that which is
beginning; a striking thought, because in this universal flux we
feel that the infinite presses upon us on all sides, that everything
holds to everything. In the human individual we see the generation which produces it, and that which shall follow; in one human
generation, we see humanity; in humanity,'the mysterious evolution
of life; in life, the geological transformations which have rendered
it possible; in them, a mode of existence so vague that it can
hardly be discerned, and thus we ascend from second causes to
second causes, to the point at which faith begins, and where
science ends.
Is this idea of progress, such as we are about to find it in Mr.
Herbert Spence)?s works, a novelty in philosophy l  We must be




M1r. Herbert Sp2czcer.                 12 7
clear upon this point. It is an idea anterior to him, but which
was formerly otherwise understood. Leibnitz, who, in so many
respects has anticipated the most recent theories, substituted
the idea of a continuous progress for the geometrical mechanism
of Descartes. The Hegelian dialectic, also founded on the idea of
becoming, pretends to reproduce by its synthesis the evolution of
the world, from void existence up to thought and absolute consciousness. But whilst the theory of Leibnitz is only a view of
the future by a genius, an hypothesis not then verified by facts,
while the theory of Hegel is an entirely metaphysical conception,
completely subjective, encumbered with its triple movement of
thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, boldly bending facts to its a
priori conceptions, the hypothesis of development is quite otherwise presented by Mr. Herbert Spencer. It is produced objectively, the facts suggest it to the mind, the mind does not impose
it upon the facts.  It arises of itself, out of the study of the
sciences, or at least of those in which there is movement and
life: geology, botany, physiology, psychology, resthetics, morals,
linguistics, history, etc. It is supported by an almost infinite
mass of facts and experiences. Besides, and this is a great point,
it claims to be only an llypot/zesis; the only concession which it
demands is that no other hypothesis approaches it in probability.
It is, if we please, the hypothesis of Leibnitz revived, but free
from metaphysics, and supported by the experience of nearly two
centuries.
I have no intention of establishing a comparison which would
be inexact, and which Mr. Herbert Spencer would disclaim,
between him and Leibnitz; nevertheless, I wish to cite some of
the points common to both, which it is impossible to fail to
remark, and which relate to their dynamism.
First, the idea of continuity, or universal compenetration,
whence it comes that all things hold together, that all things
are'caused and causing,' and that the process by which the
human  mind separates them  is arbitrary, though necessary.
Properly speaking, this idea and that of progress are the same, the
one but another aspect of the other, because, if everything is
transformed and metamorphosed, everything holds together; there
is not in nature a hiaftus, or any solution of continuity.  Only,




I28              Enzglish Psychology.
the idea of progress is dynamic, and the idea of continuity is
static.
We know that Leibnitz, in his explanation of the universe, had
imagined monads, a kind of metaphysical atoms, having all possible degrees, from the simple antitype to the most perfect
aperception. According to their nature, they constitute brute
matter, or the living being, the animal, the man, or the angel.
And as, in the universe, nothing is isolated, a certain monad being
given, all the universe acts upon it, and thus expresses it.
Each monad is then a mirror which reflects differently. Set this
grand conception free from the metaphysical phraseology which
is proper to it, and there remains a positive incontestable truth.
Place in the same spot different beings, a stone, a tree, a dog, a
savage, an European, Newton or Shakespeare; each will reflect
it according to his nature, one a little, the other much. There
will exist between the being and its place that which Mr. Herbert Spencer calls a corresspondence, and the degree of life will be
measured by the degree of correspondence, the ideal mode of
life being perfect correspondence. The man who could attain to
that degree would reflect in himself, in a complete manner, all
the reality of the universe; he would be a microcosm adequate to
the microcosm. This idea of a corr-espondenzce, which holds the
chief place in our author's psychology, as we shall see, appears to
me to be a translation of Leibnitz's words into the language of
experimental psychology; every monad is a mirror which reflects
the universe.
One of the chief traits of the philosopher who occupies us at
present is his systematic character. This is to be noted. Certainly, the country which has produced Bacon, Hobbes, Locke,
Hlume, without mentioning the Scotch philosophers, and Mlr. Herbert Spencer's contemporaries, has done mnuch for philosophy;
but the English genius has generally preferred researches into
detail to great collective views; according to Buckle, it finds
pleasure in induction and analysis. In Mr. Herbert Spencer, on
the contrary, there is great boldness and breadth, some would
perhaps say rashness. But even that proves his power, for fertile
minds err rather through audacity than through timidity. His
Syslem of Philosoi5hy, of which only the twQ first parts have been




Mr. Herbert SJencer.                 J29
entirely published, will embrace an immense number of facts and
problems. It would be inappropriate to our subject to speak of
it here, and it is not a work to be judged passingly or in haste.
The First PrinczcIes are, as it were, the vestibule of this great
building. The purpose of this work, which, if we were not afraid
of being misunderstood, we would call the JMetalzhysics of 12Psz
(firism, is to show that outside of science there is a region inaccessible to its processes and its methods, that outside of the
knowable is the unknowable, and thus to place the old quarrel
between religion and science, demonstration and faith, on new
ground, by showing that there is absolutely nothing in common
between them,-to endeavour, by a daring synthesis founded
upon the positive sciences, to bring everything back to the law
of equivalents or of correlation of forces; and to show that all
phenomena are convertible between themselves, from physical
manifestations, even to life, thought, and the development of history; thus to condemn spiritualism and materialism, and to reject
both as vain solutions. This work is followed by the P'rinciles of Biology, which traces the morphological and physiological evolution of life; the Princzples of Psychologv, now in
course of publication; which will be followed by the PrincilZes of
Sociolo.gy, and the Princ5Ies of Mforals. Add to these two important volumes of essays, a treatise on MoraI, Intellectual, and
Ph/ysical Edzucatio'n, one on Social Statics, in which are determined the essential conditions of human happiness, and a Classilfcation of the Sciences, and we can form an idea of the various
subjects which this fertile mind has entertained, and on each of
which it has produced profound and original ideas sufficient to
make the reputation of one less prolific.
We cannot discuss, even passingly, all these titles to fame in
this place, where we are principally concerned with psychology.
As, however, the fundamental doctrine of evolution is frequently
expounded in the Essays, and applied to the most various
questions, and this work is but little known in France, though it
is calculated to make the philosophy of the author familiar, we
propose to make a special study of it.




30o              Eznglish Psycaology.
CHAPTER I.
THE LAW OF EVOLUTION.
[ie ZLaw of zvo/ution. - I. Progress consists in tlhe passage from tlte
homogeneous to the heterogeneous: its law-2. The hypothesis of thle
nebulus-3. Living organism and social organism-4. The genesis of
science-5. The knowable and the unknowable.
OUR purpose is to explain the doctrine of progress and development, according to the Essays,' and to show how Mr. Herbert Spencer applies it to the different orders of phenomena.
After having seen what is to be understood by progress, we shall
follow the law of evolution in its explanation of the cosmical
genesis, of the development of the social organism, and finally
of the genesis of science.
The idea which is generally attached to the word profgress is,
not only vague, but erroneous. Progress in itself is confounded
with that which accompanies it, with the benefits and useful results
which it brings to man. The vice of the current conception
arises from its being teleological; facts are judged by their relation to human happiness, the only concern felt is for that which
increases or tends to increase it. This process takes the shadow
for the reality. In order to understand what progress is, we
must study, apart from our own interest, what is the nature of
the changes which produce it.
The German physiologists have established that in individual
organisms progress consists in the passage from a homogeneous
to a heterogeneous structure. Every germ at its origin is an
uniform  substance, in the double sense of its texture, and its
chemical composition; by successive and almost infinite differentiations, that complex combination of tissues and organs which
constitutes the animal or the adult plant is produced. This is the
1 Essays; Scit'nifc, Political, an(d Speculative. London, I86I.  This will
be found in a much more learned form in the Firsti Princifples.




aMr. Herbert SiAencer.                  3 I
history of every organism. Mr. Herbert Spencer proposes to
show that this law of organic progress is the law of all'rogress; that the development of the earth, of the life on its surface, of society, of government, of industry, of commerce, of
language, of literature, of science, and of art, supposes the same
evolution of the simple into the complex by successive differentiations.
In the first place, if the hyl5otZesis of the nebzzlus be admitted as
true, the formation of the solar system furnishes us with a verification of this law. In its first condition, it consisted of a medium
indefinitely extended, and almost homogeneous in density, temperature, and other physical attributes. The first progress towards consolidation brought about a differentiation between the
space still occupied by the nebulous mass and the unoccupied
space which it had formerly filled. At the same time differences
in density and temperature are produced, between the interior
and the exterior of the mass, then in the speed of the motion of
rotation, which varied according to the distance from the centre.
Let us reflect upon the numerous differences between the planets
and satellites, with respect to distance, to the inclination of their
orbits, the inclination of their axes, the time of their rotation,
their density, their physical constitution, etc.; and we shall see
how heterogeneous the solar system is, compared to the almost
complete homogeneity of the nebulous mass from which it is
supposed to have issued.
But as this is only a hypothesis, each person may take it for
as much as he pleases; this does not in any way prejudice the
general doctrine which we are about to verify on more solid
ground. Let us take our globe. In the beginning, according to
almost all geologists, the earth was a mnass of matter, in a state
of fusion, and consequently was of homogeneous consistence, and
relatively homogeneous temperature.  And now, merely looking
at its surface, how heterogeneous it appears to us! Igneous
rocks, sedimentary strata, metallic veins, endless irregularities,
mountains, continents, seas, differences of climates, in short,
such a variety of phenomena that all the geographers, geologists,
hmineralogists, and meteorologists put together, have not yet
succeeded in enumerating them. If we pass on from the earth




132             Enzglish Psychology.
to the planets and the animals which are now living, or have
lived, facts to verify the law are wanting; not that it is doubtful
that in the individual organism progress is made from the simple
to the compound; but, if we pass from the individual forms of
life to life in general, we cannot say whether the modern flora
and fauna are more heterogeneous than those of the past. The
actual data of paleontology do not permit us to affirm anything.
Nevertheless, the facts, taken together, tend to show that the
most heterogeneous organisms are the last produced. To go
no further than the branching off of vertebrates, the first known to
us are fishes, the most homogeneous of all; reptiles appear later
and are more heterogeneous; mammifers and birds appear still
later, and are yet more heterogeneous. Then, the most ancient
remains which we know of the class of mammifers are those small
marsupials which are the lowest type of this class, whilst the
highest type, man, is the most recent. We must observe, that
taking the vertebrate fauna as a whole, the palaeozoic period,
entirely composed of fishes (in so far as we know) was much
less heterogeneous than the present period, which, besides
reptiles, comprehends birds and mammifers of widely various
kinds.
But, if we choose to leave the question open on this point, it
is at least clear that as regards man, the most heterogeneous of
animals, heterogeneity has been most largely produced in the
civilized subdivisions of the species; that the species has become
more heterogeneous in virtue of the multiplication of races and
the differentiation of races among themselves. The Papuan,
whose body and arms are often well developed, has very small
legs, resembling in this the quadrumanous kind, while in the
case of the European, whose legs are longer and more massive,
there is more heterogeneity between the upper and lower limbs.
The differences between the skulls and the faces of men are
greater than in any other race of animals, and greater among
Europeans than among savages.l Ethnology, by its divisions and
subdivisions of races, puts this progress in heterogeneity beyond
a doubt. Within a few generations, has not the Saxon race given
I See Vogt, L6gons sur Zhomume, chap. ii.




MI~r. Herbert Slencer.                133
birth to the Anglo-American variety, and is not another springing
up in Australia?
If we pass on to humanity considered in its social organism,
we find numerous facts to sustain our law. Society in its origin,
such as we find it among savage tribes, is a homogeneous aggregate of individuals having the same powers and the same functions;
every man is a warrior, a hunter, a fisher, and a workman; the
only differences are those which result from sex. The first differentiation is that which takes place between the governing and
the governed; this increases, authority becomes hereditary, the
king assumes an almost Divine character; for, at this epoch,
religion and government are closely associated, and during centuries the religious and civil laws are hardly separate. Now, if
we observe that among modern Europeans, not only are the
State and the Church separating from each other more and more
widely, but that the political organization is very complex, that
it presupposes subdivisions in justice, finance, etc., we cannot
doubt that in this instance progress is made from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.
In industry it is the same; the subdivision of labour is an
evident truth.
The most rudimentary form of language is the exclamation.
Did it alone originally constitute simply human language? This we
cannot tell. Linguistics shows us that in all languages there are
words which may be grouped in families and referred to a common root.  The development of idioms then also supposes
heterogeneity. Whether we hold, with Max Miiller and Bunsen,
that all languages are derived from a single stem, or with other.linguists that there are two or more, the development of the
European languages, derived from one and the same source,
would in itself show us that the evolution of languages is also in
conformity with the law of progress.
Writing (ideographical at its origin) connects itself with
painting, and both, together with sculpture, were at first simple
appendices of architecture, which was itself the historical or
religious art: the palaces and temples of Assyria, the monuments
of Egypt or of India bear witness to this.  These arts became
separate in the lapse of centuries; writing was transformed into




I34              Engzisz Psycho/ogy.
printing.'However dissimilar they may appear to us to-day, the
bust which stands upon the console, the picture which hangs
upon the wall, the copy of the Tnimes which lies upon the table, are
related to each other, not only by nature but by origin.' Poetry,
music, and dancing also originally formed an inseparable group.
The dances of savage tribes, accompanied by monotonous songs,
the sacred dances of the Egyptians, and of David before the ark,
of the Lupercalia and the Saturnalia of Rome, the triumphal ode
of Moses, accompanied by dancing and the cymbals,-these are
only a few examples among thousands. These arts became
separated by progress, and we may remark that in each instance
that progress took place from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. In literature, primitive works comprise everything;the Scriptures contain the theology, cosmogony, history, legislation, morals, etc., of the Hebrews; in the IJiad there are religious, military, epic, lyric, and dramatic elements, which, at a
later period, form so many kinds.
It is the same with science, as we shall see hereafter. Let us
then fearlessly conclude, from this rapid examination of facts,
that the law of progress is the passage from the homogeneous to
the heterogeneous. And now, does not this uniform processus
presuppose a fundamental necessity from whence it results?
Does not this universal law imply a universal cause? There is
no question of having an absolute knowledge of this cause: that is
a mystery above the reach of human intelligence; we have simply
to transform our empirical generalization into a rational generalization. Exactly as it has been possible to show the necessary consequences of the law of gravitation in the laws of Kepler, so it
may be possible to show that the law of progress is the necessary
consequence of some equally universal principle.
This law, which explains the universal transformation of the
homogeneous into the heterogeneous, is as follows: Evevy ac/ive
force rdceprodues more than one change; ezvey cause produces nmore
lzan one effect.
One body strikes another; to our eyes the effect consists in a
change in the position or the motion of one or both of the two
bodies. But that is a very incomplete view, because more than
one sound is produced; and the vibrations of the air are pro



Air. Herbert  Sienzcer.                   13 5
duced, not only by the sound, but by the motion of the bodies;
a derangement of the molecules at the point of collision has
taken place; consequently condensation and disengagement of
heat, sometimes even a spark, that is to say, the production of
light. We have therefore at least five species of changes produced by a simple shock.
Some one lights a candle, that is a simple fact; but there results fronm it a production of light, a production of heat, an
ascending column of hot gases, currents established in the surrounding air, a continuous formation of carbonic acid, water, etc.
Besides, each of the changes thus produced gives rise in its
turn to other changes.  The disengaged carbonic acid will combine itself little by little with some basis, or, under the influence
of the solar light, it will give out its carbon to the leaf of a plant.
The water will modify the hygrometric condition of the surrounding air, etc.
A small quantity of virus from smallpox, introduced into the
system, may cause, during the first period, stiffness, heat of the
skin, acceleration of the pulse, loss of appetite, thirst, gastric
disturbance, vomiting, headaches, etc.; during the second period,
cutateous  eruption, cough, etc.; during  the  third  period,
cedematous inflammation, pneumonia, pleurisy, diarrhcea, etc.
A living species, animal or vegetable, in proportion as it spreads
itself out, and occupies a more extended area, finds itself exposed to very different conditions of climate, sun, light, and heat,
and thus we see it give birth to numerous varieties.   This
happens even in the case of domestic animals.
We have now mentioned a sufficient number of the various
examples which the author borrows from geology, linguistics,
ethnology, chemistry, industry, and commerce, to elucidate his
thought.  He always calls upon us to observe that if there be in
reality complex causes of which we have spoken as simple causes,
it still remains true that these causes are much less complex than
their results.'Finally, the facts tend to show that each kind
of progress is from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, and
that this is because each change is followed by several changes.' 1
I Perhaps it may be objected, that it is not in reality one single cause -which
produces several effects; that in the case of the shock, for example, there must




I36                 English  PsycAhology.
II.
In a long essay upon the hypothesis of the Nebulae, the, author
attaches the hypothesis of Laplace to the doctrine of evolution,
defending it against the objections to it raised by science.  Lord
Rosse's powerful telescope having enabled astronomers to solve
the hitherto insoluble Nebulae, it has been concluded that if we
had sufficiently powerful instruments, we could resolve every
nebulus into stars. Is this a sufficient reason for rejecting the
hypothesis  By no means.  A prtiori, it was very improbable, if
not impossible, that nebular masses should still remain uncondensed when others have been condensed for millions of years.
In comparison with the doctrine of finality, or, as Mr. Herbert
Spencer calls it, mnanufacture, the hypothesis of the nebulus has
a great deal of probability and many facts in its favour. It explains much better the necessities of constitution and of the
motions of the planets, the anomalies in the distribution and the
motion of the satellites, the speed of the planetary rotation;
and then in these later times, the spectrum analysis has arisen to
corroborate the hypothesis of a community of origin between all
the parts of our universe.  Into this purely scientific domain,
otherwise outside our limits, the conclusion draws us.  It is'this:' It remains only to point out that while the genesis of the solar
system, and of countless other systems like it, is thus rendered
comprehensible, the ultimate mystery continues as great as
ever.  The problem  of existence is not solved; it is simply
removed further back. The Nebular Hypothesis throws no light
on the origin of diffused matter, and diffused matter as much
needs accounting for as concrete matter. The genesis of an atom
is not easier to conceive than the genesis of a planet. Nay, indeed, so far from making the universe a less mystery than before,
exist, besides the shock, certain conditions of the bodies concerned which
render the production of sound, heat, etc., possible. There would also be,
besides the visible cause, virtual causes acting with it, and the passage from
the homogeneous to the heterogeneous would be the actualization of these
virtual causes. We think Mr. Spencer would reply that to put the question
thus would be to transfer it to the ground of the noumena, which he does
not wish to approach; and that if a simple statement of facts be adhered to,
one shock is followed by several effects.




Mr. ~/erbert  Si5encer.                I37
it makes it a greater mystery. Creation by manufacture is a
much lower thing than creation by evolution. A man may put
together a machine, but he cannot make a machine develop itself.... That our harmonious universe once existed potentially as
formless diffused matter, and has slowly grown into its present
organized state, is a far more astonishing fact than would have
been its formation after the artificial method vulgarly supposed.
Those who hold it legitimate to argue from phenomena to
noumena, may rightly contend that the Nebular Hypothesis implies a First Cause as much transcending the mechanical God
of Paley, as this does the fetish of the savage.' 
III.
The result of the idea of evolution, applied to social and political phenomena, is to bring out the analogy between society and
the organized body. It may be thought that the author's comparisons in his Essay ztpon Social Ogannizafior are far-fetched. At
least it cannot be denied that his combinations are ingenious, in
many respects sustainable, and, taken collectively, incontestable.
Nothing being true except within certain limits, the danger for a
correct idea is that of being pushed to extremes.  We must,
therefore, in observing the following combinations, confine ourselves to the consideration of them as an illustration, a throwing
of light upon social phenomena by biological phenomena.
The social body, like the living body, is not a simple aggregate
of parts, it supposes a conzsenszis between them. Both are subject
to the same law of evolution, to the same varieties of form; there
are rudimentary societies, just like coarse organisms; there are
learned and complex social organizations, just like the organisms
whose mode of life is rich and complex. For ages this parallelism
was felt by the philosophers. Thus Plato drew his ideal republic
upon the model of the faculties of the human soul. Hobbes goes
farther; his city is an immense body (Leviathan), whose sovereign
is the soul, the magistrates are the articulations, the sanctions are
the nerves, the wealth of the whole is the strength, their concord
is the health, etc. But, in the absence of really comprehensive
Spencer's Ess.rays, vol. i. p. 55-6, edition i863.




I38               Engplish Psychology.
physiological generalizations, these comparisons necessarily remained vague. So little was the natural and necessary law of
development conceived of, that that true saying of'Mackintosh:'constitutions are not made, they make themselves,' at first
caused only surprise. Has not history been explained by supernatural interventions; by the preponderating action of great men,
instead of its being understood that the great man can only disturb, retard, or aid the general evolution, but that, taken in its
totality, it remains out of his reach.  Mr. Herbert Spencer reduces the principal resemblances which exist between social
organization and living organism to four:
I. That, commencing as small aggregations, they insensibly
augment in mass; some of them eventually reaching ten thousand
times what they originally were.
2. That while at first so simple in structure as to be considered structureless, they assume in the course of their growth a
continually-increasing complexity of structure.
3. That though in their early, undeveloped states, there exists
in them scarcely any mutual dependence of parts, their parts
gradually acquire a mutual dependence; which becomes at last
so great, that the activity and life of each part is made possible
only by the activity and life of the rest.
4. That the life and development of a society is independent
of, and far more prolonged than, the life and development of any
of its component units; who are severally born, grow, work, reproduce, and die, while the body politic composed of them survives generation after generation, increasing in mass, completehess of structure, and functional activity.
On the other hand, the leading differences between societies
and individual organisms are these:I. That societies have no specific external forms. This, however, is a point of contrast which loses much of its importance,
when we remember that throughout the vegetable kingdom, as
well as in some lower divisions of the animal kingdom, the forms
are often very indefinite.
2. That, though the living tissue whereof an individual organism
consists, forms a continuous mass; the living elements of a
society do not form a continuous mass.




Mr. IHerbrt Spencer.                   139
3. That while the ultimate living elements of an individual
organism are mostly fixed in their relative positions, those of the
social organism are capable of moving from place to place, seems
a marked disagreement.  But here, too, the disagreement is
much- less than would be supposed. For while citizens are locomotive in their private capacities, they are fixed in their public
capacities.... Each great centre of production, each manufactuting town or district, continues always in the same place; and many
of the firms in such town or district are for generations carried on
either bythe descendants or successors of those who founded them.
4. The last and'perhaps the most important distinction is, that
while in the body of an animal only a special tissue is endowed
with feeling, in a society all the members are endowed with
feeling. Even this distinction, however, is by no means a complete one.  For in some of the' lowest animals, characterized by
the absence of a nervous system, such sensitiveness as exists is
possessed by all parts. It is only in the more organized forms
that feeling is monopolized by one class of the vital elements.
Moreover, we must remember that societies, too, are not without
a certain differentiation of this kind. Though the units of a
community' are all sensitive, yet they are so in unequal degrees.
The classes engaged in agriculture, and laborious occupations in
general, are much less susceptible, intellectually and emotionally,
than the rest; and especially less so than the classes of highest
mental culture.'
In short, the resemblances are fundamental, essential; and
the differences all exterior, and, strictly speaking, contestable.
The'analogy is much more striking if we consider them  in
their development, if we remark  how closely the lower forms
of life resemble the lower forms of social organization.  Are
there not analogies between the almost structureless protozoa,
such as rhizopodes, the foraminifera, the vorticelloe, which form
aggregates of cells, without subordination of parts,'and inferior
races, such as the Bushmen, among whom society is sometimes
reduced to two or three families, and division of labour exists
only between the sexes  1I
1 Spencer's Essays, 2d ed., vol. i. p. 391.




I40              English Psychology.
Physiological division of labour appears in  the  common
polype; this is a progress.  In the same way a less rude society
comprehends warriors and a chief council invested with authority.  Certain zoophytes, like the hydra, produce others by a
process of germination; a tribe also produces its slips; jealousies, quarrels, cause divisions, a chief takes the initiative of
the rupture, and the members part, and emigrate.
In the germ of a polype, as in the human egg, the aggregate
of cells whence the animal is to come forth, gives birth to a
peripherical layer of cells which afterwards subdivides itself into
two, the one interior, called mucous or endodermous; the other,
exterior, called serous or ectodermous. From the latter come
the digestive and respiratory organs; from the former the nervous,
muscular, and bony systems.  In the social evolution we sce an
analogous first differentiation of species, that of the governing
and the governed, of masters -and of slaves, of nobles and of
serfs. And in the same way that at a later stage, between the
mucous and the serous layer, a third is formed, called
vascular, whence come the blood-vessels; so, when a society is
growing up, an intermediate class forms itself, a class given to
industry and commerce, which is also the distributing organ of
that society, as the blood-vessels are the distributing apparatus
of the body.
The lower animals have no blood or circulating channels in
the bulk of the body, thus uniting the different portions; but
as soon as the being becomes more complex, they are a necessity;
each portion of the organism must receive the materials which it
assimilates. An inferior society has no roads, no way of communication; but the development of civilisation necessarily
supposes them. Where civilisation is only beginning there are
some rude tracks traced out by use, like those lacwue which
serve in the inferior animals for the distribution of the nutritive
fluids.
Again, if we come to the nervous system, we find ganglions
in the inferior organisms which are sometimes almost independent, just as in feudal society we see the barons and the other
lords governing without any control; sovereignty, almost local,
exercised witllin narrow limits.  The superior animal, on the




Mr. Herbert S renzcer.                 141
contrary, has his nerves, his cerebro-spinal axis of a complicated
structure; just as England has her parliament, her ministers, her
sheriffs, and her judges, animated by the same thought and
obedient to a common impulsion.
IV.
Thus, in a few words, we have explained how the law of
evolution draws together social and biological phemomena. If
we go into another domain, that of science, we shall find there
also continuity in development.  It is organically produced;
its genesis is the work of an inherent progress; it comes out of
vulgar knowledge, as the oak comes out of the acorn. If we
consider the current opinions, we find science regarded as a kind
of knowledge apart, sui generis, placed in an almost inaccessible
region, having processes of research proper to itself, totally
foreign (save in its applications) to the reasonings and the habits
of common life. The doctrine of evolution, on the contrary,
shows that between science and common knowledge any line of
demarcation is impossible; that they differ ziz degree, not hiz kizd,
and that any absolute separation between them  is illusory and
chimerical.  More than this, as development implies continuity,
all the sciences hold by each other; they are the parts of one
whole, there is between them unizty of covzositiZOn, and each influences the others; one progress renders new discoveries possible, which shall throw more light upon that which has been
already acquired.  Everything coheres; high civilisation is possible only through the culture of the sciences; but let it be
borne in mind that the culture of the sciences is only possible
through civilisation; thus, cause becomes effect and effect becomes cause, because in everything that lives the supreme law is
reciprocity of action.
We shall now leave it to Mr. Herbert Spencer to trace back
the Genesis of Science (Essays, vol. i. p. i66-193); that is to
say, its evolution.
If we oppose to science under its most precise form, that of
mathematics, our everyday modes of thought, in which there is no
method, the contrast is striking. But only a little reflection is
required to see that in the two cases the same faculties are




I4 2             Englis/   Psychology.
brought into play, and that their mode of operation is the same
at bottom.  Shall we say that science is organized knowledge?
But all knowledge is more or less organized; the commonest
domestic actions presuppose facts observed, inferences drawn,
results expected. Shall we say that science is aprevision? The
definition would then be too extended; for the child who sees
an apple, foresees that it will be resistant, soft to the touch, and
of a certain flavour. Shall we say that science is an exact prevision? But there are sciences which are not and which never
can become exact, like physiology, and there are exact previsions which we do not regard as science; for instance, that a
light will be extinguished in water, and that ice will melt on the
fire. Logically, then, the distinction between scientific knowledge and common knowledge is not justifiable.
If they do not differ in kind, what relation is there between
them? (I.) That which science reveals is more distant from
perception than that which is given by common knowledge:
the prediction of an eclipse, of the moon by an astronomer
differs, in this respect, from the prevision of a servant that fire
will make water boil. It may be said, from this point of view,
that science is an extension of the erce5tions by means of reasoning.
(2.) Science, undeveloped, is a quabilative prevision; science developed is a quantitative prevision.  To foresee that a piece of lead
will weigh more than a piece of wood of the same size; and to
foresee that at a certain moment two specified planets will be in
conjunction-that is the difference between qualitative and quantitative prevision. There is no true science except where the
phenomena are measurable. Space is measurable, thence geometry; force and space are measurable, thence statics; time,
space, and force are measurable, thence dynamics.  No measure
is possible for our sensations; thus, there is no science of
flavours or of odours.
In proportion as we pass from  qualitative to quantitative prevision, we pass from  inductive to deductive science.  While
science is purely inductive, it is purely qualitative; when it
becomes imperfectly quantitative, it comprehends deduction and
induction; whene perfectly quantitative, it is completely deductive.




iLr. fiericrt Spencier.-                     I43
Every science, at its origin, has been  qualitative, and has
sometimes taken thousands of years to arrive at its quantitative
period; chemistry has entered it only recently.  It must not be
lost sight of that science and ordinary knowledge are of the
same nature, and that the one is only the extension and perfection of the other.'
Since science, by its processus of evolution, comes out of
common knowledge, that which is given us by reason and our
senses reduced to themselves merely; and that common knowledge itself proceeds from simple perceptions; the genesis of
science ought, strictly speaking, to take the origin of knowledge
as its point of departure.   At the risk of beginning after an
abrupt fashion, let us take the adult savage.
In order to live, it is necessary that he should know what will
nourish him, what may hurt him, what he ought to avoid; he
must distinguish a great variety of substances, plants, animals,
tools, persons, etc.  But what does this distinction or classiftcation
of objects presuppose. A recognition of the resemblance or the
dissimilarity of things. By a natural progress, classification goes
from rude resemblances to more subtle ones; sub-classes, according to degrees of dissimilarity, are formed in the classes; and the
mind, always eliminating the dissimilar, seeking more and more
close resemblances, finally tends towards the notion of complete
resemblance which supposes nonw-dzfferece.
1 Here Mr. Herbert Spencer examines the classification of the sciences
by Hegel, Oken, and A. Comte.  He is not favourable to' the bastard a
priori method' of the two first. As tor the third, while making much of his
doctrine, he criticises -him for having said that the order of decreasing
generality is that in which the sciences are historically produced.  In fact,
algebra, which is more general than arithmetic, is posterior to it; there is
an increasing generality of arithmetic in the differential calculus. The solution of A. Comte is a half-truth; the progress of science is double; it goes
from the general to the special, and from the special to the gcneral.  Its
serial arrangement of the sciences is a vicious conception; there is a COtSenUSts
between them, which Comte has been wrong in not acknowledging.  Each
discovery of a science influences the others. Mr. Spencer has developed
these ideas in his CZassfircalion of the Sciences, a special work; and MI. Littrd
has discussed at length the objections of the English philosopher in his work
on Alt uSCute Contle and Z'osiliz'ism.




I44              Enzglisz Psycchology.
That which we have just seen in the perception and classification of objects is produced in the same way in the genesis of
reasoning. To class, is to group together similar things; to
reason is to group together similar relatzons. It is of the essence
of reasoning to perceive a resemblance between cases, and the idea
which is at the bottom of all our processes of reasoning, is the
idea of resemblance. And in the same way as the final progress
of classification consists in forming groups of completely similar
objects, so the perfection of reasoning consists in forming groups
of completely similar cases.
It is now possible for us to understand how the passage from
qualitative to quantitative knowledge takes place. The processus of classification, by a progress proper to itself, tends
towards complete resemblance, or eluahity; when it has attained
that, science has become quantitative.
Whence comes the notion of equalityl From experience.
The things which we call equal (lines, angles, weights, temperatures, sounds, colours) are those' which produce in us sensations
which we cannot distinguish from one another,' the idea of
equality is drawn by abstraction from artificial objects. Afterwards experience separates the idea of equality into two ideas,
equality of thinzgs; eZucality of relations (two equal triangles and
two similar triangles). The first idea is the concrete germ of the
exact science; the second is the abstract germ, and both come
from that resemblance of things and that resemblance of relations
which we have already seen.
At the same time and in the same way distinct ideas of number
are produced. Number, equality, resemblance, these are notions
which are intimately related. Simple enumeration is a registration of experiences repeated in a certain way; in order that they
may be susceptible of enumeration, they must be more or >ess
similar; and in order that absolufely true numerical results should
be obtained, the units must be absoluleZy equal. We apply number on occasion to unequal units, like the animals on a farm, but
every calculation supposes the peyfect equality of the units, and
reaches exact results only in virtue of that hypothesis; the first
ideas of number are those derived from equal or similar magnitudes, especially in inorganic objects; and consequently geo



Mr. Herbert Sjpenccr.                  145
metry and arithmetic have a simultaneous origin. We should
also remark that several nations, who do not seem to have any
relation between them, have adopted ten (the ten fingers) as the
basis of their enumeration, or five (the five fingers of one hand),
or twenty (the fingers and toes), which shows that the fingers
have been the original unit of numeration.
Thus, then, we know the idea of equality as the basis of all
science, but how do we apply it?  How do we pass from  the
vague perception of equality to the exact perception proper to
science? By the juxtaposition of the things compared. Hence
it arises that if we wish to judge of two shades of colour, we place
them side by side; that if we wish to estimate two weights, we
take one in each hand, and compare their pressure, making our
thought pass rapidly from one to the other, and' as of all greatnesses, those of linear extension are those whose equality may be
most easily ascertained, it results that it is to those we should
reduce all others.' It is the property of linear extension that it
alone admits of absolute juxtaposition or coincidence, such as
befalls two mathematical lines, euazlily then becoming identity.'Thus it is that all exact science is reducible by final analysis to
results measured in equal units of linear extension.'
The idea of measure by juxtaposition is suggested to us by experience. We must all have remarked that when two men, two
animals, any two objects, are near one another, the inequality
becomes more visible. This experience, repeated constantly, has
given us our first lessons.
In short, all knowledge, whether scientific or vulgar, presupposes resemblances which may vary from the vaguest analogy to
perfect equality, which alone constitutes quantitative science;
equality being given and verified by an empirical juxtaposition.
The terms foot, thumb, finger, pace, and others of a similar kind
used in the origin of almost all languages, are they not facts which
come to the support of the empirical origin of the idea of measure,
if it be disputed by sceptics'I
We should exceed our limits did we follow Mr. Herbert Spencer
through his picture of the production of the various sciences.
He brings out, by numerous facts, their close relations and their
reciprocal dependence.  In our time, he says, the consensus




146              Englishs Psychology.
between the sciences has become such, that there is no considerable discovery in one order of facts which does not soon
lead to important discoveries in others. And each serves the
others; the observation of a star supposes the employment of
highly-perfected instruments, and the assistance of optics, thermology, hygrometry, barology, electricity, for the registration of
certain minute observations, and even of psychology itself, to
correct the'personal equation.' Such is the complication of
sciences involved in so seemingly simple a thing as fixing the
position of a star.
V.
Here we leave the law of evolution. No doubt the author
will at some future time carry it into questions of morals, whither
it would have been interesting to follow him; for the hypothesis
of progress alone can produce an agreement between those who
maintain against all evidence that morals do not vary, and those
who maintain against all reason that there is nothing in morals
but the mobile and the arbitrary. A short essay on An4thiopomo;pAismn (vol. i. p. 440) shows how the idea of development
can also transform  the study of religions, from  that of the
grossest fetichism to that of monotheism under its purest forms.
But what it behoves us thoroughly to understand is, that the
idea of evolution; whether it explains cosmical and biological
phenomena, or whether it penetrates the world of thought and of
history, never explains first causes. Everything which goes beyond experience escapes it. We shall let the author state his
conclusions on this point himself.' Probably not a few: will conclude that here is an attempted
solution of the great questions with which philosophy in all ages
has perplexed itself. Let none thus deceive themselves. Only
such as know not the scope and the limits of science can fall into
so grave an error. The foregoing -generalizations apply not to
the genesis of things in themselves, but to their genesis as manifested to the human consciousness. After all that has been said,
the ultimate mystery remains just as it was. The explanation of
that which is explicable does but bring out into greater clearness
the inexDlicableness of that which remains behind.  However we




ifr. Herbert Sf1eicer.               I47
may succeed in reducing the equation to its lowest terms, we are
not thereby enabled to determine the unknown quantity; on tlle
contrary, it only becomes more manifest that the unknown quantity can never be found.'Little as it seems to do so, fearless inquiry tends continually
to give a firmer basis to all true religion. The timid sectarian,
alarmed at the progress of knowledge, obliged to abandon one by
one the superstitions of his ancestors, and daily finding his cherished beliefs more and more shaken, secretly fears that all things
may some day be explained, and has a corresponding dread of
science: thus evincing the profoundest of all infidelity-the fear
lest the truth be bad. On the other hand, the sincere man of
science, content to follow wherever the evidence leads him,
becomes by each new inquiry more profoundly convinced that
the universe is an insoluble problem. Alike in the external and
the internal worlds, he sees himself in the midst of perpetual
changes, of which he can discover neither the beginning nor ihe
end. If, tracing back the evolution of things, he allows himself
to entertain the hypothesis that all matter once existed in a dif —
fused form, he finds it utterly impossible to conceive hgw this
came to be so, and equally, if he speculates on the future, he can
assign no limit to the grand- succession of phenomena ever unfolding themselves before him. On the other hand, if he looks
inward, he perceives that both terminations of the thread of consciousness are beyond his grasp; he cannot remember when or
how consciousness commenced, and he cannot examine the consciousness that at any moment exists, for only a state of consciousness that is already past can become the object of thought,
and never one which is passing. When, again, he turns from the
succession of phenomena, external or internal, to their essential
nature, he is equally at fault. Though he may succeed in resolving all properties of objects into manifestations of force, he is not
thereby enabled to realize what force is, but finds, on the contrary, that the more he thinks about it the more he is baffled.
Similarly, though analysis of mental actions may finally bring him
down to sensations as the original materials out of which all
thought is woven, he is none the forwarder; for he cannot in the
least comprehend sensation-cannot even conceive how sensation




148               ELzglish Psychology.
is possible.  Inward and outward things he thus discovers to be
alike inscrutable in their ultimate genesis and nature. HIe sees
that the materialist and spiritualist controversy is a mere war of
words; the disputants being equally absurd-each believing he
understands that which it is impossible for any man to understand.  In all directions his investigations eventually bring him
face to face with the unknowable, and he ever more clearly perceives it to be the unknowable. He learns at once the greatness
and the littleness of human intellect-its power in dealing with
all that comes within the range of experience; its impotence in
dealing with all that transcends experience. He feels, with a
vividness which no others can, the utter incomprehensibleness of
the simplest fact, considered in itself. He alone truly sees that
absolute knowledge is impossible.  He alone knows that under
all things lies an impenetrable mystery.' 1
CHAPTER II.
PSYCHOLOGY.
Psychoogy. —I. The principles of psychology-2. Continuity and correspondence. Progress of correspondences, their co-ordination and integration-3. The law of intelligence-4. Unity of composition of psychological phenomena. Consciousness reduced to a double processus of
assimilation and dissimilation-5. Summary-6. Is Mr. Herbert Spencer
a Positivist?
THE law of evolution is about to appear to us under a new
aspect.  The Princzcijpes of Psychology, the study of which we are
approaching, have for their object the establishment, by a double
process of analysis and of synthesis, the unity of composition of the
phenomena of mind, and the continuity of their development.
As the word'principles' indicates, there is no question here of
a simple description of the facts of consciousness, of a complete
x Spencer's Essays, p. 58, 2d edition, 2 vols., IS68.




MJr. HGcrert SpenZcer.                 149
enumeration of phenomena, of a review in which nothing shall be
omitted; this would be to set up a psychological repertory, in
which every fact should be described, almost as melodies are
described in pathological and plants in botanical treatises. Such
a task would be of great utility, but Mr. Herbert Spencer has not
proposed to fulfil it. His enterprise is more philosophical and
more systematic. He does not pretend to exhaust his subject,
whether it be biology, psychology, sociology, or morals; he aims
only at the establishment of przinczles, accompanying them with
sufficient elucidation and example to render their relations and
their results comprehensible.
The first result of the law of continuity is that there is noprecise line of demarcation between physiological and psychological
facts, and that every absozlte distinction is illusory.  Sensations,
sentiments, instincts, intelligence, all constitute a world apart;
but which comes out of the animal world, in which it is rooted,
of which it is, as it were, the efflorescence. Between the most
humble function and the most lofty thought there is no opposition
of nature, but there is difference in degree, each being only one
of the innumerable manifestations of life.' The life of the body
and mental life are species, of which life, properly so called, is
the genus' (Prihzcijles of Psychology).  While ordinary psychology,
founded exclusively upon interior observation and the employment of the subjective method, restricts itself to the study of man,
without any. care for the inferior forms of intellectual life, experimental psychology aspires to describe and to classify the various
modes of sensation and of thought, to follow their slow and continuous evolution, from the infusoria to the civilized white man.
It is, then, not only a static but a dynamic study; it not only
establishes facts, it studies their genesis, their development, their
transformations. This is not all; while vulgar psychology separates the thinking being from its mechanism, thus reducing itself
to abstraction, experimental psychology never separates these
two terms. Between the external and the internal world there is
a constant and necessary correspondence.  It is only by the
action of the without on the within, and by the reaction of the
within on the without, that mental life is possible.  It is in the




150             English Psyczoloy.
material world that we must seek the ultimate reason of the
nature of our thoughts, of the order of their succession. Where
is the source of our ideas of simultaneousness and of succession
if not in external co-existences and sequences? What should be
the cause of the mode by which our ideas are linked togetlher if
not anterior experience? - By and bye all this will be made clear.
The work which now occupies us comprehends an analytical
and a synthetical study.
The synthetical study sets out with purely physiological life,
and shows how intellectual life, which is not to be distinguished
from it at first, begins its slow evolution, and constitutes itself
little by little by successive additions; how mental activity,
which at first reproduced only the simplest, most elementary modifications of the external world, arrives at explaining the most
varied and complex relations with completeness.
The aim of the analytical study, which might also be called
subjective as contrasted with the preceding, which is rather objective, is to reduce every kind of knowledge to its ultimate
elements. It examines the most complicated reasonings, and, by
successive decompositions, resolving that which is more into that
which is less complex, getting down to that which is simple,
primitive, irreducible, it finally reaches the constitutive principles
and the indispensable conditions of all thought.
Before we enter upon this double study, it will be well' to state
briefly how the author understands psychology and its object.
The object of psychology is'not the connexion between
internal phenomena, nor the connexion  between  external
phenomena, but the connexion between these two connexions.'
A psychological proposition is necessarily composed of two
propositions, one of which concerns the subject and the other
the object: consequently it implies four terms. Let us suppose
that A and B are an internal connexion —the flavour and the
colour of a fruit. So long as we only occupy ourselves with this
connexion we are dealing with physics. But suppose.that a and
b are the sensations produced in the organism by, these two external conditions. So long as we study the action of A upon the
optic centres, and of B upon the organs of taste, we are dealing




liMir. Herber1t Sjencer.:             15
with physiology. We pass into the domain of psychology from
the moment at which we examine how there can exist in the
organism a relation between a and b which corresponds in one
way or another to the relation between A and B.  Psychology
occupies itself solely with the connexion between a b and A B,
in its nature, its origin, and its signification.
Thus phenomena constitute the object of psychology, and
especially the relations between phenomena. As for'the substance of the mind,' considered independently of its modes, we
can know nothing about it; for such knowledge is altogether out
of the reach of human intelligence. But although the sensations
and: emotions, real or ideal, which form consciousness, seem to
be simple, homogeneous, not to be analysed, they are not so.
In endeavouring to analyse them we can attempt. a genesis of
mind, considered under its phenomenal form. This is one of the
most curious and original portions of the work of Mr. Herbert
Spencer.
The elements of which mind is composed are of two sortsfeelings, and the relations between feelings.. Each of these feelings, which seems simple to consciousness, decomposes itself into
elements still more simple, into simple nervous shocks, and it is
from the integration of those nervous shocks that sensation, properly so called, results.
Let us take as an illustration the seemingly simple sensation
which we call, musical sound. We know that if the vibrations do
not exceed sixteen in a second, each may be considered as a
distinct noise; but if they become more rapid, the noises,
instead of being each known as a distinct state of consciousness,
melt into an unique and continuous' state of consciousness, which
is the musical sound. If the rapidity of the vibrations increases,
the quality of the sound varies, it becomes sharper; and if the
rapidity continues to increase, it attains such a degree of acuteness that soon it is no longer appreciable as a sound. This is.not
all; the researches of Helmholtz have shown that the difference
of tone between instruments (violin, horn, clarionet, flute) is due.to the addition of various harmonies- to the fundamental sound.
These differences of sensation, known as difference of tone, are




15 2               Enzglish Psychology.
then due to the simultaneous integration of other series, having
other degrees of integration with the primitive series.
This analysis may make us understand how illusory is the
apparent simplicity of the phenomenon called sensation, because the same applies to savours, colours, scents, and all the
sensations in general. Sensation is, then, a composite phenomenon.  But what is its primordial elementS  Can it be discovered?
Mr. Herbert Spencer believes that it can.'The last unit of
consciousness is what we may call a nervous shock.'  If weexamine our various feelings we shall see that notwithstanding
their specific differences, there is something in common in
them, and that the nervous shock is at the bottom of them all.
The effect produced upon us by a sudden cracking noise which
has no appreciable duration is a nervous shock.  An electric
discharge which traverses the body, a flash of lightning which
strikes the eyes, are also to be assimilated to a nervous shock.
The state of consciousness thus produced is comparable in
quality to the state of consciousness caused by a blow (abstracting from it the pain which ensues), so that this may be taken
for the primitive and typical form of the nervous shock.  It is
then possible and even probable that something of the same
order as that which we call a nervous shock is the final unit of
consciousness, and that all the differences between our feelings result from different modes of integration of this final unit. We must
remark that there is a perfect agreement between this opinion and
the well-known character of nervous action. Experience shows that
the nervous current is intermittent, that it consists of waves. The
external stimulus does not act continually on the sensitive
centre, but it sends towards it a series of pulses of molecular
motion.  Consequently, in concluding that its subjective effect,
that is to say the feezizg, is composed of a succession of mental
shocks, we simply conclude that there is a resemblance between
the effect and its objective cause.'
This being established, it is easy to understand that the evolution of the mind consists in a progressive integration.  We
1f 2rinc[z~ps of Ps1c/10Logy', 2d edit. p. 60.




Mr. Herbert SJzencer.                  153
cannot follow the author through this very long and delicate
analysis, in which he traces the genesis. We must limit ourselves to a few words.
The result of the first integration, as we have seen, is to
unite together a certain number of nervous shocks, and make a
sensation of them. Each integration of this kind supplies what
we call a simple sensation.  But these sensations themselves
may be mingled together, and produce by their integration a
composite sensation.  Now, similar sensations become integrate
among themselves. Again, a sensation unites itself so as to form
an aggregate with other sensations which limit it in time or
space. Finally, the integrate clusters which result therefrom enter
into the higher integrations of one kind and the other. Let us
remark in support of the preceding, that in the domain of mind
we hardly comprise these series of states of consciousness whose
integration is imperfect, and that, on the contrary, the series
whose integration is pushed the furthest possible are those which
we consider as belonging especially to mind.  For instance,
hunger, thirst, sickness, all the visceral sensations in general,
and even feelings like love and anger, which have but little
cohesion between them, which form badly integrated clusters,
are regarded as occupying only a subordinate place in what we
call mental life.  Mental. acts, on the contrary, are those which
belong to the order of tactile, auditive, visual sensations, which
have much cohesion, and are remarkably integrate.  Our intellectual operations are almost always restricted to the sensations
of hearing (integrate in words) and to visual sensations (integrate in impressions, objects, and their relations).
The nature of mind being thus conceived, it will be elucidated
by comparing it with the nature of matter, and this fact, that
there exists a parallelism  between that which chemists have
established relatively to matter and that which we suppose
here relatively to mind, will aid us to justify our conception.
It is established that a great number of substances which
seem homogeneous and simple, are in reality heterogeneous and
composite, and it is shown by analysis that many which seem
entirely without relation to each other are in truth analogous.
There is a large class of salts formed by sulphuric acid, another




I54              ERnglish Psychology.
large class formed by nitric acid, and another large class formed
by acetic acid, and so on in succession. These classes of acids
are different in many respects, but it has been discovered that
the former have a characteristic common to them with many
others, the possession of oxygen as an active element. Further,
there is reason to suspect that the substantives. called simple are
themselves composite, and that there is finally only one ultimate
form of matter, of which all the other forms are only compositions more and more complex.
So it is with regard to mind. We can conceive that these
innumerable forms of spiritual life, which are given to us at different states of consciousness may be finally composed of simple
units of feeling, and even of units which are at bottom of the
same kind. But these homogeneous units produced by integrations of a different sort produce feelings relatively simple,
then feelings more and more complex and different, and thus
continually.
It must not, however, be supposed that all that has just been
said about mind is in disagreement with the preceding assertion
of the author. We know nothing about mind.  When those
two modes of existence which we call subject and object have
been reduced, each to its ultimate expression, it only remains for
us to endeavour to assimilate those two ultimate expressions to
each other. But the distinction of subject and object in itself
implies the impossibility of any assimilation,'for this distinction
is the consciousness of a difference which surpasses all other
differences.' On this important point we shall let the author
himself speak:-'Here, indeed, we arrive at the barrier which needs to be perpetually pointed out, alike to those who seek materialistic explanations of mental phenomena and to those who are alarmed
lest such explanations may be found.  The last class prove
by their fear almost as much as the first prove by their hope,
that they believe Mind may possibly be interpreted in terms of
Matter; whereas many whom they vituperate as materialists are
profoundly convinced that there is not the remotest possibility of
so interpreting them. For those, who, not deterred by foregone
conclusions, have pushed their analysis to the uttermost, see very




AMr. IHYrerr Sbence:.               I55
clearly that the conception that we form to ourselves of matter is
but the symbol of some form of power absolutely and for ever
unknown to us, and a symbol which we cannot suppose to be
like the reality without involving ourselves in contradictions
(First Prhizc5les, p. I6, etc.) They also see that the representation
of all objective activities in terms of motion is but a representation of them and not a knowledge of them, and that we are
immediately brought to alternative absurdities if we assume the
power manifested to us as motion to be in itself that which we
conceive as motion.' 
When, to these conclusions, that matter and motion, such as
we think them, are only the symbols of unknowable forms of
existence, we join the recently drawn conclusion that mind is
also unknowable, and that the most simple form under which we
can think substance is only a symbol of something which can
never come under thought, then we see that the whole question
reduces itself to knowing whether these symbols may be expressed
in terms as symbols of so-and-so, a question which is hardly worth
decision, since either reply leaves us as entirely ignorant of the
reality as we were before.
Nevertheless it may be well to say, once for all, that if we were
constrained to choose between the alternative of translating
mental into physical phenomena, or physical into mental, the
latter would seem the more acceptable of the two. Mind, such
as it is known to be by him who possesses it, is a circumscribed
aggregate of activities, and the cohesion of these activities one
with the other postulate a something of which they are the
activities. But the same experiences which make him know this
coherent aggregate of mental activities make him simultaneously
know activities which are not included in the aggregate-activities placed outside, which are only known by their effects on
this aggregate, but which, as experience proves, have no cohesion
with the aggregate, though they have cohesion between themselves (First PrinciMZes, pp. 43, 44). As, by their definition, these
external activities cannot be comprised in the aggregate of activities designated under the name mind, they must always remain
1 Spencer's Principls of'sychology, 2d edition, p. I58.




156               Ezog/zlish Psychology.
for him the unknown connotations of their effects on that aggregate, and they cannot be thought except in terms furnished by
that aggregate. Consequently, if he considers his conceptions
on these activities placed outside of mind as constituting knowledge of them, he deceives himself; he does no more than represent these activities to himself in expressions of the mind, and he
cannot do otherwise. He is obliged to admit that his ideas of
matter and motion, pure symbols of unknowable realities, are
complex states of consciousness produced by units of sensation.
But if, after having admitted this, he persists in asking if units of
consciousness are of the same nature as units of force distinguished
as external; or if the units of force distinguished as external are
of the same nature as the units of sensation, then the answer,
always fundamentally the same, must be, that it will advance us
no further to conceive of the units of external force as identical
with the units of sensation, than to conceive of the units of sensation as identical with the units of external force. It is clear
that if the units of external force are regarded as absolutely unknown and unknowable, then, to translate the units of sensation
into them is to translate the known into the unknown, which is.
absurd. And if they are only what they are supposed to be by
those who identify them with thetr symbols, then the difficulty of
translating units of sensation into units of force is insurmountable.
If force, such as it exists objectively is absolutely foreign in its
nature to that which exists subjectively as sensation, then the
transformation of force into sensation is unthinkable; that is to
say, it is impossible to interpret intimate existence by terms of
external existence.  But if, on the other hand, units of force
such as they exist objectively are essentially the same in nature
as those which manifest themselves objectively as units of sensation, then a becoming hypothesis remains open. Each element
of that aggregate of activities which constitutes a consciousness
is known as belonging to the consciousness only by its cohesion
with the rest. Beyond the limits of that coherent aggregate of
activities, there are other activities completely independent of it,
and which cannot enter into it. We can imagine then that by
their exclusion from the circle of those activities which constitute
consciousness, the external activities, although  of the same




AMr. Herbert Spencer.                  I57
intrinsic nature, assume an antithetical aspect. Being separated
from consciousness, and cut off by its boundaries, they become
foreign to it. Not being incorporated with the activities of consciousness, nor united with them, as they are among themselves,
consciousness cannot, so to speak, traverse them, and thus they
are figured as unconscious; they are represented as having the
nature called material, in opposition to that which we call spiritual. Nevertheless, although this shews that it is possible to
imagine that the units of external force are identical in nature
with the units of force known as sensation, we do not, by representing them thus, arrive at understanding external force any
better, because, as it has already been seen, in supposing that all
forms of mind be composed of homogeneous units of sensation
differently aggregated, this resolution into units leaves us as incapable as before of understanding how the substance of mind
can consist of such units; and thus, when we could even really
figure to ourselves all the units of external force as being essentially the same as the units of force known as sensation, so that
they should constitute a universal sensibility, we should still be
for ever as far' off from forming an idea of this universal senisohium.
Consequently, though it seems more easy to translate that
vhich we call matter into that which we call mind, than to translate that which we call mind into that which we call matter (an
operation which is, in fact, completely impossible) nevertheless
our translation cannot lead us further than our symbols. Those
vast conceptions which we see from afar are illusions evoked by
the false connotation of our words. The expression' substance
of mind,' regarded as anything by the x of our equation, leads
us inevitably into error, for we cannot think a substance except
in terms which imply material properties.  All our progress consists in acknowledging that our symbols are only symbols,
and that our constitution necessitates the unknowable such as it
manifests itself within the limits of' consciousness and under the
form  of sensation, no less impenetrable than the unknowable
such as it manifests itself outside these limits and under other
forms.  WVe do not arrive at understanding it better by translating the second into the first.  The conditional form in which




I58               Enzg'lish Psychology.
being is presented in the subject, cannot, any more than the
conditional form in which being is presented in the object, be the
unconditional being common to the two.
II.
Two fundamental ideas rule the psychology of Mr. Herbert
Spencer: that of the continuity of psychological phenomena;
that of the intimate relation between the being and its medium.
These two points virtually contain his doctrine. We have seen
that the idea of progress, evolution, development tends to prevail in modern sciences.  In nature, as in history, nothing is
isolated; everything is linked to something else, and forms a
series; each phenomenon proceeds from those which' precede,
and contains the germr of those which are about to follow it. But
the human mind is so constructed, -that it cannot lay hold of
objects except when they offer themselves to it under defined, discontinued forms, when they present sufficiently marked characteristics. Every science must settle the boundaries of its object;
it is only possible on this condition; but that settlement is fiequently arbitrary, and phenomena do not allow themselves to be
imprisoned within our conventional divisions. Thus mental life
comes out of physiological life, in virtue of this law of continuous
progress slowly step by step, by infinitesimal transformations, and
without our being able to say,-There is its place of birth.' Though we commonly regard mental and bodily life as distinct,
it needs only to ascend somewhat above the ordinary point of
view, to see that they are but sub-divisions of life in general; and
that no line of demarcation can be drawn between them otherwise
than arbitrarily. Doubtless, to those who persist, after the popular
fashion, in contemplating only the extreme forms of the two, this
assertion will appear incredible.... It is- not more certain that,
from the simple reflection by which the infant sucks, up to the
elaborate reasonings of the adult man, the progress is by daily
infinitesimal steps, than it is certain that between the automatic
actions of the lowest creatures, and the highest conscious actions
of the human race, a series of actions displayed by the various
tribes of the animal kingdom may be so placed as to render it




Mr. Hererrt S e5cer.                   I59
impossible to say of any one step in the series, —Here intelligence
begins.' 1
If, from the savant who pursues his researches with the full
consciousness of the processes of reasoning and induction which
he employs, we descend to the man of ordinary education, who
reasons well and intelligently, but without knowing how; if from
him we descend to the villager, whose highest generalizations do
not go beyond local facts; if from thence we go to the inferior
human races, whom we cannot regard as thinking creatures, whose
numerical conceptions hardly go beyond those of the dog; if we
put aside the most elevated in the race of quadrumanes whose
actions are as reasonable as those of a little schoolboy, if from
them we reach the domestic animals, and thence pass on from
the more to the less sagacious quadrupeds; that is to say, those
which cannot modify their actions according to circumstances,
but are guided by an immutable instinct; then, if we remark
that instinct, which at first consisted of a complicated combination of motions produced by a complicated combination of
stimulus, takes lower forms in which stimulus and motions become less and less complex; if from thence we come to reflex
action, and'if we descend from the animals in whom this action
implies the irritation of a nerve and the contraction of a muscle,
to the animals unprovided with a nervous and muscular system,
and that we discover that in them too, it is the same tissue which
manifests irritation and contractibility, which tissue likewise fulfils
the functions of assimilation,' secretion, respiration, and reproductionl; and if, finally, we remark that each of the phases of intelligences enumerated here is founded upon the neighbouring one
by modifications too numerous to be specifically distinguished,
and too imperceptible to be described, we shall have to some
extent shown the reality of this fact, that no precise separation
can be effected between the phenomena of intelligence and those
of life- in general." 2
The other basis of the doctrine is the necessary correlation
of being and its medium, which the author expresses by saying
that life is a corresponzdenzce,-' a continuous adjustment of internal
1 Spencer, Ptrici/5ecs of Psychzology, p. 349.   2 General Synt.esis, chap. ii.




I6o 0               glish Psycool{ogy.
to external relations.' The living being, whatever he may be,
tree, infusoria, or man, cannot subsist if there be not harmony
between his organism and his medium; and, if to physical life be
added psychical life, the adjustment becomes more complex. In
order that the game may escape the falcon, there must be inside
of it certain modifications which correspond to the modifications
outside of it, there must be correspondence between its flight and
the pursuit of its enemy. And so, when Newton conceives the
system of the world, it is necessary that the nature and the
sequence of his ideas should correspond with the nature and the
concatenation of the real phenomena; that which is-:within him
must be adjusted to that which is without him. Life is then
truly a correspondence, under both the highest and the lowest
forms. Thus the degree of life varies, like the degree of correspondence. Life is rich or poor according as it reflects the universe, or the simple mechanical modifications of some neighbouring molecule.  From the entozoa, confined in a tissue, to the
thought of Shakespeare or of Newton, which reproduces the concrete or abstract reality of the world, there is room for every
possible degree of correspondence; but parallelism always exists
between the being and its medium. The author retraces for us the
various stages of this progress, which is nothing else than the history
of the passage from physical to psychical life. We see the latter,
feeble at the commencement, becoming firm and strong by, degrees.
Let:: us follow him step by step in this synthetical exposition.
At the lowest step, the correspondence between the living
being and its medium is direct and /zomoogeneous. As the highest
life is to be found in the most complicated medium, so the lowest
is only to be found in the simplest. Such are the germ of yeast,
the mushroom called /irotococcus novilis, the parasite cellule which
causes smallpox, the greogarzza, a monocellular animal which lives
in the intestines of certain insects, is moistened by the nutritive
fluid which it assimilates, which is kept at an almost constantly
equal temperature, and can only continue to exist, as: long as its
special medium exists. Here there are few changes, and they
relate only to a homogeneous medium.
Above this is 7irect but Aeterogeneous correspondence, of which
the zoophyte offers us an example, when its tentacles are extended




Mir. Zeirbert Senccer.               I6 
and touched.  To a relation of co-existence between the properties, tangible and otherwise, presented by the surrounding
medium, there corresponds in the organism a relation of sequence
between certain tactile impressions, and certain contractions.
But correspondence between distant internal and external relations is absent in all these forms of life.
Let us now see how correspondence extends itself in space.
The special senses are constituted and gradually developed by a
continuous progress. Take, for example, sight. In the zoophyte,
where the entire tissue has the property of responding to the
marked changes in the quantity of light which falls upon it, there
is, as it were, a stretch of the visual faculty and of the correspondences which result from it.'The rudimentary eye, consisting, as in the Panar-via, of a few
pigment grains beneath the integument, may be considered as
simply a part of the surface more irritable by light than the rest.
We may form some idea of the impression it is probably fitted to
receive, by turning our closed eyes towards the light, and passing
the hand backwards and forwards before them.' 1
Nevertheless, even this little specialization of function implies
a progress in correspondence. If, from the polyp, which stirs
only when it is touched, we go on and up to the articulated mollusca, to the vertebrates which inhabit the water, and thence to
the more:elevated animals which dwell in a more rarefied medium,
we shall find, under varied forms and modifications, a more complex visual apparatus, and an increasing distance in the extension
of the correspondence.  We cannot in this place follow the
details of this progress which leads to such astonishing results in
the case of civilized man.' A ship guided by compass and stars and chronometer brings
him from the other side of the Atlantic information by which his
purchases here are adapted to the prices there. An examination
of the surface-strata, from which he infers the presence of coal
below, enables him to bring his actions into correspondence with
the co-existences a thousand feet underneath.  Nor is the range
of environment through which his correspondences reach con1 SpenceC's Pric/ls of SP's'chlvZy), p. 4c6.
8




162             EBoigis/A Psychology.
fined to the surface and the substance of the earth.  It stretches
into the surrounding sphere of infinity.  It was extended to the
moon when the Chaldeans discovered how to predict eclipses; to
the sun and nearer planets when the Copernican system was
established; to the remoter planets when an improved telescope
disclosed one and calculation fixed the position of the other; to
the stars when their parallax and proper motion were measured;
and, in a vague way, even to the nebulze when their composition
and forms of structure were ascertained.' 1
To correspondence in space, correspondence iv time adds itself.
The living being at first seizes upon the simplest and shortest
mechanical sequences, then by successive conquests, he adjusts
himself to longer and longer periods; he takes possession of the
future; he foresees future events, like the dog who hides a bone
for the time when he shall be hungry.' This higher order of correspondence in time, which, for the
reasons assigned, is impossible to creatures of inferior type, which
is but vaguely discernible in the higher animals, and which is
definitely exhibited only when we arrive at the human race,
has made marked progress in the course of civilisation. Among
the lowest tribes of men, who are without habitations, and who
wander from place to place as the varying supplies of wild
animals, roots, and insects dictate, a year is the longest period to
which their conduct is adapted. Hardly yet worthy to be defined
as creatures "looking before and after," they show.by their utter
improvidence and their apparent incapacity to realize future consequences, that it is only to the conspicuous and often-recurring
phenomena of the seasons that their actions respond. But in the
succeeding stages of progress, we see, in the building of huts, the
breeding and accumulation of cattle, and the storing of commodities, that longer sequences are recognised and measures
taken to meet them. And gradually, as we advance to higher
social states, men show, by planting trees that will not bear fruit
for a generation, by the elaborate education they give their children, by building houses that will last for centuries, by insuring
their lives, by all those struggles for future wealth or fame, which
x Spencer's Priztcipiles ofPsycologfl, P. 409.




Mr. Zterbeer  Spiencer.               I63
now mainly occupy the educated classes, that in them internal
antecedents and consequences are habitually adjusted to external
ones- that are extremely long in their intervals.  More especially,
however, is this extension of the correspondence in time displayed in the progress of science. Beginning with a recognition
of the sequences of day and night, men next advanced to those
monthly ones exhibited by the moon, next to the sun's annual
cycle; next to the cycle of the moon's eclipses, afterwards to the
periods of the superior planets; while modern astronomy determines the vast interval after which the earth's axis will again
point to the same place in the heavens, and the scarcely conceivable epoch in which planetary perturbations repeat themselves.'
Fresh progress consists in the growlh in sspeciacity of the correspondence. The organism is in a condition to foresee smaller
and smaller differences. In the evolution of the visual faculty,
for instance, a growing aptitude to distinguish the various intensities of colours, intermediate shades, and tints of light and shade
is produced. This progress of correspondence in specialty leads
in the course of human development to the passage from ordinary
knowledge to science, from the quantitative provision which is
vague to the quantitative provision which is precise.
The living being can now seize' no longer differences only,
but resemblances, forming within him groups of interior relations
which respond to the groups of external relations and attributes;
correspondence grows in generality and hi complexity.  The impression which the organism receives from each object becomes
more and more heterogeneous.  The eye not only seizes colour,
size, and form, but distance in space, motion, species, direction,
rapidity.'It suffices to cite an extreme case, such as that afforded by
the mineralogist, who, in identifying a mass of matter as of a kind
fitted for a certain use, examines its crystalline form, its colour,
texture, hardness, cleavage, fracture, degree of transparency,
lustre, specific gravity, taste, smell, fusibility, magnetic and electric properties, etc., and is decided in his conduct by all these
taken together.' 2
1 Spencer's Psychol.c7,o' p. 419.     2 Ibid. p. 447.




I64                English Psychology.
Correspondence between the being and its medium is thus
fully constituted by successive conquests; it remains only to coordinate these different elements. The co-o0rdination of correspondences goes through every possible degree, from that of the
hunted animal which flies to its earth, to that of quantitative
science, which embraces the most precise relations and the most
complex data.
From the co-ordination of correspondences springs their intcg'ration; that is to say, the simplest correspondences melt into
one another and become. intimately united, so that they become
separable only by analysis. Thus, in the case of an adult, a
glance cast upon a visible object awakens simultaneously the idea
of tangible extent, of resistance, of texture, of weight; all these
various elements are associated, integrated, by repetition. It is
thus we learn to understand a foreign language, thus the child,
at first hesitating over the letters and the syllables, comes to
interpret the words and the phrases fluently.
We are, then, led to this necessary conclusion that intelligence
has not distinct degrees, that it is not formed of really independent faculties; but that the most elevated phenomena are the
effects of a complication which has come out of the simplest
elements by insensible degrees.'Evidently, then, the classification current in our philosophies
of the mind can be but superficially true. Instinct, reason, perception, conception, memory, imagination, feeling, will, etc. etc.,
can be nothing more than either conventional groupings of the
correspondences, or subordinate divisions among the various
operations which are instrumental in. effecting the correspondences. However widely contrasted they may seem, these various
forms of intelligence cannot be anything else than either particular
modes in which the adjustment of inner to outer relations is
achieved, or particular parts of the process of adjustment.' 
III.
After having sketched in outline the genesis of psychical life,
after having seen it proceed, little by little, from organic and
Spencer's PsylcholooyJ, p. 486.




HMr;  Herberl Spencer.               i 65
animal life, and constitute an order of facts sufficiently vast to
become the object of a special study, we must now consider this
study itself, and see how the most complex psychological problems come out of the most simple, in virtue of a natural processus. This is the object of special synthesis.
At the point which we have now reached, we may endeavour
to define the characteristics which distinguish physical from
mental life. Let us be on our guard against any misapprehension. This distinction is only approximately possible, and only
a wholesale truth; there is nothing set or absolute about it; the
law of continuity does not admit of exceptions.'The two great classes of vital phenomena which physiology
and psychology respectively embrace are broadly distinguished
in this-that while the one class includes both simultaneous and
successive changes, the other includes successive changes only.
While the phenomena forming the subject-matter of physiology
exhibit themselves in an immense number of different series
bound up together, those forming the subject-matter of psychology exhibit themselves as but a single series. The briefest
consideration of the many continuous actions constituting the
life of the body at large suffices to show that they are synchronous-that digestion, circulation, respiration, excretion,
secretion, etc., in all their many subdivisions, are going on at one
time in mutual dependence. And the briefest introspection
serves to make it clear that the actions constituting thought
occur, not together, but one after another. Should a rigorous
criticism demand qualifications of this statement, they cannot be
such as to diminish its general truth. Life being the definite
combination of heterogeneous changes, both7simultaneous and
successive, in correspondence with external co-existences and
sequences, the two great divisions of life must ever be distinguished as, the one a correspondence that is both simultaneous
and successive, and the other a correspondence that is successive
only.' At first sight this may be supposed to constitute an impassable
distinction between the two. Such, however, is by no means the
fact. Even were the highest psychical life thus absobalely distinguished from physical life, which we shall presently see reason to




i66               E  g~/ish Psychology.
doubt, it would still be true that psychical life, in its earlier and
lower phases, is not thus distinguished; but that the distinction
arises only in the course of that progression by which life in
general attains to its more perfect forms.' 
Thus, then, the two great divisions of life consist-one of a
correspondence both simultaneous and successive, the other of
successive correspondence only. And this is a necessity. For
the most essential characteristic of psychological phenomena is
that of being conscious, and as a state of consciousness necessarily excludes every other, these states must produce themselves
under the form of a simple series. This tendency of the psychical phenomena to form themselves into a successive chain is,
however, true only in theory, and never reaches a complete
realization.'The vital actions which are the object of psychology, though they are distinguished from all the others by their
tendency to take the form of a simple series, never attain this
form in an absolute manner.' At the beginning, the different
manifestations of mental activity are rather simultaneous than
successive, consequently more physical than psychological. Here
are the proofs of this: Among the radiates of the highest order
each of the similar parts which form the body is bound to a
ganglionic centre, which seems to serve only for the functions of
that part which belongs to it, consequently the psychical changes
which are produced in the animal localize themselves simultaneously in the different portions of its body. Among mollusca,
the actions of the various ganglions are very imperfectly co-ordinated.  Finally, the articulates have a structure which fits them
to demonstrate this dispersion of psychical life. If the head of
a centipede be cut off while it is in motion, the body will continue to advance by the movement of the feet alone, and the
same thing will take place in the separated portions, if the body
be divided into several distinct sections. Analogous experiments made on the 1Afantis -reliiosa have often been quoted
(See Duges, Phsiol. Conop. vol. i. p. 337).
Little by little the simultaneous form decreases before the successive, thus bringing about new progress in the psychical life.
1 Spencger's Psyc/rolog, p. 491.




AMr. Herbert SPeencer.                  6 7
Besides, in order that correspondence between the being and its
nmedium should be possible, it is necessary that in proportion as
the organism is exposed to more numerous impressions, these
impressions should become co-ordinate, should be centralized, and
constantly tend to unity.  The serial form is thus the special
characteristic of intelligence.'A continuous series of changes
being thus the subject of psychology, its work is to determine
the law of their succession. That these changes are not produced by chance is manifest. That they follow one another in
a special manner, the very existence of intelligence testifies.
The problem consists, then, in determining their order,' that is
to say, in determining the laz of itzel/zience.
Intelligence, like life, consists in a correspondence.  There
must be a parallelism between the thinking being and the coexistences or external sequences  which his thought reflects.
But these co-existences and sequences have all kihids-of-relations
between them. There are some which are assisted by fixed
immutable relations, known without exception; there are some
so slightly linked that they have been perhaps only once given
by experience as associated. Between these two kinds of relations, the one intimate, the other fortuitous, there are all possible
degrees of cohesion. In order that the correspondence may be
realized, the intelligence must also reproduce all these degrees.
To fortuitous sequences and co-existences, or those which are
simply possible, a very weak attraction between the internal
conditions which represent them will answer, and so on. In a
word, the law of intelligence may be formulated as follows:-'The law of intelligence, therefore, is that the strength of the
tendency which the antecedent of any psychical change has to
be followed by its consequent, is proportionate to the persistency of the union between the external things they symbolize.'To say, however, that this is the law of intelligence, is by no
means to say that it is conformed to by any intelligence with
which we are acquainted. It is the law of intelligence in the
abstract; and is conformed to by existing intelligences in degrees
more or less imperfect.' 1
1 Spencer's Psychology, p. 50I.




i68                 Enzglish Psychology.
Intelligence, considered at its foundation, reduces itself then to
the association of its ideas, which is, so to speak, its' fundamental
property.  On this point, Mr. Herbert Spencer agrees with Mr.
John Stuart Mill and Mr. Alexander Bain.
After having defined the law of intelligence, let us now examine.
the successive phases of its development. In its lowest degree
it is reftex action, it then becomes instizct; from which proceed,
on one side, the cognitive manifestations, memory and reason,
and on the other the affective powers, sentiment and will.
Reflex action is hardly a mode of psychical life. It has however its importance, from  the point of view which occupies us,
in that it forms the transition from purely physical life to instinct.
In employing the word instinct, not as it is commonly used, to
designate all kinds of intelligence other than that of man, but in
restricting it to its proper signification, instinct may be defined as
a conoosite refex action.  Strictly speaking, we cannot draw any
line of demarcation between it and the simple reflex action, from
which it issues by successive complications.  While, in simple
reflex action a single impression is followed by a single contraction; while, in all the more developed forms of reflex action,
one single impression is followed by a combination of contractions; in that which we distinguish by the name of instinct, a
combination of impressions produces a combination of contractions; and in the highest form, in the most complex instinct,
there are co-ordinations which tend at once to direct and to
execute. The transformation of simple reflex action into composite reflex action, that is to say, into instinct, is explained by
the accumulation of experiences, and hereditary transmission.l
But instinct, in proportion as it grows in complexity, approaches
its end; for, as the instincts become more elevated, the various
psychical changes which compose them become less coherent, coordinate themselves less and less perfectly, and the time comes
when their co-ordination will no longer be regular.  Then these
actions begin to lose the automatic character which distinguishes
1 The author devotes a long and interesting chapter, which, however, is not
susceptible of analysis, to Instinct. We therefore refer the reader to it.
P'art iv. ch. 5.




Mr. Herberl Spencer.                  1659
tilem, and that which we call instinct will gradually become lost
in something higher.
Thence results memory. These two modes of intelligence
are transformed one into the other. As instinct may be considered a kind of organized memory, so memory may be regarded as a dawning-instinct. Let us see how memory becomes
instinct. To remember the colour red is to be to a slight degree
in the psychical state which is produced by the presentation of the
colour red. To remember a movement made with the arm is to
feel, in a slight degree, the repetition of those internal conditions
which accompany the movement; it is a commencement of the
excitement of all the nerves whose stronger excitement has been
experienced during the movement. Recollection is then a commencement of nervous excitement. It consists in feeling, to a
slight degree, a movement, a sensation, an impression. But
when instinct becomes too complex to produce itself with the
automatic certainty proper to it, there results a conflict between
all the movements. Those which do not succeed in realizing
themselves remain in the condition Of simple tendencies, that is
to say, of movements simply conceived; those internal impressions arouse others; and thus that succession of regular, or
irregular, ideas which we call memory is formed.
Let us now see how memory becomes instinct again, that is to
say, how it returns to its point of departure. Examples of this
are easily found. The pianist who plays instinctively, and with
automatic precision, certain pieces of music which he has learned,
is a ready case in point.
It is clearly implied by all the preceding that the line of denmarcation generally traced out between instinct and reason does
not exist. Each is an adjustment of internal to external relations,
with this single difference, that in the case: of instinct the correspondence is very simple and very general, while, without reason,
the correspondence is between internal and external relations
which are complex, or abstract, or rare. The experimental hypothesis also suffices to explain the progress from the lowest to the
highest forms of reason. From that reasoning, from the particular to the particular, which is the reasoning of children, of
domestic animals, and, in general, of the superior mammifers,




170               E2nglish Psychology.
to inductive or deductive reasoning, progress is determined by
the accumulation of experiences. And the case is the same as
regards the progress of all human knowledge, even to its widest
generalizations.
Every one is acquainted with the famous disputes which have
arisen concerning the nature of reason, and how idealism and
empiricism have fought over the question from the days of antiquity to our own. Mr. Herbert Spencer is neither for Locke,
nor for the contrary doctrine of'forms of thought.''To rest with the unqualified assertion, that, antecedent to
experience, the mind is a blank, is to ignore the all-essential
questions-whence comes the power of organizing experiences?
whence arise the different degrees of that power possessed by
different races of organisms and different individuals of the same
race? If, at birth, there exists nothing but a passive receptivity
of impressions, why should not a horse be as educable as a man 
or, should it be said that language makes the difference, then
why should not the cat and dog, out of the same household experiences, arrive at equal degrees and kinds of intelligence?
Understood in its current form, the experience-hypothesis implies
that the presence of a definitely organized nervous system is a
circumstance of no moment-a fact not needing to be taken into
account. Yet it is the all-important fact-the fact to which, in
one sense, the criticism of Leibnitz and others pointed-the fact
without which art assimilation of experiences is utterly inexplicable.' 1
On the other hand, if the doctrine offorms of tIozlght is unacceptable in the transcendental sense of Leibnitz and of Kant, it
contains a foundation of truth, and only needs to undergo a
physiological transformation.  That innateness on which so much
stress has been laid is explained by inheritance.  In the sense
then that certain pre-established relations corresponding to relations in the surrounding medium exist in the nervous system,
there is truth in the doctrine of forms of thought, not the truth
maintained by its supporters, but a truth of a parallel order.
These pre-established internal relations, although independent of
1 Spencer's'sy0cholog7,, p. 58o.




1'Ir. Iter3ert  Shpencer.              I 7 1
the experience of the individual, are not independent of general
experience; they have been established by the accumulated experience ofpreceding organisms. They are legacies, both capital
and interest. And thus the European arrives at having some
cubic inches more brain than the Papuan; that savages, incapable
of counting beyond the number of their fingers, and speaking a
formless language, have, in the course of ages, Newtons and Shakespeares for their descendants.
The intimate relation between sentiment and reason has long
been established; every emotion implying knowledge, and all
knowledge some sort of emotion. The evolution of the sentiments also consists in a development of correspondences, and
their progress is made by additions and by increase of complexity. The lowest degree is desire, then some simple impulsions corresponding to only slightly complex impressions; then
the simple sentiments form groups; then the groups aggregate
themselves. Place a child in the midst of great mountains, he
remains insensible to the sublime spectacle, but he will look at
a toy with pleasure. If he is older he may experience an agreeable emotion while looking at a field, a street, his house, his
garden. But in youth, and in mature age:-'The various minor groups of states that have been in
earlier days severally produced by trees, by fields, by streams,
by cascades, by rocks, by precipices, by mountains, by clouds,
are aroused together. Along with the sensations, immediately
received, there are partially excited the myriads of sensations
that have been in times past received from objects such as
there presented; further, there are partially excited the various incidental feelings that were experienced on all these countless
past occasions, and there are probably also excited certain
deeper, but now vague combinations of states that were organized in the race during barbarous times, when its pleasurable
activities were chiefly among the woods and waters. And out of
these excitations, some of them  actual, but most of them nascent, is composed the emotion which a fine landscape produces
in us.' 1
Spencer's PsychologY, p. 599.




I7 2              E]ngzish Psychology.
Hence, we must conclude that the emotions will be strong in
proportion as they shall include a greater number of actual or
dawning sensations. And this it is which explains the irresistible
character of love.' As supplying a marked illustration of this truth, I may cite
the passion which unites the sexes. This is habitually, but very
erroneously spoken of as though it were a simple feeling, whereas
it is in fact the most compound, and therefore the most powerful,
of all the feelings. Added to the purely physical element of it,
are first to be noticed those highly complex impressions produced by personal beauty; around which are aggregated a
variety of pleasurable ideas, not in themselves amatory, but
which have an organized relation to the amatory feeling. With
this there is united the complex sentiment which we term affection-a sentiment which, as it can exist between those of the
same sex, must be regarded as in itself an independent sentiment; but which assumes its highest activity between -lovers.
Then there is the sentiment of admiration, respect, or reverence,
in itself one of considerable power, and which in this relation
becomes in a high degree active.  Next there. must be added
the feeling which phrenologists have named love of approbation.
To be preferred above all the world, and that by one admired
beyond all others, is to have the love of approbation gratified in
a degree passing every previous experience; especially as to
this direct gratification of it there must be added that reflex
gratification of it which results from  the preference being
witnessed by unconcerned persons. Further there is the allied
emotion of self-esteem.  To have succeeded in gaining such
attachment from, and sway over, another, is a practical proof of
power, of superiority, which cannot fail agreeably to excite the
amourjprofpe. Yet again the proprietary feeling has its share in
the general activity, there is the pleasure of possession; the two
belong to each other-claim each as a species of property. Once
more, there is involved an extended liberty of action. Towards
other persons a restrained behaviour is requisite: round each
there is a certain subtle boundary which may not be crossedan individuality on which none may trespass. But in this case
the barriers are thrown down; the freedom  of another's in



Air. fier-berl Scncer.                173
dividuality is conceded, and thus the love of unrestrained
activity is gratified.  Finally, there is an exaltation of the sympathies, purely personal pleasures are doubled by being shared
with another, and the pleasures of another are added to the
purely personal pleasures.  Thus, round the physical feeling
forming the nucleus of the whole, there are gathered the feelings
produced by personal beauty, that constituting simple attachment, those of reverence, of love of approbation, of self-esteem,
of property, of love of freedom, of sympathy. All these, each
excited in the highest degree, and severally tending to reflect
their excitement on each other, form the composite psychical
state we call love. And as each of these feelings is in itself
highly complicated, uniting a wide range of states of consciousness, we may say that this passion fuses into one immense
aggregation nearly all the elementary excitations of which we
are capable; and that from this results its irresistible power.' 1
Those who have followed the synthesis so far will clearly perceive that the will cannot be anything but another aspect of the
same general processus, from which sentiment and reason have
come forth:-'When, as a result of the organization of accumulating experiences, the automatic actions become so involved, so varied
in kind, and severally so infrequent, as no longer to be performed with unhesitating precision-when, after the reception of
one of the more complex impressions, the appropriate motor
changes become nascent, but all prevented from passing into
immediate action by the antagonism  of certain other nascent
motor changes appropriate to some nearly allied impression,
there is constituted a state of consciousness which, when it
finally issues in action, exhibits what we term volition.' 2
The phenomena of affective life are then the source of voluntary development, and the root of our volitions is in desire. At
the point which we have reached, says the author, it is very
easy to see that the work is in complete disagreement with
current opinions upon free will. But, whence does the general
illusion proceed l
1 Spencer's IPs'chologJ, p1. -Os.    2 Ibid. 1p. 613.




174               Enzglish Psychology.' Considered as an internal perception, the illusion appears
chiefly to consist in supposing that at each moment the ego is
something more than the composite state of consciousness which
then exists. A man who, after being subject to an impulse consisting of a group of psychical states positive and nascent, performs a certain action, usually asserts that he determined to
perform the action, and performed it under the influence of this
impulse: and by speaking of himself as being something separate
from the group of psychical states constituting the impulse, he
falls into the error of supposing that it was not the impulse
alone which determined the action. But the entire group of
the psychical states which constituted the antecedent of the
action, also constituted himself at that moment-constituted his
psychical self, that is, as distinguished from his physical self.' 1
In other words, we say that an action is free, because we consider it as our work, as proceeding from our ego. But the ego,
anterior to the resolution, is not and cannot be anything but the
sum of our actual psychical conditions, which are determined by
experience:-'Thus it is natural enough that the subject of such psychical
changes should say that he wills the  action; seeing  that,
psychically considered, he is at that moment nothing more
than the composite state of consciousness by which the action
is excited. But to say that the performance of the action is,
therefore, the result of his free-will, is to say that he determines the cohesions of psychical states by which the action is
aroused; and as these psychical states constitute himself at
that moment, this is to say that these psychical states determine
their own cohesions, which is absurd.' i
This cohesion results fiom character and inheritance.
IV.
If we now pass from the synthetical to the analytical study of
the phenomena of consciousness, we are led to the same results.
The analysis verifies the synthesis, and the conclusion which it
necessitates as certain, or at least suggests as very probable, is
again that of the law of continuous progress, the doctrine of
1 Spencer's Psychology, p. 6. 7.   2 Ibid. p. 6IS.




Mir. Herbert j5lcSr.                  I 75
evolution. That it may only be an hypothesis the author grants.
He claims only one concession in its favour, which is, that of all
theories it is the most simple, the most natural, and that which
is supported by the greatest number of positive facts.
The fundamental idea which governs Mr. Herbert Spencer's
analytical psychology is that there exists between all the phenomena of intelligence an unity of comfposition.  There is identity of
nature between the process followed by the savant, in his most
lengthened and, complicated reasonings, and that by which a
dawning consciousness essays thought.  Both consist in seizing
upon resemblances and differences, only that the savant perceives
them by hundreds and thousands, where the child or the animal
sees only a few. There is only a difference of degree. The
entire task of analytical psychology is to prove this truth, or to
speak more precisely, to discover it, for it is a voyage of discovery.
Its ultimate result is, that intellectual life consists of two fundamental processes, one which verifies, the other which differentiates; one which seizes upon analogies, equalities, identities,
the other which attaches itself to oppositions and contrasts; one
which assimilates impressions, the other which disassimizales
them; one which consists in an integration, the other in a disinteg ration.
Let us see how the author reaches this result-bow he establishes this unity in the composition of intellectual phenomenaand how this double processus, by its incessant working, and its
immeasurable complications, constitutes our mental life.
We must, in the first place, keep in mind that we are about to
follow a system totally opposed to that of synthesis:-' An analysis, conducted in a truly systematic manner, must
commence with the most complex phenomena of the series to be
analysed; must seek to resolve these into the phenomena that
stand next in order of complexity; must proceed after like fashion
with the less complex phenomena thus disclosed; and so, by
successive decompositions, must descend step by step to the
simpler and more general phenomena, reaching at last the
simplest and most general.' 1
1 Spencer's PsycoZlogj,, p. 7r.




176                English Psychology.
We are going to take this edifice of human intelligence to
pieces, beginning from the top, pulling down each successive
storey, until we reach the foundations, and the immutable earth
which supports them. We are going from the adult tree to the
germ whose fruit it is. In our retrogression we descend from
our intellectual phenomenon to that which is its immediate condition and support. Let us sketch the various phases of this
decomposition.
The most complex intellectual action, says Mr. Herbert
Spencer, is conmposie guantitative reasoning.  It is so for several
reasons; first, because the knowledge in this case must be precise,
it does not admit of the almost, or the nearly, and then because
the relations are very numerous. Here is an example of this
mode of reasoning.  An -engineer, after having built an iron
tubular bridge, is commissioned to build another, of double
strength. He knows that it will not suffice to double all the
dimensions, but he arrives at this negative conclusion only by
taking count of a great number of elements, and of defined relations, of several precise laws taught by physics and mechanics.
In algebra and geometry, in all quantitative reasoning whatever,
the intelligence passes through a series of identities. The relations which it perceives, adds, transforms, compares, are homogeneous. More than that, their resemblance is the highest
possible; it is that which is called equality or identity.
Composite quantitative reasoning resolves itself into simjple
qz2litatitve reasoning: the object of the first being' the quantitative relations of quantitative relations;' the second reducing
itself to a direct and immediate intuition of relation of quantity.
But, in simplifying itself, the process remains identical and always consists in the perception of identities.' Ability to perceive quality implies a correlative ability to perceive inequality; neither can exist without the other.  But though
inseparable in origin, the cognitions of equality and inequality,
whether between things or relations, altogether differ in this,
that whilst the one is essentially definite the other is essentially
indefinite.  There is but one equality; but there may be niimberless degrees of inequality.' 1
1 Spencer's 7.ickologj', p. 93.




rfy. Herberl Spet7cer.                  7 7
From this results a new sort of reasoning, which operates upon
inequalities; this is quantitaive rYeasoningg, sing5le and it'lerfect.
That which gives to quantitative reasoning, under all its forms, a
character of incontestable rigour is its applicability, not to relations of every kind, but to a restricted number. Identity of
nature in the objects compared, identity of co-existence in time,
identity of co-extension in space, these are the only notions perfectly defined by us, and consequently the only notions which
permit exact conclusions. If we pass from the comparisons of
sizes to that of intensities-' from co-extension to co-intensity,'precision disappears.  We operate no longer on quantities, but
on qualities; the reasoning has become qualitalive. Its object
is to determine' the co-existence or non-co-existence of things,
attributes, or relations which are identical in nature with certain
other things, attributes, or relations.'
We cannot however trace a strict line of demarcation betweenthe reasoning which has quantity for its object, and that which
applies itself to quality, any more than between the two kinds ot
quantitative reasoning, the Jerfect and the i~ype;fect. All the
difference consists in our passing from  equality to simple resemblance. The compared relations are no longer considered
as equal or unequal, but as like or unlike; and as resemblance is
of all possible degrees, the probability of the conclusions varies in
the same relation. It is to qualificative reasoning that induction,
analogy, and the syllogism belong; on the subject of the latter
it would be difficult to explain how so many logicians have maintained that it represents the process of mind by which we habitually reason, but for the immense influence of authority on
human opinions. The author shows clearly that it is only a
process of verification.
In short, we must add a third mode of reasoning to that which
goes from the general to the particular, and that which goes from
the particular to the general, a mode which Mr. Mill has called
reasoning from the particular to the particular, proper to children
and the higher animals.
The whole study of reason may be defined as a classification
of relations.  But what does the word classification signify? It
signifies the act of grouping together the similar relations, and




178                EzgzEisk Psychology.
the act of separating the similar from  the dissimilar.  To infer a
relation is to think that it is similar or dissimilar in certain other
relations.  All reasoning, then, reduces itself to an assimilation
or a disassimilation.
From reasoning to classifca/ion there is only one step.  The
unity of composition of the two processes is manifest. If it be
true to say that all reasoning is a classification, it is equally true
that all classification supposes reasoning. A simple example is
sufficient.  The image of a yellow spherical fruit is produced
uipon my retina; I class it with others like it, which I have previously seen, under the name of orange.  But this classification
implies something more than the actual sensation, it implies
tangible attributes, an odour, a flavour, an interior structure, which
are only inferred consequently to the visual sensation. And the
proof of this is that the object may be a mere imitation, in which
case touch, taste, and smell rectify my inference, and the object
is no more classed among oranges.
Transition from classification to perception is equally easy;
because there is identity of nature between these two processes,
which, strictly speaking, are inseparable. Every classification
supposes perception, and every perception is a classification. To
perceive a special, defined, concrete object, is to range it in the
same category with those which resemble it; and as this classification is effected spontaneously, and co-ordinates attributes by a
natural process, perception may be called azi o@ganic classyfcation.
To say that a thing is, is to say what is like it,-to what class it
belongs. Here is, then, a double process of assimilation and
differentiation.
The relation which establishes itself between the subject and
the object in the act of perception is of a triple kind.  It takes
three distinct aspects, according to the activity which exists on
the part of the object, on the part of the subject, or on the part of
both:-I. If, while the subject is passive, the object produces
an effect upon him (Ex.: radiation of heat, emission of odour,
propagation of sound), there results in the subject a perception of
what is commonly called a secondary property of the body; but
which may be more correctly called a dynlamic property. 2. If
the subject acts directly upon the object, by seizing it, drawing,




Aitr Herbert   Slencer.               I79
pushing, or subjecting it to some other mechanical process, and
if the object reacts in an equal measure, the subject perceives
those kinds of resistance which have been called second-primaries,
but which I prefer to class under the name of slatico-dynamics.
3. If the subject only is active; if that which occupies consciousness is not an action or a reaction of the object, but something
which has been known by means of these actions and reactions
(such as face, form, position), then the property is of the kind
generally called primary, but which we shall here call Statics.l
The author, in a long and minute analysis, through which we
cannot follow him, descends from the dynamic and statico-dynamic
attributes to the static attributes, which are the fundamental elements of perception.  He shows that the figure is resolvable in
reference to size, size in reference to position, and that all the
relations of positions may be finally reduced to positions of
perceiving subject and perceived object. Briefly, the visual or
tactile perception of each static attribute of the body is resolvable into perceptions of relative positions which are acquired by
movement.
Let us now pass from the perception of real extended objects
to the perception of space, which is their receptacle; and of time,
which is their condition. First of all, let us set aside the hypothesis of Kant, on the transcendental origin of these two notions.
Placed on the ground of facts, the question reduces itself to this:
How can the experience of an occupied extent, that is to say, of
the body, give us the notion of unoccupied extent, that is to say,
of space. How do we come, from the perception of a relation
between resistant positions, to the perception of a relation between
non-resistant positions. It is by a complicated process, although
repetition and habit have rendered it simple. We only know two
relative positions A and B, by the number of intermediate. positions, and this knowledge is due to our sensations. To perceive
between these two points, no longer a concrete extent, but a void
extent simply possible, a space, there must be produced in us, in
a dawning condition, the idea of the different muscular, tactile,
1 Spccial Analysis, chap. x.




So0              Enzglish Psychology.
and visual sensations which have been previously given by experience between A and B.''If the reader, whilst looking at his hand, or any equally close
object, will consider what kind of knowledge he has of the space
lying between it and his eyes, he will perceive that his knowledge of
it is, as it were, exhaustive. He is conscious of the minutest differences of position in it. He has an extremely complete or detailed
perception of it. If now he will direct his eyes to the farther side
of the room, and contemplate an equal portion of that more remote
space, he will find that he has but a comparatively vague cognition of it. He has nothing like so intimate an acquaintance with
its constituent parts. If, again, he will look through the window,
and observe what consciousness he has of a space that is a hundred yards away, he will discover it to be a still less specific consciousness. And, on gazing at the distant horizon, he will perceive
that he has scarcely any perception of that far-off space-has
rather an indistinct conception, than a distinct perception. This
now is exactly the kind of knowledge that would result from the
organized experiences above described. Of the space that is so
close to us as to be within the range of our hands, we have the
most complete perception, because we have had myriads of
experiences of relative positions within that space. And of space
as it recedes from us we have a less and less complete perception,
because our experiences of the relative positions contained in it
have been fewer and fewer.' 1
The strange feelings which accompany certain abnormal actions of the nervous system  furnish similar evidence.  De
Quincey tells, in his Confessions of anQ Oiumn-Eater, that there
appeared to him buildings and landscapes of proportions so vast.
that the bodily eye is not capable of taking them in. Space
stretched itself out, and became of an infinite inexpressible vastness. It is not at all uncommon to find, among nervous subjects,
persons who have illusory perceptions, in which the body seems
to extend itself enormously, sometimes so as to cover an acre of
ground.  Now the state in which these phenomena are produced
1 Spencer's Psychology, p. 240.




Mr. I  erbert Spencer.               18 I
is one of exaggerated nervous activity, —a state in which De
Quincey describes himself as seeing, in their smallest details, the
long-forgotten facts of his childhood. And, if we consider that
an effect must be produced upon our consciousness of space by
an excitement which resuscitates our forgotten experiences in
great abundance, we shall see that it would cause the illusion of
which he speaks. Evidently, we only recall a portion of the innumerable experiences of surrounding positions which we have
accumulated during our life. They tend, like all other experiences, to disappear from the mind, and the perception of space
would end by becoming indistinct, if they were not refreshed
each day, or replaced by new ones. Let us now imagine that
these innumerable experiences of relative positions are suddenly
revived, that they become present in a distinct manner to consciousness. What must be the result? That space would become known to us in relatively microscopic detail; that a much
greater number of positions would be perceived in it; that, as De
Quincey says, it would become swollen.
The idea of time is inseparable from that of sequence, as the
idea of space is inseparable from that of co-existence. The doctrine that time is only known to us by the succession of our
mental conditions is so ancient and so well established that it is
useless to explain it. Time z'i abst-rato is a relation of position
between states of consciousness. ~ Our notion of a certain period
of time varies according to the number of our states of consciousness. Thus, every one knows that a week passed in travelling,
and which consequently excites much activity of mind, appears to
us retrospectively much longer than. a week passed at home. A
road by which one travels for the first time seems much longer
than when it has become familiar. The phenomena which
accompany certain morbid conditions of the brain furnish analogous examples. In his description of his dreams caused by
opium, De Quincey says that he has seemed to live fifty or one
hundred years in a single night; and again, that he has had
feelings which seemed to him to have lasted a thousand years, or
rather for a lapse of time which exceeded the limits of all human
experience.  Have we not known what it is, during the swoon of
a few minutes, to have dreams which seem to have lasted for a




182               Enzglisk Psych1o/ogy.
considerable time?  All these facts, to which we may add many
others, show us plainly that our notion of a period of time is defined by the series of states of consciousness which we recall.
Analysis finally leads us to fundamental experience.  By
successive decompositions of our knowledge into elements more
and more simple, we must finally arrive' at the most simple,
at the ultimate material element or substratum.  What is this
substratum?  It is the impression of resistance.' It is primordial, alike in the sense that it is an impression of
which the lowest orders of living beings show themselves susceptible, and in the sense that it is the first species of impressions
received by the infant-alike in the sense that it is appreciated
by the nerveless tissue of the zoophyte, and in the sense that it is
presented in a vague manner even to the nascent consciousness
of the unborn child.' It is universal, both as being cognizable (using that word not
in a human, but in a wider sense) by every creature possessing
any sensitiveness, and usually as being cognizable by all parts of
the body of each —both as being common to all sensitive organisms, and in most cases as being common to their entire surfaces.
It is ever present, inasmuch as every creature, or at any rate every
terrestrial creature, is subject to it during the whole of its existence.
Excluding those lowest animals which make no visible response
to external stimuli, and those which float passively suspended in
the water, there are none but what have, at every moment of
their lives, some impressions of resistance, proceeding either from
the surfaces on which they rest, or the reaction of their members
during locomotion, or both. Thus impressions of resistance, as
being the earliest that are appreciated by the sensitive creation
regarded as a progressive whole, and by every higher creature in
the course of its evolutions, and as being appreciated by almost
all parts of the body in the great majority of creatures, are necessarily the first materials put together in the genesis of intelligence,
and as being the impression continuously present in one form or
other throughout life, they necessarily constitute that thread of
consciousness on which all other impressions are strung.' 1
1 Spencer's Psychkology, p. 265.




Air. Herbert Shezcer.                       183
If, after having analysed the various forms of perception, we
now seek for that which is common to all, we are led to conclude
that perception, considered with respect to all that is most general
in it, consists in catching the relations of the senses to each
other, in perceiving a relation or relations between actual or previous states of consciousness, in a word, to perceive is to classify
relations.l
Mr. Herbert Spencer examines in detail the various relations
of cointensity, coexistence, and connature.  He shows that they
all lead back, in final analysis, to the relations of resemblance and
of dzfference. But difference may be called change, and resemblance non-change.  In fact, in order that two objects may be
known as different, there must be two corresponding states in the
consciousness, and consequently a change from the first to the
1 Among the lengthy analyses made by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of different
relations, one of the most remarkable and often quoted, is that which
resolves the relation of co-existence or simultaneousness into a relation of
sequence. It is as follows:-' So that the relation of'co-existence is to be defined as a union of two relations of sequence, such that while the terms of the one are exactly like those
of the other in kind and degree, and exactly the reverse in their order of succession, they are exactly like them in the feeling which accompanies that succession. Or, otherwise, it may be defined as consisting of two changes in
consciousness, which, though absolutely opposite in other respects, are perfectly alike in the absence of strain. And of course the relation of nonco-existence differs in this, that though one of the two changes occurs without
any feeling of tension, the other does not.' It may be worth while to point out, that these conclusions are indicated even
by a Jpriori considerations.  For if, on the one hand, the great mass of outward things are statical, are persistent, are not manifesting any active change,
and if, on the other hand, perpetual change is the law of the inner world-is
the primary condition under which only consciousness can continue,-there
arises the questions,-How can the outer statical phenomena be ever represented
by the inner dynamical phenomena?- How can the no-changes outside even
be symbolized by the changes inside? That changes in the non-ego may l)e
expressed by changes in the ego is comprehensible enough, but how is it possible that objective rest can be signified by subjective motion? Evidently
there is only one possibility, a consciousness ever in a state of change can represent to itself a no-change only by an inversion of one of its changes-by a
duplication of consciousness equivalent to an arrest-by a regress which
undoes a previous progress-by two changes which exactly neutralize each
other.'-Psy/ch/ology, p. 3oS.




184                Eznglish Ps'!c~/zoogy.
second; the perception of similitude, on the contrary, does not
imply any internal change.  Here we reach thenSzal term of the
analysis. The most simple relation which intelligence can perceive, is a relation of sequence or of succession; this is the primordial relation which constitutes the foundation of consciousness, and consequently the condition of all thought is change,
succession, dissimilarity.
A homogeneous or continuous state of consciousness is an
impossibility, a non-consciousness. A being in a state of total
repose, a being who undergoes absolutely no change, is dead,
and a consciousness which has become stationary is a consciousness which has ceased. Nevertheless a succession of changes
does not suffice to constitute consciousness.  This succession
must be reguzlar. Changes form only the raw material of consciousness, it is necessary in addition that they be organized,
that is to say, classed according to resemblances and differences.
In fact, then, the first act of consciousness, the most simple of
all, is the perception of a difference, the second act is the perception of a resemblance. Henceforth, intelligence is constituted. To assimilate and to differentiate, therein is the whole
mechanism of thought; and all its progress consists in accumulating resemblances and differences.  The uznity of conposition
is established and verified by analysis. From the humblest act
of consciousness up to the most complicated reasoning, from the
intuition of a coarse resemblance, which is only a distant analogy, to the intuition of that perfect resemblance which is an
identity, the processus invariably remains the same.
We will let the author himself explain these important results,
and bring together the double psychological processus of the
double processus which constitutes physical life:-'We have seen that the condition on which only consciousness can: begin to exist, is the occurrence of a change of state,
and that this change of state necessarily generates the terms
of a relation of unlikeness.  We have seen that not simply
does consciousness become nascent only by virtue of a changeby the occurrence of a state unlike the previous state; but that
consciousness can continue only so long as changes continueonly so long as relations of unlikeness are being established.




MJr. Herbert Sypencer.               185
Hence, then, consciousness can neither arise nor be maintained
without occurrences of differences in its state. It must be ever
passing from one state into a different state. In other words,
there must be a continuous drffeientiation of its states.'But we have also seen that the states of consciousness successively arising can become elements of thought only by being
known as like certain before-experienced states. If no note be
taken of the different states as they occur-if they pass through
consciousness simply as images pass over a mirror, there can be
no intelligence, however long the process be continued. Intelligence can arise only by the organization, by the arrangement,
by the classification of these states. If they are severally taken
note of, it can only be as more or less like certain previous ones.
They are thinkable only as such or such; that is, as like such
or such before-experienced states. The act of knowing them is
impossible, except by classing them with others of the same
nature-assimilating them to those others. Hence then, in
being known, each state must become one with certain previous
states-must be integrated with those previous states. Each
successive act of knowing must be an act of integrating. That
is to say, there must be a continuous integration of states of consciousness.'These, then, are the two antagonistic processes by which
consciousness subsists-the centrifugal and centripetal actions
by which its balance is maintained. That these may be the
material for thought, consciousness must every moment have its
state differentiated. And for the new state hence resulting to
become a thought, it must be integrated with before-experienced
states. This perpetual alteration is the characteristic of all
consciousness, from the very lowest to the very highest. It is
distinctly typified in that oscillation between two states, constituting the simplest conceivable form of consciousness; and it is
illustrated in the most complex thinkings of the advanced man
of science.'Nor is it only in every passing process of thought that this
law is displayed: it is traceable also in the general progress of
thought.  Those minor differentiations and integrations that
are going on from moment to moment, result in the greater
9




I86                Enzglish Psyc/zology.
differentiations and integrations which constitute mental development.  Every case in which an advancing intelligence distinguishes between objects, or phenomena, or laws, that were
previously confounded together as of like kind, implies a differentiation of states of consciousness. And every case in which
such advancing intelligence recognises, as of the same essential
nature, objects, or phenomena, or laws, that were previously
thought distinct, implies an integration of the states of consciousness.'Under its most general aspect, therefore, all mental action
whatever is definable as the continzuous dZferenziationz and inltetration of s/a/es of consciousness.'The only further fact of importance here needing to be
pointed out is, the harmony which subsists between this final
result and that reached by a kindred science.  The widest truth
disclosed by the inquiries of physiologists is parallel to the one
at which we have just arrived.'As there are two antagonistic processes by which consciousness is maintained, so there are two antagonistic processes by
which bodily life is maintained; and the same two antagonistic
processes are common to both.  By the -action of oxygen every
tissue is being differentiated; and every tissue is integrating the
materials supplied by the blood.'No function can be performed without the differentiation of
the tissue performing it; and no tissue is enabled to perform its
function save by the integration of nutriment. In the balance
of these two actions the organic life consists. By each new
integration, an organ is fitted for being again differentiated:
each new differentiation enables the organs again to integrate.
And as with the psychical.life, so with the physical-the stopping
of either process is the stopping of both.' "
The Physical Synthesis is one of the most original portions of
the work, but, especially on its physiological side, it exceedsthe
limits of our present study.  The theory of evolution is put forth' Spencer's Psychology, p. 332.




Mr. Herbert   encer. Hrer Sp87
there, under its boldest aspect, since it serves to explain the
genesis of even the nervous system, that is to say, of the indispensable condition of all mental life.
Founding his argument upon the principle,'that motion follows the line of the greatest traction, or the line of the least
resistance, or the resultant of the two,' and that' motion, when
once it has begun along a line, itself becomes a cause of subsequent motion throughout that line,' the author explains, in his
Principes of Biology, and again, with much more detail, in his
Princzizes of Psychology,l how a nerve may be produced in an extremely simple primitive organism. And as evolutions always
go from the simple to the complex, from the homogeneous to the
heterogeneous, from the indefinite and the incoherent to the definite and the coherent, systems more or less complicated may have
come out of this primitive genesis. Following this ascending evolution through the entire animal kingdom, Mr. Herbert Spencer
retraces for us successively the genesis of the simple nervous systems, of the compound nervous systems, and the doubly compound
nervous systems, with the variations of functions which are in
relation with these variations of structure. These functions have
a psychological character, at which we ought to pause, in order to
examine how the three essential states of consciousness, per-cp/ion, idea, and emotion, are formed.
Between a perception considered physiologically and a perception considered psychologically there is a manifest relation. Perception, that is to say consciousness of an external object, cannot
result from the excitement of a simple fibre, or of a single cellule;
it requires the excitement of a plexus of fibres and cellules. How
can this excitement of so restricted a number of elements produce the almost infinite variety of the perceptions? An example
will make us understand.
A good piano comprises, taking the demi-notes into account,
between eighty and ninety notes; let us, for the sake of the calculation, say one hundred. If each note be separately struck, the
piano can yield only one hundred different tones. If two be
struck at a time, the different possible combinations rise to 4550,
XBiology, p. 302; Psychology, Part v.




I88              Englzszh Psychzoogy.
if three be struck together, to I,6I7,000; if four, to 3,922,225; if
five, to 75,287,250.  The numbers may then be indefinitely increased. Now, instead of the notes of a piano, let us suppose
sensitive bodies like those which form the retina, instead of
vibrating chords, excited ganglions, and we can easily see how a
limited number of cellules and of fibres become the seat of a relatively unlimited number of perceptions. And yet this is only a
rough comparison, because how can a dead instrument like a
piano resemble a living instrument?
Let us now pass from perceptions to ideas properly so called.
That which characterizes the latter, when they are completely
developed, is their delachableness. But to return to our comparison. A being who should be composed after such a fashion that
he should not be capable of conceiving ideas except when impressions suggest them, would resemble a piano which remains
dumb so long as the musician does not touch it. When are
ideas really born? They are born when compound co-ordination
passes into doubly compound co-ordination. So long as internal
impression remains linked with external impression, it is completely dependent upon it, but when clusters of internal impressions become united among themselves, for example, a group of
visual sensations with a group of tactile sensations, the relation,
the co-ordination established between these psychical conditions
permits them to recall, to excite one another; and thus ideas,
that is to say detachable independent phenomena, are formed.
The process which gives birth to them is then, at bottom, the law
of association.
We have seen what is to be understood by emotions, and how
inheritance plays a great part in their formation. Emotions are
formed in the same way as ideas, and by an analogous co-ordination. Placing ourselves at the point of view proper to Physical
Synthesis, which considers the emotions as a function of the nervous structures, we may say that each plexus has been inherited
under- the form of a series of well-organized connexions, in the
midst of many less defined, and a multitude of slight connexions,
-that is to say, between the plexus, which are such that one is
habitually excited after the other. The subjective results which
ensue are these:-If, for example, a body approaches an animal,




aMr. Herbert Spencer.                    I89
producing sounds and emotions of a certain kind, the consciousness in the animal of this phenomenon is followed by disagreeable sensorial and motor conditions; in short, a complex emotion,
fear, is produced.'
VI.
Such is, in the briefest form, and reduced to essentials, the
psychology of Mr. Herbert Spencer.  Let us endeavour to summarize it.
We may give the title Genesis of Psychological Life to the
whole of the synthetical portion. It appears to us to be the most
original part of the book, because of its strict connexion- and the
novelty of its method.  It is the first truly scientific attempt at a
history of the different phases through which the evolution of
mental life passes.  If we compare it with the attempts of Locke
and Condillac on this subject, the sensualist genesis will seem to
be infantine simplicity.  The author, taking pyschological life
at its lowest degree, leads it up by successive additions to
its fulness; its fundamental characteristics being a correspondence which, in proportion as it completes itself, reproduces subjectively the objective reality of the world. It is successively
direct and homogeneous, direct and heterogeneous; it extends
to space, to time; it grows in speciality, in generality, in complexity; it finally co-ordinates its different elements, and thus
produces an integration, that is to say, a fusion of originally
separate elements. Such are the periods traversed by psychological life in order to constitute itself.  Considered no longer
in its mode of formation but in its manifestations, it is at first
reflex action, then instinct, which is only composite reflex action.
There, properly speaking, conscious life commences, which is
on one side memory and reason, on the other, sentiment and
will.
If therefore we take an adult human soul in the full exercise of
its faculties, that is to say, the most elevated type which we can
know of the psychological life, we resolve it by analysis into its
elements, going from the more to the less compound, from the
1 rp. 245, 247.




go90              English Psychology.
compound to the simple, from the simple to the very simple and
to the irreducible, we traverse a descending progression, thus:
-compound qualitative reasoning, simple qualitative reasoning
qualitative reasoning simple and imperfect, perfect qualitative
reasoning, imperfect qualitative reasoning, reasoning in general.
Reas6ning is classification of relations, perception is classification of attributes. The concrete object of perception submitted
to analysis is, in the first place, stripped of its dynamic attributes,
and afterwards of its statico-dynamic attributes.  The fundamental perception is that of resistance.  Generally considered,
perception is an organic classification of relations, the two simplest
are those of similarity and dissimilarity, and that of succession,
so that the most simple act of consciousness is, first, the perception of a difference, and afterwards the perception of a resemblance.
We shall limit ourselves to observing that it is perhaps to be
regretted that Mr. Herbert Spencer has not included volitions
and emotions in his analysis, and has not shown us how this
branch unites itself to the common truth.  By doing so, he
would have supplied a new verification of his principle of unity
of composition.
VII.
If we bear in mind that we have sketched only a very small
portion of the work of our philosopher, and if we have been
struck, as we ought to be, with the vigour of his thought and the
originality of his method, we shall not be surprised to find it said
by a contemporary:-'It is questionable whether any thinker of finer calibre has
appeared in our country, although the future alone can determine
the position he is to assume in history..... He alone of British
thinkers has organized a system of Philosophy.  Seeing that he
adopts the positive method, is thoroughly imbued with the
positive spirit, and constructs his system solely out of the positive
sciences, one cannot but raise the question, —What is his relation to the Positive Philosophy.' 1
1 Lewes, [Iisloy ofl P'ilosopliy, vol. ii. p. 653 (Spencer).




IMr. lierbert Seiencer.                 19I
In a small work entitled Reasons for Dissentzing from tlhe
PhilosoShay of.l Comtle, Mr. Herbert Spencer has clearly asserted his independence with regard to that school.
A common error, he says, consists in confounding those who
follow the method of the sciences with the positivists, and setting
them down as disciples of Auguste Comte.  The enemies of this
philosopher, as well as his friends, have contributed to keep up
the confusion of the two terms,'savants' and'positivists.' That
Cointe has given a general explanation of the doctrine and the
method of sciences is true.  But it is not true that those who
accept that doctrine and follow that method are disciples of
Comte. As the savant limits himself to studying the facts and
deducing from them their laws as immediate causes, he is'positivist' in a certain sense, and in this sense positivism existed
before Auguste Comte, and will exist so long as human science
shall endure.  But this scientific positivism is not identical with
the positive philosophy.'A thinker who re-organizes the scientific method and knowledge of his age, and whose re-organization is accepted by his
successors, may rightly be said to have such successors for his
disciples. But successors who accept this method and knowledge
of his age, minus his re-organization, are certainly not his disciples.
How then stands the case with M. Comte? There are some few
who receive his doctrines with but little reservation; and these
are bis disciples truly so. called.  There are others who regard
with approval certain of his leading doctrines, but not the rest;
these we may distinguish as partial adherents. There are others
who reject all his distinctive doctrines, and these must be classed
as his antagonists. The members of this class stand substantially
in the same position as they would have done had he not written.
Declining his reorganization of scientific doctrine, they possess
this scientific doctrine in its pre-existing state, as the common
heritage bequeathed by the past to the present; and their adhesion
to this scientific doctrine in no sense implicates them with M.
1 Published in I864, writh reference to an article by IM. Aug. Laugel, upon
the Firsi-s Principles in the Revdue dcs Dezex Mondces, Is5th February i864.
New edition, I869.




I92               English Psychzology.
Comte. In this class stand the great body of men of science,
and in this class I stand myself.' 1
Going still further, Mr. Herbert Spencer declares that the points
on which he agrees with Comte are not proper to that philosopher,
and that on those which are proper to him, he disagrees with
him. I acknowledge, he says, with Auguste Comte, that all
knowledge comes from the senses,-that all knowledge is relative,
— that it is a false explanation which assigns distinct entities as
the cause of phenomena, —that there are in nature invariable
laws. But these doctrines had entered into the domain of philosophy long before him.
As to the dissent of Mr. Herbert Spencer from the doctrines
proper to M. Auguste Comte, they are ascertainable from the following examples:AUGUSTE COMTE.               HERBERT SPENCER.
Each branch of our know-    There are not three radically
ledge passes through three dif-  opposed manners of philosophy,
ferent and successive states,-  but one method, which remains
theological, metaphysical, posi-  in its essence the same.
tive.
The perfection of the positive    The idea of cause will govern
system would be to consider all at the end, as it has done at the
researches into first and final beginning. The idea of cause
causes as absolutely devoid of cannot be abolished, except by
sense, and inaccessible.      the abolition of thought itself.
(First Princ'zIes, p. 26.)
There are six fundamental    There are three categories of
sciences, with an order of filia- sciences: I. Abstract (mathetion between them.            matics, logic).  2. Abstract
concretes (mechanics, physics,
chemistry, etc.).  3. Concrete
(geology, biology, psychology,
etc.).  There is no order ot
filiation between them.
Spencer's Reasons for DisscntliSgfrontm te Fihilosopay of M. Coml0te, p. 30,
3d edition, 1871.




iMr. Herbert Spezcer.                I93
All researches into the origin    The part of biology which
of beings and species is useless. treats of these questions is the
most important of all, the others
are only subsidiary.
All subjective analysis of our    One half of the Pirinciples of
ideas is impossible.          Psychology is devoted to a subjective analysis.
The ideal of governmlent is    The ideal of government
to subordinate the individual to  ought to be a minimum  of gosociety, etc.                 vemment, and a maximumn of
liberty, etc.
Wire refer the reader for further details of this dissent to the
]irst Principles. Perhaps we have already exceeded the limits of
our subject. But the great philosopher of whom we now take
leave is so little known in France that we fear we have been too
brief.




MR. BAIN.
THE Chair of Logic in the University of Aberdeen, a city
celebrated in the history of the sciences and of philosophy, is
occupied by Mr. Bain, who has been placed in the first rank of
English psychologists by his two works, The Senses and the Intel-!igvence, The Emotioans and the Will. 7  The most illustrious representatives of the Scotch school, could they return to the world,
would not disown their successor. There would be grave disagreement on more than one point, but they would have to
acknowledge that he has followed that sure method which led
them to sound discoveries, and that he has continued the tradition of the school, better than the metaphysicians, like Ferrier,
or than the Kantists, like Hamilton. The Scotch philosophy,
which has been by turns too much praised and too much criticised in France, has done real service. The timidity which is its
ruling characteristic explains both its merits and its defects.
Among the merits of the school I place reserve in metaphysics
which has preserved them from a rush into the region of ideas, and
from dangerous constructions. This reserve, which was rather
an instinct than a system, has permitted them to observe patiently.
They have a taste for the small facts, for the curiosities of psychology, for rare cases, for exceptions, without which one cannot get
to the bottom of things; and yet they have not had taste enough.
Among their defects is an excessive anxiety to be always'in
accord with common sense,' a horror of doubt, singular among
philosophers, and which has often led them on to empty and
ridiculous declamation (see Reid on the HIuSnmaln   nderstanldinz g




Mr. BsBain.                    I95
chap. i. sects. 3 and 6). They have not had sufficient ability for
generalization and synthesis; from whence it arises that their
analyses are often made by chance, and that they and their disciples have provided us with an indefinite number of sub-faculties,
without having taken the trouble to simplify and reduce all this
feudal psychology. Still, everything compared, no school has
done more for experimental psychology, in virtue of which principally Mr. Bain belongs to it.
Nevertheless, we should form an erroneous idea of the author,
if we saw in him only one of the Scotch school, in the ordinary
acceptation of the word. The philosophy of Leibnitz has been
defined as'a Cartesianism in progress and movement.' This
formula might be applied to Mr. Bain. His is a Scotch psychology.which goes with the age, that is to say, much modified, and
upon many points. If Reid or Dugald Stewart were, by a miracle,
to revisit Edinburgh, Aberdeen, or Glasgow, and to read the
books which we are now considering, this is what would probably occur:-First, they would be profoundly astonished upon
several points, then profoundly indignant upon others, and Reid
would perhaps even contemplate a rupture. But, instead of a
hurried reading of these books, let us suppose that the two
illustrious resuscitated philosophers had been initiated beforehand
into the progress of the biological sciences, and into the metamorphoses of philosophical thought during the last half-century,
and we should find their language very different. I cannot help
thinking that if Dugald Stewart (born in 1753) had been born
sixty years later, he would have written a psychological treatise
analogous to that of Mr. Bain.
The Scotch school says that the method of the tihysical sciences
ought to be applied to psychology. Mr. Bain says the method
of the natural sciences ought to be applied to it, and in that consists all his superiority.'The object of this treatise is to give a full and systematic
account of two principal divisions of the science of mind,-the
Senses and the Intellect. The remaining two divisions, comprising the Emotions and the Will, will be the object of a future
treatise.




196               Engis h Psychology.'While endeavouring to present in a methodical form all the
important facts and doctrines bearing upon the mind, considered
as a branch of science, I have seen reason to adopt some new
views, and to depart in a few instances from the most usual
arrangement of the topics....'However imperfect may be the first attempt to construct a
natural history of the feelings, upon the basis of a uniform descriptive method, the subject of mind cannot attain a high scientific character until some progress has been made towards the
accomplishment of this object.' X
We must then expect to find the author frequently speaking as
a physiologist. Besides some purely physiological chapters, he
has made it a rule from which he never departs to consider all
the phenomena which he studies under their double physical and
mental aspect. He has thought, rightly, that purely psychological
study is abstract and incomplete; that an agreeable or painful
emotion, for example, is so intimately connected with the corporeal conditions which express it, that analysis which separates
them is arbitrary, and in many respects erroneous.'Mr. Bain,' says Mr. Stuart Mill,'has pushed analytical research into mental phenomena, by the method of the physical
sciences, to the farthest point which it has yet attained, and has
worthily inscribed his name beside those of the successive builders
of an edifice to which Hartley, Brown, and James Mill have contributed their share of toil.'
In an article specially devoted to Mr. Bain's work, after having
shown that it belongs essentially to the associationist school,
which he has helped to popularize, to illustrate, and to reinforce
by new proofs, Mr. Mill adds that he has caused associative
psychology to advance considerably. This progress consists in
bringing the spontaneity of mind into relief.' Mr. Bain's theory, the germ of which is in a passage cited by
him from the eminent physiologist Muller, stands in nearly the same
relation to Hartley's as Laromiguiere's to that of Condillac....
He holds that the brain does not act solely in obedience to im1 Bain's Senses and Intellec,6 ed. I855, Preface.




iMr. Barzu.                     I97
pulses, but is also a self-acting instrument, that the nervous influence,which, being conveyed through the motory nerves, excites the
muscles into action, is generated automatically in the brain itself,
not of course lawlessly and without a cause, but under the organic
stimulus of nutrition, and manifests itself in the general rush of
bodily activity which all healthy animals exhibit after food and
repose, and in the random motions which we see constantly made
without apparent end or purpose by infants, and his doctrine, of
which the accumulated proofs will be found in Mr. Bain's first
volume (pp. 73 to 8o), supplies him with a simple explanation of
the origin of voluntary power.' 1
Thus sensation, memory, association, are passive facts; the
mind is simply their recipient. A theory of association which
stops there seems sufficient to explain our dreams, our reveries,
our fortuitous thoughts, but not all our nature; because the mind
is active as well as passive. This appearance of absolute passiveness in the theory has helped to alienate from it certain minds
who had really studied it.  Among them  Mr. Mill quotes
Coleridge, who was at first attracted by the mechanism of Hartley,
but whom it could not finally satisfy.
Activity cannot come forth from passive elements; a primordial
active element must be found somewhere.  Mr. Bain, who has
found it, is therefore greatly in advance of Hartley's theory. In
France, adds our critic, the progress made from Condillac to
Laromiguiere is frequently cited; the first making sensation, a
passive phenomenon, the basis of his system, the second substituting attention, an active phenomenon.'Those who have studied the writings of the AssociationPsychologists must often have been unfavourably impressed by
the almost total absence, in their analytical expositions, oi the
recognition of any active element, as spontaneity, in the mind
itself.' 2
1 Mill's Dissertations and Discussions, Art.' Bain.'
2 bid. Bailn's Psychology, p. I 9.




I9 8              English,  Psychology.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE SENSES, THE APPETITES, AND THE INSTINCTS.
The Sensations.-I. Muscular sense-2. Sight and Touch —3. Instinct,
germ of Will.
EVERY study of experimental psychology, whose object is the
exact description of facts, and research into their laws, must
henceforth set out with a physiological exposition, that: of the
nervous system. Mr. Bain has done this, and also Mr. Herbert
Spencer (in his latest edition of the Princoles of Psychology).
This is the obligatory point of departure, not resulting from a
passing fashion, but from nature'itself, because the existence of
a nervous system being the condition of psychological life, we
must return to the source, and show how the phenomena of
mental activity graft themselves upon the more general manifestations of physical life.  Mr. Bain describes the brain, the
cerebellum, the marrow, the spinal cord, and the spinal and
cerebral nerves. The nervous force acts upon these different
portions of the body after the manner of a current.'It is nevertheless manifest that the nervous power is generated from the action of the nutriment supplied to the body, and
is therefore of the class of forces having a common'origin, and
capable of being mutually transmitted,-including mechanical
momentum, heat, electricity, magnetism, and chemical decomposition. The power that animates the human frame and keeps
alive the currents of brain, has its origin in the grand primal
source of reviving power, the sun.' 1
If our means of observation and of measurement were perfect, we could see how nourishment is consumed in the human
being, one part being attributed to the animal heat, another
to the action of the viscera, another to the activity' of the
brain, and so on. The nervous force which thus results from
the expenditure of a given quantity of nourishment may be converted into every other form of animal life.
Hence we must conclude, contrary to the received opinion,
1 Bain's Senses and the Inlelect, edit. I855, p. 59.




Mr. Baizn.                     199
that the brain alone does not constitute the sensor-izm, that it is
not the only seat of the mind; but that that seat is wherever
there are:nervous currents, including the brain, the nerves, the
muscles, the organs of the senses, and the viscera.
From this completely physiological beginning we pass on to
the first class of phenomena properly belonging to mind. This
is not, as it might at first be supposed, the study of our various
sensations.   There are more general phenomena, hitherto
neglected by'psychology, which the author describes and examines
with that wealth of details, that abundance of facts, which characterize true experimental study.
These are the phenomena of sponlafZeolus actdiviy, known to us
by mzuscular sense. This sense, whose objects are sensations
attached to the movements of the body, or to the action of
the muscles, must not be confounded with the five ordinary
senses; it is generally admitted that it ought to be studied
separately.
The chapter which the author devotes to this subject affords
a specimen of his learned and scrupulous method. Always in
search of experiences, bent on obtaining completeness, he illustrates by his fine and ingenious remarks a great number of
curious and common facts which metaphysics, looking down
upon them from its height, does not seem to have observed.  I
cannot, however, attempt to analyse his minute analyses.
lWe generally see in our own activity, interpreted by our
movements and our desires, the result of some anterior sensation
or knowledge; but prior to the former, there is a spontaneous
activity coming from ourselves-coming from within, and no'
from without, which acts of itself, and not by reaction against
the exterior world. The facts which best establish the existence,
of this is the tonicity of the muscles, the state of permanent
closing of the sphincter muscles, the morbid activity and excitement which it causes, the extreme mobility of childhood, and of
second childhood, which can only be explained by a surplus of
activity. This spontaneity, to which psychology is apparently
indifferent, nevertheless contains, as we shall see, the germ of
the development of the will.
Muscular sensation, although it very nearly approaches sensa



200              English Psychology.
tion properly so called, differs from it in this, that the one is
associated with an internal stimulus, the other with an external
stimulus.  United to the organic condition of the muscles, it
reveals to us the pains and the pleasures which result from
exercise, the different modes of tension of the organs in movement; and it gives the measure of the effort. We might perhaps especially call it the sense of our movements, and of that
which relates to them.
~ The muscular sensations have a double character, affective
or emotional, and intellectual; each in an inverse ratio to the
other.'
In considering these under their emotional aspect we find
two great classes of movement, whence very different muscular
sensations result.  Slow movements induce sleep; they produce calm after morbid agitation; they inspire gravity and sadness. After a day of exertion and tumult we recover tranquillity
by the sympathetic effect of measured movements, such as music
and the conversation of calm persons. Thence also the slow
pronunciation in exercises of devotion-the melancholy sounds
of the organ.  Quick movement, on the contrary, causes great
excitement of the nerves. These rapid movements are in fact a
sort of mechanical intoxication. Every organ in a state of rapid
motion communicates its excitement to all the other organs in
motion.  If we walk quickly, still more if we run, the mental
tone is excited, our gestures and speech become hurried.  As
examples of this class of muscular excitement and movement,
we may cite hunting, dancing, the orgie-like worships of the
East, and the rites sacred to Dionysus and Demeter. Finally,
muscular sensation may be given to us simply by effort, and independently of all movement; for example, carrying a weight, sustaining one's body, are cases of dead tensioln.
Considered under their intellectual aspect, the muscular sensations are very important from the point of view of knowledge.
If to a weight of four pounds held in the hand we add another
1 It is a psychological law that in a complex phenomenon like a sensation,
knowledge is clear and complete in proportion as pleasure and pain have
been slight, and vice versa.




AMr. Baiz.                       201
pound, the state of consciousness changes: this change of constitution is discrimination, or the faculty of discerning, and it is
the foundation of our intelligence. Let us note this definition
of our author; later on we shall discover its import.
The different modifications of muscular action make us know
three things: first, resistalnce, which is the fundamental experience 
secondly, continuatioit of effort, accompanied by movement or
not; finally, rapidity of contraction of the muscle corresponding
to the rapidity of the movement of the organ. We have only
to reflect a little in order to see that these are important notions,
whence several others are derived. Thus the degree of effort
or of force expended gives not only the measure of resistance,
but the inertia, the weight, and the mechanical properties of
matter.  The continuation of muscular action gives ideas of
duration and extent.'The difference between six inches and eighteen inches is expressed to us by the different degrees of contraction of some one
group of muscles, those for example that flex the arm, or in
walking, those that flex or extend the lower limb.' I
Finally, the knowledge which we have of the degree of rapidity
of our movements permits us to estimate the speed of other
bodies in motion, the measure being at first borrowed from our
own movements.
II.
We will now pass on to the study of sensations. They are distributed into six classes: sensations of organic life, of taste, of
smell, of touch, of hearing, and of sight. The three latter are
especially intellectual. Mr. Bain gives the pre-eminence to sight,
and even places hearing above touch.  His analysis, ample and
detailed as it always is, is largely indebted to chemistry and psychology. We shall confine ourselves to selecting three essential
points in this stu'dy, which are treated with originality and depth:
the nature of organic sense, the perception of the exterior world
by touch, and by sight.
Even in France we begin to consider the sensations of organic
1 Bain, Senses and.niCteec, p. I14.




202                Eng-lissh Psycholooy.
life as a separate group.l Spread over the whole body, particularly
in the viscera, they have no organs proper to themselves.  Their
obscure and continuous action exercises an incontestable influence over our psychological life. Distinct from muscular sensations which especially reveal to us the movement and the effort of
the muscles, they reveal themselves to us by the pleasure or the
pain which they cause us; they are most frequently affective.
Mr. Bain particularizes seven species.
The sensations due to the condition of the muscles, the pain
experienced by their being cut, the suffering caused by excessive
fatigue, broken bones, torn ligaments; in a word, all the violent
damage which can be done to the muscular system.
The nervous system is not only the instrument proper to the
faculty of feeling, it also has organic sensations resulting from the
condition of its tissue; for instance, neuralgia, nervous exhaustion, and tic-douloureux are examples of pain proceeding from the
tissue itself.
Circulation and respiration, with. the sensations of hunger,
thirst, and suffocation, which belong to them, the pleasure of
breathing pure air, the uneasiness produced by a confined atmosphere, have considerable influence upon our condition.
The state of consciousness which results from a healthy circulation may be considered as the characteristic sensation of animal
existence.
Digestion, like respiration, presents all the conditions of a
sense; an external object, nourishment, and a special organ, the
alimentary canal. To it we owe the agreeable sensations produced by a good condition of the digestive organs, the malignant
influence exercised by their deranged condition, the sensations of
nausea and disgust, and the melancholy caused by diseases of the
stomach and intestines.
We may add the sensations of cold and of heat, their influence
upon the activity of the organic functions; and, finally, the sen1 See in particular M. A. Lemoine, L'Ame ed Ze Cops, and M. L. Peisse
La 16idecine et les Alidecins. The sensations, says the latter, proper to headache, indigestion, and palpitation prevent our being ignorant of where our
organs are, apart from the aid of dissection.




Mr.  Baiz.                     203
sations of an electrical condition, whether they result from the
employment of machines, or have a natural cause, such as the
state of uneasiness which precedes a storm.
From the preceding, the writer will see how much the author
excels in this naturalist method, which consists of classification
and description; but there are analyses of a more difficult order,
whose object is the perception of exteriority and extension.
Touch is the most general sense; it is probable that it is not
wanting in any being endowed with sensibility, and its intellectual importance is great. It gives us notions of size, form, direction, distance, and situation. Touch, considered as a source of
these ideas, is not a simple sense; it supposes, in addition, the
sense of motion. Our appreciation of the weight of a body depends very much upon the exercise of the muscles, although it
may result from a simple sensation of pressure exercised upon
the skin.  Weber shows this by an experiment.  If we lay a
weight of thirty-two ounces upon a motionless and supported
hand, we may vary the quantity of this weight from eight to
twelve ounces without the variation being perceptible to the subject of it; on the contrary, if the muscles of the hand are in
action, no imperceptible variation, except between one and a half
to four is possible. Whence Weber concludes that the valuation
of the weight is more than doubled by the play of the muscles.
Muscular sense is no less important for the perception of extension. Properly speaking, this quality, and those of size, form,
etc., which belong it, are revealed to us, as we have seen, by the
movements which they cause in us; the feelings which they
produce are the feelings of motion or of the condition of the
muscles. What we have now to ascertain is to what point the
sense of touch contributes to our fundamental notion of the
exterior world; that is to say, to extension, of which distance,
direction, position, and form are only modifications.
Let an arm be moved in empty space, and see what is the
result. The absence of determinate marks to limit the beginning
and the end of the muscular movement leaves a certain vague
character upon our sensation of motion.  But if 0o the sense of
motion we add the sense of touch, if the movement takes place, for
instance, from one side of a box to the other, there we get resist



204               English Psychology.
ance, and two distinct conditions, which constitute a mark in
consciousness. In the same way, if we pass our hand over a
surface, we feel at the same time a tactile sensation and a sensation of continued motion. It must also be remarked, that the
movement of the arm in empty space not being determined by
any contact, renders us incapable of distinguishing the successive
fiom the co-existent (or time from space). Now, so long as this
distinction is impossible, we cannot know extension, the foundation of which is co-existence. Time and space are two correlatives, one of which cannot be known without the other, but
which are distinct the one from the other. Succession is a simple
fact, co-existence is a complex fact. When the serial order of
our sensations can neither be changed nor replaced, that is a
succession. When it can be replaced, taken in an indifferent
order, there is co-existence. Mr. Herbert Spencer is quoted on
this subject by Mr. Bain as follows:-' The chain of states of consciousness, A to Z, produced by the
motion of a limb, or of something over the skin, or of the eye along
the outline of an object, may with equal facility be gone through
from Z to A. Unlike the states of consciousness constituting
our perception of sequence, which do not admit of an unresisted
change in their order, those which constitute our perception of
co-existence admit of their order being inverted-occur as readily
in one direction as the other.'l It is not without interest to
compare this explanation with that of Kant.
The combined sensations of movement and of touch give us
notions of length, of surface (extension to two dimensions), solidity
(extension to three dimensions). Distance supposes two fixed
points which may be recognised by a movement of the hand, the
arm, or the body. Dziection implies a marking point, our body
is the most natural; it serves to measure the right, the left, the
back, and the front. Sitiantzion, that is to say relative position,
is known if direction and distance are known. Form depends
upon muscular movements, made in order to follow the outlines
of a material body.
It has been more than once discussed, whether the superior
Spencer's Psychology, p,. 384. Bain.




MAr. Bain.                     205
sense is sight or touch. The two solutions may be found in
Condillac.  Most psychologists have declared for touch; most
physiologists for sight. Mr. Bain is of opinion of the latter; we
have seen. that he even places touch below hearing. Without
stopping at the physiological study of the sense of sight, and of
the mechanism of the muscles which regulate its adaptation, let
us examine three disputed questions, that of binocular vision, of
reflex images, and of the complex perceptions of sight.
How does it happen that although the image of each object
paints itself in the depth of each eye, upon each retina, the object
is nevertheless perceived as simple, and not as double. This so
often discussed problem has assumed a new aspect since the
communication made by Wheatstone to the Royal. Society on
presenting his stereoscope. When we regard a distant object,
says this physiologist, the two visual axes are sensibly parallel,
and the images which depict themselves in each eye are sivi&/~-;
in this case there is no difference between the visual appearance
of an object in relief and its projection upon a plane surface.
Upon this the diorama is founded. On the contrary, when the
object is near, as the visual axes must converge, the images
become dissimila,; and they are the more unlike as their.:convergence becomes greater. It is this dissimilarity, of images
which is, in optics, the indicator of solidity or of the three dimensions. The greater the dissimilarity, the more clearly the third
dimension is suggested. The stereoscope gives the illusion of
solidity by presenting to the eye two dissimilar images; by these
means it imitates nature, and produces the same effects, while
painting, which produces two similar images, cannot be confounded with solid objects. And now, if we remark that the
images painted on the retina are the materials of vision, that they
serve to suggest to us a mental construction, which alone constitutes sight properly so called, that there is produced in the mind,
by the sight of an exterior object, an aggregate of past impressions which the impression of the moment suggests and does not
constitute, we understand that it matters very little whether
these materials which serve to the ulterior working of the mind
be furnished by two images, as in man, or by thousands, as in
insects. The difference or the resemblance of images only teaches
us whether the object is distant or near.




206               Enzglish Psycholoogy.
As to that frequently offered difficulty, how images reversed
upon the retina can appear straight to us,-it only shows that
one is completely mistaken concerning the processes proper to
the sense of sight. Our ideas of high and low are due to our
sense of movement, and in no way to optic images.
The complex sensations of sight result from the combination
of optic effects, and the sensations of movements produced by
the muscles of the globe of the eye. Here, as in the. case of
touch, the combinazion of visual perceptions and of movements
is the groundwork of our perception of the exterior world. If
we follow a moving light with the eye, we experienhee at the
same time two sensations: one of light, the other of movement.
The latter varies according as the right or left muscles are
employed to move the eye, as a consequence of the direction of
the light.  The combined sensations of sight and movement
give us speed, distance, succession, and co-existence. The particular movements of the muscles cause us to know the circle,
angles, complex angles, surfaces, and solids. In short, all that
has been stated of the combined sensations of touch and motion
applies, mutatis nutantis, to the combined sensations'of sight
and motion.
II.
Before ascending into the higher region of psychology, by
passing from sensation to thought, we have to review in as
complete a manner as possible all the phenomena which are
the raw material of intelligence and of will. Such are the appetites and the instincts.
Instinct is defined as the opposite to that which is acquired by
education or experience.' We may say that it is an unlearnt
power of accomplishing actions of every sort, particularly those
which are necessary and useful to the animal.  This studyof
the instincts, which Mr. Bain justly claims as one of the most
original portions of his work, has not hitherto been the object of
any important researches by psychologists. Psychologists are
1 Senses and Ld/iecd, chap. iv.




Mr. Bain.                     207
indeed very incomplete upon many points.  Several explanations, however, are to be found in the germ in Miuller, and the
author states in many instances that he has taken advantage of
them.1  In our opinion the word instinct tends to produce
errors. In the first place, it may be thought that it is a question
of those curious phenomena proper to the lower animals, whose
origin and cause still remain impenetrable; and thus we immediately get the idea of a general and comparative psychology
which shall embrace all the manifestations of mental life. This is
in no wise the case. The author keeps to man, and this instinct
which he is about to study may be illustrated by the clearer
term zizstinctive vzovements. - Taken in their entirety, they constitute a complete order of primitive dispositions, a complete
primordial structure, which serves as a basis for what the human
being shall become at a later stage,- on the development of
sentiment, of volition, and of intelligence.  These instinctive
acts form five groups: —
Fir-st, Reflex actions.
Secondly, The special mechanism of the voice.
Thzirdly, The primitive arrangements which render harmony
and combination of certain actions possible.
Fourlthly, The union of feeling with its physical manifestations.
FjftAlzy, The instinctive germ of volition.
The author treats of the two first points as a simple physiolo- gist, and I have regretted for my part that language has been
nowhere studied in his work as a psychological faculty.
What are the actions which are due to the primitive impulses
of the nervous and muscular mechanism'. That is what we are
about to find out. Let us first remark movements which are
associated among themselves -prior to all experience, and to
all volition. Such is the alternate movement of a child's two
legs, even before he knows how to walk.  Other associated
movements are simultaneous; for example, that of the child's two
arms and two eyes.  It may be said that there is a general
law of harmony in the whole muscular system, from whence
it arises that when we look or listen attentively the body stops,
1 See AMfiller, Aitua! of'/P'ys/o/obgy, vol. i. p. 632.




208               Eng-ish/ Psychology.
the features of the face remain fixed, the mouth is open, our
elocution accords with our gestures; rapid walking awakens
thought, etc.  Let us also remark the intimate relation which
exists between taste, smell, and the stomach, and we shall conclude from all these facts that natural harmony between our
movements exercises a great influence upon our mental life.
The expression of feeling has also its distinctive and original
mechanism.  It translates itself: first, by the movements produced by the muscular system, especially by the different
muscles of the face, whence results the play of the physiognomy;
Secondly, by the organic effects, that is to say, by an influence
on the viscera. Grief troubles the digestion, joy exhilarates it;
fear dries up the saliva and causes cold sweat; the heart, the lacteal
gland in women, feel the shock of the emotions; the lachrymal
gland, which constantly secretes its liquid, lets it escape with
more abundance in the fervour of tender emotions. All these
facts, and a number of others, may be reduced to the following
principle: the conditions of pleasure are united with an increase,
the conditions of pain with a diminution of all or some of the
vital functions. Nevertheless, if we submit this formula to a
verification in detail, we shall see that it admits of exceptions.
It is not true that augmentation of the vital energy is always coexistent with augmentation of the degree of pleasure. A sweet
flavour, an agreeable contact, do not cause an increase of
activity; a smart, on the contrary, excites a momentary development.  It is the same with those narcotics which, while they
cause pleasure, weaken vital power.  In fact, neither the doctrine.which unites pleasure to self-preservation, nor that which unites
pleasure to the increase of activity, is sufficient if taken separately;
they must be united in order to arrive at a complete explanation.
This portion of the work, a little vague in expression, is rather
touched upon than treated. The question which lies at the
bottom of it is this: all our pleasures and all our pains, whatever
be their nature, may they be explained by one single principle II Miiller; see Lemoine, La Pey'sionomie ce la Paroe,' chap. iii. et sef.




Mr. Baziz.                     209
are they reducible to one or two fundamental laws?  This is by
no means an idle question, because the progress of a science
consists -in uniting particular causes and derivative laws in a formula which shall contain both. The descriptive and analytical
method of Mr. Bain seems to us insufficient. His study upon
the emotions, which-we shall explain hereafter, though excellent
in detail, is only a succession of fragments, whose connexion is
not shown with sufficient clearness; and this defect is in our
opinion referable to the following cause. It is in that obscure
region of the primitive phenomena of affective life, that the germs
of pleasures, pains, and passions of every kind, which the play
of life breeds, transforms, and incessantly refines, ought to be
sought for.
The author has done this in the case of the will.  He has
sought for its germ in-that spontaneous activity which has its
seat in the nervous centres, which acts without any impressions from without, or former sentiment of any kind.  This
is the essential prelude of every development of voluntary power;
this activity is one of the terms or elements of volition; volition,
in a word, is a compound, formed of this spontaneous activity,
and of something beside. It is in Miiller's work that we must
seek for this.2 No previous psychologist had demonstrated the
part played by these instinctive movements, and their influence
upon the will. This physiologist points out that the foetus produces motions which evidently cannot depend upon the complex
circumstances which give rise to the same in the adult; if the
fcetus moves his limbs, it is therefore because he can move them.
Let us remark, besides, that nervous force cannot be equally distributed, and that the nervous centres are not equally charged;
but that there is a condition of constitution or nutritive vigour
which impels the foetus to move one foot rather than the other.
Spontaneous excitement gives birth to movements, to changes of
position, consequently to sensations; there is thus establishedt
1 We know that Spinoza refers all our inclinations to the self-love of each
individual. The most complete treatise on this subject is the Monograph of
M. Bouillier, IDu Plais;ir e de la Doulciur.
2 Miiller, vol. ii. p. 312.
10




2IO                 Enzgi'sz  Psychology.
in the still empty mind a connexion between certain sensations
and certain movements; and later, when the sensation shall be
excited by some exterior cause, the mind will know that a certain movement.will be executed, in consequence, by that part of
the body. The nervous system may thus be compared to an
organ whose pipes are constantly full of air, which discharges itself in such and such directions, according to the particular stops
which are employed. The stimulus produced from our- sensations and from our feelings does not furnish the internal power-,
but it determines the method and the place of the discharge.
What is there in Will more than this discharge of spontaneous
impulses?  There is this, that spontaneous activity is regulated
by physical circumstances and not by the final well-being of the
animal. The dog, who in the morning runs wildly about, and
expends his superabundance of activity, follows his instinct only;
but it is just at the moment when he becomes exhausted that he
feels the need of food, and that he is obliged to exert himself to
procure it. Pure spontaneity falls short of that which it ought
to do for self-preservation.  Will, on the contrary, knows the
end and the means, and does not expend itself by chance. Let
us take account of the existence of this spontaneity, of this instinctive activity, which will aid us hereafter to a better comprehension of the nature of Will.
CHAPTER II.
INTELLIGENCE.
dzfelldZigence. —. Association of ideas-2, Of consciousness-3. Association by
contiguity: exterior perception-4. Association by resemblance: scientific
processus-5. Compound association-6. Constructive association, or
imagination.'In treating of intelligence,' says the author in his Preface,' I
have abandoned subdivision into faculties.  This explanation
is entirely founded upon the laws of association; very small
details have been given as examples, and they have been followed
up in the variety of their applications.' The treatment of this




Mr. Bain.                         211 
portion of the work is masterly, as excellent in synthesis as it
is in analysis. The collecting an innumerable multitude of facts
around some fundamental principles, and submitting principles to
verification by facts, is a truly experimental method.  Thus,
notwithstanding long enumeration of details and examples, the
mind keeps a clear impression of this explanation, because it
always has a clue to guide it. It knows that each illustration is
a proof in support of some particular form of association of ideas;
above the facts, it sees partial laws; above partial laws, a general
and fundamental law, that irreducible property of intelligence by
virtue of which our ideas direct each other and form a succession.
When we see that Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Bain, in
England; With the physiologists Luys and Vulpian, in France,
and previous to them Herbart and Miiller,' in Germany, attach
all our psychological acts to different methods of association between our ideas, feelings, sensations, and desires, we cannot help
believing that this law of association is destined to become preponderant in experimental psychology, to remain for some time
at least the ulterior mode of explanation of psychical phenomena;
and thus it will take in the world of ideas a position analogous to
that of attraction in the world of matter. It is strange that this
discovery should have been arrived at so late. Nothing is more
simple in appearance than to remark that this law of association
is a realistic, fundamental, irreducible phenomenon of our mental
life; that it is at thle bottom of all our actions; that it admits of
no exception; that neither dreams, reveries, mystic ecstasy, nor
the most abstract reasoning can dispense with it; that its extermination would be the suppression of thought itself; and nevertheless no ancient has understood this, for we cannot seriously
maintain that the few lines collected here and there from Aristotle
and the Stoics constitute a theory and a distinct view upon the
subject.2  It is to Hobbes, Hume, and Hartley that we must refer
the origin of these studies on the connexion of our ideas. The
discovery of the final law of our psychological acts has this in
M1 iller, vol. ii. p. 512.
2 See, for the history of the question, Mervoyer, Elude su- l'associa/ioun des
itdecs, and -Hajmilton, ill his edition of Reid.




212               Enfzish Psychology.
common with many other discoveries, that it has come late, and
every one is astonished at its apparent simplicity.
Perhaps it is not superfluous to ask in what this method of explanation is superior to that of the faculties.  The most general
mode consists, as we know, of dividing the intellectual phenomena
into classes, of separating those which differ, and grouping
together those of the same nature, giving them a common name,
and attributing them to one and the same cause; thus we have
arrived at distinguishing those different aspects of intelligence
which are called judgment, reasoning, abstraction, perception,
etc. This method is exactly the same as that followed in physics,
in which the words heat, electricity, weight, designate the unknown causes of certain groups of phenomena. If we do not
lose sight of the fact that the various faculties are also only the
unknown causes of known phenomena, that they are only a convenient means of classifying facts and speaking of them; if we
do not fall into the common error of making them substantial
entities, personages who form a little republic in intelligence; we
do not see that there can be anything reprehensible in this distribution into faculties, in conformity with the rules of a healthy
method and a good natural classification.  In what then is Mr.
Bain's manner of proceeding superior to the method of the faculties? In that the latter is only a classification, while his is an
explanation. There is the same difference, in our opinion, between the psychology which attaches intellectual facts to certain
faculties, and that which reduces them to the single law of
association, as there is between the system of physics which
attributes phenomena to five or six causes, and that which
attaches weight, heat, light, etc., to motion.  The system  of
the faculties explains nothing, since each of them is no more
than afa/zis vocis, only valuable for the phenomena which it contains, and signifying nothing less nor more than these phenomena.
The new theory, on the contrary, shows that the different processes of intelligence are only the different forms of an unique
law; that to imagine, to deduct, to induct, to perceive, etc., is to
combine ideas in a definite manner; and that the differences of
faculties are only differences of association.  It explains all intellectual facts, not after the fashion of metaphysics, which insists




.1Mr. Bain.                     213
upon the ultimate and absolute reason of things, but after the
fashion of physics, which seeks only their secondary and proximate cause.
We may regret that Mr. Bain has not endeavoured to show in
detail how his explanation is to replace the ordinary theory of the
faculties, and how each of the latter is attached to a particular
method of association.  The materials for this study being
scattered about in his book, I shall endeavour to indicate it in
few words. Consciousness is the fundamental mode of intellectual activity. Who says consciousness, says change, succession,
series; it consists of an uninterrupted current of ideas, sensations,
and desires; it is therefore the linking together, the association
of our internal conditions which constitutes it.
The perception of an exterior object is founded upon associations by contiguity in time and space. It is because we associate
the data of our various senses; that is, of sight, touch, muscular
feeling, smell, etc., that we perceive concrete objects, which are
exterior. To perceive a house is to associate in a single group
the ideas of form, height, solidity, colour, position, distance, etc.,
by a repetition, and by habit these notions are combined in a
whole which is perceived almost instantaneously.  Mr. Herbert
Spencer, in his Priinciies of Ps'ychology, calls these associations
organic, or organized, and in another place, integralte because
they, so to speak, enter one into the other.
That which Mr. Bain calls constructive association is imzagitation. To imagine is to associate ideas or sentiments previously
acquired in order to produce some construction which resembles
reality. It is by association that I can imagine the drunkenness
produced by opium, or the feudal system of the thirteenth
century.
Association, founded no longer upon contiguity, but upon resemblances, explains classification, abstraction, definition, induction, generalization, judgment, reasoning, deduction, analogy;
all these operations reducing themselves to the associating of
ideas, which resemble each other, which differ from each other, or
which resemble and differ at the same time.




214                 English Psychology.
II.
Before we enter into a detailed explanation of the various
forms of the law of association, let us examine the fundamental
properties of intelligence. This prior examination is in reality an
analytical study of consciousness.1'The word consciousness signifies mental life, with its various
energies, in so far as it is distinguished from the purely vital functions, and from the conditions of sleep, torpor, insensibility, etc.'
It also indicates that the mind is occupied with itself, instead of
being applied to the exterior world; because those pre-occupations whose objects are external present an anresthetic character.
tj- The primitive and fundamental attributes of intelligence are
consciousness of drzfcrence, consciousness of resemblance, and -retentiveness, which includes memory and recollection.
i. The most primitive fact of thought is the sense of difference
or discrimination; it consists of seeing that two sensations are
different in nature or in intensity.  To thoroughly comprehend
the thought of the author, we must remark that consciousness
is entirely produced by change.  So long as the living being has
no consciousness, he leads a purely psychological life. If we
imagine in any one a single and invariable sensation, there is not
yet consciousness. If there are two successive sensations, with a
difference of nature between them, still less a simple hiatus
between two moments of the same sensation, still less a difference of intensity, then we have a more or less clear consciousness: psychological life is born. It is impossible for us to be
conscious without experiencing transitions or changes. There are
in us many changes, which are slight, or even nit, so far as pleasure or pain is concerned, but which are important as transitions, that is to say, as differences.
Discrimination is the foundation of association by contrast.
2. When intelligence is awakened to life, so as to grasp a difference, what does it do?  It retains it.  Retentiveness is then the
condition which immediately succeeds to the consciousness of
1 This study is to be found in three parts of Mr. Bain's work, vol. i., on The
Senses, Introduction; The lnlcllect, Introduction; vol. ii. concluding chapter.




Aifr. BailZ.                    2I5
difference.  It consists of the persistence of mental impressions,
after the disappearance of the external agent; we can live a life
in ideas, added to our actual life. We canll revive sensations and
sentiments long past, under the form of ideas. How is that
done? Impressions which halve always accompanied each other
become as it were inseparable.
Retentiveness is the foundation of memory, almost entirely;
and of association by contiguity.
3. The third fundamental property of mind is agreement, or
consciousness of resemblance. An impression which constantly
remains without variation, ceases to affect us; but if it produces
another, and that this first impression returns afterwards, then we
recognise it, we have consciousness of resemblance.  It is
owing to this power of recognising the similar in the dissimilar,
that what we call general ideas or principles are produced.
Consciousness of resemblance is the foundation of abstraction
of reasoning, and association between the similar.
This analytical study of consciousness is, as we see, substantially identical with that of Mr. Herbert Spencer.  Let us now
observe its consequences.
The fundamental property of intelligence or discrimination
implies the law of relativily, which may be thus explained: as a
change of impression is an indispensable condition of all consciousness, our mental experience is necessarily double.  We
can neither know nor feel heat except by a transition from
cold to heat. In every feeling there are two opposite conditions; in every act of knowledge there are two things which
are known together. No mental impression can be called knowledge, unless it co-exists with some other which is compared with
it. These are like the two electricities, or the two poles of a
magnet, which cannot exist the one without the other.' A simple
impression is equivalent to a non-impression.' The applications
of this law of relativity are numerous and important; it applies
itself to the useful arts, to the fine arts, to the communication of
science, and'in metaphysics it combats the doctrine of the absolute.' 1
1 Vol. i. p. Io.




216              E zzglis h Psy czoL ogy.
Mr. Bain, who has very little taste, as we may perceive, for
metaphysical excursions, declares that he will not approach the
problem of the nature of knowledge, difficult in itself, and obscured by centuries of discussion. The little which he says
about it, however, shows that his solution might be brought into
relation with that of Mr. Herbert Spencer, who reduces perception to a classification. To feel is not to know; it is erroneous
to believe that knowledge can have as much extension as sensation or consciousness. We may say that a child feels all which
occurs to him through his eyes or his ears, that he is conscious
of it; but to make out of these elements knowledge, choice, classification, and specialization are required. That which we call
attention, observation, concentration of mind, must be added to
the, act of discrimination, in order that knowledge may begin.' The process of knowledge is essentially a process of selection.'
The essential elements of knowledge may be thus summarized.
I. To know a thing is to know that it resembles certain
others, and differs from certain others.
2. When knowledge is an affirmation, two known things are
required, which two must be brought together under a third
general property; for example, co-existence or succession.
3. Into these affirmations an active condition, that disposition
called belief, must enter.
III.
In approaching the study of the various forms of the law of
association, I think it will be useful to summarize them in the following table, which may serve as a guide for the reader:I. Sizople Associations.
I. By contiguity  ucon juncts.'  successive.
2. By resemblance.
II. Conpomund Associations.
r. Contiguity.
2. Resemblance.
3. Contiguity and resemblance.
III. Constructive Associatrons.




MA.   Baiz.                       2I7
A primary species of associations has contiguity for its foundation. This mode of mental reproduction may be established
after the following fashion:-'Actions, sensations, and sentiments which are produced together, or succeed each other immediately, tend to spring up
together, to adhere in such a fashion that when, afterwards, one
of them presents itself to the mind, the others are also represented.'
The associated conditions may be either of the same nature (as
sounds with sounds, movement with movement, etc.), or of a different nature (as colour with resistance, movement fwith distance,
etc.). The following are examples of both cases.'
Association by contiguity plays a great part in our movements.
All those which are voluntary present great difficulties (luring
early childhood. Each of them is produced separately and with
effort.  It is by association that series or aggregates of mechanical motions produce themselves rapidly.   Such are all
those necessary for writing, playing the piano, knitting, etc.
The physiological condition of these associations by contiguity is
a fusion of the nervous currents. It is in the cerebral hemispheres
that the cohesion of associated acts is produced; two currents
of nervous force call two muscles into play, one after the other;
these currents, flowing together to the brain, form a partial
fusion, which in time becomes total fusion. What is still more
curious than this fusion of real movements, is the fusion of simple
ideas of movements. They associate themselves perfectly according to the law of contiguity.  ist, What relation is there between
the reality and the idea 2 The idea is weakened reality; between
conceiving a sensation and really perceiving it, there is only a
difference of degree. And as sensation has its seat in one position of the organism, as is generally supposed, which is not the
brain only, but also the affected nerves —the idea, or the ideal sensations, must have the same seat. The continuation of an impres1 It is almost needless to say that the author remains faithful to his complete method, that each group is separately examined, and then in its relations with the others. The study of the Law of Contiguity extends over no
less than 130 pages.




2 18               Ezgl ish Psychology.
sion being the continuation of the nervous circuit, its reproduction
must be of the same nature. The idea of an impression is then a
reproduction in a feebler form of those nervous conditions which
cause the impression itself.  This explains why the idea of a
movement, when it becomes very lively, induces a movement
spontaneously of itself, without the intervention of our will, the
excited nervous current being as intense as in the case of a real
impression coming from without.l'The tendency of the idea of an action to produce the fact,
shows that the idea is already the fact in a weaker form. Thinking is restrained speaking or acting.... The tendency of an
idea of the mind to become the reality is one of the controlling
forces of our constitution, it is a distinct source of active impulses. Our chief active faculty-is expressed by the will, or volition, whose nature it is to urge us from pain oti to pleasure.
But the disposition to pass from a mere recollection, imagination, or idea to the action that it represents not merely to think
an act, but to do it-is also a determining principle of human
conduct.' 2
The author shows how many curious facts in psychology are
explained by this tendency of the idea to realize itself; the fascination exerted by a precipice, the phenomena produced by fixed
ideas, by magnetic sleep, and the sensation caused by sympathy.
Let us now  examine a case of association by contiguity,
between the data of the various senses: a subject already
handled by the author, and again resumed.  These repetitions,
hardly justifiable in a literary work, appear to me to be useful in
this case; they permit us to see the different aspects of the question more clearly.  We already know that knowledge of the exterior world is due to the associated sensations of touch, sight,
and the muscular sense.'The relations between these four distinct facts-namely,
ocular adjustment for seeing an object, the extent of the image
on the retina, the distance, and the true magnitude of the object,
1 On this mechanism of the idea returning to its starting-point, see Lelut,'Amulette de Pascal, Introduction. See also Chevreul, Dz Peidztle exiloratctr.
2 Bain, The Senses anld /e icntellect, p. 346.




IMr. Bainz.                    219
are what we have to cdnsider, for we find that in the educated
eye these circumstances are suggestive of one another.l
"Thus as we approach the object, or as it is brought nearer to
us, the magnitude of the picture on the retina increases; the
inclination of the optic axes required to cause the pictures to
fall on corresponding places of the retina becomes greater.". 
Accordingly, Mr. Wheatstone has devised an instrument, being
a modification of his reflecting stereoscope, whereby he can
expose pictures to the two eyes in such a manner that the distance can be changed while the convergence of the two eyes
remains the same, or the convergence be altered while the distance remains the same; thus disassociating two facts that constantly go together in ordinary vision.  The result of the
experiments showed the influence of both circumstances,namely, the convergence of the eyes and the size of the picture
on the retina (which is greater as the object is nearer) in determining our judgment of distances.  He finds that the distance
of the object remaining the same, the greater convergence of
the two eyes makes the object seem smaller, this increased convergence being required in ordinary vision when a thing is
brought nearer.  It appears, therefore, that while the retinal
magnitude is unaltered, greater convergence gives a perception
of smaller size. On the other hand, leaving the inclination
of the axes unchanged, and bringing the pictures nearer, thereby
increasing the picture on the'retina, there is a perception of
increased size in the object.... Now, according to Mr. Wheatstone, the inclination of the axes, in company with a given
retinal picture, suggests the magnitude first, and from the true
magnitude thus known and the retinal magnitude we infer the
distance.' 2
Perhaps some intractable adversary of metaphysics will reproach Mr. Bain with having gone away from  experimental
analysis to ask how we perceive the exterior world. and wl.y we
believe in it? We shall reply that he submits a few remarks.'There is no possible knowledge of the world, except in reference to our minds. Knowledge means a state of mind; the
1 Wheatstone.        2 Bain, Senses and i'dellecd, p. 377, 378.




220              Enzolisk Psyckologoy.
notion of material things is a mental thing. We are incapable
of discussing the existence of an independent material world;
the very act is a contradiction. We can speak only of a world
presented to our own minds. By an illusion of language, we
fancy that we are capable of contemplating a world which does
not enter into our own mental existence; but the attempt
belies itself, for this contemplation is an effort of mind.' 1
Let us observe, besides, that which we ourselves put into the
act of perception. Solidity, extension, and space, which are the
fundamental properties of the material world, respond to certain
movements of our own bodies, and exist in our minds in the
form of sentiments of force, and of visual and tactile impressions.
The sense of exteriority is then the consciousness of particular
energies and activities proper to us. All the difference between
ideal sensation and an actual sensation is, that the latter is
entirely at the mercy of our movements. We turn our head' to
the right, or to the left; we move our body, and our perception
varies; thus we arrive at distinguishing things, which our movements cause to change their places, from the ideas or dreams
which vary of themselves, when we are in repose. In communicating with other beings, and in knowing that they have the
same experiences as ourselves, we form an abstraction of our
past experiences, and of those of others, and that is the greatest
height we can attain with relation to the material world.'Nevertheless, a possible world implies a possible mind to perceive it, just as an actual world implies an actual mind.'
The conclusion at which 3Mr. Bain arrives in these remarks, so
far as we can define it, would not displease an idealist, since it
would place a portion of the reality of the world in the mind:
the feeling and the fell being for him not two terms, but two
complementary parts of the same whole.
He says in a note to his recent edition of James Mill:-' The contrasted terms "Object" and "Subject " are the least
exceptionable for expressing the fundamental antithesis of consciousness and of existence. Matter and Mind, External and
Internal, are the popular synonyms, but are less free from misI D3ain, Sc'zses and bnztclcic, p. 370o.




/Y//r. L/t ZZ.                  2 2 I
leading suggestions. Extension is the object fact by pre-eminence; Pleasure and Pain are the most marked phases of pure
subjectivity.  Between the consciousness of extension and the
consciousness of a pleasure there is the broadest line that can
be drawn within the human experience; the broadest distinction
in the whole universe of being. These then are the Object and
Subject extremes, and, in the final analysis, the Object extreme
appears to be grounded on the feeling of expended muscular
energy.' 1
IV.
A second method of association is founded upon resemblance.
The law which regulates it is thus enunciated:'Actions, sensations, thoughts, or emotions which are present, tend to revive
those which resemble them  among  anterior impressions or
states.'
Association by contiguity serves above all to acquire, association by resemblance serves above all to discover: it plays a
preponderant part in reason, and in the various scientific processes.  At one time we grasp the resemblances between
continued co-existent aggregates; for example, we forget the
differences which separate a horse, a fall of water, a steamengine, in order to see in them nothing but a motive power.
At another time we grasp resemblances in successions. Thus,
in studies of embryology, the same being is recognised through
all the different phases of its evolution. In the comparative
study of social and political constitutions, understood in the
manner of Aristotle, Vico, Montesquieu, Condorcet, Hume, De
Tocqueville, we must have'a penetrating mind; illn other words,
a strong identifying faculty, which can unite and extract obscure
resemblances from differences.' 2
The progress of a classification consists of associating in the
same groups beings more and more similar; in passing from
superficial identities to fundamental identities, from the Aristotelian division of animals into terrestrial, marine, and aerial,
to Cuvier's division, founded upon true nature, and not upon
accidental resemblances.
1 Mill's AizaZysis, note I, p. 5, line 20.  2 Vol. i. p. 519.




222               English Psychology.
In the mineral kingdom  we naturally group the metals together. A greater progress consists in discerning, as Davy has
(lone, that there is a metallic substance in soda and potash, by
building upon purely intellectual resemblances.
In the vegetable kingdom, division into trees and shrubs preceded that of Linnreus. At a later date Goethe grasped an
analogy between the flower and the entire plant. Oken recognised the plant in the leaf.
In the animal kingdom  comparison between the different
part which compose each individual leads to the discovery of
Homologies. Oken, walking one day in a forest, came upon the
bare and whitened skull of a wild beast.  He took it up,
examined it, and discovered that the skull consists of four
vertebrae, that it is only a continuation of the vertebral
column.
The modes of reasoning and scientific processes founded upon
an association by resemblance are arranged by Mr. Bain under
these four titles:Ist, Classification, abstraction, generalization of notions, general
names, definitions: the classification consisting in grouping
objects according to resemblance, whence results a generalization, or abstract idea which represents what there is in common
in the group; and a definition which expresses the common
characteristics of the class.
2d, Induction, indirect generalization, conjoint properties,
affirmations, propositions, judgments, laws of nature.  Here we
obtain no longer ideas, as in the first case, but judgments.
3d, Inference, deduction, reasoning, syllogism, extension of
inductions. Mr. Bain adopts, without restriction, the doctrine of
Stuart Mill, that all reasoning goes from the particular to the palrticular. The syllogism is only a precaution against error, or, as
Mr. Herbert Spencer says, a verification.
4/th, Analogy.  Here is less than identity; hence those false
comparisons which have given rise to false conclusions, such as
the assimilation of society to the family, which would tend to
make of a sovereign a guardian or a despot.




1fr. Bai.                      2 23
V.
It remains to us to consider the cases in which a plurality of
rings or links concur in reviving some anterior thought or mental
condition.  Associations individually too weak to revive a past
idea may succeed in doing so when they act together. The
general law of this mode of association is thus established.' Past
actions, sensations, thoughts, and emotions are more easily recalled when they are associated by contiguity or resemblance
with more than one impression, or with a present object.'
Compound associations result from single contiguities, from
single resemblances, or from  united contiguities and resemblances.
H-lere are some examples of the first case:-We feel the odour
of a liquid; this sensation alone does not suffice to recall its
name; but we afterwards taste it, and remembrance is effected
by these united sensations.  Complex  objects, and  concrete
Z,/izoles, which we see in nature, such as a tree, an orange, a
locality, or a person, are aggregates of ideas, and of contiguous
sensations.
A person who has previously read the two CEdipes of Sophocles
will'recollect them in reading' King Lear;' because a composi
tion of resemblances naturally leads to comparison.
Finally, if, in describing a tempest, you say,' the strife of the
elements,' you associate by resemblance, because there is strife
and combat in a tempest; and by contiguity, because this metaphor is so generally used that the two ideas are connected.
Whence the defects of the baazl style, and of frequently used
expressions.
It may be asked, why the author has not recognised a particular
mode of association by contrast. It is because he sees therein
not so much a form of the fundamental law of intelligence, as the
condition inherent to every act of knowledge, and without which
it is not possible.' Contrast is the reproductive phase of the first law of mind, relativity, or discrimination: everything known to us is known in
connexion with something else, the opposite or negation of itself;
light implies darkness; heat supposes cold.  Knowledge, like




224               English Psychology.
consciousness, in the last resort is a transition from one state to
another, and both states are included in the act of knowing
either. x'
The necessity inherent in every idea of completing itself by its
contrary, produces the love of contradiction in discussions.
Among the Greeks it gave rise to the doctrine of the Nemesis.
VI.
Hitherto we have only had in sight the resurrection, the literal
awakening of sensations, images, emotions, consequences of
anterior thoughts.
But there are other modes of association, known under the
names of imagination and creation.  Here we unite new forms,
we construct images, pictures, conceptions, mechanisms, differing
from all which experience has previously given. The painter,
the poet, the musician, the inventor in the arts and sciences,
furnish us with examples. This is the law: —' By means of association the mind has the power of forming
combinations or aggregates, differing from everything which has
been presented in the course of experience.'
The essay upon const-zcfzve association, or the theory of imagination, is equal to the best analyses of the work, for its order, its
clearness, its fulness, the exactitude of its details, and the interest
of the questions which it raises.
Constructiveness permits us by associations of sensations to
imagine new sensations. You hear a passage read, you have
already heard Rachel or Macready, and you say:'Imagine
Macready or Rachel delivering that passage.' You wish to remodel the plan of your garden, it is by a constructive association
that you can imagine the effect which will be produced when the
new plan shall be realized.
So it is with the emotions. The sentiments of men who differ
altogether from us in their position, their character, their occupations, canll only be conceived by a constructive proceeding.
Every one has experienced fear, anger, love, etc., these are the
elementary facts which serve for our constructions; but it is
1 Bain, The Senses and ihe nteltlec, p. 579.




Mfr. Balzi.                      2 225
impossible to comprehend a sentiment of which one has not in
one's-self the source: this it is which renders religious or artistic
forms, different from those to which they are accustomed, unintelligible to so many people.  Many historians have made this
remark —Mr. Grote for example:-' We cannot comprehend,' he
says,'the terror of the Athenians on learning the mutilation of
the Hermes, except by remembering that, in their eyes, it was a
pledge of security that the gods should dwell upon their soil.'
Constructive association in the fine arts, or imagination properly so called, presents a peculiarity: it is the presence of an
emotional element in the combinations. It is the artist's ambition to give pleasure to human nature,'to increase the sum of its
happiness.' The first aim of the artist must be to satisfy taste.'I cannot, then,' says Mr. Bain,'accept the current doctrine
which would make of nature his criterion, and of reality his end.
The criterion of the artist is sentiment, his end is a delicate
pleasure.'
Here we perceive the zesthetics of the author.  We shall find
them amply explained under the title of the emotions.
CHAPTER III.
THE EMOTIONS.?ihe'lgehgs. —I. Judgment of Mr. Herbert Spencer-2. Classification of the
emotions-3. AEsthetic feeling: of laughter-4. Moral feelings.
WVE are now about to consider the weakest portion of the
great work which occupies us,l and its objects are the emotions. Although the author announces in his preface that he
wishes to proceed as a naturalist, and to continue in the affective
region what lie has done for intelligence, appetites, and sensations, we do not find such certainty of method as satisfies the
mind, more than it is satisfied by analyses and discoveries.  The
Such also is Mr. Mill's opinion in the article previously quoted.




226                English Psychology.
method of the naturalist, in fact, comprehends two essential
operations-classification and description. The descriptive portion is excellent, and we could not desire it to be more complete.
Each species of emotion is carefully characterized, considered in
its effects, in its modifications, its influence, and its transformations.  The author never fails to study it under its double
aspect, pAysical and mnzttal4 thus attaching the psychology of the
passions to the physiology of the passions; and thereby exhibiting, as he remarks, the relation of the physical to the moral.
This explanation, made in detail, and by fragments, under the
special title of each emotion, gains in precision by this method,
in which we find all the ability of his preceding essays.
The defect of the work appears to us to exist in its classification of the affective phenomena.  And here we will allow a better
judge than ourselves to speak.  Mr. Herbert Spencer, in an
article published in I86o by the Medico-Czhir'uz;icai Review, and
since reproduced in his essays (volume i., i868), has given a
detailed criticism of Mr. Bain's book upon the emotions, of
which we reproduce the substance.
Notwithstanding its merits, Mr. Bain's work is provisional-it
is a transitional study. His declared intention is to follow a
natural method, and he does it in many respects. But his classifications are not founded on this method, for this reason: A
natural classification supposes two things-a comparison of
phenomena, and a close analysis, which, without stopping at its
accidental characteristics, penetrates to all that is fundamental.
This double labour is missing here; description replaces analysis
too far.  Mr. Bain acknowledges that he has adopted as the
the basis of classification the most manifest characters of the
emotions, such as they are given to us, subjectively and objectively. From the objective point of view he refers to the natural
language of the emotions, and the social phenomena which result
from  them.  From  the subjective point of view, he holds as
primitive, and not to be decomposed, the emotions, given as such
by the analysis of consciousness.  Nevertheless, psychologists
know wvell that there are intellectual acts which consciousness gives
as simple, and not to be decomposed, and which analysis perfectly
resolves.  It ought to be the same in the case of the emotions as




mr. BazJZ.                     2 27
in that of intellectual acts. Just as the conception of space resolves itself into experiences altogether different from that conception; so it is probable that the sentiment of affection or of
respect is composed of elements each acting differently from the
whole which they compose.
How is it that Mr. Bain has not seen that to keep to the maglfest characteristics is to follow the method of the ancient naturalists, who, in virtue of exterior and superficial resemblances, place
cetacea among fish and zoophytes among seaweeds. Every
classification which is not founded upon real relations may contain many truths; it is useful at the commencement of a science,
but it can only be provisional.
Mr. Herbert Spencer then asks how the strict analysis which
ought to precede classification should have been set about. It is
assuredly more easy, he says, to compare animals and organs
than emotions; there is the first difficulty. A second, which is
more grave, is that of a good psychological classification, supposing that a certain number of biological questions had been
resolved, which in the actual state of science are not so. We
may then aspire to progress, not to a definite result; and the following are the conditions of that progress:I. We must study the ascending evolution of the emotions
through the animal kingdom; seeking out those which appear
first, and which co-exist with the lowest forms of organization
and intelligence.
2. We must note the emotional differences which exist between the lower and higher human races; those which are common to all may be considered as primitive and simple, and those
which are proper to the civilized races as ulterior and compound.
3. We must observe the order of evolution, and of the development of the emotions, from earliest infancy to mature age.
The comparison of this triple study of emotion in the animal
kingdom, the progress of civilisation and of individual development, will render a truly scientific analysis of the affective phenomena more easy. The order of the evolution of the emotions
would give the order of their mutual dependence. We should
see, for example, that the lowest savage races ignore justice and
pity; that they hardly know certain esthetic emotions, like those




22 8                  Eng zlish Psych o logy.
of music; that the love of property is produced late, and is consequently an ulterior and derived sentiment.
Finally, Mr. Bain has taken no account of hereditary transmission, which, nevertheless, creates such great differences between
savage and civilized races.l,To these criticisms we venture to add a final one: Mr. Bain
considers the number of simple emotions to be nine. Must we
believe that they are absolutely irreducible I Is there not some
fundamental inclination which is their source, and which explains
them? Cannot all the affective phenomena be reduced to a final
law, as the intellectual phenomena may be reduced to a particular
mode of association?2 Spinoza, as we know, explained all our
passions by desire, joy, and pain, which he referred to the fundamental inclination of every being' to be and to persevere in his
being.' Jouffroy arrived at the same conclusion in another form,
and in another manner. All the simple or compound emotions
had the love of self for their first source. The positivists divided
them into two sections-egotistical affections, affections for others.
It seems to us regrettable that Mr. Bain should not have also
tried a reduction, or at least that he should not have given us
his mind upon the current doctrines.
II.'Feeling,' he says,' comprehends all our pleasures and pains,
and certain modes of excitement of a neutral character, which
shall be defined later.' Feeling comprehends at once diverse
senzsatzons previously examined, and the emotions.2  The former
1 Mr. Bain has replied in a note to the last edition of The Emotions and
the Will, p. 6or. He points out that the point of view of Mr. Spencer, that
of the doctrine of evolution, must have brought with it a difference of plan.
He believes, in addition, that the disagreements are more apparent than real,
and thus concludes the discussion:'It appears, therefore, that I have given
a classification as nearly agreeing with Mr. Spencer's, as two independent
minds can be expected to agree in so vast a subject; the scheme whereby he
proposes to reorganize, on an advanced idea, the psychology of the feelings,
differing from mine only in form and appearance.'-Bain's rEmotions and the
Will, p. 605.
2 E1motions and JilW, chap. iv.




.Mr. Bain.                     229
are the primitive feelings, the latter the secondary, derivative,
complex feelings.'The most general principle that we are able to lay down
respecting the concomitance of mind and body may be called
the law of diftusion. It is expressed thus: " When an impression
is accompanied with feeling, or any kind of consciousness, the
aroused currents diffuse themselves freely over the brain, leading
to a general agitation of the moving organs, as well as affecting
the viscera."  1
The reflex action, on the contrary, which is not felt, is
restrained in its influence to a very narrow nervous circuit.
This law of diffusion causes motions to be transmitted by
waves to the heart, stomach, and viscera, and manifests itself by
the features of the countenance, etc.'It constitutes a considerable support to the doctrine of the unity of consciousness.
Several nervous excitements may co-exist, but they can only
affect consciousness successively, each one in its turn.'
It is upon these exterior manifestations of the emotions, upon
their results, and their subjective characteristics, that their classification is founded. The author acknowledges the eleven following classes: —
I. We will begin with the LAW OF HARMONY and CONFLICT.
The principle that HARMONY is connected with PLEASURE, and
CONFLICT With PAIN, is probably an offshoot of the LAW OF SELFCONSERVATION.
2. There are certain emotions essentially depending on the
LAW OF RELATIVITY. Such are NOVELTY, WONDER, and the
FEELING OF LIBERTY. These are all purely relative to certain
other states that go before; NOVELTY and WONDER presuppose
the ordinary or the common; LIBERTY implies foregone restraint.
The'emotion of POWER also subsists upon comparison with some
allied state of impotence.
3. The emotion of TERROR is a wi(le-spread influence in human
life. The revulsion from  suffering implied in our volitional
nature, instead of producing always the simple effect of inspiring
actions for relieving the pain, not unfrequently excites a convulB3ain, ibid. p. 3.




230               En~g-lish Psychology.
sive trepidation. df the whole system, accompanied with a new
state of suffering, and with other important consequences. This
special outgoing belongs to certain modes of pain rather than to
others; and all sentient beings are subject to the condition,
although in very unequal degrees. As a general rule, the susceptibility to terror is a weakness and an evil, and the consideration of the means of avoiding or subduing it is of great practical
moment.
4. The extensive group of feelings implied under the title of
the TENDER AFFECTIONS constitutes a well-marked order or
genus of emotion. Being principally manifested towards living
beings, their first development in the child comes with the recognition of personality. When they are once made to flow freely,
human attachments begin to be formed; and a considerable portion of the pleasure of life springs from this fountain-head.  If it
were permitted to writers on the human mind to advert specifically to the feelings of the sexual relations, these would find an
appropriate place anterior to the present division.
5. When a human being recognises or imagines in himself the
qualities that draw forth admiration, love, reverence, esteem,
when seen in others, he is affected by a peculiar kind of emotion,
which passes current under such names as SELF-COMPIACENCY,
SELF-GRATULATION, SELF-ESTEEM. I am disposed to think that
there is here only a special offshoot or diversion of the tender
sensibility. [A still further emotional effect is produced by being
the subject of the admiration or esteem of our fellows, which is
commonly denominated APPROBATION, PRAISE, GLORY, REPUTATION, and the like.]
6. The elation of superior POWER is a very marked and widely
ramifying sentiment of our constitution: implying, as its correlative, the depression of IMPOTENCE, inferiority, and insignificance.
7. The IRASCIBLE EMOTION is a notable attribute of our
humanity, the peculiar characteristic of which is the pleasure
arising from malevoZent action and sentiment.
8. Under ACTION there are certain distinct modes of feeling to
be mentioned, as contributing largely to the interest of life.
Besides the pleasures and pains of exercise, and the gratification
of succeeding in an end, with the opposite mortification of miss



AIr. Biazz.                        23 
ing what is laboured for, there is in the attitqde of pursuit a
peculiar state of mind, so far agreeable in itself that factitious
occupations are instituted to bring it into play. When I use the
term PLOT-INTEREST, the character of the situation alluded to
will be suggested with tolerable distinctness.
9. Tihe exercise of the INTELLECT gives birth to certain species of
emotions which it is interesting to study. The routine operations sustained by mere contiguity evolve no feeling; the more
perfect the intellectual habits, the less consciousness is associated
with them. A practised accountant approaches to a calculating
machine.  But in the operation of the Law of Similarity, where
new identifications are struck out, there is an emotion of agreeable surprise accompanying the flash. Hence, although routine
is unconscious, originality is intensely stimulating. Part of the
pleasure of works of genius proceeds from this effect, and we
shall see in it one of the rewards of intellectual pursuit.  [Undter
the same head is to be reckoned the very characteristic pain produced by Inconqsistency, in the susceptibility to which temperaments differ greatly. v The genuine love of Truth is greatly fostered by the desire of escaping from contradictions.']
While the sentiments ranged under the nine preceding titles
are simple and irreducible, the aesthetic and the mnoral emotions
which form the two last groups are compound. The author has
studied them in detail, and we must now pause to consider them.
III.
Two entire chapters (the thirteenth and fourteenth) on sympathy,
imitation, and ideal emotion, that is to say, the emotion which
is caused by pure ideas, and not by realities, precede the xasthetic
explanation.'We understand by sympathy and imitation, the tendency
of an individual to agree with the active or emotional conditions
of others; these conditions being revealed by certain means of
expression.' Sympathy and imitation have an identical foundation; but the one expression is used for feelings, and the other for
action.  Two laws regulate sympathy.  The first is the tendency
1 jain, ill'oious and it/e [vi,il, 2d edition, I865, p. 36.




232              Engishz Psychology.
to take a condition, attitude, or coiporeal movement, when we
see another person producing it. The second is the tendency to
take a state of consciousness by means of the corporeal conditions
which accompany it. These two laws explain contagious
emotions,-the propagation of yawning or laughing.  A grea.
nervous weakness predisposes to sensations of sympathy, and to
the strange facts produced by magnetic sleep.
It would be inexact to say that Mr. Bain has given us in his
work a system of aesthetics, or of morals; we do, however, find
them sketched there. His experimental method, which is very
good when applied to simple psychical phenomena, does not appear to us so happy, when it consists less of facts than of an ideal,
-less of what is, than of what ought to be. The relation between
the good and the beautiful is so intimate that some, for instance
Goethe, have thought that morals are only resthetics applied to
life,-an idea to which Plato was not a stranger. Virtue then
appears like another form of beauty. And no doubt, when we
think of it, we must consider these researches, whose object is to
fix the essence of the beautiful and the good, as somewhat
vain. Here precision is only awkwardness and want of
skill; these things are so delicate, that all scholastic stiffness
endangers or breaks them. We must renounce the idea of
grasping the unfathomable, and of translating the ideal by the
imperfect formula of science, whose apparent exactitude is on
the surface only.
Only one single truly serious, method is to be found in resthetics,
one method which can not lead to illusion, while we believe that
it tends to truth.  It is that which proceeds subjectively, which
does not seek out the beautiful, which does not try to add a new
definition, equally, though otherwise insufficient, to those already
given, which limits itself to the study of internal phenomena;
that is to say, the effects which the beautiful produces upon us.
There are a certain number of sentiments or emotions which we
call 2esthetic; what is their nature, what are their characteristics?
Thus the whole task of aesthetics is to state phenomena, to analyse them, and to describe them. Jouffroy has given an example
in his Coours d'est/ez'iuze, unhappily unfinished.:Esthetics, thus
understood, is a necessary accompaniment of psychology; it forms




AfIr. Baiz.                      2 33
a chapter of it, which can hardly be detached, and it seems that
at least it cannot be otherwise understood in any analytical
treatise upon the phenomena of consciousness.
All our senses, says Mr. Bain, are not capable of furnishing us
with asthetic emotions; because we must exclude from this category the purely sensual pleasures: in the first place, because,
being indispensable to our existence, they have not a disinterested
character; secondly, because they are sometimes united to certain
repugnant facts; finally, becau'se they are egotistical or individual;
two men may enjoy the same picture, they cannot enjoy the
same piece of food.  In order that sensations may have an
aesthetic character, they must cease to be a simple property of the
individual; thus it is that the eye and the ear are especially
esthetic senses.' Ever since the dawn of philosophical speculation, the nature
of the Beautiful has been a matter of discussion. In the conversations of Socrates, in the dialogues of Plato, this inquiry had a
place side by side with others conducted in'a kindred spirit, as into
the Good, the Just, the Fit. Most of the inquirers laboured
under a fallacy or misapprehension, rendering the discussion futile
as regarded analytic results; they proceeded on the supposition,
that some single thing could be found, entering as a common
ingredient into the whole class of things named beautiful.'
But that is not the case; were it so, two thousand years ago
this beautiful type would have been discovered.  Besides, we
moderns, habituated to the doctrine of the plurality of causes,
have no repugnance in admitting not only the beautiful in itself,
but many things which are beautiful. The whole meaning of
this aesthetic exposition is, that harmony is the soul of art.  The
sublime is a sentiment explained by sympathy.'The objects of the sublime have, in fact, a certain community
of character, such as belongs only to very small portions of the
wide field of the beautiful. They are principally the objects,
aspects, and appearances that betoken great might, energy, or
force, and which are capable of dilating the mind with a borrowed
sentiment of power.... So enjoyable is the sense of power, that
1 Bain, E~1otionlOs al(d [ViVl, p. 249.
11




234                 EznglishL  Psychology.
we welcome every mode of making it present.  When we have it
not in actual, though unmanifested, energy of our own, we seek
for it in the ideal by witnessing the energy displayed around
uS.' 1'Human power is the true and literal sublime, and it is the
starting-point for the sublimity of power in everything else.
Nature, by a bold extension of analogy, is assimilated to humanity,
and invested with mental attributes.'
An interesting question, but little studied hitherto, terminates
this sketch of aesthetics: it is that of laughter. Mr. Bain merely
touches upon it. Mr. Herbert Spencer has published a brief
but substantial essay upon the same subject.  We shall unite
them here.2
The causes of laughter, says Mr. Bain, are sometimes 7pysicca,
for instance cold, tickling, certain acute pains, and hysteria;
sometimes mental, for instance, gaiety: the laughter of the gods,
in Homer, is the exuberance of their celestial joy, after their
daily banquet. It seems that everything which produces an augmnentation of gaiety, by setting us free from constraint, or by increasing the consciousness of our energy, produces an agreeable
emotion which manifests itself by laughter. - A tender feeling, on
the contrary, would give rise to a manifestation of a less distinct
character, the smile; if indeed it be correct to define the smile
as a species of laughter.
It is commonly said that the laughable is caused by an incongruity; that in order to produce it there must be at least tvwo
things or qualities naturally opposed to each other.  But there
are incongruities which cause anything but laughter; an old man
bending under a heavy burthen, snow in May, a wolf in a sheepfold, and twenty other facts of this kind, excite pity, astonishment,
fear, but not laughter. Hobbes defines laughter as'a sudden
feeling of exultation springing from the sudden idea of some
superiority proper to us, in comparison with the inferiority of
1 Bain, E1motions and Will, p. 273.
2 Physiology of Lauglter, in Mlacimillan's AMgazine, March I86o, reprinted
in the Essays, vol. i., on Laughnzier; see Leveque, Revzue des Deutx Jfondes,
Ist September I863, and Leon Dumont, Des Ctauses lte IRihe.




MAltr. Baznz.                  235
others, or with our own previous inferiority.' This purely egotistical application. of laughter explains neither that which is caused
by sympathy nor that.which is induced by comic literature.
Mr. Bain seems to trace the cause of laughter to a feeling of
power or of superiority, and in liberation from constraint. A
serious, grave, dignified, solemn demeanour obliges us to be
constrained; as soon as we can throw it off we feel free. Seriousness demands toil and effort; abandonment, liberty, laisser-aller,
are produced of themselves, and have an air of gaiety which arises
from the absence of all constraint.
We must now let Mr. Herbert Spencer speak. His short
article upon the physiology of laughter seems to us one of the
best of his Essays.  We perceive by the title that he is less occupied with the psychological side of the question than Mr. Bain;
perhaps he is the more successful in consequence.  Nowhere
has he leaned more firmly upon his great doctrine of the continuity of natural phenomena, in virtue of which there are no
creations but only transformations of motions. Consequently he
has not studied laughter separately in itself; he has attached it
to its causes, to its conditions, and considered it as the moment
of a whole, from which it cannot be separated.
When we ask, Whence comes laughter? the ordinary answer
is, From an incongruity. In allowing that this reply does not
admit of an objection, we must also admit that it hardly affects
the problem, since the real difficulty is this:-Why, when we
experience a keen pleasure, when we are struck by an unexpected
contrast between ideas, is a particular contraction of the muscles
of the face and of certain muscles of the chest and the abdomen
produced? Physiology only can answer that question.
It teaches us that it is of the nature of nervous force to expend
itself, to discharge itself in one of the following ways: —
I. Nervous excitement always leonds to produce muscular
motion, and always girodzxces it when it attains a certain intensity.
Hence gestures, the expression of the physiognomy, in short all
those states of the muscles which allow us to read the feelings of
others. The nervous discharge can even produce extraordinary
effects,. for instance, in the case of paralytics who have momentarily recovered the use of their limbs, in consequence of some




236                EnW/zis/ Ps.ycholoy,.
violent emotion. The emotions and the feelings tend then to
produce bodily movements in proportion to their intensity.
2. But this is not the only direction which nervous action can
take in order to expend itself. The viscera as well as the muscles
can receive the discharge.  Hence the influence of the emotions
upon the heart and the digestive organs.
3. Finally, the nervous discharge may be effected in another
direction, which it usually takes when the excitement is not great.
It consists in causing the excitement to pass into some other part
of the nervous system.  This is produced when our thoughts and
feelings are calm, and thence result the successive conditions
which constitute consciousness.  Sensations excite ideas and
emotions; the latter, in their turn, awaken other ideas and
emotions, and so on; that is to say, the tension which exists in
certain nerves or clusters of nerves, when they procure sensations,
ideas, or emotions for us, engender an equivalent tension in other
nerves with which they are connected.
It is a necessity that nervous force, existing in every instant,
and producing in an inexplicable manner what we call feeling,
should follow one of these three directions; to excite new feelings,
to act upon the viscera, to produce motion. Well-known facts
attest this.  Great griefs are silent. WhyS?  Because in their
case the nervous excitement awakens melancholy ideas instead
of producing exterior manifestations. Those persons who conceal their anger are always the most vindictive. Why?  Because
emotion increases by accumulation.  Bodily activity, on the contiary, the necessity for a life of effort, weakens the emotions,
because the nervous excitement expends itself materially.
All this explains the question of laughter. Nervous excitement
must follow that one of the three channels which shall open itself
most readily: in the case of laughter the discharge acts upon the
muscles. Take the laughter which results from aSphysicaZ cause
(cold, tickling, etc.); the discharge will act first upon the muscles
which are the most habitually moved, that is to say, upon those
of the mouth and of the organs of the voice; if it be very strong,
it will act upon the other parts of the body, as in violent laughter.
Now take the laughter which arises from an incongruity.  You
are at the theatre, an interesting drama is being played, and the




Mdr. Baint.                   237
actors have reached the chief scene, the reconciliation of the
hero and the heroine, after a long and grievous estrangement.
But, of a sudden, a goat makes its appearance from behind the
scenes, and after surveying the audience with amazement, goes
ba-a-ing towards the lovers. You laugh. Why?  Because you
were under the influence of a strong emotion, or, to put it physiologically, your nervous system was in a state of tension. A sudden interruption takes place, the sight of the goat cannot cause
you an emotion equal to that caused by the reconciliation of the
two lovers; there is then a surplus of emotion which must run
over; it discharges itself through the channel which it finds open,
and produces laughter.
If we examine, in the sense of a counter proof, the incongruities which do not produce laughter-such as an old man carrying
a heavy burthen —we shall see that here the two states of consciousness, though opposed, are of the same bulk, and therefore
there is no discharge to be expended.  The orator who, in
Parliament, incessantly takes out and replaces his eyeglass, the
schoolboy who, while reciting his lesson, constantly twists something between his fingers, the automatic actions of certain advocates and other persons while speaking in public, are so many
examples of the manner in which the surplusage of the emotions
expends itself, and consequently escapes from paralysing intelligence.
IV.
The preceding study is another proof of how systematic is
Mr. Spencer's analysis; so that we would not neglect this
important psychological monograph.  Let us return to Mr. Bain
and his analysis of the moral emotions. Very clear in detail, it
is more difficult to grasp and exhibit in its entirety. It seems
that his chief care has been to give a purely human character to
morality.  The conception of a higher law appears to be
repugnant to him, because it presents itself as a super-sensible fact,
in disagreement with his empirical habits. If the language of
German philosophy should not seem out of place here, we would
say in one word that Mr. Bain's theory of morals is imrmanent, and
opposed to all transcendence. He has aimed above all at founding
it, not upon an abstraction; but upon a fact, and a human fact.




2 3 8            E1zZishi Psycholooy.
In their proper sense, says Mr. Bain, I consider the words,
morality, duty, obligation, right, as belonging to the class of
actions, which is supported and reinforced by the sanction of a
pzunishment.  We may disapprove a mode of conduct, but so
long as we do not proceed against it, we do not regard it as
obligatory.'The powers that impose the obligatory sanction are Law
and Society, or the community acting through the Government by
public judicial acts, and apart from the Government by the
unofficial expressions of disapprobation and the exclusion from
social good offices. The murderer and the thief are punished by
the law; the coward, the adulterer, the heretic, the eccentric
person are punished by the community acting as private individuals,.and agreeing by consent to censure and excommunicate
the offender.  A third power concerned in obligation is conscience, which is an ideal reflection of public authority growing
up in the individual mind, and making to the same end.'l
The various moral systems founded upon positive law, the
divine will, strict reason, moral sense, personal interest, and
general interest, are successively examined and rejected by the
author. He very clearly shows the insufficiency of egotistical
and utilitarian doctrines. It is not true that all our acts reduce
themselves to the love of ourselves,'because sympathy is a fact
of human nature whose influence makes itself readily felt at a
distance, and constantly modifies and contradicts purely egotistical impulses.' And in the same way utility does not always explain
all our actions, since it is not rare to see a man refuse to embrace
a lucrative profession, which would appear to him to be dishonourable to the traditions of his family pride, and to choose
instead a life of privations and poverty.
The doctrine of an independent moral law which serves as a
criterion and regulator, is not more acceptable, because it attributes to this criterion an independent existence relating to
nothing, —in fact, hardly conceivable. We have for our weights and
measures an independent standard, by which we can compare
them; for the regulation of our watches we have our astronomi1 3ain, Emotions and hi1l, p. 286.




Mow. Baziz.                     239
cal observations, and we have the Observatory at Greenwich,
which is our regulator; but in morals there is no criterion of this
kind.  It is doing violence to language to maintain the existence
of an abstract truth; it is the same with moral ideas.  They
must be sought in the human mind, and not in anything exterior
to the human mind. If mechanical and metaphysical laws are
true, it is not in virtue of a certain abstract truth from which they are
derived, but because the5erceptions of men in this regi'on of phenomena
are uniform whoen they arle coniyared. When this uniformity does
not exist in our perceptions (those of taste, for example), then
the criterion fails.'There is no more universal consciousness
than universal reason; consciousness, like reason, is always
individual.' Only men agree in their moral approbation an(l
disapprobation, as they agree in their judgment upon truth. To
suppose a true or a good independent of individual judgments is
to resemble a man who, hearing a choir sing, should suppose an
abstract universal voice, distinct and independent of particular
voices.
We may translate this doctrine into the language of Kant, by
saying, scientific and moral truths are subjective; all their reality
is in us, and not out of us. The true and the good are only
realized abstractions: they result from our judgments, instead of
being the cause of them; so far from being anterior to them,
they are produced after and by them. The fundamental fact is
then that of moral approbation and disapprobation. Are all
men agreed to approve and disapprove the same things? In
order to answer this question it would be necessary to have a
complete collection of all the codes which have ever existed.
In the absence of them, we may say that the supposed uniformity of moral decisions resolves itself into the two following
elements: —
The duties which tend to preserve'public security, which includes individual security. Consequently respect for protective
authority, distinction-between the meum and the tuum, the union
of the sexes, the care of the mother for the child. - Every society
which does not fulfil these conditions, disappears, being destroyed by a vice inherent in its own nature.
The duties of pure feeling, imposing prescriptions not essential




240              Ezo-glis  Psycholoogy.
to the maintenance of society; duties which are variable according to time and peoples: sucl as drinking wine in honour of
Bacchus, going out veiled like the Mussulmans, abstaining from
animal food like the Brahmins, etc.
Finally, we must conclude' that the moral laws which  revail
zin almost all societies, zf not in all are partly founded zexon utilily,
andipartly z on feelino.' And to this question, What is the moral
criterion  we must reply:-' The laws pzovmulgaled by existing
society, which were derived from a man who was invested in his
time with the authority of a moral legislalor.' In support of this
doctrine we may invoke the mode of promulgation of moral
laws: they are imposed by a real power, and by an individual
whose power is sometimes dictatorial.  Such were Mahomet,
Confucius, Buddha, Solon, and  the'traditional' Lycurgus.
We may also invoke their mode of abrogation, of which the
Reformation and the French Revolution have given us examples.
As to individual consciousness, the author declares himself in
complete disagreement with those who consider it to be primitive
and independent.'I maintain, on the contrary,' he says,'that
consciousness is an imitation, from within ourselves, of the
government which is without. It is formed and developed by
education.' 1
The object of my work being to explain, not to criticise, I shall
not stop here to discuss this doctrine, however open to objection
it may appear to me in many respects. Still I cannot refrain
from making a few short remarks upon it.
Nothing appears more contrary to facts than to place the rule
of morals in a promulgated legislation, and to regard it as the type
upon which the individual conscience fashions itself. In the
first place one objection naturally presents itself. How can it
be then that the individual conscience frequently makes for itself
an individual law in disagreement with the general laws, or at least
outside of them? The author has stated this difficulty, which he
considers' formidable in appearance,' but I venture to think that
he has not in any degree resolved it. Besides, how can we fail to
1 Page 283.




iMr. Baz.                      24I
see that these promulgated laws are the result of individual consciences, of a dull latent labour which has lasted sometimes for
centuries? History teaches us that all new or good legislation
is in agreement with the desires and the tendencies of particular
consciences, and that it is accepted by the majority, and imposes
itself by degrees upon its opponents, or else it is the work of a
caprice, and then it has neither duration nor stability. Promulgated laws are then the result of individual consciences,
instead of being their cause. The legislations of Buddha, of
Solon, of Lycurgus, of Confucius, of Mahomet, are not pure
creations of their brain.  Confucius declares that he follows
the tradition of his ancestors, who were so powerful in China.
Mahomet states himself to be a restorer. Buddhism is born of
an effusion of hearts towards charity, tenderness and the doctrine
of inaction. Solon and Lycurgus give a body to ancient Ionic
or Doric institutions. All these men have only told the secret
of all the world.
Is it not also to be regretted that the study of moral sentiments should say nothing of their development I How can their
nature be shown, if their evolutions be not described! Undoubtedly, we cannot accept either the doctrine which maintains
the absolute immutability of morals, to which facts give the
most utter denial, or the doctrine of its absolute mobility, which
is not less forcibly contradicted by experience. But how does
the development take place, and in what measure?  How, by
the composition of simple elements, have new moral emotions
been able to produce themselves for man? The reply to these
questions is missing.'
1 On the moral theory of Bailn see Janet, Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct.
s5, I868.




242               Engtlis/h Psycholooy.
CHAPTER IV.
THE WILL.
kWil.-r. Division of the subject-2. Of the germ of the wilIl-3. Growth of
the voluntary power-4. Motives and resolution-5. Free will —6. Conclusion.
I.
THE idea of progress, evolution, and development, which we
regret is wanting in the study of Mr. Bain upon the emotions,
appears in the half volume devoted to the Will. In that he
follows through all its phases the growth of voluntary power, from
the moment when it was scarcely an obscure germ, an almost
physiological instinct, to its final period of completion, when in
the name of liberty it supposes intelligence and founds morality.
In the place of an artificial and abstract method, which, taking
the will as completely constituted in its adult age, can only half
explain it, we have here a natural and concrete method which
completes the static study by a dynamic explanation.  It is
remarkable that in France the plan followed, in the study of the
will has almost always issued, in metamorphosing it into an
abstraction.  The fact of determining its conditions and its
results, that which precedes and that which follows it, has
been so exclusively isolated, that it has been reduced to a
mathematical point, to an almost imperceptible moment, which
has no more reality.  The current theories, in short, when
reduced to what they have essentially in common, distinguish
three moments in a voluntary act; the production of motives
and their conflict, the resolution and the action which interpret
it. They are not occupied with the first or with the third,
because they belong either to intelligence or to physiology;
they intrench themselves in the second exclusively, in order to
work out the whzole of the will. Hence these factitious questions and strange assertions; for example, that the will'is equal
in all men,' it is in complete disagreement with the facts, but
in complete agreement with the abstraction which has been
substituted for reality.  Here, as everywhere, the important
matter was to state the question clearly, but the method of the




Mr. ABain.                     243
faculties has not a little contributed to separate that which ought
not to be disunited, and thus to produce a false interpretation of
the facts. To follow them in their development, is not only to
be more complete, but also to be more exact; it is to rectify an
error; because to give only a portion of the truth is error.
The table of the genesis of our volitions, as drawn up by Mr.
Bain, may be reduced to the following points:i. Examination of the instinctive germ of the will.
2. First essays of voluntary power.
3. Motives, their conflict, resolution, and effort.
4. Finally, the so often discussed question of liberty.
The instinctive germs, the primitive elements, of will are
two in number: the existence of a spontaneous activity and the
link which exists between our feelings and the actions which
interpret them.
We have already seen (ch. i.) that there exists in us a spontaneous activity which displays itself without an exterior exciting
cause, and which can only be explained by a superabundance, an
excess, and an effusion of power; that it especially exhibits itself
in the restless activity of childhood and youth; that it acts upon
our locomotive members, and that often faint cries and emissions
of the voice are due to a surplus of central energy.
There is one condition indispensable to the commencement of
voluntary power: it is that the organs which afterwards we shall
command separately or individually, should be, in the first instance,
susceptible of being isolated.  For example, we can make the
forefinger produce an independent movement, while with the third
finger this is impossible; the external ear is motionless in man,
but moveable in other animals; with the foot the toes go together,
although they may sometimes be isolated, as we see in persons
who write or work with their feet. It is necessary for this that
the nervous current should be capable of isolation and rendered
independent.  In short, every movement produced' voluntarily
must be preceded by a spontaneous movement.
What are the conditions of this spontaneous discharge?  The
most general are: the natural vigour of the constitution, and the




244               Elzg fs/k Psyczhology.
unaccustomed afflux of central nervous energy, due to physical
exciting causes, such as food or drink, and intellectual excitements, such as pleasure and pain.
The second germ of the will is found in the natural tie uniting
sentiments and action (ch. i. sec. 3).  The law of self-preservation, we have seen, unites pleasure to an increase of activity,
and pain to a diminution of vitality.  But the movements caused
by the emotions are very different from those caused by the will:
the former act upon the often exerted muscles, like those of the
face and of the voice, the latter act especially upon those which
can increase pleasure or diminish pain. Our spontaneous movements naturally give birth to pleasure or to pain. Is pleasure
produced?  Then there is an increase of vital energy, which produces a new increase of movement, and consequently of pleasure. Is pain produced? Pain diminishes the vital energy, the
movements which have caused the pain diminish also, and this
diminution will be the remedy. Now let the fortuitous concurrence of a pleasure and of a certain movement be produced
several times, and soon, under the influence of the law of retentiveness, these things will be so intimately united that pleasure,
or even the simple idea of pleasure, will evoke an appropriate
movement.
In short, spontaneity or chance always produces, in the first
place, actions united to our sensations and feelings; conscious
and intelligent activity produces them afterwards.
III.
The bases of voluntary power are then spontaneity, selfpreservation, and retentiveness.  Let us now enter into the
history of its development; let us see by what processes determinate actions unite themselves to determinate feelings, so that
afterwards the one may command the other.'The will is a machinery of detail: the learning' of a foreign
tongue is not more a matter of multiplied and separate acquisitions. The fancied unity of the voluntary power suggested by
the appearance assumed by it in mature life, when we seem able
to set agoing any action on the slightest wish, is the culmination of




Mfr. Bain.                        245
a vast range of detailed associations, whose history has been lost
sight of or forgotten.' 1
Let us examine how the edifice of our will is constructed,
piece by piece, by passing in review the different sorts of sensations and feelings.2 The exercise of our muscular sense, of the
organism of taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, cannot, become voluntary, except after numerous efforts, and sometimes
unfruitful attempts. We cannot follow Mr. Bain in his details;
a few examples will suffice.
In organic life, there is not at the commencement any connexion between physical suffering, and the actions calculated to
relieve it. There is a general tendency to diminish vitality; that
is all.' It is impossible to say how many fortuitous conjunctions
are required to produce an adhesion sufficiently strong to raise
us above the indecisions of a spontaneous commencement.' Few
of our necessities are so pressing as thirst; nevertheless, an
animal does not distinguish at first that the water in the pond
can appease it: maternal milk, the moisture of the food, suffice
in the beginning; it is only later in his wanderings that he comes
to apply his tongue to the surface of the water, and to feel the
relief which it affords, and thus to learn what he ought to will.
An act so simple in appearance as that of spitting, demands so
many efforts that a child can only accomplish it at the end of his
second year.  We only arrive at smelling an object when we know
how to shut our mouth and respire.  It is by tactile sensations
that animals are trained; pain is inflicted upon them to lead them
to the desired end. The animal produces movements, and sees
that one of these is not followed by blows; these two facts, a
movement produced, and the absence of the blow, unite themselves in his mind,-thus the first step of his education is made.
One established connexion serves to establish others: the beginning only is difficult.
We may also regulate and control our sentiments. This is too
common a fact to be doubted. If a feeling, such as anger, de1 Bain, The Emzotions anzd the W'ill, p. 343.
2 Chap. ii. and iii.




246               En~glish Psychology.
termines violent movements of the muscles, a counter current
may act upon the same muscles.
IV.
It may be said that the proper function of our active faculties
is to divert pain, to preserve and reproduce pleasure., Thither
tend the different motives  which cause us to act, and which may
be classed under the following heads:All the phenomena of jIeasure and of pain derived from  the
muscular system, from  the organic sensations, from  the five
senses properly speaking, from the various emotions; these
motives can determine us, either by their actual, real, present
existence, or else by an ideal action, by an influence of pure
provision.  Precautions against the causes of illness, against
attacks on our property, on our reputation, etc., are of the
second kind. Retentiveness and repetition tend to strengthen
those motives which have not for their aim an actual object.
Afggregate or grozqped ends, such as money, health, education,
social position, professional success, all those things which suppose the addition of several special ends.
Derived or intermediate ends, which consist in seeking and
loving for itself that which was at first only a means. Such is
the love of forms, and of money as money.
Passionate and exaggerated ends; discordant with reason, such
as fascination, intoxication, a fixed idea, these are to be seen in
the eccentric facts of the magnetic sleep and of table-turning.
Such are the motives between which conflict takes place; now
the strife is waged between two actual motives, again between an
actual motive and an idea, and the latter will carry the day, if
remembrance be sufficiently keen to enable the ideal to vanquish
the real, as in the case of persons much preoccupied about their
health. Impetuous and passionate motives do not admit rival
considerations, they can be neutralized only by a motive of their
own nature.
Deliberation is voluntary action producing itself under a conChaps. v. and vi.




IMr. Baiz.                        247
currence or complication of motives.'  A well-disciplined will is
one which acts neither too soon nor too late; but various causes,
such as youth and a vigorous temperament, do not admit of delay.
In order to remedy the dangers of hasty decision, Franklin
invented his Aioral Algebra.  You are hesitating, he says, on
a course to be taken. Reflect three or four days, rule a sheet of
paper in two columns, one to note the pros, the other the cons;
enter each of your provisional conclusions; then, when that time
shall have elapsed, compare the two columns, strike the balance,
wait for three days longer, and then act. He frequently resorted
to this method, upon which he congratulated himself.
The term of deliberation is resolution. The nature of the will
is to pass on immediately to the act. When there is a suspension,
that results from a new influence, which arrests the ordinary and
regular course of the will. You are in a shop, several objects
solicit your preference; one of them obtains it; you have taken
your resolution.
It is followed by a feeling of a special kind which we call
effort.'This word signifies in reality the muscular consciousness which accompanies voluntary activity, and the more
specially when it is painful.'  Great importance is attached
to, the feeling of effort; it has been supposed that there is in it a
mechanical power whose source is a purely mental activity.'The doctrine, so long predominant, which represents volition
as the source of all motive power, is regarded as receiving
its strongest confirmation from the effort which accompanies the
production of muscular energy.' Let us see what we are to
believe. According to Mr. Bain, the source of effort ought to
be looked for in organism; consciousness asserts effort and does
not constitute it; it is only the accidental portion of it. On this
important point we shall let him explain himself.
A labourer prepares himself, in the morning, to work in a
field: that is his will. And in that volition there is a certain
consciousness, but it is not that consciousness which, in itself,
put him into the condition to labour.'A large expenditure of muscular and nervous energy, derived
I Chap. vii.




248                 Enzglish Psycholoogy.
in- the final resort from his well-digested meals and healthy respirations, is the true source, the veritable antecedent of all that
muscular power. It is now-a-days a truism to compare a living
animal with a steam-engine as regards the source of the moving
power.  What the coal by its combustion is to the engine, the
food and inspired air are to the living system; the concurring
consciousness of expended power is no more the cause of that
power than the illumination cast by the engine furnace is the
source of the movements generated.' "
Is it not strange to think that consciousness of effort is the
cause of the voluntary motion, when we see that if power be as
great as possible, effort is nil, and if effort be as great as possible, power is izil? 2'The pleasure or pain, that is, the mental antecedent of a
voluntary act, is embodied in the nervous and other organs, and
rises and falls with their physical condition.  When a feeling of
either sort prompts the voluntary executive, a new kind of consciousness arises, that belonging to the expenditure of motive
power; but in a way, if possible, still more decided, does this
consciousness repose upon material processes.   The nervous
centres are drained of their energy, the muscles part with theirs,
and in a very short time the whole system  is run down like a
steam-engine with its fire burnt out..... On a close examination it turns out that the animal system puts forth active energy
without as well as with consciousness; but in no case without
the expenditure of nutritive material...
Voluntary actions are distinguished from  reflex and spontaneous
activity by the directive intervention of a feeling in their production; and the phenomenon is altogether a remarkable one....
If it so please us, we are at liberty to say mind is a source of
1 Bain, Emotiozns and Will, p. 475.
2 We must not forget that Mr. Bain, arguing upon the tendency of idea to
pass into actioli, never separates resolution from action. The latter mode is
part of the voluntary development, and crowns it. To him, resolution not
followed by action is a demi-volition, a sort of psychological abortion.'The
form of volition in which there is a motive, without the ability to accomplish
it, is Desire.'-Chap. viii.




Mr. Baisz.                     249
power; but we must then mean by mind the consciousness in
conjunction with the whole body; and we must also be prepared
to admit, that the physical energy is the indispensable condition, and the consciousness the casual.' 1
V.'All that has hitherto been explained in relation to the voluntary actions of living beings, implies the predominance of a
uniformity, or of a law in that class of phenomena, by granting a
complication of numerous antecedents which are not always
perfectly known.' The practice of life is generally in accordance
with this theory; we predict the future conduct of each person
according to his past; we call a just man, Aristides; a moral
hero, Socrates: a monster of cruelty, Nero. Why? Because
we take for granted a certain persistence and regularity in the
influence of motives almost as much as when we affirm that
bread nourishes, that smoke rises, or any other such attribute of
material bodies. The question of Ziberty,' that hampered lock of
metaphysics,' that' paradox of the first degree,''that inextricable
knot,' belongs to the category of artificial problems, like the
famous arguments of Zeno, on the race between Achilles and the
tortoise, and the difficulties raised by Berkeley against the differential calculus.
The notion of human free-will appeared for the first time
among the Stoics, and later in the writings of Philo the Jew; by
a metaphor the virtuous man was called free, and the vicious
man was called a slave. The metaphysical elaboration of the
doctrine of free-will and necessity is especially due to Saint Augustine, in his controversy with Pelagius, and to the strife between
the Arminians and the Calvinists.'A  fitting answer to the
advocates of free-will is the utter unfitness of the word or the
idea tQ express the phenomenon in question.' We may produce
an entire mystery, an entire extricable difficulty, by persisting in
preserving a phraseology which does not adopt itself to the facts.
The Newtonian theory of gravitation explains natural phenomena
in a complete and scientific manner, but substitute another idea
1 Bain, Emotions and Will, p. 475-6.




250               E~g-is/h  PsycAolooy.
for gravity, that of a bolarity, for example, such as exists in a
loadstone, make of it the type and the foundation of all the
groundwork of all the forces of nature, and see how everything
becomes entangled, how you substitute an unintelligible mystery
for a simple explanation. In the same way, to ask whether or
not our volitions are free, is to confuse everything, it is to add
artificial difficulties to a problem not of itself insoluble, it is to
resemble the'personage whom Carlyle makes to ask,' Is virtue a
gas.' A motive, hunger, impels me: I take the food which is
before me: I go to an eating-house, where I fulfil some other
preliminary condition: here is a plain and simple sequence;
make the idea of liberty enter into it, and it becomes a chaos.
The term ability is inoffensive and intelligible, but the term
liberty has been forcibly dragged into a phenomenon with which
it has nothing in common. A metaphor relative to virtue having
given rise to this question, we might as well have asked ourselves
whether the will is rich or poor, noble or ignoble, sovereign or
subject, since all that has been said about virtue!
The word necessity is also an improper expression, which ought
indeed to be banished from all the sciences, physical or moral.
At present it is only troublesome, and the words which we are
tending to substitute, such as unltzfor, conditional, unconditional,
sequence, antecedent, consequent, have a precise meaning, and do
not admit of confused associations.
By liberty of choice, we mean one thing only, the denial of all
foreign intervention. It is no more than this: if, a person intervening, I am led by that person to act in a certain manner, as a
child who is taken into a shop to purchase an article of clothing,
but who is not suffered to choose for himself. But, applied to
the various motions of my own mind, the word' liberty of choice'
has no meaning.  Various motives concur in pushing me into
action; the result of the conflict shows that one group is
stronger than another, and the whole case lies in that.  The
question of liberty of choice consists, then, in knowing whether
the action is my own, or whether another person has used me
as an instrument; and it cannot be too much deplored that
psychology should have been pulled up for so long in the front
of an entirely gratuitous difficulty.




Mr. Bahzl.                      25 I
Now, what is to be understood by spontaneity, by sejf-Idelerminalzon?  Must we look for something more in it than the
operation of sensible motives, added to the central spontaneity
of the system?  Is some unknown, mysterious power hidden
behind the scenes? Is there, between the feelings, the will,
and the intelligence, a fourth unexplored region — that of the
Ego?'The proper meaning of self can be nothing more than my
corporeal existence, coupled with my sensations, thoughts, emotions, and volitions, supposing the classification exhaustive, and
the sum of these in the past, present, and future..... I am not
able to concede the existence of an inscrutable entity in the depths
of one's being, to which the name I is to be distinctively applied,
and not consisting of any bodily organ or function, or of any one
mental phenomenon that can be specified.' 1
As to the appeal which has been made to consciousness, as
testifying in an indisputable manner to our freedom of will, we
must think of that as follows:-Consciousness has been said to
be our ultimate and infallible criterion of truth; to affirm that
it deceives itself is to destroy the mere, possibility of every certain science. In the first place, let us remark that consciousness
is to internal phenomena what observation is to external facts.
The generality of people know that they think and feel, without exactly knowing the laws of thought, of mental co-existences
and sequences, in the same way as their senses reveal rivers,
mountains, cities, etc., to them, but without giving them an exact
and precise knowledge of these things. Nothing is more common than disagreement in human appreciations of size, forces,
weight, forms, colours, etc.  If this be so in the case of the
objects of our external senses, what reason have we for believing
that the internal sense is more exact? Are not metaphysical
disputes in themselves a proof of the contrary I Besides, if we
grant to consciousness the privilege of infallibility, it can last for
only a short moment; and that does not constitute a science.
Consciousness being strictly applicable to any individual person,
and for one instant only, it contains the minimum of information.
I Bain, Emolions anctd Will, p. 5j4.




252              Engfish Psychology.
This is the atom of knowledge. If we wish to go beyond this
short moment, we must have recourse to memory, and we know
that memory is fallible. Thus, while the infallibility lasts, there
is no science, and when the science begins, there is no infallibility. Now, the notion of free-will is in nowise an intuition;
there is in it a collection of anterior volitions, and a comparison
established between them and a certain condition of sentient
beings, the condition of being free from constraint, like that of a
dog untied, or a prisoner set at large; and comparison is not
an infallible operation.
VI.
Here we come to the end without lingering over-some chapters
in which the author completes his moral theory, but which do
not add anything essential to it. Let us summarize the merits
and defects of this important Tryeatise oir Psychology. It will
please those who love facts, who think that facts are the very substance of an experimental science, that it only lives by them;
that every generalization is empty and vain, without an ample
collection of phenomena which serves it as a starting-point, and
as a verification. It is, to my knowledge, the most complete
repertory in existence of exact and positive psychology, placed
auc cozrant of recent discoveries: we in France have nothing to
approach it.  Garnier's Y'ait  des Eacuzlis, founded, as its title
indicates, upon a method which subordinates phenomena to
causes, facts to faculties, embarrassed too by metaphysical discussions, cannot be compared in any way to Mr. Bain's work.
Let us add, that, according to the customs of the Eclectic School,
this treatise has given so ample a space to the history of theories
that the dogmatic part is singularly limited. In its mode of
explanation, its method, and the general impression it produces
upon the reader, Mr. Bain's work can only be compared to a
physiology. Examined in detail, the composition of the book
is not quite irreproachable; its, order is sometimes more apparent than real; the author takes up the same questions several
times, and discusses them over and over again. But, perhaps,
this is an inherent defect in works of this nature, in which the




A11r. Bain.                    253
number and variety of observations are such that one can hardly
avoid losing one's-self in thle crowd.
I regret, for my part, that the author should have dealt so briefly
with the phenomena which mark the transition from normal
psychology to morbid psychology (dreams, magnetic sleep, etc.),
and which he seemed in such favourable conditions for studying.
But the want of comparative method is one of the defects of the
book. Let us add to this the too frequent absence of the idea
of progress, and the consequent neglect of the dynamic study of
phenomena.' The work of Mr. Alexander Bain gives us, in orderly arrangement, the facts brought to light by anatomists and physiologists
during the last fifty years.  It is not in itself a system of mental
philosophy, properly so called, but a classified collection of
materials for such a system, presented with that method and
insight which scientific discipline generates, and accompanied
with occasional passages of an analytical character. It is indeed
that which it in the main it professes to be-a natural history
of the mind.  Were we to say that the researches of the
naturalist who collects, and dissects, and describes species, bear
the same relation to the researches of the comparative anatomist
tracing out the laws of organization, which Mr. Bain's labours
bear to the labours of the abstract psychologist, we should be
going somewhat too far, for Mr. Bain's work is not wholly descriptive.  Still, however, such an analogy conveys the best
general conception of what he has done; and serves most clearly
to indicate its needfulness.... Until recently mental science has
been pursued much as physical science was pursued by the
ancients: not by drawing conclusions from observations and experiments, but by drawing them from arbitrary a priori assumptions. This course, long since abandoned in the one case with
immense advantage, is gradually being abandoned in the other;
and the treatment of psychology as a division of natural history
shows that the abandonment will soon be complete. Estimated
as a means to higher results, Mr. Bain's work is of great value.... We repeat, that as a natural history of the mind, we believe
it to be the best yet produced.  It is a most valuable collection
of carefully elaborated materials.  Perhaps we cannot better




254                EnSg-ish/  Psychzo logoy.
express our sense of its worth than by saying that to those who
hereafter give to this branch of psychology a thoroughly scientific
organization, Mr. Bain's book will be indispensable.' 1
In addition to the great works which have served as a foundation for the preceding essay, Mr. Bain has published a book
On the Study of Character, including alz estimate of Phrenology
(186I), with the object of reviving analytical studies upon human
character,'which  seemed to  have followed the decline of
phrenology.'
After having passed in review the very few works devoted to
the science of character before Gall (Theophrastus, La Bruyere,
and Fourier), and after having devoted half the work to a detailed
and impartial criticism of phrenological classifications, Mr. Bain
explains his own ideas.
His method is identical with that indicated by Mr. Stuart
Mill (vide page Io3.)  It consists in founding ethology upon
psychology, in coming down from the general laws of human
nature to individual varieties. He then proposes, as the basis of
the study of character, the triple division of the mind into will,
emotion, and intelligence.
Ist, The source of volition, as we have seen, is in that spontaneous energy which has its physical seat in the muscles, but
which depends still more upon the brain than the muscular system,
and gives birth, when it is in its maximum to the character or
energetic temperament.
2a, The emotional character is distinguished by the predominance of the affections, and of their external manifestations. We
may cite as examples the Celtic races, and amongst individuals,
Fox, Mirabeau, Alfieri, etc.
3d, A third type is that in which intelligence predominates.
We shall not follow Mr. Bain into his examination of the very
numerous varieties of this and of the preceding types; seeing
that his work is rather a sketch than a definitive exposition of
ethology.
1 Spencer's Essays, edition I863, vol. i. p. I2I, 122 (Lewes).




MVR. GEORGE H. LEWVES.
MR. LEWEs is a physiologist.  But as all reflective spirits who
please themselves with conceptions of entirety, find philosophy
at the end of every science, so Mr. Lewes has found it there.
He embarked early in search of it. It is twenty-four years since
(in I845) he addressed'to the public rather than to the learned,'
a Bizographical Histloy of Philosophy, with the avowed intention of
disgusting them with metaphysical speculations. Twice revised,
and partly re-written, this book has become a history of philosophy from Thales to Auguste Comte: an original work, especially
dogmatic and critical, as we shall see. Mr. Lewes, a man of
refined and elegant mind, who does not disdain anecdote and
satire, lends variety and interest to every subject of which -he
treats.  Although well acquainted with the philosophical and
scientific literature of the Continent, and of France in particular,
he plainly prefers the researches of the naturalist to those of the
scholar.l
In philosophy, he declares himself a positivist.  While Mr.
Herbert Spencer and Mr. Mill are at variance with this school
upon several important points, notably upon the classification of
the sciences and method of psychology; while Mr. Bain has not
made any avowal upon the subject,-the adhesion of Mr. Lewes
is full and entire, not to be shaken, even enthusiastic, as we
shall see.'I adhered to the Positive philosophy in 1845, and I adhere
to it still,' says he, in a preface dated May 1867.' What I have
1 Besides his History of Plzilosojzy and his Physiologv of Common Li/e,
which we are about to mention, his works are: —Studies of Animnad Lz~e;
Studirs on tMe Sea-shore; Aristotle-A Clz4~!er fionzm the llistory of Science;
The L;'e of Goethe.




256               Ezog-iish Psychology.
attempted is not such a detailed exposition as would flatter the
incurious indolence of men who love to talk confidently upon
secoad-hand knowledge, but such general indications of the
Positive philosophy as will enable the student to appreciate its
drift and importance, and will guide him in the understanding of
Comte's writings. I am often asked to recommend some " brief
account of the system," by thlose who wish to profit by Comte's
labours (or perhaps only to talk knowingly of them), yet shirk
the labour of reading the works which they profess to consider of
importance.  My answer is, study the Philoso,/ie Positive for
yourself, study it patiently, give it the time and thought you
would not grudge to a new science or a new language, and then,
whether you accept or reject the system, you will find your mental
horizon irrevocably enlarged. "But six stout volumes!" exclaims
the hesitating aspirant. Well, yes, six volumes, requiring to be
meditated as well as read: I admit that they " give pause" in
this busy, bustling world of ours; but if you reflect how willingly
six separate volumes of philosophy would be read in the course
of the year, the undertaking seems less formidable..... And no
one who considers the immense importance of a doctrine which
will give unity to his life, would hesitate to pay a higher price
than that of a year's study.' 1
This admiration is nowhere weakened, and the book finishes
by a triumphal act of faith in the future. I do not know to what
loint this positivism is rigorously orthodox. When we see with
what eagerness Mr. Lewes draws into his. camp several contemporaries who are frequently at variance with the school, we may
believe that he is very lenient on many points, and his positivism
appears to me to be, above all, indepezndent. This, however, it is
not our place to decide.
As the psychological doctrines of Mr. Lewes, with which only
we are now occupied,, are not reduced to a system, we cannot
pursue so methodical an exposition of them  as in preceding
instances.  It appears to us that to reduce detached views to a
rigorous order and a systematic connexion, would be to force
the thought of the author, and to incur the risk of inexactness.
Lewes's ~Iis/loy, of l'hilos,5/hy, Preface.




Mr. George H. Lewes.                    25 7
We borrow our materials from the History of P/iilosophy (2 vols.)
and from the P/hysiology of Commoz Lz/fe (2 vols.).
CHAPTER I.
THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.
T5e History of PJzilosopay. —I. Characteristics of his History-2. His philosophy-3. The Ancients: the Sophists, Plato, the Academicians; of
exterior perception-4. The Moderns: Descartes, Hobbes, BPerkeley
(Idealism and Realism), Cabanis, Gall; French Eclecticism.
I.
HISTORY may:be written in many ways.  The best, the only
true way, consists in the minute examination of documents and of
facts, and in a complete and conscientious exposition of them.
The historian forgets himself in the presence of his work, and has
no care except for truth. He imposes nothing, he proposes;
and although it is impossible that the long sojourn in the midst
of doctrines, and of the strife of systems, should have left his
thoughts indifferent, he would aim at the appearance of impassiveness, in consequence of the impartiality of his judgment, and the
sincerity of his studies. Ritter is amongst this number; his history
of philosophy, scrupulous, loyal, to which polemics are unknown,
is a safe guide in study.
Another manner, entirely opposed to the preceding one, consists in making history a pretext for conflict. The author is less
occupied with the exposition of facts than he is with his method
of warfare; he thinks less of being exact than of being clever.
Books of this kind, which are interesting, and often valuable, are
evidently not histories.
In short, we seek for instruction, for lessons, from the history of
philosophy; we derive morality from it; it is like a verification
on a large scale in support of a thesis. Mr. Lewes's work appears
to us to belong to this category.  He has evidently no taste, or
if we prefer so to put it, he has not the virtue necessary to face
these formidable folios, these undigested texts of scholastic learning
which the historian of philosophy ought to penetrate, however
12




258             Enzglish Psycholoy.
repulsive to his positive and lucid mind.'More than once,' he
tells us, d _ropaos of Albertus Magnus,' I have opened his ponderous folios, with the determination to master at least some portion of their contents; but I shut them again with an alacrity of
impatience, which will be best comprehended by any one who
makes a similar attempt.' 1
What an immense task must be a history composed at first
hand; obscure texts and strange theories in antiquity; empty
dissertations in the middle ages; complicated doctrines and a
superabundance of documents in modern times; here is work
for any historian. The life of a man would not suffice for it;
especially if to this list we were to add the materials supplied
Dy the East.
Mr. Lewes lacks the vocation of the scholar, which indeed is
generally wanting in original minds.  His history resembles
rather that of Hegel, than that of Ritter.  His review of the
labours of philosophers is rather occupied with that which they
have thought, than with their comparative importance.  He
judges rather than expounds: his history is fastidious and critical.
It is the work of a clear, precise, and elegant mind, always
that of a writer, often witty, measured, possessing no taste
for declamation, avoiding exclusive solutions; and making its
interest profitable to the reader whom he forces to think. There
are many ideas in this book. Besides an important introduction
consisting of I20 pages, the author frequently expresses his own
opinions, in appreciating those of others: an almost entire
system  of philosophy may be extracted from them. This gives
him a right to figure in our work; we should have had nothing
to ask for in an ordinary history; in this instance so much
has been given us that we are obliged to make a choice.
What is the thesis of Mr. Lewes? It is the radical weakness
of all metaphysics, demonstrated by history.  In his first edition
(I845), he proposed to himself as his object to turn men's minds
away from this study by demonstrating the successive failures
of successive schools: at present he declares that his adhesion to
positivism is firm and complete.  This avowal is more loyal
l T-fisloy of Philosopth', vol. ii.'p. 74.




Mr. George H. Lewes.                    259
than reassuring: no doubt it appears strange and interesting to
see the history of philosophy reconstructed by a positivist; but
has he nothing to dread from inquiry. I acknowledge that I
expected it. Nothing of the sort has taken place. Pythagoras
and Parmenides, Plato and Plotinus, Spinoza and Berkeley are
treated as masters of human thought, and with sincere admiration.
No indifferent person has written these lines upon Pythagoras:'He who could transcend all earthly struggles, and the great
ambition of the greatest of men, to live only for the sake of
wisdom, was he not of a higher stamp than ordinary mortals?
Well might later historians picture him as clothed in robes of
white, his head crowned with gold, his aspect grave, majestical,
and calm; above the ma~nifestation of any human joy, of any
human sorrow; enwrapt in contemplation of the deeper mysteries
of existence; listening to music and the hymns of Homer,
Hesiod, and Thales, or listening to the harmony of the spheres.
And to a lively, talkative, quibbling, active, versatile people like
the Greeks, what a grand phenomenon must this solemn, earnest,
silent, meditative man have appeared!'1  And afterwards, comparing Homer and Xenophanes, both of them rhapsodists: what a
fate is that of the philosopher! his mutilated work is visited only
by some rare scholar, or by some diue/tanti spiders; the other,
the poet's, lives in the memory of all mankind. Joy and universal life are echoed by Homer; in Xenophanes, distress, convulsive agitation, infinite doubt, infinite sadness.2
More than once we shall find this melancholy strain of the
historian, upon the vain effort of human thought which seeks
iwithout finding, and aspires without attaining.
II.
An ample, but entirely dogmatic, Preface first calls for our
attention. 3'Theology, philosophy, and science,' says Mr. Lewes,'constitute our spiritual triumvirate.'' Its [theology's] main province is the province of Feeling; its office is the systematizaziozz of
1 Lewes, Hisfory of PRilosop7Ay, vol. i. p. 23.  Ibid. p. 43.
a These prolegomena comprise the following questions:-What is philosophy? Objective and subjective method. Criterion of truth. Some infirmi-ties of thought. Necessary truths.




260              Engflish Psycholooy.
our relizious conceztions.  The office of Science is distinct. It may
be defined as the systematization of thze order of jhenzomena consz'
dered as phenomena. The office of Philosophy is again distinct
from these.  It is the s)ystematizatzon of the concepgtions furnished by
TheolZoy and Science.  It is'ErttrJ7L7,'q E'7tcrTy 1V. 1
Psychology is: to the other sciences what geography is to topography.  Its history is the story of its emancipation with regard
to theology, its transformation into science.
Understood. in the sense of metaphysics, philosophy is completely vain; because it seeks for noumena which will always be
out of its reach. And the objection is founded less upon the
objects of its research, God, liberty, causality, etc., than upon its
method, which, being separated from verification, is therefore
outside of science.'The History of Philosophy presents the spectacle of thousands
of intellects-some the greatest that have made our race illustrious-steadily concentrated on problems believed to be of vital
importance, yet producing no other result than a conviction of
the extreme facility of error, and the remoteness of any probability
that truth can be reached. The only conquest has been critical,
that is to say, psychological.'-'There are many who deplore the encroachment of Science,
fondly imagining that Metaphysical Philosophy would respond
better to the higher wants of man. This regret is partly unreasoning sentiment, partly ignorance of the limitations of human
faculty. Even among those who admit that Ontology is an impossible attempt, there are many who think it should be persevered in, because of the " lofty views " it is supposed to open to
us. This is as if a man desirous of going to America should insist
on walking there, because journeys on foot are more poetical than
journeys by steam; in vain is he shown the impossibility of crossing the Atlantic on foot; he admits that grovelling fact, but his
lofty soul has visions of some mysterious overland route by which
he hopes to pass.  He dies without reaching America, but to the
last gasp he maintains that he has discovered the route on which
others may reach it.' 3
1 Lewcs, Pr'oeomzenza, p. xvii.   2 Ibid. xxvii.   3 bid p. xxviii.




MAfr. George H. Lewes.                  26I
Science seeks truth; but what is truth.'Truth is the correspondence between the order of ideas and the order of phenomena, so that the one is the reflection of the other-the movement
of Thought following the movement of Things.' 1
Let us remark these terms,'the order of ideas,''the movement of thought,' substituted for the ordinary formula-conformiyiy
of the idea wit/h te object. If we accept the latter, truth is a
chimera, and idealism is irresistible. The utmost end of knowledge is adaptation, and we call truth precise adaptation. What
the body and the fall of bodies are in themselves matters not to
us. If the movement of our thought is controlled by the movements of things, there is truth: if our ideas are arranged in an
order which does not correspond with the order of phenomena,
there is error.
To attain this correspondence between an internal and external order is what we seek, and for this we employ two methods:Ca. The Objective Method, which moulds its conceptions on
realities by closely following the movements of the objects as they
severally present themselves to Sense, so that the movements of
Thought may synchronize with the movements of Things.'/B. The Subjective Method, which moulds realities on its conceptions, endeavouring to discern the order of Things, not by step
by step adjustments of the order of ideas to it, but by the anticipatory rush of Thought, the direction of which is de/lerzbicd by
Thoughts and not controlled by Objects.'
Every research contains an observation, a conjecture, and a
verification. The subjective method stops at the second term:
its function is hypothesis. The objective method embraces three
terms: its function is verification. It absorbs whatever there is
of good in the subjective method, adding to it control. The
subjective method seeks for truth in the relations of ideas, the
objective method seeks for truth in the relations of objects.
An exact reasoning is the ideal union of objects in their true
relations of co-existence and succession: it is to see with the eye
of the mind. A chain of reasoning is an ideal representation of
details, actually non-apparent to the senses. This may make us
1 P'olegonmena, p. xxxi.              I ibid. p. xxxiii.




262              Enzglish Psychzology.
understand what exact sense we ought to give to the word fact.
Generally, it is considered as a final verity. This we say is a fact,
not a theory; that is to say, an indisputable fact, not a disputable
view of truth. But a fact is in reality a bundle of inferences; a
fact so simple as that of seeing an apple upon a table, supposes,
in addition to the'simple sensation of colour, the recall of the
ideas of roundness, savour, odour, etc. If facts are inextricably
mingled with inferences, and if reasoning is a mental vision which
establishes details that are not present, thenceforth how can we
sustain the opposition of fact and of theory. They are both fallible, and radical opposition exists between verified inferences
and non-verified inferences.
The weakness of the subjective method consists in the impossibility of verification. The objective method simply co-ordains
materials furnished by experience, without introducing any which
are new. The subjective method commits the fault of drawing
matter from the subject, instead of simply drawing form. The
fundamental distinction between metaphysics and science is then
in their method, and not in the nature of their object. Add a
verifiable method to a metaphysical theory, and you make of it
a scientific theory; subtract from a scientific theory the verifiable
element, and you make of it a metaphysical theory. Remove
from the law of gravitation the verifiable formula'the direct
relation of masses in their inverse relation to the square of the
distances,' and there only remains an occult attraction: this is
metaphysics.
Two travellers come from a country where clocks are not
known, even by hearsay. The one has metaphysical, the other
has scientific tendencies. They both stand before this new
object. The metaphysician will say: This explains itself by a
vital principle: the beating of the pendulum resembles that of
the heart, the hands travel like antennae, the striking of the hour
resembles a cry of anger or of pain; and he will exhaust himself
in ingenious explanations of this kind. Here you have the subjective method, which deduces instead of verifying. The other
man will say to him: I have grave doubts of your conjectures.
I have belonging to me a powerful instrument called analysis.
I am going to make use of it. I take away the face of this




Mr. Georo-e H. Lewes.                 263
object and all the exterior: nothing is changed; I stop the pendulum, and everything stops. I put it in motion, and everything
goes on again. I pull a weight forcibly, I see that the hands
move very swiftly, and the sounds are quickened.  I repeat the
experiments, and I conclude from it that this is a mechanism.  I
have already seen others which are very different, but I recognise their essential characteristics.  Here we see the objective
method, which verifies instead of conjecturing.
The metaphysician is a merchant who speculates boldly, but
without convertible capital to enable him to keep his engagements. He gives bills, but he has neither money nor goods to
represent them. The first obstinate creditor who insisted upon
being paid would make him bankrupt. The man of science is
also daring; but he always keeps by him a solid capital, which may
be produced upon occasion to honour his bills; and he knows
that if he exceeds it bankruptcy awaits him.  A verification'is
then necessary. But on what does it rest?2 What is our criterion
of truth.
Consciousness being unable to come out of its proper sphere,
it is to it that we must have recourse as a last appeal: in this
sense we may say that every criterion is subjective; we can never
know objects in themselves, but only by states of consciousness.
But as truth is simply a coyrr-esjpondence between the internal order
and the external order, we assure ourselves of its exactitude by
the certainty of its adjustment.  The touchstone of knowledge is
Jrevisiozn.'The subjective test of a Truth is the unthinkableness of its
negative, in other words the reduction to A is A..... Consciousness is only infallible in verdicts limited to identical propositions.
Here and only here there is no fallibility.''
As there is always room for error wherever the proposition is
not identical, and as a probability variable in degrees is all that
we can obtain in the greater part of our conclusions, it is easy to
extend the logical principle which determines infallibility to the
variable degrees of probability, and consequently to render error
impossible.  What is the logical justification that A  is A 
1 Prolegomena, pp. lxvi., lxii.




264              Englisz Pssychology.
The inicomrprehensib/ifiy of the negative.  What would be the
logical justification of a proposition composed of complex and
distant inferences, and as such having more or less probability?
The difficulty of admitting its negative.
To sum up,' I have shown that a proposition is absodltely trzue
only when its terms are equivalent, and that, as this rests upon
the impossibility of our thinking a negative of the proposition,
the varying degrees ofv1robability will depend on the possibility
of admitting a negative.' I
I pass over the reflections of the author upon some infirmities
of thought, such as belief in final causes, in the distinction
between power and act, in the vital principle, etc. This would
lead us too far, and a fitter place would be found for it elsewhere.
But the great question of necessary truths is within our reach,
and merits close examination.
Let us at once give the opinion of Mr. Lewes upon this point.
What is experience? It is the sum of the action of objects upon
consciousness. This sum comprises two elements: the materials
which the senses bring to consciousness; the transformations,
combinations, and modifications which consciousness causes them
to undergo. Thus there are two factors, sensation and the laws
of consciousness; matter and form, as Kant would say. But
what are the laws of consciousness. They are the result of the
experience of the indivzidza4, and of the experience of the race.
To maintain that experience itself,-which is the product of
sensation and of the laws of consciousness,-produces these laws,
seems at first an absurdity; but the contradiction is only verbal.
In order to dissipate it, we need to distinguish experience from
experiences. All particular modification of consciousness is a
particular experience. Every modification paves the way for the
following ones, and influences them. The laws of consciousness
issue by development from these successive modifications, and
experience is the general term which expresses the sum of these
modifications.
The school of sensation has largely obscured the question by
its anti-scientific conception of the tabula rasa: the mind is not
1 Lewes, Prolegomena, p. lxxvii.




Mr. George H. Lewes.                265
a mirror which passively reflects objects. The a pr2iori school
commits a contrary error by regarding consciousness as a pure
spontaneity, bearing in -itself, and in advance, organized laws
which are derived from a supersensible source.
This is not all: we must also take account of inheritance.
Biology teaches us that the sensible organism inherits certain
dispositions from its parents, as it inherits their structure, so that
we may say that the individual summarizes the experience of the
race. Faculties. increase with the development of race. The
forms of thought which are essential portions of the mechanism
of experience, are developed like the forms of other vital functions. In fact, as the function is only the form of activity of an
organ, it is clear that if the organ is developed, the function
develops itself, and with it the laws of its action.
For the mind, as for the body, there is no pre-formation or preexistence, but evolution and epigenesis. The error of Kant, and of
those who proceeded like him, is to confuse anatomy with morphology, and logic with psychology. Taking the adult human mind,
they have considereditsconsfituieforms as zilialconsidereditions. They
say: These forms are implied in particular experiences. Granted;
because if they were not implied, we could not draw them out.
This process is perfect in logic, which has to show the forms
of thought, and not their origin. But the question of experience
is a question of origin, and psychology reveals to us that experience is the tissue of thought spontaneously woven, of which each
thread is an experience. People who reason a prior;, consider
the vertebrate type as the necessary form which renders vertebration possible. Anatomically this is acceptable. But what says
morphology. It shows that typical forms come out of successive
phases of the development-of the animal. Evidently the idea of
pre-existence is a fiction-it is simply a v;o'Iepov 7rporTpov.
In order to understand the thoughts of the author better, let
us see in detail how he estimates Condillac and Kant, the one
recognising only pure sensation, the other placing the forms
of thought as necessary, and a priori..'He [Condillac] was unable to pursue the investigation, not
having a right method. Instead of biological, he pursued verbal
analysis. A verbal analysis of the phenomena was approximately




266                  Englsht PsychZoloy.
made, and this was accepted as asubstitute for the analysis of organ
and function.... Thus, while he pretends to evolve all knowledge and all the faculties out of sensation and the transformations
of sensation (which is to be his advance on Locke), we cannot but
observe that in his evolution the presence is tacitly admitted
of those very faculties which are said to be evolved.  In fact, he
confounds the faculties with the operations of the faculties. Nor
was there any alternative for him. In the absence of the faculties which elaborate sensations into perceptions, judgments,
reasonings, the senses would never have raised man above the
condition of idiocy. A man reduced to mere sensations would
be like the pigeon, whose cerebrum is removed, sensitive indeed,
but incapable of memory, judgment, thought.... The second
objection is, that if the mind is a tabuZa rasac as to knowledge,
and is not even pre-existent as faculty (according to the metaphysicians), or as organism (according to the biologists); if, in a
word, sensations and combinations of sensations create both
knowledge and the knowing faculties, how can we explain the
phenomena of idiocy?  How is it that brutes with senses resembling our own have minds so markedly distinguished from our
own? The sensations of the idiot are as vivid and varied as those
of a rational man; the differences arise in the cerebral/ions of the
two...  Finally, if Sensation is the origin and end of all mental
faculty, how is it that men of vivid sensuous activity are not also
the men of powerful intellect, which they notoriously are not;
how can such a case as that of Laura Bridgman be explained?
-a girl born deaf, dumb, and blind, yet manifesting unusual and
varied and intellectual activity. The biologist sees no difficulty
here; nor does the ordinary psychologist.  The one sees a
cerebral organism with its inherited aptitudes ready for its work;
the other sees a Mind with its constituent faculties.  But the
sensationalist has no such refuge.' 1
Condillac has= confounded under the name of sensation two
things, which are in reality different: sensation properly so
called, and idealism (or the faculty of having ideas). These are
1 Lewes, Ztistosy of Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 333, 334.




AM. George II. Lewes.                  267
two distinct functions, having two distinct organs.  Sensation
comprehends all that belongs to the organs of sense, and that
which is so often neglected, the action of the viscera and the
muscles.  Ideation is another thing: we can no more separate
it from  sensation than we can separate the movement of a
muscle from the sensation which causes it. But it is the action
of a special organ; it is subject to special laws, and that suffices
to distinguish it from the activity of the senses. The common
opinion that ideas are only weakened impressions, and copies of
sensations, has contributed to lead Condillac into error.  It is
not the case.' So little is idea a weakened sensation, that it is
not a sensation at all, it is totally different from sensation.' And
this is not surprising; sensation is the product of a distinct part
of the nervous system, the brain. The rigorous distinction between sensation on the one side, and ideation on the other side,
is found in no treatise on psychology, even of a spiritualistic kind.
Nevertheless comparative anatomy has shown the independence
of the organs of sense, and of the brain, although it has not yet
discovered the relations connecting them. We know that the
brain is an additiozi to the organs of sense, just as these organs
are an addition to the nervous system of the lower animals. As
we descend to the lowest degree of the animal scale, we shall
not find any trace of the nervous system; as we ascend it, we
find a simple ganglion'with its prolongations; higher-still, several
ganglions and rudimentary senses; higher still, organs, more
complex senses, and a rudimentary brain: in man, complex
organs, and a complete brain.  Consequently sensation and
ideation are as independent of each other as the organs of which
they are the function; and though ideation be organically united
with sensation, it is only so much united as movement is united
with sensation.
Each sense has its special centre or sensorizhm, and each is
perfectly independent of the brain, can act without it, and even
in its absence. A bird deprived of brains is sensible to light,
sound, etc., But in their normal condition, these centres are intimately connected with the brain, and affect it. This explains
how we may experience sensations without being conscious of
them (for instance, receiving a wound in the heat of battle); we




268               Enzglis/z Psychology.
can think without experiencing any special sensation, except
those of organic life; as for instance, when we are reflecting in
our bed in the midst of the silence of night.
Thus the independence of ideation and of sensation is proved
psychologically and anatomically, and uproots the doctrine of
Condillac.
Let us now see that of Kant.' Mr. Lewes ardently admires
this philosopher, whom he calls' the greatest of modern meta
physicians.' He is above all thankful to him for having laid
bare the nothingness of ontology, of having shown with more
clearness and precision than any one prior to himself, that human
knowledge is relative; but upon the point which occupies us on
the nature of the laws or forms of thought, Mr. Lewes dissents
from him.'The forms of thought like the forms of life are
evolutions, not preformations.' Kant did not see that.  His
method was incomplete. He has employed only the metaphysical method of subjective analysis, when he should also have
employed the biological method of objective analysis. Transporting into psychology the old Aristotelian error of matter and
of form considered as really separable (while. they are only
separated by abstraction), he regarded the forms of thought as
ready-made factors, anterior to and independent of experience.
Now these formulae ought to be sought, either physiologically,
that is to say, in organic conditions; or psychologically, that is
to say, in the evolution of thought.' Such is the nature of our
mind, that we think as successive that which is in its nature
simultaneous; the condition- of thought is changle. To think is
to exercise judgment, that is, to unite a predicate to a subject.
But these forms or conditions of thought are a result of a development, not of pre-existing elements. Kant has done the
same thing as if he had said that the form of.the oak pre-exists in
the acorn, because the form of the oak comes out of the acorn.
But scientific botany would not accept this solution, and scientific psychology refuses even to accept as h' gjriori conditions of
experience that which is the result of volition and of experience.
Besides this the forms enumerated by Kant are not sufficiently
1 Zlistkoy of PhilosopaY, vol. ii. p. 474.




Mr. GeorgYe H. Lewes.                 269
numerous to express the subjective conditions.  He puts forward
for example pleasure and pain, which are inseparable elements
of all sensation and which determine every action. Hle says
nothing of the various senses and of their conditions; nevertheless it, is the organization of the retina and of the skin which
makes vibration upon the one produce the sensation of light, and
upon the other the sensation of heat. Sight, heat, and sound
are forms of sensibility which serve to clothe the thing in itself
(Dinzg ait sick), just like time and space, which it gives singly.
The distinction between the subjective element and the objective element of thought is rightly regarded as the principal achievement of critical philosophy. Nevertheless it hides a fundamental
error because it endeavours to isolate the elements of an indissoluble act.'It was one thing to assume that there are necessarily two
co-efficients in the function; another thing to assume that these
could be isolated and studied apart. It was one thing to say,
Here is an organism with its inherited structure, and aptitudes
dependent on that structure, which must be considered as necessarily determining the forms in which it will be affected by external agencies, so that all experience will be a compound of subjective and objective conditions; another thing to say, Here is
the pure a Ipriori element in every experience, the form which the
mind impresses on the matter given externally. The first was
almost an inevitable. conclusion, the second was a fiction. Psychology, if it can show us anything, can show the absolute impossibility of our -discriminating the objective from the subjective
elements. In the first place the attempt would only be possible
on the ground that we could, at any time and in any way, disengage thought from its content; separate in Feeling the object, as
it is, out of all relation to Sensibility, or the subject ia.pure subject. - If we could do this in one instance we should' have a basis
for the investigation. The chemist who has learned to detect the
existence of an acid, by its reactions in one case, can by its reactions determine it in other cases.  Having experience of an
acid and an alkali, each apart from the other, he can separate
them when finding them combined in a salt, or he can combine
them when he finds them separate. His analysis and synthesis




2 70              Ezgrishz Psychology.
are possible, because he has elsewhere learned the nature of each
element separately. But such analysis or synthesis is impossible
with the objective and subjective elements of thought. Neither
element is ever given alone.. Pure thought and pure matter are
unknown quantities, to be reached by no equation.' "
Thought is necessarily and universally a subject-object; matter
is necessarily and universally an object-subject. The subject and
the object are combined in knowledge as the acid and the basis
are combined in salt.2
III.
Let us now pass on to the history properly so called. As it is,
above all, dogmatic and critical, and as it has frequently given
the author an opportunity for airing his own ideas, we might
easily collect these fragments of a scattered doctrine and construct a whole out of them. We have, however, preferred to
respect the order followed by the author. We are now going to
pass rapidly through the history, rejecting the learning in favour
of the ideas, especially those which belong to the domain of
psychology.
In his history of ancient philosophy Mr. Lewes appears to
attach himself principally to two points; the examination of
theories upon knowledge and the bringing out of the negative
side of doctrines.  Perhaps some philosoplhers of the adverse
schools will consider that he reads a little too favourably for his
own view those old texts whose elasticity renders them easily
manageable. Thus, he finds in Xenophanes at least the germs
of scepticism;  his disciple Parmenides'had not a mere vague
and general notion of the uncertainty of human knowledge.  He
~maintained that thought was delusive, because dependent upon
organization,'4 which at least touches upon materialism. Heraclitus
sees in everything only a becoming;' Empedocles laments upon
the uncertainty of knowledge and the frailty of human life.
Anaxagoras,'on the great subject of the origin and certainty
of our knowledge, differed from  Xenophanes and Heraclitus.
Lewes, Hisfoy of Philosoyj, vol. ii. p. 483.  2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 484.
Z Zb4. vol. i. p. 49.                    4 Ibid. p. 53.




Mr. Gcorge H. Lewes.                  271
He thought, with the former, that all sense-knowledge is delusive; and with the latter,- that all knowledge comes through
the senses.  Here is a double scepticism brought into play.
It has usually been held that these two opinions contradict
each other; that he could not have maintained both. Yet
both opinions are tenable. His reason for denying certainty to
the senses was the incapacity of distinguishing all the real objective elements of which things are composed. Thus the eye discerns a complex mass which we call a flower; but discerns
nothing of that of whzeich the flower is composed.  In other
words, the senses perceive iphenomena, but do not and cannot
observe nounzena,-an anticipation of the greatest discovery of
psychology, though seen dimly and confusedly by Anaxagoras.'l
Mr. Lewes holds that he has made the same discovery in
Democritus (p. 97, vol. i.)  Whatever we may think of these
interpretations, they at least prove that the author takes more
seriously than we should have been inclined to think he would
these first essays of philosophical thought. His heart is with
the men of these ancient days, he admires them, and he cannot
think without emotion of this flight of daring human indefatigable
curiosity set free for the first time.
The question of the Sophists has been much discussed in our
days.  After Hegel, who rehabilitates Protagoras, Mr. Grote
takes them in hand.2  Justice is due to every one, even to the
sophists; they will not obtain it without difficulty. It is, nevertheless, clear that they were condemned upon the deposition of
bitter enemies; that to judge Protagoras or Callicles according
to Plato is to judge Socrates according to the Ngibes.  Mr.
Lewes, agreeing with his compatriot, shows how far this question
has been obscured and misunderstood. He does not wish to
glorify the Sophists or to absolve them from all reproach, he
merely asks that those who judge them should place themselves
in imagination in their time:' The Sophists were wealthy; the Sophists were powerful; the
1 Lewes, Zislo7ly of Philosopzy, vol. i. p. 75.
In his work on Plato and t1e Socratics, and in his Zlistoly oJ Greecc,
vol..:..




272              EngliszZ Psyckhodlog1.
Sophists were dazzling, rhetorical, and not profound. Interrogate human nature-above all the nature of philosophers-and
ask what will be the sentiment entertained respecting these
Sophists by their rivals. Ask the solitary thinker what is his
opinion of the showy, powerful, but shallow rhetorician, who
usurps the attention of the world. The man of conviction has at
all times a superb contempt for the man of mere oratorical or
dialectical display. The thinker knows that the world is ruled
by Thought, yet he sees Expression gaining the world's attention.
He knows, perhaps, that he has within him thoughts-pregnant
with human welfare; yet he sees the giddy multitude intoxicated
with the enthusiasm excited by some plausible fallacy, clothed
in persuasive language. He sees through the fallacy, but cannot
make others as clear-sighted.  His warning is unheeded; his
wisdom is spurned; his ambition is frustrated; the popular idol
is carried onward in triumph. The neglected thinker would not
be human if he bore this with equanimity. He does not. He
is loud and angry in lamenting the fate of a world that -can be
so led; loud and angry in his contempt of one who could so
lead it. Should he become the critic or the historian of his age,
what exactness ought we to expect in his account of the popular
idol'
The immorality imputed to them, says Mr. Lewes, is not
sustained by examination. Athens was not peopled only by
architects, sculptors, poets, and philosophers; there were true
citizens, human beings having human passions. How can we
suppose that they have suffered it to be proclaimed and repeated
that all morality is a farce and all law a quibble? That they
would have permitted open blasphemy against all justice, against
the basis of every social contract? Such charlatans would have
inspired only ridicule or horror. And nevertheless the sophists
were rich, admired, intrusted with delicate missions, sent on
embassies, surrounded by rich and noble young men; they were
the intellectual leaders of their age, and'if they had been what
their adversaries describe them, Greece could only have been an
earthly Pandemonium, where Belial was King.' 2
Lewes, HIistory of Philosophy, p. IC6.  2 Vol. i. p. IIo.




MIr. George H. Lewzes.               273
There was no sophistic dodctine, but a sophistic art.  This art
might have grave consequences, as Aristotle and Plato saw, but
the Sophists did not profess them; and we can quite understand
that Gorgias, after having read the dialogue which bears his name,
should have said,' I do not recognise myself; but the young man
has a great talent for satire.''The Sophists were the natural production of the opinions of
the epoch.  In them we see the first energetic protest against the
possibility of metaphysical science. This protest, however, must
not be confounded with the protest of Bacon-must not be mistaken for the germ of positive philosophy. It was the protest of
baffled minds. The philosophy of the day led to scepticism;
but with scepticism no energetic man could remain contented.'
Then Socrates appeared.
The principal' merit of Socrates is his negative"method; up to
his time dogmatism had had it all its own way; he applied himself
to examination. His process of truly contradictory discussion and
cross-questioling is a first attempt at verification; unhappily it is
entirely subjective. Further, it was at this epoch that the human
mind, for the first time, showed a clear consciousness of the
notions of kinds, species, individuals, general terms, and general
ideas. The philosopher,  according to the showing of Plato, is' he who sees the one in the many, and the many in the one;'
but this had a dangerous tendency. It was imagined that to
these general ideas an objective reality corresponded; it was pretended that the lyre, the horse, the young girl, and the generous
action -had something in common-beauty; where it ought to have
been said, it is because men are capable of an agreeable emotion
excited by these various objects, that they are united under the
general term' beautiful.'
Sextus Empirius 2 has told us that the ancients-were divided
upon the point whether Plato was dogmatic or sceptical.
One can understand this difficulty, and for my part, says Mr.
Lewes,' after having read every one of Plato's Dialogues (an
excessively wearisome labour), and done my best to arrive at a
distinct understanding of their purpose, I come to the conclusion1 Lewes, Zp'ilosopk,, vol. i. p. I24.  2 tlyjot. Pyrr. i. 44.




274              English Psychology.
that lie never systematized his thoughts, but allowed free play to
scepticism, taking opposite sides in every debate because he had
no steady conviction to guide him; unsaying to-day what he had
said yesterday, satisfied to show the weakness of an opponent.' 1
He does not believe, any more than Mr. Grote, in the system
of interpretation which consists in saying that one dialogue resolves the difficulties proposed by another. That which we take
for a game of dialectics is really the'groping' of Plato himself.
He had not a philosophy; he had philosophies; he was above
all great as a promoter; his doctrine, which is valuable'nad
cdocenzdum parium, ad imeplenzdurm sat;s, remains still, and always
will remain, a source of power.' 2
Mr. Lewes, as we have already stated, has devoted a special
essay to Aristotle; in him he praises the founder of the experimental school; he criticises the author of the Metaphysics.  He
may be rightly called the father of the inductive philosophy, because
he was the first to lay down its principles with an exactness and
precision which Bacon himself has not surpassed.'Anticipating
modern Psychology, he taught, confusedly indeed, that intelligence is a late development; that the understanding is built up
from sensuous materials,'  that memory produces experience,
and that experience renders induction possible. But still his
method is not that of positive science-verification is missing.
That which removes all scientific value from it is his theory of
the Four Causes-an entirely subjective conception, founded upon
pure ideas, and consequently hypothetical, and not verifiable.
The semi-scepticism of the new academy furnishes to iMr.
Lewes the materials for an essay on perception.  We know that
Arcesilaus and Carneades disputed with the Stoics, the dogmatists
of that time, upon the legitimacy of the criterion, and in particular
upon this question: Does every modification of the mind correspond exactly to the external object which causes it? Sensation,
says Mr. Lewes, corresponds in nothing with its object, unless in
the relation of effect to cause. At first this will surprise any one
who has not reflected upon the point. Ask such a person if he con1 Lewes, Hist. of P2hilosop2h, p. 228.  2 Vol. i. p. 221.
3 Ibid. p. 288.                       4 Ibid. pp. 367-372.




g Mr. George H. Lewes.                    275
siders his perceptions as copZis of particular objects, if he thinks
that the flower which is before him can exist independently of
him, or of all human beings, and if it can exist with the same
attributes of form, taste, smell, etc.?  His answer will be in the
affirmative.  He will regard you as a mad man if you doubt
it. Nevertheless, a modification cannot be in any way a copy of
the object which modifies. The pain caused by a burn is not the
copy of the fire. Does it resemble the fire in any way? It simply
expresses the relation between us and the fire, an effect which
fire may produce upon us. We hear thunder; our sensation is not
a copy of the phenomenon; it simply expresses an effect produced upon us by a certain vibration of the air.  It is the same
with regard to sensations of sight, although the prejudice to the
contrary is very difficult to uproot.  There are many persons
who will agree that the pain caused by fire is not a copy of the
fire, but who will maintain that the appearance produced upon
our eyes by fire is the real appearance of the fire, independently
of human vision.'Yet if all sentient beings were at once swept
from the face of the earth, the fire would have no attribute at all
resembling pain; because pain is a modification, not of fire, but of
a sentient being. In like manner, if all sentient beings were at
once swept from the face of the earth, the fire would have no
attributes at all resembling light and colour; because light and
colour are modifications of the sentient being, caused by sovzet/ling
external, but no more resembling its cause than the pain inflicted
by an instrument resembles that instrument.' 1
The radical error of those who think that we perceive things as
they are, consists in adopting a metaphor as a fact, and believing
that perception resembles a mirror, in which certain objects reflect
themselves. Perception is no more than a condition of the subject perceiving, that is to say, a state of consciousness which may
be causedZby external objects, but which it does not in any way
resemrble.  Then all that we can do is to endeavour to identify
certain external appearances with certain internal changes, to
idenztify the phenomenon which we call fire with certain sensations which are produced when we approach it.   The world
1 Lewes, Hiisory of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 368..




2 7 6            EnZglish Psyc/ho logy.
considered independently of consciousness, the world zin iseJ/, is
in all probability very different from the world as we know it.' Light, colour, sound, taste, smell, are all states of consciousness;
what they are beyond consciousness, as existences per se, we
cannot know, we cannot imagine, because we can only conceive
them as we know  them.  Light, with its myriad forms and
colours-Sound, with-its thousand-fold life-are the investitures
with which we clothe the world.  Nature, in her insentient
solitude, is an eternal darkness —an eternal silence.' 1
Perception is then an effect, and its truth is a truth not of
resemblance, but of relation.  It cannot make us know what
things are, but what they are in relation to us.
VI.'Although the Middle Ages extend over nearly a thousand
years, we must, as Hegel says, put on seven-league boots to
traverse them.' 2  Thus says Mr. Lewes, and he keeps his word.
We shall be perhaps astonished to find that St. Thomas Aquinas,
Duns Scotus, Telesio, and Vanini are not named; but if we
remember that the aim of the author is, above all, critical and
dogmatic, we shall be less surprised at it. He is in haste to
reach the moderns.
Of the two founders of modern philosophy, Descartes is the
best handled. Bacon 3 was above all an initiator, and he had the
merit of crying aloud, of being the herald of a new era, of giving
to scientific research the dignity and the hope of a brilliant
future. But while insisting upon the importance of the experimental method, he has totally deceived himself upon the process to be followed, and Harvey was not altogether unjust when
he said of him,' he talks of science like a Lord Chancellor.'
Dugald Stewart was right in saying that Descartes is the
father of experimental psychology; and Condorcet in maintaining
that he has done more than Galileo or Bacon for the experimental method, exaggerated a little, but not without foundation.
Vol. i. p. 37I.                      2 Vol. ii. p. 2.
3 Vol. ii. pp. II9, 120, 126.         4 Ibid. p. I45.




AIr. George H. Lezes.                    2 77
Cartesianism is summed up in two things: consciousness is the
sole foundation of certitude; mathematics is the sole method
of certitude. Bacon had said nothing of the deductive method:
Descartes supplies this deficiency.  But the deductive method,
excellent in itself, must proceed objectively, and in that Descartes is often wanting. Whilst his reaction against the scholastic
philosophy leads him to the objective point of view in cosmology,
his psychological studies bring him back to the subjective point
of view; he believes that reason can solve theological and metaphysical problems. To found the deductive method upon the
basis of consciousness-such was his object.  No thinker save
Spinoza has so clearly established  his criterion.  But this
criterion is deceptive.  Consciousness is the last foundation of
certitude: yes, for mze. But what certitude does it give me for
all w/hich is not me.  Consciousness is restricted, confined to
self and to what passes in self; all the ideas which we have
upon.the non-ego can be founded only upon inferences. I burn
myself. I have consciousness of a sensation, I have a certain
and immediate knowledge of it. But when from the change
produced I infer the existence of something which is not me,
consciousness itself guarantees me nothing, and my whole
knowledge of the object is mediate and uncertain.  Consequently, as soon as we abandon consciousness for inference
doubt becomes possible.l
We must resolutely but regretfully sacrifice everything in the
history of modern philosophy which is apart from our subject,
and only show how Mr. Lewes traces and comprehends the
process of psychology.2
It is HIobbes, he says,3 and not Locke, who is the precursor
of that psychology of the eighteenth century which resulted in
the celebrated formula,'to think is to feel.' We must also
1 Vol. ii. p. I55.
" The author is familiar with the most recent works pulblished in France
upon the HIistory of Philosophy, whether general histories or monographs.
I-Ie treats Spinoza at length: it is to be regretted that the essay on Leibnitz
is so blrief, and that there is nothing about Malebranche.
P r. 229.




278               Enzglish Psych/ology.
reproach him with materialism.'  But the aid he has lent to psychologists is considerable.  In the first place, he has proclaimed
it a science of observation; he discovered that our sensations do
not correspond with external qualities, that they are only a modification of the sentient subject, a discovery which Descartes has
adopted or made for himself in his Meditations; finally, he wrote
a'masterly' chapter on the association of ideas,'though he
evidently was quite unaware of its extensive application.'
Locke is the founder of modern psychology; he understood
the necessity of a critical determination of the limits of the human
mind. He commenced the history of the development of our
thoughts, others having been content to take ideas as they found
them; Locke carefully sought for the origin of all our ideas. In
order to complete his psychology he ought to have searched for
the origin of our faculties.  M. Victor Cousin, who,'as a
rhetorician,' 2 opposes Locke, complains of his speaking:of savages,
of children, of travellers' tales, and he does not see that Locke
was trying the comparative method. When John Hunter. sought
for the elucidation of several anatomical problems in comparative
anatomy, he was laughed at; and now every one knows that
comparative physiology and embryology are the surest guides
in all biological questions: because simple organisms are more
easy to study than complex organisms, Locke also foresaw, but
confusedly, the possibility of this comparative study in psychology.
Psychology owes only one thing to Leibnitz, but which is of
immense value: the distinction between perception and apperception.3'There are few men of whom England has better reason to be
proud than of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne.' 4 He has not
been spared raillery or attack, but most frequently his critics have
not understood him.'When Berkeley denied the existence of matter, he meant by
"matter " that unknown substaltum, the existence of which Locke
had declared to be a necessary izferen ce from our knowledge of
qualities, but the nature of which must ever be altogether hidden
1 Vol. ii. p. 226.  2 P. 246.  3 P. 2S0.    4 P. 28I.




Mr. Georg~e H. Lewes.                 2079
from us. Philosophers had assumed the existence of Substance,
i.e. of a nounzenon lying underneath all ilzeneomena-a substratum
supporting all qualities-a some/hing in which all accidents inhere.
This unknown Substance Berkeley rejects.' t
This is why he says that he believes as fully in matter as any
one; but that in his belief he separates himself from the philosopher, and agrees with the vulgar.  He denies matter, then, not in
the vulgar sense, but in the Ahilosoihical sense of the word. We
must acknowledge, however, that his language is ambiguous, and
tends to mistakes.2
When philosophy examines the notions of common sense, relative to the exterior world, it meets with this problem. Our senses
inform us of certain sensible qualities,-extent, colour, etc.  But
our reason tells us that these qualities must be the qualities of
something. What is that somethings  It is the unknown sub.
stance which serves for support to the qualities. So that in the
ultimate analysis our only reason for inferring the existence of
matter is the necessity of a synthesis of attributes.  What says Berkeley to this. He boldly resolves the problem by saying that
the synthesis is a mental synthesis. He first causes us to remark that
the objects of our knowledge are ideas, an indisputable assertion,
rigidly founded upon the facts of consciousness, and which can
appear paradoxical only to those who are unused to questions of
this kind.'When,' he says,'we do everything in our power to
conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the time
doing nothing but contem15lating our own ideas.' These objects
and ideas are the same thing, then; nothing exists, then, but
what is perceived. - Can we maintain that in addition to ideas,
there are things of which ideas are copies. As an idea can only
resemble an idea, of two things one must be true: either the
object of which we speak is an idea, and then idealism triumphs;
or we maintain that a colour resembles something invisible, the
rough object an intangible thing.
Realism, says Mr. Levwes, has not the shadow of an answer to
1 Lewes, lHisloy of Phi/osop7hy, vol. ii. p. 283.
2 In support of his interpretation Mr. Lewes quotes several passages friom
Berkeley.  See P2rinci2les of Jiunman /;ozlecJg', ~ 35 el seq.




280              EnSzg' sh Psycholo~gy.
make.  Applied to the facts-of the azdll consciousness, the analysis of Berkeley is unimpeachable;' unless we should deny that
consciousness is immediately affected by sensations, and affirm
that it is immediately affected by external objects; which no
metaphysician would do, because this would lead him to maintain
that consciousness is nothing but sensations produced in the
organism by external influences, and so cause the substratum
mind to disappear altogether.
The question of knowing whether consciousness is something
superior to its acts (if it is, to use the language of French psychologists, a distinct faculty) may be considered to have been
established since Brown.  Nevertheless, we still find the old
notion of a duplication of consciousness, of a consciousness
which is a feeling of feeling, that will remain until the notion of
mind as an entity shall have been banished from psychology.
Are there two distinct existences, matter and spirit?-is there
only one?  And which? Such is, when we reflect upon it, the
point in debate in the question which occupies us.
The idealist says, There is only one existence, the mind.
Analyse the conception of matter, and you will discover that it
is only a mental synthesis of qualities.
The realist will say, There is only one existence, matter.
Analyse your conception of mind, and you will discover that it
is only a synthesis of qualities (states of consciousness), which
are the activities of the organism. The synthesis is the organism.
The sceptic, in agreement with both, and in disagreement
with both, says: Your matter is only a floating succession of
phenomena; your mind a floating succession of ideas.
The dualist says, There is spirit, and there is matter; each is
essentially distinct; they have -nothing in common. Nevertheless, they can act one upon the other. How? That is a mystery.
No doubt; but as philosophy cannot be contented with phrases,
it remarks that where realism and idealism admit only one factor,
dualism introduces two; consequently it rejects it in virtue of
the rule, Enlia non stuut m;uiltiicndra nprefer necessi/atem.'
Must we now, taking the side of idealism, conclude with
Vol. ii. p. 295.              2 Ibide. p. 296.




Mr. George H. Lewes.                  28I
Berkeley, that as we only know ideas, objects must be identified
with ideas, and that the esse of objects for us is jercVi? There
is an ambiguity in that. No doubt we cannot think of an object
without making it subject to the laws of nature, under the conditions of our thought; but it is quite different to say,' I cannot
conceive things otherwise, therefore they cannot exist otherwise.'
Idealism here assumes that human knowledge is absolute, not
relative; that man is the measure of everything.'Perception is the identity of the ego and the non-ego-the
relation of two terms, the tertiuzm guid of two united forces;
as water is the identity of oxygen and hydrogen. The ego can
never have any knowledge of the non-ego in which it (the ego)
is not: indissolubly bound up; as oxygen can never unite with
hydrogen to form water without merging itself and the hydrogen
in a tertielm  quid. Let us suppose the oxygen to be a process of
consciousness, ie. a feeling of changes. It would attribute the
change not to hydrogen, which is necessarily hidden from it, but
to water, the only form under which hydrogen is known to it.
In its consciousness it would find the state named water, which
would be very unlike its previous state; and it would suppose
that this state, so unlike the previous one, was a representation
of that which caused it. We say then that, although the hydrogen can only exist for the oxygen (in the above case) in the
identity of both as water, this is no proof that hydrogen does not
exist under some other relations to other gases. In like manner,
although the non-ego cannot exist in relation to mind otherwise
than in the identity of the two (perception), this is no sort of
proof that it does not exist in relation to other beings under
quite different conditions.' 1
We admit then, with the idealists, that our knowledge is subjective; but we believe in the existence of an external world, altogether independent of the perceiving subject. The argumentation
by which idealism seeks to disturb this belief is vitiated by the
assumption that our knowledge is the criterion of existence;
this is conferring upon it an absolute value that it does not
possess.
l ZIis/ooy of P'ioso/7)y, vol. p. 302.




2 2               Ezglish Psychology.!Hume follows up Berkeley. He suppresses the mind as an entity,
and reduces it to a series of impressions, or, as modern psychologists would say, to a series of states of consciousness. But how
then is continuity of consciousness to be explained, since between
two states there is necessarily an interval? Does consciousness
vanish during this interval, to re-appear with the after state?
Hume does not solve this question; he does not even put it.
The metaphysician replies, Yes: the mind continues and unites
all its manifestations in one synthesis.
The biologist replies, Consciousness being a vital process, not
an entity, has its synthesis in the continuity of the vital conditions.  The nervous mechanism, of which consciousness is a
function, continues to exist in the interval between two acts of
consciousness.
If the metaphysician objects that the reality of the mind is
proved by consciousness, and by the fact that I say,.ny body;
the biologist will reply, that the testimony of consciousness
needs sifting by analysis; and that if I say, My body, I also
say, Any mind. Its personality is a notion whose genesis has
not been yet clearly traced by any psychologist.'
After Hume, psychology is represented by Hartley, Darwin,
and the Scotch school.
Hartley is the first who has attempted to explain the physiological mechanism of psychological phenomena.2 He explains sensations by vibratory movements; a hypothesis which adds nothing
to our knowledge of psychical processes. To speak of vibrations
and vibratiuncles does not at all enlarge our horizon. Although since Hartley the progress of science has given a' high
degree of probability to the general doctrine of vibrations,
nevertheless, even now, our knowledge of sensations is much
more certain than that of the vibrations involved. The doctrine of
vibrations would be useful, if from the known laws of vibratory
bodies we could deduce and explain the still unexplained mental
phenomena; but nothing of the kind has been done as yet, and
the theory of Hartley is much too vague to aid us.3
1 Hisloly of hilesoizy, vol. ii. p. 3I6.  2 Ibi. p. 349.    Ibid. p. 353.




Mr. Georg-e HI. Lewes.                  283
Darwin (Erasmus) professes the same theory, substituting for
the word' vibration' the expression' sensorial movements.'
Although his system is full of'absurd hypotheses,' he has the
merit of seeing that psychology is subordinate to the laws of life,
and of cutting short ill-put questions and factitious problems.
Why with two eyes do we see objects single?  Why, the images
being reversed upon the, retina, do we see objects straight?
These questions and those of the same kind are psychological,
and cannot be resolved either by optics or anatomy. We might
as well deduce the assimilation of sugar from the angles of its
crystals, as deduce the perception of an object from the laws of
optics; sugar must be dissolved before being assimilated, and so
the retinal images must be transformed by the sensational centre,
before affecting the brain.' And this is.not a gratuitous hypothesis, it is sustained by facts.  It can be demonstrated.  We
see objects single with our two eyes, but we also hear sounds
as single with our two ears; our two nostrils give us a single
scent; our five fingers give us objects as single.  These facts
have a bearing upon one another, and they demand reflection. Their explanation ought to be psychological, and I think,
says Mr. Lewes, that it is very simple. - Here it is:-' I believe the explanation to be very simple.  We cannot have
tzeo preciselyy similar sensations at precisely the same instant; the
siztultaneousness of/he tzelo sensations renders them indistzingishable.
Two sounds of precisely the same pitch and intensity, succeeding
each other by an appfreciable interval, will be heard as two sounds;
but if they succeed each other so rapidly that the interval is
inappreciable, no distinction will be felt, and the two will be
heard as one, because heard simultaneously..... The various
Sensational Centres are variously affected by the same stimuli:
electricity giving to the gustatory nerve the stimulus of savorous
bodies, to the auditory nerve the stimulus of sonorous vibrations,
to the optic nerve the stimulus of luminous bodies, to the tactile
nerves the stimulus of touch.... Nor is this all: narcotics
introduced into the blood excite in each Sensational Centre-the
1 bi.i vol. ii. p. 358.




284                 Ezglish Psychology.
specific sensation normally excited by its external stimuli.
From these indubitable facts it is not difficult to elicit a conclusion, namlely, that sensation depends on the Sensational Centre,
and not on the external stimulus,... and there the impression
first becomes a sensation...  When therefore it is asked,Why do we see objects erect, when they throw inverted images on
the retina? the answer is,-Because we do not see the retinal
image at all; we see, or are affected by, the object; and our
perception of the erectness of that object does not depend on
vision, but on our conceptions of space and the relations of
space, which are not given in the visual sensation.' 1
The Scotch school is summarily treated;2 although its psychology contains much available matter for students, it is entirely
dead as a doctrine. It is dead, and it deserved to die, because
it had no object and no true method. It has added verbal
analysis to verbal analysis, metaphysical explanation to metaphysical explanaticn; whilst physiologists and some psychologists were going to the bottom of things.
Those to whom this allusion is made appear to be Cabanis
and Gall.
The mention of the name of Cabanis immediately recalls the
famous' secretion of thought.'  By an unhappy phrase, says Mr.
Lewes,3 Cabanis has given the advantage to his adversaries,
and has prevented the progress of his own doctrines.4 He has
been understood to have said that the brain secretes thought as
the liver secretes bile. He never said anything of the sort. It is
true that by a deplorable ambiguity of language he may lead us
to interpret him  as holding that thought is a secretion, while
in reality he meant to say that it is a function.'Certainly, if he
did regard thought as a secretion, the error was monstrous,
and the outcry against him was justifiable.' 5 But the truth is,
that he, like many biologists and psychologists, had very obscure
1 Lewes, Hislory of P/iilosoj/hI., vol. ii. p. 359-36I.
2 l1bidi. p. 393.                                3biT. p. 375.
4 For the text of the phrase, see Cabanis, P2ta/joris di Pigsisiie et dui Afioral,
ed. Peisse, p. 138, with a note by the editor, who does not take it seriously.
[6 isfoy of Jfl:iosoj7SO', vol. ii. p. 376.




Mr. George H. Lewes.                     285
ideas upon function.' His great merit has been clear perception
of the relations of psychology to the science of life, and the
recognition of a great truth, already clearly seen by Aristotle, and
thus expressed by St. Thomas' Aquinas:'Impossibile est in uno
homine esse plures animas per essential  differentes, sed una
tantum est anima intellectiva quae vegetativo et sensitive et
intellectivo officiis fungitur.'
Gall is treated with fulness and favour in pages 394 to 435;
Mr. Lewes attributes to him one merit, that of having rendered
service to physiology and to psychology even by the datring of his
hypotheses; and two defects, that of completely neglecting subjective analysis in psychology, and of having founded a phrenology
or cranioscopy belied by facts and the progress of science.
If Gall has been accused of materialism, it has been wrongfully, because he has several times declared that he' confines himself to phenomena,' and that he has never comprised in his researches anything relating to the essence of the body, or of the
soul.' I do not understand,' he says,' that our faculties are apl-oddzct of organization, because this would be to confound the conditions with the efficient causes.' It may be said that Gall has put
a definite end to the dispute between the partisans of innate ideas,
and the doctrine of sensation, by showing that there are innate
tendencies, as much affective as intellectual, which belong to the
organic structure of man.  Two psychological facts, already
vaguely perceived, have been brought out by him:I. The fundamental tendencies are innate, and cannot be created
by education.
ii. The various faculties are essentially distinct and independent,
though intimately united among themselves.
He has also clearly seen and clearly expressed that the
greatest obstacle to the progress of psychological researches is
to isolate man from the animal series, and to consider him as
governed by totally special organic laws.
He has understood that psychology, being a branch of biology,
1 Mr. Lewes, quoting in p. 648 an analogous expression of Vogt's, manifests his distaste to phrases made for effect, aiming at terrifying, and which he
calls'pistol-shots.'




286              Eng'-iszh Psychology.
and consequently subject to all the biological laws, must be
studied according to biological methods. Zoological, anatomical,
philosophical, and pathological observations, all these are necessary as a basis: and certainly Gall has amassed more facts of this
sort than any of his predecessors; he has exhibited the patience
and the skill- of an investigator, although he may have drawn
from all his collection of materials false interpretations and unverified conclusions. But there is another very important instrument of research, which Gall has omitted; this is subjectzie analysis; an instrument so necessary that several psychologists,
neglecting the importance of biological researches, maintain that
psychology ought to be erected into a distinct science, and
founded upon that analysis. Hence the weakness of the psychological classifications of Gall, Spurzheim, and George Combe has
rendered them rather more acceptable, but no one has had the
faintest conception of what psychological analysis ought to be, of
its means, of its conditions, and of the problems which it has to
solve. How are we to determine whether a mental manifestation
is the direct product of a faculty, or the indirect product of two or
more faculties? How are we to distinguish between faculties and
modes, between elementary actions and associated actions, between energies and synergies? These are very important questions, which no one has tried to solve. Gall attributes to us
twenty-seven faculties, among which are those of veneration, of
individuality, of colour, of eventuality, and many others which
evidently are not at all original faculties. His doctrine is thus very
weak on this point. Nevertheless, the great principle of Kant,
that we must seek in the laws of thought a solution of philosophical problems, Gall has had the merit of approaching on the
biological side.'We ought to seek our ideas and our knowledge partly in the
phenomena of the exterior world, and in their rational employment, and partly in the innate laws of the moral and intellectual
faculties.' 1
Physiologically he takes his revenge. His novelty consists in
his precision. The relations between the physical and the moral
1 Gall, Fun<tions of t/le Brain, i. 84.




~Mr. George H. Lewes.                 2287
nature had been vaguely recognised; also general relations of the
nervous system and the mental functions; but none had ever attempted a precise demonstration of them.  Many facts were
known, such as the following: the toothache, which disappears
when we reach the dentist's door; taking water, fancying that it
is an emetic, and vomiting in consequence.  These facts were
explained by attributing them to the imagination. That is well;
but by what material conditions did imagination act upon the viscera or upon the tooth l These simple-minded explanations supposed a sort of autocratic imagination, without feeling any necessity of discovering a particular mechanism for the production of
the results. Gall has not succeeded in discovering one, but at
least he has seen that it was necessary to substitute precise ideas
for the vague generalities then current. Phrenology or cranioscopy had this aim; it assigned each part of the cerebral mass as
the seat of one particular faculty. But this hypothesis had to be
confronted with facts, and it was found to be false. The most
eminent neurologists declared against it, so that now phrenology
finds itself in the rear of the discoveries of physiology, without
having ever succeeded in constituting its psychology.
We have not to follow Mr. Lewes in his explanation of German
philosophy, nor in his criticism on Auguste Comte.  Here, however, there is one point which we must notice. We know that
Stuart Mill has keenly criticised the omission of psychology in
the classification of the sciences, such as is admitted by the
positive school.' Mr. Lewes replies to this criticism by the following distinction: If it is a question of recognising that psychology is a possible science, and of great value, that subjective
analysis has been misunderstood by Comte, and that he has done
wrong in regarding internal observation as an illusory process,
I agree with Mr. Mill. But if it is a question of recognising in psychology an independent science, separate from biology, and to
assign it a place of its own in the hierarchy of abstract sciences,
then I am  with M. Comte. Psychology may be a concrete
I On this point see Littre, Auguste Comnte et Stuart Mill, and two articles
in the Re-vue des Deux liondes, on La Plzilosop/ie positive, September and
November I867.




288              EzniiSis Psychology.
science, like physiology and botany, but it must be derived from
abstract science of biology.'
The conclusion of the work is a rapid review of the present
philosophical situation of Europe. The author thinks that, in
spite of appearances, the future belongs to positivism, and he
carefully notices all the symptoms of it. If, as we sometimes say,
the judgment of foreigners is for us a contemporary posterity,
perhaps it will not be without interest to know what Mr. Lewes
thinks of French philosophy.
It began, he says, by a movement of reaction against the doctrines of the eighteenth century-a vigorous reaction, because the
excesses of the Revolution and the saturnalia of the Terror were
associated in people's minds with the philosophical opinions of
Condillac, Diderot, and Cabanis.  Men were afraid of the
consequences, and rejected these doctrines en masse without
troubling themselves to know what good they may have contained.'Men may, unhappily, be frightened from the truth, and
cajoled into error, and in France the cajolery has been openly
avowed, Victor Cousin frankly appealing to the "patriotism" of
his audience in favour of "nos belles doctrines.".. The history
of the reaction in France is very instructive, but it would require
more space than can here be given adequately to narrate the story.
Four streams of influence converged into one, all starting from
the same source, namely, horror at the Revolutionary excesses.
The Catholics, with the great Joseph de Maistre and M. de
Bonald at their head, appealed to the religious sentiments; the
Royalists, with Chateaubriand and Madame de Stahl, appealed
to the monarchical and literary sentiments; the metaphysicians,
with Laromiguiere and Maine de Biran; and the moralists, with
Royer-Collard, —one and all attacked the weak points of Sensationalism, and prepared the way for the enthusiastic reception of
the Scotch and German philosophies. A glance at almost any
of these writers will suffice to convince the student that their main
purpose is to defend morality and order, which they believe to be
necessarily imperilled by the philosophy they attack.  The
1 P. 624.




niMr. George H.  Lezes.              289
appeals to the prejudices and sentiments are incessant. Eloquence is made to supply the deficiencies of argument; emotion
takes the place of demonstration..... One doctrine, and one
alone, emerged from these attempts, and held for some time the
position of a School.... Eclecticism is dead, but it produced
some good results, if only by the impetus it gave to historical
research, and by the confirmation it gave, in its very weakness, to
the conclusion that an d ptriori solution of transcendental problems
is impossible....' Victor Cousin and Theodore Jouffroy are the chiefs of this
School; one a brilliant rhetorician utterly destitute of originality,
the other a sincere thinker, whose merits have been thrown into
the shade by his brilliant colleague. As a man of letters, M.
Cousin deserves the respect which attends his name, if we except
the more than questionable use which he has made of the labours
of pupils and assistants without acknowledgment..... But'Victor Cousin's restless activity led him to the study of Kant:and certain doctrines of the " Kinigsberg sage " were preached
by him with the same ardour as that: which he had formerly
devoted to the Scotch. As soon as the Parisians began to know
something of Kant, M. Cousin started off to Alexandria for a
doctrine; he found one in Proclus. He edited Proclus; lectured
on him; borrowed some of his ideas, and.would have set him on
the throne of philosophy had the public been willing. A trip to
Germany in I824 made him acquainted with the modern Proclus
-Hegel.  On his return to Paris he presented the public with as
much of Hegel's doctrines as he could understand. His celebrated Eclecticism  is nothing but a misconception of Hegel's
History of P/ziiosojhy, fenced round with several plausible arguments.' Gifted with great oratorical power, flattering the prejudices
and passions of the majority, tempted as most orators are
to sacrifice everything to effect, and incapable, from native incapacity or from defective training, of gaining any clear insight,
Victor Cousin by his qualities and defects rose to an eminence
which was regrettable, because it overshadowed the efforts of
nobler minds. He was the source of philosophical patronage,
and he filled the chairs of France with professors who were his




290               Ezgizislh Psychzology.
adherents, or who dared not openly expose his weakness. The
consequence was that, being crassly ignorant of Science, he kept
Philosophy aloof from all scientific influences. The progress of
centuries was ignored, and the methods of Scholasticism were
once more brought into vogue. A painful cant of "questionbegging" eloquence supplied the place of research. The clear,
precise genius of France was for a time ashamed of its clearness, and in sheer terror of being thought superficial and immoral
rejected the aid of Science, and went maundering on about le
Moi, loeil intertze, l/'Zifi, le Vra4; le Beau, et le Bien 1 in a pitiable
manner.'
This judgment is severe, at least in form, but we have contented ourselves with merely translating it.
Is this, of which the foregoing pages are an exposition, an
ordinary history of philosophy? Evidently not; it is the work of an
original mind which has a great deal to say, and yields voluntarily to
the pleasure of saying it, a mind which handles texts like a thinker,
not like a scholar. Assuredly we must not search Mr. Lewes's
pages for enlightenment upon obscure points and upon controverted passages; but in this long journey from Thales to Comte,
the author has taken amazing pains, and has put forth enough
teaching to content some, to leave others discontented, and to
make every one reflect. We know our philosopher already, although we have only examined the historian in him. Let us now
approach the psychologist.
2 These words are in French in the text.
2 Lewes, Philosopzhy, vol. ii. pp. 645-6.




Air. Georg-e H. Lewzes.                29I
CHAPTER 1I.
PSYCHOLOGY.
PschnZoogy. —I. Psychology of common life-2. Organism and mechanism3. Consciousness: its various forms-4. Discussion of the current doctrine of reflex actions-5. Of sleep and heredity.
WVE are destined never to come face to face with Mr. Lewes,
we can only take him obliquely.  Just now he was an historian,
at present he is a psychologist.  But while he protests that he
will not come out of' his science,' and that he renounces penetration of the mysteries of psychology, it may be said that he is
always coquetting with that science,-that he frequently yields to
the temptation of speaking of it, and that it occupies a great part
of his work, although he does not treat of it explicitly. The Physiolo.gy of Commolz Life, as its title expresses, proceeds to exhibit
under a simple form the mechanism of the vital functions, and to
give a notion of the principal laws of physiology sufficient to serve
as a guide in practice.' It differs however from books of popular science, in that the author, instead of being a simple intermediary between the public and the savant, brings forward the
result of his personal researches, which differ upon more than one
point from received opinions.' FEELING and THINKING are of too profound an interest, and
too closely allied with all vital phenomena, not to find a large
place in the Physiology of Commonl Lzje.  But what place must
we give them I How must these difficult subjects be treated?
Their very depth and extent of interest oblige us to select only
those aspects which fall strictly within the scope of this work.
They have psychological aspects and physiological aspects, both
of great importance; but as our business here is not to discuss
any but physiological problems, we confine ourselves to what
are strictly the physiological aspects of thought and sensation.
1 Phl;siolof~ of Common Lze, vol. ii. p. 453.




292                E'glish Psyckolooy.' Psychology is the science of Mind. This science may seekand I follow those who think it ovZght to seek-important means
of investigation in the laws of physiology; just as Physiology itself
must seek important aids in Chemistry and Physics. But as an
independent branch of inquiry, its results cannot be amenable
to physiological canons; their validity cannot be decided by
agreement or disagreement with physiological laws. To cite an
example: Psychology announces that the mind has different
faculties. That fact seems established on ample evidence, and is
valid in Psychology, although hitherto no covrespondzzg fact in
Physiology has been discovered.' 1
Mr. Lewes concedes independence to the two sciences,
although he maintains their relations.
This book then being not a treatise on psychology, although
containing mucli of it, we shall proceed, as we did with the preceding one,-that is to say, gleaning from it; and we shall
endeavour to embody the doctrines of the author under the
following titles:I. Of the nature of life, and of the vital principle.
2. Of consciousness and its forms.
3- Of sleep.
4. Of heredity from a psychological point of view.
II.
We must count in the number of infirmities of thought, says
Mr. Lew2es,2 the tendency of the human mind to realize abstractions, and to give to them an objective and independent existence. A good example of this tendency is the formerly popular
doctrine of a vital principle, which is now by degrees disappearing.
Life is the connexus of organic activities; it is a collection
of various particular facts, abstracted from these facts, erected
into objective reality, each organ is composed of constituent
tissues, each tissue has its constitutive elements, each element,
Physiology of Common zlie, pp. 2, 3.
History of Philosophy, Proleg. ~ 45-49.




lMr. George H. Lewel.                  293
each tissue, has its specific properties, the activity of each organ
is the sum of these properties, organism is the connexus of the
totality. Life is then only a conception drawn from particular
facts. But we have forgotten it, and we have realized this
abstraction; we have declared that this resultant is a necessary
antecedent. We have spoken of a vital principle anterior to all
organic activities, and independent of them. Although this
hypothesis has at the present day eminent partisans, it suffices, to
dissipate the illusion, that we should resolve the abstract into the
concrete forms from which it is drawn.
A shred of muscle detached from the organism will manifest
all its vital properties so long as its specific constitution of
muscle shall subsist, so long as it shall resist disintegration;
it will absorb oxygen, exhale carbonic acid, it will contract
itself under an appropriate stimulus. A gland separated from the
body continues to be a small laboratory of chemical changes,
secreting as it secreted in the organism. A nerve detached from
the body continues to manifest its specific property of neurility.
These phenomena prove that what each part does in the organism  each part does out of the organism.  In other words, the
life of the animal is the sum  of particular vital activities; it
is not the source of the phenomena, but their personification.'
The action of life is similar to that of mechanism, and differs
from it only by the greater complication of its parts and of its
effects.
Many persons, however, object to such a conception. Life
seems to them the antithesis of mechanical action. This repugnance will be diminished if they could get well into their minds
that between a mechanism and an organism there is resemblance,
but not identity; that organism  is a mechanism, but a vital
mechanism, vitality being the source of profound differences.
Attention has in general been fixed upon mechanical adjustment,
and the sensations which gZaide it have been forgotten.  No doubt
animal mechanism, when it is put in actiofi, acts like the mechan1 The life of the individual is the sum' of a multitude of lives, each belonging of right to one of the elements of the organism.'-Milne-Edwards's
Rapiports sur les lprogris des sciences zoolog, pp. 50 and 59.




294                 Enzgish Psychology.
ism of a watch, but in order to put it in action and to maintain
it in action the constant pressure of sensation is necessary.
Sensation is an indispensable portion of mechanism, it is the mainspring of the watch, it is the fuel of the steam-engine.  In short,
organism is a mechanism, and it acts mechanically, in so far as its
actions are necessarily determined by the adjustment of its organs,
but organism differs from mechanism in that it has sensibility for
mainspring, and that its so-called-automatic actions are all
determined by the movement of directing sensations.l
The hypothesis of a vital principle, which was held for several
centuries, and which is now rejected by every one except by
a few metaphysicians and metaphysiologists, was only a verbal
explanation; it substituted words for ideas; almost the same
might be said of the modern doctrine of vital force or vital
forces: this is only a realized abstraction,2 a term which serves
to veil our ignorance.
The only three arguments given in favour of a vital principle
which deserve consideration are the following: —st, Life governs
chemical affinities; 2d, Life, precedes organization, and consequently cannot be the Yreszlt of it; 3d, Life is a directing unity.
Does life govern chemical affinities? There is nothing more
striking at first than this fact,-a living body preserves its form,
and does not seem to yield to the destructive action of chemical
agents; whereas, as soon as life is extinct, the molecules yield to the
action of chemical affinities. But on looking closer we see that
instead of saying that the chemical affinities are controlled by
vitality, we ought to say that there is no vital action possible
without the  incessant and  complicated  action of chemical
affinities; nutrition, secretion, movement, all depend on chemical
actions.
Does life precede organization? The word organization includes an ambiguity; but if we remark that by this word we
understand the toalilty of the necessary conditions, not less than the
organic constitution, we easily understand that ljfe is proorti'iovna
to the orguaization.  The life of a simple cellule is the totality of
the activities of that cellule.  The life of an animal of higher
Physiology of Common Z Lf, vol. ii. chap. ix.  2 Ibid. chap. xiii.




iMr. Georez i1. Lewes.                 295
organization is the sum of the activities of all the forces in
motion, and its complexity is in proportion to the complexity of
the organization.  Life being then a result, and varying according
to the degrees of organism, we cannot say that it precedes organization.
Is it a directing principle? A superior unity?  We say the body
is one, all its parts are subordinate, assembled together to form a
superior unity: our consciousness assures us that life is a unity.
This argument is founded upon an important fact, but one which
is misinterpreted. Yes, there is a unity, there is a consensus in
the organism; but we must not attribute it to a vital principle
independent of the organism. It is due to the subordination of
the organs; all the parts have relations, all act together by means
of the nervous system. Where there is not that connexion between the parts, there cannot be this connexion between the
organs.  If we cut a polype or a worm into several pieces, each
piece will continue to live and develop itself; nevertheless we
cannot suppose that in such a case we have cut the vital principle
into several principles. It is that there is a life in each part,
and a life of the entire organism; each microscopic cellule has
its independent existence, furnishes its career from birth to death,
and the toal'ity of these lives forms what we call the life of the
animal; unity is an aggregate of forces, and not a superior
force.'It is surely more philosophical to consider life as an ultimate
fact; one of the great revelations of the unknowable; one of the
many mysteries surrounding us....   We no longer set up
fictions of our imagination in the place of a reverent observation.
There are minds, indeed, which feel distrust at such resignation;
they seem to dread lest life should be robbed of its solemn significance, in the attempt to associate it, even remotely, with inorganic phenomena.  But this fear arises from  narrow views of
nature. It is because reverence for nature has not been duly
cultivated, because familiarity with inorganic phenomena has
blunted our sense of their unspeakable mystery.  Men who are
thrilled at the tokens of the past life of man, when they see, or
read of, buried cities, Palmyra, Nineveh, or Yucatan, tremble
with no delicious awe at the tokens of the past life of this earth,




296               E;gl'ish Psycholooy.
when they stand in a quarry, or ramble through a geological
museum. Yet surely the crystal is not less mysterious than the
plant, the ebb and the flow of the tides not less solemn than the
beating of the human heart. And if patient observation and
induction have enabled us to trace something of the order of
nature in crystallization and the tides, without aid from  the
metaphysician, they may also enable us to understand  something of the laws of life.' 
III.
The theory of consciousness- which we are about to study is
original in  several respects.  The  author, placing  himself
especially in a psychological point of view, examines the question
of latent or insensible percejtions, so much disputed since Leibnitz, but which appears in these last days to be almost universally accepted.  These inflnitely littles of perception may
play in psychological life a part as important as microscopic
organisms in the material world, and one may be more than once
surprised at the disproportion which exists between infinitesimal
causes and the consequences which they engender.  Mr. Lewes
accepts them; he even distinguishes varieties, as we are about
to see, and builds up, as it were, a hierarchy of consciousnesses.
One of the points which our author is most anxious to establish
is, that the sensorhitm, that is to say, the seat of sensation and of
consciousness, is not limited to the brain, that sensibility being
the fundamental property of the ganglionary tissue inherent in
this tissue, we ought to consider the sensorium as having the
same extension as the nervous centres. He then defines the
common sensoriuzm'the sum  of all the nervous centres, each
centre being itself a small sensorium.'  Sensibility is a histologic
property, and not a mvzolpholgic one, the disposition of the organ
is then secondary.'The current view is this: sensibility belongs only to the
1x Plysiology of CcommZon Lzfie, vol. ii. pp. 22, 23.  ibid. p. 43.




Mr. George H. L ewes.                     297
centres within the skull; all other centres have only the property
of r~/fecting impressions.  By this reflection of impressions is
meant that when an impression is made on a sensory nerve, and
by it carried to the spinal cord, the impression there becomes
-'eflecled into a motion; the motor-nerve carries the impulse to a
muscle, and thus an action results, unprompted or unaccompanied by any sensation whatever. In direct opposition to this,
I maintain that unless an impression on the sensory nerve excites
a sensation in the centre, no motion whatever takes place.' 
According to the ordinary doctrine, consciousness being held
to have its seat in the brain, we naturally admit that the impression,
so long as it is not upon the brain, produces no sensation, and
if an animal deprived of the brain gives signs of sensation,
physiologists maintain that it has no real sensation, but sensilsive
iinpressions which produce reflex actions without consciousness
on the part of the animal.
The word consciousness has a very vague meaning.  Its most
general meaning is sensation. It is indisputable that we have
a sensitive organism which is necessarily excited by internal and
external stimulus, that each of these excitements is a sensation,
and that all these sensations must be elements of consciousness.
We also admit that amongst these excitements those only which
are of sufficient account to predominate over the myriads of vague
excitements of organism are properly called sensations.  We say
that we have consciousness of them-the rest is considered
as non-existent;-these are the unconscious impressions which
lead to actions, but they are not consciousness.
The apparently contradictory expression,'unconscious consciousness,''unfelt sensations,' often employed in such cases,
would not be embarrassing if the difference between sensation
and perception had been clearly distinguished.2'Sensation is
simply an active state of sensibility which is the property of
1 P]zysiology of Common Lfe, vol. ii.
2 The distinction drawn by Mr. Lewes between sensation and perception,
may be likened to that drawn by Leibnitz between perception and apperception.




298              EzSg-bis  Psycholog/y.
the ganglionary tissue.' Sensation being thus defined, can there
be sensation without perception?
It is quite certain that we have many sensations that are not at
all perceived, and of which we are, as we say,'totally unconscious.' They are either so weak or so familiar, or so lost'in
strong sensations, or so incapable of exciting'associations' of
ideas, that we are not'conscious' of them in the present, and
that we cannot recall them afterwards. This happens when we
sleep during a sermon or a lecture; we have the sensation of
sounds emitted by some one who speaks; we have no perception of them. This cannot be doubted, because, on the one
hand, we do not know what has been read or said; on the other
hand, if the sermon or lecture cease suddenly, we awake, which
shows that we had the sensation of sounds. Mr. Lewes relates
that having gone into an eating-house and found a waiter fast
asleep, in the midst of the noise he vainly called him by his
name, and by his Christian name, but as soon as he had pronounced the word'waiter,' the sleeper awoke. Admiral Codrington, when a midshipman, could not be raised out of a
sound sleep except by the word'signal.' These facts, which
have many fellows, show that there may be sensation without
perception and sensation accompanied by perception.' It would be an unfortunate mistake in language which should
make it absurd to speak of non-perceived sensations.  Perception has been so often confounded with sensation, because
they have been constantly mixed up together, thatwe are astonished when it is said that one can be produced without the
other. In spite of verbal difficulties we must get well into our
minds that every excitement of a nervous centre produces a sensation, and that the totality of these excitements form general
consciousness, or the sense of existence.'We do not see the stars at noon-day, yet they shine. We do
not see the sunbeams playing among the leaves, on a cloudy
day, yet it is by these beams that the leaves and all other objects
are visible. There is a general illumination from the sun and
stars, but of this we are seldom aware, because our attention
falls upon the illumined objects, brighter or darker than this




lr. George Hi. Lezwes.                    299
general tone.  There is a sort of analogy to this in the general
consciousness which is composed of the sum  of sensations excited by the incessant simultaneous action of internal and external stimuli.  This forms, as it were, the daylight of our
existence. We do not habitually attend to it, because attention
falls on those particular sensations of pleasure or of pain, of
greater or of less intensity, which usurp a prominence among the
objects of the sensitive panorama.' The amount of light received from the stars may be small,
but it is present. The greater glory of the sunlight may render
the starlight inappreciable, but it does not render it inoperative.
In like manner the amount of sensation received firom  some of
the smaller ganglia may be inappreciable in the presence of
more massive influences from  other centres, but though inappreciable it cannot be inoperative-it must form  an integer in
the sum.' "
We can now close this discussion by rejecting the current
hypothesis which will have it that a sensation does not exist
except it is perceived, without which it is ajuzo-e im iression.  Mr.
Lewes points out that in distinguishing sensation from perception he does not make a purely verbal distinction, which would
consist in calling that' sensation' that others call'impression.'
By no means; by sensation he understands the sensibility proper
to each centre. The naturalist, he says, knows that there is an
enormous difference between the monkey and the oyster, but he
also knows that notwithstanding their differences all animals
obey the same biological laws. I should like to see, the same
reform introduced into our physiology of the nervous system. I
should wish to see it recognised, that notwithstanding diversities, all nervous centres, in so far as they are centres, have
properties and laws in common.
Consciousness, in its general sense, being the sum of all our
sensibilities, the overflow of several currents of sensations, it results
from this, that in the lower animals endowed with a simple nerv1 Ph.ysiology of Commonz L~fe, vol. ii. p. 65.




300              EL og/'s/ Psychology.
ous system, the sensitive phenomena are simple, and that by
degrees as organization increases in complexity the sensible phenomena become necessarily more complex, and, the elements of
general consciousness become more numerous. This leads to
the examination of the question of the various forms of consciousness.
The unity of the nervous system throughout the whole animal
kingdom has been generally recognised, but it is strange that
unity of consciousness has not been deduced from it.'The various forms of consciousness or sensibility may be
properly grouped under these three titles:-First, systemic consciousness; second, sense-consciousness; thirdly, thought-consciousness.'1
Systemic conscziouzsnss, which gives us the principal elements of
the sense of existence, includes all the sensations springing from
the system of the organic functions in general and in particular.
Short of adopting the hypothesis of Descartes upon animal
machines, we must admit that the humblest animals have this
form of consciousness. Those who reject this conclusion are the
dupes of equivocal language, which leads them to suppose that
there is some element of t/zzghzt included in consciousness, and
even in sensation.  But though every animal must feel, it does
not follow that it must think. Let us remark besides the absurdity
of the consequences. If a mollusc has no sensation, it would be
the same as to the crustacea. If the crab is a machine, the bee,
the beaver, the elephant, the dog, and the monkey, are also
machines.'Short of throwing science to the winds, we must
admit that all animals have sensations, although they have not
each the same form of consciousness.'
Sense-consciouszess includes all those sensations derived from
the organs of the five senses.
2hozbugt-consciozusness includes all those phenomena of thought
and emotion with which the psychologist is particularly concerned; all that the physiologist can do is to indicate the relations of this form of consciousness with the lower animals, and
1,/vyszology of Common1 ZLa, vol. ii. p. 74.




AJi. Geog-e AH. Lezecs.               30I
the portions of the nervous system which serve them as organs.
As for thought we do not know, and perhaps we never shall
know, what it is; nor do we know what life is. But we can learn
what are the laws of life and the laws of thought. To the
physiologist belongs the former task, to the psychologist the
latter.
The insufficiency Qf the preceding theory may be, explained by
remembering that Mr. Lewes only intends to place himself in a
physiological point of view. Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Bain
lhave made us penetrate much more deeply into the mechanism
of human consciousness by showing us this double current of integration and of disintegration which constitute. it, the condition
of time which imposes itself upon it and gives to it the form of a
succession. But Mr. Lewes introduces us into another world,
and this example appears to us' to show, what we have endeavoured to establish in the introduction, namely, that-in psychology
the subjective method and the objective method are both equally
necessary.
IV.
The theory of reflex actions attaches itself strongly to the preceding considerations upon unconscious sensations. It is striking
and instructive to remark how  little French psychology has
occupied itself with this matter.  Restricted to the facts of consciousness, it has avoided everything which has a physiological
appearance. And whilst the invading spirit of physiology led it
constantly to extend its domain, and even to come out of it on
all sides, psychology, confined within strict limits, allowed many
a portion of its territory to escape, and asked nothing.  The
discussions upon the boundary line of the two sciences, which
filled the first half of the nineteenth century, sought to define
frontiers which have no existence.
Between psychology and physiology there are no natural
boundaries. No doubt a purely physiological act, such as circulation, differs entirely from a purely psychological act, such as deductive reasoning; but there is an entire order of facts, insensible
perceptions, reflex actions, instincts, etc., by means of which the
two lives mingle and are confounded.  This subject might have




302               EwZo-/zkis  Psychology.
been less discussed if it had been better understood that our
divisions are to a great extent arbitrary in consequence of the
continuity of phenomena: that man distinguishes that which
nature mixes, and that, if science is an analysis, the world is a
synthesis.
The study of reflex actions is the continuation of that of consciousness.  In fact, whilst according to the current theory the
sensorium is restricted to the brain, the action which has its
centre in the spinal marrow is called reflex, and is considered to
be of a totally different nature; the theory of Mr. Lewes, which
extends the sensorium to all the nervous centres, only admits
that there is a difference of degree between the action of the brain
and that of the spinal marrow. To establish that the sjpinal cord
is a sentient ceznhe is his aim, building upon his own experience,
upon that of others, and upon the deduction which he draws
from them.  He wishes to'give the final blow'' to the theory
of reflex action, upon which he even casts ridicule.
The doctrine of the schools, he says, is this:-' Mental nervous actions (acts of z'olition and sensa/hbn) cannot
laketblace witzoult a br-azin...  If you pinch a dog's tail, he cries
out. His cry is supposed to indicate a sensation of pain. But
the physiologist who would reprove you for having hurt his yelping puppy would quietly assure you that this puppy's cries were
no evidence of pain or sensation after its brain had been removed.
" Merely reflex, my dear sir," and he would smile at your supposition that an animal without a brain could feel any sensation.' 2
In support of this doctrine he quotes facts and experiments.'The researches of Flourens had their time. They were truly
striking; the conclusions which he drew from them were commenced in that systematic, derisive, absolute style which characterizes French writers;' hence their European popularity, in
spite of the reservations of Miiller and Cuvier.  Flourens maintains that the animal deprived of brain loses all sensation, all
perception, all instinct, and all volition. But the contrary experiences of Bouillaud, Longet, and Dalton have weakened his
conclusions.
I Physiology of Common L~e, p. 526.  2 b,",1. vol. ii. pp. 84, 85.




AIr. George HJ. Lewzes.               303'It would be to misunderstand me,' says Mr. Lewes,'if it were
supposed that I do not consider the brain as the principal and
dominating organ of all psychical life.'I have said before that it has the noblest functions, but it does
not exclude the other ganglia from their share in the general
consciousness. In it all the sensations derived through the senses
and viscera are summed up, combined, modified, and in some
profoundly mysterious manner elaborated into ideas. It is generalissimo of the whole army, controlling, directing, and inspiring
the actions of all subordinate officers. But to suppose that the
subordinates have not also their independent functions isrta mistake. The generals, colonels, captains, sergeants, corporals, and
common soldiers, are individual men, like their commander-inchief, with inferior power and with different functions, according
to their respective positions. But if the commander-in-chief be
killed, the army has still its generals. If the generals be killed,
the regiments have still their colonels. Nay, even a corporal's
company may be kept together by an energetic corporal. And
this we shall see to be the case with animals when their brain has
been removed; each separate part of the organism has its general, colonel, or corporal.' 1
Every nervous centre having, then, a sensibility belonging to
itself,' a fundamental point,' says Mr. Lewes,' which appears to
me totally inadmissible, is the hypothesis that reflex mechanism
is independent of sensibility, and that reflex actions take place
without sensation.' 2
He cannot' refrain from expressing his surprise at the weakness of the evidence which serves as a basis for the celebrated
theory of reflex actions.' a  In order to prove that reflex actions
are independent of sensation, it is necessary to prove in the first
place that the actions of the spinal cord are independent of sensation; this has never been proved, and has even been placed
beyond all evidence.4
It would be beside our subject, and out of our power, to
follow Mr. Lewes in his long essay upon reflex actions; we can
PShysiology of Covimon7Z Lzf, vol. ii. pp. 96, 97.  2 P. I67.
P. I3S.                                          4 P. 226.




304                Eng-is/h Psycholooy.
only summarize its principal points, and briefly state the reasons
upon which he founds his belief that the spinal cord is a centre
of sensation.
I. Th/e ophinions of previous physiologists.-The'doctrine which
recognises sensitive functions in the spinal cord is not new.
Robert Whytt held it.  Prochaska considered the spinal cord as
forming a considerable portion of the common sensoritum, and he
advanced in proof of it the well-known facts of sensibility manifested by headless animals. J. J. Sue, father of the celebrated
novelist, saw that the spinal marrow could, to a certain extent,
replace the functions of the brain.  Legallois, Wilson, Philipi,
Lallemand, and Calmeil arrived at analogous conclusions, under
different forms.  Thus several facts establishing the sensitive
functions of the spinal cord were known, and even a vague conception of their real sense was generally spread abroad, up to the
time when the re7lex theory arose to explain these facts as the result of a mechanical adjustment. But this doctrine has found its
opponents. J. W. Arnold has refuted it. Carus said ironically that
the word reflex was a key to open every lock. Schiff maintains
that all the cerebral actions, as well as the spinal, are reflex, and
depend upon a mechanical arrangefment.t
If we pass from historical considerations to the facts themselves, we may consider the evidence which they furnish under
two aspects, deductively and inductively.
2. Deduclive evidence.-A resemblance of structure implies a
resemblance. of property, and the ganglionic structure of the
spinal cord being of a nature sinmilar to the ganglionic substance
of the brain, there must necessarily be a community of property
between the two.' The only ground for denying that the actions of decapitated
animals are determined by sensation, is because the brain, or encephalon, is believed to be the sole seat of sensation. To explain the resemblance between the actions of animals with and
without their brains, a theory is invented, which says, These
actions are reflex.  But in the uninjured animal there is reflex
action phis the transmission of an impression to the brain, and
1 Physioogy of Common Lift, vol. ii. p. 231.




Mr. George HI. Lewes.                   305
it is this which produces sensation; in the headless animal we
see reflex action, mzinus the transmission to the brain.' 1
A gentleman once maintained that there were no gold mines
except in Mexico and Peru. His assertions were met by showing
him  an ingot just come from California.  Without being in
the least disconcerted, he replied:'This-metal, I acknowledge,
resembles gold closely; you tell me that it passes for such
among the essayers and on the market.  I do not dispute that;
nevertheless this metal is not-gold, but auruminium; it cannot
be gold, because gold only comes from Mexico and Peru.'
The decapitated animal defends itself instinctively from the
suffering that it is caused, disentangles itself, accomplishes several
of its ordinary actions; but they say that it does all this without
that sensibility which would guide it if it were not decapitated.
This is a case of gold being not gold but auruminium.
In the Fiji Islands, when a man is about to die, some hours
before his death his body is taken out of his house. Some of
these persons during that time can eat and speak.  But they
are reported dead. To eat, to drink, to speak, are involuntary
acts of the body, of the empty shell, as the inhabitants of these
islands say, but according to them the soul has left it; the theory
of reflex action recalls this eccentric belief to Mr. Lewes's
memory.2
3. Inzdctcive evidence.-S2pontaneity and choice are two palpable
signs by which we recognise the presence of sensation and of
will. Let us then see if decapitated animals manifest these palpable signs.  In the first place, let us look for spontaneity.  We
should remark, says Mr. Lewes, that a decapitated animal is
deprived of the various stimuli which he may receive through the
eyes, the ears, and the smell, which determine his movements;
he therefore necessarily remains in repose if he be not excited by
visceral sensations. He affirms that an attentive and repeated
examination of decapitated animals furnishes an abundant evidence
of spontaneous actions.3 Let us give an example. Mr. Lewes
subjects a strong and healthy triton to various experiments.  He
touches it, pricks it, burns it with acetic acid, etc.... He
1Ibid. p. 234.       2 p. 236.        8 P. 240.
14




306              English Psychology.
carefully notes the movements of the animal. Next, having decapitated it, he afresh subjects it to the same experiments; the
reactions of the animal are precisely similar; it tries to free itself
from the pain, to rub off the acid which is burning it. These
experiments, to which Mr. Lewes adds a good number of others,
lead him to conclude that the evidence of spontaneity and of
choice, of sensibility and of volition, does not admit of mistake, and that, consequently,'the Spinal Cord is a sentient
centre.' 1
4. Examzinatzon of objections. —After having examined the
reasons and the facts in favour of the sensibility of the spinal
marrow, we must see what is the value of the evidence set against
it. Let us lay aside the first argument, drawn from the universal
prejudice that the brain is the only sensorium, because that is
simply begging the question.  Let us lay aside a second argument, that several actions take, place without awaking a consciousness or a distinct attention, such as breathing, digesting,
etc. This argument either proves nothing, or it proves too
much. An action may be sensational without producing this
secondary feeling, generally called consciousness, and in this sense
we might even say that thought is unconscious, much more truly
than sensations are so. There remains the striking case of
maladies or injuries of the spinal marrow, as a result of which
nothing is felt below the wounded. part. This is the cheval de
bataille of the reflex theory.' But,' says Mr. Lewes,'when a man has a diseased spinal
cord, the seat of injury causes for the time at least a division of
the cerebro-spinal axis into two independent centres. For all
purposes of sensation and volition it is the same as if he were cut
in half; his nervous mechanism is cut in half. How then can any
cerebral volition be obeyed by his legs? how can any impression
on his legs be felt by his cerebrum? As well might we expect the
man whose arm has been amputated to feel the incisions of the
scalpel when that limb is conveyed to the dissecting-table, as to.feel in his brain impressions made upon parts wholly divorced
from organic connexion with the brain.
1 Lewes, hysiologky of Common Life, vol. ii. pp. 245-258.




Mir. George AI. Lezwes.               307
But, it may be objected, this is the very point urged. The man
himself does not feel the impressions on his limbs when his spine
has been injured; he is as insensible to them as to the dissection
of his amputated arm. Very true. He does not feel it. But if the
amputated arm were to strike the anatomist who began its dissection, if its fingers were to grasp the scalpel and push it away, or with
the thumb to rub off the acid irritating one of the fingers, I do not
see how we could refuse to admit that the armt felt, although the
man did not. And this is the case with the extremities of a man
whose spine is injured....' 1' It is true that. the man himself, when interrogated, declares
that he feels nothing; the cerebral segment has attached to it
organs of speech and expressive features, by which its sensations
can be communicated to others; whereas the spinal segment has
no such means of communicating its sensations, but those which
it has it employs.'
WVe here terminate this brief explanation of the opinions of
our author upon the current doctrine of reflex actions. Perhaps
it seems slightly external to our subject. But the new psychology,
which we are endeavouring to exhibit here according to its
most eminent representatives, embraces a much wider domain in
the reign of facts than the ordinary psychology. It believes that
these obscure phenomena into which psychical life has hardly
begun to penetrate are in many respects the most curious and
the most profitable to study. We have already seen that Mr.
Herbert Spencer assigns a place to reflex action in the ascendant
evolution of mental life, and the identity of the doctrines of Mr.
Bain and Mr. Lewes upon the nature and the seat of the
common sensorium  must also have been remarked  by the
reader.
V.
The remainder of the work is devoted to the senses and sensations, to sleep and to the phenomena of heredity.'" How many senses have you?" inquired the traveller from
1Z Ibid. pp. 263-264.




30o               E~ gl/ish7 Psychology.
Sirius, in Voltaire's exquisite satire; upon which the inhabitant
of Saturn replied, "Seventy-two; but every day we live we
lament we have so few."'The European has been taught to be so well satisfied with
five senses, that he is apt to regard as an absurdity the attempt
to alter or enlarge that sacred number.... " The division of
our external senses," says Hutcheson, "into five common classes,
is ridiculously imperfect."' 
Mr. Lewes thinks that this is a very difficult question, and
that only a profound anatomist can determine how many distinct organs we have for the senses. He adopts however the
following division:I. Sensations proceeding from the system, which comprehend,
ist, organic sensations; 2d, surface sensations, given to us by
the skin.
2. Sensations proceeding from the senses properly so called,
and which comprehend touch, taste, hearing, smell, and sight.'Finally, I would call attention to the psychological importance of that vast class of sensations which has been termed
Systemic consciousness, and which psychologists and physiologists have so strangely neglected. They have given to the
Sense-Sensations an almost exclusive part in the formation of our
sensational activity, and often spoken of the mind as a mere
educt of the Five Senses. The most striking example of this
is seen in Condillac's famous statue, which is endowed successively with each of the five senses, and with each endowment
develops gradually a complete mind.  Monstrous as this hypothetical statue is, it is only a logical development of the conception that mind is the combination of the five senses.'In these pages an attempt has been made to show that
Mind is the psychical aspect of Life-that it is as much
the sum-total of the whole sensitive organism as life is the
sum-total of the whole vital organism-that various organs
may be set apart for the performance  of various special
functions, mental as well as vital, but that no one exclusive organ
of Mind can be said to exist any more than one exclusive organ
1 Lewes, P'ysiology of Common Lif, vol. ii. p. 273.




Mr. George 11. Lewes.                  309
of Life can be said to exist. The reader may reject this view,
which is submitted to him as the result of many years' meditation, and with that hesitation which naturally belongs to an
opinion incapable of proof.' 1
If we now wish to know (2.) under what principal divisions
these psychical phenomena may be grouped, we shall find that
the popular classification into feezing and t/zinking, or mind and'
heart, indicate roughly the first groups. We can divide them afterwards into' six centres, three for each division.' In the first group
we may place sensations, percep5tions, and ideas, which represent intellectual activity. In the second group we may place sensations,
instincts or appetites, and emotions which represent moral activity.'Thus sensation forms the starting point of each series.
But we have already seen that there are. different species of sensations, forming two principal groups,-sensations of the senses,
and sensations of the system.
The first have been almost always considered as inoe/rsonal,
because they place us in conscious relation with external objects,
with the non-ego. The second (sensations of the muscles and
of the viscera) are on the contrary extremely persona4, because
they place us in conscious relation only with that which takes
place in our body.  The emotions are profoundly rooted in
our personality.
The exteriority of the sensations of the senses, and the interiority of the sensations of the system, create a wide line of
demarcation between the perceptions which are produced from
the one, and the appetites or instincts which are supplied from
the other; and the latter in their turn give birth to the various
forms of sensibility, known under the names of thought and
emotion.
It has never been doubted that our perceptions and ideas have
their origin in sensation.  The old adage nihil est in intelleczil,
etc., may be equivocal, but it shows this incontestable fact, that
sensation is at the foundation of every intellectual operation.' I feel myself justified, therefore, in considering ideation as
the form of cerebral sensibility which is determined by the
1 Zbid. p. 344.




3 IEo zglis/z Psycholoy.
cerebral connexions with the ganglia of special Sense. In like
manner, emotion may be considered as the form of cerebral sensibility which is determined by connexions with the ganglia of
visceral sensation.' 1
And thus the popular opinion which places in the'bowels'
the principal source of the emotions would be justified.
Sleep and hereditary transmission have been the object of
such important and such numerous studies in France, that we
cannot dwell upon them long, our object being above all to make
known the newest resuZts of English psychology.
Under the title of'a new theory of dreaming,' Mr. Lewes
explains this phenomenon as follows:'If we reflect that the nervous centres must be incessantly
called into activity, either through the imperfectly closed channels
of the Five Senses, or through the Systemic Senses, and that
these centres, once excited, must necessarily play on each other,
and if we reflect further, that the sensational and ideational
activities thus stimulated operate under very different conditions,
and in very different conjunctions, during sleep, we shall be
at no loss to understand both the incoherence and the coherence
of dreams-the perfect congruity of certain trains of thought
amid the most absurd incongruities. The coherence of dreams
results from the succession of associated ideas; the train of
thought follows very much the course it would follow in waking
moments, at least when uncontrolled by reference to external
things-as in Reverie. The incoherence results from this train
being interrupted or diverted from its course by the suggestion
of some other train, either arising by the laws of association or
from the stimulus of some new sensation.... That Law of Sensibility, which has been so fully expounded in previous pages,
whereby every sensation discharges itself either in a reflex action
or a reflex feeling (or in both together), and whereby every centre
once stimulated must inevitably stimulate some other, gives us
the explanation why subjective sensations may arise in sleep or
waking, and why they must stimulate cerebral action.... In
our waking condition we are familiar with what has been styled
I Lewes, ]P'ysiology of Common LZzi, vol. ii. p. I18.




Mr. George H. Lewes.                  3 I
subjeclzve sensations; that is to say, we see objects very vividly
where no such objects exist; we hear sounds of many kinds where
none of their external causes exist; we taste flavours in an empty
mouth; we smell odours where no volatile substance is present; and we feel prickings or pains in limbs which have been
amputated.  These are actual, not imaginary sensations....
And as it is the inevitable tendency of our nature to connect
every sensation with an-external cause-to project it outside of
us, so to speak,-we should never think of doubting that every
one of these subjective sensations had a corresponding object,
did not the suggestions of some oilier sense control this idea. A
man feels prickings in his amputated fingers, but he sees that
the fingers are not there, and consequently he knows that his
sensation is deceptive. He smells the horrible stench of a sewer
long after he has passed out of the reach of its volatile gases.
He tastes the bitter flavour long after the bitter substance has
been removed. But the sensations require constant confrontation
with the reports of other senses, otherwise they would be credited
as sensations, produced by actual objects.... If I sit in my
study, and my thoughts wander to Bagdad or Bussora, the continual presence of my books, chairs, microscope, engravings, etc.,
infallibly brings me back again before long, and prevents my
believing myself to be in the East..... In the state of cerebral
excitement named Hallucination this confrontation is dzsrega;rded; in the state of cerebral isolation named Dreaming this
confrontation is impossible.  The first condition is one in which
the cerebral activity completely domineers over the excitations
from without; the second condition is one in which the cerebral
activity, though feeble, is entirely isolated from external excitations,-thus, in both cases, the cerebral reflexes are undisturbed, uncontrolled by reflexes from Sense.' i
This doctrine, which agrees with that of the highest French
writers, leads Mr. Lewes to answer the question,'Do we always
dream.' in the affirmative. Since the nervous centres are constantly excited by internal or external stimuli, and since this
activity gives birth to a succession of ideas, induction leads us
1 Iid. pp. 370-372.




3 12               Enzglish Psychology.
to conclude that we always think, though we may lose the remembrance of our thoughts.
The chapter. devoted to inheritance may perhaps seem
rather meagre.  But in a Physiology of Common zi Le, a subject still so full of obscurity and important problems could
hardly be touched upon.   Mr. Lewes, who is very severe
upon the most important work which has appeared upon
this question in France, recognises its importance and its difficulties. In our opinion, the studies upon hereditary transmission,
considered from a psychological point of view, are destined one
day to play a great part, when science shall have completely
entered upon that path which it is now only attempting.  We
have seen that Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Lewes2 demand
from heredity an entirely novel solution of the origin of ideas.
But those who may refuse to follow them to that point, and who
admit that heredity may decide one of the most important
and the most controverted questions of philosophy, even they
may be obliged to agree that a large number of psychological
facts have their source in hereditary transmission. As I think there
is no spiritualist who would deny the influence of the organism
upon our tendencies, our passions, our ideas, and our aptitudes,
and as organism is inherited, it is a matter of course that the
influence of heredity must make itself felt at least mediately
upon our psychological constitution. Common experience made
this discovery a long time ago; it remains for science to define
and explain it. Certain monstrosities in the moral order, certain
precocious depravities and extraordinary tastes, appear explicable
only by heredity.  Thus we, together with Mr. Lewes, may
be astonished to find one of the most celebrated philosophical
historians of England, Mr. Buckle, maintaining that in the quoted
cases there is nothing but empirical coincidences, of which we
may make what we can.3
1 Prosper Lucas, Th-aitelipysioloique et pjhilosoi/Zque de PZ'/heeiteh naturelic.
Mr. Lewes calls it'an extensive but uncritical work.' See also Moreau de
Tours, Psychologie nmotrbide.
2 See on this point Moreau de Tours, p. I Io e. seq.
Buckle, Civilisalion it Efng/and, vol. i. chap. ii.




Mr. George II. Lezues.                 313
The opponents of heredity quote facts which appear to
them conclusive: the frequent absence of resemblance between
parents and children, and the frequent mediocrity of the descendants of men of genius. Pericles produced a Paralus and
a Xanthippus.  The austere Aristides produced the infamous
Lysimachus. The powerful-minded Thucydides was represented
by an idiotic Milesias and a stupid Stephanos. Was the great
soul of Oliver Cromwell to be found in his son Richard? What
were the inheritors of Henry Iv. and of Peter the Great?  What
were the children of Shakespeare and the daughters of Milton?
What was the only son of Addison? An idiot.
The supporters of heredity retort upon this argument by
saying, What is the meaning of these proverbial phrases,' the wit
of the Mortemarts,''the wit of the Sheridans,' if one does not
believe in transmission? Torquato Tasso was the son of a
celebrated father. We have the two Herschels, the two Colmans, the Kemble family, and the Coleridges.  Finally, the
most striking example is that of Sebastian Bach, whose musical
genius was found, in an inferior degree, among three hundred
Bachs, the children of very various mothers.
The question of heredity is still more complicated when we
endeavour to find out if it be true, as certain authors have advanced, that the father gives the organs of animal life, and the
mother the organs of vegetable life.
Mr. Lewes, who rejects this opinion, maintains the law of
heredity, remarking that it is the rule, but that we must take
account of the disturbing causes which explain the exceptions.
Physiology tells us that always and necessarily the race inherits
the organization of the parents; and that if the organization be
inherited, so are the tendencies and aptitudes. Our experience
of heredity is so constant that nothing can seem to us more
incredible than that negro parents should give birth to a child
with the features of a European, or that two sheep should produce a goat. But while there is a constancy in the transmission
of general characteristics, there is a considerable variation in the
transmission of individual peculiarities.
A child may inherit from  both parents, or from one only.
WeT do not expect two scrofulous parents to have healthy children,




314              Ezglzish Ps/ch/zoogy.
irascible parents to produce gentle natures, or two idiots to give
birth to a man of genius. But if the aptitudes of the parents are
different, if the father have a talent for music and the mother
have not, and if two children be born of their marriage, it is
very possible that one may be musical like the father, the other
insensible to music like the mother, or that both may be
musicians, or neither. We should not have exaggerated the
bearings of the objections, if we had remarked that the influence
of one of the two parents may destroy that of the other, and
that, consequently, the apparent exceptions to the law of heredity
on the contrary confirm that law.
This question leads to many others, says Mr. Lewes, upon
which he declines to enter, and he sends us to Mr. Herbert
Spencer for everything which concerns the'hereditary transmission of intellectual or moral development. It is perhaps appropriate to remark that he brings forward a collection of facts
which may serve as proofs in favour of the law of evolution, and
of the continuity of natural phenomena.




MR. SAMUEL BAILEY.
MR. SAMUEL BAILEY would merit a separate essay in consequence of the number of his philosophical publications, many of
which date very far back,' if we had proposed to ourselves anything
but a short sketch of English contemporary psychology. It is
not possible to classify him. As a declared partisan of experience, he forms a sort of transition between the Scotch
school and the psychologists of whom we have just spoken. In
his clear, exact, precise, and rather dry manner, he differs
totally from the descriptive psychology of which Mr. Bain has
offered us the most complete type; he reminds us rather of the
eighteenth century, and the somewhat meagre lucidity of Condillac and of Destutt de Tracy. He is, like them, more a logician
than a psychologist, and his verbal analysis does not penetrate
sufficiently far into a science'so buried in facts' as psychology.
With a mind penetrating rather than extensive, greedy for clearness, he pursues metaphors with intense enmity; he hates all
vague plhraseology, all:rhetorical arguments which usurp the place
of science, and explanations which pretend to resolve its difficulties;
he demands for psychology a language as precise as possible.
He is nevertheless not so devoted to algebra but that he will
yield to the attractions of eloquence in its proper place, and he
has revindicated the rights of science in language so firm and so
lofty that we must quote it:-'What! shall thousands of scientific men, with triumphant
acclaim, employ themselves in almost infinitesimal physical investigations; in searching into the atomic composition and
1 His principal worlks are: ILetters on thie P'ilosophy of the Ifmnan Mn1/'d,
3 vols. 1855-I863; The Thtowy of Reasonizo; A Review of Berkeley's Thelory
of Vision, etc.




316                Enzglijsh Psychology.
microscopic structure of bodies; in exploring the innumerable
forms of animal and vegetable life which are invisible to the unassisted sight; in discovering planets that have for ages rolled
unmarked through their obscure orbits; in condensing with
telescopic power into suns and systems what was recently regarded
(so to speak) as the elemental vapour of stars; in throwing into
arithmetical expression inconceivably rapid vibrations, in the
-apparently steady ray that even the strongest wind cannot shake;
thus bringing into view, from the distant and the diminutive, the
most recondite parts of the material universe; and shall the exact
analysis of the phenomena of consciousness, the discrimination of
differences in feeling and intellectual operations, however fine
and minute, the vigilant detection, the subtlest concatenations of
thought, the firm yet delicate grasp of mental analogies which
elude the rough and careless handling of common observation,
the nice appreciation of language, and all its changing hues and
latent expedients; the decomposition of the processes of reasoning and laying bare the foundations of evidence,-shall these, I
say, be stigmatized as an over-exercise of acuteness, a waste of
analytic power, a useless splitting of hairs, and a worthless weaving of cobwebs? Amidst the honours lavished on investigations
into the most secluded recesses of the material world, are we to be
told that the close and minute and discriminating examination of
our own mental nature is a vain and superfluous labour, leading
to no beneficial or important issue?'Believe it not: rest assured that here. untiring investigation,
minute analysis, close scrutiny, careful discrimination of things
apt to be confounded, scrupulous accuracy in pursuing processes,
and precision in recording results, are as apposite, as fruitful, as
important, as indispensable, as dignified if you will, as they are (I
say it without disparagement) in tracking invisible stars, calculating the millions of imperceptible undulations in a ray of light,
weighing the atoms of chemical elements, peering into the cells
of organic structures, studying the anatomy of mites and midges,
and even searching into the specific characters and peculiar habits
of molluscs and animalcules.' 1
1 Bailey, Letters on the P2'ildosao2hy of he Ie~uman l}i'nd, vol. ii. p. 27I.




Ifr. Samuel Bailey.                  317
Mr. Bailey recognises only one method for the facts of consciousness,-that of the sciences of matter.1 He nevertheless colmplains in another place2 of the invasions of physiology; he even
maintains that the knowledge of physiological facts does not
clear up that of psychological facts; that even if we knew the
material conditions of memory and of perception, etc., we should
still remain ignorant of what it is.  The science of acoustics,
he says, is useless in producing good music; in the same way
the knowledge of physical or mechanical means which engender
or influence psychological phenomena does not enable us to
penetrate their nature.
It is not very easy to reconcile these assertions. In all cases
the reasoningof the author, incontestable from the point of view
of first causes, appears to be deficient in solidity so far as second
causes are concerned.  Now the proper object of every science
which separates itself from metaphysics is the research of these
immediate and approximate causes.  Let us add that the progress of science seems to contradict the author.
We have seen in the Introduction,3 with what vivacity he combats the doctrine of faculties; so also he classes facts of conscience only cursorily and without attaching much importance to
matter.4'The following is his classification of the phenomena of
consciousness:Ist Or-der.-Sensitive affections.
Genus I. Corporeal sensations.
Genus 2. Mental emotions.
2d O-Jde:r.-Intellectual operations.
Genus I. Perceiving.
Genus 2. Conceiving.
Genus 3. Believing (judging).
Genus 4. Reasoning.
3d Ordel:.-Will.
Genus I. Relative to the body.
Genus 2. Relative to the mind.
We shall not follow him into detail, which indeed is not very
Vol. i. Letter 2.  2 Vol. ii. Letter i6.   a ~ S.   4 Vol. i. Letter 6.




318               Enig/ish Psycho0ogy.
exact, because the author had nodintention of producing a complete methodical treatise, but merely meant to indicate the questions upon which he has something to say.  We shall limit ourselves to these two points,-exterior perception and will. On the
first of these he writes almost like Reid; on the second, he goes
beyond his contemporaries.
Let us briefly recall the explanation of external perception
given by the Scotch school. Properly speaking, that school does
not explain it; it is plain to us that we perceive the external
world, because we have the faculty of perceiving it. This is an
irreducible fact; more than that, we perceive things as they are.
I see a cat, I touch a glass. According to Reid and his disciples,
the cat is in itself such as I see it, the glass such as I touch it.
Supposing that neither I nor my fellows were to see'the cat or
touch the glass, these objects would nevertheless remain such as
I saw them, with their proper qualities of form, of resistance, etc.
To maintain the contrary is, according to them, to introduce
scepticism.  According to the contemporary school, perception
is the common act of the subject and of the object; my perception
is my work; I put into the external world at least as much as I
receive from it. There is some external thing which I call a cat or
a glass, but nothing proves that they correspond with the idea
which I form of them; it is even probable that they differ very
much from it. Perception being a relation, there is nothing
astonishing in its varying with the two terms, and as they do;
this is a quite natural fact, there is no shadow of scepticism in
maintaining it.
Mr. Bailey agrees with Reid, or differs from him only by a
shade.'I differ,' he says,'from the Scotch school, because it admits an irresistible belief in an external world, and I admit a
knonwledge.' The criticism which he makes of Berkeley does not
appear to me to go to the root of the question; that on Kant
is inexact, if we are to believe that he reproaches him with
having regarded perception as an analysable fact, in place of
seeing in it a fact of indecomposable consciousness; I now it is
precisely herein that we find progress.
1 Vol. ii. Letter 2.




AMr. Samuel Bailey.                  3I9
The celebrated opinion  of the author upon sight hangs
upon his doctrine of passive and immediate perception.  In
England the name of the Berkeleyan theory of vision is given to
that which distinguishes the natural perceptions of sight (light,
colours, etc.) from the acquired perceptions (distance, movement, etc.), the latter being matter of induction, and not of
direct perception. The eye gives us only the apparent figure, position, and size; touch alone gives us the real figure, position, and
size. But as the differences in the reality are usually accompanied
by differences in appearances, the mind infers the real from
the apparent.  Mr. Bailey has strongly opposed this theory
in order to expressly admit a direct and -immediate vision.
Although the entirety of his arguments does not appear naturally
to produce conviction, we must acknowledge that he has
brought forward facts very difficult to explain by an opinion contrary to his own. Among children, he says, sight is developed
before touch. He maintains most positively that young animals
see as soon as they are born.  The duckling runs to the water on
coming out of its egg, the little crocodile, hatched without being
incubated by its parents, also runs to the water, or bites a stick
if it be presented to it. In short, he denies that the famous
blind man operated upon by Cheselden, who said that every
object touched his eyes, furnishes an argument against this
doctrine.
Mr. John Stuart Mill, who has discussed this theory,' comes
to the conclusion that the arguments of Mr. Bailey have thrown
no new light whatever upon the question, and have left the
theory of Berkeley such as it was before. It seems difficult
to be of any other opinion.
We have said that in his essay upon the Will, Mr. Bailey
appears no longer as a dissenter from the Scotch school, but as a
precursor of his contemporaries.' If,' he says,'psychology studied the affections and operations
instead of the faculties, and regulated its language in consequence,
it seems as if we should be rid of a number of embarrassing
X In an article in the TVestminsfer Rcviezw,-reprinted in the Disse-tations and
DLisczussions, vol. ii. p. 84.




320               Eng/ish Psyc/o/vlgy.
questions, among which we must number the controversy upon
the freedom of the will, which is literally the liberty of a nonexistence.' 1
The question, when closely examined, reduces itself, according
to the author, to demanding, not if we are free to act in certain
cases as we please-for nobody, I think, will dispute that we
are-but if there are regular causes which place us in a condition
to wish to act as we do act. Now this is a question of fact, and
examples abound which show that, in many cases, the circumstances being determined, our acts may be predicted, and that
there are regular causes which determine us to will, as there are
physical causes which produce the different material facts.
Forty-three years ago (in  826) Mr. Bailey published a dissertation upon the Ulvformity of Causa'lzy, with the object of bringing
voluntary phenomena under the common law. This is the subject of the curious essay which he has reproduced in his Lelters
pAon tlhe P/zilosoj/zy of tlze Humazn Mizd.2
It is surprising that the connexion of motives and actions
could have been theoretically regarded as doubtful. Practical
life depends entirely upon this principle, which is speculatively
rejected. The speeches of an orator, the treatises of an author,
the prescriptions of the legislator, the manceuvres of the general,
and the decrees of the monarch, all equally resemble it. A
general who commands an army and directs a battle counts
on the obedience of his officers and of his soldiers; is he less
confident in the result of his orders, than when he accomplishes
some material act, such as drawing his sword or sealing a despatch?
Commercial transactions of every kind attest the same sort of
confidence.  A merchant draws upon his banker a bill payable
on such a day; the bill circulates, and the drawer does not doubt
about the final volition which will cause the banker to pay it.
Political economy offers us still more numerous examples.  It
is in a great measure an inquiry into the action of motives, and
it is founded upon this principle, that human volitions are under
the influence of precise and determinable causes-the rise and
L Letters, etc., vol. ii. chap. xv.  2 Ibid. p. i66.




Mr. Samtel Bailey.                  321
the fall of stocks, the fluctuations in exchange, the variations
between supply and demand, the return of paper to the banker
after an excessive issue, the disappearance of specie,-all the facts
of this nature result from definite causes which act with regularity.
Thus, when we lay aside vague language upon the liberty of
the will-which, as we have said, is the liberty of something
which does not exist-the true question presents itself under a
form that no longer allows room for divergence of opinion.
But after all, it may be objected, when we thus predict or calculate the voluntary actions of our fellows, we only regard their
production as 5robable; there is no necessity in this case, they
may produce themselves or not produce themselves; there is a
sort of latitude which prevails, and does not permit us to suppose
that these actions depend upon regular and invariable causes.
To this Mr. Bailey replies, as may be expected, that it is our
ignorance of all the causes in action which render voluntary
events only probable to us; if we knew them all, there would be
a perfect certainty-the variations in probability are entirely due
to variations in the state of our own knowledge; and this is
equally true as regards physical and moral phenomena.
In short, there are two incontestable facts, says Mr. Bailey,' ISt, That voluntary actions are not only constantly predicted, but
purposely produced by the motives which human beings present to
each other; and 2dly, That in performing such actions we nevertheless do as we please: we act with perfect freedom; an option is
presented to us, and we choose to do the actions rather than not
to do them. Mankind, however, seem not to understand the relation in which these two facts (both incontrovertibly true) stand
to each other. It is generally apprehended that there is some
discrepancy, or inconsistency, or incompatibility between them,
but for my own part I see none; and if both are real facts, they
cannot, I scarcely need say, be' discordant or incompatible one
with the other.'Why should there seem to be any incompatibility between
your doing as you please, and my predicting what you will do,
and even causing you to please to do it.'My purposely producing in you the state of pleasing to do a




322                Enzglish Psychologoy.
thing-which implies, of course, my foreseeing the action-is not
compelling you to do it, but the reverse.... The same human
actions may be willed with perfect freedom by the performer, and
predicted with perfect confidence by the looker-on."'
This theory of the Will agrees so perfectly with that of the contemporary school, that Mr. Bain has transcribed several pages of
it in his great work on The Emotions and the Will. If we add
that in his special treatise on The Theory of Reasoning (2d edition)
Mr. Bailey approaches Mr. John Stuart Mill in several respects,
we may conclude that his psychology bears the mark of an epoch
of transition, being howvever nearer to the fuiture than to the
past.
I Bailey's Philosolhy of/ le H2uman Minzd, vol. ii. p. I72.




CONCLUSION.
IN perusing the preceding pages the reader must have been
struck by two things —the agreement of the philosophers
whom we have passed in review, upon the chief questions of
psychology, and their disagreement upon certain secondary
points. If, then, laying aside personal opinions and disputed
solutions, we bring forward the points on which they are agreed,
we shall thus procure a summary of the labours and results
of the experimental school of psychology. We shall endeavour
to reduce them to certain fundamental propositions, and to
exhibit them in methodical order.
The object of psychology is the facts of consciousness, their
laws, their immediate conditions and causes. Psychology proposes to itself either to analyse complex facts, or simply to
show how they are formed by a synthesis of simple facts.
Psychology deals with phenomena only. It does not know
what the soul or the mind is. That is a question out of its
reach, which it refers to metaphysics. It is neither spiritualist
nor materialist: it is experimental.
Its method is double: it studies psychological phenomena,
subjectively, by means of consciousness, memory, and reasoning;
objectively, by means of the facts, signs, opinions, and actions
which interpret them. Psychology does not study the facts of
consciousness simply in the adult state; it endeavours to discover and to follow their development.  It contains a morphology.
It also has recourse to the comparative method. It does not
disdain the humblest manifestations of psychical life, remembering that nothing has been more useful to comparative physiology
than the study of minute organisms.




324               Engishz Psychology.
Consciousness is the word which expresses, in the most
general way, the various manifestations of psychological life.
It consists of a continuous current of sensations, ideas, volitions, feelings, etc.
The first fundamental fact-that which constitutes conscious
ness-is the perception of a difference.
The second fundamental fact-that which  continues consciousness-is the perception of a resemblance.
The only primitive and irreducible psychological fact is
SENSATION.
Our various sensations may be classed in seven principal
groups:-I. muscular sensations; they inform us of the nature
and the degree of effort of our muscles; these sensations, of a
very general character, and which come first in chronological
order, form  a separate kind; 2. organic sensations, which
reveal to us the good or bad state of our internal organs; 3.
taste; 4. smell; 5. touch; 6. hearing; 7. sight. The sensations
of this last group are the most elevated and the most important;
they only, with the sensations of hearing, have an xsthetic
character.
The most general law which regulates psychological phenomena is the LAW OF ASSOCIATION. In its comprehensive character
it is comparable to the law of attraction in the physical world.
Association takes place- either between facts of the same nature,
association of sensations among themselves, of ideas among themselves, of volitions among themselves, etc., or between facts of
a different nature: associations of sentiments with ideas, of
sensations with volitions, etc.
The two principal facts which serve as the basis of association
are resemblance and contiguity.
Association produces either successions or simultaneities.
The objects which we call external (a man, a house) are
aggregates formed by simultaneous association.  How do we
perceive them I
Perception of the external world is not a purely passive state,
in which the mind would resemble a mirror reflecting objects in
a dull dead way.  It is the common work of the sentient subject
and the object felt.




Conclzsionz.                    325
Outside of us, and independently of our perceptions, there
exists a material world, which condemns idealism. It is conformable to the data of the sciences to believe that this material
world, taken in itself, does not resemble the perceptions of it
which we have; this condemns vulgar realism.
Our perceptions are then internal conditions which corresj5ond
to external existences, but which do not resemble them. When
I perceive an oak, my perception corresponds to a particular
external object, but it is not the copy of it.
Perception is a product which differs from its two factors (subject, object) as water differs from oxygen and hydrogen.
The correlatives'subject' and'object' are the two least inexact term by which the fundamental antithesis of knowledge
and of existence can be expressed. Matter and Spirit, external and internal, are the popular synonyms for them, but. lend
themselves more to an equivocal interpretation.
The fundamental irreducible experience which gives the notion
of externality is resistance.
The facts of consciousness having the property of lasting, of
leaving their trace, and reappearing, thence result memory and
imagination. Association is the groundwork of these phenomena, although it does not entirely explain them.
The question of belief or affirmation remains stated, but
not solved, by common consent.  Some, Mr. James Mill and
Mr. Herbert Spencer, explain it by an indissoluble association;
others, Mr. A. Bain and Mr. John Stuart Mill, discern in it a form
of our active nature, that is to say, of our will.
Reasoning, under its primitive form, goes from the particular
to the particular.  By the accumulation of particular truths
general propositions are formed; and then reasoning is called
induction. The general proposition is a simplification, a menzmoranduZm, a register of notes grouped under a single formula.  It
serves as a starting-point for deduction.
In short, the process of reasoning, taken in its totality, sets
out from the particular and issues in the particular, by traversing
the general, which is a collection of particulars.
Syllogism is so little the type of reasoning that it is, properly
speaking, only a process of verification.




326               E zg'ish Psychology.
On the origin of ideas the school with which we are now
occupied does not go with the sensualists (Locke, Condillac), nor
with the rationalists (Descartes, Leibnitz), nor with the criticists
(Kant).
It says to the sensualists: Your hypothesis of tabula rasa is
false, contrary to facts. It forgets that in the act of knowing
the mind gives out at least as much as it receives. Whence
comes it that two men, having had the same education, the same
impressions, the same surroundings, are sometimes entirely different in everything? This fact alone checkmates your theory.
It says to the rationalists: You have correctly perceived that
in the act of knowing there is something which comes from
within, but your hypothesis of ideas innate, or virtually so, is
untenable. What is an idea in a latent state, an idea which one
does not think? Besides, if these ideas are primitive and readymade in intelligence, why are they produced so late, instead of
being the first in chronological order?
It says to the partisans of Kant: Your transcendental doctrine
of thefo;rms of thought, though sound in logic, is bad in psychology. It is quite true that these forms are at the bottom of
our consciousness, since we can draw them from it, but how do
they come there? This is a question of genesis which you do not
examine, because you always reason upon the hypothesis of an
adult and completely constituted mind.
These solutions set aside, the school gives its own. It recognises in mind a proper spontaneity which elaborates and transforms materials which come from without; but this spontaneity
has its root in the organism, especially in the constitution of the
nervous system. Several peculiarities are explained by the transmission of the hereditary system.
In short, this solution is the physiological transformation of
the Kantian doctrine of the forms of thoughtThe two most general relations conceived by human intelligence are those of succession and simultaneousness.
The relation of succession is the more simple: it constitutes
the fact of primitive consciousness.
The relation of simultaneousness is a duplication of the preceding: it consists in a succession which can be reversed, that




Conclusion.                    32 7
is to say, thought indifferently, at first in a certain order, afterwards in the contrary order, so that one goes from A to C and
from C to A equally.
An important notion attaches itself to the relation of succession, that of cause, or, as the school has it, of sequence, of which
it is only a particular case.
Causality is constant and uniform succession. The invariable
antecedent is called cause, the invariable consequent is called
effect.  The hypothesis of an efficacious power, forming a
mysterious link between them, is an imaginary complication, in
so far as we hold to phenomenal causes, as the school intends us
to do.
The whole of the relations of succession is Time.
The whole of the relations of simultaneousness is Space.
The character of infinitude proper to these two ideas of time and
space, that is to say, the impossibility to our intelligence of conceiving them to have limits, is explained by the law of association.
We cannot conceive a moment of time without that idea awakening irresistibly in us the idea of a moment to follow, and then of
another. It is the same with space. Association is irresistible,
because the experimental data which serve as its basis have always'been without exception.
The study of the affective phenomena,-emotions and feelings,
-is very incomplete in the English experimental school.  The
following small number of points are those on which its members
are agreed:The two fundamental facts are pleasure and pain.
The emotions or passions are of two kinds, simple and compound.
There is no agreement upon either the name or the number of
the simple emotions.
All manifestations of Esthetics or moral feeling are unanimously ranged among the compound emotions.
The will has its source in the activity either of the organism
or of the instincts, appetites, and passions.
Under its adult form, will is a directing, regulating power.
But before it reaches that condition it goes through a period
of gropings, of efforts, and of con quest.  Voluntary power,




328              lEnglish Psychology.
though simple in appearance, is a complicated machine, made
of self-adjusting pieces.
Voluntary facts are subject to the universal law of causality.
Are they our own work? No doubt, since they are the result
of the totality of the states of consciousness which precede the
resolution, and that this whole of States of consciousness is our
ego.
Are they free? This question is artificial, unintelligible, consequently insoluble. The word liberty must be expunged from
psychology, as an inexact term which serves only to create confusion, and the word ajtitzude must be substituted for it.
Psychology thus conceived can and ozught to be a distinct
science. But it neither can nor ought to isolate itself from the
kindred sciences, especially physiology, and, strictly speaking,
there is no line of demarcation to be traced between them, because certain phenomena are common to both.
If psychology has its basis in physiology, it serves in its turn
as a basis for the moral, social, and political sciences.
Therefore it ought to complete itself by a practical study,
by ethology, or the science of the formation of characters,
whether individual or national.
Such is the summary of the fundamental solutions of associative psychology. Our aim was to explain them: it is fulfilled.
We leave the task of estimating their value to those who have
something further and better to say.
THE END.




LIST OF A UTIORS AND SUBJECTS OF THEIR BOOKS,
TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE
INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.
Rev. M. J. BERKELEY, M. A., F. L. S., Prof. H. SAINTE-CLAIRE DEVILLE, An Inand M. COOKE, M. A., LL. D., Fungi;    troduction to General Chemistry.
their Nature, Influences, and Uses.    Prof. WURTZ, Atoms and the Atoizzc
Prof. OSCAR SCHMIDT (University of Stras-    Theory.
burg), The Theory of Descent and  Prof. DE  QATREFAES  Te  eg
Prof. DE  QUATREFAGES, The Negro
Darwinisnzt.                            ces.
Prof. VOGEL (Polytechnic Academy of Ber-    Races.
lin), The Chemical Effects of Light.    Prof. LACAZE-DUTHIERS, Zoology since
Prof. W. KINGDON  CLIFFORD, M. A., Prof. BERTHELOT, Chenicl Syntheszs.
The First Princzbles of the Exact SciTHLOT, Chemical Synthesis.
ences expfiZaned to the Non.-nathemnati-  Prof. J. ROSENTHAL, General Physiology
cal.                                   of Muscles and Nerves.
Prof. T. H. HUXLEY, LL. D., F. R. S., Prof. C. A. YOUNG (Dartmouth College),
Bodily Motion and Consciousness.       The Sun.
Dr. W. B. CARPENTER, LL. D., F. R. S.,  Prof. JAMES D. DANA, M. A., LL. D., On
The Physical Geogra.hty of the Sea.    Cegphalizaiion; or, ieand-Characters
Prof. WILLIAM ODLING, F. R. S., The Old    in the Gradation and Progress of
Chemistryfrom the New Stand-poizt.    Life.
Prof. SHELDON AMOS, The Science of La'.  Prof. S. W. JOHNSON, M. A., On the NuW. LAUDER LINDSAY, M. D., F. R. S. E.,   tl/iou of Plan/s.
Mintd in. t/he Lower Anzimals.     Prof. AUSTIN FLINT, Jr., M. D., The Nersvoucs System and its Recazion to the
Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., F. R. S., The   Bodily  aFunlzctions.
A ntiquity of~an.
PAroftiW.iTy of Ma~ins~oNR.   B. A.,Prof. W. D. WHITNEY, MeIdern L*inguiZsProf. TW T. THISELTON DYER, B. A.,   tic Science.
B. S. C., Formn and Habit in Flowering Plants.                         Prof. BERNSTEIN (University of Halle),
Prof. MICHAEL FOSTER, M. D., Proto-ogy ofe Se
plasm antd the Cell Thteory.        Prof. FERDINAND COHN (University of
Breslau), Thallotyfhes (Algae Lichens
Prof. W. STANLEY JEVONS, The Logic of    Fungi).
Stfaticstics.                       Prof. HERMANN (University of Zurich),
Dr. H. CHARLTON BASTIAN, M.D.,F. R.S.,    Resh5iration.
The Brain as an Organ of Mind.      Prof. LEUCKART (University of Leipsic),
Prof. A. C. RAMSAY, LL. D., F. R. S.,    Outlines ofAnimal Organi aion.
Earth Scultznre;  Hills,  Valleys,
Mountains, Plains, Rivers, Lakes,  Prof. LEBREICH  (University of Berlin),
howo they were Produced, and how       Outlines of Toxicology.
they have been Destroyed.          Prof. KUNDT (University of Strasburg),
Prof. RUDOLPH VIRCHOW  (University of    On Sound.
Berlin), Morbid Physiological A cion.  Prof. LONMEL (University of Erlangen),
Prof. CLAUDE  BERNARD  (College  of    Ottics.
France), Psicl   d  Meahysical Prof. REES (University of Erlangen), 0On
Phenomena of Lzfe.                    Parasitic Plants.
Prof. A. QUETELET (Brussels Academy of Prof. STEINTHAL (University of Berlin),
Sciences), Social Physics.            Outlines of the Science of Language.
D. APPI,ETON & CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N. V.




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fulfil the promise given to the reading public in its prospectus. The first volume, by
Professor Tyndall, was a model of lucid and attractive scientific exposition; and now
we have a second, by Mr. Walter Bagehot, which is not only very lucid and charming,
but also original and suggestive in the highest degree. Nowhere since the publication
of Sir Henry Maine's'Ancient Law,' have we seen so many fruitful thoughts suggested in the course of a couple of hundred pages... To do justice to Mr. Bagehot's fertile book, would require a long article. With the best of intentions, we are
conscious of having given but a sorry account of it in these brief paragraphs. But we
hope we have said enough to commend it to the attention of the thoughtful reader."Prof. JOHN FISKE, in the A tlantic Monthly.
"Mr. Bagehot's style is clear and vigorous. We refrain from giving a fuller account of these suggestive essays, only because we are sure that our readers will find it
worth their while to peruse the book for themselves; and we sincerely hope that the
forthcoming parts of the'International Scientific Series' will be as interesting."A thenacum.
"Mr. Bagehot discusses an immense variety of topics connected with the progress
of societies and nations, and the development of their distinctive peculiarities; and his
book shows an abundance of ingenious and original thought." —ALFRED RuSSELL
WALLACE, in Nature.
D. APPLETON  & CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.




OPinionzs of Ihe Press on the "Inlterna/ional Scienztfic Series."
IIT.
Foods.
By Dr. EDWARD SMITH.
I vol., i2mo.  Cloth.  Illustrated........    Price, $I.75.
In making up THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES, Dr. Edward Smith was selected as the ablest man in England to treat the important subject of Foods. His services
were secured for the undertaking, and the little treatise he has produced shows that the
choice of a writer on this subject was most fortunate, as the book is unquestionably the
clearest and best-digested compend of the Science of Foods that has appeared in our
language.
"The book contains a series of diagrams, displaying the effects of sleep and meals
on pulsation and respiration, and of various kinds of food on respiration, which, as the
results of Dr. Smith's own experiments, possess a very high value. We have not far
to go in this work for occasions of favorable criticism; they occur throughout, but are
perhaps most apparent in those parts of the subject with which Dr. Smith's name is especially linked."-London Examiner.
" The union of scientific and popular treatment in the composition of this work will
afford an attraction to many readers who would have been indifferent to purely theoretical details.... Still his work abounds in information, much of which is of great value,
and a part of which could not easily be obtained from other sources. Its interest is de.
cidedly enhanced for students who demand both clearness and exactness of statement,
by the profusion of well-executed woodcuts, diagrams, and tables, which accompany thg
volume.... The suggestions of the author on the use of tea and coffee, and of the va,
rious forms of alcohol, although perhaps not strictly of a novel character, are highly in.
structive, and form an interesting portion of the volume." —N. Y. Tribune.
IV.
Body and Mind.
THE THEORIES OF THEIR RELATION.
By ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D.
I vol., I2mo.   Cloth..........    Price, $1.50.
PROFESSOR BAIN is the author of two well-known standard works upon the Science
of Mind-" The Senses and the Intellect," and "The Emotions and the Will." He is
one of the highest living authorities in the school which holds that there can be no sound
or validpsychology unless the mind and the body are studied, as they exist, together.
" It contains a forcible statement of the connection between mind and body, studying their subtile interworkings by the light of the most recent physiological investigations. The summary in Chapter V., of the investigations of Dr. Lionel Beale of the
embodiment of the intellectual functions in the cerebral system, will be found the
freshest and most interesting part of his book. Prof. Bain's own theory of the connection between the mental and the bodily part in man is stated by himself to be as follows:
There is'one substance, with two sets of properties, two sides, the physical and the
mental-a double-faced unity.' While, in the strongest manner, asserting the union
of mind with brain, he yet denies' the association of union in tlace,' but asserts the
union of close succession in time,' holding that'the same being is, by alternate fits, under extended and under unextended consciousness."'-Christiant Register.
D. APPLETON  & CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.




Oiinrions of the Press oz the " Inzerneaional ScienzjIfc Series."
V.
The Study of Sociology.
By HERBERT SPENCER.
I vol., I2no.  Cloth............  Price, $1.50.
"The philosopher whose distinguished name gives weight and influence to this volume, has given in its pages some of the finest specimens of reasoning in all its forms
and departments. There is a fascination in his array of facts, incidents, and opinions,
which draws on the reader to ascertain his conclusions. The coolness and calmness of
his treatment of acknowledged difficulties and grave objections to his theories win for
him a close attention and sustained effort, on the part of the reader, to comprehend, follow, grasp, and appropriate his principles. This book, independently of its bearing
upon sociology, is valuable as lucidly showing what those essential characteristics are
which entitle any arrangement and connection of facts and deductions to be called a
science." —Ejiscogahian.' This work compels admiration by the evidence which it gives of immense research, study, and observation, and is, withal, written in a popular and very pleasing
style. It is a fascinating work, as well as one of deep practical thought."-Bost. Posn.'"Herbert Spencer is unquestionably the foremost living thinker in the psychological
and sociological fields, and this volume is an important contribution to the science of
which it treats.... It will prove more popular than any of its author's other creations,
for it is more plainly addressed to the people and has a more practical and less speculative cast. It will require thought, but it is well worth thinking about."-/Albany
lveninKg Yournal.
VI.
The New Chemistry.
By JOSIAH P. COOKE, JR.,
Erving Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy in Harvard University.
I vol., I2mo. Cloth............. Price, $2.00.
" The book of Prof. Cooke is a model of the modern popular science work. It has
just the due proportion of fact, philosophy, and true romance, to make it a fascinating
companion, either for the voyage or the study."-Daiiy Grah1kic.
" This admirable monograph, by the distinguished Erving Professor of Chemistry
in Harvard University, is the first American contribution to'The International Scientific Series,' and a more attractive piece of work in the wayof popular exposition upon
a difficult subject has not appeared in a long time. It not only well sustains the character of the volumes with which it is associated, but its reproduction in European countries will be an honor to American science."-New York Tribune.
" All the chemists in the country will enjoy its perusal. and many will seize upon it
as a thing longed for. For, to those advanced students who have kept well abreast of
the chemical tide, it offers a calm philosophy. To those others, youngest of the class,
who have emerged from the schools since new methods have prevailed, it presents a
generalization, drawing to its use all the data, the relations of which the newly-fledged
fact-seeker may but dimly perceive without its aid.  To the old chemists, Prof.
Cooke's treatise is like a message from beyond the mountain. They have heard of
changes in the-science; the clash of the battle of old and new theories has stirred them
from afar. The tidings, too, had come that the old had given way; and little more than
this they knew.... Prof. Cooke's'New Chemistry' must do wide service in bringing
to close sight the little known and the longed for.... As a philosophy it is elementary, but, as a book of science, ordinary readers will find it sufficiently advanced."Utica Morning Herald.
D. APPLETON  & CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.




4 thoughtfZl and valuable contribution to the best religious literature
of the day.
RELIGION AND SCIENCE.
A Series of Sunday Lectures on the Relation of Natural and Revealed
Religion, or the Truths revealed in Nature and Scripture.
By JOSEPH LE CONTE,
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
I2mo, cloth. Price, $I.5o.
OPIINIOS1  OF'TU    PR12E7SS.
"This work is chiefly remarkable as a conscientious effort to reconcile
the revelations of Science with those of Scripture, and will be very useful to teachers of the different Sunday-schools." —Detroit Union.
"It will be seen, by this resume of the topics, that Prof. Le Conte
grapples with some of the gravest questions which agitate the thinking
world. He treats of them all with dignity and fairness, and in a manner so clear, persuasive, and eloquent, as to engage the undivided attention of the reader. We commend the book cordially to the regard
of all who are interested in whatever pertains to the discussion of these
grave questions, and especially to those who desire to examine closely
the strong foundations on which the Christian faith is reared." —Boston
yournal.
" A reverent student of Nature and religion is the best-qualified man
to instruct others in their harmony.  The author at first intended his
work for a Bible-class, but, as it grew under his hands, it seemed well to
give it form in a neat volume. The lectures are from a decidedly religious stand-point, and as such present a new method of treatment."
-Philadelphia Age.
"' This volume is made up of lectures delivered to his pupils, and is
written with much clearness of thought and unusual clearness of expression, although the author's English is not always above reproach.
It is partly a treatise on natural theology and partly a defense of the
Bible against the assaults of modern science.  In the latter aspect the
author's method is an eminently wise one. He accepts whatever science has proved, and he also accepts the divine origin of the Bible.
Where the two seem to conflict he prefers to await the reconciliation,
which is inevitable if both are true, rather than to waste time and words
in inventing ingenious and doubtful theories to force them into seeming
accord. Both as a theologian and a man of science, Prof. Le Conte's
opinions are entitled to respectful attention, and there are few who will
not recognize his book as a thoughtful and valuable contribution to the
best religious literature of the day."-2Aew York World.
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 549 & 55i Broadway, N. Y.




JOURNAL OF RESEARCHES
INTO THE
NATURAL HISTORY AND GEOLOGY
Or THE COUNTRIES VISITED
DURING THE VOYAGE OF H. M. S. BEAGLE ROUND
THE WORLD, U!NDER TIHE COMMAND OF
CAPTAIN FITZROY, R. N.
By CHARLES DARWIN, a. A., F. R. S.,
Author of "Origin of Species," etc., etc.
One vol., 12mo.  519 pages.  Price, cloth, $2.00.
"This volume contains, in the form of a journal, a history of our voyage and a
sketch of those observations in Natural History and Geology which, I think, will possess some interest for the general reader."-From  the Author's Preface.
" I have too deeply enjoyed the voyage not to recommend any naturalist, although
he may not expect to be so fortunate in his companions as I have been, to take all
chances, and to start on travels by land if possible, if otherwise, on a long voyage. He
may feel assured he will meet with no difficulties or dangers, except in rare cases,
nearly so bad as he beforehand anticipates." —Extract.
"An intensely interesting work, written in a style that is a model of brevity and
clearness."- Wisconsin State Journac.
"Darwin was nearly five years on board the Beagle. A keen observer and a genuine philosopher, he has brought back to us a precious freight of facts and truths.
The work has been some time before the public, and has won a high place among readers of every class. It is not so scientific as to be above the comprehension of intelligent readers who are not scientific. Some facts and species, new even to the scientific, are brought to light. Darwin's transparent, eloquent style richly illuminates
his observations. The weightier matters to which we allude are interspersed among
more familiar observations, such as would naturally be made by a traveller passing
through new and wonderful scenes. It is an instructive and interesting book."ANorthwestern Christian Advocate.
D. APPLETON d& CO.,
549 & 551 Broadway, New York.




DESCRIPTIVE SOCIOLOGY..MR. HERBERT SPENCER has been for several years engaged, with the aid of
three educated gentlemen in his employ, in collecting and organizing the facts
concerning all orders of human societies, which must constitute the data of a true
Social Science. He tabulates these facts so as conveniently to admit of extensive comparison, and gives the authorities separately. He divides the races
of mankind into three great groups: the savage races, the existing civilizations,
and the extinct civilizations, and to each he devotes a series of works.  The
first installment,
THE SOCIOLOGICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAIND,
in seven continuous tables, folio, with seventy pages of verifying text, is now
ready.  This work will be a perfect Cyclopmdia of the facts of Social Science,
independent of all theories, and will be invaluable to all interested in social
problems. Price, five dollars. This great work is spoken of as follows:
From thLe British Quarterly Review.
""No words are needed to indicate the immense labor here bestowed, or the great
sociological benefit which such a mass of tabulated matter done under such competent
direction will confer. The work will constitute an epoch in the science of comparative
sociology."
From the Saturday Review.' The plan of the' Descriptive Sociology' is new, and the task is one eminently fitted
to be dealt with by Mr. Herbert Spencer's faculty of scientific organizing. His object is
to examine the natural laws which govern the development of societies, as he has examined in former parts of his system those which govern the development of individual
life. Now, it is obvious that the development of societies can be studied only in their
history, and that general conclusions which shall hold good beyond the limits of particular societies cannot be safely drawn except from a very wide range of facts. Mr. Spencer has therefore conceived the plan of making a preliminary collection, or perhaps we
should rather say abstract, of materials which when complete will be a classified epitome of universal history."
From the London Examiner.
"Of the treatment, in the main, we cannot speak too highly; and we must accept
it as a wonderfully successful first attempt to furnish the student of social science with
data standing toward his conclusions in a relation like that in which accounts of the
structures and functions of different types of animals stand to the conclusions of the
biologist."




DESCHANEL'S NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY:
AN ELEIMENTARY TREATISE.
By PROFESSOR  DESCHANEL, of Paris.
Translated, with Extensive Additions,
BY J. D. EVERETT, D. C. L., F. R. S.,
PROFESSOR OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFAST.
1 vol., medium 8vo.  Illustrated by 760 Wood Engravings and 3 Colored Plates.
Cloth, $6.50. Published, also, separately, in Four Parts. Limp cloth, each $1.75.
Part I. MECHANICS, HYDROSTATICS, and PNEUMATICS. Part II. HEAT.
Part III. ELECTRICITY and MAGNETISM. Part IV. SOUND and LIGHT.
Saturday Review.
" Systematically arranged, clearly written, and admirably illustrated, showing no
less than than 760 engravings on wood and three colored plates, it forms a model work
for a class of experimental physics. Far from losing in its English dress any of the
qualities of matter or style which distinguished it in its original form, it may be said
to have gained in the able hands of Professor Everett, both by way of arrangement
and of incorporation of fresh matter, without parting in the translation with any of the
freshness or force of the author's text."
Athencaum.
" A good working class-book for students in experimental physics."
Westminster Review.
"An excellent handbook of physics, especially suitable for self-instruction...
The work is published in a magnificent style; the woodcuts especially are admirable."
Quarterly Journal of Science.
" We have no work in our own scientific literature to be compared with it, and we
are glad that the translation has fallen into such good hands as those of Professor
Everett.... It will form an admirable text-book."
Niature.
"The engravings with which the work is illustrated are especially good, a point in
which most of our English scientific works are lamentably deficient. The clearness
of Deschanel's explanations is admirably preserved in the translation, while the value
of the treatise is considerably enhanced by some important additions.... We believe
the book will be found to supply a real need."
D. APPLETON & CO., New York.




Eleventh Edition, Entirely Revised.
PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY;
OR,
THE MODERN CHANGES OF THE EARTH
AND
[TS INHA BITA NTS CONSIDERED A S ILL USTRA TIVE OF GEOL OGY.
In 2 Vols. 8vo. Cloth.
ILLUSTRATED WITH MAPS, PLATES, AND WOODCUTS.
PRICE, $8.oo.
" I have followed the rule adopted in my first volume, of reprinting the Preface to
the tenth edition, by which the reader will be- directed to those numerous and important additions and corrections which I found necessary, in consequence of the progress
of the science during the fifteen years which separated the ninth and tenth editions."Exrtract from Preface.
In this last edition of PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY, Sir Charles Lyell has set the seal
of his matured experience and convictions upon a work which has for years held the
position of a classic in the literature of science. Encyclopaedic in its scope, and exhaustive in its treatment of every department of that study for which our language has
no name exactly equivalent to the German Erdkunde, the PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY
may be looked upon with pride, not only as a representative ot English science, but as
without a rival of its kind anywhere. Growing in fulness and accuracy with the growth
of experience and observation in every region of the world, the work has incorporated
with itself each established discovery, and has been modified by every hypothesis of
value which has been brought to bear upon, or been envolved from, the most recent
body of facts. Its successive editions thus stand as a series of landmarks, indicating
the gradual expansion or rise of geological knowledge during a lifetime happily prolonged over at least two average generations. In the impression now before us, the
veteran geologist might be expected to have comparatively little to add by way of novel
matter to the thoroughly revised and largely rewritten edition, the tenth in order, which
he put forth scarcely more than three years ago, separated as that edition was by an
interval of fifteen years from that immediately preceding it. There are, notwithstanding, sundry points of importance which call for notice as contributing to the facts comprised within his general scope, as well as enhancing the unity and force of the argument which runs through the length and breadth of his system. These editions have
reference in the main to three large questions which may be said just now to engross
among them the most lively and active interest among students of Nature. The first
of these questions is that of volcanic action, as manifested especially in geysers, or as
diversely affected by water. The second is the latest phase assumed by the discussion
upon the Darwinian theory. And the third is the existence and distribution of oceanic
life at great depths, as determined by recent dredging operations.
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers,
549 & 55T BROADWAY, NEW  YORK.




An Important Work for Manufacturers, Chemists, and Students.
A HAND-BOOK
OF
CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY.
By RUDOLPH WAGNER, Ph. D.,
PROFESSOR OF CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WURTZBURG.
Translated and edited, from the eighth German edition, with extensive
Additions,
By Wl, CROOKES, F. R. S.
IWYit 336 Illustrations.   vol., 8vo. 761x ages. Cotk, $5.oo.
The several editions of Professor Rudolpph Wagner's "aHdnzdbuchi der
Chemisclhen  Technologie"  have succeeded each other so
rapidly, that no apology is needed in offering
a translation  to the public.
Under the head of Metallurgic Chemistry, the latest methods of preparing Iron,
Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Copper Salts, Lead and Tin and their Salts, Bismuth, Zinc,
Zinc Salts, Cadmium, Antimony, Arsenic, Mercury, Platinum, Silver, Gold, Man.
ganates, Aluminum, and Magnesium, are described. The various applications of the
Voltaic Current to Electro-Metallurgy follow under this division. The Preparation of
Potash and Soda Salts, the Manufacture of Sulphuric Acid, and the Recovery of Sulphur from Soda-Waste, of course occupy prominent places in the consideration of
chemical manufactures. It is difficult to over-estimate the mercantile value of Mond's
process, as well as the many new and important applications of Bisulphide of Carbon.
The manufacture of Soap will be found to include much detail. The Technology of
Glass, Stoneware, Limes and Mortars, will present much of interest to the Builder and
Engineer. The Technology of Vegetable Fibres has been considered to include the
preparation of Flax, Hemp, Cotton, as well as Paper-making; while the applications
of Vegetable Products will be found to include Sugar-boiling, Wine and Beer Brewing,
the Distillation of Spirits, the Baking of Bread, the Preparation of Vinegar, the Preservation of Wood, etc.
Dr. Wagner gives much information in reference to the production of Potash from
Sugar-residues. The use of Baryta Salts is also fully described, as well as the preparation of Sugar from Beet-roots. Tanning, the Preservation of Meat, Milk, etc., the
Preparation of Phosphorus and Animal Charcoal, are considered as belonging to the
Technology of Animal Products. The Preparation of the Materials for Dyeing has
necessarily required much space; while the final sections of the book have been devoted to the Technology of Heating and Illumination.
D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers.




The Colored Plates illustrating t8is ecdition qf the work, requiring great care
in printing, were executed in London.
SPECTRUM ANALYSIS,
In its Application to Terrestrial Substances, and the Physical
Constitution of the Hreavenly Bodies,
Familiarly explained, by Dr. H. SCHELLEN, Director der Realschule
I. O. Cologne. Translated from the second enlarged and revised
German edition, by Jane and Caroline Lassell. Edited, with
Notes, by William Huggins, LL. D. With numerous Woodcuts,
Colored Plates, and Portraits; also, Angstrom's and Kirchhoff's
Maps. 455 pages, 8vo, cloth. Price, $6.00.
Frorn  the Chemical Yews.
"This admirable work does credit to, or should we say is worthy of the
author, the translators, and the editor. The first part treats on the artificial
sources of high degrees of heat and light; the second on Spectrum Analysis
in its application to the heavenly bodies. We inust approve the method followed in the translation, and by the editor. In many translations the views
of the author are suppressed, in order that the views of the translator or
editor may be expounded; but here Dr. Huggins, however leniently such a
fault might have been looked upon with him, has permitted the author's
views to remain intact, clearly stating his own and wherein lies the diff'erence."
From  the Chicago Post.
" The object of this volume is to introduce the general reader into a new
realm of science, and acquaint him with the particulars and the results of
the most brilliant discovery of the present century. Whoever has an appreciative sense of the beauties and wonders of Nature, illuminated by science,
will find this volume a rich mine of enjoyment which he will do wisely to
explore.".From the Philadelphia Age.' The contents are formidable in appearance, but the average reader will
find its exposition easily intelligible. To many the revelations of this book,
so marvellously minute, and vet so unerringly accurate, will be as wonderful as the stories of the' Arabian Nights.' "
From the Boston Globe.
" Certainly, as regards mere knowledge, the SPECTRum ANAZYsrs has let
us into many secrets of the physical universe, which Newton and La Place
would have declared impossible for man's intellect to attain. The science
is still in its infancy, but it is prosecuted by some of the ablest, most patient, and most enthusiastic observers, and some of the keenest thinkers,
at present existing on our little, insignificant physical globe."
D. APPLETON  &  CO., Publishers,
549 & 55i BROADWAY, N. Y.




A New Magazine for Students and Cultivated Readers.
T HE
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,
CONDUCTED BY
Professor E. L. YOUMANS.
THE growing importance of scientific knowledge to all classes of the
community calls for more efficient means of diffusing it.  THE POPULAR
SCIENCE MONTHLY has been started to promote this object, and supplies a
want met by no other periodical in the United States.
It contains instructive and attractive articles, and abstracts of articles,
original, selected, and illustrated, from the leading scientific men of different countries, giving the latest interpretations of natural phenomena, explaining the applications of science to the practical arts, and to the operations of domestic life.
It is designed to give especial prominence to those branches of science
which help to a better understanding of the nature of man; to present the
claims of scientific education; and the bearings of science upon questions
of society and government. How the various subjects of current opinion
are affected by the advance of scientific inquiry will also be considered.
In its literary character, this periodical aims to be popular, without being superficial, and appeals to the intelligent reading-classes of the community. It seeks to procure authentic statements from men who know their
subjects, and who will address the non-scientific public for purposes of exposition and explanation.
It will have contributions from HERBERT SPENCER, Professor HUXLEY,
Professor TYNDALL, Mr. DARWIN, and other writers identified with speculative thought and scientific investigation.
THE POPUZLAl R' SCIENCE MOIoNTHL Y is published in a large
octavo, handsomely printed on clear type.  Termns, Five Dollars per annum,
or Fifty Cents per copy.'OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
"Just the publication needed at the present day."-Montreal Gazestr.
" It is, beyond comparison, the best attempt at journalism of the kind ever made in this
country."-Hoime   ournal.
"The initial number is admirably constituted."-Evennzg Maz'l.
" In our opinion, the right idea has been happily hit in the plan of this new monthly."
— Buffalo Cowrier.:" A journal which promises to be of eminent value to the cause of popular education in
this country." —N. 1. Tribune.
IMPORTANT TO CLUBS.
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY will be supplied at reduced rates with any periodi.
cal published in this country.
Any person remitting Twenty Dollars for four yearly subscriptions will receive an ex.
tra copy gratis, or five yearly subscriptions for $2o.
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY and APPLETONS' JOURNAL (weekly), per annum, $8.oo
_ Payment, in all cases, mnust be in advance.
Remittances should be made by postal money-order or check to the Publishers,
D. APPLETON      00C., 549 & 551 Broadway, Ne0w York.